It Follows review

It Follows is a strange and dense horror film. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it scary I would say that it’s terrifying. The plot is this: Jay and Hugh are dating and end up sleeping together. Jay is then knocked out by Hugh and when she comes to is tied to a chair where she’s told the concept of the movie. That is there is a creature. It knows where you are at all times and can look like anyone. It is always walking toward you and when it gets to you it will kill you. You can make it target someone else by sleeping with them but if it kills them before they pass it on it will go back to the previous target. Oh, and it’s invisible (but corporeal) to anyone who has not been a target. So on the surface you get a sexually transmitted slasher film. But there’s so much more to it.

Right away there is a reason given for a very common horror trope: that a killer is coming after teenagers and the virgin will be the one to survive. That alone is nice but there’s a lot more genre deconstruction happening in this film. On a surface level the production is a spot on homage to 70s and 80s slasher movies. The soundtrack is a nearly painful orchestration of simple synth music. The killer is often seen slowly plodding through the suburbs en route to its current victim. If you’re getting a strong Halloween vibe you would not be wrong. But I hate Halloween and really respect this movie.

That is because I find early slasher films exercises in form with nothing to offer in terms of content. They're more explorations on how to make movies in a different way than good films unto themselves. What It Follows does is picks up the construction of Halloween and the like and spends its creativity on deconstruction and metaphor. Like Babadook and depression, It Follows is an exploration of the emotional impact of rape. While Jay does consent to sex with Hugh (and tells the police and therefore the audience this explicitly in an interview) the metaphor still holds. While she consented to sex she didn’t consent to the entire situation that Hugh was forcing on her. She never agreed to be stalked by a killer, have her privacy taken away, and be constantly paranoid about how people she recognizes may hurt her at any moment. The sexual act that Hugh does to her is clearly something done to turn her into a victim.

As the movie goes on the It of the title appears in a number of guises and is often nude. It’s strange how infrequently nudity is used as non-titillating in horror films. Even in another horror deconstruction, Cabin in the Woods, the nudity is sexy and done as a nod to the juxtaposition of sex and gore. In It Follows the nudity itself is disquieting. The creature is not often a teen so the naked body is usually that of someone in their 40s. It’s also not the main victim. Jay isn’t topless during her sex scene so the sex act and the nudity are actually separated. Often times the nudity is used to make It seem more out of place and surreal. Sex is also used for similar purposes to make the viewer uncomfortable. We are aware that whomever she sleeps with will most likely die and therefore sex becomes a bargaining chip for time to think rather than an expression of affection or even pleasure. There’s a particularly disturbing scene in which Jay is on the run and desperate for time and distance from the creature. She comes out of some woods to a beach and sees three men on a boat just off shore. She strips down to her underwear and begins to swim out. The next shot is of her driving home, soaking wet. It was at that moment I felt what the movie had accomplished. It made me cringe at the thought of sex. What would normally be the sexist scene in a film, a bunch of attractive teenagers or 20-somethings having sex at the beach, became the point of anxiety and disgust. Instead of seeing sex and then being made to cringe at the slaughter ensuing after. It Follows made me cringe at the sex itself. Suddenly I realized how much in the head of Jay I was.

And that was incredible. At no point in Halloween have I ever felt like Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis). I doubt people feel like the main girl at most horror movies. People roll their eyes as the characters ignore red flags, people shout at the screen for the characters not to do things and how dumb they are. But in It Follows I was cringing and trying to look away during sex. I felt anxiety over how Jay was going to cope with the aftermath of her night with Hugh. I felt pissed off when Jay’s friend Paul keeps mooning over her even as she’s trying to put herself back together each day after not being able to sleep or trust people. That’s the amazing thing that It Follows did to me and why I love it as a movie. It takes a throwback slasher film, breaks it down into its constituent pieces, and puts it together with enough logic to make the pieces fit. But then it keeps going. It slows the killer and makes the threat long lasting to give the emotions more impact on the characters. It’s not about finally believing towards the end and then running for your life. It’s knowing the truth early on and dealing with convincing your friends why you’re different and why you can’t just go back to the way things were. It’s having the titular It always escapable but always there. Death is avoidable but inescapable. It looms by taking its time.

And it’s cruel. When first showing Jay the creature, now her creature, he says that it’s slow but not dumb. At first it seems to be dumb. It approaches in broad daylight from in front. It doesn’t hide and it doesn’t sneak. But it doesn’t have to. Over the course of the movie other behaviors emerge. Rather than always appearing as family members in order to walk right up it reserves these visages for moments when it seems sure that this will be a final kill. It scares the victim with strangers but in an act that I can only interpret as cruelty it aims to hurt you the most while wearing the face of people you trust. And its method of murder makes this all the more horrific when it’s finally revealed. So not only is the killing blow as awful as possible but in the interim it makes the victim wary of even the most well-meaning of friends and family.

The movie ends with Jay and Paul sharing the burden of the creature. Both can now see it and both can watch out for the other. But both also know that it is always coming, right behind them and in no rush to end their torment. They just have to find ways to deal with life while evading it.

On a scale of -5 to 5 I rate It Follows a 4.5

Casting Feed

This won't mean much to those who haven't read Feed and the subsequent books. But if you haven't then you should feel a bit left out, like you're missing out on something, because you are. It's a fantastic series and it should either be in your hands or already inside your heads.

Now that the Newsflesh series has been optioned for film the wife and I spent most of our waiting in line moments at Hershey Park (rain and maintenance delays leave a bit of thumb twiddling time) driving ourselves mad trying to figure out who should be cast. We've been refining it since then as we've both been finishing up the series.So here's the list of characters we tackled and who who we came up with.

Sean Mason - Thomas Dekker

Georgia Mason - Allison Scagliotti

Georgette "Buffy" Meissonier - Leven Rambin Alona Tal

Mahir Gowda - Alessandro Juliani (Not Indian) Sendhil Ramamurthy (too old) Aziz Ansari

Nandini "Nan" Gowda - Rekha Sharma

Dr. Kelly Connolly - Anna Kendrick

Senator Peter Ryman - Stephen Moyer Jon Hamm

Emily Ryman - Lauren Graham

Rick Cousins - Tom Hiddleston

Rebecca "Becks" Atherton - Emma Stone

Alaric Kwong - John Cho (too old, but doesn't look it, but I can't think of any other age appropriate Asian actors)

Dave Novakowski - Neil Grayston

Magdalene "Maggie" Garcia - Natalie Morales

Dr. Shannon Abbey - Melissa McCarthy

Stacy Mason - Teri Hatcher

Michael Mason - Alan Tudyk

Hunger Games review

I left Hunger Games really liking it. There were some things that were slimmed down but I felt that not a lot of importance had been omitted. The main thing I felt was missing was a lack of scale to the nation. Instead of a whole country converted to districts it felt more like a city state with outlying villages, but I wrote that off because that scale doesn’t really enter the books in a meaningful way until the second installment.

But the next day I thought about it and felt that there really is a number of things missing from the movie.

