film and tv

“There are no easy answers”

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Adaptation is a movie which it is impossible to say anything intelligent about. You can take that as you will.

Even saying that, I’m probably missing the point.

Nevertheless, I am thoroughly defeated. This is what films can be at the level to which no one ever seems to bother to take them.

I think once this comes out on DVD, I’ll have an interesting tool. Whenever I want a good gauge of how someone’s mind works, I’ll show him or her Adaptation. See what the conclusion is.

I don’t think I’ve had to work that hard in the act of watching a movie, for a very long time (if ever). After a certain point, I had to watch it three or four times at once with separate parts of my brain while simultaneously rewinding and reframing every other element, character, facet of the film from the first words, with every new sentence which was uttered.

And even in doing that, and in realizing that in trying to even find a level to watch it on, or find… anything to speak about, I am shown for the fool that I am — I am! By simply throwing my hands up and saying that the movie intentionally defies concrete understanding and revels in that fact, I’m still narrowing it down to a point which is so inherently ingrained in the movie’s fiber that that’s not it either.

…

So I’ll simply nod. I, personally, can’t hold this one. I’ll just admire it.

Now, how long will it take before videogames reach this level of art? Hmm…

Art and life really are synonymous, aren’t they? Can I ever birth such an immortal being? What’s the point of being here, if not? We are given such a limited chance, and all most people seem to have the ambition to do is to selfishly create more literal life. Life which will wither and wane and be forgotten. A hundred years, and no one will have the chance to know it. It will have no more to say.

I feel I have a responsibility to do more than that, with all of the resources I’m wasting merely by existing in the first place. But can I do it? Will I ever know if I have?

…

All right. I guess I can say that about the movie, without imposing myself upon it. Without suggesting that what I say is the movie, or its point (if it has any one in particular). If I make sure to make this distinction, I suppose I should be okay.

Unrelatedly, The Two Towers didn’t annoy me anywhere near as much on the instance of my second subjection to it. And I can’t get that damned Gollum’s Song, from the ending credits, out of my head of this moment. The flashbacks are still murder, though.

I just flipped the light switch, in attempt to flush the toilet.

The Five Point Shuffle

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Why did I try to shovel snow while wearing sandals?

So I’ve got my copy of KoF2001. The control is crisper and more responsive than I rememnber. The soundtrack, though otherwise unchanged, seems to contain higher-quality samples than the Neo-Geo version. Somehow it doesn’t annoy me as much as it used to. Maybe I’m just used to it by now? I used to loathe the soundtrack to this game, but now I barely even hear it even if I’m trying to pay attention.

There’s a movelist included, although — for whatever reason — it’s been tied to the taunt button. And it’s only available in practice mode, it seems. And there are not only a large handful of backgrounds from each of the earlier games (’94-2000 — particularly 2000; I think all of the stages are available), but all of the original, crummy 2001 backdrops? They’ve been remixed. They’re not as washed-out. Many layers of scrolling have been added, as has a bunch of extra animation. The painful racetrack level has simply been redone from the ground up. It’s still ugly, but it doesn’t make me feel ill anymore.

Problem is, none of the new backgrounds are available in the actual game. In practice and versus modes you can access any level you like — but in-game? It doesn’t even use the improved backgrounds. You just get the flat, drab, original versions. I don’t get it.

Haven’t touched the puzzle mode yet, as I’d have to unlock it. Not quite together enough to play a fighting game very well tonight, although I surprised myself by getting off a couple of K9999’s tougher DMs (exactly once, each — though on the first try, for the one).

Generally, seems like a decent port. It doesn’t taste the same as the DC version of 2000, though. I find this odd. 2000 seemed a lot like the ports of MotW and Last Blade 2. 2001… I’m not sure. Everything about this game is just a little off. It always has been. But the port follows this trend. Can’t quite place this feeling, yet. Not sure if it’s positive, negative, or neutral.

Is it just me, or does KoF2001 feel really… Korean? I never noticed it before. Neither can I exactly quantify why I say this. Something about the layout, and the design of the new characters, and the general overtone. Something about the exact kind of brightness combined with graininess and… almost disturbing oddness. Not a Japanese oddness, though. This comes from a different psychological place entirely.

