"This is something you... pay for?"
Okay, the person who said that probably had good reason for it. I mean, it sounds pretty weird. I've paid about ninety-eight cents a pop to download videos of a guy watching television. And I don't mind a bit. It entertains me, and the price isn't outlandish. Why wouldn't I pay for something that's most likely a good part of a guy's livelihood at this point? It seems fair to me, even if it's a little silly. A lot of things I enjoy are a little silly.
The guy in question is Mark Oshiro, and the site is "Mark Watches." Its companion site, Mark Reads, doesn't have paid downloads that I know of.
The basic premise is that there are certain things that Mark is unspoiled on. He watches or reads, and he reacts to it. It's a kind of strange, meta entertainment, but it is entertaining. He's recently started to work his way through Star Trek, from the beginning up to the current run of films. I've been keeping up, and honestly, I'd forgotten so much of the original series that much of it is like watching for the first time.
Why is it entertaining?
For one thing, Mark is a delightful viewing companion. He's always excited to sit down to a new episode, and he always wants to like it. This is ironic, since the whole thing started with "Mark Reads Twilight," which he hated unequivocally. But he moved on to things like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games ("I LOVE IT. Katniss, LOOK AT YOU. LOOK AT YOUR LIFE. LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES. They are wonderful and I love you forever for them."), and Lord of the Rings ("THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED IN MY LIFE. HOW HAVE I
SURVIVED A SINGLE MOMENT WITHOUT KNOWING TREEBIRD WAS A FICTIONAL
CHARACTER THAT EXISTED? HOW HAVE I LIVED A FRUITFUL, SATISFYING
EXISTENCE WITHOUT ENTS OR ENTWIVES OR ENTMAIDENS IN MY BRAIN? I
HAVE NOT. MY LIFE UP UNTIL THIS MOMENT HAS BEEN POINTLESS. I HAVE DONE
NOTHING BUT SWIM IN NIHILISTIC FUTILITY UNTIL TREEBEARD."). He also went through complete runs on Buffy, Angel, and Sherlock, among other things.) Personally, I enjoy this sort of thing for properties I know pretty well, because suddenly, you get a whole new perspective. This thing that was totally central for me... is it something Mark even notices? Or vice versa... has he caught on something that I never noticed at all? His motto is "I am not prepared." I rarely am, either.
Another point is the community. Other people meet in the comments, talk about what they've seen. One commenter for Star Trek posts "This Week In History," to discuss whatever was happening around the time the episode airs. Using proper spoiler code (so Mark remains unspoiled), they talk about how the current storylines will play out, and whether or not it's good. It's a fun, bright community.
Anyway, I'm now off to watch Mark meet Spock's parents. (I wonder if he'll notice that Sarek is the same actor from "Balance of Terror," for whose introduction he sputtered, delighted, "It's a Spock!")
Monday, September 29, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Captain America: The Winter Soldier review
I'm just not being diligent in my reviews, am I?
Well, I haven't really been watching that much, to tell the truth. I liked the set design on the Divergent movie, but continued to be meh on the story. Didn't like the follow up to the great cliffhanger on Once Upon A Time. I've been reading some forgettable stuff, though I enjoyed a re-read of My Name Is Asher Lev.
But I totally missed Captain America this summer. I was planning to see it. Really. I liked the first one (it's actually my favorite of the origin movies), I liked The Avengers, and, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I like superhero movies. The more leaked out about it, though, the less interested I was, and the more I just shrugged off going.
Still, it's streaming on Amazon now. I figured I'd put up the five bucks and give it a go.
Verdict: Neither as bad as I feared, nor as good as I hoped.
Setting:
Not a major point here. In and around D.C., with the Smithsonian having a good sentimental role. We re-visit Cap's training camp, and even have a brief Brooklyn flashback. Honestly, it could take place on Mars without changing anything but the back story.
Even the question of the temporal setting, which by all rights should have been a major issue, is inexplicably ignored.
Theme:
Freedom is expensive, and you have to be willing to pay the price -- the real price, not the false price. Also, it's bad to want to be free of freedom. Simple stuff, but there's nothing wrong with a simple theme. Many of life's most important themes are the simplest. The problem is this is all wound up in a big conspiracy theory and "Trust no one" motif that... it just irks me. If it had been the first time I'd seen such a thing, maybe it would be interesting, but now, it seems like the first trick grabbed out of the hat by lazy storymakers who can't think of anything else. Maybe it was fresh once. It's not anymore. The first movie was much fresher.
Plot:
Captain America is trying to adjust to life in the 21st century. Nick Fury and SHIELD are his major touchstones, but CAN THEY BE TRUSTED??????? (See above for answer, though Nick ultimately comes around.) Peggy is still alive, though old, and thinks they need to start over. Lots of people bring up the idea of creative destruction. Black Widow is Cap's wingman, and she's awesome. (I want a Black Widow movie. ScarJo can handle the lead, people.) After an attempt on Fury's life, Cap and Natasha learn that HYDRA (the Nazi corollary of SHIELD) infiltrated SHIELD at the beginning and have been running history since WWII. Because reasons. (Okay, their stated reason is that they want to free people from freedom, because free people make bad choices and aren't easy to control.) The good SHIELD people now must fight the bad SHIELD people, so that they can put up military secrets on the internet. Yes, it's as anvilicious as it sounds, and no, they do not go for subtlety in their commentary on current events. Ultimately, they become a rogue group up against the...
Oh, I'm sorry. Caught me napping. Conspiracy theories do that to me, when they're not causing actual muscle strain from all the eye rolling.
Character:
Easily, the strongest part of this movie is the character work.
When this movie was first being advertised, and I saw they were dealing with the Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier arc, I figured this would be the heart of things. It's a strong heart, and when the movie does go into this plotline, it's absolutely at its best. For me, the best scene was Bucky starting to remember who he was -- sitting there, frightened and confused, tied down by the people controlling him, just saying, "I know that man." Steve understanding that he might have to fight his friend, but wanting, more than anything, to save him. This is how you do drama, and both actors nailed it. Pleasingly, Black Widow got a mirrored storyline, where she is also dealing with her past with the bad guys, and the frightening thought that she's traded one bad guy league for another. (Honey, no, you know perfectly well that you've saved the world several times. That there are evil moles in the organization doesn't mean that what you've done for it is evil.) There's also some ship-teasing with Cap, and it works surprisingly well. I don't generally ship, but I could go for Cap/Nat. (The comics version where she had a thing with Bucky is completely binned.)
Style:
The filmmakers were going for a 70s spy movie feel, and I guess they got it, but I don't know why they'd want it. Whatever.
Boy howdy, can you tell that The Avengers' Joss Whedon wasn't part of the team. Golden jokes go uncracked. Steve's personality is all over the place. And when Natasha, after having kissed him for a cover, suggests that he hasn't been kissed since 1945, he doesn't blow it off and then say, "Actually, it was 1943." Which I literally spent the whole movie waiting for, right up until the credits rolled.
Basically, stylistically, I think they blew what was interesting in the set-up in favor of something generic and kind of dull.
So, I'll see what happens in Age of Ultron, but between this and Dark World and Agents of SHIELD, I'm not convinced that I like where the 'verse is going.
Well, I haven't really been watching that much, to tell the truth. I liked the set design on the Divergent movie, but continued to be meh on the story. Didn't like the follow up to the great cliffhanger on Once Upon A Time. I've been reading some forgettable stuff, though I enjoyed a re-read of My Name Is Asher Lev.
But I totally missed Captain America this summer. I was planning to see it. Really. I liked the first one (it's actually my favorite of the origin movies), I liked The Avengers, and, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I like superhero movies. The more leaked out about it, though, the less interested I was, and the more I just shrugged off going.
Still, it's streaming on Amazon now. I figured I'd put up the five bucks and give it a go.
Verdict: Neither as bad as I feared, nor as good as I hoped.
Setting:
Not a major point here. In and around D.C., with the Smithsonian having a good sentimental role. We re-visit Cap's training camp, and even have a brief Brooklyn flashback. Honestly, it could take place on Mars without changing anything but the back story.
Even the question of the temporal setting, which by all rights should have been a major issue, is inexplicably ignored.
Theme:
Freedom is expensive, and you have to be willing to pay the price -- the real price, not the false price. Also, it's bad to want to be free of freedom. Simple stuff, but there's nothing wrong with a simple theme. Many of life's most important themes are the simplest. The problem is this is all wound up in a big conspiracy theory and "Trust no one" motif that... it just irks me. If it had been the first time I'd seen such a thing, maybe it would be interesting, but now, it seems like the first trick grabbed out of the hat by lazy storymakers who can't think of anything else. Maybe it was fresh once. It's not anymore. The first movie was much fresher.
