Top 25: Guilty Pleasures

I may have overstated things slightly when I said this would be the most consequential post of all time. Yeah, probably. To celebrate our official grand opening today, we’re going to do something COMPLETELY meaningless: list my “guilty pleasure” movies. Yep, horrible, horrible movies that I just can’t resist when they come on television. The only caveat, they can't be cult classics -- so don’t expect to see Flash Gordon or Rocky Horror Picture Show. Here they are ranked in order of how close I am to quoting them from memory. . . oy:

1. Predator 2 (1990): It’s difficult to fully describe the awfulness of this film. Every moment is a cliché. Characters randomly spout lines ripped off from B-movies and take actions that make no sense. And forget continuity, the film was re-edited 20 times before they released it. Despite this, it’s still fun to watch Danny Glover hunt the Predator and vice versa. Also, because of the heavy cliché factor, it’s like watching every cop movie ever made at once. “Mike, goddamn it. This ain't your personal little war, you know.”

2. Deep Blue Sea (1999): Thomas Jane, LL Cool J, Samuel Jackson and three genetically manipulated killer sharks?! What could possibly go wrong? Well, the film feels like a quickie sequel to a better movie, how’s that for wrong? Still, I can’t not watch. There’s just something about LL Cool J explaining the theory of relativity that makes this sucker compelling. “Ooh, I'm done! Brothers never make it out of situations like this! Not ever!”

3. Conan The Destroyer/Red Sonja (1984/1985): These two might be the same film, I'm not sure, but they might as well be. Both seem like someone who had never seen Conan the Barbarian decided to make a sequel and prove they could do it on a third of the budget. The plots are little more than “stupidly hire a hero to protect someone I want to kill, send them out for a walk, and proceed to final confrontation.” The acting of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brigitte Nielsen is not credible. And the sets were stolen from a high school play. But somehow these work as sword and sorcery flicks and the characters are likeable. “My brother's sister's cousin never said anything about bars.”

4. Immortal (Ad Vitam) (2004): I know, you’ve never heard of this one. Count yourself lucky. I saw this late one night and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It's the first film shot entirely against a blue screen and it's nonsense. But it offers such a strange world that I keep thinking about it and wondering if there isn’t a decent movie buried in there somewhere? “The greatest power of all. The power to procreate with God.”

5. Speed Racer (2008): This film vacillates between being written by six year olds and being a fever dream, but I love the colors and effects and it’s got heart. Is it a good movie? Don’t make me laugh. But as pure escapism, it doesn’t get much better than this. “It's the only thing I know how to do and I gotta do something.”

6. Krull (1983): This film sports some talent (Liam Neeson, Freddie Jones, Francesca Annis) but does precious little with them. A weak plot (find out where the movie will end, go there and kill the bad guy with a circular boomerang), poor staging (rush to the middle of the stage and then read lines), and plastic sets make this film never quite feel real. Still, it cobbles together a pleasant little adventure film. “The man has raisins in his braincase.”

7. Beerfest (2006): Not nearly as funny as it should have been and not all that well made. Poor acting and poor sets. But the concept is worth the price of admission and the story is entertaining. Also, what can I say? I’m German. This film tugs at my ancestral roots. “It's time to scheiz or get off the crapper.”

8. Smoking Aces (2006): This film is so hip it forgets to be good. The director loses control of his timeline and forgets about some of his characters. But it’s got ATTITUDE like no other film. This film made me want to be a hitman! “He's got some clarity issues.”

9. Alien Resurrection (1997): This film may be failed parody. I'm not sure. But either way, it's pointless and stupid and nothing in it make sense. But it’s got some cool effects and some fun scenes, if you can get through the offensively obvious gimmicks and hokey dialog. Apparently, I can. “I thought you were dead?”

10. Planet Terror (2007): I’m scratching my head on this one. It was meant to be hokey and cheesy and it does that in spades, and in the process, it achieves the right level of badness to become a cult classic. Yet, I'm the only one in the cult. Still, I’ve got plenty of robes, so give this one a couple dozen chances. “That boy’s got the devil in him.”

11. The Fog (1980): Hal Holbrook. Adrien Barbeau. Janet Leigh. Jamie Lee Curtis. And a cast of spooky dead lepers who were tricked into crashing their ship upon the rocks of this small California town 100 years ago! How can this John Carpenter film go wrong? By being totally lightweight -- even the best scenes were forced into the movie by the studio. Still, this could be my personal favorite Carpenter film. It’s creepy, efficient and unique. “The celebration tonight is a travesty. We're honoring murderers.”

12. Leviathan (1989): Hey, let’s rip off Alien and The Abyss only without the production values! So why like this one? It’s copied good movies and condensed them into an easy to absorb topical. “I bet you were imploding in your pants.”

13. Poltergeist III (1988): Oh oh, somebody left the sequel machine on. P3 doesn’t include the original cast and it’s little more than a collection of things jumping at you. But it’s fast moving and it’s scary enough to entertain. “That’s not Carol Anne!”

14. Blue Thunder (1983): Malcolm McDowell chases Roy Scheider around Los Angles in helicopters. Everyone in this movie is pretty dense and the plot is paranoid and dishwater thin, but the movie works. The flying scenes are neat and Scheider is likeable. “You're supposed to be stupid, son. Don't abuse the privilege.”

15. Hackers (1995): Computer films never show what computers are really like. According to this film, hacking is like riding a skateboard through a videogame as young clubkids Angelina Jolie and pre-Trainspotting Johnny Lee Miller save the world from an evil corporate hacker. Still, it’s stylishly shot, has a cool techno soundtrack and most of the actors are up-and-comers. “Ugh. Hard copy.”

16. Bloodsport (1988): A highly-manipulative, faked martial arts tournament interrupted by moments of manipulative, unbelievable “plot” combine to trick you into thinking you’re watching a movie. Yet, somehow Bloodsport manages to be both tense and patriotic -- even with “the Belgian Waffle” in the lead. “Very good. But brick not hit back!”

17. The Core (2003): Yeah, I know. . . it’s crap. What’s your point? I like the actors. “Hang on. This isn't going to be subtle.”

18. The Quick and the Dead (1995): This film is an over-the-top collection of Western clichés, meant to look down pretentiously upon the ignorati who enjoy Westerns. Besides that, it’s one ass kicking film filled with amazing gun play, cool characters, a stunningly great cast, and a stylized American West that makes you want to buy a gun. “You see it's a gun fight. We both have guns. We aim, we fire, you die.”

19. Wing Commander (1999): Never-will-be teen actors in space acting out a film based on a videogame. But it’s an ok action/science fiction film with a believable world. “Better than sex with myself.”

20. Doom (2005): Do you smell what the Rock is cookin’? It ain’t a best actor award. But this film has uber-cool Karl Urban, the even cooler Rock, and the adorable Rosamund Pike killing monsters without end. . . or plot. “Aw, there's something behind me, isn't there?”

21. Cannonball Run (1981): Smokey and the Bandit was monumental and culturally relevant. . . this wasn’t, but heck was it fun. Who wouldn’t want to be part of this race? Come on, show of hands! “That must've been the entry of the National Safety Council.”

22. Xanadu (1980): I can’t explain it. The story is weak, the acting is worse and the visuals are horribly dated. But the soundtrack is strong and there’s something about the lightness of the film that makes it enjoyable. “Guys like me shouldn't dream anyway.”

