Movies by the Book

In my Cloud Atlas review I stated that there were different ways people view movies that are based on books depending on if the person viewing the movie had or hadn't read the book.  Today I'd like to go a bit more in depth about it.  I'm sure we've all heard someone say that they thought a movie was better because it was closer to the book, or liked it less because it deviated from the book significantly, and others say they liked the movie with or without reading the book.  So who is right?  I mean I know it's a subjective question but it is still valid: is a movie based on a book better if it follows the events of the book more closely or is it better if it follows the events of a book more loosely.  The answer, unfortunately, is that there is no answer.

Books and movies are fundamentally different mediums: books are meant to be read over long periods of time, days, weeks, or even months depending on the reader.  Movies however, are meant to be watched in one sitting, generally between ninety minutes and three hours.  The key problem here is pacing.  Books have a tendency to have a lot happen in them, just look at Harry Potter, the first book was a mere three hundred pages, give or take, and it took nearly three hours to make into a movie.  That was the first Harry Potter movie and, aside from one scene, the movie was nearly identical to the book.  Let me say that again, three hours to tell three hundred pages, and the movie wasn't great either.  Due to it's adherence to the book the first Harry Potter movie was riddled with awkward dialogue and over acting, and for it's extend length the movie didn't even even have all that grand of a plot.

Lets compare that with the fifth Harry Potter movie, which removed a considerable portion of the book and added in scenes to fill the gaps with more important, and better presented scenes.  All told the fifth movie was considerably better as a movie than the first.  Yes it still had about a three hour running time, but the story it got through in that three hours was nearly eight hundred pages, and because of the significant editing the movie was presented more like a movie than a book that was just filmed.

Another good example of a movie being made into a book correctly is the Lord of the Rings which is probably the greatest piece of fantasy fiction ever put to film.  And, yes, Lord of the Rings stuck to the books quite well, save for a few moved around scenes and some editing for theaters (the edited content, which was quite significant, was later added in anyway in the Extended Editions, which is a must own for any movie enthusiasts collection), but what it got right was pacing.  Peter Jackson knew that if he rushed through LotR with the same recklessness as was put into the first few Harry Potter movies (which, coincidentally, premiered about the same time as LotR) then they would have the same problems, particularly awkward dialogue and overacting, as well as a hollowness to the story.  So, what did he do right?  Pacing.  It has become sort of a joke that the Lord of the Rings movies are incredibly long, and they absolutely are, but for very good reason: Peter Jackson wanted to make sure the audience had adequate time to get to know all of the characters.  Every single character in the movie is introduced deliberately and effectively.  Remember the first time you meet Aragorn and he's this mysterious ranger calling Strider, that you don't know if he's friend or foe?  Didn't that make you incredibly interested in the character?  And then he saves the hobbits lives and leads them to Rivendell!  Aragorn was an awesome character, and one of the most well introduced characters in the series.

Now we've reached the point of characterization and this is the main reason for the discrepancy between those who have read the book and those who haven't when watching a movie.  PEOPLE WHO HAVE READ THE BOOK ALREADY HAVE AN EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT TO THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK!  Comparatively, those who are watching a movie as an introduction to the story do not have that emotional attachment to the characters.  So, why is this important?  Those who have read the book only want to see the scenes acted out, they already know what's going on in each characters mind as well as what their hopes and dreams are and etc...  They have an emotional attachment to the characters so the movie doesn't have to try and build it up.  Conversely when someone is new to the story and a movie just replays the scenes from the book without giving the audience a way to really get to know the characters, the audience then has no reason to care about the people on screen, or any danger they might be in.  This makes movies flat and boring for anyone who hasn't read the book.

Finally, what is the best way to convey a book in movie form, despite the fact that they're entirely different mediums?  It's simple, though not easy.  Step one is to read the book and decide what the theme and tone of the book are.  Try and figure out what the book is trying to convey to the reader.  Why was this book written, essentially.  Then make damn sure your movie delivers that to the audience.  Step two is to make sure the characters are likable and have human depth.  Flat, one dimensional characters can ruin any movie, no matter how good the plot is.  And finally, step three is to get the events in order.  Add what you can from the book but only as long as it helps the movie say what it needs to say.  Never sacrifice pacing for more scenes from the book, pacing is important and it can make or break a movie.  Don't be afraid to make up your own scenes, if they serve the purpose better than anything in the book they add them and the movie will be better for it.

The key point to remember is that a movie is a movie and a book is a book.  A movie should be taken on its own merits and not on how close to the book it is, so make sure your movie is good for everyone watching, even the ones who haven't read the book.

Cloud Atlas

I must admit that I went to see Cloud Atlas expecting to like it, the trailer for the movie showed an expansive, epic, tale spanning multiple generations of human life about how the smallest drop of change can ripple across time affecting the world in ways nobody could ever predict.  The movie that accompanies it delivered exactly what the trailer promised, however I would still consider it a failure, at least partially.

I will admit, I have never read the book of Cloud Atlas and while that may affect my opinion of the movie, I think its effect is a good one because a movie should be judged on its own merits rather than how well it relates to another piece of media.  I will soon write an article on the different expectations of those who have and haven't read a book when watching a movie based on said book, but for now I will say that Cloud Atlas feels like it was made for the people who read the book and not for the ones who didn't.

Don't get me wrong, when Cloud Atlas gets things right, they're amazing.  The cinematography is top notch, with breathtaking special effects.  Fantastic actors portray their characters incredibly well, and considering each actor played upwards of six separate characters, they did an amazing job.  The action scenes are what we would expect from the makers of The Matrix but at the same time they are downplayed because the overarching plot was far more important.

