Tropic Thunder is a brilliant movie

I saw this the other day with Kat, and it was a great movie. Honestly. It takes a really critical look at movie stars and their self-centered Narcissism. Up until this year, I really wasn't that much of a Robert Downey, Jr. fan, but I am now. His portrayal of the drunk, self-tortured Iron Man was something I thought was just a wonderful fluke. His character in Tropic Thunder completely steals a movie that was so good that I never would have thought anyone could have stolen it.

The funny thing (well, one of many things) about Tropic Thunder is that there is this whole protest thing going on because Downey's character refers to Ben Stiller's character's previous role as "Simple Jack" by accusing him of having gone "Full Retard". Of course, the mentally-challenged corps have come out in droves to protest this usage, but the joke isn't even on them. The joke has nothing to do with the mentally-challenged, nor does it even make a slight at them by using the word "retard". The insult is waged at actors who play mentally-challenged characters, like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, or Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, or even Sean Penn in Sam I Am (or something close to that). It's actually a brilliant criticism of actors and how they handle such roles. There's a lot of self-directed criticism in this movie that the main characters continue to use to poke fun at their own profession. Some of the ad libs in the movie are brilliant, and are done so well that you'd think it was originally written into a well-written script.

I highly recommend this movie.

Stumble It!

Star Wars and the Wrong Direction of Storytelling

Star Wars used to be a great franchise that told a great story that caused its fans to really examine and explore the ideas of good and evil. The first three movies (the original three) really took that exploration and exploded in a great way for all of the fans. Sure, good triumphed over evil, but evil was REALLY evil, and you knew it.

Then these three prequels came along that told the story of Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader), and to be honest, other than the moment where he becomes Vader, the three movies are really lame and pretty much destroy the very foundation of the mysticism behind Star Wars. The Force, an ever-present, omnipotent fabric of dimensional existence quickly gave way to a genetic defect (at least that's how they explained the Force with the young Anakin Skywalker..."he's got lots of mytowhoziwhats in his blood, which makes him the greatest potential jedi of all time"). And Anakin was just Luke Skywalker, Jr., except you knew there would be no redemption for this character; he would only have to get worse and more evil as the storyline continued. I had a really hard time "cheering" on the worst hero of science fiction history. I found his brooding, passive-aggressive disposition to want me to learn how to be a jedi just so I could kick his complaining ass.

Now, a new movie is being released as a cartoon, which is supposed to "fill in the gap" called the Clone Wars. I'm sorry, but I don't really feel there's much of a gap here. I don't really care about the Clone Wars. And I really don't care about a series where Anakin Skywalker is to be seen as the "hope" of the Republic. I'm sorry, but Anakin is the death of the Republic; no amount of cartooning is going to make him into the good guy again, no matter what time line they interject this story.

Star Wars actually has a rich, mystical history that needs to be explored, but they keep coming back to this overdone storyline. I don't care anymore about Darth Vader. There is a whole Knights of the Old Republic era that is hinted at in the series, and has been seriously developed in lots of the Star Wars media (not the movies). The birth of the Sith sounds like so much more interesting than brooding action heroes who complain about their girlfriends. Honestly.

When I was doing the old computer game work, there was a project that was started at Lucas Arts that never really saw the dawn of light, but it should have. It was about a rebellious colonel during the Star Wars era (think "Empire Strikes Back" time) that was fighting a mysterious revolution against the empire during this time. There was so much rich information coming from this particular thread, and then it just died away so that we could focus on brooding, complaining young jedi.

I regret that all we have to look forward to is a cartoon movie and a potential television series (cartoons) of the Clone Wars. What a horrible choice to develop. I would love to see something way prior to the whole Star Wars saga (like tens of thousands of years before), or hundreds of years AFTER Return of the Jedi. But instead, we'll get nothing but product placement shows and movies that will try to sell us a cute robot toy or stuffed ewok, or whatever stupid "in" toy that comes from the next kiddie series that sadly fills the gap that doesn't need filled.

Stumble It!

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Obscene Profits

I saw the new Indiana Jones movie, and let's just say that it wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen. I'd place it #3 or 4 out of the four Indiana Jones movies (with 1 being the best, and 3 being second best). There were just so many continuity problems with the movie that I was starting to get frustrated with it.

Now, this movie is put out by two of the most dedicated men in movies (Lucas and Spielberg), so I was seriously surprised at some of the blatant problems in both the movie and the script. Some of the banter between characters was extremely contrived to the point of absurdity. There was one scene where Indiana and Co. are in a military vehicle CHASING after the evil Nazi woman (okay, she was really a Soviet Natasha secret agent, but she was played as a typical Nazi), with Indie saying something like "Catch her!" The camera then switches perspective, and now the evil Nazi woman is BEHIND them trying to catch up to them.

Some of the plot twists were so obvious that I wondered if they were supposed to be tricks that they were going to cleverly turn on us, but no, they weren't. They were just badly scripted plot points. (spoiler alert----> Hey, Indie, if a woman you haven't seen for twenty years has a twenty year old kid who is as free-spirited as you are, perhaps you should think a little bit about the origins of that kid, especially when his "father" is mentioned as someone REALLY ambiguous).