Gangs of New York: It was. The Leonardo DiCaprio character was about the only uninteresting one in the movie, and (as the hero) he wasn’t really intended to stand out. Still seemed a little awkward, but I’ll ignore that under the weight of some of the achievements here. A ton of research went into the most throwaway details for this movie. And I was surprised by how large a part Boss Tweed ended up playing.

And now I’ve a better context for the burning of Barnum’s museum.

Kind of too tired to go into more detail at the moment. Lots of good stuff in here, though. Not quite sure about certain decisions and certain choices in editing, but there wasn’t anything which really harmed the effect.

Sometimes exaggeration — as in this case — is needed in order to get the point across. And I think this movie had an interesting and worthwhile point to make clear, in terms of the conceptions we’ve been handed about our history.

Bilbo’s Ring!

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Lately I keep waking up with music in my head. I can’t remember what else I’ve had going this week (just a dream yesterday that involved a rare transformer which turned into an intergalactic movie screen), but this time it was the Heatman theme.

As I idly bounced into consciousness, my thoughts ran to clothing. “I should wear a vest when I go to E3. And bring my umbrella. And find that fedora. And… buy a handkerchief.”

Okay. Aside from the bit where the ring falls onto Frodo’s finger and he slips into the wraith world? (I just realized that this scene reminds me a lot of when John Cusack first slips into John Malkovich’s head. Same kind of critical turning moment, where everything is suddenly, violently reframed — and in a sense the movie really begins.) The other scene which really sticks with me from FotR occurs just after Bilbo leaves, near the beginning.

Gandalf is sitting in the foreground, immersed in thought (and pipe smoke), scowling into the fire. Frodo bolts into Bag End in the background, screeches to a halt, and innocently picks up the ring along the way. He notices Gandalf and continues into the foreground. After being addressed a couple of times, Gandalf slowly, creakily turns to Frodo. His eyes drift downward. “…Bilbo’s Ring!” he chimes; quickly, calculatedly putting on as innocent and comforting (yet nevertheless distinctly odd) a smile as he can conjure.

There’s something about the effortless, logical grace of that scene which does a lot to me. “Bilbo! Bilbo! Oh… a… ring? Huh. Hey, Gandalf. Where’s Bilbo? Gandalf? … Hey. Gandalf.” “Oh. Um. Oops. You… have the ring? (Mustn’t show how terrified this makes me…) Hello!”

Part of it is in the framing. Part of it is in the acting. Part of it’s the script. Really, Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen both do so much acting beyond the comparatively corny dialogue they’re often given. They do far more acting with their faces (particularly Frodo’s eyes) than they do with their voices. Christopher Lee, whose dialogue is by far the hammiest, just seems to revel in it. He’s pretty much expressionless; the only interesting glance I can recall out of him is in response to Gandalf’s “Tell me… friend,” line in Isegard.

All of this is why FotR wins me over so much — powerful character and plot moments like these. TTT is relatively absent of them. Just action. And… Ents. And absolutely, thoroughly unneeded flashbacks.

The moment which I remember best from my single viewing of TTT so far? When… the… elf guide fellow from Lothlorien unexpectedly shows up at Helm’s Deep. His presence there. His expression. The way he reacts when Aragorn tries to hug him.

Other than that, it’s mostly just individual shots which I admired for their grace or general beauty — the long shot near the end, when Gandalf and Eomer’s men are charging down the hill; the shot by the graves in Rohan, with the flower in the foreground for about half a second; the shot where Frodo wigs out and pulls Sting on Sam.

I just didn’t have much of anything to lock onto in this movie. Again, maybe if I see it again now that I know what to expect… But I mostly just felt like I was… observing actions rather than intimately taking part in something increasingly important, along with interesting characters.

It’s the acting, and it’s the beats which sell the experience. There was too little and too few, here.

Water. Yes.

Edit: All of that? That’s partially why I said we need more Eomer. He was a really interesting character, but barely used. He needed another scene somewhere before his reappearance. So did Gandalf. And we needed more Frodo. And more for Merry and Pippin to actually do.

Aragorn and Legolas are frankly boring on their own. Some people complain about his use as comic relief, but Gimli provided some of the only actual personality in the film. And it was greatly needed. I can’t imagine the movie working as well (and it really didn’t work very well!) without Gimli being so… Dwarfy. Sam was kind of interesting, but abrasive. Frodo didn’t do much other than walk into walls in the annoyingly few scenes he was actually in; he did little really interesting or involving acting at all. Gollum was a selfish scene-stealer; I think he needed to be brought down a notch or two, to blend in better.

