Philm

So, a few months ago, a friend and I were milling outside the local cinemaplex, debating over which movie we should see.  My friend Jerry really wanted to see the latest shoot ’em up action flick starring a handsome, yet fierce celebrity who hasn’t stepped foot in an acting class ever.  And I wanted to see a procedural cop drama hopefully also including graft, conspiracy and Serpico-like undertones.

Luckily for both of us there was Street Kings, but sadly, there was only Street Kings.

For those not familiar with the story, the film follows Keanu Reeves through the seedy underworld of LA, where he is a Vice cop who plants evidence and shoots first, then drinks, and finally asks a question or two.  Throughout the movie, Reeves’ character undercovers a conspiracy under the disguise of the seemingly random murder of his ex-partner and current snitch, who is telling all of his little secrets to Internal Affairs (cop terminology, yay!).  As the movie goes forward, guns are involved, as are the same LA gang thugs I have seen in any cop movie that takes place in LA, and the movie ends with a gun fight and…well, you don’t want me to ruin it, do you?

Anyway, the movie seems to be confused.  Is it a standard shoot-em-up where the story really takes a backseat to meaningless gun violence or is it a conspiracy mystery/thriller involving police detectives and corruption at every turn?  The movie itself doesn’t seem to know, instead forming a mix where neither party – the Steven Seagal-loving gun nuts nor the Sherlock Holmesian mystery readers – is satisfied.

The movie does however prove one point – all-star casts really can make a toilet-worthy movie actually enjoyable to watch.  40% of my enjoyment of the film was in watching Chris Evans be a realistic rookie cop and proving my assumptions wrong that he should burn in comic book geek hell for making the Human Torch an absolute bore to watch.

Another 40% of my enjoyment was watching Hugh Laurie do anything, because that man could wrestle a puppy to the edge of a cliff beneath which was a jagged garden of knife-wielding Venus fly traps, and I would still love him for it.

The last 20% was derived from my enjoyment of dividing my enjoyment of a film into percentages.

Anyway, Street Kings isn’t a film that is going to make you go out and buy the 5-disc special edition so you can watch all the absolutely fascinating commentaries and vignettes and whatnot.  It’s worth a rental, and that’s about it. Unless you are a pirate and download all of the latest movies onto your computer so you can sit at home with walls full of DVD-Rs that you have never watched, so when one of your friends asks if he can borrow the third disc of the second season of the Gilmore Girls, you can act like the savior of the day and let him have it, once you find it amongst your stacks of burned and illegal films.  In which case, you saved yourself a few bucks.  Yippee.

Let’s talk for a moment about The Dark Knight, shall we? In order to talk about it, let’s get the essential comments out of the way:

1. Yes, Heath Ledger was awesome.
2. Yes, the tone of the film was dark.
3. Yes, it doesn’t faithfully and completely follow the comics…

And it is at #3 that we come to our discussion of the day: an adaptation’s skillful art of mimicking or ignoring the source material.

Over the past few weeks, as The Dark Knight has continued to climb into box office heaven and everyone who was seen it discusses it, one thing I have heard over and over is (without ruining it for those of you who, for some reason, have decided not to go see this blockbuster Mecca actually deserving of its acclaim) that, at some point in the film, Batman makes a decision that he has never made in the comics. This criticism is really something that comes mostly from the comic book crowd, and is something I find to be rather disappointing. They also criticize that the character arc of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) occurs too late and is “a complete waste of that character.”

Why do the comic book nerds and nerdesses argue this? Because it’s not how it happened in the comics, and Batman is from the comics, so the movie should occur like it did in the comics. This is fine, I guess, because Batman is clearly not a character from “our world” and thus should follow the rules and logic of his own, in this case the comic book world. There is a problem, however, with how things happen in the comics.

