My friend, Heba (who, as far as I know is the only living soul besides myself who is aware of this blog), read that last post about Pirates, and when she finished, she texted me, "Interesting review[...] I know you didn't set out to write a scathing review, and that's fine, but I'd like to know more about why you didn't like the movie and less about everything else. lol." So that's Heba (who will likely appear a lot on this blog since--aside from my wife--she's my very best friend and the only person in the world who reads all of my stuff).
So anyway, in the few days since I wrote that last post about Pirates of the Caribbean, I've been thinking about what I wrote--particularly the part in the beginning about reading and writing 'slam reviews'. After more consideration, I've found that I have a bit more to say on the subject, namely: What the hell was I talking about? and Of course I read scathing reviews! I freakin' love 'em!
This does, of course, deserve some clarification (since, you know, because it completely contradicts my original stance on the subject). What I meant to say is that I don't read negative reviews about shitty movies that nobody (including the people who made it) believed could be any good. I don't need to see Richard Roeper make a few catty remarks about Transformers 3 to know that its special effects are filling in for its story. I don't need Peter Travers to tell me that Final Destination VIII is predictable and doesn't pack the punch of originality from the first film. Excuse the expression, but no shit.
What I like--no, love--about scathing reviews is when they are more than just reviews, but rather when they are deep, insightful dissections that stand as a cautionary lesson about what can go so horribly wrong in the creative process. While I've read many articles like this, they often tend to be so well ordered in terms of their ideas and their insights that I get swept up in the analysis, it becomes less about the subjective good or bad-ness of the movie, and more about understanding what works and what doesn't. A well thought out, calmly written analysis can often eliminate the angry undertone that so often stains a review with the reviewer's own emotional, intuitive response, rather than their logical appraisal. This is when reviewers tend to make dumb comments that would be completely irrelevant had the movie actually been good. You know those comments, right? Like the kind of comments people made about Tom Hanks's weirdo hairdo in The Da Vinci Code. Really? His hair? Like that would have been any kind of problem if the movie was actually good. Nobody ever said anything about how the Coens's decision to give Javier Bardem a Dora The Explorer haircut ruined that movie. My point is that bad movies are bad because of issues that run far deeper than the cosmetic, and when people get emotional, they tend to lose their focus of the actual issues and grasp frantically at whatever is readily available to justify their overall claim. It's not just movie reviews either. Think about the last time you've listened to a friend complain to you about someone else. "So this guy, he just, like, obviously cut in front of me in the concession line, then when he turned and saw the look on my face, he was just like, 'Oh, sorry about this; my movie's about to start.' Can you believe that? Whatever though, his fat ass would have probably passed out if he had to go another five minutes without eating. I know, right? What did his weight have to do with being so obviously inconsiderate? But I digress...
After kicking this horse until it's just a fly-covered pile of horse-mush, my point is this: if done right, the bad reviews can be some of the best. One of the best examples of this that I can think of is Mr. Plinkett's epic movie reviews (http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/), in which he makes videos that span upwards of an hour and a half, and while the vulgar creeper/serial killer schtick that runs throughout the reviews gets old really quick, he really takes his time to get the reviews right. His reviews of the Star Wars prequels (which run a whopping 533 minutes combined) don't fall into the typical, generalized "George Lucas raped my childhood" type of comments that are so often floating around the internet, but really pinpoint and isolate everything that went wrong at the most basic level of artistic craft, and offers up support that depends less on knowledge of its esoteric universe, and more on the truths of storytelling that have been around since Aristotle.
So Heba, if you're reading this, I am sad to say that I am not going to go back and write a more extensive review of Pirates because that would probably involve me watching it again to take down and list all of my complaints, and I don't think I'm up for that kind of punishment again. I will say this though: if I decide to vent any more of my grievances on here, I will do my best to flesh them out more and really lay it all out there, instead of stooping to platitudes like, "Stop watching shitty movies."
You have my word.
