Greg Imahara from "Mythbusters" is building Craig Ferguson a robot sidekick. This makes for a nice coda to the "Mythbusters"-themed episode of the "Late Late Show" that ran a few weeks ago, where Craig interviewed the build team. Not because there was a promo junket, but because he's a "Mythbusters" fan and because he could.
I love it when celebs genuinely geek out like this - makes 'em seem more like human beings.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
I Confess - I Like TV Edits of Raunchy Movies
Everybody hates television edits of movies - the wacky overdubbed lines, the awkward blurring of naughty bits, and the haphazard cuts for time. But there are a few instances where I do prefer watching the television edits to the actual films. For instance, I don't think I ever would have watched the Will Ferrell comedy "Blades of Glory" if it hadn't been one of these versions.
A quick digression before I get to the meat of this post. "Blades of Glory" premiered in March of 2007 and was shown last night on ABC. The fifth "Harry Potter" film from July 2007 is airing tonight. This means the interval between theatrical and ad-supported network television exhibition has shrunk to less than three years. "Spider-Man 3" might be showing up sooner than I thought.
But back to the point. I know there are a lot of controversies and sensitivities around any kind of editing of films for broadcast. Only a very few movies with adult content, such as "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" appear unedited on American network television out of respect for their artistic impact and integrity, but for the most part strong language, violence, and sexual imagery are strictly curtailed.
America is far more stringent about this than most, which is ironic considering our tradition of free speech protection. Canada, for instance, aired both parts of Quentin Tarantino's ultra-violent "Kill Bill" on its national public broadcasting station CBC, without touching a frame. The only concession was to air the program at a late hour when children wouldn't be watching, but in the US, this isn't nearly enough. The US broadcast version made drastic cuts for language, sex and violence. It was so sanitized, it even went as far as to edit the name of the Bride's car from the Pussy Wagon to the Party Wagon.
The editing overkill is largely explained away by the networks as serving the public interest by keeping potentially objectionable content away from children and other sensitive persons. The films themselves are not considered truly censored, because the films are always easily available in their original versions from other sources - except finding them usually requires time and money that may keep some of these films away from those who don't have the resources. And of course the expensive premium channels almost never edit, which is blatantly hypocritical.
In general, I think the systems stinks. The content restrictions keep more interesting films away from the public and the networks are allowed to royally mangle most of the ones it gets its hands on. The original creators have some control over how their work is presented under the law, but they have to give up practically all of these rights if they want their films to have any public exposure at all. In fact, the only one that commonly remains is the notice screen preceding any broadcast that indicates a film has been edited for time or content.
The only time I can remember any sort of challenge to the status quo was in 2002 when the company ClearPlay tried selling a video content player that would create edited versions of any movies that were played with it. Concerns about copyright violation ultimately sunk ClearPlay, but it did get enough dialogue going in the wider press to get some cable networks to loosen its content restrictions. In 2003, Comedy Central started showing completely unedited programming in 1AM weekend slots.
However, I have to admit that I do benefit from the system. I don't watch movies like "Blades of Glory" because I don't enjoy raunch for the sake of raunch. I can take it in small doses when it's done well, but that's a rare thing outside of Judd Apatow movies. Scatological jokes, toilet humor, and the graphic depiction of unpleasant bodily functions usually just make me wince. I'm not as sensitive about profanity, but my parents are, and I've had to vet stuff for them lately, so I've had to be more aware of it too. There's an awful lot of both types of content in movies today, far more than there was ten years ago.
With edited television versions, I don't have to do any work at all. I know I'm not going to see the excrement monster in "Dogma" or the full frontal shots from "There's Something About Mary" and "Something's Gotta Give." Some films plan ahead and do TV-friendly versions of certain scenes, often substituting dialogue to avoid those awful overdubs. So I can watch films I would otherwise avoid because of concerns about the content.
"Blades of Glory" is a prime example. It was only rated PG-13 to begin with, but featured an extended vomiting sequence, crude sexual situations, and plenty of innuendos. ABC's Broadcast Standards and Practices excised or shortened the worst of them so I could enjoy Will Ferrell's desperate man-boy buffoonery and John Heder prancing around in a peacock-themed skating costume without feeling like I needed to take a shower afterward. Truthfully it was a pretty lousy movie, but the editing helped me enjoy the few charms it had.
I still think the system could be better. There's no reason why other network and cable stations couldn't follow Comedy Central's lead and start showing unedited films at later hours while keeping the edited ones on primetime. Or let the directors make some of the edits themselves instead of going in and making unwatchable horrorshows out of "The Matrix" or "Interview With the Vampire."
I hold out hope that things will improve, and the networks and studios learn to take advantage of the chance to create different versions of their films. I know of at least one instance where the TV version actually substantively improved on the theatrical version - when the director of "Waterworld" was allowed to go back and restore the original ending. Now that was something worth sitting through commercials to see.
A quick digression before I get to the meat of this post. "Blades of Glory" premiered in March of 2007 and was shown last night on ABC. The fifth "Harry Potter" film from July 2007 is airing tonight. This means the interval between theatrical and ad-supported network television exhibition has shrunk to less than three years. "Spider-Man 3" might be showing up sooner than I thought.
But back to the point. I know there are a lot of controversies and sensitivities around any kind of editing of films for broadcast. Only a very few movies with adult content, such as "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" appear unedited on American network television out of respect for their artistic impact and integrity, but for the most part strong language, violence, and sexual imagery are strictly curtailed.
America is far more stringent about this than most, which is ironic considering our tradition of free speech protection. Canada, for instance, aired both parts of Quentin Tarantino's ultra-violent "Kill Bill" on its national public broadcasting station CBC, without touching a frame. The only concession was to air the program at a late hour when children wouldn't be watching, but in the US, this isn't nearly enough. The US broadcast version made drastic cuts for language, sex and violence. It was so sanitized, it even went as far as to edit the name of the Bride's car from the Pussy Wagon to the Party Wagon.
The editing overkill is largely explained away by the networks as serving the public interest by keeping potentially objectionable content away from children and other sensitive persons. The films themselves are not considered truly censored, because the films are always easily available in their original versions from other sources - except finding them usually requires time and money that may keep some of these films away from those who don't have the resources. And of course the expensive premium channels almost never edit, which is blatantly hypocritical.
In general, I think the systems stinks. The content restrictions keep more interesting films away from the public and the networks are allowed to royally mangle most of the ones it gets its hands on. The original creators have some control over how their work is presented under the law, but they have to give up practically all of these rights if they want their films to have any public exposure at all. In fact, the only one that commonly remains is the notice screen preceding any broadcast that indicates a film has been edited for time or content.