Plot:
Captain America is trying to adjust to life in the 21st century. Nick Fury and SHIELD are his major touchstones, but CAN THEY BE TRUSTED??????? (See above for answer, though Nick ultimately comes around.) Peggy is still alive, though old, and thinks they need to start over. Lots of people bring up the idea of creative destruction. Black Widow is Cap's wingman, and she's awesome. (I want a Black Widow movie. ScarJo can handle the lead, people.) After an attempt on Fury's life, Cap and Natasha learn that HYDRA (the Nazi corollary of SHIELD) infiltrated SHIELD at the beginning and have been running history since WWII. Because reasons. (Okay, their stated reason is that they want to free people from freedom, because free people make bad choices and aren't easy to control.) The good SHIELD people now must fight the bad SHIELD people, so that they can put up military secrets on the internet. Yes, it's as anvilicious as it sounds, and no, they do not go for subtlety in their commentary on current events. Ultimately, they become a rogue group up against the...
Oh, I'm sorry. Caught me napping. Conspiracy theories do that to me, when they're not causing actual muscle strain from all the eye rolling.
Character:
Easily, the strongest part of this movie is the character work.
When this movie was first being advertised, and I saw they were dealing with the Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier arc, I figured this would be the heart of things. It's a strong heart, and when the movie does go into this plotline, it's absolutely at its best. For me, the best scene was Bucky starting to remember who he was -- sitting there, frightened and confused, tied down by the people controlling him, just saying, "I know that man." Steve understanding that he might have to fight his friend, but wanting, more than anything, to save him. This is how you do drama, and both actors nailed it. Pleasingly, Black Widow got a mirrored storyline, where she is also dealing with her past with the bad guys, and the frightening thought that she's traded one bad guy league for another. (Honey, no, you know perfectly well that you've saved the world several times. That there are evil moles in the organization doesn't mean that what you've done for it is evil.) There's also some ship-teasing with Cap, and it works surprisingly well. I don't generally ship, but I could go for Cap/Nat. (The comics version where she had a thing with Bucky is completely binned.)
Style:
The filmmakers were going for a 70s spy movie feel, and I guess they got it, but I don't know why they'd want it. Whatever.
Boy howdy, can you tell that The Avengers' Joss Whedon wasn't part of the team. Golden jokes go uncracked. Steve's personality is all over the place. And when Natasha, after having kissed him for a cover, suggests that he hasn't been kissed since 1945, he doesn't blow it off and then say, "Actually, it was 1943." Which I literally spent the whole movie waiting for, right up until the credits rolled.
Basically, stylistically, I think they blew what was interesting in the set-up in favor of something generic and kind of dull.
So, I'll see what happens in Age of Ultron, but between this and Dark World and Agents of SHIELD, I'm not convinced that I like where the 'verse is going.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Frozen review
Is there a point to reviewing Disney's Frozen?
I'm among the last people to see it, at least from the crowd of people prone to seeing Disney movies. I waited for it to come to Amazon Instant Video before I saw the whole thing (though, as a children's librarian, I assure you, I was fully spoiled and knew the songs and the characters).
But what the heck? I have this whole blog thing going on, and I haven't done that much lately.
So, Frozen.
In a nutshell, BEST DISNEY SINCE THE LION KING.
I loved The Princess and the Frog and Brave, but something wasn't clicking. I saw Tangled, and I still can't say I follow the fuss about that. But Frozen hits its marks and really just hit the spot for a fairy tale movie.
Before I start on the movie proper, I'll admit: I don't care for the new style of animation particularly. I so hoped when TPatF came out that we'd be seeing a real renaissance of normal Disney animation. I thought it was beautiful. But I realized when I saw Frozen that my problem wasn't with the style so much as with the movies that tended to be made in it. When I go to an animated film, I want a fairy tale, not a robot on a polluted planet. Maybe that's a flaw, but that's the sum of it. I associated the style with, "Animated movie that I probably won't care about all that much," and wrote it off.
Frozen's art is beautiful, and while I won't say it made me a convert, it did make me realize that this kind of animation doesn't bother me in and of itself. I don't understand why we can't have both kinds of animation out there and enjoy both, but I won't automatically do an eyeroll anymore. The story is always what matters.
Basically, Frozen is a complete return to form. It's a lavish musical with a strong emotional heart. It's a high-stakes fairy tale plot with queens and princesses and knights. It's everything I go to an animated movie for. Animation frees movie-makers to do things that simply aren't possible in live action, but are accepted in the milieu of animation because the very form makes it possible to have a dress that really looks like it's woven from ice, or to see a character slowly turning into an ice sculpture. You can actually tell this kind of story when you're using animation, which is something the Disney studios recognized a long time ago, then seem to have temporarily forgotten.
Okay, elements:
Plot
Don't go in expecting "The Snow Queen." There are very few commonalities, though it's certain that if they hadn't said they were adapting it, someone would have screamed bloody murder that they'd "stolen" the story. So, no snow bees. No mirror shards. Gerda and Kai are older servants in the palace.
The plot involves two sisters, the princesses of Arandelle. The older sister, Elsa, is born with vast powers over ice and snow. The younger, Anna, is a joyous little girl who just worships the ground her big sister walks on... until an accident with Elsa's powers almost kills Anna, at which point the girls are separated, and Anna's memories of her sister's powers are removed. They grow up isolated from each other, and on Elsa's coronation day, they have a huge fight, which ends up revealing Elsa's powers. Elsa, in fleeing, accidentally sets off an eternal winter everywhere. The remainder of the story is Anna's quest to heal the land by healing her sister.
There is a secondary plot about Anna's love life. She's been so isolated that she's ripe to be manipulated, and is. Badly. But she does find friendship and love with the Sami boy Kristoff, who is her guide up to Elsa's mountain hideout. There are also trolls, a reindeer who Kristoff speaks for, and a charming sentient snowman named Olaf, who represents Elsa's more innocent side.
Theme
Weirdly enough, the theme is stated clearly in a very odd and otherwise out of place musical number from the trolls:
We’re only saying that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices if they’re mad,
Or scared, or stressed.
Throw a little love their way...
And you’ll bring out their best...
Father! Sister! Brother!
We need each other to raise
Us up and round us out.
Ultimately, the story rests on this old saw, but with one of the best twists going: It's not either of Anna's love interests who saves the day. It's Anna herself, expressing her true love for her sister. This doesn't diminish the other love story, by the way. They all become a family together and, well, round each other out. Nice theme work, Disney.
Of course, if you want to go totally symbolic, it's a nature play about the change of seasons, with Elsa in whites and blues representing winter (naturally) and Anna in greens and pinks representing the coming of spring. That's there and pretty obvious, but it's not much to chew on, in terms of story.
Style
Show tunes and very Disney-esque 3D animation. Beautiful work on the ice and snow, nice integration of the musical numbers. Here's Anna confronting Elsa at the ice palace, a scene which encapsulates the style pretty well:
Setting
Vaguely Norwegian. There are complaints, I understand, that the subtleties of the culture aren't captured -- apparently, as opposed to the deep understanding of French nobility in Beauty and the Beast, or zoological psychology in The Lion King. It's a fairy tale. It exists on the edge of a mirror reality. So, yes, it's a sketched environment, with the kind of relationship to real Norwegian culture that Middle Earth has to English culture. A few specifics to give the grounded feeling, but the rest is just meant to be evocative, a sort of Platonic ideal of a Norse-ish culture. It's a feature, not a bug.
And what's there... it's so beautiful. The way the light glints on the ice, the eldritch light of the Aurora Borealis ("The sky's awake, so I'm awake!" Anna exclaims early in the movie), the winter wonderland on the mountain... Really, if you're trying to find it on a map and worried that Google road view doesn't show it to you, you're probably at the wrong movie.
Characters
The characters are what makes the movie work as well as it does. The two core characters, Elsa and Anna, are welcome additions to the princess world, Sven the Reindeer and Olaf the Snowman are charming funny sidekicks, and Kristoff is one the best Disney "princes" (though of course, the character is actually a commoner) they've had (he actually does stuff, but isn't The Rescuer... how much better is that than the dull Prince Charmings who stood around at balls?).
Specific notes:
Elsa is so far the only princess who actually becomes queen in the course of her movie. Go, Elsa. She's also, bar none, the most powerful Disney princess, and certainly the most flawed. (Heck, in original drafts, she was the villain.) Her anxiety and depression become manifest in the endless winter she brings on when she isolates herself. Worth noting, though, is that she does not hate her powers or wish them away. She is at her happiest when she's using them of her own free will. Her problems come when she tries to run away from her power -- both the ice power that her people fear, and her power as queen. It's in embracing both of these powers and understanding them that she becomes a wise ruler.
