Thursday, December 14, 2006
I Am Curious: Black!
There are few things cooler than Spider-Man, but one of them is Spider-Man in his black costume, as pictured above in a great shot from the new issue of Premiere, which "jpmuftak" (incidentally the big white furry guy that scratches his head after Greedo is shot in Star Wars) from the SuperHeroHype boards got a hold of.
Not only including some tasty new shots, the issue goes into a bit more detail about the journey Peter Parker will be taking in Spider-Man 3, Sandman, Gwen Stacy, and the details of Harry Osborn's goblin glider and his "sky jitsu!". What are you waiting for? Go read. And then come back and post your "*drools*" messages on our board.
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What's Left? - Song Of The South And The Censored Eleven
Every year Disney trickles a couple of their classic animated features out of the "Disney Vault" into nifty DVD collectors sets, ensuring a steady flow of income. But one animated feature hasn't been released, and isn't likely to be any time soon. The film is Song of the South, and the reason is the thorniest of issues in America: race.
Song of the South was originally produced in 1946, following on the heels of Disney's most creative run, the short period which produced Pinnochio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi, and features a mix of live action and animation. The majority of the running time is concerned with Uncle Remus (James Baskett), a kindly old black man living on a plantation who befriends a white child and tells him stories about Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear, characters from African American folklore whose adventures are rendered in animation. Song of the South was actually the first movie I ever saw in the theater (at the drive-in, no less), but I couldn't really tell you much about it from memory. It's not available on video, and Disney has no plans to release it, due to the racial imagery included in the film.
While we can assume that the animated characters have "black" personas, they fall into cartoon archetypes of the Bugs Bunny-style anarchist (Brer Rabbit) being chased by Wile E. Coyote-type predators (Bear and Fox), hinting that these archetypes may even have evolved from these African American folk stories. The most controversial segment involves Brer Fox making a "tar baby," a human form made out of tar that Brer Rabbit gets stuck to. Now, there's nothing particularly offensive about this situation in and of itself, but because the term "tar baby" has been used as a racial epithet, that the stink of racism has attached itself to the story, to the extent that White House press secretary Tony Snow used the term earlier in the year to describe an intractable situation, he was accused of racism.
But most objections to the film seem to be concerned not so much with the animated segments, but with the live action portrayal of life on a post-civil war plantation, where blacks are portrayed as being in heavenly bliss in an environment of explicit racial inequality. "Song of the South not only condones, but goes so far as to romanticize life in the South during Reconstruction," writes Hollis Henry in an essay on The Black Commentator, providing a succinct summary of objections to the film. "Baskett's grin is the worst sadism. It's painted across his face and his face is plastered across almost all the promotional photographs for the movie. Seeing the Remus grin helps to explain every surly snarl in the black ghettos throughout the United States. Seeing Remus's bovine frame convulsing in an estrogen-heavy giggle (they might as well have glued a grey beard on Aunt Jemima) while he sits between Johnny and his friend Jenny, helps to explain the cartoon-like hyper machismo of oily muscles and bulletproof vests popular in Hip Hop culture."
The irony of this is that every first hand account of the film either states or implies that the live action segments are boring, trite and sappy, and hold little appeal to children and less to adults. Had Disney simply done away with the framing device, they may have had both a more entertaining and less offensive film 60 years later.
Speaking of Song of the South inevitably brings up other offensive cartoons of the same period. Cartoon shorts from Warner Bros. and other studios commonly contained racist gags, such as a character receiving blackface from an explosion, then facing the camera to do an Al Jolson impression. Many such gags have been edited out over the years for TV broadcast, but some cartoons are built entirely around racial gags, and have had to be buried in the vaults. The most famous of these are known as The Censored Eleven. Again, there is a mystique around these cartoons because they've been unavailable for so long. Nobody's quite sure just how offensive they may or may not be. The two most famous of these cartoons--Bob Clampett's Coal Black and de Seben Dwarves and Tin Pan Alley Cats--showed up briefly on YouTube earlier this year, before Warner Bros. got wind of them and had them yanked. Certainly they aren't as offensive as Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat, a Walter Lantz cartoon which reached a certain level of notoriety through its inclusion on Rhino Home Video's Weird Cartoons compilation, which depicts the black city of Lazy Town, and an endless series of gags about how lazy black folks are. Nor are they likely as offensive as the cartoons made depicting Japanesees during World War II, which were specifically produced to dehumanize Japanese people (arguably the most offensive gag in Coal Black is the below advertisement for Murder Inc.).
So let's get down to the question: are these cartoons racist? On the one hand, they are unquestionably built upon racial caricatures, but caricature is the language of cartoons. In other words, all cartoons are built around caricatures. Elmer Fudd is caricature of a white guy, as are the hillbillies that chase Bugs Bunny around in Hillbilly Hare. In particular, Tin Pan Alley Cats is built around caricatures of specific jazz musicians, in particular the pianist Fats Waller. Can we really say that every caricature of a black person is automatically racist?
But it's not that simple. We have to look at the context of the time these films were made. In pre-civil rights movement America, the only images of black people in the media were caricatures. Power imbalance affects any relationship, and in an environment where white people had complete control over all media, including cartoons, every portrayal of a minority character becomes suspect.
And, by the same token, can we condemn Disney's efforts to portray a world of racial harmony? It seems likely that Walt Disney had the best, and most progressive, intentions in creating the feature Song of the South to pay tribute to the culture of black America. Can we look back and accuse him for not living up to our modern standards of racial sensitivity in a world where those standards didn't exist?