The biggest mistake the filmmakers made (The Wachowski Siblings, for those interested) was ambition.  Cloud Atlas wants to be too many things, and the story it has to tell is far too great for even its' three-hour run time. The reincarnation of lovers spanning six separate lives and twelve separate major characters, not to mention countless important secondary characters with each generation having a singular plot, was a tale that should never have been made into one movie.  This would have done much better as a mini-series with six parts, each part dedicated to one generation because, as it stands, each separate story is only given about thirty minutes.  The stories also vary so much in tone, from goofy and lighthearted, to downright shocking and disturbing, while still playing on the same themes.  The movie has a schizophrenic feeling, as if it can't decide whether it wants to be a thriller, a black comedy, a contemplative drama, a mystery, a spiritual science fantasy, or a work of historical fiction.

Cloud Atlas truly is six, very different, movies in one.  It wants to portray the whole of film making and say "this is human drama, love transcends time" but when it changes so quickly from one story to another, particularly in the big finale, your emotions are pulled in every direction: a scene of humor, then a disturbing revelation, then a fight with the devil, and a melancholic suicide.  Not to mention, each character is given so little screen time that only a few of them have any depth at all, the rest are just one-dimensional epic saviors of humanity.  It's so sad as well because the premise has so much promise (say that ten times fast) and unfortunately it was squandered on a beautiful, if ultimately forgettable, experience.

Cloud Atlas

7.5/10

******UPDATE******

After seeing Cloud Atlas a second time, the movie made quite a bit more sense, as did the pace, everything felt right going in the second time and I was able to appreciate the movie more.  Go see Cloud Atlas, but see it twice!!

Updated Verdict,
Cloud Atlas
9.5/10

Fullmetal Alchemist Comparative

First off: yes, I know Fullmetal Alchemist is a TV series, not a movie, but there are movies made of it, and I want to talk about it so that's enough of a link for me to post it on this blog.  For those who don't know, Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are two TV series based off of the same series of graphic novels.  Fullmetal Alchemist was the first TV series and the graphic novels were still being written when the series was made so after more or less following the books in the first season of the show, Fullmetal Alchemist radically changed it's second season.  It had an entirely different villain, changing entire character arcs, and basically changing the entire story of the show.  After the first series became incredibly popular, the powers that be decided to make a second series, the graphic novels having now been finished, that followed the story of said graphic novels exactly, albeit slightly more sped up: the result was Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.  Brotherhood was also an incredibly good anime series, and with the raving fandom already following it, the budget for Brotherhood was drastically larger than for the original series.  So which is better?

For those who don't know, the basic story of Fullmetal Alchemist is this: two young brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, live in a world where a science called alchemy is the main area of scientific research.  Alchemy allows a person who understand matter to break things down and reconstruct them as something else by drawing a transmutation circle (it's an anime, so it has fantastical "magic" elements).  A transmutation may be anything from converting a tree into a wooden sled, snow into ice blocks, a steel rod into a sword, and so on and so forth.  However, alchemy has rules, the most important being equivalent exchange, you cannot gain something without losing something of equal value: in order to make that sled you must have all the wood necessary from the tree, the ice block may only consist of the water in the snow.  The story starts when the two brothers father, who is a genius at alchemy, disappears and they live with their mother for a few years, but their mother contracts a terrible disease and dies when the boys are only ten and eleven years old (Edward being one year older than Alphonse).  The boys, who were already naturally gifted at alchemy, find a teacher to study serious alchemy, the true science behind it.

After several years of study and training the boys attempt to bring their mother back to life with alchemy, using all of the elements that exist in the human body, as well as a drop of their blood each in exchange for their mothers soul.  But, the transmutation backfires and Edward's leg is taken as payment and Alphonse's whole body is taken.  In a desperate attempt to save the life of his brother, Edward uses his arm as payment to pull his brother's soul back from the gate to the afterlife, before it crossed over, and attach it to a suit of armor.  A year later, after Ed has been fitted with mechanical limbs to replace his lost arm and leg, he joins the ranks of the State Alchemists: militant soldiers and researches who are all incredibly gifted, almost genius, alchemists.  Using his state title and research grants he and Al begin searching for the legendary Philosopher's Stone, a substance that supposedly grants the holder the ability to bypass the law of equivalent exchange in alchemy.  Their journey is the main story of the show, that was just the first three episodes (sorry for the long description, but it was necessary).

The first thing I want to compare between the two series is tone:  Fullmetal Alchemist, particularly in the second season, is incredibly dark: Ed and Al face mass murderers, monsters that embody humanly sins, incredible atrocities committed by the military, and the darkest extents of human depravity.  Brotherhood has many of the same themes but comparatively the original series has a bleakness and sense of hopelessness that Brotherhood, which follows the theme of hope stays away from.  In terms of length Brotherhood thirteen episodes longer than Fullmetal Alchemist, but because of the scale of it's story it moves far more quickly.  About halfway through Fullmetal Alchemist, around episode twenty-five a major character is murdered, this same event happens in episode ten of Brotherhood, and it just doesn't carry the same emotional weight as it did in the original.  Not to mention that a lot of the early episodes of the original series which could have been considered "filler" turned out to actually be important because they gave the audience a sense of who the Elric brothers were as people, whereas Brotherhood skims right past them expecting the audience to already be connected to the Elric brothers.  Due to the increased budget, the animation and action in Brotherhood is like night and day when compared to Fullmetal Alchemist.  Brotherhood is far more visually pleasing, but the original series, in my opinion, has a better, more personal story, and better pacing.  Overall I liked Fullmetal Alchemist more than I liked Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Both series have a movie as well, Fullmetal Alchemist has Fullmetal Alchemist: the Conquerer of Shamballa while Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood has Fullmetal Alchemist: the Sacred Star of Milos.  Between the two movies, Conquerer of Shamballa is undoubtedly the better of them.  It serves as a capstone to the original series, finishing the story and showing the final fates of the Elric brothers as well as all of the other characters.  The movie also has a noticeably dark tone, just like Fullmetal Alchemist and takes place in our own history, in Berlin, Germany in the 1930's.  Conquerer of Shamballa provides a satisfying conclusion to the series.  The Sacred Star of Milos however, is a singular story, only tangentially connected to Brotherhood.  In fact, I haven't been able to find out where in the storyline of Brotherhood the movie takes place, and the side characters that show up in it are basically cameos.  Now, don't get me wrong, it's a fairly good movie, but not up to what I've come to expect in quality from the rest of the Fullmetal Alchemist universe.