Anna starts out a little too naive, a little too child-like. It seems at first like they're trying to force the cuteness... only it turns out that's that point. While her sister was forced into adult concerns early, she's been sheltered so severely that she is incredibly vulnerable to a con. The course of the movie is Anna first being broken, then finding her real, actual strength.
Kristoff, the ice harvester who loves his business so much that he wants to cry at the beauty of Elsa's ice palace ("Go ahead," Anna tells him, "I won't judge"). Raised by boisterous trolls, he's had a life completely opposite from Anna's, and is at least surface-cynical. I'd argue that he's more of a realist than a cynic, actually. He doesn't ever disparage love... he just questions Anna's love-at-first-sight story. And it at least occurs to him to tell a living snowman that looking forward to summer isn't really that great an idea.
Olaf is maybe a little too cute, but unlike a lot of the sidekicks, he has an actual psychological point. He began his life in the childhood scene of Elsa and Anna playing, where Elsa provides him with a voice and Anna loves him unconditionally. Elsa creates him almost as an afterthought, and it's he who leads Anna to her, and who keeps Anna alive (at serious risk to his own life) long enough to solve the problem.
The trolls are a little annoying, yes. I can't argue with that. The Fixer-Upper song comes out of nowhere, and -- theme statement aside -- does nothing for the plot. I think they were probably meant to show Anna the boisterous family she never had (and, Kristoff's embarrassment aside, she actually seems delighted throughout the scene), so they don't actively bother me, but I could do without them. I think I might have liked it better if the trolls were saved for the mystical stuff, and Kristoff just had a big, boisterous human family.
And there are my thoughts on Frozen.
I'm among the last people to see it, at least from the crowd of people prone to seeing Disney movies. I waited for it to come to Amazon Instant Video before I saw the whole thing (though, as a children's librarian, I assure you, I was fully spoiled and knew the songs and the characters).
But what the heck? I have this whole blog thing going on, and I haven't done that much lately.
So, Frozen.
In a nutshell, BEST DISNEY SINCE THE LION KING.
I loved The Princess and the Frog and Brave, but something wasn't clicking. I saw Tangled, and I still can't say I follow the fuss about that. But Frozen hits its marks and really just hit the spot for a fairy tale movie.
Before I start on the movie proper, I'll admit: I don't care for the new style of animation particularly. I so hoped when TPatF came out that we'd be seeing a real renaissance of normal Disney animation. I thought it was beautiful. But I realized when I saw Frozen that my problem wasn't with the style so much as with the movies that tended to be made in it. When I go to an animated film, I want a fairy tale, not a robot on a polluted planet. Maybe that's a flaw, but that's the sum of it. I associated the style with, "Animated movie that I probably won't care about all that much," and wrote it off.
Frozen's art is beautiful, and while I won't say it made me a convert, it did make me realize that this kind of animation doesn't bother me in and of itself. I don't understand why we can't have both kinds of animation out there and enjoy both, but I won't automatically do an eyeroll anymore. The story is always what matters.
Basically, Frozen is a complete return to form. It's a lavish musical with a strong emotional heart. It's a high-stakes fairy tale plot with queens and princesses and knights. It's everything I go to an animated movie for. Animation frees movie-makers to do things that simply aren't possible in live action, but are accepted in the milieu of animation because the very form makes it possible to have a dress that really looks like it's woven from ice, or to see a character slowly turning into an ice sculpture. You can actually tell this kind of story when you're using animation, which is something the Disney studios recognized a long time ago, then seem to have temporarily forgotten.
Okay, elements:
Plot
Don't go in expecting "The Snow Queen." There are very few commonalities, though it's certain that if they hadn't said they were adapting it, someone would have screamed bloody murder that they'd "stolen" the story. So, no snow bees. No mirror shards. Gerda and Kai are older servants in the palace.
The plot involves two sisters, the princesses of Arandelle. The older sister, Elsa, is born with vast powers over ice and snow. The younger, Anna, is a joyous little girl who just worships the ground her big sister walks on... until an accident with Elsa's powers almost kills Anna, at which point the girls are separated, and Anna's memories of her sister's powers are removed. They grow up isolated from each other, and on Elsa's coronation day, they have a huge fight, which ends up revealing Elsa's powers. Elsa, in fleeing, accidentally sets off an eternal winter everywhere. The remainder of the story is Anna's quest to heal the land by healing her sister.
There is a secondary plot about Anna's love life. She's been so isolated that she's ripe to be manipulated, and is. Badly. But she does find friendship and love with the Sami boy Kristoff, who is her guide up to Elsa's mountain hideout. There are also trolls, a reindeer who Kristoff speaks for, and a charming sentient snowman named Olaf, who represents Elsa's more innocent side.
Theme
Weirdly enough, the theme is stated clearly in a very odd and otherwise out of place musical number from the trolls:
We’re only saying that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices if they’re mad,
Or scared, or stressed.
Throw a little love their way...
And you’ll bring out their best...
Father! Sister! Brother!
We need each other to raise
Us up and round us out.
Ultimately, the story rests on this old saw, but with one of the best twists going: It's not either of Anna's love interests who saves the day. It's Anna herself, expressing her true love for her sister. This doesn't diminish the other love story, by the way. They all become a family together and, well, round each other out. Nice theme work, Disney.
Of course, if you want to go totally symbolic, it's a nature play about the change of seasons, with Elsa in whites and blues representing winter (naturally) and Anna in greens and pinks representing the coming of spring. That's there and pretty obvious, but it's not much to chew on, in terms of story.
Style
Show tunes and very Disney-esque 3D animation. Beautiful work on the ice and snow, nice integration of the musical numbers. Here's Anna confronting Elsa at the ice palace, a scene which encapsulates the style pretty well:
Setting
Vaguely Norwegian. There are complaints, I understand, that the subtleties of the culture aren't captured -- apparently, as opposed to the deep understanding of French nobility in Beauty and the Beast, or zoological psychology in The Lion King. It's a fairy tale. It exists on the edge of a mirror reality. So, yes, it's a sketched environment, with the kind of relationship to real Norwegian culture that Middle Earth has to English culture. A few specifics to give the grounded feeling, but the rest is just meant to be evocative, a sort of Platonic ideal of a Norse-ish culture. It's a feature, not a bug.
And what's there... it's so beautiful. The way the light glints on the ice, the eldritch light of the Aurora Borealis ("The sky's awake, so I'm awake!" Anna exclaims early in the movie), the winter wonderland on the mountain... Really, if you're trying to find it on a map and worried that Google road view doesn't show it to you, you're probably at the wrong movie.
Characters
The characters are what makes the movie work as well as it does. The two core characters, Elsa and Anna, are welcome additions to the princess world, Sven the Reindeer and Olaf the Snowman are charming funny sidekicks, and Kristoff is one the best Disney "princes" (though of course, the character is actually a commoner) they've had (he actually does stuff, but isn't The Rescuer... how much better is that than the dull Prince Charmings who stood around at balls?).
Specific notes:
Elsa is so far the only princess who actually becomes queen in the course of her movie. Go, Elsa. She's also, bar none, the most powerful Disney princess, and certainly the most flawed. (Heck, in original drafts, she was the villain.) Her anxiety and depression become manifest in the endless winter she brings on when she isolates herself. Worth noting, though, is that she does not hate her powers or wish them away. She is at her happiest when she's using them of her own free will. Her problems come when she tries to run away from her power -- both the ice power that her people fear, and her power as queen. It's in embracing both of these powers and understanding them that she becomes a wise ruler.
Anna starts out a little too naive, a little too child-like. It seems at first like they're trying to force the cuteness... only it turns out that's that point. While her sister was forced into adult concerns early, she's been sheltered so severely that she is incredibly vulnerable to a con. The course of the movie is Anna first being broken, then finding her real, actual strength.
Kristoff, the ice harvester who loves his business so much that he wants to cry at the beauty of Elsa's ice palace ("Go ahead," Anna tells him, "I won't judge"). Raised by boisterous trolls, he's had a life completely opposite from Anna's, and is at least surface-cynical. I'd argue that he's more of a realist than a cynic, actually. He doesn't ever disparage love... he just questions Anna's love-at-first-sight story. And it at least occurs to him to tell a living snowman that looking forward to summer isn't really that great an idea.
Olaf is maybe a little too cute, but unlike a lot of the sidekicks, he has an actual psychological point. He began his life in the childhood scene of Elsa and Anna playing, where Elsa provides him with a voice and Anna loves him unconditionally. Elsa creates him almost as an afterthought, and it's he who leads Anna to her, and who keeps Anna alive (at serious risk to his own life) long enough to solve the problem.