23. Circle of Iron (1978): Bruce Lee wanted to make a movie using Zen principles. But he died and they made it anyway, with a man who lacked all of Lee’s charisma. Yet, somehow, this intellectually pretentious film works. Maybe it’s David Carradine’s triple roles? “The whole world is in commotion and you wish me peace!”

24. Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996): Fred Ward and Michael Gross?! Who could resist? Certainly not the Mexican Army, which calls them in to solve their little Graboid problem. Only these Graboids walk! “I am COMPLETELY out of ammo. That's never happened to me before.”

25. Final Destination 2 (2003): If there’s teenagers getting killed, I’ll be there. And when you cut out the middle man and death itself is doing the killing, well, that’s simply irresistible. Number 2 is the best in the series because it’s got less filler than the first and more point than 3-4. “Only new life can defeat Death.”

Anything on the list you want to claim is actually a good film? And what’s on your list?

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Film Friday: Predators (2010)

I’ve been debating whether Predators deserves a full review. I try to review films only when I have some point to make about them, and I wasn’t sure I did with Predators. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw something worth discussing: Predators is a great action flick because it goes back to the old-school way action films were made, which is something we haven’t seen in years.

** spoiler alert **

Since the 1980s, action films have been made according to formulas. Their highs and lows are generically scripted and the details get filled in according to the type of action hero choosen: muscle men, martial artists, hot chicks or street-wise tough guys. Plots are little more than MacGuffins, and each story includes a standard set of required situations: the capture, the escape, the betrayal, the showdown and the fake first death. All the while, CGI explosions cover the screen to distract you from the crappy story. Predators disdains that formula and acts more like an old-school action film, where the actors have to pull you in, where the story is interesting in and of itself, and where the “action” derives from the actions of the characters rather than the CGI explosions.

Predators is a sequel of sorts to Predator and its progeny, though it barely mentions those. The story opens with Adrien Brody being parachuted into a jungle. In the jungle, he meets seven other people. They are all killers. For example, Alice Braga is an Israeli Defense Force sniper, Walter Goggins is a murderer on death row, and Louis Ozawa Changchien is a Yakuza enforcer. The only one out of place is Topher Grace, who is a doctor. It doesn’t take long for them to realize they are on an alien planet and they’ve been brought here to be hunted. The rest of the movie involves these characters struggling to defend themselves against the predators. There is even an excellent cameo.

Everything about this film works. But let me highlight four areas in particular:

1. Death to CGI! The scenery is excellent because it's real, i.e. it's not CGI. The monsters are excellent and real. The action feels authentic. At no point does this film wander off into CGI cartoon land. In fact, you leave the film wondering if they even used CGI. And the benefits of this are huge because it gives this film a solid connection to the real world.

2. The Plot. While I like films like Commando and The Transporter, the truth is they have no plots. They offer just enough conflict to justify the action and no more. Predators actually relies on its plot. In fact, there is surprisingly little action in the film and most of it comes later in the film -- it takes almost an hour before you even see the predators for the first time. In the meantime, the characters try to solve the mystery of where they are and why they are here. This is very reminiscent of old-school action films where the action was considered a climax to the plot rather than a plot-substitute. And even though the plot is largely obvious, it's still sufficiently unpredictable from moment to moment that it keeps your interest.

3. The Writing. Everything about this film feels authentic. It's entirely believable that this group of people would be chosen and it's entirely believable these people could put up a tough fight against the predators. They react as one would expect given who each of them is, e.g. they aren't all the bland modern self-sacrificing reluctant hero. The way they behave is believable. Their dialog not only suits them perfectly, but is tailored to each character, i.e. they talk like what they are. Even the humor is believable as there are no comic relief characters and the plot is never compromised to set up a joke -- the jokes derive from things you actually expect these characters to say and they are used to break the tension, but without becoming comedic. Moreover, it's so well written that it's full of lines that make you think "that's the best line in this film" over and over again.

4. Adrien Brody. Finally, the most impressive thing about this film is Adrien Brody. I could say "the acting" because they're all good, especially Grace and Goggins, but the guy who carries the film is Brody. Interestingly, while I’ve come to respect Brody’s acting ability in films like The Village and The Jacket, I had serious doubts he could pull off an action hero. But pull it off he does. He plays an American mercenary with a black ops background, and he plays the role perfectly. He speaks quietly and authoritatively and has a commanding presence. He moves smoothly and ruthlessly. He never acts stupidly or arrogantly and he never forgets his experience just to move the plot. All in all, watching him is like watching a special ops team on the Discovery Channel. I simply can’t say enough good things about the job he does.

This is why Predators succeeds so well and why it made $120 million. It’s smart, tense and it keeps your interest for reasons other than big shiny things blowing up. It’s the first action film in a long time where you don’t know who will live or what comes next. It also avoids all of the clichéd scenes that now make action films so lame, i.e. there's no moment where we discover that our government is secretly behind this, no double cross by the hero’s lifelong buddy, and no scene where the hero surrenders to save a puppy. There is just a highly believable story with engaging characters. And that's a heck of a lot more than we get out of most action films these days.

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Film Friday: Cube (1997)

I know. . . I know. . . you’ve never heard of Cube. Well, you should have. Cube is a Canadian science fiction/psychological thriller that’s become a cult classic. It's got an interesting story, a very believable atmosphere, and it's surprisingly gripping. It’s also got a fascinating take on the nature of evil. Sadly, it squanders a bit of its potential with political correctness, but overall it’s absolutely worth seeing.

** spoiler alert **

1. The Plot:

Imagine you wake up in a strange room shaped like a cube. You have no idea where you are or how you got there or even why you are there. In the center of each wall (including the floor and ceiling) are hatches you can open. Each hatch leads to an apparently identical room, except for color. Only, some rooms are booby trapped in ingenious ways. That’s the premise of Cube as a group of people find themselves stuck inside this deadly maze.

Beyond this, Cube is a sort of character study mixed with a mystery about the nature of the cube -- both what it is and why it is? It’s in the character study that political correctness rears its ugly head and hurts an otherwise fine film. It’s in the nature of the cube that this film truly excels. But before you read ahead, be warned that I need to discuss the two significant twists to address these points.

2. The Characters:

Cube focuses on six people who find each other inside the cube. There is Quentin, a level-headed police officer who is looking for practical solutions. David Worth (David Hewlett of Stargate Atlantis) is the voice of surrender. Joan Leaven (Nicole de Boer of Star Trek DS-9) is an expert mathematician. “The Wren” is a criminal who has escaped from seven prisons. Kazan is an autistic man. And Dr. Hellen Holloway is a big time leftist. She’s bitter, paranoid, and spouts off conspiracy theories and oppression theory.

As a group, these characters are well chosen to provide plenty of drama. They have conflicting personalities and the actors bring a lot of tension to their interactions. But the writers fail to exploit this excellent choice of characters because they opt for doctrinaire political correctness rather than character development. Thus, rather than watching these characters grow and evolve, we are instead given shallow and predictable leftist clichés.

