Do You Hear the People Sing?

Posted: January 4, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , , | 8 Comments

I’m going to say this up front: when I saw Les Miserables, I cried like a baby through the whole thing. I’m man enough to admit it. You’d pretty much have to have a heart of stone not to. I’ve been in love with the music of Les Mis for about twenty years, but I’ve never had a chance to see it in person (and the half staged, half not production they run perennially on PBS every time they need to shake loose a few more nickels doesn’t count either). I’m trying to convey the extremely high expectations and hopes I had going into this film before you read any further.

That having been said, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, I suggest you stop reading, buy a ticket to the next showing, and go out to see it. It’s really that good. The first word to come to mind after it was over was “epic”. If there was a chance in hell of a musical being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, this would be the one. Certainly there are more than a few deserved nominations to go around.

First, the cinematography is stunning. Rather than simply transporting the stage show to film, cinematographer Danny Cohen uses the film medium to create a complete and compelling world full of vivid and rich imagery and (here’s that word again) epic scale. The staging of every scene is perfect, vast and overwhelming in the prison yard, majestic and beautiful when looking out over the rooftops of Paris, and time and confining when having a sword-fight in a hospital.

One of the great strengths of film over stage is the ability to do close-ups, to bring intimacy with the performers that simply isn’t available even in a black box performance (and who ever heard of Les Mis being done in a black box, anyway?), and director Tom Hooper does an excellent job of utilizing the various levels of intimacy available to draw more out of the characters than would otherwise be possible. The sets are also much more flexible, and the use of space is often fun and agile without feeling “dancy” or overblown. Most of all was the unique decision to film with live singing rather than a playback, which gives even more of a sense of intimacy and believability to the moments in the film; there is none of the traditional sense of “let’s all suddenly break into song!” associated with movie musicals, but rather a natural transition in and out of music that lends itself to a perfect suspension of disbelief.

There were also some key decisions made in terms of what material to include and what to cut, but they were done with a careful eye toward shaping a coherent narrative, and unless one of your favorite songs is missing I doubt you will even notice (unless like me you absolutely despise one of the songs that got trimmed back, in which case you might even cheer a bit.)

The bulk of my praise however (and this might just be my own personal tastes coming out) is going to go to the actors.

First and foremost I can’t say enough about Anne Hathaway as Fantine. I’ve never been all that fond of Fantine as a character (again, I’ve only ever really known the music), as I found her to be at best a plot device and not especially sympathetic. Well voiced? Certainly. Someone to care about? Not really. Hathaway changed that completely. She brought a tragic dignity to the role it always lacked for me before, and my heart ached for her every moment. Her decent from factory worker to her final moments is brought to painful life by a performance that by itself deserves an Oscar. Add onto that her amazing performance of “I Dreamed a Dream”, and if she doesn’t at least get nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, there will be a riot in Hollywood. In this performance she showed that it is possible to both sing beautifully and emote, while most actors struggle to do either one.

Standing in contrast to Hathaway’s performance, but still just as moving and powerful in its own way, is Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean. Whether because he is playing to a camera rather than an entire theater or simply as a matter of character choice, Jackman dials down Valjean from the more grandiose figure he is traditionally presented as. This fits the narrative of the story better, as well as allowing his co-stars to bring their own performances down to a more empathetic level. While I myself have always loved (and sympathized with) Valjean, it takes a great deal of skill to show that level of restraint with the character, especially when he brings forth his characteristic passion in occasional moments of brilliance.

The rest of the cast vary from good to great, but I want to give some special words of praise to a few who either made me care about their characters more than I expected to, or who managed to rise above my expectations of their abilities.

Sacha Baron Cohen as Thenardier and Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thenardier – I love these characters and I most assuredly do not love these performers, so I was shocked when I saw their names in the credits. While I wasn’t thrilled with all the choices made around their roles, I loved everything they did with their roles. Don’t know that it’s worth an Oscar, but certainly worth a Golden Globe nomination.

