Cinematic Schizophrenic

Ratatouille: Tastes Like Inspiration

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:58:41 -0500

" I don't like food. I love it. if I don't love it, I don't swallow " - Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego in Ratatouille There may not be a more concise way to describe the dichotomy of emotion wrapped up in a relationship with a medium. In this instance, the medium is food. Ego loves food, but his love of food is so powerful that if he is not absolutely in love with a dish, it becomes an insult to his favorite medium and worthy only of expectorate. I do not claim to love any medium so much as Ego loves food, but I have certainly fallen deeply in like with the medium of film over the past several years. As a result, I have found myself upchucked from the innards of several theaters (home and commercial alike) still very much hungry for a more suitable meal. Similarly, a select few movies have demanded that I return for seconds. I have delighted in microwaveable burritos (Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars), homemade steak and pierogies (Garden State, The Incredibles), and gourmet foie gras in a light truffle sauce (Pride and Prejudice, Finding Neverland). Ratatouille is the latest nosh I have downed, and I've already had a second portion, but which category does it belong in?

Review: Ratatouille

Rats get a bad wrap. They're small, furry rodents that aren't but a few thousandths of a genome from the infinitely more popular gerbils, guinea pigs, and meerkats. Their simple desire to live near us is what vilifies them. That and those menacing tails. So, consider it a challenge to characterize, develop, and center a movie around man's most annoying vermin - rats. And not just any rats, french rats. Brad Bird, always the maverick animator, was the cinematic chef bold enough to accept this tall order. We are introduced to our six inch hero in full frame, airborne fashion, and the loveable Remy rarely relinquishes that domineering presence through the duration. Remy (voiced competantly by Patton Oswalt) is a rat with especially heightened senses and a taste for the finer things. His brother Emelie and father Django (Peter Sohn and Brian Dennehy) do not possess his ideals or will to make a difference. Gluttony and survival seem to be their respective motivations. Unfortunately Remy doesn't seem to be completely satisfied with the employment of his gifts - his heigtened sense of smell making him an ideal poison checker. His disaffection with mere survival moves him to forbidden ground; closer to a race that seems to hold his same passions. The embodiment of these passions - these ideals that Remy seems ingrained with - is Gusteau, the 5 star toast of Paris. Remy is enlivened by Gusteau's philosophy that "Anyone can cook" and emboldened to venture into human kitchens with Remy's own representation of Gusteau his constant companion. Unfortunately, Remy's drive to create uproots his father's colony and separates him from his family. The rift, however, is quickly filled with love. Ratatouille is, at its core, a love story. Along the lines of Disney Classics Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Cinderella, Remy must cross predefined societal boundaries to be united with his love. But, in a refreshing twist, the union that Remy makes by crossing the line is not the object of his love, but rather the vehicle for it. Enter Linguini. The product of Gusteau's old flame, the fiery haired Linguini is introduced to us via flambé en cuisine Gusteau during the dinner rush. A neurotic clutz, Linguini (voiced delightfully by Lou Romano) seems to have taken on the coordination and demeanor of his namesake. After turning a simmering pot into a culinary abomination, Linguini provides Remy with his very first chance to showcase his gift on a grand stage. The resulting soup catapults Remy (by way of Linguini) along with Gusteau's into victual relevance. It also sentences our rodent hero to death - a death his red haired executioner was never fit to carry out. The resultant alliance between Remy and Linguini turns the hangman into a marionette. Remy becomes a sort of Cyrano de Bergerac (or CD Bales to the Steve Martin enthusiast). The passion and proficiency flow from Remy, but Linguini is the one making love (or food in this case, but it's all the same to the rat). Ratatouille is the pinnacle of the truly inspired artist biographies. Like contemporaries Ray and Walk the Line, we are given a visual feast that meticulously conveys every facet of the creative process. The only downside to Ratatouille is that its hero is largely fictional. Or is he? Director/Screenwriter Brad Bird may or may not divulge how much of himself went into the charming rodent, but after witnessing every glorious frame, every magic permeated scene of Ratatouille saturated with the richest of ocular treats, I have to believe that Remy and Bird have distinctly similar beliefs about what creativity means to them and to the world. So when the antagonist food critic, Anton Ego (voiced masterfully by the great Peter O'Toole [What genius did this casting, anyway?]), provides the only true carnal foil to Remy in the picture, it is no wonder that he is bested in the same fashion that Bird has defeated his own critics. I won't give away the climax, but prepare to be, as Ego writes, rocked to your core. As I sit here and listen to the score via iTunes (gorgeously orchestrated by Michael Giacchino), I can't help but feel anxious about when I'll get a third helping of the most delectable cinematic indulgence of the year. C'est la vie!