Really, the only bits of absorbing personality in the film come from Gimli, Eomer, and what little Gandalf we see. Considering that the movie pretty much uses them as decoration while it focuses almost entirely on the boring characters and on special effects — well, you can see how it might fall a little flat.

This is aside, again, from the editing. Gah. Not going to get into that mess again.

The benefits of post-post production

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Another thing: We need more Eomer.

This movie has a ton of good stuff in it; the real problem is mostly in the editing.

We need to get the hell rid of that flashback sequence. We don’t need Aragorn going off the cliff. We can cut back on some of the Ent stuff.

Then we can add in more Frodo development. Add in more of Gandalf, as he searches for Eomer’s men. Hell, Eomer was so well-defined and such an interesting character. Why was he ignored for the whole center portion of the movie? I wanted to see more of him, but all we got was the light brigade at the end.

And once we’ve got the substitutions all set, then reorganize. This movie feels like a rough cut, honestly. All of the material just seems thrown together, with no real attention to pacing. There’s very little of a sense of setup and payoff. There’s no natural flow. That stupid dream sequence helps to set up what happens to Aragorn after he falls off the cliff, but neither is needed in the slightest. They add absolutely nothing. I can’t see a single positive aspect to these changes. Not one. It’s just not good judgement, so far as I can see.

Again, with as rough as this movie seems to be — I hope that’s just what the case is. Peter Jackson didn’t have the time to think things through and to edit as carefully as he’d have liked. With another year to work on the DVD, he’d sure as hell better rethink how he wants this movie to flow. He’s got all of the right material. (Well, he’s got most of it; and I somehow expect he did film the other bits I’ve mentioned are needed.) He just needs to do something else with it.

Or I suppose he could just edit it down to the intro sequence. Nothing else is really needed.

And yes, it’s even got the Konami code.

  • Reading time:9 mins read

Ken Burns’ Civil War series is showing on PBS this week, two episodes every night. I watched another chapter a few moments ago, but I just don’t have the patience to stick around for the second one. It’s interesting stuff, but this miniseries has perhaps the most soporific presentation I’ve ever seen. Must escape before I lapse into a coma. Sorry, Grant.

Onto other things.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance has a very nice tone to it. It’s… a little harder to immediately get into and enjoy than was Circle of the Moon. It’s not as instantly agreeable, and it feels kind of… cold. But now that I’ve played a little bit, it’s opened up a lot and it’s become clear how much more well-made this game is in general than KCEK’s last effort. The control is much tighter. The level design is more interesting. And the entire thing is much more Castlevania-ey than CotM ever managed to be. It’s got that same slightly… uneasy tone that most of the main chapters have had, and which I’ve not felt for quite a while. All of the edges of the screen are crammed full of minute and curious gothic detail.

The game also has a constant sense of forward motion that was lacking in CotM. It feels like I’m going somewhere when I’m playing — like there’s a goal — rather than like I’m just puttering around randomly in an adventure game world. CotM was fun, but that was about it. A fun, Metroid-style platformer with Castlevania trimmings. HoD feels like Castlevania. You know how that map popped up between levels in the first game? You know how in level three you could see the final tower in the background as a goal? It always felt like you were making progress. And that sensation is back.

What’s more, and what is interesting — something I’ve not felt for a very long time with this series is that… old movie sensation. The first few games in the series were spattered with spoke holes in all of the title screens and menus, as if you were playing through a silent horror movie. And the games had an aesthetic and an atmosphere to match. HoD seems to bring this general feeling back. It’s not just going through the motions, it’s doing its best to do things right. Igarashi seems to really understand the heart of the series, in a way that KCEK just can’t handle.

As for the music: you’ve heard how awful it’s supposed to be. This is both entirely true and false.

To be sure, compared to what KCEK achieved with CotM just a year ago, the sound quality is a obviously lacking. A few months ago I spent an hour, one night, simply lying in bed and listening to the Catacombs theme from Circle of the Moon in a pair of headphones. Much of the music in CotM was borrowed and remixed from other games (mostly Bloodlines and Dracula’s Curse), but the music quality was higher than anything I’d heard on a handheld system before. And indeed, it was some of the best Castlevania music I’d ever heard. What’s more, the original compositions were absolutely perfect and memorable additions to the growing roster of Castlevania anthems.