The trolls are a little annoying, yes. I can't argue with that. The Fixer-Upper song comes out of nowhere, and -- theme statement aside -- does nothing for the plot. I think they were probably meant to show Anna the boisterous family she never had (and, Kristoff's embarrassment aside, she actually seems delighted throughout the scene), so they don't actively bother me, but I could do without them. I think I might have liked it better if the trolls were saved for the mystical stuff, and Kristoff just had a big, boisterous human family.
And there are my thoughts on Frozen.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Divergent book review
I've learned a couple of lessons about popularity and books over the years.
The first is that popular doesn't always equal good. Pretty much everyone realizes this the first time they re-visit a book they just loved when all of their friends were reading it, and it turns out to be... um... not quite as good as remembered. And some books are popular, as far as I can tell, because they're so horrendously bad. It's like watching a train wreck.
The second lesson is that popular doesn't always equal bad. When Harry Potter was first coming out, I stuck my nose in the air, because I couldn't figure out why kids were reading that instead of decent fantasy, like Tolkien or Lewis. Hint: Because it's good. Really good. Now, seven years after the last one came out, it still has a solid audience. The Hunger Games books are also really good -- yes, the Games parts are as violent and soul-destroying as advertised (so is Lord of the Flies, one of my favorite books and the one I always flash on first with THG), but that's the point. What HG really is, is an indictment of soul-numbing culture, and a celebration (which isn't really the right word in context) of the power to reshape it. It's a narrative about narrative, and it's uncomfortable to read in the very best way.
I had to finally read Divergent so I could do a program on it. I was hoping that it would be more like the latter than the former -- that as soon as I started reading it, I'd say, "Oh, so that's why everyone's nuts about this book!" Not so much.
Divergent has been compared to The Hunger Games, and the movie is certainly being marketed to the HG audience (so were the books, with their round-symbol covers). Here's what they have in common: Geographically specific American dystopia. Female lead. Really, that's it. It's really much more closely related to Harry Potter, with dystopian future Chicago standing in for Hogwarts and factions standing in for the Houses (Dauntless and Abnegation=Gryffindor, Erudite=Ravenclaw, Amity=Hufflepuff). It seems to be a sort of long argument with the Sorting Hat, using the common fandom argument about whether or not sorting the Houses by personality is a good idea. Spoiler: the author doesn't think so, and in fact ratchets the argument up a lot by making the factions into the worst possible version of the Houses. The "Divergent," who don't fit into any class, seem to be the "they'll do what's needed to win" fandom version of Slytherin. I'm not sure on Candor.
This isn't to say it's a bad book. It's not. There's nothing wrong with playing with ideas you pick up from other sources and re-combining them. That's how new things get created. The serial numbers aren't as expertly removed as I'd like, but I can't say I'd do any better at it. People who've heard my fannish rants would probably recognize them right away in an original story, too.
My issue with Divergent is that it never really "woke up" for me. Presumably, it does for other people. But I don't find its argument very interesting or compelling -- I was never interested in the Sorting Hat argument in HP, either -- and I couldn't keep the characters straight right away, which tends to irritate me. As a lead character, Tris had some potential, and the conflict between her Abnegation tendencies and her Dauntless tendencies (self-sacrificial courage vs. reckless courage) was interesting, but the points she wrestled with that were the only ones that really sparked. More to the point, I can't figure out why she was attracted to Dauntless in the first place. It didn't really fit with anything other than, "Because I said so," which doesn't tend to work. Her love interest, Tobias -- whose real identity was hidden for half the book with all the subtlety an elephant on my patio -- is a thundering bore.
One of the reasons it's hard to keep track of the characters is that they all have roughly the same speech patterns. I had to check up the page several times to see who was supposed to be talking. I like dialogue best when you can leave it untagged for a page or so without confusing the reader.
The main plot, with the Erudite faction trying to get the Dauntless to kill the Abnegation because they wanted control of the government (Tris, being a Divergent, is able to resist their mind control)... it's just sort of... there. Unlike the bizarre satire of real government in HP, or the warped government of The Hunger Games, we don't get a sense of how the government operates in the first place, so a hostile takeover doesn't feel very vital, except insofar as we know, from external input, that it's most likely a bad idea. We know this mostly because we're told that the people trying to take over are the bad guys, as opposed being the noble rebels. It's not enough to really make me care about the main action. During the final battle, I took a break to check Facebook and do a little Wiki-walking on TV Tropes. Then I played with the cat, checked comments on a story, then went back and read a few more pages, got distracted again, then finally finished.
Maybe it's me. It could be.
The point is, I've certainly read worse books. (Though some of them are well-reviewed and have prizes, so again, maybe it's me.) There's nothing specifically wrong with Divergent, and I'll read the sequels (I caught up on the spoilers, so I'll have the requisite knowledge for the program). It's just the third lesson about popularity and books:
Sometimes, it means "meh."
The first is that popular doesn't always equal good. Pretty much everyone realizes this the first time they re-visit a book they just loved when all of their friends were reading it, and it turns out to be... um... not quite as good as remembered. And some books are popular, as far as I can tell, because they're so horrendously bad. It's like watching a train wreck.
The second lesson is that popular doesn't always equal bad. When Harry Potter was first coming out, I stuck my nose in the air, because I couldn't figure out why kids were reading that instead of decent fantasy, like Tolkien or Lewis. Hint: Because it's good. Really good. Now, seven years after the last one came out, it still has a solid audience. The Hunger Games books are also really good -- yes, the Games parts are as violent and soul-destroying as advertised (so is Lord of the Flies, one of my favorite books and the one I always flash on first with THG), but that's the point. What HG really is, is an indictment of soul-numbing culture, and a celebration (which isn't really the right word in context) of the power to reshape it. It's a narrative about narrative, and it's uncomfortable to read in the very best way.
I had to finally read Divergent so I could do a program on it. I was hoping that it would be more like the latter than the former -- that as soon as I started reading it, I'd say, "Oh, so that's why everyone's nuts about this book!" Not so much.
Divergent has been compared to The Hunger Games, and the movie is certainly being marketed to the HG audience (so were the books, with their round-symbol covers). Here's what they have in common: Geographically specific American dystopia. Female lead. Really, that's it. It's really much more closely related to Harry Potter, with dystopian future Chicago standing in for Hogwarts and factions standing in for the Houses (Dauntless and Abnegation=Gryffindor, Erudite=Ravenclaw, Amity=Hufflepuff). It seems to be a sort of long argument with the Sorting Hat, using the common fandom argument about whether or not sorting the Houses by personality is a good idea. Spoiler: the author doesn't think so, and in fact ratchets the argument up a lot by making the factions into the worst possible version of the Houses. The "Divergent," who don't fit into any class, seem to be the "they'll do what's needed to win" fandom version of Slytherin. I'm not sure on Candor.
This isn't to say it's a bad book. It's not. There's nothing wrong with playing with ideas you pick up from other sources and re-combining them. That's how new things get created. The serial numbers aren't as expertly removed as I'd like, but I can't say I'd do any better at it. People who've heard my fannish rants would probably recognize them right away in an original story, too.
My issue with Divergent is that it never really "woke up" for me. Presumably, it does for other people. But I don't find its argument very interesting or compelling -- I was never interested in the Sorting Hat argument in HP, either -- and I couldn't keep the characters straight right away, which tends to irritate me. As a lead character, Tris had some potential, and the conflict between her Abnegation tendencies and her Dauntless tendencies (self-sacrificial courage vs. reckless courage) was interesting, but the points she wrestled with that were the only ones that really sparked. More to the point, I can't figure out why she was attracted to Dauntless in the first place. It didn't really fit with anything other than, "Because I said so," which doesn't tend to work. Her love interest, Tobias -- whose real identity was hidden for half the book with all the subtlety an elephant on my patio -- is a thundering bore.
One of the reasons it's hard to keep track of the characters is that they all have roughly the same speech patterns. I had to check up the page several times to see who was supposed to be talking. I like dialogue best when you can leave it untagged for a page or so without confusing the reader.
The main plot, with the Erudite faction trying to get the Dauntless to kill the Abnegation because they wanted control of the government (Tris, being a Divergent, is able to resist their mind control)... it's just sort of... there. Unlike the bizarre satire of real government in HP, or the warped government of The Hunger Games, we don't get a sense of how the government operates in the first place, so a hostile takeover doesn't feel very vital, except insofar as we know, from external input, that it's most likely a bad idea. We know this mostly because we're told that the people trying to take over are the bad guys, as opposed being the noble rebels. It's not enough to really make me care about the main action. During the final battle, I took a break to check Facebook and do a little Wiki-walking on TV Tropes. Then I played with the cat, checked comments on a story, then went back and read a few more pages, got distracted again, then finally finished.
