Mimics

Now, we all know about that one butterfly that looks like a monarch and masquerades around as the monarch because the monarch is poisonous to birds and riding on those coat tails is a one-way ticket to safety in the animal kingdom. What cowardice.

This total abandonment of virtue also exists in the movie world: the plot mimic. A movie so blatantly based on the previously established glory of another movie. For my first witness I call 'every teen movie based on The Taming of the Shrew.'

I understand that things are always changing and the movie crowd is not the same, and if the singing career of Paris Hilton has taught us anything it's that trends are ultimately forgotten, so who will notice if creativity is recycled? I WILL!

Much like all treasured knowledge, the experience of certain epic movies must be passed down to this younger generation vulnerable to the sloppy seconds found on screen today. Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, the Godfather, Monte Python and the Holy Grail all things that must be passed down.

Now, before I progress, I must state for the record that I have low movie going standards. I know it. I succumb easily to boredom and stave it off however I can, and if that means going to see 10,000 BC just because it starts at the time when I need some escapist entertainment, then that's just what needs to be. But this doesn't mean that I don't have a keen eye for quality.

Today I went to see Never Back Down (after seeing 10,000 BC earlier in the morning) for reasons previously stated. Right away I could see the plot mimic and almost feel the makers of the original classic The Karate Kid almost combust in frustration.

Now, you might think the first clue was the very theme of fighting and the main star being a skinny dark-haired kid who was chosen for the part for the sole reason that he looks five years younger than he is, or the fact that this movie begins with the forced relocation of said teen heartthrob by the needs of a family member and led by a single working mother to a sunny tropical paradise and left to his own devices as he deals with the pressures of adapting his down-home American attitude to the high standards of synthetic reality. I've got news for you: it was all of those things.

But while making this realization, the small details of the girlfriend who is forced from the popular circle of the boyfriend who is king of the school and beats up on everyone and finds her way into the arms of the new kid did not escape my attention. One might also say that the viewer could predict even before it happens (and they could) that the new kid takes a liking to this girl right away and incites the anger of his royal high schoolness, the only suitable punishment for which must always be a solid beating and continued torment, the source of which no one will ever find as it is the mystery which makes high school so horrible. And even the shock of this total rip off is no match for use of the archetype of the Mr. Miagi-esque minority sensei (Djimon Hounsou) from a foreign land, possessing unmatched martial arts skill and dealing with his own issues of abandoning his homeland due to a traumatic fighting experience, who takes the new kid under his wing. Predictably, Hounsou takes a liking to him while teaching him how to fight, the end purpose always touted as being passive and never revenge, anger or righteous fury, although those are always the circumstances when said skills find their avenue of expression.

If you thought plagiarism would go unnoticed, then you may have suggested to the writers of this movie that while they were at it, they should stage the climactic face-off between these two titans at a martial arts tournament. Well, your lack of help notwithstanding, they DID IT ANYWAY!!!! Hooray! A balanced formula triumphs again!

Seriously! Now, the first question should really be, "Did you think for a second that we wouldn't know? That we would hear the Karate Kid ring true in our ears and minds as we watched this 2008 remake so obviously geared to those whose t.v. is permanently set to TNA Impact on SpikeTV?"

I understand the desire to refresh old stories and revive great old movies, but gang that is what the celebratory 25th anniversary DVD re-release is for.

Falling slowly...

I will wholeheartedly admit that I am the first in line for summer blockbusters. I've blogged in other places about all the movies I've been excited to see, all the sequels that I'd hoped would be better than their predecessors, all the special effects that would transport me to fantasy worlds and spy espionage and good old fashioned car vs. helicopter blowy-uppy scenes.

But every now and again a film will quietly step out from the shadows and wrap its way around your eyes and ears and heart, leaving you enriched and fulfilled in ways that outlast the flashy sensory overloads of its' far-more-expensive counterparts.



