After seeing Charlie Jane Anders io9 note comparing the concept art for James Cameron’s upcoming masterpiece vanity project epic Avatar to Roger Dean’s album covers for the band Yes, there’s now no doubt that I’m in. That was after learning that the film’s heart, politically speaking, appears to be in the right place. I guess I’m part of the blame-America-first-with-Mellotron crowd.
Children’s stories, the narratives of youth, or rather for youth. The holidays are choked with such offerings, usually intended to inspire the spending of bad money after good. We may enjoy, with our younger family members, a silly and innocent story and we may happily pay for it at the bookstore or the cinema. But, when ‘synergy’ takes over and gives the young ones a ‘complete entertainment experience’ with action figures, happy meals and subscription cell phone service, then at such a moment the silliness and innocence are lost.
Cynicism, speaking personally, tends to make me less inclined to have more than the most limited experience of children’s literature and movies; I suspect impure motives lurking just beneath the surface. As Em and I are currently without children, it is easy for me to maintain such a pompous and superior attitude. For there is (with the occasional exception) no one pleading for me to buy them Bionicles or other fictitious weapons of war.
But I am not without sentiment. And over the past several days, I have taken such delight in two works that were intended for a much younger audience.
The first of these is a no-brainer – The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Wes Anderson continues his exploration into the joy and melancholy of family, just in time for Thanksgiving. But, bound by the constraints of a ‘children’s story’ and delivered as a work of ‘animation’, the bitterness and pain are tamped down so that we can simply enjoy Anderson’s wonderful characters and story-telling without guilt or reservation. I gladly traded depth of the supporting cast (although Ash and Kristofferson are wonderful as two young, uniquely awkward and competitive cousins) for a visual smorgasbord that jumped off the screen with its low-tech magic. The film’s very high score on Metacritic is easy to understand.
The other bit of youth narrative I have enjoyed so much lately is Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan. This book retells the story of World War I from the point-of-view of Alek, teen son of murdered Archduke Ferdinand and Deryn, a 15 year old girl in the English air service, passing as a boy. But this is not any ordinary piece of ‘historical fiction’. This is the Darwinists, who breed their weapons in laboratories as monsters that fight in air, land and sea, versus the Clankers, whose steam powered machines are mechanical monsters of a different sort. The book is an absolute delight, featuring dry humor, cunning wit and heartfelt emotion. Although not a picture book, the novel does feature several extraordinary illustrations by Keith Thompson, many of which can be seen in the stunning trailer.
Does it feel like I am reading a book intended for a younger reader? Of course, but I understand a great many adults have enjoyed a book about a certain young, bespectacled wizard, whose story was also intended, primarily, for a younger reader. Leviathan is planned as the first of a trilogy and I, personally, can not wait for the next installment.
So there you have it – something a bit more innocent and nice, just as the holiday season gets underway in earnest. I would never have intentionally denied the child within, but I have, up til now, not celebrated it in quite this manner before. With the right book and movie, it is a wonderful feeling.
(The two sentences that make up the title of this post come from the works described. The first is the favorite expression of airman Deryn and the second is an example of how Mr. Fox swears.)
For me, the buzz and whether or not a film is Oscar-worthy bears no relation to my enjoyment. I want to be moved by extraordinary performance, story, dialog and imagery. This movie succeeds in a few of those areas, but fails notably in the ending. We got an amazing performance from young Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a gifted high school senior with dreams of a glamorous life in Paris. Peter Sarsgaard was his usual, reliable, top-notch self. And then there were two great treats in smaller roles from Alfred Molina as the well-meaning, but misguided father and Olivia Williams as the supportive but concerned teacher.
Mulligan’s performance alone is enough tojustify seeing the film. The script is subtle, but her face and body movement, in short, what she does without dialog, really makes this something special. And the story is presented with a tender touch and the specter of bad things (deceipt, betrayal) is managed carefully. In the span of a feature film we see a lot of genuine character growth, packed into a stylish and entertaining film.
