The Jazz Kiosk

Quick Updates and Miscellania

2012-01-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

1.) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was incredible. It looks like it was shot on location in the 1970s. Quiet, modulated, Watergate-era paranoia with top-notch character work and a grainy, yellow vibe. ***** (5 Stars)

2.) That crowdsourced Star Wars thing (Star Wars Uncut) is mostly annoying, kind of good? Many bits consist of nothing but lame parody and reference, movie footage stuck through a video filter, or squandered opportunity. Some chunks are clever, funny, cute, or well-executed. I like the kids, the analog animation, and the bits of hardware glued together to create scenes. It's a hit and miss proposition - a great idea with way too much filler. You can tell who thinks they are being funny and irreverent, and these bits sink. * ***** (1 Star, also 5 Stars)

3.) Vincent Price. The kids can't get enough of him and his spooky antics. He's everywhere! Or at the least, he's in every movie made prior to 1980. Here is your proof. 192 titles, and there's probably a few that are not being counted because everyone who might remember them has been dead for 40 years. * x 192 (192 Stars)

4.) You can, in the United Kingdom, have Brian Blessed holler GPS directions at you. Oh well! Who wants to live forever? DRIVE!!!

Queen of the Wave trailer

2012-01-22T05:28:00.001-08:00

Headquarters

2012-01-10T16:51:00.000-08:00

Blofeld's summer home.

Must say that this Playmobil Secret Agent Headquarters has captured my imagination. Take a good look at the design details in this well-appointed mountain lair - a Ken Adam situation if there ever was one. Features include trap doors, a hidden computer room, and LED lights. It's really a very well-thought out toy.

This thing would have made a good You Only Live Twice or even a Moonraker-era Bond toy. With some modding this could become a very fashionable base of miniature operations.

Deterrent: Sadly the rest of the "Top Agents" toy line is standard toy fare. The figures are generic, and the included vehicles leave me cold. Room alarm is a kiddie gimmick. 300 pieces is somewhat daunting, with a build time of around 2 hours. Nearly $100.

Tintin, 3D, The Phantom Menace & You

2012-01-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

Really good!

Cece n'est pas une review of Tintin. But that is where we begin.

There is a machine called The Funny Animated 3D Movie For Kids Maker. This machine pumps out hyperactive, colorful fare designed to remove cash from the checking accounts of parents. Singing animals, cartoon mahem and pop-culture jokes are melted and poured into CGI molds, and when they cool off, they are chopped into commercials and run nonstop in kid-heavy demographic media outlets. Most of it is terrible, some of it is good.

And then there is The Adventures of Tintin, which exists in its own genre, somewhere between an actual movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark and a really good Pixar movie like The Incredibles. It's bound to scare and confuse the Happy Feet set, with its smoking, peril, death, alcoholism, and realistic (though clean) action.

Tintin should have you smiling at least 3/4 of the way through. The amount of detail and handcrafted visual style is staggering. Even the intro sequence (which recalls Saul Bass's work, the opening credits of Casino Royale and The Venture Brothers) should thrill fans of visual awesomeness.

Tintin is a bit nonstop, so any complains are just pacing. By the time the old sea captain and the pirate heir are "swordfighting" with giant loading cranes on a pier, you might glance at your watch. But final-reel action fatigue is a small complaint for such a neatly devised entertainment.

Classic adventure story, done in a unique PG-type of violent, realistic motion capture world, with no talking dogs or annoying kiddie charaters. This is arthouse fare compared with the glut of Seussian CGI kiddie pictures rolling off the line.

Steven Speilberg's team even deployed the 3D so well that notorious anti-third dimension activist Roger Ebert felt it was a good use of the dreaded technology.

About our third dimension: I enjoy 3D very much when the source material is either shot stereoscopically or when it's a Pixar-type jam. I don't see it as a fad or gimmick. I don't have the brightness complaints or the headaches it causes others. I don't mind shelling out, I like the glasses. I consider a 3D movie fun and appropriate for blockbustery mainstream fare. It's something I can't replicate in my house, and don't care to.

However, I don't like flat regular content that's been converted on the quick for a quick ticket price bump. There's never enough depth of effect, it looks planar and cheap. It's a money grab, it was not part of the creative process.

But the funny thing is, I would see a converted 3D movie if the conversion was top notch, the movie itself being a classic, the kind of film that would have been in 3D if only it was around at this level of excellence in, say, 1977.

I speak of the Star Wars. I would totally see the original Star Wars is a really well done 3D release. Or Thunderball. Or E.T. Some big old stone cold classic audience-cheering popcorn movie.

Please, make it stop.

But coming out of Tintin, there it was. A stop-in-your-tracks sight, like seeing an old ex in the mall. A giant cardboard promo display for the upcoming fake 3D release of The Phantom Menace. My stomach churned in ashamed recognition of the Darth Maul cutout who held his stupid double lightsaber. I stared at it, not sure what to feel.

It's been nearly 13 years since I sat in a hot parking lot, waiting to buy my advance tickets for The Phantom Menace a week before release. It was May 12, 1999, and the nacent nerdverse was virtually hysterical with anticipation. By the time it hit VHS, we had all learned a hard lesson about faith.

But there it is, 20 feet wide and daring you not to care about Ray Park's neo-Jedi acrobatics. Who were these sad harbingers of disappointment who rotoscoped Jake Lloyd's annoying face into 7 layers of depth offset masks? What deluded hack hauled out the old hard drives full of Naboo Blockade wireframes and Jar Jar lighting references?

To ask America to dip back into these repressed memories - because now you can almost touch the podrace -- is a cruel request. "SEE IT ON THE BIG SCREEN," the unholy cardboard altar says. Wait, I already saw it on the big screen, and it was horrible. Aha! That's my clue, the marketeers are not talking to me. They know I already paid for my sins. It's for the Clone Wars set, kids who were not even born (!) when Binks was stepping in space poop.

I have a feeling that more than a few screenings will turn into midnight-movie style lashings - laughter at the wrongs parts, shouts, and an Occupy Star Wars sensibility.

Hopefully this 3D Star Wars thing will fail before I have to decide to see Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and (sigh) Return of the Jedi, a decision that will probably be very stressful for me either way.

There are 2 pop culture kings that arose in the 70's. One just casually tossed off a delightful, original 3D entertainment that spans genres and demographics. The other one just ran the worst movie of the last 20 years through a 3D filter.

Red Letter Media and Plinkett Got You a Crystal Skull Review for Christmas

2011-12-25T10:53:00.000-08:00

Following up on the masterly Sith analysis from last year (and the wonderful Half In The Bag reviews, each one better than the movies they discuss), Red Letter Media slices Indiana Jones Against The Crystal Skull Monsters into its component parts. It is funny. It is blistering, it is scholarly, it is complete. It is a self-referential mine-cart chase for that rarest antiquity of all: a decent sequel.

I am sadly on the record (day-after-release fog) as mostly liking Indiana Jones and the Attack of the Crystal Skulls. But I walked it back a little, Romney-style, in my comments. I admitted that seeing a movie with friends, mouth jammed with candies, added some unearned glow to the proceedings on screen.

Since that review, I've seen it 1.5 more times. The 1 was the Blu-ray, the .5 is all the times I've spun past it on the TV dial, pausing only for a scene or two until boredom freed me. Indiana Jones and the Rise of the Crystalline Skeletons is not a good movie. It is not 100% shit, but it does not really justify itself.

I just can't watch IJ4: Clear Skull anymore - it lacks what Quentin Tarantino calls a movie's "album" quality - when you watch a movie not for a plot resolution but the tone and vibe and music of the thing.

*Figure 1. Total Direct Murders per Indy Flick.
IJ4 is no Commando.

Why wasn't Indiana Jones IV: Revenge of the Skeletal Crystals good enough to watch more than twice, or even once? I've always assumed it came down to the look (overly processed) and a list of 10 or so embarrassing elements -- that if removed in a rogue Phantom Edit -- would give us something on the level of a Last Crusade. Needless but pleasant? Right? Cut the fridge? Skip the Mutt nuttings?

Yeah, no.

I think I stand corrected. Indiana Jones vs. The King of the Glass Skull is not a decent Indy movie with regrettable prairie dogs and a fake jungle chase grafted on to it. It is an awful, senseless family-friendly hodgepodge made by too many people, helmed by folks who seem to have made the film in a cosmic shrug. It is broken from concept to edit. It has a few moments, and that's it.

Mike Stoklasa is back as Plinkett with the best thing I think has been said about the Indiana Jones mythos. As Plinkett slurs:

"It's kind of Amazing that Lucas and Spielberg didn't understand the core appeal of these movies before deciding to make another one.... It's not the character that people like, it's the idea of the character. Because being awesome is inspiring. No one gives a crap about what Indiana Jones is doing in 1957.... we want to vicariously live his adventure. This is one case where I would have actually preferred a remake."

