Cloverfield

In Golf, they call it a hole in one. In Bowling, it is a perfect game. When it comes to Giant-Monster-Attacks-Major-City films, it is called Cloverfield.

This film is exactly what this sort of film should be. This sort of film is about meaningless violence. Godzilla attacks Tokyo because his is a monster, and so does this guy. What is left is for the characters to survive. The directors do not waste our time with back story to make a giant monster seem plausible. It is simply here and it is pissed off.

To tell the truth, this film brought back uncomfortable memories of watching the towers fall on 9/11. The sounds and sights of walls of dust flying down the street had a verisimilitude that made my pulse quicken. The characters are scared witless and covered with the remains of fallen towers. Their only goal is the survival of the people closest to them.

Rob (Michael Stahl-David) is leaving for Japan. He is in love with his friend Beth (Odette Yustman), but since they are leaving, their brief affair cannot go anywhere. They argue at the party, and she leaves. As the party continues, the monster attacks. The head of the Statue of Liberty flies down the street. As thousands of people flee over the Brooklyn bridge, it collapses, and Rob gets a panicked voice mail from Beth. She is scared and trapped and she chose to call him at her darkest hour. Rob decides to find her, and his friends come with.

The film is shot from the point of view of one of Rob’s friends who is carrying the same video camera that he used to record the party earlier in the evening, and smacks of a long YouTube clip. This allows the lack of exposition to fit perfectly as the audience is used to internet video clips which lack context. The camera becomes a character in the film which may herald the creation of a new genre of film making, which would include the Blair Witch Project (but this film has a script). This makes the meaningless savagery even more powerful, as the director tried very hard to make this look like a bunch of regular (if slightly too good looking) people living in very interesting times. It also keeps us from insisting on an explanation, because we know the footage is just that, and nothing more. I have heard in the media that many people complained of motion sickness while watching this film. I had no problems and know no one who did. So once again the media takes the unique case of Martha Farquar of Catbutt, North Dakota and reports it as an epidemic.

Rob’s desperate need to find Beth in all this chaos is powerful, and the visual effects are amazing. The Army pours everything it has into the monster with no effect. Soon it is discovered that they are going to level the city and Rob gets a deadline; get out of the city by six a.m. or die here.

The video, by the way, is being recorded over video of Beth and Rob’s trip to Coney Island, where they fell in love. Occasional accidental bits of film where they are happy and in love are seen in middle of the death and destruction, allowing the audience to see Rob’s thoughts and feelings for Beth without corny internal monologue or contrived scenes of exposition. This allows the pace to continue without pause for a very trim and meaty 85 minutes.

It gets a 5. This is an awesome, awesome feat of film making.

 

Semi-pro

Semi-pro semi-sucks. Really. If you have every seen a Will Farrel movie, you have already seen this one. It is the same shtick he has done in every other movie, with no changes. He should be sued for plagiarism, but I suppose you can’t sue yourself. Ooh, maybe that will be his next film!

Jackie Moon wrote a vulgar disco tune and used the money to buy the Flint Tropicals basketball team, so he can be Coach and power forward. He does his arm-waving, incoherent, drunk twit bit again. You have already seen it. Move on.

This gets a 1. We walked out after 30 minutes and got our money back. The funniest thing was this: When we asked the manager for the money back, she chuckled and smiled. I commented, “I guess we are not the first ones.” and she replied, “We have come to expect refunds with Will Farrel movies.”

 

Jumper

OK, well I saw Jumper. It certainly lacked pizazz. At least the failings in this movie were not Hayden Christensen’s fault. No, Annikin, er, I mean Hayden actually can act a little and does fine here. The movie, however, sucks, and it really has no reason to suck.

The basic plot is this: Hayden can teleport and he uses his power like any dysfunctional teenager would; he robs banks and uses the money to seduce hot Irish chicks. Apparently, jumpers (as those with this power are called) have been around forever and a super-secret religious cabal called the “Paladins” (spearheaded by Samuel L. Jackson) are onto their game and hunts them ruthlessly.