Overall
Fullmetal Alchemist
9.5/10
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
9/10
Fullmetal Alchemist: the Conquerer of Shamballa
9.5/10
Fullmetal Alchemist: the Sacred Star of Milos
8/10

Paranorman

Either I've become very good at picking out movies that I think I will like, or I've gotten very lucky.  Paranorman is a stop-motion movie about a young boy named Norman who's obsessed with horror movies and can also see ghosts.  Right off the bat one of the things I liked about this movie is that Norman doesn't have to go through that whole awkward section of realizing he can see ghosts and at first being afraid and then getting used to it and finally using that ability to confront the big baddie; from the very start Norman has pretty much accepted and come to terms with his ghostey-vision.  In fact, it seems as if Norman is more comfortable around ghosts than he is around living people.

The real story starts when Norman's uncle, who can also see ghosts, visits him, nearly dying, to pass on to Norman the duty of keeping the town safe from a curse cast on it by a witch a few hundred years ago.  Norman fails and now zombies are running loose in the town so Norman must put things right.  Paranorman is a childrens movie and that being said it's laugh out loud funny.  Seriously, I actually burst out laughing in the theater at a few parts, but it's also very dark, particularly when the zombies get to town.  Seriously, this movie has scenes of on-screen death as well as the some of the most shameless hate since American History X.

Paranorman seems to be almost a satire of other horror movies however because one of the main themes is fear, or more precicely, the horrors that people can commit when they're afraid.  Considering Norman is a horror movie junkie (much like myself) he seems to be the perfect character to drive this point home, we have to overcome our fear of the unknown so as to not do something harmful.

Up to this point I've only talked about the story so now I want to talk about the animation and how fantastic it is.  Thanks to the help of modern 3D printers, all of the characters have a huge variety of facial expressions and move far more fluidly than just about any other stop-motion film ever made (thats right Nightmare Before Christmas, I'm calling you out).  On top of that it has some of the best use of 3D in the theater since Avatar, particularly one scene which takes place on a tree floating through a void.

Overall do not miss Paranorman, a great childrens movie, and just a great movie all around.
8.5/10

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was a short, three-part, internet released film from writer/director Joss Whedon (one of my all time favorite directors, who finally hit mainstream success when he was commissioned to write and direct The Avengers) about a lovelorn super villain by the name of Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) who spends his time trying to win the heart of Penny (Felicia Day), the girl of his dreams, and trying to get into the Evil League of Evil (headed by the amazing super villain Bad Horse, who is actually a horse) while being constantly foiled by his arch nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion).  To make a long story short Dr. Horrible is AMAZING.  Followers of this blog will notice I have never put that word in all capitals before, the reason I'm doing it now is because Dr. Horrible deserves every bit of recognition it can get.  The movie is a cheesy, light hearted, pseudo-romantic affair about the clashing ideals of the hateful and cynical Dr. Horrible and the world weary but still naive and hopeful Penny.

Let's get the toughest part out of the way: Dr. Horrible is a musical.  Dr. Horrible is a damn good musical!  The music is so good, in fact, that I bought the soundtrack and I am listening to it right now while I write this, and the lyrics are very well written.  "Any dolt with half a brain can see that humankind has gone insane, to the point where I don't know if I'll upset the status quo if I throw poison in the water mien," is one of the best lines I have ever heard in a song written for a movie.  Perhaps I like this movie so much because I can identify so well with the main character; he's dry, cynical, and hateful of people, but he still holds out hope for love and a future with Penny that couldn't exist.

Dr. Horrible is one of my favorite movies ever, I literally watched it three times in a row.  It's light, cheesy, goofy, and it has a pitch-black ending.  Easily the best musical I've seen all year, possibly all decade.  Anyone who enjoys audio/video entertainment of any form should get Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in front of their eyes as soon as possible.
9.9/10

Re-Cycle

I guess it's time for me to do another Asian horror movie.  Today's winner comes courtesy of Taiwan and a very vivid imagination.  Re-Cycle is a psychological horror/thriller/fantasy movie about a writer who gets sucked into a world of abandoned ideas by one of her own abandoned characters.  Some very interesting ideas are going on in this movie because it shows an interesting idea of the afterlife: as long as we remember our loved ones they live through us, but once we forget them they go to the Re-Cycle.  The movie has big ideas and it mostly succeeds in expressing them.

Re-Cycle has a decent, albeit slightly slow, opening with a few scares and a few character points.  Once the main character (who's name I have forgotten since so many of those Taiwanese names are so similar) gets pulled in the world of abandoned ideas though things get interesting.  The scares continue for a bit into the Re-Cycle (which is the world) but they eventually fade away into a darkly toned fantasy story, almost like Alice in Wonderland with aborted fetus's.  Many of the locales in the Re-Cycle are well done but everything has a dark, drab tone that downplays a lot of the beauty.  In fact that drab tone was the worst part of the movie.

