I swear I'll be finished taking the piss out of THE DARK KNIGHT some day...

The following is in response to Josh Tyler's Editorial Note To Awards Givers: Ignore The Dark Knight At Your Own Peril.  I posted this as a comment on the editorial, but since it hasn't gone live yet, I can only assume that they denied my democratic right to call their editor-in-chief an idiot on his own website.  Who knows, maybe it takes them a day or two to post something... In the meantime, though.

Tyler, your infantile little diatribe demonstrates the worst (and best) thing about the democratizing effect of the internet: everybody gets a say.  There's nothing you wrote here that isn't inherently flawed on even the most basic logical level, but I’m going to try to limit my response only to the most egregiously stupid things you’ve written. 

First of all, someone needs to set you straight on a concept you’ve clearly misunderstood, the function of the critic.  A critic has three jobs: be an expert in film (or at least more expert than their audience), watch movies, and report their opinions.  That expertise is why we seek their recommendation, NOT to get our opinions validated, our tastes reflected, or our (your) obsessive praise of a so-called "cultural phenomenon" justified.  Film critics (the real ones) tell us what’s good, mass appeal be damned.  

Sometimes the difference between “good” and popular creates a disparity between the critic and the public, but that’s not the indicator of irrelevance that people like you make it out to be.  The big difference between a critic’s top pick and the average movie-goer’s is that a critic sees hundreds of movies over the course of a year, while the average person sees maybe ten.  When these two groups make such sweeping statements as “best of the year,” whose is going to hold more weight?  My point is that when we seek a recommendation from a critic, someone who has seen so many more movies than we could possibly have the time to, we should expect the highest-achieving movie and not the highest-grossing. 

Does that mean that critics are out of touch?  Maybe, but sometimes that's part of their job description.  People don't need critics to tell them what they'll like - they already know what they like!  The most important function of the critic is to help advance cultural tastes by making us aware of better movies.  What you call championing pet films, I call the betterment of our national intelligence. 

As for awards, I’d think that someone who writes about movies for a living would’ve learned by now to completely disregard the Golden Globes.  You’re doing your readership a disservice by making the Globes out to be something that actually matters.  Even the Oscars, which are Nobels by comparison, don’t mean a damn thing.  Awards and nominations are political, signifying only how hard-fought a PR campaign was, not how good the movie was.  And if they award the “wrong” movie (as they always do), so what?  CITIZEN KANE was all but shut out at the Oscars and it’s still considered one of the greatest movies ever made.  So relax, man; if your movie finds an audience (and I think THE DARK KNIGHT has a fair chance of doing so), it’ll be remembered regardless of how many statues it takes home. 

Speaking of THE DARK KNIGHT… I get that you love it a lot, in probably a gawkish, fanboy sort of way that might be endearing if you weren't trying to cover it up with posturing indignation, but here’s the thing: when you make a grand statement defending a movie’s position in history, and that movie just happened to make a billion dollars worldwide, you look foolish.  If you were rallying support for a tragically under-seen and critically overlooked gem, I might understand.  But instead you appoint yourself the champion of not only the highest-grossing movie of the year, but also one of the best reviewed?!  What makes you think this movie needs defending? 

And that’s another thing: you admit that THE DARK KNIGHT is one of the best reviewed movies of the year, but then slam critics for failing to recognize it.  Did I properly illustrate the gaping incongruity in your statements here?  Critics DID review the movie very favorably, yet you’re still whining.  Just because it hasn’t made all of the critic’s ten-best lists** doesn’t mean it’s getting unfairly shut out; they just disagree with you.  That’s why we have more than one film critic in America – hell, that’s why most newspapers and movie sites employ more than one critic – because ultimately film criticism is a matter of taste. 

Maybe you should change jobs, Tyler, since your skills lie not in film criticism (or composing sound arguments) but in film prognostication.  Think of it!  You could corner the market on predicting what movies will become cultural landmarks, and you could do it without the burden of hindsight or taste!  Sarcasm aside, the movie ISN’T a cultural phenomenon; it just made a boatload of money.  Heath Ledger’s Joker, on the other hand, was a brilliant characterization that captured the imaginations of the movie-going public.  That said, I think the popularity of both the character and the movie are riding more on our nation’s fascination with celebrity death than the quality of either.      

THE DARK KNIGHT isn’t going to change the face of cinema as we know it.  In fact, aside from popularizing the use of IMAX cameras in action movies, I can’t see it having much of an impact on movie-making at all.  Any impact it does have, of course, won’t be comparable to the huge influence STAR WARS had on Hollywood - for the record, that influence was a bad one.  (Regarding STAR WARS and ANNIE HALL at the Oscars, by the way: one of them had sharp dialogue, a terrific cast, a memorable screen romance, and a brilliant director with his finger on the pulse of the culture at the time.  The other one was STAR WARS.  That year, the Oscars got it right.)  

As for THE DARK KNIGHT itself, I can’t say that I share your enthusiasm for the movie, or for the prospect of it becoming the “new mold from which all future movies will be poured.”  But to dispute you point for point on the movie’s qualities at the end of a post defending pluralism would be hypocritical of me, though I have to ask: will the future movies forged in the great mold of THE DARK KNIGHT also be structurally retarded with a nonsensical plot and a tin-ear for dialogue?  

Great site, by the way.

 

*In case you were pondering a retort to that remark, NO, that isn't true of you, unless your site's readership is made up of eight-year-olds.  And from the other comments I’ve read, it isn’t.

** Also, I like how you conveniently ignored DARK KNIGHT’S runner-up win for the LA Critics’ Best Picture – a prize Nolan & Co. came in second to yet another pretentious independent movie that nobody saw: WALL-E.  Yup, you sure are right about that critical bias against box office heavies.

WHY SO SERIOUS? or, How I Learned to Stop Complaining and Love THE DARK KNIGHT

Another quick one, though this time lacking the A.D.D. that I'm now convinced I have - actually going to see a doctor for it, too!  Hope they accept my humble admission of mental dysfunction and don't just write me off as a smooth talkin' drug-seeker.  Anyway...

Last night I briefly hit upon a topic that's been bugging me ever since THE DARK KNIGHT came out to absurdly-high critical praise and popular adoration - actually, rewind it back; it's been bugging me since before the movie even came out, when people were handicapping the odds of Heath, based solely on his terrific, scene stealing performance in the movie's trailer, winning a posthumous Oscar: completely irrational love for what is ultimately only a Batman movie.*

Okay, lemme put my thing down.  THE DARK KNIGHT is a good movie.  It's terribly entertaining and endlessly exciting, to the point of being draining.  The movie has some memorable action and is a more realistic and timely treatment of superhero characters than audiences have seen previously.  There are some great (and not so great) performances in the movie, including of course the genuinely brilliant turn by Heath Ledger that would be regarded as an instant screen classic if he were still alive today... and that's all.  Yet apparently here I diverge with much of the rest of America, both the public and the critics.  