Samantha Barks as Eponine – Until I saw this movie Eponine was at best a throw away plot device, at worst an annoying roadblock of a plot device. Ms. Barks changed all of that. She made Eponine charming, warm, relatable, and in the end another wonderfully tragic figure. Again, I don’t know that she rose to the level of Oscar nomination, but she definitely deserves a Golden Globe.

Daniel Huttlestone as Gavroche – I have always vacillated back and forth between being irritated by Gavroche because I don’t know what to do with him and simply despising him for being a waste of time and space. Young Master Huttlestone has completely changed my mind, bringing courage, dignity and charm to an otherwise forgettable character. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him getting a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and even a dark horse candidate for an Oscar nomination.

Now, if you still haven’t seen the movie, what are you waiting for? Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Beyond the barricade there’s a movie you’ve just got to see.

How Verizon Is Killing Their Own Business

Posted: December 31, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

So I finally saw the finale of “The Voice” the other day, and I’d like to start by saying congratulations to Cassadee Pope. I picked her as an early favorite to win, although she wasn’t necessarily my favorite. I liked Terry McDermott, although he had an off night in the finale, and Nicholas David was also very good. Amanda Brown also caught my attention with “Dream On” and “Here I Go Again“, and I personally thought she went home too soon.

So why did it take me almost two weeks to get around to watching the finally? Well, that would be because I watch it On Demand. Specifically because I watch it with Verizon On Demand. I wanted to be very clear about this, because I don’t know for sure that all the vitriol I am about to unleash is applicable to every cable and satellite provider, although past experience with other systems would lead me to believe it is. Still, I want to be as fair as possible.

Once upon a time, I loved On Demand. It was just like watching TV, only without the commercials. I could also pause, rewind, fast forward, anything I wanted. Sure, I was paying a small fortune for access to these features, but I was willing to pay it, because what I was getting made it worthwhile. It was like having a DVR that I didn’t have to set up (although we have one of those too, I just don’t use it).

Then something went wrong. First it was little things. The pause button started timing out on programs. Annoying, but hey, it happens with DVDs sometimes. But then we couldn’t just restart where we left off, we would have to restart from the beginning. And then suddenly we can’t use features like fast forward. Uh-oh, this is ominous. Before you can say “screw the customer”, we’re getting commercials in our On Demand programming.

Oh, and the price of our cable bill keeps going up. But that’s kind of like death and taxes.

So this extra service that we’re paying for (a little more every month, it seems) is getting less valuable every month. Now, some of you might say, “why not just use the DVR? You said you have one, right?” Well, here’s how they screw us on that one, too. You need a separate box for every room, and we’re already paying extra just to have a basic cable box in our bedroom, which is where my wife and I watch TV. So we have to pay extra to watch TV when we want, and we have to pay extra to watch it where we want, AND we have to pay extra to watch without commercials, which we thought we were doing in the first place.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that TV isn’t free. All entertainment comes at a price, and that entertainment needs to be paid for. Broadcast TV (which traditionally came free to people’s home via, well, broadcast) was paid for by advertising. But cable (and it’s bastard stepchild, satellite) is not paid for exclusively through advertising. In fact, I’d like to know exactly what percentage of it is paid for each year in advertising revenue, because I know I’m paying a hefty sum just to get access to the most basic channels. (I’ll gladly pay the extra for HBO and Showtime, thanks.)

I’d like to say that they get away with this because they have a monopoly, and there is some truth to that. But there’s a deeper truth to it: they get away with it because I put up with it. I keep coming back for the “higher” internet speeds (read “please don’t choke my downloads”), I keep coming back for the “On Demand television” (none of the convenience, all of the commercials), I keep coming back for the crappy service and the “customer service line” whose responses are less “how can I help you” and more “sounds like your problem”.

I used to buy entire seasons of shows on DVD and watch them that way. Sure, it put me way behind everyone else in the office, running from water coolers with my ears covered screaming “NO SPOILERS! NO SPOILERS!” for months at a time, but it’s getting to that point again anyway. At least back then I didn’t have to watch commercials in the meantime. I’d consider switching to watching TV on the internet, but they’re usually a season behind AND have commercials, plus I still have Verizon internet. So if anyone has a better idea I’m all ears.