Once the movie hits its stride it never feels like it because things never brighten up.  I understand that it's supposed to be a horror movie, but it isn't scary at that point and showing us a grassy hill isn't nearly as calming with a boring grayish-green grass as it would be with pretty, vibrant grass.  Many of the locales are just boring because of it, the decay which is intentionally there doesn't add to the movie viscerally and because of that the exploration of the fantasy environments is pretty boring and seems to drag on.  It is worth noting however that the movie is still a success, the ending is fantastic and is something you won't see coming but totally worth the ride.  Overall give this one a watch, and stick it out through the drab.

7.5/10

Why Horror Movie Endings Fail At Being Scary

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WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE CONTAINS (VERY) MILD SPOILERS FOR PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3, AND INSIDIOUS

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A trend I've noticed recently in many of the slow-paced horror movies that have come out in the wake of Paranormal Activity is that a lot of them have very poor endings.  The first Paranormal Activity had the perfect ending (I'm referring to the "real" ending, not the theatrical one): in keeping with the slow pace of the movie the ending of the first Paranormal Activity simply had the female lead sit still in a spot while the camera time-lapsed showing days and days passing.  It was simple, boring, and perfect.  But, it wasn't scary.  That ending fit so well with the tone of the movie because Paranormal Activity put the viewer in a constant state of tension without ever delivering on the "boo" scare lesser movies tend to do.  This was brilliant because, as any (good) horror director will tell you, the audiences imagination is their worst enemy.  Nothing that can be shown on screen will ever be as scary as what each member of the audience will imagine.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "but Jeremy, I thought you said the uncanny valley could provide a really scary situation with what it shows on screen."  What I actually said was that the uncanny valley would provide a level of discomfort and could be used to create atmosphere, the actual scares come from the viewers imagination.  Case in point: Insidious.  The uncanny valley effect doesn't really come into play until the end of Insidious but when it does its' purpose is to create a feeling that the entire world is off because it wasn't our world, then our own interpretation is that we don't know what this world is capable of and thus imagine our worst fear.  But I'm getting off topic.

The reason these slow-paced movies ultimately fail in terms of the ending is because, unlike other genres, the climax of this kind of movie has to be different.  Let's look at Paranormal Activity 3 as an example: the whole movie kept the slow pace of the original however it added a few "boo" scares to make the audience jump, they worked reasonably well and escalate at a decent pace throughout most of the movie.  This escalation can't continue exponentially though because the "boo" scares still rely on a slow buildup of tension and by the time we reach the ending the "boo"s are coming at us in rapid fire and thus depriving us the buildup needed to make them effective.  It's quite a conundrum, how do you escalate that kind of movie without resulting to rapid fire "boo" scares?  Change the game.

The most successful horror movie ending that I've seen recently is Insidious because it changes the game for the ending.  The whole movie up to that point has the same buildup curve as the Paranormal Activity movies (although done quite a bit better) and it even had the rapid-fire ending, but it was a fake-out.  The rapid-fire portion of the movie isn't the actual ending, and it's also quite a bit shorter and bigger thus making it more effective than the ending of Paranormal Activity 3.  Insidious changes the game by changing the environment; moving the ending of the movie to the spirit world, or hell as I like to call it, puts a different spin because now the ghosts and demons aren't invisible.  The human spirits are well within the uncanny valley because they seem frozen in their last horrific moments cycling through the same motions over and over.  They become scary in a different way because, as I said above, the viewer doesn't know what they're capable of and while they don't seem to react to the living people at first the spirits slowly catch on the longer they spend in hell.

The main demonic entity is thrown into a new light as well because, instead of being shown as an unimaginable malevolent force, it's a humanoid creature with human tendencies, specifically the tendencies of a serial killer.  The way the demon is characterized in this scene is akin to a combination of Hannibal Lecter and Freddy Kreuger, which works incredibly well with the way his attacks have been happening up to this point in the movie.  Overall the key to this ending being so perfect is that the director increases the excitement without decreasing the tension by throwing scare after scare, he simply slowly reveals the mystery while making the viewer ask more questions.  It works and it works well.  I said this in my original review but it bears repeating here: if you're a fan of horror movies, go see Insidious. 

Insidious

Insidious is a movie that did not grab me at first.  The cover art is pretty generic and the tagline "it's not the house that's haunted" nearly made me yawn, and of course proclaiming loudly on the cover that it was from the makers of Paranormal Activity (which I did not like the second or third) was a huge turn-off.  But, after a few days of seeing nothing worth reviewing and hearing mixed opinions about the scariness of Insidious I decided to watch it.  Insidious is great!

The first part of the movie is pretty standard fare for anyone who's seen the Paranormal Activity movies (minus the home camera style filming): a family moves into a new house and strange things start happening, one of the sons falls into an unexplained coma for over three months and the family members, particularly the mother, begin to experience all manner of paranormal activity in the house (haha!).  Not figuring out it's related to their son they move houses and the haunting continues at the new house.  Eventually they call a psychic and find out that their son is what's haunted, not the house.

The biggest difference between Insidious and Paranormal Activity is that Insidious actually pays off all of the tension and building up with a finale that is, quite frankly, glorious.  I think the makers of Insidious just decided to pander to my movie nerd desires because this movie has everything I want in a horror film: tension, atmosphere, a frightening depiction of the afterlife, nerds, and even some comedy.  The ending is something that I will not spoil here but suffice to say it doesn't do what Paranormal Activity does and has a real, semi-conclusive ending.

This is the problem with a good horror film, I don't want to spoil any of the scares or story points, and as such I don't have as much to say as I'd like.  Insidious has an incredibly well done atmosphere and the entity(s) are incredibly well designed and very striking. If you like horror movies, go find a copy of Insidious (it's on Netflix) and watch it.

