Film Friday: Moon (2009)

Moon is a lost opportunity. It’s not a bad film and you will probably enjoy it, but it could have been so much more. Why? Because Moon centers around a twist that gets exposed early in the film, and rather than explore any of the large number of interesting consequences of that twist, the film just spends the rest of its run time telling you what you already knew about the twist.

** heavy spoiler alert **

Before we begin, let me state very clearly that to discuss this film requires me to delve into the twist and how it’s resolved. So if you haven’t seen the film, go see it first, then come back and comment. . . always comment! ;-)

Moon is the story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell -- Galaxy Quest), an employee of LUNAR, a company that provides 70% of the Earth’s energy needs. LUNAR does this by mining the moon for helium-3. Sam is the sole operator of the moon base that overseas the mining operation. Watching over Sam is GERTY 3000, the base’s computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey).

As Sam nears the end of his three year contract, he is injured in an accident. Shortly thereafter, we discover the twist -- Sam is a clone, and doesn’t know it. We discover this when a second Sam is awakened to take the place of the injured one, who is presumed dead. He then discovers Sam 1 and the two Sams try to figure out what is going on. Soon they learn there are hundreds of frozen Sams in the basement.

As plot twists go, this is pretty good. And in line with what I’ve said before about good twists, this twist is organic to the story, i.e. it doesn’t feel tacked on. That's good. But ultimately, this twist feels flat because the film fails to exploit it. Indeed, making the Sams aware of each other creates fertile ground for some pretty interesting storytelling, but Moon fails to addresses any of the issues that raises. Instead, the film spends the next hour reminding you over and over of the twist. Specifically, the two Sams spend their time slowly figuring out things you already knew from the twist itself. For example, they discover the other Sams, that original Sam went back to Earth, that their communications with Earth are artificially jammed by the company, that the used Sams are eliminated, that GERTY knows the truth, and that the company will kill them if the company discovers they have met. But none of this is the least bit surprising. How else could such an operation be handled? If you ship the Sams from Earth, then what would be the point in sending clones, i.e. where are the cost savings? If GERTY didn’t know, how could it wake the new Sams? If the communications weren’t jammed, how could the company maintain the information blackout? None of this is a revelation or all that interesting.

What would have been interesting would have been to follow up on any of the numerous issues raised by the twist itself. For example:

(1) What am I? This is a classic science fiction question. What does it do to your self-image/understanding to suddenly realize you’re a clone or that you have a clone? These are fertile areas for an examination of the self, i.e. what makes us who we are or what makes us human (see, e.g. Blade Runner). But Moon doesn’t go into that. Instead, Sam 1 half-heartedly refuses to believe he’s a clone for some time and then acts like a spoiled child, while Sam 2 acts kind of bored.

(2) Can two clones get along? Would two identical clones get along? Or would they hate each other? Would we really like ourselves once we saw a live, third-person version of ourselves? Heck, would we even recognize ourselves (other than physically of course)? Again, Moon doesn’t tell us. Indeed, despite being the only two people on this very small moon base and being thrown into the middle of something monumental, they barely interact with each other, even after they realize the company is likely sending people to kill them.

(3) How will GERTY 3000 (read: HAL 9000) react? 2001 has fascinated the world for forty years because we want to understand why HAL did what he did. GERTY is given the perfect moment for an existential crisis: his programming is to “protect Sam,” but now he’s confronted with multiple Sams with conflicting interests. Who does he choose? How does he decide? Again, Moon takes the easy way out and GERTY never sees a conflict.

(4) What’s does the company do now? The company spent billions of dollars setting up this elaborate hoax. What will the company do when it discovers the Sams uncovered their hoax? What are their options, how do they resolve that decision? We don’t know. Moon takes the easy way out and finds a reason the company doesn’t know the Sams have met.

(5) What about the moral questions? What are the moral implications for the company? What are the moral implications for the real Sam Bell, who let the company clone him and use the clones in this way? Because of him, these Sams think they have a wife and daughter. Presumably, both he and the company knew the clones would be killed after three years, is that wrong? Do the Sams have a responsibility to the Sams in the basement? Are they even alive yet as they haven’t woken up? And if the awake Sams don’t owe anything to the frozen Sams, what does that say about the company’s responsibility to the awake Sams? There is much here to consider, any of which would have added significant depth to this film. But Moon glosses over all of it.

In the end, Moon is a film with a neat twist and a lot of potential. The plot is strong enough to be entertaining. The atmospherics are good (kind of like Solaris). The effects are great -- models, not CGI. The soundtrack is pretty good too, very standard Clint Mansell. But the film could have been so much more. This film could have been Blade Runner meets 2001 meets Outland, but it never dreamed big enough. Some of the critics complained about the lack of action, but it wasn’t action this film needed, it needed depth and vision. It needed to address the issues it teed up. . . but it didn’t.

And that’s why even though this was a good film, it was a totally disappointing film too.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Blade Runner (1982)

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is brilliant. This is filmmaking at its best because it takes science fiction and stretches it to its fullest potential, both in terms of storytelling and as an intellectual experience. It’s also noteworthy for being massively culturally relevant because it redefined “dystopia” for a new generation, and in so doing, it signaled the end of the counter-culture’s influence in science fiction.

** spoiler alert **

Loosely based on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner is the story of Richard Deckard (Harrison Ford), a police specialist who hunts down and "retires" escaped androids, known as Replicants. Deckard is pursuing four Replicants, led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), who illegally returned to Earth to find their maker, who they believe can extend their lifespans, which are artificially limited to four years. Despite the seeming simplicity of this summary, Blade Runner is a highly complex and innovative film. Indeed, it singlehandedly redefined the confines of science fiction as well as our view of dystopia.

Dystopia Lost, Dystopia Changed

Prior to Blade Runner, dystopian films invariably involved societies that appeared perfect on the surface, but were soulless underneath. From Logan’s Run to Rollerball to Fahrenheit 451, these societies appeared health, happy and peaceful, but something was always missing, some element of humanity was stripped away. This concept fit perfectly with the clash between the counter-culture and the conformity society created after World War II. But Blade Runner changed that.

The dystopian world of Blade Runner is dark, dirty and full of the twisted dregs of humanity. This is a world that destroyed itself, not with a bang but with neglect, where those who could escape to a better life moved to the off-world colonies, leaving humanity's flotsam to fester in the collapsing, polluted world left behind. Moreover, this dystopia came about because society fell apart, not because society was too tightly controlled, as was the case in prior dystopian films. Thus, whereas the pre-Blade Runner view of dystopia was the counter-culture’s view of the worst aspects of conformist society run amok, the dystopia in Blade Runner was society’s view of the worst elements of the counter-culture run amok. And with rare exceptions, this has become the view of dystopia which dominates films today. Blade Runner marks this serious shift in societal attitudes.

Where No Science Fiction Has Gone Before

Blade Runner also singlehandedly expanded the bounds of science fiction. How? By realizing that science fiction need not follow the trappings and conventions of science fiction, and by realizing that any story can be interpreted as science fiction. Indeed, nowhere in Blade Runner will you find spaceships or laser-gun fights or aliens and strange planets. Even the very dialog of Blade Runner is unlike anything that came before. For example, whereas science fiction always had a penchant for long, quasi-melodramatic dialog and grandiose plots, Blade Runner introduced the minimalism of film noir, with punchy but sparse dialog and inwardly focused plots.

All of this was new and it showed that any story could be told as science fiction, not just stories about rocket ships. In fact, I would argue that Blade Runner actually demonstrated that science fiction was not so much its own genre, as it had always been understood to be, but was really a setting in which other genres could be played out. In other words, Blade Runner showed there is no such thing as a science fiction movie, there is instead a crime story, or mystery, or comedy, or love story set in a science fiction world.