There was one throw-away line that I think was put into the movie for Lucas/Harrison Ford fans where Indiana says: "I got a bad feeling about this." Kind of takes ya back to the good ole' days of Hans Solo when he was coasting towards that moon ("that's no moon").

There was some good old fashioned beat em up action in the movie, which should always be expected from an Indiana Jones movie. There were a couple of references to the practically unwatched television series about Indiana Jones that someone not having watched that series would have caused a question of "when did Indiana Jones fight with Pancho Villa?" That was sometimes a problem with the movie. It expected you to have more knowledge of the insider stuff, yet the asides to those insider moments went so fast that you ended up having to think about it while other things were happening, and you'd miss something else.

It was good seeing Karen Allen again. She's still as cute and bubbly as she was in the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. They also showed a picture of Indie's dad, Sean Connery, which made me wonder if Sir Sean got any actual money for having his picture in the movie, even though he, himself, didn't appear.

Two final comments:
1. This movie reminds me that we've pretty much run out of bad guys in movies these days. Nazis are overdone and too far removed from our reality. Terrorists are too present in today's reality that it makes it hard to use them. There is really no evil country that we have to present as the enemy, because even if there is one out there, we still want to sell tickets to people in that country, and you can't market a movie to Chinese people if the big bad enemy is China.
2. University of the Pacific shows up in the movie a few times. You can tell whenever you see Burns Tower, which is supposed to give people the idea that Indiana Jones teaches in some east coast Ivory Tower university. In reality, Burns Tower is in Stockton, California. I don't think they want to give the impression that Indiana Jones is teaching archaeology in the street crime capital of California.

Stumble It!

Michael Moore's "Sicko"

This semester I've been taking a graduate course on documentary film as political communication, so it's probably not surprising that Michael Moore has come up a few times in conversation. I've never really been a strong fan of Moore's but not because I disagree with him or think his methods are shady, but just because I've always felt that he sees too many things as black and white when I don't believe things ever really are.

Bowling for Columbine was a great movie, if you watched the movie as a process rather than as an argument. I came away from it with a couple of important points, although I wasn't completely sold on Moore's agenda. After it was over, I didn't have any desire for any more controls over guns. But I did come away from it with a new perspective on the culture of fear that exists within American society.

Now, Sicko was really interesting. I know there are claims made that are controversial, like Moorewatch claims that he cooks the numbers when he claims there are 50 million Americans uninsured (where Moorewatch calculates that the number is closer to 37 million, with around 9 million uninsured "non"-Americans who are in the US. What's really funny about criticisms like that one is that the movie has NOTHING to do with the uninsured of America. It's all about those who ARE insured, so who cares if it's 37 million, 50 million, or 250 million when that's not the topic being discussed?

The movie itself does point out that our system in the US is really screwed up. I've known that for years before seeing the movie. I know that this year I've spent so much money on co-pays to see specialists and my regular doctor that I'm close to being bankrupt right now. And I HAVE insurance. By the time the movie ended, I started thinking about learning French and just moving to France, because it is so obvious that their system cares a lot more about their people than ours does. I remember the nightmare I went through last summer just trying to get Kaiser Permanente to refer me to a specialist for my shoulder. It took an act of God, and my sister, to finally get something done about that.

So, the movie introduces a very interesting thing to think about. And that's the goal of a documentary. My class would argue that the goal is to persuade, but I'm starting to believe that's really not the contemporary goal. I think documentaries are designed to make us think. Used in conjunction with numerous devices, it may persuade, but I think in the beginning the goal of a documentary should be to introduce someone to the possibility that one's ideas are limited and in need of rethinking. And I think Sicko did that very well.

Stumble It!

Spiderpig

Okay, I'm going to come straight out and say that The Simpson's Movie was a great movie. A friend of mine took me to see it, as she felt I needed to get out of the house. If you've seen the trailer for this, you've probably heard Homer Simpson singing his song "Spiderpig", which is done to the tune of the old Spiderman cartoon. I chuckled a bit when I saw the trailer, and I thought it would be just a slightly amusing thing. Well, let's just say this is one of those movies where a lot of thought went into some very tiny details. I recommend that you watch the WHOLE thing because there are some moments to this movie where you just have to be there to experience it. I give it very high ratings.



Countdown: 364 days

Stumble It!

Babel

Let's just say that I haven't been a fan of too many recent movies. It's like the industry has gotten stupid and thinks all we want is trash-like drivel. So I had this in my Netflix que and decided to finally get around to watching it.

To begin with, it reminded me of the movie Lonestar, which is a brilliant collage of images that create a whole movie. This movie does the same thing, in a really powerful, yet touching way. I've watched a couple of other recent movies lately, and I have to say this is one of the few that makes my list of decent, really good movies. I just wish more movies would take chances like this one. There wasn't a scene that didn't belong or that didn't make you sit back and go, "wow."

Stumble It!