Movies of 2014, Fantasy

Fantasy Movies

            First I will list a few movies that fit into this bandwidth that I haven't seen just to give a more complete look at what I have and have not covered, mostly because I have only 3 entries here and there were more out there to watch.  "Winter's Tale," widely considered one of the worst movies released all year I wanted to see it to be disappointed in how it probably was not as bad as people say; "How to Train Your Dragon 2," I actually want to see the first one before seeing this one, it looks like something I would love; "Maleficent," I have no real desire to watch this; "Horns," I do not even know if this came out anywhere, much like "The Lady in Black" it looks to be a Danny Radcliffe movie I will not enjoy; and "Exodus: Gods and Kings" I have no trouble appreciating Biblical stories as a sort of mythology, but this particular story has been done definatively twice before so why again, how about a movie of Joshua taking over Jericho?  And on to the main events.

"Noah"

            While "Exodus" has had definitive telling in the past Noah hasn't and for a big release this is a very challenging presentation of the material.  The hero is driven mad with religious fervor, a world so corrupt and failing that its destruction does not seem like an over reaction, non-traditional portrayals of esoteric material, and a favorable depiction of evolution and environmentalism.  The idea that dominion over nature means stewardship rather than a right to exploit is actually a good counter argument to a lot of drill-baby-drill perspectives held by religious people.

            The movie is far from perfect, it is boring, there are clear instances of a story break (making it to the mountain of Methuselah, escaping the flood on the ark, and ultimately the movies actual ending on dry land), maybe my patience with stories being told in multiple parts has made me more critical of epics like this being told in a single installment.  I can also see this movie as being too dark or violent for people who are expecting a biblical story for the family, though I do not think that a planetary holocaust should be your first choice in that venue.

Overall: 6/10 

God awful movie poster.

"300: Rise of an Empire"

            This is an odd one, and I am glad that Frank Miller had very little creative input on the subject.  While the original "300" was a fun movie about a tiny nation trying to rally against a larger empire to secure their way of life dedicated to reason... Let's be clear, it is propaganda.  The glorious white people with their sculpted abs, brilliant minds, and bloodlines pure of the deformities of other cultures fighting against the multi-ethnic force who in real life expressly forbid slavery while the Spartans had the largest slave population in all of Greece.  Frank Miller is a deplorable racist, and while his artistic contributions to comic books are begrudgingly acknowledged we should all take a step back and look at how he has gone crazy and all of his work has had undercurrents of racism and misogyny, because "300: Rise of an Empire" kind of does take a step back and look at how complex things were.

            The Spartans are looked at as violent but useful to the more tactical Greeks, and the Greek people are seen (rightly) as villains in need of conquest by the Persians.  Eva Green's character was abused in Greek society and saved by the Persians, her hate makes sense.  Things are messy and it is cool to see that underlined in a sequel to one of the most incorrectly black and white morality films ever made.

            Much like Noah there are lots of issues.  The timeline is all over the place, unlike in the first where the strange (anachronistic) technology of the Persians are defeated in montage they are the center piece of the film and if goofy steam punk battle is not your thing then this will be boring, Eva Green is good but many might object to how sexually and literally aggressive she is considering the historical figure she portrays was cautious and levelheaded, one of the few Persian captains that was not taken in by the Athenian naval trap that broke the Persian campaign.  It is a strange movie, and years too late to be an effective follow up (much like "Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For" which also came out this year, and is also a stylized Frank Miller story with a topless sexually aggressive Eva Green as the star).

Overall: 6/10 

A decent poster in which it is about the movie, not a particular actor in it.

"The Hobbit: the Battle of Five Armies"

            The best of the Hobbit movies, so much so that it make s me like the others less.  The movie has focus as the plot threads and characters shown in the previous movies all start moving toward the ultimate goal of controlling the golden horde beneath the Lonely Mountain.  All of the principle characters, Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, and Legolas get their moments to shine (I still consider the addition of the elves to be beneficial to the story).  The monsters are inventive and cool, the various steeds of the heroes are cool, the armor, the ruins, nearly all of the visuals work (yeah the CGI gets a bit much here and there but not as noticeably as the last one).  The heroic sacrifices are good (not perfect, I was expecting Thorin's final action in the story to be a bigger move), and the added weight of character death makes them movie hit harder.  The Elves are as always cool and work perfectly, they are both generous, but have their own desires.