This comparison is, I think, the greatest factor which initially makes the music in Hod so very startling, and for a while even a little grating. Although it might be interesting on its own right, the music is not of the same almost unreasonably high standard set both by CotM and by Castlevania in general. This just doesn’t sound like what you inevitably going to expect. Beyond its mere quality, the composition is also a bit odd.

That said, it’s not as bad as people say, and it has its own odd personality. Try to picture Darkstalkers music played on an NES. Now mix in the occasional motive from Simon’s Quest, and top it off with a few tunes from the original Gameboy games. That’s the HoD score, in a nutshell. It sounds like NES music, basically. But like Castlevania music. Only… a more recent kind of Castlevania music, played on an NES. It’s atmospheric and sprawling. As opposed to NES Castlevania music, which is more melodic and clever. Got it?

The thing is, the music here manages to set its own sort of retro tone. If you’ve played the NES games and the original Gameboy trilogy, I think it’s a lot easier to appreciate what’s been done. Try to take the music as a low-fi experiment, rather than a result of ROM budgeting. On its own level, especially in contrast to the high-budget presentation of every other aspect of the game, the music has its own interesting tone going on. If anything, I think it helps just a bit in adding to the “grainy” emotional texture of the game that I was getting at before. If there’s anything that Castlevania needs in order to retain its unsettling ambiance, it’s a certain offputting creakyness — and the music in HoD seems to do a very good job in maintaining this sensation.

Controversial? Certainly. But I think the music succeeds in its own strange way. Perhaps I’m being too forgiving, but I dig.

All of the other sound effects are great, though (further adding to the perplexing aural quality of the game). Something that strikes me: there’s a strange, startled “nAnI?!” whenever Juste is poisoned or cursed. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be Juste’s own squeak — as it doesn’t sound like the same voice who does all of the item crash screaming and the hopping grunts and so forth — or if it’s intended to come out of the monsters which are whapping him. I suppose the latter wouldn’t make much sense, so I suppose it’s kind of amusing to see a Belmont (especially as arrogant a one as Juste) lose his cool when things don’t go as he plans.

The control, again, is so much better and tighter and more… full-seeming than in CotM. Don’t get me wrong; I loved how Nathan felt in that game. But the control was generally pretty loose, and while Nathan always did exactly what he was told to, he didn’t seem to have much… substance to him. The entire game had that weird sort of a sensation for me, so it’s not just the control. But there was no heft. What flexibility he had felt both kind of messy and strangely contrived. Why did he suddenly get certain abilities when he did, for instance? Why was being able to push crates a special power? What the heck is that “rocket jump” special move? Where does it come from? Whenever I learned a new move with him, it felt more like it had merely been arbitrarily unlocked for me so as to allow me to progress.

Juste, in contrast, starts off feeling much more… rigid than Nathan. His dash ability is indescribably helpful, and it’s neat that he’s able to swing his whip around as in Super Castlevania IV. But he’s less of a jumping bean, he doesn’t start with a slide move, he initially can’t automatically twirl his whip as Nathan could. He’s certainly animated a hell of a lot better than Nathan, and his sprite is larger and more visible — but he’s… well, he feels more like a Belmont than a random platforming character with a whip. Just as floaty ol’ Nathan was great for soaring aimlessly around the open structures in his game, Juste has a much more satisfying kind of focus to him. What he loses in out-and-out freedom he gains in precision and, frankly, respectability.

Nothing seems to be wasted on Juste, and nothing seems to be arbitrary. His starting abilities make sense, and (at least so far) every time I’ve gotten a new one it’s been a pretty logical (and balanced) addition. Plus, if you’re missing a particular move from nearly any other Castlevania game — it’s apparently in here somewhere. Now that I’ve got a slide move and can automatically spin my whip around as Nathan did (although I could manually approximate this effect before), I feel like I’ve earned the abilities and like they’re natural extensions to what I started off with. They’re not just there.

I also like how carefully Igarashi has been to make clear the time period in which the game takes place, and exactly who the characters are in relation to the universe we know so far — from the box to the instructions to the game itself, there’s no mystery at all. It’s stated right out that fifty years have passed since Simon’s Quest and that Juste is Simon Belmont’s grandson. It says what he’s doing, what the relation of this task is to the previous game (chronologically speaking), and how uncommonly gifted he is even for a Belmont. And in the (commendably well-made) instructions, it quickly mentions that his magical abilities come from the Fernandez (Belnades) family.

