Movies: "The Leopard" and "Ocean's Eleven"

I'm putting both of this week's movies together, because I don't have a lot to say about either of them.

The first was "The Leopard", a 1963 movie about a prince of Sicily during the Italian revolution of the 1860s. It struck me as "meh". It wasn't bad, but I don't know enough about Italian history to really follow it as well as I'd like, and it doesn't handhold you. Honestly, I thought what the movie was trying to express was done better in one scene with Londo in Babylon 5. (The one where he recalls finding his father crying and lamenting that 'my shoes are too tight, but it does not matter, because I have forgotten how to dance' and now understands the metaphor because he too has reached a point where he feels stifled by his life, but has forgotten the joie de vie that he would want his freedom back for.)
Beautifully shot, and exquisite costuming, though. Because I'm nerdy like this, I was particularly struck the costumes, or at least the women's, are all actually correct period. But that's just my thing.


The second was Ocean's Eleven, the one made in 2001, not the original from the 1960s. Something about the Rat Pack just makes my skin crawl, and I don't know what, but it's a mark against any movie. So, watched the new one instead.
I love a good heist pic. (Although, "The Italian Job"? Not a good heist pic.) Ocean's Eleven is a pretty good heist pic. Yen could stand to be less of a stereotype, and I notice the black guy gets the really gross stuff to do, but at the same time he has an awesome British accent so at least it isn't the usual stereotype. What really keeps me from calling it a great heist flick, though, is the ex-wife love subplot thing. Look, Danny. She's not into you, she was never into the real lying thieving you, and if she was written at all realistically, she never would be into you.
Forget Tess. Instead we make the bomb expert a woman, get your practically mandated dose of sexual tension there, and in the end she goes off with the cute completely green pickpocket from Chicago.
So, spoiler-free conclusion: good movie, ignore Tess.

Spoiler version: I know I have no romance in my soul, but if I saw via security camera my ex-husband say to my current boyfriend who has just had his vault cleared out of $160 million (that's 9 digits, people) "I can get your money back if you'll give up on Tess" and my boyfriend says "OK", I would actually hold a bigger grudge against the ex. Don't get me wrong, I'd leave the boyfriend. After all, he's got insurance, and he did just basically agree to dump me. But I can't feel that bad when it took $160 million to make him do it. On the other hand, my ex is basically trying to buy me. It's a situation that one person has set up and the other has acquiesced to, and they both suck, but IMHO, the one who set it up sucks more.
But they both suck.

Personally, I'd go off with the cute completely green pickpocket from Chicago. :)

Movie: Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (spoilers)

I oopsied and was late returning last week's Netflix, so I plugged the laptop into the computer and watched something off Instant Viewing. (Unfortunately, Friday evening is not the best time to try to watch Instant Viewing movies due to the high server load, but with some long pauses to build up a buffer, I got it done.)

Now, there were two not-terribly-deep reasons I wanted to see Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.
First, as a young girl, I was a big Darkwing Duck fan, and there was an episode titled "Hush Hush Sweet Charlatan." Now, those episodes never have anything to do with whatever the title was parodying, but I was curious anyway.

Second, it was recommended as one of Bette Davis' better movies, and I thought I'd give her another chance after the slow boring train wreck that was Mr. Skeffington.

So, what did I think of it?
...
My God, the stupid. Lots of movies expect the audience to suspend their disbelief, but this one expects the audience to suspend all cognitive functioning whatsoever.

Unless I am missing something in the unintelligible mumbling that starts the movie, it opens with a young man going to see Charlotte Hollis's father to ask for her hand in marriage

1. Before they elope
2. Despite the fact that he is already married to someone else
3. And that he is NOT in the midst of, or even planning, a divorce.

Ow, ow, ow.
And to make it worse, Bette Davis is playing Charlotte in this scene set 37 years before the rest of the movie. This means that a 56 year old Bette was playing a 19 year old girl. As you can well imagine, this required that there be no good shots of her face. Unfortunately, because her idiot lover's breakup with her and subsequent brutal murder are such a significant part of the opening, this requires some really heavy handed stunts to hide her.

We then flash forward 37 years, and find that the Hollis mansion has been seized by eminent domain and is going to be torn down to build a bridge.
Uhn huh. Charlotte is so rich that the town is named after her family. (Literally; the town's name is Hollisport.) Eminent domain storylines only work with middle class or poorer families, because we all know the rich get to play by different rules. Realistically, whoever did the planning for that bridge would look at the route and go "Ah crap. The lawsuit alone is going to drag this project out 10 or 15 years, and if she realizes that place dates back before the Civil War and has it declared a historical landmark, we're screwed. Let's just see if we can get an easement about a hundred yards from the house, and if that doesn't work we'll just do a bypass on the other side of the property line."

Then we bring in Miriam. The box text spoils most of Miriam's schtick. Before I get to that, though, what's funny is that according to the trivia at IMDB, they had the damnedest time getting anyone to take this role. Joan Crawford had it, but she got sick and they had to replace her. Katherine Hepburn didn't even return their call, Loretta Young said " I wouldn't play a part like that if I were starving," and Vivien Leigh answered "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis." It took the director a flight to Switzerland and four days to convince Olivia de Havilland to take it.

So, most of the movie is Miriam trying to drive Charlotte insane, or at least to a point where she appears so. For some reason, she thinks she's going to have trouble involuntarily committing

1. the town loony
2. who everyone "knows" brutally murdered her lover with a meat cleaver 37 years ago
3. and who tried to kill two people within five minutes after the opening credits
4. and who spends most of her free time searching and calling for said lover who was brutally murdered 37 years ago.

Come on! You want to get Charlotte committed, what you do is go to the nearest judge and say "I think my cousin is crazy and needs to be committed." And you know what he's going to say?
"Oh, you finally noticed that, did you? Give me those papers to sign. I've been waiting decades for this."

