CHUD.com - A Movie Website and SO MUCH MORE. - Blogs

Afternoon Quickie: Flirting with ARRESTED

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

As you know, talk of an Arrested Development film has picked up of late. Just this morning I saw Jason Bateman say on the TODAY show that it was "possible" for 2009, even though Michael Cera is very expensive these days. As a fan of the show - great! Terrific! But -

What the hell does an Arrested Development movie look like?

The show's humor is so rapid-fire that it would be exhausting over 90 minutes or so. And the SOAP-esque plotting is also uniquely TV. And where do you add the needed theatrical production value? We don't need to see the Bluths in Hawaii, do we?

And then it occurred to me that someone has ALREADY made an Arrested Development feature film – David O. Russell. Russell's follow-up to the demented and funny SPANKING THE MONKEY was the demented and funny FLIRTING WITH DISASTER which starred a then-fresh Ben Stiller as a neurotic man, adopted as a baby, who goes on a hunt for his birth parents. Things go very hilariously wrong.

In tone, style and execution there is no better model than FWD for what Arrested Development could/should be like in feature form. If you like Arrested and haven't seen FWD, by all means, rent it forthwith and see for yourself what I'm talking about.

Harper; Futurama; Charlie Bartlett; Jumper

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

I go "dark" for the week or so before my magazine is due at the printer each month, an absence prolonged this time around due to a computer nightmare last week (system crashed, lost half the issue, etc.) Mea culpa.

HARPER is one of these films I'd sort of casually heard of before, but no one had really pitched to me as a "must see" and so I never sought it out, despite the fact that it has a William Goldman script. Paul Newman plays - originality alert - a down-on-his-luck cop-turned-private dick in LA. He gets hired by a delightfully bitter Lauren Bacall to find her super-rich drunkard husband. Detective movie ensues.

In Adventures In The Screen Trade Goldman says that, by the time the movie was made in the mid-60's, the detective procedural genre had pretty much been taken over by television. Harper does seem rather stuck in time - it's very methodical, doesn't take many stylistic risks, doesn't hold any real surprises, etc. It's a pretty solid detective film with a lively Paul Newman performance and a surprising turn by Robert Wagner, but even Goldman admits that people remember the opening scene (in which we see Harper go through his sad-but-funny morning routine) more than any other part. A few years later, Robert Altman would kick off his adaptation of The Long Goodbye (one of my all-time favorite films) by apeing this scene. The Long Goodbye, however, is the vastly superior film, obliterating the tired stylistic conventions that Harper adheres to while remaining, at heart, a classic detective story. I could go on for a few thousand words about the wonder of TLG (and did once in college) but there's no time, no time. HARPER: B.

FUTURAMA: THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS is, thankfully, a return to form for the series after the disappointing Bender's Big Score. Whereas the previous film favored a billion references to favorite moments from the series over, you know, humor, BEAST starts off strong and pretty much stays on track throughout the film. There's not much to say here: you're either a Futurama fan, or your not. If Bender's Big Score scared you away - be not afraid. BEAST isn't a classic, but it is solid. If you've never seen Futurama, go buy/rent the original series and get to this later on. 'Nuff said. F:BBB - B.

CHARLIE BARTLETT was rather harshly received upon release last year, and at first it's hard to understand why. The movie is funny, never boring, and has many clever moments. But it's also too long, loses form in the last 1/3rd or so, doesn't really present an at all realistic portrait of high school life, has a student population that feels like, well, a bunch of extras, treats prescription drug abuse rather lightly, etc. It has issues. As a message movie it just doesn't work, and large chunks of the film are lesser versions of better movies (the worst offense being the repeated musical references to Harold and Maude). But is is ENTERTAINING? Absolutely! And that's still my main concern when watching a film, so I forgive CB its flaws. The performances are uniformly terrific, and it will be interesting to see what Charlie himself, the quite talented Anton Yelchin, does as Chekov in the new Star Trek film. And if you need a Robert Downey Jr. fix, this film will do nicely. BARTLETT is a perfect rental film - you'll be happy to have seen it, and thrilled that it didn't cost you $10 bucks a person. CB - C+.