The only time I can remember any sort of challenge to the status quo was in 2002 when the company ClearPlay tried selling a video content player that would create edited versions of any movies that were played with it. Concerns about copyright violation ultimately sunk ClearPlay, but it did get enough dialogue going in the wider press to get some cable networks to loosen its content restrictions. In 2003, Comedy Central started showing completely unedited programming in 1AM weekend slots.
However, I have to admit that I do benefit from the system. I don't watch movies like "Blades of Glory" because I don't enjoy raunch for the sake of raunch. I can take it in small doses when it's done well, but that's a rare thing outside of Judd Apatow movies. Scatological jokes, toilet humor, and the graphic depiction of unpleasant bodily functions usually just make me wince. I'm not as sensitive about profanity, but my parents are, and I've had to vet stuff for them lately, so I've had to be more aware of it too. There's an awful lot of both types of content in movies today, far more than there was ten years ago.
With edited television versions, I don't have to do any work at all. I know I'm not going to see the excrement monster in "Dogma" or the full frontal shots from "There's Something About Mary" and "Something's Gotta Give." Some films plan ahead and do TV-friendly versions of certain scenes, often substituting dialogue to avoid those awful overdubs. So I can watch films I would otherwise avoid because of concerns about the content.
"Blades of Glory" is a prime example. It was only rated PG-13 to begin with, but featured an extended vomiting sequence, crude sexual situations, and plenty of innuendos. ABC's Broadcast Standards and Practices excised or shortened the worst of them so I could enjoy Will Ferrell's desperate man-boy buffoonery and John Heder prancing around in a peacock-themed skating costume without feeling like I needed to take a shower afterward. Truthfully it was a pretty lousy movie, but the editing helped me enjoy the few charms it had.
I still think the system could be better. There's no reason why other network and cable stations couldn't follow Comedy Central's lead and start showing unedited films at later hours while keeping the edited ones on primetime. Or let the directors make some of the edits themselves instead of going in and making unwatchable horrorshows out of "The Matrix" or "Interview With the Vampire."
I hold out hope that things will improve, and the networks and studios learn to take advantage of the chance to create different versions of their films. I know of at least one instance where the TV version actually substantively improved on the theatrical version - when the director of "Waterworld" was allowed to go back and restore the original ending. Now that was something worth sitting through commercials to see.
Friday, February 26, 2010
And How I Finally Did Watch Spider-Man 3
I mentioned in the previous post that I really enjoyed "Spider-Man 2" and only marginally liked the original "Spider-Man." I'd put "Spider-Man 3" somewhere between the two. On the one hand it's technically impeccable, nicely acted, and does a great job of delivering action sequences that don't feel labored or repetitious. But on the other hand, I don't think I've seen a movie that had so much and so little happening at the same time.
There have been countless dissertations on the failings of "Spider-Man 3," written by every disappointed comics-literate geek with access to a computer, so I'm just going to focus on the two major elements that I thought caused the most problems: 1) The story was too ambitious, and 2) They made Peter Parker unlikable. The first is easily forgivable, but the second is harder to ignore, and both issues are pretty intimately connected.
I like that Ramis and his collaborators tried to include a variety of different sources of conflict for our hero: a new supervillain, a new rival, ongoing issues in old relationships, and the hidden pitfalls of his own success. What sets Peter Parker apart from his costumed brothers-in-arms is that he's young, has limited resources, and juggles a complicated life that never seems to give him a break. Anyone who is struggling to hold down a job or make time for loved ones can relate to him, because Peter's troubles are so wonderfully normal.
But while the previous films let myriad problems compound on top of each other, the ones in "Spider-Man 3" end up pulling Peter Parker in too many different directions. The Sandman brings out Peter's vengeful side, the alien symbiote turns him into an over-confident jerk, the Eddie Brock and Harry Osbourne storylines need him to be a straight-arrow good guy deserving of our sympathy, and his relationship troubles with Mary Jane require a lot of self-centered cluelessness. It doesn't feel like the same person is showing up from scene to scene.
The inconsistencies don't end there. Despite being well over two hours long, the movie often feels like it's missing scenes, rushing to deliver exposition but rarely lingering long enough to fill out its characters. The villains suffer the most here - Sandman only seems to show up for action sequences, and Harry Osbourne's personality veers wildly between vicious and friendly depending on what the plot needs him to do at the time. Eddie Brock comes out about right, but only because he's the shallowest character. Ultimately none of the bad guys get a full-fledged story the way Goblin and Dr. Octopus did, not even poor Harry.
Peter Parker and his multiple personalities get the bulk of the film's screentime, and they need it. The script forces the character to go through so many painful contortions, it's a wonder Tobey Maguire didn't throw out his back. One of the major themes of "Spider-Man 3" is Peter discovering his dark side, which manifests in some bizarre ways. The famously mocked dance sequence wasn't as bad as I was led to believe, but I thought a later scene did far more damage to the character: the club sequence with Gwen Stacy.
"Spider-Man 2" drove the message home that the hero wasn't the suit, but the kid who wore it. Peter Parker might have a bumpy life, but at the core of his character was that wonderful moral center that kept him going. Even when faced with horribly unfair or unreasonable situations in his normal life, Peter didn't whine, didn't retaliate, and didn't stop doing things the hard way. He persevered, because that's what heroes do, and deviations from that standard always came with consequences.
So to see Peter throw all caution to the wind, mercilessly sabotage Eddie, disfigure Harry, and then deliberately humiliate Mary Jane - it was crossing way too far over the line. Acting like a dorky bad-boy version of himself was silly, but fairly harmless. Watching him deliberately hurt the girl he loved in an act of utter petulance was another matter entirely. The film almost lost me completely at that point, and the subsequent lack of any truly serious negative consequences from his behavior still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
All in all I do like the film. There are lots of wonderful little moments in it that belong in a much better story, and every time the suit comes on, all the other problems seem to melt away. I think my favorite bit in the whole thing was during the climatic fight scene where we see Spider-Man trying to web-sling his way out of a fall, only to run out of space and end up slamming himself into a roof. He does that move so often, so perfectly, we don't expect him to crash until it happens. And then all you can do is wince.
But you know he'll pick himself up and try again. Heroes do that.
There have been countless dissertations on the failings of "Spider-Man 3," written by every disappointed comics-literate geek with access to a computer, so I'm just going to focus on the two major elements that I thought caused the most problems: 1) The story was too ambitious, and 2) They made Peter Parker unlikable. The first is easily forgivable, but the second is harder to ignore, and both issues are pretty intimately connected.