"Once" came highly recommended and Christina and I went to see it on a whim. The story tells of two amateur musicians whose chance street encounter turns into a deeper friendship, told through songs that the actors themselves wrote and performed. It was simple, clean (cinematically speaking, though it's rated R for language, so I cannot with full conscience recommend it to those of you that censor your movie choices), and stripped of the falsities that plague our society today. I didn't even view the actors as 'actors', seeing as they are real life musicians who wrote the songs specifically for the movie, truly fell in love while filming and are currently touring together today. The movie was simply an 82-minute glance into their ongoing lives... It's like those stage shows where a pre-filmed video shows on the screen of the performers doing something bizarre or thrilling, and then suddenly they appear on stage looking like they just came from the screen.

The soundtrack is one of those few that almost outshines the movie itself. I may not vociferously demand that you see the movie, but I DO proclaim that the album is one of my best musical purchases in a long while and I would strongly encourage you to give it a whirl. The title track caught me from the third note and the scene where they learn to play it together was absolutely mesmerizing. There is something about pure, unfettered emotion directed through the medium of music that cuts straight through to the soul and speaks in a way that words never can. The melodies soared and stretched and bent the rules of decorum that the two protagonists couldn't express verbally or physically. As the director himself said, "a three-minute song is worth ten pages of dialogue."

As Rolling Stone reviewed, this was "a gift of a movie" and my life is all the much better for it. It opened in March and is still going strong even today. So now I'm in an indie mood and want to know: what underdog cinematic gems can you recommend to enhance my movie-watching experience??

All's well that ends well

The Bourne Ultimatum, frankly the perfect end to a practically perfect trilogy. I found a refreshing cyclical feel as the final threads were tied off and the whole pattern revealed itself. So often a movie franchise will deviate so far from the original concept that you are almost always left wondering how it came to this. How did things get so far off track? I submit into evidence: Batman. Of course, now with the Christian Bale installment, we’re getting back on track, but still, Joel Schumacher, what faulty model of beer goggles were you sporting when looking at final edits for Batman 3 and 4?

Apologies for the digression, but it had to be said. While I fully concede that it is important to venture beyond the original framework of a movie and delve deeper into the world of fantasy in later chapters that were created with the first movie, it is always nice to be reminded of where you have been and what you’ve experienced as you the viewer accompanies the characters along the way. In this latest part of the story, we find Jason Bourne almost just as we left him, limping along in Moscow, and we can receive a little closure on that end. All too often we find characters at the beginning of a sequel or trilogy months or years later and must be told through plot development what happened in the past. Here, we see exactly what happens step-by-step.

Furthermore, this movie refers on numerous occasions back to the first movie. The plot here centers around an operation called Blackbriar, which for those true Bourne fans (if you didn’t pick up on this instantly, I can hardly in good conscience validate your self-proclamations of ‘die-hard fan’) will evoke memories of Director Abbot giving testimony in front of a Senate oversight committee at the tail end of The Bourne Identity.

One of the greatest connections in my mind is how the scene at the end of The Bourne Supremacy plays out in the third movie where Jason Bourne observes and contacts Pamela Landy in her New York office. This knowledge of this conversation creates some discord at the beginning of the third movie, because Landy states she hasn’t received and information about Bourne sightings after Moscow. This conversation is replayed exactly in the third movie and the viewer receives both closure from the second installment and learns there is much more to the exchange than originally anticipated. This brings these two movies so close together they may as well have been filmed at the same time.

Other connections: Nicki Parsons (Julia Stiles) dies her hair dark brown and cuts it off in chunks exactly like Bourne did to Maria in the first movie. Bourne looks at an assassin and says, “Look at this. Look at what they make you give,” a word-for-word repetition of Clive Owen’s last words to Bourne before his death in The Bourne Identity. Bourne jumps into the East river in NYC and is seen floating lifeless just like the very beginning of the first movie.

