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It's been a long time since I've posted, job sucks, blah blah blah, you know the drill.  Here's a picture of Coked Up Anime Hitler™ to keep you company until my fairly lengthy post comin' up.

Woot

I turn 30 today. I am still stuck in a dead end retail job. My life is definitely still not where I want it to be. I have worked to try to change that but I haven’t had much luck. Well, at least I still have this blog, right? Well, yes and no. You see, I am usually so mentally drained at the end of my work shift every day that I can’t summon enough energy to think, let alone make a coherent blog post. I’m not going to bitch about my life for the rest of this blog post however, I’m gonna talk about movies. ‘Cause that’s what this blog was set up for.

So what am I gonna do for my birthday blog post? Well, at first I thought I might review a movie that came out the same day that I did – April 30th, 1982 (my birthday was on a Friday). But the only film I could find was a crappy comedy movie starring John Hurt called Partners. However, not only is this movie considered an execrable piece of garbage (not even in the good MST3K kind of way) by most who have viewed it, it’s not available on DVD and is really hard to find even on VHS. So I nixed that idea.

 Then I thought I could do a movie comparison between two cop movies that I saw for the first time recently – Dirty Harry (1971) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984). You, know, compare/contrast, analysis, talk about which one I liked better (Dirty Harry)… the usual. But you know what? I realized something while watching both. On the surface, Dirty Harry is a more realistic gritty thriller while Beverly Hills Cop is a less realistic comedy/action movie.

Although I do see how it may be difficult to see a difference.

But at their core, these two movies are the same – they are both fantasy films. Fantasy films do not have to involve magic or the supernatural or even anything recognizably “fantastic.” They are exactly what their title suggests – a fantasy being played out on the screen for the benefit of the audience. James Bond movies are fantasy movies because the males in the audience get to watch their fantasies being reenacted – fast cars, scantily clad babes with ridiculous names, fighting sharks, or what have you (personally, I have always had this weird desire to fight a huge Asian man with a killer steel-rimmed hat). Romantic Comedies are almost tailor-made for the female audience members. And Harry and BHC are also fantasy movies – they are Cop Fantasy Movies.


Dirty Harry may seem more “gritty” and “realistic” on the surface, what with all of the brutal violence and a sadistic serial killer and whatnought, but there are still shootouts! And Harry gets to jump onto a bus from a bridge! And give snappy one-liners!

"Freeze or I'll shoot you!  No... not cool enough.  Okay, how about...."

You see, if they made a movie about what it’s really like to track down a serial killer, it would probably be too boring for a general audience – it would probably resemble a "Frontline" documentary. Too much investigative work, too much questioning followed by a brief shootout and apprehension. So this Clint Eastwood movie is really a (mostly right-wing) fantasy for all of the male audience members who want to gun down psychopathic killers and play cowboy cop. Now that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the film (I did) or that there is some real drama (the whole fair process/criminal’s rights thing that could have been expanded on). It’s just at the end of the day I have to call a spade and spade and recognize this movie for what it is.

Which is a charming movie about a  heartwarming school field trip.

Beverly Hills Cop is much more blatant. In American cinema by 1984 all of the relative subtlety and nuance of the seventies had been replaced with over-the-top and completely nonrealistic antics. Look, I know that BHC is supposed to be comedy, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be a cartoon. The police chief YELLS at Axel (yelling in cop movies always makes it more DRAMATIC!)! Axel is THROWN through a window!

Thown through modern Plexiglass... that's a good trick!

Axel SMASHES UP a rich-person buffet! And gets away with it! It’s all very cartoony and very unrealistic. Any police officer acting like Eddie Murphy does in this movie would be an ex-police officer after about 3 seconds. Being a comedy is no excuse… there are police comedies that are funny while having their characters not be completely and unrealistically “maverick” – the Rowan Atkinson TV show “The Thin Blue Line” comes to mind.

And you know what else I realized? Almost ALL movies are fantasy films of some sort. Very few are focused on real drama. I figure it this way – if you are watching a movie and are attaining some form of wish fulfillment then what you are watching is a fantasy. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t think that every film needs to be a heavy drama, or a straight-up comedy. It’s just that I think people need to be more honest and accurate with their labels. For example, I am probably going to see The Avengers when it comes out, and I have no illusions about what it is. It is a fantasy film.

Oh, and the verdict on Dirty Harry and Beverly Hills Cop? I liked Dirty Harry although I thought it could have used some more ideological balance. It does pose some interesting questions about law enforcement and civil rights although (like I said) the emphasis is more on Harry’s attempts to catch the obviously EEEEVIL Scorpio. Beverly Hills Cop is two shades shy of a cartoon (like most Hollywood movies of the Eighties)

I.e., any movie where it's this obvious who the villain is.

but it’s not even that good, or even that funny. If you want a funny Eddie Murphy movie get Trading Places or Coming to America, or even Shrek.




