The Tough Love of "Thoroughbreds"

We've seen films about two young women becoming friends and plotting a murder together before.  "Diabolique" and "Heavenly Creatures" are the obvious reference points. "Thoroughbreds" tackles this situation from a different perspective, working on a frequency closer to teen angst reveries like "Ghost World," full of wry humor and darkly macabre moments.  It also has the benefit of two fantastic performances from its lead actresses, Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke.

Wealthy Connecticut teens Lily (Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Cooke) reconnect after a long estrangement, and this is the catalyst for some very bad behavior.  However, Amanda is a literal sociopath who is already in hot water for having killed an ailing horse, and Lily is far more troubled than her picture perfect exterior suggests.  For one thing, she hates her stepfather Mark (Paul Sparks), who makes her life difficult. The girls decide to kill him, roping a local drug dealer named Tim (Anton Yelchin) into their schemes.  This is one of Yelchin's last roles, which is a little unfortunate because there's really not much to the part. It's the girls and their complicated friendship that stay firmly at the center of all the melodrama.      

Despite the plot hinging so heavily on murder and blackmail, "Thoroughbreds" doesn't function much like a typical thriller.  It's more accurately described as a character study of Lily and Amanda, and how they influence each other. Cooke's Amanda is memorably strange, unable to feel or care about things the way everyone around her does, saying off-putting things that make her seem alien and remote.  It's clear why she's a social pariah and why Lily develops a fascination with her. She sees the benefits of being a sociopath, saying and doing things that Lily secretly wishes she could. Taylor-Joy gives one of her better performances as Lily, as she slowly comes to embrace her wicked side, and the two actresses play off of each other well.

Toxic friendships have been the source of plenty of interesting cinema, and this one is notable for being surprisingly positive for both of the girls.  Amanda gets to spend time with a peer who actually wants to be around her. Lily has someone to confide in, who encourages her to be honest about what she wants.  Sure, they bond over their mutual violent impulses and seriously screwed up worldviews, but there's the sense that Amanda and Lily were already on their own personal roads to Hell, and at least this way they have some company. The twists and turns of the relationship are familiar, but they play out very differently than I've seen in other media, with a surprising amount of heart and empathy.  

"Thoroughbreds" was originally conceived of as a stage play, which explains the sparse cast and lack of any real action set pieces.  All the violence is kept offscreen. However, first time writer/director Cory Finley avoids any staginess in the proceedings. The girls meet in Mark's large, empty house, which often reflects their emotional isolation.  We frequently see them surrounded by luxury, but they barely seem to notice or care. To others they project bored disaffection, and Finley has some fun with images of the pair playing at being upper crust ingenues. Otherwise, the direction is only decent, pretty good for a first outing, but with plenty of room for improvement.   

So I don't think that "Thoroughbreds" matches up to the classics in this genre, but it's still very enjoyable.  I like that it's short, simple, and lacking in any manufactured convolutions. The themes are laid out very clearly, and yet there's a lot left ambiguous.  Mark may or may not deserve Lily's loathing. Amanda may or may not have more feelings than she admits. It's left up to the viewer to decide what to make of the girls and their actions, and whether their friendship left them better or worse off.  I can't help wishing it were a little longer and dug a little deeper, but that's probably what the filmmakers intended.

Both Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke have been popping up frequently in recent mainstream blockbusters, and it's nice to see them get a chance to play something more off-kilter and unusual.  I hope that this isn't the last time that the two cross paths.

      

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The State of the Superhero, 2017

2017 has been a good year for superhero films.  Not all the films were great, or made as much money as the studios wanted them to, but there was definitely a sense of the genre stretching and trying new things that it hadn't before.

I count "Wonder Woman" as the biggest success, the highest grossing film in a historically lackluster summer.  It proved once and for all that a female-led superhero film could be a blockbuster, and that the DC cinematic universe wasn't dead yet.  Patti Jenkins became the highest grossing female director of all time, and Gal Gadot quickly became a superstar.  Sadly, that success didn't carry over to "Justice League," a troubled film that had to recruit Joss Whedon to fill in for Zack Snyder in post-production.  The critical notices weren't as dire as they were for "Suicide Squad" and "Batman v. Superman" at least, and I expect that the franchise will stumble along for a good while yet.  Warners also had the absolutely delightful "LEGO Batman" for the younger viewers, which unfortunately wasn't a bigger hit.

