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Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
2002-07-12 17:30:36
Update: Computer still busted. Summat serious, but I haven't had a chance to get it to anyone who knows what they're looking at. Best guesses put it at a fried motherboard or memory. I've been jonsin' to type a couple of updates too, as I've been spending my sans-computer time watching movies and reading books, but I haven't the energy to write while surrounded by all the inane chatter at work. (No really, I'm sitting here gritting my teeth right now while I LISTEN to them browse the web and read out loud to one another. I gotta get outta here before I crack. Maybe I'll be back later tonight, but I don't think so.)
Hmm. Readership has dropped by a half. Journal activity has shrunk down to near nothing. How depressing. -
"What are you doing, Dave?"
2002-07-05 23:37:54
Ladies and genelmen, Computer's fucked.
Won't even power up properly or send enough of a signal to the monitor to get rid of the "check signal cable" prompt screen. Won't eject CD (dammit). Runs fan. That's about it. Posting from work. Best thing to come home from the holidays and find, huh?
No proper posts until it's fixed. Takes me too long to type these up at work. I wanna cry, but I've got 500 e-mails to tend to. Seeya later. -
“I’ve finished vacuuming all the mosquitoes off the ceiling.”
2002-07-04 23:06:17
Thank you to all the sympathizers as to my current state of residence. :) Last night we discovered that, subsequent to cleaning out all the screens on the screen door, the doors were reassembled wrong, and a tiny little gap was left between the door and the frame. Naturally the light from everyone watching TV led to a steady stream of insectile intruders flowing into the room which we didn’t notice until the peaked ceiling was swarming and nearly black in areas. Fortunately, they all seemed confused enough to stay on the walls and ceiling rather than fly off and mob us, so we spent a good twenty minutes with a vacuum trying to clean them all out rather than spend the night slapping mosquitoes.
Bowler: Yeah, I know that bit is only an urban legend. Little suckers still creep me the hell out. Like an oversized ant with mutant pincers on its ass. (On the other hand, I have two first-hand accounts of moths flying into someone’s ear and getting stuck…)
EK: Re: Question
Main Entry: 1pan•der
2 : someone who caters to or exploits the weaknesses of others
For my purposes, I would add the phrase “to the exclusion of their own opinion on artistic merit.”
My argument is basically against someone who would make a video that goes against what they, personally, think is artistic or fun or dramatic or whatever, and works instead solely for the impress of others (or the influencing of the judges). It’s not like it could be a hard and fast rule, as the final product stands apart from the intentions and the methodology of production (it would be a bit like forbidding the practice of eating cheese while painting) and such an intention could hardly be detected if it plays only a minor part in the work, but if someone is working in a manner that they, personally, do not like or think has no worth, it cannot help but affect the quality and creativity in the finished piece. Someone who is purposely doing this would think that the lack of quality is being made up for by the personal bias of the judges towards that music, genre, or anime. (Hmm. Someone trying to impress YOU might do a Peter Gabriel vid, while hating his music. How good could that turn out?) That, specifically, is what I dislike. People shying away from their favorite series because they’re “overdone,” regardless of how much it inspires the editor. I admit that it’s a general term of derision I tend to throw around whenever something appeals in a particularly insulting manner to the lowest common denominator. (“Requiem for a Dream” I always felt spiraled downward into utter pandering for a “preaching to the choir” audience. “Drugs are bad, Mmmmmkay?”) It’s also a bit insulting to the audience or judges in particular, because the “panderer” is telling the audience that they aren’t capable of judging something on artistic merits, and the only way to curry their favor is to tell them only what they want to hear and present them only with what they expect to hear.
Anyway, unless you try to make a wild guess, if you don’t know the audience’s tastes, you can’t really be pandering to them.
Relations are beginning their annual homeward swarm. We’ve been gathered around with my Grandmother, two aunts, and three cousins, but we’ve got another aunt who’s just arrived, another one arrives tomorrow, and a cousin on the way tonight. Plus an uncle and another cousin at the official 4th celebration tonight. Bickering to commence shortly. Oh wait, we managed that yesterday, even on the short-shift.
On the other hand, I’ve visited two discount bookstores in two days, spending about forty dollars in the process. After spending thirty dollars on gaming books, comics, mags (including Animag #4 from 1988 with the Dirty Pair on the cover and a DP episode index), and a mislabeled tape of the Ghostbusters cartoon (not “The Real…”, the other one. Thought I’d see what all the fuss was about) at one store, I made up for it at the second store with a copy of “Atlas Shrugged” (never read it) and “The Rubiyat of Omar Khayamm.” I figger that should even out my karma a bit.
For anyone who was interested in my commentary on the covers of Heavy Metal included in the gold edition of the animation, there’s a $40 coffee-table book compiling them all. “Available at your finer pictographic sale-houses.”
You know, I honestly intended to go back and “privatize” the section of indulgent whining in my last Journal entry but one, and cover it up by copying over and reposting everything but the offending section, but I forgot about it until now, and I’m stuck with the results.
Been trying to track each of the family cats down, clip their claws, and douse them with anti-allergen for the past few days. Today we finally tackled the most elusive of the bunch (Allspice. The other cats are Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Cardamom. Yup, still a Norwegian household.) which hadn’t had EITHER. There were many injuries, all to us, and no success, but the cat probably won’t show her face for another two days, so shouldn’t cause the allergic too many problems. This was one of the few chores that I got drafted into. The upcoming wedding of my lab mate made uncertain the exact date of my arrival, so all of my chores got assigned to other relations. I didn’t get a list. Gave me a bit more time to get some reading done. Plodded through “Best new Horror, 1999,” a pretty good compilation that lost about 80 pages to an introduction listing every single horror novel of the previous year, and a 50 page obituary listing everyone (and I mean EVERYONE, down to film editors on horror films) who died in the previous year. Tended to cut down the 570-page length. “The Halloween Street” stories were remarkable, as were a couple of others. The longer stories tended to waste the length on needless meandering or repetitive character development. Editing fell down rather badly near the end. Stupid spell-checker mistakes. “To” instead of “too” and the like. After that I read through my OWN copy (read friend’s copies previously) of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns.” Much much better than I’d remembered. I can now remember why it’s considered one of the greatest comics ever written. May have to re-evaluate my opinion of the newer one. Especially if the third edition EVER comes out. I dunno. Don’t have the newer issues here so I have nothing to check them against.
