Friday, August 04, 2006
Dawn Of The Dead Movies: Jaws 3, People 0
It seems to be every week that we try and introduce a new column, and this week's no exception. Arising from an IM chat on sequels that never were, we've decided to put together a little column to explore those lost movies that - for whatever reason - missed their chance to become part of cinematic history.
Our first instalment takes a look at one of the more obscure - well, obscure unless you're a huge shark movie geek/one of those internet guys who owns five million laserdiscs and thinks he knows EVERYTHING - movies that never made it to the surface in Hollywood. Jaws 3, People 0.
Okay. Now you've just produced the sequel to what, up until the release of Star Wars, was the biggest movie in history. The sequel itself is well on its way to the $100m mark. The studio and audiences are at your feet, screaming out for another instalment. What do you do?
If you're Richard Zanuck and David Brown, you tell them you're going to make a spoof of the first two movies and explore everything that's about Hollywood, its incessant need for money and especially its love for sequels. And everyone else goes 'Huh?'
Jaws 3, People 0 was the brainchild of Zanuck, Brown and Matty Simmons, the editor of National Lampoon magazine who had recently produced Animal House and would go on to oversee the Chevy Chase Vacation flicks. The story goes that Zanuck and Brown decided that a second sequel was just too much, and in a remarkable foresight, wanted to, as Brown put it on the Jaws 2 DVD, "foul the nest." So they brought in a young John Hughes as writer as well as Tod Carroll - who would go on to write National Lampoon's Going To The Movies and the Michael Keaton drama Clean and Sober - and hired a young director who had already taken a crack at spoofing Jaws in 1978's Piranha - Joe Dante. Ironically, while the film never materialized, Dante would have the chance to spoof sequels and the resulting merchandising in his incredible and underrated 1990 movie Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
The film would be based around the meta-concept of an angry shark trying to stop the production of a third Jaws movie, with an opening showing original Jaws novelist Peter Benchley writing a draft for the film, before going into his pool, only to be eaten by the shark. The film had many sketch ideas, for example, one scene would have had a writer who was obsessed with Star Wars dreaming about sharks in space, as well as lots of cracks at Hollywood and its own obsession with sequelling.
Once the behind the scenes work had started, the producers enlisted the help of several actors, including Vaudeville comedian George Jessel - one of the inspirations for Futurama's Dr. Zoidberg - and the then hot beauty of the day, Bo Derek, who from what I can gather would spend the entire running time naked, which is by no means a bad thing.
By all accounts, whether it had been a huge success or crashed and burned, Jaws 3, People 0 would have been spectacular. But it all ended, reportedly thanks to the man who had begun the franchise in the first place - Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, who was under contract to Universal at the time, found out about what Zanuck, Brown and Simmons were doing and put his foot down, and Universal relented. On one hand, it makes me sad, but on the other hand, I can't really blame them. After all, when you have a director who had at that time just made two hugely critically and commercially successful hits - Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind - you're not going to say no. That decision proved to be correct when Spielberg delivered E.T. to Universal in 1982, cementing his place in Hollywood legend and providing the studio with a boatload of cash.
I remember reading a story about the actual event, which apparently had the then head of Universal Ned Tanen - infamously known as the person who tried to get Spielberg to change the title of Back to the Future to Spaceman From Pluto - in his office crying about having to pull the plug on the project. And that was it. Jaws 3, People 0 was officially dead, and Zanuck and Brown swiftly left Universal soon after, their last project ironically being another Benchley adaptation, The Island.
So that was the end of that, but not the end of the third Jaws film, as we now know. But the story of that film is equally fascinating, and hasn't really been told very often. With Universal still wanting to further capitalize on the Jaws brand name, but being without anyone to make it, they quickly gave the project to Alan Landsburg, a TV producer known mostly for films such as Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo. Known then as Jaws '81, Landsburg set around finding a story for his fishy tale, with the concept coming from a writer with the spectacular name of Guerdon Trueblood, who had worked with Landsburg on Tarantulas, as well as The Savage Bees, and the period piece The Bastard, which had starred Tom Bosley as Benjamin Franklin.
Trueblood's idea was a simple one, which almost had its roots in history. His tale of a great white shark that had managed to swim upstream into a river complex doesn't sound incredibly realistic, especially since great whites are only ever found in saltwater, but it sounds remarkably similar to the historical accounts that inspired the first Jaws. In 1916, a series of attacks occurred in a very short space of time along the Jersey shore, which were followed soon after by several more attacks in Matewan Creek, a small village inland. Soon after, a great white was caught near the beach which had remnants of human flesh inside, so the general consensus was that the animal had fed at the shore, then headed up an inlet into Matewan. However, since then, with our shark knowledge much greater, experts have theorized that it was most likely either two different sharks - a great white and a freshwater kind - or a Bull Shark, one of the only man-eating sharks which can survive in both freshwater and saltwater.
To expand on Trueblood's idea, Landsburg brought in Michael Kane, who had written Universal's Smokey and the Bandit II and would soon after write Walter Hill's Southern Comfort, Carl Gottlieb, one of the scribes on the first two Jaws movies, and famed sci-fi author Richard Matheson, whose name was already inscribed in the history books for such novels as I Am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man. You'd have thought Gottlieb and Matheson might have been able to create a fine and interesting script together, but apparently not, as you'll no doubt know from having seen the finished film.
But the person who moved it forward even further was Joe Alves. Production designer on Jaws, and once-touted as a co-director for Jaws 2 (with editing sensation Verna Fields), Alves came aboard as director of the film and also introduced a unique concept, at least for the Jaws series: the idea of filming in 3-D. While 3-D had been long known as a gimmick which had died out in the 50s after movies like The Creature From The Black Lagoon and House of Wax, the process had recently had a minor comeback with the cowboy hit Comin' At Ya!, and was again seen as a viable - but risky - theatrical format. Ironically, Jaws 3-D would be one of the films that killed the 3-D process once again, with it yet to really rear its head in the mainstream outside of IMAX, despite rumblings from people like James Cameron, Peter Jackson and George Lucas, who seem intent on bringing it to the masses.
But if the film was going to be successful, the 3-D effects would have to be good, especially with the way Hollywood was advancing technology-wise, with movies like The Empire Strikes Back and Alien pushing the bar higher with each year. Landsburg turned to a company called Private Stock Effects, who at that time had only worked on John Frankenheimer's Toshiro Mifune vehicle The Challenge. With a relatively short time to work on the effects that would bring Jaws out of the theater and into the lap of the audience, PSE set upon working with a brand new electronic compositing system that would make it easier to work with the 3-D process, while providing even more realistic visual effects.
Of course, we now have digital compositing, but back then, computers were known only for controlling the motion-control cameras that were used in model work, back then the only real process that could realistically do some of the things filmmakers wanted to do, such as controlling the spaceships in Star Wars. The early word on PSE's effects was very good, and the test effects were known to be astonishing, at least for 1982, although legend has it the initial test shots were in a fishtank with a Barbie doll.
So the flick was on course, and apparently looking good. But it wouldn't stay that way. According to the admittedly somewhat murky history of the flick, PSE's chance at a breakout success were sabotaged, apparently by another special effects company known as Praxis Filmworks. Head of Praxis Robert Blalack, who had won an Oscar for working on Star Wars, allegedly went to Landsburg and told him that he thought PSE's work was sloppy and inferior to what could be achieved with the standard compositing technology, or more accurately what his company could do. Unfortunately for PSE, Blalack convinced Landsburg, and the producer ordered the effects to be completely redone, using what was left of the budget. This resulted in the terrible effects we see in the film today.