Grade:

A+

Foie gras and truffles it is then. I'm going to end this entry with a solemn vow: If Ratatouille is not nominated for Best Picture by the Academy come next February, I will never put credence into the Oscars again. This is the best movie I've seen in three years and rightfully makes the top 5 movies I've seen ever. After the shameless political rally of last March (Happy Feet? Really?), I'm putting the Academy on probation. I'll leave you with a list of awards we should be seeing Ratatouille take home next March:

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Peter O'Toole
Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Achievement in Art Direction
Achievement in Directing
Achievement in Film Editing
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song) - "Le festin" - Camille
Original Screenplay
Best motion picture of the year

In my humble opinion, 5 Citizen Kane's would have to come out during the second half of this year to keep Ratatouille from being nominated in each of those categories. Tschüs!

Trilogy History, the BOLI, and a Clash of Box Office Titans

Wed, 09 May 2007 10:12:29 -0500

Since George Lucas finished up the quintessential trilogy in 1983 (no, not Star Wars, I'm talking about The Ewok Adventure), milking a series for all its worth has been the apple of the film industry's eye. Lucas's followed up his first trilogy with another: The Indiana Jones Series. Next, Back to the Future satiated our tri-movie lust. Then the whole movie series thing hit kind of a hangover as the 90s rolled in. The first Police Academy movie entered in 1984, and it brought with it the dark age of trilogies (There were 6 Police Academy movies and 3 others that were probably in the works. This makes the Police Academy series at least two, and maybe 3 trilogies long and the most unholy spawn of satan ever to grace cellulose.) While Police Academy was showing us how badly a bunch of white people could screw up a trilogy, Kid N Play was showing us that black people could make equally crappy films with the House Party series. Let's take a look... Like that? Well, don't bother buying or renting the movie, that's literally the most entertaining part of the whole series. Any dialogue that you hear from the movie will only serve to lower your IQ. The bright spot during the dark ages came in the form of the Die Hard trilogy. All three of which are extremely watchable. Because I don't count Major League as a series because this doesn't exist, the next start of a major movie series came in 1999 with The Matrix, which was a lesson in series suicide. The two sequels to the Matrix, while entertaining, have almost no re-watchability. Hence, the series committed suicide, and I'll probably never watch the first one again. The same year the Matrix came out, George Lucas decided he wanted another crack at the trilogy game and released Star Wars: The Phantom Menace which, despite having the best light saber battle and most badass character of the series, was the beginning of a completely inferior trilogy to the original. But, as luck would have it, 2001 would see the release of the first movie in the greatest cinematic accomplishment of our time, The Lord of the Rings. I sincerely doubt there's a better, successive 10 hours of film to watch. But of course, I may be forgetting one of the most watchable series in the history of film sequels, and that is, of course, the Rocky movies. With 3 Oscars under its belt, another 7 nominations, and 500 Trillion dollars grossed at the box office, Rocky is truly an titan of the trilogy (two trilogies, in fact!). It is better even than Sly's other series, Rambo. Let's watch... So, after 30 years of movie series, May holds the month of the release of the third part of the two most successful series in the history of box office receipts: Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean. The history of the two trilogies is, now, very much intertwined. You might say they are an extension of the Pirates vs. Ninjas debate with Spider-Man in his tight, form fitting costume and acrobatic abilities. Spider-Man was released in 2002. In grossing $114 million its opening weekend, it became the biggest opening weekend success in movie history. The following summer in 2003, the Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released. It grossed a respectable $46 million its opening weekend, but quickly developed legs with a super-cult following. Pirates ended up grossing $305 million to the first Spider-Man's $403 million. In 2004, the second in the Spider-Man series was released. It's opening weekend was less successful in grossing $88 million for its first Friday-Sunday run. Spider-Man 2 ended up grossing $373 million at the box office. Finally, in 2006, Disney finally released the second installment of the Pirates franchise. Shocking everyone (including yours truly) Dead Man's Chest grossed $135 million its opening weekend and brought in $423 million overall. Now, the entire reason for spouting off both of these numbers for each series attests to the "legs" of the movies, or how well they do after their opening weekend. For example, Spider-Man's opening weekend accounted for 28.3% of its total box office gross, while Pirates I brought in 15% of the total its first weekend. In this instance, we could say that the original Pirates had a more complete box office run than the original Spider-Man because it inspired audiences to keep returning. To make this analysis a little more intriguing, we should subtract the previous calculations from 100. Thus, Pirates I would be 85% and Spider-Man 71.7%. The formula is simply the 100 - (Opening Weekend Gross / Total Gross). I like to call it the BOLI or Box Office Legs Index. By the same logic, the BOLI for Spider-Man 2 would be 76.4% - a marked increase from the much hyped Spider-Man. The BOLI for Pirates II calculates out to 68.1%. By this logic, Spider-Man 2 had more legs than Pirates II. Spider-Man 3 was released at the beginning of May to much pomp and ballyhoo. It grossed $151 million its first weekend, easily out-pacing Pirates II's previous record of $135 million. And now the fun begins! After seeing Spider-Man 3, I can tell you for certain it was easily the worst of the series. I would expect it to gross not more than $400 million dollars because it's box office numbers are going to fall off terribly from pour word of mouth. But, enough math! This month is truly a clash of box office titans! Let's recap: Spider-Man grossed $114 million its opening weekend and secured the best opening weekend ever. Pirates II beat that with a showing of $135 million. Less than 1 year later, Spider-Man 3 was released and shattered that record by $16 million in selling $151 million in tickets. It seems that we've got quite a duel on our hands. We need to break this down. Let's go to...