It’s Great Because It Expands Your Mind

Finally, let’s finish with what makes Blade Runner such a great film. Beside the obvious, i.e. great acting, super writing, and eye-catching settings, it was the philosophical questions that lifted Blade Runner to another level. The primary question Blade Runner asks is what does it mean to be human. It does this through an examination of three characters: Deckard, Rachael and Roy.

Rachael (Sean Young) is a Replicant who doesn’t know she’s a Replicant. She works for the head of the Tyrell Corporation, the creator of the Replicants, and her life seems real enough. She has an apartment, a job, photos of her childhood, and even memories of growing up. She walks, talks, breathes, thinks and appears to experience the complete range of human emotions. Yet, she is a machine. But does that really matter? She seems human in every way. She is emotionally aware. She has no expiration date like the rest. And she doesn’t even know she’s a machine. So what makes her different than the humans around her?

Roy is easily the most interesting of the three; he’s also the most human (intentionally so). Roy is programmed to be an assassin, and he knows he’s a Replicant. He also knows he’s designed to expire after a five year lifespan, a safeguard put in place because Tyrell discovered Replicants would develop full-blown emotions after five years. . . a quicker time than human children mature. Roy desperately wants more life, and the way to get that, he thinks, is to confront his maker. But when Tyrell tells Roy it’s impossible to extend his life, Roy kills his creator. He then decides to toy with and kill Deckard as a form of spite for his own pending death. But at the last moment, just before Roy expires, he suddenly realizes the value of life and he saves Deckard from death. In effect, Roy fully matures from a mere tool to an emotional child to a fully-mature adult, which is a remarkable transformation for a machine.

Here we are given several issues to consider. First, we are asked what makes Roy not-human. Unlike Rachael (or even the other Replicants who came to Earth with Roy), Roy has fully repudiated the false past he was given. He’s also thrown off his programming and set about becoming his own man. He's an independent being with free will, and he craves life and, ultimately, comes to understand its value. In this way, Roy becomes more human than many real humans will ever be. Yet, he is a machine. So is he alive or isn’t he? And what makes him so? Also, what of Roy’s relationship with his creator? What does Roy killing his creator say about Roy’s independence and ours? Would we lash out the same way if we learned that our creator was some flawed, mortal creature? Would that set us free or would it lessen us?

Lastly, we come to Deckard, the human we use for comparison. But there’s a problem with Deckard. . . we’re not actually sure he’s human. At no point does Blade Runner ever say or even openly suggest that Deckard is not human, but the evidence is there. He has no real life outside of his job and no past about which we learn. He has memories of childhood and photos, but they are very similar to Rachael’s packaged memories. He’s emotionless, cold, and functional, i.e. he’s machinelike. Moreover, the one character we know to be human, because he’s physically defective, is Gaff (Edward James Olmos), and Gaff treats Deckard with disdain much as if he knows Deckard is merely a deluded machine. So is Deckard human or not? We don’t know and that’s the beauty of the writing. We are left to try to justify his humanity in ways that differentiate him from Roy and Rachael, and in the process we explore what it is that makes us human and alive.

Finally, one last issue worth discussing is hinted at throughout the film: why make Replicants at all? Why not just make functional robots, rather than making them look and act human? One possible explanation involves the purposes to which these Replicants were put -- “off world hit squad” and “pleasure model,” i.e. because they would need to blend in. But what does that say about us? It’s easy to see these as purposes to which we would actually put androids, but that means we would be striving to put ourselves on a par with God, only to use our greatest achievement (creatures created in our own image) to satisfy our basest instincts or our most evil desires. That doesn’t say much for us, does it? And what does it say that we don’t even give these creatures free will? As self-made God, we certainly seem to come up short. So could we create real Replicants to achieve only our better instincts? Would we? And if they are alive for all practical purposes, should we even try to create them, given our obvious flaws?

These are the kinds of questions Blade Runner raises and we can spend hours debating them. Indeed, this is where science fiction draws its strength, in its ability to ask these questions without angering the audience by insulting their faith, or race, or gender, or whatever. And by injecting these kinds of questions into what would otherwise be a simple story about a police officer hunting some escaped killers, this film suddenly takes on a level of depth that makes this more than just a film; it becomes an educational experience, as we are asked to examine our own beliefs and thereby understand ourselves a little bit better.

And that makes it pretty darn cool.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Inception (2010)

Inception is a well-made, thoroughly enjoyable movie, but it’s not a “great” film like so many people say. In fact, I suspect this is yet another in a long line of films that seemed special at the time, but will quickly be forgotten. The reason for this is that Inception offers nothing new and, ultimately, it makes no sense.

** heavy spoiler alert **

The Plot

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) can enter dreams and extract information. He and his partner are caught entering the mind of a man named Saito, who makes them an offer they cannot refuse. If they agree to place an idea into the mind of a competitor, Saito will clear-up a murder charge which keeps Cobb from returning to the United States to see his children -- the murder charge is the result of his wife’s suicide, for which the police blame Cobb. The concept of planting an idea into a mind is called “inception,” and this is supposed to be impossible, except Cobb has already done it once. Saito wants Cobb to cause a competitor to break up his own corporation. And while this sounds rather undoable at first, they come up with a very plausible way of making this idea take hold.

To plant this idea, they drug the competitor and force him into a shared dream controlled by one of Cobb’s team members. Once inside the dream, the team causes him to enter a second dream state and then a third to disorient him. This also has the benefit of giving the team more time, as each additional dream state feels an order of magnitude longer than the prior. Thus, a minute in the first dream feels like five minutes in the second and days in the third. But there’s a catch. To create three dream states requires a sedative, which makes it nearly impossible for the team to wake themselves from the dream and will cause them to fall into a limbo state, should they die in the dream. In this limbo state, they would spend a lifetime all by themselves before they awake in their current bodies -- this happened to Cobb and his wife, who now intrudes into his subconscious and creates problems. Also inside the dream, the team will be chased by trained killers from the subject’s subconscious. Despite these challenges, the team completes the mission successfully. However, as the movie ends, questions are raised as to whether or not they succeeded or whether Cobb is actually stuck in a dream state.

Before I discuss the problems, let me be clear. I enjoyed Inception very much. I thought it was well written, well acted, and well directed. Director Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) does an excellent job of walking the tightrope between keeping the mystery alive and confusing the audience and he provides a compelling, fast-paced story that keeps you guessing what will happen next and what will happen at the end of the film. He found excellent locations and he made the smart decision to keep the special effects shots to a minimum; this film contains only 500 such shots compared to an average of around 2000 for other similar movies, which gives the film a strong sense of realism. The acting was also quite good. Indeed, I find DiCaprio to be an excellent actor and he again delivers a solid performance. The supporting cast did a great job as well, except for Ellen Page, who is miscast as anything more than a teenage girl. Thus, I happily recommend this film.

But there are problems, and these are the kinds of problems that prevent the film from being memorable over the long term.

There’s Nothing New Here

The first problem strikes you the moment the film ends: this film offers nothing new. The concept of a dream world within a dream world has already been done in films like The Thirteenth Floor and The Matrix. And while there is nothing wrong with repeating a concept, you need to offer something new to keep the concept fresh -- either a new twist or an examination of some new aspect. Inception doesn’t do that. In fact, it offers nothing that wasn’t already in The Thirteenth Floor.