FOX continues to push the boundaries of what a superhero film should be.  The positive reception to last year's "Deadpool" meant that the R-rated "Logan" got more support behind it.  Few box office records were broken, but it made an excellent return on FOX's investment and everyone liked it.  I really want Hugh Jackman to stick to his word and retire from the role of Wolverine after this, because "Logan" was such a wonderful endpoint for the first run of X-men films.  Director James Mangold is talking about the possibility of a Laura spinoff film, which I would be all right with.  That's a corner of the X-men universe that I wouldn't mind seeing again, especially if they stick to the stripped-down neo-western vibe.  

Marvel is still Marvel, and can add three more successful moneymakers to their pile.  "Spider-man: Homecoming" may have only performed modestly for a Marvel movie, but everyone involved seems happy that it successfully rebooted Spidey for a younger crowd and made him distinct from the previous versions.    I was pretty lukewarm on "Guardians of the Galaxy 2," but it seems to have connected with some viewers emotionally in a way that its predecessor didn't.  And then there's "Thor: Ragnarok," which is about the most idiosyncratic Marvel film that's been made yet.  The prior "Thor" installments were pretty dull, so it's understandable why Marvel decided to just hand this one over to Taika Waititi to make into a superhero comedy.  

And that's the best part about the superhero genre now.  Everyone has been at this long enough, and become comfortable enough with the format, that some degree of risk-taking has become acceptable.  There has really been a concerted effort on the part of almost everyone to move away from the same old template of goodie v. baddie PG-13 spectacle with a gigantic, CGI-heavy fight at the end.   So "Wonder Woman" was a WWI story, and "Logan" killed off its best characters, and "Thor" went for the laughs first and the carnage second.  You have films willing to go after different segments of the audience, and taking pains to distinguish themselves from each other.  Suddenly six or eight major superhero films a year doesn't sound so bad after all.   

Looking ahead to next year, the films look less adventurous with titles like "Avengers: Infinity War," "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"  and "Ant-Man and the Wasp."  However, we're getting our first major black headliner in "Black Panther," and our first Native-American one in "Aquaman."  FOX has "New Mutants," which will stick a bunch of younger mutant characters in a horror scenario and see if that works out.  Deadpool will be back for another round of depravity, and "Venom" remains a giant question mark.  And don't forget, the long awaited "Incredibles 2" is coming this summer.  Beyond that, well, things get murkier, especially since we don't know what Disney's going to do with the "X-men."  I sincerely hope that they'll be as hands off as possible aside from the inevitable spinoffs.  

Finally, a little bit of love to the underseen "Captain Underpants" movie, destined to be a cult classic.  I don't personally count "Split" as a superhero film, but apparently it's the prequel to one, so I understand why some do.  And also the new "Power Rangers" wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.  

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My Favorite Luchino Visconti Film

The long career of Luchino Visconti, one of Italy's most successful directors, went through several distinct phases.  I considered writing about his second film, "La Terra Trema," one of the great Italian Neo Realist classics, about a family of fisherman who struggle against systemic exploitation.  I also considered "Death in Venice," his gorgeous English-language adaptation of the tragic German novel, made a quarter century later when his work became more personal.  I compromised and came up in the middle, with "The Leopard," Visconti's historical epic about the twilight of the Sicilian noble class in 1860 on the eve of revolution and a new social order.  Comparisons to "Gone with the Wind" are inevitable and appropriate.

"The Leopard" was a massive production, with the bill footed by Twentieth Century Fox.  The original cut was over three hours, which would be trimmed by twenty minutes for an awkward English language release that unfortunately sank the film's prospects in the U.S.  The studio insisted on a Hollywood leading man, so Burt Lancaster was chosen to play Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, with rising French stars Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale in supporting roles.  Some would argue, however, that the real star of the film is the art direction, which is magnificent.  There have been few epics to match the splendor and the grandeur of "The Leopard," particularly the scenes of warfare in Sicily, and a lengthy ball sequence where the full glory of the nobility is put on display, perhaps for the last time.  Visconti had a penchant for massive scenes of decadence, and the film is practically bursting with spectacle, with color, and with visual detail.  The red of Garibaldi's Red Shirts was never redder, and real descendants of Italian noble families were recruited to fill out the crowds at the ball.