The Tale of the Tape

Category	Spidey Breakdown	Pirates Breakdown	Winner
Series	Spider-Man	Pirates of the Caribbean	Tie - They're names! Get off it!
Total Box Office	$938,693,984	$728,729,730	Spidey - We'll see if this holds up through the summer.
Cast	Tobey Macguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Topher Grace, Thomas Haden Church	Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat, Jack Davenport	Pirates - 1 good actor (Dafoe) vs. 5 good actors (Depp, Knightley, Rush, Nighy, Yun-Fat). This one is easy.
Hero	Spider-Man	"Captain" Jack Sparrow	Tie - Spider-Man would be just as intriguing played by anyone. Depp is the only person that could make a character that didn't exist 5 years ago more intriguing than a 45 year old comic book icon.
Hottie	Kirsten Dunst	Keira Knightley	Pirates - Dunst has bigger boobs, but Knightley wins face, neck, abs, butt, and legs. Plus she's an infinitely better actress.
Writers	Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Alvin Sargent, Alfred Gough, Miles Miller, Michael Chabon, David Koepp	Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, Jay Wolpert	Pirates - Same 4 guys worked on each movie with Elliot and Rossio writing the bulk. Continuity wins. Plus, I hate David Koepp.
Source Material	Comic Book	Theme Park Ride	Spidey - Pirates was a better adaptation of the source material, but come on, a theme park ride? Really?
Action Sequences	Spidey Discovers his powers, Fight on Brooklyn Bridge w/ Goblin, Train Fight w/ Doc Ock, Warehouse Fight w/ Dock Ock, Alley Chase w/ New Goblin, Sandman Fight, Construction Site: Spidey and New Goblin vs. Sandman and Venom	Jack Sparrow vs. Will Turner, Black Pearl attacks Port Royal, Black Pearl vs. Interceptor, Royal Navy vs. Black Pearl Crew, Jack Sparrow vs. Barbossa, Escape from Pentagostas, Kraken sinks a merchant Ship, Jack Sparrow vs. James Norrington vs. Will Turner on the Water Wheel, Jack Sparrow Dies	Pirates - Spidey's fighting style is cooler, but it's the same stuff over and over and over again. Only the train sequence was a departure from the norm. The action sequences in Pirates have been infinitely more refreshing, and Pirates is only two movies in to Spidey's 3.
Score	Composer: Danny Elfman, Christopher Young, Bart Hendrickson	Composer: Klaus Badelt, Hans Zimmer, et al	Pirates - Danny Elfman did an excellent job on the first score, but Sony wouldn't pony-up to keep him around, so Hendrickson and Young had to fill in with inferior scores. Hans Zimmer has been an overseer on each Pirates score and has blended the talent working underneath him masterfully.
Studio Logos	Marvel	Disney	Pirates - easy decision. The studio for Spider-Man should probably be Columbia anyhow, but the Marvel one is cooler.
Final Tally	2	6	Pirates: 6 - 2 w/ 2 ties. This probably explains why I own both Pirates and only 1 Spider-Man.