I like that Ramis and his collaborators tried to include a variety of different sources of conflict for our hero: a new supervillain, a new rival, ongoing issues in old relationships, and the hidden pitfalls of his own success. What sets Peter Parker apart from his costumed brothers-in-arms is that he's young, has limited resources, and juggles a complicated life that never seems to give him a break. Anyone who is struggling to hold down a job or make time for loved ones can relate to him, because Peter's troubles are so wonderfully normal.
But while the previous films let myriad problems compound on top of each other, the ones in "Spider-Man 3" end up pulling Peter Parker in too many different directions. The Sandman brings out Peter's vengeful side, the alien symbiote turns him into an over-confident jerk, the Eddie Brock and Harry Osbourne storylines need him to be a straight-arrow good guy deserving of our sympathy, and his relationship troubles with Mary Jane require a lot of self-centered cluelessness. It doesn't feel like the same person is showing up from scene to scene.
The inconsistencies don't end there. Despite being well over two hours long, the movie often feels like it's missing scenes, rushing to deliver exposition but rarely lingering long enough to fill out its characters. The villains suffer the most here - Sandman only seems to show up for action sequences, and Harry Osbourne's personality veers wildly between vicious and friendly depending on what the plot needs him to do at the time. Eddie Brock comes out about right, but only because he's the shallowest character. Ultimately none of the bad guys get a full-fledged story the way Goblin and Dr. Octopus did, not even poor Harry.
Peter Parker and his multiple personalities get the bulk of the film's screentime, and they need it. The script forces the character to go through so many painful contortions, it's a wonder Tobey Maguire didn't throw out his back. One of the major themes of "Spider-Man 3" is Peter discovering his dark side, which manifests in some bizarre ways. The famously mocked dance sequence wasn't as bad as I was led to believe, but I thought a later scene did far more damage to the character: the club sequence with Gwen Stacy.
"Spider-Man 2" drove the message home that the hero wasn't the suit, but the kid who wore it. Peter Parker might have a bumpy life, but at the core of his character was that wonderful moral center that kept him going. Even when faced with horribly unfair or unreasonable situations in his normal life, Peter didn't whine, didn't retaliate, and didn't stop doing things the hard way. He persevered, because that's what heroes do, and deviations from that standard always came with consequences.
So to see Peter throw all caution to the wind, mercilessly sabotage Eddie, disfigure Harry, and then deliberately humiliate Mary Jane - it was crossing way too far over the line. Acting like a dorky bad-boy version of himself was silly, but fairly harmless. Watching him deliberately hurt the girl he loved in an act of utter petulance was another matter entirely. The film almost lost me completely at that point, and the subsequent lack of any truly serious negative consequences from his behavior still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
All in all I do like the film. There are lots of wonderful little moments in it that belong in a much better story, and every time the suit comes on, all the other problems seem to melt away. I think my favorite bit in the whole thing was during the climatic fight scene where we see Spider-Man trying to web-sling his way out of a fall, only to run out of space and end up slamming himself into a roof. He does that move so often, so perfectly, we don't expect him to crash until it happens. And then all you can do is wince.
But you know he'll pick himself up and try again. Heroes do that.
How I Didn't Watch Spider-Man 3
So I finally saw "Spider-Man 3" for the first time last night. Before you point out that the title of this post is seriously misleading, consider this - why did it take a self-declared movie geek with a yen for superhero films nearly three years to see this one?
These days if you really want to see a movie, it's fairly easy to find a way to see it, and if you really don't want to see a movie, it's not difficult to avoid it. But when you're ambivalent toward a film, that's where things get interesting. I'm one of those people who ends up seeing a lot of movies that I don't have strong feelings towards one way or the other. I see them in theaters with friends or relatives on social outings. I see them on DVD when I hang out with people casually. And of course, I run across plenty of them while channel surfing. To give you an example, I've paid to see three films in theaters in the past two months that I had no real interest in seeing - "Avatar," "When in Rome," and "Up in the Air" - two with dates, one with family. They outnumber the films I saw that I actually wanted to see over the same time period, "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."
When "Spider-Man 3" came out, it was impossible to avoid the hype leading up the May 2007 release date. It did amazing business and currently ranks fifteenth on the list of the highest grossing films of all time at the North American Box Office (unadjusted). But for my part, once I had a look at the reviews, I decided that I didn't need to see it in theaters. I wouldn't have said no if a friend or relative asked me to go with them, but I didn't think it was worth the money to specifically seek it out on my own. For the record I liked "Spider-Man 2" and thought the first "Spider-Man" was passable, but I didn't have a very strong attachment to either, making me pretty hype-proof.
The theatrical release came and went, and the next round of the marketing blitz came around with the "Spider-Man 3" DVD release in September. I seriously considered renting it, but money was tight and I had a big list of films that I wanted to catch up on from earlier in the year. I was alsopretty sure I'd see the film eventually on cable and didn't mind waiting. Mainstream films, especially the blockbusters, have a far higher profile on television than the little indies and foreign films that can only be found through rentals. So I let it go, and for a long time after that, I totally forgot about "Spider-Man 3."
Then came April of 2009, when I got my first taste of Netflix. It was love at first sight. I filled my queue out to ridiculous lengths and and devoured the free online catalog. I watched war documentaries, old Bing Crosby musicals, and lots of other titles I never would have picked up in a hundred years if they weren't so conveniently available whenever I wanted them. And what was sitting on top of the list of free Starz Cable films when I logged on the first day? "Spider-Man 3." I happily made plans to watch it over the weekend, but alas it was not to be. Cut to a few days later, when I discovered that it had been dropped from the catalog to make way for newer titles. Curses, foiled again.
From that point on it turned into a game, and I started consciously keeping track of where the film was popping up in the distribution stream. How long would it take me to see "Spider-man 3" without consciously making any effort to do it? I had just missed the end of the premium cable "window" for the film. How far down the media food chain would it go before I ran into it again? I'll stress now that at no point did I lose my ambivalence toward seeing the film - I could have added "Spider-Man 3" to my online rental queue or gone right out to the nearest Blockbuster and picked up a copy at any time. I saw plenty of other movies while this was going on, and my lukewarm initial impression of "Spider-Man 3" never changed.
After the theatrical, rental, and premium cable distribution windows comes basic cable. (For a great breakdown of these "windows of exploitation," see this lovely article here: http://www.publetariat.com/sell/long-detailed-look-distribution-windows) "Spider-Man 3" had its premiere on FX in December, 2009 and has been making frequent appearances on its schedule ever since. Unfortunately, I liked Netflix so much and was getting so much more out of it than my overpriced TV cable service, I went ahead and dropped the cable during the digital TV transition over the summer. Another chance to see the movie squashed.
