The Queen Of Versailles (2012)

d. Lauren Greenfield -- netflix

North American culture has become obsessed with affluence.  It's the natural byproduct of a consumerist culture.  It's not longer enough to just have stuff, but you have to have the best stuff.  As a result, people are driving themselves deeper and deeper into debt in order to have stuff, and to project the appearance of affluence.  We're now in a new era of feudalism, the divide between the have and have nots, the 99 and the 1 percent, where the all-having 1 percent are basically guiding the bulk of North American culture and spreading it across the glove.  The haves cannot seem to have enough.  They want it all as long as there's any left to get.

Popular media is run by the haves, and since the moment they realized that millions of people at a time enjoy watching spoiled, nasty, talentless people behave rudely in public with a general disregard for common decency and civility, and a total disrespect for everyone (including most often themselves), it's flooded our society.  We've idolized the rich and famous in the past, but generally when celebrities or the "elite" society behaved badly in public, it was severely frowned upon and potentially career-killing.  Today, we celebrate the awful, starting with Paris and Nicole, making way for Kim, and busting the doors open for Snooki and an endless parade of "Real" Housewives and predatory Basketball Moms.  It's the new American dream, to have more money than you can possibly spend and not have to give a crap about anyone or anything anymore.  Popular media would have us to believe this is reality, and we can all have it all.

The Queen Of Versailles started as a documentary about a family who have it all, and want more.  David Siegal brought himself up from nothing, his beginnings were extremely modest, but he was frugal and shrewd, and when the right opportunity came up he started what became an empire of time shares, Westgate Resorts.  His wife, Jackie was also from humble beginnings, but after struggling to achieve an engineering degree and through an abusive marriage, she made it big via Miss America pageantry, where she met David (some 30-ish years her senior).  David's empire is so lucrative that he played kingmaker and takes personal credit (repeatedly) for winning George W. Bush the presidency ("I'd rather not say, it may not have necessarily been legal"), a decision he does have some apprehension about in hindsight .

The film follows David and Jackie, (and their 8 kids, their nanny, their limo driver and David's adult son who's general manager of Westgate Resorts) through their affluent lives, with a keen focus on David's two biggest projects, his new PH Towers Westgate building, a 52-storey blue glass monolith in Las Vegas, and one of the largest mansions in America, Versailles, a 90,000 square foot dwelling backing onto Disneyworld, modeled after the French Palace of Versailles.  The excesses of David and Jackie's life, and especially their plans for Versailles are so extravagant, so unreal, so inconceivable that it verges on nauseating ("This is what five million dollars worth of marble looks like", Jackie exclaims as she shows their documentary crew their garage filled solely with crated stone).

It begins a story of excess, and then November 2008 occurs, the housing bubble bursts, the mortgage backed securities are seen for the sham they were, and the stock market crashes.  Suddenly Westgate is forced to lay off hundreds upon hundreds of employees, David's refusal to turn over the PH Towers Westgate building to creditors threatening to take down him personally and his entire company (even the rich still want more than they can afford).  It then follows the family and the people around them as they struggle to cope with having to struggle, something which their clearly not used to. 

There's an element of schadenfreude to the Siegal's story, a tantalizing look at the felling of the mighty, but it's still not easy to watch, especially as they struggle to maintain some semblance of their own normality.  Their nanny's story is the most painful, separated from her own family for more than a decade, having missed out on her son growing up, sending all the money she makes back to the Philippians (and one can surmise she's not rewarded for her dedicated and tireless service particularly well), straining to find some comfort in the family she's made having taken the lead in raising the Siegal's kids (Jackie is not an absent mother by any stretch, but even she acknowledges that she wouldn't have had more than two had she not had nannies).  Other house staff are not so lucky, as the Siegals pare back 3/4 of their home crew.  The most noticeable effect is not on David, Jackie or the kids (forced to attend public school), but the many, many pets they have.  Lizards die of starvation or dehydration, fish go belly up, and dog crap is, quite literally, everywhere.  More collateral damage from their descent.

During their hardship, only David (and his son) seems truthfully aware of their situation, something Jackie laments late in the film.  "I kind of wish I was more involved, because I'm not a stupid person," Jackie notes, upon learning from the crew that Versailles in foreclosure, "but when you don't have the information, it makes you look stupid."  If not told outright, Jackie is made painfully aware that things are not good, yet she proceeds to spend excessively, if only at Wal-Mart.  She buys with reckless abandon, four shopping carts full of duplicate products for Christmas.  When she arrives home, the crew makes a point of showing the new bike she bought carried through a garage filled with other bikes. 

The Siegal's don't seem like bad people, and they seem to have an awareness of how lucky they are to have achieved affluence (despite hardships).  Jackie and David's relationship (as well as David's relationship with the kids) is strained incredibly by Westgate's misfortune and while you don't ever feel particularly bad for them, you don't really feel as good about their situation as you'd think. Yet, I was kind of rooting for David's business to tank completely.  I think Westgate's business practices are at best distasteful and at worst aggressively predatory.  Their tactic is to sell average people luxurious time share properties they can't afford to buy and likely will be unable to use most of the time.  They sell themselves a vision of "helping" these people, but realistically, they're praying upon their desire to taste a bit of affluence they really can't achieve even in this limited regard.  Where a company like Westgate can default on loans and work tricky magic like buying back their own overdue credit for 15million less than it was initially worth, the people who buy into their time shares, the suckers and the rubes who are even more harmed by the recession, are still on the hook, and you can bet Westgate isn't going to let up.  A large part of the company's value is in the "balance owing".

The coda to the film still inferred the Siegals were struggling, but a web search shows that Westgate has recovered, turning record profits, and that David is pursuing the completion of Versailles (as well as a couple of lawsuits against the filmmakers).  It's a fascinating doc, a rich character study, as well as a unique perspective of the 2008 market downfall and its aftereffects.  The doc originally started out as a borderline Real Housewives/Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous but it transcends its vapid origins tenfold into something brilliant.

Red Dawn vs Tomorrow, When the War Began

Red Dawn, 2012, Dan Bradley (stunt man, first time director) -- download
Tomorrow, When the War Began, 2010, Stuart Beattie (writer, first time director) -- Netflix

Red Dawn is the remake of the classic 80s movie ("Wolverines !!") about teenagers in a small American town reacting to invasion by Russia and their Cuban allies.  Tomorrow, When the War Began is the recent movie, based on a series of teen novels, about small town Australia being invaded by "the coalition of three countries" -- Korea and allies.  Neither are very good.

The original Red Dawn was not very good either.  But it was a classic adventure story where teenagers and young adults stand up to oppressive authority and overcome the odds.  And unrealistically defend their town against trained soldiers.  As a kid who "played guns" I was convinced (at 15-16) that we could have done the same, with no problem.

The remake is a patch-work of all the sentiments and ideas from the first movie but blandly updated to the current age.  It was supposed to be China, but China is an American economic ally so it had to be Korea, with some backing from ex-Russia special forces.  You might even assume they are related to the Russians from the first movie.  By patch-work, I am not kidding.  It literally pieces together a bunch of rah-rah patriotism scenes with combat scenes under a non-existent plot.  The dialogue barely serves any purpose, the acting is unfocused and shouty and the villains are disposable.  Hell, even some of the main cast are disposable as, when two youngsters died, it took me ten minutes to determine which ones were killed.  You could see the way this would have been story-boarded with connector arrows on a giant white board, but the stunt man now director assumed the suits meant for him to do it literally.

Bad movie.

And yet, would you expect the movie based on teen novels to be better?  It was, but not by much.  This was CW (the TV channel) style of casting and production where we have the average girl, the pretty girl, the Christian girl and the chubby girl.  We have the pretty guy, the dumb tough guy, the sensitive guy and the stoner.  Once again, we are given the plot where they are away from their small town when the Bad Guys invade.  Subjected to the capture and/or death of family and friends, they have to figure out what to do next -- hide or fight back.

There is a primary difference in these movies and it really highlighted the difference between American and Australian ideals.  In both movies, the kids are overwhelmed and frightened by a situation they didn't think they could happen to their country.  Red Dawn quickly moves onto the patriotic decision to train and fight, moving through montages of learning to shoot, guerrilla tactics and finally expertly defeating (seemingly) badly trained enemies.  Its all about raising the guns over their head and shouting "Wolverines!" while ignoring any ramifications kids-becoming-soldiers might have. At least the first version showed the toil it took on their young psyches.

