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Scott Pilgrim vs. A Second Viewing

Scott Pilgrim vs. A Second Viewing

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Earlier this week, Andrew Zimmerman Jones posted a review of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I’m here to provide a different take on the film…

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is, in my opinion, one of the best movies of 2010. I’d even go so far as to say it’s one of my favourite films of the past five years, but after its lackluster release last August, viewers seem divided as to whether or not they enjoyed the whole Scott Pilgrim experience.

Scott gets a life
Scott gets a life

Some have said that it’s mostly style with very little substance or, as Mike Allen put it, “the cinematic equivalent of a box of Nerds – fizzling sweetly on the tongue, then gone and forgotten!” But I disagree, staunch Scott Pilgrim fan that I am, and I’m here to tell you why, if you found yourself wholly underwhelmed by the film, you should give it just one more chance. If you know where to look, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World will surprise you with its intricacies.

This all started when the lovely and mysterious C.S.E. Cooney posted as her Facebook status: “Didn’t like Scott Pilgrim VS the World as much as I wanted to. Entertaining, though.”

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TRON: Legacy

TRON: Legacy

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tron-legacy-posterTRON: Legacy (2010)
Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, Michael Sheen.

Disney has sunk a hefty amount of money into the making and marketing of TRON: Legacy as a blockbuster and a future franchise. Given the long-term currency of the 1982 original, this is what you would expect. The IMAX 3D release that coincides with last year’s release of Avatar makes Disney’s scheme of conquest obvious.

And yet, after watching the film, I have to wonder if Disney had any idea what they were doing with this, uhm, strange and mostly airless film. It’s decked with gorgeous neon visuals and special effects, but it is neither an action extravaganza to grab the young viewers nor an intelligent enough follow-up to the heady ideas that TRON smashed around in 1982 at the edge of the computer revolution. It appears that the revolution has not been televised. Or not screened.

TRON: Legacy is no fiasco—it will make a profit and I imagine that international box-office will make up the significant part of it—but it’s only “adequate” all around. Considering that I went into the film with the realistic expectation that it might very well suck, I can say with enormous lack of passion that I am “satisfied.” However, this won’t be a film I’ll want to revisit the way I do its predecessor, nor will it make it onto my DVD shelf. The benefit of the IMAX 3D presentation is significant enough (see it in this format if you can) that my disappointment would increase in its absence.

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Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

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Scott Pilgrim levels up when he gains the Power of Love.
Scott Pilgrim levels up when he gains the Power of Love.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World , a live-action film based on a popular comic book limited series which was written to mimic a quasi-video game world, goes beyond “quirky” into a new realm of meta-film.

What do I mean by this? I guess the best way to explain it is that at no point during the film is the viewer really allowed to forget that they’re watching a film. Watching the film is like watching a mix of anime and video game which happens to be performed by real actors. The fight scenes are extremely impressive, a mix of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Super Mario Galaxy, with some Guitar Hero thrown in for good measure.

“Realism” has no place in this film.

At first, you might think that things like this would ruin the film, but instead it allows you to engage with the film on a whole different level than what you’re used to … and it works.

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No Mere Nostalgia, Part II: TRON (1982)

No Mere Nostalgia, Part II: TRON (1982)

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tron-title-cardOn the other side of the screen, it all looks so easy. . . .

Earlier this year, I marched stolidly at the front of a phalanx to defend the original Clash of the Titans right before its re-make was about to hit theaters. I found the re-make more palatable than I expected, although I have since gotten frosty about it after watching it a second time when the DVD came out; the sucker just doesn’t hold up. Although a sequel to the re-make is now in the works, I think the status of Harryhausen’s 1981 film remains secure. It may even improve.

Now I am facing a similar-sounding situation with this Friday’s looming release of TRON: Legacy. I am here to defend the 1982 film TRON, a movie that balances on a triple-edged knife’s tip of nostalgia, prescience, and ridicule.

However, my position with the new TRON is different than that of the new Clash of the Titans. The forthcoming TRON: Legacy is not a re-make, but a sequel, and this puts me less on the defensive and instead rezzes me up. The early reviews are lukewarm, but at least TRON: Legacy isn’t trying to override the memory of the first movie, and it has brought back the original star Jeff Bridges as well as director Steven Lisberger (in the role of producer this time).

During the early stages of the “New TRON movie” development, Disney did consider doing a re-make, but thankfully someone in the Mouse House realized that a sequel was a better plan. Developments in computer technology between 1982 and 2010 provide an opportunity to explore how the world of computers from the original film have changed — how the grid and the primitive Internet have expanded to rule the world and transform into a reality parallel to our own — and that is fertile ground for a sequel. A sequel almost seems a necessity.