If George Lucas suddenly turned around and said, "OK, Sequel Trillogy. Luke Skywalker is 61 years old - Han is 70, he's married to Leia, they have grandkids. They go on some space adventures - but no shooting dangerous lasers!" Would we all be excited? Well, some people would be. But they would like anything - so why not give the rest of us a break?

If you take this argument to heart - that we liked Indiana Jones because he punched guys, was smart, brave, got the girl - then you can see why it's not really about the character. There's an actual reason Daniel Craig is playing Bond in 2012, and not dear old Roger Moore, and it goes beyond his well documented fear of motion capture.

But this is not just about whether Mike and Jay are correct. Any consenting adult knows in his heart that Indiana Jones, Episode IV: The Realm of Skeleton Aliens That Are See-Through Skeletons from Space is yesterday's depressing meatloaf.

The Christmas Skull review reigns supreme because it is righteous. Just like you, I get a lot of pleasure from clever bitchy takedowns of stuff I hate, but RLM is not merely annihilating unclean popular culture - they are demonstrating how it could have been better. They are, in the parlance of middle managers, offering solutions.

RLM's main solution to Indy Four in the Court of the Crimson Plexiglass Alien Head would have been to let Indiana ride off into the sunset in 1989 as intended. Plan B would have been to make an unnecessary but awesome movie. Steven Spielberg and Star War-criminal George Lucas of course took a third route - make a movie no one really wanted, featuring new-age Roswell stuff and a later-period Harrison Ford - who is not fat, but might as well be.

At least we live in a dimension that has a new Plinkett review.

*Did that guy even die from the blunt, non-poisoned end of a dart? Probably he just passed out from embarrassment.

U.N.C.L.E. Update

2011-12-08T15:10:00.001-08:00

I can't even check my email in peace without some TMFU news. Guy Ritchie is now directing. This is OK, especially if you think about whomever would have landed the gig if this was made in 1998. With Scott Z. Burns manning the typewriter, we are now safely in the hands of non-hacks, but will it be terrible anyway? Probably. We can now agree to ignore production rumors until there's a nice interview in Empire or something. Please, go about your business! We are merely telephone repairmen who choose to wear designer suits.

The Muppets

2011-12-04T10:39:00.001-08:00

Following up on this post from nearly a year ago, I'd like to share my thoughts on The Muppets, since I've seen little else on the list due to reasons.

What we have here in The Muppets is a modern Muppet movie, one that entertains older audience members with humor, while hopefully appealing to kids with the colors and songs and such.

This 2-pronged entertainment attack has always been the Muppet formula. But along with the dual levels is another layer - a meta, retro referencing "fan service" level of detail that is welcome and surely a sign of the times. When Rashida Jones threatens to re-run Benson in place of a Muppet telethon, who but those over the age of 35 are laughing? This 3rd level of humor is not out of place but it is new, so where it goes, if anywhere, is anyone's guess.

I want to get a few nitpicks out of the way before I address my main complaint. A minor irritation is the use of contempo-library hits on the soundtrack. The original musical numbers are quite good - but having stuff like In Cars and Bad to the Bone kick into the soundtrack -- exactly how they are used in every other movie -- seems lazy for a fanchise that is so original. The original Muppet Movie had a proper score, with leitmotifs and banjos and everything, even when the puppets were not singing. And while the Muppet Show was full of covers, they were cover songs, not incidentals or segue songs.

The new Muppet performers, now veterans, are still hard to not compare with Henson & Oz & Co. The details in Henson's voice and physical performance are just different from Steve Whitmire's.

Steve does a great job, better than I expected having not seen much new Muppet material - but having Kermit look identical but be slightly off provides just enough cognitive dissonance that I find it distracting. And the secondary characters with Henson's rougher voices - Newsman, Statler, etc. are worlds apart. Some of those non Kermit/Ernie range of Henson characters are now in the hands of Bill Baretta. (Rolph, Dr. Teeth) But only only the Swedish Chef is perfect. Dave Goelz's characters, including Gonzo, are of course the real deal.

I guess that's a tribute to how much of the human operating the puppet comes through. New fans won't notice or care - Characters are similar enough. Eric Jacobson's Muppets (Piggy, Fozzie, Sam the Eagle) are uncanny at times, sometimes not - but they all feel studied and authentic and fully in continuity.

My big complaint is structural. There are far too many scenes of Sad Kermit - Kermit in his "I'm sorry, gang" mode. Something happens, everyone is bummed, something good happens, then another setback - this note keeps playing throughout, instead of having it all build to a single breakdown. In fact there are only a few scenes where Kermit is normal - the harried yet upbeat, realist yet sing-songy self who is juggling the fast paced behind the scenes word of a vaudville act.

Speaking of "normal," we never even really see the classic backstage view with Kermit's desk and his mug - a flat, well-lit shot that would have oriented viewers familiar with the angles of the old Muppet Show.

I've seen behind the scenes pics (included here and borrowed respectfully) of fantastic and large sets of the theater that looked functional, so I know it would have been possible to create a better sense of space. But we don't get any peeks at unseen or new places in the theater, either. An old theater should be full of surprises.

It was a blast to see the world of the Muppet Show come alive, the recreated intro, with all the beats intact and faithfully done. But then so many signature elements are missing. Why show a musical Chicken number when Pigs In Space could have been on the big screen? Why not bring back some cameos of Muppet Show veterans? Would Elton John would have said no?

For a movie based on the Muppet Show (a world where the show was on TV, but the movies are outside of that world?) it could have been a bit more Muppet Showier.

But those few things - the repetitive setback mode, the slightly off voices, are my only complaints. The movie, overall, is a fun nostalgic blast. The cameos are neat, the plot self-aware, the songs catchy and plenty of flyin' felt and ostrich feathers.

Especailly good was Chris Cooper - a true One Percenter, who gets to do his bad guy rap and disrespect the memory of Dom Deluise. Alan Arkin is in it. Amy Adams and Jason Segal, who really got things started, are appealing, and the new Muppet, Walter, was by no means an irritation.

I hope the next Muppet movie continues in this way. In fact, a direct sequel would be OK by me. But I have the feeling that the next movie will be a separate adventure, not referencing the Muppet Show. As long as it has the heart, it will be worth this big-screen reunion.

POSTSCRIPT: I've been thinking about the Muppet Show and what it means in this movie. We have the real-world Muppet show in this movie as a TV program that was once popular. But the on the classic Muppet Show, the Muppets were always seen to be putting on a live stage act for a gaggle of Muppet audience members, it was never implied that it was a documentary, or a sef-aware TV show. Aside from frequent 4th-wall breaking, it was always presented as a live theater production. But seemingly, it was actually a TV show pretending to be a live theater production?

In the world of the new movie, The Muppet Show was watched obsessively by a Muppet named Walter. Real clips of the Muppet Show are used, with Henson's voice intact. (Muppets exist outside of the gang of performers and characters known as The Muppets, however, they are Muppets.)

So what did walter see in place of the actual show's end credits? Henson and Oz's names like we did, or an alternate-universe show that simply listed Kermit and Miss Piggy, and the real-world guest star? Is the Muppet Show of this movie a cheeky TV show in the style of a vaudeville act, or an act? Were cutaways like Muppet News Flash happening in the world of the show on the stage (like the Sweedish Chef), or coming to you from another studio? What of Muppet Labs? A real lab with real inventions, hauled out to the stage, or a remote "broadcast?" Fake comedy lab? Beeker and Honeydew always returned from stage left, so who knows.

I think the only logical conclusion is that Kermit the Frog is real. I knew it!

U.N.C.L.E. Hits Snag

2011-11-29T15:38:00.001-08:00

OK, so there's no longer a director or a lead actor for Warner Bros. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. So, forget all you've learned here. We are now back at square one, where anything is possible - including a terrible movie.

Skyfall

2011-11-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

Now that the title of Bond 23 is known, it's time to think titles. Skyfall (or is it SKYFALL?) joins Goldfinger, Thunderball, Moonraker, Octopussy, and GoldenEye in the one-word title category. It also sits just south of 50-year brevity champion Dr. No.

There are several styles of titles in the Bond series. There's the Ian Fleming ones, of course, and the non-Flemings - which try to ape the feel of the established ones. But of course, Fleming himself would have come up with something new.

Skyfall's title most resembles Thunderball in form and construction - a made-up compound word which could describe an object of the film's mission -- or refer to Bond's world.

Thunderball itself is a film about a race for a loose nuclear bomb. Tom Jones would like to make it perfectly clear that when Bond strikes, it is not unlike a Thunderball, a term that never caught on with the IAEA. This is a case of Mutually Assured Hyperbole, of course, but it nicknames the MacGuffin. GoldenEye, with its totally 1990's interior cap, was also named for it's "objet-de-missioné."

