Film is Pwn

I caught a showing of the Spring, big-budget spectacle Clash of the Titans this afternoon.  My thoughts in a word: Meh. (That’s indifferentese for “it’s all right, I guess.”) (more…)

I bet reading the title of this post you wondered to yourself, what kind of person would be so excited about this that they would put an exclamation point at the end? The answer is anyone who has been attending popular cinema over the last 10 years (and assorted nerds such as myself). The BBC Reports that filming will begin in July in New Zealand with Guillermo del Toro directing, Peter Jackson producing, and Sir Ian McKellan reprising his role as Gandalf the Grey. The only real news for those who have been following this is that a date has been set for filming to begin, however it does make one wonder

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Beauty and the Beast: A Dark Tale begins with narration that sets the table: “You all know the lovely old legend of Beauty and the Beast. . . I’m telling you that what really happened was far, FAR more terrifying than anything the storytellers ever admitted.” Yes, those fairy tale writers are notorious for their penchant for downplaying fantastic stories.  (In real life, Cinderella was an intergalactic, Amazon warrior who left glass slippers in the eyes of her victims.)

Beauty and the Beast: A Dark Tale takes place in generic, Middle-Age times in a generic, Middle-Age land.  A generic King lies dying without an heir, and various poseurs, distant relatives, and regal dentists are posturing for the crown.  How did people decide who won things before reality TV dancing and/or singing competitions?  Chicanery, of course.  Evil Count Rudolph (Rhett Giles) plans to increase his kingly stock by capturing the legendary Beast (no relation to Dr. Hank McCoy).

Meanwhile, Belle (Estella Warren), the Washer Woman’s daughter, is wandering the forest looking for herbs to make clothes smell good (not a joke) when she is saved by the mysterious Beast.  Belle promptly shows her gratitude by ratting out his location to Count Rudolph and his henchmen.  Thanks, Belle! (more…)

I had to see Avatar. I’m not sure I had another choice in the matter. The buzz oozing from every orifice of movie goers round the world insisted upon it. The bad news is I rarely think as highly of movies with this much buzz. District 9 comes to mind.

For starters, James Cameron is talented. Very talented. He managed to bring life to a story I saw coming within the first ten minutes. He managed to make it interesting, heartwarming and very much engaging. The world was interesting and fresh, even if the story was tired. Somehow he managed to make me look past the thousand plot holes as I sat in the theater. My mind was fixated on the Na’vi and the inevitability of their story.

Visually it was pretty significant (it’s what everyone is talking about), the use of 3D mixed with live action was impressively done. The use of CGI with live action didn’t strike me as especially great or ground-breaking but I’ve seen a lot of movies so maybe that has something to do with it. Biologically I think his world had issues. For instance, why did all of his creatures seem to be carnivores despite mass quantities of jumbo size vegetation? But that’s nitpicking. The world is beautiful, fun and fairly scientifically accurate.

I hate that this film was so socially and politically charged. I like social cause movies and when it’s done well it can really be great. I think of “Hotel Rwanda” which though it wasn’t really accurate it shined a light on a grim reality; which I think is always a good thing. Avatar though didn’t shine light on a grim reality; it was preaching to the choir. The people who agreed with the message would cheer and those who didn’t would groan or get angry.

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The other night I had my first experience with Harry Potter after a decade of ignoring the wildly popular novels and subsequent blockbuster film series.

Before the take on the movie itself, let me address the “Why the no Harry” question.  You see, during the initial breakout of Pottermania, there was a certain Christian backlash, and I happen to be a devout Christian.  While there were some vehement judgments that Harry and his brand of magic was a bad influence, please don’t misunderstand me: I’ve never told anyone not to read or watch a Potter movie.  Even if I thought Potter was basically evil and subversive, I don’t think boycotting or boisterously protesting is the best way to get your point across.  Generally you just succeed in publicizing property you’re demonizing and make yourself look stupid in the process, and then you’re the stupid Christian trying to ruin everyone else’s good time.