Why does this matter? It matters because great films always spark the imagination. Inception offers nothing to make you think. Compare Inception to The Matrix, both of which deal with the concept that the “real world” is not “real.” Unlike Inception, The Matrix is packed with shocking twists, philosophical conundrums, and a fascinating religious analogy. Thus, when The Matrix ends, you are left with a massive puzzle with many layers, and you can spend hours contemplating how the ideas in the film relate to our world. That’s not the case with Inception. Inception leaves you with only a single question: “was Cobb dreaming.” Once you’ve answered that, the film offers little else. It doesn’t even delve into topics like exploring the nature of dreams or what this limbo state would really be like. It tried at times to talk about how a kernel of an idea can change a person, but that was never developed. And that makes Inception forgettable, except as an action movie.

The Film Makes No Sense

The second problem arises because the film’s central mystery makes no sense. There are three possible states for Cobb: (1) he succeeded in his mission and woke up, (2) he could not wake up from the mission and remains in a dream state, or (3) the entire movie was a dream. But none of these can be true.

Cobb cannot be dreaming throughout the film because we can see what is happening to people who are not within sight of Cobb. Why does this matter? Because if this film was Cobb’s dream, then we are seeing what Cobb is dreaming, and he would know that he is dreaming because he can see plot points happening which he could not actually observe. But Cobb doesn’t realize he is dreaming, thus either Cobb can’t be dreaming or the story makes no sense. Yet, Cobb must be dreaming. Why? Because the film tell us he’s dreaming. The ending in particular indicates he’s dreaming. For example, he sees his children in the same poses and clothes he’s always seen them in throughout his dreams. They have not aged, despite the years he spent outside the country, and not a speck of dust has changed in his home since he fled it years before.

So maybe he’s only dreaming at the end, right? Except there are clues in every scene that Cobb is dreaming throughout the movie. For example, scenes start and stop suddenly, like in a dream, something Cobb himself notices. We are similarly told by numerous characters that his entire life has the quality of a dream, and it does -- faceless people try to kill him, people shoot at him at point blank range but somehow miss him, he has implausible run-ins with main characters like Saito in Mombasa, there are no transitions (bamo you’re in Paris, now you’re in Mombasa, now you're in Paris, now you’re in Sydney), and people act in ways that are entirely Cobb-centric (what exactly is his team being offered to do this? and doesn’t Saito have a company to run? and why would Cobb’s father in law pimp his illegal scheme to his best student?). These things only make sense if you accept that he is dreaming. Moreover, consider his children. When he calls them in the real world early in the film, the children are seen playing outside, again in the exact clothes and positions they exist in during his dreams, and again they haven’t aged. Secondly, who is the guy who gave him the ticket to escape the country? And why couldn’t he take his children with him? Or why can’t he be reunited with his children in another country? These are questions that can be overlooked in a dream, but not in reality, and they are overlooked here.

So he must be dreaming, but he can’t be dreaming, and that’s a contradiction which calls into question the entire storytelling technique. If he is dreaming, why are we shown things that can’t be part of the dream? But if he’s not dreaming, why does so much happen so conveniently, so impossibly, or so nonsensically? The answer is that we’re being tricked and manipulated to generate a mystery and that’s an unforgivable sin in this kind of storytelling. Manipulating the audience to hide the truth would be acceptable, because people see these kinds of stories as a mystery to be solved, i.e. they want to dig for the truth. But manipulating the audience to give two distinct impressions (dreaming/not dreaming), when neither is actually possible, is egregious. It would be like Agatha Christie giving you hints that Person A or Person B was the murderer and then concluding that the victim was murdered but no one could have killed him.

It is the nature of the insolvability of this story that will keep it from being remembered with other science fiction stories that have crossed into the “must see” category. Stories like The Matrix present us with mind-opening thoughts about reality. Stories like Blade Runner make us question what makes us who are. And to achieve that, they give us a genuine mystery to solve which requires us to question our own realities. Inception give us nothing of the sort. It offers nothing new and it never manages to call anything into question because the mystery is fake, we are simply being offered two choices, neither of which is real, in the hopes that we mistake the two choices as some sort of philosophical depth.

Thus, all we’re left with is an action movie. A good action movie, but an action movie nevertheless. Hence, while I enjoyed the film a good deal, I don’t see it having any significance nor do I see it lasting very long.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

TV Review: The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)

There is something about the true classics that make them stand apart from all that came before and from all the copies that follow. The Twilight Zone is a classic. Indeed, despite decades of copies, nothing compares to the original. Ultra-creative stories, gripping plots, intense characters and perfect writing all combine to make the various episodes of The Twilight Zone not only unforgettable, but iconic and timeless.

Created by, narrated by, and mostly-written by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone is part-drama, part-science fiction, part-fantasy, and part-anything else that came to Serling’s mind. Each episode stands alone, with each episode taking place in a different setting, from outer space to the old West to contemporary (1950s) America to the world of the future, and involving different characters.

The stories. . . well, the stories are where the The Twilight Zone becomes something special. Every episode of the The Twilight Zone involves a test of the human spirit. Some are morality plays, where characters are punished for their greed or avarice or jealousy or cowardice (or any other bad human trait). Some are tests of human limits to endure things like loneliness or the suffering of others. Some explore our fears or our sanity. Some explore the worst elements of human nature, such as our capacity to turn on each other. Some are warnings, such as the famous “wishing into the cornfield” episode, which offers an exaggerated example of what can happen when parents don’t provide boundaries for their children. Some are social commentaries.

Having all of this in a single show is itself rather unique and special. But what really separates The Twilight Zone from all its competitors, both the contemporary competitors like The Outer Limits and the subsequent copies like Amazing Stories and Ray Bradbury Theater, and the remakes of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, are two critical differences:

First, you have the writing. Rod Serling is a genius, who should be considered among the greats with Shakespeare and Hemmingway. His dialog is brilliant. He always finds the perfect words for each line of dialog, and he has the courage to use only those words, without feeling compelled to hold the audience’s hand with unnecessary exposition or explanation and without filling his stories with meaningless distractions or unneeded filler. He also manages to keep his stories so well paced that they never lose your attention, and he does such a tremendous job of foreshadowing that you can never tell exactly where a story is headed even though the endings always seem inevitable when they finally arrive. A great measure of the quality of writing is to ask what could have been done to improve a story or a line of dialog, i.e. what would you take out or add to make the story/writing better. Only truly great works, like Serling’s Twilight Zone leave you with nothing that could be changed.

Secondly, and even more importantly, unlike all of the competitors, The Twilight Zone recognizes the good as well as the bad in human nature. For all of the bad things that happen in The Twilight Zone, it is surprisingly un-cynical; nothing is inevitable in The Twilight Zone and it's the rare character who isn’t given a fair chance. Indeed, when characters fail, they do so because they could not overcome their worst instincts. It is this fair examination of the human condition that leaves you wondering at the end of each episode how you would have responded, and it makes you think about our capacity for good and evil, altruism and greed, love and hate, and how easily we can be carried away by these things or how strong of character we can really be. By comparison, something like The Outer Limits (especially the remake) is pure cynicism, where no matter what the characters do, the worst possible result will happen, which leaves you only with the thought “gee, that sucks,” at the end of each episode.

Moreover, The Twilight Zone leaves plenty of room for good things to happen to good people, for cowards to overcome their fears, and for the good but odd to demonstrate that goodness trumps conformity. For example, who doesn’t smile when Mr. Bevis (Orson Bean) forgoes the successful “conformist” life to be who he really is, or when Wanda Dunn realizes that death (Robert Redford) is not something to be feared. These are the kinds of stories that make The Twilight Zone both a fascinating drama but also an uplifting show, and keep the episodes from blurring together as an unrelenting series of failures and disasters.

I think there are three lessons in The Twilight Zone for would-be modern storytellers. First, lose the cynicism. So many movies and books today are modeled on what the writers think are The Twilight Zone-like ideas, but these stories are so awash in cynicism that they’ve lost both the heart that drives The Twilight Zone and what makes it so interesting to us, and they’ve lost the range of stories the The Twilight Zone could tell.