Jennifer Lawrence is really good. I didn’t see Winter’s Bone but found her impressive in X-Men: First Class. Josh Hutcherson as Peeta was good enough, though he doesn’t hold the same “gentle giant” sense that the character has in the book. Here he’s a bit too small and his face too boyish. Perhaps that will make his character all the more shocking in the 3^rd movie but for now the casting choice seems too thin. The rest of the tributes work well enough though none of them are really given much material to work with. Rue essentially has two or three scenes, once of which is simply her hiding in the ceiling. It’s nice that Isabelle Fuhrman from Orphan got a few lines but the rest of Kato’s gang just seem like cruel muscle without any individual characters in there.

But as I said, there is a lot that’s smoothed over to the detriment of this movie. Woody Harrelson’s Hamish is serviceable but there’s no regret or even conflict over his role of mentoring two children in a Thunder Dome situation. He also makes alcoholism recovery look like a breeze.

Another character that is neutered, this one to an even greater extent, is Cinna. He doesn’t come across as calculating or subversive. He is more like a contestant on Project Runway that doesn’t listen to criticism from the judges than a counter-cultural radical as he is in the book. In the movie he’s a sympathetic shoulder and that’s why Katniss takes to him. In the books he makes it his mission to fight the establishment which is why Katniss finds strength in him as an ally.

Finally, there’s portrayal of Katniss’ romantic life. This is probably the most problematic part of the movie for me. The book is in first person which comes with its own set of limitations. For instance, in the books we only find out about District 11’s riot in the second book, long after it happens , because this is when Katniss finds out about it. Seeing it in chronological context in the movie made the seeds of revolution feel like they were planted instead of just being informed of something important later on. The upside of the first person narrative is that there’s no actual romance in the first book. The entire emotional engine of Katniss and Peeta is that she is being completely calculating about the whole thing. She feels nothing for him (yet) and so there’s a tension in their “romance”. Every action she takes to look kind and loving is a lie. The more Peeta keeps true to himself in the arena the more of a show she puts on for survival’s sake. In the film we see none of this and it’s quite possible that their interactions are nothing more than a teenage romance which weakens the very core of Katniss’ character. Gale barely figures into the story at all. In the books he’s a hunting mentor to Katniss; in the movie he simply tags along while she hunts and pines for her while she’s gone. With that dynamic chopped it’s is another layer of Katniss that is thinned out as well.

What bothers me is that in cultural context The Hunger Games is seen as a counter-Twilight series. Instead of the epically passive Bella you get the compartmentalized, driven Katniss. There’s a romance but it is started as an act and takes second place to the heroin’s role in the larger story of revolution. The movie can’t take that role though. While not nearly as socially repugnant as Twilight, there are too many similarities in the movies for it to find similar footing to the books. While not abusive in the same way as Twilight we are still given a couple made up of a pro-active and driven character and a passive, lovesick one (a formula I call the coward's romance since the only obstacles are self-imposed), with a third party looking in without enough emotional importance to truly make a tension filled triangle.

I think a fair way to describe the film is still enjoyable but on reflection perhaps less satisfying. I don’t know whether reading the books has helped or not. Reading them may have made me seen more faults in the movie, or it may have let me imprint emotional depth into it that wasn’t conveyed in the film version alone. I do not know if having read the series was a hindrance or a boon. But I have read them so I know that the world building increases in the subsequent installments and that the emotional connections established here are replaced with different ones so I do have that to look forward to. But part of me wonders if the story would be better served with a director with more vision.

On a scale of -5 to 5 I rate Hunger Games a 3.

Time Travel Made Easy

I recently started 11/22/63 by Stephen King. The plot is a man is presented with a door that leads back in time and he goes through it in order to stop JFK from being assassinated. I’ll leave the critique of King for another time, but one thing that stood out to me was that he spends about 10-15 pages explaining the concept of “travel back in time to change the future” by way of "watershed event" and "butterfly effect". While the process of making those changes can be complicated and convoluted the idea that things in the past will affect the future is a pretty simple one. It’s no different than something in the present changing the future.

And then I realized that King actually puts a lot into this book to explain in unnecessarily long passages the most basic concepts of science fiction, concepts that should easily be picked up through the story. The huge data dump in the beginning of the novel shouldn’t be needed. And then I realized that King has made the same mistake that a lot of people make. He thinks time travel is complicated.

Time travel is simple.

Oops. I’ve let out the secret. But truly, the basics of time travel really aren’t that difficult. Sure, you can wind the narrative around obfuscation and overlapping trips, like in the wonderfully infuriating Primer, but the basics are always easy to grasp. Any storyteller that pretends otherwise is either trying to seem overly clever for dealing with it, doesn’t get it themselves, or thinks their audience is pretty dim. So here’s the breakdown.

The bottom most level of time travel is moving from one point in time to another but not in the usual way. We all deal with regular time travel which is into the future at the speed of one second every second. In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine we get a really nice visual of someone sitting in a chair and watching time rewind as well as fast forward. The rate is changed. There are also instantaneous jumps in time travel fiction. That would be like Doctor Who, Back to the Future, Time Bandits… the list goes on quite a bit. Even King’s 11/22/63 has this. Step through a door and you’re decades in the past. Fast as that.

Where it gets a little more complicated is what kind of time the character is travel through. But don’t worry, it’s still a much simpler concept than most people expect. A lot of time different versions of time are rationalized or justified with technobable but that’s like putting fancy clothes on a mannequin. The model underneath is almost always eerily simple and usually one of three choices. With mannequins it’s man, woman or child. With time I’ve named the three fundamental forms solid, liquid and gas.

• Solid – Time is completely unchanging. If you go back in time and do something then you were there before and that action has already happened. Time travel is a closed loop. There is no free will, everything is predetermined. Or at least determined the first time events occur.
• If you travel back and step on an early amphibian then that animal had already died in the past.
• Examples
• Time Traveler’s Wife
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure - Since they come back to the present and nothing noticeable has changed we know that it is either a solid or liquid timeline. Small details, like their time loop escape from the jail cell seems to suggest a solid timeline.
• Liquid – Events can be changed but small changes will get passed over. You can visit and things won’t change but if you make a large change then it will affect the future.
• If you travel back and step on an early amphibian then another will end up evolving to eventually fill a similar role in history.
• Examples
• Quantum Leap
• Back to the Future
• Gas – Every little thing a future visitor does in the past will have consequences in the future. This is the scenario where the butterfly effect is often brought up.
• If you travel back and step on an early amphibian then perhaps you will return to a future of intelligent sea life. Or there will be no life at all.
• Examples
• A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
• Time and Punishment, the Simpsons parody of the above short story
• Uncertain
• Doctor Who - The very definition of inconsistency for the sake of a story. This universe seems to vacillate between 
• Primer - Evidently a malleable timeline though the range is so short it's impossible to tell the extent of changes to the future.
• Star Trek
• Solid or liquid. The novelization of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one with the whales) suggests a solid universe as the employee Scott gives the formula for transparent aluminium to is the historically credited inventor.
  HOWEVER! The new Star Trek begins with an event that branches the timeline so the new Trek movies take place in a changeable timeline. Since the crew still gets together I'm going to call it as liquid.