Lastly, we have JUMPER, another film greeted pretty severely by critics, particularly of the geek variety. I've not read the books and cannot speak to the faithfulness of the adaptation, but the movie really isn't that bad. The effects are strong, the concept interesting, and Jaime Bell rules every scene he's in. But there are definite issues. The problem isn't so much Hayden Christensen, whose genre baggage a lot of people just can't seem to shake. No, the biggest issue is the crap-tastic villian side of the movie - the Palladins. "Only God should have the power to be everywhere at once" yadda yadda yadda. (yawn.) We see too much of them to be this ill-informed as to why the hell they care so much about eliminating jumpers. Their motiviation, as scripted, just isn't convincing, and a little work in this area would probably have significantly improved the film as a whole. And, oh yeah, the love interest bit is meek. Alas. But overall it seems like Doug Liman did was hired to do - set up a new franchise. And if anyone other than Hayden, with his aforementioned baggage, had been the lead, then the film arguably would have been more commercially successful. As it is, it's not a bad genre rental. JUMPER: C+.

AFTERNOON QUICKIE: THE ROBOT THING

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

So I've mentioned a few times the "robot thing" I was writing for another site. Well here it is! They're paying me and everything! How very exciting! Be sure to click on it from every computer you have, ok? Gr8 thx bai.

Grand Theft Auto Bore

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Do you want my long personal history with video games spelled out in detail? No you don't, because this isn't Aint It Cool News. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) So short version: I'm a male born in the 1970's and have played every major system along the way, albeit very casually for the past 15 years or so. I had not previously played a GTA game for more than a few minutes.

But GTA IV looked exciting, and it WAS exciting for the first many hours. But as the game got harder one asinine & avoidable flaw kept rearing its hideously ugly head...

Not being the greatest gamer around I do have to start the occasional level over. That's fine, I don't need the game to be easy. But let's say the mission I've just failed involved me leaving my place in Broker, driving to meet some shady character in Dukes, and then driving with him to somewhere in Algonquin where we have to roam around a bit and get halfway through a mission before I do something stupid and die.

WHY - dear God, WHY when you choose to retry the level does it start ALL THE WAY BACK IN FRAKKIN' BROKER??

I didn't buy a driving sim. As a driving sim alone this game doesn't work. Yet the majority of each mission is made of up driving from A to B and sometimes C. That's fine the first time through a mission. But forcing me to redo all the the pre-mission driving when I fail does not make me learn anything new about how to beat the mission; it's just a chore. Why not restart at the beginning of the "action" part of the mission? It would still be a massive, long game.

But no. They want us to drive. And drive and drive and drive and marvel at how big the city is and drive and listen to the clever radio stations and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive. And drive.

And it's just not fun. And if it's not fun, why am I playing?

Morning Quickie: How Many Sequels?

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

I sucked hard at this. How about you? (via waxy.org)

Sparks From Das Prognosticator

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Remember what I said here about Warren Ellis?

Well ZAMMO and KABLAAM!

Truly I am psychic, if one defines "psychic" as "the ability to predict the obvious and inevitable." However, my geek cred is shredded for I've somehow managed to not read these two properties. I guess it's time for a trip to Tate's.

This all is bringing to mind Sparks' song "I Predict" which mocks the vague predictions of tabloid psychics, ending with the prediction that "this song will fade out." (Spoiler: it does not.) Check it:

To know Sparks is to love them, as the oodles of new wave / geek rock they've inspired in the past 30 years shows. Some of their 70's albums contain the best 80's songs you've never heard. And yes, that makes sense. Like They Might Be Giants? Listen to what they were listening to as kids. Hate They Might Be Giants? So does my wife, and yet she digs Sparks.

Listen to this song about Ron Mael's moustache (Ron writes all of the songs. His brother Russell sings):

The best bit is that Sparks has never gone away. A new album appears every couple of years, thanks largely to their popularity in the U.K. where they just finished up a run of 21 shows in a row - one for each album – leading up to their latest release.

Here's a more recent track:

I'll end this link-heavy fan rant with possibly my favorite of their recent tunes. It's mainly made up of the the same refrain repeated over and over - "My baby's taking me home." But the music goes through a variation of the classic "5 Stages of Grief" and a lot of meaning is wrung out of those five words. Is the singer dying? Being released from prison? Home from Iraq? Who knows?