Quentin is the prime offender in this regard. Cube was made before 9/11 when the left still openly described all police officers as lovers of violence who beat their wives and get a sexual thrill from imposing “the man’s fascist system” on minority communities. Thus, police officer Quentin very quickly transforms from an interesting character into a mindless cliché psychopath who beat his wife and likes to impose fascism on an unwilling society. Naturally, at least if you think like a leftist, Quentin becomes an over-sexed murderer who revels in violently oppressing the other characters. This is both annoyingly predictable and squanders what started as a well-written character. And lest you think Quentin being black is unexpected, you need only listen to Holloway to understand that he's been brainwashed to think he's part of whitey's club. The other characters fall into similar patterns too. The white guy is complicit in the evil, the leftist is the only one speaking truth to power, and only the retarded kid can save them all.

Don't get me wrong, this is still a good movie and it's not as annoying as it sounds, but Cube would have been so much better if they had gone for real characters instead of predictable leftist PC clichés.

3. The Cube:

Where Cube really gets interesting is in the nature of the cube itself. Who made the cube? The evil military? Nope. Some crazed James Bond villain? No. The answer is that no one in particular made it and that’s a pretty original idea. Indeed, as the story goes on, Worth admits that he saw the plans for the cube when he was hired to work on part of it. From him, we learn the cube was essentially put together on autopilot. Someone in “the system” got the ball rolling. From that moment on, the system did its thing and thousands of people were put to work making the cube without ever knowing what they were building. It might even have evolved as individual designers and workers made changes to their parts. Now it exists and it does what it was designed to do even though no one is out there directing it.

Obviously, this was meant as social commentary about the dangers of individuals not asking enough questions, with the point being that if we don't know exactly what we are doing, then we could be aiding "the system" in creating something evil. Ok, point taken. What I find more interesting though, is the idea that something evil could be created by sheer momentum. Indeed, the cube is the first "villain" I can think of that wasn't intentionally created, isn't being used for some specific evil purpose, and doesn't have any particular motivation. It's not trying to take anything over or oppress anyone, it's not motivated by revenge or greed, nor is it even just trying to survive. . . it just is.

This is also strangely believable. Indeed, we constantly hear of government programs that have fallen through the cracks and which continue for decades before anyone discovers they are there. It isn't hard to envision this cube doing its thing for decades until some bean counter stumbles upon an unexplained "maintenance charge" on some balance sheet. So in many ways, this is a criticism of overly expansive government where the government has become so big and complex that the right hand no longer knows there even is a left hand. That’s what makes this film so fascinating.

I absolutely recommend this film (despite its PC failures). It's got good action and is surprisingly gripping, and it leaves you with plenty to think about. Avoid the two sequels, however! They completely miss the point of the cube and they turn it into nothing more than a standard military conspiracy to eliminate undesirables.

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Reality Ain't What It Used To Be

I often wonder about the effects of videogames and films on the human mind. In particular, they seem to be changing the way we perceive reality and I wonder if they aren't making death seem less permanent?

It’s fairly obvious to me that films, television and videogames are distorting our perceptions of reality. The clearest example of this comes from what they’ve done to our expectations regarding human interaction. In films, characters always know the perfect things to say. Politicians always deliver the cleverest lines seemingly off the cuff. Lawyers always say the exact thing that triggers the needed response from the witness. Jokes are always well set up by their victims. And dates are unbelievably perfect. Indeed, characters in romantic films always say just the right thing to keep conversations moving in the right direction, to excite the other person, and to win the moment.

Unfortunately, people seem to be confusing this with reality. Indeed, I’ve heard many people bemoan the fact their dates didn’t come across like the ones they see on films. They never had the right word for the moment. Their conversation often stalled out. And worst of all, when they tried to hit the proverbial "verbal homerun," they just came across as creepy.

But here’s the thing: that’s how real life works. What these people don’t grasp is the difference between a conversation involving two independent human beings, whose reactions are largely unpredictable, engaging in an off-the-cuff conversation versus a manufactured situation where two characters exchange words that have been pre-written after a great deal of thought and editing and where each character is guaranteed to respond in precisely the perfect way, i.e. there is no chance of failure. The two situations just aren't comparable. Yet, many people now judge real life based on the false standards set up by films and they wrongly downgrade individuals who can’t live up to those impossible expectations.

The same is true in sports, where slow-motion instant replay has changed the perception of what athletes should achieve. Go to any sports bar and you'll hear a gaggle of idiots talking about how they would have “turned this way and grabbed the ball and then flipped over that way and etc. etc.” The reality is the action they are talking about occurred in less than a tenth of second, too fast for the human nervous system to respond, yet these idiot are demanding actions that would have taken 8-10 seconds. . . the length of the replay they are seeing. Again, their perception of reality is false yet they can't tell the difference.

So what about death? Nobody dies permanently in films or on television. If your main character dies in a science fiction story, you can be pretty sure they’ve been secretly cloned and will be back. If they die in a drama, they’ll be back in dreams. Everybody died at the end of your film? Don’t sweat it, just do a reboot or prequel or a sequel that pretends they didn’t die. Death just isn’t a permanent state of being in entertainment, not as long as audiences want the character to return. Heck, even villains need to be killed twice before they finally die.

Videogames are even worse -- death is never the end. In fact, death is nothing more than a chance to start over and try a different path, i.e. the one that didn’t get you killed. Went down the wrong alley? Ducked when you should have jumped? Tangled with the wrong Nausicaan? Don’t worry, you’ll be dead in a moment and you can try it differently.

Having played a lot of games in my time, I can tell you that if you play them long enough you will occasionally find yourself thinking in terms of “next time.” For example, “next time I’ll go to that college instead” or “next time I turn 40, I’ll skip the ‘Mount of Donuts Cake’ and have the ‘Sausage Platter Cake’ instead.” This is classic game thinking that your mind is expressing. . . planning for the next time. The only problem: there is no next time in life.

So what’s the point? The point is that I suspect our entertainment dramatically affects how we perceive the world. I don’t know if this ultimately changes our actions, but I'm pretty sure it influences our judgment to varying degrees. Maybe we should think about that the next time we go writing a film or videogame that promotes really bad thinking?

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Film Friday: eXistenZ (1999)

Written and directed by David Cronenberg, eXistenZ is one of those films. It’s got a great science fiction concept, a quality cast (Jude Law, Willem DaFoe, Ian Holm) and enough mystery to hold your interest. I generally enjoy it and even find it strangely fascinating. Yet, it’s unsatisfying. And the more I think about it, the less satisfying it gets. The reason for this, sadly, is that Cronenberg has created a mess and he tries to cheat his way out of it.

Before we go further, let me give two warnings. First, there will be serious spoilers, including discussions of the twists. Secondly, you can enjoy this film if you don’t think about it. So if ignorance is bliss, then skip this review.

1. The Plot:

eXistenZ starts as the story of Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Ted Pikul (Jude Law), who are on the run from people trying to kill Geller. Geller is the world’s greatest virtual reality game designer and she has a new game called eXistenZ, the only copy of which is in her game pod -- a living game machine that ports into your body. Pikul is a marketing guy assigned to protect her. The people trying to kill her are a nebulous group of “realists,” who are waging a vague military style insurgency against her company for distorting reality.

As they run, Geller’s game pod is damaged in an assassination attempt and she decides to test the game to make sure it still works. Inside the game world (“Cort-Stim world”), they discover a somewhat parallel world also with a violent struggle between virtualists and realists. Numerous twists and turns later, they return to the world in which the film started (“eXistenZ world”) only to discover that realists have launched an attack on them. This leads to a quick series of betrayals, which end when it is revealed that this world is actually a videogame called tranCendenZ and the people they’ve been running into are other players who are test marketing the game in the real world (“tranCendenZ world”).