And that is the basic gist of time travel. Once you figure out the material of time then the events should just fit into the template. Of course, some fictional universe will change their physics. The Terminator universe is notorious for this. The first movie is a solid (possibly). Kyle Reese seems to always be John Connor’s father. His trip back and sleeping the Sara Connor is part of repeating events. Terminator 2 seems to be a liquid universe since large changes are made (blowing up Cyberdyne) and that gets things changed in the future (avoiding the robot uprising). Terminator 3 tries to pretend they are the same form of time and end up with a soft solid, something like rubber. Events can be pulled and bent but the main points are always there. The war always starts, the robots always revolt. The TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles can actually be somewhere along the liquid/gas rules. Small changes in the past are seen to make small changes in the future. Since the timeline isn’t very long long it’s impossible to tell how soft their version of time is, but changes can be made.

That's your time travel cheat sheet. The type of time that a story deals with is infinitely more important with the mechanism. Travel may be achieved by a magical trinket, a medical condition or a machine but as long as you know the timeline is solid then it's not that confusing.  A writer can justify time travel with as convoluted a device as they want. Primer uses a mysterious effect of cold temperature physics. Planet of the Apes used relativistic effects in a fast moving space capsule. Back to the Future has a car with little to no technical explanation. And while each of those mechanisms helps with building atmosphere and style it's not necessary to understand the inventions to still understand the world. Do not let talk of quantum physics or dozens of pages detailing the definition of "watershed event" or "butterfly effect" scare you. Just see what time does and it'll all work out in the end.

Or go horribly wrong and destroy the world you know.

• The "Not Actually Time Travel" bonus list
• Terra Nova and Michael Crichton's Timeline - Both of these are actually alternate universes. While stories like Back to the Future play with branching timelines these two stories involve parallel earths that already exist and just run next to ours. Calling these time travel is like saying that going to Canada puts you 10 years in the USA's past. While it may look similar it's not true.
• A Christmas Carol - This is more akin to astral viewing. The "travel" is hazy and even the future  vision is yet to happen so it's not much of a trip.

Hugo: a review

I just saw Hugo last night. All in all I enjoyed it. Martin Scorsese made a very pretty movie and it was really well acted. It has been receiving universally good reviews (93% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this moment) and I can understand why. For what is framed as a children's movie it comes across as a lovely period piece. Asa Butterfield was fantastic. Chloë Grace Moretz was also very good though I often felt she was sticking to the Wendy (of Peter Pan) school of acting: be wide-eyed and say "Adventure!" a lot with a British accent.

Yeah, a small thing I found very odd was that everyone has a British accent and this movie is supposed to drip with Paris. It often does but I do not understand why everyone either kept or put on a British accent to be French.

The real thesis of the movie isn't really about Hugo and his quest for familial fulfillment. It's about film preservation. I say that because the last act takes a narrative turn. It's been a while since I've read the novel but I think it balance both Hugo's and Georges Méliès' (Ben Kingsley) stories a bit better. The film seems to be about Hugo, then both and ends explicitly focusing on Georges and his life and career. The entire last act features the titular Hugo as a supporting character. While it didn't kill the movie for me it did feel like they partially abandoned Hugo's importance in the narrative, though thankfully still finishes his story. I know it's a delicate balance in the book, served by featuring the dénouement as a separate epilogue that places Georges story as a part of Hugo's life rather than tucking Hugo into Georges story and family. It's a subtle thing but makes all the difference.

The weaving of film history into the main plot is done, barring the end, well. Though slightly too on the nose in a few spots I found it a strong thread. There are side stories told in near pantomime, making the silent films experience by the characters also experienced, and relevant, to the audience. There's a romance between a couple of Harry Potter alumni and a romance for Sacha Baron Cohen's station inspector that takes him from a caricature to an absurd but full character.

Touching back on the film thesis there were two things that felt slightly off about it. The first is that it's in 3D. For something glorifying the days of simple stories and the most mechanical of practical effects this movie really delights in CG and 3D. I was thinking about that and realized that the only movie I have ever seen in 3D where the screen disappeared and I simply experienced the story in my head was Coraline. With good 3D the depth is usually rendered behind the screen. When things project it may be fine for a 3D gag but the audience doesn't actually believe that things are appearing in the theater with them. With depth it helps build the illusion of a window but still I always find myself aware that I'm not watching a play. With Coraline not only did they go for the recessed effect but they are stop-motion puppets. For that my brain allowed me to believe that perhaps I was watching puppets, I bought the illusion and at times the story took over. I've never experienced that with live action 3D the way that the best 2D films sometimes take me away from the theater or living room and put in inside of the story.

I found it a little strange and a little depressing that Scorsese felt this helped convey the magic of simpler films. Likely he became enamored with the concept of having an audience watch the silent footage of that early film of the train and feel at least a touch of belief that it would hurtle out at them. Perhaps it's because of a saturated 3D market or perhaps it's just an effect that is dated and impossible, but this movie did not deliver that. That's not to say that the 3D is bad. It adds a nice depth and there are times where it creates a very good sense of space. But I don't think that this movie would suffer if shown in 2D and the 3D never feels needed.

The other thing that popped into my mind was that it's odd that Scorsese chose this project to make a love letter to film restoration. Yes, that's really in the original book. It's just a little bizarre Scorsese's call comes in the form of a movie based on a novel. Really? From a writer's point of view that is discouraging. Something so personal as a love letter to the medium of film from a master director can't manage to be something on its own? The best way to pour this message onto the screen is from a book? I'm glad it was made and it's a fine adaptation; hopefully it will get Selznick's books out into more hands. But the fact that this billet doux to film was born from a novel takes at least a small amount of authenticity from it.

On a scale of -5 to +5
Hugo is a +4.

The Un-Watchable

Here's the concept: what movies would you go back in time to stop yourself from watching?  It has to be a theater release because something you see on cable or rent or Netflix is still a pretty passive experience.  When you go out to a movie there's traveling, usually a $40 bag of popcorn and a block of time set aside for the experience.  And it can't be something terrible that at least you have fun with now.  This is a movie so bad you actually regret the entire experience.  There are two for me that come instantly to mind.

The first is Spider-man 3.  Yeah, I regret spending money of the second one but number 3?  I left that theater in a sort of shock.  I was actually turned off from movies for a while.  Something rekindled my interest (looking at 2007 releases it was probably The Lookout) and I like to think I made a full recovery but... I admit, I may have developed a Pavlovian mistrust of Tobey Maguire.  If given the chance I would erase this from my personal history.

The second is What the Bleep Do We Know.  It claims to be a science documentary but is actually groundless propaganda from a cult that believes their leaders are reincarnations of priests from Atlantis.  Yeah, it's that bat-shit stupid.  Like many new age cranks (*cough Deepak Chopra cough*) it's formed around the amazing science of quantum physics.  And like many new age cranks they fail to grasp the actual concepts they build their belief system on.  I left the theater feeling more than cheated.  I felt insulted.  With Spider-man 3 I assume that it was made to entertain.  Sure, the target audience is probably coma patients and glue-huffing hobos but it works for them, I assume.  What the Bleep Do We Know was a glossy ball of misinformation that was either made by actively scheming con-men or utter morons.  Either way I was subjected to their "vision" for 109 minutes and I would love to have that time back to do something more productive.  Like pass into a coma or huff glue.  The worst part?  I saw it on a recommendation.  Some recommendations make you question someone's taste level.  And some make you flat out question their sanity.


