H2O: Just Add Water

Time to change pace, so let's review an Australian TV series marketed to preteens. It's about mermaids.



See, I have this habit of getting high and just picking something at random on Netflix to watch. Sometimes I get a surprisingly good series (this is how I discovered Justified) and sometimes I get... mermaids. To be fair, I did sort of know what I was getting into. It was pretty clear this was meant for kids, and feeling a little nostalgic for my childhood when I watched shows like this all the time, I went for it; but I'm at such a loss as to what to make of this series, that I just have to sit down and work it out on paper (or on a screen anyway).

The setup.

Three girls, who I might as well call 1,2 and 3 (because I have such a hard time telling apart their personalities it's painful) manage to get the power to turn into a mermaid every time they touch water through the most improbably series of events I have ever seen. Observe:

A bully tricks 1 into going onto boat that won't work (because someone stole the spark plug from the engine) and then sets her adrift because she was there. No really, that's the reason he gives. Suddenly 2 jumps into the boat, spark plug in hand, they restart the boat and they steal it (this theft has no repercussions). For no good reason they pick up 3 who is walking by the water. Even though they don't like 3 and she doesn't want to step foot in the boat, she goes with them. Then, like utter morons they take the boat out to sea, because three teenagers taking a small one engine boat works so well in real life.

I have to stop right there because we're five minutes in and I'm so frustrated with these girls lack of personalities that I need to focus on that for a minute. It took me a surprisingly long time to realize that the reason they have no personalities is because they are Mary-Sues. It suddenly occurred to me that the writers are almost being clever, because this way any girl watching can easily put herself into the shoes (or fins) of any of the protagonists. However it's only clever from a marketing point of view. I mean, we're not just dealing with three girls who have no personalities beyond one of them being really organized, one of them not, and one of them being slightly dumber than the other three. Honestly they're all airheads. They're also almost identical too, except for one who is not blonde.

I know it seems silly to complain about characters in a children's show, but how can the producers justify creating such cardboard "role-models" for kids? Why even have three main characters if they're all the same person? And why does 3 bitch about being on the boat so much when NO ONE MADE HER GET ON THE BOAT???

Right, so of course they run out of gas, but luckily they don't have to discuss who they will eat first, because right away they see an island on the horizon (one which, of course, has a spooky legend surrounding it) and paddle over, where instead of staying on the wide open beach where they can easily be spotted, they wander into the jungle. Just because.

Ladies! It probably took you half an hour to get there, this island will be the first one searched (and it is), just sit put! But no, they wander, get lost and one of them falls down a hole. Then another falls down the same hole. Then the last just jumps down the hole. The only way out of the hole? A pool of water which may or may not lead to the ocean. So of course one of them decides to swim into a submerged cave not knowing whether or not it's a dead end, but hey, it's a kid's show and she survives - but while the three are in the pool the full moon boils them or something and they become mermaids - but not right away, because... uh... Oh look a rescue boat!

The payoff.



Believe it or not, I actually think if this plot had been given to a completely different crew, one that didn't still think it was the 90s, this show would actually be rather clever. For starters, they can't control when they turn into mermaids, immediately turning every little girl's fantasy into a precarious situation. Also, one of the girls not only hates this change at first, she doesn't even know how to swim and refuses to go into the water for about three episodes. I also like all the moon business, which seems incredibly original for a mermaid story. It's poorly written and horribly acted, but I can't help but imagine at one point in production there was actually someone who gave a damn.

Unfortunately, nobody else gave a damn. This show had no foresight in its execution. Characters make ridiculous leaps in logic. Plots make little to no sense in the real world. For no reason whatsoever there's a bully character who instead of going to jail for attempted murder keeps coming back episode after episode (though he does have a story arc which, believe it or not, is also quite clever).

The morals being taught to any kids who watch this are particularly noteworthy. Such great tips like: never call the police, solve this shit for yourself; be sure to always wander into the unknown instead of waiting for help; don't tell your parents your secrets. This last one kills me. They don't want to tell anyone (except their buddy Lewis, who of course is a 16-year-old scientist/filmaker/genius/incredibly understanding sexually frustrated boy, even if all we really see him do is fish) because they're afraid of becoming a science experiment, but why not tell their parents? Their parents won't turn them in, and I assume would only help them. I just feel like in a kids' show, kids should be encouraged to share their deep dark secrets with their parents even if it's something they're ashamed of (and if you don't see why, then you are a fucking idiot).

Final thoughts.

It's horrid... but I can't stop watching it. Part of that is because I'm constantly shocked at just how much less the producers seem to care with every episode and it's akin to one's interest in watching a train get derailed... and then release a deadly gas... and then explode... and then burn down an entire forest... and then cause the extinction of several species... and... and I think you get the point. This show is so bad, I actually kind of... eh... enjoy it. Also, I think Angus McLaren (who plays Lewis) is genuinely funny... and kinda easy on the eyes (the character might be a kid, but the actor's only three years younger than me, so lay off). I don't think he has much to work with, but I can't help but feel that McLaren had a lot of fun working with three hot girls who were half-naked all the time. He certainly seems to constantly be hitting on all three of them even though his character is only supposed to like one of them. Of course, maybe he just can't tell them apart either.

P.S. Does anyone else find it strange that this show is essentially titled Water: Just Add Water?

American Psycho

I'm going to be completely honest here. I have a fascination with serial killers. Ever since high school I've been an avid reader of true crime novels and whenever I have a chance I'll watch a documentary or (sometimes) a docudrama about a serial killer. So it really isn't surprising that American Psycho is one of my favourite movies. Strangely enough, I had never bothered to actually read the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, so while preparing to do this review I thought I'd give it a read and compare the two.

The film.