Until then, don’t tell me who won Season 4 of “The Voice” until at least a month after it’s over.

The Joys of Uncomplicated

Posted: December 21, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Kraft Mac and Cheese (in the blue box!). Mashed potatoes and gravy. There’s a reason these are some of my favorite foods, and it’s not just because they have enough carbs between them to make Robert Atkins come back from the grave and die all over again. No, it’s because they are uncomplicated. There isn’t anything complex or subtle about them; you know exactly what you are going to get, and that is as wonderful as it is comforting.

The movie equivalent of this would be The Expendables 2. In many ways it is a tour-de-force. On the surface it may seem like nothing but pure action movie schlock, and there’s a reason for that: it’s nothing but pure action movie schlock. But stop for a moment and think about what that really means. When was the last time you saw a pure action movie?

Action movies aren’t supposed to be complicated. They should have a clear good guy (or good guys), maybe a little rough around the edges but very easy to connect with. The bad guy should be so rotten he practically oozes filth. If there is any angst it should last just long enough to give motivation to go out and get the bad guy. And there should be lots of fights: fistfights, knife fights, gunfights, explosions fights, the works. The dialogue should be breezy enough to keep the action moving without getting you bogged down, and juts interesting enough to keep you amused.

And that’s exactly what The Expendables was. The brilliance of the original was that David Callaham and Sylvester Stallone managed to deconstruct the action film and determine exactly what its minimal components should be. They then built the perfect film with a great ensemble cast, putting together some of (if not most) of the greatest action stars of all time. It was fantastic, and of course they were going to do a sequel. So what does a deconstructed sequel to an action film look like?

Basically, it looks like The Expendables 2. You use the same formula as the first, add 20% more explosions, “this time it’s personal”, a couple of fun cameos to round out the whole thing, and bam! You got a sequel. If it feels like the entire movie is one running cliché, it’s mostly because that’s what happens when you break down the formula for (arguably) the most formulaic film genre ever made and strip out all the useless detritus that has been accumulating over the years as people try to disguise the fact that they are making an action film.

But here’s the thing: none of that matters, for two reasons. First, formula or not, the film works. It’s a great action flick, mostly because it doesn’t try to be anything else. If they had tried to add even a dollop of something else (even a hint of romance, or meaning, or whatever) it would have fallen flat on its face. It succeeds because it is pure and uncomplicated, delivering exactly what it promises.

The second reason is that the cast is a lot better than most people give them credit for. Some of them (Sly Stallone, Bruce Willis) are actually astoundingly good actors, and others (I’m not cruel enough to call them out by name) excel within their milieu, which is still pretty damn hard to do. Selling the scene is always difficult; doing it when it could be sitting in a bar one day and the middle of a jungle firefight the next is monumentally tougher. And staying in character while explosions are going off just a few yards away? Not as easy as you think. If you don’t believe me, try it some time. The cast sells this movie, even more than the movie sells itself.

If you’re looking for a great movie that will make you think, will bring tears to your eyes, and in the end will make you believe that people can triumph over any adversity, I highly recommend that you watch The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Great film. But if you just want to have a good time, get a few laughs, and not have to work too hard for it, I highly recommend The Expendables 2.

Tuesday Bonus Post: The Dark Side of the Wall

Posted: November 20, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

For those who might be interested, I’m taking a class on rhetoric and digital media, and as a class project had to create a piece of digital art. I decided to do a digital poem that was a riff on Taroko Gorge by Nick Montfort. It’s my own mash-up of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, rather appropriately titled The Dark Side of the Wall. Fell free to have a look, critique it, love it, hate it, just tell me what you think in the comments.

WTFMMOFPS?

Posted: November 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

It’s not like I’m some sort of newb: my first gaming console was an Atari 2600. I’ve played most of the consoles since then, and I’ve owned every iteration of Playstation and Xbox that has ever existed, as well as most of the Nintendo consoles. I’ve had a computer since x86 was even a designation, and “baud” was a word. I get gaming. Believe me. I’ve loved it, hated it, and been thrilled and frustrated by it. I just don’t think gaming gets me anymore.