The movie's now out on DVD, and if you're under 25 and came into my store to get it, you're probably one of the throngs who've excitedly told me that it's either A. the best movie of the year, B. the best movie you've ever seen, or C. the best movie of all time.**  So there's that.  Then the LA Film Critics Association named THE DARK KNIGHT it's runner-up for best picture of the year, second to WALL-E, a slightly less dubious choice.  While these are only representative of one age bracket and one critics group, they're in line with the overall response to the film: it's rated 98% fresh on RottenTomatoes.com, which means critics all but universally thought it was good, and it made seven and a half gagillion*** dollars at the box office, which means the public ate that shit up.  

Why, you might ask, does a good movie's extraordinary success and popularity bother me so?  Certainly it's not because I'm a cantankerous fucker who likes to hate on what's in.  Most certainly not!  Yeah, so I'm in the minority thinking that THE DARK KNIGHT'S not as hot as e'rebody else does.  Get over it, right?

It wouldn't bug me as much (though certainly it would still bug me) if I didn't think that people are gonna wake up in five years and go, "eww, what was I thinking?"  Critics especially, but real people, too.  And that's just with the hype-praise level at it's current; I can only imagine the kind of cultural morning after we'll have if the movie wins a fucking Oscar.   

Assuming that you follow and agree with me thus far... that's a pretty huge assumption to make at this point, isn't it?  Okay fine, here are my top reasons (briefly posited) for why the movie isn't nearly as good as most folks think it is:

• It's bloated.  You can easily cut two subplots and about 20 minutes of the movie without losing anything but length.  
• Like its predecessor, the movie features dialogue consisting mostly of characters explaining the themes and their symbolic roles.
• The central love story fails miserably due to lack of screen-and-script chemistry, while the rival love story flourishes due the presence of both.  
• Chris Nolan still can't shoot a fight, which is kind of important in a movie about a dude who beats the piss out of people in most of his scenes.
•  The script aims for a five-act structure, instead feels like a typical three-act with a fat ass that should've been a sequel.
• The big action finale (which is kind of a requirement in these kinds of movies) is a complete fizzle.****
• Any kind of scrutiny over the plot reveals gaping holes in both logic and motivation.
• Christian Bale sucks the life out of almost every scene he's in.

And still, despite all of these flaws, the combination of which should be fatal, the movie still works.  More so, I like it an awful lot, certainly more than I think it deserves, and it's among my favorite movies of the year.  Yet other people love it, a lot, and that shit rubs me raw.   So once again, assuming that you follow and agree with me thus far, why are people nutting over such a flawed film?  

Oh right.  'Cause of the dead guy.

As I wrote last night, there's a "bizarrely morbid loyalty" to Heath Ledger that not only prevents people from seeing, or wanting to see, the movie's flaws, but further enables and inspires them to say such absurd things as "it's the best movie ever made."  I say that the loyalty is bizarre because I honestly don't know where it came from.  What the hell movies of Heath Ledger's has a 15-year old making such bold proclamations seen?  I like A Knight's Tale and hear that 10 Things I Hate About You is pretty good, but I don't think those two performances are enough to endear Ledger to the young public so, and I feel like it's safe to assume that they haven't seen him deny Jake Gyllenhaal a reach-around, or that they'd have liked the movie if they had.  

But let's not limit this to the young.  I've had several adults tell me that Ledger gives his best performance as the Joker, but when asked admit to not having seen BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, NED KELLY, TWO HANDS, CANDY or I'M NOT THERE.  Shit, aside from the first and last, I haven't seen any of the movies on that list, but I'm not about to go and proclaim one of the guys performances his "best" without seeing his whole body of work.   

Why was there a period of national mourning after Ledger died?  Were people really upset to have to say goodbye to that good-looking dude from THE ORDER?  Were they upset that they'd no longer see his smiling face in (new) photos on the cover of US WEEKLY under some scandalous and humiliating headline?  I'm not saying that there weren't people who were genuinely upset that the guy died - he had a family after all  (though they were mostly forgotten while America grieved its fallen star) and genuine fans and admirers, among them a ton of gay people who valued the symbolism of his performance and nomination for BROKEBACK.  But these weren't the teeming masses who cried over their collector's editions of Entertainment Weekly while gossiping about the possible Olsen twin connection.     

And then THE DARK KNIGHT came out, and through the magic of the movies (and an 8-month post-production period), Heath was somehow back on screens, delighting us once more with another maladjusted hunk with a quirky voice.  And that tore the proverbial band-aid off the wound of our tragic loss, and the mourning began again, this time fused with that performance and that movie and that moment.  It was significant.  Like 9/11 for another generation, only sadder.  The movie helped America grieve, accept and let go, only further cementing its status as a titan of populist cinema and the greatest film moment of 2008.

...until a few years later, when everybody realizes that Batman's 3D-sonar-vision was really fucking lame, and that he sounded like a chain-smoking retard with difficulty enunciating.   

*Yes, that was only one sentence.  Yes, it is grammatically and puntuationally correct.  Yes, it took multiple drafts.      

**I'm guessing that "D. all of the above" is kind of assumed when one says something as all-encompassing as C, but then again the people who said "B" tend to think it's synonymous with "A."  Logic and reasoning are not their strong suits.

***Y'know, for as much as I like hyperbolically inflating the gross like that, it's somehow more shocking to cite the real number: $500+ million.  Or, the scarier way: half a fucking bil.  

****I can abide a fizzle-ending in IRON MAN for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that that movie didn't make me wait seven fucking hours to get to the end.  

CINEMATIC QUICKIES

Because I've got two long-ass pontificatory posts in the works, I'm going to err on the side of brevity for the forseeable future and crank out some knuckle children of bullet pointery.