A very near miss occurred over the Christmas break when I went to visit the folks for the holiday. They have satellite - and got the deal that gave them the basic tier channels plus a bunch of premium movie channels for a couple of months. And since they're early sleepers, there wasn't much to do for many of those nights except watch movies with the siblings. A lot of these were 2007-2008 titles I'd put into the ambivalent category - "Eagle Eye," "I Am Legend," "Beowulf, "Body of Lies," and the most recent "Die Hard" movie. "Spider-Man 3" would have fit right in.
After realizing I'd missed the cable premiere, I figured that "Spider-Man 3" would probably be airing over the Christmas weekend when lots of movies fill out the schedules, and I was right. It was on slated to be on FX on Saturday the 26th. But my parents' satellite service didn't carry FX or any of the other FOX/Newscorp channels on the basic tier. Apparently FOX's carrier fees are much higher than most other channels. My cable company sucked it up and paid, but the satellite carrier bumped those channels up to a secondary tier that required extra charges. No FX, no "Spider-Man 3." So I watched "Stardust" again.
Ironically on the way home from that trip, I took Jet Blue, which had an in-flight TV service that carried nearly all the FOX channels, including FX, and a bunch of other second-tier cable channels like BBC America and Boomerang and Discovery Health. I wonder if the airline got some sort of special rate to pad the number of subscribers to these channels. Anyway, FX was showing "Spider-Man 3" during the flight, but since the trip was short and the movie was already well into the second hour by the time I stumbled across it, I didn't bother trying to watch.
Now, two months later, I've finally seen "Spider-Man 3." I didn't pay for a movie ticket, or a rental fee, or a pay-per-view fee, or a premium cable subscription, or even a basic cable subscription. And no, I didn't pirate it. And no, there hasn't been a showing on one of the national networks yet - that probably won't happen until this fall at the earliest. No, what happened was that a couple of the DVDs turned up at my local library. Probably old rental copies or overstock from somewhere that were donated.
You can blame shrinking windows and you can blame too much mediocre product out there, but movies don't seem to be worth as much as they used to be, even with all the insane profit from the highest performers. I can't help but find it funny and sad that while movies themselves may last forever, the business of movies has become so terribly time sensitive, a single viewing of a film loses nearly all of its commercial value over the span of just three years. Anyone with a little patience can wait it out like I did - anyone who's figured out that new isn't always better and films don't actually have expiration dates.
So what did I think of "Spider-Man 3"? That's a post for another time.
These days if you really want to see a movie, it's fairly easy to find a way to see it, and if you really don't want to see a movie, it's not difficult to avoid it. But when you're ambivalent toward a film, that's where things get interesting. I'm one of those people who ends up seeing a lot of movies that I don't have strong feelings towards one way or the other. I see them in theaters with friends or relatives on social outings. I see them on DVD when I hang out with people casually. And of course, I run across plenty of them while channel surfing. To give you an example, I've paid to see three films in theaters in the past two months that I had no real interest in seeing - "Avatar," "When in Rome," and "Up in the Air" - two with dates, one with family. They outnumber the films I saw that I actually wanted to see over the same time period, "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."
When "Spider-Man 3" came out, it was impossible to avoid the hype leading up the May 2007 release date. It did amazing business and currently ranks fifteenth on the list of the highest grossing films of all time at the North American Box Office (unadjusted). But for my part, once I had a look at the reviews, I decided that I didn't need to see it in theaters. I wouldn't have said no if a friend or relative asked me to go with them, but I didn't think it was worth the money to specifically seek it out on my own. For the record I liked "Spider-Man 2" and thought the first "Spider-Man" was passable, but I didn't have a very strong attachment to either, making me pretty hype-proof.
The theatrical release came and went, and the next round of the marketing blitz came around with the "Spider-Man 3" DVD release in September. I seriously considered renting it, but money was tight and I had a big list of films that I wanted to catch up on from earlier in the year. I was alsopretty sure I'd see the film eventually on cable and didn't mind waiting. Mainstream films, especially the blockbusters, have a far higher profile on television than the little indies and foreign films that can only be found through rentals. So I let it go, and for a long time after that, I totally forgot about "Spider-Man 3."
Then came April of 2009, when I got my first taste of Netflix. It was love at first sight. I filled my queue out to ridiculous lengths and and devoured the free online catalog. I watched war documentaries, old Bing Crosby musicals, and lots of other titles I never would have picked up in a hundred years if they weren't so conveniently available whenever I wanted them. And what was sitting on top of the list of free Starz Cable films when I logged on the first day? "Spider-Man 3." I happily made plans to watch it over the weekend, but alas it was not to be. Cut to a few days later, when I discovered that it had been dropped from the catalog to make way for newer titles. Curses, foiled again.
From that point on it turned into a game, and I started consciously keeping track of where the film was popping up in the distribution stream. How long would it take me to see "Spider-man 3" without consciously making any effort to do it? I had just missed the end of the premium cable "window" for the film. How far down the media food chain would it go before I ran into it again? I'll stress now that at no point did I lose my ambivalence toward seeing the film - I could have added "Spider-Man 3" to my online rental queue or gone right out to the nearest Blockbuster and picked up a copy at any time. I saw plenty of other movies while this was going on, and my lukewarm initial impression of "Spider-Man 3" never changed.
After the theatrical, rental, and premium cable distribution windows comes basic cable. (For a great breakdown of these "windows of exploitation," see this lovely article here: http://www.publetariat.com/sell/long-detailed-look-distribution-windows) "Spider-Man 3" had its premiere on FX in December, 2009 and has been making frequent appearances on its schedule ever since. Unfortunately, I liked Netflix so much and was getting so much more out of it than my overpriced TV cable service, I went ahead and dropped the cable during the digital TV transition over the summer. Another chance to see the movie squashed.
A very near miss occurred over the Christmas break when I went to visit the folks for the holiday. They have satellite - and got the deal that gave them the basic tier channels plus a bunch of premium movie channels for a couple of months. And since they're early sleepers, there wasn't much to do for many of those nights except watch movies with the siblings. A lot of these were 2007-2008 titles I'd put into the ambivalent category - "Eagle Eye," "I Am Legend," "Beowulf, "Body of Lies," and the most recent "Die Hard" movie. "Spider-Man 3" would have fit right in.
After realizing I'd missed the cable premiere, I figured that "Spider-Man 3" would probably be airing over the Christmas weekend when lots of movies fill out the schedules, and I was right. It was on slated to be on FX on Saturday the 26th. But my parents' satellite service didn't carry FX or any of the other FOX/Newscorp channels on the basic tier. Apparently FOX's carrier fees are much higher than most other channels. My cable company sucked it up and paid, but the satellite carrier bumped those channels up to a secondary tier that required extra charges. No FX, no "Spider-Man 3." So I watched "Stardust" again.
