300 Words About: TRON: Legacy

Hypothetically speaking, how would you describe the sun to someone who's never seen it before and has asked you "what it's like"? Think about the sun for a moment - what it means for humans, animals, plants, energy, life, time, etc.

Would you simply answer, "It's warm...radiant. Beautiful."?

If you can think of something better than that, send off a script ASAP to the top brass at Disney as they busily prepare a multi-platform franchise to rival their fading Pirates of the Caribbean goldmine. Not that the dialogue in the Pirates movies is much better, but if the TRON series can't depend on the charm and star power of the likes of Depp, Knightley, Bloom, and Rush, it's going to have a long way to go to win over science fiction-allergic critics, despite its impressive visual effects.

And the effects are, in a word, astonishing. Right from the opening zoom shot through the skyscrapers of Center City, I had a feeling TRON: Legacy would make my eyes pop more than any movie since Avatar. I suppose that's not saying much since it's only been a year, but you have to consider just how much of a treat it is to still be impressed by visual effects in 2010. Today it's possible to produce realistic representations of anything the imagination can devise (maybe with the exception of CG faces, as evidenced by the cringe-worthy representation of Jeff Bridges circa 1982), and spectacular visual effects go unnoticed by all of us on a daily basis, in everything from television commercials to internet flash animations. I think 3D significantly detracts from all of this more than it enhances it (and the 3D is thankfully at a bare minimum in this movie), but my point is, we've come a long way, baby, and I don't want to take that for granted.

Unfortunately, script development hasn't evolved nearly as quickly as filmmaking technology. Blockbusters with juicy story potential like TRON: Legacy and, to be fair, Avatar, continue to be bogged down by moronic dialogue, and often sub-par acting to boot (see also: Speed Racer). I won't lay any of the blame on first-time director Joseph Kosinski, and I hope to see more from his architecturally-refined mind, but with presumably more ownership of the next sequel, he has to give more consideration to who is writing the screenplay. Otherwise, descriptions of this franchise will counter Sam Flynn's bland description of the sun: "Dull...shallow. Forgettable."

The 10 Best Things About Inception(!)

1. It's not a sequel!

2. There won't be a sequel! (?)

3. It's not in 3-D! (And looks significantly better because of it!)

4. You can actually have "intelligent" conversations about it with other people while using cool words like "limbo", "projection", and "inception"!

5. The ridiculous pre-release hype is over!

6. The violence is family-friendly!

7. Ellen Page's character doesn't know the meaning of sarcasm!

8. The "compounded time" arithmetic distracts you from the film's actual running time!

9. Tom Berenger!

10. !

Short Cuts: "So is Pregnancy if You Don't Have a License"

Demolition Man (1993). Directed by Marco Brambilla; written by Joel Silver and Howard Kazanjian; starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt, Rob Schneider, Bob Gunton, Denis Leary, and Jack Black.

March Lineup @ The Trylon microcinema: "Titans. Will. Clash. - The FX Magic of Ray Harryhausen"

Weekends in March @ the Trylon microcinema:

March 5 & 6

JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963)

7:00 PM & 9:00 PM

Tickets

 

"The classic Greek myth of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece comes to life under Ray Harryhausen’s creative guise. The iconic skeleton battle scene, topping out at three minutes, took four months to produce. His first “A” list film, it was regarded by Harryhausen as his best film."

 

 

 

March 7

EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)

5:20 PM & 7:00 PM

Tickets 

 

"It’s all out war when a U.S. space mission rashly fires upon a mysterious alien spacecraft. Part classic sci-fi in the vein of War of the Worlds and part low-budget fun similar to Plan 9 From Outer Space, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers relegated Harryhausen’s talents to the less animated, but no less fantastical, effects of flying saucers destroying national monuments."

 

 

 

March 12 & 13

MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961)

7:00 PM & 9:00 PM

Tickets 

 

"Although many film adaptations exist of Jules Verne’s novel, this version was by far the most popular. A small group of Union soldiers escape from a Confederate prison camp via hot air balloon only to find themselves stranded on a volcanic island inhabited with mammoth crabs, birds and bees. Presented in “superdynamation!”"

 

 

 

March 14

IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955)

5:20 PM & 7:00 PM

Tickets

 

"Driven from its natural habitat by hydrogen bomb testing, a giant octopus sets its monstrous sights on San Francisco, and the military is forced to pull out all its nuclear age gizmos to defend the west coast from ruin! Harryhausen did his best to disguise the fact that there was only enough money in the budget to construct six legs for the octopus that he jokingly referred to as the “hextapus.”"

 

March 19 & 20

FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964) 

7:00 PM & 9:00 PM

Tickets 

 

"Three intrepid turn-of-the-century voyagers are jettisoned to the moon via hair-brained science and DIY space travel. Not only do they discover a strange race of large bipedal insect aliens known as Selenites, but they also uncover their evil plan to conquer the earth! Harryhausen, a fan of the H.G. Wells novel, was personally responsible for persuading Columbia to fund this unique adaptation."

 

March 21

20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)

5:20 PM & 7:00 PM

Tickets 

 

"Humans unwittingly unleash the rage in the Ymir, a giant sulfur-loving reptile brought back from Venus and one of Harryhausen’s most iconic creatures. Shot on location in Italy—because Harryhausen wanted to vacation there—the film’s finale features the most unique death match the Roman Coliseum has ever seen."

 

March 26-28

THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958) 

Fri/Sat 7:00 & 8:25 PM; Sun 5:20 & 7:00 PM

Tickets

"Often regarded (with "Argonauts") as Harryhausen's masterpiece, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad proved so popular it spawned two sequels. This one features battles with a Cyclops, a roc (the two-headed eagle), a fighting skeleton, and a dancing, four-armed cobra-woman, Harryhausen's favorite creature."

