30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 28

            I decided to do the 30 day movie challenge as a blog series as it ties into my blog activities rather easily and I am once again not blogging my usual series with regularity in spite of saying that I would.

            Today is "A Movie that has the worst Special Effects".  This is a relative prompter just like the "Makes you Laugh" or "You watch when you are angry" tags I have already covered.  The fact is, if you buy into a story, if you like the characters, the setting, the progression, then even if the effects aren't perfect, you can still accept the limitations of the production, give them a pass, and accept that even the magic of movie making has limits when hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent at a pace that could probably be made to make the world better, rather than filled with crap like this movie.  What Movie?  "Twilight".

Love!  It's totally about love!  No anti-feminist BS here.

            "Twilight" wasn't even the worst movie I saw that year, really it wasn't even in the top five worst movies of that year.  I can't really tell if that is because I saw so many movies that year, or because it was a bad year for movies over all (which I don't accept as "The DarkKnight" was there getting snubbed for best picture).  But here is why I think it had the worst special effects: I honestly can't see where the money that went into this production went.

            I have seen better special effects on episodes of "Smallville" (which you would think a show that has been on the air for 10 years would have a link to a descent video on Youtube showing the Special effects, but it is just a bunch of fan made whiny emo trailer... Much like "Twilight" I suppose), and I fucking hate "Smallville".  There are scenes of Clark Kent getting hit by cars and buses and them exploding around him in rather awesome fashion, makes me weep for the lost potential of that show, but also makes me mad at how pathetic "Twilight" is.  Have seen the piggy back through the forestscene?  It looks like he is bicycle kicking while they lift him with wires up a clear cut path in the woods.  It is fucking pathetic.

            And the Fucking sparkles!  Why does it look SO shitty?  WHY?  It is supposed to be a dramatic reveal in the movie, and it is laughably bad, because it looks like a shitty camera filter.  Though the concept of someone sparkling in the sunlight sounds so stupid on paper I have no idea what else they could have done.  So how about this?  They cut it.  It is a lame effect, and moody shit head vampires have been calling themselves monsters without body glitter since before 1900, the scene adds nothing.  Maybe it works on paper for people who read these shitty, sexless, harlequin romance novels, but it looks like crap on film.  Cut it.

Sparkle!

             Let me say something on matters of scale as well.  I hate, more than any other movie, "The Phantasm".  It is the worst movie I have ever seen, and it looks like the worst movie a person could have ever seen.  Everything about it is bad.  But you know what?  It's barely a movie.  It cost $300,000 dollars to make.  Or slightly less that 1/100th what they produced "Twilight" for.  "Phantasm" is shit, but it was made from shit.  "Twilight" looks like shit, and it was made out of gold.  That is a special type of lazy bullshit.  And you say, "Well what movies with a budget of less than 40 million dollars which have special effects that beat 'Twilight'?"  I can name three that work incredibly well as illustrations on how crappy this movie did.  "Serenity" is a space opera that includes numerous fight scenes, awesome locations, and extreme set pieces, it cost 2 million more dollars to make.  Then there is "District 9" which has amazing make up, CGI and sets that are very dark and grimy, it cost 7 million less dollars to make.  And finally I say "Dogma" which cost 27 million dollars less to make, has an all star cast, and includes scenes of walking on water, and costuming that (while not stunning) are passable, simply because the movie isn't about the effects, its about the dick jokes.

Sparkles belong in Equestria, not vampire movies.

            Now, I'm going to say something to the fans of "Twilight" because the words, "The effects were never key to the story in 'Twilight' either, it is about lo--".  SHUT UP!  SHUT UP!  SHUT the FUCK UP, for one second.  I could write a huge multi-part review of all the things wrong with this garbage, just like I did to that "Harry Potter" movie, not the least of which is the complete lack ofplot and characters.  My point would only be, that if you have a 15 minute scene in which the vampire shows off his super powers to clit tease his mortal girlfriend, then the special effects are a central part of the movie's narrative, it is one of the protagonist's defining traits, and it is a joke.  Fail.

Considering "Twilight" is self insert fan fiction on the part of its creator...

            If you liked my take on this movie, please click the Google "+1" button in the comments section, post the link on your facebook, or send people over from anywhere else you might social network.

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 27

            I decided to do the 30 day movie challenge as a blog series as it ties into my blog activities rather easily and I am once again not blogging my usual series with regularity in spite of saying that I would.

            Today is "A Movie that has the best Special Effects".  Here is what everyone will expect a movie enthusiast to say: "Avatar".  And here is what I say to that: "NOPE!".  "Avatar" was a special effects experiment with a terribly simple characters and formulaic story, and over did it on everything else.  If you have amazing special effects, good for you, but special effects are tool used to help progress a story, outlining a story to show off a visual effect is not good movie making.  You want to know what I think is the best special effects?  "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King".

This was the first time a fully CGI character was done convincingly.  This is the process that made "Avatar" possible and it looks better because it is juxtaposed with reality.

            Having effectively built from the first film through the second the third film in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has everything in motion and presents the largest battles, in the most majestic scenes, with the crowning music of awesome everyone could feel booming through the theater.

            Is there gay subtext in this movie?  I don't care.  Are there too many endings?  No.  Is it better than the book?  I'm going to assume yes, as I grew impatient with Tolkien's writing style a third of the way through book one ("The Hobbit", by contrast, remains one of my favorite books of all time, a list I finally got around to banging out).

Though, making Ian McKellen look like a wizard really only takes a bathrobe and a walking staff.

            "Return of the King" contrary to Kevin Smith's opinion is the trilogy of this generation, showing in so many ways how to correctly tell a sweeping magical story with clear forces of good and evil clashing for the fate of the world, blowing out of the water the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy in its use of basic story telling to make real resonant impact in the audience.  It is gorgeous.

            "Return of the King" advanced movie making technology by leaps at the time.  Having CGI monsters numbering in the thousands on screen and doing so in such a way that made them look real and alive was revolutionary, prior to this movie such effects would have to be done with actual people in costume either cloned or cut out using camera angles, or actually having a few hundred extras (Think "Lawrence of Arabia").  Trolls. Orcs, Ents, Dragons, and Giant Eagles are all present allowing skilled artists to present their work alongside talented actors.  It is dazzling to behold, and that is before the ghost army sweeps in and kills 10,000 evil monsters.  And what is more, there was good practical effects in this movie too, with costumes, props, and sets made in interesting fashion to show very simple illustrations of majesty and beauty that a mythology like "The Lord of the Rings" (practically a religion) sort of demands.

And there were giant elephants.

             Honestly I think I would hail this thing for just one accomplishment that it did so well, that of forced perspective.  Creating sets that turned to accommodate moving cameras and actors who through the whole thing have to orient themselves far to the left of the actor they are speaking to so as to complete the illusion.  It is so well designed and executed that it overshadows the CGI of the movie.

            If you liked my take on this movie, please click the Google "+1" button in the comments section, post the link on your facebook, or send people over from anywhere else you might social network.