Tomorrow, When the War Began really focuses on the fear and trauma the kids are going through. That they have to fight back is overshadowed by the fact they are about to kill people.  They know they will have to but it is considered reprehensible.  The main character Ellie even asks, "Really, it just comes down to the fact that I valued my life over theirs, doesn’t it? How many people is it okay to kill in order to keep me alive?"  There is the knowledge they are fighting for their families and there is the knowledge they will have to kill people, some who are not much older than they are.  Even the Christian girl, with her "thou shalt not kill" is put in a tough situation.

Unfortunately, even with these challenging topics posed, the movie is not very good.  Why would they be having boy-talk conversations in the middle of "an operation" ?  And there are too many Baysplosions and too few skilled soldiers.  There really is only one operation against the invaders, but it is supposed to be the first in a series of movies, so that is (thankfully) understandable.  As I said, it is meant to be teen-novel / CW light so it is forgiven its naivete and it is leaps and bounds ahead of its American counterpart.

We Agree: Roger Ebert

I have delayed in writing something about Mr Roger Ebert; it's been too raw.  Seriously, I have not been so affected by the death of a celebrity since the passing of Jim Henson all those years ago.  I don't look up to celebrities, I don't care how good of an actor or writer or director they are; they are people of the limelight and so outside my life, I cannot raise the effort to grieve their passing.  I may be bummed, but never suffer true loss.  Ebert was different.

I am a geek, a nerd, an introvert (a loud one, admittedly) and of the socially confused.  We don't often have Heroes, at least not non-fictional ones.  If we do, they are people who do what we would really want to do if not for our day jobs.  Ebert was that for me.

I never really found my passion, my drive.  I will never ever do "what I love" because I never truly believed you could do what you loved, and get paid for it.  But every so often, I do something and realize that if I had understood the get-started-early philosophy, at an early age, I would probably be living a different life.  I would probably be a graphic designer.  Or a proper movie journalist.  I look back at Ebert's life, being exposed to so so so many good articles over the past week, and see a man who just dove into his chosen path.  I am sure his early stuff was not that good but to have produced THOUSANDS of reviews, just led to an extremely well polished skill.  It shows the proof in perseverance to what you love.

Even beyond writing about movies, he was the first influence on my love of movies.  In the 80s, during my absorption of videos from the local stores, I was pretty non-critical -- I would watch anything.  But as time went by and Arnie movies proved to be terrible, a little bit of a snob grew in me.  I wanted more out of my movie watching.  By the time I was in university, I was reading as much as I could about movies I would never see in the theatre and rarely find in the video store. And when I left university, I got access to rep theatres and decent video stores.  And I had the battery of review books from Ebert, and the show to watch, to become more discerning.

But it was more than his choices of what to watch; it was in the way he said it.  He, as a good writer always should, spoke to me.  Even when I didn't agree with him, I understood and respected his view.  I remember when I began to be tickled about his biases, about his fondness for certain pretty girls and how he would forgive them a crappy movie and write a decent review, despite the one or two stars.  He taught me that snobbishness was not the way, but truly knowing what you liked and what you didn't --- and WHY.  It was about this time that I realized I had a hero, someone I wanted to emulate.  And then he joined the Internet.

This man entered the Internet when the rest of us were inventing blogs and joining fledgling social apps.  He was writing truly journalistic articles on a medium that was assumed to be for amateurs and geeks only.  He joined Twitter and found an extremely prolific voice in 140 characters.  He became my hero again and again.

...

I have never really tried to invest myself in much (of anything) to any great degree.  I have been a jack-of-many-trades for all my life, losing interest and passion as often as I find something else to spark my interest. But in the past few months, I have been thinking about this blog and what I want to do with it. I want to do more.  I want to learn a craft. I want to read more and learn more and really develop my voice.  But the more how do be a movie reviewer I read the less I enjoy what others tell me I should do.  But Ebert reminded me how you could write an entire review that was so much not about the weak plot of the movie, but about the fleeting elements you so enjoyed about it.  He could do what I would strive to do --- just write about the love of the art form.

I will struggle to live up to his ideal.

It makes me sad that the world does not have his voice, albeit a purely typed one in the latter days.  I absolutely love that what we got from him in his post-cancer days was a man who focused, at least publicly,  on what he knew he could give to the world.  Even if he was hurting from what he had lost, he didn't let on... loudly.  Again, heroic.  Fucking heroic.  But in the end, he was tired and I am glad he was at least able to pass on in an alert mind frame, when he was aware of what he had done, if not being able to accomplish more of what he intended. But damn, I miss him.

Last night, a large crowd gathered in Chicago to talk about Roger Ebert.  Would that I could have been in that audience, to smile and wipe away tears.

What I Am Watching: In the Flesh, Vikings, Orphan Black

Some would say zombies are played out.  I would say that is used as an excuse when they meant to say they are bored of typical zombie fiction.  They want to see something new, beyond the usual running and getting caught. The Walking Dead added the soap operish, the humans are worse than the dead, concept but for the most part, zombie fiction is B-grade typical.  So, along comes this British series which is post-apocalypse, as in after the zombie apocalypse.  The dead have been fought and the dead have been.... well, treated.

When I first heard about this, I was rather annoyed.  You see, I am tired of zombie fiction that is about infected victims of a disease, not the walking dead.  Oh, 28 Days Later did it well with their ultra-angry fast zombies and the game Left 4 Dead is still the most compelling zombie game ever created, but in general I prefer my dead, dead.  But what has wowed me about this series is that they were truly dead, in the ground, dead.  And yes, they are being revived.  If the virus or whatever is raising the dead to a walking growling state, then the drugs the British government are using return the zombified dead to a more living state.

But the series, at least in the first episode I have seen, is about the extra bits around zombie fiction: what happens after, how do people return to "normal", if the dead are back in society, how does society feel about that.  There are the vigilante zombie fighting Human Defence Force, finding it hard to adjust to their previous lives and retaining a deep seated hatred of the "rotters".  The sufferers of the PostPartially-Dead Syndrome are not quite the living they once were -- their bodies have rotted, their skin is pale and their eyes are completely fucked up.  So, they wear makeup, contacts and take daily injections of a drug that keeps their brain in a human state.  But it also reminds them of the atrocities they committed.  And thus, in rural England, everyone has to learn to live together.  We shall see if they can.

On the other end of my favourite genres, we have the swords and shields of Vikings.  My first assumption was that it was going to run along the lines of Spartacus: Blood & Sand or as we called it, Blood & Boobs.  Luckily, I was wrong.  Its a rather small story (and you know how I like compact story telling) about a Hold in Scandinavia that has been raiding the east (Poland, Lithuania, western Russian steppes) and pretty much playing the area out.  But Ragnar Lothbrok has other plans -- the west, England and the European states.

The other Holds have not gone west because they don't actually know the secrets of sea travel, having probably just run their longships along the coasts of the countries they raid.  But Lothbrok brings forth a rough sundial / compass, rumors of lands of riches and a little bit of magic in a "sun stone" that can pickup the sun even in the darkest of skies.  But before he can go, he has to either convince his Earl or complete his own ship.  And gather a crew.  And overcome their fears that there is nothing but dragons and the edge of the world out there.

I rather like this show, with its grim Skyrim feel (well, duhh) and honorable protagonist.  But remember, they are vikings so it is about killing foes and stealing their riches.  Still, Ragnar's sense of honor is the key element as he stands up to his corrupt Earl, defends his family and even treats his English monk slave with some decency.  And then there is that haunting opening, tuned to "If I Had a Heart" by Fever Ray, of an obviously failed raid with burnings longships and sinking bodies.  Foreboding is the least of it.  No boobs yet.

Orphan Black is from BBC but a Canadian-American co-production, meaning we get it aired simultaneously in all three countries, eliminating the need to torrent it the next day.  Its obviously Canadian (for better or worse) and actually set in Toronto.  And its about cloning though the first episode basically only hints at it, assuming you have seen enough scifi to fill in your details.

Sarah arrives in Toronto on the train and immediately sees something strange -- a woman who looks exactly like her.  Then the women steps in front of a train.  So that was the Go Train delay that month.  Sarah is not the most honest or likeable person, so she grabs the dead woman's purse and breaks into her house.  Sure, she's curious as to why the woman was so familiar but really, she just wants the money and nice clothes.