And now I open I open it up to you.  What would you go back in time to stop yourself from going to a theater to see?

Christopher Nolan has an existential thesis, not a crisis

I just finished a Christopher Nolan movie in which a man accidentally becomes responsible for his wife's suicide. To deal with the grief and guilt he builds a world made of real, false and modified memories. He then progressively falls deeper into this absolution fantasy until he can no longer tell reality from his personal fiction. This movie is called Memento.

There's been some writing on how Inception is similar to The Prestige in that the main characters act out various functions in a trick or con that closely parallel the creation of a film. While this is true, Inception is not really a spiritual twin to The Prestige. Rather, it is a philosophical continuation to Memento. Both Inception and Memento are existential exercises in what makes a person's perceptions real, how real are they and does fact matter as much as how we comprehend it. In both of these films the main character creates their own reality which is built upon a foundation of meaning rather than fact. What's interesting is that in both cases this is revealed to us. Granted, in Inception it is done in a much more circumspect way but both movies clearly state at the end (and in the case of Memento the beginning as well) choosing to live within a falsehood may distance one from reality but it will ground one in their own drive to survive. The character of Teddy in Memento says that everyone lies to themselves to be happy. Nolan's repeated thesis is one step further; that some people lie to themselves to survive, even if it takes one away from happiness.

What's really interesting is after paring Nolan's existential perspective down to this concept we see it manifested more in Dark Knight than we do in The Prestige. At the end of Dark Knight the audience sees that Batman is faced with a dilemma. After Harvey Dent turns to murder and then dies, Batman has to choose how to present this to the people of Gotham City. He can give them the truth, that their near saint of a DA has turned to murder and tried to kill children, or present them with a lie, that Batman is a killer and Harvey Dent died in the pursuit of justice. The truth would devastate the community while the lie would strengthen their convictions about good people in power and therefore add stability to a shaky metropolis. As Leonard does in Memento and Cobb in Inception, Batman chooses to preserve the lie that gives purpose over the truth that would destroy.

Taking this concept back to The Prestige we see a bit of this peeking out, but only in shards. Hugh Jackman's character is never able to figure out what is the truth (whether it was a difficult knot that led to his wife's death or simply her inability to perform the trick) and without truth he can never face the existential crisis of purpose or truth. It seems that it is this situation that makes Jackman's character turn outwardly destructive. In the other three films the characters choose lies and turn it into purpose but also self destruction. Their choices to build their world on falsehood adds fuel to their fire, making them burn stronger rather than sputtering out but also burn faster. The obsession that comes out of not being able to choose in The Prestige leads to an outward feud, to a life of external destruction. Both of these situations lead to erosive lives but only when faced with a choice to deal with the truth and make a voluntary choice to live within a lie does the character find any fulfillment in their existence.

The situation I'd like to see Nolan tackle next is making a character face the choice between truth or purpose and choose truth. Purpose over truth shows a materialist pragmatism but what would people inside of a world created by Nolan do if they took the philosophically ideal path?

A quick note on what INCEPTION is (SPOILER FREE)

INCEPTION is not the best movie ever. Ebert's blog below is all about that. However, it is very good. It is Nolan's best; far more satisfying than The Prestige and far more refined and masterful than Memento.

INCEPTION is very good. It's not perfect but a lot of fun and you get to think.

INCEPTION is not incredibly smart. It is competently smart. It is not quite clever. It is complex. Christopher Nolan was smart and clever as a director. The construction of the film is brilliant. The actual movie is less so, though by no means dumb. You need to pay attention and think during the movie. You should leave being reasonably sure of what happened. Most of its secrets will clarify after some reflection.

INCEPTION will not change movie making or story telling. It probably won't change your life but it is still a very good film.

Recently there has been some confusion between complex and clever. And much like irony it is something that is much easier understood when witnessed than explained. The first season of LOST was clever. The later seasons were complex. Christopher Nolan shows himself to be a clever director while making this complex movie.

INCEPTION link - THESE DO CONTAIN SPOILERS
11 Points about Inception
Ebert's blog on Inception reviews
CHUD's "solution" to Inception
Salon.com All About Inception

Toy Story 3 - Both Dynamic and Flat

The other day I was thinking about Toy Story 3 and the Toy Story series in general.  I'm not a huge fan of them, though I did enjoy the 3rd one.  I tried to figure out what about the movies didn't really work for me and it occurred to me that while (some of) the characters are three dimensional their world view is too flat for me.

What do I mean by that?  Well, we see how the toys grow and learn from each other.  Buzz goes from a tool to one of the gang. Yay.  What we don't see is any of the toys actually thinking beyond the set of roles they are presented with.  They are told that they are supposed to function as entertainment for children and they follow this role with dogmatic adherence.  Even in the 3rd film, in the midst their fears of being rejected possibly coming to fruition they stick to that same role in all their choices: stick with Andy or move on to other children.  At no time to they think that after being thrown out the then have complete control over their lives and movement.  They are free not only to entertain other children but they can also venture out on their own.  While they do derive pleasure from making kids happy we know that they can find emotional fulfillment in other ways.  Just look at the happily married Potato Heads.

The only character to question this role is Lotso, the sinister and unredeemed bastard bear who rejects children.  But putting this up as the alternative lifestyle against the forever devoted Woody is a bit of a thin and pathetic dichotomy.  If children are seen as gods then this is the equivalent of portraying all people as devout fundamentalists or self-assigned anti-Christs.  Woody has pure and ultimate faith in Andy and any child who he serves.  Bringing them joy, no matter how neglected he becomes, is his only purpose in life.  Lotso, alternatively, actively distrusts and hates the capricious children and essentially makes his goal in life to live a completely hedonistic lifestyle while punishing believers.

I understand that this is ostensibly a children's series but it's Pixar.  We're allowed to expect more from them.  That combined with the fact that this is the third installment means that there's a reasonable expectation that these characters could grow to question the world they've inhabited since 1995.

To be fair, Pixar still brings the Toy Story characters to a level above that of most kid's movies.  But they rarely do sequels to by installment number three I'm going to expect new levels of the story and the world to be exposed and played with.  With Up we have a relationship blossom in just a few minutes and it's strong enough to fuel the whole movie.  In The Incredibles we see a family fighting against society, their nature and see that sometimes not all people are equal.  Ratatouille essentially took a bunch of things that should have bored the pants of kids and made them enticing and joyfully appealing.  WALL-E was... well, it was WALL-E.  That movie was constructed not as a children's film but as an experiment in classical direction but with robots in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

With all that under their belt it's not beyond reason to expect Pixar to push out a bit in the third Toy Story movie and make the characters think beyond raging fundamentalism by both sides of the plot.  What was there was good. Don't get me wrong.  I liked it.  But the series falls flat for me because I expect the world to be a bit deeper.  Instead they stop short of any sort of breakthrough.  They may push the edges of their roles but they never quite become as self aware as an autonomous, growing character should.