But the real story was apparently a far shadier one. Legend has it that Blalack was scared of the possible revolution PSE's computer-fuelled effects might have and the effects it might have on the effects industry as a whole, and like many industry workers who have been faced with having to deal with the evolution of technology, instead of embracing the future, stifled it. Thus, Jaws 3-D apparently suffered heavily because of people being frightened of the future.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to say that Jaws 3-D had the potential to be some classic, but it's kind of a sad afternote to a film that could have had a hand in advancing the technology, as opposed to letting it die in favour of not disturbing the equilibrium.
With a young Dennis Quaid in the lead and Oscar-winner Louis Gossett, Jr amongst the cast, Jaws 3-D opened on the 22nd of July, 1983, to terrible reviews and a middling box office response, eventually grossing just $45 million, $57m less than Jaws 2's overall gross. While not killing the franchise outright (1987's Jaws, The Revenge did that), Jaws 3-D was a noticeably huge stepdown in quality from the first two movies, and rightly has its place in the yearly list of bad sequels, leaving us to wonder what we might have had, had Spielberg not nixed Jaws 3, People 0 before it had a chance to show us what it could have done. But, c'est la vie.
Special Thanks to More Than Meets The Mogwai, and their script review of Jaws 3, People o.
Continue reading Dawn Of The Dead Movies: Jaws 3, People 0
Trailer: Borat
"My name a Borat. I journalist for Kazakhstan. My government send me to US and A to make a movie film. Please, you look."
Yahoo! Movies has just released the absolutely hilarious full trailer for Borat, the feature film starring Ali G's Sacha Baron Cohen's other alter ego. Here's Yahoo's breakdown:
Borat Sagdiyev, Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man and a leading journalist from the State run TV network, travels from his home in Kazakhstan to the U.S. to make a documentary. On his cross-country road-trip, Borat meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences.
What makes Borat such great character (apart from Cohen's terrific delivery) is how he exploits and showcases so many of our cultural problems and insecurites through such simple scenarios of observation and conversation. He's also honed that style of awkward and terribly uncomfortable comedy that made Ricky Gervais and The Office so great.
Plus, Cohen totally gets away with bestiality, rape, and incest jokes. That's gotta count for something.
Sacha Baron Choen can be seen as a gay French race car driver in Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Tallaega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby this weekend. Borat hits American screens on November 3rd. Word so far has been very positive. I can't wait.
Source: Yahoo! Movies Continue reading Trailer: Borat
Review: Miami Vice
Miami Vice is one of the quietest yet loudest films I have ever seen. All the major emotional peaks are told through gazes and tenses; eyes lingering with passion or mouths twitching with hard-boiled animosity. At the same time there are explosive moments with gunfire booming in your ears and music melting comfortably with its visuals, all of it being amplified by the carefully built tension before it. It's as if Michael Mann wants to peel away the confines of the theater around you and keep you tethered to the realism of this glowing stylistic world he's created. And at not one point does he patronize you, telling you the why and the what of the world. Instead he trusts you to simply know or learn from your experience, enlightening you no matter how you might see his influential vision.
That vision is one without forced commentary and one focused upon overloading your senses. When the film jumps open and that curved silhouette rattles and shakes on the screen and a Jay Z/Linkin Park collaboration flows on the music track, you find your eyes widen and your ears open to everything that is going on in the thick atmosphere. As a viewer you want more and more of these perfectly framed images as you gaze at the aimless camera that wanders about the kaleidoscopic club. It overwhelms you so much that when you finally see Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) lingering about the sidelines with terribly concentrated faces, you barely are reminded of being in a film and are still trying to revel in the digital environment.
It is also something to be said when music you would usually ignore is made into something you want to amass and never stop listening to. The mere experience of the opening scene found me immediately partaking of Encore/Numb and repeating it to pieces, remembering every bit of Miami Vice's introduction. Because of the film I now have an excuse for kind of liking Linkin Park.
Much like many other scenes in the movie, the introduction not only allows one to take in the pleasure of the sound and sights, but you're simultaneously deciphering the narrative around you. Your mother isn't here any more with a spoon and baby food to nourish you, you're a grown up now, trying to figure out your surroundings and its meanings. If you don't watch how Tubbs reacts to the hassling of a drugged out prostitute, how Crockett briefly flirts with his desperate charm, or how they both support each other, you will think there is very little to nothing in these characters. This movie demands your attention and it's solely up to your passiveness or awareness how you are going to walk away from it.
The problem - which is best explained early - is that at times Mann's vivid approach to storytelling has a void, a distant emptiness that seems needed to be filled. Assuredly, when the plot starts on its sprint after the introduction of a undercover drug deal gone wrong (which briefly features John Hawkes and Pavel Lychnikoff from Deadwood) you feel further dedicated to the film. It's moments in between, like when Crockett, Tubbs, and their crew work towards integration with South American drug lord Montoya's (played magnificently by Luis Tosar) operation do things seem distant. The narrative is there, but it initially feels secluded, perhaps because as viewers we are trained to be told and not to be taught.
It could also be because there is very little emotional resonance - either visual or expository - in these scenes. Though I would admit that is not so true in Naomi Harris's (playing Tubbs' charming no nonsense love interest Trudy) and Jamie Foxx's love scene together. It's a scene that elegantly introduces how this film is defined by relationships, built and broken ones that reflect the two main characters. Again, it’s the wandering, exploring camera work and music that really makes the moment special, and it tenses and reinforces a later plot point in the film. However, it was not until Crockett and Tubbs encountered John Ortiz's antagonistic José Yero or 'Crazy Pig' did everything really pick back up for me again.
Not long after the whole crew gets thrown into the very throes and essences of undercover work does Crockett give a daring attempt at his own relationship with Isabella, a strict business woman involved with Montoya and his drug trade. From the get go when Tubbs briefly questions what his partner is doing, you know this is more desperation for connection and substance in Crockett's life rather than a life line into their investigation. This is another moment where the body and expressions plays as the dialogue. No more than a few sentences are traded between the two before the relationship becomes sexual, but if you ponder on Farrell's desperate eyes and Gong Li's assertive presence (that subtly softens every moment she's with Crockett) you can tell there is a lot there that they both want. It's a beautiful way of telling their stories, and if it wasn't for both actors’ exceptional abilities it wouldn't come off nearly as genuine.
In fact, most of the actors in this film are quite phenomenal. All of them have to be able to reflect their feelings without one word, and because of their proficiency and precision in doing such it all comes over as strong characterization. You believe Tubbs' latent ferocity in the third act just by the tensed and cold expression in his eyes. Montoya is the same way, and Mann seems to realize how unsettling Tosar's gaze can be since he always finds moments to linger on it. When Montoya is shown some incriminating evidence regarding Isabella and Crockett's relationship, you've seen his stare so many times that all the camera has to show is a beautifully framed shot of the back of his head. Just by pure instincts you know what he's thinking; and it isn't about puppies and kittens.
It is all this emotional build up from the characters that makes the action in Miami Vice so thrilling and unforgiving when it finally happens. There are two scenes in particular that reminds you this is the same man who orchestrated the bank shoot out in Heat. Sharp sounds rip and explode from the barrels of these guns too, and if that doesn't get your attention everything else will.
This review can't end without citing how lovely the film is in both look and composition. Miami certainly is a character in and of itself, with roaring, red thunder clouds filling the skies at night and hard saturating sunlight during day. It gives an imperfect charm to Miami and the other locations, making you want to book a plane to all of them. Mann is obviously (and always has been) in love with the landscapes he uses, and he takes every moment he can to make the experience of viewing them real and inspiring. People are going to be torn because of the digital camera use, however, especially its tendency to make night scenes look grainy. I find it strengthens the movie more than it hampers. I also find that Mann experimenting with different applications to both narrative and visuals is rousing and fresh. Hopefully, we won't just see him but also others following his lead in the near future.