I am not sure yet.  Sarah is fascinating, the product of the adoption system with her flamboyant token gay "brother" and abusive boyfriend, who actually seems to be a character instead of a cliche.  I am pretty sure the series is going to be another character making bad choices, currently in vogue in almost every show, but it has a tenuous possibility of transcending the typicality of most Canadian productions.

3 Short Paragraphs: John Dies at the End

2012, Don Coscarelli (The Beastmaster, Bubba Ho-Tep) -- download

John Dies at the End is one of those science fiction movies hoping to be the next pop culture phenomena.  In fact, I assumed it was going to be so, considering all the positive yammering on about the novels, which happen to be on my To Read list.  From web-based story to published novels, the movie actually bears little ressemblance to the summaries I have read of the serial novel.  Oh, it attempts to capture the strange world and disjointed stories but really rides its own feel.

The story is being related through the recollections of not  asian David Wong to Arnie the reporter.  David, meanwhile, is under the influence of soy sauce but not the kind from the chinese restaurant he happens to be in relating his story.  This sauce is alien and gives, as pure side effects, psychic and extreme perceptive abilities.  It also gives you the ability to experience Things Not of This World.  And that is what David and John are mixed up in, dealing with strange otherworldly invaders and alternate realities.

SCHPOILER !! The surprising thing is that John does not die at the end.  He doesn't really die at all.  He kind of dies, but not really.  And the dog helps him out of that one.  He actually goes on to save the world, or at least save this world.  And maybe the next one.  Its that kind of movie.  Lots of wonky lack of assurances about anything.  It leaves a lot of gaps and ambiguities either leading to a sequel movie or a TV series but more likely, to solidify the idea that so much about reality is left unexplained.  There was a theme somewhere in the movie and that is as close as you can get to it. The other surprising thing is that I am not sure I liked it, more enjoying the independent bits and pieces but the story as a whole never comes together.  Wonky for the sake of being wonky is what I am left with.  While I love what Coscarelli has done in the past (seriously, I liked The Beastmaster) this one needed a firmer hand at the rudder.

Hannibal - Apéritif (2013)

d. David Slade

The serial killer/murder-of-the-week genre of television has become so utterly formulaic and stagnant that I literally cannot stand to watch it.  NCIS, CSI, Bones, Castle, The Following, and all the countless others that have come and gone in the past decade all seem to be replicating the same two or three formulas hoping to draw in the same audience of consumers who seemingly uncontrollably lap it up.  The most intriguing of these shows for a time was Dexter but the silliness and improbability of the character and his situation overrode any meaningful drama and character development by it's fifth season.

Hannibal enters the fray from Bryan Fuller, whose previous beloved but short-lived series Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me explored death with a sense of purpose and meaning for the characters involved.  One gets a sense that, week to week, all the murder and  depravity on a CSI or Profiler have little impact or consequence on the show's characters, that each subsequent week their threshold for the morbid resets (much like that of the viewer). 

Hannibal carries on Fuller's intrigue with the impact of death primarily with its main character Will Graham.  Graham is a professor of profiling at Quantico, though never an FBI agent himself, the barrier being his self-identified form of aspergers which gives him heightened empathy towards others.  In your average of-the-week show this would be celebrated gift, a super power that allows the show's protagonist to understand the killer and his/her motivation and triumphantly capture the bad guy.  Here it has a definite and cumulative toll on Graham's psyche, something his faculty adviser at Quantico warns FBI Agent Jack Crawford about when he enlists him on a multiple missing persons case they can't crack.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter comes into the fold as a special consultant when Graham can't seem to completely crack the psyche of the killer.  Lecter takes an immediate interest in Graham, whose ability and condition are psychologically unique and fascinating to him.  The show doesn't dance around the fact that Lecter is a murderer and cannibal, and uses it wisely here as Graham observes one of his victims bodies and can barely trace any emotional connection to the death beyond the cannibalistic desire and the lack of pathology otherwise.  Later Lecter kills another, mimicking Graham's active case but in a manner that allows Graham to see instantly that it's a copycat killing and that it's flaws in its replication allow him to see what he couldn't in his case before. Lecter is in essence mentoring Graham through murder.  It seems to me that Lecter is playing with Graham in order to see if he has what it takes to figure him out, thus a psychological chess game begins that Graham has no idea yet that he's playing.

I'm not exceptionally well-versed in Thomas Harris' novels, although I've seen The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal once a piece.  Manhunter, Michael Mann's moody adaptation of Harris' Red Dragon, is a particular favourite, and as such I can't help but compare Hugh Dancy's Will Graham to Willaim Petersen's from the film as in both cases they play a character traumatized by his work.  Dancy measures up, and in the context of the show's characterization of Graham, he excels.  Dancy captures the apprehension and nervousness that Graham has about engaging in profiling killers, already too aware of the toll it has upon him and the nightmares that plague him.  He finds respite in rescuing stray dogs, which is his oasis from the darkness he faces (Manhunter's Will Graham had love for his wife to hold onto, which is something this show's Will Graham may be incapable of). 

Though unused in Manhunter, Harris established in Red Dragon that Lecter and Graham were partners of a sort working together to solve crimes before Graham found Lecter out.  Though Harris has explored Lecter more extensively in earlier and later iterations, he's never gone back to this pairing.  In many ways this Hannibal TV series serves as a prequel to Red Dragon.  Equally, if not for the decades between them, it tonally feels like a precursor to Mann's film.  The show is moody, a prominent but spare soundtrack exacerbating this effect.  When Dancy's Graham goes into a sort of trance as he assesses a crime scene and a murder victim, the show visualizes his mental process in a reverse and slow-motion technique.  It teeters on gimmick but ultimately lands on the favourable side of stylistic choice.  

The show uses what you know about the characters already, respecting the mythology of Harris' characters, but isn't bound by it completely.  Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (best known perhaps as Le Chiffre from Casino Royale) brings a less jubilant performance to Hannibal than what Anthony Hopkins ultimately wound up delivering in later films.   Mikkelsen's curious Danish accent, his glossy, unflinching poker face, and very prim posture bring a nefariousness that's subtle, in contrast to Hopkin's increasing overtness from film to film.  Mikkelsen and Dancy together make an exceptionally compelling odd couple, precisely because Graham cannot figure Lecter out and he's so unaware of how Lecter toys with him, and although the audience knows he's doing it, like Graham, we don't understand his motivations.

The pilot, Apéritif, introduces all the primary characters for the series, but it doesn't given them much other than an introduction.  Laurence Fishburne's Jack Crawford isn't given much other than framework to start with, but he has a commanding presence nonetheless... it's what he does.  It will be interesting to see how (or if) he develops further.  Hetienne Park's forensics expert Beverly Katz also stands out, strikingly, as Katz is a beaming, excitable character all too in love with her job (perhaps a pointed commentary on all the wisecracking crime scene investigators on other programs?).  Yet she brings a sense of life to the show without being an utter cliche.

I'm fascinated with this show, partly because it's playing with familiar characters in new ways, and also because it's taking the genre on a much needed ride.  It's doing so in a stylistic manner that almost guarantees it won't meet success on network, because it's too different.  The series' 13 episodes are already complete, but even if that's it for the show, if it continues to transcend formula every week as the pilot does, I can be happy with just that.

On Roger Ebert

Anyone who has decided to do reviews over the past 40+ years, whether for a living or for personal edification, has done so in the shadow of a giant.  That wasn't a fat joke about Roger Ebert but rather a trite metaphor for just how influential, respected and talented a critic and writer he was.  There have been and still are a lot of great critics and film reviewers out there, but few of them have the open-mindedness that Ebert did.  With most critics, after a time, you begin to understand their prejudices and their biases.  Not to say that Ebert did not have any, but Ebert was able to process film outside of his own preconceptions, able to assess film against any measure of criteria (against standards of filmmaking, against other films of their kind, against his own values and morals, against the social/political/technological landscape, etc) as such he could appreciate any genre equally.  If he had a bias towards any type of film, it was never apparent.

Roger Ebert was the prototype for the cinephile, the uber-film fan who thinks about film constantly, from all different approaches, from the technology in making a film to the technology in projecting a film, to the people that make them and the people that watch them.  He'd long been engaged in bringing film into social conversation, through "At The Movies" with Gene Siskel to his newspaper columns like "Ask The Answer Man".  Long before the internet, Roger Ebert wanted people to discuss film and film culture writ large.  In fact, Ebert was integral to the establishment of film culture.  He didn't care about celebrity, he cared about performance.  It didn't matter how famous someone was, all that mattered was how they fared in the roles they were playing.  If a personality were so pervasive outside of the cinema that it influenced the experience of watching them perform, you can bet he would comment on it.  He didn't care about box office, so much as he cared about how the masses were responding to a film, though he could often tell when a film he didn't like was going to connect with the general public, and he was often disappointed when a film he loved was ignored (Ebertfest was just one of his small ways of trying to give exposure to his favourite movies).