8.8/10

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Repo! The Genetic Opera is somewhat of a cult icon among people who like to watch "underground" or "indy" movies.  I myself belong to this crowd so the fact that, until now, I haven't seen Repo! even though it came out in 2008 is blasphemy to some.  Unfortunately, I read a premise and it didn't really appeal to my taste in movies so I rented something else instead.  But, after four years of hearing about how great it was and reading on movie blogs about how everyone needs to see it I finally decided to bite the bullet and watch it.  So, how is it?  I give it a resounding "meh."

Repo! comes from the producers of Saw and it shows, the whole movie is drenched in blood, gore, organs, and surgical scars.  The setup, which I'm sure many people are already familiar with, a wave of organ failures in the near future nearly wipes out humanity, however one company, GeneCo, offers artificial replacement organs at exorbitant prices.  People have to take out loans to get the surgeries and if they miss their payments the organs are repossessed by the Repo Man.  The plot revolves around Shilo, the daughter of the Repo Man who is beckoned by the owner of GeneCo, Rotti Largy, to take over the company when he dies.  The Largo family is composed of a drug addicted embarrassment of a daughter, a psychotic murderous son, and another son who is addicted to wearing other peoples faces.

The plot is decently interesting and conveyed easily enough through the lyrics of the songs.  The characters are all quite unique with both Rotti and the Repo Man played as a middle ground between friend and foe.  They both have good sides and both have monstrous sides with Shilo caught in the middle.  Some of the music is also quite good and goes well with the post-apocalyptic, neo-Gothic art style.  Repo! makes use of the same washed out look that worked for Ink and YellowBrickRoad, however it doesn't work here.  Repo! had a lot of promise but the art director never new when to stop.  This movie is drenched in neon with bright flashes and stage lights; stark white actors and actresses barely stand out from the background.  The music in some spots isn't any better, just relying on grating, almost digital sounding guitar riffs which only adds to the bland brightness of the art style.  Repo! is a movie that reeks of sensory overload causing everything to blend together.  It's almost like dubstep.

It's almost admirable how boring Repo! is despite it's uniqueness.  Ultimately, Repo! The Genetic Opera is a failure that wasn't able to garner much of my respect or enjoyment.  A fairly run-of-the-mill "indy" film that most likely only got popular because it appealed to moviegoers who happened to be high on drugs and the bright colors and techno-rock soundtrack enhanced the effects of the drug.  That's how dubstep became popular after all.

6.5/10

Ink

Ink is a 2009 science-fiction/fantasy film by unknown writer/director Jamin Winans produced for a minuscule budget of $250,000 and starring a cast of actors nobody has ever heard of.  The story revolves around two factions in the spirit world: the Storytellers, guardian angels that give good dreams, and the Incubus, corrupting demons that give nightmares.  A rogue spirit named Ink steals the soul of a little girl, Emma, to present to the Lord of the Incubus as payment to become an Incubus himself; in the human world Emma falls into a coma.  A small group of Storytellers, including Emma's guardian angel Allel, must fight to reunite her and her estranged father who is a vicious stock trader.

Ink is what modern moviegoers would consider an independent film, technically it isn't because it was produced by Double Edge Films, but with it's meager budget, unknown cast, and art house charm it definitely fits the bill of an independent film.  Ink was made with a very low quality camera and looks fuzzy and washed-out most of the time, despite that Ink manages to be incredibly beautiful and uses the faded colors to it's advantage.  The lower quality images add to the surreal feeling of the spirit world; the movie feels as if the spirit world and the human world exist on the same plane with merely a sheet of separating them.  As such the main characters see the human world as faded and gray and they can't interact with it because it's in a different plane of existence.

Many of the sets and props were also made out of ordinary objects.  The lair of the Incubus is lined with garbage bags, hung up in squares, and even the sacrificial chamber for Emma is just a bath tub sitting in the middle of a concrete room.  The CGI is also very cheap, but used perfectly to create villains and worlds that fall well within the uncanny valley and make the Incubus, truly, the stuff of nightmares.  The Incubus wear sheets of glass suspended in front of their faces which distorts their features and filters out all of the color; they also wear green rubber aprons, like a serial killer, and the way they're presented is unsettling and demonic.  The storytellers are the exact opposite: they wear clothes from different time periods (whichever time period they died) and have no distortion, however they are noticeably brighter when compared to other things in the human world which gives them a warm, welcoming appearance while still maintaining the fierce looks of the warriors they're presented as.

If Jamin Winans has one Achilles Heel, it would be his conversational dialogue.  When two people talk in this movie about something that isn't directly related to the plot they sound very awkward and stiff.  This is particularly noticeable in the opening scene which depicts Emma and her father playing near some train tracks.  However, Winans seems to know this so he limits his use of conversational dialogue as much as he can and his eccentric, unusual character dialogue is on the spot, particularly with Jacob, the path finder.

In terms of story Ink is an astounding, inspiring tale.  It's very poetic in the way things play out and while some of the more important parts of the story might be guessed earlier than intended it doesn't detract at all from the surge of emotion you'll have when the credits roll.  On a structural level the beginning of the movie does tend to drag a little bit but when it starts to pick up speed it keeps the pace going.