Now, onto my next target: The Office, seasons 4 - 8.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Rushed Script
Let me start this by saying that I'm not crazy about reading scathing reviews. I'm just not. Sure, I might check out a snarky headline and smirk (the most recent one I recall was for the movie adaptation of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and it was titled, "'Extremely Loud' is incredibly phoney"--I appreciated this on a certain level because, while I have yet to see the movie, I was against its adaptation from the moment I'd heard of its casting), but when it becomes clear to me that the review is a slam, I don't usually get past the headline. In my experience, slam reviews have the tendency of nitpicking the issues with a movie that--let's face it--nobody expects to be good in the first place. Honestly, after the first Twilight movie was released, did anybody need to write another review of any of its sequels? Sure they're garbage, but some people like garbage, and no review is going to convince those people not to see it.
Now, with all of that said, I didn't go into the fourth installment of the 'Pirates' franchise expecting greatness. I didn't even expect to be as pleasantly surprised as I was with the first movie--which, I should add (with level of uncool guilt), I am a fan of. What I expected was to not spend the majority of its run-time grimacing. I'd say that's a reasonable expectation. It's like going out to the corner to check your mail and expecting that someone's not hiding behind the bushes ready to jump out and attack you. Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Penelope Cruz, and Ian McShane--they're all great actors, right? And Rob Marshall--well, I still haven't seen Nine, but I loved Chicago. Even all of the same writers from the first 'Pirates' are back, with the addition of the story being loosely inspired by the novel "On Stranger Tides" by Tim Powers. So if the film was in such capable hands, then what went wrong?
Let me take a break here to address the looming fallacy of 'begging the question', since I have not yet established that anything is, in fact, wrong with this film. I don't want to linger here for too long, but let me illustrate my point just a little bit by comparing this fourth film to the first in the series, Curse of the Black Pearl. As I mentioned earlier, I actually really enjoy the first 'Pirates'. The characters all have unique connections and relationships with one another, and those relationships change organically throughout the story, depending on what the characters want from one another and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to get what they want. Will wants Elizabeth. Elizabeth wants freedom from her high society social constraints (she also wants Will, but he is another restriction of her position in society). Jack wants his ship, The Black Pearl, back. The villain has perhaps the greatest motivation of all, since he and the rest of his crew suffer a hellish curse that they are desperate to break. Hell, even the two gay comic-relief flunky pirates, Pintel and Ragetti*, have a motivation (beyond that of simply breaking their curse): they want to get enough plunder to be able to afford a real glass eye that fits Ragetti's socket (to replace the wooden one that keeps popping out). My point is that these people behave in ways similar to real people, by positioning themselves nearer to their individual goals at every chance they get, by refining the tactics they use to get what they want from other characters, and in how they end up growing as people in response to their changing circumstances and relationships.
Okay, so I'm just going to hope and assume that this single point I've listed here about character relationships is enough to convey that this movie has at least some level of creative integrity, and that I don't have to go into an in-depth, blow-by-blow breakdown of everything that I enjoyed about it.
Good. Now onto 'Stranger Tides'. The movie opened on a somewhat confusing note, then after a few minutes of superfluous chasing, we are treated to a few minutes of blatant dialogue exposition between Jack Sparrow and Mr. Gibbs, as to the story's vague (unimportant?) setup. While we know from the end of the third movie why Will and Elizabeth aren't around, we are never given any kind of explanation as to what Jack's been up to. So what, you might be thinking. So this: if we don't have anything other than fifteen minutes of chase scenes from this movie to base his character on, then we have no choice but to base everything we know about him (his wants, his motivations, his emotional state, etc.) solely on the other films. Well, that kind of sucks when he's the main character of this movie. Why should we care what he's doing if we don't know what he's doing any of it for? Then he's tossed a love-interest (at least, I guess that's what she's supposed to be) in the form of Penelope Cruz. The summary we are given of their past history (also clumsily shoved in through stilted, expositional dialogue) is at least as vague as the story's setup. I'll say this and nothing more about their relationship throughout the movie: we are never once shown--shown, not told--that there exists any kind of tenderness between them.