• TERMINATOR SALVATION teaser trailer is up, and I'm a little ashamed to be excited by it.  With the mediocrity/franchise blasphemy that was T3 almost gone from memory, it's a lot easier to get jazzed about a movie chronicling the robot war to end all robot wars - yeah that's right Watchowskis, Terminators kick Matrix-sentinel ass any day of the week.
• Yes, I know the preceeding bullet point was incessently nerdy without any redeeming value.  Suck it up.
• THE DARK KNIGHT on Blu-Ray (since I passed on seeing it in IMAX) is a revelation of picture clarity.  The fidelity of image is really staggering, and I found myself more involved in the proceeding simply because everything filmed in IMAX just seemed to be happening before my eyes.
• THE DARK KNIGHT upon multiple viewings, on the other hand, completely fucking implodes.  Wanna test me?  Work your way backwards through any of The Joker's plans in the film and see if you can find anything resembling logic.  The movie's narrative demonstrates the kind of deductive reasoning seen regularly (and sublimely) on CSI: MIAMI, except here it's supposed to be taken seriously.  
• AUSTRALIA.  Not a great movie.  Maybe not even a very good one, I'm not sure yet, but I loved every second of it.  There's plenty to nitpick (and regular-pick) at, but overall I loved the movie for its exuberant movieness and urge to please.  The thing is entertaining on just about every level, even if it's only satisfying visually and viscerally.  Certainly worth seeing, and definitely worth your admission price to see on the big screen.  GO!  Baz needs your help.
• RED is a really trite concept for a movie that at every turn avoids triteness, sometimes at the last minute.  The movie leads the audience (perhaps intentionally) to expect the contrived, and again defies expectations by delivering a really terrific, nuanced character in the form of Brian Cox's Avrey Ludlow.  Every time I felt the movie careening towards a disastrous cliff of shallow sentimentality and cartoonish motivations, it surprised me by resisting the temptation that might've derailed a lesser film.  RED is a really terrific little indie thriller, which I've intentionally avoided describing so that you'll watch it cold.  Check it out (Netflixers, it's available to stream for free).
• Oscar hype continues to build around THE DARK KNIGHT.  Shudder.  Shit bums me out that Heath's going to get nominated for being dead and not for being good.  
• On that topic, I've come to the conclusion, after realizing that THE DARK KNIGHT is a terribly exciting movie that uses tension and speed to convince (at least for a while) its viewer to oversee or ignore its vast array of fatal flaws, that the people that do think that the movie's genuinely great* only say so out of some bizarrely morbid loyalty to Heath.  Lousy starfuckers.  More thoughts on that later (but probably not).

*Great in the David Lean**, Stanley Kubrick sense, not the (more enjoyable) Sylvester Stallone sense.

**Right there?  I just name-dropped a filmmaker who's movies I've never seen, in a footnote no less.  Whatta twat I am.

Be Thankful, Honkey Grandmas!

A few quick thoughts while I quietly ponder being thankful for nationally-endorsed gluttony and watch a House, M.D. marathon on USA (do they really need to advertise the new season of The Starter Wife every fucking c-break?  I wasn't going to watch the show after the first 70 commercials, but now that I'm all but convinced that it's Entourage by way of Sex and the City, I'd rather commit ritual suicide via turkey sandwiches than watch that refried shit).  

• Watched The X-Files: I Want to Believe, wishing desperately that I didn't.  I wanted so bad for all the reviews to be wrong, or even right so long as I could enjoy the show as a warm, nostalgic throwback to a seminal show from my upbringing.  Fortunately and unfortunately, the critics were wrong: the movie isn't just bad, it's boring as hell.  The plot, which is too convoluted and nonsensical to be recalled, includes kidnapping, psychics, pedophilia and surgical head transplants, and was STILL boring!  Seeing Mulder and Scully onscreen certainly helped the movie, and the two leads slip back into those two characters effortlessly, but the script fails to provide either one of them anything interesting to do, say or stand peripheral to.  Very, very disappointing.
• Hancock.  Somewhere on the editing room floor is a watchable version of this movie, but it sure as hell isn't the one they put out on DVD, regardless of which version you pick up (the "unrated extended cut" is 10-minutes longer than the theatrical DVD, but the movie needs a hell of a lot more than 10-minutes to fix what ails it).  Will Smith is expectedly terrific, and Jason Bateman is flawless in a fairly dull role, though his mentally-retarded fiance from Arrested Development (Charlize Theron) is, well, mentally retarded here.  Also, hot.  The movie's based around a great idea that's executed very poorly - the only thing worse than the script are the visual effects, which must be hands down the ugliest and least convincing CGI since anything in anything Stephen Sommers ever directed.*  Assume that the best parts of the movie are in the trailer (they are) and skip it.
• Finally, Warner Bros. has started their big Oscar push for The Dark Knight, and not just for Heath Ledger.  Though the movie's terrific score (the one nomination that I wouldn't begrudge the film) has been disqualified by the Academy for having too many credited composers and editors, WB is undaunted, apparently pushing to get the thing a Best Picture nomination.

Seriously?  I understand that Ledger's nomination was sewed up while his body was still warm, but Best Picture?  I can't even put into words how much that irks my shit.  More on that later, for certain.  In the mean time, here's a look at WB's "For Your Consideration" poster for Heath.  As a sidenote, can I get people on board with the idea of replacing oxycontin's popular euphamism "hillbilly heroin" with the more timely, popularly-insensitive "Heath heroin?"  I think it's catchy.  Thoughts?

   

*Excluding Deep Rising, of course.

Lazy ass returns to posting! Also, QUANTUM OF SOLACE semi-review.

Goodness, is it ever easy to lose track of time and ignore one of these things, especially when one is burdened with my debilitating lack of focus on, dedication to or interest in anything.  Alas, Poor Yorick (that's what I call the blog*), you'll have to learn to live with neglect, just like my bookshelf, running shoes and exercise equipment.

Anyway, a few thoughts, observations, opinions and ruminations.

Quantum of Solace.  I'm sure anyone with an interest has already either 1. seen the movie or 2. read a review of it, but goddamnit you're here for a reason, and it certainly isn't my stylish prose.  A friend told me he liked the laid-back tone to the thing, that it was just there to say "Hey everybody, I'm a fucking James Bond movie, remember how fun these can be?"  I think making that argument in the movie's defense is just as lame as Ebert saying he enjoyed Kingdom of the Crystal Prairie Dog because it felt like Indy was in the seat next to you, laughing knowingly.  Quantum of Solace isn't a winking throwback to the old-school style of Bond's heyday in the '60s, it's a regressive slump back into his dreadful outings in the 90s. 

I say that and I actually liked the movie.  The new movie continues the relaunched series' trend of ripping off the Bourne films as much as possible, but that's a good thing.  Bourne (mostly the sequels, though props to Doug Liman for setting the standard that Greengrass so brilliantly expanded, contracted and perfected) has been the best thing to happen to action movies since Die Hard (why not) , so why shouldn't the all-but-dead (creatively) Bond franchise adopt and absorb Matt Damon's kinetic fights and foot chases and hyper-real no nonsense tone?  Of course, I'd rather future Bond-helmer's were a little less transparent in their "homage" to Jason B. than director Marc Forster is here.  We have all the requisite Bourne beats: super-fast hand-to-hand combat that becomes knife vs. (insert random weaponizable object), hectic foot chases, a hectic foot chase across rooftops, an agent on the run from "the good guys," and emotional impotence.   You might contest that the James Bond character has always been emotionally impotent, but at least he always got laid; this go 'round, the dude only nails one of the two wicked hot Bond girls, and has absolutely zero chemistry with the neglected one, despite an obligatory kiss at the end.  

