Category Archives: Movies

by | January 14, 2014 · 11:47 am

Confessions of a Geek: Cinematic Influences, Part 1

Continuing on with the Therefore I Geek discussion of influences, today we’re talking about movies and television shows that have influenced us. I have loved movies since I was a little kid. When I’m feeling down and need a pick me up, I turn to movies. They are one of my favorite forms of escapism entertainment—not quite as immersive as books, but also requiring less active thought. They are perfect for those days when I’m feeling brain dead, which occurs more often than I would like. Television shows are great because every week has the same cast of characters involved in some different adventure or dilemma. After a while, the audience starts to feel like they know them as actual people and are part of their lives. These are just a few of the movies and TV shows that have had an impact on my life.

• Star Wars – This one is a no brainer. I can still remember the first time I saw any part of Star Wars. We were on a cross country trip, my dad couldn’t sleep so he was watching TV and Star Wars was on. I woke up and watched a few minutes, was rather confused by what I saw and then went back to bed. Phantom Menace is the first DVD I ever owned and Revenge of the Sith is the first midnight movie showing I went to (also the first time I had Red Bull. It was a memorable night). My favorite Star Wars movie is The Empire Strikes Back.

• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – While I love all of Star Trek, this is by far the best of the films and the one that made me really love all things Trek. I’ve played Star Trek games, read Star Trek books and had daydreams set in the Star Trek universe. A close runner up is Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which has some nice action, but doesn’t quite hold the same gravity

• The West Wing – I hate political ads. I hate them so much in fact that I give up watching live television during presidential elections. The real problem with this is that I’m interested in politics, but the ads cause my blood pressure to go through the roof. In comes The West Wing. While I don’t agree with a lot of the political ideas, I love the idealistic view of how politics should work. It also helps that the writing is quite good.

• Alien – One of the greatest science fiction movies ever made. It is one of the few horror movies I’ve ever seen and it scared the crap out of me the first time I saw it. This movie has lead me to look into the other Alien films, B-movies, Ridley Scott’s films and H.R. Giger’s art. That is a serious amount of research all because of one movie.

• The Hunt for Red October – Submarines are one of the things that interest me most and while this movie may not be particularly accurate, it is a great action picture. This movie is one of the things that help me figure out what I wanted to do with my life (and also that I didn’t want to actually be in the Navy).

• Firefly and Serenity – This was, of course, a great show. Despite its short initial run, Firefly has had a significant afterlife on DVD and Netflix. It also happened to be my first real exposure to Joss Whedon. (I’m not very familiar with Buffy; what can I say.) I named one of my cats after everyone’s favorite engineer—though if I’m being completely honest she’s less Kaylee and more Jayne (or that homicidal Russian guy).

I love her… cause she’s pretty!

• 10 Things I Hate About You – This was the first time I’d ever seen Shakespeare that wasn’t literal Shakespeare (Taming of the Shrew in this case). While it is certainly not Ran or Scotland, PA, it’s a fun movie with a surprisingly strong cast (Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon Levitt) that does a good job of telling the original story without the original Shakespearean language that many people find difficult to understand.

• The Big Lebowski – The Cohen Brothers’ parody of The Big Sleep (which is also a fantastic film) is the movie, after Star Wars, that I quote the most. If you include F-bombs, then it is by far the movie I quote most. John Goodman is in rare form as Walter and matches perfectly with Jeff Bridges’ inspired portrayal of The Dude. Because of The Big Lebowski I’ve looked up some classic movies as well as other Cohen Brothers’ films (big fan of Raising Arizona). It’s also got one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard.

What movies and TV shows have you found influential? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned for part two, wherein our editor provides her list of cinematic influences.

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by | December 28, 2013 · 12:42 pm

Review: 47 Ronin

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I love samurai movies. I own the Criterion Collection edition of several of Kurosawa’s major works and they are among the prized pieces of my movie collection. With this in mind I went to see 47 Ronin. Despite claims that it was done in the same tradition as Kurosawa, I had no expectations that 47 Ronin would live up to that. All I was really hoping for was a faithful, artistic retelling of the Japanese legend. What I got was a disappointing mess. At almost every turn 47 Ronin managed to do the wrong thing.

