Once: A Singular Experience

Shortly after I got back to school, I heard from a friend of mine. He told me that he'd been to see a movie the week before, and that he was dragging me and any of our other friends that he could get his hands on to go see it again that week. This movie was Once, and I have to say that I owe Nate a great debt.

A movie about a nameless guy - a 30-something aspiring musician who is living with and working for his father - and girl - a Czech immigrant trying to make a life with her mother and daughter - in Dublin and the impact that they have on each other's lives over the short time they have together; Once is a musical - of a sort - that expresses the human experience more purely and poignantly than any movie I've seen in recent memory.

There's not much else that can be said about the film. It's incredibly simple in scope, being driven entirely by the growth of the relationship between these two rather than the context surrounding it. In this way, it's much like Lost in Translation, but with touching panels of musical performance taking place of Lost in Translation's sort of general meandering and sense of cluelessness in the gaps. It's not an especially good comparison, but it's about the best that can be made.

Ultimately, about the best praise that I can give the film is this: The only music that I have received legally in the last 2 years has been as gifts. I started an account in the i-Tunes store to buy this soundtrack because I felt a desperate need to contribute more than the $3.50 I paid for my ticked to the production. I've also listened to the entire album three times in the last 24 hours.

The film probably isn't anywhere near any of you right now. It started showing in limited release in July, and is more than likely out of your nearest indy theater by now. Nothing on Amazon yet about the DVD release, but you can probably expect it in the next 6-9 months. Do yourself and all your friends a favor and check it out when this happens.

Why did it take me so long?

So, in the last 2 weeks, I've read just over 3000 pages in Harry Potter novels. Those of you familiar with the series will probably realize that, by this, I mean to say that I've read the first 6 books. And I have enjoyed them completely.

I don't have much to say other than that. I've managed to simply borrow books up until now, but my dad doesn't own number 7 yet, and I'm now emotionally invested to the point that I literally can't wait until next week when I'm back at school to finish the series (I'll be shelling out my cold hard cash tomorrow).

I know that Harry obviously defeats Voldemort, and I doubt it will be in some bad-ass wizard's duel in which Harry proves the mightier wielder of ancient megiks, as that would be completely to the contrary of the point that Rowling has been (blatantly) making in the first 6 books: the power of love to conquer hatred and self serving strength. That being love of the variety preached by Christ when he proclaimed the two greatest commandments, not love as found in a dime store Dianne Steele novel.

I will admit that I did cheat a little bit. ***SPOILERS*** I was so pissed that Harry pulled a Peter Parker at the end of book six that I checked the Wikipedia entry on Ginny Weasley's role in the Epilogue to ensure that she and Harry got together. ***END SPOILERS*** I'm a little bit in love with Ginny Weasley right now (3000 pages in 2 weeks will fuck you up a bit), and I'd be royally pissed if she didn't wind up happy. I didn't read any details of the meat of the book though, or the other character's fates, and am incredibly excited to finish it off in the next couple of days.

My question to you all is, why didn't you assholes force this stuff upon me earlier?

Also, to those of you who complain that your childhood ended with the end of Deathly Hallows, be grateful that you at least picked a winning horse. My childhood ended at the age of 12 with The Phantom Menace, and it ended poorly. I've been randomly binging on mediocre Shounen Anime to revive some spark of it ever since. Speaking of which, I still need to acquire all of the episodes of Naruto Shippouden to the present date...


edit: 8-29-07; 10:30 pm
So, I've just finished Deathly Hallows. Very good close. Nowhere near enough Ginny. Sever Ginny deficiency, I'd even say, but it ends the series well enough. Rowling, in never explaining the rules of her universe too much, remained free to abuse the holes she left to provide a fitting ending. Other than more Ginny, I really just wished there had been a bit more between the final confrontation and the epilogue, but it would have been near impossible to do so without depressing the mood, so it was probably a wise decision.

HP5 thoughts

I've got quite a bit to write about the concept of adaptations in general. That's coming in a later post (hopefully this week, as I've been thinking about it a lot). This being the case, instead of filling your heads with all kinds of talk unrelated to the film itself, I'm just going to say a few quick things about this movie that any of you who care about have already seen and any of you who don't probably won't no matter what I say. Alright?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a very competent film. The acting is probably as good as the series has been thus far, and the visual direction is very well done. It has been about the poorest rated of the HP films thus far critically, but I believe that has more to do with the source material than anything. Not having read any of the Potter books beyond the first one (which I read at the height of my Tolkien fanaticism in late '99 and thus didn't much care for), I can't say for sure, but trying to take a 1000+ page novel filled with important characterization and condensing it into a 2.3 hour film just, generally speaking, doesn't always flow terribly well. Certain, seemingly important characters (Luna Lovegood, Cho Chang, and a few others) just don't get the time to be properly fleshed out, and seem somewhat forced in with an otherwise outstanding primary cast when their relevancy to the plot deems their presence necessary.

