This is Not a Review of "Olympus Has Fallen"

I just saw the new Antoine Fuqua (Shooter) action flick, Olympus Has Fallen.  The movie is about a brutal terrorist takeover of the White House and one man's attempt to save the day.  I don't have any intention of really reviewing it here (click here for some adequate drubbings), but I would like to list a few complaints that the more thoughtful movie fan may agree with.

1. Insane contrivances.  The prologue has a cataclysmic car accident; no cause is ever given.  None of the president's secret service agents ever seem to wear kevlar...ever.  Breaches of security protocols at just the wrong time lead to the easiest White House takeover I've ever seen.

2. For crying out loud, if you're going to have this many A-listers in your film, tell me that in the dang advertising.  Performers that you can't believe are in this movie, in this movie: Ashley Judd, Dylan McDermott, Radha Mitchell, Angela Bassett.

3. The violence is too much and done in poor taste.  The terrorists shoot everything that moves in D.C. with pinpoint accuracy.  A few shots of innocent civilians running in terror would suffice; instead we get tons of close-ups of head-shot executions.

4. The Asian-looking terrorists, fighting for North Korea, are presumably Korean.  With names like Sam Medina, Malana Lea, and Kevin Moon, the people portraying them are not.  Hollywood gets it wrong again...because Americans are too stupid to know the difference, right?

In short, don't pay money to see this unless mindless, overly-violent action appeals to you.

...Holy crap, do you realize that Roland Emmerich has the exact same movie coming out in June?

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Please Don't Give this an Oscar....

So, I saw Tom Hooper's Les Miserables, and I can't understand why anyone loves it.  Wait, no.  Say rather that I can't understand how anyone would want to see it more than once.

The problem is that the poster above is representative of the entire movie... If you want the experience of viewing the 2012 film in your home right now (without pirating a copy), just purchase the soundtrack on iTunes and play it while staring at this poster for 50 minutes.  The movie was made almost entirely of close-ups.

Just stop looking at Anne Hathaway about 1/4 through your experience.

Hooper has done the story a disservice by choosing such an awful visual style.  I don't know if anyone has had the necessary access to the film to try this, but someone needs to perform a quantitative study to see 1) what percentage of the film's total shots were close-ups, and 2)what percentage of the film's total running time was made up of close-ups.

Call me classical, call me old-fashioned, call me stupid, but I have always thought that visual techniques should have meaning.  Only in modern times have we so abused composition, camera movement, and editing that they are rendered meaningless.  But composition was the least abused until this high-profile mess.  When you shoot literally 60% (?) of a movie in close-up, the close-up becomes meaningless.  Whether the characters were happy, sad, loving, spiteful, singing, or silent, they were always filmed from three inches away.  And it was painful to watch.

As a man who made a musical, you would think Hooper would understand the importance of "composition."

I Have an Opinion on This...

The Superman franchise has been taken away from Bryan Singer and his crew, but it would appear that it is still in good hands.  Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures have handed the reigns to Zack Snyder for a reboot, under the supervision of producer Christopher Nolan.

This new trailer for next year's Man of Steel looks absolutely awesome.  It is playing in front of The Dark Knight Rises, for any of you who want to see this puppy on the big screen.

What I appreciate about this teaser is that the reverence for the Superman character seems to have been preserved; I was afraid that with the (relatively) tactless Snyder at the helm, Supes would be turned into a dark, brooding anti-hero.  I was born into a world where Dick Donner's original film defined the character, so I have never known a Superman who wasn't a Christ figure.

I am not saying that Clark Kent has to be perfect, but the epic nobility of the character has to remain intact or else it isn't a Superman film!

P.S. There are two version of this trailer, one with Jor-El speaking and one with Jonathan Kent.  The music is from The Lord of the Rings.  For the list of powerhouse performers in this movie, go to IMDB here.

My Fiancee Likes Die Hard

I really shouldn't have to say anything more than that.

She saw the 1988 John McTiernan classic for the first time with me a few months ago. We watched my Blu-ray copy (strongly recommended!).

Her general response? "There was a lot of language, but I liked it."

Way to go sweetie! Now, dear reader, is your fiancee cool enough to like Die Hard?