The original legend of the forty-seven ronin is a classic Japanese tale about forty-seven masterless samurai lead by Oishi who avenge their master’s death. Their master, Lord Asano, had been goaded into attacking a court official, Kira, in Edo Castle over a perceived slight. Assaulting a court official was a grave crime and the master was forced to commit ritual suicide. Forty-seven of the disgraced master’s samurai vowed to avenge their master and waited two years to fulfill their promise. After completing their mission, they turned themselves in and were also required to commit suicide, an unfortunate but honorable end to their quest. The story has become an example of the best that the samurai culture has to offer; honor, duty and loyalty.

Japanese woodblock print of the forty-seven samurai

Japanese woodblock print of the forty-seven samurai.

The witch, played by Rinko Kikuchi, was a very bizarre and frequently creepy addition.  According to this movie, she placed Lord Asano (Min Tanaka) under a spell, which is what made him attack Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano) with whom she is in league; rather than the original story plot in which Kira goads him into it.  The whole idea comes across as somewhat forced and unnecessary. There also was a big deal made of her eyes, which have Heterochromia iridum (fancy name for her eyes being different colors). While this was an interesting little touch, the movie spent considerable screen time on close-ups of her face, trying to show off this feature but without any real explanation. Do all witches have eyes like this? I’m fairly certain the answer is no. Even when she transformed into animals (all of which were pretty awful looking CGI) they still had the two-toned eyes.  She comes across as creepy.  She’s not spooky, Stephen King kind of creepy, but more like the “I need adult supervision” kind of creepy. One scene in particular between the witch and Mika (Kô Shibasaki) was both creepy and bizarrely sexual and just made me mildly uncomfortable.

It's the eyes.

It’s the eyes.

Hands down the biggest problem with this movie was of course Kai, the half-breed, played by none other than Keanu Reeves. /Sigh/ I’m almost at a loss of where to begin, but I think I’ll start with the character himself. Into this entirely Japanese cast the film makers dropped a half white, half Japanese character who was apparently trained by demons as a child to be a killer. He then escapes, is found by Lord Asano, and raised by the lord.  However, he was forced to live outside the lord’s house in a hut (Japanese xenophobia prevented him from being an equal).  Of course, the lord’s daughter Mika doesn’t care and becomes Kai’s companion.

Finally when Kai is grown up and the witch shows up with Lord Kira, he is the only one who can tell she’s a witch (apparently because he was raised by demons). I swear I’m not making up any of this, and in fact I’m leaving some of it out. It’s a mix of ridiculous and cliché that I could not have come up with after a week-long bender. I get why the studio would want to have included a white character, as there are not many big name Japanese actors, but to then add in all of this other crazy stuff just confuses the hell out of me. As for Keanu himself, he won’t be winning any awards for this performance, except for maybe a Razzy.  Reeves spent most of the film mumbling out dialogue and then staring blankly at either the camera or his fellow cast members.

This is about as emotional as he gets.

This is about as emotional as he gets.

For a movie that claimed to be the successor to Akira Kurosawa’s work, it falls spectacularly short of that high mark. The scale of the movie was probably the only element that came anywhere near it.  Kurosawa was capable of massive scenes, such as those in the movie Ran.  In this movie there were a couple of shots in which I could see that the film makers had done at least a little of their homework. These however were the only glimmers of hope, and the overwhelming majority were in the first thirty minutes of the movie.

When it comes to Japanese culture, however, the film makers were less than studious. Frequently, characters spoke out of turn or insinuated themselves into situations in ways that would have been unacceptable in Japanese society. There were also issues from time to time with the sword choreography. At times the fighting was much more of a western style as opposed to a Japanese style, using stabs and thrusts with a sword that isn’t designed for those kinds of moves. If it weren’t for the costumes, there were several times that I would have forgotten this story takes place in feudal Japan. Even the costumes often looked cheap and not in keeping with the standards that Kurosawa set for movies of this type.

Overall this movie was just a mess. While I didn’t feel like my money was wasted, I certainly cannot recommend this movie to anyone. If someone out there would like to make a movie about the forty-seven ronin that is really good, I encourage you to make it quickly so that we can all forget about this one.  I give it one Death Star.

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by | December 17, 2013 · 12:24 pm

Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

***** SPOILER ALERT *****

This review will be discussing plot points which may be considered spoilers. Consider yourselves warned.