 

 

 

Tickets for all shows can be purchased online. Remember, there are only 50 seats so these go quickly. Additional film series run during the week (Trash Film Debauchery, Dreamland Faces, & Sound Unseen) - check the full calendar here.

Coming soon to the Trylon...
April: Alfred Hitchcock: Across the Decades
May: Before Tokyo: Comedies of Bill Murray

The Trylon microcinema is located at:

3258 Minnehaha Avenue S

Minneapolis, MN 55406

Info Line: 612.424.5468

 

View Larger Map

300 Words About: The Box

So lemme get this straight, that's two disasters in a row from Richard Kelly, right?

Literally the first words I heard after a promotional screening of Richard Kelly's The Box were, "I'm so glad I didn't have to pay for that," from a relieved audience member as he left the theater. Yes you did, I thought to myself. We all did, and in more than one way.

There are a lot of options presented to the characters in The Box, only some of which (I've heard) are taken from the original short story by Richard Matheson, which apparently made for a great "Twilight Zone" episode in the 80's. The options include choosing between this or that, which will lead to one of these things happening first and second and so on. Tragically for me, never was a character presented with an option to outright end the movie and save thousands of lives in theaters around the world. "The button has been pushed," proclaimed a creepy, still-Nixonian Frank Langella, and along with everyone else I had to live with (and eventually die by) the decision I had already made to see this movie.

My disappointment may differ from yours since I'd actually been looking forward to The Box for well over a year, previewing it in my forecast for 2009 and even mentioning it back in my review of Southland Tales. I think what I failed to recognize after Kelly's defense of that disaster is how closely his words resembled M. Night Shyamalan's (who, it should be known by now, is no friend to this blog). Whether you end up seeing The Box or not, know this fact: If Shyamalan and his rising heir-apparent Kelly ever make a film together, it will be a cinematic spectacle of metaphysical frivolity and pompous bloviating like the world has never seen (at least not since Knowing).

REVIEW: Ink

Is it fair to judge a film based on its bang-for-the-buck value (low budget, high production), and ignore otherwise standard criteria like writing and acting? Is the bar set a little lower for independent films, making the mediocre ones appear good and the good ones appear great?

Your perspective around these two questions will undoubtedly influence your opinion of Ink, the low budget ($250,000) sci-fi fairytale from Jamin Winans that recently played on Opening Night of the Flyway Film Festival. It's been receiving a healthy supply of positive buzz from Ain't It Cool News and Film School Rejects, and the filmmaker's comparisons of the film to Donnie Darko, The Matrix, and especially Pan's Labyrinth are justified.

But the problem with comparisons to those critically acclaimed hits is that if the film in question doesn't measure up to them (and Ink does not, in my opinion), it's maybe better not to mention the similarities at all - like hearing somebody can dance like Michael Jackson and then finding out they can't even moonwalk.

Flyway Film Festival: Colore Non Vedenti

Colore Non Vedenti
Jay Cheel, 2009 (Official Website)
Run time: 29 min.  |  Canada 
Categories: International Zombie Summit

When you spend as much time as I do reading and writing about movies, names of critics and bloggers and freelance writers often blend together in an incomprehensible mish-mash (by some definition I could be considered all three, for example). So when I saw the name Jay Cheel listed as the director of Colore Non Vedenti, the wheels in my head started turning - where had I seen that name? About ten seconds of searching provided me with the answer, as I've read a lot of Jay's writing at both Film Junk and, much more so, The Documentary Blog.

This all means nothing in the context of the charming Colore Non Vedenti, aside from perhaps proof that Jay can make films just as well as he can write about them. This sci-fi "zombie" thriller comedy (it kind of defies labeling) is well-written, assuredly directed, and impressively acted. It's evidence that low-budget does not mean low-quality, making it a perfect companion to the Cannes zombie hit Colin (reportedly made for $70), with which it will screen at Flyway.

Underrated MOTM: *batteries not included (1987)

Before there was Up and before there was WALL-E, there was August's Underrated Movie of the Month (UMOTM), *batteries not included. It wasn't until I saw it again recently that I saw how much those two Pixar movies were influenced by it, but even more than that I was reminded why the movie had always existed as a nostalgic favorite in my head.

I thought I'd first seen *batteries not included in the movie theater until I checked its release date. I remember it being summer when I saw it, but according to IMDb it was released on December 18, 1987. Maybe I saw it a discount theater six months later or maybe I just thought it was summer because the movie is set during the summer and the characters sleep with their windows open. In any event, I loved it at first sight, but reading the reviews of it now has made it apparent that was likely because I was seven years old.

Janet Maslin kicked off the criticism in the New York Times: "...everything in the film has been designed in toymaker's terms. That includes the human characters, who are adults only in the way an 8-year-old might imagine them. Children may enjoy this, but their adult escorts will have a harder time....Batteries Not Included isn't the kind of film that prompts questions of any kind...the time for this brand of fantasy may have come and gone." Despite her obsession with marketing motives throughout her review, I never had any *batteries not included toys.

Rita Kempley received the baton in the Washington Post: "Here's my theory: Steven Spielberg was captured by aliens, brainwashed and forced to become their public relations man...Though directed by Matthew Robbins, it is an Amblin Entertainment feature rooted in the Spielbergian credo: Earthlings cannot cope without the little men upstairs...Casting tends to be racist...Perhaps Spielberg and his pawn Robbins want to implant maternal instincts in the collective consciousness...What a strange lesson to teach children -- that they are basically helpless. Batteries is a strange kids' movie, a queer mix of violence and otherworldly benevolence. It might have been a good idea, a story of the vanishing urban neighborhood and gentrification by tycoon. But half-pint aliens to the rescue? It's time E.T. went home." A little tired of Spielberg, eh, Rita?