Really though, I liked the movie!  (Okay, I'm going to get through the next paragraph without saying anything negative...)  There really is plenty to like here.  With the exception of a fucking horrific boat chase and an absurd fight amidst an inexplicably** exploding hotel at the finale, the action is terrific here, even better than in Casino Royale.  Marc Forster has a nice eye for shooting action (actually I think he borrowed one of Paul Greengrass's), making for one of the better looking Bond films.  More importantly, Forster keeps things moving along quickly, never letting (most) audiences notice how crushingly drama-free the movie's A-to-B-to-C plot is.  On the topic of the screenplay (staying positive), we're two movies in now and I feel like Paul Haggis' highly publicized re-writes were for dialogue only (which remains as sharp as last time), never actually tackling the dreadful structure of the Craig-era scripts. 

Really, I was trying to be positive.  

Still, Forster smartly uses the movie's not so secret secret weapon: it's star.  If Daniel Craig owned Casino Royale, then he fucking whips the shit out of Quantum of Solace and puts it to work in the goddamn fields.  The guy is the ONLY thing keeping this movie from falling to fucking pieces.  He's so good in this part that he's able to cobble together a slight character arc from nothing, expressed only through his performance.  The script gives him nothing, and Craig makes nothingade.  If you see it (or have seen it), just consider where Bond is emotionally at the beginning and the end of the film, and show me where that's developed in anything other than Craig's eyes.  

For what the script fails to achieve in plotting or character, it succeeds in giving James Bond his first ever complex world view.  The movie all but abandons the franchise's traditional cartoon villains and broad-stroke international landscape, instead opting for shades of gray all over.  There's a neat (if wholly unoriginal) twist where the Americans turn out to GASP! be in bed with shady mother fuckers (the titular "Quantum," which itself has nothing to do with any solace) in exchange for oil.  Nothing new, I know, but it was fun was watching M discover that the Brits are just as cock-hungry for oil as the movies' new go-to villain, the CIA.  The whole thing dies when Quantum's inane plan is finally (and poorly) revealed, but it was nice to see James Bond grow up just a little bit. 

Yes, I've completely failed to be a helpful reviewer, especially since I've done nothing but rag on a movie I really did like.  The action kicks ass (even if James Bond has discovered super-human strength), Craig rules, the supporting cast is way better than the script deserves and the movie offers more to chew on than Bond flicks usually do, though far less than the superior Bourne sequels.  It's still a huge step backwards from the refreshingly character-driven Casino Royale, but Quantum of Solace delivers the bare minimum of a Bond film: action, espionage, and Bond.  We could do worse.    

*Because its occasionally resurrected from a filthy grave and gazed upon mournfully.  Obviously.

**At least, it would be inexplicable in an older Bond film, but this more grounded take on 007 feels the need to explain to the audience why the building is perpetually exploding, even though anyone who's ever seen a noisy action movie already knows why - because it has to.  

Random Ruminations

Here's some random filmic happenings from the last week or so, in randomly numeric order...

1.  I watched How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, or Simon Pegg Gotta Eat as a friend described it.  The first twenty minutes or so were woefully mediocre, mostly because of the movie's willingness to go for the most obvious joke possible in any situation.  I was completely disinterested, even starting several conversations with friends while the movie played on... and then something happened (for the life of me I can't remember what) onscreen that silenced everyone for a moment, followed by hysterical laughter.  And that was pretty much how the rest of the film played out: long patches of mediocrity punctuated by gut-bustingly funny gags.  

I've loved Simon Pegg since Shaun of the Dead, and only found more respect for him as I went back and discovered Spaced, but here he impressed me more than ever by taking a not-very-good script and making it work extremely well.  Points also to Gillian Anderson, 1. For still looking that good, and 2. for being goddamn hysterical.  Never knew she was funny.

2.  Apologies to my friend Justin, who I told that Gillian Anderson had directed a movie called Death Defying Acts.  As it turns out, the director of that film was Gillian Armstrong, and I cannot read.  

2.5  Apologies to Gillian Anderson for the mistake also.  No apologies will be accorded to Ms. Armstrong.  

3.  Re-watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy over the past week brought back massive tonnage of nostalgia, in addition to some forgotten affection for the movies.  I was in high school when those were coming out, and it feels like so very, very long ago.  I remember hating on The Two Towers when it came out, spending a year trying to convince all my friends that it was lousy, then falling in love with the extended cut DVD the night before we saw Return of the King.  I remember complain when incestuous marching bandies/rabid Tolkien fans would talk about spoilerish plot details before all three films had been released, and being rightly told that the books had been out for 50 years and I ought not feel bitch until I read the books.  I remember Jamie and his impeccable Gollum voice, and how quickly it became grating.  I vividly remember walking out of the third movie past dozens of people in line for the next showing, all with terrified looks on their faces as though one of us might loudly blurt out some major spoiler from the movie, and thinking the only thing I could possibly say at that moment was "Can you believe that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father?"  And there was laughter in the land.  I remember my pretentious anti-populism kicking in as I argued with people about how unworthy Return of the King was for it's 11 Academy Awards, and some asshat online IMing me "Hah, your bitch lost" the moment Peter Jackson beat Sophia Coppola (and three others) for Best Director.  I remember thinking that anyone describing Rings as "the Star Wars of its time" was either an idiot or an asshole.  Mostly though, I remember seeing Return of the King four times in theaters, each subsequent visit hoping to recapture the emotional tide that made me weep uncontrollably through the second half of the film.  

Having now completed my non-marathon, the following occurred to me: 

• I regret my adolescent hatred of The Two Towers (theatrical)
• I still haven't read the books all the way through (or The Hobbit, and I own two damn copies of that)
• I kinda miss Jamie's now-retired Gollum voice 
  
• Not only do I think that Rings deserved all of its Oscars, but I kinda wish they'd won a few more.  
• Further, Lord of the Rings isn't Star Wars for a new generation, it's better.  
• I can't believe I spent $40* and 12-hours seeing one fucking movie.  

Also?  I cried again today during the last half of Return of the King.  I really don't 

know why, as the super-violent battle epic films typically have no emotional impact on me (certainly not the fantasy ones), but the battle of the Pelennor just breaks me.  Maybe it's because PJ's just that goddamn good at manipulating the audience's emotions. 