No, we spend a long, slowly paced movie going about this instead.
And then, Miriam kills the maid. Whoops. Now we've got this pesky body laying around. What do we do about it?
Well, I'm thinking we want to get Charlotte involuntarily committed, and that requires danger to self or others, so "Oh my gosh, look what Charlotte did." I mean, you've got a dead maid, you might as well use her.
No, that would cut a good 20 minutes out of this turd. Instead they fake that she died in a completely different building while trying to repair her own home's roof. Which means they then have to go and fake Charlotte killing someone else! *head desk*

Finally, if you're going to go give your "how I became an evil villain and just how evil I am" speech, maybe you should make sure your would-be victim is actually sedated. Because it's really a bummer when they wake up and wander into listening distance of your speech -- and an appropriate weapon.

And on top of it all, you get to listen to Bette Davis shriek out half her lines. Yeah. I'm not a Bette Davis fan. In fact, I am probably going to go to great effort to avoid her movies from now on.

So, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte gets a nice big "Don't do it, man!"

Movie: The Spiral Staircase (heavy spoilers)

This week's Netflix offering was the 1945 movie The Spiral Staircase.

First, the spoiler-free review:
Excellent, excellent movie. Now this, this is what Hitchcock is known for.

Unfortunately, it's not one of Hitchcock's. Frankly, I think Hitchcock wished he had made something this awesome.

But I kid Alfred. Seriously, beautiful beautiful cinematography. Wonderful, amazing camera and light work. When Helen is running to the house in the rain at the beginning and we see the hiding murderer in a flash of lightning, ooh. Shivers, I'm telling you. (It's 5 minutes in; I can't call that a spoiler.)

I can't really comment on the story, because I've got this thing with mysteries. Nine times out of 10, I immediately laserbeam on to the villain. For example, first time I watched a 13-part silent serial named Judex, which is possibly the first filmed superhero story, I had the hero's secret identity pegged halfway through the prologue -- and that ain't normal at all. So with Spiral Staircase here, I was pretty sure who done it and how it was going to end for them early on, but I don't think that would be normal. I think most people who enjoy mysteries would enjoy this one.

Now, if only I could figure out where that spiral staircase is in relation to the rest of the house.

Anyway, if you like mysteries, go see this. It's good.


Super spoilerific version:
I swear, if I am ever in a situation involving spies, Nazis, or serial killers, and someone says to me "Don't trust anyone", I am going to turn around and shoot them right there on the spot. Has there ever been a time in cinematic history where someone has said that, and NOT turned out to be the villain? I had my suspicions about this guy as soon as he appeared on screen, but as soon as he said this, I spent the next hour and 15 minutes going "It's Hisname. It's Hisname. Dude, it is so Hisname."

And man, do NOT mess with a Barrymore. They will kick your ass. It doesn't matter if they have to magically regain the ability to walk in order to do it, because they will. Lionel in Key Largo and Ethel here... Just don't mess with them.

Actually, bumping off that to Key Largo, that reminds me of an observation. Every once in a while in one of the old movies, someone will get out of a wheel chair. This tends to really mess with modern minds, because in this day and age wheel chair usually means spinal cord injury. However, before World War II, a spinal cord injury was fatal. It didn't matter how low it was; you died. The medical community just didn't have the technology and understanding to care for it. So when an audience in the 1930s and 1940s saw a character in a wheelchair, what they thought was "polio", and thus would expect it to be difficult but possible for that character to walk short distances.
For those who are curious, Lionel was in the wheel chair because of a hip injury and arthritis.

Oh, I am really disappointed that I didn't get to see Carlton take the villain down. Dude, you've got a bulldog right there. What's the point of having a bulldog if you aren't going to use him?

Hey, I needed those!

I wanted to read the novel "Night of the Hunter", that the movie I reviewed a few weeks ago was based on. Local library system didn't have it. I know I could have requested it through interlibrary loan, but I just couldn't be buggered to figure out how to do that, and I didn't want to rush through it on a deadline. It's pretty cheap new, so I bought a copy.

I bet you never notice typography on a book unless it's really terrible. I don't either. Except this is really terrible. I'm almost wondering if this book fell into the public domain, because this printing looks like it was done by Lulu.com -- except that Lulu produces better quality. Most significantly, though...

There are no quotation marks! None! Not a one! There are apostrophes, thank the Lord, but no quotation marks. Dialog is just completely mixed in with prose with no differentiation whatsoever. It's actually kind of difficult to read.

See, your English teacher was right. They're important.

Movie: Blazing Saddles (spoilers)

I am probably going to spill a whole can of whoop ass all over myself with this one. But I've got Brawny, so that's OK.

I want to like Mel Brooks' parodies, I do. But starting with Blazing Saddles and just about everything afterwards, I just can't. There's plenty of reasons why, but let me jump into the really big ones.

First, you know what's really funny? Rape. Mel Brooks finds rape to be an unending source of amusement. If you were playing a Blazing Saddles drinking game and took a shot every time there was a rape joke, you'd die of alcohol poisoning. The movie can't go 15 minutes without a rape joke. Because rape is just so funny.

That's to say nothing of the sexism. Look at the female characters in this movie, look me in the eye, and try to tell me you don't see a problem.

This is especially ironic in a movie about the evils of racism, but perhaps even more ironic is the rampant anti-gay jokes. Not nearly as common as the rape jokes (because nothing could be), but still, day-um. Don't be trying to tell me that homosexual rights weren't even on the radar in 1974, because the sheer number of gay-bashing jokes in this movie gives lie to that. Now, you could argue that viewpoints were radically different 35 years ago and maybe that's fair, BUT it does IMO show a lack of critical thought at the time. Did Mel ever stop to think "you know, I'm making commentary on how wrong discrimination is and at the same time I brutally bashing this other group any chance I get. Is this problematic at all?"