Even Variety gave it a limp recommendation (with my emphasis in bold): "Batteries Not Included could have used more imaginative juices to distinguish it from other, more enchanting Spielbergian pics where lovable mechanical things solve earthly human dilemmas. Still, it's suitable entertainment for kids...has a good mix of personalities, even if perhaps Elizabeth Pena as an unwed mother may raise some questions in children's minds their parents just as soon would not answer." WOW, how far have we come in 20 years? According to a recent article I read, "a record-breaking 40% of babies born in 2007 had unmarried parents (that's up 25% from 2002)". And you can imagine what that 25% was up from since 1987. But perhaps this is another discussion for another place.

Did any critics praise this movie? Ah yes, trusty Ebert: "Cronyn and Tandy rescue the movie from looking altogether like a retread, and the saucers do their part, too. Designed by Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects wizards, the saucers swoop and vibrate and blink and purr and even have children...Batteries Not Included is a sweet, cheerful and funny family entertainment. "

Alright, so the consensus is that we'd seen this movie before. After all, in the decade prior to this movie audiences had already enjoyed E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Cocoon, Short Circuit, and Flight of the Navigator, among other sci-fi and/or benevolent alien movies. But just because *batteries not included wasn't a big creative leap for Spielberg and director Matthew Robbins, it doesn't mean it was any less enjoyable than the others.

Here are three reasons why this movie deserves more credit, despite the criticism that it was an worn out and altogether empty story:

1.) Old people. - Quick, name the last movie you saw starring actors older than age 70? Anything? What, maybe Gran Torino last year? Away from Her a couple years ago? We're much more likely to see young actors and actresses made up to be old these days, evidenced by The Reader, Benjamin Button and Love in the Time of Cholera (alright, in that they didn't look old so much as just dead). If we've forgotten, the 80's were a huge decade for seniors in Hollywood, primarily led by co-stars and spouses Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in Cocoon, *batteries not included and Cocoon: The Return. Tandy was also in Driving Miss Daisy and Fried Green Tomatoes (ok, that was '91 - close enough).

As Faye and Frank Riley in *batteries not included, Tandy and Cronyn are a delight - she playing the senile but surprisingly witty wife, he playing the cantankerous and anxious husband. They delivered terrific performances here near the end of their respective careers, but you never hear about them because you never hear about this movie.

2.) Outstanding visual effects. - I love the look of this movie, with the warm sepia tones at the beginning and the cool sunset and evening shots throughout. It's a pretty enchanting set (filmed on location in the Lower East Side) to begin with, but the arrival of the "fix-its" cranks the visual goodness up to 11. Spielberg and Lucas and the folks at ILM were in familiar territory here with alien spacecraft and mannerisms, but the fix-its are really a stunning achievement in their own right, as good as anything the team had done to that point. Their movements are fluid and with simple changes in sound and "eye" movement, they really develop their own personalities, including the baby fix-its.

Looking back, *batteries not included was terribly overlooked during awards season. Only two films were even nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, with Predator losing out to Innerspace. I'd be more upset if I didn't also love Innerspace.

3.) It accepted - or at least didn't reject - its 1980's identity. - *batteries not included could have been set in the future, or something else could have been changed to make its plot more believable, but it wasn't - it was completely at peace taking place in the 80's. The characters' wardrobes could not be from any other era, the shots of Times Square show a seedy and tourist-unfriendly place, and one of the characters, the former boxer Harry, speaks only in 1980's advertising ("We bring good things to life," "Don't leave home without," "Batteries not included," etc.). Also, one of the best lines of the movie, when Mason is trying to convince his girlfriend not to leave him: "This is the '80s! Nobody likes reality any more!," she exasperatingly scolds him as he she walks out the door. The result of these "period pieces" don't make the movie look dated, they just add to the nostalgia.

So there you have it - three reasons to revisit this movie and discover that it should be appreciated for getting a lot of things right, even if it didn't bring anything "new" to the table.

REVIEW: District 9 (B)

How it pains me to not be writing a "Taking It Home" review of Neill Blomkamp's District 9, a movie that I fell in love with at first description earlier this year, but became less and less and less excited for as the date neared and I realized that what I thought was going to be about a tale of South Africa was really a bam-pow sci-fi flick about aliens (in South Africa, yes, but about aliens nonetheless).

As clever and "cool" as it was, at the end of the day this movie offered much less meaning and insight than what I originally hoped for, or even what I expected from the brilliant first 15 minutes (or, had I seen it beforehand, what I would have expected from the film's inspiration, Blomkamp's Alive in Joburg).

But still, on a purely cinematic level I'm still tempted to call District 9 one of the most entertaining movies of this so-far lackluster year, and one that I'd much rather watch again over Star Trek (what happened to all of the "Best of 2009" cries for that, by the way?). Yes, District 9 is a well-acted, mostly fast-paced story framed in a unique setting, and the visual effects and use of CGI are the best I've seen since The Golden Compass a couple years ago. Whether that last point means awards are in order, we'll just have to see - but if so they'll be the only awards the movie deserves...

Grabbing you right from the get-go with the currently trendy and rather unnecessary fake documentary/verite style, District 9 introduces us to an alternative Johannesburg in 2010, decades after a mysterious UFO stopped in mid-air over the city. In it were countless weak, starving aliens (heretofore known as "prawns", the derogatory term applied to them), who were initially treated with compassionate care but soon wore out their welcome when it became obvious that they were stranded for good. Like proverbial in-laws.