There you have it! Thus far, Pirates is the better series. At this point, it would be pretty hard to lose the lead because the Spider-Man movies have gotten successively worse, and the Pirates movies have stayed on an even keel (excuse the pun). At World's End would have to be a shipwreck not to keep the trend going (excuse the pun). The third Pirates movie comes out on May 25th. We'll see if it can beat Spidey at the box office. In the mean time, use this to tide you over (don't excuse that pun). Tschüs!

Animation Migration

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:58:37 -0500

Note:This entry runs about 2000 words. If you just want to read the Aqua Teen stuff, it's up first. Meet the Robinsons is the second movie. Have at it! Two Walt Disney Executives are sitting in an office. Disney Exec 1: We should really make a movie about time travel. It hasn't been tapped enough since 1985. Disney Exec 2: And why hasn't anyone done more with The Matrix? I mean, people really liked that creepy, post-armageddon stuff. Disney Exec 1: That's true. You know, my kids were watching that the other day. My son was reading Oliver Twist and I thought those concepts would give us a money making picture to work with. Disney Exec 2: Yeah! With a few Star Wars-esque action sequences thrown in! This is sooo gonna be a movie. Call Danny and get him working on a score. And pass me my bong. Disney Exec 1: Here ya go. It kind of sounds like a train wreck, but let's throw $50 million at it. John Lasseter's coming on next year, so we can always get him to fix it if we have to. Disney Exec 2: You're a genius. Disney Exec 1: You are. They light their bongs with $1000 bills. It's a good thing Steve Jobs needed free reign in Disney's film fault to further dominate the world of internet multimedia downloads. If this hadn't happened, I would have seen two trainwreck cartoons this weekend. We'll get to Meet the Robinsons in a moment. But first...