Oh. Also ran across the add for a the second “American Psycho” film. The first one was…adequate. On some levels. The problem was that it was so focused on the superficiality of the main character, the entire film ended up a mile wide and an inch deep. Wildly misogynistic, interesting ending, but that’s it. The rest was all loud, weird sensationalism. And still it looks like they’re missing even THAT point in the sequel. Looks like they’re turning it into a sexy-siren-seductress-killer flick. Pretty typical man-hater shtick. Bleh. Been done.
Off to the movie-house we go. You know, the division between we animation fans and the regular movie-going public was driven home by the strange looks I got from my (much) younger cousins at the mention that I went to see “Lilo and Stitch.” Apparently they are FAR too mature to bother with such evident kiddie-fare. Despite the fact it’s funny. Despite the fact it’s well animated. It’s Disney animation. Therefore no mature adult (teenager) has any business going to see it.
Poor saps.
Before I begin, I must send out an appeal. DISNEY, DREAMWORKS, PIXAR, SOMEONE! PLEASE dump six million dollars or HOWEVER much money it takes into research to solve the problem of 3-D CGI sliding! I swear, there must be SOME way to keep this from happening! Despite Disney’s excellent animation quality throughout this film, they STILL have problems keeping the CGI-rendered pieces from sliding around in the grip of the traditionally cell-painted (or computer-painted, but traditionally drawn) characters, or moving by a distinctly different manner of physics. In some cases, it’s hard to tell which is in action, like with the large flying spaceships which are naturally suspended apart from direct interaction with anything, but whenever there is actual interaction between the two techniques, the distinction becomes blatantly evident. This time, it was most noticeable (to me, on the first time through) at the very beginning, where a picture of a mosquito manages to remain entirely flat despite the curl of the paper it’s printed on (and wandering about on the page a bit), and at the very end, during the assembly of the new house, where Stitch holds onto a door with the surface friction of a bar of soap.
“Lilo and Stitch” is the newest offering from the Disney animation department. I was more excited about this film than I usually am about Disney cartoons, as it looked like Disney was finally admitting that “Looney Toons” had been right all along, and people enjoyed fun shows instead of the moralistic lecturing they’d been delivering for so long. It looked like a return to the fun of “The Emperor’s New Groove,” or Disney’s half of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” I was lead to this conclusion by the extremely funny ads they made up for the toon, parodying a handful of the more recent Disney flicks. (Funniest was by far the “Beauty and the Beast” ad.) Turns out that they went about halfway.
“Experiment 626” is the name of an extremely crass genetic experiment created as a weapon of mass destruction by that most evil of mad scientists, Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers from M.A.S.H.) otherwise known as Jumba. We begin after the “abomination” (a word they really like in this film, and use correctly, but entirely too often) has been discovered, and is subsequently imprisoned and scheduled for extermination. 626 escapes through the judicious application of lugies, steals a damaged ship, and takes off leaving disaster and destruction in his wake. Through blind luck he flies straight at Earth, and narrowly avoids a death by drowning (his one apparent weakness) by hitting one of the Hawaiian Islands. (I’d tell you which, but my US geography isn’t that good. A mention is made at one point that it’s an island “without any major cities,” but the island looked far too big for that to be true. )
There we catch up with the other half of our comedic duo, Lilo. Lilo is a six or seven year old girl (voiced by an honest-to-God little girl (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Chase,+Daveigh) who was in Donnie Darko? Dammit, I HAVE TO SEE THAT FILM!) who lives with her twenty-something big sister Nani (Tia Carrere, love interest in Wayne’s tiny little World) who makes ends meet by waiting tables at the local tourist spot. The two are orphans, and Nani is currently under investigation by child services for fitness as legal guardian. After a particularly bad day, Nani tries to cheer Lilo up by getting a dog from the local shelter. 626, it turns out, after getting hit by a semi, (and then another, and then another) after the crash of his ship, ended up in that selfsame pound, where he sucked in his antenna, back spines, and two of his legs so he could pass as a dog. 626 makes an incredibly ugly dog. In fact, he doesn’t look much like a dog at all. Nani comments that he looks like some sort of evil koala. Naturally, Lilo adopts him and names him Stitch. (Lilo’s a little weird.) Stitch is stuck with the girl, as the reclamation squad (made up of Winchester and one of the Almighty Tallest) has shown up, and Stitch needs a human shield. Stitch gets stuck without a purpose, however, as he can’t get to any cities to begin his destructive rampage. Wackiness ensues, wherein we learn the value of Elvis records, teaching clones to dance (look at the back row of hula dancers in the title sequence. Yup, stormtrooper fodder) fables, and family. (Dammit. You know the “less funny” parts of “The Emperor’s New Groove”? Significantly more of those.)