Suffice to say, there's enough violence and sex in this movie to make your head spin. You clue in almost immediately that it's all a commentary on consumerism and our inability to see people for what they are beyond the facade they present the world. This is done by introducing the main character, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), as a rich and classy business man who almost immediately begins to threaten young women. At around the five minute mark although we haven't seen anyone die, it's strongly insinuated that this guy is a serial killer. Oddly enough, Bateman is strangely likeable, though this might have more to do with Christian Bale than the writing or the character, because in the novel I can't say I like him at all.

Obviously not all the violence is suggested though and most people know this film based on its reputation of being extremely violent and full of sex. Actually, one of the things that always amused me about this film is that it got more criticism for having a three-way than all the gore. However the sex and violence is not just for the sake of sex and violence and if you actually pay attention to Christian Bale's performance (and not just stare dreamily into his eyes...) you realize this is a film about an entire society being raped and pillaged for the sake of the high class (the yuppies).

The ending probably throws people off the most. We are so conditioned to believe everything that happens on film that when that belief in reality is threatened we just... can't accept it. People get really frustrated by the ending and (yeah, I'm gonna spoil it, so go watch the movie and come back in two hours) whenever I show this movie to someone they'll say: "Oh, so it was just in his head." Well... was it just in his head? Or do we live in a society so concerned with appearance that we don't want to admit an attractive, rich and high society man can do something so monstrous? Not to mention the fact that a pile of dead bodies in an apartment tends to lower market value and that's never a good thing. American Psycho is really trying to get you to question society and appearances and the things we take for granted.

.

The book.



Something I never really got from the movie was what a slow boil this story is. It takes a long time (nearly 100 pages) for anything violent to happen and although Bateman will often tell someone he's a murderer or he'll inform the reader that he's done violent things, it's something you can almost ignore as an offhand joke. In fact, it's a huge plot point how little people care about what Bateman does behind closed doors. If you picked up this book not knowing Patrick Bateman was a serial killer, well, the first murder will shock the hell out of you. In fact, the first murder (a pathetic homeless man and his dog) really got to me, because the switch from the calm narration to him slitting the hobos eyes is so seamless and natural that it really makes you feel sick. After that the switch happens so often that you become disoriented and more and more desensitized to it. For that reason alone I think the book is more successful than the movie, but I don't want to dismiss the movie - obviously the book has more depth.

I was actually surprised by how faithful the movie was to the book. Most of the dialogue is lifted straight from it, and although a lot of the book is left out of the movie (really, I'm assuming, because of time), what scenes do appear are rarely changed. A few notable exceptions would be the scene where Bateman goes on a date with his secretary, this happens in the book, but the films amalgamates four separate chapters of the book to make this scenes (one of which is extremely violent chapter, strange when you consider that Jean survives unscathed - in fact, she ends up marrying him and bearing his son - though this is only hinted at in the novel). There are some stranger changes, like a lot of the names have been changed for no reason whatsoever. Paul Owen becomes Paul Allen, Timothy Price becomes Timothy Bryce. I mean, really - why??? You can almost accept it as a comment on how all the characters in this novel are essentially interchangeable and therefor their names don't matter, but you lose the pun with Tim Price's name ("Price, you're priceless" is probably the most repeated line in the whole novel). The story-line with Luis (the gay man Patrick goes to strangle in the bathroom and mistakes this as a come on) is much longer in the novel, that first encounter just being the beginning, and I feel it's a shame that it's dropped because the parallels of Luis and Bateman have trouble figuring out what is reality and what is a fantasy is interesting.

Moving on to the characters. Every time a character is described, we get incredibly detailed descriptions of what their wearing, but as far as physical descriptions go, the most we get is that a few of the women are blonde. This had a lot to do with the consumerism motif. Everyone has essentially become clones of each other, their personalities either having been erased or just turned into a shallow bastard only concerned with the price and look of something. The movie loses this, because the very nature of film we see what the characters look like and we can tell them apart but the book is incredibly disorienting and the repeated motif of no one being able to recognize anyone and names constantly being mixed up becomes a lot more powerful.

The debate over whether or not Bateman's violent acts were just in his head becomes a lot more complex in the novel. There are three occasions where Bateman says in the narration that he's dreaming (once he confirms he is, and once he says he thinks he is, and a final that the dream is falling apart). Also, the scene where he goes back to Paul Owen's apartment and finds all the dead bodies missing raises more questions, because his description of the building is completely different, leaving you to believe he might have just gone to the wrong building.

One thing that I could shake from my head while reading this was the character of Tim Price (played almost unnoticeable in the film by Justin Theroux). This character is so unforgettable in the film that I was having a really hard time figuring out why he was so prominent at the beginning of the novel. For the first 50 pages or so Price and Bateman are always together - then quite suddenly Price freaks out in a club, announces he's leaving, and runs down a dark tunnel into an abyss. I have never seen a character just mutiny from a novel before and I felt there had to be some deeper importance here. So, here's what I've come to: Timothy Price is Patrick Bateman. Or to be more specific, Tim Price is the ideal Bateman wants to be. Price is the only person Bateman ever honestly compliments (calling him the most interesting person he knows), embodies the Wall Street mentality, his very name means money, and Evelyn is having an affair with him. It isn't until Price disappears into the darkness of what I can only presume is Bateman's mind that his mask starts to fall and the novel gets increasingly more and more violent - and when Price returns at the end the violence ends. I feel as though Bateman being this empty thing must create an alter-ego to survive in this world, and of course this is what Evelyn is in love with. However, it isn't until the end of the novel when Batemen realizes he can co-exist in this world (married to his secretary) that he allows Price to come back. Also, to add to Bateman's split-personality disorder, during the big chase near the end the narration suddenly shifts from first to second person, as though Bateman is literally writing himself.

That or he's batman.



