Saturday, June 24, 2006
9/11 © Paramount 2006.
A film student called Chris Moukarbel recently freely distributed a short film called Points Of Departure online, a film depicting scenes from The World Trade Centre attack on 9/11/01 that he states "was created as a commentary on the memorialisation of a particularly historic moment". The problem is that Moukarbel seems to have based his film on a section of the script for Oliver Stone's upcoming 9/11 film World Trade Centre. Paramount, the studio behind Stone's film, is now suing Moukarbel for undisclosed moneys, stating that it is 'virtually identical' and a 'poor quality copy' of their film that "large numbers of people will see ... first for free and determine ... that they do not want to pay to see the remainder of the WTC film at a theatre when it is released", a move roughly analogous to flying a skyscraper into a plane.Moukarbel has removed the film from the Internet, so we can't find out if it is just a 'copy' or whether he was making an intertextual statement on media coverage but we can say a: that he's a bit of an idiot for stealing the script and b: shut up Paramount.
If we are to take their complaint at face value, we can only assume that they are very worried about their new film, especially if they think seeing parts of the script would put people off seeing the whole film, especially as the horribly cheesey trailer they have released (here) looks to already be doing the same job. Otherwise this is another act in the studios' continued blinkered paranoia towards the free, chaotic and mostly stupid flow of information on the Internet or a cynical act of getting the film into the headlines.
Much more interesting than all the legal shenanigans is that making many different versions of the same thing is actually a really interesting idea and that is, of course, utterly stymied by art-as-commodity and the fascism of the 'copywritable idea'. No, let's not destroy capitalism just yet and yes, let's pay me wodges of cash for my 'Baby Geniuses 3: The Wrath Of Herod' pitch but bear with me.
I was speaking with some contemporary dancer friends of mine (I'm so boho, you see) and they were suggesting a 'salon' atmosphere where you take the same subject and create several pieces exploring different ways to approach it. This would take the focus of the final work away from the 'concept' and towards the personal expression of those working with the 'concept'. This makes the work far more humane and also much less dogmatic, as it does not force one particular interpretation onto the audience.
Bringing this back to film, last year we were finally able to watch the 2 Exorcist Prequels, made by Paul Schrader and Rene Harlin respectively, back to back. Being polite, neither of them are very successful, but watched together they form a fascinating study in how to make wildly different films from the same building blocks, one a mostly dull attempt to study notions of catholic guilt and the other a mostly ridiculous attempt to make an atmospheric horror film into an action movie. Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho is a treasure trove for film students in comparing how seemingly small changes (clothing, lighting, acting choices) can change identical material. Pretty dull for anyone just wanting to watch a good movie though.
Imagine, instead of studios using just-different-enough-for-copyright-law concepts to make exactly the same volcano, asteroid or body swap films, they let David Mamet and Michael Bay make exactly the same concept however they liked? Personally, I think this would be awesome but let's keep this on a purely practical level: wouldn't it be better to use your $150m to make 3 medium sized movies and have them play off each other instead of on one Mission Impossible 3? If nothing else it's a cool marketing gimmick. Which I've just copyrighted, by the way.
Finally, if Chris Moukarbel is reading this: write your own damn words, idiot.
Source: The Smoking Gun, The Guardian, Definitely Not A Link To The Video
Continue reading 9/11 © Paramount 2006.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Nerd, Know Thyself
The latest thing in market research is brain scans, according to this article. Steve Quartz is a real life neuro-scientist with the name of a cartoon neuro-scientist/pro-football player and Hollywood is giving him lots of money to put people in fancy brain scanners (essentially giant magnets) while they watch movies. Early results have proven that this is not much use for people who still watch VHS.
This Functional Brain Imaging (fMRI) shows how the brain reacts to stimulae both consciously and, importantly, unconsciously. Hollywood is hoping to use this information to find out what sort of movies people actually like and then, hopefully, stop making crap. This is great news for us because, if you read or listen to film fans for any length of time, you'll know that we really have no idea what we really want in a film at all.We hate 'x' sequel because it is far too much like the original, but we hate 'y' sequel because they changed everything from the original. It's too grim, it's too cartoony, it's not grounded enough, it's not fantastic enough. It becomes obvious from the constant shifting of these criteria of goodiness from film to film that they are just rationalisations being placed over a pre-decided like or dislike of a movie. The liking or disliking comes first and, crucially, comes from somewhere other than the application of these fairly abitrary and often contradictory rules.