There seems to be a lot of back story here and the movie would be great if they spent some time exploring it, but they don’t. Instead they spend an unbelievable amount of time showing David (Christensen) moon over Millie (Rachel Bilson). Millie is moonworthy, to be sure, but this is, nominally, an action movie. So where is the action? The movie just feels like a rough draft.

In Improv comedy, one of the rules is “Never say No”. Always be willing to run with whatever the other guy gives you, or the scene just sort of stops and falls over and dies. This is what happens here, but someone actually took the time to write the script. This script has the characters constantly trying to not do anything. David gives Millie a lame explanation for his money (”I’m in banking”) and she does not question him, although she obviously does not believe him. David runs into another jumper, Griffin (Jamie Bell) who spends most of the movie trying very hard to not do anything interesting, and almost succeeds. Samuel L. Jackson look stupid in white hair dye, BTW, and we never explore the basis of his fanatical hatred of jumpers. The whole movie is a collage of “let’s not try”.

If they had tried, this would be a really good film. The teleportation effect is stunning. Each jump shatters windows and cracks the granite walls around it. In the few scenes where the characters actually DO SOMETHING, cars and buses are being flung about like Frisbees, and entire apartments get dropped into city libraries, but these scenes are few and far between, and the movie is just 90 minutes of missed opportunities.

Oh, and Diane Lane was in it, but she just kinds phoned it in.

I give it a 2.

 

Guest Review: Kaze No Yojimbo

KAZE NO YOJIMBO

Loosely based on Kurosawa’s classic Yojimbo, this anime series is a
mystery/crime drama about a man of unclear origins named George Kodama who
comes to a sleepy little country town in search of a man from his past who
comes to discover the town isn’t as “sleepy” as it first appears. In fact,
there’s quite a lot of dirty little secrets behind the town’s insular
populace, that add up to a huge mystery that links everyone together
(including one seemingly random character that shoes up for one episode just
to get killed).

The high point of this series is the story. It’s very film noir: mystery,
intrigue and conspiracies abound. It’s got a lone tough guy protagonist,
bittersweet romantic elements and gritty action. The best part is the
pacing. The story is well drawn out across all 26 episodes, each one like
peeling off a layer of an onion. For every little detail that’s illuminated,
it leads to another mystery and builds at a constant pace to an almost
Shakespearean conclusion. Contrast this with many series that have one huge
reveal around episode 13 that tries to explain everything to that point, and
then another at the finale, with a lot of angst to fill the rest of the time
(not that that’s necessarily a bad thing).

KNY is refreshing in that aspect, as well as that it’s very understated as
anime go. Very down to earth. In fact, it could easily have been made as a
live action drama, so I wonder why the medium of animation was chosen.
Probably just cost. Or maybe subject matter too (there was a very brief
nude scene for a character who would be underage, being a high school
student…)

The cast of character’s is extensive and engaging. Everyone’s very well
developed with strong motivations for their actions, even though it’s
sometimes unclear until much later what those motives are.

For the most part, the visual quality is good with strong but realistic
character designs (important with such an large cast) and the crisp clean
line work and cell shading we’ve all become used to in this age of computer
aided animation production. It’s only occasionally marred by brief spans
where the production quality takes a nose dive and then comes back up again.

The visual style, however, is not my cup of tea. It’s mostly well rendered,
realistic, modern day scenes but they use a lot of double images, visual
effects/filters and bright two tone color scenes mixed in in an effort to be
avante’ garde (I guess). While it’s nowhere near the seizure inducing
texture orgy that is Gankutsuo, it’s a bit much at times. Though like
Gankutsuo, this anime’s strength is in it’s plot and characters. I’m sure
there are some out there who would think this kind of visual flair adds
gravity to the scenes, or something like that…

Some of the mechanical designs, particularly helicopters and the ubiquitous
trains are rendered in fully 3D CGI in cell-shaded style graphics composited
into the shots, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. But it gets the
job done.