One got the sense that Ebert would watch any film (and do so objectively), so long as it was in theatres (he didn't delve so much into direct-to-video or made-for-TV movies... he had to cut things off somewhere in his hundreds of reviews per year).  One also got the sense Ebert loved the experience of film and the cinema, the escapism of it no matter what the subject matter.  As such, a horror film could be as beloved to him as a western, a period drama as much as a futuristic sci-fi.  He had geek leanings, a strong dabbling in comic book culture as a youth, and an understanding of cultural movements of the 20th Century, which would inform his reviews when necessary, but there wasn't anything in Ebert's knowledge base that one could point to as a trademark skew.  He may have tired of trends but he still gave each film an honest and earnest shot at currying his favor.

Reading thousands of his reviews over the decades, Ebert came off as intelligent,but not an intellectual.  He wasn't showy or pedantic (unless it was to make a point, or for comedic intent) in his reviews, he wanted his dialogue on film to be shared with everyone, from pre-teens to 80-year-olds.  But his reviews were so often illuminating, not just about the film at hand, but about film in general, or society at the time, or the nature of people.  He had insight and was thoughtful about the human condition, as well he also liked the explorations of surreal and supernatural concepts.  Whenever a film could engage and provide an experience all its own, pull you out of your body and make you feel like you were somewhere else, Ebert loved that.  Conversely, he hated films that made you painfully aware that you were in a theatre, mainly by not engaging or deterring you so much from engaging with the screen.  He also hated 3-D, and not just cynically, but with logic and thought and armed with an understanding of the technology and how it, by and large, did not enhance the cinematic experience (again 3-D so often reminds you that you have glasses on your face and that you're watching a movie in the theatre... 3-D calls attention to itself more often than it serves any storytelling purpose).

The bane of Roger Ebert's existence (yet, I bet, a secret delight) was the star-rating system.  The star rating is used as shorthand by people to judge someone's reaction to a film, more over judging the quality of a film based solely on a few little dots (or absence thereof).  But Ebert would hope (and implore) that people read his review, and not take the star-rating on its own.  He's given 3-star ratings to films he didn't really like all that much, and 1 and a half star ratings to films he quite enjoyed.  It's the words he wrote that were important.  I like to think that  Ebert used the stars as his own way to keep track and remind himself of the best and the worst of what he'd seen, and oh how he delighted in writing a no-star or half-star review.  I think he liked writing about the bombs and the most provocative of cinema almost as much as he does about the best it has to offer.  Of course, he would continue to write and discuss the best whereas the worst were generally reviewed and then done with.

Every Roger Ebert review was worth reading.  The man had a way with words.  Even his worst reviews were on par with the best of the best.  He also had a killer sense of humour, something too many critics lack.  Ebert loved films, but realized you didn't always have to take them so seriously... it's primarily entertainment after all.  I laughed out loud often at an Ebert review, there aren't many other reviewers out there whose wit is as finely honed as his was.

I didn't always agree with Roger Ebert's assessment of films.  I'd say half the time I was in league with what he was thinking, and maybe a quarter of the time I was diametrically opposed to his position on a film.  But what I could always trust from a Roger Ebert review is that it would be well thought out, and there would be no question as to why or how he came feel about a film the way he did.

I took lesson from Roger Ebert constantly.  He was a faraway, secret mentor.  I'm not even a half a percent as good a reviewer as he is, but from him I will continue to learn.  There are thousands of his reviews I haven't read, and rereading his reviews and commentary archives proves just as rewarding.

Late in his life, cancer took Roger's physical voice, and at 70, his life.  But he left behind a legacy of words, a written voice that will live on.  His reviews for the many films he did see in his lifetime will continue to be the go-to resource for critical thought.  For the films he won't ever see, we're all the less for not having his insight.

Roger Ebert passed away April 4, 2013.
You're a legend Rog.  I miss you already.

3 Short Sentences on Roger Ebert

Kent is writing his piece as I write this.  I will do something longer later. Mr Roger Ebert was my first influence to think about the movies I was watching and the sole reason I ever wanted to write movie reviews.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-roger-ebert-dead-20130404,0,602338.story.

3 Short Paragraphs on 3 Animations

Wreck-It Ralph (2012, Rich Moore) is the latest Disney animation, a hero's journey story set inside the video games of a small, mostly retro arcade.  When the doors shut and the quarter junkies go home, the video game characters go home as well.  But life is work and work is life.  And Ralph is not happy being just a villain, abandoning his Donkey Kong clone for a better simulated life.  Amusingly, this movie started life in the 80s when video game arcades were actually full of life, explaining the plethora of video game in-jokes that only people my age would get.  I would have liked to see a few Japanese games appear but was glad they didn't try and shoe-horn in console or PC games, just because they are known and popular.  Leave those for the sequel when someone brings an Internet attached modern game to the arcade.

Hotel Transylvania (2012, Genndy Tartakovsky) was the one I was least interested in viewing, but, the Internet allows for that, kind of like the cheapo rentals we used to get at the mom & pop video store.  Surprisingly, it was actually enjoyable.  But not whatsoever for the story, more for the supporting gimics and gags.  Drac is a misunderstood monster in a world where torch wielding villagers are the terror and the cute & fuzzy creatures are the regular visitors to his no-humans hotel.  Of course, a (most likely toke smoking) human backpacker shows up and changes everyone's minds.  I was able to ignore my Adam Sandler hate and enjoy the slap-stick, the gimmicky jokes and great supporting characters even as I completely forgot what the story was about.

Finally, we saw Rise of the Guardians (2012, Peter Ramsey) which was the one I was most keen on seeing, mainly based on the pseudo-Russian Santa with his nice & naughty tattoo sleeves.  Santa needs to be portrayed as badass more often.  In this world Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, the Easter Bunny are the imaginaries who kids still believe in, thus maintaining their roles as protectors of children.  In opposition to them is the ever-fading Boogieman, or Pitch, who has been losing believers (and power) as the modern age dampens their fear of the dark.  But as the villain, and he really should have been played by Tom Hiddleston, he has more power in mind and it involves the newest risen Guardian, Jack Frost.  Really?  Jack Frost?  Did kids ever believe in a such a figure?  But never you mind, for this is a grand, exciting adventure story with great, fresh animation!  Easter Bunny with a (battle) boomerang!  Dual-sword wielding Santa!  Jack with his +2 Staff of Winter!  I will have to stat these demi-gods for my next D&D game.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

2013, d. Jon M. Chu

[So my original post got bollocksed up, a grand masterpiece covering 30 years of GI Joe culture, gone and lost forever.  So, instead of 20 immaculately constructed, brilliantly reasoned, perfectly spelled, grammatically correct paragraphs, you get this less eloquent, half-sized assembly of thoughts about the movie.]

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is an authentically awful movie.  It comes by it's lack of grandeur honestly, as it is a true successor to the works of Buzz Dixon, Ron Friedman and the other writers of the Marvel Productions cartoon of the 1980s, as well as Larry Hama's impressive decade long run on the series with Marvel Comics.   

The primary impetus for these source materials was, without a doubt, to sell toys.  The comics and cartoons featured on-model representations of the characters, vehicles and playsets found on toy shelves and in toy chests all over the world, much to the delight of the children who play with them.  To think there's not any creative or artistic merit to stories crafted out of a set of action figures is a cynical position to take.  Action figures are, inherently, a vehicle for storytelling, a ferry for children's imaginations.  Kids will do what they will with the action figures they have, but they also love to see their toys come to life (see Toy Story's enduring popularity for example) and how they act and behave without their guidance.  