The second lesson is something I find truly frustrating in modern storytelling (and I date this back largely to Star Trek TNG): a misunderstanding of what defines character. Modern storytellers think that character can be created by providing a detailed list of likes and dislikes and hobbies. But that’s not true. Character cannot be created by telling us that a character plays an instrument or drinks Klingon coffee; character can only be developed through the actions of the characters. Consider the pool game between Jonathan Winters and Jack Klugman. Although modern storytellers see the fact of Klugman playing pool as a significant indicator of his character, the reality is that this fact is irrelevant. Indeed, it does not matter to Klugman's character if his game is pool or poker or even basketball, what matters is his obsession with being the best -- that is what defines his character. The Twilight Zone understands this and that’s why its characters are fascinating to us: because they have flaws and strengths, just as we do, and they act according to those, just as we do. Thus, we learn who they are by seeing how they behave, we associate with them as we share their traits, and we invest in them because they become a proxy for our lives. Simply knowing someone’s hobbies just can’t provide a similar connection.

Finally, while The Twilight Zone relies in most episodes on some form of twist, it isn’t the twist that keeps us watching, it is how the characters react to the twist. In other words, if your story relies on the twist to keep people interested -- as so many modern movies do, then you’re doing it wrong. What really matters to a story is the characters, not the moment of shock or surprise.

It’s too bad more modern storytellers don’t get these points, because realizing these things could improve a lot of films.

All in all, The Twilight Zone is one of the few classics of the modern age that you really need to see. Its episodes are iconic and are some of the most copied and repeated stories of the modern world. It permeates our culture, and it set the standard against which all modern cinema should be judged.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Hollywood Stumbles. . . Actually, No

Hollywood profits were down slightly this year and ticket sales were off by a whopping 6%. Suddenly, a great many articles are being written announcing Hollywood's demise: they don’t know how to make good films, they have alienated their audiences, 3D has turned out to be a bust, and the sky is falling. The truth, however, is rather different. Indeed, no matter how much I wish their business model would fail so they would need to change the way they do business, the truth is that everything is fine for them.

Let’s start with my grievances. For those of you who've been reading my discussions of films, you will know that I think Hollywood has entered a dead period, where they are making nothing but poor, throw-away, formulaic junk. Indeed, if you compare the extraordinary number of top films that came out of the 1990s against the total lack of good films in this past decade, it’s obvious that something’s gone wrong:

Some of the Best of the 1990s. . .	The "Best" I Could Find in the 2000s. . .
The Matrix	Lord of the Rings
Ghost	300
Men In Black	The Dark Knight
The Sixth Sense	Pirates of the Caribbean
Jurassic Park	Up
Independence Day	Harry Potter
The Lion King
Pulp Fiction
L.A. Confidential
Terminator 2
Saving Private Ryan
True Lies
Basic Instinct
Schinder's List
The Usual Suspects
Fargo
Titanic
Trainspotting
Goodfellas
Unforgiven
Toy Story

But Hollywood isn’t about art, no matter what they say, it’s about profit. And when you look at profit, you quickly understand why they don’t care about my complaints.

Last year ticket sales fell 6%. And in the past decade, ticket sales fell six out of ten years, which compares poorly to the 1990s when sales rose six out of ten years or the 1980s when sales rose seven out of ten years. And when you compare the number of tickets sold during the decade with the population of America during that decade you find a drop in the number of tickets sold per person from the 1990s to the 2000s. In the 1990s, there were on average 5.2 tickets sold per person per year. In the 2000s, this number fell to 5.1 per year. So the studios must be freaking out right?

Actually no. When you look at the 1980s, you find that the number of tickets sold was only 4.9 per person per year. Thus, while the 2000s saw a loss of 0.1 tickets per person per year compared to the 1990s, it was still 0.2 tickets per person higher than in the 1980s. In other words, the studios sell more tickets per person today than they did 20 years ago. That’s hardly a reason to panic.

And don’t forget, this is despite the massive explosion of alternatives -- cable television, the internet, video games, video on demand, home theaters, etc. These same changes are killing network television and the old media, but Hollywood hasn't missed a step.

Moreover, despite somewhat falling tickets sales, profits are soaring. In 2010 and 2009, the studios made more than $10.5 and $10.6 billion in ticket sales. By comparison, the best year in the 1990s was only $7.5 billion, and the early 1990s saw sales below $4.9 billion. So in 20 years, the studio has more than doubled its income, and it’s on a nearly straight-line curve. That’s not an unhealthy business model.

If there is a problem, it’s the increasing costs the studios are facing, with the average cost of movies going up from $11.3 million per film in 1980 to $26.8 million in 1990 to $54.8 million in 2000. That poses a problem because that appears to mean that costs are doubling every decade, whereas profits are only doubling every two decades. But the answer to increasing costs is to cut those costs, not to hope for better sales. Consequently, Hollywood has begun shipping its productions overseas to low-cost places like India and non-union locations.

What all of this means is that the studios have no reason whatsoever to change what they are doing. Despite dramatic increases in ticket prices and all of the complaints we can level against the industry, people continue to buy tickets at about the same rate they’ve bought them for the last 30 years and dollar-value sales continue to double every decade. If there is a problem, it’s on the cost end, not the sales end, and that is not going to get them to worry more about story. Thus, no matter how much we may wish that Hollywood would listen to our complaints, they have no economic reason to listen or to change anything they do. Ug.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Avatar (2009)

Avatar, a.k.a. Dances With Smurfs, is a crappy movie. There is no other way to say it. If someone tells you they liked this film, punch them in the face. Not only is this the most politically correct film ever, but it’s poorly acted, poorly written and deathly dull. I feel like I’ve lost a portion of my life watching it.

** I would insert a spoiler warning here, but you can’t spoil this film. **

The "Plot"

Oh where do I begin. An evil corporation has invaded some planet (the unoriginally named “Pandora”) so they can mine something called “unobtainium” -- a word stolen from the infinitely better yet still crappy movie The Core. This unobtainium does something. We don’t know what exactly because James Cameron wasn’t smart enough to come up with anything, but just take it on faith that it’s important.

The main character, Jake Sully (we’ll call him “Lifeless” in honor of the acting non-talent of Sam Worthington), is a former Marine who lost the use of his legs. . . probably from sitting through this film. He takes a job on planet PandaOdor where he will be an avatar operator. What's an avatar you ask? Basically, Ripley from Alien came up with the idea that if you want to exploit a native people, you gotta look like the native people, then you can trick them into trading their land for your beads. So she invented these body-suit things that look like the locals. We aren’t really sure how the suits work or how they’re made because Cameron didn’t care about this aspect of the film. But don’t worry about it, you won’t care either because your mind will be numb by this point in the film. . . ten minutes in.

Lifeless’s job is to operate his avatar in such a way that he endears himself to the locals, a tall blue race called the Na’vi, who look an awful lot like Smurfs who’ve spent time on a Medieval torture rack. After a boring, boring, boring 20 minutes of watching animators try to make Lifeless emote as he runs through the forest of this standard videogame world, Lifeless comes up with a plan. He decides to get himself attacked by wild animals in the hopes that some borderline-retarded princess of the Na’vi happens by and saves him. Of course this works because you can’t swing a dead panda on PandaOdor without hitting a Na’vi princess and because chicks can’t resist a dude who is helpless, rude and stupid.

After a few more minutes of scenery and some pidgin English, these two fall in love and the Smurfs make Lifeless a trusted member of their tribe. Retarded-Princess then mates with Lifeless’s avatar. . . somehow. . . before we are “treated” to another thirty minute scene where Lifeless runs through trees and learns to fly on the backs of creatures on Smurfback Mountain as the other Smurfs learn to accept him and see him as the chosen one.