Again, I find no easy answer. Walt was surely no closet Klansman, but his attitudes seem, at best, to have been condescending. These are complicated issues, and I don't think running away from them--by dismissing the films as either racist propaganda or harmless entertainment--solves anything. This leads us to the next question: should these films be unavailable on DVD? I can find no rational reason why they should be banned. These are films. They are part of Hollywood's history. One has no difficulty finding copies of Birth of a Nation, The Jazz Singer, Gone With the Wind or Triumph of the Will. Are these cartoons any different? Of course not. They are documents from an important time in the development of cinema.
Of course, there is one very important difference: cartoons are, at least in the minds of the public, entertainment aimed at children. I certainly can't argue against banning the racist Looney Tunes from television, where they are beamed uncontrollably into every household. But on DVD they can be contextualized through documentary materials, and presented with historical distance. In fact, Warner Bros. is already moving in this direction with their Golden Collection sets. The current installment of the Golden Collection has a disclaimer on the box announcing that it "is intended for the adult collector and may not be suitable for all children," and a further disclaimer on the screen at the beginning of the discs:
While they haven't released any of the Censored Eleven yet, they are including some of the cartoons that have racist gags in them uncut. I imagine they have more freedom in this matter than Disney, since I don't think kids really watch Looney Tunes much any more. When I was a kid, they were shown on Saturday morning as the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Show, and every local station ran a program of Warners cartoons sometime between 3 and 5 on weekday afternoons, when kids were hanging around in front of the TV. These days, you might catch some old cartoons on Boomerang, but they're pretty much banished from any other channel anyway.
There's a deeper reason why these films have been buried, I think. It's not just about kids, it's about branding. Disney animation, and to a lesser extent Bugs Bunny and his gang, are not a bunch of individual films, or at least that's not how their corporate parents want us to see them. They represent a brand. Warner Bros. doesn't want people associating Bugs Bunny with racism. They're establishing a lifelong connection to these characters, which they can use to promote any product they produce (remember Michigan J. Frog branding The WB Network?). With Disney, this is especially touchy. Disney's goal is to have the very name of their company be associated with positive childhood experiences. Even if 95% of the people who see it regard Song of the South as a harmless children's story, they don't want to take the chance of associating any bad feelings with the name Disney.
Whether we'll see All This and Rabbit Stew or Jungle Jitters on future editions of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection is unclear. I imagine they'll put it off for a while at least--after all, there's a vast supply of Warners shorts they can choose from. As for Song of the South, I doubt we'll see it on region one DVD in the foreseeable future, but it is available in Japan (or bootlegged on ebay). Strangely, the one place where it has not been erased from history is at the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland park, which is adorned with the characters of Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox (though not Uncle Remus).
Further Reading:
Since this topic is so sensitive, I wanted to point the way to some alternate opinions. There are no shortage of positive opinions on Song of the South on the web, starting with those expressed on songofthesouth.net, which includes an in-depth critical analysis of the story (which doesn't actually seem very in-depth). There are also some good articles here and here. On the other side of the fence, the Black Commentator piece I quoted above is an essential read.
Opinions are even more extreme on the short cartoons. To start with, you can see some actual screencaps (quite a lot of them) from Coal Black and Tin Pan Alley Cats at the Classic Cartoon blog (some of which I swiped for this piece). Support for these particular cartoons is very passionate on the animation history forum and on John Kricfalusi's blog. The other end of the spectrum is represented by this piece on Racialicious. It kind of makes me sad that the people in these different forums aren't talking to each other. I have a feeling it might have a mellowing effect on some of their extreme views (John K actually scolds one of his commentators for even bringing up the racial aspects, and the Racialicious writer seems intent on projecting every crime ever committed by the racist, patriarchal military-industrial complex onto Coal Black).
I have found one writer who seems interested in examining these cartoons with some objectivity: Emru Townsend, who has posted a series of racially dated cartoons on the ReFrederator blog. Check out his thoughts on Sinkin in the Bathtub, Jingle Jangle Jungle, All This and Rabbit Stew (one of the Censored Eleven), Little Black Sambo, and Plane Dumb.
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News Round-Up: 12/14/06
There's a one minute teaser for The Hills Have Eyes 2 over at IGN. Using just one 60 second shot, Fox Atomic has already crafted a better sequel than Wes Craven's original follow-up. That's not to say this is some kind of extraordinary cancer-curing trailer (like Spider-Man 3's). It's an effective, good looking piece of celluloid and nothing more. But the original sequel was such a cheap cop-out of a movie, one that recycled not just the plot but also about 20 minutes of footage from the first film, you would need to employ a pack of retarded jellyfish to craft a worse sequel. The original Hills was its own kind of masterpiece and the remake came admirably close to mimicking it. Luckily for the producers, Craven set the bar about as low as it can get for the sequel and this remake can't help but be an improvement. Click it here, mutie! -- Doug Slack
Source: IGN
The dark and gritty roles continue to pour in for Anne Hathaway. Thank you, titties! The well-endowed beauty will next be starring in Passengers, a supernatural thriller that "centers on a grief counselor (Hathaway) who helps six plane crash survivors and develops a special connection with one of them. When the survivors begin to disappear mysteriously, she suspects a conspiracy and becomes determined to uncover the truth." Twists, turns, and shameless teasing of said girl's knobs are sure to be in abundance. One would hope. -- George Merchan
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
The first two hi-res images from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End are now available for your judgmental eyes over at ComingSoon. Hmmm... I have nothing more to say. -- George Merchan
Source: ComingSoon.net
The Simpsons continues its relentless death march towards cinemas everywhere with the release of a new teaser trailer. It's more or less the same teaser we just saw, with the 3D bunny gag, but this time there's a new bit of lame physical comedy at the end. At this point, we get it. Homer is dumb. He can't walk ten steps without grievously injuring himself. Hur hur hur. Is this what we have to look forward to, considering the writers from the best seasons of the show have returned to pen the feature? God, I hope not. Along with the endless string of shoehorned in celebrity guests, an overreliance on pure slapstick is part of what's killed the show. Remember when The Simpsons was one of the cleverest series on television? I do, and I really hope the writers do as well. -- Brad Millette
Source: ComingSoon.net
Peter Boyle, arguably best known to film fans as the singing and tap-dancing monster from the Mel Brooks classic Young Frankenstein, passed away yesterday after having been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease. He was 71 years old, and will be missed. -- George Merchan
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Mmmmmm... You Can Just Taste The Mad Cow Disease!