2. Failure of Concept:

You should recognize this as the classic science fiction theme of a reality within a reality, as seen in films like Inception and The Thirteenth Floor. These stories work by blurring the worlds and causing the characters to lose track of which reality is real. Indeed, these films invariably end with some character asking “but what if this isn’t real?” eXistenZ is no different. It tries very hard to make us think the characters are losing track of what is real and what isn’t and it even ends on the line: “are we still in the game?” Yet, eXistenZ fails entirely to pull this off because it never presents anything to make us believe the characters could be the least bit confused about what is reality and what isn’t.

Consider the “reality” in which most of the movie takes place -- Cort-Stim world. We know from the get go that this world exists solely inside a videogame and at no point is it ever suggested that this world might be real. Thus, the whole concept of having a world within a world is undercut from the beginning because both the audience and the characters know this is just a videogame. Further, there is no bleed through from one world to the other, there is no threat that can travel back and forth, and there is no possibility of getting stuck in Cort-Stim world. Moreover, Cort-Stim world is full of obvious game elements (like characters going into game loops) which don’t exist in eXistenZ world, and thus make it easy to tell which world is which.

Despite this, Cronenberg tries to sell the audience on the idea of confusion by filling Pikul's dialog with comments about having a hard time telling the difference between the "real" world (eXistenZ world) and the game world. But this makes no sense. Pikul knows he’s plugged into a game and he’s only been playing for a few minutes. So why would he be confused? Also, to convince the audience that this confusion is real, Cronenberg has Pikul spend his time in the game being pensive about the dangers they are facing and asking repeatedly to leave the game before something bad happens. But this is as nonsensical as worrying about getting hurt in a car race game.

Further, this game world bears no relationship to an actual game. It has some classic game elements, but it has no goals or objectives or instruction to players. It offers only one path to the players, with no choice to be made or tasks to be completed, and it lasts only a few minutes and ends with no possibility of victory. All in all, nothing about this feels like a game at all; it just feels like plot filler used to give the characters an appearance of doing something before the film ends, especially the supposed “game urges” which are little more than gratuitous sexual moments that have no purpose in the game (there is oddly out-of-place gratuitous gore too which you don't expect in this kind of film).

eXistenZ world fairs no better. Things seem to happen randomly and much of it is unbelievable and contradictory. The attack of the realist in particular was poorly done. For example, you see them setting off explosions where there are no targets and firing wildly at nothing. Then one of the rebels declares victory, but against what? Then he decides to kill Geller, only Geller gets saved by a man who then tries to kill her, only to have another man try to kill her who has also saved her a couple times and could have killed her at his leisure many times before. Why does everyone who wants to kill her try to save her first? The explanation given by the final assassin is ridiculous: “I wanted to get to know who I was killing first.” Yeah, sure, so much for the dedicated revolutionary.

A good example of this illogic comes from Willem DaFoe’s character. He decides to kill Geller to get a five million dollar reward. But rather than just kill her, he first agrees to install a bioport into Pikul. Why? Because he wants to install a defective bioport in the hopes of killing Geller’s game because there is a bonus reward for killing the game. But how does this make sense? If he kills Geller and Pikul as he plans, then he has the pod and he can burn it or shoot it or whatever. Why go through the elaborate hoax? Also, does it really make sense the people offering the reward would pay for a burned out pod or would they want to verify the game was on the pod? Also, how does he know they will play the game at his gas station so that he gets a chance to kill them after they play? And how does he even know this is the only copy of the game? Essentially, he has to know the plot before his actions make any sense.

Pikul and Geller’s characters fall apart too once we learn eXistenZ world is a game as well. If this world isn’t real and Geller isn’t actually the designer of the game, then she has too much intimate knowledge of the game and of Cort-Stim world. Her knowledge goes way beyond what a first-time player would know. And if the object of eXistenZ is to kill Geller, why doesn’t Pikul just kill her the first chance he gets and win the game? Also, when she shoots her friend, why does Pikul lecturer her that she might have just killed a real human being? This is nonsense. Both Cort-Stim world and eXistenZ world are game worlds. So unless he's claiming confusion with tranCendenZ world, these couldn't possibly be real people -- and he never claims such confusion.

The problem here is that the point Cronenberg is trying to make doesn't come naturally from the story's plot elements, so he's trying to force it by having the characters just say it. But that doesn't work. If the characters really are losing touch with reality, the film needs to show that through its story and the characters’ actions; the writer can’t just have the characters say “gee, I’m losing touch with reality.” What's happened here is Cronenberg made a mess of the underlying concept and he never bothered sorting it out before he made the film. Instead, he hopes to hide this fact by covering up the mess with forced dialog. This doesn't work. In fact, compare this with Inception, where the story methodically builds all the elements needed to let the audience question whether any of the worlds in which the characters find themselves can ever be proven to be real and leaves them wondering how the characters would actually know.

If Cronenberg had bothered solving his plot problems rather than just covering them up, eXistenZ could have been Inception before Inception.

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The Addendum Reboot

I’ve talked before about the problems with sequels and my displeasure with reboots. Today I want to talk about three recent “reimaginings” that add a whole new level of error to the remake industry. These unimaginings commit the sin of sucking the life out of the material they are remaking and then filling in the holes with pure filler. They are like addendums more than films. Specifically, I’m talking about: Halloween (2007), Final Destination (2009), and A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010). Blech.

The originals of these three films were all standout horror films over the past thirty years. Halloween (1978) essentially invented the slasher genre when it gave us Michael Myers, a silent, masked killing machine who returns to his childhood home to kill off every fornicating teenager he can find. Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) upped the stakes for slasher films by improving both the special effects and the level of creativity of these films with the introduction of Freddie Krueger, who kills fornicating teenagers in their dreams. And Final Destination (2000) injected a bit of Rube Goldbergism into the teen horror genre by forcing the teens to solve a series of mystery puzzles while death hunts them for wrongly escaping their destinies. . . and thereby kept them too busy to fornicate.

Each of these films spawned a bazillion sequels and each should have been pretty decent as reboots because they all offered excellent source material to work with. In fact, all you really had to do to make good reboots out of these would be take the original idea, modernize a few elements, come up with a new take on some aspect of the film, hire a bunch of teen hotties, and start rolling. Sounds easy, but apparently not.

Final Destination 2.0 is horrible and pointless. It's like a Cliff's Notes version of the original that misses the key points. The original Final Destination was an earnest teen horror flick which paid off in the clever and interesting riddles the teens needed to solve to save their sorry butts. They had to figure out why they were being killed off one at a time, in what order they would die, how to spot when death when it came for them, and how to cheat death. All of this involved a good deal of creativity and made the film interesting. Adding to this solid base, death would try to kill them in Rube Golbdberg-like ways which kept the audience guessing how each scene would actually play out.

The unimagining, however, makes a fatal error right out of the gates. It assumes you’ve seen the original and you don’t want to see the characters cover the same ground you already know. Thus, it gives a momentary nod to the parts of Final Destination that made the film so interesting as the characters self-consciously read summary-type lines that translate into “you know what’s going on,” before it jumps into the elaborate death scenes. But these scenes feel meaningless with no story attached to them. . . it's like listening only to song hooks. What’s worse, to hide the missing plot, they made the death scenes much more elaborate. . . which is like listening to 10 minute remixes of song hooks. Whereas the death scenes in the original gave you maybe a 30 second set up with a few twists and turns and no guarantee of how the scene would end, the new film gives 4-5 minute set ups with precise breakdowns of exactly what to expect. This gets old fast.