When all is said and done, we find ourselves with both an in-depth knowledge of Jason Bourne and the world he was trying to remember and escape from at the same time and a clear view back to the beginning of this journey through these connections. As my friend Cheryl said on the car ride home, “It’s definitely a guy movie, but a great one.”

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

It's about time for another post, wouldn't you say?

So, if you haven't seen the latest film addition to the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, then you're missing out. Get off your lazy behind and go see it!! The fifth movie in the series is by far the best adaptation of the books to date. It logically condenses all of the necessary information into one action-packed, slightly eerie 2 hr. 18 min. tale of the ever-increasing hostilities between the forces of good and evil. One of my favorite aspects of this particular tale is that it asks the question, are the "good guys" really always good?...and vice versa. (Something to keep in mind as you read the very last installment to the HP written saga. Don't worry, I'm not giving anything away you hadn't already considered. Oh, and if you haven't gotten your copy of book 7 yet...WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! Get with the program, people!!)

Before I go into the question more, I have to hightlight a few of my favorite things about the movie.

1. Any scene containing Snape (Alan Rickman). He can communicate more with his terse delivery ("I may vomit." - in response to seeing a touching memory between Harry & Sirius during an Occlumency lesson) than many actors can with pages of dialogue! My favorite of his lines was in Umbridge's office after Harry and friends had been captured trying to escape to the Ministry of Magic.

Harry Potter: [to Snape] He's got Padfoot! He's got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden!
Dolores Umbridge: Padfoot? What is Padfoot? And where what's hidden? What is he talking about Snape?
Severus Snape: [pause] No idea.

Two words, people. Mad skills. The end.

2. I found Dolores Umbridge, portrayed by Imelda Staunton, deliciously evil in her sugar-coated villainy. Granted, the character is even more odious in the books, but Staunton does such a gratifying job of being simultaneously sweet and completely menacing. Her little giggle is perfect. Watch the trailer and get a glimpse of what I mean. Marvelous villainy.


Okay and one more...

3. My third favorite scenes involved our newest addition, Luna Lovegood. Say what you will, but I found her much more endearing in the film than I did in the 5th book. Well done Evanna Lynch! Her dreamy speech pattern and yet startlingly perceptive comments were very well delivered.

Okay, now on to my other question. Two of the three things that I loved about this movie were the villains. Has that ever happened to you? Ever find yourself being more intrigued with the "bad guy" or "bad girl", as it were, more than w/ the hero/heroine? Who are your favorite villains and villainesses from your childhood? (Thanks Kengey for the idea. Hee!)

I will list in no apparent order:

• Maleficent (again, thanks AK for the idea) from Sleeping Beauty She really is all that embodies villainy and evil...and she says 'hell' in a Disney movie!! She seriously scared the snot out of me as a kid.
  
• MCP - Yes, I just named Master Control Program from Tron. Deal. I love that movie and he and Ed Dillinger/Sark make one big, bad, evil, electronic dude.
• Judd Fry - Oklahoma. He was icky, ooky, creepy to the extreme, but there was also something truly pitiable about him. He must have had a sad, sad childhood, poor bloke.
• Jareth the Goblin King - Labyrinth. Aside from my (some call it strange) obsession with David Bowie, this character is another that you want to love. He is oily and evil and sneaky, but something about him makes you want to "Just fear [him], love [him], do as [he] says..." so that "[he] will be your slave." Okay, truly creepy. Moving on...
• Can't we just throw Snape in here? Again. Misunderstood evil guy. Don't believe me? Google Snape and just see how much fan fiction there is out there written from the POV that he is actually warm and fuzzy. Try and count the number of fan clubs that he has! Okay, he doesn't do it for me...I draw the line a weird, creepy goblin kings, but he is a great nemesis! Such venom in his words. Marvelous stuff!
• G'mork & The Nothing - The Neverending Story. I must have seen this movie like a thousand times as a kid, but I flinched EVERY time G'mork jumped for Atreyu and was impaled on his knife. I think I had nightmares about great, black dogs (grims?). And the nothing? A great big nothing that simply consumes all it comes into contact with until it no longer exists? Tell me that isn't scary! A nameless, faceless villain is one of the worst around.
  