Speaking of getting the job done, that’s what the sound design does as well.
The sound quality as well as the voice acting is very understated, down to
earth and realistic. So it fits with the plot and general feel of the show
very well. It goes largely unnoticed much of the time, which in a show like
this is precisely what it should do.

Overall a very enjoyable and satisfying bit of entertainment.

Recommended for all anime fans as a study in how the medium has no trouble
taking any genre even relatively mundane ones. Highly recommended for fans
of noir style intrigues and deep narratives.

-Timothy W. Leard

 

Guest Review: INFINITE RYVIUS

INFINITE RYVIUS:
This is a heavily character driven drama that just happens to take place in
a sci-fi setting. It gives new meaning to the phrase “space opera.” It’s
about a group of young astronauts-in-training that get stuck on a mysterious
ship (the titular Ryvius) after a really bad “accident” (i.e. sabotage) on
the space station where they were living. What ensues from there is, as
others have said before me, much like Lord of the Flies in space, as the
teenagers all try to deal with their own internal conflicts, politics and
emotionally charged relationships while simultaneously trying to find a way
to safety and fend off the attacks of a mysterious faction who seem to be
after the ship. It’s got teen angst, melodrama, covincing sounding
pseudo-science (that somehow comes off as less pretentious than Star Trek),
big spaceships, government cover-ups, secrets, …oh, yeah, and mecha. Giant
robots that fight in space. But that’s really a secondary element… Isn’t
anime grand?

This series ends up being quite enjoyable. As stated before, it’s mostly
character driven. The plot that’s there, while intriguing, is really just a
crucible in which to forge all the charcter interaction, which ends up being
very believable and subtly portrayed. It examines immature behavior in a
mature way. It’s all the angsty drama you’d expect from a bunch of high
school kids, only it’s ratcheted up to incredible levels by the extreme
circumstances in which the extensive cast find themselves. And it ends up
being really engaging to see all the new developments in chara relations
built up and built up to the inevitable bursting point against the backdrop
of a fairly interesting sci-fi conspiracy plot. So the story, pacing and
character development are good, and that’s really all this series is about.

The visuals are not breathtaking, but neither are they bad. It’s about 8
years old now so it benefits from a little computer help on the technical
side. The mechanical designs are a little peculiar, but still good. They
definitely went for a hard sci-fi feel in that area. Character design was on
the plain side, but fit with the story and did a good job of visually differentiating the huge cast of characters, which is important.

The music feels a little dated. They went with a very house/funk mix which
probably seemed hip and trendy at the time, but ends up being kind of
“blah..” Not real strong sound production but it’s not as necessary as it
would be for an epic action or adventure story. It didn’t distract from the
show.

One other thing I’d note is the subtitling was a little weak. There were a
lot of places where there was a lot being said but the subs flashed by to
fast and I and to rewind and/or pause. A minor quibble, and not intrinsic to
the original production.

Recommended veiwing for fans of character driven stories, sci-fi and/or
dramas.

-Timothy W. Leard

 

Guest Review: Knights of Ramune

Knights of Ramune is complete cheese. It’s a 3 hour cliche’. (My god! I actually watched that for 3 hours?) Every once in a while it has a short burst of quality animation, or a few seconds of cool space battles, and there were a few intriguing mecha designs, but that’s pretty much all the good that can be said about it. It packs in every stereotypical trope of the medium on a totally gratuitous level and touts it as “zany adventure.” That word, “zany,” should be seen like the skull and crossbones or biohazard symbol on packages and substances. In other words. “Approach with caution.”

Apparently there is a related prequel series that has virtually nothing to do with this series, that I understand would actually do nothing to shore up the plot holes. And what there is of a plot, I don’t have to outline because you could probably come up with it yourself if you just imagined every hackneyed anime plot you’ve scene got eaten all at the same time and then vomited back up.

For those that are interested, there are lots of naked bouncing boobies, animated in an exaggerated and gelatinous way.