For those of you who only started playing video games in the mid to late nineties (or heaven forbid, since Facebook and cell phones made video games acceptable), let me describe to you what gaming used to be like. You would sit in a room, usually by yourself, and you would put the game in. It would start up, you would play for anywhere from a few minutes to a few days (depending on your endurance and the size of your bladder), and then you would pass out. If you were really lucky and you were playing the right kind of game, you might have a friend to play with. If you were unlucky, you had a sibling you had to share with (hi, Jen). That was about it.

Somewhere along the line somebody got the idea of creating multiplayer games in a very real way. I’m not clear on exactly when this happened (I blame Doom), because they didn’t dominate the world of gaming for a long time. They coexisted, out there but not overshadowing traditional gaming. At least to the best of my knowledge not before Everquest came along (colloquially known as Evercrack). I lost a lot of good friends to Evercrack, mostly because I just never saw the appeal. It seemed more like a job than a game, spending all of your time “grinding” (that would be doing senseless and boring tasks for in-game currency to buy in-game items or achieve other in-game objectives) so you could get to a point where you could, I dunno, play the game. And it was always a matter of keeping up with the Joneses.

Then I discovered City of Heroes. This is a massively mutiplayer online game in which you get to play a super hero, and it was tailor made for me. My wife became a gaming widow for about a year. She finally got me back when she lured me into World of Warcraft, which had taken over from Everquest as the fantasy MMO equivalent of crack. She got tired of it; I didn’t. At least, not for a long time. It took a lot of grinding, foul language, and downright immaturity that I would be shocked to hear from an 11-year old boy to finally get me to quit. Two years of that later I finally went cold turkey. I’ve been clean for about six months now, and I’ve discovered something: there’s no games left for me.

See, here’s the problem. I never liked first person shooters (Doom, I’m looking at you again). I just never got the whole “twitch-twitch-flinch-twitch-this is fun!” thing. And I’m done with MMOs. It’s not the games; it’s the players. I just can’t tolerate their bullshit. For the right game I’ll pay every month (although that did grate on me, I won’t lie), but as City of Heroes found out, the free to play model isn’t enough to keep you going when the content isn’t there and the jerk-to-fun ratio is jacked up to 11.

But when I go to look for a nice, simple game, something like the games of my youth, they all seem to be gone. Note I didn’t say “easy”. Anyone who wants to claim that Metroid or even Super Mario World was easy has either a short memory or way too much time or their hands. But I don’t want to have to invest three days learning the control scheme. I don’t want to have to do mental and physical gymnastics to control my character (Wii, Kinnect, I’m looking at you this time). Even the franchises I used to love have confused added complexity for improvement. I loved Civilization. Civilization II may well have been the pinnacle of game making. Civ III was so convoluted and confusing I couldn’t even finish a game on the easiest setting. I hear they’re up to 5 now. Good for them. I wouldn’t even give them 5 bucks for it.

How about a basic platformer with some deep story? I’d love to see a great RPG that I can sit down and play for hours, not sit down and watch for hours a la Final Fantasy 13, which was so painful I couldn’t get through the first two hours, which translated to roughly fifteen minutes of actual gameplay. How about instead of adding bad multiplayer, you take the time to program the game such that I can choose between playing it FPS or strategic (Fallout 3, I’m talking to you).  How about just once, you deliver a game experience that maybe isn’t all about the hottest graphics and coolest sound, and instead rewards me with gameplay so compelling, so rich, so intuitive and fun that I want to come back again and again, and I’m actually willing to pay twenty dollars more for extra content, because the original game was JUST THAT GOOD?

Oh, and how about not forcing me to be online just to play a single player game, Blizzard? ‘Cause, yeah, that’s bullshit.

Special Bonus Post!

Posted: September 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Many thanks to the ladies over at Heels First Travel for having me do a guest post! Check it out now, and be sure to check out all of their great travel advice!

 

Go ahead, I’ll still be here when you get back.

Let’s Talk About Sex. Better Yet, Let’s Not.