When you walk into Miami Vice, don't expect the 80s glitz and glamour of the original. Don't expect some ceaseless action ride that hands you all the cards. Do expect to think, and do expect to drink in the bountiful amounts of intelligence, style, and innovations this film brings to the world of cinema. Michael Mann has created another fulfilling character study in the world of crime and conflict, and let us hope he will continue to do so for quite some time.
9 awesome speed boats out of 10 Continue reading Review: Miami Vice
News Round-Up: 8/4/06
Are you being served? Why yes, yes you are. Here's all the news that's fit to blog about.
Looks like Christian Bale, arguably the best Batman to fill the latex (that doesn't sound too awfully gay now does it?) is going to be putting on his chaps to star opposite Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma. I love me some westerns. I'm not sure if it's the guns, the spurs, or the sweaty horseflesh that does it for me. I also enjoy these two actors so this news doesn't hurt my feelings at all. James Mangold is directing and based on his background (Walk the Line, Identity, and Copland) I'm at least interested. Still in pre-production though so we'll see.Source: Hollywood Reporter
Universal will be paying for Hellboy 2. Production is set to start in April and everyone is coming back for a second helping. That's good to see, especially given studios' tendencies to go for cheaper talent on the second go 'round. And if you just can't wait to set your sweaty eyeballs on the Red Right Hand, there's an animated movie due to show on Cartoon Network this fall. It's the first of two and both DVDs will probably be out next year.Source: DelToro Films, Hellboy Animated
(Okay so this one's from yesterday. Get over it I'm new here.) Everything is bigger in Texas which is probably why J-Lo is out of the Dallas movie. She didn't want anything to make her ass look bigger. Now that she's gone Jennifer Garner may be coming back. Reportedly Jen didn't think it would be a good idea to star opposite her husband's ex-fiancee. They remade The Dukes now Dallas, why can't I get my big screen Love Boat?Source: GCN Continue reading News Round-Up: 8/4/06
The Great Movies: Heat
What makes a great movie? What are the special ingredients involved? How you define a truly great movie?
A great movie is something that does a jillion things at once: it enthralls you, it excites you, it fascinates you, it takes hold of your emotions and your state of mind and takes it through a proper journey with such a seamless construction that you don’t notice how good the technical aspects are because you’re so deeply wrapped up in the film.
At least, that’s how I see it. And by those qualities, Michael Mann’s Heat is a great movie.
In its posters and trailers, Heat was described as “A Los Angeles Crime Saga,” and that’s exactly what it is. Heat has more things going on in it than your average HBO series, all wrapped up in a two hours and fifty minute running time that makes it feel like ten minutes. But while it’s rightly called a saga, and while it has an ensemble cast that would make every director in the world envious, it’s really about two people.
In effect, these two people make up the normal halves of one person. Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna is chaos. Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley is order. And the film is designed to illustrate these two concepts working against each other, mirroring each other, until one starts to turn into the other, and vice versa. In your average cops ‘n’ robbers flick, the characters are usually essentially cartoons. Even in a very good one, like Lethal Weapon, the hero cop, no matter how suicidal or burnt out he is, is always going to do the business and come out with flying colours at the end, while the baddie is always a ruthless figure with henchmen out the wazoo, who pride themselves on showing how completely badass they are.
Hanna is someone who, as cliché as it still sounds, lives on the edge. He thrives for adrenaline, for the next rush, the next score, and isn’t about to let his crumbling home life get in the way. His wife is not only on drugs but sleeping with another man, and his step-daughter is a lost soul moving between two fathers, her biological, who never keeps his promises to see her, and Hanna, a man who is barely around to even make promises. Hanna is extravagant, he’s an extrovert, he’s someone who will make and break the rules as often as possible as long as he gets what he wants at the end of it. But in the swirling vortex that is his life, the only thing that he absolutely knows he wants is whichever criminal he’s chasing. That is his life, his family are his fellow officers. What he comes home to is a short release from that.
McCauley lives and dies by his own internal code. He is amazingly disciplined, and he knows exactly what he wants, and what is worth the risk. He’s smart enough to not be greedy, if there is a factor there that he’s unsure about, he’s not going to go for it, which makes him a master thief. He has no attachments other than his crew, and is always clear in his mind that there is nothing in his life he is not prepared to walk out on “when the heat is around the corner.” The first heist that McCauley’s crew pull is evidential of their discipline; they know exactly how much police response time they have, they know what to go for, and exactly how to do it. The only wild card element is Waingro, the new member of the crew. Because of this unsure factor, the heist immediately goes awry when he kills a security guard. The crew know then to kill the other guards to make sure there are no witnesses, and they do this without thought, but they know there has been a compromise in their discipline through this new member. And it’s telling that this one slip leads to McCauley’s eventual downfall.
The fascination Mann has with these characters is clear, and watching the film he treats these characters like Greek heroes, like Hector and Achilles, presiding over the film and all its strands like gods watching over their people. But what is equally fascinating is how similar these characters are, but yet how different, again, they’re two sides of the same coin, but two very different sides. Both are incredibly confident in themselves and their purpose, and both are adamant that they will win this war. You only have to look at the scene in the coffee shop, which is the spiritual centre of the movie. For example, the dialogue here:
Hanna: You know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular fellas. You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we've been face to face, if I'm there and I gotta put you away, I won't like it. But I tell you, if it's between you and some poor bastard whose wife you're gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down.
McCauley: There is a flip side to that coin. What if you do got me boxed in and I gotta put you down? Cause no matter what, you will not get in my way. We've been face to face, yeah. But I will not hesitate. Not for a second.
The brilliance of this scene, in the writing and the simple but effective framing, really brings out Mann’s talent, especially in composition. People always describe Mann’s movies as being action films, which isn’t true at all, but if you have to shoehorn Heat into that category, it’s the thinking man’s action movie. The scene is but a simple conversation, but through the subtle intensity of the performances and the cinematography, it’s the verbal equivalent of Mike Tyson going up against Muhammed Ali. Mann has the ability to effortlessly stage incredible action sequences, and he does when needed, but he demonstrates here that he knows that the characters are the heart and soul of the movie, and there is more about the characters that he can show here, even through body language, than a hundred gunfights.
But this scene is what really begins their relationship properly. They already know each other as pursuer and the pursued, but this is where they discover the bond they share, and how much of a mirror into their souls there really is. To use the oft-quoted Frederick Nietzsche quote, “when you stare into an abyss, the abyss stares at you,” Hanna is staring into the abyss and McCauley is staring right back at him. And nowhere is this more ably demonstrated that at the climax, where Hanna once again deserts his family to find McCauley and where they finally have their mano-a-mano shootout. But when Hanna guns McCauley down, there’s no huge cheer, no mass exhale of relief and triumph. Hanna simply holds McCauley’s hand to firmly establish the connection both characters feel. While not wanting to sound airy fairy, it’s here where the soul finally connects, where the two men become one. And you get the sense that Hanna wants to go too, so he can endlessly pursue McCauley in whatever afterlife they might possibly have to look forward to.
But how they both get to that end is equally fascinating, and comes with both of their lives shifting over to resemble the other’s previous. McCauley’s first comes with Eady, the woman he meets in the café. While at first it might seem like him to be a one-night-stand, she immediately connects with him, and for what we assume is the first time, he starts to waver, to think about his internal code. While his intention to walk out as soon as possible is still foremost in his mind, Eady sows the tiny seed of doubt, which leads to him taking her with him as he means to leave. But even before that, chaos has already seeped into his life, with the central bank heist scene.