Or maybe I'm a sap when it comes to dudes getting stomped on by gigantic fucking war-Elephants.  

4.  Anybody who's been around me for the last year or so (yeah, sucks to be you) has had to endure, in one way or another, my epic hard-on for Stanley Kubrick.  I got the new Kubrick box set for Christmas last year and have since watched each of the films within at least twice, including the 2-hour long biography Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures.  2001, however, I've watched at least five times in the last twelve months.  Having a blu-ray copy and a 42" Bravia at the store has only increased my obsession with the film: while my co-workers play Kung Fu Panda or Iron Man, I run 2001: A Space Odyssey every shit.

What's come up as a result of the film's frequent display in the store is shocking: most people don't know 2001.  Not just that they haven't seen it, as that's something I could understand (the movie is 40-years old and slow as fuck, after all).  But to not even recognize it when it's playing on an HDTV in front of you?  I mean, the movie has to be the most-recognizable picture ever made, right?  The monoliths, the apes, the spaceships, the music, HAL, the "Stargate" sequence, the Space Baby; these are all enormously iconic film images.  Shit, you could probably piece together a 20-minute version of 2001 just from references on The Simpsons.  So how do these people not recognize it?

Anyway, after two days of befuddled customers asking me what movie I was playing in the blu-ray, I had all but given up on mainstream movie-goers (er, renters) when this happened:

This little boy, not older than seven or eight, sat down on the floor and watched the last third of the movie.  The kid was mesmerized by the damn thing.  He inched closer to the screen when HAL used the Pod to kill Frank, and cocked his head repeatedly during the Stargate trip.  A co-worker and friend (who watched 2001 with me twice in as many days a few months back) said, "I bet you he gets freaked out and leaves when Dave gets to the room."  And so he did.  When Dave arrived in the mysterious white room, the kid got up, cocked his head again, and walked away.  

Despite his inability to withstand the film's mind-crushing finale, that little boy restored (some of) my faith in the movie-watching populace who frequent my store and those like it.

Then someone asked me where they could find The Love Guru, and all was right with the world. 

*Adjusted for inflation, obviously - tickets were only $8 then.

HALLOWEEK OF SOMETHING, PART 2 (of 2?)

Alright, "blog."  I don't like you and you don't like me... well maybe you do like me, but feel neglected since I neglect the ever living crap out of you.  But I certainly don't like you, and you're needy, annoying, prodding way of glaring at me from my bookmarks tab, begging for attention and typography.  Fuck you, parasite!  I'll write when I goddamn want to and you'll be goddamn grateful for it when I do!

...

I'm sorry.  Really, I am.  I should've been here for you, posting more often.  Last Sunday was the last time I posted something, really?  I'm terribly sorry.  Here, lemme give you a long, healthy posting.  Would that make things okay?  Here goes.

WRAPPING UP (briefly) THE HALLOWEEK OF SOMETHING!

3.  Rosemary's Baby is surprisingly not a horror movie, despite it's reputation.  Hmm.  And no, I don't mean that it's not scary - it is, though it lacks the typical jump scares - or that it's lost its edge due to age.  I don't abide with that kind of thinking; a movie that was scary 50 years ago is still scary today, unless you're

 the kind of cretin who watches The Birds or Psycho and says it's not scary because it's old.  Fuck you, movie ageists.

Anyway...  Rosemary's Baby isn't scary because it doesn't try to be.  The movie builds a sense of dread and foreboding without ever delivering a big scare or screamer moment.  The real horror comes from the very real situation that Mia Farrow finds herself in: being pregnant.  Even knowing the big reveal by the end of the film (hint: her baby's got a bumpy forehead, and he ain't a Klingon), I 

was still unnerved by the trials she endures as a young pregnant woman.  The uncertainty of your own body, the unreliability of your emotions and your complete and total dependence on others, namely doctors, to endure nine months of biological mutation is horrific.  

Better them than me, though.

4.  Okay, before I dig into this, let me say that despite a prevalence on this list of horror-as-a-metaphor-for-womanity films, I am not, nor have I ever been, interested in or curious about my feminine side, transgenderification, or women's shoes.  There simply seem to be a lot of horror movies about how fucked up it is to be a lady, is all.

That said, Teeth.  Goddamn.  If you haven't heard of this one, I'm not surprised.  It's trailer made the rounds online (most people thought it looked funny) after a splash at a few film festivals, and then it made it's auspicious debut as a Blockbuster exclusive DVD release (always a sign of greatness).  Regardless, the movie's fantastic.  Here's what the trailer would tell you: Teeth is about a teenage girl who discovers (through a series of unfortunate coming-of-age sexual incidents) that there's a set of teeth inside her vagina.  And if vagina dentata wasn't enough of a hook for a horror film about growing up female in America, here's what the trailer left out: the girl is a fundamentalist Christian who promotes abstinence in her community.  So you can imagine that this movie gives its audience an awful lot to chew on.

Ha.  Ha.

Shitty puns aside, Teeth is truly great.  Like Rosemary's Baby, the horror doesn't come from big scares or monsters or serial killers, but from the Cronenbergian terror of not knowing your own flesh.  The film has a lot to say about how young women are treated in this country, with a few even-handed zingers thrown at Christian abstinence promoters that never approaches parody.

That's not to say that the movie lacks any comedy, however.  One of the chomping scenes (find me a tasteful way to phrase that and I'll consider it) is a vengeful, empowering moment, and the movie plays it with a slight wink... and that's it.   This isn't an exploitation film about biting twats and sexy co-eds, even though it easily could've been.  The concept could've been executed as a classic piece of trash, but writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein takes it - thankfully - in a much more tasteful direction.  

Jess Weixler plays the dentata'd lead and she's terrific.  She's asked to walk a very fine line between genuine horror and very black comedy, and she pulls it off flawlessly.  This is an actress to keep an eye on.  I'd say the same about Lichtenstein, but his next directorial effort stars Demi Moore and Parker Posey, so he's fucked.  

5.  I saw Halloween for the first time last week.  Not the Rob Zombie one (I might skip that for the rest of my life).  Yes, faithful readers, I somehow, in all my movie snobbery and watchery, never saw John Carpenter's genre-defining classic until just a few days ago.  How ever have I lived with myself the last twenty-odd years?  What's wrong with me?  How could a child raised in the '80s have lived in a Halloween-vacuum?  

Sorry, but that's the kind of shit I heard over the last week whenever I foolishly admitted to only just seeing the movie recently.  Got that out of my system...