The prawns were thus forced to live in District 9, a set-aside area of the city cut off from social services and human society. As with the black population only forty years ago, they were treated with hostility and hatred by pubic officials like Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a bureaucrat's bureaucrat heading up a Multi-National United (MNU) prawn relocation unit. He mugs for the camera and shows us District 9 like an excited child would show us his treehouse; his idea of an adrenaline rush is torching a shed full of prawn eggs.

As Wikus leads an effort to relocate the prawns to District 10 (a newly constructed refugee camp far from the city, and the likely location of the guaranteed sequel), an accident causes a DNA transfer in him that will in the course of about a week turn him into a prawn - if he survives at all. The remainder of the movie, then, is the story of Wikus vs. the prawns vs. a nasty bald-headed villain (nasty because he's bald-headed) vs. cannibalistic Nigerian gangsters lording over District 9 vs. the MNU front office vs. the world.

In short, it ends as a brilliantly rendered, eye-poppingly well-designed, visually intense action-packed extravaganza that has maybe something to do with humanity's relation to aliens, but almost nothing to do with apartheid, South Africa, the United Nations ("MNU"), or, let's be honest, reality. This whole thing is a set-up, and I'm not falling for it.

How exactly would a bulletproof vest protect against alien weaponry?

I shouldn't be discussing this movie without at some point explaining my fascination for the country in which it's set. As I may or may not have shared before, The Power of One is unconditionally and unquestionably my favorite movie of all time. It's the movie that, when I saw it for the first time as a boy, forever changed my view of the world, myself, and movies (which I would not really devote myself to for another decade). Not surprisingly, since then I've been automatically captivated by anything dealing with the extraordinarily rich history and culture of South Africa (fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I still have the heavy-handedness of Clint Eastwood's Invictus to provide my South Africa fix in 2009).

Understanding this will shed some light on why I was disappointed by how quickly District 9 abandoned its fantastically juicy set-up and devolved into an alien action thriller (with an ending and villain identical to Daniel Craig in The Power of One, no less!), leaving all kinds of political and racial themes on the table for another, likely worse movie to examine. As Blomkamp, a white South African who grew up in Johannesburg, admits, "No allegories, no metaphors, nothing. Just science fiction in Joburg...There's no message, per se, that I'm trying to get across with the movie. It's rather that I want to present science fiction, and put it in the environment that affected me."

Ahhh, fair enough, I guess, but it still stings to hear him add in another interview that he backed off on exploring the social issues because it "wouldn't be entertaining on a popcorn level." Come on, man, don't leave me hanging with a tease like that. Just because Peter Jackson got excited about Alive in Joburg and wanted to show off his CGI prowess, it didn't mean you had to abandon all of the meaning. Well, maybe it did since he was footing the bill, but still, the lack of thematic depth in District 9 and the cliche-ridden finale that left us puffed up for a sequel was not what I was expecting following the terrific first 15 minutes.

Why not talk straight about the fact that a white South African anti-hero doesn't learn his lesson about prejudice? Why not talk straight about the fact that the South African blacks are mistreating the prawns in the same way that they themselves were treated for generations? Why not explore the existence of the MNU as the operating arm of a massive, global military-industrial complex? Why not have one of the prawns rise as a Nelson Mandela or Steve Biko-type hero? Wouldn't be "popcorn"-friendly, I suppose, so best to leave all that background stuff securely in the background.

Alive in Joburg - now that would have been a cool movie...

But enough with the whining and moaning, because of all the action-packed summer movies that allow you to shut off your brain for a while, I suppose I should be glad that District 9 is the only one I've seen. I'm guessing, for example, that it features much better acting than Transformers 2, Harry Potter, or G.I. Joe. Sharlto Copley was a real find to play the part of Wikus, and although I won't compare his acting chops to Daniel Day-Lewis, I think he'd be a fine choice to actually play Daniel Day-Lewis.

And so, the acting and the action and the awesomeness allow District 9 to stand out in its genre, even if it never rises above its genre. I think that's where I'd like to end up with all of these schizophrenic thoughts, on the bright side of things. I didn't care for the execution of District 9 but I loved the idea, and I acknowledge that somewhere in there is the potential for meaningful discussion, even if it's tucked away and eventually out of sight behind goo, guns, and gadgets.

Grade:
Writing - 7
Acting - 9
Production - 9
Emotional Impact - 8
Music - 5
Social Significance - 4

Total: 42/50= 84% = B


And now...fun with nitpicking, because any movie considered the best ever deserves a closer look:

- District 9 is an original story, alright, but maybe only because no one has successfully combined the following movies using this formula: Star Wars + Children of Men + E.T. + Independence Day + The Power of One + Black Hawk Down + Jerusalema + Flight of the Navigator + War of the Worlds + Contact + Iron Man + Cloverfield

- Is it reasonable to believe that 1 million aliens with superior intelligence, strength, technology and weaponry would not be able to free themselves from their oppressors, or at least establish themselves more forcefully as legitimate immigrants? I don't think so.

- Come on, his name was "Christopher Johnson"? No explanation? From what I know about District Six, people were not given WASPy names as part of their forced relocation, but somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

- Why did it take 20 years for Christopher and his son to find a can of fluid on the ground? What was that, anyway, and how was that the key to their salvation? Way too convenient for my taste and it led to the only eye-rolling moment I had of the movie, when Christopher had to tell Wikus about the rarity of the stuff in the canister.

- Speaking of which, Wikus' ability to fluently communicate with Christopher was about as nonsensical as Luke Skywalker's ability to communicate with R2-D2.

- If the prawns and humans were having inter-species sex for so many years, why would Wikus be the first person to survive a DNA transfer? Is he supposed to represent a "chosen one"? I don't like that idea.