Technically, the scene is impeccable. It’s shot amazingly well, it’s probably the most intense shootout you’ll ever see, and the sound design is absolutely incredible. You never believe for a second that you’re anywhere but on that street as it takes place. But thematically, this is where it starts to break down. Several members of the crew are shot, two are killed, and it all goes to hell. As McCauley attempts to put the pieces back together, he breaks his code completely, for one reason: revenge. He has the opportunity to get away with Eady, but because of what has happened, he can’t put it out of his mind. And the person he wants revenge on? Waingro.
Waingro tortures Trejo and kills his wife, and forces him to rat on McCauley and the gang, then causing the aforementioned heist upset by tipping off the cops. McCauley finds this out by visiting a near-death Trejo, and then goes off to have his vengeance, which brings everything full circle. McCauley kicks Waingro out after the screw-up with the first heist, Waingro rats on their next heist, and McCauley uses up his exit time to find Waingro. That he kills him is inconsequential, the damage is already done because Hanna finds McCauley at the airport after McCauley hits the alarms in the hotel where Waingro is.
But the tragedy of all this is the women that get left behind. Eady is just left at the airport, a naïve and lonely woman who fell for the first man who showed interest and is now another casualty of the chaos that has befallen McCauley’s life. Hanna’s wife Justine attempts to repair their relationship, but even Hanna admits that he doesn’t know whether or not he can do it. But left on the sidelines is their daughter, a little girl lost who has to slit her wrists to finally get the attention she deserves.
Mann gets a lot of flack for his female characters, but they’re never anything less than believable here. Justine in particular has some amazing dialogue, and the sheer futileness of their relationship is really illustrated through it. Eady is portrayed exactly as she is; the lonely girl in a big city just looking for a friend.
Technically, the film is incredible. The cinematography is amazing, the editing seamlessly intercuts all these different characters and relationships, and the sound design is out of this world. Mann has always been great at picking music, and it’s never better here, with some great work by Eliott Goldenthal (Alien 3) and Moby as well as a ton of other artists, all of which have ample space on my iPod because of it.
The acting is brilliant across the board. Of course, the two leads of Pacino and De Niro are the spine and soul of the film, and they are both incredible. But there are great supporting turns from Tom Sizemore (how the mighty have fallen), Ted Levine, William Fichtner, even Henry Rollins. And the triumvirate of women, Diane Venora, Natalie Portman and Amy Brenneman hold the other side of the picture together, the side of the forlorn and the casualties of war that had nothing to do with gunfights.
But it all comes back to Hanna and McCauley. These two characters, through writing and acting, are indelibly and firmly embedded in our mind. They hold the movie together, they overlook it like opposing storms, they provide all the order and chaos, all the meat of the story that the narrative flows from. And it’s the mirroring journey of these two characters that Heat provides that really moves us, that really speaks to us. And that’s what all great movies should do.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
DVD Review: The 40 Year-Old Virgin (R2)
I think, to a degree, we all know someone who’s an Andy. That guy – or gal – who seems terminally square, who never fails to say hi to everyone in the workplace but is never, ever seen at social functions, who is always the subject at said work-related social functions of several conversations questioning either his or her sexual experience or orientation. They’re never mean-spirited but more a result of amazement coming from – I don’t want to say us “normal” people – but us who have enjoyed many sexual experiences in our lives. It's because of this real-life occurrence – and the fact that we were all there at some point, regardless of age – that Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year-Old Virgin works so beautifully.
The Flick
Andy (the absolutely brilliant Steve Carell) is the forty year-old virgin of the title. His life is built around routine, he lives on his own surrounded by a cavalcade of Playstation games and action figures, and his idea of a great weekend is making an egg salad sandwich. Working at an electronics retailer with a team of off-beat weirdos, it’s not until Andy finally attends a social gathering – in this case an after-hours poker game – that his three “friends” – Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco – discover that he really has never done the horizontal mambo, and set out on a quest to make sure that Andy gets well and truly laid. However, Andy doesn’t count on meeting Trish, a single-mother who he doesn’t see as a simple lay, but perhaps a vision of his future.
Being perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie. Having several people from the fantastic Anchorman involved, I didn’t know if it would be an out-and-out wacko comedy like that, or something more approaching American Pie (which I cannot stand). Thankfully, this flick is nothing like American Pie. What makes The 40 Year-Old Virgin so great is that – while being full of wonderful moments of comedy – it never treats the title character with anything but compassion. You’re rooting for Andy the minute you find out about his “problem,” and the film is constructed so well that you never stop until he gets to the inevitable climax – pun very much intended.
Obviously, the film is all about growth. I don’t see it as being a big “oh, don’t have toys and don’t be a nerd” deal, but rather a tale of growth and obtaining balance. There’s one moment that really sums this up, where Andy is about to do the deed with Trish, and is still nervous as hell. Previous to this, he’s been getting ready to sell his toy collection on eBay, in view to opening his own store with the proceeds. So nervous, he lashes out at Trish for making her sell his toys and change his life, and it’s a defining moment, cause we feel sorry for him because as the audience we know his predicament but it’s also the one time we also see him as a dick. He’s scared, and he makes a brilliant metaphorical comment about the box of the toy having to be pristine, and if it gets blemished, the toy inside is spoilt.
We all know what this is like. Change scares Andy because he’s human, and like Garth once said, we fear change, especially when it’s as big a lifechange as what Andy is going through. And when we’re scared, we get stupid and angry and we lash out. It’s such an honest moment, and really, it’s moments like that scene that really make this film. Sure, it’s a comedy through and through, but it’s not a comedy for the sake of being a comedy, if that makes sense. This movie has an abundance of heart and something real to say, and in a time where Cheaper By The Dozen Part 14 rules the box office, that’s really rare.
But yes, this is a comedy, and while not wanting to sound like your average pull-quoting critic, it’s outrageously funny. It’s observational comedy, and everything is rooted in the things that we all go through as a growing person, and because of that, we’re not only laughing but also cringing, mainly because we feel sorry for Andy but also because we know what this is like. From picking up an incredibly drunk chick and ending up with vomit on the face to being caught with a box o’ porn, we know what this is all like. And it just makes it that little bit funnier.
But what really makes the film are the performances. Steve Carell has always been brilliant – his role as Brick in Anchorman is one of the most consistently funny things about that movie – but here he shows his quality not only as a comedic actor but as a dramatic actor. Catherine Keener as Trish is the one real anchor in the film, and she’s brilliant. Very sexy, and genuinely nice, and you can see that she’s a great match for Andy.
And of course, there are the guys who surround Andy. Paul Rudd has always been a favourite, and he’s hysterical here, as well as a little bit sad. Romany Malco is someone I’d never heard of before this flick, but he’s brilliant here, giving new life and dimension to the streetwise homie/playa stereotype. But really standing out is Seth Rogan, who seems to play the only truly normal person in the film. I wasn’t overly familiar with him before, but he nails this role so well, it’s only a matter of time before he really starts to break out.
Special mention must go to Best In Show’s Jane Lynch, whose subtle off-kilter manager is hilarious, and also very, very unsettling. Especially in the ‘fuck buddy’ scene. I also have to give props to the hysterically named Gerry Bednob, whose work as Mooj assures me that I’ll never think of the words “Cincinnati” and “bowtie” the same way ever again.
And the ending... it's just spectacular. I've never been able to watch Bollywood movies, but this gives me hope I might one day enjoy them.
Audio/Visual
The usual anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 Dolby Digital. Looks fine and sounds great, but you’re never going to get a demo disc from a flick like this, nor should you.
Extras
Disappointing. I would’ve liked a commentary and maybe some docu footage as with the American release (this is the R2 edition), but all you get are a bunch of deleted scenes with commentary from Seth Rogan and director Judd Apatow. They’re all hilarious as expected, with a particular favourite being an extension of the “You know how I know you’re gay?” scene, but I would’ve liked a little more meat, although it’s nice to see some HULK love. I guess we UK folk miss out yet again.