For those in the know (and my readers are certainly that) Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters was released this weekend. Clearly they were trying to rival Borat in all things absurd including Most Outrageous Movie Title. This is not the only realm where they succeeded. I left home, walked into the theater, and sat down not knowing what to expect. I've been a fan of ATHF the show since it first aired in 2000. Master Shake (Dana Snyder), Frylock(Carey Means), and Meatwad(Dave Willis also doing Carl and Ignignokt) have always been willing to give me a break from homework when I least needed it well after the witching hour. Through all the countless times I've watched the show and been in a movie theater the past seven years, it never once occured to me that the two should be brought together in a most unholy matrimony. Apparently, that light bulb clicked for some other matchmaker at Time Warner, and we, the viewers, were rewarded with an abominable marriage. Despite being a big fan of the show since its beginnings, I was a bit skeptical of the movie. I mean, if you had to stretch a show that normally ran 11 minutes to the 90 minute range (they got it in at 87 mins), you might be a little intimidated as well. Here again, we can draw comparisons to Borat. Sasha Baron Cohen's character was one of many on his HBO series. Borat would get maybe 7 or 8 minutes an episode. Stretching that into (what seemed like) a 3 hour movie proved problematic as well. I can stand on my digital soapbox and tell you that ATHFCMFFT made a much better transition to the screen than Borat did, but that's not saying much. Rather than adjust the material to cater to the big screen, the Aqua Teen creators decided to extend the implausibly outlandish spiral into the abyss of insanity that every episode of the show fell down to a feature length. Absurdity is built upon foundation of senselessness and, at about the 60 minute mark, you're not even sure what you're supposed to be watching anymore. It becomes impossible to tell the difference between punch lines and build ups and plot advancing dialogue. This movie is a train wreck of epic proportions. Which, really, is pretty awesome. Let me explain. For anyone that's ever spent 30 minutes splicing fuses together at the 4th of July; if you've ever built a giant city of 10,000 Legos to act out a true-to-scale Godzilla; if you and your buddies have ever built an army of 400 Zerglings just to send 9 Ghosts to nuke them all to hell, you can truly appreciate this movie. Directors Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis took us, as an audience, to a place we've never been before. To suck the audience into a true suckfest is all but impossible. I mean, how can you achieve this kind of futile fixation with a conucopia of crap? These men are geniuses of the higest order. I'd like to try to summarzie the plot (it involves a half dozen locations, a mythical piece of exercise equipment, every character in the show's arsenal, and the origin of the Aqua Teens) but that would mean I'd have to admit there was a plot. I'm not sure my journalistic integrity would allow that. And I have no journalistic integrity. The entire experience can be crystallized with a chance happening at the theater. With about 20 minutes left on the scheduled movie time, the projector cut out. The lights were raised, and the theater radio system kick on. Everyone in the theater sat there, bewildered for a moment, and then asked, almost in unison: "Is it over?". But it didn't end there. Some patrons stayed in their seats, continuing to ask if the movie had ended. Others left, convinced that the movie was over and that there was nothing more to see. About half a dozen audience members (including me, Chuckles, and BlackToast) ventured out to the manager to shly ask, "Is the Aqua Teen movie over? Does it have credits or does it just end like that?". Nobody in the theater knew then, but as we walked back into the theater to watch the last 20 minutes, we were witnesses to The Most Fantastic Train Wreck in Movie History. As a fan of the show, I couldn't have been more satisfied.