The thing about comics is, they don’t end. Ever. For anyone who has ever decided to sit down and read the story of Spider-Man, you would have to start in 1962 and once you got to the present, you would see that Spider-Man is still going strong and most of his villains have ever stayed dead for more than 10 issues. There is no beginning, middle, and end for comics, and that seems to be why, at least in my opinion, people were mad that certain characters did indeed have a beginning, middle, and end. The true and faithful comic book-reading and superhero movie-going audience apparently wants these movies to go on for as long as the comics, which is essentially forever, or until the general public gets bored of the superhero craze and starts watching something else.

I think the real reason these graphic literati have such gripes with The Dark Knight and other superhero movies is because they are really afraid that Hollywood will come and make Batman carry a gun and Spider-Man wear a baby’s bonnet or some ridiculous thing because that’s what Hollywood does. It takes things as their own, because Hollywood is nothing but a large mountain of money, and I think we all know that money = the ability to do whatever the hell you want. (Was that pessimistic enough?)
But why am I, also a comic book lover and avid reader, not angrily typing away on message boards trying to reach the inbox of Christopher Nolan in order to change things “for the better” for the next Batman installment?

Because I understand that what has happened in the comics has happened. It’s there for me to read and to enjoy, and I don’t need that simply regurgitated on the big screen. I also understand that American comic books are mainly stories being repeated from 20 years ago, particularly Batman, so a new, fresh take on the character and his mythos is a good thing, especially from such amazing storytellers like the Nolan Bros.

This is not to say that I do not have the same fear that these other movie-goers have. We all remember Batman and Robin and the debacle that was, and so I can understand this point of view of worrying that their play toys may be used inappropriately. But, in a way, this is a new Hollywood that seems to appreciate the superhero genre, and these movies are, for the most part, being written and directed by people who have read and understand the comics from which these characters come.

I bring up all of this now for two reasons: One is that I think it’s helpful to talk about it now as most people have recently seen the film. Secondly, because Watchmen will be out in March, and we’ll probably have this whole debate again, as the Watchmen graphic novel is held in such high esteem by all who read it that to even consider changing anything about the story is blasphemy in the highest degree and will send you straight to Hell without dinner and without passing Go and without collecting your 200-damn-dollars.

Also, it’s important to remember that this is not just something that happens to comic book movies, but I just use them here as an example. It is happening with all movie adaptations. Another popular example would be the Harry Potter franchise, because every time I see one of those, some one tells me it wasn’t as good because it left things out or because it focused more on this rather than that. Well, as I stated earlier, this is taking one form of storytelling and transforming it into another. Things are going to change.

I always think the best way to deal with this is to understand that novelized Harry isn’t cinema Harry, and although they look alike and talk alike, they are essentially two separate entities and should be treated as such.

But, anyway, this is just my 2 cents, and this is just what I think, because I enjoyed the film.

And, yes, Heath Ledger was awesome.

In the past few years, I have enjoyed the rise and fall of the Ocean’s franchise, which inevitably spawned a new generation of Las Vegas heist movies. Coming out of that spawning appears 21, but dare I say that this film follows more of a superhero origin template than a Vegas caper.

To anyone not familiar with the film, a quick look on YouTube for its trailer will quickly show you that this is a film about a kid, hard on cash and looking for a way to pay for his upcoming medical school bills. Luckily, he is a Mensa-grade mathematician, but is somehow unable to find a use for his “great power.” Again, luckily he meets a college professor who turns him onto the game of card counting, and thus the real film begins. A group of students, including Mensa kid, go off to Vegas every weekend, ripping off various casinos by counting cards, which is “not illegal.” However, despite its legality, it does lead to various beatings by an old-school Vegas thug.

Essentially, a kid with “great power” journeys into a world where he can use his power, but not really for good. And, in the end, he learns that with great power must also come…something or other.

If this movie could be renamed, I would have titled it Spider-Man Goes to Vegas, as the plot seems to follow the underdog story of Peter Parker all too well. This isn’t to say that the film is a flop. It’s not. It’s enjoyable and interesting on a math geek level, but most of the movie lies on the surface, and there really isn’t any deeper meaning to it all. In fact, practically everyone in the movie benefits from the “abuse of power” that is counting cards.

In the end, 21 is good if you enjoy these new-fangled Vegas heist movies, of if you just enjoy smart kids robbing casinos because they can.