It’s also worth noting that this is an “unrated” edition with seventeen extra minutes, although since this is the first time I’ve seen the movie, I have no idea what the extra material is.
Final Thoughts
A truly honest and sweet flick that is full of hilarity, movies like The 40 Year-Old Virgin are hard to come by, so this should be at the top of your purchase list. Just don’t wait until you’re forty to see it.
Movie: 9/10
Disc: 7/10
Continue reading DVD Review: The 40 Year-Old Virgin (R2)
Geek Pin-Up #7: Pam Grier
She's the bodacious stack of chocolate dynamite that blew up the screen in drive-ins and urban hardtops throughout the 70's, and she's still going strong today. From the moment she appeared in Jack Hill's women's prison classic The Big Doll House, smacking down fellow prisoners, improvising the classic rejoinder "That's Miss N**** to you," and even belting out the soulful theme song "Long Time Woman," she's made an indeliable mark on American Cinema.
Her partnership with director Jack Hill was a fruitful one throughout the 70's. Most notably, in Coffy, she blazed a bloody trail of vengeance across the silver screen, blowing heads off with a sawed-off, delivering deadly doses of dangerous drugs, and spiking her afro with razorblades. In the follow-up, Foxy Brown, and in similar films through the decade, she continued to kick ass on anyone foolish enough to cross her.
And look at that body, that masterpiece of God's architecture, that improbable anthology of curves! How slight todays thin, demure starlets seem when placed next to this grindhouse goddess!
Years of working in B-movies paid off in 1997, when Quentin Tarantino brought her into the mainstream with her starring role in Jackie Brown, rescuing her from a future of small, thankless roles in movies like Mars Attacks! and Escape from L.A.. Not only did she give a remarkably complete performance, but she looked almost as good pushing 50 as she did as an up-and-comer. She continues to do strong work, most notably as an alchoholic soul singer on The L Word, and will no doubt continue to grow as an actor, although deep down, we'll always think of her with a gun in her hand and a wah-wah pedal on the soundtrack.
Click on the image for a bigger, slightly-NSFW image. Continue reading Geek Pin-Up #7: Pam Grier
Die Hard With An Awful Title
I love Hollywood. Just when you think it can't get any worse, they surprise you by plumbing the horrific depths that result in what I'm about to tell you. Now, we reported a while back that Len Wiseman, director of classic shitpile Underworld, was in talks to direct a fourth Die Hard movie. That has now been confirmed, along with a bit of casting news, but more importantly, the worst title in the history of the world. I speak of Live Free Or Die Hard.
Now we're told Justin Long is apparently playing John McClane's son, and because I haven't seen Long in anything but the amazing Galaxy Quest, I can't really make a valid judgement on his ability. But I sat through Underworld, so I can glady make a call on Len Wiseman's directorial ability, or lack thereof. But we're here to talk titles.
Now let's look at this one again. Live Free Or Die Hard. Live Free Or Die Hard. Repeat it a few times. It's terrible. It's a different kind of terrible to The Dark Knight, a weird-attempt-at-being-cool title which just doesn't work at all. The only way it could possibly be a good title is if you added the Batman prefix and put Returns on the end. I don't really care whether it would infringe on Frank Miller's book, cause let's face it, there ain't never gonna be a movie version of that. But Live Free Or Die Hard... jesus.
I mean, Die Hard 4.0 wasn't a terrible title. Hollywood seems to have gotten away from naming sequels with just numbers, and I'm not sure why. Then again, the one movie I wish could've kept its rumoured non-numbered name (The Amazing Spider-Man) was released as plain old Spider-Man 2, so what do I know?
Live Free Or Die Hard (snigger) is released on June 29 2007.
Source: Variety, USA Today
Continue reading Die Hard With An Awful Title
James Cameron Wetas His Beak
AICN is finally confirming that special effects powerhouse Weta Digital, the wizards responsible for the awe-inspiring work seen in both Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and King Kong, will indeed be behind the vfx, creatures, and digital environs of James Cameron's highly-anticipated sci-fi epic, Avatar.
And... and... damn. I have no clever joke for you.
;_;
The official press release:
Wellington, NZ (August 3, 2006) — Avatar brings together the industry’s top visual effects talents. Academy Award® winner Joe Letteri and Weta Digital have signed on to create visual effects, creatures and digital environments for James Cameron’s much-anticipated and innovative new motion picture, Avatar.
“Weta has proven themselves a leader in visionary effects, especially in the area of performance capture based character animation, which is a big part of my new film,” says writer/director James Cameron. Cameron continues “Along with their world-class capability comes a genuine passion to blaze new trails and to entertain a global audience with groundbreaking techniques. I'm really looking forward to the collaboration with Joe and his team.”
Academy Award® winning producer Jon Landau adds “Weta has an incredible depth of creative talent that has continually proven their ability to create technological innovations that allow filmmakers to tell stories which could not otherwise be told. They have the unique ability to seamlessly integrate these technologies into the movie in ways that the audience never questions the reality of the cinematic presentation. We look forward to pushing Joe and his team even further down the road of photorealistic visual effects.”
“Avatar tells a new kind of story in a world we’ve never seen before,” says Weta Digital’s Senior Visual Effects Supervisor, Joe Letteri. “It demands a whole new set of film-making techniques. Jim is known for that kind of originality, and we’re excited to be doing this film with him.” Weta will draw on the expertise it developed for such ground-breaking films as Peter Jackson’s King Kong and The Lord of the Rings trilogy to bring Avatar to the screen.
There still isn't much known about Avatar itself since Cameron and company are keeping their lips sealed pretty tightly. And though I don't think anyone really expected shit visuals from one of the pioneering directors in modern special effects, it's still very good news to hear that Weta (arguably the best digital fx house working in film today) is tackling the project. King Kong (which I hearted so much) might be overlong, indulgent, and sentimental (all things I seem to enjoy), but the work done with the big ape himself, Andy Serkis, and the whole motion capture process could arguably be the most groundbreaking thing in CGI since Cameron's The Abyss, ironically.Anyway, knowing Cameron's rather loooooong process in getting films made (and considering he's also in pre-production for his other huge sci-fi flick Battle Angel Alita), hopefully we'll get to see Avatar in theaters sometime before we all die of global warming, giant fucking insects, or whatever.
Source: AICN Continue reading James Cameron Wetas His Beak
Little Men
Aww! Wudgee wudgee woo! Aren't they cute together? I knew they'd be friends, the little terrors. Now, you two play nice while the adults talk downstairs. And Jackie? Don't fall over again, OK? Love!
Little Jackie Chan and Littler Jet Li are teaming up to appear in a film together in a film called Rob-B-Hood. This will presumably involve stealing from rich people and giving to poor people which is fine by me as I am a homosexual communist and poor. The way to make me rich and heterosexual is to click on our ads 100,000 times. Every day. You'd do that for me, right?
Anyway, adorable Jackie managed to get entire words out of his tiny mouth when he said the film would be action oriented so that "it will be more american-style". This sounds like they are trying to make another Rush Hour, buddy-cop-action-comedy-type-thing which deserves a slap of its own (some things can stay in the 80's, thank you) but I'm mostly calling out Jet Li when he said this year's Fearless would be his last fighty-type film.
Maybe he meant serious-toned-excessive-violence type movies, or maybe kung-fu type movies, or mostly-bald-haircut type movies but I and most other people took it to mean Fearless would be the last time we got to see Jet Li kicking and punching people. So if there is just one punch thrown in Rob-B-Hood I'm going to go up to the cuddly-wuddly Jet Li and give him such a fucking slap. Then he'll cry and I'll feel bad, but you have to give them firm boundaries or they'll never learn.