The animation really is superb. Others have noted the return to the water colored glory of old Disney backgrounds. Further, Stitch’s movements, similar to my comments in “Secret of Nimh,” manage a kind of insectile realism of speed and erraticism in sections, skittering here and there in his six-legged form, without resorting to hop-saki. The character designs also deserve some comment. I have a native Hawaiian friend who was actually insulted by the stylized portrayal of Hawaiian physiognomy, specifically the overly-broad nose and the prevalence of girth. I’m not really qualified to speak on that, so I won’t, but he has only seen the ads thus far. I, on the other hand, was struck by the rather Crumb-ian design of Nani, and the other adult women in the film. Just a little more bottom-heavy and wide-of-limb than you usually see in Disney films.
The best part of the film is the developed characters. (Oh, who am I kidding, the best part was anywhere Stitch broke stuff.) Nani manages an entirely believable struggling-workforcer. Lilo is an honest-to-god six year old girl. When she got pissed at one of the girls teasing her (her schoolmates have a remarkable resemblance in spirit to Zim’s) Lilo pushed her down and punched her in the face. She turns bitter and resentful towards Stitch when her life finally falls apart. Stitch is fun. One part spastic, one part crude, one part destructive megaforce with a little sentimentality mixed in to drive the story. The problem is that he’s TOO spastic. Or everyone else is too sedate. Oh it’s funny, and it works to a degree, but Stitch is plainly in a different gear than everyone else. Stick Jim Carrey into a Laurel and Hardy film. The Tasmanian Devil in a Goofy cartoon. A frenetic character in their midst. (To a lesser degree, you can see this in “Cats Don’t Dance.”) This is only furthered by the presence of the social worker (Ving Rhames). The character is SUCH a “straight man” that he’s not “over the top,” he’s “under the bottom.” His name is “Cobra Bubbles.”
Yeah.
The reclamation squad has a similar problem. They look like sloths in the advancement of their plotline next to the activity of Stitch, and their interminable explanation of what’s going on.
Only a few more minor points.
The humor is a bit more sadistic than we’re used to from Disney, but, frankly, a little less that I was hoping for.
Elvis-ness is just…weird. It featured prominently in all of the ads because it makes for good imagery, but it really has nothing to do with the story. Supplied a bit of a soundtrack, but added nothing. Oh! And one thing that pissed me off. You know that sequence where Lilo puts Stitch’s claw on the record player and it plays “Hound Dog” from the ads? It’s a different song in the film. Bleh. Wait for the DVD, it’ll probably have at least all the parody ads attached.
The “sweetness” in some of the required “touching” scenes of the film came off a bit flat. “After-school-special” in its slightly forced, slight insincerity. Could just be me.
The parallelism of Lilo and Stitch at the very beginning was a bit excessive.
The very end of the film after the councilwoman arrives felt for all the world like an episode of the “Buzz Lightyear” cartoon. Characters, debates, convenient out to a happy ending, etc. Threw me a bit askew, but I don’t think it will matter to anyone else.
In conclusion, an entirely worthwhile Disney flick, but with the core interactions of the film just a little askew. Unfortunately it’s likely to be one of those Disney animations that isn’t anyone’s absolute favorites, and thus likely to slip into the background after a year or two, like “Atlantis” which I had trouble remembering about a month ago. Watch this film in a theater crowded with little kids. The funny will expand exponentially. I saw it with only about twelve other people, and the funny was a bit deflated.
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The new”IT” girl...
2002-07-02 10:33:39
Nerd check! Did the phrase above translate in your mind to”the new popular/marketed/fashion-statement girl (capitalized for emphasis or “the new Information Technology girl”?
Whoa. I leave on vacation for a week and the whole site implodes in on itself. I can’t leave you people alone for ten minutes, can I? I confess I’m a bit sorry at EK’s announcement, but only to the degree that it’s one less person reading my little reviews, and thus lending a bit of motivation to this extended practice in writing futility. Hell, I’ve only known about the rampant negativity in the forums through the commentary of other people in their journals. I never go in there anymore (except to look for anything in the “conventions” folder with “AWA” in the title), although my reason is it was simply too much STUFF to sort through at any given time, and most of it was stuff I wasn’t interested in. As far as the comments and rankings of videos go, I’ve had to respectfully abstain from such votes. Once I inherited the mantle of AWA director, I felt it would be unfair to list thoughts and rankings on potential competitors at the convention. Although my comments on those vids are far from immutable, an individual who wanted to compete might look at the stats I gave his/her vid, and compare them with my rankings of another video they know will be competing, and decide that there’s no point in even entering. That, of course, would be a tragedy. Under all circumstances, SEND US YOUR TAPE. We really do WANT your vids, even if we don’t give them awards. With the sole exception of Master’s, all of the competitions at AWA try to concentrate on fun, with awards as an excuse for public showings. The only difference between the contests being how we carry this out. Expo is for throwing every random idea against the wall and seeing which ones stick. Pro is for doing the same thing, but letting the competitors decide. Dance is...dance. (I give it a “7”, it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.) Master’s is the competition for those who actually care about the precision of execution, technical aspects, and the dubious distinction of judging the merits of one created synchronous idea against another. It’s also a forum specifically for people to compete in without feeling like they’re stepping on newer makers. Anyway, the final worry about entering reviews on the database is that someone might try and tool their vids to pander to the judges, attempting to curry favor. It wouldn’t work, as I find pandering to be the most despicable application of creative endeavor towards which to strive, but I’m trying to discourage anyone from even trying.
Above all else, if you ain’t having fun, don’t feel that there’s any sort of “quota” you have to fill to keep up you’re “AMVer” rep. Just quit until it’s fun again. Hell, MM hasn’t done but maybe two vids in the last 3-4 years, and I still regard him as one of the best ever, (WWMMD) although I dislike his combative debate style. Personally, it looks distinctly like I won’t have any vids this year due to work and my reviews here, but, frankly, I’m having a bit more fun dissecting these films than dismembering UY to an odd little tune. (Next project, been on the back burner since before last year.) It used to bug me how many vids the newer creators are churning out that are A: Better in quality than mine and B: setting new standards for AMV efforts, making my own little ideas seem somewhat low-flying. Then I just decided not to let it worry me. No one else can make one of MY ideas, the way I want, and if they do, more power to them. Now I don’t have to spend 180 hours assembling it, and I can still enjoy the result. It’s just a hobby, people, not a reason for living, or even a reason for flaming on some obscure message-board.