I just love that. The hype surrounding Meet the Robinsons has been almost non-existent. Mostly because my little dialogue above was pretty close to the real situation. Robinsons was a movie born of the old Disney Animation vanguard. A little over a year ago, Steve Jobs changed all that by selling his stake in Pixar to Disney for stock in the new company. As a result, John Lasseter, new head of Disney Animation after the merger, started clearing house. Toy Story 3 was immediately halted and Meet the Robinsons was going to need a complete overhaul if it was going to be released to the public. And it certainly got that. Moments after the Disney Logo finishes transporting us in all it's glory to the Magic Kindgom, we are greeted with a rainy, crystal clear street in decisive sepia tone. A woman scurries up a stoop to the 6th Street Orphanage and leaves a baby Lewis (voiced by Jordan Fry) to a lonely orphan life. And this inquisitive young man is, of course, our hero. His own orphanhood drives him to create a better world. He unveils this vision like a plan for the future to every set of prospective parents that would potentially adopt him. As parents continue to pass up the opportunity of raising the young Lewis, he grows impatient and sulks in the fact that his own mother didn't want him, so why should anyone else. A predictable plotline, to be sure, but perhaps fresh in the face of the more recent Hollywood fair. This seems to be where the new Disney is going. Common situations are being reinvented and redone in a gorgeous CGI backdrop. The Disney heart remains in every picture, but not all of the magic is there. Recent pictures like Robinsons, Cars, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and (presumably) the upcomming Ratatouille all have that heart. And, in the case of The Incredibles, a lot of the magic as well. But the magic that made Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella great in Walt's time - the magic that somehow spilled over into the Golden Age to give us The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast seems to have been traded in for something else. That something may be jokes that appeal to kids and adults, that something may be celebrity voices, and that something may be digitally enhanced visuals, but it's not the same. That's not to say, however, they're not on a very good path to finding it. The afformentioned heart that Disney has produced in spades as of late is certainly present in Robinsons. The first scene immediately asks sympathy of the audience for baby Lewis. This sympathy is translated into admiration at witnessing Lewis's perseverance. That admiration morphs to wonder as a plot unfolds that pins Lewis in the middle of a struggle between a snide stranger in a conscious bowler hat (that often resembles sentinels of Matrix fame) and a 13 year old science fair colleague who goes by Wilbur Robinson. From here, plot spins and character relationships are all but impossible to follow (though they are deftly summed up by our boy-genius hero). Time travel is the order of the day, and Lewis goes forward in time with Wilbur Robinson to do exactly what the title would lead us to believe. The audience is excited to find out there is still a fair amount of plant life in the future, and the Robinsons' garden coupled with the whimsical score provided by the always entertaining Danny Elfman reminds us of a time when Johnny Depp wore a bondage suit. Inside the home of the Robinsons, the mother Franny (voiced by Nicole Sullivan) is training a band of du-wop frogs that seem to have as much talent as Marvin Berry and his band from another time-travel film(This band locks a villain in a trunk, rather than springing the hero from it). And a car(sorry, I mean time machine) chase late in the movie provides us with ever mounting sci-fi themes that are simultaneously reminiscent of The Matrix and Star Wars (assuming this is allowed). Director Stephen J. Anderson is the man charged with organizing this plot with its many twists and turns. And he does it rather well. While the natural gripes with the logic faults in time travel theory still appear in Robinsons, Anderson and his crack crew of Disney animators provide us with transitions in existence and bends in time space that are far more pleasing to see than to attempt to understand. And naturally, the movie ends with a heaping dose of heart that only Disney can bring us. Unlike rival stuidos like Dreamworks (Shrek) and Warner Bros. (Happy Feet) Disney continually delivers these fluttering emotions to us through their pictures. This is why they call it the Magic Kingdom and why these movies will always outpace their competition. I only hope they can once again reach for that brass ring, and make us forget about their inferior contemporaries entirely.