Nightmare on Elm Street 2.0 does something similar, only worse. This time they not only skipped the plot except for minor references to it, they added no new elements -- they even repeated some of the death scenes. Basically, this film offers a stripped down version of the original with new actors. In fact, the only thing that was noticeably different was the annoying dialog, which seems to have been stolen from other films without context or thought. I’m sure the writer would call this an homage if questioned by the writing police, but it sure felt like they thought they could just randomly take lines from other movies to fill in their own gaps.

Finally, we have Halloween 2.0, which actually tried to add something to the original film: a backstory for the Michael Myers character. But sadly, the backstory they offered was not only pathetic, but actually harmed the very essence of the film. What made the original Myers so creepy was his silent, relentless way of killing without purpose or emotion. We had no idea why he did what he did except that Donald Pleasance warned us that he was pure evil, and that made him interesting. The unimagining wipes all of this out by telling us that poor Myers is a victim of child abuse. Boo hoo hoo. And like that, a horror movie morphs into an afternoon special. Having neutered its monster, the film then adds nothing else new or interesting and leaves us with the distinct impression they only bothered copying half of the already very-thin original material.

Here’s the thing. . . if you’re going to remake a film, you need a reason. There has to be some element of the film you think can result in an order of magnitude improvement or that takes the series in a wholly new, unexpected direction. These films never understood that. Halloween 2.0’s big addition could have been done in a single line of lame dialog, and even then never should have been done. The other films not only added nothing, but they actively took away everything that made those films watchable. And none of these films grasps that a reboot must stand on its own, i.e. you can't just self-consciously point to the original and tell the audience "hey, you know the plot. . . and stuff." Even a lousy movie like Barb Wire (1986) understood this and turned out much better than it deserved to be because it knew enough to keep the portions of the original material (Casablanca), that everyone liked before it tried to add to those. This should be obvious!

So how do we explain these three films? I'm thinking the answer lies in a lack of respect for the audience. I'm thinking the filmmakers figured their audience was too riddled with Attention Deficit Disorder to sit through a remake, so they created Addendums instead of remakes, i.e. "films" that offer little more than a collection of new scenes to be watched in conjunction with your knowledge of the original material rather than films that stand on their own. Pathetic.

Please stop doing this.

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Film Friday: Kick Ass (2010)

Kick Ass is a comic book movie about a teenage superhero wannabe (Kick Ass). Through a series of misunderstandings, he makes himself a target of a drug kingpin, who is being hunted by a foul-mouthed eleven year old girl (Hit Girl) and her father (Big Daddy). The critics called this film “ultra-violent,” “an explosion in a bad taste factory,” “quasi-porn. . . except there’s absolutely no ‘quasi’ about it,” and Roger Ebert called the film “morally reprehensible.” But they’re wrong. What’s more, I enjoyed it. Surprised?

** spoiler alert **

1. The Criticisms Are Disingenuous

The critics level two general complaints, though both complaints are unfairly made. The first complaint is about the level of violence. To hear the critics tell it, this is one of the most violent films ever made. Yet, that's false. People do die, but not more than average for an action film. And more importantly, they don’t die graphically. In this film, people tend to die from single bullets or knife wounds and they drop to the ground. Their bodies don’t explode, their limbs aren’t ripped off, and no one gets hacked to pieces or decapitated. At no point does the director try to exploit gruesome deaths. Thus, while the film has a typically-high body count, it never feels particularly violent.

So why the complaints of ultra-violence? Knee-jerk liberalism. Let’s let Roger Ebert explain it: “when kids in the age range of this movie’s home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny.” Wahhh. Grow up Roger. First, it’s a myth that “kids are shooting each other in the streets.” Secondly, this is fantasy. No eleven year old is running around fighting gangsters with knives, and no one uses a bazooka to kill anyone. To equate this with reality is truly stupid. Moreover, if truth be told, it’s not even the violence that upsets the critics, it’s the “failure” of the film to attack America for its violent ways. Indeed, many of the critics fault the film for failing to make a “social commentary” about America (which presumably would have made the violence cool again in their eyes). That’s what’s driving the violence complaints: pure politics.

The second complaint is that Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) is sexualized -- the word “porno” gets tossed around a lot. Now, I personally have mentioned this problem before with comic books: comic books have become highly sexualized and perverted. Comic book heroines run around in ultra-tight leather catsuits, bondage gear and hooker heels, with their super-enhanced breasts pouring out of their plunging tops. This is hardly an outfit conducive to crime fighting, but it sure excites the nerds’ domination fantasies. And that's the problem. I’m sure these critics ran to the theater with all kinds of dirty thoughts about what they would see, especially when they heard that the heroine was an eleven year old girl who uses both the f-word and the c-word. But the film didn’t match their expectations because the film sexualizes nothing. Hit Girl runs around in a lumpy costume that covers her entire body like a potato sack. She never tries to seduce anyone. No one tries to seduce her and there is no sexual relationship between her and anyone else. Indeed, the only sexual moment in the whole film is between Kick Ass (Aaron Johnson) and a girl who thinks he’s gay, and that was pretty funny. The only way to see this as a porno, would be to come to the film looking to see it that way, because nothing in the film suggests it. Hence, the critics’ outrage is nothing more than a hypocritical outburst aimed at projecting their own shame onto the film. . . “she made me want her officer.”

2. What Made This An Entertaining Film

Putting the critics aside, the question remains: is this a good movie? It’s not a great film, but it’s enjoyable. Why? For one thing, it’s fun. The characters are cleverly written as lovable losers. The story is fast paced and doesn’t beat you over the head with a message. And while the film isn’t as funny as it could have been, it still repeatedly pays off with great little moments. For example, as these are not “real” superheroes, their survival instincts kick in at the funniest moments when they suddenly realize “hey, I could get hurt.” And you get unexpected moments like when Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) jumps off a dumpster and says “ouch, my knees!”, which give the whole film a lighthearted and playful undertone, despite the surface seriousness with which the film is presented.

Secondly, despite having a very predictable plot with key plot-points that you know must be coming, what happens in between these plot points is surprisingly unpredictable. Indeed, individual scenes diverge quickly from what you expect, and that makes the film fresh and unpredictable. The film also avoids all of the clichés one would normally expect, which is refreshing.

Further, this film does something unheard of in comic book movies: it presents a realistic and believable world. Now, I don’t mean it’s believable that an eleven year old girl could kill 5-6 grown men with little difficulty. But the fighting is done with realistic physics, i.e. there are no wirefights, and the heroes get beat up when they take on too many bad guys. There are no moments where a bazillion bullets fly past the heroes without hitting them, unless the heroes have ducked for cover. And there’s nothing inexplicable. That gives the film a genuineness that makes the film feel real despite the fantastic plot.

Finally, the film has a genuine heart. The actors are earnest about their roles, i.e. they aren’t jaded. The characters they play are motivated to help those they love or the world at large, i.e. they aren’t cynical. And it’s the kind of film where you know from the beginning that good will triumph no matter how idiotic the good guys get.

Is this a great film? No. But it's a fun ride that's worth taking.