Source: The Associated Press Continue reading Little Men
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Iron Man Should Hustle And Flow
AICN has a really interesting rumor that's come to their attention regarding the casting for the Jon Favreau's upcoming Iron Man film. It's a rumor that teases one to something interesting, but ultimately lets the person down with what you would expect.
The rumor is that of Terence Howard being considered for a role in the Iron Man flick. Almost immediately everyone will assume he's being considered for James Rupert Rhodes, the best friend and pilot to Tony Stark who later dons his own armor and becomes War Machine. That's all well and good, and the casting is rather expected but above average of all those ridiculous Ving Rhames fan casting (seriously, does every grizzled black guy have to be played by Ving Rhames or Sam Jackson?). But I much rather have Howard as Stark, and really think it's a waste of talent to put him in that back up role.
Favreau has said that he's looking for an unknown to play Stark, which is a very smart and safe move. Tony Stark has his character moments and his one-dimensional flaws that set him apart from others, but compared to other Marvel characters he's rather undercooked. It's always nice to have a fresh face in the role as well, because, if they're good, you'll never think of the actor but rather the character. Much like in Daredevil or Ghost Rider (two films, one that has sucked and one that will suck harder) the character of Iron Man is not as well known, and whoever plays him has plenty of room to breathe and truly make the character his own personal mark. I think Howard has already nailed shades of the authoritative and conflicted type in Hustle and Flow. A sense of command and confidence came with the Djay role, and when you get right down to it that is what Stark should be. Charisma is another aspect of Stark that should be considered, but I think Howard has plenty of that as well.Chances of Howard being Stark are pretty much zero, though. Favreau, if he even considered this, probably would not be too eager to sell Howard as Stark. Trying to do such a thing to thousands of dedicated Marvel readers who get upset about the smallest of changes, let alone turning an old time favorite's race around, would be near suicidal.
Let us hope at least that someone like Ken Watanabe is considered for the Mandarin role. Just as long as he isn't terribly wasted like in Batman Begins.
Source: AICN Continue reading Iron Man Should Hustle And Flow
Pixellated Rebellion - 8/2/06
Welcome to the fourth edition of this column consisting of terrible jokes and even worse writing. Still, you should read it. I really can't think of a decent reason. I guess because there's some chick's ass down there. That's the best I got.
YEAH, BUT THE BOOTH BABES WERE HOT
E3 would probably be the second biggest convention when it comes to epic magnitudes of shameful nerd seducing and copious amounts of entertainment whoring. So you can imagine how big a deal it was when on Sunday the rumor about its cancellation or revamp flew across every gaming news site known to man. And much like a snowball going down a hill or that weird collection of shit I see for those silly looking Katamari Damacy games, it started to grow bigger and bigger.This is the kind of news that causes bloggers to rampage across the internet and message boards to explode with "Why now? What is the point? When will I be supplied with cool ranch Doritos along with my pizza? Where will booth babes go to now?" I can confidently say I will answer all those questions through out this little piece, except the booth babes one. I imagine they will all just culminate in an alley near the old convention center and create a new geek themed red light district. Yay for unsavory sex!
Now the why of the matter is easy: it costs too much money. Though I've never been to an E3, all the stories I hear about it involve lots of noise and lots and lots of waiting. Developers and publishers usually spend somewhere in the millions of dollars pimping their games and equipment. On top of that they also take a chunk of time from game development for the sake of E3. When it's all said and done they're set back in both cash and time for their primary projects. All that time and money Nintendo spent pimping the Wii could probably have gone to getting it finished by now. This also goes for the stupid games like Reservoir Dogs, which also could have been out earlier so we could all have ridiculed it into obscurity sooner.
The point you ask? Well my dear chum, the point of revamping the show is to pretty much give it back to business and away from the geeks. As of Monday all the news surrounding the event has reported a revamp to around 5,000 people instead of the horde of flabby flesh it was before. A new show floor is also in order, probably centralized in a hotel conference room of some sort. This much is said in comments by the ESA president Doug Lowenstein, courtesy of Kotaku:
"Where the old E3 was a thing of multi-million dollar booths crowded in the mammoth Los Angeles Convention Center during May, the new E3 will be a smaller, more intimate by-invitation-only event likely held in a hotel lobby."
This all makes sense and really is for the better. I was always under the assumption that E3 was primarily an affair for journalists, developers, and publishers of the industry. As the years went on, however, more and more of the common folk found their way in and it evolved into something completely different.
I can’t help but think there were also a couple of factors that spilled this into the red because of the last E3, thus finally motivating the change and drop out by publishers. Besides what seems to be a miserable experience for anyone in the industry (until Sony supplies the free drinks to drown everyone’s hate away) there were other little instances during this year's gathering. For instance the NCSoft booth got particularly rowdy, earning the publisher a 5,000 dollar fine for the noise it created with its stage show involving fucking fire-swallowing and dragon dancing. Such a thing is a perfect example as to why it needed to change, seeing as how the place shouldn’t be some sort of circus attraction.
The other big one that caused plenty of nerds' crotches to weep when it was announced was the strict clothing regulations on women in an effort to dissuade the booth babe extravaganza. This respectable writer found that when he googled for “E3” to get some pictures for his classy column, a bevy of asses and tits flew at the screen assaulting him.
The enforcement really didn't fall through too well when the ESA put it into effect, and though some people were turned away from the show floor for showing too much skin, most of the time they seemed to be right where they used to be. Things like the booth babe angle seemed to take even more attention off the publishers' battle for supremacy, and actually is what sometimes makes the conference famous instead of, you know, the video games. Besides, when Ubi Soft has Jade Raymond simultaneously controlling the mind of vulnerable geeks and promoting their games I doubt they need the booth babes too. It's kind of like shooting geeks with a giant rocket launcher full of awkward erections.
With all the evidence piled up and publishers strongly in support of the move its easy to see why E3, now dubbed the 'E3 Media Festival' (which could forebode terrible mixtures of other entertainment with the video games, defeating the whole purpose, really) needed the giant list of changes and ultimate revamp.
Oh, and you'll get your ranch Doritos next week. Fatty.
THE SECRET WII
Supposedly, Nintendo is gearing up some sort of secret cross-country tour where they will be previewing their new Wii console. The details are very scarce at the moment with the assumption the whole thing might be announced in Germany on August 28th making it not so secret. This is actually a really neat way to get publicity, and though I think someone else might have done this before it still seems rather refreshing. I actually think this is something that should be done more often, as most of us peasants very rarely get a taste of the console in action before we buy it.With that in mind there has been a testing for the console in London that was reported on. It's enlightening as to what should be expected with some of the smaller Wii titles. The line-up that was reviewed looks to be fun and it has a lot of important information about the technicality and control of the console itself. Mind you, a lot of these titles are the ones that probably won't make or break this console's launch, that job will probably go to games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It's still nice to see some more information on how the process is coming along.
I always like to keep everyone updated on the Wii, and you can bet if that cross-country tour comes anywhere near here (unlikely, but plausible) I'll try to see if I can smuggle myself in.
THE GAME WILL PROBABLY SUCK ANYWAY
It seems the fuzz is really pissed at the Reservoir Dogs video game. They aren't the first ones apparently, since Australia already banned the game about a month ago. This continues the popular trend of people fearing video games will overthrow the innocent and turn them into horrible ear-cutting maniacs. It also continues the trend of finding video games that will probably really, really suck and not too many people will even bother playing as an example of video game violence.The Yorkshire Post explains why they have a beef:
"Players can take police officers hostage and go on to burn out their eyes with a lit cigar, chop off their fingers with a cigar cutter, and hack off their ears using a scalpel, while [the police officers] plead for their lives and scream in pain."
Sweet Jesus that's horrible. It is just like the movie. Dear God, how will we stop this from being exposed to people before it's too late?
