My blog is mostly movie reviews and whatever random story idea I post a chapter at a time. Though sometimes I also talk about politics, my dreams, or anything else on my mind.
To help me
break with some writer’s block I have been suffering from since the large
amount of writing I did for my finals in the middle of May, I am going back to
basics. You might be saying, “you
haven’t updated this blog in months.” To
which I must replay, “yeah, I had other shit going on.”
A large
amount of this blog is just me writing about movies I have seen.For a time I would rank/review all the movies
I had seen from a given year.I stopped
emphasizing movies for whatever reason and now my brain is tired from thinking
bigger thoughts about the world and suffering and how people in power know
exactly how to fix it all, but they don’t.
Today I am
going to write on here something simple, much like how I started simple when I
went back to the gym following Covid.
Lake Mungo (2012)
Written and Directed by Joel Anderson (who is known for
this and that is it)
Currently available on Tubi.
The Premise
This is a fictional-Documentary
about the events surrounding the death of a young woman and the subsequent
haunting of her family by that young woman.
The Good
I found
out after the fact that the actors adlibbed most of their dialogue.The idea being that they would sit down, be
told what the idea of the scene was, and just to act it all out.This strategy sounds like it would be a
fucking disaster but turned out quite well.The reason I found out about this is simply because I found the acting
strong enough that I was intrigued with the behind the scenes.
The
haunting material is solid.The idea of
someone appearing in footage or in pictures is a classic “Ghost” thing in
folklore/media and it is presented well almost every time (there are some
instances in which the ghost is supposed to go unnoticed till a reveal and you
are left going, “I saw that earlier”).
The
mysteries and secrets that get revealed are intriguing and spooky in equal
measure.
The Bad
Um… I mean,
I already mentioned the few instances in which you will see the ghost before
they intend you to.It happens.
It is a
little slow and I think the most interesting bits could fit into a 60 minute
format, but compared to the bloated nightmare that is modern true crime
documentaries on streaming where 1-2 hours of content is spread over 4-12
because god forbid they cut the fluff… “Lake Mungo” is tight as a drum by
comparison.
I guess
the only “complaint” I have is that it is far more sad than scary.It is perhaps the nature of ghost stories
that “grief was the real ghost the whole time”, but this one especially.
Conclusion
“Lake Mungo" is a good, sad, short little ghost story.It is worth watching.
______________________________
If you like or hate this please take
the time to comment, share on Twitter (click that link to
follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my
opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
To help me
break with some writer’s block I have been suffering from since the large
amount of writing I did for my finals in the middle of May, I am going back to
basics. You might be saying, “you
haven’t updated this blog in months.” To
which I must replay, “yeah, I had other shit going on.”
A large
amount of this blog is just me writing about movies I have seen.For a time I would rank/review all the movies
I had seen from a given year.I stopped
emphasizing movies for whatever reason and now my brain is tired from thinking
bigger thoughts about the world and suffering and how people in power know
exactly how to fix it all, but they don’t.
Today I am
going to write on here something simple, much like how I started simple when I
went back to the gym following Covid.
After a
cold opening that makes no sense based on the mythology explored later in the
movie and which completely gives the game away on their being some kind of
telekinetic ghost/spirit/demon being in a box… we get a movie about a troubled
family that buys said haunted box from a yard sale.
This movie
is “based on actual events” in that there is a supposedly haunted box
owned by notorious ghost hunter and notable fraud Zak Baggins… maybe that is too
harsh… let’s change it to alleged fraud.The actual object It is one of those things that is obviously bullshit
but it is fun to pretend, we all need a little magic in our lives.
The Good
The child
actors in this work.Kids often have a
hard time putting forth a believable performance, but these kids hit the
mark.I have no complaints about their
performances or their roles in the story.
Jeffery
Dean Morgan is fantastic in this.He is
so much better than the material that I am vexed as to why he is even in this
movie.Just a paycheck?Was he taken in by the “based on actual
events” tagline?Apparently, in an
interview he shared some of the weird events that happened
on set, maybe he is into ghosts?
The use of
moths as the signature animal associated with the demon/ghost is different, and
I appreciate different.There are images
of the monster as seen in an MRI image that is legitimately creepy to point
where I feel a better movie would have used such a scene to elevate itself to “great”.
The Bad
The
previously mentioned opening is crap.I
cannot stress enough that having a ghost/demon that can kill and maim people
while still in its prison undermines the entire point of the story.When the box does the same sort of violence
later in the movie (I have to imagine a producer said, “you need and action
beat”) it again pushes the story away from spooky to goofy.
This is
not hard to fix.In the opening have
someone OPEN THE BOX, and then refusing the demon/ghost’s attempt to possess
them (let us say the person is an adult and knows not to let themselves be
possessed) then the demon uses some kind of power to hurt them. At the midpoint have the person killed by the
demon be killed… BY CHILD WHO IS POSSESSED.That ups the stakes.That the
monster is able to use their power because they are now free and anchored into
a willing host.