Ironically on the way home from that trip, I took Jet Blue, which had an in-flight TV service that carried nearly all the FOX channels, including FX, and a bunch of other second-tier cable channels like BBC America and Boomerang and Discovery Health. I wonder if the airline got some sort of special rate to pad the number of subscribers to these channels. Anyway, FX was showing "Spider-Man 3" during the flight, but since the trip was short and the movie was already well into the second hour by the time I stumbled across it, I didn't bother trying to watch.
Now, two months later, I've finally seen "Spider-Man 3." I didn't pay for a movie ticket, or a rental fee, or a pay-per-view fee, or a premium cable subscription, or even a basic cable subscription. And no, I didn't pirate it. And no, there hasn't been a showing on one of the national networks yet - that probably won't happen until this fall at the earliest. No, what happened was that a couple of the DVDs turned up at my local library. Probably old rental copies or overstock from somewhere that were donated.
You can blame shrinking windows and you can blame too much mediocre product out there, but movies don't seem to be worth as much as they used to be, even with all the insane profit from the highest performers. I can't help but find it funny and sad that while movies themselves may last forever, the business of movies has become so terribly time sensitive, a single viewing of a film loses nearly all of its commercial value over the span of just three years. Anyone with a little patience can wait it out like I did - anyone who's figured out that new isn't always better and films don't actually have expiration dates.
So what did I think of "Spider-Man 3"? That's a post for another time.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Welcome Back Terry Gilliam
I've missed Terry Gilliam. In the 80s, he was one of our prime purveyors of phantasmagoria, a dependable source of weird, wonderful, difficult films that nobody else would make. The intervening years haven't been kind to him, with a string of misfires and stillborn projects, including the notoriously thwarted "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." Though none of his films were ever exactly lighthearted entertainment, the most recent ones got so dark and claustrophobic, you wondered whatever happened to the guy who gave us the elderly swashbuckling accountants of "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" or put naked Uma Thuman in a giant clamshell for "The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen."
So it's a relief to find that Gilliam's latest, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" not only survived the death of its leading man, Heath Ledger, but marks the director's return to the full-fledged fantasy and whimsical mayhem that characterized his best work. The story follows the ancient Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), the leader of a shabby troupe of traveling entertainers who work out of a ramshackle, horse-drawn wagon that doubles as their proscenium and their living quarters. The rest of the troupe includes Parnassus's budding teenage daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), who is sick of scraping by on the fringes of society, the barker Anton (Andrew Garfield), who yearns for Valentina, and a long-suffering dwarf named Percy (Verne Troyer).
Their one and only act, the Imaginarium of the title, involves sending audience members through a strange portal that is connected to Parnassus's mind and lets them enter a fascinating dreamworld. There, they face temptation and are offered a chance at spiritual salvation. However, if they make the wrong choice, they fall into the clutches of the Devil (Tom Waits), who is stalking after the Imaginarium and Parnassus to collect on an old gambling debt. So where does Heath Ledger come into all of this? He's the mysterious stranger our little band finds hanging under a bridge one stormy night, by the neck, apparently dead. (Here we must give props to Gilliam for brass cojones, if nothing else.) Of course the mysterious stranger is not dead, but rather a live amnesiac named Tony, who joins Parnassus' troupe, learns of their troubles, and decides to help them stiff the Devil of his due.
Ledger delivers a charming, but noticeably incomplete final performance, and I couldn't help feeling robbed of his presence in the last reel of the film. As you may already know from the press, Ledger finished filming nearly all of his sequences outside of the Imaginarium before his death, so Gilliam and his crew were able to use film's fantasy elements to recast him for the missing bits inside the Imaginarium. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all step up to do their parts, but I'm sorry to say that it doesn't really work. These aren't just cameos, but almost the entire final third of the film pieced together out of the different performances. And because so much effort is expended on keeping Tony afloat, the rest of the characters are shortchanged, especially Parnassus and Valentina. It doesn't help that the narrative gets harder and harder to follow, and though an ending does present itself with a suitable amount of emotional closure, logically it makes no sense at all.
What does work are Gilliam's visuals, particularly the production design and the effects. In the real world, the Imaginarium is an astonishing anachronism, a patchwork of of Medieval passion play and Renaissance commedia dell'arte, sticking out like a sore thumb in modern day parking lots and shopping malls. Everything is handmade, mismatched, old as dirt, and held together with chewing gum and a lot of faith. You do not doubt for a second that these are people who may have been wandering the Earth with the very same act since before the birth of Christ, but perhaps never got the hang of electricity or motorized transportation.
Inside the Imaginarium is another story. Gilliam's painterly style had a tendency to clash with CGI in the past, most noticeably in "The Brothers Grimm." This time he uses it far more extensively than in any of his other films, and to amazing effect. Sharp eyes will notice some unfortunate technical flaws, but the dreamworlds of the Imaginarium are exactly what they should be: huge, lushly colored, impossible landscapes that could only exist in the imagination, and seem more real than real. I especially loved all the little nods to classical painters, a Boticelli angel here, a Salvador Dali desert there. It really feels like Gilliam got back to his roots as an animator and just let himself go nuts. And it's wonderful.
In the end, "Parnassus" is not one of the best Gilliam films, but it is a big step in the right direction. My worry is that with the state of independent filmmaking the way it is, and with Gilliam's amazing bad luck, we might not get many more like this out of him. But on the other hand, who else but Terry Gilliam would be able to come back from Ledger's death, and the death of his producer, and getting hit by a car, and all the other calamity around the production to reach the finish line? It is not wise to underestimate this man, and if his filmography has told us anything, it's that he can do great work even when all the odds are against him.
In fact, I hear he's trying to mount another attempt at "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." Somehow I think it's going to take more than a few sidelined actors to stop him this time.
So it's a relief to find that Gilliam's latest, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" not only survived the death of its leading man, Heath Ledger, but marks the director's return to the full-fledged fantasy and whimsical mayhem that characterized his best work. The story follows the ancient Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), the leader of a shabby troupe of traveling entertainers who work out of a ramshackle, horse-drawn wagon that doubles as their proscenium and their living quarters. The rest of the troupe includes Parnassus's budding teenage daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), who is sick of scraping by on the fringes of society, the barker Anton (Andrew Garfield), who yearns for Valentina, and a long-suffering dwarf named Percy (Verne Troyer).