This is not to mention the movie's numbing abuse of play-it-safe, uninvolving action set-pieces, or the flimsy romantic subplot between the mono-dimensional missionary and the absent-dimensional mermaid, or the fact that Blackbeard is magical just because, or that really none of the characters share any kind of real relationship with one another beyond that which will move the plot along, or that--oh god, I could really go on forever, but that would be doing what I set out to avoid doing in the first place.
The funny thing is, what I wanted to address here more than anything has nothing to do with this movie per se. As bad as this movie is (and I do believe it is bad), what I find most offensive is this emerging attitude of moviegoing audiences who, after sitting through a two hour long eye-roll, simply shrug and say, Whatever, man, it's a movie about friggin' pirates, you can't expect it to be good.
So, wait, let me see if I've got this right: All things that are movies which involve pirates are... Bad?
Is it something intrinsic within the pirate subject matter itself that dooms a movie of such high production value (and not to mention budget) to the failure of telling a good story? Well what about the first one? Wasn't that good? Ebert liked it. I liked it.
The other excuse I hear it, Well, you know, it was, like, made for kids, so it's not going to be exactly, you know, stimulating**. Right. Like how Up, and Wall-E, and Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are were made for kids. I was more emotionally involved with the side characters in those movies than with any character or relationship in the new Sherlock Holmes movie (even though I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than this latest 'Pirates').
Ultimately, my point is: we need to stop making excuses for shitty movies. We need to muster our self-respect and not lapse into the defeatist attitude of, Well, at least I didn't have to do nothin' for an hour and a half. Stop seeing shitty movies (yes, even the shitty "kiddie" movies like 'Chipmunks', 'Smurfs', and 'Yogi Bear'--or any other rehashed CGI/live action movie based on cartoons that were around before their target demographic were born). If we stop seeing them, they'll stop making them.
*I looked the names up; I don't love the movie so much that I have all of the background character names memorized.
**I've also heard the 'It was made for kids, so it must be bad' argument in response to The Last Airbender--which was a disgrace to the amazing show it was based on--and Tim Burton's latest Hot Topic cash-in, Alice In Wonderland. Not a valid excuse in either case.
Now, with all of that said, I didn't go into the fourth installment of the 'Pirates' franchise expecting greatness. I didn't even expect to be as pleasantly surprised as I was with the first movie--which, I should add (with level of uncool guilt), I am a fan of. What I expected was to not spend the majority of its run-time grimacing. I'd say that's a reasonable expectation. It's like going out to the corner to check your mail and expecting that someone's not hiding behind the bushes ready to jump out and attack you. Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Penelope Cruz, and Ian McShane--they're all great actors, right? And Rob Marshall--well, I still haven't seen Nine, but I loved Chicago. Even all of the same writers from the first 'Pirates' are back, with the addition of the story being loosely inspired by the novel "On Stranger Tides" by Tim Powers. So if the film was in such capable hands, then what went wrong?
Let me take a break here to address the looming fallacy of 'begging the question', since I have not yet established that anything is, in fact, wrong with this film. I don't want to linger here for too long, but let me illustrate my point just a little bit by comparing this fourth film to the first in the series, Curse of the Black Pearl. As I mentioned earlier, I actually really enjoy the first 'Pirates'. The characters all have unique connections and relationships with one another, and those relationships change organically throughout the story, depending on what the characters want from one another and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to get what they want. Will wants Elizabeth. Elizabeth wants freedom from her high society social constraints (she also wants Will, but he is another restriction of her position in society). Jack wants his ship, The Black Pearl, back. The villain has perhaps the greatest motivation of all, since he and the rest of his crew suffer a hellish curse that they are desperate to break. Hell, even the two gay comic-relief flunky pirates, Pintel and Ragetti*, have a motivation (beyond that of simply breaking their curse): they want to get enough plunder to be able to afford a real glass eye that fits Ragetti's socket (to replace the wooden one that keeps popping out). My point is that these people behave in ways similar to real people, by positioning themselves nearer to their individual goals at every chance they get, by refining the tactics they use to get what they want from other characters, and in how they end up growing as people in response to their changing circumstances and relationships.