Having a third-party
victim killed by the possessed person will make the audience worry more for the
family members, setting up an internal tension for the little girl who is
trying not to hurt her family, but… you know… possessed.You could even have a scene like the one at
the end of “The Exorcist III” where the possessed person fights thru and helps
to defeat the demon.
Another big failure of this movie is how they show you the contents of the box almost immediately and there is very little mystery to the box itself. Weak.
Let’s also
talk about the monster, I am always a little iffy when it comes to
appropriating other cultures to pepper your ghost movie with some exoticism. In this case the demon is a creature of
Jewish folklore that speaks in Yiddish and is defeated by the drafting of a hip
young rabbi who is willing to go outside the rules to help battle the
demon. That is a weird choice. You don’t often see in the movie, “I must
consult with a mystic to battle this evil, gonna have to catch the train to the
Bronx.”
So, here
is an obvious idea to help reform the plot, why not make the family
Jewish?Shocking to realize that the
family is not Jewish (at least not ostensibly) considering the subject
matter.But religion is a thing that can
bring people together or be a wedge in a relationship.You could have the mom be Jewish and she is
trying to reconnect to her roots (maybe in response to a family tragedy, maybe
there used to be three kids, hell the ghost could pretend to be the third kids
ghost making it easier for it to possess the younger sister who is not haling
the death of the sibling well).
This
commitment to her religion in the wake of a family tragedy could be why the mom
and dad broke up.The idea that he no
longer fit with her increasingly conservative outlook fits better than the “we
broke up… for… reasons…” material that is there.As is, the mother being just pointlessly
hostile, petty, and too quick to believe bad things about her ex-husband makes
her real hard to root for.
Then you
have another interesting way to take things.That the dad has to embrace Jewish mysticism to defeat the demon/ghost,
but the mother thinks he is mocking her or trying to get back with her via some
kind of manipulation of her beliefs.That is real drama.Then, just
like the ending to “Signs”
you can have the family come together at the end having had their faith
confirmed and tried by horrific circumstances.
Remember "Signs"? Remember liking Mel Gibson? Is it disrespectful to bring up Gibson when talking about a movie that centers on Jewish mythology?
Really the
ending is weird. I was expecting a super
dark ending, in which the demon jumps to possessing the other daughter; then
kills the mom, younger sister, and rabbi; and then frames the dad for it all. Super downer endings were the family gets
murdered by the demon have been shown to work, look at “Sinister”. As is, the ending peters out on a vaguely
happy ending… BUT OH NO THE DEMON BOX ESCAPED.
Weird and not as fulfilling or scary as it should be, just stuck in the
middle.
To come
back again to the Jewish mysticism angle, this is not the only Jewish exorcism
movie I have seen.“The Unborn” also did this and
these movies are a study in contrasts.I
find “Unborn” has the better thrust, because the ghost in that story is an
unborn twin, and they manage to weave that idea into the Nazi
twin experiments.Using material
from the Holocaust is a lot of borrowed pathos to bring into the movie, which
is crass… but it is also SOMETHING.Maybe I should have made this a double feature to compare and contrast
the two?Jazz up this review.Oh well.
It is cr-ASS on the movie poster for sure. Holy moly is it tasteless to have this be such a selling point for a movie about the specter of the Holocaust.
Conclusion
“The
Possession” is a hacky bit of forgettable flotsam in the ocean of content that
the world has to offer.It is not bad;
it is just typical.The best scenes in
it deserve to be in a better movie, while most of the material is so ‘meh’ you
have to wonder why they bothered.
I cannot
emphasize enough that the “oops, I bought a ghost” premise is fantastic not
just for horror but also comedy.It is
solid gold and if they had chosen to go the route of emphasizing characters
being funny/witty like “Hatchet”
had done for slasher movies, they could have turned this forgettable story into
something interesting.
______________________________
If you like or hate this please take
the time to comment, share on Twitter (click that link to
follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my
opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
To help me
break with some writer’s block I have been suffering from since the large
amount of writing I did for my finals in the middle of May, I am going back to
basics. You might be saying, “you haven’t
updated this blog in months.” To which I
must replay, “yeah, I had other shit going on.”
A large
amount of this blog is just me writing about movies I have seen. For a time I would rank/review all the movies
I had seen from a given year.I stopped
emphasizing movies for whatever reason and now my brain is tired from thinking
bigger thoughts about the world and suffering and how people in power know
exactly how to fix it all, but they don’t.
Today I am
going to write on here something simple, much like how I started simple when I
went back to the gym following Covid.
A boat tour of character actors sinks in the swamp near a haunted(?)
cabin and the various colorful characters are killed off in gruesome fashion by
the deformed
revenant that stalks the marshland.
The Good
While not everyone in the movie is a great actor even that
kind of works as it is more of a comedy.The dialogue is frequently good, with quips and acting beats making it
feel true to the various characters in the movie.There is really no conversation or line that
feels like the wrong person is talking.