Seriously, though. Everything else that's put out by other studios is terrible in comparison. Shrek, while funny, has nothing on what Disney's done over any time span in their history. Happy Feet was garbage from it's complete lack of any real characterization to it's way too overt social message. I actually got a pamphlet in the DVD about certain fish to avoid because their numbers are scarce or they are improperly farmed. Disney towers above these other fools. We're just lucky they can reach greatness without any real competition around them. Ok, I'm done ranting now. I need to calm down....but how...? I've got it! Ah yes, that did it. If you liked that, I recommend you go above and click the links for all the Disney movies I listed. You should be clicking links anyway, but I'll give you a mulligan on this one. Tschüs!

300: Over Indulging Your Brain's Sweet Tooth

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:23:03 -0500

A man of considerable breadth stands on the edge of a cliff, the remnants of those sacrificed for genetic cleansing at its base, and inspects a newborn Spartan for adequate size and health. In this manner, all children of Sparta are granted passage into the kingdom shortly after their birth. In the same way, we are welcomed into Frank Miller's vision of Sparta and the world he has created for our entertainment. I admit I've never so much as opened a Frank Miller graphic novel, but after watching Sin City two years ago and 300 yesterday, I think I have a pretty good idea about how his fair tastes. The focus of these films is not to commercialize the stories that Miller writes for the screen, but rather to faitfully adapt the visual spectacle to moving pictures. The result is an intense, explicit, sometimes disorienting pageant of ocular decadence. And it is surely that. I had the good fortune of seeing 300 in an IMAX theatre. Watching this movie in that environment was like indulging in 45 pounds of chocolate pudding. My eyes and ears were treated to sensations unspeakable; only matched by the headache my over-stimulated brain punished me with afterward. The inspection of King Leonidas at cliff's edge initiates his biography. The bio acts as a prologue for the story and paints every Spartan soldier as a formidable opponent engineered from birth. I say "paints" because, unlike the cartoonish nature of Sin City, every frame of this film has the feeling of a High Renaissance fresco. Upon vanquishing a Goliathean wolf thanks to a "heightened sense of things", Leonidas returns to Greece having completed his coming of age trials. It is in the same courtyard where the young Leonidas was trained that we are introduced to Leonidas the protagonist, played by the obviously Scottish Gerard Butler. Butler's performance fits nicely into the movie. Every movement and line is big and delivered with poignancy. Perhaps this was the preferred method of inspiration and communication on the battlefield in Sparta, but in this context it eventually becomes trite. And it is that tritness that initially gets the Spartans into a bind. Leonidas's cold reception of a Persian scout (read: he booted him into a bottomless pit) provokes Xerxes and his Persian empire into war. Unable to get a blessing from Sparta's elders, Leonidas is unable to make a suitable war against the Persians. So he bands together a small, expeditionary force and travels north to the narrow pass at Thermopylae. Here, the 300 make their stand against the Persians. And a subtle stand it most certainly isn't. Leonidas taunts Xerxes in their first meeting in the most entertaining dialogue of the movie. Xerxes responds in a deceptively low, god-like voice that clues you in as to why men would worship mortals. Again, there is not much subtlety here. But no one should be seeing this movie for the subtlety. 300 is all about Director Zack Snyder and Art Director Isabelle Guay(The Fountain, The Jacket). Each and every picture of Frank Miller's novel (I gather) is portrayed in slow motion. For the logically disinclined, this means that nearly half the movie is done in slow motion. In any other film, this would never work. I would surmise that one could develop a tumor from this sort of overexposure to slow-mo. But, in staying faithful to the graphic novel format, Snyder uses the slower framerates to make sure every member of the audience sees exactly what Frank Miller would have them see, and in that end the slow motion works uncommonly well. In the vein of Gladiator and the afformentioned Sin City, the entire movie is shot against a blue screen. Again, this would never work if the aim was to give a realistic account of the Battle of Thermompylae, but the CGI in this movie gives every scene the feeling that it was drawn and not shot in live action. Still, there are some landscapes that might have been better served with on-location shooting, but I hear it's difficult to get to ancient Sparta these days. In the end, the movie is a mild success. It makes no political statements despite the backdrop of war and the squabbling over the nation's self defense. The modesty-challenged Queen Gorgo (played by the bountiful Lena Headely) makes a speech to the senate in the only real departure from paegentry throughout the film. If she had said anything of particular eloquence (despite the immediate words of the traitorous senator, Theron), then perhaps this scene would have had some power. As it stands, Jimmy Stewart will have to go on looking for a successor. One could argue that it is a pro-Iraq film just as easily as not. But there is nothing about 300 that should be overly analyzed. It is a work of pure visual beauty, and should not be lowered or raised to any other undeserved standard. Tschüs!

Tasting Oscar Gold

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:33:03 -0500

For the avid baseball fan or those who think basketball seasons don't really matter until tournament/playoff time, there's not a lot of opportunities for competitive entertainment between October and March. The NFL is only once a week and the coverage is awful because of how they structure their TV contracts. Where I go to school, I generally have to watch two of the worst games every week. College football is better, but again, it doesn't really get you through the week. So what is one to do? During those long winter months when trips outside become fewer and less thrilling, I like to go to the movies. More specifically, I like to go to Oscar-caliber movies. Getting into the Oscar race every year is an excellent hobby to fill the gaps between the last and first pitches of Major League Baseball - something I have to do because small ball is like crack to me. But every year I notice a few things about the Oscar race that seem to get overlooked. The reason I believe that little 13.5 inch statuette is the most coveted in all of filmdom is the integrity. Film Festival awards are like high school student body elections - they're glorified popularity contests that serve no other purpose than building a resume. Critics association awards are snobbish "Let's get together and agree with each other" awards where Those Who Can't Do award the best social commentary or boring art house flick. The Golden Globes is the illegitimate son of the Emmys and the Oscars - it wants to please both parents, but it will never be loved like one of the pure breeds. The Academy Awards are different because every year they nominate several movies that went relatively ignored up until that point. Yes, you'll see a lot of the same flicks on their ballot that you did from previous awards, but that is as it should be. The point here is that the Academy awards all of the movies from a given year, not just the ones that meet a preset standard of social or artistic importance. So I watch the Oscars like I watch the Super Bowl. It's the best of the best coming together (usually dressed in a very attractive manner) to award excellence. But even the Oscars don't cover everything. So I'm going to run down a few things I think they're missing this year and from the past as well. Best Supporting Actor This year, the best supporting actor nominees go like this:

Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children” (New Line)
Djimon Hounsou in “Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)
Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)