Suddenly, it’s back to the plot. For reasons Cameron never bothers to explain, the evil US Military decides that since they can now succeed with their plan of gaining the Na’vi’s trust, now would be the perfect time to ditch that plan and instead start killing them for fun. What?! Those aren’t the US military, you say? Well, you could have fooled me. Then the “plot” stops, a fight ensues, a lot of people die, as do many Smurfs, and forty minutes later the evil military loses and Lifeless becomes the leader of the Na’vi. Roll credits.

The Characters

Now that you know the plot, let’s talk about the characters. The characters are awful.

First, you have Lifeless. He’s a pointless character with little to add to the movie despite being the main character. His role is clearly a copy of Kevin Costner’s role from Dances With Wolves, but Worthington comes across more like a mental patient whose thorazine wears off every once in a while. Indeed, he seems incapable of displaying any emotions, despite suffering wild mood swings -- “I hate this place,” “no, I love this place, it’s paradise,” etc. etc. His character also is prone to saying really stupid things, but that’s ok because the other characters aren’t listening. In fact, one of the first things you’ll notice about this film is that none of the characters speak to each other, they deliver speeches to the audience. If it weren’t for the fact they do touch each other once in a while, you’d almost swear they filmed their parts separately and never met. Even simple lines, like "good morning fellow capitalist oppressor," seem to be spoken past the other characters.

The main bad guy is Colonel Cliché, who has a severe disability which prevents him from saying any line you haven’t heard in another film. He loves to kill. Sigourney Weaver plays a woman who occasionally uses scientific terms and then dies. She likes to be rude to people. And there are a whole bunch of other actors too, who presumably do something plot-wise, though it’s not really clear what. Finally, there are the Smurfs, whose main job is to speak like cliché American Indians, while pretending they aren’t American Indians. Not much more to say about them.

The “Writing”

The writing is awful. In fact, there wasn’t really a single line in the film that didn’t make me cringe. Every sentence was cliché-ridden and predictable. The word choice was around a fifth grade level. There was nothing subtle in the writing either. If they want you to know a particular character can’t be trusted, they will literally have multiple characters come on screen and say, “You cannot trust Character X.” And the only memorable line in the film was “The End,” words for which I was truly thankful.

The Political Correctness

Now that we’re done talking about the good parts of the film, let’s talk about the most serious problem with this sucker: this film is pure leftist propaganda. Every single line delivered in this film is crawling with politically correct bullsh~t. Seriously, these people can’t say good morning without making some leftist crack. These characters don’t speak, they make speeches. And here’s what they say: corporations are evil. The military is evil. Scientists who do the bidding of evil corporations or the military are evil. The American Indians are noble creatures who lived in an ideal world where no one died and their gods literally existed and everyone was a vegetarian and loved each other until whitey came along and killed them all and herded them into casinos. Save the environment from capitalist whitey and the military. The war on terror is evil. The American military are terrorists, shock and awe is evil. Shave the whales! Down with whitey!

The anti-white message in this film was particularly obnoxious. All the bad guys were white. In fact, the only minorities on staff (the Indian dude and the Hispanic chick) quickly changed sides and betrayed whitey to aid the Smurfs, as did all the women and the handicapped guy (what, no gays?). Whitey Colonel Cliché even asks Lifeless how it feels to betray his race, which may have meant “human” in this instance, but sure sounded like "white."

But before James Cameron goes patting himself on the back for being a full-blown worshiper of oppression theology, let me point out one irony. Why is it, James, that the only person who can save the backwards Na’vi is the white dude? And why would these peaceful people make him their leader, as they apparently do at the end of the film, when his only qualifications are being a solider and being a white dude? Are you saying that a moronic white dude is the best and brightest on their planet? That seems kind of racist. Seriously James, it’s amazing how easily your screed against white oppression seamlessly morphs into the noble savage fantasy that was so popular among empire builders in the late 1800s. I guess you see yourself as the man who would be king?

The anti-military message was obnoxious as well. All the soldiers are drawn entirely from the paranoid Hollywood clichés of soldiers. They are bloodthirsty and irrational and long for nothing more than subjugating the scientists and businessmen who run the show, just so they can kill the Na’vi because. . . well, just because. Sounds to me like James Cameron must have had a bad experience with a solider at one time. . . in a mensroom.

Unfortunately, these messages permeate everything you see and hear in this crap-fest. Indeed, there wasn't a line of dialog that didn't push these ideas. And that was a big enough turn off to anger me, whenever I awoke from my periodic movie-induced comas.

Conclusion

To sum up this film, all I can really say is that it swings wildly between boring and offensive, with a pretty lame videogame thrown in between. I am glad this turkey will be forgotten in a couple years, but saddened that James Cameron made any money. Maybe he’ll get robbed. . . now that is a happy thought!

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Wall Street (1987)

Wall Street is a great film. It’s well-paced, well-shot, well-acted and quite dramatic. But it has a rather ironic history. It’s ironic because Oliver Stone wanted the film to stand as an attack on Wall Street and the Reagan philosophy, but it seriously backfired and he ended up sending an entire generation of kids to finance school specifically to become the very villain the film rails against.

** spoiler alert **

At one point, Oliver Stone was a talented director/storyteller. Wall Street was made at the height of his abilities and is perhaps his finest film. But it was this ability to craft a highly compelling and engrossing film that tripped Stone up. Stone, no friend of capitalism or Ronald Reagan, intended Wall Street to be an anti-Reagan, anti-Wall Street, anti-capitalism screed. He hoped to discredit everything Reagan had achieved and get people leaving the theaters believing that the Reagan recovery (then underway for several years) was smoke and mirrors, with the rich getting richer by illegal means and the poor being tossed into the streets. But people didn’t see the film that way. To the contrary, they were inspired to become the very thing he hated: Gordon Gekko.

If we take the story as Stone intended, we get the following. Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is an eager young man who wants to do better than his father (Martin Sheen), a beloved union man. Fox joins the white collar corporate grind, doing cold calling for a brokerage firm. But greed entices Fox into the world of corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), an evil man who symbolizes the Reagan years. Gekko wrecks companies so he can squeeze out their savings for himself. Under Gekko’s spell, Bud changes. He becomes cynical. He goes from a normal American to buying modern art he once despised, to taking drugs, to falling for a woman who is, in essence, a high class prostitute or gold digger. Most importantly though, Bud becomes a slave to Gekko, doing his bidding, emulating him, and being used and abused by him. Ultimately, Bud becomes a criminal. Gee, capitalism sucks.

But Stone made a huge mistake by glorifying the experience. He gave it cool settings, beautiful people, access to a secret world, and even a great soundtrack. Consequently, what most people got out of the film was this: Gordon Gekko owns expensive cars, private planes and homes on private beaches. He has the coolest office in the world. He belongs to private clubs, where he gets to push around rich people who thought they were better than him. He makes his own schedule, orders off the menu in restaurants, gets the best tables, meets the coolest people, has sex with the most attractive women, and gets to play monopoly with real companies. And his life can be yours, if you're just willing to break a few harmless rules.

What’s more, Stone compounds his error by adding the character of Sir Lawrence Wildman (Terence Stamp), the white knight corporate raider. Wildman is the good capitalist, a man who genuinely wants to turn companies around and save jobs rather than wrecking them. BUT, we are also told that Wildman was Gekko before Gekko, and that his good guy status is only of recent vintage. Bud Fox reinforces this when he talks repeatedly about making a fortune so he can then do good with it. Thus, through Wildman’s actions and Fox’s words, we are told that it’s ok to be Gekko to get rich so long as we eventually do something noble with the money. . . at some point.