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Thor: Hammer of the Gods is the epitome of Film Is Pwn’s “TV” rating (patent pending): It’s a movie that’s worth watching when it comes on TV and you have time to kill and all the other channels are showing Ben Affleck movies and it’s raining outside and you can’t read a book because you’re illiterate and you can’t do any physical activity because your leg is broken and the doctor said you should stay off it and the remote control is just out of your reach and your wife decided to not get it for you before she went out into the rain to go shopping with your money or maybe you don’t have a wife but you still don’t want to go out because it’s raining and your leg is broken even though you think if you might go out to the local Family Dollar you might meet a nice lady who might one day become your wife if she takes pity on you for being wet and on crutches and so forth.  I believe that’s Film Is Pwn’s definition of “TV” as well as our most perfunctory run-on-sentence in our relatively brief existence.

Anyhoo, the story in Thor: Hammer of the Gods follows vikings sailing to an uncharted island on a three year tour for no particular reason.  I think it had something to do with their noble leader Baldur (Mac Brandt) wanting to claim new land for his father, tribe, or hot wife (who’s along for the joy ride), but the point is vikings are going to a mysterious island where the weather calls for intermittent fog and snow, depending on what mood the filmmakers wish to set.  I’m no meteorologist (no, it’s true!), but I think a forecast that calls for fog and snow on the same day is somewhat uncommon, but this particular island is heavy on the mood, light on the hard science.

I shouldn’t be too harsh on the filmmakers for striving to create atmosphere at the expense of logic, because there are –amazingly — some genuinely good looking visuals featuring the vikings in the snow and the generic monsters concealed in darkness and shadow, which is more than you can say for 99.9973% of low-budget SyFy Channel/Asylum movies.
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Time After Time is but one of an endless series of fish out of water time travel films, the vast majority of which get tedious after about fifteen minutes.  Time After Time was different, in that it got tiresome in a mere ten minutes

The idea here is a preposterous if entertaining “What If?” scenario, not unlike the series that Marvel Comics would publish back in the day, like what if Dr. Doom was a hero, what if Wolverine shaved his sideburns, or what if Winnie the Pooh was exposed to Gamma Rays instead of Bruce Banner.

In this case, the question is: What if infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper escaped 19th century justice by using H.G. Wells’ time machine to come to modern times (well, “modern” as of the film’s release in 1979)?   (more…)

I just watched one of the more recent releases from our favorite low-budget studio, the Asylum: DragonQuest.  It’s a sort of broad amalgam of various wizard/warriors/dragons/boy-goes-on-hero’s-journey type film, which is smart because it’s never apparent which particular movie is being knocked off.  There was one scene that was a total homage to the 300, and but for the most part it lives in classic Eragon territory.  Of course, Eragon itself is a piecemeal of various more other archetypes like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which Tom documented here.

The hero Arkadi (Daniel Bonjour) is a cross between Frodo and Luke Skywalker; his attire resembles that of Luke, the actor kinda looks like Elijah Wood’s Frodo if you squint hard enough, and his mission/story is a mishmash of the two.  Arkadi is being raised by his(?) “Grandfather,” Grandfather bing the characters name it seems, as everyone unrelated to Grandfather addresses and/or refers to him as “Grandfather,” which makes no sense.  To no one’s surprise, Grandfather is killed off, but not before Grandfather reveals that hero boy is some sort of chosen one who must beat back some dark wizard (Brian Thompson) fellow who is wreaking havoc on the land with a flaming dragon (a staggeringly cool effect, by Asylum/Sci-Fi Channel standards, though when they linger on it too long the illusion fades and you realize you’re looking at cheap crap). (more…)

Krull is a very odd yet somehow entertaining fantasy adventure film that combines elements of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The more I think about it, if they had made a live action Lord of the Rings in the early 80s, I fear it would have looked like this: cheesy effects that Flash Gordon would scoff at, cheap sets imported from the Lost in Space TV show, and an uninspired cast that thinks they’re making children’s theater (in fairness, they’re not entirely mistaken).

The story is of a far off world known as Krull, a place steeped with mystical forests, cyclops, and magic. Typical of mystical worlds too cheap to call Orkin, Krull is besieged by otherworldly creatures known as Slayers, who could be distant cousins to Orcs. The Slayers answer to a shapeshifting, all-powerful monster who could not conceivably be defeated until maybe the climactic scene, and they have no clear purpose outside generic conquest.