In fact, all of the single-word James Bond titles are made-up, sans-hyphen compounds.

Is Skyfall an operation name? Is it a bit of rogue tech? Does it describe Bond's state of mind, or simply describe the level of danger attached to this 23rd-ish adventure at the cinema?

We don't know exactly what Skyfall means, though we know when the sky is falling that it is quite hectic. Does Bond lose his newly aquired 00 status? Is there another (snore) satellite weapon involved? Whatever it ends up meaning, it will have to slot into one of the 6 title categories.

Villain Titles: Dr. No, Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun
Precious Metals and Gems: Goldfinger (overlap with Villain), The Man with the Golden Gun, Diamonds Are Forever, GoldenEye
Mission-Specific Titles: Thunderball, Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Death List: You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights, License to Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day
Locations: From Russia with Love, Casino Royale
Meta Bond: The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The World Is Not Enough, Quantum of Solace (though Quantum could also be overlap with Mission-Specific or Villain.)

There is also Never Say Never Again, which, like the film, finds itself in an orphaned category. It winks at the audience about Sean Connery's retirement from the role. Anyway, here are the titles stacked short to long for your consideration. A fairly clean curve with the sudden jut of a Golden Gun, followed by the all-time winner for letter-count, the gloriously verbose sentence fragment (and Royal endorsement) of On Her Majesty's Secret Service: The Fellowship of the Ring. Is there an acronym in the house?

Dr. No
Skyfall
Octopussy
Moonraker
Goldfinger
GoldenEye
Thunderball
Casino Royale
License to Kill
A View to a Kill
Live and Let Die
Die Another Day
Quantum of Solace
For Your Eyes Only
The Living Daylights
You Only Live Twice
Tomorrow Never Dies
Diamonds Are Forever
From Russia With Love
The Spy Who Loved Me
The World Is Not Enough
The Man With The Golden Gun
On Her Majesty's Secret Service

The Actual Man from U.N.C.L.E.

2011-10-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

"Who's your tailor?"

Sources have confirmed that Steven Soderbergh's The Man From U.N.C.L.E. will star Bradley Cooper as Napoleon Solo.

Every previous clue pointed to TMFU being a Clooney vehicle. I think this is an interesting casting choice that will help the film be less of a Movie Star Movie.

Cooper has something to prove in a role like this, but it's exciting to have an actor whom we don't know how he'll take on the material. With George Clooney, one could already hear the TV spots, those soothing Clooney tones.

Not to jinx U.N.C.L.E., but so far there has been no deal-breaker news that would indicate a disaster. TMFU's legacy appears to be safe for now.

Drive

2011-09-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

It looked like reheated Snatch or Crank in the TV spots, which is why I had decided to forget about it. But the reviews kept calling it European, and Cannes loved it. So I figured, fine - a well done Transporter. Not that there's anything wrong with the Transporter series - I'll defend those to the end. Or at least until halfway through.

And so if that's what Drive was - a Statham-lite action flick with artier direction, then I was in.

Now, I really liked Drive, but hot Christmas, was the ad campaign an open-and-closed case of bait and switch! Booking the movie into the big premium theaters (with the upcharges and resulting 3/4 vacancy, usually the venue for a 3D kid's flick) was overreach for the marketing department, and further confused folks. That is, if there are still folks who are general moviegoers. (And yes, there was at least 1 walkout.*)

I can enjoy a good old action picture and an arthouse revenge film, so either way I was going to be entertained. But what is the typical teen and 20-something crowd going to make of it? Do the kids know what "Lynchian" means?

This odd, streamlined affair looks like a car movie at first. But it is, in fact, a cast-attrition neo-noir - everyone's fates cast from the first frame. But is the driver a real hero, and a real human being? Not exactly.

Ryan Gosling's Driver is a sort of mealymouthed Eastwood figure, intentionally underdeveloped - but projecting little of the presence of a Steve McQueen. He's more like a sandy, semi-mute Anthony Perkins type - a neat little man who is capable of monstrous acts of bloodletting. A sort of sleek Rolling Thunder type.

Is the Driver a romantic, merely given a more literal executioner's to-do list in between his slow motion courtship? Maybe. Bond would snuggle after a day of sending dozens of goons over the railings.

Spattered with isolated, shocking scenes of violence and meticulously lensed, Drive does not let you really feel any particular way for the lead character, or anyone else. Nick Refn's Drive is a film exercise, rendered with expert control over the material. Distancing while being totally engrossing - hard to pull off.

And the Driver's part-time job: being a stunt driver for the movies, surely there's some kind of thing to say about that. And those masks. Was that a modified Tom Cruise mask? It gave me daymares.

Which is not to say that Drive isn't thrilling. It is. The sparsely populated action scenes, of which there are only a handful, stand in contrast to the rest of the meditative story flow. It's this tension between the scenes of furtive glances and ominous handshakes that give the sudden bursts of motion such power.

I give it a solid A. It's really an A Minus, but it earns the extra half-grade for looking so controlled compared to everything else in the genre. It's in a small school, but it is the genuine article.

*HOW TO SPOT A WALKOUT
Q. How can you tell if people are walking out or just going to the bathroom?
A. Walkouts take their sodas with them.

The Rum Diary?

2011-09-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

So:

This could be one of those times when a great movie with a big star is marketed annoyingly to a general audience, to try to get a bigger opening weekend than the subject or genre would normally allow.

Or it could be as terrible as it looks.

The book was pretty great for a first novel, but either Hell's Angels or Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 would have made a more interesting movie, concept-wise. I suppose The Rum Diary was picked because tonally/visually it would not be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas II. (while, of course, benefiting from casting the actor who played a Thompson stand-in playing another.)

While Depp channeled Thompson quite effectively some 13 years ago, he never really looked like him in wide shots. They share a few physical traits - but Thompson was a taller, lankier man by a few inches. Also, Depp has a big square face.

Giving Depp the wardrobe, male pattern baldness and cigarette filter helped fill in some of those gaps. Those signature wardrobe and makeup elements are not present in this one and Depp looks like Depp with period hair and a sport coat.

Of course, Depp's playing the character Paul Kemp. But he gives him the Raoul Duke voice. Artistic choice or studio note?

I suppose if you've ever suffered though Where The Buffalo Roam, this one should be no trouble. I can't rightly say if this is headed for the nice price bin or a Criterion release.

Star Wars Blu-ray Update

2011-09-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

Clips from the Star Wars Blu-ray set have been leaking on various outlets. Lucasfilm's new mix of Star Wars is a certified flop!

There are many people who would have been neutral with the [also terrible] DVD version getting a hi-def upgrade, plus a few minor technical tweaks. But the new list of changes seems to be inspiring a good deal of buff hate. Purist consensus has never been more mainstreamed.

Granted that the early-adopter, message-board set does not make up a supermajority in the galactic senate. But these vocal fans feel that they have been served up one-too-many revisions.

The most controversial "enhancement" - a word I use in the same sense as "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is Darth Vader's "No. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Given that one of the jokiest, meme-iest, unintentional laugh-lines from Attack of the Clones was Vader's "Noooooooooo," it is cruel that it would be copy/pasted into an original Star Wars movie.

Sure, Return of the Jedi is the weakest, most juvenile film in the original trilogy. And yes, we are talking about a ROTJ v4.0. But that moment of Vader turning against his master is the movie's core. It is a holy scene. Vader, weighing the options, searching his half-robot soul, sticks it to his boss with a determined, stoic act that saves Luke's life, and ends his own.

Lucas really wants you to think about Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen under that mask. So now, echoing one of the most tone-deaf notes in a symphony of tacky filler - the original trilogy's Vader is reduced to an emotional baby rage to better match sulky teen Anakin. No! Don't you hurt my son!

This from a guy that stood around while Peter Cushing destroyed Leia's entire adoptive home planet. A space Hitler who chokes his coworkers. A man with Porkin's fine blood on his hands.

There are other weird changes - Kenobi's noise that spooks the sandpeople off is now this new thing. The old sound must have been irritating someone. Ewoks blink - because that was the problem - not enough blinking. (for people who wouldn't notice it, it does not matter. For everyone else, it sucks - everyone loses!) And there will be more audio and video tweaks forthcoming, you can bet your bottom dollar.

Now mind you, all the past outrages from previous versions still exist on Blu-ray, forming carbon-dateable layers of visual clutter. There's a Ronto from '97! Look, it's 2003 Hayden Anakin in Jedi! A changespotter's delight, but bad luck for the rest of us.

So, what's the best metaphor? Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, re-mixed with better guitar solos (the guitar solos of 1967 can't match the blistering shredwork of today's technical axemen) and perhaps a new drum track? Maybe hire some soundalikes to add extra verses, extra background vocals? How about McCartney and Ringo, circa now, adding a new song in place of the old orchestra hit at the end of A Day In The Life?