Maybe it's me. It could be.
The point is, I've certainly read worse books. (Though some of them are well-reviewed and have prizes, so again, maybe it's me.) There's nothing specifically wrong with Divergent, and I'll read the sequels (I caught up on the spoilers, so I'll have the requisite knowledge for the program). It's just the third lesson about popularity and books:
Sometimes, it means "meh."
Friday, February 28, 2014
Once Upon A Time review, with predictions
When Once Upon A Time premiered, I watched the first three episodes. I missed the fourth, and promptly forgot the thing existed. (Am I the only one who misses water cooler shows that everyone watches and talks about? I tend to forget things exist on a regular basis if no one else is talking about them with me.)
At any rate, I forgot about OUaT, but I got bored over the holidays and went looking for something to watch on Netflix streaming. They suggested OUaT, and I reached back into the mists of my memory and said, "Oh, yeah. I remember thinking that might be pretty good."
For those who don't know, the basic premise is that most fairy tales exist in the same continuum -- a realm called The Enchanted Forest -- and Snow White's stepmother, the Evil Queen, decides to get her happy ending by exiling everyone, sans memories, to our world, where there's no magic. This curse is designed by Rumpelstiltskin, who has his own reasons for wanting to come. She creates the town of Storybrooke in Maine (really, and obviously, Vancouver... is it THAT expensive to film in Maine, people?), where she is mayor, and the other fairy tale characters are trapped in a joyless, endless loop, where time never passes.
Before this happened, Snow White and Prince Charming had a baby daughter named Emma, and they saved her from the curse by sending her ahead of it in an enchanted cabinet made by Gepetto. She is destined to save them all on her 28th birthday. The show opens on that birthday, with a little boy, adopted by the evil queen (and the only person in Storybrooke who ages), showing up on her doorstep, identifying himself as the child she gave up for adoption. As things work in a fairy tale universe, she goes back with him and eventually breaks the curse (the kiss of true love -- of a mother for her child -- does the trick). The show keep going after this, and gets much more interesting, in my opinion.
Whew. That's just the premise. It's a little dense.
But really, despite the complicated mechanisms of the plot, the story is pretty simple: It's about repairing shattered families. In this version, Snow White once did love her stepmother, but a terrible event broke that relationship up. Rumpelstiltskin is cursed with evil immortality because he tried to save his son (who -- spoiler -- is the father of Emma's child), and then lost the same son because of a magical separation. Snow and Charming never got to raise their infant daughter, who grew up feeling abandoned, no matter how altruistic the reasoning. Everything in the show that matters comes back to that refrain, and it's handled really well.
The performances are first rate, and have to be to sell the material. (Jennifer Morrison should get an award for being able to deliver the following line like it's a serious, melodramatic soap opera event: "You left me! You left me and let me go to prison... because Pinnochio told you to?" Seriously, how many takes did she need not to crack the hell up every time she tried to say it?) The standout is Robert Carlyle's Rumpelstiltskin, but no one slacks off.
Things I really like:
Emma's son, Henry, may go through phases where he's angry at his adoptive mother -- not for nothing is she called the Evil Queen -- but he doesn't stop loving her or considering her his mom, even when he gets his birth parents back.
When Henry finds out that Emma lied to him about who his father was, he is ROYALLY PISSED OFF. She doesn't get off the hook for it, and shouldn't. The father is also less than pleased that this minor detail of his life had been withheld from him. (This is followed by the spectacle of Emma and Rumpelstiltskin bonding over being shut out. It's kind of nice.) I was seriously expecting the show to blow this off and treat the lie as unimportant, or worse, perfectly in bounds of reasonable behavior. Instead, Emma gets seriously called out by everyone. They forgive her, but no one treats it as anything but a really bad call.
Evil Peter Pan. Who is part of the extended family, FWIW. Robbie Kay is fantastically creepy in the part. Colin O'Donoghue as Hook is also very good, though I have issues with the way the character is used.
The Evil Queen (Regina, by name) is given a sympathetic back story, but it doesn't negate the evil things she does. In the fabulous mid-season closer, she finally understands exactly what she's done, and instead of trying to explain it away, she takes responsibility and makes the sacrifice she needs to make to save everyone. It's a nice character arc. (You can see the season ending cliffhanger here, for a few more weeks, anyway.)
Rumpelstiltskin is just a great villain -- his evil deeds aren't whitewashed, either, but you can also completely buy his decent actions as of a piece with everything that's been shown. He's wonderfully written as well as wonderfully acted. I love the use of the spinning wheel as a literal thread of continuity in his life, from his childhood all the way to the present. It's also a nice nod to the Fates, which he, in essence, operates as.
Things I don't care much about:
Belle. She's okay, but I think they went a step to far in making Rumpelstiltskin the beast and having the whole love story. I guess it makes sense enough in context, and the actors sell it, but I could certainly live without it.
Love triangle with Emma, Baelfire (Rumpelstiltskin's son and Henry's father), and Hook. That's almost in "I really don't like it" territory, but if I wasted energy actively disliking every unnecessary love triangle I run across, I'd be very tired. As it is, I just want them to hurry up and get it over with. (Not one way or another. I'm strongly in the Baelfire camp.) All the people are appealing, and Colin O'Donoghue is really REALLY easy on the eyes, but... really? In a show this focused on repairing a broken family, I'm supposed to be consumed with conflict about this silly thing?
Side characters like Ruby (Red Riding Hood) or Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel. They're fine, but their focus episodes don't seem to bring much to the table.
The Disney versions used. Eh, whatever. I could deal with any version, and the Disney version allows commentary without extra explanation.
Mulan is in love with Aurora. They should have done it the other way.
Things I really don't like:
Frankenstein... you just don't fit. Bad fit altogether.
There were several times I felt like I must have missed a major episode, because characters were now acting on important motivations that seemed like they'd gotten new information... but when I go back and watch the episodes, there's not so much explanation given.
Umm... that's pretty much it.
Anyway, the mid-season break ends on March 9.
My theories:
Bae will have gotten in trouble with magic.
Regina's story arc will come to an end (she doesn't have much else left to do)
Snow and Charming will have another child, and enough time will have passed for the child to participate in the plots.
Henry will have a plot to himself that doesn't involve being saved from someone.
There will be more Robin Hood?
The producers have said that one of the characters will die. Plotwise, my money is on Regina (like I said, not much further to take her arc), but I think O'Donoghue lives in Ireland and has a family there, and might well not want to be roped in as a permanent part of the show, so Hook is also a major possibility.
We know they're bringing in Oz's wicked witch as the new Big Bad. She's somehow summoned by Rumpelstiltskin's sacrifice? Don't know.
At any rate, I forgot about OUaT, but I got bored over the holidays and went looking for something to watch on Netflix streaming. They suggested OUaT, and I reached back into the mists of my memory and said, "Oh, yeah. I remember thinking that might be pretty good."
For those who don't know, the basic premise is that most fairy tales exist in the same continuum -- a realm called The Enchanted Forest -- and Snow White's stepmother, the Evil Queen, decides to get her happy ending by exiling everyone, sans memories, to our world, where there's no magic. This curse is designed by Rumpelstiltskin, who has his own reasons for wanting to come. She creates the town of Storybrooke in Maine (really, and obviously, Vancouver... is it THAT expensive to film in Maine, people?), where she is mayor, and the other fairy tale characters are trapped in a joyless, endless loop, where time never passes.
Before this happened, Snow White and Prince Charming had a baby daughter named Emma, and they saved her from the curse by sending her ahead of it in an enchanted cabinet made by Gepetto. She is destined to save them all on her 28th birthday. The show opens on that birthday, with a little boy, adopted by the evil queen (and the only person in Storybrooke who ages), showing up on her doorstep, identifying himself as the child she gave up for adoption. As things work in a fairy tale universe, she goes back with him and eventually breaks the curse (the kiss of true love -- of a mother for her child -- does the trick). The show keep going after this, and gets much more interesting, in my opinion.
Whew. That's just the premise. It's a little dense.
But really, despite the complicated mechanisms of the plot, the story is pretty simple: It's about repairing shattered families. In this version, Snow White once did love her stepmother, but a terrible event broke that relationship up. Rumpelstiltskin is cursed with evil immortality because he tried to save his son (who -- spoiler -- is the father of Emma's child), and then lost the same son because of a magical separation. Snow and Charming never got to raise their infant daughter, who grew up feeling abandoned, no matter how altruistic the reasoning. Everything in the show that matters comes back to that refrain, and it's handled really well.