Movie Review: Kick Ass

First of all, it wasn't. When you have a property named “Kick Ass” then it better come across pretty damn strong. Instead this movie was just a moderately weak addition to the current trend of “gritty and realistic” super hero movies. I put that in quotes because anything actually realistic can't also be about super heroes. That's like having a non-fiction book on leprechauns.

I held off on watching this because it's based on a Mark Millar comic. I haven't read his Kick Ass but I have read enough of his other books to know his standard notes: glorified brute force as character development, all women as whores or mouthy vaginas, rape as more character development, lots of guns, obnoxious 4^th wall breaking narrative. I only saw the movie after being told that some things that a friend objected to in the comic were supposedly absent from the movie.

The film does have a strong Millar feel to it so I don't know how much was taken out. Not enough, in my opinion. And yet it's too soft to function as the testosterone-loving Millar vehicle it wants to be. The story is bland, the directing adds nothing and there are too many genres being dropped on a weak foundation. The result is a film that is less than the sum of its parts.

There is action and blood and guns. That cannot be denied. However, this is all placed on the framework of a teen sex comedy and that chassis is not strong enough to support everything that is piled on top of it. We have a young, whiney teen who takes up the role of Kick Ass, a super hero. But he has real world problems. Eventually he becomes the “gay best friend” of the girl he likes. Oh, that's so hilarious. Except that there's not enough character to go around and really it's just something he's doing because that's the situation that's been placed in front of him. And that's really his special ability. He simply does whatever is in front of him. He buys a costume and then fights people that he literally falls on top of. At one point he gets taken to the hospital after a fight and this results in him being full of nerve damage and metal plates. Of course the “gritty and realistic” drops completely as he has entire bones and joints replaced but is walking again in what appears to be a week or less. He then is confronted with other heroes (Big Daddy and Hit Girl) and pretty much does whatever they say.

One would think that this could lead to him growing into his role. But the journey of the hero is twisted to useless steps in a loveless dance. His “rejection of the call” stage lasts for all of three lines until Hit Girl tells him to essentially man up and get back to work. So how does he come into his role as a full fledged super hero? It's not by inner strength. It's because someone buys him a large gun. That is probably the essence of any Mark Millar property. Can't be a man? Get a gun.

All that? That's the whole movie. Sorry if I spoiled it. Sure, he gets the girl. She has some ridiculous social associations that act as ridiculous plot devices. She goes from being a sweet girl who does charity work (and dates pimps/drug dealers?) to a mini-skirt wearing nympho who has to have sex against dumpsters in trash filled alleys. This too has a very Millar feel.

There are also action sequences. Sometimes they are flat out fun but they are never really fun in the context of the movie. There are some nice stunts but often this is knocked flat by bad narration or the injection of awkward sentimentality or out of place pop-culture references in order to keep the teen sex comedy aspect in there. The parts that do work revolve around Hit Girl and Big Daddy. Why? Because they really don't have anything to do with Kick Ass' male sexual fantasy and fetish fulfillment.

Unlike Millar's stock “boy becomes man by way of a gun and dirty sex” story they are interesting and fun, if not all that three dimensional. Nicholas Cage is the best I've seen him in a long time as Big Daddy. He plays his out of costume persona as a father well. In costume he's not channeling but imitating Adam West as Batman and it works. Do realize that his cheese factor works in a “gritty” movie so often it's the world around him that fails to add to the story and that is a shame. Hit girl is great. Some of her scenes are bordering on “look, it's an 11 year old cursing and killing” but for the most part watching an 11 year old cursing and killing is disturbingly entertaining. Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl gives a solid performance. She's not courting any awards with her role but the actress, much like the character, gets the job done and does it well.

A Hit Girl movie is what this should have been. She has a story arc. She has an interesting back story. She's funnier, more shocking and a better fighter. She's the perfect subject for a twisted super hero story. Hit Girl, to put it plainly, kicks ass. Kick Ass does not.

On a scale of -5 to +5

Kick Ass is a +1.5

What James Cameron and his vision for movies actually means

With the home release of Avatar I've been coming across a lot of interviews with Cameron and a lot of hate for his "small nation's gross or box office take" fame.  But what no one has yet done is actually said what Cameron has specifically done to cinema.

He has not revolutionized stories.  Everyone knows the story in Avatar and has most likely seen it in at least a few movies before.  He also has not revolutionized directing or writing or anything else that gets a big Oscar.  What he has done is created a new format for storytelling.

It's not as big a shift as that sounds and it will most likely take a while for his process to catch on, though it's already pretty popular for documentaries.  His recessed 3D, virtual camera monitors and exquisite mapping are what he's added.  Notice that none of that is particular to Avatar.  But think of it this way, when e-ink readers started coming out, like the Nook and the Kindle, no reviewed them based on what book they read while testing it.  Similarly I wouldn't make the mistake of confusing Avatar the story for Avatar the movie.  The movie revolution that Cameron promised with Avatar is wrapped up in the production as a process.  It's not the plot nor was it ever supposed to be.

And that's it.  Revolutionize isn't my word and I think it's a bit strong.  It will certainly change movies, well at least big budget movies.  For those of you who like smaller scale films you shouldn't worry.  He's much more likely to be courted by studios for his system than by film makers themselves.

Movie Review Marathon - Oscar Nomination Edition

The weekend of the Oscars my wife and I managed to cram 5 nominees into 3 days. Following in the same pattern I am going to cram 5 reviews into this one post.

An Education

My expectations of this movie were completely off. As a British movie about a 16 year old getting involved with an older man, which barely came to any theaters in the area, I was expecting something a bit dark and plodding. Instead “An Education” turned out to be a bit lighter and lot funner than I assumed.

The story unfolds mostly without many shocks. Jenny and David are starting a relationship and there are always certain steps taken to establish a new couple. What did come as a bit of a surprise was how functional everyone seemed. As the movie progresses you see more and more quirks and faults in the characters but there were a couple of cracks I thought would be broken wide open. Instead, Jenny proves to be a much stronger character than nearly anyone else, trying to hold herself together as others around her exposed their weaknesses and vices.

The acting is great. Everyone in it gives an enjoyable performance. Alfred Molina turns out to have one of the best arcs in the story and his casual light antisemitism leads to some of the funniest lines in the movie. Emma Thompson also surprises with unintentional humor as the unyielding head of the school Jenny attends. The real standout among the school staff, though, is Olivia Williams as one of Jenny's teachers. She gives a nuanced performance that keeps her emotional motivations obscured until the end. There's an uncomfortable air between her and Jenny, mostly coming from her. At times she seems frigid, or is it jealous? Williams' turning point is a nice sub-plot that slowly unrolls whenever the camera comes back to her.

One aspect of this film I need to draw attention to is the visual feel. It actually feels a bit old, with a touch of French new-wave. The colors are slightly muted and the tone bright while in Paris. In London the tones aren't as rich but are still toned very deep. Nearly every time I found myself aware of framing on screen the shot could have been vintage post-card or movie poster. After the fact I found out that this won the Cinematography award at Sundance and it is well deserved. Even without an enjoyable movie behind it this film is a treat to watch.

It was one of my top 2 choices for Best Picture.
+4.5

Up In The Air

This was a very solid movie where the performances were the real highlight.