Or is the best metaphor a plastic surgery victim who keeps getting work done, coming out worse each time?

The best metaphor may be that of the darkened alleyway. You keep cutting though it, and you keep getting mugged.

Which brings me back to my point - at no time have I ever heard less enthusiasm for a Star Wars release. Naysayers and purists who only want the basic joy of seeing a nice hi-def original theatrical version of the Star Wars trilogy are not pleased. While small, this group of fans is vocal and influential. If they were excited, sales would be higher, brisker, and sustained. How far this eats into the numbers is hard to say - but it is a real effect.

The original trilogy on Blu-ray or nothing.

Fine! Let's talk about Star Wars on Blu-ray

2011-08-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

I don't even know what is left to say about 'em. Maybe I shouldn't begin. I feel like if I start talking about Star Wars in a home theater context, I might never stop, and they will have to jab a thing into my neck. They will, too - it's the only thing that works for the foaming, terminal, red-eyed sermon.

Digital Bitmaster Bill Hunt says, pull the trigger - the thing is worth it. Consensus says only the bitter holdouts can resist. Cut scenes, they say. Vintage docs.

Let's cut to the speederbike chase: I will not be sliding my credit card for Star Wars this time, and it blows my mind.

Here's what I want. I want to crack open a handsome box set of the original trilogy, and watch Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and (sigh) Return of the Jedi in 1080p. Did I just call "A New Hope" Star Wars? Oh no. This is going to get deep.

Let's take Star Wars (1977) as our test case.

The version I'd be most interested in seeing is the 1981 re-release version that has the "Episode IV" and a few other small first-generation tweaks. (It would have to be mastered from a variety of elements and negatives, so it would have to be turned over to Lowry for restoration, as high-quality internegatives don't seem to exist for the classic Star Wars assembly.) By the way, I don't really know what I'm talking about there, but you know what I mean.

I have no problem with clean-up of damage and color correction and such - but the result should look like film. Not just any film, but a film made in the 1970s. Lowry is really good at that. The color timing should be accurate to how it looked in the theater - no crushed black levels, no digitally erased matte lines, just the original movie, pure as a summer day.

"But that would anger and confuse today's digital media consumers," says some suit and/or lackey. "Star Wars should look like it was shot on modern hi-def video, with lots of slick computer-generated images - updated every few years to keep it fresh! For the kids!"

You know what? I'm fine with that too.

With seamless branching, a common pool of segments could be sequenced by the player - essentially giving you a choice between the original theatrical cut, the 80's rerelease, the 1997 special edition version, the DVD version, and the inevitable new-new-new Blu-ray version. Your choice of audio, where appropriate, would offer the original mono mix, the rushed Dolby Stereo Mix, etc. A branching decision-tree style menu would make it simple.

This utopian Blu-ray disc would offer something desirable for every fan - from the jaded oldsters to today's CGI playground set - a disc worth purchasing. And might each type of fan dip on over to the other side of the Star Wars pool? I'd be curious to peek at the new beeping robots or whatever just to get angry, and little Madison and Cody could see what Star Wars was like in the olden times.

Are you on board? Well, the ship isn't going anywhere, so you can hop off now.

The real Blu-ray discs are coming out in box sets, ultra-Special editions with the hodgepodge of digital tweaks that can be dated to 1997, 2003, and 2011 all clashing with the filmed material and the memories of a whole generation. Like forensic art experts, we wish only to peel the overpainted layers away and see the original, before the master went all syphilitic.

For the very ultimate in crass fan-explotation, one must buy a pricey double-sized set of the entire "saga" to get the good bonus material that pertains to the original trilogy. Yes, you are actually buying the worthless Prequels, despite knowing better.

This image of Luke and Anakin inhabiting the same space on the Complete Saga cover art is a blasphemous work of high camp - dredging up laughter and sickness in equal measure.

A genuinely poetic moment from the original Star Wars is paired with the embarrassing image of child actor Jake Lloyd in his little space-slave outfit, and what's worse - his face is the only one visible.

The art is more effective than a surgeon general's warning: "Beware: This package contains The Phantom Menace and those other two cornball plastic snooze-fest prequels. Also, it was assembled in a factory that processes peanuts."

It's hard to tell just what drives George Lucas and his contempt for the films that made him so rich and beloved. Perfectionism? Compulsion? Cruelty? It's just his thing - we'll never convince him. He feels ownership over the films - despite how what we see on screen was equally as much the craftsmanship of model builders, actors, set designers, etc, as it was the yellow-lined notebook and imagination of Lucas.

He fusses over tiny effects, pastes CGI creatures over the costumed human beings, because it looked like a workaround from the 1970s. But after Obi-Wan dies, and Luke is sad for a second, and the robots are sad, but then Han is like Let's Go, Laserfight Time, then everyone is happy? THAT'S THE SCRIPT AND DIRECTORIAL VERSION OF VASELINE ON THE LENS TO BLUR OUT THE LANDSPEEDER'S TIRES.

Those matte lines make it look like old 70's process photography? Well, those sideburns on the Imperials make it look like the actors showed up to Hair and Makeup and didn't want to loose their groovy disco dos, despite agreeing to portray Space Nazis in a movie. Also, are they from Space England? No, just focus on trying to make Mos Isley look really big and exciting, like Los Angeles. Put some Jabbas in there. Yes, that's it, have the Slave 1 roar over the homestead as Owen buys the droids, and put Palpatine in the cantina.

People who prefer the ever-specialer editions and who find things to enjoy about the Prequels would do well with the Complete Saga Blu-ray set. They are, of course, certifiably insane and tacky, but I wish them no harm, aside from educational beatings.

But for those of us who want the originals and have been asking for a long time, buying this set will not help The Cause. Who cares about our demands when we'll pony up at Amazon in the end? It only encourages the son-of-a-gun.

Check this out:

While We Wait

2011-08-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Poster by the author of this web-log.
A hi-def version can be found at: http://www.coroflot.com/tedehlers/Illustration

Update: Tanner over at the Double O Section has learned via TV Shows on DVD that the complete Girl from U.N.C.L.E. and all 8 theatrical U.N.C.L.E. films (extended recuts of the 2-part episodes already available on DVD) have hit Warner's Archive store.

The WB shop has a business model that has been good to our kind: burnt-on-demand discs serve niche corners of the home video market, while providing high-quality, proper and official releases - with none of the studio costs considerations that would prohibit the usual distribution.

Let's just not let our U.N.C.L.E. joy overshadow the controversial URL squatting that keeps the Space Jam website out of the hands of actual Space Jammers.

Trek Correct

2011-08-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

Let's be grownups, OK? Lets talk about the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Surely you remember the Trek relaunch. Remember how it was mostly pleasant? The feeling of relief as you realized that it worked as a movie? Yes, there was a villain-shaped hole in the script where something more memorable would have slotted in. Yet! It could have been disastrous, yet it was well over the decency threshold. They even had a brightly lit bridge, and didn't blow up the ship for once. J.J. Abrams, good one.

But second bites at the apple are tricky. There are lots of difrerent species of Trek fans, but most of them agreed: Nero was a generic foil. This creates the potential problem of the sequel: overcompensation.

Ever since Star Trek has cast off its television past and taken to the wide screen, it has hidden from its old values, like Mitt Romney. People came to look upon the original 1966 Trek as a cute incarnation of a much bigger and better thing. Consensus says it was OK for the times, and sure the characters were fun and that lizard man and such. But giant, KISS-like Klingons revenging up the screen with Shakespeare quotes and major-character deaths are the way of movie-era Star Trek.

It's very important, I guess, that the film always end with a big long fight on top of some high thing, plenty of deaths, shouting, and flames. Why something as unique and winning as Star Trek needs so many action movie clichés is a mystery best explained by the responsible studio hacks.