The performances are first rate, and have to be to sell the material. (Jennifer Morrison should get an award for being able to deliver the following line like it's a serious, melodramatic soap opera event: "You left me! You left me and let me go to prison... because Pinnochio told you to?" Seriously, how many takes did she need not to crack the hell up every time she tried to say it?) The standout is Robert Carlyle's Rumpelstiltskin, but no one slacks off.
Things I really like:
Emma's son, Henry, may go through phases where he's angry at his adoptive mother -- not for nothing is she called the Evil Queen -- but he doesn't stop loving her or considering her his mom, even when he gets his birth parents back.
When Henry finds out that Emma lied to him about who his father was, he is ROYALLY PISSED OFF. She doesn't get off the hook for it, and shouldn't. The father is also less than pleased that this minor detail of his life had been withheld from him. (This is followed by the spectacle of Emma and Rumpelstiltskin bonding over being shut out. It's kind of nice.) I was seriously expecting the show to blow this off and treat the lie as unimportant, or worse, perfectly in bounds of reasonable behavior. Instead, Emma gets seriously called out by everyone. They forgive her, but no one treats it as anything but a really bad call.
Evil Peter Pan. Who is part of the extended family, FWIW. Robbie Kay is fantastically creepy in the part. Colin O'Donoghue as Hook is also very good, though I have issues with the way the character is used.
The Evil Queen (Regina, by name) is given a sympathetic back story, but it doesn't negate the evil things she does. In the fabulous mid-season closer, she finally understands exactly what she's done, and instead of trying to explain it away, she takes responsibility and makes the sacrifice she needs to make to save everyone. It's a nice character arc. (You can see the season ending cliffhanger here, for a few more weeks, anyway.)
Rumpelstiltskin is just a great villain -- his evil deeds aren't whitewashed, either, but you can also completely buy his decent actions as of a piece with everything that's been shown. He's wonderfully written as well as wonderfully acted. I love the use of the spinning wheel as a literal thread of continuity in his life, from his childhood all the way to the present. It's also a nice nod to the Fates, which he, in essence, operates as.
Things I don't care much about:
Belle. She's okay, but I think they went a step to far in making Rumpelstiltskin the beast and having the whole love story. I guess it makes sense enough in context, and the actors sell it, but I could certainly live without it.
Love triangle with Emma, Baelfire (Rumpelstiltskin's son and Henry's father), and Hook. That's almost in "I really don't like it" territory, but if I wasted energy actively disliking every unnecessary love triangle I run across, I'd be very tired. As it is, I just want them to hurry up and get it over with. (Not one way or another. I'm strongly in the Baelfire camp.) All the people are appealing, and Colin O'Donoghue is really REALLY easy on the eyes, but... really? In a show this focused on repairing a broken family, I'm supposed to be consumed with conflict about this silly thing?
Side characters like Ruby (Red Riding Hood) or Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel. They're fine, but their focus episodes don't seem to bring much to the table.
The Disney versions used. Eh, whatever. I could deal with any version, and the Disney version allows commentary without extra explanation.
Mulan is in love with Aurora. They should have done it the other way.
Things I really don't like:
Frankenstein... you just don't fit. Bad fit altogether.
There were several times I felt like I must have missed a major episode, because characters were now acting on important motivations that seemed like they'd gotten new information... but when I go back and watch the episodes, there's not so much explanation given.
Umm... that's pretty much it.
Anyway, the mid-season break ends on March 9.
My theories:
Bae will have gotten in trouble with magic.
Regina's story arc will come to an end (she doesn't have much else left to do)
Snow and Charming will have another child, and enough time will have passed for the child to participate in the plots.
Henry will have a plot to himself that doesn't involve being saved from someone.
There will be more Robin Hood?
The producers have said that one of the characters will die. Plotwise, my money is on Regina (like I said, not much further to take her arc), but I think O'Donoghue lives in Ireland and has a family there, and might well not want to be roped in as a permanent part of the show, so Hook is also a major possibility.
We know they're bringing in Oz's wicked witch as the new Big Bad. She's somehow summoned by Rumpelstiltskin's sacrifice? Don't know.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Man of Steel review
I like superhero movies. Maybe it's a flaw; I don't know. But I like them. I like their fairly clear-cut battles, and I like their inevitable -- required -- exploration of what it means to be a hero. Sure, the heroes are outsized, but that's because the issues are put under a huge magnifying glass. Also, because it's more fun that way. I like a movie with lots of action, lots of heart, and the bad guys getting pounded in the end, after a challenging struggle. It's old fashioned, and, to paraphrase my favorite line in The Avengers, sometimes you need a little old-fashioned. Or low-brow, if you you'd rather. I'm fine with being low-brow.
I'm not big on the comics they come from, honestly -- too many years, and too much grasping at plot straws to keep the story going. I think the films tend to distill it more and make it more powerful.
I was late to the party with Man of Steel. I'm not even sure how it did at the box office -- I know I didn't hear a soul talking about it, but it seems like people don't talk about movies as much as they used to. I've seen the Nolan Dark Knight movies, and thought they were an interestingly somber take on the subject, but I don't love them. They were smart, but a little cold. I was curious as to what they'd do with the narmiest of all superheroes, Superman. Answer? Smart, but more than a little cold, and not just because a lot of it was set in the Arctic. It was like trying to have a conversation with a well-designed computer that doesn't exactly grok what it's talking about.
So, breaking it down:
Setting
Unlike most Superman movies I've seen, there isn't much focus on setting. We open on Krypton (now mined to oblivion), then there's the middle of ocean, then flashbacks to Smallville, then the Arctic, then a little bit of Metropolis, then a dirt road somewhere, then a spaceship, then... and so on. All of the places had a certain generic flavor to them... including the spaceship, for heaven's sake. There's a neat metal-based technology for visual broadcast, but that's just a special effect. It's hard to feel bad when the Kent house is smashed up, because, well... we haven't been there, not really.
Theme
The savior as outcast, same as the Dark Knight theme. It works, to some extent, but seems an odd choice of conflict, given the decision for the focus of the plot (the quest for the genetic legacy of all Krypton, encoded in Kal-El's cells). With Superman, there's an automatic foundling plot in any version, and this one does in fact call upon him to choose between Krypton and Earth... only he hasn't really bonded with either, at least not on screen, so the only way to get the inner conflict is to sit there and add up the elements, create the inner conflict for yourself (because of course, that's what it would feel like), then try to match it to what's going on. (In other words, of course we know that it would have to be a huge decision between your extinct homeworld and your adoptive world -- how could it not be? -- but the movie takes no time to actually establish it before the choice is on Kal-El.)
Plot
It's the General Zod plot (Kryptonian war criminal seeks out escapee Kal-El). It's added to some genetic engineering, species superiority, and an attempt at forced terraforming, or Kryptoforming, as the case happens to be. It was a decent plot, and it provided Superman with a reasonable foe (Lex Luthor is almost always laughable). It just seemed more like the plot of a second movie -- not because it was the second of the Reeves movies, but for the reason it was the second of the Reeves movies: It's a dense plot that suffers when it's trying to co-exist with an origin story.
There's one dropped plot point that's under my skin, even though I guess it shouldn't be. And it's not so much a plot point as... well. Just before the death of Jonathan Kent, the family is on the road and arguing about Clark's future. Clark demeans the farming the family has been doing... right before a tragedy. That's set up to be significant. During the battle with Zod, Zod taunts Clark with his farm upbringing, which seems set up to somehow reference that. But if there's some pay off to it, I completely missed it. Nothing Clark does in that battle really showcases what he might have learned on the farm. (This is partly because WE DON'T SEE HIM LIVING ON THE FARM. You put the gun over the damned mantel, people. FIRE IT. Ahem.)
Character
I think Nolan's strength is doing intellectually interesting things with the characters, even if they never quite emotionally connect. Clark trying not to hit a bully, Jonathan Kent's kind of fanatic attempt to keep Clark's abilities secret, that sort of thing. Dropping the whole "triangle" with Clark-Lois-Superman was refreshing; it's usually pretty frustrating when she has no clue. And whoa! They showed her being a reporter and tracking him down. Lois was my hands-down favorite improvement here. She's smart, level-headed, and quick to adjust to upsetting circumstances. Three cheers for updating a character who always had a tendency to be a little annoying.
Also, a very strong point was Clark's grief at having to kill his enemy. That's a very real character moment.
Style
Where do you go with style on these? I think I can safely say that stylistically, I am just not a fan of this filmmaker, but a lot of people are. There's not much to be said on the subject of differing tastes and expectations. I don't like weird lighting and grimy colors.