(Though seriously, there is a part in the novel where someone calls Bateman "Batman" and I can't tell if it's a typo - because there were some typos in the edition I read - or a joke. Either way it made me laugh out loud on the bus, and honestly it's never a good thing to be seen laughing out loud while reading American Psycho on the bus...)


Which is better?




First of all, reading this book has given me a greater appreciation of the film while also making realize just how tame this movie really is - and in fact for that reason alone I find myself leaning more towards the film. The problem here is that yes, the book is better, it's everything the movie couldn't be and a hundred times more, however I don't think I could in good conscious recommend this book to anyone. I said earlier I like reading about serial killers, so I've read my share of horrible descriptions of real murders, but my god everything in this novel is just so much worse.

Bret Easton Ellis is a sick, sick man. He's said in interviews that writing this novel was his way of working out his demons. Well thank god he worked them out on paper because this man must have been full of so much hatred it is shocking. He hated 80s society so much his brain created an alter-ego to literally ultra-violence it to death and it is really hard to read if you yourself do not have as much contempt as Mr. Ellis (and trust me, I got a lot of contempt and I'm still blown away).

Then there's also the matter of the book and movie's depictions of Bateman. They're very similar, but fuck me Christian Bale is incredible. In the book Bateman is just this disembodied pathetic empty evil creature, but Bale... well, I think you get what I mean here.

So yeah, the book is better, and if you have the stomach for it and really loved the movie... ugh... I still can't recommend it. Just... be wary. The first line of the novel is: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" and the last is: "This is not an exit." This in itself should tell you this novel is something you can get into, but you cannot escape.

30 Minutes or Less

As I mentioned in my Tron: Legacy review, I have a hard time thinking of anything to say about mediocre films - well the same goes for films when I can't find any flaws. I'm sure someone out in cyberspace will contradict me on this one, but 30 Minutes of Less was pretty much flawless. ANyway, I'm trying to commit myself to writing reviews on a regular basis, so I thought I'd jot down a little review for y'all (keep in mind I've been suffering from a delirium inducing cold, so my opinion of this film might be based on a hallucination).

What really struck me while watching this movie was how easily it could have been a sinister and dark action movie. When I saw the trailer I though it was a funny concept, but watching it I was surprised by how well it balanced that edge between comedy and OH MY FUCKING GOD THERE'S A BOMB STRAPPED TO THAT POOR KID!!! There are much darker elements at play as well, such as Dwayne (Danny McBride) hiring Chango (Michael Peña) to kill his father (Fred Ward) - or really just the character of Dwayne in general.

Now, I have a really dark sense of humour, so this movie really might not be for everyone, and judging by the low score it received on IMDB (6.8 as of this review), I don't think I'd be wrong is saying a lot of people disliked this film - but I laughed my fucking ass off. I really thought it was incredibly well writing and the casting and acting was perfect. I mean, Jesse Eisenberg just has to look at you with those puppy-dog eyes ad you feel sympathy for him.



The ending was a little weird. We never find out what happened to the Major and the fates of Dwayne and Chango are a little... questionable. Also, this movie barely overtook the 80 minute mark and being that this film isn't raunchy (scenes with Juicy aside) I can only imagine the stuff that got cut out was probably too violent. Well, I'm sure we'll be seeing the unrated version soon and I'll find out what we missed in the theatres.

Battle Los Angeles

Or World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles, but certainly NOT Battle of Los Angeles.

When the trailer for this film was released, I was really keen to see it, because the trailer was just so good; however I still had some apprehension and didn't actually see this until someone bought me a ticket. Then... well my opinion on this film was so confused that I didn't really know how to explain it.

Someone would ask me what I thought about it and I would say: "It's great and it sucks." Finally I said that one too many times and now I have to try and explain myself, the only way I know how - through a timely review!

The Genre
The essential problem facing this movie is that it decided to mix two extremely different genres, which at first don't seem all that different to begin with - which might be why the filmmakers thought it would work really well. I'm going to get back to this topic later, but what I want to say here is that in my mind, this is two movies. One is an alien invasion movie, and the other is a hyper-realistic war film.

The alien invasion movie is really good.

The hyper-realistic war film? It fucking sucks.

You guys have had military training... right?

To begin, I am not in the military, and I don't consider my five odd years in cadets as any form of military training; but I have been around the military my entire life and watch quite a lot of war movies. It was actually driving me insane how stupid these people were acting. I don't want to go on a long rant of everything they fucked up (that and I saw this movie months ago, so my list is a little incomplete), but the thing that really killed me was the lack of radio silence.

So, you're a soldier and are thrown into an urban battlefield against an enemy whose biology and technology are completely (and literally) alien to you... and you aren't maintaining radio silence? Hello! They could have any number of surveillance equipment we know nothing about. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the military play it safe on this one? The first scene I saw these idiots pull out their radios I wanted to start screaming at the screen, and when it became a plot point I just wanted the soldiers to get their just desserts for being so STUPID.

Arg! Who are these people!?!

One of the most painful things about this movie is the lack of character development. The movie suffers from what can only be called Army Boy Syndrome (ABS?). When you put a bunch of young men in IDENTICAL uniforms it gets really hard really fast to tell them apart. I knew which one was Aaron Eckhart, but the rest of the boys were just soldiers in my head. When the audience can't tell the characters apart - they stop caring about them.

There are ways to introduce military characters properly. For starters, focus on less of them. Three or four are really all the side characters you need in an action movie anyway. Then, spend more time introducing the characters. This movie really, really, really wanted to get to the aliens, which makes me think the characters were really a last-minute addition to this movie. As though Christopher Bertolini wrote a great script about Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez fighting aliens, only to be told afterwards to add fodder for the aliens to kill. And there we have it, I can't think of these other people as characters, only fodder to die.

Hiveminds... or Whatever

The big "twist" at the end of this film is that all the robots/spaceships that the aliens used are controlled by one super computer/mother-ship/thing, and if you take that out you've essentially destroyed the alien army.