For 1966-69 Trek fans, we came closer than ever last time. So here's what it would take to fully restore the honor and dignity of Star Trek. Let's do it for the children:

Begin the movie with everyone on the bridge. We already spent a movie having everyone meet, fight, and size each other up. Time for proper Trek.
Let's have a classic archetypical Trek character like Mudd. A "charming" thorn in Kirk's side. He can summon the Enterprise to rescue him, claiming women and children and rare medical supplies. Turns out it's just him, and he ran out of space gas. He has a criminal record. He is put in the brig. A mystery begins when unexplained happenings on the ship cause Spock to suspect an alien force, and Mudd of bringing in onboard. Yes, this needs to be Nick Frost.
Tap into the bottle-episode values of classic Trek. Bottle does not have to mean a one-set stage play. Mudd and the energy thing turn everyone but the core cast into little magenta cubes or something. Then the main cast is banished to some medieval planet with pain collars. Bottle episodes focus on characters, streamlined locations, and a simple plot, like escape. Trek was a bottle series.
Let the humor be organic to the plot. Perhaps Kirk, Spock and Co. escape the jail planet and retake the ship, maybe Mudd falls out of favor with the energy being and switches sides. The 7 unfrozen characters have to run the whole ship. Imagine Scotty running back and forth between engineering and the transporter room with increasing weariness, and the scorn heaped on Mudd, even as he tries to help.
Basic stakes and a linear plot, no B or C stuff: The energy being wants to crash the ship into the sun or whatever. The good guys, plus Mudd, have to cleverly stop it, and the audience will lean forward in the seats as the plot progresses. No energy-sapping cutaways to a bogus love story. No 10 overlapping events. Just the main deal.
A Slightly Ham-scented, Stalling Speech. Remember when Kirk would treat the evil computer or alien force with a nice talking to? Come on! This is a classic Trek value, where has it been?
Victory does not have to include a bunch of deaths and surrogate Death Star exploding. Perhaps Kirk and crew help the misunderstood energy being, diffusing the situation with a surprising twist instead of the paint-by-numbers conclusions we usually get. Ending big does not have to mean handheld camera action.
Make it visually appealing and exciting without resorting to overly familiar and dirt-cheap CGI. Surprise us with something totally unusual when the energy thing materializes.
Bring back some classic music cues and sound effects, re-scored and re-worked.
Conclude it with the fully restored crew. Then end on a real cliffhanger. As Mudd escapes in a stolen shuttlecraft, a ton of Klingons ships materialize and the view screen fills with a somewhat retro or redesigned Klingon face. How the hell is Kirk gonna get outta this one? Credits. Audience cheers and applause.

If this seems crazy to you, you deserve whatever "dark" second-rate Kahn-surrogate, boring love story, and main character deaths you get. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Come on, Star Trek: you're about destroying war computers with love, getting your shirt torn, and energy beings -- not a forgettable revenge nightmare.

<- This is Nick Frost. Kindly imagine him in gold epaulets.

Netflix Jamboree V.1

2011-07-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

In a new series of blast reviews, I tell it "like it is," even when it is not. For the future people reading old blogs, let me explain. There was a transitional decade between the days of cinderblock-and-drywall video rental stores and the centralized content cloud that you enjoy as residents of the future. Those young and innocent days were oft-called Netflix Times, or "nowadays." The media was digital, but it was encoded onto "real" objects (yes, plastic) that were mailed out to its subscribers. I know, it seems wildly decadent in the light of the coming global climate change event horizon, but seing the red envelope in the mailbox promised that our evening would not be spent idly watching shows about predatory antique hunters.

The Searchers: Was on a cowboy kick but had previously only dared to see the Leone/Eastwood films, and The Magificent 7. Though I should watch the John Ford directed standard bearer. Sadly, this classic Hollywood-system western is jam packed with corny 50s humor and racism. A few masterful shots and a lens full of landscape can't hide the fact that John Wayne talks like every John Wayne impression I've ever heard. And his arc of forgiveness leads him to not shoot his kidnapped niece and gouge out her eyes for the sin of living with the "Commanch." Thanks, a lot, uncle. While the famous bookend shots and a few moments of tension work well, I would have to opine that it is a vastly overrated film, more famous for the impression it left on a then-young generation of moviemakers than as a masterpiece. If you love it you are not wrong (it does have some charms, including unspoken motivations that are up to you to flesh out) but I went in assuming it was a Flawless American Superclassic. Pick this up on Blu Ray? That'll be the day. *****

The China Syndrome: My favorite syndrome of all. This combines the Anchorman-parodied world of a feminist news anchor with the 1970s wave of nuclear energy fear. It has elements of disaster movies like The Towering Inferno and existential fill-in-the-blanks of The Conversation, yet feels political and relevant while being a little poppier and disposable. Its world of late 1970s Los Angeles is a true time capsule, and leads Michael Douglas (bearded crusader), Jack Lemmon (sincere and stalwart) and Jane Fonda (perennially foxy) kick it up 2 notches. The secret sauce is Wilford Brimley as a salt-of-the-nuke-plant engineer. Brim is perfecly cast in this movie, miles above the reductive Brimley cartoon that he became. If you are a fan of blinking control panels a a post-Watergate sense of dread, this could be for you. Movies can become worth more as they age, and this one seems to not understand its own charms. Double points for not knowing how cute it is, and quad points for being kind of terrifying. *****

F for Fake: Orson Welles's masterfully free-flowing magic trick of a film studies deception and the art of. A singular work from a master, it contains the edgy modern editing, meta self referential loopiness and wild feel of a contemporary docu-trainment. Perfect is Welles's telling of the Howard Hughes ham sadwich legend. I can't think of many more "experimental" movies that go out of the way to be so fun. Is it a film essay? A movie? A freaky bolt from Welles's late-period cloud? Whatever it it, it is jam-packed with many levels of hoaxes - both real and, appropriately, fake. *****

Ice Station Zebra

2011-06-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

If you occasionally have a spare Sunday afternoon, you may have seen Ice Station Zebra. Padded with commercial breaks, the thing could go for three and a half hours. If you are Howard Hughes, you may have watched Ice Station Zebra on a continuous loop in your fortified suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Watching ISZ, as we in the industry call it, one can see why it endures - both as a certain type of man-entertainment (dad movie?) and as a maddeningly flawed piece of cold war flimmaking.

I call it a dad movie because it lays out a mysterious destination. The first part is getting there. Once there, the task is to find a canister of film before the Russians can. It's literally a movie about doing 2 things, and some psychological compulsion forces us to watch until the end. You don't really buy Rock Hudson as the captain of a US nuclear submarine. Ernest Borgnine does not really sell the charming Russian turncoat routine. There's no deep real character work, the stakes don't seem all that high. The end fizzles out in a stalemate with a low body count. So what makes Ice Station Zebra so watchable?

Director John Sturges (who also directed The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven) is just plain old good at his job.

The liquid cinematography soars - gloriously widescreen and visually arresting, rich color even on old fashioned DVD. The fantastic second-unit photography of a real Tigerfish sub crash diving is facinating. The Kubrickian overtures and intermissions, the curious score, fetishized shots of radar dishes and control panels all create atmosphere. The Cold War backdrop, the low boil of suspicion - these are ingredients of watchability.

The interior of the boat seems credible, cramped and technical - lots of Navy chatter, customs, and radio operators trying to cut through the static. You've seen it all before, but here it all seems cleaner, less self-conscious and executed with relish. I'm sure it's not totally realistic but it holds up. It feels like a peek into a secret world.

And, as it may surprise you there is only a single near-sinking. Quite frugal with the gushing water! And I assumed ISZ would be a power struggle, some authority or mutiny-based plot. No, the ranks hold together, and beyond some "need to know" arguments, there's no fight for the conn, no revolt, few sub movie clichés.

Patrick McGoohan, on break from his paranid opus The Prisoner, is his usual self- that is to say, the most watchable guy on screen. Acidic and insulated from others, he wrings his dialog through his rolled-Rs and pinched tones of sarcasm and anger. But Pat is not really at the center of this film, which does not have a central figure - though McGoohan comes close by sheer force of brow-furrows and Act-Ing!

Ice Station Zebra is long but not epic - you get the sense of being on this mission, but so little happens along the way. The events could have been condensed to it an hourlong TV drama, and lose nothing. And for all the realism of the Sub, the ice station itself is clearly on a set with painted backdrops and fake plastic snow that wouldn't fool anyone who has ever had to shovel a driveway.

Ernest Borgnine is of course, a double-double agent. While it's nice that grandpa can leap around a soundstage, his foreshadowing as he ogles the fission power source of the boat spells out his motivations. A little too on-the-nose for a film that is trying for that jaded cold warrior vibe.

Jim Brown is better as an unpopular and stern Marine captain who is there to take suspicion off of Borgnine's Russian defector. Sadly, he is framed and McGoohan shoots him in confusion, a strange and uncommented-upon demise.

The film seems like it would shelve nicely between the 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Hunt for Red October. It also feels like a distant cousin of a disaster movie like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, and cold war thinkers like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. It's also worth noting that there isn't a single woman in the ISZ cast, and probably not even one on the crew.

The movie is hypnotic, in the true sense. So drawn in by the look and events of the movie, I kept finding I was really inside the film itself - I could not remember seeing anything outside the bezel of my TV. The was no living room, just the dutch angles of a diving sub shot in virtually pristine Super Panavision 70mm.

After watching Ice Station Zebra on Thursday, I was thinking about who else could have been the Captain. Someone for Patrick McGoohan to play off of better, someone with more grit and humanity - and it hit me: Peter Falk, whose real Navy background could have come in handy, and who memorably sparred with Pat many times on Columbo. The next day I learned that Peter Falk had died.

Safe to say for all of this movie's faults and legends, it remains one of those things: if you flick by it on TV, you could be hooked in to the end while your real life crumbles. That is, if you are a certain type of man. A man who appreciates faux wood panelling, conning towers, yelling, ice, secrets, klaxons, and of course remote-control detonators. Big fan of those.