P.S. I see that Google has "updated" Blogger - I guess now I really *do* have to post more....

Anti-Climax

I know I haven't written anything in a while but please enjoy this picture of Yul Brynner preparing to rape your soul into a thousand pieces.

Bah Humbug... What The Hell Is A Humbug, Anyway?

Christmas movies suck.  I said this in my first Halloween movie post and it's still true.  When you have a movie centered around one day of the year it's kind of hard to have it be relevant the other 364 days, right?  Only Halloween and Valentine's Day have movies from two preexisting genres and don't need films dedicated solely to them.

So is there any hope for movies with a Christmasy theme?  Sure, I guess.  For one, Jesus Movies, since Christmas was originally a holiday celebrating his birthday some two thousand odd years ago (it has since mutated into something almost unrecognizable from it's original intent).  But Biblical Epics can be watched year round so I guess they don't count as Christmas movies per se.

The other option is a film connected only vaguely with Christmas, say with the whole holiday season as nothing more than a setting and backdrop.  A film like the one I'm going to do a really tiny movie review on today.  Why tiny?  'Cause I'm full of turkey and cookies and feeling bombed out.  So brace yourself for a mini mini review of

This just might be my favorite holiday movie – even though it's not even that great of a flick – because it's not really a "holiday movie" at all.  It's really a comedy movie that just happens to take place around Christmas.  Oh, and we do get to see Dan Aykroyd in a sleazy Santa outfit but that's about it.  It's about two men – one rich, one poor – played by the aforementioned Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy who involuntarily switch social places due to a bet by two malevolent millionaires over nature vs nurture.

   
The setup is intriguing, the story is good and the comedy when it works is gold.  Eddie Murphy makes a great early impression with some great delivery ("Motherfucker? Moi?") and some great chemistry with Aykroyd who is also great here (I have always held that Dan Aykroyd was the greatest actor of the original SNL cast if not the greatest comedian, more on that below).  Jamie Lee Curtis and Denholm Elliot also make good turns in supporting roles and the villains are also played very ably by Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy.

The film succeeds in spite of, and not because of director John Landis, whose direction is merely competant but never compelling.  There are a few moments in the movie that I admit would be better with some better editing or pacing.  It's strange that Landis is famous for being a comedy director (in addition to, you know, being an irresponsible, homicidal fuckhead) when his movies are funny because of the efforts of other people, not him.  Animal House, his one true gift to cinema succeeds solely because of the manic energy and awesome performance of John Belushi (who was the pure funniest of the original SNL cast even if he was not as nuanced and agile a comedian as Aykroyd).  His other good (but not great) movies The Blues Brothers, Coming To America and this one succeed only because of the talents of the writers and the three performers already mentioned – Aykroyd, Belushi and Murphy.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this mini mini review.  Sleep beckons and it's been the end of an eventful day.  Don't let the preceding paragraph fool you... Trading Places is a pretty good, funny comedy flick and I recommend it highly.  I will try to post something next week for New Year's but I make no promises.


Nighty night.

I Am Such A Liar

I said at the end of my Diebuster review in early November that I would be doing an Adventure in the Desert post next.  Then Ken Russel died, and I said that I would do a "quick detour" with Altered States but said that a Desert Adventure post was imminent because I just needed time to expand and revise my original intended post.  Well, at the end of November I got another retail job (yay!) working at a bookstore for the holiday season (and hopefully beyond... let's go, steady paycheck!) and I have thus been very busy.  Hopefully it should taper off a bit after today and I can have some time to post to this blog but I make no promises to my nonexistent readership.  The Adventure in the Desert post may be postponed for a while or longer or perhaps indefinitely.  I am doing a quick holiday post today but it is very short as I have had no time to prepare... it's very off the cuff.

Well, anyways, enough update.  Enjoy your day.

Wow, I Spent Way Too Much Time Writing About This Movie

I know that I said last time that I would be doing some high adventure in the desert next, but I’m taking a quick detour this week for two reasons: a) I’m actually expanding my intended desert adventure post into something beyond a simple review and that’s going to take time and b) Ken Russell died at the beginning of this week and I thought I’d review one of his movies. Now you might think that I’m doing this as a special tribute; that I revere Russell and want to exalt his praises now that he’s dead. Actually, that thought couldn’t be further from the truth: I think that Ken Russell was a talentless hack and loathe and despise his movies. Okay, I take that back: I should not and will not just use this post to slag on the dead.  Besides I was being rather unreasonable with that last statement because prior to today I had only seen one of his films: the execrable Tommy (although to be fair to him all of that blame for that cinematic abortion cannot be assigned to Russell seeing as The Who themselves participated in its creation and could have stopped the project at any time). Tommy is one of my most hated movies of all time, ranking up (down?) there with Armageddon and Die Another Day – it is one of the few films that inspires actual rage and revulsion in me. Anywho, I thought on the occasion of Ken Russell’s death that I would be fair to the dude and watch another one of his films and see if Tommy was just an aberration in his film catalogue, to see if I can actually enjoy a Ken Russell movie. So I looked around for one of his movies that might be interesting to me and finally settled on