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As I write this review I am in the middle of a Lord of the Rings marathon. I have to admit that going to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has put me in the mood for as much of Middle Earth as I can get my hands on. Unfortunately the reason I’m in this mood is because I’m longing for a good story from Middle Earth. As excited as I was for this movie, I afraid that it leaves much to be desired.

After an enjoyable introductory scene, much like those in Lord of the Rings, The Desolation of Smaug picks up just as Bilbo and the dwarves begin their passage into Mirkwood. I was pretty pleased with this portion of the film, but I just felt that it was over far too quickly. Several chapters of the book were dedicated to Mirkwood, and only around twenty or thirty minutes of the film were spent there. While the film portrays the confusion that the company feels admirably, it sets in far too quickly and then is resolved rather abruptly. This demonstrates the major flaw in the movie:  timing.  When these films were first announced, there were only supposed to be two films, but a third was added later. Regularly throughout The Desolation of Smaug some scenes which are canon from the books are compacted in order to make room from extra stuff, often to the movie’s detriment.

Now it’s pretty well known that I am a fanboy and that Lord of the Rings falls into the long list of things I love. Despite this love I am not a purist, which is to say I understand when changes must be made in order to actually make the film.  Some of this extra material I enjoyed—especially the parts which come from appendixes or other material from J.R.R. Tolkien. Watching Gandalf investigate and then confront the necromancer in Dol Guldur was great. This provides some great moments that really place The Hobbit in context. While the story is primarily about the dwarves’ return to Erebor, it is also the build up to Lord of the Rings, and there are scenes that allow us to see all the pieces moving into place.  My issue is that these changes come at the expense of the real story. Scenes from the book were compressed in order to make room for this extra material.

Shortly Bilbo will realize that there is a hole in his plan.

Shortly Bilbo will realize that there is a hole in his plan.

In other places, scenes were extended considerably. The prime example of this was the dwarves’ escape by barrel. There was a good long chase scene down the river that involved the dwarves getting away first from the wood elves and then from the same orc band that has been chasing them through most of the movie. Although an important scene in the book, and one that I have always felt was among Tolkien’s most clever, it was a relatively short part. Not only was this scene extended in the movie, parts of it became more than a little ridiculous. At one point the barrel carrying Bombur managed to get tossed out of the river and rolled down the river bank, taking out dozens of orcs in the process.  Then Bombur proceeds to pop his arms out of the barrel and take on several more orcs before jumping back into the river. Further on, Legolas rides down the river standing on the heads of two dwarves, all the while, shooting down orcs. This whole sequence becomes rather disappointing because of this outrageousness.

Still other portions are purely fictitious. The inclusion of the female elf Tauriel has no basis in the books. Her character was included almost exclusively to include additional female cast members, which is a questionable reason at best. I honestly didn’t mind her character, aside from the fact that she was obviously not part of the original book and therefore all her scenes seemed like someone trying to mimic Tolkien’s style. Tauriel also plays a part in the most egregious portion of the movie. During the barrel escape, Kili is shot in the leg by an orc and is eventually left behind in Laketown, along with three other dwarves, when the company proceeds on to Erebor. This whole plot point was completely unnecessary and only underscores the fact that the third movie should never have been added. If there were only two movies, filler material like this wouldn’t be needed and they would have been able to stick to the fantastic story that already existed.

One of many great Erebor interior shots.

One of many great Erebor interior shots.

After all of that, it probably sounds like I hated the movie, and that just isn’t the case. For one, the movie looked absolutely amazing. From the halls of the Thranduil to the Lonely Mountain, the entire movie was a visual treat. I’m especially fond of the dwarven style. It all looks very angular but refined and elegant in its own way. Unlike the orcs who are angular in a jagged and chaotic way, dwarf creations show considerable thought and skill. Beyond the look of the dwarves is of course their grand nemesis, Smaug. I could not be more pleased with the way Smaug turned out. It’s obvious that the Peter Jackson drew upon available sources and previous artist renditions of Smaug when creating the visual for the character. Especially when compared to Bilbo, Smaug appears as more a force of nature than a fellow cast member. The dragon is absolutely enormous and terrifying. Jackson must be a firm believer in “Go big or go home” because the movie makers went all out on Smaug.