False Trailer Relief Alert!

2011-06-12T10:58:00.001-07:00

When I took in a matinee yesterday (it was great! 2 features, a cartoon, and a Hitler news-reel, for 5 cents!) of Super 8, I was subjected not once, but twice and 1/2 times to the trailer for The Zookeeper: a grim, hyperlame, cancerous direct-to-video production that somehow, despite all mankind has learned, is being printed onto helpless 35mm filmstock as we speak.

Which is why I was totally relieved to learn it was all some kind of pranky trick by unknown internet fellows. Mike Stoklasa and Company break the good news, and we can all mop our brows and get back to living.

I stopped watching directly after Mike hung up the phone. I hope it was about Transformers 3 being either a joke, dream, joke-within-a-dream, or fake trailer with a self-parodying Shia LaBeouf, a guy I have to google EVERY TIME I TYPE HIS NAME. Seems ethnic!) James and LaBeouf, such good sports!

Super 8

2011-06-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

You know who directed Super 8, and you know who executive produced it. No plot recaps, you can get that everywhere else.

I don't want to play Spot the 'Berg, but it's hard not to. If you were born in the 1970s, you probably have a great deal of fondness for the big commercial hits from Steven Speilberg, who took over Hollywood after the out-of-nowhere blockbuster success of Jaws. In fact, there's a fair amount of Jaws in Super 8.

The panicked citizens, the overworked police department, the bustle of a realistic town, the unseen monster - this is Jaws. The imperfect home lives, messy rooms and imaginations of credible screen kids, the monster being not so monstrous, the suburban neighborhood filled with bikes and sunsets, clearly E.T. The military paranoia, troubled adults, false cover story to force an evacuation, mounting mystery and final sky show, straight from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Other films that inspired or were admired by Spielberg are borrowed as well. The overheard name of "Walking Distance?" Used somewhat like "Operation Grand Slam" from Goldfinger. The high school teacher who has a psychic connection to the beast sems to come from Kubrick's The Shining. There's probably too many to figure out. And even Abrams frivolous signature lens flares are dialed back to only practical light sources, period-appropriate.

On paper this homage sounds calculated - and if you are a bit too old or young, the source inspiration might not be ranked as high as us who were born in the 1970's. But Super 8 works so well. If you go back and look at the films that inform Super 8, you will discover many lost threads and abandoned values that once fleshed out the summer blockbusters.

Most reviews praise the setting and vibe of the first half of the film - a neat trick leaving the impression we've spent time in 1979 small-town Ohio. In fact, I can't think of another recent movie who managed to create a world as big as that of Super 8's Lillian, OH. For all the CGI of various recent fantasy epics, showing a huge castle or 2 vast clone armies, intercut with small scale sets and green screen talking, Super 8's world feels 10 times as big.

J.J. Abrams makes inspired choice after choice, even managing to create memorable scenes and images in the usually generic final stretch. Can you recall any visual information from confetti edited The A Team? Yet the shots of the kids running through a suburban war zone will stick.

The monster alien thing is sort of generic himself, more effective when unseen. And as the focus of the character's attention, he's not really the focus of the movie per se. He merely provides the catalyst.

The whole movie, with its not-that-long-ago time setting (yet so far away) stands apart from its climax or any one element. The whole thing is a theater experience - the way the first Jurrasic Park was a theater experience.

If you have a beating heart, the subject of kids of a certain age making a super 8 zombie movie automatically makes it a winner. There are simply too many great ingredients for this to be hated. Some of the emotional elements feel a little borrowed and movie-convenient, but not overdone. It just has The Magic, and that covers up its shortcomings.

The fingerprints of Lucas seem to be nearly invisible. A few token Star Wars things in the background - if it was more realistic, there'd be lots of Empire speculation by the gang of kids, this was 1979 and peak Star Wars country. Somehow, it almost seems like a rebuke - certainly a conscious choice.

I predict HUGE business as people spread the word that the movie is really good. I think it draws the general audience in a way you won't find much these days. People my age who remember seeing E.T. in the theater and being a little scared will be there. Kids the age of the protagonists will love it. People looking for the new summer thrills will check it out. Families and dates. Science fiction people, retro cinema people, regular people.

Theater Notes: packed first show on a Saturday morning, mostly older crowd. It held attention. When the credits rolled, everyone began to file out. But unlike other credit sequence gimmicks that only hold a half dozen die-hards, the entire theater re-sat, stood, or came back in to watch the film within a film.

The charming lo-fi short was fun, but it was double fun seeing the "real" movie taking place in the background. I think there could be some film philosophy to mine out of it, but not tonight.

My theater offered standard 35mm, digital, and some sort of premium digital experience with huge screen and sound system. I cheaped out but now wish I hadn't. Second chances!

Trailer Notes: Everything looked generic and samey - lots of crashing space ships, robots and monkeys stomping cars, superhero snoozers. The Apes pre-boot lead the runners-up by default. But I have to say, Cowboys vs. Aliens looked really fun - Indiana Jones and James Bond together again. Yet another Spielberg reference?

There is no more bitter a sound than the guffaws after Kevin James is kicked in the pants by a talking zoo animal. I really wanted to go from seat to seat, slapping the Gummi Bears from their dumb idle hands.

2011 Blockbuster Pre-Think

2011-01-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

There's simply no natural reason to be blindsided by the movies. Not with this much buzz. And while the buzz is rationed by astroturfing marketeers, that's no reason to not pre-think your ticket dollars. Not when I'm here to filter out the false claims of disreputable showmen.

If you are one of the shrinking pool of picture-show enthusiasts who are able to outclass 90% of the theater experience at home using less than $2,000 US dollars, yet still leave your house on opening night, then bless your tiny little soul. You are the reason that studios even bother distributing at all. If they thought they could make a few more points, they'd bulldoze the cinemas and toss everything on some DRM pay-per-stream servers. Your children wouldn't know what popcorn was, and as the glacier melt rises to the level of your wall-mounted LCD, the last known print of Citizen Kane will fall into the hands of some anarchic Luddite band of post-apoc jerks, who will burn it to fuel their terrible battle cars.

But until then, here are some Possible Things to See:

Cowboys and Aliens
Rundown: J. Favs directs a nonbinding Daniel Craig in a FX-driven genre mash. Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford, and Sam Rockwell lend power. The nerd world awaits with cautiously positive expectations.
Reason to Believe: Casting and Concept.
Reason to Sigh: Wild Wild West '11?

The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn
Rundown: Bell, Pegg, Frost, Craig and Serkis team with Spielberg to produce a future classic family movie based on a rather obscure character - but marketing will handle that.
Reason to Believe: Steven Spielberg
Reason to Sigh: CGI

The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made
Rundown: The Muppets are reunited to put on a show at the old theater. We can expect songs and mayhem, and a few Muppet characters that have been rarely seen since the passing of the unique and beloved Jim Henson.
Reason to Believe: The titular legacy-salvaging return to a classic ramblin' Muppets style with some decent guest stars and a better level of music than the direct-to-video fare that Henson Studios has put out in the 90s and 00s. Your basic "this one will be good" relaunch.
Reason to Sigh: Steve Whitmire's inferior Kermit performance.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Rundown: Gary Oldman (and interestingly, Benedict Cumberbatch) in an adapation of John LeCarre's classic spy novel, previously adapted with Alec Guiness.
Reason to Believe: LeCarre novels generally adapt very well and are treated with an industry leading level of source material respect.
Reason to Sigh: The Russia House.

Sherlock Holmes 2: Steampower Boogaloo
Rundown: Holmes and Watson return for another similarly entertaining installment. This time Mad Men's Jared Harris is the mysterious Professor Moriarty. Steven Fry as Mycroft Holmes.
Reason to Believe: First one was decent, any lessons learned from the superior BBC series?
Reason to Sigh: The "superstar" era overexposure of Robert Downey, Jr makes me wish Jared Harris was Sherlock.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Rundown: Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt in a big-budget action-festival that looks to be a continuation of the noisy, TV-era disavowment. Director Brad Bird takes the director's bullhorn. Simon Pegg, as all 2011 genre entries are required, is involved. For fans of ghosts and/or protocol, cross your fingers!!!
Reason to Believe: Bird's The Incredibles was very well done.
Reason to Sigh: It's a damn Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible movie where he shoots a thing and yells stuff in that high Tom Cruise yell he is so fond of yelling. Fans of the Peter Graves TV show have yet another opportunity to ruin a cocktail party.

Super 8
J.J. Abrams has some kind of nostalgic, spooky Spielbergian aliens n' kids thing in the works. Area 51 mythology meets a period, kid-driven adventure?
Reason to Believe: If the bar is set at Close Encounters/E.T., then even 75% success will make a great movie.
Reason to Sigh: Kids may employ J.J.'s patented shakeycam and lens flare cinematography when using the eponymous format. Might be the second coming of Signs. Biggest red flag: Kids.