At any rate, I hope EK (and possibly Kusoyaro…the forum mentioned something about his exit as well, but could locate no originating comment) at least stops by to keep reading Journals. At least she, as well as Bowler, responded on occasion and provided a counterpoint to my somewhat totalitarian animation opinions.
Speaking of which: Bowler: By an amazing coincidence “Cats Don’t Dance” was on Cartoon Network the day after you posted your little “insider info” on the WB studio. A really good flick, especially in the first and second Gene Kelly-Fred Astaire dance routines. A nice attempt to update the “funny animal” flick, and beautiful animation on several levels, although the plot is a bit of a re-tread along the lines of the “Muppet” flicks. Quite good, but a bit uneven, and the villain reminds me entirely too much of the ill-advised “Elmira.” All in all, not in my top “10”, but somewhere around the “15” mark, although subsequent viewings may improve the impression. If ever I track down a cheap DVD copy so I can more exactingly examine it, I’ll add it to Mount DVD.
I’m currently writing from the tepid sauna known as Madison, WI. (Coming from the oven-like dry heat of Atlanta, GA.) Yes, the land of beer, brats, cheese, and Packers. The oppressive, swamp-like humidity combined with the constant pestering of the crepuscular state bird (mosquito) has contrived to coat me in a rapidly-thickening layer of grease, sweat, grime, and oil within minutes of stepping out of the shower or pool, so I do hope you’ll be forgiving if the quips and comebacks are especially lame. It’s too damn hot to think. I’m up here because I’ve dropped half of my yearly vacation time to come up and be at the annual Hanson family gathering. Am I having fun? Let’s put it this way. The first thing I do every night before turning in is look for earwigs in the sheets. Sigh.
Actually, it’s not really that bad, just a bit too much contact with people-of-volume not willing to listen to anything you have to say unless you cop an attitude at them. Went on a rented pontoon boat ride out on lake Mendota that climaxed as the bow dipped violently downward and the entire boat became briefly swamped with three inches of lake water. Turns out that the anchor had fallen overboard 150 feet back, and we were rapidly churning our way to the bottom. Spooked the bloody hell out of everyone, but pretty funny in retrospect.
Actually came down in time for the fourth of July weekend. WI has one of the biggest firework displays in the country normally, so we weren’t going to miss it this time around. It’s actually held on the 29th up here, for sake of convenience and not overshadowing the little towns’ celebrations. Amazing display this year, filling the sky with full minutes of unremitting explosions, and individual showers stretching further than one’s field of view. Of course, that has it’s down side, as one of the sparking secondary fireworks landed on someone not thirty feet from where we all were sitting. (No injuries, but you shoulda seen everyone jump.) There were also about four fireworks that went off on the ground, but everything’s been remote-controlled for years, so no one was in range.
Should be seeing Harry Potter DVD tonight, although it may be put off indefinitely knowing the organizational skills of this family. Anyway, I’ve already reviewed it, so unless we bother to burrow all the way to the hidden scenes, I’ll have nothing new to say.
I actually have made a subtraction from mount DVD, in the form of an old (30’s and 40’s) cartoon collection, but I left it in my room and barely remember half of the items on the disk. As such, I’ll review the previously promised “Insomnia,” the notes of which have become recently sodden as a result of today’s boat trip.
Now, a movie devoted to that most valued companion of the video-game adherent, “Insomnia.” This movie is no waste of time, but only by the barest fraction of an inch. The utter hideous dreck, or rather entire lack of worthwhile substance (without being ACTIVELY bad, as outlined in previous films) in the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the film is made up for by a handful of scenes near the very end of such surprising quality that the overall film ends up in the “positive” column.
This film is not original. Specifically, it is a remake. A remake of a film named “Insomnia” from 1997 with the infinitely cleverer tagline “Den som synder, sover ikke.” (I’m kidding. I don’t speak Norwegian.) The original film is a Norwegian crime flick with an interesting, and entirely relevant plot device working in it’s midst. Nearly all of this (as far as I can tell) is carried over into the newer version, but I’d like to think that I’d enjoy a subtitled version of the original more. I confess that I have an ingrained bias in favor of anything Norwegian, as my grandfather convinced all of his grandchildren that a single drop of Norwegian blood overrules any other heritage. However, I’d like to think that this bias does not enter into it, despite the fact that I haven’t seen the original. Why? Because I don’t see the newer film as inspirational. I look at this new film, and I don’t see a springboard for hiring multi-million-dollar actors in a remake of a foreign film.
Aside from the location, and the palpable presence of a paycheck larger than anything I’ll ever make for three weeks work, the plot appears to be identical to the original (as far as I can tell). Unfortunately for me, the change of location does matter in my mind. The original (assuming that the two stories remained parallel) spent a great deal of time wandering around the sheer cliffs of Norwegian fjords, with ice-water pouring through jagged cuts into icy trenches thousands of feet deep. My background teaches me to find the savage beauty in such a hostile environ. The new movie attempts to transpose this into the Alaskan wilderness, which ends up looking more like a gravel pit than the beauteous savagery of nature. Oh, sure, there are moments of beauty, but only when the cinematographer feels he can fit them in. Other than that, the world looks terminally damp with that wet, snitty grime of a puddle in a gravel driveway. Alaska looks really damn dreary.