- Regarding the portrayal of Nigerians as cannibalistic savages (otherwise known as the "Armond White issue"), Blomkamp says in that earlier interview: "Sure, I'm totally aware of that. I know those buttons are going to be pushed. Unfortunately, that's the reality of it, and it doesn't matter how politically correct or politically incorrect you are. The bottom line is that there are huge Nigerian crime syndicates in Johannesburg. I wanted the film to feel real, to feel grounded, and I was going to incorporate as much of contemporary South Africa as I wanted to, and that's just how it is." So, wait, you're telling me that Johannesburg is swarming with cannibalistic Nigerians who sell cat food, have no regard for life and generally exist as evil scum in human form? "That's just how it is"? Hope they get things in order before the World Cup...

- I'm not understanding the way in which the carcasses in the MNU laboratory were handled. Sometimes people are wearing masks, sometimes things are in bags, sometimes it's just an open room. Is this place sanitary, and wouldn't there be a host of alien diseases that humans couldn't withstand?

- The prawns are not being exploited or harvested or enslaved by the humans, right? They're a cancer that people want to get rid of and everybody knows it. So why wouldn't everyone - humans and prawns alike - be committed full time to simply finding the fuel that would allow them to return home, no hard feelings on either end? If a guy parks on your front yard after running out of gas, would you both just accept that the guy has to live there for 20 years, and would you both never consider the idea of, hmm, finding more gas?

- In operating the prawn gun/robot/walker thing, did it become an actual extension of Wikus' body? If not, why did bullets hitting the metal exoskeleton disable him so severely? Wouldn't he have been protected in that?

- If the fuel they had left was enough to power the mothership, why waste time trying to get the little pod ship off the ground? Doesn't seem like that pod was very fuel-efficient.

- When Christopher is beaten by the MNU agents upon his arrest, why is his battered head and eye oozing with red blood? I thought everything that came out of them was black? Seems like it was a cheap way for us to see Christopher as a human. In fact, maybe he was a human - yes, he was formerly a human and underwent the same transformation as Wikus, right? It sure seemed like he became much more human (especially on an emotional level) as Wikus became more alien.

- Speaking of which, could these prawns have been any more anatomically similar to humans? Their bone and muscle structure, their vocal communication, their upright, two-legged gait, their digestive systems (urinating), their sexual organs (urinating while standing?), their heads and hands - for all intents and purposes they were simply primates with thick skin. Is that the extent of the diversity of intelligent life in the universe?

- When the MNU headquarters are blown up from within and the incident is passed off as a "terrorist attack", how does the spokesperson get away with simply saying they've taken care of it, it's no big deal and it's contained? Wouldn't this be the equivalent of the Pentagon being bombed?

- Hey, all you Slumdog Millionaire haters, answer me this: District 9 was filmed on location in the shantytowns of Joburg, and you can bet your self-righteous dollars that many of the people we see in these slums are still mired in abject poverty. Should Neill Blomkamp be chastised for portraying this gritty reality, and furthermore be held responsible for lifting anyone featured in the movie out of poverty? Why not? What's the difference?

300 Words About: Moon

[Moon opens this Friday at the Landmark Uptown Cinema. These thoughts follow the preview I wrote after seeing Moon at MSPIFF, followed by a Q & A with writer-director Duncan Jones.]

Like driving in Minnesota in January...

As I mentioned in that meme thing a while ago, one of the things I love about movies set in the future is that the imagination can run completely wild. Even when this blank slate leads to perhaps overly ambitious ideas, it's still fun to consider the possible delights. Or in the case of a movie like Moon, consider the possible horrors. It's not a frightening movie to watch, but the core elements of the story are enough to keep any technophobe up at night, possibly terrified of impending developments in biomedical engineering and astrophysics.

Based on its production budget alone (if not also your ticket price), Moon is likely the biggest bang for the buck you'll see all year. Working with a paltry $5 million, writer-director Duncan Jones constructed an astonishingly impressive lunar surface by using the ancient technique of scaled models. I'm of the opinion that for the most part, bigger budgets and bigger CGI developments have led to less impressive and less realistic effects, and I'm even tempted, for example, to argue that the effects in the original Star Wars trilogy are better than the prequels. But I refuse to spending enough time watching the prequels to find that evidence. Anyway, in addition to appreciating the story potential and the high production values of Moon, I was bowled over by the elegant, haunting piano score by Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain).

Unfortunately, what Moon boasts in technical achievements it lacks in emotional depth. Our protagonist is Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell, a personal friend of Jones for whom the part was specifically written), a contract employee of Lunar Industries who is finishing a 3 year-term living alone on the moon - that is, aside from the a sentient computer, Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey). His work mining Helium-3 from the lunar surface is monotonous and isolating, and as he begins to prepare for his trip back home to his wife and child, Sam makes a highly disturbing discovery.

While Rockwell does his best to bear the emotional burden of his character, there was something missing at a deeper level of the story for me. Maybe Jones felt that more involvement from Gerty, for example, would make Moon more of a knock-off of 2001 than it already is. Whatever happened, Moon ultimately didn't horrify or disturb me nearly as much as I expected, or, to be honest, as much as I hoped.

Jones is next directing Mute, "about a woman whose disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender. When she disappears, he has to go up against the city’s gangsters." He has $25 million to work with this time, and considering he made Moon look so good for so little, I hope he invests more resources this time in somehow developing a little more emotional "oomph" from another promising premise.

300 Words About: Terminator Salvation

If you look really closely, you just might recognize some elements of James Cameron's creation...

There are a few things that don't belong in Terminator movies: little kids, huge talking heads on screens explaining the plot, celebrity cameos, inexplicable romance that threatens to overtake scenes, and talking dogs. The guy who insists on referring to himself by his childhood nickname has haphazardly inserted the first four of those elements into Terminator Salvation, and in all likelihood we can look forward to the fifth one in the upcoming sequel.