So, you take out the rape jokes, the gay-bashing jokes, and sexism jokes, and... You don't have a whole lot of movie left. What you do have... Frankly, it's not funny. For example, one line that's supposed to be hilariously funny is the schoolmarm reading a telegram she has composed to the governor, in which she tells him that this "just goes to show that you are the biggest asshole in the state."
....
This is one of your best jokes, Mel? Because, see, I live in Illinois. To me, "the governor is the biggest asshole in the state" is just a statement of fact. (The whole Blagojevich thing? "OMG, a corrupt Illinois governor! Who woulda thunk it?")

There was a study done in the 1990s when shock jocks were popular that found that people don't actually find that kind of humor funny when they're alone. It's only in groups that they laugh at it, and then it's a shared embarrassment response rather than a true humor response.

So, since most of Mel's jokes involve throwing out something vulgar and waiting for the lolz, you should probably see this one with a group of friends.

The only good thing in this movie is Gene Wilder. And he does get some good lines. ("You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.") But he can only do so much on his own.

'Fraid this one's going up on the DVDSwap shelf.

Movie: The Dark Crystal (Spoilers)

This time it's another one from my private collection, Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal". It's the story of the love-hate relationship between a flock of vultures and a band of Gyuto monks.

Or not.

It's not a bad movie. It's a very superficial eye-candyish movie, but it's pretty good, especially if you don't mind that it's mostly battle scenes with giant bugs spaced out by watching Brian Froud doodles prance around. I'm actually OK with that, because I think Brian Froud doodles are cool to look at. But at the same time I have to acknowledge that while the movie is only about 90 minutes long, it only has about 40 minutes of story.

Or there might be two hours of story there, but most of it got cut to make room for Brian Froud doodles.

Also, if you ever simultaneously want a textbook example of the "Magical Negro" effect and proof that it can be applied to women as a group, just sit back and watch Kira. I mean, honestly. She talks to animals, she knows everything except the prophecy itself, and the wings... The wings put it right over the top. Seriously, watch it with this idea in mind, and tell me the wings don't just make you laugh when they're piled on top of everything else. Jen doesn't do anything except play his flute once to find the shard, annoy a Skeksis enough to earn an ass-whooping, shout Kira's name at a key point, and then finally put the shard back in the crystal -- and that's after he drops the shard like an idiot and Kira has to go and get it for him. Oh, and he whines a lot.
Really, it's downright ludicrous. Kira is this insane-level ubermunchkin who takes Jen everywhere and does everything, but somehow he's the hero of destiny and she's the supporting cast.

Oh, and I know this is wrong, but I cheered when the Skeksis tossed Fizzgig into the crystal pit. Blasphemous, I know, but I hate Fizzgig. OK, so you crossbreed a Pomeranian with a tribble and make sure it has absolutely no useful qualities whatsoever.

So, in other words, don't think about the movie too hard. Just get some popcorn, enjoy the fairy tale, enjoy the Brian Froud visuals, and as long as you don't expect anything deep, it's a fun, pretty, bubble-gummy 90 minutes.

Movie: Million Dollar Baby (Spoilers)

This week's Netflix offering in Million Dollar Baby, one of Clint Eastwood's recent creative endeavors. This one is from 2004, and uses a reluctant trainer and female boxer as the set-up.

I want to like this movie. I want to love this movie. It's 90% great. There's pathos and emotion and psychology and deep issues. Clint Eastwood is absolutely the master of unstated backstory. There's even a side of Morgan Freeman.

But, there are also some flaws in this movie, and one of them is an absolutely show stopper for me: Maggie's trailer trash, welfare-cheating family. Oh, and let's throw in "fat" as major character flaw. Seriously, the first time Maggie talks about her family's problems, the list is that her brother is in jail, her sister cheats welfare by claiming one of her kids isn't dead, and her mother is 312 lbs. You can see where these are on par.

I was OK until we actually met them, though, and then it really goes over the top. You've got a mother complaining that her daughter bought her a house because what'll it do to her welfare payments and medicare and why couldn't she have just given Mom the money directly where it would be easier to hide from the government. I won't deny that there are some people like that who do exist, but they are such an extreme minority of the actual poor and such an extreme majority of media portrayals of the poor. This to me is a bit like watching what would be a really great classic movie, except at key points there's a terribly offensive blackface minstral show character who cannot be ignored or written off.

Then, just to really put it into "people like this don't exist at all"* territory, Mom tells the world-famous daughter who is bringing in hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of dollars that everyone is laughing at her and she needs to just find a man and live like normal people.
(* I put the little star there because I can't rule out that there are people that trailor trash who would rather see their daughter living in poverty with a miscellaneous man than being rich, famous [and generous to said people] via professional sports. But, I have no evidence that they exist.)

That, however, is my peeve. It may not bug others so much. Something you will have to suspend your disbelief for, though, is the over-protective boxing trainer. I would actually have no problem if he was only over-protective of the only female fighter he has ever trained who happens to be the age of his extremely estranged daughter. But no, he's overprotective of all of his fighters. Um, boxing trainer? Hello? "I'm going to teach you to beat people's brains out for sport, but I don't want anyone getting hurt." Does not work. It can be looked past, but it's not easy.

Finally, this is not so much a movie-killing flaw, as just a slight lament that wouldn't turn me off the movie at all on its own. The ending takes the easy way out. In doing so, it is feeding another unfortunate stereotype, one that was at least partially disproven by a well known public figure. (I'm trying to dance around the spoiler, here.)

And did anyone else groan when you realized that we have to go to Father Asshat for spiritual guidance?

So, here's what I think: between the climatic turning-point event and the ending, the movie is wonderful. (Except for the white trash family's appearance.) Takes much longer than really needed to get to the climatic turning event. So, we shorten the lead-up, put the climatic turning point event earlier, and that gives us time to do the hard ending instead of the easy one. It's going to be hard not to be smarmy with the hard ending, but there are real life people that can be used as a basis for realism. Oh, and we rework White Trash Family. I suggest Middle Class Asshats Whose Middle Child Can Never Do Right No Matter What She Does Right, myself, but I'm open to other suggestions. That would be a 10 on my movie scale.