The cartoon was richly detailed and wonderfully animated, in such a regard that visually it holds up well today.  It often featured multi-part arcs to convey that the threat Cobra presented wasn't always so easily overcome.  The episodes were primarily story-driven, so the characters were rather broadly constructed, their personalities driven more by the voice cast than any character-expanding stories.  Due to FCC regulations, violence had to be, well, non-violent, so all bullets and ballistics were converted to lazers, and despite frequent spectacular fire fights and exploding vehicles, nobody died.  It was always a Cobra versus Joes affair, both sides seeming somewhat buffoonish overall.  It was in the comic books that Larry Hama worked in a hard military angle (he addressed military rank frequently and used military jargon and acronyms which were helpfully explained in footnotes), provided stories that were character-driven as often as story-driven, worked in martial arts philosophies, and dabbled in simplified politics.  And characters died, often noble, often senseless deaths. Hama's took a more serious approach to his storytelling, but also seemed to understand that there was something inherently goofy to the whole situation, and would just as often play into as well. In both cases, the comics and cartoon played into the concept that the toys set up, that each Joe has a specialty, and thus they frequently featured large casts.  

The first film, by Stephen Sommers was a train wreck.  Ugly and incoherent, but also unaware of what the characters were supposed to be all about.  The film presented spectacle but it wasn't good, and it was disingenuous to the G.I. Joe brand.  Retaliation acts as more of a reboot as well as a sequel, fully aware that the "hyper-suits" (or whatever they were called) and other ideas of the first film were not authentic to the Joe experience.  Despite the sometimes drastic difference in the presentation of the characters between the comic and cartoon, there was a consistency between them that fell right in line with the toy brand.  Retaliation is many broad steps forward to finding that same consistency that the first film ignored in favour of trying to "modernize" (or "futurize") its military fighting force.

Retaliation brings back the idea that the Joes are soldiers, and hits the military angle hard (well as hard as a movie based on action figures will support, in line with Hama's portrayal of them).  Channing Tatum's Duke returns as the commanding officer, and Tatum has developed considerable screen presence since the first film.  I mercifully don't recall much about "The Rise of Cobra" save for the general impression of its awfulness and Tatum's decided lack of charisma.  Here he's loose and leading charming, matching the always enjoyable Dwayne Johnson.  Tatum and Johnson have considerable chemistry, and the film spends time building their close relationship, only to take it away as the catalyst for the titular "retaliation", as nearly the entire Joe platoon is massacred.  (Johnson and Tatum should most certainly appear together in another vehicle).

The story that plays out could have appeared in either the cartoon or the comics (but is original to the film), which Joe faithful will certainly appreciate.  Zartan is masquerading as the president, and with patience has executed Cobra Commander's scheme to destroy the Joes, take control of the country and potentially destroy the world.  Meanwhile, a story straight out of the comics, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow bury the hatchet when they learn that it wasn't Storm but Zartan that killed their master years ago.  

Like the cartoon, the characters in the film are pretty flimsy.  While Snake Eyes was a star in the comics (the central figure in the title in its later years) where others can speak for him and his physicality can be placed in more focus, be more pronounced or exaggerated, he doesn't work so well as a feature player in motion.  As such, the B-plot is more Storm Shadow than Snake Eyes focussed and even then it feels disconnected and slight.  Still it does result in one of the most engaging and inspired action sequences I've seen, in which Snake Eyes and Jinx (Storm Shadow's cousin) square off against a seemingly neverending swarm of ninja while tethered to a mountainside.  It would have had even greater impact if we were more invested in the characters and their situation.

The trio of Roadblock, Lady Jaye and Flint are the sole survivors of the assault on the Joes and they lead the remainder of the film.  Johnson's charisma carries much of the film, though Roadblock has no real arc (only Storm Shadow truly has anything approximating a character arc).  Adrianne Palicki (who played Wonder Woman in a failed pilot recently) succeeds at being tough as Lady Jaye , but is too often undermined by having to play sexy.  D.J. Cotrona is Flint, a perfunctory character without purpose or definition.  Bruce Willis stubs in as the original G.I. Joe, Joe Colton, another flimsily assembled character who seems to be in the film because they could get Bruce Willis.

The bad guys consist of Jonathan Pryce in the dual role of the President and Zartan-as-the-President and he seems to be truly enjoying himself.  Both roles are steeped in cliches but Pryce's zeal goes a long way to making it entertaining.  Ray Stevenson as Firefly does most of the physical legwork in the bad guy department, but he's impressive and imposing, even if his cajun accent barely holds for a few minutes.  Cobra Commander finally appears like Cobra Commander should appear.  He's serves no other purpose than as a figurehead, and looks the part.

There's plenty of cool vehicles in the film, HISS tanks and Raptors and Rippers and Fangboats... the vehicles were about the only thing the first film got right, and it's nice to see them in action here, if only minimally (there's more focus on gunplay and physical fighting).   There's one land battle sequence with the vehicles and another boat fight, both happening in quick succession, inter-cut with a half dozen other gun fights, and it's endemic of the film's problem.  Watching a lot of Bond films recently, it's apparent that the key to their success is the fact that they let the action sequences breathe, stand on their own.  They become more memorable as an island than a part of the landscape, but you have to have plenty of meaningful plot and/or character to focus on between the action scenes, which is what Retaliation lacks.

In rating the quality of the film you have to contextualize it three ways.  The first is against it's predecessor, "The Rise Of Cobra", and in comparison it's a triumph.  The second is judging it against the beloved cartoons and comics from the property's heyday.  Retaliation is as readable or watchable as the comic and cartoon remain.  It's a kitschy '80's sensibility with a modern budget.  It's literally toys come to life and there's something delightful about it.  However, it's comparing retaliation against the standards of quality in cinema where Retaliation fails big time.  It's not a good movie.  Like a carnival ride, Retaliation provides momentary entertainment, but there's not a lot to think about beyond the initial experience.  Joe fans will celebrate this film, just as I'm sure the film will likewise create new Joe fans (it's violent, but moderately so for interested kids 10+).  And it will sell some toys.

Double Oh...13: Octopussy (1983)

d. John Glen


Octopussy preamble: Well... ugh?  This was the first James Bond film, I'm pretty sure, to be made into a video game.  I certainly remember the advertisements for the video game prominently displayed in comic books of the time.  Octopussy, and it's risque-sounding title, has been embedded in the public consciousness since the film debuted, and generally referred to in a derogatory way, as if to say it's a franchise low and the height of ridiculousness in Bond (particularly in Roger Moore's oeuvre, which has no shortage of ridiculousness) and that's not far off.  It came out in competition with Never Say Never Again and even though it's not official, I think I'd prefer to see the latter.

Villains: Ugh, here we go
- Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) is an Afghan prince in exile.  He's got gobs of money, a thirst for competition (gabmling) and is a renowned sportsman (of the hunting kind, not ball-playing).  You can bet that, at one point, he hunts Bond for sport, on elephant-back no less.
- General Orlov is renegade in the Soviet military.  He has grand plans on how Russia can dominate much of Europe, bringing it's filthy communist and socialist practices across half the globe.  Of course, the coalition of communism seemed to think these tactics would be inviting major retaliation from the US, so they shoot it down.  Orlov has other plans, funding his own communist revolution by selling off fakes of many of Russias treasures, using a traveling circus to aide in his smuggling and terrrorism.  He has a good plan conceptually, but exceptionally convoluted in the execution.
- Turban guy, Gobinda.  He's a mammoth of a man.  Not as freakish as Jaws, but very brawny.  Like Jaws, though he's exceptionally tough and strong (though not superhumanly so).
- Sawblade guy ("Thug with Yo-yo"), he's not even given a proper name, but he has this really funky (and as far fetched as Oddjob's bowler) yo-yo that's a giant saw blade.  I serious doubt it would do any real damage in real life (though it would probably not feel nice if you got hit with it).
- Mishka und Grishka are the carnie knife twins.  They're a throwing act who have expert skills with knives.  They're kind of small, and quite one-trick, so they're never much of a threat.

Bond Girls: There's two main Bond girls, Octopussy (Maud Adams back in her second Bond girl role) and Magda (Kristina Wayborn).  Octopussy is a smuggler (not the first, and not the last Bond will get with) in league with Khan and is also a circus owner/operator/performer.  She's wowed by the money and the Russian trinkets passing through her hands, completely unaware of the intent behind the smuggling.  She has a past with Bond, in that her father was a rogue MI-6 agent, and Bond was tasked to bring him in, but wound up killing him in the process.  Strangely, Octopussy doesn't hate him and seems to have had a long-time crush/fascination with him.  But, overall, there's very little to Octopussy, particularly for a main character, there's certainly no personality and dull chemistry between her and Moore.
   Magda is one of Octopussy's girls (the bulk of Octopussy's circus are girls), she's seen early on paired with Kamal Khan, leading one to think they're together, and there's a bit of a fake-out when Bond encouter's Octopussy's girls, thinking at first it's Kahn's harem.  When Bond makes Kahn aware that he has the original Faberge Egg, Magda allows herself to be seduced, sleeps with Bond and takes the egg (a very Bond thing to do), escaping out the balcony window in an acrobatic twirl of cloth.   One can tell later that Magda isn't all that taken with Bond.
   After learning that Khan betrayed her, all of Octopussy's girls mount a major assault on Khan's palace, doing lots of flipping and acrobatics, very little of which looks particularly threatening.  Of James Bond raid sequences this is the weakest of the lot.  Very cheap looking.  It starts off kind of empowering, watching these karate-chopping, high-kicking, cartwheeling women unconvincingly bust up some of Khan's goons, but then Octopussy gets captured and Bond and Q (!?) have to save the day in a hot air balloon (what?).  So much for empowerment.