A common criticism of Visconti is that he let his style overwhelm his substance in his later films.  Many preferred his stark, black-and-white Neo Realist films that focused squarely on the struggles of the common man.  However, I find Visconti to be at his most effective when he examines both the high and the low against the backdrop of Italian history.  Like many of Visconti's films, "The Leopard" is about social change as seen through the disruption and decline of a prominent family, the Salinas. This is contrasted with the rise of the opportunistic Calogero family and the new mayor, who is essentially an early Mafioso.  Visconti was himself descended from the ruling class, and had no trouble pointing out the flaws and foibles of both clans, but I appreciate that he treats them both with dignity too.  In other hands, Calogero would have been a comic villain, but his aims are shown to be idealistic, if not pure.  And then there's Don Fabrizio, whose power and influence are vast, but he understands that he cannot win against the changing tides of history.

Lancaster was famously cast without Visconti's knowledge, but proved to be excellent in the role of Don Fabrizio, and would later claim that it was his best performance.  Though the scope of "The Leopard" is vast, moving through gleaming period recreations of 19th century Italy, it's really a character piece about Don Fabrizio realizing that his time is quickly passing by.  He is the "leopard" of the title, who cannot change his spots and can only resign himself to his inevitable ousting by the rising middle class and the new generation.  It is in his nature to want the beautiful Angelica, Claudia Cardinale at her most attractive, just as it is in his nature to gracefully step aside in favor his ambitious nephew and all that he represents.  Lancaster's best moments are the silent ones, particularly as he makes his way through the ball, feeling his age and mortality.  Through his eyes, the festivities are melancholy and poignant, signaling the end of his era.

There are few directors who could mount a melodrama in such memorable terms, who could combine insightful social commentary with lavish spectacle.  Visconti was one of the fathers of Italian Neo Realism, but also produced some of the greatest cinema portraits of the European aristocracy. His lengthy resume bridges Italy's past and it's future, linking film and theater, literature, and opera.  And "The Leopard" remains the embodiment of his very best work.

What I've Seen - Luchino Visconti

La Terra Trema (1948)

Bellissima (1951)
Senso (1954)
White Nights (1957)
Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
The Leopard (1963)
The Damned (1969)
Death in Venice (1971)
Ludwig (1972)

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On Watching Too Many Movies

"One-movie-a-day" challenges are often tackled by young, neophyte movie fans who are trying to get into film more seriously.  Usually they're paired with some activity like reviewing or blogging about the experience, and tend to last in duration from a month to a year.  I always have to restrain myself from being cynical when I run across some excited college kid thinking that he or she is about to do something exceptional by embarking on one of these challenges.  A movie a day for a year isn't particularly difficult as challenges go.  The average person watches four or five hours of television a day, and the average length of a mainstream American film is only a little north of two hours.  And if you get into the habit, it can be very hard to stop.

A movie a day is perfectly doable for anyone who has the time and inclination, especially now that we have Netflix and Amazon and iTunes, which allow almost instantaneous access to massive online catalogs of movies.  And despite being so busy these days that I often can only watch half a movie at a time, I'm over two hundred films for the year so far.  In my more intense Miss Media Junkie years of yore, that number would easily be doubled.  My record was 532 movies in my first year out of grad school, where I had no internet and awful television reception in my crummy apartment, but I was only a short walk from the main branch of my city's library.  I was taking home Criterion DVDs ten at a time for a few months.  Not normal or healthy, clearly, but we all have our ways of distracting ourselves during tough times.  Movies were a lot cheaper than drinking.

And a few years before that I had an internship near Washington DC, and had rented a room from a woman with a house in the suburbs.  Again, no internet, limited access to television, and I only had time to go to see the touristy stuff on weekends because I was reliant on public transportation.  However, I trudged past the doors of a Blockbuster Video store on the way home every night, and eventually paid for a month of their unlimited two-at-a-time rental plan.  I think the cost was $35 and I wound up watching 52 movies that month on my laptop.  I wasn't particularly interested in becoming a movie buff - I just liked movies and had grown up regularly watching an hour or two of television in the evening with my parents before bed.  It felt odd not to have something on.  So that was how I first saw "The Conversation" and "Midnight Cowboy" and "Harold and Maude."  I was back at school a few weeks later, and only watched about thirty movies the rest of the year.