I expected a little more from Halloween, to be truthful.  Not that it was bad or lacking in scares -for low-budget horror, the thing is smart as hell and scary as shit - but it kept building and building and building toward something hugely horrifying, some absurdly violent climax that would sustain a level of terror equal to its reputation... and then it just ended.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm not badmouthing the movie; Carpenter's a genius for low-budget scares and this thing is full of 'em.  His camera work is fucking genius, playing to the audience's expectations of where The Shape would pop up next and then cruelly making them wait for it.  (I now take all the credit I gave to Neil Marshall for doing the exact same thing in The Descent and give it to Carpenter, and instead give Marshall credit for so skillfully emulating Johnny C).  It's that waiting where the real horror lies in a movie like this, not in the gore or violence like so many of Halloween's followers.  Watching this for the first time, I can see how a whole genre of slasher films was inspired/derived from it, even though I wish it wasn't.  

NEXT UP:  Whatever other horror movies I watched and haven't written about yet, and the 2001 kid.  

  

HALLOWEEK OF SOMETHING! Part 1

Okay, so maybe declaring that I'd watch a bunch of horror movies and post reviews leading up to Halloween, knowing my own proclivities when it comes to deadlines, wasn't demonstrable of my dedication to this blag.

Or maybe it was.  Anyway, better late than really late... here goes.

THE BLOB.  1988.  Goodness, did I love the ever-loving crap-love out of this movie... love.  You know you're in for something unexpectedly special when the entire opening credits has only two names of interest; unfortunately for The Blob, one of them is Kevin Dillon.  Luckily for the viewer, the other just happened to be co-writer Frank Darabont.  While I dispassionately respect The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, despite the staggering amount of needless praise on the latter, it's The Mist that really makes me love Darabont, and The Blob is very much a tonal precursor to that film (only better).  

The movie sets up all the standard creature-attacks-small-town characters, and kills them off in the exact opposite order from what you'd expect.  And like in The Mist, those characters have just enough little moments prior to their grisly deaths to make their passing just a little sad, while still simultaneously awesome.  Awesome, I say, because the kills in this movie are inventive and varied in their grotesquerie (ought to be a word), and they're almost 100% practical.  As far as gorey effects movies go, the only thing I could compare The Blob to is Carpenter's The Thing.  For those who've seen the latter, you know such a comparison is pretty goddamn high praise.  While there isn't anything quite on par with The Thing's best gags (the stomach-mouth-spiderhead in particular), Blob still has plenty of genius creature effects.  I can't decide which I love more: the kid who gets his face melted off, or the dude who gets sucked down a sink pipe whole.  Well, sort of whole.  

The Blob is grade-A execution of B-movie content.  Witness its glory.  

BUG.  2006.  

If I told you that I just recently saw one of the best film performances that I've ever seen, and that it came out of Ashley Judd, you'd probably slap me... that is, if you were one of my friends, who know better than to listen to my hyperbolic fits of ecstasy over movies I'll probably only rave about for a week before viciously turning on them* and cruelly exposing all their flaws.  Of course, if you were one of my friends, you really wouldn't need much of an excuse to slap me at all, would you?  Long tangent short, Ashley Judd is terrible.  Just fucking horrible.  Really, really, retardedly bad.  

At picking screenplays.  

In truth, I've always thought she was a very talented actress who wasted her time and skills on generic Lifetime-with-a-budget thrillers and mindless romantic comedies, but she really surprised me with Bug.  Not only does she give a fucking fantastic performance (the profanity is to emphasize my enthusiasm, obviously), but it's in an honest to gods great movie.  

Oh, right.  Speaking of surprises from people you expect shit from, William Friedkin directed it!  Friedkin of late has been known for making very workman-like, very forgettable pictures, including The Hunted and Rules of Engagement.  But for a while he was better known as the goddamn brilliant director of The French Connection, The Exorcist and To Live and Die in L.A.  I'm ecstatic to report (two years after its theatrical release) that Bug is Friedkin's return to form.  

Goddamn did that movie freak me the fuck out.  It starts out as a simple human drama (menacingly photographed)  and turns into something considerably more disturbing.  Judd plays Agnes, an addict grieving a lost child and living in fear of an abusive ex-husband, who was just recently released from prison (for beating the ever-living shit out of her, of course).  She encounters Peter, played brilliantly** by Michael Shannon, another damaged soul with a secret.  Friedkin lets a sense of dread permeate the film, even in prosaic scenes that wouldn't feel out of place in a romantic drama.  That foreboding quality makes Bug's eventual transition into true horror an expected one, though no less horrifying.  

I'm not going to say anymore about the movie except that you should obtain a copy with great urgency.  Bug isn't a traditional horror movie, but it's the most horrific film I've ever seen.   The thing unsettled my shit in the worst way and has invaded my sleep ever since I reached its devastating finale.  I've run out of evocative adjectives to describe the movie.  Just watch it.  Alone, and in the dark.  

NEXT: Rosemary's Baby, Event Horizon, Halloween.  

*Turning on the movies, not my friends, though I can do that, too.

**Really, really brilliantly, not just "I'm pretentious and am gonna call something brilliant to sound significant.  Also, not British brilliant, 'cause those people throw the word around like it's candy) 

The horror, the horror, the goddamn horror.

Is it conceited to be in love with my own handwriting? I don't think so. My Sharpiemanship is incredibly sexy to the eye.

So in preparation for Halloween (a holiday I usually only celebrate by getting incredibly, explosively drunk) I've been watching horror movies. I watched three new (to me) horror movies in the last three nights and I plan to keep that streak up at least through Friday night, when I'll show my favorite of them my friends at our semi-annual Halloween party. Hopefully being exposed to a great, unsung horror flick will make them forgive me for throwing up and general drunken assholery.

My little horrorthon is inspired by two things. Firstly, idiot customers. Not a week goes by without a group of idiot teenagers, asshole 20-somethings or tactless 30s-people (if you can think of a better word/non-word for that, let me know) asking me for "the scariest movie ever," and during October it's a daily barrage. There are a few things that bother me about the question, not the least of which is the idea of an objective "scariest." The movies that scared me more than any others are La Moustache and 2001, yet I doubt my customers would appreciate me sending them home with a so-called horror movie that trades bloody scares for existential ones.

Of course, it doesn't really matter what I recommend to them. I've spent twenty minutes talking people's ears off, trying to put quality horror flicks in their hands. I can shill John Carpenter classics like The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness all goddamn day long, but the second I tell somebody that the movie's more than two or three years old (heaven forbid from the 80s), their nominal interest vanishes. With most people my age and younger, if a movie didn't come out in the last five minutes, it isn't of interest; if it's older than they are, it's just old.