What bothers me about the utterly mediocre Terminator Salvation is not simply the fact that it was made. I'm not necessarily a Cameron purist and I actually liked Jonathon Mostow's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, even if was significantly inferior to Cameron's first two. No, what bothered me about Terminator Salvation is that despite, or maybe because of, the frequent references it made to the quotes and action elements from the earlier movies, it severely lacked vision, terror, originality and confidence. Worse, the guy who insists on referring to himself by his childhood nickname thought that he could actually adapt or update or otherwise modify this story for a new generation by adding "fresh" ideas that simply leaving you scratching your head.

For example, what in the world is a mute child doing as an important character in a Terminator movie? Where were the typically heavy - and heavily intriguing - dialogues/monologues about the war and Judgment Day? In the future, shouldn't the aiming accuracy of both the humans and machines' weapons be far more advanced, not worse than ever before? And why was Common given any face time in a completely worthless role? (And don't think I'll let slide the fact that he was wearing stylish aviator sunglasses during the climactic nighttime assault.)

I imagine the guy who insists on referring to himself by his childhood nickname would explain these bizarre decisions by saying he was trying to bring his own style to Cameron's vision, but it almost seems from Terminator Salvation that he didn't even see the first two movies, but just heard about them and picked up on the popular catch phrases. After this movie, well I'm tempted to say we'd be lucky if Judgment Day actually arrives before his tentative sequel comes out in 2011.

Frustratingly Going Where So Many Movies Have Gone Before

"See guys, the trick to filming fight scenes is that the camera actually creates the action"...

There were a number of aspects of Star Trek that left me unimpressed, not the least of which was Jim Kirk/Chris Pine channeling Pete Mitchell/Tom Cruise; I half-expected him to have to outgun a fellow Starfleet cadet named Iceman. OK, I didn't expect it, but I hoped for it.

And I could have done without the clichéd Romulan leader Nero (don't forget, facial tattoos = bad guy), and the clichéd monster-eats-monster disappointment, and the shamelessly predictable "climax" that audaciously tries to make us think that the entire crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise will perish in a black hole, thus upending the very existence of the Star Trek franchise.

These things made me scoff more than scowl, but one piece of this movie went so far as to outright disappoint me: the fight scene atop the massive drill bit miles high in the sky. A tremendous set piece (one of many that J.J. Abrams impressively brought to life), this platform was featured twice in Star Trek to mostly stunning effect. My problem was not the use of this set, but the huge letdown that was the boring action on top of it. Of all the things Abrams got right with this movie, and despite all of the annoyances I've already listed, the lack of creativity in the hand-to-hand combat department ended up being my biggest problem with Star Trek.

Whatever happened to the ballet of a fight scene?

How many guys were they actually fighting up there, and how did they emerge victorious?

I can guarantee you one thing: today's action directors spend significantly more time and energy getting the right camera angle/effect than they do actually choreographing a fight scene, and what we end up with are a bunch of images and sounds that form no coherent whole. It's like pounding a case of Red Bull, spinning your head around a bat on the floor 10 times and then watching an MTV show/video montage through a kaleidoscope with the TV at full volume.

Sometimes, I think the director must simply tell the actors, "Pretend like you're fighting, just do whatever, we'll take care of the rest," before turning his attention to the D.P. and camera crew and explaining how the fighting should really look and "feel". Isn't that backwards? Shouldn't the camera observe the action and not create it?

A recent notable exception is Paul Greengrass, particularly in his direction of the instantly classic fight scene in Tangiers in The Bourne Ultimatum. Damon and his adversary, Joey Ansah, obviously spent days practicing their brutal dance before the camera rolled. To get the money shot, Greengrass just used a handheld camera straight on without a lot of zooming, cut the music, amped up the sound effects a bit, and hyper-edited it to make it look like there wasn't a moment to breathe. The result: you can actually understand what's happening in the physical space of the room, and it's a pure adrenaline rush.

Compare this to fight scenes in The Dark Knight, Prince Caspian, Quantum of Solace and Watchmen, for example, and you may get some idea of what I'm talking about. Worse yet, especially in Watchmen - the fighting is creatively choreographed, before being ruined by the cinematography. Zack Snyder is trying to do what the Wachowski Brothers did in the original Matrix, but it's not working. Those guys used - not abused - the camera, and their delicate direction of the action produced some of the most beautiful violence of the decade.

Ten years later, I feel like we're almost to a point where some director will simply have the actors start punching the camera lens, because that would be so intense, man. J.J. Abrams didn't go as far as doing this in Star Trek, but that fight scene was, at least to me, incredibly disorienting, and I don't think it was because it happened at 50,000 feet. There just didn't appear to be any order or flair to the fighting, a doubly disappointing situation considering Hikaru Sulu is supposed to be a fencing champion. I know Star Trek isn't meant to be an action or martial arts movie, so maybe I should have saved this rant for a different movie, but nonetheless, it still seemed like a missed opportunity to elicit a few more "oohs" and "ahhs" and maybe even some laughs from the audience.

Am I asking too much? Must I shrug my shoulders and accept that creative choreography is a quaint ideal? All I know is that the panache of the past has slowly faded in the 2000's, and I for one am disappointed. In the early part of the decade we had some brilliant work in Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but those are distant memories now, like the hilarious swordsplay in The Princess Bride.

What was the last really great fight scene, anyway? And by "great" I mean creative, choreographed, well paced, engaging, and above all, well filmed. We'll consider something like this scene from Rumble in the Bronx as the gold standard, and bonus points for thinking of non-Asian cinema like Ong Bak or House of Flying Daggers.