+3

Inglourious Basterds

While a solid addition to Tarantino's catalog I was surprised that this is what they gave him a Best Picture nomination for. I have a feeling that this one suffered a bit from hype, something that many people would see fitting for a Quinten Tarantino project.

I found the performance either great (Christoph Waltz) or fittingly over the top (Brad Pitt). The alternate history didn't feel forced or awkward or even strange but it did allow the film to achieve something that it seems no one has tried to do: make a World War 2 story where one does not know how it will end.

What didn't work for me was the length and the ending. Tarantino's rambling dialog is a love it or hate it affair and while I do have a high tolerance for his tangents this one pushed at the edges of my attention span. I felt like a full half hour could have been shaved off and still achieved its goal. At times the characters seemed bent on delivering soliloquies, situation be damned, and I couldn't help but feel like there was an underlying love of speaking rather than a love of banter. In short, there was more talking at people when the situations warranted actual conversations.

When the film really started to lose me was at the theater towards the end. This was probably the worst time for this to happen as the thesis of the film seemed to be about film saving the world and that's when it killed this movie. There is a set-up shot of one of the characters, Shosanna, preparing for a Nazi film premier. It's so highly stylized it felt like a period-piece Bond movie intro. Even the song playing pulled me out of the time period. I realize that Tarantino will use anachronistic music in his film but this really was an extended sequence of posing to a song. There is another sequence after this that put the period on my discomfort with the movie but to state it would be to ruin the climax of the film. If curious, ask and I'll put it in the comments.

Overall I'd say this was a good Tarantino movie but by no means his best. While the direction seemed more mature than most of his other films the writing seemed a little bit less restrained and the allusions more over the top than usual.

+2.5

A Serious Man

-unavoidable spoilers-

It was actually tough for me to rate this as I was torn after viewing it; did I dislike this movie or hate it?It's been a week and I'm still not sure.

The reason that it gets a positive review is that the direction is as tight as No Country For Old Men and there are a number of very funny scenes. Some of the Jewish “in” humor is great. However, I don't feel that these two aspects can save what is overall a failure.

As most people are aware, this is a modern retelling of Job. Here's how the original story of Job goes:

God and Satan (Judaism's Satan, so not the devil) make a bet over a man. Satan says that Job is only pious because he is well off so God gives Satan permission to take everything from Job. A lot of terrible things happen and he loses his property and family. Job breaks down and curses his own life but never god. Then, since he never turned on God he is given new property and a new family.

The whole point of this is that God normally doesn't intervene in everyday life but is still an all powerful being and deserving of praise. And this is where A Serious Man fails. There is no point of their story.

In A Serious Man we meet Larry who is being tested. The problem that the Cohen Brothers introduce in their version is that there really isn't a god in Larry's world. He's not being tested by an almighty being. He's not being tested by God's pal, Satan. He's being tested by the reoccurring awkward fate that the Cohens favor in many of their films, what might be called social entropy. What A Serious Man gives the viewer, essentially, is a morality tale without a moral. It's a highly contrived fable of a man being tested by nothing. He cannot appeal to anything for help nor can he appease any force for relief. For most of the film it is drilled into the viewer that he “does nothing” and his life suffers for it. In the end he does something and... suffers for it. It's not even an existentialist tale of woe where a man learns that he has to take control of his life. It's a nihilist story where a man is presented with various paths of suffering.

Even in light of the introduction of the film, a short story done in the style of Yiddish folk tales, A Serious Man fails. Yiddish tales are meant to show some sort of growth. It could be at the expense of the characters but in the end a point is supposed to be conveyed. While usually a bit mystical and dark, Yiddish tales are often humorous in a way and almost mix self determinism with a reverence for God through everyday magic. The Cohen Brothers give us nothing to hope for, appeal to or learn from. Essentially this is an emotional torture porn; under the masterful direction and fantastic acting (Fred Melamed is a standout as Sy Ableman) we're given little more than an introspective medley of Shaggy Dog-esque abuse.

I gave this movie a positive rating because there are parts of the production worth seeing. Overall I would say that this movie is just bad. The large majority of it is recycle Cohen tropes that have been used better in their other movies:

• Surprise murder – Fargo and Burn After Reading

• Drug trips and dream sequences – The Big Lebowsky

• Slow and plodding pacing – No Country For Old Men

• Stylaized fable – O Brother Where Art Thou

+1

Hurt Locker

Like my other nomination favorite, An Education, this was a pleasant surprise. I usually don't go for war movies but this one transcended war. It was about the characters who just happened to be in war.

I'm not sure what to say about this movie other than each facet of it is great and each piece works together to create something more than the parts. It's that simple. The direction is very tight, filming is intense and immersion, acting is great, pacing is suspenseful. This is actually the only movie I can think of where I didn't look forward to the explosions, though when they happen they make an impact.

+4.5

The Disney Princess Convolution

I am a little confused over this hubbub regarding the newest Disney princess, Tiana. I know that there's a lot of talk because she's the first princess who's African-American but it's by no means a racial jump for them. I believe the first non-white princess what Jasmine. She was Middle-Eastern and no one blinked an eye. Also included in the franchise is Mulan, who was Chinese. In fact, Disney counts Pocahontas amongst their princess line. She's Native American and that didn't cause any stir. And then there's Ariel from The Little Mermaid. She's not even human!

The fact of the matter is that Disney has already created and marketed an African princess: Nala. Sure, she's a lion but Ariel is an Atlantean and at least lions are real. We also come across the oft ignored Giselle from Enchanted. While she is white (with skin like fresh milk) she's live action so that's got to cross some sort of racial boundary.

So really where's the amazing twist of having an African-American princess? Disney has done races before. Yes, they have one more token ethnicity but overall the standard is still going to be white. I'm not defending or complaining about that, just stating that nothing new is really happening here.

Personally, I don't really want the ethnic inclusion that so many seem to crave from Disney. Portraying a Jewish-American Princess in a Disney cartoon is guaranteed to be more trouble than it's worth.

DVD review: The Day the Earth Stood Still

A smarter remake would have been based on the political ideals of its predecessor: fighting against the cynical cold war mentality of the time and trying to find something inspiring that humans have to offer the world and beyond other than fear and destruction. Instead, this version assumes that we’re worth saving but never explains why. At one point an alien agent tells Keanu Reeves (played by Keanu Reeves) that he has found the human race destructive and dangerous; humans need to be killed. But also, he has decided he really likes us and wants to stay. Do you get it? Neither do I.

Other than a couple of inane scenes like the one I just mentioned there is very little else I can recall about this film. I know Jennifer Connelly is in it and she has an adopted/inherited child who’s a bit of a spoiled dick. I know they visit John Cleese who pokes huge holes in Klatu’s (Keanu Reeves’) plan and Klatu ignores him. I know that Gort, the robot, unleashes a swarm of matter-eating bugs. Then they go away and Klatu leaves Earth and then the movie ends. Also, Klatu has magical powers that pop up in order to make life very convenient for him and avoid any suspense.

After watching The Day the Earth Stood Still I’m left with the same feeling as if I had just read high school poetry: vague feelings of banality and awkwardness. It’s rare to have an action film that can balance dullness and lack of plot so perfectly that one is left without a gist of disappointment or spectacle. The Day the Earth Stood Still manages to reach that perfect balance and creates the sense of being gorged on nothing more than air.