But that TRON: Legacy got made at all is a celebration of one the weirdest, long-term success stories of science-fiction cinema: how a “video-game craze” movie that got a muddy reception on its original release turned into a piece of technical prophecy, an oracle of the modern hi-tech zeitgeist.

Yes, but is it a good movie?

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Goth Chick News: You Really Need to Tell Me Everything… Now

Goth Chick News: You Really Need to Tell Me Everything… Now

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image0083I’m about to cross into some sacred territory here, but what the heck.

I really didn’t like The Empire Strikes Back, originally the second (ultimately fifth) in the Star Wars series. In fact, it pretty much put me off the rest of the movies and though I doggedly attended each and every one, the shine went off at number two.

Why?

Because the story left me hanging.

Yep, that’s basically it. The fact that we had to — nay, were forced to — come back for number three to find out what became of Han Solo, who was frozen in carbonite and being rocketed toward certain doom at the end of Empire, sucked the life out of the entire experience for me. Darth Vader’s evil pales in comparison to a cheap trick like an unfinished storyline.

Now before you start peppering me with email and comments about how George Lucas is a national treasure and “how dare I” and all that, please hear me out.

I know a lot of you will say that being left in suspense is part of the fun, and that if a tale is too rich to be told in under three hours it deserves to be broken up into segments. In the case of an HBO series or daytime soap operas I completely agree; waiting to see what happens tomorrow or next week is indeed the hook that keeps the viewers coming back, me included (i.e. True Blood).

The big difference is, the individual segments were never conceived or written to stand alone. And perhaps this is the argument one could make about George Lucas and his intentions when he wrote the entire Star Wars epic. However, a little cynical part of me can’t help but wonder if it had something to do with money, and that’s the bit that ever so slightly gets under my skin.

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Goth Chick News: Vampire Zombies on a Plane, Snakes Not Included

Goth Chick News: Vampire Zombies on a Plane, Snakes Not Included

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image004I believe everyone has something that unnerves them, which is not in your typical things-that-are-scary category. We’ve already agreed that clowns and little kids with blank stares rank high on the creepy index, but there are other more benign items that cause the hair on the back of our necks to stand up, mainly because they exist on the outside of the everyday.

Allow me to provide an example.

A few years ago I had an opportunity to visit Cape Canaveral in Florida for a night-time launch of the space shuttle. Though the event was scuttled by technical difficulties, there was something strangely frightening about the massiveness of the shuttle (and “massive” hardly does it justice).

This monolithic structure, sitting in the middle of an otherwise vacant launch pad and lit the way it was, seemed strangely terrifying. It didn’t belong there on what looked like a normal airport runway. It was gigantic and alien and out of place. I can’t explain it sufficiently, but I had nightmares about standing near it for several weeks after. Maybe because it was in a place my mind just couldn’t agree it should be, and that turned “normal” upside down.

It was because of the chill that comes from everyday things being displaced that I picked up Guillermo Del Toro’s latest paperback release The Strain to sustain me on a recent, long plane ride. In case you aren’t familiar with Del Toro, he is the owner of the incredible imagination that brought us Pan’s Labyrinth, which was turned into an Oscar-winning film in 2007.

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Yesterday Was A Lie, A Film Review

Yesterday Was A Lie, A Film Review

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bgtitle“Yesterday Was A Lie” is an indie film that indulges in experimental exposition right out of the gate.

The story unfolds in a purposely non-linear fashion, and the unwary viewer can easily lose track of what is happening. The blurbs identifying the film as a “metaphysical mystery” do little to suggest how different is this film from what one might expect a mystery film to be.

The subscriber reviews in Netflix and Blockbuster seemed to generally pan it, although those who gave it five stars mostly did so while not sharing their revelation of what the film is about.

The ‘genius groups’ take seemed to be that one either gets it or one doesn’t get it, and if one doesn’t get it, one won’t understand it in any case. Those of a sub-genius persuasion, and I count myself among them, will very likely benefit from an understanding of the story before seeing the film.

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“We Belong Dead”: Bride of Frankenstein

“We Belong Dead”: Bride of Frankenstein

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I will be one of the Black Gate team present at the World Fantasy Convention this weekend, so if you are there as well, just look for the guy who appears lost. (I’ve never been to one of the big conventions before.)

bride-of-frakenstein-universal-weeklyTwo weeks ago I discussed the key Hammer Horror film for Halloween, Dracula (1958). It would be a grave omission not to discuss my key Universal Horror film for Halloween—especially since this year is that movie’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

This is going to be a “strolling” review, in which I walk through an entire film and simply point at things. It’s a good sort of October stroll, I think.