Thus, rather than the anti-capitalist “finance makes you evil” message Stone intended, the message that comes across in Wall Street is that it’s ok to do bad things to become ultra rich, because (1) it’s a great way to live and (2) you can redeem yourself later by doing good things once you can afford it. This was the message picked up by millions of college kids who suddenly wanted to become Gordon Gekko. They dressed like him, quoted him, and talked about becoming him. Indeed, just like LA Law sent kids to law school and ER sent kids to medical school, Wall Street sent them to business school to learn corporate finance. Screenwriter Stanley Weiser has confirmed this, stating that he has been approached many times by people who told him, “This movie changed my life. Once I saw it, I knew that I wanted to get into such and such business. I wanted to be like Gordon Gekko.” Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas also report that people tell them they became stockbrokers because of Fox and/or Gekko.

How’s that for irony?

But there are more ironies to consider. For example, this was a criticism of Reaganism, but corporate raiding exploded under Clinton. Stone complains that Gekko wrecks companies for no reason except his own profit, but it was the corporate raiders of the 1980s/1990s who are now credited with making American industry profitable again by breaking up large conglomerates that were run by inefficient management -- indeed, the failure to do this in Japan is one of the causes blamed for their decades long economic nightmare. Stone also complains that the economy is a “zero sum game,” a fancy economic term meaning that every winner has an equal loser and that no new wealth is ever created. But the economy grew from four trillion dollars at the time of the film to thirteen trillion today, even though Stone’s criticism would have predicted little to no growth. Similarly, Stone’s predicted pension fund collapse never happened.

Finally, it should be pointed out that much of what Stone sees as criminal in the conduct of Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko is not actually criminal. It is definitely criminal for Fox to break into offices using the cleaning service, and it is probably criminal for him to trade on what his father knows, depending on how his father learned this information. But Fox following Wildman around to figure out what company Wildman wants to buy is not illegal, despite Stone’s obsession with that point. Indeed, this is not insider information, this is nothing more than seeing Warren Buffett checking out the local grocery store and buying their stock because you think he wants to buy the company. Nor is it illegal to call the newspaper and tell them you plan to buy a particular stock, assuming you are truthful. Stone makes this sound criminal as well, but this happens every day when people go on CNBC to announce what they are interested in.

Thus, while Wall Street is a great film and it’s quite fun to watch, it fails pretty miserably at delivering its intended message. . . unless that message was “greed is good.”

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Is Hollywood Finally Listening?

Is Hollywood finally listening to conservatives? Hollywood has always had a liberal bent, though it was not always particularly noticeable. Part of this was that in the 1940s-1950s, liberalism was closer to classical liberalism (i.e. modern conservatism) than it was to hateful, lunatic modern liberalism. In the 1990s, however, Hollywood began to change and it became openly leftist and extremely hostile to all things non-liberal. But I wonder if that’s changing?

When the Clintons came to office with the support of Hollywood, Hollywood came fully out of the closet and jumped into the tank for the Democrats. As the Democrats drifted further and further to the nasty left, Hollywood followed. Gone were the generic public service announcements of the 1980s and the strategically placed “No Smoking” or “End Apartheid” signs in films, and in their place were open tirades against everything American. By the 2000s, this become so commonplace that there was scarcely a film that didn’t include some anti-Republican, anti-conservative, or anti-American message. And even when the films didn’t include these messages, many of the actors spent their days giving vile speeches supporting dictators and damning America.

The content was changing too. Villains became much more nasty and were drawn from narrower ranks, i.e. they all became melodramatic liberal bogeymen. Moreover, certain types of people could no longer be anything but villains. The American military and intelligence community because disloyal murderers. Priests became pedophiles. Businessmen because perverts, thieves, and killers. Religious people were portrayed as stupid lunatics with cultish overtones. There were no exceptions.

But then something began to happen. Americans, particularly conservative Americans, began voting with their wallets. Indeed, since at least the Iraq war, more and more conservative consumers began turning their backs on Hollywood. Profits continued to rise, but that was because of skyrocketing ticket prices and 3D surcharges; in real numbers ticket sales keep falling. Hollywood has noticed, though most tried to blame the recession. But this trend started long before the recession, and the public's boycott is too selective to be part of a general economic trend.

For example, while war films continue to play well (Valkyrie (2009), Flags of Our Fathers (2006)), not a single Iraqi War film escaped the bust label. Matt Damon was a bankable superstar until he started whining about Bush and Katrina and America. George Clooney’s box office appeal crashed the moment he began spewing. Ditto Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Megan Fox and others, and the presence of these people can now drag any film down. Everything politicized directors like Michael Moore and Oliver Stone did suddenly flopped, as did the political films. People even stayed away in droves from Disney’s attempt to satisfy race-baiting critics by providing a black princess in The Frog Princess, from the anti-religious rant The Invention of Lying, and anti-Wall Street films like Wall Street II.

So is Hollywood getting the message or is all of this falling on deaf ears? Well, consider this. In the past year, we’ve suddenly had two films that never would have been made in the early 2000s. The first is The Book of Eli and the second is Legion. Legion is your standard “angles are nasty creatures sent to kill humans” story that seems to have become popular ever since The Prophecy. But what makes it rather different is that it contains an anti-abortion message. Indeed, to save humanity, the heroes must protect a woman who wanted to have an abortion, but changed her mind. That’s a message you simply could not have put into a film before the somewhat ambiguous Juno in 2007. . . Hollywood’s feminist lobby never would have allowed it.

The Book of Eli is even more interesting. This is a film about a man, Eli (Denzel Washington), who is walking through a post-apocalyptic world with a book. They don’t tell you what the book is right away, but it’s so obvious that you can’t help but figure it out -- The Bible. Throughout this film, we are told that the horrific world in which humanity finds itself is the result of a war in which people tried to destroy every Bible because they blamed it as a cause of conflict, e.g. just like many on the atheist-left do today. At the same time, the few survivors with knowledge of times before the war talk with reverence about the power of the Bible to improve people’s lives and make the world a better place. Moreover, the film doesn’t hesitate to make it clear that God is real or that he is protecting Eli as he travels. AND, as he goes, Eli learns that the importance of the Bible is not the words per se, but living your life according to its teachings. Think about this for a moment. What was the last film produced by a major studio that was deeply complimentary to Christianity rather than deeply insulting?

I'm seeing hints in other movies too. The villains are getting more generic again and less-obviously insulting to America's institutions, and I'm seeing fewer straight up political moments in non-political films.

These could be outliers, but even if they are, they are outliers that simply could not have been made in the early 2000s. Perhaps this is evidence that Hollywood has turned a corner and that cracks are appearing in the Tinsel Curtain? Maybe this is even the beginning of an acknowledgement by Hollywood that it realizes that it needs to win back conservatives? I guess we’ll know when we see our first film in which American soldiers are made out as heroes rather than psychopaths?

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Television Networks

I often marvel at how poorly the television networks are run. In fact, if it weren’t for the airlines, I would say that no industry in America is more poorly run than the networks. Consider the following:

At a time when people are abandoning the network news because they offer nothing that can’t be found on the internet, the networks are laying off news staff and relying more on wire reports. . . the same wire reports that supply every internet news site. Wouldn’t it make more sense to increase resources so the networks can offer stories that can’t be found on the wire?

The networks are obsessed with competing head to head. If Fox gets a science fiction hit on Friday night (e.g. the X-Files), other networks (cough cough NBC) will try to come up with similar science fiction shows and run them opposite the Fox hit. If there’s an NFL game on one channel, rest assured someone else will run “guy films” to try to steal that audience. Wouldn’t it make more sense to grab the audience that isn’t flocking to the other guy's main attraction each night?