Movies to Avoid as one would The Plague:

Transformers: The Dark Of The Moon - When will our suffering be complete? Where are the Go-Bots when we actually need them?

Rise Of The Apes - If it does not have a loinclothed Charlton Heston verbally abusing his simian captors, then it has no value. One can only shrug in disinterest or risk lunacy.

The Hangover 2 - Do you remember almost laughing at The Hangover when it was on HBO? Perhaps you will almost laugh at the sequel which is looking to be 2X more almost funny.

Captain America: The First Avenger/X-Men: First Class/Green Lantern/Thor/Etc. - The superhero moment is gone. I could think of no worse fate than having to sit though yet another grim yet silly myth/franchise building origin paint-by-numbers snoozer. Let it die already!

The Smurfs - I hear they rap!

Well, that's kind of it for now. I'll post again on this topic, revising and adding as more information becomes clear. Certainly I dissed a couple of future classics? Or blessed a true meritless bomb? Until then, get some sun.

John Barry

2011-01-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

I was just thinking that it would be fun to do track-by-track reviews of spy film & spy TV albums. Today I learn that the great John Barry, film composer, has died.

Red Letter Media Drops Some Serious Sith on New Year's Eve

2010-12-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

Image courtesy of the website I stole it from.

*UPDATED BELOW*

Red Letter Media, at long last, dropped the Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith review. Fully worth the wait, this blockbusting, gutbusting finale caps off 2 other brutally funny, sadly true reviews of the Star Wars prequels. And since this is a review of a review, it's not really "talking about Star Wars," a pledge I have taken seriously though waver on from time to time.

For the uninitiated, Mike Stoklasa helms these sci-fi reviews in character as "Mr. Plinkett," a slurring, alcoholic, midwestern murderer who has a surprising amount of filmmaking knowledge. Using footage from the movies, other movies, still photos, odd jokes, and live-action vignettes, Mr. Plinkett narrates video essays that go much deeper than typical 1-page reviews. And the frequent asides and sidetracks are top-notch.

Gaining wide web cred with his first Star Wars review, The Phantom Menace, Mike put into focus what many people had been bitching about for a long time - namely, that these Prequels were tonally off and that they were sad letdowns. Mike's main contribution was to make an airtight argument that The Prequels fail as movies, lacking even the most basic ingredients that a movie needs to connect with an audience. Red Letter Media gave us something we could show to a deluded defender of the 2k-era Star Wars. We can now say, "You say you liked Revenge of the Sith? OK, then, watch this link and we'll talk."

Many people had various specific gripes (Jar Jar, Kid Anakin, Talky Space-Senate Stuff) with each of the Star Wars prequels, but Plinkett focused them all into a single green laser beam of righteous destruction. Using clear examples of what was wrong under each category, the Red Letter Media team could have won the "Prequels vs. Regular Star Wars" Supreme Court Case. The evidence stacks up until the point of absurdity - only the most partisan, low-wattage fans could ever play devil's advocate. Also, dumb babies.

While the Phantom Menace review felt the most anarchic and freshest, Sith really takes the cake for nailing the overall garbagey choices that were made, and illustrating how an independently wealthy auteur can screw up 3 movies in a row, much worse than some Hollywood paint-by-the-numbers studio would have. (At least the studio would test screen it and look at reshoots and recasts when the test audience was laughing at the wrong parts, groaning at the jokes, and falling asleep.)

Red Letter Media's Sith review sags a little when Plinkett is pointing out the logical plot problems, since these are constant and confusing - even the character of Plinkett fades a little as Mike tries to pack in a rapid catalog of the "why would they do that when they could have done this" outrages. I'm not as hard on the Byzantine plotting, since most of it rolls off my thick skull. I was aware - even as I watched them in the theater, relatively excited, that I wished there was somehow less of a tangle of stuff happening and that it didn't seem to make sense. But it is funny to watch someone with a logical mind try to process the nonsense garbage screenplays of George Lucas.

The real killer of the Sith review is the conclusive proof about how certain Green Screen flicks look flat and uninteresting. Mike goes to great legnths to demonstrate how boring reverse-angle over-the-shoulder shots of people slowly walking or sitting on couches, compensated with busy yet fake background effects, make up MOST OF THE PREQUELS. The Sith review really nails how forgettable expository dialog, flatly delivered with bad acting in fake-looking environments in a soap-opera directorial style sucks the life out of the movie. (Any time Mike pops in footage from the 77-83 Star Wars movies, the clips look alive, interestingly framed, full of human characters we like, good lighting, relatively cool, etc.)

The limited size of the green screen stages plus George's coffee/chair/video monitor style of directing is shown to be responsible for some of the most boring movies in a genre that should be anything but. It's not even the phoned-in lackluster acting that haunts Sith - Mike shows us how basic movie making processes are ditched in order to craft an assembly-line product, only pouring attention on background elements and space ships. Of course the screen is packed with hundreds of highly detailed busy things, all very samey, in consequence free, low-contrast action, and then we cut to dour talking heads.

Plinkett hits home run after home run, pointing out every blah element from story, to acting, to framing, editing, etc. Lucas comes off like a feared autistic tyrant, seeming to have actually forgotten how to make movies, and no one with any influence ever called him on it. The films grossed billions, and the bubble of ego and financial success (much owed to licensing products and pent-up, nostalgic goodwill) will forever insulate Lucas from the correct rants of fans like Mike.

It's also worth nothing that while Plinkett is a great character, Mike Stoklasa has what must be the most chillingly accurate Emperor Palpatine impression I've ever heard. In some world where Lucas didn't creatively implode, Mike could have been looping dialog for poor Ian McDiarmid.

All the snooze-inducing laser fights, the recycled visual design, the wrong-headed indulgences and pure lazy screw-ups are pointed out. Mike has created a fantastic stepping stone to cinematic adulthood for the film's younger fans, some of whom will graduate to people who'd rather see Citizen Kane than some Sith robot thing fight in an explodey place.

The review ends with a tease of a showdown between a recurring revenge-seeking hooker and Mr. Plinkett, hope to see that Kill Bill moment someday.

In summary, these reviews not only made the arguments we'd all been making pieces of, but Red Letter Media compiled them all in a massively entertaining way. Some of it felt like my conversations with my similarly thrice-bitten, bitter friend who made events out of each Prequel premire. Some of it was genuinely new, little genius moments that made me say "yeah, what the hell? Never thought of that. Boy, that's stupid."

Many bad movies could be avoided if the Sith review was required viewing to film students - and especially "indie" franchise kings who don't seem to care that no real movie fan can stand his movies.

While the dreadful SW Prequels have been laid to waste via Plinkett, everything up on the Red Letter Media site is worth watching, and I look forward to future takedowns of these terrible things they keep making us excited for. Tron: Legacy, anyone? Anyway, I downloaded my floppy drive but my pizza roll is stuck in the internet.

*UPDATE: I occasionally check the Sitemeter counter to see how traffic is flowing. Usually, there's about 20 or so innocent folks per week who wander in through random Google searches of unrelated terms, stay for 5 seconds, and bail. After posting my review of the new Sith video, the stats were going nuts. Sure enough this blog had been linked by Red Letter Media's Facebook and Twitter and whatnot. And the next day Roger Ebert linked to the Sith videos. Basically, I'm very important now, and it feels like champagne and pageviews. Thanks, man.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Movie

2010-12-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

UPDATED BELOW - 6-18-11

Previously, it was reported that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie is in the works. So much to consider here.

First, there's the punchline of Hollywood endlessly, butterfingeredly remaking things. In-name-only remakes that capitalize on fuzzy memories and brand recognition, while actively tossing out any element from the original that was good. Updated to current times, attitude, dim-witted humor. Other better movies, sitcoms, comic books, toys - anything the public is pre-comfortable with is lumber for the Hollywood remake factory.

In recent memory, there was the abomination of the Owen Wilson/Eddie Murphy I Spy, a movie so stupid that I can't remember anything but a dull ache and then the lights of the emergency room. There was the movie no one was asking for, Get Smart, a flat mediocrity elevated slightly by the good sportsmanship of Steve Carell.

And there is the other end of the spectrum - franchise relaunches that aim to de-cheese the source material, adding layers of grim mythology and violence, and don't you dare leave out the plodding origin arcs! Endless first-appearance-of, how-they-met, et cetera. Sometimes it works, like Batman Begins and Casino Royale, but mostly it's a chore, like Tron: Legacy.

And there is the Steven Soderbergh factor. Attached to direct U.N.C.L.E., Soderbergh has a stylized touch that might be the perfect match. It was also revealed that TMFU will be a period piece that takes the concept back to the first-season roots, where the plots were a little less Adam West-era Batman Camp. (Nothing wrong with Bat Camp, just saying.)