The make up and gore effects capture the goofy tone that the
dialogue does, and it all fits together quite well.They go for over the top and a few of them
shoot the moon.
Maybe I am shallow in that I consider the presence of Mercedes McNab to be a
highlight.She is gorgeous and has
perhaps the best comedic timing one could hope for in a bimbo character.I loved her as Harmony on “Buffy the Vampire
Slayer” and here she is elevating the dumb bimbo role to an artform.
I am not going to call out all the actors or the
cameos/small roles for horror icons, but they all work well enough for this
movie.Just some are better than others.
Bigger issues come with the shoestring budget, as Saturday
Night Live has more convincing swamp sets.Worse for the horror side of the story, everything is lit to a comical
level… At one point they find a flashlight and its beam is completely drown out
by the lighting they just have as the default.Keep in mind this is supposed to be night, in a foggy swamp, it should
be dark as hell.I can’t help but
imagine how you could light the woods in a way that makes it visually
interesting without completely breaking the conceit, but you would need a
lighting guy who costs money and they don’t have any of that.
As far as acting, unfortunately the worst performance is the
movie’s final girl, played by Tamara Feldman.She is playing this role way too straight and
comes off like someone from a more serious iteration of this material who got
lost.Bad direction?Maybe she just wasn’t into it because she did
not reprise the role for the sequel.Either
way it is the weakest acting on the character with perhaps the 2nd
or 3rd most screen time.
My biggest issue is with the ending, which I guess will be a
spoiled here.The ending feels like a
cheat on the characters.They are clever
earlier in the movie trying to concoct a plan that played on what they knew
about the monster’s origins, “let’s light him on fire, because his tragic
death involved him trying to escape a burning cabin” and their plan is foiled
by rain.This plan is good. And how it is foiled is also good.That should have been the climax and ending of
the movie, but that is instead the end of act two.
The ending comes when the characters have a protracted chase
thru a graveyard and seemingly defeat the monster by stabbing it in the
face.Stabbing in the face is not any
more effective than the myriad of other bullets, stabbings, and other harm they
have visited upon the monster and yet they think they beat it.The characters are surprised when the monster
shows back up and ostensibly kills the remaining characters.Downer ending, perfectly fine for this kind
of movie.BUT, that feels like a
betrayal of the characters who were previously shown to at least be trying to
get a handle on things.
To fix this I would have moved the chase scene to act 2, the
characters realize they can’t get away after being chased in a circle back to
the haunted cabin.They then try to use
the fire plan on the monster back at the haunted cabin, and then their plan is
foiled and they all die.Ramp up the
character’s knowledge and insight in how to fight the monster as time goes on,
make the audience feel like the characters are going thru an arc.Currently their knowledge goes up and then crashes
down.
For an example of how to do this well I have to point to the
first “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie.Nancy
forms a plan on how to defeat Freddy Krueger by pulling him out of the dream
world and into her house full of traps, it ostensibly works… but the twist
ending shows that Freddy was not actually defeated and the characters die.“Elm Street” ramped up to the twist ending,
it felt like a surprise and it doesn’t feel like the characters failed to try
everything they could.
The ending kind of ties into one more issue, there is no
character arc.You usually want to show
your protagonists dealing with some kind of trauma or weakness over the course
of the narrative, and by overcoming the weakness they help to overcome the
monster.In this instance the main
character is dealing with a breakup from a previous relationship and the final
girl is trying to investigate what happened to her brother and father.Logically, neither of these tie into fighting
a revenant… The best I could think is that during some key moment the Final
Girl’s father and brother could rise up as revenants to try and help her
escape?And logically the main guy
getting over his breakup by getting with the final girl would be the other side
of things, you would have to establish that she left him because he was not a
take-charge kind of guy and by the end of the movie he is a take-charge kind of
guy.Just… Something.
Conclusion
I don’t hate this movie, it is watchable.The humor elevates in enough that the
derivative elements and low production values are mostly forgiven.I can’t help but wonder if they could have
done something more creative with the backstory?Maybe if they had the budget to make the presentation
of the setting actually scary?
It is strange that one
of my oldest movie reviews on this blog is for “Phantasm” which was similarly
low budget but was far more creative with the premise… and I still like this
one more because the acting and dialogue is better.Maybe give Adam Green some money to work with
so that he can escape the horror-ghetto his career seems to be in and see what
he could do with something bigger and stranger? I could see him doing episodes of “Creepshow” or other horror
anthology series without breaking a sweat.
This is not the first movie by Adam Green I have seen. “Digging up the
Marrow”, which is sort of a cross between a mockumentary and the movie “Nightbreed” was, and it is
better than “Hatchet”… and better than “Nightbreed”.
(Sidenote on “Phantasm”, I no longer consider it the worst
movie I have ever seen by a long shot.That title went to “Boyhood”.)