Okay, that's enough for now. What did you think of HP5? Who are your favorite villains from your childhood? Bring it on.

Yippie Ki-yay...

Another weekend, another twelve potential blockbuster openings. Appointments have already been set to see Pixar's latest offering, Ratatouille (and if someone else wants to report back when we're done, take the reins) but today, I wanted to pontificate on the quintessential American hero.

This post is inspired mostly in part by the opening of Bruce Willis' latest action installment, Live Free or Die Hard... The genre focuses on the archetypal 'Lone Ranger'; a solo act, thrust unwillingly into the melee of action, who single handedly saves the day, throwing out (hopefully) amusing verbal quips and many well-placed punches along the way. Seeing as I'm a girl, and sometimes a girly girl at that, I have no expert grounding upon which to found my views on said manly men. Neither do I post this in a hate-boy, cynical "where are all the REAL manly men?!" matter. I only wish to tip my hat to those down-and-dirty guys that you trust will always win the fight. These are the men who are the most comfortable in dusty khaki, but if necessary, will don the impeccably tailored Italian suits (there, that's my girly side coming out, to show off their physiques that were acquired not by gym memberships, but pure chasing down the bad guys and beating them to pulps, hanging off mile-high beams, running after cars, etc.), but only as a means to an end, because the Italian suit usually ends up tattered and shredded by the end of whatever scene in which he donned it.

My addition to making these men "true" heroes is the smidgen of humanity they display... because face it, I am a girl, and girls relate to humans they can actually converse with, or share some sort of empathy/affinity for anything. I'm not talking about gratuitous 'womanizing', but actual, real emotion.

In no particular order:

Because Bruce Willis inspired this post, he comes first. The more I see him, the more I like him. He's one of those guys that is hugely famous but yet under the radar? You don't see him doing stupid things in tabloids (not very often, anyway) and a guy who can pull off both dead psychiatrist and John McClane and keep that calm aura about him when cavorting with his ex-wife and husband-half-his-age demands my respect. There's something about the way he wields a gun that makes you just trust that whatever happens, even if he has no shoes and has to walk across a room of broken glass, he's gonna get you out alive. My favorite Bruce Willis movie is The Fifth Element. The entire movie is completely wacky and unbelievable... except for Bruce. Even with his bleached blond hair. There are, for sure, better Bruce Willis movies out there, but that is my one guilty pleasure.

He is quite capable of 'humanizing' moments, but my favorite in that movie is his watching the opera performance. His face is positively captivated and illuminated, by something he may have not had much exposure to, completely oblivious to Chris Tucker in a rose-infested unitard next to him (yes, I just said rose-infested unitard). You believe that this guy is capable of deep, introspective musings on the meaning of life, and not just killing the next alien. Well you know. Sort of. The best parts are still when he rounds the corner with space guns blasting.

Indiana Jones. I was going to say "Harrison Ford", but his real-life personality sort of creeps me out... from making romantic movies with homosexual women to dating a human popsicle stick way too young for him (and breathing really hard in all his movies), Harrison is a tad bit weird... but I love Indiana. Don't worry, I fully respect Han Solo and Jack Ryan and Dr. Richard Kimble. Indiana though... The fedora! The whip! And then the "professor of archaeology" side that proves he also happens to be intellectually brilliant, and a preserver of anthropological history? Unbeatable combination. Plus, all the quotable lines from the third movie (that happens to include another manly archetype, Sean Connery, for whom I'll allow you to wax poetic, I'm running short of socially acceptable blogging space) make Indiana ("You are named after the DOG?!") a true American hero.