You know. I'm not really complaining about this point. I sort of groaned inwardly when it happened, but it wasn't a complete cop-out. Unlike in Independence Day, for example, destroying the mother-ship didn't destroy the ENTIRE alien army, just the one in Los Angeles.

What does annoy me is just what a tired and silly cliche this is. I refuse to believe any civilization would base their technology around relying one thing to control everything.

Suffer the Children

I never thought children in a war movie where it would be illogical if they weren't present would feel so damn out of place, but my god I wanted them to lose these kids. I think part of this has to do with them having no character, so like all the other soldiers, I could have cared less about them. The worst moment really comes when Eckhart gives the little boy the inspirational speech at the end. Oh gag me. That was so out of place it was painful. I bet you any amount of money that scene was also added as an afterthought, possibly because the studio wanted more emotion in what, frankly, is a film lacking all emotion.

Why This Works

By this point you're probably wondering why I think any part of this film is good, but hear me out. As alien invasion movies go, it's the most original one I've seen since... fuck, I can't even think of an alien invasion movie that isn't a War of the Worlds clone. This is the first time I've thought: "Yes, this is what would happen if aliens invaded us."

The reactions are genuine and completely logical (radio silence aside). I not only believe this is what it would (essentially) look like, I also completely buy it being the U.S. military who figures out how to defeat the aliens. Because, let's be honest, they do have the best military in the world. Their serious misstep was hiring a horror film director instead of getting down on their knees and begging Ridley Scott to direct what could, in some twisted world, be renamed Black Hawk Down 2.

The concept for this film is so good that I honestly have a hard time hating it. I really want there to be sequels, where hopefully they can fix up some of the stuff they clearly rushed through this first time. Or at the very least, alien invasion movies should take a cue. Ground combat in an urban environment is exactly what alien invasion movies NEED.

Heavy Rain

I've never reviewed video game before, but I thought it was worth a shot.If you haven't played Heavy Rain before, be aware that I'm going to be pretty liberal with spoilers here.

The Controls

Now, I actually played the demo before buying this game - officially the only demo that ever sold me on a game. I couldn't believe the sheer trivialness of some of the tasks presented to the player and the ridiculous button mashing games to achieve such tasks as "walk around the dumpster" or "walk up the ridge," but my god when it came to the fight scene it all paid off. The fight scenes are fast-paced and in real time, so if you fuck up you seriously fuck up and will either spend the rest of the game with horrible scars - or fucking *die*. Unfortunately the fight/action scenes and few and far in between and most of the time I'm doing button mashing to "draw a picture," "make an omelette," "juggle" or my personal favourite: "use the toilet."

In conclusion, I hated what I had to use the controls for a lot more than I hate the controls - although that fucking electric wire scene should DIE.

The Plot-Holes

This is pretty much the reason I wanted to write this. I couldn't believe how inconsistent this game was, or how much they just never bothered to explain. After spending about five minutes on the Internet I read a lot of these problems stemmed from the fact that many scenes were cut, as well as any connection to supernatural - but this means huge plot points in this game go unexplained. Where was the editor on this?

For example: why the fuck would Ethan black out and wake up with origami figurines in his hands? The first time it happened I thought he'd been drugged - but no, apparently not. Apparently he was just having a mental breakdown and would dream about children drowning because... well... uh... ??????????????

Or how about: Shaun's mom tells the police about Ethan's blackouts, directly connects it to the origami killer and then thinks they're not related. Well if you thought that then why the fuck are you telling the police you essentially think your husband is a serial killer???

Ugh, I could go on, but there's more to bitch about.

Jason

Is this kid retarded? No, really, I'm sorry I'm not being PC, but does this child have an underdeveloped brain? Or possibly have some sort of brain damage? Is there a history of schizophrenia in the Mars family (actually, that would explain Ethan a little better)? Why the fuck does this kid wander off like that in the mall? Then look all confused that he's wandered across a street and then get all giddy at the sight of his father and RUN INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!!!!!!!!!! I was kind of happy this kid got taken out. Darwin at his best!

Also, not to hark on the plot holes, but ETHAN GOT HIT NOT JASON!!! How does the person who took the full impact of the blow walk away without so much as a spine injury while his son kicks the bucket?

Madison

Meet, quite possibly, the most useless and superfluous character in the history of video games - which is unfortunate, because she wasn't a bad character. She was strong, smart (well...), cool and could kick ass pretty nicely, but what is her point? Madison suffered the most from the cuts made to this game. Her entire back story was red-conned, making her character more of a question mark than anything. Why does she dream of people attacking her? Why is she an insomniac? Why does she instantly go gaga over a guy who, frankly, looks like a bit of a drug addict? Why can't her hips stop swaying? Why does she have the be nude when you introduce her? Why does she keep helping Ethan escape from the police? *Plot-hole* How does she get her motorcycle back after doing this? Wouldn't the police have confiscated it, maybe looked up the license and registration? When she knows the police are after Ethan, why doesn't she suggest he move to a room that isn't under his own name? How come all her chapters involve date-rape, dancing or trying to get it on with Ethan? WHY ARE YOU IN THIS GAME!?!!?!?!?!?!

OMFG I JUST KILLED A CHARACTER!!!

Apparently there's an entire smorgasbord of ways to fuck up and kill characters, which is something I was not aware of until I let poor Agent Jayden get... well, sliced and diced. It was a strange moment of realization and horror that there were consequences to failing the button mashing. I had been operating under the assumption that the game had a logical conclusion to reach and therefor you could not fail. I did not realize how much time and effort was put into multiple endings. So when I got to the end, and for about a minute couldn't revive Shaun, I was almost on the brink of a meltdown that I had gone through that only to fail at the ending (he came around, go happy endings!). The point is, the twists and turns this game has to offer not only allows you multiple play-throughs, but it gives the game a tension I've never actually felt in a video game before. I was invested in all these characters - yes, even Madison - and I didn't want bad things to happen to them.