Three-quarters of a century ago, on April 22nd, Universal Pictures released the long-rumored, delayed, and awaited sequel to their 1931 smash hit adaptation of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Bride of Frankenstein. The world of Gothic film has never been the same. Bride is the highest achievement of the Universal Horror series, the best film ever from director James Whale, and a defining moment in the cinema of the fantastic, weird, and grotesque. Every viewing of the film is an unfettered joy and a voyage through the dark imagination.

(Promotional materials advertise the film as The Bride of Frankenstein, but the actual on-screen title eliminates the definite article, and I’m a martinet about these things.)

Universal in the 1930s built their House of Horrors on the twin success of Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. A later successful double feature of the two would create the Universal Horrors of the 1940s. And it was the director of Frankenstein, British import James Whale, one of many theatrical directors who were given film directing jobs in the new world of the “Talkies,” that the studio pegged as their great hope not only for horror, but to put the studio on a competitive level with MGM. Whale wasn’t only a sure hand with horror movies like Frankenstein, The Old Dark House (1932), and The Invisible Man (1933), but also produced successful stylish comedies, musicals, and murder mysteries for the studio.

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Zombieland: Bringing the fun, and a few rules to live by

Zombieland: Bringing the fun, and a few rules to live by

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zombieland-posterLike most horror fans, I love zombie movies because they’re fun, gory, and suspenseful. I find the survivalist angle intriguing, too (I often find myself wondering if and how I could survive an initial outbreak of the walking dead. Equipped with my copy of The Zombie Survival Guide I’d like to think at least I’d have a fighting chance. But probably not).

But in the end the zombie films I like best are those that aspire to more than just empty action. Like all good movies, the best zombie films contain underlying social and/or political messages that give them an added dimension and another level on which they can be enjoyed.

I’m not a horror historian, but as far as I can tell the zombie film as social commentary started with George Romero. Broadly, zombies have always been a metaphor for death, but it wasn’t until 1978’s Dawn of the Dead that the walking dead were used to critique concepts like capitalism and unchecked consumer culture (as a sidenote this is why I didn’t like the new Dawn of the Dead as much as the original—the 2004 version is not only too nihilistic, but it removes all the subtext in favor of high-speed, sprinting zombie carnage).

Since Dawn other zombie films have hopped on the bandwagon of zombie apocalypse as societal/cultural critique. The most recent example is the comedic zombie horror of Zombieland (2009). Zombieland tells the story of a group of survivors trying to find their way in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. These include 20-something “Columbus” (played by Jesse Eisenburg), a nerdy, World of Warcraft playing recluse; “Tallahassee” (Woody Harrelson), a modern cowboy with an apparent death wish, a sardonic sense of humor and a mean streak a mile wide when it comes to zombies; “Wichita” (Emma Stone), a beautiful, guarded, hard-bitten realist, and “Little Rock” (Abigail Breslin), Wichita’s younger sister and resourceful partner in crime.

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Top Choice October: Dracula ‘58 (Horror of Dracula)

Top Choice October: Dracula ‘58 (Horror of Dracula)

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dracula-58-title-on-coffin-with-bloodOctober films come in two flavors for me: Universal and Hammer. I have affection for almost any Gothic horror films these studios produced during their Golden Ages (1930s and ‘40s for Universal, 1950s and ‘60s for Hammer), even the lesser entries. The studios have such opposite visual approaches to similar material — the black-and-white shadows of Universal, the rococo lurid colors of Hammer — that they create a perfect Yin and Yang for Halloween, a Ghastly Story for Whatever Suits Your October Mood.

And what suits my mood best, most of the time? Hammer’s 1958 Dracula, released in the U.S. as Horror of Dracula. This isn’t my top pick of the Hammer canon — I lean toward two 1968 films for that honor, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and The Devil Rides Out — but it is the film I turn to more than any other when the calendar changes into the deep orange and serge hues of the Greatest Month.

Dracula ‘58 is my favorite version of the Dracula story, and perhaps my favorite vampire anything — with the possible exception of Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. It has flaws, but scoffs at me for even thinking that they exist. It is so desperately alive, so exploding with its own entertainment value, and so rich in execution that it never fails to be “exactly what I wanted to watch tonight.” I can say that about few films, even objectively better films.

Dracula is the cornerstone of the Hammer Film Productions legend, and an icon of the Anglo-Horror revival that seized the 1960s. Hammer had already entered the field of horror with their science-fiction “Quatermass” films, the intriguing spiritual spin-off X the Unknown, and the unusual creature-search adventure The Abominable Snowman. In 1957, the studio made their first color period horror movie, The Curse of Frankenstein, which whirled far away from both standard source materials — Mary Shelley’s novel and the 1931 James Whale film starring Boris Karloff — to represent an accidental manifesto of the new terror. It also introduced the horror-watching world to the double-team of Peter Cushing (Doctor) and Christopher Lee (Monster).

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