So, what we actually got, would I recommend it? Yes, I absolutely would with the "White Trash Minstral Show" caveat. It's much easier to point out the few things that are wrong rather than the many many things that are right. Great psychological story, great subtext. It's got flaws, but it is a very good movie overall.

Movie: Taxi Driver (Spoilers)

For those keeping score at home, yes, this means I went out to see a movie, came home, and watched another movie. This makes for a very good Saturday in my book.

So, the second was the 1976 movie "Taxi Driver", which caught my attention solely for having one of the most quoted and parodied lines from cinema: "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? There's no one else here, so you must be talkin' to me." Which is not actually a word-for-word, but is how it's usually parodied.

So, the movie itself. It is two hours of watching the effects of sleep deprivation on a mentally unstable ex-Marine turned Taxi Driver. As one (positive) reviewer put it, mental illness is actually pretty boring most of the time. This is all leading up to the trippiest gun fight evah. Turns out you can put any number of large caliber bullet holes in someone and it won't really affect them. Blood's spurting everywhere, but other than the slight annoyance, they just don't notice. Gut shot, right through the neck, put a few in the face, it doesn't even matter. Blow three fingers off some guy's hand, it just pisses him off.

And the ending is such complete bullshit that I actually think that just about everything in the movie happened solely in the main character's head. You do not kill three people in cold blood and not go to jail. No, I personally think that this 12-year-old popped into his cab for 3 seconds one night, and everything else is just a warped little fantasy around it which he wrote in his diary, just like the letter to his parents claiming he's doing super secret work for the government.

Can't recommend this one.

Movie: Gran Torino

I treated myself to a cinema trip today. I wanted to see Milk, but unfortunately the only place in my painfully stick-up-the-arse city that's showing it is only doing late shows, later than I cared to go. I'll probably have to catch that one when it comes to DVD. However, several people have recommended Gran Torino, so I decided to give it a go instead.

I'll try to avoid spoilers, since it is still in theaters.

It's not bad. I could become a late Eastwood fan. He hasn't knocked my socks off yet, but it's been a good two hours when I go to see one of his flicks. Now, this one in particular, you've seen this movie. Even if you haven't seen Gran Torino, you've seen this movie. Crotchety old racist makes friends with teen of the race he hates. Let's not even pretend it's a new or innovative story.

That said, this is a pretty good rendition of it. I especially like the particular brand of badass that makes up the climax.

I gotta ask, though. Is that Clint Eastwood's real voice, or was he trying way too hard? Because Walt Kowalsky sounds like Jack Palance trying to do Christian Bale's "Batman" voice. And could he maybe not sing? Please? Because... just don't.

(I went to find a semi-recent Eastwood interview. No, that's not his real voice. He's trying way too hard. And I think he might have been wearing "old" makeup, too. Which just becomes funny. Clint, you don't have to pretend to be old. You're 79; you are old! Very well preserved, though; I will give you that.]

I also personally like that you know how this old guy's kids don't have anything to do with him unless they want something and his grandkids hardly talk to him unless they're asking for stuff when he dies and he's all alone and blah blah? Yeah, that's at least as much his fault as anyone else's. I think it does a good job of showing it realistically without vilifying either side excessively.

Summary: Good movie. Worth the price of admission. But not terribly innovative.

Movie: Night of the Hunter (spoilers)

I am very behind of my movie reviews. I may backfill some in a little while.

For now, though, this weeks' Netflix offering was the 1955 "Night of the Hunter".
This is a movie that seriously deserves to be remade. Any movie that has Lillian Gish kick someone's ass is worth watching. Even more so if it practically starts with a crazy guy saying to God "I know You don't mind the killin', Lord. Your book's full of killin'." But it was very much showing the time during which it was made.

For one, it could stand to have the story-telling method updated a bit. For example, there are sequences of scene after scene after scene where each scene consists of 2 or 3 lines of dialog and then it goes to the next scene. Let's fix that.

And maybe we could take out the "idiot" points. If you're going to hide a murder victim in a body of water, may I suggest you not chose the clearest body of water in 3 states? The one where you can see 50 feet straight down as though it were right in front of your face?
And if you happen to look into the clearest body of water in 3 states and see a murder victim just sitting there, go to the police. Just go.
(And to really add insult to injury, neither of these dumbs was necessary to the movie. They cancel out. You can completely take them out and not affect the movie one little bit.)

Oh, and let's not even pretend that the money's hiding place is a surprise to anyone, so just be honest about it up front. Honestly, the attempt at hiding it just mucks up a plot point.

Finally, I'd love to see this done with some child actors who can actually act. You know, since they have 80% of the camera time and all.

Despite that:
The character of Harry Powell is wonderful. I would love to see him played by a good actor, rather than just pointing the camera at Robert Mitchum and letting the melodrama spill out. I'm thinking do him as a more realistic sociopath/classic abuser. Start very charming, then kind of ramp up the abuse headfucking. And maybe we could suck the misogyny out of the rest of the movie and pile it all on him, because it really fits well there.

And maybe we could show the Harper's marriage as being abuse as well. It'd make Willow falling into Powell's trap more believable, I think. She's already primed to be beat down by someone and think it's her fault.

And the "bad religious person" versus "good religious person" thing at the end? Great job. I would file some of the rough edges off Ms. Cooper. Not make her saccharine, mind; there just seems to be a disconnect where she's very harsh sometimes, and utterly loving sometimes. Just keep the character a bit more consistent, or flesh out the seeming contradictions more (because people do have internal contradictions and faces they put on).

The original book may do it better, having more time to flesh things out. I don't know, although I am tempted to find a copy.

So, final conclusion. Good movie. Worth a watch. But, could benefit from the some technical updating.

Movie: The Man Who Knew Too Much (spoilers)

This was the original 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much with Leslie Banks, not the remake with Jimmy Stewart -- which just seems wrong. You know, Jimmy Stewart as Average Dad turned super spy. I just... can't.