That being said, I cannot believe I only let one character get killed. This is unheard of success for me and video games.

Heavy Rain, the Movie Game: The Movie!

As I started playing this game I almost instantly started thinking about what a movie adaptation would be like, and almost as quickly decided there should never be a movie adaptation, so of course when I saw it listed on IMDB.Com a part of me died. Here's the thing, this video game is a movie - only it's about ten times better than a movie because it's interactive and your actions decide the outcome. Talk about defeating the purpose, if this movie is ever made it will flop horrendously at the box office. No matter how good they make this movie, it would still only be a movie, all the outcomes predetermined and completely cut off from audience interaction. Besides, this story isn't all that great, and the director would have a hell of a time trying to gloss over all the plot holes that might bypass some players who pick this game up at random.

My point is, film adaptations of popular video games are inevitable. But to all you who would rather wait for the movie than spend the 10 odd hours it takes to play: play the game, you'll get way more out of it that way... that and you can kind of play your own serial killer game... "I have decided Scott Shelby shall drown. I will not try to save him."

In Defense of Dragonball Evolution

(Originally posted in my LiveJournal on 2010-01-28)

Uh... that's not a sentence I ever wanted to say. It sort of turns my stomach and makes me feel sick. I just can't help it, when people bitch and moan about a movie and then get the facts wrong it drives me nuts.

First things first. This:



Is a terrible movie. It's not even in the category of being so good it's bad, it's just bad. It's illogical, annoying and just poorly executed... Anyway.

Reasons not to hate this movie over:

Bulma's hair isn't blue/green/turquoise/purple: Yeah, okay, let me stop you right there. Just the very fact that I just listed four colours should be some indication that the anime never had much reverence for her hair colour. Akira Toriyama always gave her purple hair. So yeah, who gives a shit what colour her hair is, it's hardly important.

Goku should be Asian!: Why? While the planet Dragon Ball takes place on is Earth (I don't wanna be a total geek and start naming chapter and episodes, but Bulma and Popo do visit Jupiter at one point, and of course the moon is present), but Goku doesn't come from Earth. He's from another race on another planet and the only genetic trait Saiyans seem to share with Asians is black hair.

That stupid pot: I don't think they did a very good job explaining it... well they didn't do a very good job explaining ANY of this movie, but the 'plot-pot' does come straight out of Dragon Ball. The big difference is in Dragon Ball it's a huge plot-point that actually makes sense and is also... a rice cooker. Yum.

How can Goku become Oozaru without a tail?: I'm pretty sure I've heard it from the horses mouth that they decided against giving Goku a tail (which is so retarded because the tail echoes the entire basis for this manga exist - ie. Journey to the West).



But I want to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. We never see Goku naked (thank Kami!) and for all we know it's his deep and dark shame he just doesn't talk about.

There are no high school dramas in Dragon Ball: Yeah, putting Goku into any form of formal education - or just plain education for that matter - is ridiculous, but doesn't anyone else remember Gohan's high-school adventures?

Reasons to hate this movie:

No Vegeta:



Okay, that might just be me. Obviously Vegeta had nothing to do with the King Piccolo Saga, but if they're gonna just skip through volumes and volumes of graphic novels (about 14 to be exact - 36 if you wanna count the alien/high school stuff) and take whatever story bits they want, why not just skip to Dragon Ball Z? You're hardly gonna leave anyone in the dark here, most people who like Dragon Ball are only familiar with Dragon Ball Z, so just do the Saiyan Saga and be done with it!

No Krillin:



You wanna know why the King Piccolo Saga was so tense in Dragon Ball? Because Krillin got murdered! He was the first main character to die (heh, and come back) in the series, and they completely erased him from the canon.

Plot Rape: There's just too much... far too much... to go over...
-LS

[Edit: I also included my psychotic ranting from the comments!]

They might not have thought they were filming Inglourious Basterds, but they thought they were doing something good. All the actors were signed up for three movies, for crying out loud, and James Masters... my god that man must be on drugs. I can't even count the number of times I heard him go on about how Shakespearean the role was and blah, blah, blah... there's no way he ever read the manga.

I'm pretty sure that the first draft of this movie incorporated a lot more from the manga, you can sort of see these things gleaming through, but either the director or one of the producers (I'm gonna say Rick Thorne, because he was behind Elektra and several other comic-based movies I hated) changed as much as they physically could in order to make this appeal to a wider audience... despite the fact that I think Dragon Ball is the most universally loved anime spanning over every possible category of 'audience'...

The whole thing felt like a hack job. It's barely over an hour long. How many scenes do you think they had to cut out for that to happen? What would the movie have been like if it had been released as written? Worse? Better? I have no idea, this whole things frustrates me.

Ugh, and what's even more frustrating is that Stephen Chow was offered the directors seat... STEPHEN FUCKING CHOW!!! He could have saved that fucking movie. I guess he had better shit to do, like going to the horse's mouth and making 'The Journey to the West'.

Ugh, I don't even know what point I'm trying to make, you've got me ranting. All I know is that everyone involved with this showed up thinking they were gonna make a great TRILOGY of movies, realized they were all being ass-raped, and stuck around to collect their pay-checks.

Fantasia 2000

I’ve never reviewed an older film before, but I felt I had something to say about this movie and damn it, I’m gonna say it.

Let me turn back the clock. It’s the mid-90s, and I own a VHS copy of Fantsia, one that I watch ad infinitum. It is my favourite movie as a kid and when I found out there was going to be a sequel I was ecstatic. I saw it at the iMax downtown… and the disappointed still shakes me to this day.