These tracks are just a taste. Throughout their career they've explored nearly every style of music, and even put out an album entirely dedicated to covering their own songs. There was a terrific greatest hits collection that is sadly now out of print. If you see it used - buy it. But in the meanwhile most everything else is available on iTunes and elsewhere. And you can check out YouTube for a ton of additional clips.

SHAMELESS PLUG: Baddest Movie Daddies

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

So my cohort Jenni Miller over at Premiere.com has put up a list of Bad Screen Dads that SOMEHOW OMITS DARTH VADER but we forgive her. The rest of it is pretty darn strong, with some unexpected candidates thrown in there. (Rick Moranis - for shame!)

Check it out RIGHT HERE. Tell 'em Large Marge sent you.

Morning Quickie: Better Late Than ZOHAN

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Finishing up 2000 words about robots sucked away my writing time as of late. But that assignment is now complete (URL when available) and so I turn my mind to new matters, like ZOHAN.

It's a weird, risky concept, especially given the level of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hatred in the world (even here in the U.S.). So kudos to all involved just for having the balls to make an Israeli agent a comedy lead.

And Zohan's first act in Israel is arguably funnier than the last few Will Farrell movies combined. The Zohan character is Adam Sandler's best comic creation to date, and the Israel section plays almost like a lost Zucker Bros. film from the TOP SECRET era. Fast paced, zany, ridiculous fun. Moments that fell flat in the trailer - such as his extended flying wall kick - work perfectly in context. If the whole movie had kept up this pace then it would have been a contender for Comedy of the Year.

Unfortunately everything slooooows down the moment he gets on the plane to New York. It's like the filmmakers didn't want to cut any jokes, even the weak ones, and and so it feels like forever before Zohan actually gets a job at a salon. But even then we're subjected to bits like the "Zohan obsessively cleans up hair" montage which aren't all that funny and kill the pacing.

Which is not to say there isn't a lot of funny goodness in there, too. It's just that a bit of editing would have gone a long way towards making the second act more successful.

The Palestinian moments are also a bit lost, conceptually. It's all about as funny as the "Hezbollah Hotline" joke from the trailer, which is to say, not very. The random collection of Palestinians who work across the street from Zohan's salon are actually much more interesting than the three Rob Schneider-led leads, and I could have happily spent more time with them.

Somewhere along the way they truck out the "evil developer" plotline, or as I like to call it, The Most Tired Plot Device In The Known Universe. It kind of comes from nowhere, and it doesn't really go anywhere. Thankfully not a lot of time is given to it.

And on and on. Very funny bits continue to pop up in the midst of an overlong film. How about this for a change: a "director's cut" that is actually 15 minutes shorter?

We could talk about racial stereotypes, the oversimplification of very complex issues, etc. but it would be pointless. This is a "Why can't we all just get along?" comedy, a fantasy in which Israeli agents leap tall buildings in a single bound and Palestinians hang upside down from ceilings like Spider-Man. Nobody's view of Middle Eastern politics will be changed by the film.

Despite the many issues I'd love to see a sequel set entirely in Israel, as that environment seemed to bring out the best from all involved. It'll never happen - but I'd love to see it.

Grade: B.

THE FALL - Worth The Gas?

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

THE FALL is proving to be an especially hard film to catch here in sunny, culturally-isolated South Florida. The nearest theater with a print is a good $8-$10 worth of gas away. The Tomatometer rating is way out of whack with the IMDB rating, showing a clear divide between critics and audiences. I did not much care for THE CELL, and the dude from PUSHING DAISIES does nothing for me - not on that series, at least. At this point the movie's box office fate is sealed, so my $20 vote will not affect Tarsem's ability to get another film funded. The theater will likely be sparsely populated, so there won't be the communal experience that is one of last remaining aspects of theatergoing that can't be recreated at home. But there is the opposite experience to consider, too, the experience of knowing that only you and a few other adventurous souls got to experience something truly special in its intended format. The "I was there when" experience.

So I'm torn, I'm torn. Survey says?

Mecha Love - A Return to A.I.

no@spam.com (Jared Blaut) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

My robot research led to a revisiting of A.I., the first time I'd seen the film since its summer 2001 theatrical release. Back then the press was so very heavily focused on the "Spielberg does Kubrick" angle that anything short of 2001 meets CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was going to be viewed as a disappointment, and indeed critics and audiences - myself included - greeted the film with a collective "meh". You had the love/hate extremists, but overall - "meh."