Credits/Theme: Rita Coolidge sings "All Time High" over some of the cheesiest opening credits of the series.  I don't know what this era of Bond's obsession with trampolines is, but how many is this in a row now where the silhouettes are bouncing into the air?  The women are out of silhouettes in this one frequently, leading to some blatant nipple exposure (which I guess is why it's not on youtube?).  Somehow taking the women out of silhouette greatly reduces the sexiness and ups the cheese factor, mostly by having them smile and react to the lazers tracing across their bodies.  The lazers were perhaps at the time very advanced, but they look really corny now.
As for "All Time High", I don't hate it, but it's rather bland.

Bond: In the cold open, Bond once again fails at his infiltration.  I'm sensing a pattern here, that Bond doesn't really care about having or maintaining a cover.  Bond shows off some slight-of-hand capabilities, as he swaps out the recovered fake Faberge egg (he also shows off his expert eye, as he spits off his knowledge of Russian dynasty heirlooms, and spies the egg is a fake) for the real one during the auction (it shocked me that the auctioneers would allow them to handle the merchandise).  Bond's letching seems really gross in this one as he still thinks he's quite the Lothario.  I imagine the younger women of Octopussy's gang find him kind of unsettling.  At one point Octopussy offers James a job with her, but he affirms that he's a company man.

Movie: This is really one of the worst of the lot.  In a fruitless bid to try and hone in on Indiana Jones territory, Bond goes to India, fights on top of trains, eats a sheep's face, and searches for treasure (at least initially). It's overly convoluted in a thoroughly unpleasant way, to the point that one doesn't really care at all about the intricacies of its story.  The script lays the double-entendres on thick and sloppy, they're overall not very creative and Moore delivers most of them with an eye roll.  It's shocking how director John Glen can come off of one of the smartest of the Bond films and go right to the dumbest.  The circus/carnival motif is something that has appeared a few times throughout the Bond films, I wonder what that association is all about.  There have been a lot of painful, groan-inducing moments in Moore's Bond repertoire, but I think the swinging on the vines with the Tarzan jungle call is about as bad as they get.  That Bond also wastes precious minutes applying a clown costume and clown make-up then must stumble through a circus crowd seems more stupid than inventive.  Surely Bond, number one secret agent guy, can think of a better way to get into a circus tent than floppy shoes, especially since, as we've established, he's the goddamn worst at infiltrating. 

Q-gadgets: there's a mini jet plane hiding in a horse trailer that ejects out of the back end of a horse. (Blue screening in the flying sequence is some of the best in the series but then some of the worst later on).  In Q's lair, there's some Indian-themed apparatus, like a killer door, and a climbing rope that comes out of a snake charming basket.
Bond is given a fountain pen that contains a bug & receiver & metal dissolving acid in a pen
In very progressive thinking, Bond's wristwatch has LCD color TV in it
Bond infiltrates Khan's palace via a crocodile-shaped submersible (and later appears to be eaten by it when he escapes).

Classification (out of 01.0): 00.2 (it really is one of, if not the worst Bond movie.  The gauntlet has been thrown down, Die Another Day)

3 Short Paragraphs: Sinister

2012, Scott Derrickson (The Day the Earth Stood Still)

If you really don't want to know the twists and turns of this movie that any horror fan will see a mile away, beware spoilage below.

Yes, he did the Keanu version, not the original.  This time round, Derrickson is doing another found footage movie, but no, not that kind... it actually has found footage and it plays as much a character as the family in jeopardy.  Ethan Hawke, the washed up writer, has moved his willfully oblivious family into the home where, not so long ago, an entire family was murdered in their own back yard.  Stupid huh?  Not the plot, the writer.  It sets the desperate tone for Hawke's Oswalt.  He needs this true crime book to be successful, no matter the danger to his family or his own life. With whiskey fueled stupidity he watches previous family murders, left for him to consume.

We start with the assumption that the killer is manipulating Oswalt.  We are not wrong.  But its not a serial killer who plays with the minds of his next victim before slaughtering them along with their family.  No, based on the black metal character hiding in the shadows of the 8mm film, its a boogie man.  And not just any boogie man, but the original Babylonian demon god, consumer of children and apparently fan of bad heavy metal.  Bughuul needs the souls of children willing to kill their family and while he is playing with Oswalt, Boogie is also manipulating his daughter to be the next star of his films. And maybe if Oswalt hadn't been down downing bottle after bottle and revealed a bit more of his suspicions, he might not be recorded for the potential sequel.

But despite some downright creepy spirit filled scenes meant entirely for us, not so much as eliciting a raised hackle in the protagonist, this was a scream at the screen by the numbers stupid actions horror movie.  Turn on some fucking lights !!  Seriously, if I ever buy a creepy 70s ranch or Victorian mansion, I am installing giant halogen lights all on a single switch.  One creepy sound and FLASH no shadows left anywhere, not in the basement, not in the attic.  And just to contradict myself entirely, I rather enjoyed it all.  It could have been a plot line from the show Supernatural, if any heroes had been present, perhaps a good idea for the sequel in which Opie the deputy sheriff figures out what happened and is stopping the next film from being produced.  Add in a flashie magic dagger to kill Boogie and we will be good.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Punisher

2004, Jonathan Hensleigh (Kill the Irishman) -- Netflix

Yes, I never saw this in the decade since it was released.  But seriously, considering the shameful initial entry of this comic book based franchise, can you blame me?  But despite the litany of good reviews from fellow comic book readers, I was not swayed.  I was soured and to be honest, not a great fan of the original comic book anti-hero.  I liked him much more as the four colour enemy of Spiderman, in his minimal super villain outfit and a vast array of weaponry that didn't include death rays or super powers.  But his later more edgy life seemed dependant on creating a character meant to be adapted for the big screen.  And then Dirty Laundy came out (scroll down), the short fanfilm that really shows Thomas Jayne's affection for the character and his ability to live the character.  I felt honour bound to see the original portrayal.

Rebooting the origin story again, we get Frank Castle, an effective FBI agent doing his last job before retirement to an idyllic life with his family.  During that last undercover job, one of the lowlifes is killed.  That lowlife happens to be the son of lower life-form Howard Saint (John Travolta), a sleazier than thou money launderer (banker?) for Florida drug cartels.  He discovers Castle is an FBI agent and sends his mooks after Frank.  And at the behest of his moll, Saint asks for not just the death of Castle but his entire family.  And conveniently they are all gathering for a reunion.  Its brutal, horrible and sends Castle over the edge to be reborn soon after as The Punisher, skullie shirt and all.

I don't exactly know how but the movie seems to retain the grim violence of the comics while seeding in humor and heroism.  Castle, while planning the downfall of all of Saint's empire, shacks up next door to a bunch of misfits including a weirdo Ben Foster, very at odds with his current attempts to be the next Ryan Gosling.  They become sidekicks giving him a new family support system as he creatively takes down Saint, domino by domino.  But not via a simple kill bad guy, kill next bad guy and so on.  He actually encourages them to as much implode as an organization as he does kill them off. In the end, Saint has killed his own wife and best friend before becoming the final fatality of the movie. The movie sums itself up with elements of four color comics and revenge action flick.

Bonus paragraph: For a more faithful adaptation of the actual later comics I don't care, they actually did Punisher: War Zone, which was originally going to be Punisher 2, sequel to Jayne's, but ended up being a third depiction of the character independent of the others.