This list has actors like Eddie Murphy and Mark Wahlberg that were on everybody's list and nominations like Djimon Hunsou that were snubbed at other events like the Golden Globes. But there is one name that was left off of everyone's list: Bill Nighy. The co-star for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest gave an absolutely phenomenal performance. Watch that movie and tell me you're not hanging on every word and movement that the man delivers. In exactly the same fashion as Andy Serkis for both The Lord of the Rings series and King Kong, Bill Nighy was snubbed because some of his mannerisms were digitally produced. But any actor will tell you it's no less difficult (and probably moreso) to stand there in motion-capture equipment and stay in character while you're surrouned by a bunch of pirates or orcs or whathaveyou. There is no reason to deny actors their proper merits in the digital age because modern makeup and costuming fail to deliver the effects that film makers desire to achieve. Bill Nighy should have been noticed somewhere important this year, and it's a terrible shame that he got overlooked. (By the way, there should be a website that pronounces celebrities' names for you. I'm fairly certain Nighy is nigh-EE, but I can't tell you how many people thought I was talking about The Science Guy. And anyone who can locate the pronunciation of Djimon Hounsou will get a cookie from me.) I feel that Geoffrey Rush was snubbed in the same manner when the original Pirates came out. But he was perhaps overshadowed by Johnny Depp's performance, which no one could deny. I do agree that Depp didn't deserve the nomination this year for the same reason I believe Sasha Baron Cohen didn't deserve a nomination for Borat: you should never recieve an award for a role where you had previously developed the character. The true creativity of Borat and Jack Sparrow was developed well before the research phase of either picture. Awards should not be given for reprisals because most of the work going into creating the character had been previously completed. Best Choreography Maybe this is an award best left to the Tonys, but I think a best choreography award is sorely missing from the Oscars. From an extensive 5 minute search on Google, I can't find any evidence that such an award ever existed, but I thought perhaps there just aren't enough Fred Astaires or Vera-Ellens anymore. However, I would retort that Choreography has been extended to a much wider realm. Complex action scenes, fight scenes, love scenes, and athletic sequences all require a lot more preparation than just the director's blocking notes these days. Besides, why should we be forever robbed of this: I think the lure of a Best Cinematography Oscar would certainly inspire more of that. Besides, a good sports sequence or sword fight should be rewarded as well. That stuff takes a lot of work and is a staple of movies and movie magic. Plus, think of how much more entertaining the Academy Awards would be! If they redid kung fu battles and dance numbers on stage like they do with best song, ratings would soar! You can't tell me you wouldn't want to watch. (Another aside, I also think some actors, actresses, and directors should be miked up for the ceremony like they do at sporting events. This would be especially useful at the Golden Globes where alcohol is involved. I don't think anyone would want to miss the drunken conversations: Jack Nicholson: I can't believe they drag me to this crap every year. I just want to go to the Lakers game. I only wear these sunglasses so I can go to sleep while Merryl Streep is up there yammering about whatever the hell... I hate the Grammys... Merryl Streep: Can I have my award and go home? I have piles of money to sleep in. Clint Eastwood: Shut up Merryl, I'm old enough where I'm still allowed to hit you in public. I'd shoot you in the face right now, but they don't let me do whatever I want anymore like the 50's. Leonardo DiCaprio: I had sex with Lindsey Lohan! Jack Nicholson: Join the club you painted up fairy. I did cocaine, banged Raquel Welch, drank a whole bottle of vodka, then woke up the next day and shot One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and won an Oscar. You go back to the kiddy table with Josh Hartnett. Shit, I miss Sinatra... Yeah, all of this is probably from a day we will never see.) Best Picture Grossing over $100 Million This is really a category that's needed to reconnect America with the Oscars. If the movie makes more than 100 very large, then enough people have seen it to care if it won. Lots of people watching the Oscars means lots of people watching other awards like Art Direction, Cinematography, Director, and Original Score which means lots of people learning about movies and appreciating the art house pictures that don't get the love that they should. (And yes, I did bash and praise the art house in the same article. I love these movies, but they certainly aren't the end all-be all of film making). This year's 100 Million category would look like this:

Pirates of The Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest
Cars
The Pursuit of Happyness
The Departed
Casino Royale
The Devil Wears Prada
The Da Vinci Code

I'm betting that you can find a flick on that list you would root for if it was up for an award. I mean, what other choice do we have? Watch the Peoples' Choice Awards? Ha! Tschüs!