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Hobbit, Schmobbit

Artwork by John Howe

Sorry to disappoint all of you The Lord of the Rings movie nerds, but I didn't particularly like them very much. They failed to be faithful to the source material when it counted, but the money rained from the sky every time one was released, so now New Line is hard at work on two prequels based on The Hobbit. The first is called The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and it is due for release in late 2012. Now I know returning writers Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson did a kick-butt job the last time, but can someone please explain the casting to me???!!! What the $#!& is the Necromancer doing in this movie, played by Benedict... Cumberbatch? Are you kidding me?! That's not even a name! Where is this, Eriador? $@&&*#@$ it all! And who is this Elijah Wood guy, playing the as-yet-unborn Frodo Baggins?

The book that should be turned into a movie is Tolkien's posthumous masterpiece, The Silmarillion (1977). This is the most epic of his works, and it deals primarily with the First Age of the world. It involves the creation of Arda, the births of the Elves and Men, and their battles against the first Dark Lord, Morgoth. Sure it is entirely unfilmable, but that is what they said about The Lord of the Rings, remember?

There are battles in this story that literally reshaped the earth with their sound and fury. They make the Battle of the Pellenor Fields look like a pillow fight.

Thus he came alone to Angband's gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.

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Binghamton Flooding 2011: Bad for Social Life, Great for Netflix

Well, those of you who pay attention to the news probably heard that areas of upstate New York have gotten hit with extreme flooding again. This just happened five years ago, so between this and the local Quizno's closing, the question does remain: why do any of us still live here?

See pictures here.

In any case, I was among the blessed; I kept my electricity and media services the entire time. So, what to do with myself, stuck alone in my apartment for days? I tried Netflix on the PS3, my first time ever! Sure I haven't seen my girlfriend in five days, but at least I'm catching up on classics I missed originally!

A sample of films I have seen in the past few days on Watch It Now:

Die Hard 2 (1990)

Point of No Return (1993)

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

Oh, I love you, Shannon!

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Movie Review: Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins

At one point in Japanese director Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins, the character of Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho) makes a remarkable statement. When asked to plot the assassination of a cruel lord, which in effect would guarantee the end of his own life, Shinzaemon responds not with a "why me?" or a "no way," but instead stammers, "How fate smiles on me." The chance to perform a good deed and die a noble death is a blessing to him. This illustrates the character of one of the great men of this film, and the audience's admiration for its 13 heroes is much greater than their admiration for Miike's overlong, climactic battle.

Miike is the most famous of modern Japanese directors here in the West, but he has only achieved this status through shock value; his movies such as Ichi the Killer (2001) and Audition (1999) are exploitative and stomach-turning in their violence. 13 Assassins is easily the best and most watchable film I have ever seen of Miike's, but it is still in danger of drowning in its own blood.

The film has a simple plot, divided into three segments. First, Shinzaemon is approached to kill the evil Naritsuga (Goro Inagaki), and we witness the lord's misdeeds in flashback. Second, Shinzaemon gathers 11 other faithful samurai to join his new cause (the thirteenth warrior joins up later). Finally, after some brief travel, Miike slices his film into a 50-minute battle, with more action than I have ever seen in an uninterrupted sequence. I can't be sure, but I believe this easily sets the body count record for a samurai film, as 200 soldiers square off against our heroes.

Miike still fails to show restraint as a filmmaker, and this awesome action movie suffers for it. The final battle is too long, as one bloody, telephoto shot full of bodies and swords and mud rolls into the next. The events become very difficult to differentiate. The battle is actually less effective than those in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) because Kurosawa's film does not drag the action out until it has lost all impact and become formulaic; Kurosawa also set the standard for chaotic, close-range battle footage shot with long lenses in Samurai. To Miike's credit, the rape of a married woman by Lord Naritsuga is left off-screen, but shots of Naritsuga's mutilated-- but living-- sex-slave recall Miike's inability to make a movie that doesn't offend.

13 Assassins looks spectacular and benefits from wonderful performances, and I even liked it enough to consider a Blu-ray purchase, but overall it doesn't live up to the standards for meaningful but entertaining samurai films set by the Kurosawas and Goshas of yesteryear. It tries so hard that it bleeds out right off the edges of the screen.

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