That said, the primary triumvirate of Harry, Ron, and Hermione have grown to be quite excellent young actors under the impressive tutelage they've received on the set. Gary Oldman is one of the best actors around (and seems to be part of the reason that our heroes have grown so much) and Imelda Staunton's performance as Dolores Umbridge was absolutely incredible. The story flows well enough despite the slight character foibles mentioned earlier, and it sets up nicely for what I imagine is to follow (hopefully within the next two to three months, I'll actually know what, exactly, that is). I'd also like to say that Yates and Radcliffe did a wonderful Harry seem suitably ornery and mildly angsty without going completely overboard and turning Harry into the screaming emo child that some people seem to have interpreted him as in the book proper. I never once felt that Harry was out of line in his reactions, and, indeed, a couple of times was wondering why people were so shocked by him instead.

8/10
Notwithstanding the fact that I feel like the absolute creepiest person alive every time I'm made to realize that both Emma Watson (Hermione) and Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) are growing into attractive young women in their own rights.

Ratatouille is a Treat

I'm going to keep this short, because there's not a whole lot to say.

I really enjoyed Ratatouille. It's visually stunning - I'm talking about the direction and the cinematography more than the animation, which isn't anything we haven't seen before - its simple story is impeccably told; and while the it may be an age old practice, I've rarely seen cooking used as a metaphor for life so well.

It's a somewhat subtler (note the somewhat) film than previous Pixar entries. It generally lacks the gushing sentiment and blunt repetition of its underlying moral present in 99% of animated films, choosing instead to make strong use of its romantic, in every sense of the word, setting to evoke an emotional response. It's due to this manner of allowing you to forge your own attachments rather than forcefully building them up for you that this movie may not appeal as strongly to children, but it's genuinely refreshing to see an animated film geared towards adults with some laughs for the kids rather than the opposite.

Go see Ratatouille when you get a chance, worst case, you should leave with a smile on your face. Don't go into it expecting a traditional Pixar film a la Toy Story or Finding Nemo and you may recognize it as one of their best.

10/10

Also, I'm incredibly excited for WALL*E

Why I Feel That the Spider-Man 3 Hate was Completely Excessive

I want to start out by saying that I think that Spider-Man 3 is almost exactly the film that Sam Raimi wanted it to be. Whether this is good or not depends on how much you like Sam Raimi; how much you like Spider-Man; and how much you're willing to let these likes conflict.

Spider-Man 3 isn't a perfect film. It's at times disjointed, it takes strong liberties with its characters' cannon, and, of course, Venom proper wasn't handled well at all. Perhaps the biggest - but least consciously recognized - issue that most people take with the film, however, is that the general atmosphere is just so much different from Raimi's past two Spidey entries. While Spider-Man 1 and 2 were very much movies about Peter Parker and the Spider-Man character, Spider-Man 3 is a love song to both the good and bad of comic books in general.

I picked up on this notion while trying to explain to my dad why I didn't think it was any near as bad as critics were saying after my first viewing of the movie. It was, and remains, my belief that Spider-Man 3 isn't any sillier or more contrived than the previous entries, it's just more upfront about it.

You see, comics are a medium with a history incredibly rich in melodrama, cliché, and archetypes. In Spider-Man 3, Sam Raimi embraces all of these traditions, from the amazingly melodramatic panning shot to Harry in the balcony at the theater during the opening scene to the manner in which the majority of the cast joined J.K. Simmons in playing perfectly into their characters' archetypes.

For better or worse, though, Peter and Mary Jane didn't seem to get the same face-lift, and their characters retention of their more "realistic" personalities tends to ruin the fast paced, highly entertaining, if generic, interactions of the rest of the cast. Having the two most critical characters in the film trying to portray real people amid a cast of one-dimensional clichés drags at the proceedings and makes the shift hard to recognize. It's for this reason that I would have liked to have seen more interactions between "evil" Peter and the rest of the cast, because it was only when Maguire was overacting and trying to milk what little material was given to this part of his character that he seemed to fit in with the over-the top melodrama of the rest of the film.

I don't believe that Maguire isn't primarily to blame for most of his issues in this regard. I think that, were the Peter Parker character written to more accurately reflect his comic book persona, Maguire would have had a much easier job of things. Unfortunately, Peter Parker was irreparably altered for the movies from a wise-cracking genius with some of the world's worst luck to a meek, introspective genius with some of the world's worst luck.