GameSpot's post goes on to mention a few of the other games that have gotten a lot of violent backlash because of the gruesome content, most notably Grand Theft Auto getting protested against by prostitutes. Which, I really don't know how to joke about without either guaranteeing my passage to Hell or being lynched by angry pimps and hookers. However, that would be a neat way to go. When I'm dead I can brag I got killed by hundreds of prostitutes. That's practically having sex.
In all seriousness the Reservoir Dogs game doesn't look good, didn't need to be made, and is being marketed in a ridiculous fashion of claiming you will be able to explain the mysteries from the movie. It pretty much defeats the whole charm in the film by showing what happened to Mr. Pink and where he put the diamonds. Or what happened at the bank and where Mr. Blue went (which suggests in the trailer that he just shot a whole bunch of people and blew things up) and all that other fun stuff that made you like the movie in first place. It's something that games have been doing or suggested to do recently. They might do this with the Heat video game as well, and even though Michael Mann is involved with it, I can't really support the idea of it. I would ultimately suggest just doing a completely different story, like Escape from Butcher Bay
Expect a Pulp Fiction game out soon, where they reveal the suitcase was filled with something very uninspired and boring. And then you get to shoot things.
WORTHWHILE RELEASES OF THE WEEK
Flatout 2 (PS2, XBOX, PC) – August 1, 2006
The first Flatout is just blind anarchy and pure fun. I played many, many hours of it with friends as we wildly crashed into each other and gave a roaring ensemble of guffaws as if we were video game Vikings. The second one seems to expand on a lot of the mini-games from the first and has a much more mainstream soundtrack. I would suggest this if you have a few friends to play with online or even better in a LAN environment.
Dungeon Siege II: Broken Worlds (PC) – August 1, 2006
Dungeon Siege II was terribly underwhelming. What was marketed as being some sort of epic battle and RPG experience turned out to be exactly like the first one, only with very bad voice acting and generic fantasy story #233124. I can tell you the expansion will not give you anymore reason to buy the game, and if you want a decent RPG experience with a generic setting just get Oblivion instead.
Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting (X360) – August 2, 2006
God, I would kill for an Xbox 360 just to play this. The experience of playing people online in Street Fighter II is about the closest I would get to the old days of that musty smell of sweat on the cabinets in the local arcade and the hundreds of dollars I probably spent while there. Luckily, you only have to pay about ten dollars for this Xbox Live Arcade release, and that really is worth it.
GAME OF UNHEALTHY ANTICIPATION
Yakuza (PS2) – September 2006
Punch stuff! Kick stuff! Be Japanese! Listen to Mark Hamill's voice acting!
All this and more will be available in Toshihiro Nagoshi's (that Japanese guy that made Super Monkey Ball and looks like a crispy meth addict) Yakuza. The game basically allows you to delve into a rendition of the life of a Yakuza, and is written by an actual novelist. More or less it is an adventure beat 'em up that seems to have a tolerable story supporting it and a fair bit of exploration into the Japanese criminal underground. When the fighting starts, apparently that's when it gets good, as you can use near everything around you as a weapon. Most of the trailers aren't that well cut, but I like what I see of the simplicity and brutality in the fights.
The voice acting seems to be pretty bad in the trailers, though, and a lot of people are clamoring for the original Japanese language track to be included with subtitles. I'd probably want the same thing, but to be honest, while the story may be nice, I don't think that will be the appeal of this game. The combat and the look of the world will probably be enough to get anyone who likes good old fashioned beat 'em ups or fighting games to play it. With a game like this it looks like the fun will be more important than the plotting and story, and that is not necessarily a bad thing as long as the gameplay lives up to the hype.
Well that's it for this short edition of Pixellated Rebellion, come back next time when I might do some follow ups to a few things I wrote last week, and maybe make some jokes that are actually funny. Continue reading Pixellated Rebellion - 8/2/06
Interview: Takeshi Kitano
Note: This interview was originally conducted for the now-defunct magazine Movie Insider. So as it's never really had a huge circulation, we thought we'd throw it up here for all to see.
Takeshi Kitano is part TV personality, actor, comedian and auteur filmmaker, and one of Japan's most revered celebrities. But what made him want to take on a reimagining of his country's most famous film series?
Takeshi Kitano looks exactly the same in person as he does as his popular film persona of the ice-cold Yakuza henchman. Quiet, unassuming, and going through cigarettes like they're sweets. But he's also charming, humble, and very, very funny, and full of enthusiasm as he talks about his latest project, a reinvention of the popular Japanese samurai drama ZATOICHI.
"The project was proposed to me quite unexpectedly," he explains, "by Madame Chieko Saito (one of Kitano's mentors and the executive producer and self-proclaimed "Mama" on the original ZATOICHI series). She was a very good friend of Shintaro Katsu, who starred in the original episodes of ZATOICHI." Running from 1962 to 1989, ZATOICHI's nearest equivalent in the West is the James Bond series, but if Bond had been played by Connery for all twenty-one films. Kitano was understandably hesitant. "She asked me if I would make a ZATOICHI sequel. It sounded interesting because I had never directed a period piece. When she asked me to play the lead character, I panicked. There was no way I was going to replace Mr Katsu! I politely declined, but Madame Saito wouldn't take no for an answer." Kitano agreed, but he had one major condition: "My condition to do this movie and to direct and star was 'Okay, I'm going to keep the name of the movie and the character of Zatoichi and he will be a blind masseur, and a swordmaster. That's as much as I will be faithful to the original, and everything else would be entirely my own creation, and would that be okay?' and she said 'Yes, whatever you say.' That was the starting point."A veteran in Japanese showbusiness since his beginnings in 1972 as part of the comedy act The Two Beats, Kitano has played many different parts in his career, with his part in the popular manzai (stand-up comedy) leading to appearances on television, before his breakout role in Nagisa Oshima's MERRY CHRISTMAS MR LAURENCE, which displayed his talent for serious roles. That lead to a chance directing position on 1989's VIOLENT COP, which then began his career as Takeshi Kitano, director alongside Beat Takeshi, actor and comedian. But while Kitano's work has been acclaimed the world over, with his film HANA-BI/FIREWORKS winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, he's never had a hit in Japan. It could all change with ZATOICHI, Kitano's most accessible film to date. However, the purists might have something to say about Kitano's approach to the revered series.
"Embarrassingly enough I don't know so much about it (ZATOICHI)," Kitano remonstrates, "and I'm not too crazy about acquiring my knowledge about ZATOICHI. I did whatever I want in my movie, so it's not like I consciously tried to disrupt or deconstruct the original or add something to it, I just don't know enough about ZATOICHI to do those things. I don't really care about what the original is, and what would be a faithful restoration of the original or something like that. I saw no point in trying to impersonate his (Mr Katsu) version of Zatoichi. I set out to create a new version that would be as different as possible both physically and psychologically. My Zatoichi is actually a pretty eccentric person. He has platinum blonde hair and a blood-red cane sword. Also, in terms of mentality, my Zatoichi is far more emotionally detached from the other characters. Mr Katsu's Zatoichi was more about almost heart-warming relationships he made with the good guys and meek town people. Mine doesn't fully mingle with the good guys. He just keeps slaying bad guys!"However, whilst ZATOICHI is able to slay bad guys left right and centre, he's also blind as a bat, which gave Kitano a considerable problem when it came to shooting. "Usually when I act in movies, I'm not really good at memorizing my lines at all so I usually ask the AD or PA to put up a huge board where my lines are written in bold letters, so I can glimpse during the take and I can do my dialogue without memorizing everything. I obviously couldn't do that with my eyes closed, and of course the swordfighting was difficult, so we did quite a few rehearsals and tests of the movements beforehand, and with your eyes closed you cannot judge distance with yourself and the actors that are coming to get you, so in the rehearsal I was supposed to hunch to this angle, but instead I hunched farther, and because of that an opponents sword was swung this close to my eye, and I nearly become a real life Zatoichi myself."