The biggest issue I have with these supposed horror fans is that they don't like being scared! The horror genre to many has come to be defined not by scares, but by gore. Saw, for all its gruesome cruelty, is not a scary movie - the number of people who get excited for each of its many sequels, however, is fucking terrifying. My issue with these people isn't so much that they like crap, but that they dislike quality. I can't imagine anybody not being scared by The Descent, yet I'm frequently surprised by customers coming back telling me it "sucked." I feel like they're put off by the two most interesting things about the movie: its slow-burn start and challenging conclusion. Of course, that's the central issue: the majority of people coming into my store (and I suspect the majority of horror fans) aren't interested in being entertained any level higher than the basest, titillation via an excess of splatter.*

In spite of these Saw-Girls and Idiot Kids - as two of my regular gore fiends have been monickered - I'm dedicating a few hours a night this week watching movies that do more than just throw viscera around the screen for 90 minutes (though they do that, too, and oh so well).

The second impetus for my private horror fest is that, for as much of a genre geek as I am, I'm not very well versed in this particular one. As a kid I was never shown any scary movies, and wisely so: I practically shit myself in the theater during Jurassic Park. As I got older, most of the horror movies that I saw neither scared nor interested me. Of course there were exceptions: I still remember being completely freaked out watching The Shining for the first time, and conquering my fear of Alien and its sequel by watching them to death and back**. Still, horror movies were mostly left out of my voracious consumption of movies, ignored while I wolfed down the typical teenage male film menu (post-Tarantino crime, ultra-dark pseudo-indie twist-filled thrillers, and Fight Club).

Then, in my nineteenth year upon this grey Earth, I was introduced to Bob and CHUD. Bob's the guy that hired me to work for Soulless Corporate Video Chain so many, many years ago, and his love of schlock, horror and 80s action was (and is) freakishly infectious. He exposed me to Carpenter, showed me a guilty affection for direct-to-video shit, and gave me the greatest gift one film fan can give another: Frankenhooker. He also directed me to a little site called CHUD.com, where the writers had compiled a list (read its glory HERE) of "100 Movies That Deserve More Love." I absorbed the list and fell in love with CHUD in a bad way; five years later I still visit the site (at least twice daily) for news, reviews and smart-mouthed bitchery without equal on these here internets. CHUD and Bob showed me that people who are serious about movies should love all kinds of them, from the indiest of the art house to the trashiest of the grindhouse.

Wow, okay... bit of a huge sidetrack there. Me thinks most people who were duped into reading this by its sexy and amusing title*** might feel betrayed by this soft-hearted autobiographical wank. (Skip to the end...) Aside from privately spiting my dimwitted customers, I'm having this "Halloweek of Terror!"**** because, despite years of awesome Bob and CHUD recommendations, I still haven't seen that many horror movies (for gods' sake, I've never seen any of the Halloween or Friday the 13th movies, though I imagine seeing the first of each should be enough to appease my guilt).

So, every night this week I'm going to watch one horror flick new to me, and post mini-reviews here - at least, ideally mini; anyone who made it to the end my epic Indiana Jones review is either a saint or a glutton for punishment. Since Friday I've watched The Blob ('88), Teeth, and Event Horizon; expect write-ups on them soon, and more on others shortly after.

*I'm obviously leaving out the other half of modern horror movies, the PG-13 remake of a Japanese ghost movie; it's omission is simply because I can't qualify what it is people find scary about grey-skinned Asian children with eye-makeup.

**And yes, I do think there's something wrong with having two sentences in a row pivot on colons, but I also don't care that much.

***In retrospect, my titles is barely amusing and not at all sexy, unless you're turned on by fat-Brando.

****My alternate title was "My Own Private Idahorror." And yes, I know I'm out of control with the footnotes.

SoderberOMgWTFh?!

Sometimes I think that the manatees who write for FAMILY GUY have a side-gig during that show's hiatus picking projects for Hollywood.  It's really the same job and requires no transition for them: instead of picking colored balls with random nouns, verbs and 80s pop culture icons, they pick colored balls with random actors, directors, topics, stock plots and exhausted genres, pop 'em in the hopper and a standard format screenplay pops out.  It's cheap, it's easy and it guarantees more of the same cliche drivel that movie-going audiences love to shovel down their gullets.  For example, this weekend's PRIDE AND GLORY was a manatee-developed amalgamation of:

CAST: Edward Norton and Collin Farrell

GENRE: Cop drama

PLOT ELEMENTS: Police family, opposing brothers, dirty cops.

SETTING: New York

Mix ingredients well, release in October, hope no one notices.

We all saw the same trailer, right?  I feel like I've already seen this movie three or four times, and it was only good the first time (maybe).  This is typical of the manatee-system at work in Hollywood script factories - familiar, trite, comfortable.  But once in a while, the manatees stumble upon something so unique, so special, so fantastically, outlandishly, unfathomably retarded in it's glory that we must concede to their brilliance.  Here's their most recent achievement:

DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh

CAST: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Hugh Jackman

GENRE: Musical; 3-D

PLOT: Cleopatra and Marc Antony

I swear to gods, I did not make that up.  In my wildest imagination could I not have conjured something so absurd as a Soderbergh-directed 3-D musical about Cleopatra entitled (wait for it) CLEO.  I'm beyond excited for this movie.  It can't possibly be good, but it sure as shit will be interesting.  Bless you, manatees of Hollywood!  

Read the CHUD story here.

REVIEW: INDIANA JONES AND THE PRAIRIE DOG APOCALYPSE

NOTE: This was posted elsewhere previously, but until I bullshit up some new content, my regurgitated word-hate will have to do.

Nostalgia alone can’t save a bad sequel (if it could, intelligent people older than ten would enjoy the Star Wars prequels), but it sure does go a long way.  Watching Crystal Skull again, with all the disappointment of the opening night screening out of the way, I couldn’t help but grin whenever the man in the hat was on screen.  There’s something immortal and indivisible about Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones that brings out childish glee in most people that grew up with these movies.  Unfortunately, that indelible visual only goes so far.

There isn’t one area that can be pointed to as the cause of the movie’s failure.  There’s a systemic blandness throughout, demonstrated in the script, the acting, the action and the direction.  I was told by someone who liked the movie that if I viewed it as fan fiction and not cannon, I’d enjoy it more.  My problem with that logic is that the movie already feels like fan fiction, which isn’t a quality one should seek in anything, especially not a direct sequel from most of the principles responsible for the originals.  It looks an awful lot like Indy, it sounds an awful lot like Indy, and sometimes it even (briefly) feels like Indy, but just ain’t so. Despite all the efforts to convince us otherwise, this is a grade-A imitation that just happens to feature the genuine article.