I’m only about two hours in, but — as you’ve likely gathered — my impression is good so far. The game feels — again — more like a true Castlevania game than any I’ve played in a while. And there are elements I’ve seen from a bunch of other Castlevanias, here. The refereces are particularly heavy to the first two Gameboy games, to the NES trilogy, to the Dracula X series (which makes sense, seeing as how HoD can sort of be considered the third game in that subseries), to Bloodlines, even to CotM and Super Castlevania IV. And heck, the N64 games are even referenced slightly (what with the Fernandez name).

I think a few more things probably could have been done with the game, but in general I’m impressed up to this point. And I’m more confident than ever that Igarashi is the guy who should be heading this series; no one else at Konami seems to really get it the way he does. And even if the game does have its flaws, it feels real. It’s not hard to tell how much effort went into the game, and how devoted the man is both to the legacy of the series and to its fans. This isn’t something you get a whole lot in any form of art or entertainment, seemingly least of all videogames and film. And it’s exactly what was missing from Circle of the Moon. He’s got my trust for the future.

A short note: Is Ayami Kojima (Igarashi’s chosen artist since Symphony of the Night) of any relation to Hideo? They both work at Konami, after all.

Hmm…

The pillow.

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I just saw Mulholland Dr.. It made me feel much better.

And yet, tomorrow… more movies!

  • Reading time:5 mins read

There is such a thing as Pez-flavored popcorn? Pez? All its charm is in the packaging and delivery. The candy itself can be downright vile. Even if Pez were a flavour sensation, why popcorn?

I just attended the final night of the MIFF. It’s amazing how exhausting it can be just to watch movies, granted back-to-back over a ten-day stretch. Anyway, it was entirely worth the experience.

So. Today, we had one silent movie by F.W. Murnau (of Nosferatu fame). As with the (highly expressionistic) golem film from last year, the soundtrack was composed, and performed live, by a pianist from the coast. He’ll be sending a CD of it here, by request.

Next up, I spent some time poking around Marden’s during a three-hour gap. I managed to dig up a bunch of useless doodads such as a copy of Sewer Shark for the Sega CD (about two dollars) and an RF adapter for the Dreamcast (just in case I happen to run into a TV old enough that it’d be required) — marked down from an absurd eighteen dollars to about three or four. There were copies of Anarchy Online sitting around for under five dollars, but Edgar’s too old to run anything like that. It was just amusing to see them there, next to the cheese graters and fishing tackle and giant Tootsie Rolls and Gundam Wing figurines.

Marden’s is an interesting place.

I also adopted the most handsome duck in the world. He’d been calling to me all week.

Then there was an interesting Japanese film which no one except for me seemed to understand at all. (From the literature, it’s apparently inspired in part by Philip K. Dick. I suppose I can see that.) I’m not going to go into too much detail, but toward the end it occurred to me that the film was almost Shakespearian in composition, with the character of Keechie playing much the same role as the fool — or whatever other foil was often used as a tool of fate — to illuminate the faults of the main characters and to help pull the plot forward. Also, the movie started in some ways to become, toward the end, much like what I’d expect from a traditional Samurai drama. It seems there’s little in the film which is best to take at face value; it’s all a modern fable of sorts. It’s hard to tell at first, by how intentionally Western everything seems. But that begins to get stripped away, as things move along…

The second showing of Body Drop Asphalt was just one slot too late; too few people saw it the first time, and the voting for best film of the show closed just as the movie’s slot began. A shame, but it at least got my vote…

But that’s mostly because they saved the best film for last. I can’t find it in the IMDB, but it’s a Swedish film by the English title of “Deadline”. (Jonne, might you be any good here?) It’s obvious why the movie in question was reserved for the closing ceremonies; I probably would have voted for BDA anyway, simply to give it the much-needed support, but… I don’t believe I’ve seen a movie as well-made as this in — decades, really.