This is because there is actually far too much stimulae coming at us at any given time for us to consciously deal with. A lot of the leg work of sifting, ordering and giving importance to this data is done by our pre-conscious brain. This is the brain you use to drive while you are on your mobile phone and screaming at the motherfucker who just cut you up. It is only when this raw data has been ordered that it gets passed up to our rational, messageboard-posting, nacho-eating conscious-brains. This means that a lot of the reasons why we think we are interersted in a film has precious little to do with how we are really reacting to it.
We usually laugh at commercials - at how crass they are, at how they won't affect our spending habits - yet underneath the cheese they are quietly shaping our view of the brand, re-contextualising it and allying it with particular cultural notions. It is this underneath stuff that is the real point of the commercial: the stuff we don't consciously notice, not the obvious 'Buy Coke' nonsense on the surface.
Now, any time a new method for market testing comes along there are claims that it is destroying art, it is too invasive or, bizarrely, cheating. The claim is that film-makers will simply construct their films based on graphs and tables for maximal brain response rather than making them out of a passion for the form. It will lead us one step closer to the ultimate made-by-committee product and further away from personal vision.
'Pffh', I say, dismissively. Movies only exist because clever dead people discovered that the eye 'stores' information for a fraction of a second, meaning that if you pass still images in front of the eye fast enough, they will seem to 'join up' and make one moving image. Special effects, musical scores, editing: all are based on an understanding of how our brain reacts to stimulus, so the more we know about how our brains work, the better the tools we will have for making films to make our brains happy. This fMRI, if it works, is just another tool, the same as any other, and only a fool would refuse to use it. Some of you may find yourselves bitching and moaning about how the art of 'real' film-making is being lost. Please note that this will be the exact moment you get old.
If we had this sort of technology, perhaps Hollywood could have avoided Jar-Jar Binks, could have told The Wachowski Brothers that we didn't watch The Matrix for the talking and said no to Bat-Nipples.Equally, and this is the exciting part, it is ten years on from Batman And Robin and yet we are still very happy to bang on about that day-glo nightmare, so maybe this research will have things to tell us about about what really excites our brains. And no, I'm not trying to justify my love of crap movies. Baby Jesus thinks Batman And Robin sucks. So does Terri Schiavo.
It should also be pointed out that after the brain scan comes the statistical analysis. Statistics need interpretation and are, by nature, generalised and un-specific - depressingly accurate over the large scale but almost useless on the personal scale. The music industry has been using the statistical analysis approach for several years (HSS) and it hasn't stopped personal expression from genuine artists. If fMRI stops the big franchise and summer tentpole films being painful to watch then how can this be a bad thing? I guess the only problem would come if you held the belief that these mainstream entertainment films are supposed to be highly personal works of art, and why would you believe a thing like that?
If nothing else it might stop the mostly useless process of test screening and, as an adjunct, all those fucking reviews on AICN writen by the morons that attend them.
One last small disclaimer: Steve Quartz has a silly name, a really cheesy publicity photo and is very happy to court the glamour and money of Hollywood. fMRI could be snake oil but, hey, at least it shows Mr. Quartz knows marketing.Source: The Guardian, Polyphonic HMI Continue reading Nerd, Know Thyself
Back To The Futurama
TV week is reporting that The Cartoon Network is commissioning 13 new episodes of Futurama to show next year. Add this to the Direct To DVD films they are producing and fans of the greatest animated series on tv can be very happy. Personally I'm going to use this as an opportunity to google Amy 'fan art' for a while.
Of course, the new shows will suck.
Source: TV Week Continue reading Back To The Futurama
Monday, June 19, 2006
Geek Pin-Up #4: Sherilyn Fenn
When someone says the words "Twin Peaks" to you, what do you think of? Ladies with logs? Midgets talking backwards? Russ Meyer?
If you're a decent red-blooded geek male, you'll say Sherilyn Fenn.
Fenn had been in a lot of things before David Lynch's wildly successful mindfuck of a show, but with the exception of Wild at Heart, Zalman King's Two-Moon Junction and Thrashin', nothing that was really that notable. And then the tale of a young girl's murder and the effect it had on a small town became a worldwide success, partially due - at least in my case - to an awesomely sexy and intriguing brunette in a plaid skirt with a fondness for cherries.
Fenn had the qualities of a star in the 40s, that smoking noir look and those devilish eyes, along with - ahem - other qualities she showed off many times on big and small screens. She was also a fine young actress, a talent shown most notably in the superior adaptation of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Unfortunately, after taking the title role in - I'm not even going to try and describe it - Boxing Helena, her career never really took off the way it should have, leaving her to guest spots on CSI and the upcoming DTV Dukes of Hazzard sequel.