And so do the actors. I hate to say this, because I normally like him, (Hell, his final monologue is the only reason to SEE “Devil’s Advocate”) but Al Pachino just isn’t trying in this film.
The basic storyline involves Al as Detective Will Dormer (a play on the word “to sleep” in French and Spanish), the world famous criminal profiler, going up to Nightmute to help out on a murder case of a 17 year old girl. Quickly after his arrival, however, we learn the real reason for his transport to this God-forsaken corner of the US. His home department, LAPD is undergoing an internal affairs investigation, and he (the department’s star), and his partner, have been conveniently placed beyond reach for the moment. Further, during a conversation at dinner, Al becomes convinced that his partner is going to roll on him to save his own neck, and end up letting dozens of scum-bags out on the street. Fast-forward to the crime. During a botched apprehension, the killer, still unidentified, gets away after shooting a cop in the leg. At the same time, Al accidentally shoots his partner dead, while within view of the killer. (Heavy fog obscured the target until after the shot.)
The killer, convinced that this gives him a hold over Al, begins contacting him and attempting to blackmail Al into helping him. The killer swears that the girl’s death was a complete accident, and tries to convince him that framing the girl’s boyfriend is justified, as the boyfriend is abusive scum.
Normally, Al would never consider such an offer, but there’s a problem.
He hasn’t been sleeping.
You see, it’s the depths of Summer in Nightmute, and it doesn’t get dark. Ever. By the end of the film, despite his best efforts to the contrary, Al has been up for over seven days straight. I can speak from experience that after about four days, that will start fucking with your head. There’s a really good parallel going on here between the cop’s gradual descent into hallucinatory, zoned out sleep deprivation, and the gradual dipping of his morals as he stoops further and further in an attempt to cover his own tracks and appease the killer into not giving him up. He lets things slip. He screws up. He panics.
So why isn’t it a GOOD-good movie? Because the acting is awful. Or is it the dialogue? It’s kind of hard to tell at this level. When we are first introduced to our characters, it’s through such hackneyed lines, flippant attitudes, and telegraphed character development that I was honestly tempted to walk out (something I have NEVER done). I got the distinct impression not of characters developing, but of actors acting. There’s the rookie that adored Al’s techniques from afar and followed his every case (”Oh! Of course you’d want to go to the crime scene immediately. All the best evidence is collected from the scene within the first 24 hours. You said that in one of your cases.!”) the “cop who doesn’t like the out-of-town hot-shots,” Al’s partner, who just about sat at a bar table and said “this is my only development scene” before he died, and, of course, Al. A character so utterly devoid of substance that he explains every aspect of the investigation for the audience and spouts the equivalent of law-officer proverbs for the first twenty minutes. At one point, while badgering a suspect, the suspect mouths off “You’re just a little prick in a leather jacket!” and, heaven help me, I found myself agreeing.
This had the effect, through the first half, of me just not caring. I started wondering at Al beating himself up over killing such an obviously shallow character. I mean, come on! What’s the maximum sentence for killing cardboard cutouts? I couldn’t even summon up more than a tired interest at Al’s endeavor to replace the bullet dug out of his partner’s chest with one of the appropriate caliber.
All of this changes with the introduction of Robin Williams. I don’t think its spoiling anything to tell you that he’s the killer. I mean, there are two stars in this film, and halfway through one of them hasn’t shown up yet.
I’ve been wracking my brain for a bit now, but I can’t come up with any character Robin has played in the past that is at all similar to the one he plays here. Even when he’s played serious dramatic roles (“The Fisher King” is the only one I can come up with right now) it’s always been a rather manic, flamboyantly insane character he creates. Here, he is anything but. No humor, no outrageous statements, not even flamboyant gestures. His character is turned entirely inward. He is frighteningly believable in the role of a child-killer, bringing to mind Peter Lorre’s performance in the amazing classic (recommended to ANYONE) “M.” He is always soft-spoken, timid, conserved, and flinching in his movements. During his first personal meeting with Al on a ferry, he sits on the entirely empty, cushioned seats wearing a thick, shapeless, unremarkable sweater, with his elbows pulled in and his hands clasp between his knees, staring down at his shoes. Imagine that in your mind and you’ll have a pretty good idea of his character. The soft-spoken, faltering manner of his speech makes him entirely believable as the desperately lonely, entirely introverted child-killer. The kind of person who would never NEVER think of acting on, you know, THOSE thoughts, but sees no harm in thinking them, since, you know, he’s so very lonely. And of COURSE it was an accident, how can you think otherwise? To be honest, I had given up on the acting in this film by the time he actually showed up, so I didn’t recognize the brilliant job he was doing until he’d been around a while. Also, Al’s character seems to be some kind of superhero, as he channels sleep-deprivation into acting ability, gradually developing a character as the movie progresses through it’s later half, and becoming somewhat interesting by the last quarter. This leads to a handful of really cool climactic scenes between the two during the last half hour (immediately following Al’s impromptu confession to Lisa from “News Radio” after seven days of insomnia) which are then completely deflated by a cheesy line or two at the end. Crap. So why does everyone like this film? Why do all the critics love it? (Other than the fact it’s a remake of an obscure independent film from the same peninsula that gave us Ingmar Bergman.) It’s because the first half isn’t so much bad as completely empty and forgettable. When the good scenes at the end come along, they wipe out everything remembered about the first half of the film, and all they remember is how cool the ending is. I found myself reassessing the rest of the film once those good parts came up, but the truth of the matter is that I felt the early parts were predictable and badly acted, and no plot twist is gonna fix that retroactively.
One scene deserves special comment. Robin, thinking himself clever enough to fool the police, goes to the cops with the story he and Al worked out. Al, present in the room during this confession, gets pissed at Robin for (get this) being a TERRIBLE ACTOR! Ha! Irony!