______________________________
If you like or hate this please take
the time to comment, share on Twitter (click that link to
follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my
opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
I didn’t
really care for the movie of “Freddy vs Jason”, but I will admit that there was
something to it that gave the confrontation some value beyond the silly mashup
of horror characters.
Here is a basic
rundown of several story elements that allow these characters to work on the
level of thematic-pairing, and these two pair pretty well together.
1)Jason was drowned, Freddy was burned.
2)Jason was a child, Freddy murdered children.
3)The First Jason movie has his mother as the actual
villain, the reason Freddy was killing kids was because of the vigilante
justice of the mother and other parents.
4)Jason is a dumb, lumbering, silent, physical threat.
Fred is an insidious, spry, motor mouth, ethereal threat.
Generally
speaking this pairing, along with the blue and red color schemes that are
emphasized in the movie, form a good contrast between the characters and I
think this elevates the material a bit.
But, the film is dragged down by the presence of the victim kids. These are the typical teenagers with thin
personalities that you can’t really bring yourself to actually care about let
alone cheer for. You need people around
for the story to happen to, or at, but these characters are not especially
heroic and when you have two big bad monsters you need something a little more
impactful. How could this have been
fixed? Do what they did with the story
in the comics.
I liked the
comic in which they added Ash from “Army of Darkness”. When a hero character is thrown into the mix it
gives the story a real protagonist to root for instead of the bland children. Beyond that the stakes grew considerably,
Freddy saw and appreciated the power present in the Book of the Dead and wanted
to utilize it for his own ends. A dream
monster steering an indestructible zombie man to kill a time traveling hero to
retrieve a mystical artifact. That is a story
with some meat on it.
______________________________
If you like or hate this please take
the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and
otherwise distribute my opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
Score: 8/10 (I wrote this back when I was fonder of giving
numerical scores)
For a while
this was my favorite movie of 2015 and if the villain had been more memorable,
cut back on the adoration of Tom Cruise, get rid of the 10 words of romantic
crap, and have the ending be a little different and it would have been. None of these items are individually bad
enough to sink the movie, no one of them “needs” to be fixed, but each could be
fixed to elevate the movie.
The action
in “MI5” is fantastic, chases are tense and fast; the hand to hand combat feels
impactful; and the buddy comedy between Simon Pegg and Tom Cruise is great
(they should work together more). I
liked the female lead, she is charismatic and projects competence in what she
is doing. I liked the gadgets and jet
setting around the world. I liked nearly
everything. So now that I have pointed
out the positive highlights let me flesh out my previously mentioned complaints.
The practical effects and stunts are also super fun.
The villain
is just a growling skinny guy in a suit.
His motivations for why he is doing what he is doing are never explained
(yes I know WHAT he was doing, but the WHY is unclear). He tends to kill underlings too frequently in
some instances and not at other times which seems more prudent. His first appearance shows his willingness to
get his hands dirty in the field, but for most of the movie he sits in front of
a laptop. What I am saying is that he
comes off inconsistent. It doesn’t help
that his actor (who I am sure is quite talented) was in “Prometheus” and that
might have tainted my opinion of him.
The
adoration of Tom Cruise needs to be mellowed. There is a scene in which Alec Baldwin talks
for two whole paragraphs about how awesome and dangerous Ethan Hunt (Cruise)
is. It feels like something Cruise says
to himself in the mirror at the end of the day as a personal pep-talk of how
awesome he is. In the movie it sounds
awkward at best and it is too long. You
know what it could be shortened to? “Ethan
Hunt is a dangerous disavowed field operative who is after you, he has killed
better protected people than you and infiltrated more secure locations than
this. Be afraid.” Boom.
Done. Less is more.
The 10
words of romantic crap needs to be shed. Tom Cruise is 50+, it is weird for women in
their late 20's and early 30's to ask him to run away with them. It only happens once in this movie in a scene
that leaves it kind of ambiguous as to whether the offer is romantic, but it
still comes off as odd. Otherwise the
female lead and Cruise have zero romantic chemistry and display zero attraction
to one another. It felt out of place.
The guns built to look like flutes and tonfas are quintessential spy gadgets. And women wearing clothing that shows off their legs is quintessential sex appeal. Also, the character's name is Faust. DO YOU GET IT?
And the
ending, SPOILERS obviously. Since the
bad guys are planning to use the millions and millions of dollars in the hidden
accounts to fund their own terrorist criminal activities and the US government
wants to defund the IMF. I was expecting
the end of the movie to be Ethan and company using the money in the hidden
accounts to fund a rogue IMF hunting down and eliminating the terrorists who
had signed on to be a part of the bad guy organization. Instead they just get reinstated by the government.
Considering how many times the IMF
has been dissolved or had traitors in it, having it officially dissolved makes
more sense. And it works as a set up for
the sequels. “Mission Impossible:
Freelance” sounds like a perfectly hokey title that explains exactly what they
need it to. What is more, my idea makes
sense in the world. Ethan shouldn’t want
to work with the USA anymore, he has his own handpicked team, resources, an
enemy, and too many reasons to resent and distrust his previous supervisors in
the US. He should want to be a white hat
rather than a government triggerman.