The problem is with the ending. And, as one of my companions mentioned, that’s the impression with which you leave the theater. It’s not a disaster, but it’s a disappointment. The turn in the plot is perfectly fine, but the smooth flow of story-telling stops abruptly. The movie’s resolution, which is perfectly reasonable is so haltingly portrayed that we couldn’t help but wonder what happened. Did a test audience tell them to put a tighter bow on it? Was the movie cut down or elongated? It’s hard to say, but something is clearly wrong with the ending.
Aside from that significant criticism, it’s still a nice movie with an impressive lead performance. Sarsgaard is positively generous in facilitating Mulligan’s big moment. He just does a great job of keeping the focus on her. And even with all she goes through in this coming-of-age story, the transformation never covers up the little girl that you meet in at the beginning of the film. It’s just a shame, that by the end, her story has inadvertently run off the tracks.
Thanks to quietearth.us for this amazing video from Spain.
There is no denying Mr. Clooney’s outrageous charm. And it is not wasted here, in a movie that is, perhaps, played too much for cheap laughs and not enough for the beauty of its premise – soldiers who defeat enemies with love.
I am tempted to say that this was an opportunity lost, but the movie is better than that. Clooney and McGregor share genuine chemistry and Jeff Bridges adds shades of mysticism to the shamanistic Lebowski he brought to life years ago. But, this is not a Coen brothers movie, and, while it flirts with genius, its success is more apparent in silliness and not in higher ideas.
Clooney is one of a group of supersoldiers trained in the 80’s to use psychic powers to defeat an enemy without hurting him. The group is the brain-child of Jeff Bridges’ Bill Django, who, after a near death experience in Viet Nam, realizes that his soldiers don’t really want to kill the enemy. He goes on a drug-addled new age vision quest to form a plan about how to train soldiers to use psychic powers. Clooney is his prize pupil who has genuine psychic ability.
But all of this is related to McGergor’s reporter by unreliable Clooney as the two give us a buddy-movie, road-movie scenario in 2003 Iraq, with Clooney on top-secret mission and McGregor tagging along for his first big story. We are supposed to ask whether the stories told to McGregor are true, but we are too distracted by the cheap laughs as Clooney attempts to demonstrate a psychic ability that may or may not be there.
The story in Iraq progresses haltingly and without confidence, despite some brilliant satire featuring military subcontractors shooting at each other in a crowded city street and then blaming it all on the locals. Robert Patrick has a tremendous cameo in this sequence as the profiteering suit whose soldiers of fortune are going to clear the way for Starbucks in Iraq as far as the eye can see.
The story of the rise and fall of the Bridges’ supersoldier division is far more interesting, but presented without the appropriate amount of visual trickery that would really make the viewer think that none of this stuff really happened. Kevin Spacey, who I have come to distrust as an actor, turns in a nice performance as the jealous runner-up to Clooney’s psychic ace. His character’s bad temperament morphs into something altogether evil when we see him in the films final act, and this sequence cleverly echoes the black humor of Robert Patrick’s Haliburton-esque cameo.
And to the final sequence – it is redeeming for a film that could have been more and left me with a pleasant feeling. I walked out feeling that something had been accomplished with these characters and I was glad of it. I mostly owe that feeling to the films invocation of M*A*S*H as the perfect referent with which to ruminate upon the absurdity of war. Clooney’s bathrobe-wearing, goat-herding final scenes will remind anyone of Alan Alda’s iconic turn as Benjamin Franklin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce. Believe me, that is a good thing.
The casting works. The sets and locations are beautiful. In addition to Robert Partick, there are two other small roles that made me smile broadly – Stephen Root as a psychic crack-pot who tips McGregor off to the super-soldiers’ existence, and the under-utilized Stephen Lang as a by-the-book general who genuinely believes in Bridges’ mission.
Is there magic in the world? Can we stop wars with love? Is it all just drug-induced craziness that is overrun by violence and greed? I did not need this movie to answer these questions, but when they were, to my surprise, asked, I found myself wanting a bit more.
The first of these is Phillies related and comes courtesy the superior TheFightins website. This video shows you the power of J-Roll, that vintage look and the immortal John Facenda:
Vintage JROLL from Alexander F Newton on Vimeo.