By the way, I'm getting the numbers from an Excel spreadsheet I've kept of all the movies I've watched since 2004.  I've been using Icheckmovies as a backup for the past few years, but the spreadsheet is still my main record.  I started it for fun and just got into the habit of logging a quick one-sentence review and star score after every viewing of a new movie.  I've gotten behind on the recordkeeping a few times over the years, but always caught up again eventually.  I like having it in this format for reference, easily sortable by year or score or even viewing format.  I can pinpoint pretty clearly when I had subscriptions to various rental services, and when I switched from DVDs to online streaming.  I keep thinking that one of these days I'm going to start a new spreadsheet, something better formatted with more information, but I don't know if I ever will.

And somewhere along the way I realized that I had turned into a movie buff, and watching a movie every day or two felt completely normal.  It became a part of my life, and something I don't really question.  It's only when I see my own viewing patterns referred to as a "challenge" by someone that I'm reminded that I really am a media junkie.  Not quite the one I used to be, but still a media junkie.
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Watching Shia LaBeouf Watching Shia LaBeouf

Last week, Shia LaBeouf and several collaborators created a unique piece of performance art, titled #Allmymovies.  Over three days, the bulk of his filmography was screened at New York's Angelika Film Center in reverse chronological order, and LaBeouf marathoned all of it, from the recent indie film "Man Down" to the Disney dub of Miyazaki's "Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind."  Only brief breaks were scheduled, so he slept through several of the films, and ate during others.  The goal was for him to remain in his seat for as long as possible.  The whole thing was livestreamed, and curious fans could also drop by the theater and join the audience at the screenings - admission was free.  The Gothamist covered what was going on outside the screening room.

I logged in briefly to the livestream site during the first day, and was greeted by the image of LaBeouf's passive face as he watched one of the films.  You could also make out a couple of other spectators sitting behind him, but not very clearly.  The lighting constantly changed because of the flickering screen, but you could clearly see LaBeouf's expressions, or the lack thereof.  I only lasted a few minutes before quitting the stream.  I don't feel like I really got the full effect of the piece, but I didn't have the time or resources to really commit to the experience.  No sound from the movies was supplied because of copyright issues, so following along required some work.  A schedule of the films was supplied so the curious viewer could sync up with LaBeouf, but was it worth the effort?

I've tried to keep an open mind about Shia LaBeouf's artistic ambitions and offscreen foibles.  His plagiarism of a Daniel Clowes comic two years ago was definitely a low point, but his very public string of apologies (several of them also plagiarized) and jaunts into performance art have been intriguing, if not always very effective.  Marina Abramović he ain't.  The marathon strikes me as an original idea, at least.  A famous actor watch his own films isn't something we've seen before, and it's a perfectly appropriate piece of programming for the Netflix generation, who have made marathoning television shows and watching livestreams of other people playing video games popular.  Heck, just a few days ago Twitch streamed the entire run of "The Joy of Painting" with Bob Ross to a not-inconsiderable audience.  Just because I haven't the time or inclination to watch Shia LaBeouf watching "Dumb and Dumberer" doesn't mean that others online don't.

I've written a bit before about the pleasures of secondhand and communal viewing, and how the internet is creating new forms of both.  Reaction videos, liveblogging, and livestreaming are commonplace these days.  As I've read over some of the reaction pieces to the Shia LaBeouf marathon, what struck me was how familiar it all felt - the speculation about his intentions, the obsession over minutiae (someone gave him a can of Pringles!), and the nostalgia from younger viewers over LaBeouf's earlier films.  #Allmymovies is just giving us a new excuse to have the same conversations about Shia LaBeouf we've been having about him for years.  It's the fact that LaBeouf is instigating the conversation this time that's the interesting part.  While the stunt is inherently attention-seeking, there's no sense of desperation about it, no indication that it's meant to be anything more than exactly what it is.  LaBeouf's actually had quite a decent run of movies lately with "Nymphomaniac" and "Fury," and he seems to be successfully putting the "Transformers" phase of his career behind him.