What you are looking at is a slab of meat. Also, the new international one sheet for Eli Roth's latest entry into the gore porn sub-genre, Hostel: Part II
Oddly enough, I was just watching Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, and this immediately recalled the moment when Howard Hughes is having lunch with Kate Hepburn's family where they're all digging into this fabulous looking piece of red meat. Marty does these three quick zoom-in cuts and you can see every fiber of that meat, with its succulent juices just pouring down its tasty side. And DiCaprio just looks MORTIFIED.
That's exactly how I feel like right now. Brilliant.
Hostel: Part II turns people into vegetarians on June 8th, 2007. For the full picture, click here.
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Monday, December 11, 2006
News Round-Up: 12/11/06
Star Trek. Boldly going where Bond has just gone by being rebooted. JJ Abrams, who was behind TV hits like Alias and Lost and Mission: Impossible 3, has been behind this for a while as producer, has now all but officially signed on as director for the next movie. Matt Damon has been suggested as the new Captain Kirk and now he has responded to those suggestions by saying:
"heard that [rumor]. I think J.J. Abrams or somebody said that at press junket or something, and it got picked up... If the script was good, I'd do it."
Which, in Hollywood speak, is to say nothing much at all. Star Trek, as a basis of an Internet argument, bores the hell out of me and, hopefully every right-thinking (thinking) person on the Internet, so I'll say it's Ben Affleck that has the cheesy charisma of William Shatner. Damon, who is actually capable of expressing intelligence on screen seems more like Spock. We won't see this until 2009, so that gives us plenty of time to build up the enthusiasm to tke the piss out of Trek once more. -- Andrew Clarke
Source: Sci-Fi Wire
Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Domino, Deja Vu) wants to remake The Warriors. The Warriors is a 25 year old film from real man Walter Hill about a teenage street gang in New York trying to get back to their home turf on Coney Island after a massive gang pow-wow goes wrong and every single gang in the city is after their blood. It was full of grit and 70's realism, and was also completely wacky. Plus the violence was almost all hand-to-hand street level stuff. Tony says:
"It’s going to be The Warriors meets Kingdom Of Heaven. It’s a very simplistic story – that’s the connection. I’m going to shoot it in L.A and all the gang members have said, if I get it on, they’ll sign a treaty for the duration of the shoot."
Which is a great thing to say. I worry that the violence will go all gun-ny and the wacky costumes will be replaced by baggy t-shirts and saggy jeans. It still sounds awesome though. Imagine Heat's gun battle only much bigger with the elegant prfessionalism replaced by savage desperation. Who knows if the quote is just PR guff or if the movie will go ahead, but we need directors who are willing to take claim for solving America's gang problems. -- Andrew Clarke
Source: Empire
Richard Kelly has apparently locked the cut for his new film Southland Tales at 137 minutes, nearly 30 minutes shorter than the cut that was sniggered at earlier this year. Kelly made Donnie Darko, which was also cut drastically when first released to make it more 'palatable'. Donnie Darko was great, and I hate 80's music. Then Kelly released a director's cut, longer and closer to his original concept, and it ruined all the fun. All this proves that this new cut of Southland Tales is a work of genius. Now it is locked, we will probably be able to see it sometime before next summer. Hopefully. What is Southland Tales about? Oh god. I'm just going to lift this straight from Wikipedia:
This futuristic film evokes the city of Los Angeles, fallen victim to a nuclear attack in 2008, a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions which precipitates America into war. The Patriot Act has been upgraded to a new agency known as USIdent which keeps constant tabs on citizens even to the extent of censoring the internet and using fingerprints in order to access computers and bank accounts. In order to be able to respond to the fuel scarcity, the German company Treer designs a generator of inexhaustible energy which operates thanks to ocean currents. In this city on the brink of chaos, we follow the criss-crossed destinies of Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson), action film actor stricken with amnesia; Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), ex-porn star in the midst of reconverting; and twin brothers Roland and Ronald Taverner (both played by Seann William Scott), whose destinies becomes confused with that of all mankind.
That's Sarah Michelle Gellar, The Rock, Sean William Scott and, for a bonus, Justin Timberlake. With a cast like that it can not fail. -- Andrew Clarke
Source: MySpace, Wikipedia
I completely forgot Bruce Campbell was busy directing a new film, My Name Is Bruce. This is not a remake of the kung-fu parody They Call Me Bruce. It's a remake of Three Amigos. The Chin plays himself in this comedy where a town besieged by demons calls on him to save the day via some Ash-styled ass stomping. Expect plenty of pointed barbs on the foibles of fandom and celebrity culture. Anyhow, the reason I'm mentioning this is because you really don't read enough about Bruce Campbell on the internet and because Dark Horse Entertainment has posted two generic promo pics. Click it here, baby.