Krull’s two rival kingdoms of men must unite to fight off the invaders, and for some reason doing so requires the son and daughter of the kings have to get married to seal the deal. Yes, if you want to solve infighting, marriage is the sure way to guarantee there will never be another fight again. “The threat of annihilation by alien invaders has been insuffient to unite us, but being In-laws should do the trick!” I’m a bachelor, and even I know that’s relatively unrealistic, if not flippin’ stupid. (more…)

I fancy myself an expert on science fiction/fantasy plots.  If it were possible, sci-fi/fantasy plot lines would have been my college major.  Since this is not an available college course, I dropped out of college and will continue to boycott higher education until they finally offer a course where watching every single Sci-Fi Channel original movie is a requirement.  If they are looking for potential teachers, I’d be happy to volunteer my services!

Until that glorious day, I have seen enough Star Trek episodes, Uwe Boll movies, and genuinely good science fiction to be familiar with just about every incarnation or interpretation of imaginary worlds past, present, and future and consider myself a better man for it.   But the fantasy world put forth in today’s subject, Dragon Wars, is pretty asinine, even by my warped standards.

(In the interest of full disclosure, class, Dragon Wars is not a Sci-Fi Channel original movie and actually had a *cough* “major” theatrical release.  Still, as far as quality is concerned, this is in the lower tier of Sci-Fi Channel original moviedom.) (more…)

You know, with a basic premise that boils down to “Vampires vs. Werewolves with no plot holes barred” you’d assume that after three tries the Underworld franchise would make an entertaining guilty pleasure if only by accident, but Underworld: Rise of the Lycans fails like its predecessors.  No, I take that back, it’s not exactly the same failure — Underworld: Rise of the Lycans fails more recently than the first two.

I assure you, I haven’t watched these movies expecting anything other than some good ol’ fashioned escapism, some ludicrous fight scenes, and no ridiculous reason for it all, but it turns out that is too much to ask.

The creators take their little trumped up mythology far, far too seriously.  Heck, Martin Scorsese will even once in a while let a moment of levity slip into his movies, but not these clowns. The world of Underworldis perpetually bathed in blue hued darkness and populated by overwrought, melodramatic actors attempting to speak Sci-Fi Channel dialogue written as if it were Shakespeare.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying a fantasy/sci-fi universe should not be treated as something serious, but when your hook is werewolves, vampires, a hot chick in black leather, and bare chested dudes, you might want to have a little bit of fun.
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As a half-Scandinavian, my heritage doesn’t really get a lot of respect from Hollywood or the fine people at the EPCOT Center.  In fairness, what do we have that’s really exotic other than the Viking thing?  Still, is it too much to ask that after 100+ years of movies, we get one great Viking movie?  And a documentary about the Minnesota Vikings doesn’t count!

What have we had up until now?  The 13th Warrior, the crappy Michael Crichton adaption where Vikings team with Islamic Cleric Antonio Banderas (no, seriously) to fight weird guys who live in a cave?  Pathfinder was a relatively entertaining action flick featuring Native Americans warding off invading Vikings, though I wouldn’t call it “good.”  There’s always Erik The Viking, a farsical comedy starring Tim Robbins as the titular Viking, which should tip you off to the quality of the film.  They are making a major movie out of the Mighty Thor comic book to be released in two years, but that’s got as much of a chance of being as bad as Howard the Duck as it does of being as good as Iron Man.

So, I would like to, on behalf of my fellow Scandinavians, I would like to officially pronounce Outlander as the best Vikings movie ever.  What is Outlander?  It’s a semi-big budget flick that sadly didn’t get a major theatrical release, and is now sneaking onto DVD under the radar, but — by golly! — it’s a really entertaining film.  Outlander the cover boasts a critic saying “Beowulf meets Predator!” and that’s the truest, shortest definition I can provide.  Yes, we Vikings have to play second fiddle to otherworldly monsters and charismatically handsome aliens, but beggars can’t be choosers. (more…)