Posted: August 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Quick show of hands: how many of us are actually comfortable talking about sex? I don’t mean in a roundabout way, or in a joking way, or even in a clinical way. I mean an honest, open discussion about the kind of sex that happens every day, maybe even the kind of sex we are having on a regular basis (if we’re lucky). I’m not imagining a lot of hands are up right now, even among the health teachers out there, and there’s a good reason for that. Well, not good, as such, but a well-documented one at any rate.

There’s a puritan taboo in the American culture and psyche regarding sex. We can discuss violence, death, psychological trauma, divorce, even Pauly Shore movies with minimal discomfort (well, maybe not Bio-Dome, that thing scarred me), but we simply can’t have a frank discussion about sex. I can laugh about it with my friends, dance around it with my mom ever since THE TALK, and never, ever admit it happens when my in-laws are around. If I turn to the one source of knowledge that informed my youth, television, I discover that sex consists of two people wearing pajamas kissing goodnight and sharing a bed, with a soundtrack of “oooOOOOOOooohhh!!!” If I rely on its younger sibling, the internet… you know what, I can’t even repeat what the internet showed me. I just need to go wash my eyes out. With industrial strength cleanser.

Obviously I can’t step outside of my own cultural baggage and experiences to say whether or not this is “unhealthy” or “bad” or “disturbing as all hell”, especially in comparison to other countries, where they seem to serve soft-core porn with the soft-serve ice cream. All I can say with certainty at this point is there has to be some better way, some sort of middle ground that neither glorifies sex nor demonizes it. There’s so much that sex can be, any discussion or portrayal of it is by definition going to be incomplete. However, I can take a look at some of the portrayals of sex in American popular culture (no, I will not now nor in the foreseeable future consider the internet to be “popular culture”) and see what common pitfalls there are and if I think anyone is getting it close to right.

First, I think most of the shows on HBO and Showtime today are getting it wrong. The sex is gratuitous, which I couldn’t care less about, but more importantly it is irrelevant. Every time I see sex show up in one of these shows it seems to exist purely for titillation, rarely if ever to drive the plot forward. That’s not to say the characters’ sex lives don’t drive the plot forward, but the portrayal itself adds nothing. In particular I am thinking of True Blood, Game of Thrones, and House of Lies. At least when they do violence or politics (medieval or office) on those shows they get it right.

On the other end of the spectrum is broadcast television, which in spite of the FCC has gotten to the point of acknowledging that people do, if fact, have sex. Not on camera, of course, but at least it does occasionally get discussed. Even here though it is oblique, rarely referenced except in the most banal and inoffensive ways for fear of some octogenarian degenerate somewhere filing a complaint just to get their jollies off by telling everyone else what to do. I would cite examples, but really, just watch primetime TV.

So what are some good examples? Not that I was ever a fan, but the few times I was forced to watch it, it seemed like Sex and the City got the balance right. The sex scenes, while sometimes graphic, always had a purpose and lent weight and credence to the situations and characters. In the same vein, I’m not loving Girls on HBO, but the few episodes I have watched have some very uncomfortable sex scenes that make very important character and story points I just can’t see being portrayed as clearly and compactly without just putting it out there, for lack of a better phrase. One show that I do like a lot that I think gets the balance right is Lost Girl on SyFy. Considering the protagonist is a succubus, there’s pretty much a guarantee of a lot of sex, but it is for the most part done tastefully and within context of the needs of the story. They don’t linger just for the sake of a few cheap thrills, but they don’t shy away either.

I don’t mean to give the impression that I’m some kind of prude who’s afraid or ashamed of sex. Not to go into too much detail, but I was once a twenty-something male with a credit card and access to the internet. There’s nothing wrong with cinema whose greatest contribution is the archetype of the Pizza Delivery Boy or the Pool Cleaner. But if that’s all you’re aiming for, then by all means don’t waste my time with dialogue and story. On the other hand, if you are attempting something a little more highbrow, don’t insult me by assuming I either can’t handle seeing naked skin or you have to have gymnastic bedroom exploits every five minutes. Focus on the story, and if sex is a natural part of that story, let it happen naturally. Maybe then we can start to treat it as something natural.