Update: Another more exciting pic is up over at AICN. Check it. -- Doug Slack
Source: Dark Horse Entertainment
And finally, in a bit of non-news, Royd Tolkien proves in a one fell swoop that a.) writing is not a genetic talent and b.) his opinion on the whole Peter Jackson/Hobbit/New Line debacle is about as consequential as my own. Actually... shit... I at least have more MySpace friends than him! Even if I don't actually talk to Jenna Jameson or the dudes from Entourage, I win. [Edited to add: Since this morning, Royd Tolkien has officially passed me in number of friends. You broke my life, Royd.]. -- George Merchan
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TFL's Favorite Shameless Rip Offs! - Part 2
Grouse and moan all you want about the endless remakes coming out of Hollywoodland, but you and me both know nothing hits the spot like a good rip-off. The pantheon of geek classics is littered with rehashes and riffs of hit films. We here at the TFL World Headquarters And Center For Cinematic Logistics Management like a good knock-off, but we love a bad one even more. Here's the second in an epic series chronicling our very favorite shameless rip-offs.
Galaxy Of Terror, also known as Mindwarp, Planet of Horrors and Quest, so giving you an idea of it's illustriousness, comes from The Roger Corman stable of cheap rip-offs. This one, made in 1981, is a rip-off of Alien. Thus we have a motley crew of space jockies investigating a crashed spaceship on a remote inhospitable planet. There are monsters, the crew get picked off one by one, sometimes getting raped first, and the strong-minded woman is the only survivor.
The Corman approach of 'As long as there's tits and violence every ten minutes and it hits budget I don't care what else you do' always gives reliably low-brow entertainment and his savvy in hiring up and coming (cheap) talent often means the bits inbetween the gore are much better than they have any right to be.
Unfortunately here we don't have a script by John Sayles or direction by Joe Dante, but the fx crew did include a very young James Cameron, so the visuals are often very striking. The gore is plentiful, very gooey, very practical and convincingly painful and the wide shots of the mystical pyramid they find and explore give a sense of epic-ness the film really shouldn't deserve.
The stand-out scene is a genuinely unpleasant sequence where a space maggot grows to 15 feet in length, covers the hot blond space-lady in goo, rips off her clothes and rapes her, gooily, to death. The juxtaposition of a naked writhing blond woman (with fantastic tits. Did I mention that?) covered in shiny, distinctly seminal fluid with a nightmarish wriggling penis-of-death hits conflicting psychological buttons in much the same way that Tarantino did in mixing violence and comedy. It's not in any way deliberate here, of course, but exploitation films, by dealing with big themes like sex and death, sometimes hit upon much more powerful imagery than they were intending. This scene hits far harder than it should, which is probably why it stands out in so many people's memories. That and the tits.
Equally, the complete lack of subtext (and often text) of this film gives the relentlessly dark art direction and gruesome events a very pessimistic, fatalistic atmosphere. There's no hope here, no meaning and nothing to distract you from these characters walking towards a violent, lonely death. You know those fanboys that constantly call for their favourite childish fantasy story to be 'dark' and a hard 'R'? Well this is what you get. It's crap of course, and more depressing than I think Corman would have liked, but it's still an effect, and a whole lot better than bilge like Event Horizon.
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The Lord Of The Rings 5th Anniversary, Part 1 - The Fellowship Of The Ring
By George Merchan, Andrew Clarke and Charlie Brigden
Yeah, we don't believe it either, but it's true. Lord of the Rings is five years old, so we've decided to sit down in a virtual pub, have a few pints, and take a little retrospective look at the trilogy, starting as expected with The Fellowship of the Ring. We hope you'll enjoy it, as there'll probably be a few arguments along the way and this is the closest you'll get to spending Christmas with us. Which is a good thing, as Andrew is a mean drunk. Anyway, take it away, George...
George: I've had the weirdest relationship with Fellowship. It's gone from being my least favorite of the series to my absolute most. And it continues to fluctuate like that to this day. I do, however, (after much soul searching and profound inner nerd beatdowns) feel that the Extended Edition of Fellowship just edges out the theatrical cut of Return of the King as the best of the trilogy. And that's tough for me to say because I feel King has one of the strongest and most emotionally resonant third acts I've ever seen in a film, as far as large scale epics of almost biblical proportions are concerned. But of course, that's only true because, as a first act in the series, Fellowship is so fucking strong.
Charlie: I think Fellowship works so well because it's full of beauty. The first act brings us this big huge bucolic fairytale with tiny cottages built out of hills and fields of full green grass as far as the eye can see, and because of the absolute minute details all over the place, the texture presents it as this absolutely real place where, to be honest, we all want to live, which helps emphasize Frodo and Sam's journey as they are taken away, because the entire rest of the story is about getting back to this place of absolute tranquility and beauty. And, as viewers, we want to do that to, so much so that it's bittersweet when we finally do go back at the end of Return of the King because so much has changed.
Andrew: Now I actually disagree about the beauty of the Shire. I know they spent a year growing all the grass, but it still looks fake and like the Teletubbies set. I first saw the set on those first trailers and, well, they looked really twee.
But then it is supposed to be twee. These Hobbits are almost preternaturally innocent so as to contrast their simple, unspoiled life with the growing darkness all around them. All of that is fine, but what stops Hobbits and The Shire from being just too goofy is Gandalf's reaction to them. Ian McKellen sells the idea that he finds these backwards folk very silly but absolutely loves them. They represent an innocence that he cherishes while moving through the much larger world of deception and threat. Once we see Gandalf light the fireworks on the back of his cart for the children, I'm sold completely.