Score: 8/10 (I wrote this back when I was fonder of giving
numerical scores)
The movie's advertising was not very good and almost stopped me from watching it.
This was the first great movie I
saw in 2015. A well-paced action movie
with lots of humor and some underlying themes that gave it some impact. It was colorful and took itself as seriously
as it needed to, and with only a few hiccups here and there that kept it from
being a classic.
I feel that this movie was a true
shot in the arm for the spy genre and provided another example of how Rated-R
movies are financially viable when not released against a cluttered field.
(This was a rather soft R in my opinion, no nudity, very little blood, it could
have gone a lot further.)
Let me talk about one issue that
stood out for me that I imagine most people would not have even noticed, the
dog scene. There will be spoilers for
this, and since I am recommending the movie to anyone who likes rougher action
comedies, stop reading here and go see the movie, that way I can complain about
a minor point without you having it niggle at you while watching.
The tone can be a bit all over the place. They really needed to settle on a level of nudity and lewdness and stick to it thru the movie. Having an anal sex joke to punctuate the movie is a bit strange.
SPOILERS: during the movie there is
a sizable training portion to locate a new agent for the Kingsman and the
recruits are required to pick a dog to raise… and you know where this is going,
a classic “kill the puppy” part of the training.Here is the issue, the test does not make
sense in the context of the movie and the character traits they are looking for.And for that matter the idea of secret agents
at all.
Our hero, Eggsy is told to murder
his pet with a provided firearm and chooses not to do so, it is then revealed
that the gun was loaded with blanks, the test was to see if Eggsy could follow
orders. They tell Eggsy that the Kingsman
never take a life without reason… But Eggsy did not know that. The test should be whether a recruit would
refuse a bad order given to them, “take a life without reason”, and the blanks
would be to avoid killing the dog should the recruit follow the order which
would be taking the wrong position.
The obvious right answer is, "No, I will not kill an innocent animal for no reason.
Want to know why that bothers me so
much? Because I went to a police academy
and during one training exercise we are told to shoot a cut out of a person,
that person is holding a coke can and is no threat. I and 1 other person, out of a 20+ class were
the only people to not shoot the harmless civilian. YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT.
What is more the movie proving that
to be the correct response, Eggsy does not follow bad orders and that allows
him to thwart the bad guys. So the test
is shit. I would mind less, but it is a
plot fulcrum, there is no reason this backwards way of thinking should still be
in the movie.
I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer
back from that. To that end
I have found a 30-day blog challenge and fluffed it out to 31 entries (since December
has 31 days). I have done a30-day
challenge before for movies, though that one was
poorly executed (I started it in the middle of a month, at one point I posted 2
entries on one day, it is a mess). I did
another one just this year in August on Video Games, that one was better, go
read it after this one, all of it. Or
don’t, no pressure.
Today is
day 1 and the topic is fittingly “My First Disney Movie”.
I was born
in 1985, so I was in the prime age of 2 things:
1)The growth of home video to a world dominating concept
in media
And,
2)The Disney Renaissance which began in 1989 with “The
Little Mermaid”, which allowed Disney to grow into a world dominating media
entity
So, “The Little Mermaid” was my
first Disney movie. A film that works so
well on the strength of its fantastic music and animation that its annoyingly
naïve protagonist and shockingly bland love interest were allowed to slide. I should note, I don’t really like this movie
as a whole, and that is a theme that will reoccur this month.
Ariel, who like most Disney protagonists has inspired shocking amounts of Waifu like devotion.
The Plot
Let me talk about the plot for
those of you who don’t know (and the movie is 25+ years old, so that might be a
lot of people). Ariel is the undersea
princess of a race of mermaids but views the surface world of humans as a
magical place that she wants to learn more about. Her father derides this obsession and after
he destroys her collection of tchotchkes taken from human ship wrecks, Ariel runs—swims—away
from home.
Ariel meets with the sea witch
Ursula and strikes a deal to turn human for three days, if during that time she
can find love on land she will be allowed to remain human and live out her life
on the surface world. If she is unable
to she will become one of the cursed creatures that Ursula torments for
amusement. Ultimately Ursula uses
trickery to win the bargain and leverages Ariel’s freedom to take over the
undersea kingdom. She is then justly murdered
and happily ever after.
My Thoughts
Ariel, the protagonist of the film
is a strong character, just not a very good one. We understand her hopes, hobbies, friends,
loved ones, place in her society, and beyond that we see her save a drowning
man so we know she is not a complete jerk—we understand and identify with her
completely—but, I don’t like her.
Ariel doesn’t take responsibility
for her part in her family, she leaves them hanging; her friends are often
dragged into dangerous situations by her desires to gather more junk; she
ignores authority (which I guess I am supposed to say, “teenagers” with a
shrug); and while she seeks to know more about the surface world as her own
personal obsession she does it thru a poor resource, the moronic seagull,
Scuttle—really her willingness to take the moron’s word for what things are and
then add it to her undersea wall of junk kind of predicted the fake news issues
currently plaguing social media, “I don’t know what it is, but I will post it on my wall and pretend that I am informed on the subject”.