Ink's few flaws, mainly in the conversational dialogue and the pacing at the beginning of the movie are easily overlooked as Winans played this movie to his strengths.  Ink is amazing and everybody should see it, particularly people with a taste for the unusual and the beautiful.  One of the best movies I have ever seen and one of only three movies to ever earn this score from me:

10/10

The Dark Knight Rises (Spoilerifiic)

I'm going to apologize in advance: this movie is full of so much symbolism and depth that I would have to watch it several times and make a few charts before I could present this information in an organized fashion.  Instead I'm going to do my best with what I have because I think the first impressions after leaving the theater, even if they turn out to just be the rantings of an insane film critic, are more valuable to the average customer.  So without further adieu:

The Dark Knight Rises goes back to the beginning.  The main villain is Bane, an outcast from the League of Shadows, also known as the place where Bruce Wayne learned to be Batman.  At the end of Batman Begins Batman kills his former teacher the leader of the League of Shadows, Ra's Al Ghul.  The importance of the League of Shadows is that they fight for what they consider the greater good.  In the past by attempting to destroy a city that they thought had fallen beyond repair and into corruption.  Batman, doing what he does best, stopped them.  However, just as Batman is a symbol and a legend that cannot die, the death of Ra's Al Ghul did not destroy the League of Shadows.  A new heir, the daughter of Ghul, leads the assassins, with the help of her friend and bodyguard Bane.  Just as the torch passed for the league, it also passed for Batman (more on that later).

Christopher Nolan takes the concept of the greater good and brings it crashing into reality with the Taking Wall Street movement.  Bruce Wayne, being one of the only comic-book super heroes to truly be in the one percent is the perfect character for this message.  In fact the entire first part of the movie is dedicated to Bruce Wayne losing everything.  After an attack on the stock exchange and some fraudulent deals made in his name, Wayne loses every penny of his fortune.  His fall from grace as a symbol has now been mirrored on his public life and it also shows the idea of the one percent becoming the ninety-nine percent.  Falling even lower, Batman's back is broken by Bane in an ill-fated sewer fight, and Bane finally drags Bruce (his mask now shattered) back to the hellish prison Bane himself came from.

The prison is a very deep pit with an open air top and a climbable wall.  As Bane says, "people need hope so that they can truly suffer."  The climb to the top features a nearly impossible jump that no one had ever succeeded at before, except for one child.  In this prison Bruce Wayne is nursed back to health and eventually climbs his way out.  By the time he returns to Gotham, Bane has already trapped nearly three thousand policemen underground and taken control of the entirety of Gotham with a nuclear bomb.  Bane, having come from literally nothing, and representing the ninety-nine percent, gives the city to it's citizens.  Some take up refuge in their homes and hide while others seek to punish the wealthy business owners, CEO's, and stock traders who have lived off the sweat and blood of the working class.

The citizens, lead by none other than Scarecrow from Batman Begins, form a makeshift court of the people to sentence those who have bankrupted the good people of Gotham to either exile or execution.  Even public displays like hanging the wealthy on the streets are seen from the outraged workers.  But, the League of Shadows still intends to destroy Gotham, turning a nuclear fusion reactor that was designed to provide free, clean energy to the people of Gotham, into a bomb that would wipe out the city.

Cat Woman on the other hand was a poor, beggar who got in deep with the wrong people and had to become a master thief to survive.  Her story arc is much more archetypal: selfish to selfless culminating in making the final choice of saving herself or going back to save the city.  Cat Woman's character is not all that interesting; it's just a vessel to provide another side of the ninety-nine percent: to be a foil to Bane.  What is interesting about Cat Woman is that she becomes Bruce Wayne's love interest and eventual wife (as far as we can guess anyway, they're shown together at the end of the movie) and this seems to mirror Sherlock Holmes (a fad that seems to have been popping back up in modern culture recently thanks to Dr. House).  Batman, once known as the worlds greatest detective (Adam West anyone?) falls in love with a thief, just as Holmes was in love with Irene Adler, another master thief.

Finally, Batman returns to Gotham just in time to, with the help of Commissioner Gordon, free the trapped policemen and form an army to take on Bane and the League of Shadows.  Batman rises from hell to save the people, sacrificing himself to the bomb instead and ascending into legend.  But, he doesn't sacrifice himself and manages to survive, changing his identity and forming a new life with Selina Kyle (Cat Woman).  He passes the torch onto a new hero, Robin, and leaves Gotham forever.

That's everything I can think of for now.  I'm absolutely sure I missed plenty more symbolism but unfortunately I won't be able to re-watch it again and catch anything else for quite a while.

The Dark Knight Rises (Spoiler-Free)

When I got out of The Dark Knight Rises I hadn’t yet decided if I liked the movie.  Christopher Nolan’s movies, particularly his Batman movies, are packed with symbolism, references, and perfect characters.  In The Dark Knight Harvey Dent is the perfect “good guy” foil for Batman, he’s even referenced as the “White Knight” of Gotham.  Dent is the Lawful Good to Batman’s Chaotic Good, while the Joker is the Chaotic Evil, and through his evil, the Joker brings Dent down to the level of Lawful Evil, a fall from grace that nearly mimics Batman’s own.  The problem when analyzing the symbolism in a movie such as this is that it requires the entire story arc, therefor I will be writing two reviews for The Dark Knight Rises, the first (this one) will be entirely spoiler-free, and the second one will be spoilerific.  So hold on tight, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

I would immediately hesitate to say that The Dark Knight Rises is better than The Dark Knight (man this is going to get confusing) because, as dark a note TDK ended on, TDKR begins on an even darker one and it only goes downhill.  TDKR is one of the most immensely dark and bleak movies I have ever watched.  But, that’s Nolan’s point.  The Dark Knight Trilogy, like many before it, follows the story of Jesus; the rise, fall, and resurrection of a savior.  The DKT is one of the best modern examples of this pattern, while other trilogies like The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean follow this pattern, the DKT uses it so much Nolan saw fit to title the movies after it and TDKR is a movie about hope and ascension.  But, I’m losing track here.