Film, 1980

Director: Ken Russell

Story

Psychologist, professor and all-around nutcase Doctor Edward Jessup is experimenting with different states of consciousness and their effect on the physical self. After a trip to Mexico where he picks up some potent Native Ritual Drugs he starts ingesting the strange substance and spending time in a sensory deprivation tank where he starts to exhibit startling signs of physical transformation….

Review

Altered States is better than Tommy but that’s kind of like saying that being punched in the gut is better than being kicked in the nuts. Alright, that’s not true, I’m being unnecessarily nasty. This isn’t a bad movie but it’s not good, either. Altered States is…

…watchable?

Yeah, that’s it. It’s an interesting enough experience and not a *hideous* way to spend an hour and forty minutes but it is by no means a classic film or even a good one. It’s not a spectacular shit storm like Tommy was though so it’s not a total loss. I actually enjoyed parts of it and saw some potential in it, potential that could have been drawn out by another, more talented director – someone like John Boorman or David Cronenberg. The good points here are the intriguing (if flawed and completely non-believable) premise of mind over matter and the character study of the main character, played here by William Hurt (even though the acting by Hurt himself is not quite up to the task – more on that below). The main character arc of Jessup finding out what’s really important to him and why is probably the best part of the movie (well, besides seeing Blair Brown naked at a few points).

Or William Hurt, for those of you so inclined.

The special effects are pretty good and compared to Tommy (again, the only other Russell movie I have seen although I am informed that other Russell movies suffer from the very problem I am about to mention) Altered States is positively subdued in its gratuitous over-the-top “shocking” imagery.

What this means though (and where the negatives begin) is that the aforementioned gratuitous imagery of Altered States is here in large abundance compared to just about every other movie on the planet. Also in abundance is the usual Ken Russell overly pretentious bullshit. I actually had some hopes for the movie after a rather subdued opening sequence and few quiet scenes but my optimism was quickly dashed and splattered to the ground after the scene where Jessup and his newly acquainted (no, really, it only takes about two minutes of screen time) paramour Emily have sex and afterwards he says that during it he was thinking about Jesus and the Crucifixion the whole time. At that point I laughed involuntarily; I think my brains came out my nose. Then a few minutes later this came on the screen

and I stated to suspect that Blair Brown was going to start rolling around in baked beans at some point. And this brings me to my biggest beef with Ken Russell making movies, and that is that he was not any good at it. Just throwing bizarre imagery up on the screen (even in a movie about psychedelic drugs) is not good filmmaking. Doing things just to be “shocking” is not good filmmaking. Ken Russell had all of the visual subtlety of a sledgehammer, and he didn’t even know how to wield that hammer. Later on in the film (SPOILER ALERT) Jessup partially regresses into a subhuman ape-creature and I found myself watching a completely different movie. I mean, a wild primitive ape-man escaping a lab and running around a modern city would make for an entertaining movie but here the sequence is silly and just plain unnecessary.
(END SPOILER)

Cue Toots and the Maytals.

That’s why I said before that Cronenberg or Boorman would have made a better director for this project: both have portrayed disturbing, outlandish stuff on screen but in a more understated and intelligent way. Videodrome, like Altered States deals with differing perceptions of reality brought on by external stimuli but Cronenberg is much more subtle with it.

Pictured: subtlety.

He also makes us question throughout the movie just how much of what we’re seeing is real and how much is in the main character’s head. And there is a sense of growing dread and horror that Russell’s movie doesn’t have at all. John Boorman would have also been a good choice to direct this: he comes from the same cinematic tradition as Ken Russell but has much more talent than Russell ever had. Yes, he has made some bad movies, but at least Zardoz was so supremely bad that it was entertaining. Russell’s bad movies are just painful.

Instead of something painful I thought I'd insert a picture of this. 

Much nicer, no?

Painful is also a word I can use to describe some of the acting here. Too much of the dialogue is screamed by the actors, in particular the actor playing the medical doctor opposed to Jessup’s self-experiments. This role could have been a good, intelligent foil to the protagonist and raised legitimate questions about his intentions and whether what he was doing was right. Instead the character just comes off as shrill and unlikable, and the audience is crudely manipulated into disliking him and rooting unconditionally for the hero. See what I said earlier about Russell’s lack of subtlety? Also, the acting by William Hurt (told you I’d get to it) is… not that great. And it’s weird because it could have been. When I was watching this with the sound turned off to capture screenshots, I noticed how animated and excited Hurt’s face was in certain scenes, but with the sound turned on his delivery seemed dull and wooden. This is because Hurt constantly speaks with the same level monotone, even when raising his voice (strangely enough). He’s done this in other roles too – I remember him being this dull and monotonous in the TV miniseries version of Dune. All of this just goes to show how important voice and inflection is in acting – I think William Hurt could do with some acting lessons from William Shatner.