(There are, incidentally, too many movies with the name “Deadline”. I didn’t catch the Swedish title, but I can’t imagine it being this lame. This is something which has irritated me greatly, over the past few weeks; it seems nearly every foreign film has had its title not merely translated but, rather, altered into the most boring, forgettable spun-off Hollywood marketeer claptrap imaginable. “Merci Pour Le Chocolat” somehow becomes “Nightcap”; “L’ Emploi du temps” is mangled into “Time Out” — and so on. Gr, I say.)

The mid-’70s were really the last bastion of serious moviemaking in Hollywood. Then Star Wars came around, and nothing’s been the same since. The thing about indie and foreign pictures, is that while they’re great in the sense that they fill the void of experimentation that Hollywood could never provide, they generally just don’t have the financial backing that the teenage barf factory has to offer. So you have the potential for a lot of really interesting and difficult pictures which you’d not get otherwise, but there are generally some compromises.

My point is — well. It’s not a visionary film. It’s not anything which hasn’t been done before in some way. It doesn’t dazzle the viewer with creativity. It’s simply more solid a film than I’m at all used to seeing. Its characters are well-drawn, and the acting is impeccable across the board. The direction is just right. The pacing is perfect; the way things are gradually established, beginning with the way the paper is run, moving onto the main character’s (realistic) life at home, and office politics; then gradually onto the real plot of the movie. And it ends at just the right place, and in just the right way. There’s a particular confidence and sheer competence at work here which I’m not accustomed to seeing. Not out of today’s cinema, anyway. Again, perhaps a few decades ago.

So that was today. Here again is an adjusted list of what I’ve seen, with links where I can find ’em.

So. There.

Otakon is only a few days away now. Not sure what I’m doing yet. I thought I was going to be more prepared than this.

Deep Bang Blade

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I finally got a chance to play Bangai-O and Last Blade 2. Both were quite worth grabbing hold of, in their own particular ways.

Bangai-O is essentially everything I thought it would be, only more addictive and weird.

Last Blade 2… I really wasn’t sure what to expect here, but I got more than I was looking for. The animation is very nice, and the voices are some of the best I’ve heard in a fighting game. I’m actually liking some of the characters who I hadn’t noticed before (though the names aren’t sticking just yet), and I think I am going to like the fighting system. It’s quite complex in theory, but somewhat simple in execution. The characters also have a nice sort of a feel to them — more limber and mobile than the SF/KoF style and somewhat tighter and easier to deal with than the likes of Darkstalkers. The game’s minimalistic use of music in favour of background noises is quite interesting as well. I think I’m actually going to spend some time learning how to play this properly. It’s not often I think this about a fighting game.

On the way home I saw The Deep End, a smallish film I’d been wanting to see for a while. If I can do the research to refresh my brain on peoples’ names, I’ll talk about it some more. As it is, I’m feeling a bit dumb saying much. It was, however, something to see.

A.I.

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I was quite surprised — in a positive sense — by the film. While I was expecting some kind of Spielbergy tripe with nifty special effects and some interesting elements perking up a potentially tired theme, I was treated to an actual bit of artistry. It seems Kubrick’s vision, whatever that might have been, was held very strongly. From the camera angles to set design to pacing to tone to the direction of the actors, about ninety percent of the film felt like pure Kubrick — almost more so than he usually did. Where Spielberg came in seemed to be in softening some of the excesses and rough edges Kubrick loved to leave jutting out to scrape the viewer.

There were a couple of very distinctly Spielbergy moments (such as the underwater segment and some of the tone toward the very end) and I can see now why he was attracted to the project, but I think his ideas actually complimented the work. Still, it would be fascinating to see how the film looked in various stages of production. I have to imagine it was very different before Kubrick got his manipulative claws onto it, knowing how he loved to mangle source material into his own odd shapes.

But I ramble. Surprisingly good film, which didn’t go anywhere nearly in the direction I was expecting.

Tarzan

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Really dug the characterization of Jane in the recent Disney incarnation of Tarzan. Actually, the whole thing was surprisingly well-handled, with the only strong gripe, allowances made for the traditional sigh-enduing Disney touches, being the segment from about five minutes into the film (once baby Tarzan is found and picked up by his ape mother) until Tarzan is an adult. That whole bit of the movie — about fifteen or twenty minutes’ worth — could have been completely excised, to no detriment (rather, to an improvement). Like that they kept the Weissmuller yodel (though it’d be near-impossible to not do so by this point). No “Oongawah”s, however.