So let’s break this down to the segments and the presenters and why this movie blows mouse balls.



Symphony no. 5

Ah, Beethoven. Would Fantasia be complete without it? Of course not, he’s the one composer to make it into both films, and rightfully so. However this intro to the movie sums up nicely what is wrong with the entire movie. To begin with, it’s three minutes long. This entire film cripples itself by keeping all its sequences to about three (or less) minutes. There are only two exceptions to this, I’ll get to those later. One can argue that our attention span has decreased over the years, but I’m gonna stop you there and disagree.

Let me reiterate. Fantasy was my favourite movie as a kid. I watched it over and over and over again. The sequences in that film were about 10 minutes or more each and they never had any trouble keeping my attention. Even the opening of Fantasia, my least favourite part, was far more griping than this shlock. With the first movie the opening actually has music being transformed into image, here we just see… I dunno, butterflies. Are those supposed to be notes? This is so hack it’s painful.

Pines of Rome

This sequence would have and should have been incredible… if it weren’t for the fact that it’s mostly CGI. I remember this sequence being in the trailer and being really excited to see it in IMAX, and let me try to explain why. Even as a kid I could tell that the animation in Fantasia was better than any other animation I had ever seen. I thought I would witness CGI getting pushed beyond anything I had ever seen before… and who knows, maybe on a technical level it was, however to my eye all I could see was lazy animators using CGI instead of showing off the traditional hand-drawn animation it hints at but doesn’t exploit.

CGI truly is the bane of this film, especially after you learn just how innovative the original Fantasia was.



Rhapsody in Blue

This one is actually brilliant and wonderful and by far the best thing about Fantasia 2000. So of course they shove it 15 minutes into the movie, thus making it forgettable and somewhat obsolete in the eyes of the producers. I just don’t understand why they’ve buried this one, this is the only sequence that manages to truly translate music into image and dares to run longer than 10 minutes. It’s funny and full of heart and I could watch it as many times as I watched the original Fantasia without getting bored.

I actually get angry by how good this sequence is compared to the rest of the film because it makes me realize that the filmmakers were fully capable of recreating the magic of Fantasia and yet for some reason they just didn’t.

Bette Midler

… Really???

The Tin Soldier

Here we have another sequence butchered by CGI. I just can’t tell you how much I dislike mixing CGI with traditional hand-drawn animation. I think both are valid forms of art, don’t get me wrong, but I firmly believe that using CGI in a traditionally animated film is nothing but a crutch – especially when you have films like Fantasia and Pinocchio and Snow White to look at and see the amazing things you can do without CGI and photocopiers and all that bullshit.

Also, this story just kind of bores me. Our hero, the Tin Solider, doesn’t do anything. He just goes along for the ride and ends up back and home. Where’s the conflict? Where’s the tension? This sequence has more McGuffins than that Due South episode that actually labels all the McGuffins!

Mind you, I did like the rats.

James Earl Jones

My favourite intro of the film, firstly because James Early Jones is made of rainbows and awesome and secondly because he asks what everyone watching had been thinking for about 40 minutes: “Who wrote this?”

Carnival of the Animals

I would like this a lot more if it didn’t last less than three minutes. The animation here is incredible. This is the CGI-less animation I crave from Fantasia and it’s great… but again the producers think we’re cats and cut to Penn and Teller as fast as they can.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

I was pissed off when I realized what was happening 11 years ago and I’m pissed off now. They reused The Sorcerer’s Apprentice… THEY REUSED THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE. It’s bad enough that this film is half the runtime of the original, but when you realize that it’s not even all-new footage you come to the startling realization that this film is barely 60 minutes long, about 50 minutes of which is actual animation.

This is the only other sequence that dares to hit that 10 minutes mark. We are essentially watching an hour-long TV animation. And this is the point of the film where you realize just what an uninspired money-grab Fantasia 2000 is. It also doesn’t help that this is one of the sequences from the original I never really liked (probably because there are no women present). Listening to the commentary you come to realize that the producers couldn’t picture Fantasia without this sequence, and I have a hard time figuring out why. Fantasia is supposed to be about visualizing music, watch half an hour of the original Fantasia and you’ll understand that tenfold, and yet the people who made this film thought Fantasia was about a cutesy story involving a mouse.

Now, let’s step back a moment, Walt Disney actually envisioned Fantasia as being a movie constantly being rereleased with a mixture of old and new sequences, so it was essentially a quilt of animation and music… but c’mon guys, that idea clearly got thrown out the wayside around 1940, so don’t try to give that as an explanation. The Disney studios called in this film, and reusing this sequence is ample evidence of that.

Pomp and Circumstance (Noah’s Ark)

I thought I would hate this sequence, this mostly stems from the fact that it’s a bible story and the original Fantasia is so wonderfully secular, but honestly it’s my second favourite sequence. This captures more of the spirit of the classic Disney short than any other part of this damn film. The humour and slapstick here is so subtle and it’s damn near perfect. It still feels a little rushed, like all of this film does, but I feel that mostly because I enjoyed this segment so much I wish it had been longer.

The bad part about this segment is that this is the point where I finally get into the movie and think: “You know what, maybe the rest won’t be so bad.” Then I am immediately told that there’s only one segment left.

So much rage!

Firebird (A.K.A. Ferngully)

This is supposed to be their ode to the final sequence of Fantasia… and you can tell, because it kinda rips it off, utterly and completely. At least this piece has character and, despite the blatant CGI, has incredibly beautiful animation. Here we have CGI used properly in animation, where it helps but does not completely overtake the hand-drawn animation.

The Elk is probably my favourite character in this whole film. Whoever animated that Elk should have won an academy award. Bambi, step aside, this Elk’s eyes show more emotion than you ever did while you were calling for your dead mother.