Their one and only act, the Imaginarium of the title, involves sending audience members through a strange portal that is connected to Parnassus's mind and lets them enter a fascinating dreamworld. There, they face temptation and are offered a chance at spiritual salvation. However, if they make the wrong choice, they fall into the clutches of the Devil (Tom Waits), who is stalking after the Imaginarium and Parnassus to collect on an old gambling debt. So where does Heath Ledger come into all of this? He's the mysterious stranger our little band finds hanging under a bridge one stormy night, by the neck, apparently dead. (Here we must give props to Gilliam for brass cojones, if nothing else.) Of course the mysterious stranger is not dead, but rather a live amnesiac named Tony, who joins Parnassus' troupe, learns of their troubles, and decides to help them stiff the Devil of his due.
Ledger delivers a charming, but noticeably incomplete final performance, and I couldn't help feeling robbed of his presence in the last reel of the film. As you may already know from the press, Ledger finished filming nearly all of his sequences outside of the Imaginarium before his death, so Gilliam and his crew were able to use film's fantasy elements to recast him for the missing bits inside the Imaginarium. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all step up to do their parts, but I'm sorry to say that it doesn't really work. These aren't just cameos, but almost the entire final third of the film pieced together out of the different performances. And because so much effort is expended on keeping Tony afloat, the rest of the characters are shortchanged, especially Parnassus and Valentina. It doesn't help that the narrative gets harder and harder to follow, and though an ending does present itself with a suitable amount of emotional closure, logically it makes no sense at all.
What does work are Gilliam's visuals, particularly the production design and the effects. In the real world, the Imaginarium is an astonishing anachronism, a patchwork of of Medieval passion play and Renaissance commedia dell'arte, sticking out like a sore thumb in modern day parking lots and shopping malls. Everything is handmade, mismatched, old as dirt, and held together with chewing gum and a lot of faith. You do not doubt for a second that these are people who may have been wandering the Earth with the very same act since before the birth of Christ, but perhaps never got the hang of electricity or motorized transportation.
Inside the Imaginarium is another story. Gilliam's painterly style had a tendency to clash with CGI in the past, most noticeably in "The Brothers Grimm." This time he uses it far more extensively than in any of his other films, and to amazing effect. Sharp eyes will notice some unfortunate technical flaws, but the dreamworlds of the Imaginarium are exactly what they should be: huge, lushly colored, impossible landscapes that could only exist in the imagination, and seem more real than real. I especially loved all the little nods to classical painters, a Boticelli angel here, a Salvador Dali desert there. It really feels like Gilliam got back to his roots as an animator and just let himself go nuts. And it's wonderful.
In the end, "Parnassus" is not one of the best Gilliam films, but it is a big step in the right direction. My worry is that with the state of independent filmmaking the way it is, and with Gilliam's amazing bad luck, we might not get many more like this out of him. But on the other hand, who else but Terry Gilliam would be able to come back from Ledger's death, and the death of his producer, and getting hit by a car, and all the other calamity around the production to reach the finish line? It is not wise to underestimate this man, and if his filmography has told us anything, it's that he can do great work even when all the odds are against him.
In fact, I hear he's trying to mount another attempt at "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." Somehow I think it's going to take more than a few sidelined actors to stop him this time.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Growing Maelstrom Around Paramount's "The Last Airbender"
Paramount's Fourth of July tentpole release, "The Last Airbender," has been generating some buzz over the past few weeks as new trailers and TV spots have been unveiled. Adapted from a Nickelodeon animated series that ran from 2005-2008, the property already has a sizable fanbase and plenty of brand recognition. Helmed by M. Night Shyamalan and veteran producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, it has all the early earmarks of a blockbuster in the making. It's kid friendly, effects heavy, and has staked out a prime release date where the only real competition for its younger audience will be the third "Twilight" movie. Unfortunately, there is a major wrench in the works.
The original "Avatar: The Last Airbender" cartoon (the "Avatar" was dropped to appease Jim Cameron's lawyers) was heavily Asian themed and featured young heroes that were thinly disguised versions of a Tibetan monk, Inuit tribespeople, and East-Asian martial artists. By contrast, the live action film initially cast Caucasian actors for all of the major roles, only swapping in darker-skinned actors for the villains right before filming began. The backlash was swift and vehement. An online fan campaign, centered around the website Racebending.com and the social networking site LiveJournal, has lead the charge against the whitewashing of the ethnic characters, decrying the film as racially discriminatory towards Asians and Native Americans. To date their activities include letter writing campaigns, picketing, dozens of Youtube videos, media convention appearances, and plans to boycott the film.
Of course fan campaigns against all sorts of perceived slights are common for big event films, especially those based on beloved source material, but this controversy has definitely struck a nerve for many observers as well as those involved in the fray. Racebending directly addresses a subject that nobody in the industry likes to talk about - that despite recent demographic shifts, Hollywood still engages in casual racism to an astonishing degree, often justifying skeevy decisions like the whitewashing of "The Last Airbender" as necessary for financial reasons. For many of the decisionmakers, it's better to shut minority actors and actresses out of lead roles rather than risk alienating Caucasian audiences who might be leery of identifying with ethnic protagonists. "Airbender" is only the latest in a string of recent films where Asian characters have been supplanted by Caucasian ones, including "Dragonball Evolution," "Extraordinary Measures," "21," and the forthcoming "Tekken."
The unusual intensity of the reaction to "Airbender" can be traced to the especially blatant discrimination during the casting process. It's long been the accepted status quo that ethnic minority actors are only considered for roles tailored for their specific ethnicity, and no media property seemed to be as Asian-specific or Native American-specifc as "Airbender," with its purposeful incorporation of so much cultural detail. Yet casting sheets have surfaced that clearly preference Caucasians for the lead roles, while asking for ethnic minorities to play extras. The original core cast, annnounced by Entertainment Weekly in December 2008, was completely comprised of Caucasian actors despite the characters retaining Asian and Inuit names and other cultural signifiers. British-Indian actor Dev Patel has since been prominent in the advertisements, but his role originally went to the pop singer Jesse McCartney.
The "Last Airbender" controversy has so far passed largely unnoticed to the mainstream media, but as the film's release date approaches, the situation has been heating up. The SF Chronicle and Salon have both run critical reaction pieces. Film blogs have been discussing the issue openly, and Roger Ebert has signified his disapproval. But the real negative impact will probably be dealt by the existing "Airbender" fanbase, which has been contentiously divided over the new film and proven ready and willing to rehash the entire debate in any available forum. Already, it's difficult to find any online discussions of "The Last Airbender" that don't end in angry confrontations between members of the Racebending group and the film's supporters.