But that's not the one I watched. I watched the one from 1934, when they had kinder, gentler spy movies. For instance, gun fights are terribly messy business, so let's fight with chairs instead. Lots and lots of breakaway chairs. And our master spy (an unusually adorable Peter Lorre), when leaving the hero-turned-hostage under the watch of an underling, ominously orders "If he tries anything, shoot him -- in the leg." Because, you know, they wouldn't want to kill the hero. And of course, when you want to make sure a woman doesn't leave, the bad guys brutally shorten her skirt.

Seriously, that one was just a wonderful little culture shock. This woman comes in with her skirt hem at her knees, Peter is laughing his ass off, and I'm sitting there going "What? What's going on? What am I missing? Oh, it's 1934!"

The other fun little historical bit is that back then, evil spies were always automatically German. Russia hadn't figured out this spy thing yet. Always German. This really threw Fritz Lang for a loop when he made his movie Spies, because he was German. There he was, needed evil German spies, but his heroes had to be German. He ended up making his master spy more of a crimelord. (And a banker, so he may have been implying Jewish. After all, it was Germany in 1928.)
OK, I don't really know why Fritz did that.

(So, during the Cold War, did the Russians have spy movies with evil American villains. They had to, didn't they? Know where I can find one subtitled? That'd be awesome to watch! I bet it'd be flippin' hilarious.)

Anyway, back to the movie. I can't really suggest it. Talkies were still having the bugs worked out, and Hitchcock was still figuring out that directing thing. It's also very much an Idiot Movie. I mean, even looking past the basic fact that these expert professional spies are getting their ass kicked by Average Dad and Helpless Mom, the villains can't see anything like hostages just walking out behind them, they can't hear anything like hostages breaking through doors, they aren't smart enough to go "cops are shooting at us through the window. Maybe we shouldn't stand next to it." It's... just not good. And just to add insult to injury, the quality of cut that Netflix has is simply awful. Not visible attempt at restoration or preservation at all.

Spies are very good babysitters, though. I heartily suggest calling a few spies next time you want to catch dinner and a movie without the kids in tow.

Personally, I'm just here for Peter Lorre. Young, chubby, moon-faced, fresh off the boat, doesn't even speak English yet, Peter Lorre. With a piebald streak, for no readily apparent reason. Seriously, this was Lorre's first English film and he learned his role phonetically because he didn't really know much English. And yet he still acted circles around Leslie Banks. He was a really good master spy. Totally stole the show, such as it was. It's almost worth watching it for Master Spy Peter Lorre. But not quite.

And I think that's just my thing.

In the end analysis, if you're not a Lorre fan and you're not a diehard Hitchcock fan, there's not a lot of point to seeing it.

Movie: Fargo

This time I watched Fargo. This one, I need to take in two chunks: the movie itself, and the false claims made for it.

The movie itself is pretty good. Proof that any situation, no matter how morbid, is funny if you're watching Minnesotans do it. Not surprisingly, a lot of Minnesotans don't much appreciate the movie and I can't blame them. If you don't find Minnesotans inherently funny, it would probably be pretty boring. But if you do, it is a good dark comedy.

And Margie is one of the best female protagonists ever.

Unfortunately, the Coen brothers engaged in what is my biggest movie pet peeve outside of offensive portrays of women or minority groups: they claimed the story was true, when it is not. Right when it opens, it splashes a screen saying the movie is a true story, only the names have been changed, and the events are exactly as it happened.
It isn't true. It isn't true at all. It isn't even based on anything. The Coen brothers completely made it up, and the reason they did so (according to the DVD documentary) was because they did not think the story was strong enough to stand on its own, but that people would buy it if they thought it was an actual event.

Ooooh. I HATE that. At best it's a sign of unconscionably lazy writing -- the authors don't want to make their story believable, or enjoyable enough that people won't care, so they just slap on this false "notice" so hide the inconsistencies. At worst, it's downright fraudulent. They're trying to get money from people who would pay for a nonfiction story, but not a fictional one.

Blair Witch Project did this to the point of turning their "making of" special into "documentary" on the "history" of the Blair Witch and selling the accompanying book as though it were a nonfiction case summary. Fans believing them did massive amounts of damage to the building and town where the movie was filmed and to the surrounding town.

The Hellraiser franchise has tried to add an element of historical basis to their merchandising, and as a result an acquaintance in the Poser community was nearly sued for copyright infringement when he used photos that were altered to look like and marked as old enough to be public domain but were actually modern merchandising material.

In Fargo's case, this fraud may have contributed to a fatality.

Now, there are those out there who basically argue that people should be cynical all the time, and find any form of "gullibility" to be an utterly unforgivable sin. I've actually seen people say that those gullible enough to buy some unimportant story should be killed for it -- ironically the "gullible suckers" story in that case was false, and it was the would-be executioners who were believing bullshit without evidence.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I don't think very highly of that opinion. When someone has an extreme, irrationally intolerance for gullibility, especially when it gets to the point of believing that the "gullible" deserve to die, I always wonder why. Who have they cheated, what scam have they pulled that they need to justify it by believing the victim deserved it?

Suffice to say, I'm of the opinion that writers should make stories that stand on their own instead of making false claims. Unfortunately in Fargo's case, the opposite put a very bad taste in my mouth over a movie that would have been rather good otherwise. (If you don't share my pet peeve, though, it is worth a watch. Hell, you'll get so many more MST3K jokes. ^_~)

Movie: Sweeney Todd (Spoilers)

I was warned before borrowing this one that it was a musical. I must respectfully disagree. To me, a musical is a movie with a few song and dance numbers. Your typical Muppet movie is a musical. Oliver is a musical. This, this is an opera with a fear of commitment, down to the unbelievably tragic ending that tries to squash all hope and light in the world. Gee willikers. I am honestly surprised that one more character didn't die. I really really expected her to.

So, was it a good movie despite that? Um.... Not really. Having seen sincerely, eye-peeling horrible movies, I can't in good conscience call it a bad movie, but I can't really call it a good one, either.