This film doesn’t exactly win the prophesied chicken dinner, but perhaps a wing or two?

YES, this is exactly what it looks like – a blog. And not just a blog, but a movie review blog or, for you must-shorten-everything-to-a-cute-compound-Internet-word, a movrevblg.

But before I begin with the dispensing of the reviewing and bloodshed, I thought it might be helpful to introduce myself, so that you are no longer asking “Who is this guy?” and “Why didn’t he like I Am Legend?”

To begin answering the question of qualifications, I, like only the most prestigious of cinemaphiles, have a Netflix account. Yes, that’s right, that exclusive club of red envelopes has, for over a year now, included me among the special few to enjoy DVDs via mail for my at-home enjoyment.

Not only do I watch movies, but I also have seen such a range of movies from Michael Bay’s Transformers to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. In fact, I tend to use those two movies as the ends of a scale, upon which I rate other movies.

…And for those of you confused, Transformers is the not-good end. And, if that did confuse you, my reviews may not be for you. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy large fighting robots as much as the next action figure-collecting, Pokemon enthusist, but when my large fighting robots are interrupted with unnecessary cameos and a complete lack of logic, reason or plot, I tend to spit my Mountain Dew at the TV and then the fun is ruined for everyone, especially my grandma who has to clean up after me.

(Now, despite that last little rant most likely offending all of nerdingdom and men who live with their grandmothers and require their assistance to exist, I might point out that this post does begin with a Matrix reference, so ha.)

Anywhere, where was I?

Oh, yes, I watch movies. This blog will, hopefully, contain reviews on a wide range of movies and genres, from the mainstream to the independent, from the low-budget to the high, from the novel to the extremely overdone and trite . However, I will point out that I have very little patience for the formulaic screenplay, and since this is a review blog, and since reviews are (despite how much other critics may lie to themselves) completely subjective, my reviews of movies that are of a genre that I detest may not be to your liking if you tend to like that kind of movie.

For example, no matter how much I may want to enjoy a romantic comedy, if I see another one in which a successful-yet-single Manhattan girl falls in love with a successful-yet-single Manhattan guy, where both somehow managed to find the incredibly rare and lovely midtown apartment that they can each afford on one person’s salary, and when they fall in love there is of course some odd yet humorous circumstance keeping them apart, and the actress playing the female lead is named Kate Hudson and the actor playing the male lead is named Matthew McCona-bong-playing-pot-smoker, I think I may eject the DVD from my player and instead smear marshmallow fluff on my eyes as it would be much more to my liking.

My goal is to update this blog about once a week, reviewing the newest movies to come out on DVD. I hope that I will be able to keep this promise, but who knows – at the end of one week, I may instead be posting images of sheep withLOLcat-like phrases, like such:

Finally, I will not be giving these movies numeric scores, like 3 stars or 5 lucky clovers. (I do this following the philosophy of the great, Internet sage Yahtzee, and if you don’t know his work, I suggest you check it out: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation) My reasoning is such: to reduce an in-depth and completely engrossing movie to nothing more than a digit completely degrades everything I think film stands for, and also because most films would only end up as a 5 or a 6 anyway, with 10 being impossible to achieve and 9 being the movie I wrote in my head after watching the film’s trailer.

Instead, I will be ending each review with a short phrase or clever, witty remark that hopefully you will remember when standing in the New Releases section at your local Bustblocker when thinking about what to rent.

Hopefully this introduction of myself has been helpful to you, and if it was, then I imagine you will not be leaving your computer for the next 24 or 48 or however many hours before I post the first review. In which case, I hope you do not live alone so that someone may bring you water or food, because you dying to read my next post wouldn’t be helpful to anyone, except maybe the local mortician, but that guy has enough on his plate, I’m sure.

If you didn’t find this intro helpful in anyway, shape or form and you feel this was a complete waste of time, well then I tell you to GO FLY A KITE. Seriously, because kites are fun and if you don’t like witty repartee or movies, you’re probably the kind of person who enjoys kites.