There's no greater buzzkill than a touchy discussion about race and media, and this one is well on its way to overwhelming the film's ad campaign. With less than five months to go until "The Last Airbender" release date, and nobody willing to back down, there's an ugly fistfight on the horizon that might just sink a very troubled film.
The original "Avatar: The Last Airbender" cartoon (the "Avatar" was dropped to appease Jim Cameron's lawyers) was heavily Asian themed and featured young heroes that were thinly disguised versions of a Tibetan monk, Inuit tribespeople, and East-Asian martial artists. By contrast, the live action film initially cast Caucasian actors for all of the major roles, only swapping in darker-skinned actors for the villains right before filming began. The backlash was swift and vehement. An online fan campaign, centered around the website Racebending.com and the social networking site LiveJournal, has lead the charge against the whitewashing of the ethnic characters, decrying the film as racially discriminatory towards Asians and Native Americans. To date their activities include letter writing campaigns, picketing, dozens of Youtube videos, media convention appearances, and plans to boycott the film.
Of course fan campaigns against all sorts of perceived slights are common for big event films, especially those based on beloved source material, but this controversy has definitely struck a nerve for many observers as well as those involved in the fray. Racebending directly addresses a subject that nobody in the industry likes to talk about - that despite recent demographic shifts, Hollywood still engages in casual racism to an astonishing degree, often justifying skeevy decisions like the whitewashing of "The Last Airbender" as necessary for financial reasons. For many of the decisionmakers, it's better to shut minority actors and actresses out of lead roles rather than risk alienating Caucasian audiences who might be leery of identifying with ethnic protagonists. "Airbender" is only the latest in a string of recent films where Asian characters have been supplanted by Caucasian ones, including "Dragonball Evolution," "Extraordinary Measures," "21," and the forthcoming "Tekken."
The unusual intensity of the reaction to "Airbender" can be traced to the especially blatant discrimination during the casting process. It's long been the accepted status quo that ethnic minority actors are only considered for roles tailored for their specific ethnicity, and no media property seemed to be as Asian-specific or Native American-specifc as "Airbender," with its purposeful incorporation of so much cultural detail. Yet casting sheets have surfaced that clearly preference Caucasians for the lead roles, while asking for ethnic minorities to play extras. The original core cast, annnounced by Entertainment Weekly in December 2008, was completely comprised of Caucasian actors despite the characters retaining Asian and Inuit names and other cultural signifiers. British-Indian actor Dev Patel has since been prominent in the advertisements, but his role originally went to the pop singer Jesse McCartney.
The "Last Airbender" controversy has so far passed largely unnoticed to the mainstream media, but as the film's release date approaches, the situation has been heating up. The SF Chronicle and Salon have both run critical reaction pieces. Film blogs have been discussing the issue openly, and Roger Ebert has signified his disapproval. But the real negative impact will probably be dealt by the existing "Airbender" fanbase, which has been contentiously divided over the new film and proven ready and willing to rehash the entire debate in any available forum. Already, it's difficult to find any online discussions of "The Last Airbender" that don't end in angry confrontations between members of the Racebending group and the film's supporters.
There's no greater buzzkill than a touchy discussion about race and media, and this one is well on its way to overwhelming the film's ad campaign. With less than five months to go until "The Last Airbender" release date, and nobody willing to back down, there's an ugly fistfight on the horizon that might just sink a very troubled film.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
What's Driving Me Crazy About Sleuth
It all must have looked so good on paper.
The original 1972 "Sleuth" was a classic game of GOTCHA!, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine as a rich old man and poor young man, a cuckolded husband pitted against his wife's unrepentant lover. They become locked in a epic battle of wits, and the entire film is the two of them manipulating, humiliating, and generally screwing with each others' heads in the name of pride and revenge. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, it's a wonderfully nasty piece of work that gives the actors a lot of scenery to chew and a lot of plot twists to play out. The second act features one of the best damn GOTCHA! moments in all of film history, which left me shrieking with glee when I first saw it. (No worries. I won't spoil it here.)
Fast-forward to the 2007, and the modern-day remake scripted by Harold Pinter, directed by Kenneth Branagh, and starring Michael Caine as the rich old man with Jude Law as the younger one. Take a minute to let those names sink in. Harold Pinter is a playwright with an endless list of honors, including a Nobel Prize for Literature and his own adjective, pinteresque. Kenneth Branagh built his film and theater career on updated versions of Shakespeare plays, and is a massive Olivier fanboy. Michael Caine's has continued to do good work since the 70s and shows no sign of slowing down. And Jude Law is one lucky bastard, but not an untalented one.
This is a film nerd's dream, the ideal group of people you want involved in a remake of anything - good filmmakers and performers who admire the original, including one of the primary actors ready and willing to have another go at the material. With such big, famous, celebrated names, what could possibly go wrong?
Everything.
I don't doubt for a minute that everyone involved with the 2007 "Sleuth" tried their best and had only good intentions for the film. Parts of it are pretty decent, especially the thirty minutes of the first act - conventional, but solid. And then it all goes to hell. I mentioned before that the second act has one of the great GOTCHA! moments of all time. The remake uses the same trick, except it doesn't work. None of it works, not the performances, not the writing, not even the little technical things that shouldn't have mattered. And then it got worse. I spent a good couple of hours after the movie was over, trying to puzzle out whether it had been badly done on purpose, for some sort of artistic effect, and finally came to the conclusion that it really was as awful as I thought it was. And all four of the guys with their names on the poster are responsible.
Harold Pinter - I've only seen a few of the older films he was involved in, and they don't call his work "comedies of menace" for nothing. He knows how to put these stories and characters together, knows how to get all sorts of complicated emotions out in the open. The trouble is his dialogue, the famous awkward pauses notwithstanding, has seriously fallen behind the times. Michael Caine's character is more or less all right, but some of the stuff that comes out of Jude Law's mouth is nothing you'd hear out of a guy his age in this decade. Moreover, I think Pinter made a mistake removing so much of the really visceral nastiness and unpleasantness of the original. At no point did I think that either of the characters was really being pushed beyond their limits or driven to do things they otherwise wouldn't. Subtlety is all well and good, but not when it undercuts so much of the energy and rawness of the story's emotional core.
Kenneth Branagh - He's probably responsible for the most damage. The original "Sleuth" was set in the old man's country mansion, full of odd clockwork curios, providing a thematically significant backdrop to the fun and games. Branagh's modern update turns the old man's house into a weirdly-lit, sparsely furnished, museum of modern something-or-other. The curios have been replaced by high-tech gadgetry, surveillance cameras, and remote-controlled electronics that provide opportunities to get in plenty of gratuitous fish-eye shots, shots from television monitors, shots from laptop screens, and so on. "Sleuth" has its origins in a theater play of the same name, and the whole thing doesn't take place on more than two or three sets. To make it look cinematic must have been a challenge, but Branagh seriously overcompensates. He never stops pushing these distracting visuals at us, that do nothing to complement any of the performances or the story itself.