Nevertheless, she'll always have a special place in my loins. We salute you, Sherilyn. Continue reading Geek Pin-Up #4: Sherilyn Fenn
Turning Your Brain On At The Movies - Part 1
Directed by Rob Cohen
Written by W.D. Richter
(2005)
What the film thinks it is about: Three ace fighterpilots pilot three ace fighters in a top secret military development programme. In a shocking twist it turns out that it wasn't the fighters that were being developed but a special AI pilot that will eventually render the three ace fighterpilots obsolete. In a shocking twist the AI plane is then hit by lightning which scrambles its brains and turns it evil, leading to much death. In a shocking twist, the commanding officer tries to kill the three ace fighterpilots so there's no proof that his fancy pants AI malfunctioned. In a shocking twist, it turns out the AI wasn't really evil, just trying to deal with his new, lightning-created free-thinking and his old military programming. AI and hunky man pilot team up to save the hot woman pilot and peace is restored by blowing up most of Korea. The black pilot died an hour ago.
What it is really about: The joy of these big summer movies is that they concentrate only on the surface level, and Stealth is an undeniably whizzy film, only to leave all the juicy underneath stuff - the subtext, the theme, the meaning - up to chance. Which means that they are up for grabs for people smart enough to know Stealth is a shit film, but immature enough to still want to see it (this would be us).
Stealth is, in fact, an anti-military satire every bit as scathing as entirely awesome bugs'n'fascists epic Starship Troopers.
The best example of this, and possibly the funniest moment in film last year, comes when the team goes on its first mission with the AI pilot - to blow up a building in downtown Asian Country where military intelligence has pinpointed the location of a meeting with several terrorist leaders who are planning an immediate strike on America. It's probably best to put scare-quotes around every verb and noun in the last part of that sentence. The building is surrounded by densely packed faceless asian civilians and the solution is to drop an 'implosion' bomb into the basement. Stealth then shows the bomb hitting with pinpoint accuracy and the building, in one beautiful shot, collapsing in on itself so neatly that the facelss asian civilians barely even get any dust on them.
Anyone with their brains turned on will note that military intelligence, shown here to be so omnipotent as to be able to read the bad guys' lips from orbit, is never so accurate and that blowing up buildings in heavily populated areas doesn't look like deflating a balloon. The film, in showing so hyperbolically how perfect the American war on terror is, actually draws direct attention to what a fantasy this scenario is.
Also interesting is that the hunky pilot actually breaks orders in order to deliver the bomb, as the manouevre was considered too risky for the plane to undertake. He performs the manouevre, only barely avoiding crashing his fighter into an apartment block, and goes back home to triumphant music. This seems to be telling us that American heroes are free-thinkers, able to think beyond orders in order to achieve their heroic Greater Good.
Anyone with their brains turned on will see these pilots as completely indoctrinated, group-think robots, programmed to believe what their superiors tell them to believe. Hunky pilot talks of not wanting to turn war into a computer game, yet we are informed of the success of the mission by a computer read-out telling us 'Collateral: 0', and may as well have read 'Level Complete'. They talk of war having to be dangerous for the fighters or the responsibility of war is lost, yet there they are, like winged titans, dropping death from miles above onto hundreds of faceless foreign bad people 15 minutes later. They talk of calling off an attack on those bad darkies because there's a chance a nuclear cloud will destroy an inhabited valley, yet when one of their team (the AI plane which, for the slow, doesn't have any people in it) does attack, they immeditaley join in because you can't leave your buddy alone, even if they are committing war crimes. The valley does get covered in a nuclear cloud, and precious litle is heard from it for the rest of the film.
There's plenty more (like their shore-leave tactic of fucking anything that moves and then promptly fucking off, or like the black pilot walking through a rice paddy not actually in Vietnam, but whatever, saying how beautiful it was with the child-like wonder of someone who had genuinely not considered this before), but I'll try and wrap it up.
Stealth is a fantasy for eight year old boys and the text, including the pro-military propoganda, only works if you are eight. The subtext is that if you are older than eight, you will see the bullshit for what it is. The best example of this is, when the planes are zipping merrily across international borders, the film shows the world from orbit to show the route the planes are taking and actually overlays a map onto the world, complete with nice big lettering for the hard of thinking. To accept this shit, the film is telling us, you have to be spectacularly stupid.