And yet, despite being this incredibly meek character, Parker needs to stand toe-to-toe with a bunch of larger-than-life personalities all focused on tearing him down. In a world of archetypes and walking clichés, a meek character can't do this and remain believably in the same world as the rest of the cast, or the illusion is broken. As the hero, he can't back down; but left without his wit and smarmy remarks as a verbal weapon to combat this personal oppression there's not much he can do to remain in the same one-dimensional reality as the rest of the cast.

Dunst played her part well enough when Maguire wasn't on the set, but when the two were together, things tended to fall back into the mood of the first two films; again causing a rift in the atmosphere in the film.

There's not a whole lot more that can be said about this aspect of the film. In trying to transplant the characters of the first two films into a largely different environment, the writers missed some key issues. Peter's inability to hold his own with the rest of the cast on their terms makes the flimsiness of the film's conceits more visible relative to its predecessors. This is unfortunate because upon multiple viewings, the films are all equally ridiculous and contrived, just in different ways.

Whether you're willing to forgive the flaw in favor of the goal is up to you. Generally speaking, I am, simply because it's not a new problem - I've been craving a truer-to-form Peter Parker from the beginning - and it's about time it bit them in the ass properly anyway. If Raimi, Maguire, and Dunst return for the fourth installment, maybe a Peter with a freshly bolstered sense of confidence will start to develop the proper attitude of his canonical self.

The other major problem that Spider-Man fans have with this film is Venom. Symbiote-Spidey was generally handled excellently, probably among the best parts of the film; Peter should have rid himself of the Symbiote, we should have seen it begin to attach itself to Brock, and that should have been it for Venom until the next film. Instead, we got a super villain that was completely untrue to cannon and did nothing to differentiate itself from Spider-Man in terms of movement and ability.

This is especially sad since this film showed that Raimi was finally up to the task of visualizing these character's abilities. The scene of Spider-Man rescuing Gwen from the crane accident showed the movement of Spider-Man as well as I think is possible. Sand Man, similarly, was incredibly well portrayed visually. Having Venom be as blah as he was was a huge disappointment, as watching a hulking Venom bound 5 stories through the air, pin Peter to a construction girder, and try to split Parker's skull open with his tongue to get at his brain would have been a real treat.

I don't know what else I can say. Spider-Man 3, for me, is a lot like [Star Wars] Episode 3 was. Every time I watched it, I became more forgiving of its flaws in favor of its root material. This doesn't mean that the flaws don't exist, but its charms are just more substantial. So, go watch it again when you get the chance (it's out of most theaters by now), and try to appreciate what Raimi was attempting to do. Maybe you'll enjoy the movie more now that you know what disappointments to expect, maybe you won't, but please stop the hate.

On one final note, I want to yell at those of you who are upset and think that Sand Man's origin was contrived. The afternoon before I went to see Spider-Man 3 for the second time, I swung by a local comic book shop with some friends. While there, my friend Peter picked up a Super Man comic. This particular issue involved a conflict between Supes and Bizarro. From the back of the Car, Peter made a comment as to how he'd forgotten that Bizarro had Ice Vision. Almost everybody in the car looked at him as if to exclaim, "Ice vision? How can he have ice vision?!" because, somehow, it was somehow more absurd than the heat vision we're all so comfortable with. Sand Man's origin as opposed to Spider Man's is exactly that same situation. Calling Sand Man's creation contrived is asinine when you're going to see your third Spider-Man film.

edit: I will admit that the convenient proximity of the testing facility is stretching things a bit, but seriously, just roll with it.

Transformers: Less Than Meets the Eye

Two things to start. First, I legitimately enjoyed Transformers. Second, I'm sorry for the title, but it's almost a necessity given the situation. Onto the meat...

Transformers is exactly what everybody else has been saying: A fun pop-corn movie and an amazing overall spectacle. I would say small on the plot, but it tries to have a more elaborate plot than it needed to, and that's really its failings. It's an immensely entertaining film filled with explosions and giant robots, but if you go in without a preexisting appreciation for said robots, the fun isn't nearly as infectious.

Bumblebee is the only Autobot that the viewer will have any inclination towards liking based solely on the material in the film. And if Bay hadn't made the obvious choice of casting Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime, even transformers aficionados would be lacking the much needed emotional connection to this important canonical figure.