Recommended viewing for nobody.
-Timothy W. Leard

 

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Anything Neil Gaiman writes is worth reading; Neverwhere is no exception. Gaiman is an imagination factory and all of his stories are original and rich. That said, Neverwhere is not his best, as the story is not as original as some others, such as American Gods, but it is still better than the majority of fantasy books available.

Modern fantasy is a sub-genre I have recently come to love. Fantasy has long been the realm of “long ago and far away”, but the likes of Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers, and Greg Stolze are literally rescuing it from the dark ages and separating it nicely from modern horror.Richard Mayhew works in securities and his life is boring. He is engaged to an emasculating woman who won’t make love to him in his apartment because it is small, and loves him because he is willing to follow her around and participate in her favorite activities. When he stops to help a bleeding girl on the sidewalk, she scolds him for encouraging her vagrant laziness. Little does he know his act of kindness would suck him down the proverbial rabbit-hole.

More after the break…

Door, the girl, is princess of a magical society that lives in the vast London Underground, and she is on the run from a pair of loquacious uber-evil assassins, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, who are in the employ of…well, that is one of the good surprises. The story is fairly predictable, however, as the dangers he encounters while traveling with Door cause him to develop some courage and change his wimpy ways once he returns to the real world.  Of course, once he returns to the real world, he finds reality to be dull and meaningless. The big plot points are fairly standard, and there is nothing really new here. However the read is very enjoyable.

Richard Mayhew belongs to a long line of victims-turned-heroes by adversity, like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter of, well, Harry Potter. In escapist stories like this one, the hero lives an unhappy life before finding that he is somehow special, and that a previously unknown world is revealed that needs the hero. By fulfilling his destiny, he grows and matures and is forever after unsatisfied with a mundane existence.  Stories like this appeal to the fact that most lives are mundane, and even the most amazing people throughout history spent the majority of their lives doing laundry, eating toast, and vacuuming the floor. Everyone wants to believe they are special and that magic could be just around the corner. Maybe that is why geeks read fantasy stories.

Neverwhere gets 3 out of 5.

 

30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night

My wife and I went to see “Across the Universe”, the new film by Julie Taymor. This film is another in the style of “Moulin Rouge” where a film writer tries to write a musical, so they come up with a story and force someone else’s music into it. The result is the disastrous “Across the Universe”, a film with so little to offer that it comes in a close second to “Moulin Rouge” in the contest for “biggest piece of crap ever.” Other contenders are “Pay it Forward” and “Sin City”.

 

I should have known before going in that the film would stink, simply because Oprah declared that it was “powerful and moving” (or something like that), which are industry code words for “pretentious and sappy”. The film also suffered from its similarities to “Rent” in that both films try to play on our sympathy for a bunch of lazy, drunken bums who have nothing better to do than blame their self-inflicted wounds on the rest of the world. The film was so bad that we snuck across to see “30 Days of Night” which was playing in the next theater over.

 

If you like horror, “30 Days of Night” is worth seeing. It is definitely a modern vampire story. Once upon a time, vampires were sexy. Perhaps Dracula was simply an embodiment of Victorian sexual repression as he flowed across the room with a grace and mesmerizing gaze. This idea was revived in the late twentieth century in “Interview with the Vampire”. Even in “Blade” the vampires have a certain “je ne sais quoi”. The vampires in “30 Days of Night” are not those vampires. They are monsters, plain and simple. They are bloodthirsty ravenous beasts made terrible by human intellect and a callousness which would make Jeffrey Dahmer wince.

 

More after the break…

Eben (Josh Hartnett) is the sheriff of Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the United States, where, once each winter, the sun does not rise for 30 days because they are north of the Arctic Circle. Two-thirds of the population leaves, alcohol is banned, the roads are impassable, and the airport is closed. What would any intelligent vampire think about this arrangement?

 

“BUFFET!”

 

The vampires start by picking off solitary victims and, as the population thins, the slaughter turns wholesale. The few survivors are forced to hide in an attic and try to wait out the invasion. Survivors lose their nerve, and the numbers reduce throughout the month until Eben shows his true colors and what exactly he is willing to sacrifice to save his estranged wife, Stella (Melissa George), and the people he has sworn to protect. In fact, willing self-sacrifice to save others is a repeated theme in this film.