            There are of course downsides, as I mentioned before Thorin's final battle while fine could have been better, there is a scene in which the party of 13 dwarves storms out of the mountain and rallies the dwarf army that is losing ground... That makes no sense to me as they are not the Avengers, they are just 13 guys, some of which are not warriors, but it turns the tide.  Humans are woefully out gunned and rather than cleverly beating back the bad guys they mostly just keep fighting and inexplicably not dying.  There are sections in which a lot of proper nouns are thrown around.

            I would also like to maintain that these movies should have been called "Middle Earth" not "The Hobbit", and should have been marketed differently.  Peter Jackson should have said, "We are going to use 'The Hobbit' as a framing device, but since this will likely be the last movies set in this universe for this generation of filmmakers, I saw it as both fun and necessary to explore other aspects of the world. Lots of characters exist, and a lot of magic, action, and world is there.  If I don't put those things into this movie, then it won't fit in anywhere.  Some people have talked about 'The Silmarillion' and I do not think it would work, better to take what we have and put it in here where we can and enjoy as much of the universe as possible with this story as a backbone."  But they didn't do that and so we have people complaining that there isn't enough story to fill three movies even though these movies are packed with content.

7/10

 

This poster rides the line, it shows what the movie is about, but clearly puts a focus on the various characters rather than the world of Middle Earth, the true star of the movie.

Movies of 2013, Fantasy, pt1, Hobbit

Fantasy

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, or "They really should have changed more things rather than just adding stuff"

Overall: 7/10

I would just like to note that the amount of gold in this movie is hundreds of times the amount of gold found in all of the real Earth combined, and would make for a totally unworkable standard for money.

            I like this movie.  Just to get that sentiment out of the way.  It is fun, moves at a good pace, has a lot of visual variety, ice, forest, dungeon, mountains of gold, cliffs... It is beautiful.  The costumes, sets, makeup, and visual effects are all amazing emerging you in a massive world of magic, legend, and big ideas.  All that being said I am going to go against the popular opinion on this film and say, "they didn't change enough."

            "The Hobbit" is a short, comedic book mostly aimed at a young audience.  It serves as a simple jumping off point for the events of "Lord of the Rings" which had a much (much, much, much) more developed narrative with more description and bigger climax.  But a movie is not a book.  In the book most of the Dwarves are blink-and-you'll-miss "characters".  Often they are one note jokes that are interchangeable.  Thorin and his quest for his gem are background, my brother read the book and didn't even know that in the climactic final War of Five Armies that more than one dwarf died, that is how little an impact they made.  But in the movie that doesn't really work.

            Having more than a dozen "characters" running through dangerous situations without any of them dying undercuts the threat (again I am saying "characters" sarcastically because while each has their own look they don't all get lines or development, I'm a nerd and can't name them all).  In the first film they are taken hostage by Trolls, and run through a goblin city squaring off against thousands of potential opponents before confronting the Orcs who have been hunting them all movie.  Logically someone should have died.  Pick one of the dwarves who is most visually engaging and has had a lot of lines (I would have picked Dwalin... Very few people will know who that is without a picture... So here is a picture.)

Also, a noble sacrifice would help to inform the audience as to why Gandalf thinks the Dwarves are worth helping.  It shows them to be commendable in courage, and even worth imitation.

            Dwalin was the first dwarf to show up in the movie, he is the most warrior like of those present, he has numerous lines, and thanks to his tattoos he is very visually memorable... He should have died heroically fighting with the albino orc.  Think about it, the orcs have them all cornered on trees, on a cliff.  Gandalf has called for help to the eagles but unless someone buys time the Dwarves won't be able to escape, one of the Dwarves jumps down from the tree and stands fast.  Gandalf looks apprehensive, Thorin knows that Dwalin is the one to do it and orders him to save them (showing he can make tough leadership decisions) and Dwalin yells at the Dwarves, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS."  And fights.  And dies.  Much like Gandalf and Boromir in "Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring".  It shows that this quest is dangerous, and that people will die while on it.  It changes from the book, but the book was a simple story for kids, the movie has to do things differently to work better.

            All of that was from the first "Hobbit" so let me point to an instance in this movie which was both good and bad.

            Spoiler time discussion: Not one damn dwarf dies fighting Smaug.  The biggest, most powerful being in the whole world, not one dwarf dies during the whole fight.  Smaug goes from huge, looming threat (beautiful to look on, and very tense when interacting with Bilbo) and is downgraded minute by minute as he fails to kill any of the dwarves in his lair.  THIS IS BULLSHIT.  You are de-balling the character.  Kill some dwarves.  Seriously, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur should have all bitten it.  Each killed fulfilling part of the Dwarves' attack against Smaug.  As is the movie's climax is an incredible let down.