That's the real problem with Transformers, and since the good parts are fairly obvious, that's what I'm going to devote what little I have left to say too. Bay spends far too much time setting up the plot lines for the human characters and not enough time on the Transformers themselves; especially considering that almost all of the human plot line is devoted towards explaining how the humans can fight the Decepticons in the closing minutes of the film. Sure, Shia LaBeouf is a great young actor and he deserves screen time, but certainly not at the expense of the titular characters.

That LaBeouf's plot line didn't even need to be reduced to improve the end result is even sadder. The other two concurrent plot threads could have been completely replaced with more Autobot and (especially) Decepticon related story and improved the movie significantly. If Michael Bay didn't feel he had to whore out his military connections at every opportunity, not only would there have been easily an extra 40 minutes to flesh out both sides of the Transfomers crew, but the final showdown would have been much more climactic. Human intervention greatly detracted from the grandeur of Autobot on Decepticon action, especially in the case of the showdown between (a woefully under addressed) Megatron and Prime.

The worse offender, though, is the entirely unnecessary "signal analyst" plot line. All that these guys did that affected the ending in any way was tell the Air Force where to go at the end, and we wasted a good 20 minutes to half hour with a slough of characters that were absolutely terrible and provided only one mildly amusing scene.

Long story short, Michael Bay, if you're reading this, the next time you make a Transformers movie, try to actually devote an acceptable length of the movie to, you know, Transformers.

That said, it was a fun movie. Shia LaBeouf is a great young actor who's a lot of fun to watch, and when the action sequences get going, they are very well done. If you go into it with a love of Transformers and/or a desire to enjoy the movie, you will. If you go in skeptical with an overly critical eye, there's a good chance you won't.

Final score(s):
9/10 for die hard Transformers fans
6/10 if you've got no clue who Optimus Prime is
somewhere in between for everybody else

Why Watchmen is Truely Graphic Literature

It took me a lot longer than it should have to give Watchmen a read. I'd been hearing comic aficionados reference it as one of the pinnacles of comic writing for years, and even ignorantly expounded its virtues upon others when hearing the comic format come under attack. It was just last summer, though, that I finally decided to spend the money and finally give it a read; and what I saw blew me away.

I knew that I wanted to use mixed verbs in the above sentence, but I honestly couldn't decide which order to put them in.

You see, in terms of narrative, Watchmen is far deeper than your typical comic book, and is much more similar to a traditional novel. For one thing, it's not high in action. It's primarily a study on the psychological effects of vigilantism on its practitioners and the general public. For another thing, it lacks an easily identified hero. Sure, there are protagonists, and they happen to be (mostly former) masked crime fighters, but it's not purely a strong sense of justice that motivates their exploits. Watchmen makes no qualms about the fact that many in its cast took on this burden out of a desire to feel power over others; a grating sense of paranoia; desire for money or fame; and even a sense of sexual freedom. Watchmen's cast is adult. It is resonant, and honest, and refreshing, and it really makes you think about yourself.

If this wasn't enough to differentiate Watchmen from your typical comic fare, Watchmen also takes time to touch on the unimaginable ramifications of even a single "super being" coming into existence and the exceptional costs of true peace.

At the same time, Watchmen's visual aspect is far too powerful to ignore. It's not a work that would retain its full impact without its graphic component. There are portions of the book, for example, Walter Kovac's Rorschach test, where Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons juxtapose text and imagery in a way that invokes an intense response. The inclusion of the pirate comic that just wouldn't make sense in a purely textual format, and long, wordless passages that do as much to help us understand the characters and world better than any other possible method could also require that Watchmen be a graphic novel.

There's a Watchmen movie in production right now (I believe the picture I used is from its viral marketing campaign), and despite the incredibly promising nature, I don't think it will work. There's too much content in Watchmen and too many shifts in style to jam into a two, or even three hour movie; and there's not enough action to make it the type of special effects blockbuster that the general populous will expect from a comic book adaptation.

I feel that, if Watchmen is to be brought into cinema in any way, it needs to be in the form of a Band of Brothers style mini-series. Ideally, it could be 12 chapters, one for each original issue. It shouldn't need any storyboard beyond the comics, and it would need to incorporate material from the Pirate Comic and the between chapters material. It would need to remain adult (pretty much relegating it to HBO/Showtime, the only corporations that would touch it anyway). Steep orders, but it's what's needed to truly pay tribute to this masterpiece.

And I do feel comfortable calling it that. I've lent my copy to three friends, none of whom are involved with comic books. Two of them now own their own copy, and we reference it frequently. It's that good. Watchmen reinvigorated my faith in the graphic medium. As I get money, I fully intend to delve into other important bastions of this hobby (starting with some of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series). You owe it to yourself to check it out.