The one thing I will say about the movie in terms of style that I think genuinely didn't work -- as opposed to me just not being crazy about it -- was the non-linear storytelling. Non-lin can be made to work, but it didn't here. The Smallville part of the Superman story is important in establishing the character, and here, it's dropped in with such random dribs and drabs, often interrupting the action, that the character never gets established. Sure, you can say that everyone knows the Superman mythos and it doesn't need to be re-hashed. Except that we don't know that they plan on keeping the character intact. We have to see it. Every time you're making a fresh version, the audience assumes that the rules might well change.
Shrug.
It was okay. I'm not in a rush to go see the sequel (as opposed to my anticipation of The Winter Soldier), but I'll probably remember that it's been out, once it's been out, and check it out on Netflix or Amazon Instant.
I'm not big on the comics they come from, honestly -- too many years, and too much grasping at plot straws to keep the story going. I think the films tend to distill it more and make it more powerful.
I was late to the party with Man of Steel. I'm not even sure how it did at the box office -- I know I didn't hear a soul talking about it, but it seems like people don't talk about movies as much as they used to. I've seen the Nolan Dark Knight movies, and thought they were an interestingly somber take on the subject, but I don't love them. They were smart, but a little cold. I was curious as to what they'd do with the narmiest of all superheroes, Superman. Answer? Smart, but more than a little cold, and not just because a lot of it was set in the Arctic. It was like trying to have a conversation with a well-designed computer that doesn't exactly grok what it's talking about.
So, breaking it down:
Setting
Unlike most Superman movies I've seen, there isn't much focus on setting. We open on Krypton (now mined to oblivion), then there's the middle of ocean, then flashbacks to Smallville, then the Arctic, then a little bit of Metropolis, then a dirt road somewhere, then a spaceship, then... and so on. All of the places had a certain generic flavor to them... including the spaceship, for heaven's sake. There's a neat metal-based technology for visual broadcast, but that's just a special effect. It's hard to feel bad when the Kent house is smashed up, because, well... we haven't been there, not really.
Theme
The savior as outcast, same as the Dark Knight theme. It works, to some extent, but seems an odd choice of conflict, given the decision for the focus of the plot (the quest for the genetic legacy of all Krypton, encoded in Kal-El's cells). With Superman, there's an automatic foundling plot in any version, and this one does in fact call upon him to choose between Krypton and Earth... only he hasn't really bonded with either, at least not on screen, so the only way to get the inner conflict is to sit there and add up the elements, create the inner conflict for yourself (because of course, that's what it would feel like), then try to match it to what's going on. (In other words, of course we know that it would have to be a huge decision between your extinct homeworld and your adoptive world -- how could it not be? -- but the movie takes no time to actually establish it before the choice is on Kal-El.)
Plot
It's the General Zod plot (Kryptonian war criminal seeks out escapee Kal-El). It's added to some genetic engineering, species superiority, and an attempt at forced terraforming, or Kryptoforming, as the case happens to be. It was a decent plot, and it provided Superman with a reasonable foe (Lex Luthor is almost always laughable). It just seemed more like the plot of a second movie -- not because it was the second of the Reeves movies, but for the reason it was the second of the Reeves movies: It's a dense plot that suffers when it's trying to co-exist with an origin story.
There's one dropped plot point that's under my skin, even though I guess it shouldn't be. And it's not so much a plot point as... well. Just before the death of Jonathan Kent, the family is on the road and arguing about Clark's future. Clark demeans the farming the family has been doing... right before a tragedy. That's set up to be significant. During the battle with Zod, Zod taunts Clark with his farm upbringing, which seems set up to somehow reference that. But if there's some pay off to it, I completely missed it. Nothing Clark does in that battle really showcases what he might have learned on the farm. (This is partly because WE DON'T SEE HIM LIVING ON THE FARM. You put the gun over the damned mantel, people. FIRE IT. Ahem.)
Character
I think Nolan's strength is doing intellectually interesting things with the characters, even if they never quite emotionally connect. Clark trying not to hit a bully, Jonathan Kent's kind of fanatic attempt to keep Clark's abilities secret, that sort of thing. Dropping the whole "triangle" with Clark-Lois-Superman was refreshing; it's usually pretty frustrating when she has no clue. And whoa! They showed her being a reporter and tracking him down. Lois was my hands-down favorite improvement here. She's smart, level-headed, and quick to adjust to upsetting circumstances. Three cheers for updating a character who always had a tendency to be a little annoying.
Also, a very strong point was Clark's grief at having to kill his enemy. That's a very real character moment.
Style
Where do you go with style on these? I think I can safely say that stylistically, I am just not a fan of this filmmaker, but a lot of people are. There's not much to be said on the subject of differing tastes and expectations. I don't like weird lighting and grimy colors.
The one thing I will say about the movie in terms of style that I think genuinely didn't work -- as opposed to me just not being crazy about it -- was the non-linear storytelling. Non-lin can be made to work, but it didn't here. The Smallville part of the Superman story is important in establishing the character, and here, it's dropped in with such random dribs and drabs, often interrupting the action, that the character never gets established. Sure, you can say that everyone knows the Superman mythos and it doesn't need to be re-hashed. Except that we don't know that they plan on keeping the character intact. We have to see it. Every time you're making a fresh version, the audience assumes that the rules might well change.
Shrug.
It was okay. I'm not in a rush to go see the sequel (as opposed to my anticipation of The Winter Soldier), but I'll probably remember that it's been out, once it's been out, and check it out on Netflix or Amazon Instant.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters review
Sigh.
I don't often sit down to watch movies that I know are going to annoy me. I really don't. But I was bored. So I did.
I was annoyed.
The Percy Jackson series of books by Rick Riordan is a clever, interesting, and often fairly nuanced story that features the gods of Olympus in the modern world (hey, they're immortal, so why wouldn't they be around?). They behave in quite mythologically recognizable ways, right down to the rather common habit of sleeping around with mortal women and creating half-blood heroes. Percy Jackson is one of these heroes, the son of Poseidon. We meet him at twelve, and stay with him through his sixteenth birthday, which takes place in The Last Olympian, one of the best story wrap-ups I've seen in these lengthy series. So many series drop the ball and get weird or go off on un-set-up tangents (I'm looking at you, Dark Tower and Harry Potter). But Riordan hits the target dead on, bringing in all the things he's brought up, working it into an interesting and emotionally satisfying climax that not only fulfills the plot, but nails down the theme.
But that's neither here nor there, since I'm not reviewing the books. I am reviewing the movies that someone put the name of the books on.
I'm not talking about some minor tinkering that would only annoy hardcore fen. The first movie, The Lightning Thief, had an entirely different plot from the book... and started Percy as a high school senior. Now, I admit, I only went up through undergrad levels of developmental psych, but I'm pretty sure that a senior in high school is not going to behave in the same manner as a twelve year old, even if the plot calls for it. In the process of this contrived new plot with same name (but totally different) characters, they also managed to forget to build in the things needed for the rest of the movies. I remember thinking, "Well, at least they can't do any more damage."
Remind me not to tempt fate.
They managed to not only screw up the book canon, but to somehow or other mangle the internal movie canon further by trying to retcon things they needed into it.
Oh, and they also managed to soft-pedal things so much so that the book -- which was aimed at a younger audience (presumably, they made the characters teenagers to attract the older kids) -- was edgier than the movie they made from it.
I can't blame the actors. I won't say the "young actors," because, though they are all playing teenagers, they are clearly twenty-something adults. They do what they can with some utterly wretched dialogue. (Definition of screenwriting FAIL: The dialogue would have been better if it had just been copy-pasted from the book.) And hey, nothing wrong with moving Anthony Head into the role of a hero's mentor, or Stanley Tucci as the god of wine (who manages to crack the one actually funny joke in the movie). Nathan Fillion manages to get across at least some of the concern that Hermes is supposed to show for his son Luke, even though the movie inexplicably skips the fact that HE SENT PERCY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
So I blame absolutely nothing on the actors. The wretchedness of this adaptation is squarely on the heads of the behind-the-scenes people. The casting director. The producers. And whoever may have cobbled together that "script."
Whenever people want to defend unfaithful adaptations, they love to say, "It's not about getting the exact text on screen, it's about capturing the spirit of the book!" Fine. I'll give you that. Obviously, adaptations can't have everything. Though, oddly, I find that the spirit is often caught better if the end product somewhat resembles the beginning product.