Also, there is an entirely extraneous scene where Al pursues Robin across a log-flow. It has nothing to do with the story. It’s just there so that they could put SOMETHING interesting in the previews. I hate scenes like that. Anything else would have served better and less cornily.
You’ll note that I stopped referring to the characters by their names almost immediately. The reason for this is I can’t be bothered to remember them. In this case, which I’ve seen happen to other movies to a lesser extent, the actors actually end up outshining their characters. Let’s face it, the only reason you went to see this film is to see Al and Robin acting opposite to one another. The minimal, hackneyed character development early on means that you look at the screen and see Al and Robin instead of their characters. This gets in the way of the story, which is essentially the junction of an action flick and an art flick.
The ending? Let me give you a hint. Both of the main characters have hopes and dreams.
Thus, in conclusion, do not go to see this movie. See it in the theaters if you just walked out of something else. See it if you really want to kill two hours, you’ve seen every other film, or if the rental place is having a special. A net good film, but only barely. It’s bad parts are just…empty of value, not even good/bad like crappy horror films. Just boring until you get halfway through. I think you could actually pick up the film at the point where Robin Williams shows up and go
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"Oh my God. It's a Daikon monster"
2002-06-24 01:52:42
*Sigh* God does not want me to see Lilo and Stitch. I went through my usual routine of just showing up at the Dekalb mall and hoping it would be playing, but discovered that I was 15 minutes late to catch the start. Saw something else instead (more on that below). Afterwards I drove back to work to get a bit more of my proposal written up.
This in and of itself is proving to be a terrifying experience. You ever walk into a class for a test, get the test, read over it, get up, and go to the door to make sure you're in the right room? That's a bit how I feel with this proposal. It's not that I don't know the subject, it's that a lot of the work that I've gone through over the previous years didn't turn out to....uh...."work" in a way that we could use (inability to replicate previous results, results too noisy to use, inverse response, etc.) and it blew great big holes through my planned sequence of research when we had to drop blocks of it wholesale since that avenue wasn't going anywhere. Now I have this Swiss cheese construct to try and present to people and call it a cohesive plan of study...when a good bit of it is already done, as we had to fall back to extensive preliminary research to dove-tail and redirect. Now I'm trying to cram everything I know on the subject into 20 pages (1.5 space) in addition to all aspects of the planned research. It's taken me absolutely forever because of the extensive hunting for "that article I remember from a year ago just to place it in the exact right position." I just can't seem to keep my attention directed properly, either, as I'm working on a computer with high-speed internet access in a lab with people who like to talk and listen to the radio....and whom I have to mentor and watch constantly just to keep the cell cultures from springing into floral fungal growths that would make the Bebop's fridge look like a Bonsai garden. (We have three novice students in the lab working on subjects closely mirroring my own, one of which is an undergrad researcher whom I am personally responsible for.)
Sometimes I feel like I've been waiting my entire life to fail.
No, really.
When I was very young and told I was terribly special and smart (got sent to a gifted school for grades 3-4, took all the advanced and AP courses later) I developed a philosophy that's been integral to my outlook ever since. People capable of doing all of these terribly smart things, like discovering cures for cancer and AIDS, or engineering alloys, discovering planets, inventing warp-drives and shrink rays, etc., had a moral obligation to do so. Those who weren't were off the hook and got to do whatever the hell they wanted. At the time (from 3-15...yeah, I was an obnoxious twit....yeah, dwelling a lot recently), I was of the opinion that I was, naturally, going to be one of the discoverers, and thus spent a lot of time studying science, chemistry, and, of course, science fiction...doing a lot to suck the fun out of the latter. Now that I've managed to weasel my way into the world of actual scientific advancement, I'm finding that little moral stricture weighing heavy on my mind a lot. If, in the end, I completely crap out here at school, my own little moral stricture will exit and I can get right on to being a starving artist (writer) with a clear conscience. But how do you know if you fail at this level? Actual science works by way of thousands of studies and papers and publications on the tiniest of minutia all adding up to eventual breakthroughs....that only work a minute percentage of the time. (I would say that all the big easy breakthroughs have already been made.....but that exact quote was made a few months before the postulation of quantum physics. Speaking of which....http://www.angryflower.com/schrod.gif Heh Heh.) Even those breakthroughs come only to those who are exceedingly lucky (ask me how good I am at cards), complete geniuses(which I ain't), and have dedicated their lives to the topic. In my lab, fully half of the work has been dedicated to the design and proofing of a bioreactor system for artificial arteries that HAVEN'T BEEN MADE TO WORK YET. They're designing something in the hopes that it will be properly designed when someone actually figures out how to make an artificial artery that doesn't, well, suck in any of three hundred different ways.
In case you can't tell, my own work isn't progressing as well as theirs.
Thank you for coming to my pity-party. Jeeves will see you out.
*Whew*
Anyway, after spending two hours in that particular miasma, I decided to try again. I remembered that there was a showing at 8:00, and I tore out, making it there just a few minutes before eight. I pull into a parking space and
-CRACKBOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM-
It had been sprinkling off and on all day, but the sky was almost clear by then. So I go inside and discover that the lightning strike blew out all the computers in the theater and they won't sell any tickets.
Gaaaahhhhh.
OK. Personal responses:
Bowler: Re: Iron Giant. Don't hold your breath waiting for me to review any particular movie. I don't watch things in any particular order outta mount DVD. There's stuff in there from last Christmas (like Iron Giant) and stuff that was added in the last week. They've all got about equal chances, and the thing is 22 movies tall. Yeah. It's growing faster than I can bring it down anymore. I called a halt on buying more DVDs and two days later Borders was having a $10 sale on crappy horror flicks. *Whimper* So naturally I gave in.