Finally the actors are not blameless, though there is every indication that both of them were trying really, really damn hard. Especially Jude Law, who goes so far over the top, he's practically stratospheric. Of course, Olivier also hammed it up in the first "Sleuth," so this isn't a serious transgression in and if itself. The real trouble is that Law and Caine don't seem to be operating on the same wavelength after the first act, when the tricks and the games really kick into gear. Caine plays it so close to the vest, as Law's performance gets more and more outlandish, after a certain point you completely lose suspension of disbelief. They both have their good moments, when the masks slip and some of the inner demons coming smiling through, but there aren't enough, and the facades they throw up against each other aren't nearly as entertaining as they're supposed to be.
"Sleuth" '07 isn't unsalvageable. The third act does get back on track eventually, and there are a few good twists that you never could have had in "Sleuth" '72. I wouldn't mind sitting through a stage version of the new one, just to see if it comes out any better than the film. Right now I can't get my head around how four creative people of this caliber could have put together such a mess. Maybe they were too enamored with each other to adequately check and balance their worst impulses. Maybe this combination of talent just added up to toxic. Maybe it was everything. Maybe it was nothing. It's a mystery far more fascinating that the film itself.
I'm still glad they tried, if nothing else. I still love the original film. And if they want to mount a "Sleuth 2042" when Jude Law finally gives up on his hairline, I'll be happy to watch and obsess over that one too.
The original 1972 "Sleuth" was a classic game of GOTCHA!, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine as a rich old man and poor young man, a cuckolded husband pitted against his wife's unrepentant lover. They become locked in a epic battle of wits, and the entire film is the two of them manipulating, humiliating, and generally screwing with each others' heads in the name of pride and revenge. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, it's a wonderfully nasty piece of work that gives the actors a lot of scenery to chew and a lot of plot twists to play out. The second act features one of the best damn GOTCHA! moments in all of film history, which left me shrieking with glee when I first saw it. (No worries. I won't spoil it here.)
Fast-forward to the 2007, and the modern-day remake scripted by Harold Pinter, directed by Kenneth Branagh, and starring Michael Caine as the rich old man with Jude Law as the younger one. Take a minute to let those names sink in. Harold Pinter is a playwright with an endless list of honors, including a Nobel Prize for Literature and his own adjective, pinteresque. Kenneth Branagh built his film and theater career on updated versions of Shakespeare plays, and is a massive Olivier fanboy. Michael Caine's has continued to do good work since the 70s and shows no sign of slowing down. And Jude Law is one lucky bastard, but not an untalented one.
This is a film nerd's dream, the ideal group of people you want involved in a remake of anything - good filmmakers and performers who admire the original, including one of the primary actors ready and willing to have another go at the material. With such big, famous, celebrated names, what could possibly go wrong?
Everything.
I don't doubt for a minute that everyone involved with the 2007 "Sleuth" tried their best and had only good intentions for the film. Parts of it are pretty decent, especially the thirty minutes of the first act - conventional, but solid. And then it all goes to hell. I mentioned before that the second act has one of the great GOTCHA! moments of all time. The remake uses the same trick, except it doesn't work. None of it works, not the performances, not the writing, not even the little technical things that shouldn't have mattered. And then it got worse. I spent a good couple of hours after the movie was over, trying to puzzle out whether it had been badly done on purpose, for some sort of artistic effect, and finally came to the conclusion that it really was as awful as I thought it was. And all four of the guys with their names on the poster are responsible.
Harold Pinter - I've only seen a few of the older films he was involved in, and they don't call his work "comedies of menace" for nothing. He knows how to put these stories and characters together, knows how to get all sorts of complicated emotions out in the open. The trouble is his dialogue, the famous awkward pauses notwithstanding, has seriously fallen behind the times. Michael Caine's character is more or less all right, but some of the stuff that comes out of Jude Law's mouth is nothing you'd hear out of a guy his age in this decade. Moreover, I think Pinter made a mistake removing so much of the really visceral nastiness and unpleasantness of the original. At no point did I think that either of the characters was really being pushed beyond their limits or driven to do things they otherwise wouldn't. Subtlety is all well and good, but not when it undercuts so much of the energy and rawness of the story's emotional core.
Kenneth Branagh - He's probably responsible for the most damage. The original "Sleuth" was set in the old man's country mansion, full of odd clockwork curios, providing a thematically significant backdrop to the fun and games. Branagh's modern update turns the old man's house into a weirdly-lit, sparsely furnished, museum of modern something-or-other. The curios have been replaced by high-tech gadgetry, surveillance cameras, and remote-controlled electronics that provide opportunities to get in plenty of gratuitous fish-eye shots, shots from television monitors, shots from laptop screens, and so on. "Sleuth" has its origins in a theater play of the same name, and the whole thing doesn't take place on more than two or three sets. To make it look cinematic must have been a challenge, but Branagh seriously overcompensates. He never stops pushing these distracting visuals at us, that do nothing to complement any of the performances or the story itself.
Finally the actors are not blameless, though there is every indication that both of them were trying really, really damn hard. Especially Jude Law, who goes so far over the top, he's practically stratospheric. Of course, Olivier also hammed it up in the first "Sleuth," so this isn't a serious transgression in and if itself. The real trouble is that Law and Caine don't seem to be operating on the same wavelength after the first act, when the tricks and the games really kick into gear. Caine plays it so close to the vest, as Law's performance gets more and more outlandish, after a certain point you completely lose suspension of disbelief. They both have their good moments, when the masks slip and some of the inner demons coming smiling through, but there aren't enough, and the facades they throw up against each other aren't nearly as entertaining as they're supposed to be.
"Sleuth" '07 isn't unsalvageable. The third act does get back on track eventually, and there are a few good twists that you never could have had in "Sleuth" '72. I wouldn't mind sitting through a stage version of the new one, just to see if it comes out any better than the film. Right now I can't get my head around how four creative people of this caliber could have put together such a mess. Maybe they were too enamored with each other to adequately check and balance their worst impulses. Maybe this combination of talent just added up to toxic. Maybe it was everything. Maybe it was nothing. It's a mystery far more fascinating that the film itself.
I'm still glad they tried, if nothing else. I still love the original film. And if they want to mount a "Sleuth 2042" when Jude Law finally gives up on his hairline, I'll be happy to watch and obsess over that one too.
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