On the Horizon: Moon

I have to preview this film here if for no other reason than the novelty of the post title, but it really is an intriguing little sci-fi thriller. The first feature by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie), Moon stars his buddy Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, a lone helium miner finishing a three year contract on the lunar surface. As he prepares to return to earth he suffers an accident in a lunar rover that reveals something rather odd about his situation in relation to the others who have come before him. The mystery isn't as hidden as I'm making it out to be, but know that eventually there are two Sam Bells living in the lunar base and that it's an untenable situation.

Moon had a single showing at MSPIFF last night and Duncan Jones charmingly answered questions afterward (except for dodging one about his age - he's 37 going on 21). Highlights included his explanation of how he was able to direct one actor in two roles and how he used lots of miniatures for the lunar surface instead of exclusively using CGI. The result looks great - Rockwell delivers an amazing performance when you consider that he's the only actor on screen, and the visual effects are terrific for the tiny budget Jones had at his disposal (he boasted that at $5 million, it was only a tenth of Danny Boyle's budget for Sunshine, which I found flawed but ultimately a better film). Really my biggest complaint is the dialogue, which was not written by Jones and was half-improvised by Rockwell, for whom Jones specifically designed the story. Kevin Spacey plays what Jones joked is a "benign Hal" character, but even that device isn't used effectively. For the meaty potential this story I'd have hoped for some deeper meanings or more interesting monologues.

In any event, I still recommend sci-fi fans check out Moon when it opens this June. Check out the trailer and hear the instantly classic original score by Clint Mansell, composer for Darren Aronofsky's films (memorably Requiem for Dream and The Fountain).

Come back for more thoughts and join the conversation when Moon opens in Minneapolis on June 26th. It will hopefully stir some interesting debates (Jim Brunzell wasn't high on it after seeing it at Sundance but Erik McClanahan enjoyed it a bit more) about the sci-fi genre, especially in the shadow of the upcoming monster that is Star Trek.

I Love Knowing the Great Betrayal, Man

Actually I just like mashing movie titles together. I've seen three of the five major movies opening in the Twin Cities tomorrow, though I missed chances at Duplicity and Sunshine Cleaning (just as well since that would have made for an impossibly long title). Since this near clean sweep of new releases doesn't happen very often, here are capsule reviews of each. And I'm including The Great Buck Howard even though it was pushed back locally - yet again - for another week.

______________________________

I Love You, Man (B+)

Hey PR firms, how 'bout a little creativity?

I'm not going to use the pop culture "B-word" surrounding this movie because I just don't like it (and I'm a stubborn contrarian with things like that). Besides, there's little romance going on here anyway, just your typical manchild hijinx. Which is not to say I Love You, Man doesn't have its funny moments. Paul Rudd continues to show the same leading man potential he had in Role Models, the supporting characters (especially Andy Samberg, Jon Favreau and Lou Ferrigno - who for some reason isn't a credited cast member) are hilarious, and there are two or three belly laugh-inducing scenes - and maybe a few more if you don't mind hearing the same joke five times.

But if you're looking for maturity or wit or originality, well then you should know better than to even be reading this. Just because Judd Apatow isn't involved here doesn't mean his influence isn't all over it: honest, innocent loser (The 40 Year-Old Virgin) has to get himself in order before major life event (Knocked Up), all while being held back by childish schlub friends (Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and so on). Apatow's is a brand that all comedies are copying these days, which means you've seen I Love You, Man before and you'll see it again soon. It's really almost like a sequel to Role Models: "See what happens to Danny Donahue five years later when he's about to get married and his only friends are still the nerdy role-playing kids!".

If stale humor is OK with you, or if you love the band Rush - you'll probably love I Love You, Man.

______________________________

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) (A)

Find my original capsule review here.

As I mentioned in my pre-preview of the 2009 P.O.V. season yesterday, I've given The Betrayal a lot of attention here since seeing it at MSPIFF last year. Now that it's opening here and an official poster has been made, I'm offering what will likely be my final recommendation. It requires some patience to watch but it will likely teach you quite a bit about immigration and cultural assimilation, and also make you consider the collateral costs of war.

______________________________

The Great Buck Howard (B-)

Colin Hanks at his most expressive still looks like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump.

By the last minute of The Great Buck Howard I had one question in my mind: why in the world was this movie made? It hadn't been terrible to that point by any means, but then it hadn't really been anything - it just existed on screen like a vapor, as if somebody made a movie about a guy who woke up this morning and had a cup of coffee. Then the epilogue text came up, reminding me that The Great Buck Howard was inspired by a true story: the career of the famous mentalist "The Amazing Kreskin", for whom writer/director Sean McGinly once worked as an assistant. Alright - so it's a biopic/tribute movie of sorts, and McGinly reminds us on screen that "no one has ever proven that his [Kreskin's] magic is anything less than 100% amazing". Whatever - McGinly also hasn't proven to me that this movie is anything less than 100% forgettable.

I'm being overly harsh. It was entertaining enough and I laughed quite a bit at John Malkovich taking this part and running with it, much like Jim Carrey used to do with these unique roles. But this movie is just missing something to make it really terrific, like a magic show where all of the tricks are decent but none of them are astounding. Worse, you often find yourself waiting for a punchline that never comes, so the comedy blows out of some scenes like hissing balloon. Too bland to see in the theater, but charming enough for a DVD rental.

______________________________

Knowing (F)

You might find yourself doing this during the movie in order to keep yourself entertained.

And Hollywood's crowning achievement (and my guess as the box-office winner) for the week of March 20, 2009, is the disaster movie Knowing. It's about knowing when the world will end, and if that happens in real life before you're done watching this movie, consider yourself a blessed soul. Without question the worst movie I've seen since The Happening (though not nearly as pretentious), this Nicolas Cage vehicle shocked me only because it was worse than I thought it could be under the direction of Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City, I, Robot).