All of her personal shortcomings
make sense, she is a child who is in the process of growing up and it would be
expected that she will grow over the course of the movie. This process is usually termed “A Character
Arc”. But, she really doesn’t. At the end of the movie, Ariel is still the
same naïve child as she was at the beginning, only now she is allowed to fully
indulge in what was previously just a personal curiosity. What is more, she only escapes being turned
into a creepy sea crawler because her dad bails her out of one of the most
ludicrous contracts I have seen in fiction—say what you will about Faust, he
was an adult who had a good grasp on what he was doing when he sold his soul.
In fact, let me talk about making a
deal with the devil in this movie.
Ursula has a child sign a contract, without the presence of the child’s
parents. Ursula then interferes with
Ariel’s ability to fulfill the contract twice, first by flipping the canoe at
the end of “Kiss the Girl” and again by just shapeshifting and using magic to
brain rape the bland prince—this is called acting in bad faith. She then transfers the contract to Triton…
and then usurps his throne?
True sign of someone who knows what they are getting into: Closed eyes, torso turned away in horror.
How exacting can a contract made
with a child and violated by the issuing party be transferred to someone else
and that someone else end’s up relinquishing titles to the contract
holder? How does Ursula get Triton’s
powers? This makes no sense! Even if minors can enter into magical
bargains shouldn’t the spell be broken after the first time Ursula acted in bad
faith? This isn’t professional
wrestling, if the ref doesn’t see the cheating the cheating is still cheating…
do spells not care? Because I would
think magic would require certain rules or else it would just fall apart like
cake in heavy storm.
Whatever. Let’s go back to Ariel.
Ariel does something I see as being
bad on multiple levels: Objectification.
She does not know anything about the target of her “true love”, Prince Eric.
She does not know anything about the
human world in general. But she builds
them up in her mind as an exotic fantasy that is just out of reach. Eric is not really a person to her with his
own wants and needs, but instead as distant two-dimensional figure that provoke
her curiosity (and lust?). When she
saves Eric and later attempts to seduce him she does so knowing nothing about
him or knowing anything at all about the world.
It is all just a set of things that she wants to fill some emptiness
inside her.
I may be boring, but I am rich... and far less threatening than King Triton on the masculinity scale.
So let me put it to you this way,
“What is Eric were gay?” Ariel just sold
her soul to Ursula to seduce a gay guy.
Anything in the fine print of the glowing contract to take a mulligan on
that one? I’m guessing not. But, I guess she got lucky in that Eric was
merely boring and without flaw or interesting traits at all.
Let’s talk about Prince Eric, in
contrast to Ariel I know almost nothing about him and interactions with Ariel
are bland meet-cutes. He has no idea of
the stakes she has in getting him to fall for her, and the only reason he has
any positive disposition toward her is Ariel saved his life and he vaguely
remembers what she looked like. Compare
this to the romantic interactions of “Beauty and the Beast”.
-
(I realize this is not a fair comparison)
Beast is a complex, damaged
character who knows full well that he will be a monster forever if he cannot
find love, but having been a monster for so long he doesn’t know how to
connect; Belle spends her time finding out why he is so damaged and seeing him
grow as a person as she recognizes the nobility behind the monster. Eric by contrast has no tension, Ariel does
but can’t express it, and neither of them is damaged or able to see damage in
the other person. They do not grow thru
interacting with each other, they don’t grow of their own volition, and they
don’t grow as a result of the story.
Eric and Ariel are awful as romantic leads.
Really the story could have gone
another way entirely, have Ariel realize that Eric is not what she wanted, that
Eric is a jerk, or just a nice person she doesn’t connect with, have her break
the contract with Ursula. Have her fight
and win on her own. If you want a magic
way to weasel out of the stupid contract plot just have Ariel say, “I have
grown so much by learning about myself and the world above I am not the person
who signed that contract.” Not the best
lesson to teach kids about contract law, but certainly better on the topic of
love, empathy, and growing up.
I guess in my version we wouldn't get kaiju sized Ursula. But, we also wouldn't have so many people now thinking Eric is a good romantic target.
That all being said, the songs are
great, and the movie looks gorgeous with a style that subtle changes to match
the tone of the scenes, being goofier in funny instances, but taking on an
ethereal quality during “Part of Your World”.
It is a good movie to look at and listen to, but not a good one to think
about.
Beg for Attention
Share your
own thoughts on this in the comments. I
know I am not the only person out there who is nostalgic for Disney products,
and I am sure many people disagree with my thoughts on today’s entry. Honestly I picked Disney stuff just because I
knew there was so much of it to talk about and it lends itself to discussion in
the comments. So please, tell me how my
opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon movies
is objectively right. Or, just share
your first Disney movie.