The Harrison Ford that stars in this movie isn’t the one who last donned the famed hat (which is bizarrely a character itself) in 1989.  Instead, the movie is anchored by the tired and disinterested Ford of the last ten years or so.  In his defense, the lines he’s forced to deliver are dull at best, cringe-inducing the rest of the time.  You can tell that Ford remembers every tick and gesture of Dr. Jones, but he’s not given too many moments to show it.  Every once in a while he’ll throw in a smirk or a growl or a flinch the way Indy used to, with that trademark exasperation, and all the movie’s faults are forgiven… for a moment.  He even makes a few terrible scenes work, like when he’s tossed the snake in the quicksand; while Shia and Karen Allen fumble their lines, Ford sells his part so well.  When the guy is trying, he’s the best damn movie star alive.  Here he just seems bored, and I honestly can’t blame him. 

The Lucas-Nathanson-Koepp script is just god-awful.  Ignoring the central premise, which I actually like despite the much-maligned aliens, the plot lacks any real dramatic thrust.  Events and set pieces just seem to happen, and they’re conveniently sequential, but there’s no logical progression of events.  The big action sequences are there because the movie needed big action sequences, not because they’re necessary courses of action for the characters to take.  In the space of five minutes, Indy & Co. escape from Russian hands twice – the second of which results in a car-chase (the movie’s third) so long and so complex, yet still completely inconsequential (but I’ll get to that later). 

Beyond the complete lack of narrative tension, the script fails to capture that Indy wit.  While I’m under no illusion that any of the original three movies were Woody Allen, there was still an intelligent, adult banter and cadence to the dialogue.  There’s nothing even close to that here.  Crystal Skull’s dialogue falls flat throughout.  Indy’s rarely ever given more to say that long-winded expository monologues, except for the occasional (bad) one-liner.  David Koepp isn’t anyone’s idea of a great screenwriter, but he’s damn good at structure and his previous Spielberg collaborations (Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds) have had genuinely funny lines throughout.  This time he displays a serious tin-ear for comedy; if this is his idea of what an Indy movie should sound like… I don’t even know how to finish that sentence.  Anyone who’s seen any of the original three Indy films, even the weak Last Crusade, knows that they’re smarter, sharper and funnier than this.  I just can’t understand how this script could’ve come about.  Let there be no uncertainty: it’s a terrible, terrible screenplay.

Where uncertainty enters the picture is in the form of the director.  His name was the only thing keeping my hopes for this movie afloat.  Despite Lucas, months of bad buzz, Lucas, Harrison Ford’s recent output, Lucas and Lucas, Indy was still being directed by Steven Goddamn Spielberg, the greatest director of action set-pieces in movie history.  While his narrative choices have moved further away from his populist adventure beginnings, he’s only gotten better as an action director (just look at Minority Report, Munich and War of the Worlds).  So behold my surprise to witness a Spielberg Indy movie without a single great action beat.  The action isn’t bad, it’s just dull.  Not only do the action scenes lack any of the spontaneity and ingenuity of the previous pictures, but (to judge them on their own) they aren’t very interesting.  I don’t know how many times Indy jumps from one car to another, but it was just as blasé the last time as it was the first.  Between the gaping disparity of performance between the ambling Ford and his younger stunt doubles and less-than-convincing effects work, the car chases (all three of them) lack any thrills whatsoever.  The only good beat in the whole damn movie is when Indy gets yanked off the motorcycle into the KGB car, and then hops out the other side back onto Mutt’s bike.  That moment works because its real.  It’s a real stunt shot outdoors in a real street.  Of course the other cars and hazards were digitally added, there is still that tangible quality to natural sunlight that can’t be duplicated on a soundstage or in post-production.  After that one fleeting moment, the rest of the movie looks like a greenscreen adventure, which is not Indiana Jones.

The look of the film is also a huge problem for me.  The original Indy movies were all shot by Dougie Slocombe, who brought a rich, timeless look to each.  Spielberg’s recent collaborator Janusz Kaminski lights much, much differently and it just doesn’t fit with the character, the time period or the mood.  I’ll quote CHUD.com’s Nick Nunziata, who does a better job explaining this problem than I ever could: 

“It certainly doesn't look the same. Though occasionally bathed in the warmth and glory of the original films, Janusz Kaminski's cinematography lends a much colder and synthetic look to the proceedings. In the film's introduction to the now grayed Indiana Jones, the look is so oversaturated and laden with glare it nearly overrides the content. Never before has a film in the series felt as much pieced together as here - almost as if the audience is seeing a high budget fan film or some connective Indiana Jones content for a DVD-ROM or online presentation rather than the genuine article. Never should one be reminded of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow when watching an Indiana Jones film.”  (Read the rest of Nick’s review here: http://chud.com/articles/articles/16463/1/DVD-REVIEW-INDIANA-JONES-AND-THE-KINGDOM-OF-THE-CRYSTAL-SKULL/Page1.html)

I wonder if the insanely elaborate camera work in the chases is what necessitated so much soundstage work.  Spielberg and Kaminski have wild cranes and tracking shots in, above and all around the action, but that kind of control comes at the cost of believability.  Nicely choreographed (though numbingly repetitive) car-to-car stunts are ruined by bad CGI backgrounds and shoddy mattes. 

Which brings to mind ILM’s piss-poor work: does Lucas intentionally save his company’s worst work for his own movies?  Starting with the atrocious (both visually and conceptually) prairie dog “gag” that opens the movie, Crystal Skull is a parade of mostly sub-par special effects.  It isn’t all bad, but for every mushroom cloud and finale-temple, there’s a patchwork jungle truck chase, a laughably bad flying saucer, and another goddamn prairie dog. 

The prairie dogs, like the monkeys that teach Shia to swing like Tarzan, are the handiwork of the real auteur behind Crystal Skull, George Lucas.  The man’s life dream has got to be making the most juvenile $200 million movies ever.  Somehow he’s devolved as a writer, sinking to a low that makes me long for Jar Jar.  The easiest way to lose my interest in an already uninteresting car chase?  Have somebody straddle the void between two cars and get pounded in the balls over and over again.  By plants.  And when your instincts as a storyteller insist that you cut away to motherfucking CGI prairie dogs for a reaction shot three times, you have no instincts as a storyteller. 

This wasn’t a Steven Spielberg film.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying he’s off the hook; the man directed a shockingly dull Indiana Jones-in-name-only movie.  But it’s Lucas’ baby.  George conceived the story (something he should take no pride in), engineered the screenplay and obviously forced his childlike sensibilities into the mix.  Spielberg was along for the ride, calling the shots and saying “cut” when the day was done.  I never thought I’d see a Spielberg movie where I felt like he didn’t care.  Even in his least-interesting movies (Hook and The Lost World), there was a sense of fun.  Here, Steven seems bored.  Well so was I.