Hobbits are very silly creatures but, by giving us the emotional context by means of Gandalf, and especially his incredibly warm, human interaction with Bilbo, we know they represent safety, kindness and friendship, which sets up both the goal of the heroes in saving this world, and the horror of the threat of those that would seek to destroy it.
The point of this distinction is that, taken by itself, the lolloping green hills of The Shire are really daft, but by focusing so much on the humanity and the emotions of these people you are drawn in to this made up world and let's you accept it - even let's you believe you'd really want to live there. It's this focus on emotions, and on the reactions on the faces of the characters, that sets Lord of the Rings apart from all the other fantasy crap out there. That's the film's strength, and the thing we'll probably be most returning to through these discussions.
"...what stops Hobbits and The Shire from being just too goofy is Gandalf's reaction to them."
George: You know, the daftness of the Shire, as you call it, plays well into Peter Jackson's pretty fucking daft yet "to the core" style of filmmaking (which ironically is more subdued in Fellowship than the other two films, or at least King). But you do hit on a bit of subtext that I think goes widely ignored. The fact that the Shire and the Hobbits really are representative of our own lost innocence and childish glee. In many ways, the story of LOTR is a story of growing up and accepting the responsibilities that come with it, which means taking in all the good and all the bad of life. But not only that, Fellowship quickly and very beautifully establishes one of the root themes of this series: that we are a people of community and bonding, and that through the help of family, friends, lovers, we can ultimately make it, find peace, etc, etc.
Andrew: That's a great point. I do think Peter Jackson uses very broad, fucking daft strokes to make his films, but there are endless examples on message boards all over the internets of people calling these films subtle or realistic. What they're referring to is this 'to the core' approach - getting the emotion or narrative beat at the heart of the scene dead on. But they aren't realistic, or even very naturalistic, at all, and there's awful lots of silliness on the surface.
Charlie: I think the silliness is definitely something needed. It's like Han Solo, to a degree. With all this seriousness and heavy backstory, there's a need for someone to pipe up and say "isn't this all a bit daft?" and while it's not there as a specific character like Solo, it's definitely there in spades in Jackson's directing. It reminds me of him talking about his approach, where if you make it too serious, it has a danger of turning out like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There's a fine line to walk, but he walks it just on the right side.
Andrew: Also, one other small thing: I'm an absolute believer in the Extended Editions over the Theatrical Editions, which may lead to some fighting, but the EE fluffs Frodo's introduction. It leads into it by means of some slightly clumsy audio editing of Bilbo calling out his name and wondering where he is. In the Theatrical, if I remember, the shot of Frodo reading his book in a field is the shot where we have the title of the film - so setting up Frodo as the central character. I miss that introduction.
"It's such an honest and purely human moment of fragility..."
Charlie: I agree, and not to turn this immediately into the Theatrical vs. Extended argument, but I think the whole extended opening of the film is a bit, well, off. The way it originally opened, with the history of the Ring and then Gandalf arriving and meeting Frodo, it all seems much more organic, whereas with the EE, we get a history lesson followed by a sociology lecture, with Cate Blanchett waffling on about the Ring followed almost immediately by Ian Holm telling everybody all about Hobbits.
Andrew: We're going to need a big old talk about the TE vs. EE, but let's save it for later. Let's get out onto the road to Rivendell. The first 90 minutes up to the Council of Elrond is my favourite bit of the trilogy. Partly this is because I have some issues with the cross-cutting between stories that really gets ramped up in The Two Towers, and partly because we are following the Hobbits who are seeing this world for the first time the same as we are, feeling the same wonder, confusion and fear. It's an excellent way in to a very fantastical world, it has characters you care about and a very clear threat in the dark riders. There's something to be said for the simple narrative charms of a chase. In the next films, filled with complex political situations that the characters already know a lot more than the audience about, this is lost somewhat.
Or do you think it's boring and you're just waiting around for the Cave-Troll?
Charlie: I get bored. I’m not really that bothered about the cave troll, but I can only take so much Nazgul, and it's almost relentless. I understand that's the whole point, but as soon as they leave Bree, I get bored and only really pick it up again when it gets to Rivendell. The scene in the Prancing Pony is fun, and the editing of the Ringwraiths descending upon Bree is stunning, but after that, it just gets a bit much. The Weathertop battle is fun, but not fun enough, and the chase between Arwen and the Nazgul just doesn't seem fast enough or urgent enough, despite Howard Shore's music. It all just seems a bit too exhausting without the payoff to justify it. The nerd side of me also takes slight issue with Arwen's super magic powers at Bruinen, mainly because she only uses it once and no other elves besides Galadriel seem to have The Force, so it seems a bit too much of an excuse to have her do something because she’s not in it much. Still, the water-horses are pretty neat.
I will say though, while I get angsty, I can never bring myself to skip it. No matter how long they are and how little time I have, those movies are unskippable. I will say PJ did a remarkable job with the first act, considering how bloody hard it is to slog through in the book. Then again, he thankfully spared us Tom Bombadil.
"...the Galadriel magic mirror scene is fucking awful."
George: I love the Moria stuff to death, but it's not really so much about the Cave Troll (though I truly do heart his giant dumb ass). It's the little interactions between the characters in those scenes that I love. And plus, though it's like a sledgehammer to the head, I love love love - Frodo: "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened." Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." It's such an honest and purely human moment of fragility coupled with this loving paternal embrace of encouragement that never fails to move me so profoundly. That and the fact that the words spoken are so fucking true.
Andrew: "ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAAAAIIIRRR!!!!" Does Lothlorien fuck it all up?