Anyway, the point is.....I wanna hear what you've got on IG. 'Come on. Gimmie-gimmie.
Also, did you ever catch the cartoon they made out of "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs?" First few episodes were fun 'cause if you squinted just right you could see where they cut all the sexploitation outta the story. Slightly better than standard dross and tailings, but wandered down into predictable derivative-ville pretty quick.
Epochof7: Damn it, I have got to find a copy of Donnie Darko for sale SOMEWHERE. Everyone I know, every critic, and even a random person on the street (long story) says it's a great movie. I don't like buying the stuff online as that's a slippery slope I and my life savings are not willing to go near.
AbsoluteDestiny: Unfortunately, some AMVers have begun placing the importance of the hobby on the awards, and not on the fun or the videos themselves. Honestly, I think people curbing themselves or not entering contests in order to "give other people a shot" is just as much a part of the problem. If the contest really is just for fun, then backing out so other people can win just tells them that A: You're a nice guy to spread the glory around, and B: There IS glory in winning, thus the awards become what you're working for rather than just a chance to show your vids to a crowd. Boy that was badly written. Anyway, IMO, only back out of a contest if you really just don't want it shown in that venue, or if making AMVs just isn't fun anymore.
Amzadai: Did you read the hardcover version of "The Neverending Story"? the one with the printing in red and green ink that BURNED YOUR EYES so you couldn't read more than twenty pages at a time? Just curious. I liked that film a lot as a kid, although I distinctly remember being disappointed in the Morgul (? Can't remember the name exactly) when we finally got a look at it. On the other hand, it lives on in our D&D game. When it comes time to replace our horses AGAIN (we inevitably get caught underground for several days and come back to find our horses eaten or starved to death) I've taken to naming them all "Artax." None of them live very long...
In other news, I finally finished getting through the Fangoria I told you all about. I was partially right. It turns out that all the hideous, indiscriminate gushing is reserved for the main articles. The five-paragraph reviews in sections like "DVD Dungeon" are refreshingly honest about the sucky nature of some flicks. (Although they panned the old Disney "Watcher in the Woods," a flick that scared the hell outta me as an eight-year old, so I don't know how much to trust them.) Yes, they loved Donnie Darko too.
Finally, if all goes well, (and my hand doesn't seize up) ya'll are getting two (eh. 1 ½) reviews to make up for my meandering exercise in self-pity above. The second one is the film that I saw instead of Lilo and Stitch, "Insomnia." The first is likely to be of more widespread interest, though.
"Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi," or, as most anime fans know it, just "Sen to Chihiro." Patrick was holding a b-day party (not his) over at his house this Friday, and was kind enough to screen this for whoever was interested. As you've no doubt heard, this movie has broken all possible records in Japanese film history. Widely acclaimed on every level. Loved throughout the country. Much like nearly every other Hayao Miazaki film, only more so.
There really isn't much of a point in me doing a full review here for a couple of reasons. Reviews are supposed to warn the movie-going public as to whether or not they should see the film. As I am speaking to an anime crowd, I can be sure that you're all going to see it ANYWAY, and likely as SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, if you haven't already. Also, I really liked the film, and as I know ya'll are going to see it anyway, I can't talk much about it for fear of giving away the good parts, and lessening your experience of the film. Thus, I'm gonna give my impressions, talk about the story in only the most general fashion, and then talk AROUND the story in such a way that it gives nothing away unless you've already seen it. Thus, a half-review.
In general, yes it is a very good film. I'm still mulling over it, so I'm not entirely certain that it's my favorite anime film, but it is definitely up near the top three. (The top two being Naausicca [umlauts?] and "Whispers of the Heart", my favorite Miyazaki and Ghibli films, respectively. "Omoide Poro Poro" is a close competitor, but the main character looks and acts almost exactly like my maiden aunt, and that depresses me terribly.) In fact, this is a film wherein mulling serves it very well. It's one of those films where you come away all silent 'cause you're thinking about all the stuff that was done, and this or that aspect of the story, and how only a tiny corner facet of an entire world was shown to us, and wondering about the rest of this fantastical place. I guess that makes it similar to The Neverending Story in some respects.
Only more actively hostile.
Chihiro and her family are moving to a new town. She appears to have spent most of the trip lying in the backseat bemoaning her fate. As they approach their new home, the family gets lost and the father, looking for a shortcut, ploughs their little car down a heavily forested road. Eventually they reach a strange gate blocked by a pitted stone idol sitting in front of it. Despite Chihiro's nervous protestations, her parents decide to check it out. Emerging from the darkened gate, they happen upon rows of abandoned, strangely-painted shops and structures, which her father declares must be the remains of a failed amusement park. Again, over Chihiro's protestations, the family goes exploring and discovers a single stall with piles of food set out, as though waiting for diners. Unable to raise anyone, Chihiro's parents help themselves...again over Chihiro's continuous nagging and worrying. Chihiro, worried about getting in trouble, wanders off through the strange structures.
Things turn bad. Very bad. But also fascinating. To speak about it specifically would ruin a lot of the fun, but basically Chihiro finds herself flung into a strange, ghostly world that seems inherently antagonistic to humans. Her parents cannot help her, she has no idea what's going on, and she finds the scenery around her suddenly....populated....with the setting of the sun. A mysterious benefactor encounters and then hides her away briefly. A hurried, nonsensical set of instructions, and she's once again on her own.