On a scale of -5 to +5

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a -.5

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince is the first time a director (David Yates) has done more than one Harry Potter film since Chris Columbus began the franchise. The fact that there is now such a strong and consistent style to the films proves both comforting and a bit disappointing.

First off, I enjoyed this movie. Not only does Yates have a wonderful visual style (I’m a sucker for those shiny black ceramic bricks that foretell danger) but he also has a knack for getting very good performances out of young actors in this series. He nicely balances the bizarre world that Alfonso Cuaróne crafted in Prisoner of Azkaban with the high school drama ­Mike Newell brought to the franchise in Goblet of Fire. It’s also fortunate timing in the franchise as Yates seems the most adept at incorporating the larger visual effects. Since the movies are getting darker and more intense these are much more common in the last 3 books than anywhere else in the series.

The one thing that bothers me is, fittingly enough, the one thing he seems to borrow from Chris Columbus and that is a closer adherence to the source material. In films 1 and 2 the films are almost direct adaptations of the books, simply abridged for time. These are also the two weakest films in the franchise to date. The point of adapting something from one medium to another is to add something to the story. All Columbus did was take a bit away. It was nice to see things movie but it really wasn’t a standalone product. It was a companion to the book. Complain about tone shift and changes to detail all you want but Prisoner of Azkaban was the first attempt to make a real movie out of the books. Yes, things were cut, rearranged and changed but in the continuity of the films (which is different than the books, like it or not) it was a necessary and marvelous leap forward.

Now Yates has taken a half-step back, doing more of a close reading than an inspired adaptation for the story. To be fair some of this blame can be put on the editing and/or the script but Yates is the director and shoulders the responsibility. In Order of the Phoenix there are some minor adaptations but for the most part plot points are shortened and then smoothed over, not rewritten. So while the Yates movies are much closer to the original text I feel that is their greatest weakness. Overall his films feel a bit choppier and cut up than either Goblet or Prisoner. When comparing the book to the movie for Half-blood Prince I can easily see most of the changes and they aren’t shifts for pacing and continuity. For the most part they are actions and subplots being condensed for time, and once aware of it this really shows.

Dumbledor, for instance, is a lot more upfront with Harry from the get go about what he wants. Yes, this does make the movie move faster it also cuts out a lot of the development that happens between them in the book. I know that looks like I just complained it’s not close enough to the novel but that’s not the point at all. The point is Yates doesn’t take that Dumbledor/Harry development and move it elsewhere. He just leaves it on the cutting room floor. The same goes for a lot that happens with Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny. There’s a lot more that’s simply stated in dialogue than shown in action and because Yates shows so much craft in other aspects of the film it really feels like he rushed in the areas he changes.

The real loss here is that Yates proves he’s capable of pulling the emotional depth out of his actors to show these relationships rather than tell you what’s going on. Someone as ham handed as Columbus doesn’t earn that respect in his movies and even Cuaróne’s film seems much more interested in world building a universe of intensity rather than subtle crafting of high school relationships. But Yates follows on the heels of Newell in terms of how he treats the students and staff of Hogwarts. This is the only aspect where he skimps but it does lead to a choppy feel.

Do not misinterpret this criticism. This is a highly enjoyable movie. In terms of this franchise it’s a good one. And sticking so close to the original text will probably be a huge plus to many fans out there. But it does come at an artistic cost. The reason I’ve gone into such depth with this single complaint is that Yates is signed on for the final adaptation, both parts. So this is partially a preemptive review of the Deathly Hallows as well. It’s a double-edged sword; that the comforting fact Yates is more than up to the task of creating appealing and deserving films is paired with the disappointing realization that this will come at the cost of many small character driven moments and subplots.

On a scale of -5 to +5 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gets a +3

PS Does anyone else find it a little odd that other than the counter still being in the great hall “house points” have all but vanished from the movies?

Netflix: WTF - The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror!

SPECIAL NOTE: For a podcast review of this movie and an interview of Netflix: WTF check out my special guest appearance on the About12Minutes podcast here!

So this time around I was stuck watching a movie called The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror. And terror abounded as I prepared to watch the movie. You see, it was up against some stellar competition, including a Steven Segal vampire flick as well as the Stephen Baldwin picture Sharks in Venice. Not only that, but my friends and I have been burned before. There was a “movie” “about” a zombie rabbit we tried to watch and simply couldn’t. I use quotes since it was only a movie in the sense that any motion picture is a move-ie and I hesitate to use the term “about” since it wasn’t really about anything. I don’t even think I posted a review of it since we got through about 20 minutes and then had to turn it off or risk seizures. I feared this may be the same quality, come to kill me.

And in that context I feel safe saying I was pleasantly surprised by The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror. It wasn’t good but it actually pulled off campy moderately well. The premise is that a group of gay couples all end up at this bed and breakfast run by a psychotic right wing Christian mother and her sexually repressed daughter. It’s done on video tape but the quality is relatively good. The couples show up one after another and each one is a pre-made stereotype. You have the young guy with his older sugar-daddy, there’re the two artsy lesbians, the two lipstick lesbians, a butch leather couple, a resident fag-hag. They’re here to be killed, not to break stereotypes.

And break stereotypes the do not. There’s some nearly anonymous cheating, illicit rendezvous in the pool house and then the killing begins. And it’s actually kind of funny. It’s so over the top bad, with over the top crappy props and over the top bad acting that it actually is campy. A lot of movies fail at camp because they try to be a funny movie on no budget. This succeeds because the parts you aren’t laughing with, you’re laughing at.

By the end there are a couple of what would be called twists in a normal movie but in this are really just the logical evolution of “what can we do to make this a little sicker”. Think Ed Wood raised on John Waters and this is pretty much that bastard child.

On a scale of -5 to +5 The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror gets a +2 for entertainment. If it were trying to be a real movie it would be a -2 but that is surely not the case here.

Tim Burton is a slow learner

Many things can be said about Tim Burton. He has a great eye for fictional geography, he loves the style of old German silent films and, unlike the oft attributed Zach Snyder, he fits the definition of “visionary”. But one thing that cannot be said of Tim Burton is that he’s a fast learner.

Let me go back a little bit. The some days ago the first photos from his new movie, Alice in Wonderland, were released and a few thoughts went through my head. The first was that the lead actress (Mia Wasikowska) is made up a bit like Helena Bonham Carter, with her hair a bit like a bird-nest(watch out Helena, he might trade up again like on the set of Planet of the Apes). Second, I was put off by the fact that Depp as the Mad Hatter looks like a steampunk Willy Wonka. Finally, I wondered when Tim Burton would learn not to direct other people’s material.

That is the lesson I wish he would learn because it is getting a bit pain for the people who have to watch him slowly stumble towards this inevitable conclusion, one movie at a time. I like Tim Burton, don’t get me wrong. However, I am not completely enamored with him and his style. He makes a good deal of mistakes. These range from casting to project choices. Some of his movies age incredibly well (Beetlejuice) and some not so much (Batman). One of the few consistent facts about his career is that when he directs his own material it tends to be much better than when he takes on someone else’s work.