But that doesn't mean he can't revisit it.  Interest in #Allmymovies seemed to peak during the screenings of the films people were the most familiar with: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," the first "Transformers," and his Disney Channel era features like "Holes" and the "Even Stevens" movie.  Without LaBeouf providing any commentary, viewers could only guess at what he was thinking while watching the younger version of himself in these films, and many did.  Poking around on Reddit and Twitter, I found so many watchers sharing speculation: Did he seem bored by this one?  Was he embarrassed by that one?

I don't think that most of Shia LaBeouf's films are worth revisiting, but revisiting them alongside their star is another matter.  And LaBeouf keeps doing things like #Allmymovies, he's not going to lose the spotlight any time soon.

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"Dope" and "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Every year brings a new batch of movies about awkward high schoolers transitioning to adulthood and learning important life lessons.  We've actually had a decent run of these lately, with "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and "The Spectacular Now" still in recent memory.  This summer we had "Dope" and "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" within a few weeks of each other, both decent entries to the genre.  The two movies couldn't be more different in style and tone, but at their core, they're both about scruffy adolescent boys struggling with new relationships, being thrust into new situations, and facing that most terrifying rite of passage - the college application personal essay.

"Dope" is the stronger of the pair, because it tells its familiar story in a new context.  Malcolm Adekanbi (Shameik Moore) is a black high school senior from a rough area of Southern California, but is determined to got to Harvard.  He and his friends Jib (Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) identify themselves as nerds: they get good grades, are obsessed with '90s hip-hop culture, and are regular targets for the neighborhood bullies and drug dealers.  However, after Malcolm is roped by a dealer named Dom (A$AP Rocky) into helping woo back his ex-girlfriend Nakia (Zoë Kravitz), the nerds are forced to juggle drugs, girls, guns, viral videos, and way too much trouble.   

It's easy to be glib, to describe "Dope" as "Boyz in the Hood" crossed with "Pineapple Express," or as a prequel to last year's "Dear White People."  It's absolutely packed with current issues, buzzwords, memes, and other bits of Millennial pop culture, though the main characters are obsessed with the '90s.  At times, it comes across as trying to hard to hit too many points at once.  However, the characters and their viewpoints feel genuine, and there's a very appealing lightness to the way a lot of the topics are handled.  Metal detectors and drug searches at school are played for laughs.  Diggy is revealed to be a lesbian, but it's not a big deal.  The big themes and big speeches are held back until the very, very end of the film where Malcolm tells us what he's learned in a monologue that feels entirely earned.   

On the other hand, "Dope" is pretty chaotic and uneven, with a few too many subplots crammed together, a villain who fell completely flat, and one of the best characters shows up way too late in the movie.  Also, some of the old tropes like Malcolm misreading Nakia's intentions get very tedious.  The execution felt amateurish as often as it hit the mark, especially in the rocky second act.  I'd chalk this up to an inexperienced director, but Rick Famuyiwa has already made several well-regarded films like "The Wood" and "Brown Sugar."  He nails the ending well enough that I came away with the film feeling mostly positive about "Dope," but I find it too flawed to recommend wholeheartedly.  It's an energetic, ambitious feature that I hope connects to and gives a voice to the right audience, but I don't think I am the right audience.

"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is a far more familiar kind of independent feature, with a lot of familiar characters and familiar affectations.  Our lead character, Greg (Thomas Mann), is a white high school senior for the Pittsburgh area.  He's a self-declared lone wolf who only cultivates superficial connections with others, thereby making himself the most unobjectionable kid in school.  He's been long-term associates (Greg doesn't like the word "friend") with a black kid named Earl (Ronald Cyler II), who he makes funny spoofs of classic art films with as a hobby.  Then one day, Greg's mother insists that he go and befriend a girl in his year named Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who has just been diagnosed with leukemia.  Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, and Molly Shannon play assorted parents.