George: I love it if only for the scene between Aragorn and Boromir which is one of Sean Bean's great moments. But it is basically Rivendell all over again. Only with hippies. I also think we need to get into the TE vs. EE debate since some of the juicier stuff from the EE is coming to mind here. The gift giving, yeah, but the part I like even more is the little talk between Galadriel and Aragorn about his fate.
Charlie: I love some of the Lothlorien stuff, but really, it stops the film dead for a while. It's definitely needed after the intensity of Moria, but it goes on far too long. But the scene with Aragorn and Boromir talking about Minas Tirith is wonderful, and a great precursor to Return of the King, especially with Shore using the "Anduril" theme there.
Also, the Galadriel magic mirror scene is fucking awful. I'm sorry, but it's terrible. The stuff with Frodo and the mirror works great, but as soon as she turns into a neon J-Lo, it's over.
Andrew: Cate saves it with her performance when she comes down off her ABBA flashback, looking scared and, well, human. "I shall remain Galadriel" is a lovely line. But if anyone you know tries to defend the bit before, cut off one of their toes. Now: the EE.
The reason why I like the EE's is that they just give up on any idea of movie pacing. The TE's were very much being edited to be watched in one sitting with a beginning a middle and an end, with a linear sense of dynamic progression of ups and downs, and sequences like Lothlorien totally scupper it. Jackson ended up editing the river sequence afterwards (very long and relaxed in the book) into an adrenalised chase sequence in some attempt to get the pacing back up - something I'm not sure works. With the EE's those problems are gone, because you have to just settle down to an entire evening wallowing in a juicy fantasy world, like having a long bath instead of a bracing shower.
As long as all the bits make sense and fit together you can just fall into it and get lost. It's a different way of watching films certainly - pacing is a valid part of cinematic art, and this could be an apologist's excuse for the broken pacing in the EE's - but it's kind of like eating an entire box of cream buns, and it's lots of fun. The point is that things like Lothlorien break the pacing of TE too, so why not just accept it and go with the EE? Watching the EE makes that river chase even more annoying, with its fast cutting and banging drums, as it suddenly feels like the film is trying to hurry you along to the end, when you were enjoying a pleasant walk.
George: I completely agree with Andrew here in that the TE of Fellowship is oddly paced as it is, thanks in part to the pauses in Rivendell and especially Lothlorien. They're needed scenes and they both feature some good and cool stuff, but they are awkward. It's like the film has two 2nd acts. So the EE essentially eases us into the pacing of an already off-kilter film. It's most definitely a treatment designed for the comfort and luxuries of the home theater, and I have got to commend that approach.
"...Boromir's death, which has my favourite line in the film ('I would have followed you, my brother. My captain. My King.')"
Charlie: Traitor. I agree on Lothlorien, but not on Rivendell. I think Rivendell is a strong enough scene that it's needed, especially after the exhausting but not actually that good scenes that make up the trip from Bree to Rivendell. Lothlorien goes on far too long and is mismatched with great scenes and not-so-great scenes, and it has no dialogue scenes that are anywhere near the dramatics of the Council of Elrond. Aragorn and Boromir's talk has is the standout thing, but it still succumbs to the magic mirror scene.
I certainly agree that the pace is helped in the EE by being more comfortably taken along, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, especially because it contains many more Lothlorien scenes. If they had left it as it was in the theatrical, it perhaps would have worked, but because they spend so much time at Lorien, they have to speed up the river scene as Andrew said even more, and it doesn't work.
George: The LOTR EEs are interesting because they throw the idea of conventional theatrical exhibition out the window. They were made for the explicit purpose of home viewing, which includes all the little things that come with that. Kingdom of Heaven: Director’s Cut is the same. I commend it because, since I do believe the paradigm in film exhibition is shifting thanks to piracy, the internet, and all that, films will begin to be made and cut, both by directors and studio heads, not so much to squeeze in 10 screenings at the local multiplex, but for the home viewer. The viewer that will get up and go take a dump come Rivendell and later go grab a chili burger during Lothlorien (they will take another dump after Enya, btw). I think Jackson pioneered something in that sense.
Charlie: I think that's a great point. I think with the EEs, it does depend on how exactly you view them as a concept. They do work much more almost as the narrative of a book rather than a movie, but I do tend to judge them as a movie first and foremost. I still think that, however differently they are constructed, they should still be judged primarily as movies. I also wouldn’t group it the same as Kingdom of Heaven, as that movie had some pretty important stuff cut away which hurt the film a lot, whereas the EEs are rather PJ throwing in stuff he thinks is cool and the fans would like, hence you get some amazing stuff but sometimes some quite terrible things (“It’s Mr. Bilbo’s trolls!”)
It'd be interesting to see what the dynamic was between PJ and his editing team and what New Line wanted. I guess they probably said no more than three hours, so with the Extended Edition, rather than make a director's cut, as mentioned before, I think they shoved in a lot of stuff they loved that they took out. I wonder how different it would be if they actually were true "director's cuts."
George: Oh no, you're right. Kingdom of Heaven and LOTR are two very different beasts in that sense. But regardless, I do feel they're both approaching the unfolding of narrative in a very different way than most films of their nature do. And again, that has everything to do with the form of exhibition (theatrical vs. home) and how that plays into an audience's viewing habits. But I digress.
Andrew: LOTR as a whole has about 7 hours of 2nd Acts, at least two 3rd Acts and 5 endings. It's a big epic book recounting a big epic journey so there's an awful lot of 'this happened, then this, then this, then this'. The three act structure films rigidly adhere to these days starts to fall over here. Embrace it!
AND there's this bit between Bree and Rivendell where Aragorn comes back to the camp with a deer (that he killed WITH HIS BARE HANDS!) and sings the lay of Luthien which not only sets up the love story between himself and Arwen better than anything in any of the three films, but it gives you a breather from all the Nazgul chasing so making that first section less annoyingly relentless. Also Mr. Mumbles Viggo can't sing.