Oz: The Great And Powerful

2013, Sam Riami -- in theatre

I have written previously (in my Return to Oz review) of my lack of affection for the 1939 classic Wizard of Oz.  In spite of my borderline disdain, there's something within the concept of Oz that has always intrigued me.  Like all great fantasy, especially fantasy for children, there's a representation of darkness, the threat that everything is not going to be all right.  In Wizard there's the implication that Dorothy's parents have passed, what with her living with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.  There's the devastating tornado that uproots her from her family and tears her away into foreign terrain.  There's the horror of witches and flying monkeys, and that's just the obvious stuff. When the Wizard is exposed as a tired old man from Kansas himself, there's a sadness there too, of a man having to pretend to be someone he's not for a very very long time.

Return to Oz was by far darker throughout, starting with everyone thinking Dorothy was disturbed, leading up to her potentially getting electroshock therapy, before escaping back into an Oz that seems virtually post-apocalyptic.  These sorts of dark tinges in the movie have long made me curious to explore Oz more, yet I never have.  I just keep going back to the films (even Wizard I have seen countless times... in spite of my troubles it's an alluring production, especially the final act in the Emerald City).  Eventually I'll get there, but for now I'm excited there's another feature.  However, the realization that it was not an adaptation of one of L. Frank Baum's many, many Oz stories left my expectations low (alongside the many middling and unfavourable reviews that passed my way).

The biggest disappointment of learning it's an "original treatment" is that it's quite obviously drawing upon the continued popularity of the 1939 feature rather than its own adventure (but having not read Baum's stories I cannot say whether building off of, or piggybacking on preceding stories is a thing or not).  The thing that sunk Return to Oz though, was the expectation (both from the critics and the public) of a repeat of the the classic, and I feared Oz: The Great and Powerful would try too hard to correct that financial mistake.  They did indeed lean heavily on the original Wizard for inspiration, but they have their cake and eat it too, as the writers, director and studio found their own legs to stand on.

In taking a minor player from the 1939 classic (but major player in Oz mythology) and centering an adventure around him it also doubles as an origin for the Wizard we're familiar with and expands upon the land we've seen before.  As a child I always wanted to explore the Emerald City more, and this film gives you a guided tour.  Oscar "Oz" Diggs starts off (in black and white 4:3 aspect ratio, no less) as a small time con-man and illusionist, a teller of lies and an purveyor of fakery, and a big-time skirt-chaser, a genuine cad on top of it all, affording himself no love or friendship.  Working in a carnival in Kansas, he's chased off stage by an angry mob, and a short while later chased into a hot air balloon by an angry strongman (whose wife he made the moves on).  In between the two chases, he meets with an old flame, Annie, who notes she's marrying a man named Gale, an obvious tie to Dorothy (I presume this to imply she's their mother).

The balloon ride is ill-fated, as Oscar is swept up in a 3-D tornado (I'm not certain that Baum always used the tornado as a portal to Oz, it was a river in a storm that took Dorothy there in Return) and arrives in a strange land of waterfalls and giant flowers and biting river faeries.  He meets Theodora, a wide-eyed witch who believes that Oscar is the wizard of a long-told prophecy who will bring peace to the land.  Theodora also believes she has a part in this prophecy by his side, whether she constructed this as her own delusion or was something her more deceitful sister Evanora seeded in her mind is unclear.  But it's Oscar's rejection of her that sends her already volatile emotional state into deeper despair (her tears burn and scar her face, a nice allusion to her fate in Wizard).  It's clear Theodora is a pawn of her sister (perhaps Evanora realizing that her sister wields more power naturally), and Evanora continues to play her, up to and including poisoning her goodness so all that remains is her rage.  Evanora, likewise, is the evil witch who has divided the land of Oz and created the strife that infects it.  She portrays herself as a Good Witch and deflects all of the land's ills on the Witch of the South, noting that Glinda killed her own father, their former ruling wizard (and as is noted, the people of Oz are forbidden from killing), when indeed the wizard died by her own hand.

Oscar, a trickster, is tricked himself by Evanora, sent on a journey to kill the "wicked witch of the South", in return claiming his throne and the ample riches of Oz.  Reluctant to kill anyone (for all its weaknesses I adore this film for it's conceit to non-violence), even if all it entails is breaking a wand, Oscar hesitates and recants his mission when he discovers Glinda, the Good Witch, is the spitting image of Annie.  Glinda, like Annie, sees Oscar for what he is, a charlatan, a liar, a cad and a fake, but also full of potential, and inherently a man who wants to do good.  She knows he's not a great wizard, at least not in the strictest sense of the prophecy, but he is a man who can theoretically guide the people of Oz as the prophecy declared, so long as the people believe in him and what was foretold.

Glinda is, quite obviously, a pacifist.  Soft spoken and kind-hearted, she needs Oscar to be their leader, their general in battle, because she hasn't the heart or mind to do the deed herself.  Cunning is not in her nature, kindness is.  It's her kindness that bolsters Oscar, that raises his confidence and allows him to be the man he always wished he was.  Though he's no great wizard, he can be a good man, and be good to people.  He will learn from others and change, as he promised to the sky when thrust at the center of the tornado (although Baum's stories, I believe, remained religiously neutral).

Oscar, like Dorothy in the other Oz films I continue to reference, collects a couple of curious accomplices, including a flying monkey named Finley and a china doll who never gets a proper name.  The discovery of China Girl (as Oscar nicknames her) is one of the most conceptually gruesome moments in children's cinema.  Though nothing outright horrifying visually, when Oscar and Finley discover China Town, it's buildings and people smashed, it's a curious scene.  Upon hearing the sobs of China Girl, then finding her behind a table, legs broken underneath, the weight of the scene takes hold.  This was a town once rich with life and China Girl witnessed its death, shortly before she was crippled herself.  She's a tough girl (she carries a knife) and Oscar repairs her legs with quick-drying glue, but the loss of her family weighs on her, and the darkness in her story runs very deep, though the film makes a point of not getting too lost in it.

The performances in the film waver between sound and broad.  With the minor players all doing their part to keep things in check, while James Franco, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis (in a brassy reprise of Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch when she turns) play it bold, old-timey film style.  Cinema rarely gives actors the opportunity to do that, but it's surprisingly fun to see when they do (last year's Oscar winner The Artist had it, only limited to broad physicality).  Unfortunately, the script drags the bigness of the performances as well as the pace of the film far too often, as it spends so much time mincing over Oscar's willingness to be the hero that's required.  It's nailed up early in the film and continually hammered home.  The film clocks in at almost 130 minutes and could use 30 minutes of trimming and tightening (and I could easily tell where to start).  It's a kids movie, through and through, and the lulls will find even the most patient child anxious in their seat for the scene to move on.  The biggest drag is the film's seemingly endless love affair with its own special effect.  It spends laborious amounts of time trying to wow and flutter the audience with fantastical landscapes, which in all their digital glory, look about as impressive as a cartoon.  Cartoons tend not to languish on their scenery too much because time is too precious, these live action fantasies could learn a thing or two by studying them (in fact, I wondered why this wasn't a digitally animated feature in the first place).  A few establishing bits and we're good, we don't need multiple 3-minute travel/falling sequences.  All the awe and wonder becomes a little tiresome when it's awe and wonder all the time.

As an addition to the Oz mythos, it fares pretty well, in fact (that Oscar introduces scarecrows and fireworks, among other things, to Oz makes a certain amount of sense), and Kunis' turn as the Wicked Witch was one of the great pleasures I've had in the cinema of late.  It's not the singin' and dancin' Wizard, but I'm quite thankful of that.  It's got some pretty major flaws, but as entertainment with the kids (I'd say 6+ depending on if your kid gets scared easily... my 11-year-old found some scenes scary, but he's a softie when it comes to that stuff) you can definitely do worse.

Double Oh...12: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

d. John Glen

For Your Eyes Only preamble:  I really need to take a couple weeks off work just so I can get back to the pace that I started this Double Oh series at.  Anyway...
     When I think of Bond, the cold open at the start of this film is what I think of.  I don't know how, I don't know why, or when, or where, but I've seen this teaser dozens of times.  Or at least, I feel I have.  The memory of Roger Moore flying a helicopter into the back end of an electric wheelchair, the bald man within attempting to race away from it on a long stretch of factory rooftop, picking it up off the ground then dropping down a factory smokestack is burned into my memory, and for some reason it epitomizes Bond for me.  Vengeful, yet quippy.  Action oriented and fearless (or senseless maybe).  I'm sure I watched the rest of the film before but strangely this is the only part I remembered.