The other item comes from io9, and is simply a collection of highly stylized sci-fi movie posters that have almost a Soviet-era design, look and feel to them. You know all the movies, but you haven’t seen posters like this before. the look actually reminds me of some of the amazing design items at iso50.
After having (finally) finished Jay Lake‘s stunning new book, ‘Green‘, I’m all charged up to do some serious reading. Em is out of town for the next two nights, so it will just be me and the four-letters. Right away, there a ton of decent-looking selections close at hand.
Firstly, I have to give a special shout to John Scalzi’s ‘Big Idea‘ project. On his ancient blog ‘Whatever‘ he’s been highlighting a veritable cornocopia of tasty sci-fi, fantasy and more. I would never have heard of ‘Green’ or ‘W.W.W Wake‘ if it hadn’t been for Scalzi. And, as of today he’s now featuring ‘The Big Idea’ on his Twitter feed, so check it out.
The next novel I’m reading comes right off that list and tells the story of a Louisiana detective who uses demons to help her solve crimes. I’m not completely sold on the premise of the appropriately titled ‘Mark of the Demon‘, but it’s a good choice for Halloween and the reviews are very positive so far. Plus, Scalzi hasn’t really steered me wrong yet.
In a piece of conceptual continuity, a great mystery writer whom I enjoy is taking up a great all-time graphic novel character. Ian Rankin of Rebus fame has written a nice fat graphic novel in the John Constantine series for Vertigo called ‘Dark Entries‘. As if that weren’t enough to get me on board (it is), the story puts Constantine, paranormal investigator, in the midst of a reality TV show – Brilliant!
In addition to those items, I’ve picked up ‘Sandman Slim’ by Richard Kadrey for after ‘Mark of the Demon’. I think this is an urban fantasy about revenge from beyond the grave. Again, it seems to fit in nicely with the theme I’ve got going.
In the realm of shorter works, the incredible Aliette de Boddard has just published a short story over at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. This site takes the traditional sci-fi fiction journal and puts it online. I paid about $2.50 for the September issue and I get de Boddard’s On Horizon’s Shores, which is the featured work, and a number of other tasty looking goodies. It’s actually a novelette (as opposed to short story) and after just reading the first few paragraphs, I know it’s going to be great.
The other shorter work I’m excited to look at is a crazy-looking new wave script from 1980 that was linked on io9 today. The Tourist would probably have made a great movie if it hadn’t been for infighting and development hell. In present day (well, 1980, anyway) Manhattan, there are aliens living among us, in disguise. In real life they look like amazingly icky H.R. Giger creatures, because he was brought in (following the groundbreaking success of Alien) to do the concept art. There’s a link that lets you download the script and I’m hoping for something partway between Cronenberg and The Hunger.
Philadelphia’s doomsday budget scenario makes me think about escaping and/or being very frightened. Here’s a few upcoming movies that may take care of both:
‘The Box’ is due out on October 30, 2009. A mangled Frank Langella offers struggling young couple Cameron Diaz and James Marsden a deal. If they push the button on the box someone will die and they will get a million dollars. Based on the trailer, this could be a 70’s period piece, in addition to some kind of super-natural thriller.
I already tweeted about The Men Who Stare at Goats, but it looks so good, it’s worth mentioning again. Release date is November 6, 2009.
Christopher Nolan’s Inception is not due for release until July 16, 2010, but the trailer looks good enough for me to already be on board. This movie appears to be corporate blackmail meets “Dreamscape“.
I have, for several years, wanted to go to. As the next post shows, the access to information about some of the coolest entertainment projects in the universe is unparalleled. If I ever go, I’m making my sister take me because she has press credentials and can get on all the amazing panels – like Peter Jackson and James Cameron discussing the future of film. The costume culture is intriguing and intimidating. And then something like this happens:
*shudder*
According to this headline from Engadget, the site is going legit. If that’s the way it has to be, ther’s nothing I can do to stop it. The current owners are selling out for just a few million (US), but it will probably be nice to not get hauled into court anymore. They claim that the site will continue to operate in much the same fashion, only with copyright holders getting some share of the revenue. I can get behind that idea, in theory. Let’s see how it looks in practice.
It’s been a good run for me and Pirate Bay. Hence the sad puppy dog eyes above.