During the sword-fighting scenes, Kitano also employed the use of CG blood to add to his vision of ZATOICHI as a larger than life almost cartoonish story. As he explains, "I did use real prop blood and a blood pumping tank during filming, and while I was watching the rushes of the more realistic blood pumping scenes, I thought it was too realistic and painful in a way, so I decided to exaggerate the blood splattering to give it a more videogame look, because otherwise it would be too painful and too cruel a depiction. I have not felt comfortable using (CGI) in my films in the past. But to use it in a period piece, it can give the film an almost cartoon-like tone, which is more suitable."Keeping in line with his control on all his films, Kitano not only directed and starred in ZATOICHI, but also wrote the screenplay, edited the film and choreographed the lightning fast swordfighting scenes. If you thought KILL BILL and THE MATRIX RELOADED had some fast moves, they're the comparative snails compared to ZATOICHI. As Kitano explains, "Sword fights are all about timing. You can't be slow. I had to be fast. To capture the swift sword movements, we used both a high speed and regular camera. The advantage of using two cameras simultaneously is that if one camera doesn't catch a certain moment, you have to rely on the other. We had a sword fighting choreographer on the set, but I ended up choreographing almost all the sword-fighting myself. I didn't want the scenes to resemble those in past films where you can tell the same combinations are being used. I was very conscious about giving the right tempo and speed and rhythm to the whole movie, and perhaps that affect the way I edit the movie, and also probably the way I choreograph and shoot the swordfighting scenes. I was very conscious about the speed and tempo and rhythm of the movie."
While ZATOICHI is a period movie, it has a very contemporary feel to it, especially with the issue of transvestism and the hip-hop tap-dancing style rhythm that runs throughout the film. So how did Kitano approach infusing these elements into a classic samurai film? "Well, actually transvestite male person or even tap dancing are not new in Japanese history, because of tradition in Japanese traditional activity like Kabuki where the female actors are banned from appearing on stage. You use the young boys to play the female characters in Kabuki play, so cross dressing or transvestite existed in Japan in Edo era. When I completed one of the first drafts of the movie, there was only Zatoichi and bad guys and the ronin in the story. And then Madam Saito came up to me and she recommended this young actor who cross dresses on stage and handed me his picture and said 'Takeshi, would you be using him in the movie, he's a kid and he's really good.' Well, I think about it, and basically I didn't know what to do with him. A teenage actor who is good at cross dressing, where would I put him? And then I come up with this transvestite geisha. But you cannot just have a transvestite geisha on his own in the movie, so I created his older sister geisha, and let them become one pair, the wandering geisha.""Tap dancing again, they have similar form of tap dancing back then where the Kabuki actors would wear wooden clogs and just stomp on the wooden floor to make a sound, and all these existed for real in Japanese history. But what I did with them in ZATOICHI was taking out all these existing ideas and historical fact and to somehow rearrange them in a modern form, or my interpretation to use them as a cinematic element." Kitano used The Stripes, an incredibly famous tap dancing group who are the Japanese equivalent of Stomp, to help with the rhythm of the film, as well as the music. "Before composer Keiichi Suzuki can work on the score, we have to shoot the rhythm performance scenes fast, so I ask The Stripes to compose a basic rhythm patterns of those scenes, including the tap-dancing scenes. So what I asked of Mr Suzuki was to make full use of the existing rhythm track and sound sample that The Stripes composed and to put something on top of it. For me personally, Mr Kantsu's original ZATOICHI is a bit too long and a bit too boring, because it's slow paced all over in terms of tempo. So for my movie I didn't want the audience to go 'Wow, boring, too long, too slow', so I was again very conscious about doing a comfortable rhythm."
But how do you approach the writing of such an ambitious project? "Well, not just about ZATOICHI but with all my other movies, I usually come up with four images like four strip cartoon comics that you see in newspapers that have the beginning, development, twist, and ending. First I will come up with these four basic, basic, basic images and I will implement the in-betweens by adding the detail, that's how I always proceed with a script. So what I would do afterwards is to shoot the scene in accordance with the shooting script and then once I finish shooting, I would rethink on how to sequence that footage, so it often happens during the editing to switch the order of the scenes, and do a lot of editorial changes, even during the editing, after I finish the shoot. What I want do someday in my movie is to come up with a script, shoot the whole thing, and during editing scrunch up the whole footage that I shot, randomly, and just pick randomly the rushes and put that in order of your original choice and to make one film out of it, and to make the audience understand the whole film and the story, and that would be the birth of cubism in the movies."Along with Kitano, starring in the film is the popular actor Tadanobu Asano, who appeared with Kitano in the homosexual samurai drama GOHATTO, and most notoriously as the charismatic sado-masochist Kakihara in Takeshi Miike's controversial ICHI THE KILLER. Asano is seen in Japan as the heir to Kitano's 'throne of cool', and in ZATOICHI is the title character's main nemesis. However, Kitano took a deeper look at the life of the Ronin in the film, while almost ignoring his own character. "Well, maybe in normal cinema I should depict the background of the main character," he says, "but at the time of the production of the movie I really didn't think that far about Zatoichi's character, because it's a film icon and cliché amongst Japanese cinema, and I simply just didn't bother to depict his background, because he could just be sitting there like in the opening scene. At that time, I didn't really think about Europe or that, so I thought okay I have to depict the background of this Ronin and how he ended up becoming lawless, but it was not in my mind during the whole process of production. After the film was completed, I saw looking at the whole movie ZATOICHI almost looks like an outsider."
Kitano has always been seen as almost two people, with the director Takeshi Kitano sharing a life with the entertainer Beat Takeshi. How does he feel about this? "Well it's not so much a dual or multiple personality I feel, it's more like 'Okay, comedian Beat Takeshi Japanese national star and Takeshi Kitano actor in serious movies or serial killer or all these psychopath characters and Takeshi Kitano the director' and all of those are like to me like marionettes, and the real me is more like a manager or producer or manipulator who is thinking 'Okay, for the next job it's gotta be comedian Beat Takeshi, so there you go.' and basically manipulating these marionettes from above, and that's what I feel about this personality thing."Equally fascinating is the connection with the sea that is displayed in his films. Many scenes are set by the ocean, and it always plays a part in his films in some way. However, his explanation of the significance is typically honest for the man who is Takeshi Kitano. "Well it's more a pragmatical choice, because Japan is a fairly small country, and when you want to shoot a movie in a very smooth way, not distracted by autograph or photograph mongers, it's simply the convenient place to go, the ocean. But French journalists are not really satisfied with just giving the pragmatic reason, so every time I go to Paris, thank god I didn't have to do it this time, but every time I go to France I have to give this big lecture on every human being originated from the ocean, and the original lifeform kept on evolving in the period of 350 million years into human beings, and to put the most advanced formed creature, human beings, in the ocean, that would stress the irony of whatever stupid and mundane things human beings are involved in, and facing the mother of all living creatures is the contrast. And later I would always add that's just a bullshit answer for that interview. When I'm shooting a movie I want to concentrate, I don't want to give autographs during a rehearsal."
With taking on ZATOICHI and his career in general as an entertainer, Kitano seems fearless. But there is one underlying thought that he carries with him. "I had a terrible motorbike accident several years ago, and I was bed ridden and later the doctors told me that I could have been dead, and it was near fatal. I still remember the moment the first time I woke up from that accident, and every now and then while I'm working in Japan, or talking to the British journalists asking me about my films, it's a privilege to have that opportunity, and it pleases me very much. But I can't help shaking th