Thank you
for reading.
______________________________
If you like or hate this
please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and
otherwise distribute my opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
Earlier this year we had “The BFG”. Later this year we will get “Pete’s Dragon”. And later still we will get “A Monster Calls”. I do not know why this is the year of “Child
and Big Thing” but for whatever reason, here we are.
In honor of that I am going to talk
about a classic iteration of that sub-sub-genre.
“The Iron Giant” came out when I
was 14, massively under performed in cinemas, and then went on to become a
classic that was underappreciated in its time… and arguably still is.
I actually find this movie hard to
talk about because there are only so many ways to say, “It’s really good.” Or the other thing that is often said, “It is
really touching.” Or, “You know how
Groot was so endearing in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’? Yeah, that was the voice of Vin Diesel. Guess who voices the titular Giant? Vin Diesel.”
The movie is a period piece that
intentionally evokes the strange paranoia against communist agents that nearly
resulted in the end of the world.What
is odd is the movie was released in 1999, and much like the movie “The Siege”
(which is in a totally different genre, and has a different cast, and is not
animated) these movies seem to be ahead of their time evoking the post-9/11
paranoia as a thing to ruminate on.In fact,
that might be why the movie picked up so much steam years later as it spoke to
such feelings while evoking the better angels of Americana (Superman is
directly referenced in the movie, and the Iron Giant also has the Christ like
bit of self-sacrifice during the climax).
Overall, the animation is top notch
as it was directed by Brad Bird, who is the modern Prometheus of animation. The humor is great and has been gif-ed numerous times (though I do wonder how many people know that this is the origin
of some of those). And the action at the
climax evokes the 1950’s B-movie alien attack perfectly, so much so that I
wonder if this movie could have been made in live action during that era using
stop motion, forced perspective, and other methods that allowed “THEM!” to be
made.
If you enjoyed “The BFG” or think
that “The Monster Calls” or “Pete’s Dragon” look interesting I would encourage
finding this movie. “The Iron Giant” is
great fun and should be enjoyed by people who like fun things with a science
fiction twist rather than the fantasy spin this year’s movies are offering.
---
______________________________
If you like or hate this
please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and
otherwise distribute my opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
I already
did my science fiction reviews, but managed to watch this one from Redbox and I
hated it so much that I am going to give a massive in depth run down of
it. Because much like
"Prometheus" it is a movie that sucks in a very interesting way. Building expertly to a climax that fails
completely and leaves you terribly disappointed. I had high hopes for this movie because the
trailer is fantastic.
(This is
all SPOILERS, but it will also tell you why not to watch it. If you like cryptic bullshit, by all means go
see it. But I would say reading my
rundown here and then watching the movie might be even more fulfilling, because
you will be able to see my issues with the movie as you go along).
This might
be the most disappointing film I saw all year (and it is the movie I am editing
this blog for). This is yet another
movie in the tradition of Damon Lindelof in which striking images, iconography,
and intentional obtuseness serve as stand ins for plot and theme.
What I
liked, I actually find that they played to their strengths in a lot of ways,
special effects cost money, so most of the mundane sets are intentionally
boring and out of date, most of this movie looks like it was filmed in a high
school that was out on summer break. The
effects look really good and are only seen often enough to remind you of their
existence and relation to the "plot", meaning that they do not wear
out their welcome and their appearance still looks cool and mysterious. I like that the main character is smart,
inventive, and not invincible, he seems like a good guy in a hard situation and
displays real worry about his friends while also displaying a drive to save
them and himself. Laurence Fishburne is
well cast as the cryptic authority figure, a role he has exemplified ever since
first encapsulating everything about that character arc type with Cowboy Curtis
on "Pee Wee's Playhouse".
Now what I
did not like: 1) The "plot".
And I will use quotation marks every time I refer to it as such. This movie starts with a pair of hackers
going on a road trip to take one of them's girlfriend to her new college on the
other side of the country, both of the hackers have physical limitations, one
has thick glasses and is spindly, the main character uses crutches.
This set up is easily a pitch for a movie on its own,
you could have the characters use hacking skills to steal money, the girlfriend
could explain why she is moving away because the main character's condition is
worsening and she lacks the emotional strength to be with him... there is a lot
of room for interesting stuff without any science fiction entering the
picture. But the real "plot"
is that the two hackers are going to make a detour to meet a rival hacker named Nomad that they have been in a dick measuring contest with, really they are
hunting down this figure to a remote shack in the desert... Yeah nothing bad
could happen here. For some reason the
movie switches to found footage style for this sequence, like something out of
"V/H/S", it is a strange choice. Anyway, they are abducted by aliens.
It happens. People get abducted. No reason to be a little pussy about it.
Now overall
the movie has been a little slow, but there is still a lot of exciting things
happening. The mystery and character
moments are spaced out enough that the boring parts feel like build up (they
aren't) and the twists are just twisty enough to keep you interested. But then it all starts going to hell.