This is the image of Smaug I always think of, and it was pretty spot on, aside from relative size.

This is the image of Smaug I always think of, and it was pretty spot on, aside from relative size.

In no way, shape, or form do I regret seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, but I do think that there was plenty of room for improvement. The film suffered from being stretched too thin when it came to source material (like butter over too much bread), though when they stuck to the original content the movie was at its strongest. While not the movie I was hoping for, I am still excited to see the ending of the trilogy next year. Three out of five Death Stars.

3 Death Stars

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by | November 19, 2013 · 7:10 pm

What Might Have Been

There is a curse on our society.   It is a dangerous and insidious plague that works its way into the very heart of the most precious part of our lives:  our entertainment.  I am, of course, referring to DVD bonus features.  While tempting and tantalizing, they have cursed us with the knowledge of what might have been.  This extra content often reveals the director’s original vision, before things like budget and other physical constraints get in the way.  Without this knowledge, fans are more than happy with the final product, but with the additional knowledge we begin to ask ourselves how much more would we have loved what might have been.

An artists vision of what Starship Trooper's power armor looks like.

An artists vision of what Starship Trooper‘s power armor looks like.

Starship Troopers is my favorite book, hands down.  I’ve read it at least a half dozen times.  Robert Heinlein crafted a fantastic science fiction universe, and the centerpiece of that universe is the Mobile Infantry, with their suits of powered armor.  These suits protect the infantrymen and provide them with enhanced strength, sensory perception, communications, and weaponry. These suits are described in the book as looking like giant, armored gorillas. Of course, this is not what appeared in the film. Instead, it was a box office disaster that didn’t have powered armor at all. That being said, the movie has some redeeming qualities as a B movie and I was willing to accept the movie for what it is—that is, until I saw the special features.  In them, director Paul Verhoeven spoke very excitedly about what he was planning to do with the suits.  Special feature interviews with Verhoeven show various concepts of what the suits might have looked like and, while they were all very different, they were all really cool looking. Instead we got really crappy body armor (This same armor made an appearance in episode two of Firefly).  Had I never seen Verhoeven’s original vision, I would have never expected anything other than the final movie version.

If you thought the armor looked familiar, you were not going crazy.

If you thought the armor looked familiar, you are not going crazy.

While Starship Troopers was an all-around disappointment, of which the armor was just one small part, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek was an awesome film. Abrams was able to successfully reboot the franchise while still retaining the aesthetic, the positive vision of the future, the characterizations, etc. that made Star Trek so amazing in the first place.

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Accompanying the reboot is a refreshingly streamlined Enterprise. Everything looks so shiny and sleek. Well, almost everything. The engineering spaces are completely out of place with the new look.  They have more in common with the engine room of a modern cargo ship than with any of the previous incarnations of Star Trek engineering spaces.  I felt that this disconnect detracted from the film and for quite a while I was forced to wonder why J.J. Abrams made that particular choice. When my answer finally came, I was both pleased and disappointed.  Again, thanks to DVD special features (ok, this time it was Blu Ray) I was shown the original designs for engineering. Everything I could have hoped for, it was streamlined, and meshed perfectly with the rest of the redesign. So what the hell happened? Turns out it was the almighty dollar sign. There just wasn’t enough money in the budget to make everything happen, and since it isn’t as integral to the film, engineering was forced to take one for the team. Unfortunately, now that I have seen the concept art, I can’t help but think about what the engine room could have looked like and how cool it would have been.

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Of course DVDs are not the only place to get these kinds of behind the scenes secrets. Thanks to the internet there is a plethora of information and it usually doesn’t take more than thirty seconds of searching on Google to find it. In recent years studios have gone so far as to release concept art well in advance of the movie’s release in order to drum up as much excitement and anticipation as possible. I’ve always thought this was tremendously risky. What if the final product doesn’t live up to the expectations of the fans? If they didn’t already have this information, they would have never known and might have been satisfied with what they actually got.

DVD special features are great. They can be lots of fun, but they also carry with them the inherent danger of ruining the final product for the fans. One must be careful not to become too fixated on those things that might have been.  Instead we should be content with what we have and leave the speculation for someone else.

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