His 'softer' side is a little more rough around the edges, but you can sense his concern when he's trying to save a greedy Elsa from grabbing the Holy Grail. Ditto when the tables are turned and Sean utters a soft "Indiana. Let it go." Both men exhibit what I shall call the "aww" factor.

Daniel Craig's 007. I just watched Casino Royale for the first time a few weeks ago, after hearing for months that it was fantastic. I'm always up for a slick, clean, fun movie (see "Gilroy" blog entry), which is what James Bond had sort of morphed into with Pierce Brosnan, but I had gotten a little tired of him. His Bond was always clean; even with a 'tattered' tuxedo you felt like they were spritzing his face with distilled mountain water and cologne between takes. But Daniel Craig! From the opening chase scene where you could tell that he was really leaping from building to building, and that yes, it hurt but he did it anyway, to the brutal torture scene (men, if you've seen it, you know, and if you haven't, you might want to fast forward it), Daniel Craig is a manly man through and through. And yes, his perfectly fitted tuxedo suit was utterly hot, but you believed that it was real blood on it later, when he came back and displayed his "aww" scene by sitting with the damsel in real distress under the spray of the shower, for however long it would take.

Will Smith. So okay, maybe this guy is on every girl's "He's so hot, I'm gonna marry him" list, but it probably wasn't for the Fresh Prince that did it. The role probably did, however, help hone his impeccable comedic timing, which is a killer combination with his mostly rough-and-rugged roles. He's coming out with some movie soon; the title of which I don't even know, but my friend leaned to me in the theater and whispered "Will Smith and sci-fi? I'm so in." He comes out of the fights a little cleaner and less brutalized than the above characters, but he definitely has the best lines. ("Ship all baaanged up... I could have been at a barbecue!!!" "Mazel tov, it's a boy...")

I'm trying to think of "aww" moments in his action movies, but the visual that keeps popping up in my mind is his portrayal of Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness, the night he spends with his son in the subway bathroom and the pain he's enduring. So maybe his action heroes don't cry (that I know of, anyway) but that enough proves his emotional capacity.

My final props is to MacGyver. Just because I posted this and it's my prerogative. Mullet and all.

I know I skipped the classic archetypes (Humphrey, Eastwood, etc.) but I haven't had much personal exposure to them. Please, enlighten me on all that I've been missing, and feel free to add to the list, both past and present heroes alike!!

Meanwhile, I'll be off watching Die Hard with a bunch of manly men...

Holy Rusted Metal Batman!

Deep and complex runs the bond between leading men and women in the paradigm that is the blockbuster movie of today. Often the success of a movie rides solely on the chemistry that exists between two leading characters, witty scripts and great cinematography be damned.

The other day I was watching the Wedding Singer and was struck by the relationship between Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. I was watching it and wondered why they felt they could pull off a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan level relationship and team up again in 50 First Dates. While the phenomenon of the Adam Sandler movie is surely a crowd pleaser, it doesn’t strike me as appealing to as wide an audience as a Tom/Meg movie, and their on-screen chemistry far outstrips any feigned interest Drew can conjure up vis-à-vis Adam Sandler. (Although Meg annoys me. Her characters never seem to know what they want.) Surely Sandler can act attracted to her, cuz frankly for any normal man…it ain’t acting. Although, that's not to say I wasn't convinced that she was into him. Drew is perky and fun and she did win me over. This got me thinking. What other great on-screen couples are there and what makes them so interesting to watch?

My first thoughts turned to:


Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Honestly, could dancing be any more riveting? They just make me want to jump out of my seat and embrace my inner coordination...sadly, I when I reached for it, I fell flat on my face. I guess I'll have to live vicariously through Fred.




Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau. Seriously now, I’m not sure there are two men that know each other as well as these two did, or could play off one another as well. Grumpy Old Men? Are you kidding me? Their banter? HILARIOUS!




What are the on-screen couples worth mentioning in your mind?

Where do *I* get a Gilroy??