The main
character wakes up in a lab surrounded by scientists in hazmat gear. They run tests on him and the strangely low
tech aspect of the facility is highlighted, "With all our technology, it
is strange that something so crude as a pen still has its place." (That quote hung with me, but is not on the imdb page.) Again, good mystery. But stuff keeps getting introduced, somewhere
in the facility there is some kind of monster, which never shown on screen,
just claw marks in the walls... and it is never seen in the movie or referenced
again... Massive red herring or just a dropped "plot" point? The Main character hears his friend's voice
thru the ventilation system... And then he doesn't, and is told he never did...
is he going crazy, are they lying, another dropped "plot" point? These parts of the movie are never brought up
again and lead to nothing.
Eventually
he rescues himself and his girlfriend... Learning that he and the other hacker
have had cybernetics bolted onto them.
The both with crutches now has mechanized legs that allow him to Sparta
kick people to death. And the kid with
the weak eyes, he must have some kind of Geordi visor right? No he got cybernetic hands... But is still
blind without his glasses? Was it too
much trouble to have his disability match his implant? (And really having
the Visor would have made more sense because he is the one who sees thru the
fake surroundings... It is called a metaphor).
Then we
enter the strangest part of the movie, the wandering around interacting with
crazy people in a remote desert area.
There is a woman with a Christ fixation, and a violent trucker... Why
they are crazy is never explained... Does the main character have some kind of
disease from the aliens causing people to go mad, are these people part of some
kind of experiment? It is never answered
and later in the movie they are seen ultra-crazy and Laurence Fishburne has to
shoot them in the face.... SOMETHING WHICH MAKES NO SENSE WHEN THE ULTIMATE
REVELATION ABOUT THE MOVIE IS REVEALED.
Eventually
the main character, the girlfriend, and the other friend all meet up and use a
truck to try and escape, having found out that everything they have encountered
is just an elaborate fake, a set. All of
the milk containers, cans, and other items are empty. And the maps they find don't line up to
anything. WHERE ARE THEY? There is also a mysterious series of numbers
(Hello Damon Lindelof's "LOST") but at the very least the numbers are
explained... 41:2:3:5 which all add up to 51.
They are in area 51. Which would
have been cute if this movie were made in 1980, but since Area 51 has been
mostly declassified as a research station for experimental aircraft, and
pictures of it exist online the movie just seems silly and out of touch, like a
shittier episode of the "X-Files" (another series which kept throwing
shit out to the audience and offering awful explanations).
Thru out
all this we keep flashing back to the main character being a runner and coming
to a rushing river he can't cross, or times he fell in the mud. I was expecting these scenes to pay off
somehow, that he would come to a metaphorical river, or he would fall down and
have to get up... But it doesn't pay off, and it is never talked about
either. He runs with the new cyber legs
at super speed, but at no point is it explained what the flashbacks were
about. And then the movie's cinematography
gets obnoxious, with slow motion of EVERYTHING.
Explosions, gun fights, characters making realizations, it makes the
movie's most exciting science fiction action sequences into boring slogs as
things are slowed to the point of stopping.
And the best friend with cyber arms is killed fighting waves of faceless
and nameless soldiers. Another problem
with this movie, aside from Fishburne, no soldier or scientist talks to the
characters... at all. Maybe it is
supposed to make them seem more hostile but really it just seems annoying.
Finally
there is a confrontation with Fishburne, whose name in this movie is DAMON,
which when read backward is NOMAD! MY
GOD! It's now all going to make
sense....
Nothing is
explained. ONLY MORE QUESTIONS. I do not want everything fed to me, I can
make up my own explanations for things.
I am smart and have read a lot of genre fiction. If you give me clues I can put things
together... But this movie just keeps twisting things to the point of it not
making sense. The girlfriend is
captured, we never learn if or what cyber augmentations she got... another dead
end plot point.
And with an army of
soldiers and scientists telling him to surrender the main character charges up
his legs like "Dragon Ball Z" and runs to a bridge to escape... He
then crashes thru an invisible wall... the whole thing was a "Truman Show" like dome... and that is not all, IT IS ON A SPACE STATION ORBITING AN ALIEN
WORLD. And: FISHBURNE IS AN ANDROID.
What does this mean?
What are we supposed to take away from
this?
What is happening?
No clue.
The movie ends without telling you what anything is or the why. Is it a zoo?
Is this the future? Where are
they? Did the people earlier go nuts or
were they just androids too? And if they
were androids, why shoot them to turn them off?
Was the girlfriend experimented on?
What about that monster in the lab?
Why did the lab have such out of date technology? What was up with the flashbacks to the
running? Why were they lured to the desert? Was it for their hacking abilities? You could never stop asking
questions.
Contrary to the clean appearance, this film is a god damn mess. Am I alone in thinking this image implies time travel? I thought maybe this movie was going to be a grown up and dark version of "Flight of the Navigator". Go watch "Flight of the Navigator".
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