Enough Already

I understand that many movie goers can and do, in general, just relax and enjoy themselves no matter what film they are seeing.  I often envy them.  I guess I can't shut off my critical brain sometimes.

I say all this because I have been struck by the horrible quality of Hollywood's remakes over the last few years.  This post isn't expansive enough to lament the lack of originality in Hollywood overall; I won't even begin to cover how most big budget movies are sequels, remakes, or adaptations (and bad ones at that).

But I will briefly cover two recent offenders: Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and Zack Snyder's Man of Steel (2013).  I caught up with Amazing a year after its release, so I saw these two comic book adaptations for the first time within a month of each other.

There is no hope of Hollywood letting up on its deluge of comic movies; they simply make too much money.  I have accepted this, yet my appetite for all these super heroes on screen was satiated by, like, 2008.  The standard of quality for these blockbusters, particularly in the screenwriting, is just too low, and that is a double shame because all of these comics provide years and years of rich story material to adapt.

Amazing was widely recognized as a cash grab.  Sony pictures had to make another Spider-Man movie or lose the rights to the character.  But this movie didn't need to be made.  It was an origin story.  We just saw the same basic origin story 10 years ago, with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002).  Everything from the spider bite, to discovering of powers, to young romance and Uncle Ben's death was all seen, only with different performers in front of the lens and an (arguably) different tone.  Spider-Man launched a trilogy that ended just five years before the remake.  I was amazed, pun intended, at how similar The Amazing Spider-Man was overall to its predecessor.

Superman: The Movie (1978) is one of my favorite films of all time.  Directed by Richard Donner, it tells the story of Superman's origin, including the destruction of his home world, his acquiring a job at the Daily Planet newspaper, his meeting love interest Lois Lane, and his discovering of his heritage and destiny.  Snyder's over-long and over-loud remake covers the same thing, only without any humor or subtlety.  Why did audiences need to see this?

(And in defense of Superman Returns [2006], that film was a love letter and a sequel, but it did not try to retell Superman's origin.)

Am I off base, here?  Did anyone else feel that they were watching the exact same movie over again, only weaker?

I am writing here now, too

It turns out I am not the only movie fan in Binghamton, NY.  My friends at weekly podcast Buried Cinema have their own slick, sister site for movie-related articles, which you should check out.

They have pursued me endlessly to write for them, and we just got the details of the contract worked out.  Not really.  Anyway, a lot of my posts here at Kind of a Movie Blog will also appear on the Rant Pad.

Thanks to Tom for setting this up.

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A Rant for 3D

I have a lot to say about the current trend of 3D video.  As a home theater nerd, I have to have an opinion on it.  I have a basic understanding of the various ways 3D is displayed, both in theaters and in the home.  I know that if you purchase a 3D TV and glasses and enjoy the experience, you will still end up disappointed at the lack of available content, especially through cable/satellite providers.  I know that, wherever you watch it, 3D's glasses will limit the amount of light getting to your eye, thus detrimentally dimming the image.

I...love....3D.  Despite its shortcomings, I believe it is spectacular when done correctly.  3D Blu-rays look almost as good as a theatrical presentation (see Prometheus), and video games on the Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 are twice as cool in 3D (see Uncharted 3).

However, Hollywood is killing me.  3D is being treated like a gimmick, and it has to stop.  Here is the problem: movies are being shot in 2D and converted to 3D, without the proper care, in post-production.  The results, in live action movies, are always, always, underwhelming to embarrassing.  Basically, the trend of Hollywood doing this so that they can charge moviegoers more money started soon after Avatar, with this hunk of garbage.

Unfortunately, I went to see Zack Snyder's Man of Steel on opening night.  But let's not focus on that tragedy; the point was the 3D.  It was flat.  The post-conversion was garbage.  It was a waste of money, both for Warner Brothers and audiences.

I have only seen three films in theaters (Prometheus, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Avatar) that blew me away with their sense of immersion, depth and tangibility thanks to 3D, and all of them were shot using James Cameron's 3D cameras.  Check out what he says if you don't believe me that post-converted blockbusters aren't up to par.

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We Shall Try to Find the Answers Together

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel just opened on June 14.  I've been looking forward to this movie for a year now (see two posts ago).

So what did I think; how is the first new Superman film since the divisive Bryan Singer project of 2006?

In short, not very good.  While Man of Steel has a ton of action and some of the most impressive special effects ever put in a movie, it lacks the heart of its predecessors.

After the break are my myriad thoughts about what Snyder got wrong.

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.