The Greatest Stand-Up of All Time

Posted: July 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture, Humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

There’s an old joke that goes “dying is easy; comedy is hard.” Having tried (with mixed success at best) to do comedy on stage, on the printed page, and on the electronic screen, I can attest to this fact. The hardest of all is doing stand-up. When you do stand-up you’re putting yourself out there, in front of the audience, with no script, no character, nothing separating you from them except for the common decency and respect that we all have for each other as human beings… and they’re all a bunch of rowdy drunks looking for a good time, and they don’t care if it’s at your expense.

When you do stand-up, you put it all out on the line, every time, and dealing with hecklers isn’t the hardest part of the job. Dealing with the raw reality of it, baring your soul to a new crowd of strangers and making it funny, insightful, and compelling each and every time, keeping it fresh and new for them even when you’ve done it a thousand times before – that’s the hardest part. I have nothing but love for good stand-up, and nothing but respect for great stand-up comics. Each one has to create their own unique style to stand apart from a sea of others, a special and compelling character that is both individual enough to be recognizable and familiar enough to be relatable.

For my money, these are the best stand-up concerts of all time, and are must-see items for anyone who likes to laugh.

Best Classic Stand Up: Bill Cosby – Himself

The heart of stand-up is not telling jokes, it’s telling stories. Funny stories, poignant stories, stories that pull you in or let it all hang out. The greatest storyteller of them all is Bill Cosby, and this is the concert where he is at the top of his game. He manages to combine words, gestures, running gags, and most of all just the character of Bill into a tour de force performance that doesn’t require anything except him to keep you enthralled. The most magical moment for me is a single story that (if I recall correctly) takes over ten minutes to get from point A to point B, and by the time he gets to the end he’s already covered more comedic ground than many comics can do in an hour… and then comes the punch line that actually references back to something he said a half hour before. Pure comic gold.

Best Underrated Stand-Up: Christopher Titus – The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour

“If it was a good show that got canceled way too young, it must have been on Fox!” That should be the slogan for the network that canned Titus (along with everything they’ve ever touched by Joss Whedon, but that’s a different rant.) Fortunately I discovered this stand-up special by Christopher Titus many years later and was able to see that his particular brand of dark, cynical, and yet still somehow hopeful comedy is still alive and well. Covering a wide range of material in a frank, honest, and mature fashion that is distinctly unfashionable among most comics, Christopher Titus walks a very fine line that manages to be both wildly entertaining and deeply thought-provoking, as well as more than a little moving on occasion.

Best Angry Stand-Up: Dennis Leary – No Cure for Cancer

I love Dennis Leary in pretty much everything I see him in, but for my money this is and always will be his defining moment. His humor is at best irreverent and at worst vulgar, but it is always challenging: challenging the status quo, challenging what is acceptable, even challenging just how far you can push the boundaries of bad taste. He is a thinking man’s angry comic, critiquing modern society even as he criticizes  it.

And to all the Sam Kinison fans out there, let me be the first to say, and I’m pretty sure Sam would agree with me when I say this, fuck Sam Kinison. He was a no-talent hack, the shock-jock of stand-up who got by on a little humor, a lot of screaming, and a willingness to say absolutely anything. That’s not comedy, that’s Tourette’s syndrome.

Best Dirty Stand-Up: Eddie Murphy – Raw

In 1987, Eddie Murphy had nothing left to prove. He was at the top of his game. That was the year Beverly Hills Cop II was released, for crying out loud. So what on earth possessed him to do a stand-up film in a skintight purple leather suit? Pure genius, that’s what. This is Murphy at his best, and he lives up to the title of the film all the way through, in every sense of the word. His language, his subject matter (you’ll be saying “I want half!” for hours afterward), even his gestures are all direct, honest, and completely uncensored. It’s not for every audience, but I highly recommend it for everyone who can get behind it.