The networks spend a fortune coming up with “new” programming each year, but their failure rate is incredible. More than 80% of new shows will fail each year, with about a third not lasting a month. What’s worse, to achieve this “success rate,” they take the safest, i.e. “most cowardly,” approach possible. They do nothing that hasn’t been done and isn’t already airing. All sitcoms are either knock-offs of Friends or the awful generic family sitcom. All dramas involve cops or lawyers or over-sexed teens. They recycle stars more than environmentalists recycle their garbage. Yet, only 20% even make it to year two? And every year network audiences shrink even as the population grows? Wouldn’t it make more sense to try something new, like taking risks on content? HBO, AMC, and FX are all taking risks, and are being well rewarded for their efforts.

Also, wouldn’t it make sense to change the whole model? For example, you could start a show with a 15 minute pilot tacked onto the end of an existing show to see if people like it. You could spend a week running new pilots and getting audience to vote on them. Or you could start them on cable auxiliary networks and “promote” them to the network if they succeed. What other industry would accept a 20% success rate on new products without changing their business model?

The networks also spend a fortune bidding on sporting events like the Olympics and the NFL, on which they admit they will lose vast amounts of money. They do this to earn the “prestige” of having these events. But does anyone really watch NBC sitcoms or dramas because NBC had the Olympics or because they have the NFL? Do you think any less of ABC because they don’t? And if you’re going to spend money on these properties, why not do more tie-ins like having NFL players appear on sitcoms or doing a show about the NFL?

Finally, why would these networks let their shows and their news become so politicized? Does it make any sense to turn off half (or more) of your audience? Could you imagine WalMart blasting right-wing propaganda over its loudspeaker when you enter the store, or having its cashiers lecture you on the problems caused by unions? They don’t do that because they aren’t a political organization and it doesn’t make sense to offend their customers. So why do networks do/allow this?

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Top 25 8: Holiday Films You Should Know

With Thanksgiving upon us next week and Christmas following closely, it’s time to consider holiday movies. But this isn’t as easy as it sounds. For while holidays are some of the most deeply-ingrained aspects of our culture, there seem to be a shortage of significant holiday movies. It’s not as bad as trying to find films about the American Revolution, but it’s pretty close. So let’s call this a Top 8.

What’s interesting about holiday films is how few are actually about the holidays themselves, i.e. few films retell Christmas stories or tell us tales about Pilgrims. That tends to be the domain of television, where you find the likes of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and The Charlie Brown Christmas Special or A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Instead, we seem to consider a movie a holiday film if it takes place during the holidays and it involves “the holiday spirit.”

The holiday spirit consists of a combination of deep sentimentality and some form of redemption. Even the holiday films that aren’t truly sentimental in the strictest sense always end up with a moment near the end where all sins are forgiven, the bad guys are redeemed (as is the misguided hero), the value of family relationships and friendships is extolled, and everything ends happily. Here’s the list:

1. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946): Directed by Frank Capra and staring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, Life is the story of George Bailey, who is prevented from committing suicide when his guardian angel shows him what his family, friends and community would have been like if he had never been born. While this movie flopped when it came out, it’s become the most-loved holiday film and tops almost everyone’s list. “Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry.”

2. A Christmas Carol (various): Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol has been made and remade so many times and in so many forms that it’s impossible to pick a single version as the most influential or best. Many people swear by the 1951 British version, while others prefer the 1984 George C. Scott version. Some like Bill Murray’s version in Scrooged. Even It’s A Wonderful Life contains elements of this story. My personal favorite version is The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992). In any form however, this is one of the most well-know stories on the planet, and everyone knows each of its elements. “What day is it?” “Why, it’s Christmas Day, sir.”

3. Miracle on 34th Street (1947): Miracle is the story of a department-store Santa who believes he really is Kris Kringle. When they try to institutionalize this Santa for being insane, a young lawyer defends him by arguing that he is the real Santa. In the process, this film points out that a little faith in good things makes all of our lives better. “Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.”

4. A Christmas Story (1983): Set in small-town America in the 1950s, this tale of a young boy’s quest to get his hands on a Red Ryder BB gun swims in nostalgia and sentimentalism. This is another film that flopped in the theaters, but got a second life on television. By 2007, this film crawled to the top of several “best holiday film” lists. In fact, the film has became so popular that one cable station now airs a 24 hour Christmas Eve marathon each year, during which they run this film over and over. . . and people watch. “I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!”

5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989): This is possibly the best of the Christmas comedies (see below), and I’ve separated it because this is the one that spawned a generation of holiday movies that took a cynical look at Christmas. Unlike prior, thoroughly-sentimental films, Vacation dug into the love/hate relationship that many people have with the event that is the family Christmas, and it waited until the end before it whipped out the usual sentimentality. “Welcome to our home - what's left of it.”

6. White Christmas (1954): The story of two army buddies who meet their former commander in Vermont amidst a series of romantic mix-ups, this light romantic comedy was based around the song of the same name and was basically a star vehicle for Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney. “There's no Christmas in the Army!”

7. The Bishop’s Wife (1947): The story of an angel (Cary Grant) who comes to Earth to help a bishop (David Niven) who has lost focus on what is important in life as he has become obsessed with building a cathedral. On Earth, Grant finds himself falling for Niven’s wife (Loretta Young). “Sometimes angels rush in where fools fear to tread.”

8. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1997): Not particularly influential, but very popular, Planes is the only Thanksgiving film on our list.Planes is the story of an advertising executive (Steve Martin) who wants to fly home for Thanksgiving, but finds himself stuck with an obnoxious salesman (John Candy) as a traveling companion. Written by John Hughes in three days, this film went on to gross $50 million and remains a television mainstay today. “Those aren't pillows!”

Christmas comedies: Finally, let’s finish off the list with a group acknowledgement for the holiday comedy. Films like Elf, Ernest Saves Christmas, Jingle All The Way, Bad Santa, Home Alone, and The Santa Clause are standard Hollywood comedies that touch upon Christmas in one way or another. There’s little to these films, and they have even less staying power, but they do tend to make money as star vehicles in the year they are made, and the ones listed here have been entertaining enough to stick around for a little. It's hard to say that any of these films is influential, but the genre itself continues to reflect the cynical side of our views of the holiday season.


There are other holiday films we could list and some that are seen as holiday films despite not having any particular holiday theme (like Babes In Toyland). But none of those films is particularly influential. In fact, even the holiday films listed here were not particularly influential, certainly not as influential as those on the other Top 25 lists. Perhaps this is because our holidays are defined elsewhere in the culture, and these films only reflect what we already know about the holidays rather than trying to make a statement about the holidays? Or, said differently, maybe we don’t need movies to tell us what Christmas and Thanksgiving mean because we already know?

So what are your favorite holiday films?

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

TV Review: Sherlock (2009)

The BBC has a recent history of producing very entertaining, high-quality programs. Everything from the new Doctor Who to Top Gear have been smashing successes worldwide. High production qualities, top notch acting, and quality writing have abounded. Even some of their misses have been better than anything on American television today, like Primeval and Apparitions. The new PBS Masterpiece Mystery program Sherlock, a BBC production, easily continues that tradition.

Sherlock is a three part series that is written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and directed by Paul McGuigan and Euros Lyn. This is the team responsible for the best Doctor Who episodes, including The Empty Child, The Beast Below, The Time of Angels, The Girl In The Fireplace, and Silence in the Library, as well as Torchwood Children of Earth. They also wrote the Victorian Era episode The Unquiet Dead. Moffat also previously adapted The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde into the 2007 series Jekyll. So this is an impressive pedigree, and they don’t disappoint.