In Conclusion

Walt Disney set out to make the greatest animated film of all time when he made Fantasia, and he did. Roy Disney set out to make the greatest money grab of all time, and he failed.

Is Fantasia 2000 is completely waste of celluloid? No, Rhapsody in Blue is incredible and Noah’s Ark is cute and Firebird is quite beautiful and worthy of ending the film, but it bothers me how hack this film is and how little the creators cared about what they were creating. They had a chance to continue the greatest animated film of all time… and they called it in.

What makes this movie worse is watching the documentary that comes on the DVD about Musicana, a sequel to Fantasia that nearly began production in the 80s. Just seeing the concept from that film was more riveting than watching Fantasia 2000.

TRON: Legacy

I literally have nothing to say about this movie, but there is something I'd like to say about movies in general. See, the main reason why I stopped updating here is that so many of the movies I saw were in that uncomfortable realm of mediocre and I just couldn't motivate myself to write about them. They weren't bad, they weren't good, they just were.

So, fast forward to 2010, I consider starting this blog up again and saw TRON: Legacy... and it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it just was. This bums me out more than if it had been a terrible movie.

I just wish producers actually cared about their finished product as a whole, and not just what it looked like.

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Robin Hood

Yes, there are spoilers, read at your own discretion.

I'm not entirely sure why this movie has prompted me to write a review out of all the movies I've seen over the years since last posting here, but I felt like I needed to say something about this movie. I had really low expectations going in and only watched it because I could get it for free from the library and was sort of on a Robin Hood kick from the adorable BBC Robin Hood series.



Aw, he's so adorably anachronistic! That being said, all Robin Hood movies are anachronistic (more on that later).

Really all this movie had to be was not Kevin Costner's version and I was going to love it. Anyway, the version I saw was the Director's Cut, so I'm not entirely sure what was added back into the movie, but it starts with written narration, telling us briefly about King Richard is returning home after fighting in the crusades and how there is an archer in his army named Robin Longstride. Already something feels wrong about this version of Robin Hood. Let's break it down.

1. This film takes place during 1199, but traditionally the story of Robin Hood takes place about a decade earlier while Richard is away and his brother John is abusing his regency, leaving Robin Hood to uphold the name of justice until Richard returns. Now, it doesn't really matter what time frame you put Robin in because he's just a fictional characters and all the story elements are just traditions passed down through the generations. That being said, when all a story is is a series of traditions that you change just to be different, you're telling a different story.

2. This is not our familiar Robin of Locksley, this is a peasant who ends up taking the place of the dead nobleman, Robert of Locksley. This doesn't really bug me, because Robin being a nobleman is one of the elements added to later renditions of the story, but it's yet another familiar element Ripley Scott is striping away from his version of Robin Hood.

So we meet Robin, the oldest soldier in the army, who despite being an archer uses his bow maybe four times in the whole movie. And his outfit is... ridiculous.



I can't really dislike the movie for this, because it's being both accurate to what they actually wore at the time and it is literally the only familiar Robin Hood thing they've kept in the movie. But it's just so... stereotypical... and silly. I'll take Errol Flynn's costume over this any day.

All of this griping aside, the battle sequences in this film are incredible. The storming of the castle at the beginning is slightly underwhelming, but maybe that's because Robin spends most of it in the stocks and it's a chef that takes out King Richard. Lame.

Robin and his merry men (yeah, he's already collected them) break out and go AWOL, in an attempt to reach the coast before the rest of the army. I guess because it will be harder to get a passage across the channel if a few thousand men are hiring ships. This army, by the way, will never be mentioned again. When King John is freaking out about not having an army to fight the French invasion with, I gotta wonder why he doesn't just use this army. And how exactly are the French able to attack England when there's an English army plundering their soil? I guess the English army got drunk and slept in for the rest of the movie.

Instead of reaching the coast though, Robin instead stumbles across one of the most overly complicated Robin Hood plots I have ever seen.

I'm not even going to try to explain it, because I know I'll get something wrong. Needless to say Mark Strong is a villain, real surprise there, who is working with the French while pretending to be Prince John's loyal subject. He ambushes a bunch of nobles who are also leaving the battle to reach the coast in the hopes of killing the already dead King Richard. This is where Robin meets Locksley and the two switch places. Confused yet?

They end up using the King's crown and disguises as lords to make their way across the channel and once all this overly long exposition is over John is King, going to marry a French noble named Isabella, whom his mother objects to and Robin is off to Nottingham with his merry men to return Locksley's sword to his father - though not before Mark Strong recognizes him and decides to pursue him. To keep his cover, I guess, but William Hurt ends up blowing his cover about a half hour later anyway.

But the plot's not important, so let's stop there to talk about why all Robin Hood movies are anachronistic, and why this one really stand out for being so. Thanks to my wonderful Medieval Literature course I've been learning about the evolution of the English language and, well, they didn't speak it back then. They hadn't even gotten to Middle English (think Geoffrey Chaucer) by this point. The peasants spoke Old English, or Anglo-Saxon (think Beowulf) and the nobles spoke Old French. So all the scenes where Isabella is seen to be indignant because she will only speak French to the English just don't make sense to me. They all spoke French!

I do understand the need to have the characters speaking English instead of Anglo-Saxon, and artistically you can get away with it, but when you decide to have a lot of the characters speaking French anyway, why not go that extra mile and actually have all the French speakers speak French? Are you just trying to create more animosity between the French and English? Because frankly it's lazy to rely on a language barrier to show that.

Also, in real life Isabella was 11 when this movie took place (she married John at the ripe and legal age of 12). So... that's gross.

Finally Robin reaches Nottingham where he meets Maid Marion... who isn't a maiden at all, as she's Robert of Locksley's widow. Robert's blind father asks Robin to take his son's place and pretend to be Marion's husband so she doesn't lose the land when he dies. The amount of trust suddenly placed into this perfect stranger is astonishing to me. What's to stop Robin from taking the land and throwing Marion off when Old Man Locksley dies? What's to stop him from raping Marion when she invites him into her chamber to continue the ruse? You don't know this person! Or does he? That gets a little foggy later.