Villains: Blofeld appears, sort of, in that opening sequence, which again defies continuity, upholding Bond's marriage and his wife's death from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  Bond boards a helicopter after tending to Tracy's grave, only to have it remotely hijacked by Blofeld.  Only seen from behind and his face never revealed (a return to his anonymous origins in the early Connery films), neither is Blofeld referred to by name, perhaps a concession of the legal issues then-still revolving around rights ownership of Thunderball.  He only appears in the teaser, and, after Bond finally gets his revenge, I believe, is never heard from again.
  The main film's main nemesis is Aris Kristatos (the suave Julian Glover), a former resistance fighter, now rogue and smuggler.  We meet him first as an ally of sorts.  Bond's contact in Italy introduces him, and Kristatos tells Bond of "the Dove" Columbo (no, not played by Peter Falk, but instead by the delightfully exuberant Topol), a rival smuggler, and one time accomplice in the resistance during WWII.   Kristatos is full of lies, however, and Columbo engages Bond to set things straight.
   The main source of confusion was who the East German Olympic Biathlete/henchman Eric Kriegler was working for, as Kristatos indicated he was in the employ of Columbo (Locque murders Bond's Italian contact and leaves a dove pin in his hand), but turns out he was really under Kristatos' thumb.  Kriegler is almost too much a match for Bond.  He's a better skier, in far better shape, he's bigger and stronger, but his failing is he's not as resourceful.
    Locque is a hired killer who doesn't have much of a role, but is the central instigator to much of the plot.  He's also part of one of the best Bond scenes ever, Bond kicking Locque's car off a cliff



    Kristatos is cunning and sly, and his plan to obtain the film's Maguffin and sell it to the Russians, in hindsight was perhaps a little too elaborate but made for some interesting twists along the way.  Columbo turned out to be a wonderful associate for Bond, and a thoroughly enjoyable character.

Bond Girls:  Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) is the primary Bond maiden in this one.  She's the twenty-something daughter of the marine biologists who are gunned down by Locque for discovering the whereabouts of the British naval sub carrying the ATAC (Automated Targeting Attack Computer) that could threaten the security of all of the British and American military communication channels, or something like that.  Melina is out for revenge, but perhaps a little too in-over-her-head.  To her credit, no matter how deep and troubled it gets, she's always ready to put up a fight.  She also gets plenty of opportunity to show off her own intelligence, skills and resourcefulness.  All around, she's a very confident and bold, crossbow-wielding character.
    Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris) is Columbo's mistress. She works his casinos in a bit of a grifter role, dazzling winning patrons with her cleavage, egging them on to bigger bets until the house wins. Bond, well, naturally, pumps her for information, and just as naturally his death cock strikes and she's dead shortly thereafter, run over on the beach.  She at least seemed a more mature vixen and age appropriate for Bond.
    Finally there's Kristatos' ward, the aspiring Olympic figure skater he's sponsoring, Bibi Dahl (oh, Baby Doll, I just got it!).  She's a brash, forthright, sexually empowered American teen who doesn't chase boys, she tries to maul men.  She takes a shining to Bond and turns up naked in his bed, much to his horror.  Bibi Dahl proves that even Bond has standards, and he turns her down, repeatedly.  She's a really fun character serving a very useful purpose in the series.

Theme/Credits:  I must have stuck around after Blofeld gets dumped down the stovepipe, because just as that epitomizes Bond to me, this kind of epitomized for me for a long time, for better or worse, what a Bond credit sequence should be.  Essentially, a music video.  Sheena Easton, an attractive lady herself, is featured prominently in from and behind the silhouettes and projections of dancing, swimming and jumping nude figures.  Water is a prominent theme in the visuals, implying that there will be water work in the film, and of course there is.
    As for the song, it's the gateway between the '70's romantic ballad and the '80's power ballad.  You're either going to dig it or loathe it.  I know I should hate it, but I really like it.



Bond: Wow.  It's so weird for Bond to have standards, but here, a decidedly aging Bond (though not directly pointed at) seems a lot more paternal to Melina and Bibi.  Moore has a weariness here for Bond that is directly juxtaposed to his frequent quipping.  He's not quite Dirty Harry grizzled, but he's not as thoroughly cheeky as he once was.  Strange that as Moore aged as Bond, he's also called upon to appear more physical, in his fights and his chases, but he seemed up for the challenge, though it's hard to believe he can sustain it for another two films.  It's also rare that Bond isn't so focussed on sex, and I always appreciate it when he powers past his primal urges and focuses mostly on the job at hand.

Movie:  I really dug the weave of the characters in this one, how it introduced and brought all the players together.  It's not straightforward, but also not overly complex, just the right level of complication.  Kristatos' elaborate deception is a clever tweak for a Bond film, while the influence of Locque in bringing Melina into the plot was just another of the moving pieces in the film.  The Maguffin of the ATAC is typical of a Bond film, but it's only one of the motivators for the characters.
    For Your Eyes Only seemed to ramp up on the exotic action setpieces.   The 1956 Winter Olympic village of Cortina provides dangers for Bond including another deadly ski-chase that heads into a bobsled run, a ski-jump action sequence (which is far superior to Superman III), and hockey rink.  Later Bond and Melina take a 2-man submersible to the submarine wreck to retrieve the ATAC.  They don heavy deep sea scuba gear and venture out to the sub, having to deactivate the self-destruct device, only to be ambushed by Kreigler.  It's an intense fight sequence where the good guys are incredibly vulnerable, and terribly cool underwater sequence unlike any other that I've seen (instead of trying to recreate the mania of Thunderball's melee, they go for something more like Alien).
    The final act of the film includes another methodically paced lead in as Bond scales the side of a rock pillar to reach Kristato's retreat in an old monestary, but before he can reach, he's discovered and there's a dangling melee which is really quite cool.  I have to wonder if the film was poaching the Eiger Saction (Clint Eastwood's repectably writer-director-star stab at a Bond-like role).  Again the lair, perhaps not quite as cool as a space lab or a submersible habitat, but still very unique, visually and conceptually appealing.
    I should also note that it ends with a parrot talking to a Margaret Thatcher impersonator, which, you know, kind of plays both silly and charming (though that Bond invariably does wind up with Melina is kind of icky).

Q gadgets: beyond the Lotus that Bond drives (and wrecks again), we're treated to a few ridiculous items in Q's lair: a fake cast that can bust up a wall and an umbrella which can gore it's holder when it closes (... how would that ever be useful?).  The main purpose for Bond's visit is to use the Identograph, primitive facial recognition software.

Classification (out of 01.0): 00.8.  This one is solid through and through.  A couple of too-cheesy bits, and perhaps not the most memorable plot, but otherwise very engaging and still dazzling today.

3 Short Paragraphs: Silver Linings Playbook

2012, David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings) -- cinema

Silver Linings Playbook was an Oscar-contendor structured movie about the damage caused by unchecked mental illness mirrored against how many of us deal with the triggers of it every day.  If you only saw the trailers leading up to the Academy Awards (excuse me, now rebranded officially as The Oscars) you might have thought of it primarily as a dance movie with love story.  But no, it really is mostly about crazy people in love. And some dancing.

I originally caught interest in the movie when TIFF trailers were circulating.  It looked to me like a darkly comedic movie, a small story about a man returning from his stay at the psychiatric hospital, to discover healing through his family and a new love. The subplot was that there is crazy in all of our lives and it is how we deal with it that makes the difference. I was hoping for something darker, more challenging, along the lines of Rachel Getting Married.  Alas, we got Oscar-fodder, and by that, I mean the plot elements they focused on were a dance competition and the big lead up to a grand exclamation of love, only missing a jog through a field of flowers... while wearing a rainshield made of garbage bags, of course.

A few minutes into the movie Marmy leaned over to me and whispered, "Imagine Ben Affleck playing the Bradley Cooper role."  Suddenly it all made sense to me -- the perpetual facial scrub, the working class family, the hoodie & sweats, and the bulky shoulders.  This was meant to be an Affleck vehicle and could have even inserted Matt Damon into the friend in the terrible marriage role.  Its not that Cooper wasn't good at playing Pat, but you could easily envision Ben doing the gestures, the rants, and the detached attraction to Jennifer Lawrence's Tiffany.  But at least Lawrence carried this movie for me, as the not so much damaged as traumatized young woman surrounded by neurotic "normal" people.  Very grounded in her role, she owned (pwned perhaps?) the character keeping hurt, angry, vulnerable, caring, thoughtful and sexy all tightly wound in her portrayal with the appropriate bursts of emotion expected from a person dealing with so much. And yeah, I heart Jennifer and all her post-Oscar reactions to her win.