            I do like that they made Bard an actual character, and that Lake Town was a real place with people, politics, and style all its own.  I like that the Elves were characters (dicks as they are) and that they have their own concerns in life as to why they are not trying to get tangled up in some crusade against evil.  I like that they added a cool female elf commando and that she wants to bang the Dwarf Prince Fili, and the Elf Prince Legolas... Kind of star fucker now that I think about it... But she is good at what she does, killing orcs and doing healing magic.  I also like that the Dwarf group breaks up a bit, half going to fight the Dragon, the other half staying behind to care for the sick and get ambushed by Orcs, that is a lot of fun and breaks up the action for each.

            Really, everything that was an addition worked for me, and all the most faithful plotting to hold to the book disappointed me... I guess what I really want is just an original story told in the Middle Earth universe, rather than just an adaptation of the books.  Tell me about the Blue Wizards, what happened to them when they left so long ago that Gandalf has forgotten their names.  Give Radigast something to do.  Show me some minor Elrond adventure.  Do something that isn't so hung up on an existing book, because I am tired of people complaining that this isn't enough like the book.  If you want the book, read the book.  I did.  I liked it a lot.  It is really short and fun.

Movies of 2012, Fantasy & Animation

            I don't think it is a secret that I watch a lot of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and animated fair.  Most of my top 5 fall into those categories, this is the grab bag of other movies that also fit.

Better than the Marketing would have you Believe Award: "Wreck it Ralph" (Trailer)

            "Ralph" is a movie about self acceptance, and strangely carries an odd endorsement of caste based lifestyles.  That we all have roles in life that we need to accept and live by and should not be begrudged by others by filling those roles well.  Not a blending of messages you would typically pair: be yourself and know your role.

            It is not as funny and reference driven as the commercials make it seem and I really like the original characters in it, it is an easy place to build a franchise from, and honestly the fact that there were not 2-3 XBLA releases of the fictitious games in this movie is baffling to me.  One of the few films in which a video game tie in would be entirely appropriate and I don't really see anything.  A very well made and fun movie about... Either self acceptance or not lamenting one's lot in life... I am not sure.

8/10

The Award for the most Organic and well timed Opening all Year: "ParaNorman" (Trailer)

            This movie definitely is about being an outsider and trying to get along in life while the world fails to understand you.  It has a lot of emotional strength with perhaps the best movie climax of the year, and definitely the best start to a movie in which the entire supernatural premise of the movie is laid out without a single voice-overed word of exposition.  Other movies have very strong or complex cold opens for the audience to be taken in by, but this one blows those away by just being very smooth.

            Not to mention the gorgeous animation.  Stop Motion has pretty much hit an insurmountable peak at this point, with movements that are so expressive and alive.  This movie is ART and I regard it as the strongest movie this year marketed toward children, beating out "Wreck it Ralph" if for no other reason than the themes of this movie are more coherent... Same arbitrary numeric score though, because I don't want to do halves.

8/10

The Deserves the be Epic-a-fied Award: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" (Trailer)

            "Lord of the Rings" is the most important film franchise since the Original "Star Wars", and while "Harry Potter" was longer and more financially successful it had less quality and pushed far fewer envelopes in the technology of movie making.  "The Hobbit" is a return to one of the richest and most well produced universes in the history of film.

            The movie is very pretty, and much of the special effects technology pioneered in "LotR" has now been mastered, with a dozen people on the screen, all of them scaled down to various sizes, all of it seamless.  Sure there are bits of edges showing when a brand new effect appears, but overall it just glistens.  I have no opinion on the additional frames per second thing, but it is worth trying out (and abandoning if it doesn't work).

            The only real issue is one of tone, while I thought it moved rather fluidly from one emotion to the next and I felt comfortable with the moments of comedy and drama in the action I think that other people who found "LotR" too meandering might find this quite uncomfortable to sit through.  I just wanted to spend more time exploring Middle Earth and am glad this movie, and its sequels exist for me to do so.

8/10

The New Gold Standard in Found Footage Award: "Chronicle" (Trailer)

            Found footage is a production style that does two things well: saving money and lowering audience standards.  It is less expensive to film with a handheld which the actors are both aware of and can acknowledge while performing because you don't lose takes to them looking into the camera, the cameraman's presence is part of the scene.  This means you don't have to hide a small part of the film crew in the sets or maneuver hoping not to harm the environment, the cameraman is allowed to stumble and shake a little.  The lower standards come on the part of the audience who will take as part of the production lower film quality and with it lower special effects quality... Fun fact: this movie doesn't really need lowered expectations to work.