Sea of Monsters doesn't even make an attempt to capture the "spirit." In fact, like Lightning Thief, it manages to entirely miss the point. A major theme in SoM was the characters learning about their fatal flaws. Annabeth faces her hubris, Percy, his impulsiveness, Clarisse, her pride. Luke has already failed once against his wrath. A major theme in the movie is learning that they're good enough, they're smart enough, and doggonit, people like them. No, really, I'm serious. They INVERTED THE THEME. There was a major undercurrent in the book as well about what heroes mean. Chiron tells Percy that, as children of earth and heaven, heroes join the hopes of man to the realm of the immortals. The movie? Again, not so much. The producers seem deeply uncomfortable with the philosophical underpinning of the stories. The prophecy that drives much of the series is given, but then for some reason, a series based on Greek mythology decides that the important thing is to ignore the prophecy. This is a thing that happened in this movie. Because it's so totally in tune with the classical worldview espoused by the books. [/sarcasm mode]
And shall we talk dumbed down? Again, recall that the movie is aiming for an older age group. The book has a whole sequence -- which occurs before any explanation is given -- where Annabeth uses Odysseus's tactics against Polyphemus, telling him that "nobody" is back to torment him again. Percy is able to sneak out under a sheep. The references to the Odyssey are fast and furious. At one point, in the lair of Circe, Percy is turned into a guinea pig. The movie has Clarisse, daughter of Ares, mention that a boulder might by the one Polyphemus used to block off the entrance, and then it's dropped. Really, it is. I'm not making this up. They're going through the flipping sea of monsters, dealing with Charybdis, fighting Polyphemus, and they managed to do it without a single wink and nod to the master. The movie people assume the audience is much dumber than Rick Riordan assumes.
As a librarian, I can tell you... Riordan is closer to the mark. Kids who read these books turn around and snap up mythology like crazy, and then get even more of what's going on.
And then, there are just the inexplicable things. Why is there an amusement park on Polyphemus's island, name-checking Circe? It has nothing to do with the Circe episode in the book, which is skipped entirely, or with the Circe mythology. It's just there. Doing a big fat nothing. It doesn't even make for especially interesting visuals. There's the decision to have Posiedon, Hades, and Zeus all have escaped Kronos's cannibalistic spree, and Poseidon killed him with the blade he gave Percy, none of which makes sense in the story, or in mythology. And, by the way, Scylla and Charybdis, in this movie, are not anywhere near each other. Do they really think viewers don't even know that much mythology? Plus, better visual! And what's with needing a satyr to sniff out the Golden Fleece? Where on earth does that come from, and how in the world does it make sense? This is where reading the book would have been helpful to the screenwriters, since it has a much more sensible explanation of why Grover is on that island.
I do not understand the choices made by the people who bought this property. All of the books are pretty good movie length, the material lends itself to quotable quotes and funny scenes, there's plenty of action, and plenty of chances for good heartwarming moments and Dumbledore-explains-it-all moments. They could have picked actors like the Potter franchise did and let them grow up with the characters.
Instead... this.
:grinds teeth:
Boredom and an insomnia lead to bad movie-watching decisions. That's the only theme I got out of this evening's viewing.
I don't often sit down to watch movies that I know are going to annoy me. I really don't. But I was bored. So I did.
I was annoyed.
The Percy Jackson series of books by Rick Riordan is a clever, interesting, and often fairly nuanced story that features the gods of Olympus in the modern world (hey, they're immortal, so why wouldn't they be around?). They behave in quite mythologically recognizable ways, right down to the rather common habit of sleeping around with mortal women and creating half-blood heroes. Percy Jackson is one of these heroes, the son of Poseidon. We meet him at twelve, and stay with him through his sixteenth birthday, which takes place in The Last Olympian, one of the best story wrap-ups I've seen in these lengthy series. So many series drop the ball and get weird or go off on un-set-up tangents (I'm looking at you, Dark Tower and Harry Potter). But Riordan hits the target dead on, bringing in all the things he's brought up, working it into an interesting and emotionally satisfying climax that not only fulfills the plot, but nails down the theme.
But that's neither here nor there, since I'm not reviewing the books. I am reviewing the movies that someone put the name of the books on.
I'm not talking about some minor tinkering that would only annoy hardcore fen. The first movie, The Lightning Thief, had an entirely different plot from the book... and started Percy as a high school senior. Now, I admit, I only went up through undergrad levels of developmental psych, but I'm pretty sure that a senior in high school is not going to behave in the same manner as a twelve year old, even if the plot calls for it. In the process of this contrived new plot with same name (but totally different) characters, they also managed to forget to build in the things needed for the rest of the movies. I remember thinking, "Well, at least they can't do any more damage."
Remind me not to tempt fate.
They managed to not only screw up the book canon, but to somehow or other mangle the internal movie canon further by trying to retcon things they needed into it.
Oh, and they also managed to soft-pedal things so much so that the book -- which was aimed at a younger audience (presumably, they made the characters teenagers to attract the older kids) -- was edgier than the movie they made from it.
I can't blame the actors. I won't say the "young actors," because, though they are all playing teenagers, they are clearly twenty-something adults. They do what they can with some utterly wretched dialogue. (Definition of screenwriting FAIL: The dialogue would have been better if it had just been copy-pasted from the book.) And hey, nothing wrong with moving Anthony Head into the role of a hero's mentor, or Stanley Tucci as the god of wine (who manages to crack the one actually funny joke in the movie). Nathan Fillion manages to get across at least some of the concern that Hermes is supposed to show for his son Luke, even though the movie inexplicably skips the fact that HE SENT PERCY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
So I blame absolutely nothing on the actors. The wretchedness of this adaptation is squarely on the heads of the behind-the-scenes people. The casting director. The producers. And whoever may have cobbled together that "script."
Whenever people want to defend unfaithful adaptations, they love to say, "It's not about getting the exact text on screen, it's about capturing the spirit of the book!" Fine. I'll give you that. Obviously, adaptations can't have everything. Though, oddly, I find that the spirit is often caught better if the end product somewhat resembles the beginning product.
Sea of Monsters doesn't even make an attempt to capture the "spirit." In fact, like Lightning Thief, it manages to entirely miss the point. A major theme in SoM was the characters learning about their fatal flaws. Annabeth faces her hubris, Percy, his impulsiveness, Clarisse, her pride. Luke has already failed once against his wrath. A major theme in the movie is learning that they're good enough, they're smart enough, and doggonit, people like them. No, really, I'm serious. They INVERTED THE THEME. There was a major undercurrent in the book as well about what heroes mean. Chiron tells Percy that, as children of earth and heaven, heroes join the hopes of man to the realm of the immortals. The movie? Again, not so much. The producers seem deeply uncomfortable with the philosophical underpinning of the stories. The prophecy that drives much of the series is given, but then for some reason, a series based on Greek mythology decides that the important thing is to ignore the prophecy. This is a thing that happened in this movie. Because it's so totally in tune with the classical worldview espoused by the books. [/sarcasm mode]
And shall we talk dumbed down? Again, recall that the movie is aiming for an older age group. The book has a whole sequence -- which occurs before any explanation is given -- where Annabeth uses Odysseus's tactics against Polyphemus, telling him that "nobody" is back to torment him again. Percy is able to sneak out under a sheep. The references to the Odyssey are fast and furious. At one point, in the lair of Circe, Percy is turned into a guinea pig. The movie has Clarisse, daughter of Ares, mention that a boulder might by the one Polyphemus used to block off the entrance, and then it's dropped. Really, it is. I'm not making this up. They're going through the flipping sea of monsters, dealing with Charybdis, fighting Polyphemus, and they managed to do it without a single wink and nod to the master. The movie people assume the audience is much dumber than Rick Riordan assumes.
As a librarian, I can tell you... Riordan is closer to the mark. Kids who read these books turn around and snap up mythology like crazy, and then get even more of what's going on.
And then, there are just the inexplicable things. Why is there an amusement park on Polyphemus's island, name-checking Circe? It has nothing to do with the Circe episode in the book, which is skipped entirely, or with the Circe mythology. It's just there. Doing a big fat nothing. It doesn't even make for especially interesting visuals. There's the decision to have Posiedon, Hades, and Zeus all have escaped Kronos's cannibalistic spree, and Poseidon killed him with the blade he gave Percy, none of which makes sense in the story, or in mythology. And, by the way, Scylla and Charybdis, in this movie, are not anywhere near each other. Do they really think viewers don't even know that much mythology? Plus, better visual! And what's with needing a satyr to sniff out the Golden Fleece? Where on earth does that come from, and how in the world does it make sense? This is where reading the book would have been helpful to the screenwriters, since it has a much more sensible explanation of why Grover is on that island.
I do not understand the choices made by the people who bought this property. All of the books are pretty good movie length, the material lends itself to quotable quotes and funny scenes, there's plenty of action, and plenty of chances for good heartwarming moments and Dumbledore-explains-it-all moments. They could have picked actors like the Potter franchise did and let them grow up with the characters.
Instead... this.
:grinds teeth:
Boredom and an insomnia lead to bad movie-watching decisions. That's the only theme I got out of this evening's viewing.
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