I'll look at it in two parts: first noting the obvious weaknesses of Knowing and then shredding it for a complete disregard for logic and reason. MAJOR SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW.

Since I already mentioned Shyamalan's disastrous last movie, why not start there? Like the now-infamous director's recent movies, Knowing tries to make big, bold statements about paranormal issues like the existence of life on other planets and the ability to see the future or otherwise operate outside of normal human dimensions. Instead of attempting anything fresh or thoughtful, however, Knowing goes about its business primarily by alternating between expensively produced special effects (you can almost see the money burning in the fire from the explosions), tons of cheap, door-slamming thrills, and way too many scenes with freaky kids who are truly awful actors. And like Shyamalan's movies, the conversations you have afterwards won't be about the themes of the movie, but about the mystery of how and why these movies continue to be made with such frequency.

Knowing does add one somewhat original contribution to the "end times" genre by making numerous references to religious prophecies, but theological discussions deserve better than Nicolas Cage and aliens. This movie could have been, well, at least decent without these two liabilities and all the rest of the trappings of extravagant Hollywood fluff, including the most manipulative use of sound effects and a musical score that I've heard in years: something...Is... GoInG... TO... HAPPEN RIGHT NOW - DUN DUN DUN!!!!

And now for a few of the immediate questions that threw my mind into a frenetic tizzy while watching Knowing. Somebody help me out because I'm really too dense to understand the following:

Why didn't the school officials start looking for Lucinda inside the school before dark? And when searching for her inside the school, why didn't they just turn on the lights?

Why didn't Lucinda just get another piece of paper and pencil instead of carving bare wood with her fingers? The "whisper people" told her to write it in a closet where she might never be found?

Wasn't Miss Taylor's class the only one to write the letters for the time capsule? If so, how were there enough letters available to hand out to the entire school 50 years later, and how had the enrollment at the school not significantly increased?

Why would anyone ever marry Lucinda, and how was she never committed to a mental institution?

Why does an MIT astrophysicist not only own a Ford F-150, but drive it like he just stole it?

Why does an MIT astrophysicist live in a decrepit old house, where half the rooms are inexplicably and beautifully furnished while the other half resemble interrogation rooms?

What's the significance of showing us the tiger show on TV so many times?

Why didn't John tell anyone else about the numbers other than his dullard MIT colleague?

Why would John, an alcoholic, not know how to properly pour himself a drink without spilling it all over?

What was the point of Caleb's hearing aid? It literally served no purpose (especially since Abby and Lucinda could hear the aliens just fine without one) other than to amplify the creepy whisper noises for the audience, right?

Wasn't the first disaster (the plane crash) to happen on 10/26/08? Then how did the last one happen on 10/19/08? I swear those dates were messed up.

Why did John run into the burning wreckage of the plane crash while everything was clearly still exploding, and how did the paramedics know he wasn't a passenger when they arrived on the scene?

Why did the aliens give the kids the rocks from the clearing instead of just telling them the message?

Why are the aliens ultimately revealed to be simply skinless, translucent humans, with the same muscle and bone structure and central nervous system? This has to be the most pathetic attempt at alien life in years, doesn't it?

If it's so hot because of the solar flares, how can there be so much fog and so many puddles at night? Wouldn't the earth's atmosphere be scorched of all moisture at this point?

Why would the aliens forecast any of the other disasters in the 50 years of history when it's all irrelevant to the point at hand - and what's the significance of 50 years in the context of human life, anyway?

Why did the alien show Caleb the burning world outside his window and completely freak him out? Why not just tell Caleb what's going to happen - like they eventually did?

Why would Lucinda write "EE" backwards when she's written all of the number forwards? Just as a sneaky trick for whoever figures it out?

Why didn't Caleb have a cell phone? Wouldn't it be more likely that he would have a cell phone than that he would always have change handy for a pay phone? Why there are so many pay phones around in the first place?

Why does the fate of the world always lie in the hands of white American kids? And why do all of the last major disasters only happen in the U.S.?

Why were there so many people waiting in the subway station? Don't those trains run every few minutes?

Why did Caleb honk the horn of the truck if the aliens aren't there to harm them or take them away? I mean, they're calmly communicating with each other, right? What was he so afraid of?

Why was the gas station manager the only person in Boston who had a Boston accent?

Why does Manhattan remain the only city whose destruction qualifies the apocalypse when it's not even the 10th largest city in the world?

Why wouldn't the GPS coordinates on the school closet door show through the paint if they were scratched so deeply into the wood?

How did the aliens expect the kids were going to make it to the UFO clearing without their help? Why wouldn't they just take the kids in their sleep or by force at any other point during the movie?

Why did the aliens drive an old-school Cadillac boat and not something more awesome?

Why did Caleb start writing the numbers at the end? Wouldn't John have assumed those were more clues, instead of stopping him from finishing?

Why would the news anchor say, "We're going to stay on the air as long as we possibly can. All we're going to do is repeat what we've been saying all along - get indoors and underground."? Why would he stay on the air and not just put up a blue screen with that message instead? Do they really care about maintaining their market share of the local news at this point?

How was John able to calmly drive through the city with the streets on fire and people in chaotic riots? What were people doing standing around in the streets anyway?

Who dressed the kids in tunics in the New World and why - shouldn't they be unclothed like Adam and Eve?

Why do the aliens give the kids albino bunnies? Because rabbits breed? Is it just going to be humans and rabbits in the New World?

Please help me with these and many other questions if you see Knowing, because otherwise I'll continue to feel like a complete idiot.