So, is it worth seeing? Um... Not really. If you've read the back of the box, you've seen the movie. It's basically two hours of Johnny Depp cutting throats while singing... and he can't really sing so good. So, I guess if you really really like watching fake blood spray out of people's throats... get help, and while you're waiting for them to show, you can watch this.

OK, 'nother thing, and maybe some of you know if such a thing exists: I would really like for there to be a list or a database or something were you can look up a movie and see if there's a rape in it. Because I'm getting frickin' sick of this. Enough of rape as convenient plot widget already. I'm sick of watching them. It's like hack writers have a wheel they spin for "tragic backstory that drives hero to vengeance", and the slots read:

• Raped
• Orphaned at young age
• Wife raped
• Falsely imprisoned
• Sister raped
• Physically abused
• Mother raped
  

and so on. Rarely, if ever, have I seen a movie where a rape was actually necessary to the plot rather than just a cheap gimmick, and it sure as hell wasn't about a guy. Grr.

I would just like to know so I could take all those movies off my list.

Movie: Kagemusha

This week's Netflix offering was Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha. I was planning to ship it back tomorrow and have another movie for this weekend, but I'm thinking about watching it again with commentary track.

So, what did I think of it? OMG, the guy who plays Nobunaga is devastatingly sexy. Every time he came on camera, I just about swooned. Even when he broke into song and dance. And on top of that, his helmet had a dragonfly on it. No one looks good in a helmet, but still... *fans self* I am going to have to borrow more movies with Daisuke Ryu, just so I can look at him. Wowzanoma. *more fanning*

Were there other people in this movie? I'm not sure I noticed. I was waiting for more Nobunaga scenes.

Oh yeah, I guess it starred Tatsuya Nakadai and also had Takeshi Shimura. So, was Shimura-san just born really old? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the guy. He is one of my favorite actors. Everything from Seven Samurai to Ikiru to, um, Godzilla. (Actually, the original Japanese Gojira was a much better and more serious movie than that hack job they spliced Raymond Burr into.) But I swear Shimura-san doesn't look any older in this movie made in 1980, than he did in the 1952 Ikiru!

So, movie overall. Well, I have to admit. In my opinion, from the ones I've seen, Kurosawa made his best movies between 1950-ish and 1965. The color movies especially don't seem to work as well. In part I think it's because, as I understand, Kurosawa was a very controlling director and a lot of his setups were very artificial. Black and white filmstock hides that much better than color does. The color film shows more of the artists' hand, and I don't care so much for the results.

That said, this is one isn't bad. It doesn't have the really strident, eye-searing saturated colors of, say, Ran or Dreams. Although he did do some very bad things to poor Nakadai's make-up at the end there. Nakadai put up with so much.

It is rather slow, though. Kurosawa takes his time telling a story, and sometimes it works very well, and sometimes not so much. Seven Samurai is half an hour longer than this, and yet it seems shorter because Seven Samurai keeps moving, even if sometimes it saunters. Kagemusha sometimes stops just so you can see how that rifle was loaded.

So, I'd say it's worth seeing one if you're a Kurosawa fan, but I wouldn't suggest it to someone who isn't. Unless you're willing to wait for scenes with Daisuke Ryu. Did I mention OMG? *more fanning*

Whoa!

Who ordered the snow? Anyone? Order of snow?

It's supposed to slow down this afternoon. I think there's enough accumulation that I'll have to go out and shovel. And it was so nice yesterday! So much for cleaning the leaves out of the corner of my driveway. :P

Anyway, Nanowrimo stuff. I won late Friday night, and called it done at 50,000 words plus some change. And the end result of the month is one volume each for both of my Fushigi Yuugi long fanfic series, and a decent seed for the Superhero High story later.

Piers Anthony's "pep" talk arrived today, and since I don't have any Nano spirit to crush now, I figured I'd read it and laugh my ass off. It's about what I expected from him.
The first four paragraphs are insult. Tongue in cheek insult (I hope), but still. One paragraph of tongue-in-cheek insult can be used to good effect; four is serious overkill.
The fifth one is backhanded complement -- i.e. actual insult. "You've got a 99% chance of complete worthlessness even if you succeed, but good for you for trying anyway."
Paragraph six is bragging on himself. "Why, I do this rate all the time, and I'm an old fart." Uh, Piers? You write full time. It's not really that comforting to be told that someone who has up to 16 hours a day writes at about the rate we need to achieve in 1-3 hours. Honestly, it's a little insulting.

The next two paragraphs are really pat writing advice that's been given in better forms by other people.
And the final paragraph... Um, did the Nano guys tell him that this contest starts at the first of the month, and his talk would be coming out at the end? Because he's writing like he thinks this went out OCTOBER 30th.

If someone told me that they had purposely planned for his pep talk to go out the last day so it wouldn't discourage very many participants, I'd believe it.


Now, I need to do a little complaining about how the Nanowrimo organization is run.
First, a little respect for what the organization does. It is not easy to run a site with over 100,000 members, especially one with a ton of traffic in November and then nothing for the rest of the year. It's quite a challenge they've taken on.
That said, they haven't met that challenge very well.

1) The site always goes down the first few days of the month. Always. That doesn't have to happen in this day and age. There are service providers that can temporarily expand the capabilities for one site to keep it up under unexpected high loads, while keeping it low otherwise. Besides, maybe I misunderstood, but last year didn't Chris say if they met their fundraising goals there would be shiny new servers to make sure that never happened again? Because they exceeded that goal by a fair margin, and things are actually worse this year. For example, they never did reenable the forum search. It was disabled to decrease bandwidth draw, and bandwidth use never got low enough to reenable it.

2) They can't keep shirts in stock in the store. I can understand running out at the end of the month, not wanting to be stuck with extra stock. But the first weekend I went to buy one, and they were out of just about every size, most especially my own. I went to the forum to see what the deal was, as saw a notice that they had run out on Tuesday, and got more in on Friday. Since I was ordering on Saturday or Sunday, that shows pretty well how quickly they sold out. Furthermore, I was checking periodically throughout the month, and I never did catch my size in stock. I eventually ended up going one size down and planning to not put it in the dryer until I lose a little more weight in case it shrinks. But if I weren't losing weight, I just wouldn't have bought one, and how many people just don't come back when they find their shirt not available?