Now, you stay in there and recite the "Risk is our business" speech 

a hundred times, young man, and maybe we'll let you out. 

Well, that’s Altered States. Does it change my opinion of (the now deceased) Ken Russell? Not really, but at least it wasn’t a complete waste of my time and a piece of putrid, pestilent pus like Tommy was. It is actually worth checking out if you like old and/or esoteric science fiction movies even if it’s not in the same league as 2001 (or even Logan’s Run). So, um… good job, Mr. Russell?  Rest in peace.

Hopefully there's a big party waiting for you on the other side.

This Week - Topless Girls... No, Not *That* Kind, You Pervert

Remember back in August when I said I was burned out on anime and that I just wasn’t interested in animated entertainment made for Japanese teenagers anymore? Remember how I said that it was watching FLCL that basically made me realize that almost nothing was going to live up to its sublime magnificence? Well, leave it to the company (Gainax) and director (Kazua Tsurumaki) of that masterpiece to smack me in the face once again with anime awesomeness. Oh, and make it the sequel to one of the greatest anime ever made. Ahhhhh. Ladies, gentlemen and space monsters, I give you

OVA, 2004-2005

Director: Kazua Tsurumaki

Story

Nono is a robot girl who desperately wants to be a Buster Machine (!GIANT ROBOT!) pilot and go into space (sound familiar?), but she ends up instead working as a waitress in a bar near the local Martian spaceport. One day she is saved from the attentions of some lecherous robot pilots by Lal’c, a member of the Topless, the elite teenaged Buster Machine pilots with psychic powers. Pledging her eternal devotion to her new “onē-sama” (sound familiar?) Nono goes into space to help fight the space monsters (sound familiar?) and aim for the top(less)!

Review

If I made the story of Diebuster sound a lot like the story of Gunbuster, that’s because, well, it sort of is. *However*, there are enough twists and turns to this OVA that make this a unique experience – for example, Nono being a robot (and I won't spoil any more...) – both recalling and expanding the original story. And since this was made sixteen years after Gunbuster a new generation of anime and giant robot tropes have to be parodied, played straight and turned up to eleven (although some of the older ones are taken on too, so don’t despair). And turn it up to eleven Gainax does, going even beyond the original in some areas (although it is kinda hard to beat destroying the center of the galaxy). Everything in Diebuster is *more.* MORE space battles! MORE cute girls! MORE cool giant robots! MORE awesome animation! MORE fanservice! Yes, for your pleasure there is generous helping of fanservice from the studio that revolutionized it in the first place (how many other companies can you think of have the bouncing motion of animated breasts named after them? I didn’t think so).

The animation in Diebuster is superb too, although by this point I expect no less from Gainax. It does look and act a lot like FLCL – which isn’t shocking – but I also detected hints of Evangelion in this as well (the Buster Machines for instance are semi-sentient with humanoid faces) which is also not surprising. The computer animation here is not garish nor does it stand out like a sore thumb compared to the 2-D animation, and I liked that very much.

But the heart and soul is the story, and – for the most part – it is well done. It is confusing in a few spots and there are a few tiny plot holes but the revelations and aforementioned plot twists will leave you delighted, and the emotional content – while over the top at times – is genuine and touching. Some who do not like latter-day Gainax may not like it so much, but I loved it. One element that has been discarded from the original Gunbuster is the subplot about time dilation at the speed of light. I guess the creative team for Diebuster felt that it really didn’t have much to do with the story they were trying to tell, and its exclusion is no big loss (besides which, as intriguing as it was in the original, Hideaki Anno and his team got it wrong – Noriko would not have experienced months-worth of dilation going to the edge of the solar system and back considering that Pluto is light-hours, not months away from the Earth – at most it would have been the better part of a day lost, but that’s not dramatic, is it?).

In conclusion, while I didn’t enjoy it *quite* as much as the original Gunbuster – or FLCL – I found Aim For The Top 2: Diebuster to be a very worthy successor to the original and a fun way to spend three hours of my time. I recommend it highly.

Screenshots

Get used to it.  Nono does a lot of this.

And this.

Lal'c.  Hmm, she looks familiar... now where have I seen her before?

Ohhhhh.

In the future, even baseball will involve giant robots.

Psychedelic!

Wait, why does a robot need to exercise?

More broadsides... IN SPACE!

For Teh Fanservice!

Next Time: Adventure In The Desert