I’m certainly no expert on the character or on Edgar Rice Burroughs in general, but wasn’t Tarzan supposed to actually be somewhat of an English gentleman (contrary to his depiction in the old JW films)?

I don’t mean to go out on a limb here — ahem — but I’d say that Disney is starting to come back, somewhat, in the cartoon department. After the first four of their “new” movies there was a deep lull. Mulan seemed to be a turning point of sorts, and Tarzan appears to be following its lead. Both strike quite a bit from the established and annoying formula. The “experimental” films made between Lion King and now have apparently paid off in a sense.

Jarhead

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Finally got around to viewing The Phantom Menace, just to help out a struggling indie film — not any worse than the other three movies, really. And no, Jar-Jar was fine; ignore the slashdot crowd.

Maul was a puppet. He worked well in his role as a puppet, but he didn’t appear quite enough and in important enough ways to act as an effective red herring. Lucas should have used him more — though keeping him basically mute was a good decision. The emperor — jeez. I think Lucus intended the theater chairs to see through him from his first scenes. Ditto with “Padame” — “The Queen wants to investigate!” Ahem.

The anti-intellectuality of the series continues to grate on me.

The parting between Anakin and his mother has been pounded for being overly unemotional. The people reporting this certainly aren’t very perceptive or comprehensive. Given the situation they were in as slaves, the relationship they had, the attitudes she seemed to have as a mother toward the boy, the opportunity presented, and the sheer suddenness of the whole business, the Skywalkers were more than adequately emotional; any more and the whole business would have been melodramatic and boring. Anakin’s mother basically seemed in a bit of shock throughout the whole thing. She appeared to intentionally withhold any strong impulses from processing fully until Anakin left; she knew to escape slavery and find a real outlet for his skills would be in his best interest, and she didn’t want to overly worry him, possibly scarring his future. She simply wasn’t that selfish; the boy needed strength and comfort, not paranoia that he was hurting her. While the movie didn’t show it, it’s evident that it would be hitting her any ol’ time what had just happened. The scene cut a bit too quickly, however. I was expecting a huge change of countenance to pour over her as the jedi walked away.

The special effects bugged me — I expected a lot more, from how Lucas had been describing things. They were mostly pretty obvious, despite what everyone else seems to think. Why is it nobody can seem to either correctly texture-map a wireframe, no matter how high-res the source image, or to remember to blur and de-res digital images enough that they look analogue and real? In addition, what on earth were they doing with the lighting? The photograhy and rendered light rarely seemed to synch correctly. I’ve seen Win95-based games with better integration of elements. I’m not being hyperbolic here, either.

I welcomed the return of the Jawas.

The Buck Rogers outfits the queen and the pilots had were kind of keen, too, as a bit of an allusion to the series’ original inspiratory material.

The beginning part of the movie, involving the Bela Lugosi-ish aliens, reminded me strongly of The Last Starfighter (which was, in turn, heavilly influenced by Star Wars).

This keyboard is annoyingly layed-out. I don’t feel the keys’ locations correctly. The key sizes are molded differently, I think. I prefer my own…

Not very interesting prose today (article blah; article blah; article blah). Sorry.

Pod Bay Door

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Tomorrow at 3:00 PM, 2001: A Space Odyssey finally comes on again. Have to set my VCR. . .

Triangle

  • Reading time:1 mins read

That was the best episode of X which has ever aired, no exceptions made. Third episode of season six — the real-time, letterboxed Bermuda triangle episode with the peculiar phrase in place of “trust no one.”

“Scully… I love you.”

There were no flaws. One of the best storylines. Great gimmick, and executed perfectly. Exactly the right characters used, and in exactly the right way. The “real space” which the characters occupy, and how they interplay in real-time, was terrific to see. The most imaginative episode ever shot. This is the episode to show people who’ve never seen the show before. This and “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” if that’s indeed the title. . .and “Night,” assuming that’s the first-season tree mite episode which came the week after the werewolf one. Those two, I think, remain my other favorites, but this one tops the cake. I have no clue how they could top it.

Cinematic Interlude

  • Reading time:6 mins read

The truth certainly is “out there.” What a strange movie.

I need to locate Mark Snow’s score album. I want to listen to some of that again.

I think I’d have to watch the movie a second time for it all to sink in completely.

I’d give it a thumb and an eyebrow up.

A lot darker than I’d expected it to be. I’m surprised it got only a pg-13 rating.