Charlie: Neither can most singers nowadays. He has CDs out though. With the Hobbits on back-up. Like Middle-Earth’s version of The Supremes.
Andrew: I hope they tour with Rusell Crowe's band. Anyway, I really like the EE's, but maybe that's enough about them for now. Does the ending Roxxors? How many times, exactly, do you need to see a ring? 'Let's hunt some Orc!' is a really bad line, isn't it? Did you know Legolas fires 6 arrows in a row in the EE? How cool is that? Aryans vs. Orcs? Is it too early to mention the gay?
"I love Aragorn. Everything and anything he
Charlie: The ending is brilliant, especially with the moving of Boromir's death from the beginning of Towers (the book) to the end of Fellowship. Because of that, and the big fight, it actually feels like you get a satisfactory climax while still leaving the bigger story wide open. What's startling is the way the two characters of Frodo and Aragorn are both dealt with, coming from the scene where Boromir has just tried to steal the Ring. As Aragorn rejects it and Frodo says that he is going on his own, it sets a new path for both of those, both based on responsibility. Frodo knows he is destined to carry the Ring to its destruction whether anyone is with him or not, and is now determined to do it, and Aragorn is now displaying what is inside him to show the responsibility needed to fulfill his destiny as the heir of Numenor. It's a mirror of his final defining scene in Return of the King ("For Frodo") and those are very much the beginning and the end of his journey to the path of the King.
As for "Let's hunt some orc!", it's not the most eloquent line in the world, but it's a cheer moment based on the hope that the film leaves us with, and firmly cements Aragorn as our action hero and the man who would be King. The Sam/Frodo scene always makes me cry terribly, as does Boromir's death, which has my favourite line in the film ("I would have followed you, my brother. My captain. My King."), presenting Boromir's arc of a man who resented Aragorn for his bloodline, but now embraces him as his king, again upping Aragorn's respect quota but more importantly providing an inspired and poignant moment.
George: I love "Let's hunt some orc!". I love Aragorn. Everything and anything he does (including his lovely singing, dammit) is awesome, because we're gay. Long live The Vig™.
The ending? Yeah, on an emotional level, it completely roxxorz. Everything is tied up nicely, the sense of satisfaction is great, and you end up leaving a 3 hour film wanting to straight away watch the next. That says something. It's one of the few films where you almost literally feel like these characters are real friends. By this point, you're right along with them. And like I've mentioned before, it's the most absolute perfect setup for the shit that goes down in The Two Towers and especially Return of the King.
Andrew: "I would have followed you into the very fires of Mordor." "I know."
Oh dear. Objectivity's gone right out the window now. I love that bit. That said, the bit where Aragorn tells Frodo to "run... run!" just before he turns to face the suddenly appeared massive army of Orcs is some rubbish acting right there. No intensity or urgency at all, Mr. Mumbles. Anyway, what I like about the final battle is that it's the last time we have any action where everything is actually real. There's a shot from above that follows the orcs chasing the heroes that moves nearly half a mile down a hill and through a forest. Done by running a camera along a really long wire suspended in the trees, not only is it awesome, it's very similar to a shot in Bad Taste, where there's a shot showing the alien zombies chasing the hero up a hill and the camera travels up over a garage and along a path.
I came to Fellowship far more excited about seeing Jackson's latest film rather than a LOTR film. It was great to see the traces of the film-maker I had fallen in love with nearly ten years before and to see how far he had come. It was a really good moment.
George: And as extravagant as the subsequent films become, they never completely lose that ingenuity in camera and composition that makes Jackson's work so distinctly Jackson's. It's quite different and awesome, and something that makes LOTR as a whole so very comforting and almost homely, as opposed to other big epics which often feel so sterile and impersonal.
Charlie: Jackson's directing is so confident and at times absolutely magnificent, especially with Elijah Wood, so much so that it makes a wannabe director like me feel I should give up and become a bus driver. Who'd have guessed that the kid from Flipper would be making us cry into our popcorn on his way to Mordor?
Also, Howard Shore's work is such a big part of the film's success. His music is amazing.
George: Totally. From the small but excellent work he did with Cronenberg to this? The accolades he's gotten are completely deserved.
Andrew: Just like Jackson's direction, Shore's themes can be a bit broad and over the top, but again, they get 'to the core' perfectly. And the themes are rally catchy too. Don't underestimate a score you can whistle.
Charlie: Let’s finish up here. Final thoughts, gentlemen?
Andrew: Definitely my favourite of the three, and it would be if it was just the first disc - running up to the council of Elrond. I wish they could have slipped Tom Bombadil into the background of The Prancing Pony, having a quick cider or something. As long as his smoking wife was there I’d have been satisfied. A shame that was left out, she only wore leaves. You have to take your sex where you can get it in LOTR.
Charlie: While it's my least favourite of the three, Fellowship is nonetheless a mammoth achievement. A fantasy movie that has actual depth and emotion? Be still my beating heart. It has all the necessary ingredients to make a very tasty cinematic soup, but so much of the credit has to go to the big fat soup chef Peter Jackson. No other event movie for a long time has touched it, except of course the other two films. And once again, it shows nerds can be worthwhile in society.
George: Not much else to say other than I love it. I don't know how anyone couldn't just fall for these characters and this filmmaking. It all oozes so much genuine heart and charm. 5 years is certainly not enough time to convince the world these are classics to be held up next to their epic brethren of years past, but so far, Fellowship still holds up wonderfully and it plays its part in the larger equation brilliantly.