This just shouldn't happen at this point. The contest has been running for 10 years. They ought to know from past participation how many participants order shirts and in what sizes. Even with the bad economy, you can make a decent guess. Order half the previous amount and they wouldn't run out so quickly.

Or, if they don't have the capital for that, 1) shame on them for poor planning. 2) Do pre-orders. Put up a notice that this is how it's working, take orders for all sizes everything in stock, and as you get enough to fill an order from the supplier, trigger it and send them out. They could do this until the 15th (or, if previous years give them an indication of a better date, use it), and then sell only the physical stock on hand so they don't end up with extra stock or having to order 2,000 shirts to fulfill one order.

3) Why, now, the press on not just making 50,000 words, but actually finishing a story, even if it means you rush through parts? That's fine for some people, but not everyone. I really hope this vanishes, but if I can't have that, I hope it remains an informal thing and doesn't become another winning requirement in the next few years

4) And finally, my obligatory complaints about the Young Writers Program. As many of you know, the Young Writers Program horrifies me. I see 20,000 kids who are having the joy of writing crushed out of them by well-meaning but hopelessly misguided teachers. One of the Daily Q&A interviews was with a teacher from a school where the entire school has to participate. And then they start editing on December 1 to 'publish' the thing, and the teachers read over it. Oh my God! Did someone look into my own personal adolescent hell and make it manifest?

I cannot in good conscience support a program that I know would have destroyed my own very passionate love of writing as a teenager, which is why I cannot give a straight-up donation to Nanowrimo.

But beyond that, let's go back in time to before the Young Writers Program. Now, I could be wrong with this, so feel free to correct me. But before that, Nano was partnered with a program that built libraries in disadvantaged countries. IIRC, any money Nano had left over after paying their expenses went to this program. I would be completely behind that. Nano would have some of my money if that was the case.

But a year or two ago, Nano decided that instead they wanted to focus on their own effort, the Young Writers Program. And at that point, from my perspective, things really went to hell in a handbasket. Now there's constant struggles for funds to support both programs, and I don't think they're going to make it this year. I can only imagine the legal stuff and extra monitoring they must go through to run an underage forum -- one that allows adults as well so teachers can participate. And what ever happened to the laptop lending library? Did that die before, or did the Young Writers Program kill that, too?

In my opinion, not only is the Young Writers Program antithetical to its stated purpose (i.e. it destroys enjoyment of writing in the very children in whom it's trying to culviate it), but it's threatening the original adult contest as well.

When Engineers Watch Cartoons

I've got a box set of Batman: The Animated Series DVDs, and I need to get another because I'm almost done. The series has survived the test of time well; it's still a pretty fun watch most of the time.

However, as an engineer, the episode "The Clock King" had me laughing my ass off, so I am going to make a terribly geeky entry about it. (With spoilers, of course.)

First scenario, the Clock King locks Batman in a bank vault with a high speed pump that is pumping the oxygen out out of the room. Ooh, this is impressive, isn't it? Especially since the pump isn't connected to anything. It's just sitting there in a box. We even move the box, just to prove it. As near as I can tell, it's diabolically pumping air out of the bank vault and into... the bank vault. Huh.

But it gets better. Batman can't just disable the pump, because the housing is rigged with a vibration-triggered bomb!
Let me say that again. There is a vibration triggered bomb, on a pump. Pumps don't shake at all, do they? Especially not when they're pumping something compressible like air, right?

Clock King, dude, forget the revenge scheme. You need to go patent that vibration-free, connection-free pump thing!

But we're not done. The next one is common to lots of cartoons, though. So, we're in a huge gear works, and we jam up one of the gear meshes.
Now of course when you do this, you never just jam thing up, and yet you also never just destroy the obstacle, strip a gear of all of its teeth, or twist a shaft in half. There are absolutely no weak links in cartoon gear works. No, instead the entire gearworks, every little bitty piece, always rips itself apart in an incredibly catastrophic and often explosive manner.

And yet, it's still fun to watch. I love being a nerd.

Geeky Stuff

First, anyone out there who has been waiting for Ravelry to put those awesome hoodies up in the store, I've gone and ensured it'll happen today. I went and bought myself some T-shirts without waiting for it because I really wanted one of those "Bob in a pile of yarn" shirts and they were going fast. I hope I got an OK size. I ordered by bust without even thinking about waist measurement or shrinkage. *^_^*

Second, could the Nanowrimo people maybe get a few guest pep talkers who DON'T try to grind me into the dirt and make me stop? First Phillip Pullman tells me I'll never write anything worth reading because I just don't read enough fiction*, then Meg Cabot yells at me for having fun and demands I go back to the story that is doomed to failure. Yeesh.

I'm starting to think I should just opt out of the 'pep' talks. Especially when I see Piers Anthony on the incoming list. It's his misogyny; do I really have to have him delivered to my home? :P


*I like reading, and I do read books fairly regularly. But I do not meet Pullman's voracious reader of a fiction. With the limited time in my typical workday, I'm more likely to spend it making something than reading, and for every fiction book I read, I probably read 3 to 6 non-fiction. Nonetheless, I don't think my few and far between finished stories are that terrible. :P

Movie: 1408 (spoilers)

This was bad. This was very bad. This was so bad that I can say exactly one good thing about this movie: the protagonist reaches freak-out point and tries to throw in the towel at about the time a real person (well, me) would.
That's it. That's the only good thing I can say about it.

Special effects, sucked. Maybe the movie would work on a huge screen in a pitch-black theater with a bagillion decibel sound system and nearby stupid easily-freaked teenagers. But it can't stand on its own -- and don't try to tell me that's an unreasonable expectation because I've seen many horror movies that can meet it.