Best All Around Stand-Up: Eddie Izzard – Dress to Kill

I named this my best all-around for two reasons: first, because at the end of the day I just can’t pin down how else to define Eddie Izzard; second, I have almost as much fun watching other people try to describe his show as I do watching it, which is (for me) the mark of great comedy. He covers so much ground, and with such style and panache, if I were to try to say “this special is about this” I would miss about 90% of what it’s about, and that would miss the point anyway. What it’s really about is watching Eddie Izzard be Eddie Izzard: funny, frenetic, charming and delightful.

Honorable Mention for Lifetime Achievement:

Chris Rock

Honestly, I can’t pick out any one stand-up special by Chris Rock and say, “you must see this.” Just pick one, any of them will do. They’re all good, and for me he’s the best of a lot of great comedians who all seem to do the same brand of comedy. He just does it with that little extra bit of je ne sais quoi. I might even go so far as to say that Chris Rock is the new Richard Pryor.

George Carlin

No, I’m not focused on George because of his seven dirty words. To be honest I don’t think it’s all that great of a bit, although I do love him for doing it. I more love Carlin because he had such a great character about him, and while I didn’t agree with his politics, I think every aspiring comedian should be required to study him to understand timing and delivery.

Vacation Movie Round-Up

Posted: June 29, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Culture | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

I finally took some time off this week, and I caught up on some movies I’ve been meaning to see for a while. As the greatest critic of pop culture I know in my house, I felt it was my born duty to share with you all my thoughts and impressions of some of the fantastic cinema I’ve finally gotten around to seeing in case you missed it for as long as I did.

The Avengers. I’ll cop to the truth and hope they don’t take away my geek card: it took me this long to see The Avengers. Yes, despite my pathetic man-crush on Our Whedon Who Art in Hollywood, hallowed be his name, I held off on seeing this one until now. Why? I dunno. I guess I was afraid it couldn’t live up to the hype, especially since they were on the third Hulk in as many films, or the fact I hadn’t seen Captain America yet (see review below) and I still haven’t seen Thor (although I might actually try it now.)

So how was it? Well, lest I squeal like a schoolgirl I’m afraid I can’t give a completely accurate depiction of my initial impression. Suffice to say that I thought this was hand-down the best action film I have seen in a very long time, and the very epitome of a superhero film. While it played to many of the tropes you would expect, it also played with some tropes as well, and I always like to see that sort of thing. Without giving anything away I think I can safely say my favorite surprise character was S.H.I.E.L.D., which played a much larger role than I anticipated, and in a much more interesting way. The special effects were well integrated, enhancing without dominating the action.

That’s not to say there weren’t some drawbacks. Once you go Ed Norton, it’s really hard to go back, and while Mark Ruffalo does a credible job it’s just not the same. The action is a little slow in the beginning, although threading together four different franchises and adding in some extra material at the same time is always going to be a challenge; Whedon did the best job possible, but that doesn’t make it great. Also on that front is the fact that there are some subplots and character development points that don’t come through very clearly if you haven’t seen the lead-in films. Again, not much you can do about that given the situation at hand; it would be like trying to a sequel to Return of the Jedi for someone who had never seen episodes IV-VI. Doesn’t make for as smooth of a movie as it could though.

All that having been said, it was a rollicking good time, and well worth the price of admission. This is one you will want to see in the theater, because it just won’t be the same at home.

4.75/5 stars

 

Rock of Ages. The simple fact that my wife, who isn’t really old enough to remember any of the songs in this movie, refuses to go see it, pretty well sums up everything you need to know about it and whether or not you should even bother watching it. The simple fact is, I grew up on 80s music, and hair bands in particular, so for me this was a no-brainer. Going with my sister (who saw several of the bands that originally did the songs in the film IN CONCERT) just added to the fun.

Oh, the plot? You mean there was one? No, seriously, there was? This movie is the epitome of a musical that exists for the sole purpose of stringing together a bunch of songs that already exist in the most clever way possible. There are a few inside jokes (including one song that quite creatively DIDN’T get used), but that’s more about wit than anything that could pass for a script. As far as acting, Tom Cruise can’t help being great, and Alec Baldwin has comedy down to a science. Everyone else did an acceptable job to keep the movie going, never taking you out of things, but it’s not exactly Rent. Hell, it’s not even Chicago.