Be sure to join us again on this continuing journey next Monday when we continue our discussion with The Two Towers.
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Sunday, December 10, 2006
Trailer Park Handjob: 12/10/06
If a trailer can sum up what a film is about in two minutes, what the fuck is the film doing with the other 118?
300: Oh dear. This movie stirs up a great deal of reaction in Internet movie site circles. It's amazing, it's poetry, it's the greatest movie of the year, it's fakey looking, it's over the top, it's got Gerard Butler in it. There will be people who love and who hate this movie, but I get the feeling they will both share the belief that they should be taking this seriously. This is very silly stuff. This is the bulging veined psychosis of a sexually frustrated teenage boy. His unchecked and only half understood new passions are channeled into fuelling ever more gaudily extreme versions of the soldier games he used to innocently play only a couple of years before. Its grandly ornate visual style is about as poetic as screaming sonnets into a lover's ear and expecting them to get all wet. I can't wait. Seriously, I'm looking forwards to it. I hope it will be as funny as Sin City.
This trailer features lots more of what was in the teaser trailer, which involves soldiers just about to start hacking at each other, beautiful women just about to start stripping, Rhinos, mutants, more general cock-teasery and Gerard Butler who, by constantly baring his teeth in order to look angry, looks like he's got his dad's dentures in. Watch it here.
The Secret Life of Words: Yes, it's 'independent movie with a crappy trailer' time again. If you are going to copy big Hollywood trailers, go the whole hog and get super cheesy. Playing at the 'big sell' approach but trying to keep some indie/quirky/not-actually-brand-dead cred will only result in a mess like this. You may be using an Antony and the Johnson's track (which is beautiful by the way. Buy the album), but you are still using it the same way a Hollywood trailer would use an Aerosmith song or, more recently, Run by Snow Patrol. If you are going to concentrate on character, you can't cut up the dialogue and place it as a Hollywood trailer would place narrative zings and twists - It just comes over random and confusing.
Oh well. This stars Tim Robbins as an oil rig worker (!) who gets all burnt and Sarah Polley as the hearing-impaired nurse who comes to care for him. Much secrets are then revealed. Also there's a duck. Watch it here.
Primeval: The trailer for Primeval is telling a massive porky. But then all trailers are full of lies. That's what they are for. So having a trailer that has a bit of fun with its lying seems like a good thing. This trailer says Primeval is about the world's most prolific serial killer, only we never see him in the footage shown. Instead we get shots of actors being scared, being mauled, being (bizarrely and not entirely un-erotically) covered in mud and lots of POV shots of something rushing towards them. Yes, take away the voice over and you get a monster movie. The question is - will the sorts of people this is aimed it (stupid teenagers) get annoyed when they realise they are getting a monster movie and not a serial killer movie? Will they get offended that a trailer has lied to them? Will they demand that their trailers be more honest in their lying? Would they be able to beat me up with one hand tied behind their backs if they caught me laughing at the delicious irony?
I have no idea if this film will be any good so, as in all these cases, wait to find out the rating. If it's a PG-13, run. Run as fast as you can. Watch it here.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Yes I know the original comic was actually quite good actually, but the cartoon and the movies, which is what most people know the turtles from, were shit and only fondly remembered because we were too young to realise how shit they were when they originally aired. There's a lot of nostalgia splashing around this trailer. As it's hosted by MTV, non-Americans can't watch it so I will dutifully link to the site and let you judge for yourselves the quality of the CGI they used, the sense of atmosphere and the intelligence of the script without having me telling you how shit they are to colour your opinions. Shit. Watch it here.
Other releases:
Perfect Stranger: Bruce Willis and Halle Berry get paid for two hours. It's a thriller about Internet dating, which promises scenes of typing at keyboards almost as exciting as equally clueless Hollywood attempts at dealing with new technology like The Net. The 'R' rating promises violence and nudity, though. If watching Halle and Bruce have sex is for you, watch here.
Stomp the Yard: I'm going to assume that 'stepping' or 'Stomping' actually exists and this is a cheap 'urban' movie that tries to cash in on the trend. Judging from the trailer it seems to consist of cheerleading for black men, which looks like a cross between Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation and those dancers that Public Enemy used to have, dressed up like soldiers doing fake military parade ground manouevres behind Terminator X. This trailer mystified me, but then maybe I'm a racist. See if you can can make more sense of it by watching it here
Music and Lyrics: A new Hugh Grant romantic comedy. Watch it here.
Hannibal Rising: Almost definitely shit. Read Doug having a go here. Watch it here.
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Meet TFL #5 - grando_calrissian_1977
If he were a Futurama character, he'd be Fry if he was fused together like that Star Trek episode with Zoidberg.
Charlie Brigden
Favourite Movie: The Empire Strikes Back
Favourite Director: Michael Mann
Favourite Quote: "Boy, the next word that comes out of your mouth better be some brilliant fuckin' Mark Twain shit, cause it's definitely getting chiseled on your tombstone."
Who I Am: The earliest thing I can remember in my life are snowspeeders, from a bootleg copy of Empire way back when I was four years old. That says it all, really. An uber-nerd who somehow manages to balance a steady job and partner with buying toys and crying at dead Ewoks. Well, maybe not that last one. Student filmmaker of varying success (watch some of my films here), journalist at one point, but now settling down and realizing co-running this here website is maybe my lot in life.
I'm good at being super-obsessive about things, such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Ramones, and my awesome fiancee. I also enjoy... billiards!
Where I Live: A place not unlike Hobbiton, just outside Bristol, England.
Check out other members of the crew here, here, here and here.
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