I actually had to pause the movie to have sufficient time to rant during the set-up. So, you're a writer who doesn't really give a shit about anything. The owner of a fairly swank hotel says "I really don't want you to rent this room. If you will stay in a different room, I will give you thousands of dollars worth of freebies, upgrade you to a penthouse suite, AND give you a file that practically writes half of the book you're under contract for with information no one else has." Do you take him up on this offer, or do you insist on spending a night in a room where you "know" nothing is going to happen? OF COURSE you accept the freebies, turn in the book that was half written for you already, and enjoy the sales-heightening effect of being able to write that this room is sooooo scary you were not allowed to stay in it despite threats of lawsuit.

That was where I paused it, but there was plenty both big and small besides that. From as small as, is there actually any library out there that has not updated its microfiche to digital; to the hotel is not going to just say the room is unavailable, because there have probably been other thrill-seekers, they are going to close the room due to a potentially lethal (but unspecified) problem with it. Or it will be perpetually in the state of being remodeled. On the other end, the main guy decides that he'd rather go out the window and try to climb to another room than stay in 1408, when all 1408 has actually done to him is... close a window on his hand, and give some freaky audio-visual effects.

Of course, main guy also keeps drinking the alcohol he's sure was drugged with hallucinogens. Yeah. I'm going to assume the lack of continuity on that bottle is an intentional freakiness of the room and not a collection of 5 million errors.

It's also very obvious that parts that were necessary to the story were edited out. Main guy calls the front desk in a panic, seems to get an amazingly clueless but otherwise fairly innocent (female *snarl*) clerk on the end, and gets disconnected while being connected to the manager. Immediately afterward he finds he is locked in the room. He does not try the phone again. I'm sure there was a shot or scene where he discovers the phone is actually useless and possessed.
And I hope there was originally something else that made the main guy think going out the window was an acceptable solution.
What I really really hate, though, is when they cut something that was in the trailer. They cut something that was in the trailer. So now there's just this zombie scampering around the ductwork without so much as a set-up shot, much less any hint at which dead guy this is supposed to be.


That's the frivolous stuff. There's also some serious problems.
Serious problem 1) Portrayal of atheism. I apologize to my atheist friends, even though I know this is nothing new. I'm afraid the message of this movie seems to be "serves ya right, ya stinkin' atheist". But of course, if you rediscover your faith in God, we'll let you destroy the evil and even get your ass saved. Although somehow serious burns will leave no visible scars but inexplicably jack up your leg something fierce.

Serious Problem 2) Lily, the main guy's wife.
SOB: "Honey, my life is in danger. I need you to call the police now."
WIFE: (whines) "But I want to talk about our relationship."
So, your husband literally walks out on you during the hardest time in your entire life. He vanishes without so much as a word. You can't even divorce him because you can't FIND the S.O.B., all while trying to deal with the trauma of losing your daughter to a tragic long-term illness. He shows up again a year later without so much as a howdeedo. Do you go:
a) "great, sign these papers. I'm keeping everything, you bastard. And I'm getting a chunk of your book royalties."
b) "oh you poor baby, let me take care of you and nurture you and completely put my life on hold to put all of your needs both physical and emotional first."
I'd do a. And maybe punch him in the nose, too.
Mikael Håfström and the (all male) writing staff expect b.

Don't waste your time. There's better horror out there.

It was good enough for Scheharazade.

I am about to pull the cheapest Nanowrimo stunt I have yet to pull in 2 and a half years of competing. The Instant Ninjas have NOTHING on this. (Actually, I really liked last year's Instant Ninjas. I am going to keep the Instant Ninjas in the final draft of Complications of Lycanthropy if it is at all possible.)

First, little backstory. Going into this, I had four story possibilities. The next volume of my Fushigi Yuugi AU, a light steampunk thing, a 'fantasy hidden in real world' deal with Immortals, or this light superheroic thing.
I made the wrong call. Stories are kind of like fruit; they're best if you get them when they're ripe. You can pick them too early; you can let them ripen too long. I picked this one too early.

As a result, I am not having a whole lot of fun. My excitement fizzled after scene two, and it has been a major slog every day. This is not how Nano should go. Nano is supposed to: week one I'm bouncing on the walls thrilled, week two I'm still excited but starting to get angst puppies, week 3 I'm whining like a spoiled toddler, and week 4 I'm doing a happy dance across the finish line.
That's not going to happen with this story. At best I'm going to have a miserable month, at worst the angst puppies are going to maul it to death.

On top of that, this morning I picked up volume one of my FY AU and read a bit, and you know what? That's good stuff. That looks like fun. I shoulda done that one.

So you know what I'm going to do? Mercy, my female Superhero High lead, is going to go home and find that her mother has bought her the latest few tankobon of her favorite manga series. So she is going to sit down for a lazy Saturday of reading Fushigi Yuugi: Ruby Veil and Fushigi Yuugi: Sapphire Veil, and I am going to start writing FY stuff.

I get to keep my 10,000 hard won words, and I get to write something that actually excites me and sounds fun. And if I later decide that FY isn't working after all or this stunt is just TOO cheap, Mercy puts down the tankobon, meets with a friend, and we flash back to chapter 2 and retell the story from her point of view, because I honestly think it'll work better that way. It was originally told from the POV of my male lead, Reno, with the intent of dropping an Everyman into this weird environment and having him learn how to deal with it and eventually find his inner hero. Yeah, that fell flat on its face. Everymen are BORING. Now I really think it would work better to start from the POV of the 16-year-old deep undercover international law enforcement agent *cough* yes it works in story I swear *cough* finding out a new potential cover blower is coming to her school and being right in the thick of all the intrigue right from the start.

Nano participants reading this are saying "sounds normal to me. Go for it."

Well, that set in earlier than usual

Waaah! My Nano sucks, and it's always gonna suck and it's never gonna be any good! Waah!

It is, however, going to be 50,000 words, and that's all that freakin' counts. So nyah! ;P

3672 words and counting.