The point of this blog was to discuss all things cinematic, and when it was created I had originally imagined we, the fruity soap panel, sitting around in a lovely, dramatically (yet warmly) lit drawing room, drinking Martinelli's, eating truffles (chocolate ones, not wrinkly mushrooms dug up by pigs) and dissecting the most recent cinematic offerings with scathing wit, humor, and insight.

Instead, I'm sitting in front of my desk surrounded by DMV documents that I still haven't worked up enough motivation to actually fill out and turn in, and sopping wet from my trek home in a rainstorm following my ex-roommate's culinary graduation. The graduation was worth it, the rain wasn't. No Martinelli's, no truffles, but I did just finish consuming (with alarming rapidity) a large bowl of Double Chocolate Cookie Crisp cereal, purchased on discontinued discount, so I'm ready to go.

With permission from all members of the blog who have seen the movie, I submit my entry on this past weekend's blockbuster sequel, Ocean's 13. I purposely went in without having read any reviews so as not to bias whatever my own opinion of the movie may be. I found it to be very similar in style to Ocean's 11, (is it Ocean's 11 or Ocean's Eleven? Ocean's 13 or Ocean's Thirteen?) which I absolutely adored. You as movie goers can decide whether or not that's a good thing, depending on whether you liked the first movie. It was slick, it was clean, it was predictably surprising (the one line I did love from 12/Twelve was when Linus is busted out of jail and whines "Aw, you told Dad about this? I can't believe it. Now it's always gonna be, hey, remember the time we had to meh meh meh, meh meh meh...")

The one thing I DO take away from this movie is, what exactly IS a Gilroy, and most importantly, how do I get one of these little magic patches of pheremones?!??!??!

I have to say though, the main reason I liked this movie (and the first one) is the seamlessness of the ensemble cast. The point of a movie with twelve (or more) incredibly famous actors is to give each one a unique personality and then flaunt it shamelessly and predictably. You know by now that Brad is going to be eating in every scene, that somehow the Chinese acrobat only speaks Mandarin and everyone understands him (which makes it sort of ridiculous for me, because I'm hearing "I can't do it! The elevators are too fast!" Brad: "You can't do it because the elevators are too fast?" Right. We got that the first time. Well. I got that, anyway...), that the "Mormon" twins ("I think you'd really dig Provo") are going to be stupid and muck things up, yet still somehow get away with it, and most of all, that even though the actual reality of the premise is completely ludicrous, you still find yourself cheering at the end of the day when everything falls into place and they get away with the millions upon millions of dollars.

This is why ensemble movies work. Like glamorized sitcoms, you come to love each individual character (or despise them, depending on how they're written) and you take comfort in the familiarity of their personalities. It doesn't even really matter what they're doing, because you're not watching the movie plot as much as their mostly-meant-to-be-funny-wink-wink interactions. This is why they work, and also why they are so easily bankable. The Italian Job! The Brazilian Job! What's next, the Floridian Job? They don't even need catchy titles. X-Men, X-Men II, X-Men III... I'll be the first to admit I went to see the third, not for plot premise, but for another look at those amazing hair-wings and gnarly knuckles of Wolverine. Who cares what he did with them, as long as he was doing it. Which was good, cause the plot sucked. Every time Enemy of the State is on I have to watch it, simply for the Seth Green/Barry Pepper scenes.

So. Ocean's 13 was fun, I'd recommend it, and now I pose to you: what is your favorite ensemble movie and why? And/or also, which is your favorite ensemble character? I do have to say I adore Ocean's 11 (and by the way, Ocean's 13 had one SWEET soundtrack), but my favorite character of all time is Seth Green. No, he's not a 'character actor'; he blatantly plays the exact same guy in all of his movies. But I LOVE the guy he plays. "I now command YOU to turn left. And you did. You did." "Wow, somebody tell this guy he's suffering from a serious vitamin deficiency here..." He knows what his strengths are and he caters to them. I'd almost date him... if he weren't two inches shorter than me.

Thoughts?