Should you see this in the theater? That depends if you remember teasing your hair, or watching someone else do it, and if you feel like you would have to bite your tongue to keep from singing along to the songs. If not, take a pass and catch it on DVD if you love Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, or musicals in general. Otherwise you might want to just let this one go by.

4.5/5 stars (if you remember the 80s), 2.0/5 stars (if you don’t know who Twisted Sister is)

Captain America: The First Avenger. Overall not a bad film. I was never a huge fan of Captain America, but I never exactly hated Cap either (unlike Daredevil or Punisher, both of whom I would sooner see dismissed to the dustbin of comic book history.) Also unlike Daredevil, I had very low expectations going into this film, which may have helped. For those of you unfamiliar with Captain America… you know what, if you’re unfamiliar with Captain America, I can’t help you. Seriously, crawl back under the rock you’ve been living under for the past seventy years or so. Seriously. That’s like not knowing who Superman or Mickey Mouse are.

Anyway, the film follows pretty closely to the established mythos as I know it, although to be fair I don’t know it especially well, unlike the Spider-Man films, where I was one of the nerds complaining bitterly about the changes even as I had a nerdgasm over the coolness of it all. (Before the third one. That was just awful. What I saw of it. I couldn’t even sit through the whole thing.) But I digress. They stick to the plot fairly well, and though the action doesn’t move along as well as I might like in the middle, there is some nice character development. The end is a serious downer, and more than a little of a Fellowship of the Ring moment for me personally. However, since I didn’t even bother to see it until the Avengers was already in theaters (and they kind of telegraphed it from the title) there’s little room to complain.

3.75/5 stars

Red State. I’m not really known for being a fan of thrillers, but I am known for being a huge Kevin Smith fan, so going into this one was a big toss-up for me. Truth to tell, I got a HUGE surprise out of this one, in a very good way. I have no idea how to describe it without giving anything away, so I’ll do my best but just in case I’m going to say *SPOILER ALERT*. Now don’t call me out for crying wolf even if I don’t spoil anything.

So this movie is a thriller, like I said, but about what? Well, sex and religion and politics. That’s probably the best way to describe it, and I take that more or less from the credits, so don’t credit me with any great insight for picking up on this one. The truth is I was just frozen still for the entirety of the movie, constantly waiting to see what would happen next. The action moved at exactly the right pace, never dragging but not going so fast as to be an action movie either. The tension was perfect throughout.

There were two aspects to this film I enjoyed most. First, there were no heroes. Yes, there were protagonists, but there was nobody I really liked or felt like I needed to root for. But somehow I still felt satisfied by the movie. Second, the customary witty Kevin Smith dialogue was there, but it wasn’t silly, it was sharp, crisp, and direct, almost like David Mamet if Mamet were in any way tolerable. This movie isn’t going to be for everyone, because it’s chock-full of gore and violence and lots of disturbing imagery. That being said, if you think you can handle it, it’s worth checking out.

4.25/5 stars

John Carter. Ah, the curse of mediocrity and what might have been. I’m convinced this movie could have been so much better if Disney had only been willing to go for the gusto rather than trying to appeal to the family audience, or the mass market, or whoever it is exactly they were trying to appeal to. It can’t have been the hardcore fans of the original novels, because outside of a few truly dedicated nerds, I’m not sure anyone even knows there WERE original novels (or did before the movie bombed -er, came out.) As it is, the results of this film were so deep into the realm of “so close” that it’s almost insulting.

Which is kind of misleading to say, because if it hadn’t come so close to being really, really good, it would have been really good. It was fun, exciting, well made, and all around worth watching. It just had so many points of bad dialogue, dragging action, and generic silliness that it was hard for me to focus on the meat of it, which was a decent film. There were some enjoyable characters, and it wasn’t so thoroughly “family-washed” as to lose sight of all the barbarity that existed in the original.

If you like science fiction, if you like heroic films, and especially if you like not having to think too hard while you kick back, this is a good popcorn rental.

3.0/5 stars

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