            The camera's presence makes sense, as does the title, a group of friends want to document (or Chronicle) their gaining of super powers from some mysterious crystal entity they discovered in a pit outside of a rave.  The story moves at a good clip, you see the protagonists react to what is going on, you feel bad for the main "villain" as he falls into destructive and dangerous behavior.

            There are some missteps: a needless B-plot love story; a weird choice by one character to classify himself as an Apex Predator which robs him of some sympathy; but that crap falls by the way side by the time the final super-brawl at the end kicks into full gear and rips up the city pretty well.  The final action sequence could be used as a really good example for Zach Snyder to follow when he inevitably has Superman start punching stuff, the flight in it looks really natural and cool.  It is a cool movie.

8/10

The Award for being Alright even though it Squandered Opportunities for a much more Impactful Narrative: "Rise of the Guardians" (Trailer)

            For a movie in which Santa and the Easter Bunny team to fight the god of fear this movie is shockingly average.  I wrote a rather long and detailed pick apart of this thing which is riddled with spoilers.  So if you would rather read that. (Other Blog)

            If however you have not seen "Guardians" yet and want an overview without spoilers here are a few things: the Villain's plan moves too fast and is too effective; the background has a lot of gorgeous little touches, in fact most of the art and animation is good especially the Tooth Fairy (Santa's beard is a notable exception, because it doesn't look like hair at all); the main character is not optimal for this story; Much like "Wreck it Ralph" the message is a little unclear; and lastly you will leave feeling just mildly entertained.  I have actually cooled on this film more and more since seeing it, my opinion now is lower than when I first wrote my longer analysis.  So I can't say it will grow on you.

6/10

The Award for a Main Character that got lost on its way to a Better Movie: "Lockout" (Trailer)

            This movie has a lot of problems, not the least of which being: The main Character is the only person who knows how to make good decisions.  It helps that he is played by Guy Pierce, one of my favorite actors.  If an action star with less charisma had been chosen this movie would have been a train wreck, I can just envision this thing starring John Cena or Taylor Lautner and being an unwatchable direct to DVD or Sy Fy network release.

            There is some good action, some obviously forced scenes to move the plot along, a lot of poor writing decisions regarding character relationships in order to justify moving the plot along, and I guess it helps that the plot was ripped off from "Escape from New York" (Trailer) (in fact, if it had been called "Escape from Space" and had Snake Plissken in it the movie might have been totally forgiven and lovable as pure gonzo Science Fiction action romp).  In fact that is what I will call my biggest complaint, this movie keeps having to make up reasons to get the plot going as it otherwise feels like it is about to go stale.

5/10

I need to get back on Christopher Nolan's good side.  I could play a magician.

My 5 Favorite Books

            As a random little thought I figured I would do a top 5 list because lists are mentally very easy to digest and a recent movie release, along with anticipation for a movie coming out later this year has me thinking.  What are my top 5 favorite books?

            Number 5, and the spurring to write this, "The Hunger Games".  Since the movie is a very accurate and faithful adaptation, and it has made half a billion dollars already I feel redundant explaining the premise of young woman chosen to participate in a gladiatorial combat with other children.  The book is violent, and does an excellent job satirizing modern television, the disparities that exist between the rich and poor, all while framing through a single character that is ostensibly unlikable, having grown very bitter because of the absolute boiling crock-pot of shit her life has been.  It also has some good lines in it, strangely, my favorite line did not make it into the movie, even though the scene it is in did.  Whatever.

Have not read the other two... And I don't know if I ever will.

             Number 4, the movie adaptation of this, or at least part 1, will be out later this year, "The Hobbit".  As a kid the animated adaptation of this book was frequently, if not constantly checked out from the library, and while I read huge numbers of books (mostly Goosebumps, Animorphs, Spooksville, and other kids series) I actually didn't know that "The Hobbit" was a book for a long time, and only got around to reading it in high school, and I have since re-read it.  It is a lot of fun and the definitive classic in its genre, it is tightly written, and that works to its advantage, something its sequel does not have working for it.  This may make me a freak by nerd standards, but I find "The Lord of the Rings" over written and poorly paced.  Currently my epic fantasy thirst is being quenched by the "Game of Thrones" series (which I did a blog of) and I refuse to call it the "Song of... Whatever" because that is a stupid title for series of books, again something that might make me a freak among nerds.

This was a big part of me starting into fantasy.