Okay, so I'm just going to hope and assume that this single point I've listed here about character relationships is enough to convey that this movie has at least some level of creative integrity, and that I don't have to go into an in-depth, blow-by-blow breakdown of everything that I enjoyed about it.
Good. Now onto 'Stranger Tides'. The movie opened on a somewhat confusing note, then after a few minutes of superfluous chasing, we are treated to a few minutes of blatant dialogue exposition between Jack Sparrow and Mr. Gibbs, as to the story's vague (unimportant?) setup. While we know from the end of the third movie why Will and Elizabeth aren't around, we are never given any kind of explanation as to what Jack's been up to. So what, you might be thinking. So this: if we don't have anything other than fifteen minutes of chase scenes from this movie to base his character on, then we have no choice but to base everything we know about him (his wants, his motivations, his emotional state, etc.) solely on the other films. Well, that kind of sucks when he's the main character of this movie. Why should we care what he's doing if we don't know what he's doing any of it for? Then he's tossed a love-interest (at least, I guess that's what she's supposed to be) in the form of Penelope Cruz. The summary we are given of their past history (also clumsily shoved in through stilted, expositional dialogue) is at least as vague as the story's setup. I'll say this and nothing more about their relationship throughout the movie: we are never once shown--shown, not told--that there exists any kind of tenderness between them.
This is not to mention the movie's numbing abuse of play-it-safe, uninvolving action set-pieces, or the flimsy romantic subplot between the mono-dimensional missionary and the absent-dimensional mermaid, or the fact that Blackbeard is magical just because, or that really none of the characters share any kind of real relationship with one another beyond that which will move the plot along, or that--oh god, I could really go on forever, but that would be doing what I set out to avoid doing in the first place.
The funny thing is, what I wanted to address here more than anything has nothing to do with this movie per se. As bad as this movie is (and I do believe it is bad), what I find most offensive is this emerging attitude of moviegoing audiences who, after sitting through a two hour long eye-roll, simply shrug and say, Whatever, man, it's a movie about friggin' pirates, you can't expect it to be good.
So, wait, let me see if I've got this right: All things that are movies which involve pirates are... Bad?
Is it something intrinsic within the pirate subject matter itself that dooms a movie of such high production value (and not to mention budget) to the failure of telling a good story? Well what about the first one? Wasn't that good? Ebert liked it. I liked it.
The other excuse I hear it, Well, you know, it was, like, made for kids, so it's not going to be exactly, you know, stimulating**. Right. Like how Up, and Wall-E, and Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are were made for kids. I was more emotionally involved with the side characters in those movies than with any character or relationship in the new Sherlock Holmes movie (even though I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than this latest 'Pirates').
Ultimately, my point is: we need to stop making excuses for shitty movies. We need to muster our self-respect and not lapse into the defeatist attitude of, Well, at least I didn't have to do nothin' for an hour and a half. Stop seeing shitty movies (yes, even the shitty "kiddie" movies like 'Chipmunks', 'Smurfs', and 'Yogi Bear'--or any other rehashed CGI/live action movie based on cartoons that were around before their target demographic were born). If we stop seeing them, they'll stop making them.
*I looked the names up; I don't love the movie so much that I have all of the background character names memorized.
**I've also heard the 'It was made for kids, so it must be bad' argument in response to The Last Airbender--which was a disgrace to the amazing show it was based on--and Tim Burton's latest Hot Topic cash-in, Alice In Wonderland. Not a valid excuse in either case.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Ceci n'est pas une blog. (This is not a blog.)
They really make the homepage look blank--just dead really--until you post something.
So I'm posting something.
I'm not entirely sure yet where this blog is going to go or what shape it will end up taking, but it will be nice to have this channel open for me to get my ideas out in a place where they can possibly be perceived by others.
I guess that's it for now.
Marck
So I'm posting something.
I'm not entirely sure yet where this blog is going to go or what shape it will end up taking, but it will be nice to have this channel open for me to get my ideas out in a place where they can possibly be perceived by others.
I guess that's it for now.
Marck
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