The Dark Knight Rises is a brilliant movie.  I would say that it is the best movie Christopher Nolan has ever made.  It isn’t perfect.  Nolan took Batman, or Bruce Wayne, from a rather static and boring character in the other Batman movies and turned him into a beautiful, tragic hero.  Every movie sees him face challenges both external and internal, increasing in scale every movie.  TDKR returns to the theme of fear from Batman Begins and takes it in the only direction he could take it.  Bruce Wayne is an amazing character however Bane is less than amazing.

Bane is hulking, menacing, dark, and made entirely of symbolism.  Unfortunately, despite the initial shock of such a blatantly dark villain and the deep layers of meaning and message behind him, as a character Bane is boring.  He never seems to have a personality of his own, unlike the Joker, who is a true anarchist; Bane seems to only do what is necessary to fulfill his plan with no ulterior motives and no real character arc.  Even the motives Nolan shows us don’t entirely satisfy his reason for doing.

Nolan has also increased the amount of symbolism in the movies as they went on.  In TDK he struck the perfect balance between entertainment and symbolism, while in TDKR he loses a lot of the entertainment value in favor of literary value.  The problem is that, even though it's for a purpose and it makes sense, the bleak tone of the movie may just be too dark for mainstream audiences to enjoy.  Still, from a guy who loves literary symbolism, I had a blast and loved every minute of it.

The Dark Knight Rises is a triumph and an exquisite end to one of the best, if not the best, super hero trilogies of all time.

9.8/10

The Uncanny Valley

Today instead of a movie review I'm going to try something a little different and discuss a phenomenon known as the Uncanny Valley.  The Uncanny Valley is a very interesting occurrence that happens when something is incredibly lifelike but isn't quite real.  A good way to explain this is with the movie Wall-E: Wall-E is a cute little robot, but what makes him cute?  He has a square body, treads for wheels, and basically a pair of binoculars for eyes; there is nothing particularly cute about any of those things, but when they are put together and imitate human characteristics he becomes more appealing and cute.  When put on a chart it is clear to see that as the number of human characteristics increases the appeal of the object to humans also increases, until a certain point, in which the appeal sharply drops to nearly zero and then returns fully once the human characteristics make the object indistinguishable from a living, breathing person.
                          
Why does this happen?  The latest research has revealed that our brains put objects into two categories: human and non-human.  When we see a non-human with human characteristics, like Wall-E or a cartoon character, we can see some of ourselves in something that clearly isn't us and it is appealing.  But, once enough human characteristics have been added our brain starts to categorize the object as human changing the way we view it.  As humans, we see and interact with other humans every day, all day long.  We've become incredibly good at distinguishing what is and isn't human, and it's second nature.  However, when we see something that almost looks human with just a few things off (slight plastic texture to the skin, awkward motions, etc...) it is disturbing because it looks almost alien in it's realism.  Objects that fall into the uncanny valley generally cause us a large amount of discomfort to be around.
   
This also happens in other mediums as well, particularly video games.  Humans evolved to use tools: hammers, spears, swords, knives, etc... Our brain has an amazing ability to almost attach the tool to our bodies, mentally.  For people who play video games a lot they will often tell you that they get lost in the game and it can feel real.  Instead of thinking "move my thumb left to move the thumb stick left to move the avatar on the screen left" we simply think "move left" and our tool-adapted brain will do everything else.  Motion controls are what fall into the uncanny valley here.  Anyone who's ever played Wii Sports can tell you that they don't feel like they're actually playing the sport, they're just playing a motion game, and the game will never become so immersive that they lose themselves while they play.  The reason for this is because our brain recognizes a classic style video game controller as a tool and adjusts its' expectations accordingly.  Motion controls however, fall into the category of almost-real-but-not-quite-there, also known as the uncanny valley.  Until motion controls become indistinguishable from the real action, they will never be as immersive as a classic style video game.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "how does this relate to movies?"  Well, the uncanny valley is incredibly effective at making us uncomfortable, and if the filmmaker wants to make us uncomfortable it can be one of the easiest, and most subtle ways.  The best example of this I can think of is the movie "House on Haunted Hill (1999)" where the villain, a ghost, looked completely normal, but his motions when he walked were exaggerated, but also incredibly precise; he moved almost like a robot or a wind-up toy, but not like a human should move.

With some very subtle, and cheap, effects we get a villain that is incredibly alien and also very close to us.  It's quite unsettling to see a creature that looks human but clearly isn't.  It also doesn't cost several million dollars in computer graphics to make them scary.  Whats more, the fear hits close to home because its so human.

In the words of Ned Parks, (a close friend and film student) "[the uncanny valley is] underutilized, and with the right minds could be just what modern horror needs to bring it back to the glory days when atmosphere outweighed gore."

Bunraku

I've done nothing but horror films on this blog so far so tonight I'm going to do an action-adventure movie.  Bunraku is about a gunslinger without a gun (Josh Hartnett) and a samurai without a sword (Gackt) who team up with a wise old bartender (Woody Harrelson) to defeat a notorious gang leader (Ron Perlman) in a lawless, post-apocalyptic world.  The general plot is very basic and the movie even acknowledges that, as it says in the opening monologue, "...and as many ways as there are of killing a man, there are equally as many ways of telling this old tale."  However, Bunraku separates itself from the crowd with an all-star cast of actors perfect for their roles, and an incredibly unique art style.

Everything in Bunraku is designed to look like a pop-up book, buildings are made out of folded paper, trees are paper-mache, and almost everything is a flat, solid color rather than something textured.  This visual flare makes the movie pop out from the screen in a way that has been lost by the modern "grim and gritty" action movie.  Every frame in Bunraku is absolutely beautiful and the well choreographed action is over-the-top and exciting.  Along with this fantastic choice of art direction, the movie also has a sense of humor, with some scenes playing out like a video game, and other scenes accompanied by a humorous chorus.  One early scene has members of the enemy gang called Red Suits walk in, as they step through the door the narrator says "Enter, Red Suits" followed shortly by a high-pitched chorus of "Red Suits."