Now the film is awful, and I shouldn't try and convince you to watch it. The plane sequences are very nifty for anyone who was an eight year old boy once, but the soundtrack is filled with really sucky rock that still doesn't drown out the mostly leaden dialogue, the special effects can't save the wooden acting, and I don't think Rob 'Down Wit Da Kidz' Cohen actually meant for any of the satire. But, if you are willing to turn your brain on during films that should only be watched by the lobotomised, I highly recommend the Piece-of-Shit Stealth.
I'll have the next installment up the next time I watch another stupid summer spectacle movie which, tragically, won't be very long. Continue reading Turning Your Brain On At The Movies - Part 1
Editorial: Does The World Need Superman?
Like any child, I loved superheroes. And like any child growing up in the 1980s – I was born in ‘78 – there was one who I loved more than any other. He didn’t drive a cool car; he didn’t spin webs; and he didn’t turn into Lou Ferrigno. He wore a bright red cape, a huge S on his chest, and stood for everything that someone should stand for. Thanks mainly to Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve, Superman was the hero everyone wanted to be. But as the 80s tumbled towards their end, something changed. As his movies tailed off, we were interested in more “adult” pursuits, at least in the superhero world. 1989 was a big reason for that, and the man behind the reason was the Man of Steel’s main DC rival: Batman.
As we grew up, we weren’t as interested in the mythology of Krypton as we were with the darker side of humanity. Batman was a guy who suffered a great loss, and the result was the outlet for a whole gamut of darker material that, for us, was a lot more attractive. Metropolis was left in the dust as people flocked to Gotham, looking upon Batman as a legitimate figure that they could identify with as an outsider, as someone who wasn’t understood by the mainstream. Spider-Man itself had a teenager as a superhero, having to live the teenager’s life of grades and chores while simultaneously foiling the latest scheme of the Green Goblin. How could Superman compete with that?
Superman’s appeal to children isn’t a complex thing. Here is a person who is near-invulnerable, who can’t be hurt by normal things, who can do anything he wants to, and - most importantly – who can fly. As a child, we’re constantly attached to our parents. We’re told not to go too far to play, not to be back too late. We have no freedom. Not that we’re not told those things for a good reason, but nonetheless, we don’t have the power or freedom we dream of. The ability to deflect any pain. The ability to do anything we want to. The ability to go anywhere we want to, with no restraint whatsoever.
But when we grow up, we start to gain some of that freedom. As we become purely social creatures, we enter relationships and we gain our confidence. We even learn to drive a car, that great teenage ritual which in itself lifts a great barrier in regards to our freedom. We strive to become “cool,” something which has never, ever been associated with the character of Superman. We almost see Clark Kent as that geeky kid we left behind at school, as we go out into the world and start our adult lives.
And as we grow even further, many eschew those tales of supermen because we ourselves are slowly building a life, building a family. We become parents, and in that vein, we have to become superheroes ourselves to protect our children, who themselves will dream of men in tights. To quote Marlon Brando, ‘the son becomes the father, and the father, the son.’ We don’t wear capes and we don’t have X-ray vision, but we do have the capacity for good, and the will to share that with all men. Or at least we should.
But again, is that attitude – the attitude that defines Superman – defunct in this day and age? In a world where bile, hatred and corruption rule the headlines, in a world where politeness and gallantry seem to be four-letter words, is Superman merely an outdated concept? Only if the human race doesn’t want to survive. Superman is a lot more than a guy in a cape who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He is an icon, not just of popular culture, but of a mantra. He is a symbol for all that humanity can and should be.
As if oft-quoted in dozens of movies, people love a hero. And people also need a hero. There’s a quote that always stands out in my mind from the speech Aunt May gives in Spider-Man 2, which always seemed to me that it was directed towards the Man of Steel as opposed to Peter Parker;
‘Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer.’
Look at the world around us in recent times. The Indian Ocean Tsunami. New Orleans. Iraq. 9/11. The world is full of disasters, both caused by natural events and the failings of man. We need symbols that we can look up to, that can inspire us to do our best, that can give us hope, for now and the future. I’m not saying to pretend Superman is real. It’s more pointing to the importance of Superman as an aspect of American mythology, as something that not only entertains us through comic books, movies, video games and the likes, but something that can point us in the right way. Something that can remind us that which a wise old man once said a couple of decades a go:
'They can be a good people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show them the way. And because of this, their capacity for good, I have sent them you.
My only son.'
This is why I’ll be lining up in a few weeks to see Superman Returns. Continue reading Editorial: Does The World Need Superman?