Let's take a look:

Original ideas	Any good?
Beetlejuice	Great
Edward Scissorhands	Great
Ed Wood	Great
Mars Attacks	Crap
Corpse Bride*	Good

Adaptations	Any good?
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure	Good
Batman	Good, but flawed
Batman Returns	Very flawed
Sleepy Hollow*	OK, great design
Planet of the Apes	Shit
Big Fish	Fair (averaging between the fact that I find it terrible and others find it sappy but watchable)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Crap
Sweeney Todd	Good, though the strong points are the costumes and the actors’ performances (minus HBC’s singing), not the direction

* Technically, these are based on existing stories but are so far removed from the original stories that they could be put into a 3rd category.
**No, he didn’t direct Nightmare Before Christmas

Even if you disagree with some of my mini-judgments there’s still an overwhelming pattern to this list. His best works is all his own and his worst tend to be adaptations. Why is this? Most likely because he has such a strong vision of his movies that it doesn’t matter what the content is; it must fit into his style. This works perfectly fine if the material is his to begin with. But when it’s a story that already exists he sometimes has to do a number on it in order to force it into the box that is his style.

And now we get his version of Alice in Wonderland. Granted, it’s neither Alice in Wonderland nor Through the Looking Glass but rather a bastard sequel set years after the second visit. However, they are still someone else’s characters and someone else’s world. This all makes me worried about the project. Will it look great? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a good movie. And with his past performances I don’t know if I trust him anymore. I may or may not see this one in theatres but if I do go it will be with reservation. And if it doesn’t completely blow me out of the water then Burton will become relegated to “Netflix Only” status, along with Michael Bay and other directors I wouldn’t mind seeing but would mind paying for, because I have absolutely no interest in his next project.

What is it? A full length remake of a perfectly serviceable half-hour short he made decades ago: Frankenweenie.

Leia: Who's your daddy?

NOTE: Credit where credit is due. This is actually co-written with my wife. We totally geeked out and this was born.

Return of the Jedi has been on twice today and it raises a shitload of questions about continuity. Actually, it doesn't raise them. It brings up inconsistencies between the original trilogy (the real Star Wars movies) and episodes 1,2 and 3 (glorified, and sloppily written fan-fic). The one point that we'll be focusing on is Leia and her actual lineage.

In the original trilogy we are told a great many details about the Skywalker family tree

• Luke is Vader's son
• Luke is Leia's sister
• Luke an Leia are twins
  (I was doubtful that this was in the original trilogy but both Obi-wan and Vader mention it briefly)

What strikes out as strange is that there are multiple instances where Leia and Vader are emotionally distant to each other despite expectations. Leia meets Vader face to face after he ship is captures in A New Hope and there is not emotional recognition. This seems odd since we know that both are strong in the force and that Vader's relation to Luke let them sense each other later in the series. But we'll come back to the "Force paternity test" later.

The second thing that seems strange between Vader and Leia is that Vader searches the force and feels that Luke has a twin sister: Leia. He then goes on to refer to her as "your twin sister" and "your sister" (to Luke). Never once does he even acknowledge her as his own daughter.

Third, Leia doesn't attend the ritual burning of Vader's body on the forest moon of Endor after the destruction of the second Death Star. At this point Luke as told her that they are sibling and that Vader is his father. He never says Vader is her father and she isn't shaken by the fact that he seemingly is hers as well. Shes doesn't feel the need for closure with Vader, either for the destruction of her home planet Alderaan or to deal with the death of her possible father, by attending his funeral.

From all of this is seems that Luke and Leia, while twins, do not share the same father. And this is a point that has bothered me for a while now. There is absolutely no connection between Leia and Vader but there is between Leia and Luke. How can this be? And it becomes even more evident when the "Force paternity test" is brought up.

What is the Force paternity test? It is the ability of one strong with the Force to simply know biological relationships between people. We see Luke use it to tell whether Vader is being truthful about their father/son relationship. Luke feels that it is true. We see Leia use something similar to verify that she and Luke are siblings in Return of the Jedi. We possibly see Vader use it to tell that Luke has a twin sister (though it could just be him pulling out the memory of Obi-wan telling Luke) and furthermore we may see it in the fact that Vader seemingly refuses to call Leia his daughter. The last instance I'll postulate this occurs is when the family tree is revealed to Leia. She searches the Force and sees that she and Luke are related but never even hints at a suspicion of being related to Vader.

At this point I need to note that I will not be accepting the Episode 3 events as fact. If anyone doubts that Episodes 1-3 are in a different continuity than 4-6 all one has to do is look at the fact that Luke asks Leia :

"Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"
She replies: "She was very beautiful. Kind, but...sad."

And if you're going to tell me that Leia remembers that from her birth (that's ridiculous) and Luke does not (that's doubly ridiculous) you're a fool. And if you need more proof, how is it that Obi-wan doesn't know of Leia's existence until Yoda tells him about her, though he was present at her birth in Revenge of the Sith?

So without the actions that take place in episode 3 we don't know that Luke and Leia share the same father. From all evidence in A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi it truly seems as if they only share a mother. And that's possible.

There is a medical term "hetero-paternal superfecundation" or bi-paternal twinning. This refers to an event when a mother carries two children at the same time from two different fathers. Most often this is when the mother releases two eggs (dizygotic) and has intercourse multiple times, leading to each egg being fertilized by different fathers. It is also possibly that an egg can be released during an already existing pregnancy and that egg can be fertilized by a second person, though this is much rarer. This is all true and it really does happen.

Theory: Luke and Leia are a result of bi-paternal twinning. According to the original trilogy this answers every question raised about the family of Vader, Luke and Leia.

• It answers why Leia remembers her real mother.
  Because she is kept by her real mother and Luke is sent away in order to protect Leia if Vader ever comes looking for his son.
• It answers why Leia feels no connection to Vader though she does feel a conncetion to Luke.
• It answers why Vader never aknowledges any relation to Leia, even when searching the Force on the second Death Star.

And this makes the most sense to me. The fact that I went out to hunt down this information (my wife actually mentioned the medical phenomina from it's inclusion in a One Life to Live plot line) rather than accept the story fed to me by Revenge of the Sith just goes to show how terrible a movie Episode 3 really is. And with that I close my case.

What follows is pure speculation. I would guess, without knowledge of episodes 1-3, that Obi-wan is Leia's father. It seems that she does have a conncetion with him the way Luke does with Vader. When she is captured by Vader and the fate of the rebellion is in jeopardy she trusts her gut instincts and sends a message to Obi-wan, a man she has never met before. It also fits that she has been told of Obi-wan, though not enough to make her think that they are related. Also, when Alderaan is destroyed not only would Obi-wan feel the destruction of the planet but the emotion that he experiences would seem to be shared between he and Leia. He is visibly shaken by the even even though he has never been to that planet to our knowledge. He seems to be feeling it through Leia.

Is it crazy to think that Luke and Leia's mother was involved with Obi-wan and that Anakin raped her after he turned to the dark side? It fits into original trilogy continuity. However it is just a theory. And while it fits it is not hinted at to nearly the degree that the other theory is; That Luke and Leia are twins that share only a mother.