The action scenes create a lot of variety as well with the villains consistently varied and unique, with their own interesting fighting styles, like one fight that happens on a giant bouncy net inside a circus tent.  Every fight scene is different as the contrasting fighting styles of the cowboy and the samurai match up with different types of enemies in the movie.  There is even a mirror-match (Mortal Kombat players will understand).

Beyond the action, all of the actors are perfectly cast for their roles, Gackt as the disgraced samurai, Hartnett as the mysterious stranger, Harrelson as the bartender with the tragic past, and Perlman as the dark and dangerous Nikola the Wood Cutter.  Each character feels archetypal but they go beyond that and bring a depth and humanity to what could have easily been as one-dimensional as the paper used to make the sets.  Ron Perlman is of particular note because his portrayal of the man who has everything yet finds enjoyment in nothing is absolutely stunning.

Bunraku is a perfect example of how to breathe life into an old story, and an excellent movie.

9.5/10

Fingerprints

So far I've been rather nice to every movie I've reviewed on here, so I guess that means it's time to hate a movie.  Fingerprints is a movie I found on Netflix and it had an interesting premise: a teenage girl fresh out of drug rehab moves to a new town to find a strange superstition.  The superstition is that, because of a bus crash 50 years previously that killed a group of children,  if you stop your car on the railroad tracks and put it in neutral the children will push the car forward and off the tracks.  Naturally, the girl must investigate and soon finds the whole story wrapped up in a conspiracy for the entire town and nothing is as it seems.

Unfortunately for this movie it falls flat on it's face.  After a decent start establishing all the archetypal horror movie characters: the good girl, the bad girl, the jock, and the nice guy, Fingerprints only goes downhill.  about 30 minutes into the movie it turns into a poor excuse for a slasher and I began to think that this movie would fall into the trap of mediocrity.  But it didn't.  This movie got worse by the minute with overbearing and crazy parents, predictable pop-out scares, pathetically stupid police officers, the occasional run-of-the-mill murder, and a laughable villain.

Fingerprints just gets worse and worse the farther into it you get, my suggestion is to watch the first 25 minutes then go do something else and pretend the rest of the movie was good.

3/10

YellowBrickRoad

YellowBrickRoad is certainly a very interesting movie.  I won't say that it's scary because it isn't, but it does have an incredibly creepy atmosphere.  Interesting color and camera work make it stand out visually even though it doesn't have a lot of CGI flare like a Zack Snyder movie, but the colors take what could be potentially boring scenery a elevate it to a very surreal state that works incredibly well with the films premise.

In YellowBrickRoad a group of journalists are investigating a mysterious nature trail in a backwoods town where 70 years previously the whole population of the town just walked along the trail and disappeared leaving only a few dozen mangled bodies and one lone survivor.  The main characters have packed food and hiking gear as well as positioning and mapping equipment. As the team get deeper into the trail they realize that something is out of the ordinary and the collective sanity of the group starts to break down.

YellowBrickRoad is a very character driven film as we, the audience, watch the sanity of characters slowly deteriorate and become enthralled by the mystery of the trail.  The movie has some very interesting ideas and makes excellent use of sound, and particularly gore.  The gore in YellowBrickRoad is very sparse and very well used to create its' atmosphere.  One scene in particular involving a scarecrow reference to "The Wizard of Oz" is very unnerving.  YellowBrickRoad is very aware that it is a movie and never tries to go for the hyper-realism that many other movies strive for, instead it uses the audiences inference that everything going on is real and slowly leads them down the rabbit hole with the characters.

I won't say that YellowBrickRoad is a perfect movie, it has some pacing issues and I do believe there were a few too many characters, but overall it is a very interesting journey into a world of insanity and the supernatural.

8.5/10

The Woman in Black

The Woman in Black
Daniel Radcliffe did a fairly decent job at making me forget he was Harry Potter, which means he can act more than one character. The movie also had a fantastic 19th century English setting and atmosphere. The plot was run-of-the-mill but interesting enough to keep you watching and the slow pace lends itself well to some great scares and a fairly well done ending.
Overall: 8/10

Screen at Kamchanod

oh you crazy Asian people, for a change I'm going to rate this movie on two different scales, one for how scary it is and one for how good it is.

Screen at Kamchanod
a very surreal Thai film about ghosts being captured by (and within) film, 6 people track down and watch a film that is said to have an audience of ghosts, after watching the film the 6 people begin to see ghosts everywhere and start to lose track of whats real leading to a final screening of the film in a nonexistant clearing of a haunted forest.
there are a lot of clashing ideas and film styles here, on one hand it wants to be a psychological thriller, on the other it wants to be a supernatural horror, and on some imaginary third hand it wants to be a love story, but the three ideas never quite fit together. the love story isn't very emotional, the psychological thriller is far too confusing and not explained nearly well enough, and the horror is... scary... very scary. the one thing this movie does right is horror, it adequately uses light, shadow, and blur to create ghosts. by only giving glimpses and turning the tension up to eleven the movie successfully creates a menacing atmosphere and environment where nowhere feels safe. the film also made excellent use of the idea of "ghosts from film" where the ghosts themselves seem to not entirely be in our world but rather reaching into it through the screen. it creates pop-out scares as well as a general level of uneasiness that often turns to an intense feeling of "something is not right" that only the uncanny valley can provide

Scare Level 8.5/10
Overall 6.5/10

(for reference i would give "Paranormal Activity" a scare level of 7.5/10 and "The Others" a scare level of 8/10)