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Top 25: Westerns You Should Know

Let’s discuss the Top 25 Westerns you should know to be well-versed in Westerns. Westerns are one of the most distinct genres with storylines that can’t easily be translated to other genres, e.g. wagon trains and cattle drives. They are also the quintessential story of America. Picking the Top 25, however, is surprisingly difficult because Westerns have been a cultural battleground where left and right struggled to define American’s Mythology. This means the influence of individual films often was short-lived and coincided with cultural changes within the country, rather than coming from the film itself.

1. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966): This may not sit well with traditional western fans, but GBU is easily the most influential Western. Part of a “Spaghetti Westerns” trilogy (including Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More), GBU forever changed the Western. Prior to GBU, Westerns were philosophically black and white, with clear good guys and bad guys, and they were about settling the West, bringing law and order, building an economy, and taming the Indians and the wilderness, i.e. the building of America. This film tossed all that aside by introducing the “anti-hero,” a good guy who acts more like a bad guy -- this remains the dominant form of protagonist in film today -- and changed the themes of Westerns toward selfishness, cynicism and the exploitation of others. This film also made Clint Eastwood a star. “Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We’re gonna have to earn it.”

2. The Covered Wagon (1923): This is the first truly epic Western and established many of the conventions of the genre -- including Indian attacks, shoot outs, fording rivers, and the hero who must clear his name. “Far out on the westward trail stands another plow that bravely started for Oregon.”

3. High Noon (1952): High Noon is fascinating and controversial. Premised on the now-classic Western theme of a sheriff (Gary Cooper) waiting for killers to come to town, High Noon was written by communist Carl Foreman, who chose to make this sheriff weak and unwilling and the townsfolk cowardly. This was Foreman’s attempt to eliminate the hero from Western mythology. Yet, as with The Guns of Navarone, Foreman ultimately fails because Cooper rises to the occasion and becomes an iconic hero as a man who answers the call of duty even when those around him try to tear him down. “In the end you wind up dying all alone on some dirty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star.”

4. Rio Bravo (1959): Considered by many to be Howard Hawks’ and John Wayne’s finest Western, this was Hawks’ direct response to High Noon, which infuriated him. Hawks believed firmly in strong and self-reliant heroes, like Sheriff John Chance (John Wayne), who must fend off the brother and gang of a man he holds prisoner for six days until the marshal arrives. Hawks’ view of heroism would continue to reign in Hollywood until the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. “Sorry don’t get it done, dude.”

5. Stagecoach (1939): By the 1930s, Westerns had fallen from favor and were seen as B-movies. John Ford’s Stagecoach saved the Western through a combination of inventive camera work which remains influential today (such as riding among the Indians), incredible stunts, the use of stunning scenery from Monument Valley, complex dialog, and its huge box office success. This film also made John Wayne, who played outlaw Johnny Ringo, a star. “I guess you can’t break out of prison and into society in the same week.”

6. Shane (1953): Shane add two of the most common conventions to the Western mix: the gun fighter who tries to put away his guns until he is forced to fight to protect those he loves and the struggle between the farmers v. cattlemen. “Shane. . . come back, Shane!”

7. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969): Starring leftists Robert Redford and Paul Newman, Butch Cassidy attempted to declare the Western dead. Not only did Butch Cassidy do things like send its heroes to New York and Bolivia, but it included a pop music soundtrack and it used cars, bicycles and electricity to signify the passing of the West into history. Moreover, while it rejected traditional heroes entirely, it also largely lampooned the anti-hero of the Spaghetti Westerns by presenting heroes who were neither heroic nor all-that competent. It would take sixteen years for the Western to recover. “The future’s all yours, you lousy bicycle.”

8. Silverado (1985): Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, Silverado was the film that revived the Western after Butch Cassidy’s attempt to kill it. By reaching back into the past for old-school, classic Western heroes, Silverado sucked the cynicism from Westerns and returned to classic pro-American themes of settling the West, bringing law and order, and heroes protecting the weak from the predatory. This film made Kevin Costner a star. “We’re gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging.”

9. Unforgiven (1992): When Unforgiven first came out, people saw it as an attack on the Western and a repudiation of Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Westerns. This was largely the result of Eastwood’s grumpy attitude, the constant dispelling of myths by Gene Hackman and the claim that all their prior triumphs were the result of being drunk. In effect, this film appeared to take a cynical look at the cynical anti-hero. But over time, this view has changed and people now see Unforgiven as a surprisingly strong Western with a solid moral compass that humanizes the anti-hero and shows they can be genuine Western heroes when they have a moral motivation. “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”

10. The Ox-Bow Incident (1943): One of the first socially-relevant Westerns, with an anti-lynching theme, Ox-Bow involves a posse looking for a murderer. They happen upon three men, led by a Mexican (Anthony Quinn) and decide to hang them. Henry Fonda stands against the crowd, attacking both Southern racism and vigilante justice. “If people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience and what is anybody’s conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived.”

11. The Magnificent Seven (1960): Based on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven is the last hurrah for the classic Western, as larger-than-life heroic gunmen defend a Mexican village. With a stellar cast, including Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson, and a massive score by Elmer Bernstein, this was the last big cynicism-free Western until the 1980s, but would soon be overtaken by the anti-heroes. “If God didn't want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.”

12. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962): Just as Magnificent Seven was the last hurrah of the BIG Western, Liberty Valance was the last shot of traditionalist John Ford to justify the old-style heroes. Liberty Valance is the story of Jimmy Stewart, a civilized man, who is given credit for shooting outlaw Valance (Lee Marvin), even though ruffian gunman John Wayne actually did the shooting. The moral here was that men like Stewart owe their civilized, rule-of-law world to the difficult choices and hard deeds of frontiersmen like Wayne. In other words, we all owe the heroes of the past a significant debt even if we no longer accept their ways today. This was a powerful counter to the deconstructionism of the era, but ultimately proved futile as the country was changing. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

13. How The West Was Won (1962): This epic covers all the bases of the Western genre, following a family as it moves from the East to the West, becoming trappers, pioneers, gold miners, soldiers, and gamblers and helping build America. This film presents the classic American (pre-1960s liberal) view of the settling of the American West and the virtues of America. “Out of their rude settlements, their trading posts came cities to rank among the great ones of the world. All the heritage of a people free to dream, free to act, free to mold their own destiny.”

14. Dances With Wolves (1990): Wolves is difficult to rank. It’s a dull movie that’s rife with political correctness, having been made during Hollywood’s “noble American Indian” phase, where Indians were idealized, whites were demonized and only a white liberals could save the Indians. It did have significant influence at the time, although that influence really hasn’t lasted and didn’t really impact other films. Nevertheless, you should know this film. “Turned injun, didn’t yeh.”

15. Tombstone (1993): Starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, Tombstone came along just as it appeared Hollywood was trying again to remove heroes from the old West with films like Unforgiven, Dances With Wolves, and The Quick and the Dead. But Tombstone was a rowdy, old-fashioned Western that reveled in classic heroes, classic themes, and black and white versions of good and evil. And the public’s acceptance of Tombstone kept the Western alive and well. “Wearing that badge don't make you right.”

16. My Darling Clementine (1946): Staring Henry Fonda and Tim Holt, John Ford’s version of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Clementine became an inspiration for many Western filmmakers, including Sam Pekinpah. “When ya pull a gun, kill a man.”