Later:

All right — a more complete analysis. . .

Fight the Future is. . .well, dark. It’s much rawer, scarier, and more bombastic than the show ever has been. It’s good, but a little confusing and. . .strange. I’ll have to watch it again before it completely sinks in, I believe. I’d give it about 3.75 stars (out of five, o’ course), based on this one viewing. It starts out slowly, but after the first twenty minutes or so it picks up and becomes more engaging than I recall the series has ever been at any individual moment. After all that, the end drags on a little.

The big problem was really that everything seemed much more bleak than the actual show. The program is very character-based, and oftentimes is very light and warm. The movie kind of pushes the audience back away a little.

Also, the guy who plays the “other” main character in Millenium — not Frank Black, but the bald guy — is a minor-but-pivotal character near the beginning. This is very strange, seeing as how both shows take place in the same “universe,” and there have been a few cross-overs here-and-there. One reviewer described the casting of that guy as a notable figure other than the character he actually plays in his show as “distracting,” and that’s exactly the way I’d describe it as well.

The music was great. There’s one scene in the middle of the film where Mulder and Scully’re chasing down a couple of tanker trucks and, unexpectedly, a creepy, powerful variation on the X-theme comes up

Actually, the tone of Millenium — that much more violent, dark atmosphere (which disturbs me a little too much) is pretty much what the movie has, rather than the “safer” bleakness the X-files has always had as a contrast.

I want to locate Mark Snow’s score cd next time I’m in town. There were a couple other great things (though the music, I noticed, was almost subliminal. It was dubbed really very low in the mix) I noticed which I don’t individually recall at this moment.

As long as one goes into the movie with patience and is forewarned that the tone is a little uncomfortable, the thing will be great. I didn’t really know what to expect at all, and, of course, this being the X-files, anything I might have expected or anticipated didn’t take place or wasn’t done exactly as I thought it would be. Even just the editing of the thing — I’ll mention this, because it won’t detract from anything. . .

The title sequence — there really wasn’t one. Normally these days the credits last for about five or ten minutes, it seems. . .and even in the show, actually. I swear — the credits keep appearing at the bottom, even fifteen minutes into the program! Yeek. Here, however, the new X-logo just gradually forms and the six notes of melody are played exactly once, kind of trailing off. Then everything fades into the first scene. That’s it. Just a neat computer animation of the X-files logo and “twoo-twee-twih-too-twee-twooo. . .” and a scene fade. But at the end — me-yimminy. The Ending credits last for half an hour, it seems. There must be sixty pages of special-effects personnel. . .

It isn’t really until about when Martin Landau steps in that the movie starts to become involving. Until then, it’s just kind of a long setup (which tried my patience just a little, but, this being the first movie, I know it was needed for anyone who doesn’t watch the show as much as I do; thusly, I forgive the thing).

If the series didn’t exist, the movie could stand on its own devoid of that context — but in so doing, which is how I was kind of trying to watch it, it becomes an intrestingly complicated and bizarre film — something which would attract a cult following, for sure, but which would completely elude the mundane viewer, just from its strange, experimental-seeming nature.

That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to put my finger on — It seems very much like an “experimental” flick, like Citizen Kane (just to give an example of the unconventionality rather than precisely the quality) or something. It’s like a Jimi Hendrix album or Nine Inch Nails back before they became accepted and copied as much as they were. It’s hard to put a finger on whether it’s pleasing or not, because it’s so. . .well, unusual, and while obviously very well-done it has an unpolished, disorienting quality.

That’s a good thing, now that I think about it — it’s not a typical American Movie. Pretty much everything pumped out of the film factories over here is easilly classifiable and shiny and impressive, and then, every now-and-then, something strange crawls out which feels more like a single person’s idea which somehow made it through the system without being shined up. This film would definitely fit that description. As big as the show’s become, it still seems small and self-centered — Fox tried to screw with it early on, but eventually they just learned they wouldn’t get anywhere and, the thing being popular enough, just to leave the thing alone and let it run itself the way it wanted. The movie is exactly the same way — it’s not something a studio put out; it’s a project a small group worked on because they wanted to. It feels like an independant film.

It’s taken until just now for me to completely make up my mind about the movie. I wanted to like it, and I did to some extent, but something really bugged me and eluded my grasp. I’m satisfied now.