In essence Chihiro has been dropped into a strange conjunction of a lot of Japanese myth. Ghosts, kappa, river spirits, dragons, (even a totoro), soot-sprites, and witches populate this new world, none of whom feel particularly affectionate towards humans. (Most merely regard her as disgusting.) She quickly discovers that there are sets of rules which must be followed here, although at first she can barely puzzle out the simplest ones. Following the rules grants her the right to remain (the alternative is rather...bad) and means that the disgust of the surrounding creatures won't go much further than insults and assignment of hard labor. As part of these rules, Chihiro finds herself laboring under a monstrous old witch (think of Cologne with her hair up and scaled to the size of a VW bus), with the first condition of her employment being that the old woman steals most of her name, which Chihiro can no longer remember, and leaving a single letter behind, "Sen." This traps Sen within this ghostly world.
And that's all I'm saying.
I really wish I knew more of the nitty-gritty of Japanese myth, as there is plainly a LOT going on in this film, and I just don't know what it is. Many of the individuals have significant-sounding names, and some of the events are so dang freaky that it MUST be a reference to something else. That said, I did feel that there were some parallels to other stories I'd seen. You can actually see what might be called a "lesser used myth cycle" in the basic concept of a young hero or heroine thrown into servitude in a magical or alien world. The parallel struck me most profoundly in relation to a book I haven't thought of in years. I read in fourth grade (Jeez, you'd think I never did anything after I broke the age of 15) a book called "The Perilous Gard" (No, I did not misspell that, a "Gard" is an antiquated name for a specific kind of fortification.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618150730/qid=1024893009/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-3655433-4347936
The story takes place in the mid 1500's in a remote part of England. About midway through the book, the main character, an exiled lady-in-waiting, is sold into slavery to the Fairy Folk, where she joins the ranks of disappeared young women. Kept effectively immortal by the fey magics, but badly disoriented by the tons of rock between her and the surface, she has to learn "the rules" in a strange and totally alien world of magic and drugged food where she is kept only to clean and labor for the regal, imperious elves. A mysterious benefactor gives her clues to manipulate the rules surrounding her, and leads her not only to her own salvation, but that of a young man she's fallen for. I remember being absolutely fascinated by this book, and the vast, multifaceted world which you see only in glimpses through the heroine's eyes and the few interactions the rules will allow. For some reason, the situation also struck me as interesting. A kind of non-existence of hard work, careful tense avoidance of anything that might draw attention, and a kind of free-fall suspension within a world where you really can't trust anything your wits and rationale deliver. You know, I just realized something. There is no way in hell kids today would be assigned this book in fourth grade. If they got up in arms about Harry Potter, this book would be like the coming of the antichrist. It's a real fucking shame how much kid's imaginations are being limited in the name of political correctness. I, on the other hand, was REQUIRED to read Ursula K. LeGuin's "Wizard of Earthsea" trilogy.
Anyway, the story of Sen to Chihiro also bears a passing resemblance to one of the Russian legends of Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga is a witch of some renown in myth cycles, but most people don't really know the stories in which she appears. One of them starts with the old chestnut of an unwanted step-daughter. A young girl whose mother dies and whose cringing, pathetic father marries a harridan, finds herself in the always-bad "Cinderella" position. One night, when the hearth fire of the house goes out (due to her step-sister's inattention) the girl is told to go an retrieve a torch from "auntie Baba Yaga" who lives deep in the woods. Being obedient, despite the fact this is clearly a Handsel and Gretel situation, the girl wanders deep in the woods until she finds a house surrounded by a fence made of human bones, and supported by an enormous chicken leg (or legs, translation varies). Speaking in utmost politeness she gains admittance to the house and, a moment later, Baba Yaga comes careening in out of the sky, seated within an enormous mortar and rowing the air with a proportionate pestle. (The little marble stick and bowl you use to crush herbs and seasonings) Baba Yaga, surprised and angered by the girl's presence, but taken aback by her irreproachable politeness, tells the girl that she will give the girl a torch, but she must earn it through hard work. Yaga then assigns a variety of impossible tasks to the child (the only one I remember was sorting every grain of rice from every millet hull by hand), the idea being that Yaga would then have an excuse to kill and eat the child. The girl foils Baba Yaga repeatedly with the help of a magical doll given to her by her original mother.
See? Aren't I clever? Those of you who have seen the film can notice the parallels in the references above, and the implicit commentary thereof, and there's too much random stuff for those of you who haven't to figure out the story.
I will say that Sen to Chihiro ends much more nicely than either of the above stories. In the "Perilous Gard," the girl's escape collapses and floods the entire underground community, while in the Yaga tale, Baba eventually relents and gives the girl a torch with a skull mounted on it. When she returns home, the baleful eyes of the torch incinerate her vindictive relatives.
You know, come to think of it, there's a little bit of this movie in "Legend" too. Hmm.
All in all, it's good to see this neglected myth-cycle brought once again to vibrant life. It recalls quite strongly the fascination I fostered for those other tales and is one of the first things in a VERY long time to really interest me in fantasy again. I can feel a hint of that obsession Amzadai spoke about stirring from a long dormant sleep. Like I said, this movie is treated well by mulling.
In the entire film I only have two caveats to my positive review. The first is the character design of Chihiro's small traveling companions late in the movie. For some reason the detail drops right through the floor on those two, although I confess the pixelization made it a bit hard to discern. They really did look like a pair of poorly-drawn Pokemon, and the Pikachu-esqu "chuu" one of them emitted did nothing to dispel the impression. The second is a slight framing and direction critique. The time Chihiro spends under the witch's tutelage isn't well defined. I'm not expecting a schedule or anything, but I get the impression we're SUPPOSED to think that it is months and months if not years (or some strangely-infinite period of time that makes sense only within this magical world), but the ACTUAL impression I got was that it couldn't have been over four days.
In summary: Movie Good.
Well, it didn't work out. Sorry, the review of Insomnia will have to wait a few days.
JOURNAL: MCWagner (Matthew Wagner)
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