17. Dodge City (1939): Errol Flynn must tame Dodge City, a notoriously violent cattle town full of ex-soldiers following the end of the Civil War. This is a classic Western of the type Hollywood made before its more political period started. “Gamblin’, drinkin’, and killin’. Mostly killin’.”

18. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976): One of the few serious Westerns made in the 1970s, Josey Wales tapped into the stress of returning Vietnam veterans by presenting Civil War veterans who were incapable of integrating into society. “Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?”

19. High Plains Drifter (1972): Along with Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter was one of the few serious Westerns during the post-Butch Cassidy dead period. In Drifter, Clint Eastwood tries to give his Spaghetti Western past a supernatural aspect and an extra-dose of cynicism as even average citizens are portrayed as unredeemable degenerates. This perhaps went too far for Eastwood, who remade this film as Pale Rider in 1985, this time making the citizens the normal decent folk of prior Westerns. “You're a man who makes people afraid, and that's dangerous.”

20. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948): Directed by John Huston and staring Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt, Sierra Madre added Mexico to the film world of the West and provided an in-depth look at treasure hunters and gold fever. “Badges? We don’t need no stinking ain’t got no badges!”

21. The Searchers (1956): Ostensibly a revenge film wherein John Wayne seeks to avenge the massacre of his family by Indians, Searchers is actually an anti-segregation statement by conservative John Ford. “A fellow could mistake you for a half-breed.”

22. Blazing Saddles (1974): The only comedy on the list, Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles effectively lampoons many of the conventions of Westerns, and treads all over the politically incorrect topic of race in America. “The sheriff is a nig...”

23. The Wild Bunch (1969): An anti-Western and anti-Vietnam War statement, The Wild Bunch is a defeatist, immoral jaunt as a gang of railroad deputies led by outlaw Robert Ryan chase a gang of outlaws led by William Holden. Bloody, crude, and without any moral compass, The Wild Bunch is unlike any other Western ever made. It is also considered Sam Peckinpah’s greatest achievement. But unlike Butch Cassidy, which made Westerns “uncool,” The Wild Bunch was too violent and nasty to have significant influence in the culture. “It ain’t [your word] what counts! It's who you give it to!”

24. Quigley Down Under (1990): Tom Selleck takes Westerns to a new land. . . Australia. “You’re about a half a bubble off plumb, and that's fer sure and fer certain.”

25. The Quick and the Dead (1995): Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Gene Hackman star in this highly clichéd attempt to open the gunfighter subgenre to women. The film bombed in theaters, but not before inspiring a series of films attempting to open Westerns to other minority casts. The film has since found an audience on cable. “Is it possible to improve on perfection?”

Thoughts?

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Film Friday: The Core (2003)

I’ve got a film on my mind: The Core. The Core isn’t horrible, but it’s not a good film either. Strangely, The Core has generally good writing, good special effects, some likeable characters, an interesting plot, and decent production values, but it's still not a good movie. Why? Because it’s lazy.

** spoiler alert **

The Core is a high-budget ($60 million) disaster movie that pretty much bombed, though it eventually turned a profit. It is the story of a group of people who must travel to the Earth’s center to restart the Earth’s core, which has stopped spinning. Without that spinning core, the Earth’s magnetic field will fail and we will be exposed to solar radiation, which will kill us all. In the meantime, the intermittently good/evil US military is planning to use a secret weapon to try to restart the core. . . the same weapon that stopped the core spinning in the first place.

Oh, where to start. If you look at the movie on paper, it should be a pretty good film. The story is interesting and isn’t packed with filler, nor do inexplicable things happen. There are some likeable characters and some good actors. The writing sounds good when heard in isolation and some of it is quite witty. But it never adds up to much because it’s just so lazy.

The first tip off about the laziness is the acting. At no point do you ever get any sense that the actors know who their characters are or that they care about what they are doing. For example, Aaron Eckhart plays a generic scientist who solves the riddle of what’s happening. I like Eckhart, but he doesn't seem to realize he’s a scientist or that he’s the lead character. It feels like he just showed up on set one day and started reading some lines. Tchéky Karyo, who I also like, plays another generic scientist and Eckhart’s friend. We are meant to see these two as fairly close, but there’s no chemistry between them because neither actor acts like they are anything more than acquaintances. Stanley Tucci plays another generic scientist who is also the half-hearted villain. He’s kind of bad, but not really, and Tucci doesn’t bother establishing him as more than just arrogant but helpful. Delroy Lindo plays Tucci’s “nemesis.” Lindo invented both the ship they will use to get to the center of the Earth and the “unobtainium” out of which the ship is made -- a deus ex machina material that solves all possible problems. Tucci stole credit for Lindo’s prior inventions, but Lindo doesn’t care and remains quite civil.

Bruce Greenwood plays an assh~le space shuttle commander who will pilot the ship, and Hilary Swank plays the “super smart” shuttle co-pilot who will go along. They couldn't have less chemistry. Greenwood is bland except when he’s reading insulting lines at Swank. Swank (a high school drop out) is unbelievable as someone with even a middling brain and basically stares at things. Meanwhile, back at HQ, the military is represented by lifeless Richard Jenkins who gets about as worked up over the end of the world and his role in causing it as if someone told him the lawnboy was coming Wednesday instead of Tuesday. “Oh, really? Ok, I’ll mark my calendar.”

Even when the scenes call for emotion, these actors don’t seem to care. For example, in one scene, Swank is supposedly upset because she killed Tchéky. Yet, she delivers her lines like she’s ordering lunch and almost giggles. When Rome is about to be destroyed, their hacker lifelessly says “Rome does not look good.” When Jenkins learns that friend-of-the-family Swank won’t be fired by NASA, he sounds about as happy as if he learned the lawnboy will now be coming on Friday. And at no point do any of them seem all that upset the world is ending. It’s like these actors didn’t bother reading the script ahead of time and are just winging it line by line.

What’s more, this same laziness pervades the writing. The characters have no backstory -- what you see is what you get, and their relationships never rise above the level of acquaintances tossed together for an uninteresting weekend, i.e. there is no urgency, there is no emotion. In fact, the one time Tucci shows emotion comes across as perhaps the worst moment in the film, as he delivers lines so poorly written that you can almost see him begging the others to cut off his ridiculous tirade so he can stop speaking the lines: “You wanna be a hero? You wanna be a martyr? What do you want to be? You're out of your minds! Thank you!” Also, when things need to be done, they just sort of happen without difficulty or explanation. Oh, you need a hacker, here he is. Oh, you need to build a spaceship in three months that hasn’t been designed yet, will take 10 years to build, and is not like anything else on Earth? No problem, we’ll take care of it while you go get lunch. . . don’t worry, we have “scientists” who can do this sort of thing. Oh, you need to find the secret government project? No problem, it's on the map.

Moreover, few of the technical aspects are explained to any degree. . . “we go, make boom, core start, movie end.” And what science they do give is horrible. It's so bad that a poll of scientists voted The Core the least accurate science fiction movie, and Dustin Hoffman actually led an initiative of the National Academy of Sciences to get Hollywood to start getting their science right and to stop making movies like The Core. What's worse, “unobtainium” is used as a catchall explanation to solve all problems the writer didn’t want to bother thinking about. How do they get through the Earth’s crust? Unobtainium. What protects them from the planet crushing forcing? Unobtainium. Where do they get power? Unobtainium. How do they save themselves once they lose their engines? Unobtainium. It slices, it dices, it cuts a planet in half. . .