(By the way, the rest of this presumes you have seen the movie.)

Many years have passed, however - the future Manhattan of A.I. has the Twin Towers standing, for goodness' sake - and viewing the movie with more mature eyes was an interesting, much more positive experience. It still, in my opinion, has a few fundamental flaws, mostly in the setup. For one thing I simply don't understand the bizarre decision to give David to parents who already have a critically injured son, a personal tragedy which his makers somehow felt made the couple more qualified than others to test David out. It seems a couple who, due to law or science, is unable to have children would have been a much better choice, as they'd be more likely to forgive David his programming flaws. Speaking of which, while David looks exactly like a "real boy," his pre-imprint personality is so very, very creepy - the personality version of the POLAR EXPRESS mocap uncanny valley deadites - that the mother's decision to go forward with the irreversible imprinting is not at all credible, no matter the sense of loss she'd been feeling. The pre-imprint David is still clearly a programmed "thing", and the insane, forced laugh that illogically bonds him and his (let's say) foster parents at the dinner table one night would have caused most of us to run screaming from the house. And really - a child that never grows up, never matures, never leaves, and is always exactly the same in every way until the day you die? Is there anything less natural than that?

Once David is abandoned in the woods, however, the movie corrects course and stays pretty much on track as we meet Jude Law's Gigolo Joe and continue on through the Flesh Fair, Rouge City, and ultimately Manhattan. There are minor quibbles throughout - for one thing, while each individual location is fully realized, they don't really seem like part of same universe - but nothing to get too upset about. Video forgives the films methodic pacing, and certainly allows the ending to play out in a less frustrating fashion.

At the time there was much criticism of the patented "Spielberg Happy Ending," complete with Blue Fairy. But it seems like the logical ending now, the only possible ending, and one that is much more sad than happy - my wife was bawling for 15 minutes afterwards. David lives buried underwater in a small vehicle for 2000 friggin' years, desperately wishing over and over to be made a real boy, a wish that is never, ever granted. This is not a happy ending, folks. Oh sure, he gets his one day of love with his mom - without this, the film would simply be, as my wife put it, "like watching an animal get tortured for two hours." (Wanna guess what she thought of KING KONG?) And yes, David becomes the unique creature he always wanted to be, but not in the way he wanted it to happen. Assuming he wakes up from his end-of-movie nap, he will be loved by highly advanced mecha who view him as a kind of museum piece, and not the humans with whom he's programmed to identify. There's no promise that this is an adjustment he'll be able to handle.

Must we discuss the film's philosophy, it's greater reason for being (if there is a reason superior to entertainment)? The central question posed in the first scene – "If a Mecha could genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that Mecha in return?" is one that has been posed before, if not in this exact form. The answer is basically "A lot!" and there it is. The humans who don't see Mecha as valid, living creatures are clearly the villians of the piece, and those who do - well, there aren't really any who do, not even David's creator, who states that David is the "First of a kind" rather than unique. Only the Mecha love the Mecha.

Generally speaking the humanoid robot sub-genre seems less valid now than it did in the BLADE RUNNER days, as we all have a more realistic grasp on the pace of technology - which clearly is many decades (at the very least) away from anything remotely like BICENTENNIAL MAN's Andrew (version 1) much less David. Often the best sci-fi confronts the moral issues of the day and immediate future, not that of the quite distant. The "What is human?" question is purely a mind game that won't have a chance to be tested in the real world for ages. You could walk to the narrow tip of a very weak branch and say, "Well, it's not just about robots, we don't always even treat other humans like humans, etc." but really that branch will break and down will come baby, overreaching argument and all. Compare this with say MINORITY REPORT's privacy issues; we don't have pre-cog thought police just yet, but nevertheless the "lessons" of the film have much more immediate importance. (Not that anyone is looking to a Tom Cruise action film for moral guidance.)

Ah... yeah, I think that's it. Grade: B. I seem to be giving out a lot of B grades, which to me means "Good - not great, not mediocre." So um yeah, the usual meaning for B I suppose.