 

The vampires are smart. They are not “dumb-evil”, they are “smart-evil”. They have a plan, and it plays out in a terrifying manner. The vampires systematically destroy any means of rescue before revealing themselves. One young woman is offered her freedom if she acts as bait to draw out other survivors. Eben finds himself in a no-win situation constructed by the vampires as they reveal their end-game. Should he save his wife and doom the other survivors to slaughter, or keep the few townspeople that remain safe while she burns to death? Eben comes up with an interesting solution.

 

This is a gory film. Shotguns and pistols give way to axes and construction equipment as the near-invulnerability of the vampires is demonstrated. In one scene, a seven or eight-year-old vampire needs to be dispatched by holding her to a wall and beheading her with an axe.

 

The acting is solid. Josh Hartnet provides a good center for the cast, and the performance by Mark Boone Jr. is effective. There is only so much room for character in a film where the bill for stage blood takes up a significant portion of the budget, but the cast gives it their all. If you like horror, go see it.

I give “30 Days or Night” 3 ½ out of 5.

I give “Across the Universe” a charitable 1 out of 5.

 

A Shadow in Summer, Book One of The Long Price Quartet, by Daniel Abraham

A Shadow in Summer, Book One of The Long Price Quartet, by Daniel AbrahamDaniel Abraham’s first published novel, A Shadow in Summer, is better and more original than the novels published by seasoned professionals, but perhaps that is to be expected. It is easier to teach a new dog new trick than and old dog. Much of modern popular fantasy fiction is simply a retread of Tolkien. Brave warriors befriend elves and fight orcs and dragons while wizards play with impossible powers in far too many novels. Because of this, it is very refreshing to find an original voice.  But more than that, too many heroes in fantasy are predictable. How many times have you, dear reader, known what was going to happen and how the characters would react far before the author tells you? Quite often, I have found. And how often, if the character does not follow your prognosis, do his actions make no sense? Far too often, I think.

In A Shadow in Summer, the characters, especially the strong-willed Otah, react in ways that show a much better understanding of the world in which they live than the reader would have guessed. You are willing to follow the characters through the story because you know they will surprise you.

More after the break…

Unfortunately, in most fantasy novels, magic is predictable. There is little difference, besides superfluous trappings, between the spell slinging of most wizards in popular fiction. The names change, but the feel of magic is usually stale. A fireball is a fireball, and a lightning bolt is a lightning bolt. Not so here, because Abraham has created a world where magic is literally alive.

Magic in this world is wrought by poets, and the magic is a being, often an important character, called an Andat. In A Shadow in Summer his name is Removing The Part That Continues, or Seedless, and he has his own goals and intrigues. Others are called Petals Falling, or Three Bound as One. They are all powerful, but they are also slaves.  Some poets have fallen in love with their Andat creations, and some are despised by them. Seedless’s ability to remove the seeds from anything with a glance is a boon the cotton-based economy of Saraykeht, but he wants to be free.

All the major characters, Otah, the nobleman’s disowned son, Maati, the apprentice poet, Amat, the overseer of a major trading house, Liat, her inexperienced student, and Itani, the mysterious laborer, interact in a complicated, but never confusing, web of love, deceit, and vengeance. Amat is on the run for her life, because of what she knows. Liat is in over her head, trying to keep the trading house together and in love with Itani, a man far below her station who has powerful secrets. Maati is undyingly loyal to Otah, who ruined his own future to save Maati from abuse in school, while waiting to be the poet that must someday takeover for his failing master.  And watching it all is the omnipotent Seedless, who cannot have the one thing he wants, his freedom.

This is Abraham’s first novel, and there are a couple of insignificant rough patches that a more seasoned veteran would have avoided, but let me ask this. Would you rather have a polished piece of glass, or a rough-cut diamond? I choose the latter, and you would be wise to do the same by reading A Shadow in Summer, by Daniel Abraham.

4  out of 5