But what really kills this movie is the overall laziness of the story. The story happens just as you expect, and that's it. There are no surprises, no interesting twists, no memorable moments, and no variances at all from what you would expect from your average low-budget disaster film shown on the Sci-Fi Channel. And that is truly disappointing.

Now in truth, I enjoy this film enough to watch it, but then I'm a fan of bad science fiction. But if you're looking for anything more than "Mega Storm 4" or "Attack of the Giant Killing Thingy," you will be disappointed. And that's too bad, because with the money and the cast invested in The Core, this one had potential.

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Film Friday: Ronin (1998)

Most action movies are utterly mindless. They offer little more than adrenaline highs, triggered by big explosions, fast motion and loud soundtracks. Ronin, directed by John Frankenheimer and essentially written by David Mamet (credited as Richard Wiesz), is different. It’s brilliant. Ronin is gripping. It’s got fascinating twists and turns. It’s got characters that are both deep and deeply interesting, and it presents a truly immersive world. How does it achieve this? Minimalism and realism.

** spoiler alert **

Ronin Uses Minimalism To Make Us Build The Story

From the beginning, Ronin deliberately uses minimalism to pull us into the story. Little is said, less is shown and we know almost nothing. How does this pull us in? Because our brains don’t like information gaps, and will fill in those gaps with information that we consider appropriate. Thus, by carefully rationing information, Ronin actually co-opts our brains to get us to fill in the world with details that work for us. In effect, we personalize the film by assembling the characters, giving them backstories, and explaining the dispute.

For example, we know Ronin is about a group of mercenaries hired in Paris by an Irish woman named Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) to steal a briefcase from a man surrounded by expert security, but we don’t know what’s in the briefcase. It could be blackmail material, diamonds, nuclear material, computer code, counterfeiting plates or anything else. If the writer chooses one of these, there is a good chance some portion of the audience will decide this isn’t worth fighting for. But by staying silent on this point, everyone in the audience will mentally fill the briefcase with something they personally think is worth fighting for. Thus, the audience satisfies itself that the premise is justified and makes sense.

Ronin uses this same technique to build incredibly rich characters. We know almost nothing about the mercenaries, though we are given clues. In assembling these clues, we ourselves create backstories for the characters that just don’t exist in the writing. For example, we know nothing about Sam (Robert DeNiro), except that he’s an American. We also know nothing about Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard), but his accent tells us he’s probably German. When Deirdre tells us they were all referred to her by “the man in the wheelchair,” we infer that they are mercenaries of some sort. When Gregor asks Sam how the man ended up in the wheelchair, Sam says, “I was under the impression that happened in your neck of the woods, during the late unpleasantness.” From this, we can infer that they were spies during the Cold War and that Gregor and Sam were on opposite sides. We don’t know any of that, but we can infer it. We can also infer they no longer work for their countries. And when we infer these things, we simultaneously fill in their pasts with an appropriate backstory for spies who have become mercenaries. Thus, with only a few words from the writer, we ourselves create extensive backstories for the characters which satisfy us as to their credentials.

Sometimes we are even given specific hints to guide our newly-created backstories. To understand what I mean, consider this. At one point, a Russian asks where he’s seen Vincent (Jean Reno) before. Vincent responds with one word: “Vienna.” And when he says it, his voice is seething with hate. With that one word, a whole chapter in Vincent’s past is revealed to us and this whole imaginary chapter becomes part of his character even though nothing more is ever said than the one word. Seriously, when you hear him say that single word, you can literally imagine the entire Vienna incident. Similarly, we are told that Deirdre’s boss Seamus (Jonathan Pryce) was tossed out of the IRA for some reason, which again we aren’t told. But our brains fill in his backstory by coming up with some horrific deed that we personally believe would make the IRA kick this man out. Again, without coming up with a single word about his past, the writer tricks us and now we see Seamus as an evil man of the highest order.

In this way, Ronin causes us to build these characters and to generate the world that surrounds them within our own minds, and that makes the story all the richer for us.

Ronin Uses Realism To Make Us Care About The Consequences

Having gotten the audience to build the characters and fill in their world, Frankenheimer then uses realism to give the story meaning. Why? Because the more real a story feels to us, the greater we will perceive the consequences to be and the more we will care about what happens. In this case, the realism involves both the characters themselves and the physical laws of their universe.

Consider the characters. These men are highly competent. But unlike Tom Cruise movies, where someone needs to tell Tom that he’s “the best,” we learn this in Ronin by observing these men. They are fast and smart and clever. They make no mistakes. They are fearless, but not reckless. They display tremendous experience, critical knowledge and sound judgment. In other words, they are highly believable as spies or mercenaries because they display the exact traits we assume a top spy would need to survive. Moreover, their low key but determined approach immediately gives them an authenticity that a flashy James Bond character or an invincible Jason Bourne character can never achieve. This makes them real to us and draws us in because we feel like we are seeing something with real-world consequences.

The sets add to this sense of realism too. Everything happens in Paris and Nice, which lends an exotic touch to the story, but the characters spend their time in dingy apartments with blacked-out windows, i.e. places they would really stay. They don’t rent impossibly large hotel rooms overlooking the Eiffel Tower and advertize themselves to the world.

They use real weapons too, rather than the super-weapons preferred by most action heroes. What’s more, the action itself is much like we would expect it to be in real life. For example, when these characters empty a clip into a crowd, innocent people die. When they get shot, they bleed or die. Indeed, throughout this movie, you have the feeling that every time a gun is fired, something very real and very terrible can happen, and that keeps you on the edge of your seat in the fight scenes. Further, when car chases happen, there are no Dukes of Hazzard jumps, they don’t ride on two tires, and no one climbs out onto the roof and tries to jump onto another car. What they do instead is push their cars to the limit of losing control, a place that most of us have been at one time or another with our own cars. And because we remember what it felt like when our car started to skid out from under us, we recall that feeling when we see it happen to Sam or Vincent and we add it to the experience. Thus, by staying within our real world frame of reference, they pull in our own angst to heighten the danger. Compare that with the nothing you feel when two characters are fighting on top of a moving car.

The bad guys are believable too. They all have motivations: some want money, some are in this for the politics. Yet, they don’t see themselves as bad people (nor do they delude themselves that they are angels) and none of them are maniacal. They just are what they are and they’ve come to terms with that, and that makes them horrific to us because they’re cold-blooded and inhuman. Indeed, unlike most Hollywood villains who need to kick puppies or shoot henchmen to prove they are evil rather than just prancing fools, the bad guys here need no such proof. Everything about them tells you these men think nothing of killing and do it quite efficiently. But just as importantly, they don’t kill for fun or because they are sadists; they kill because it’s required to get the job done. This keeps them from seeming cartoony to us. It also heightens the tension because we know these people are truly serious and will not mess around. That’s never something you can be sure of with the comic book villains, who seem to distract themselves at all the wrong times.

Conclusion

This is why Ronin is such a fantastic action movie. The story is great and the film is well shot -- excellent sets, soundtrack and scenes. But even more importantly, we are co-opted into creating ultra-rich characters that we care about personally because we made them. Then they are put into seemingly real danger, under real world rules that keep us from knowing that everything will work out in some improbable way. I cannot recommend this film highly enough.

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