Modern adaptations of Sherlock Holmes are difficult, almost by definition, because Holmes is so associated in our minds with Victorian times. The way he speaks, his habits, his style of reasoning, his relationship with others are all deeply Victorian, as are the types of crimes and criminals he pursues. Indeed, prior to this series, I suspected that his very essence was uniquely Victorian and probably could not be brought outside of that era. But this new production proves that wrong.

What is truly striking about Sherlock is just how well they capture the essence that is Holmes. They kept his superior intelligence and his incredible ability to deduct stunning (yet obvious once you hear them) conclusions from minute details that you or I would otherwise miss. But even more importantly, they’ve managed to keep the balance between Holmes’ amazing ability to understand everyone around him instantly, against his inability to relate to anyone. Indeed, despite his almost omniscient grasp of human nature, he seems strangely incapable of dealing with others on any personal level. And it’s not clear if Holmes is a pathologically introverted character who offsets his problem with extreme arrogance, or if his “bored genius” makes him a “high-functioning sociopath,” as Holmes describes himself. This is classic Holmes.

Moreover, they have done a stellar job of maintaining the relationship between Holmes and Watson without giving in to modern "sensibilities." Indeed, at a time when it has become popular to suggest that the two are gay (a misunderstanding of Victorian era norms), this show avoids that trap, just as it avoids introducing modern soap-opera-like drama into their relationship. At one point, they actually poke at this theory when Holmes jokingly suggests that people might think they were gay because of the way Watson is behaving.

The production qualities are first rate as well. The sets are well chosen, giving you a flavor of London without doing the usual clichés. In other words, rather than doing things like setting scenes at the gates of Buckingham palace, they use locations like a railway yard with only a hint of the famous Battersea Power Station peeking out from behind an overpass. The inside sets are realistic as well, unlike shows likes CSI where the coroners work in the dark under intense mood lighting. In fact, every single setting is entirely believable and feels like something your would find in real life.

The actors are well chosen too. Holmes and Watson are strong actors with obvious chemistry as friends, but also manage to display the tension that comes from Holmes’ constant condescending to Watson. There is a character introduced near the end, whose name I will not reveal, who also ends up being perfectly played despite my initial shock at his mannerisms. The extras too impress me. Most of them are fat or old or simply "normal," but that helps make them entirely believable. Indeed, this is something great about British television, which is lacking in Hollywood: the ability to produce believable “every day” people on screen.

Finally, the show is fast paced with gripping plots that balance carefully between giving you enough to follow the story and to feel that you can predict where the story is heading, and giving away too much. In fact, you probably won’t have any idea what will happen next, though you never feel cheated. And even better, there isn’t a hint of political correctness. We are not treated to anti-war statements, attacks on religions or the military, attacks on corporations, attacks on conservatives, etc. They don’t wedge minorities into every position of authority, there are no moments where we are told that Islam is wonderful, and Watson even shows disgust at the homeless. There are even two moments that the gay lobby would not have accepted on film in this country. It is refreshing to not feel like you are being lectured.

All in all, I highly recommend this show. They really have managed to take the essence of Sherlock Holmes and bring it to the present. The only complaint I have is that there are only three episodes. Let’s hope for more!

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: The Guns of Navarone (1961)

The Guns of Navarone is a fascinating movie, and not just because of what’s on the screen. Based on a book by Alistair MacLean, the film was written and produced as anti-Cold War propaganda by Carl Foreman, a member of the communist party, who was blacklisted in the United States. His intent apparently was to suggest to Western audiences that they not fight the Cold War. But like so many other liberal message films, his message backfired, and he ended up creating a rousing film that remains one of the stronger World War II movies.

** spoiler alert **

Navarone ostensibly is the story of a commando team that must infiltrate a fictional Nazi-occupied island in Greece and destroy a large rail gun so the British Navy can pass by the island to save 5,000 trapped British troops. As they do this, they are repeatedly faced with nasty choices, such as whether or not to kill one of their own when he gets wounded or to feed him false information knowing he will reveal the information under torture. They also encounter betrayal, cold-blooded murder, and cowardice.

More importantly, the three main characters struggle with each other. Capt. Mallory (Gregory Peck), an American, is tired of the war, but continues with his duty even though it seems hopeless to him. Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn), a former Colonel in the Greek army, fights to free his home. Corporal Miller (David Niven), a British explosives expert, is anti-war and revels in criticizing Mallory’s actions.

I say “ostensibly” because the film is actually a metaphor for the Cold War. If we see this film as Foreman intended, then we would notice the following: the Nazis, who stand in for the Soviets, are ruthless, efficient, and nearly omniscient. It is hopeless to fight them. Mallory, who represents Americans, is a stupid man who is only doing what he’s been told and has no idea why he’s fighting. Miller, who represents America’s allies, is worn out, cynical and ready to make America carry the load. He also manipulates Mallory into doing all the dirty deeds. And Stavros represents the people of third world countries who are dying on these misguided American missions.

But here’s the problem for Foreman. Leftist propaganda doesn’t sell. To make the movie profitable, the characters had to resolve their issues before they could move ahead. And in so doing, Foreman’s anti-war message morphs into a call for everyone to understand the importance of fighting, i.e. the reasons why the West did fight, and to grasp their importance to the fight. In effect, to draw an audience, he turns an anti-war screed into an incredibly strong pro-war film.

Indeed, as the characters reach the make or break moment, Mallory suddenly realizes why he’s fighting -- he needs to make this realization if he is to be able to continue the mission. He realizes that he is not fighting just a different ideology, but an evil ideology, and that he must succeed if he is to save the people who are relying on him. In other words, he learns that he is part of a bigger picture and what he does matters because people are relying on him.

What brings about this epiphany is his observation of the Greeks. Up to this point in the film, Mallory and Miller have been little more than tourists. They see the island as just another battleground and they pay no attention to the locals. But as they are brought into the lives of the locals, they come to realize what the Nazis have wrought upon this community and the lives they’ve destroyed. This particularly strikes Mallory when he realizes this war is a matter of life and death to Stavros, and that Stavros can’t simply quit the war and go back to his old life. He knew this, just as he knew that 5,000 soldiers and sailors would die if he failed, but his experience finally personalizes this for him.

It’s at this point that Mallory has enough of Miller’s constant harping and disclaiming of any responsibility. Miller has disavowed responsibility for everything that happened, and criticized Mallory at every turn, safe in the knowledge that Mallory would do his duty no matter how asinine Miller behaved. But now Mallory has his fill, and he delivers one of the most pro-war speeches you will ever hear in a film. Indeed, he berates Miller for trying to pretend that he is only an observer and he tells Miller “whether you like it or not, you’re in this thing, up to your neck.” He then demands that Miller finally carry his own weight. Shamed, Miller realizes that his cynical pacifism had been disloyalty bordering on sabotage.

Thus, what was meant to present an image of America adrift facing an invincible foe as worn-out, whiny, worthless allies harp at America from the sidelines, suddenly becomes a rousing pro-war statement declaring the importance of everyone working together to win this struggle to set the world free. Basically, Foreman’s anti-war film turned into a crystal clear statement of why everyone needed to do their duty.

This is one of the ironies of leftist propaganda films: they often backfire on their creators because the need to attract an audience requires certain elements that change the message of the film. In this case, had the characters surrendered to their cynicism, then there would be no doubt about the anti-war message of the film. . . but there wouldn’t have been an audience. Instead, the characters overcome the ideological confines placed upon them early in the film so they can try to end the movie successfully. And because of that, the “message” of defeatism actually gets converted from being the thing the audience was meant to take away from the film into the thing that must be beaten for a brighter future. And that's the exact opposite of what Foreman hoped to convey.

Whoops.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...