             Number 3, this is actually my favorite part of a series of books that are all pretty good, though I think the last 2 are the weakest ending on downer notes rather than the jokes and good fun of the other 3, this is "Life, the Universe,and Everything".  It is the third book in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy in five parts.  It takes place as a group of renegade killer robots dressed as Cricket players set out to find and activate a weapon that will destroy all of creation.  The origins, the machinations, and the way all of the heroes of the series are drawn together to help solve the problem are bizarre and fun.  Sadly, since they tried to turn this book series into a movie franchise, and got someone infinitely unqualified to write and direct it doubtless this movie will have to wait another decade or two before it gets its turn at bat, hopefully with Edgar Wright or Steven Moffat at the helm.  Or both if there really is a Santa Claus in the hearts of children everywhere.

This really doesn't come up in this installment.

             Number 2, this one makes me think back to how my brother told me, "you (Josh) always identify with assholes in control of things," a fact I can't deny, this book is "Ender's Game".  Written by an author who has in recent times gone Christ-crazy and rages against the liberals of the world, the book explores how the smartest boy in the world is shaped by a militant world alliance to save humanity from the Alien bug menace which has twice invaded our space to horrifying result.  Ender, so nicknamed by his sister who could not pronounce Andrew, is a misanthropic child murderer who grows more and more distant as he figures out how to outsmart everyone.  Actually this book is considered the holy script of nerds everywhere because it isn't about a meat-head who gets handed power by a wise old wizard, but instead gets put through hell by his mentor figure, you know, like every father who has ever told their child, "You can be anything you want to be... So long as you are some kind of Doctor."

The timeline of this series gets a bit complex.

             My favorite book, much like the others follows a rather misanthropic person... Huh, just realized that... Huh, that probably means I am less than stellar person... Moving on, it is about the nature of religion in American society, it's "American Gods".  The man called Shadow is released from prison and encounters a con man called Wednesday who takes him down numerous rabbit holes to meet the living ideas of various traditions and superstitions that came over from the old world, and they are dying off in favor of modern ideas made of silicon and celebrity.  The author, Neil Gaiman, said he started off writing it in the first person but found he had to switch off because the main character was so listless and detached, rather a fish out of water story in which the fish was happy to suffocate without flopping.  It also does the original Heroes Journey to great impact.

I'm 70% sure this man is not a wizard.

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 6

            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 reminds me of Somewhere", and I'll be honest, this one didn't hit as much of a cord as the previous entries in this series, yeah I got a pick but the accompanying information is a little slim and mostly serves to illustrate either how geeky I was or how poor I was growing up.  The movie that reminds me of a place is "The Hobbit" animated movie, and it reminds me of the North Port public library.

The start of this particular movie.

            Coincidentally one of my favorite net comedians Noah "The Spoony One" Antwiler reviewed recently "The Lords of Magik" a shoe string budget movie he first found in his library growing up, and he considers it to be crap on toast, but I remember my low budget movie rentals more fondly.  I knew of "The Hobbit" as an animated movie long before I knew about the book and long before I had moved into caring about Fantasy seriously.  This was when I was 7-10, a little bit before Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons would come to dominate my imagination.

Go watch his review of "Lords of Magik" it is a funny little commentary.

            The North Port library allowed me to rent and rerent this and other animated fair again and again, which I did.  I loved this movie and I liked the library to a lesser extent (it was a place that was really a means to an end).

            I currently own "The Hobbit" on DVD and along with other DVD's in my brother's collection, and our Netflix subscription, and the internet in general, I no longer need to rent a worn out video tape of an animated adaptation of what became one of my favorite books.  Christ that last sentence reads like a spaz.

            What is more, I love the fact that movies and media have become so easy to access.  I have a huge personal library, and while I have donated dozens, if not more than a hundred books to libraries and book drives I don't really go to libraries anymore, when I do I feel detached from them.  hell the last time I read a book I rented from the library it must have been more than 5 years ago with "Good Omens" (good book by the way).

Good Book, if they ever make a movie or television adaptation they need to get Fry and Laurie to play Aziraphale and Crowley respectively.  And maybe David Tennant as Newton Pulsifer.  I cast this book another time...

            Like I said, this topic didn't really ring my bell, which is why this short blog is all over the place, so I guess I am left with the message of, "support your local library... Or don't... Whatever."  And a tertiary, I can recommend "The Hobbit" as a good fantasy movie for kids, though I'll admit I didn't get parts when I was a child, so it is possible rewatching might be needed.  Or better yet, this adaptation will soon be eclipsed forever by Peter Jackson's adaptation which will be shot using the absolute latest in film technology, so "The Hobbit" animated will become only a camp bit of trivia, like Leonard Nemoy singing about Frodo.

MY mother used to sign my brother and I up for summer work shops there as well, to watch movies and learn to draw or see animals, there are a lot of memories through these doors, much has been washed away by numerous needed remodels.