The other astonishing change in this movie is their characterization of the Sherif of Nottingham. He is a complete pussy in this movie, a pussy that does *nothing*. He barely has screen time. He has been replaced as Robin's nemesis by Mark Strong and that's just fucking ridiculous to me. I feel like like they forgot about his character in the first few drafts and only added him as an afterthought. That's like having a Batman movie where the Joker is just a petty thief Batman takes care of in one scene, leaving all the big fights to some evil character the filmmakers made up. You can't do that! You can't strip away every iconic thing about Robin Hood and then still call it Robin Hood!

This is my biggest gripe with this movie. Change all the character names and you will not be able to recognize it as a Robin Hood story. I'm not even entirely sure Ridley Scott likes Robin Hood from the way this story is told. I think he just wanted to make a period piece and the only way he could sell it was by calling it Robin Hood.

To convolute the story even more, it turns out Robin is himself from Locksley, and his father was some... politician? Drafter of legal documents? Stone mason? I have no idea, but about halfway through the movie Old Man Locksley and William Hurt start telling Robin about his father and what a great man he was, so I guess they always knew Robin? I AM SO FUCKING CONFUSED.

So why do I like this movie? This movie that has a confusing and forgettable plot. This movie with underdeveloped characters I don't give a damn about. This movie with no resolution that has an ending tacked onto it just to fool us into thinking it's a prequel to Robin Hood's adventures.

Because the battles are fucking amazing. The sets are detailed and feel real. The weapons look dangerous. Visually it's absolutely stunning and being that I'm on such a medieval kick at the moment I just ate it up. The final battle, at what looked to be the Cliffs of Dover but are apparently some other white cliffs in England, is quite possibly the best battle I've seen in a long while. It didn't look like any battle I've seen in a movie before, and the archer's lined up on the cliffs like that reminded me of the fact that at one time England was known to have the greatest archers in all the world. It's an absolutely terrifying sight to be met with as you land on a beach.

Of course, Robin doesn't stay with the archers, instead he gets on a horse and starts beating people with a hammer. Because when I think Robin Hood, I think of a 45-year-old man on horseback with a giant hammer. And then Marion storms the battle with a dozen children... wait, what? Yeah, that part was weird.

People coming to this movie and wanting to see a story about Robing Hood, or any kind of comprehendible story of any sort, will be sorely disappointed, but those who want to emerge themselves in the medieval world couldn't pick a better movie to watch. You'll be confused, but you'll never be bored.



And remember, if you don't watch it Russell Crowe will find you... and take your head off.











-LS

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Well, I haven't used this journal in a while, but I see no reason for it to go to waste, so I thought I'd make it my home for any video reviews I do for movies, after all a review is a review. Here's something I did a couple months ago. I want to make more video reviews, but I might not use the same format. It took forever to film everything I needed to make this, and I really felt awkward being in front of the camera.



Either way, enjoy!

Smokin' Aces

(This one's going to be in the Feb. 6 issue of The Chronicle)

One million dollars, seven contract killers, one target. The plot of Smokin’ Aces seems simple enough when you watch the preview, and when you pay for your ticket and sit down to watch the movie, there’s going to be a certain expectation for action and violence. And this movie has action and violence in, well, aces.

The movie starts out quietly enough, with FBI agents Carruthers (Ray Liotta) and Messner (Ryan Reynolds) having a friendly chat about the benefits of urine for you skin while on a stakeout. Suddenly they pick up a call about a $1 million hit on Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven).

Suddenly the movie shifts gears and for the next 10 minutes so much information is being shoved down your throat that your head spins. It’s practically impossible to keep up with what’s going on, who’s being introduced and what you need to know.

The fact is, all that information is pointless and didn’t need to be told. All the audience needs to know is that Israel is a rat with seven contract killers coming after him. Why they needed to muddle it up with a complicated back-story and confusing history is a mystery. If you want to catch all the facts, you’re going to have to see it twice – though, who knows, maybe that’s the studio’s marketing plan.

After the mind-numbing exposition comes a section in the movie of these people just trying to get to the hotel where Israel is staying. On the way the violence and unexpected turns begin and it really does become an enjoyable movie.

The characters were all interesting to watch. Some are likeable with their bravado and humour (Ryan Reynolds), others are pitiable with their world spinning out of control around them (Jeremy Piven) and some were so unnervingly creepy that they’ll give children nightmares.

Jeremy Piven was incredible to watch on screen, and if anything, it’s worth seeing this movie just to see him act. That character probably has the most character development (which, to be perfectly honest, isn’t saying a whole lot as most characters weren't in it long enough to deserve character development) and he timed and delivered his lines perfectly.

When all the killers are in place and the real fighting gets underway, the audience is led to expect a climax that never really comes. While the trailers say ‘all hell breaks loose’, it really doesn’t.

Chaos, yes, but certainly not hell.

In fact, the fighting ends quite abruptly. It is as if director Joe Carnahan forgot about the climax.

However, he didn’t forget the climax, he just tried to make it a “thinking man’s” climax. The final 10 minutes of the film provides far too much explanation at once, and frankly, seems rushed and unnecessary. And the plot gaps remain wide and impossible to jump over.

Maybe scenes were missing that explained these impossible things, but the ‘shocking’ twist near the end was stupid. If it hadn’t been there the movie would have been much better.

Still the way the story is finally resolved was pretty well done in itself, despite the unnecessary plot twist.

So, was it a good movie? Yes. But Joe Carnahan tried way too hard to make it into a smart movie, and it’s really not a smart movie by any stretch on the imagination.
-LS