This one got a very warm reception at Sundance earlier in the year, probably because Greg is a struggling filmmaker and film nerd with impeccable taste.  However, I found it awfully similar to a lot of other films about teenage boys of the same age and temperament, and not the better ones.  I think whether you're apt to enjoy "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" really depends on how much you relate to Greg and his woes.  Personally, I found him to be the least interesting on the three leads, and Thomas Mann delivers the weakest performance.  The film is certainly well made and has some standout sequences, but it loses so much by being so tightly focused on Greg and his particular limited view of the world.  Did we really need his glum narration underlining every damn point?

I liked Olivia Cooke, though, and I found the portrayal of Rachel's declining physical state to be sensitive and appropriate.  I wish that the movie had been about her and Earl, with Greg left in the background, perhaps.  I liked the little references to other films, and was grateful to find that they were fairly minimal to the plot.  I even liked the weird little stop-motion cutaways, though they didn't really add up to much.  It's hard to really object too strongly to "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" because it's honest and it's well meaning.  The climax sequence is perfectly lovely.  But there are an awful lot of other films out there that do nearly everything here a bit better.

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The Sony Hack Scrum

The situation has been changing so fast, I've had to rewrite this post multiple times. If there are any inconsistencies I've missed, apologies in advance.

When Sony Pictures Entertainment's computer systems were hacked, resulting in the leak of massive amounts of sensitive data, initially it seemed like a minor matter. So a few screeners got leaked, Hollywood accounting tactics were thwarted, and sensitive employee information got out. Though a lot of people were affected, it seemed like something that would blow over in a few days or weeks. Sony would have to cough up money for better security, to settle a few lawsuits, and maybe chip in for some credit monitoring for its employees. Big corporations have been hacked often enough that these situations are becoming fairly common. Much of the stolen data seemed fairly benign - a marketing presentation for "After Earth" and E-mails from various employees griping about Adam Sandler. It was embarrassing, but hardly seemed damaging.

And then the "Jobs" E-mails came out. And the insensitive Obama exchange. And the MPAA's anti-piracy strategy. And then the Spider-man reboot plans. And a screenplay for the next James Bond film is floating around now, along with some meeting notes that suggest the production may be massively over-budget. Then last week, the hackers started threatening Sony employees and their families. When the first rumors about the attack being connected to North Korea and the Seth Rogen comedy "The Interview" started circulation, I ran across several snarkers dismissing the whole thing as a publicity stunt. With the latest threats against movie theaters and the release of "The Interview" cancelled, everyone's taking it seriously now. I agree with Sony's decision here - averting a potential tragedy is worth taking the financial hit, but I'm also disturbed by the precedent it's setting. What happens when a movie or television show depicting something really controversial is targeted by future hackers?

There's also the question of how we process the information from the leaked E-mails. Aaron Sorkin penned a strong reproach to the gossipmongers for the New York Times a few days ago, pointing out that people's lives and careers are being ruined. Of course he's absolutely right. And I confess I've been ignoring him completely. I haven't watched any of those leaked screeners and wouldn't touch any of the stolen employee data with a forty-foot pole. I know Sony chief Amy Pascal said something about Obama she shouldn't have, but I don't know exactly what, and I do not care to. However, the inside baseball stuff has been fascinating. Being able to glimpse some of the candid negotiations and the politicking that goes on behind the scenes to get movies made, and seeing how the studio big shots conduct business is too much for me to resist. The E-mails detailing Sony's attempts to get a Steve Jobs biopic off the ground have been the juiciest since they involve so many big names, but some of the lower-profile exchanges have been just as dramatic. There's the way CBS and the NFL screwed over "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" this year, for instance. Or the whole business with the gender pay disparity for the stars of "American Hustle."

I know. It's wrong to be reading these stories. But I've only ever read about exchanges like these second-hand, years and years after the movies in question have come and gone, and somebody wants to write their memoirs. Getting to follow the conversations first-hand, some dated only a few weeks ago, is a rare thrill. And learning that the power players are human beings with often horrendous spelling and grammar is a thrill too. It's one thing to hear about Scott Rudin's attitude, and another entirely to read the insults he casually lobs at A-listers. There is no film obsessive who hasn't secretly dreamed of having this kind of access, to be able to confirm that the people who were responsible for "Grown Ups 2" disliked it just as much as its critics.

The price of that access, though, is a movie studio that has lost the ability to operate. This is a severe blow to Sony. These leaks are going to have serious repercussions for years, and may change how the entire film industry operates. Major projects are in jeopardy. Several of the Sony top brass will probably be going down in flames. It will take the company a long time to recover, and they will lose more than money before it's all over.

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Why the Rebuild of "Evangelion" Isn't a Reboot

I saw "The Green Hornet" over the weekend, but that's not the franchise title I want to talk about today. Instead, I have a slightly older title in mind, one that I had written off sight unseen a few years ago - the feature film remake of the "Neon Genesis Evangelion" anime series, titled "Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone." For the record, I saw "1.11," the DVD release with a few extra minutes of footage, not the "1.01" theatrical release.

"Evangelion" was one of the major anime titles of the 90s, a massively popular, influential, and controversial story of giant robots, teen angst, and sinister Christian theology. It was produced by Studio GAINAX, famous for being founded by a pack of dedicated anime fanboys aiming to revolutionize the industry. And to an extent, they did. "Evangelion" was considered a watershed title that defined an era and introduced anime to many Western viewers. Anime fans of a certain age all know the characters on sight, even if they never watched a frame of the twenty-six episode television series or the two follow-up films.

When I heard that GAINAX, was planning to remake the series, I wasn't expecting much. At the time the "Rebuild of Evangelion" project was announced in 2002, GAINAX hadn't had a hit in a while. The studio had always leaned heavily on "Evangelion" merchandise, and there were other "Evangelion" projects like video games and manga trotted out every few years, aimed at milking the franchise for all it was worth. In the interim, I'm happy to report that "Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagaan," a thoroughly enjoyable new giant robot show, became a smash in 2007, giving the studio something else to fiddle with.

But on to the reboot. "You Are (Not) Alone" is the first of four planned "Rebuild" films and covers the material found in the first six episodes of "Neon Genesis Evangelion." What surprised me about the new feature was not the changes from the original, but the relative lack of changes. The series is essentially recreated, practically scene for scene, and largely using repurposed or painstakingly copied character animation from the original show. I knew "Evangelion" well enough to spot new animation and any deviations from the original script, but there weren't many instances of either.

This is not to say that the new "Evangelion" is a simple re-edit of the existing material. Nearly every frame has been heavily retouched or enhanced. Backgrounds have been replaced, details added, and CGI used to add more interesting dimensions to the fight scenes. All the enemy "Angels" have been redesigned for greatly pumped-up battle scenes. What's really impressive is how seamlessly the old and new elements have been combined. If this was the first time I'd seen "Evangelion," I wouldn't have been able to tell which bits were from the original and which were not.

After sitting through "You Are (Not) Alone," I'm not sure the film can really be called a reboot since so much of it really is taken directly from the original source. Yet at the same time so much has also been changed, it felt like I was seeing certain familiar events for the first time. The film's climactic battle with the Sixth Angel had the most new material and was a huge improvement on the original. The closest thing I can think to compare the effect to is the "Special Edition" versions of the "Star Wars" trilogy, if George Lucas had added twice as many new scenes, ten times as many new effects to existing scenes, and then re-edited half the film.

Using a new term, "rebuild," feels appropriate for "You Are (Not) Alone," and I can't help wondering if this approach could work for other films. Since "Evangelion" is purely animation and so much of it centers around these big, wild fight sequences, obviously the techniques it employs wouldn't be as effective for something like "Star Wars" or even "Beauty and the Beast." Still, this could be a good example for filmmakers currently trying to revamp classic films by converting them for 3D or enhancing them with new CGI effects. I don't think the "Evangelion" rebuilds or any of these other reboots and reissues are necessary, but if the studios demand them, something like "You Are (Not) Alone" seems to do the least amount of damage by preserving the old while indulging the new.

Is the new "Evangelion" better than the original? It's a different beast, with a narrative that emphasizes different things but doesn't shed as much of its episodic nature as it probably should have for a feature. I certainly liked the new film and I'm anticipating the future ones, though I have to wonder how much of this is due to my nostalgia for the series. On the other hand, no reboot ever managed to evoke so much nostalgia from me for its original source material - because so much of the rebuild IS the original source material!

We've certainly entered an interesting new age in cinema. If this catches on, I wonder what they'll rebuild next?