Of the few details we know, the 1960s setting is the fact that is most interesting, and heartening for me and I imagine many fans of the show. You just can't do the same kind of spying in the iPhone era - and we don't need another series about terrorism. Bring on the tape recorders and the microfilm - the cold war (by proxy through Thrush) was good enough for Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, and it's good enough for me.

Something I feel neutral about is the rumored casting of Soderbergh go-to George Clooney, who is overcast and brings an unwavering Clooneyness to his rolls. He's a genuine star but he's never not Clooney, and he might be a decade too old for the role of Napoleon Solo. As much as I hate to say that, as I'm not a fan of casting only with 24-year-olds, it's true.

I wonder if Clooney (and Pitt if rumores are true) were a way to get the studio to sign off on the period aspect. If that was the trade, I'll guess I'll take it. But who else could pull it off? Jon Hamm and Chris Pine? That was my first thought. Jon's a decade fresher than Clooney. He might not want to put another period project on his resume, but I'm sure he'd like a starring feature. Chris has the youthy appeal, proven capable in that Trek relaunch.

Anyway, it would be a treat if a Man From U.N.C.L.E. flick came out and it was halfway good and not marketed to "the kids" -- and by kids I mean dumb action movie consumers under the age of 30 who don't remember this show. There's not a big track record for movies of this type working well. I just hope that choppy extreme action is not featured, and a 60s directorial style is used.

UPDATE 6-18-11 - START DATE REVEALED?

Collider.com is reporting that TMFU has a February 2012 start date. This could give us a release date in the summer or fall. It looks like returning champion and A-lister George Clooney is a lock - which as I've said is not a disaster considering the high status of director Steven Soderbergh, but the role of Napoleon Solo could have been cast a little less obviously. I can already hear him in his his standard Clooney voice talking about Thrush, courting the girl, and giving Illya a boost up to the air vent.

Original series stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum have famously said that a movie could never be done, the moment was over. I'm not sure they were thinking that the would-be makers were A-List quality - TMFU has been optioned before and never worked. To have this movie out of the hands of hacks and in the safety of Soderbergh and Co. should provide all us U.N.C.L.E. fans with some relief.

Still, I would like to see a period TV series reboot come out of this. Part of TMFU's magic comes from being remembered as a series - its sum is greater than any one specific entry. Even though the stories were confined to single episodes or 2 parters (that were cut into quick n' cheap theatrical releases) it is a creature of television.

If TMFU was Bond on the small screen, then what happens when you take the concept and put it back on the big screen? I hope it does not turn into a Quantum of Solace deal. Keep it snappy, fun, and cool. Build the world, and then give us a story that works inside that world.

Here's What's Wrong With Your Tron: Legacy

2010-12-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

First, some bona fides: I saw Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D. And I saw the original in the theater during its '82 run. And I continue to like the original Tron. Now can I join the critical chorus?

Tron: Legacy One out of Five Stars. *****

Almost every lukewarm-to-negative review of this sequel is right. There's plenty sour notices to pick from, and I hope you read a few to put this in context. A very common phrase you'll encounter is, "almost 30 years later, and this was the best script they could come up with?"

Time after time I fall prey to the marketing blasts of mediocre (or worse) franchise entries. I'm not bitter, the Star Wars prequels having floored my Letdown-O-Meter so hard that I'm pretty sure the needle snapped off - something seems to be rattling in there. Plus, these days, even if I feel positive about some remake, I know deep down inside that the movie won't be on my all-time top ten list - not even a yearly top ten list. I know the sad truth about nostalgia-driven remakes that have been "updated" with today's empty-headed gloss. That truth is: They never work, no matter how "cool" the trailer is.

Now, the Tron: Legacy reviews I've read often make general complaints - weak dialog, plot borrowed from the original Tron and other movies, over/under acting, general cheese, missed opportunities. Most reviews, even the bad ones, mention good-lookin' SFX and the super Daft Punk score. All true. Not much to add to that pile.

So what follows will tons of spoilers and my fix-list.

What is a fix list? If I had read the script and seen the rushes before it was released, and I had been asked, I could have single-handedly fixed this movie and it would be in the high-80's on Rotten Tomatoes with a long, profitable box office run due to glowing word-of-mouth.

Sound deluded and egotistical? Too bad. I'm smarter than the finished product and you are too. Just because you or I have never made a movie does not mean we don't know the difference between good and bad choices when it comes to a film. And man, the new Tron is full of wrong turns, one after another. And that's why it is a mess, and is a major letdown with only a few pleasures to be had.

Tron: Corrected

The film opens with some Jeff Bridges voiceover and graphics - no complaints yet. We immediately shift to a neat flying shot that reveals the Flynn house. We see the bedroom of the young Sam Flynn, son of Kevin.

Wrong # 1
We get a little domestic scene which rings false, since the scene is entirely Tron-talk. "Tell me the story of Tron...can we go to the arcade tomorrow?" "Sure, son, I promise I'll show you the grid." Tron posters, exposition, bogus father-son dynamic, a sterile little vignette does not establish any emotional connection or convey reality.

Fix # 1
If you want to capture the audience and let them feel for the characters, you have to make the people seem real. In E.T., Steven Spielberg showed a kid living in a real-feeling family, even though the plot was entirely sci-fi/fantasy. A little bit of an imperfect household, a little juvenile mess in the room, and less plot-efficient dialog could have cured this early sign of things to come.

During these scenes, we are shown some kind of hybrid body-double/CGI face young Jeff Bridges playing Kevin Flynn. The effect is very top notch but it still looks like an effect, and probably always will. The skin looks a shade odd, a weird stiffness in the cheeks, an interpolated motion to the mouth as words form. In some moments it looks great - mostly it looks like a cutting edge android. I'm not sure what, if anything, would have made it look better (more hi-res and subtle motion capture?) so I accept it as being what it is.

Kevin Flynn is shown to have gone missing in an abstract series of fake archival TV reports, played on televisions in an metaphorical black room, or the grid, or something. Not sure I understand the choice to have the news play on TVs. But one thing is clear, he missed his arcade date with his son.

Wrong # 2
The young Sam Flynn is comforted by his grandparents. But he's mad that they don't understand or something, so he rides his bike - because bikes represent youthful escape. Then we cut to the adult Sam Flynn, recklessly driving his motorcycle and evading the police - lazy screenwriter shorthand for rebellion, and a lazy screenwriter transition/mirroring of the previous scene. Get it? His motorcycle is like his childhood bike! He still has a chip on his shoulder! James Dean! And boom - instant skill-set for the upcoming light cycle duels.

Fix # 2
Kevin Flynn didn't need to be shown jamming his motorcycle between rows of cars to establish his ability to compete on the grid in 1982. He was a computer programmer, the guy that wrote the games. A rebel for sure, but I think the unearned mythology-building of the new film demanded more pizazz. Why not show Sam Flynn COMPUTING or GAMING or otherwise being part of some digital subculture? After all, he's headed inside a computer, not The Olympics. Honestly, why does this movie not open in a internet cafe or something? It's a movie about being sucked into a computer!!! Need to give him street cred? Have him respected by dangerous-looking black hat hackers in some seedy bar backroom. Have him pull some kind of risky digital stunt. Give us a reason to root for a wayard underdog, a mostly-good guy who is having some problems. (See also the Protagonist Argument in the wonderful Plinkett review of The Phantom Menace.)

Wrong # 3
Sam steers his bike over to ENCOM, the technology company we last saw in the hands of Kevin Flynn. He breaks in using a smartphone type gadget, employing standard James Bond moves in order to access a server room, releasing -- for free on the web -- an ENCOM OS that the sinister board is meeting about. In the process of this not-tense action, he trips an alarm which sends a fat, sleepy guard after him, all the way to the roof of the skyscraper, where Sam climbs up and jumps, parachuting to safety. Did I mention that the fat guard actually walks out on a small beam many floors over the street to get him? When I saw this, I felt weird and out-of-the-movie, since it rang so false. So Sam Flynn is like a super martial-artist judo spy superhero? Oh, but he's secretly still in charge of the company, he just likes pranks, so that's why he risked his life to steal and release the OS? An "extreeeeeeme" rich kid? And the slob security just strolls out on the roof, halfway down a jutting platform over a huge drop? At night?

Fix # 3
The whole sequence would need to be replaced by something much more clever, and here's an opportunity for some much needed humor. Sam should not be secretly in control of the company, it makes his whole Bond-style assault on his own building stakeless and painfully suspense-free, not to mention totally devoid of plausibility. He should be down and out, breaking in to steal something that could make him some money, and his break-in way more Raiders of the Lost Ark style with some stakes. He should sneak, bullshit and cajole his way into being shown the server room, and then barely escape when the ruse is up, finally breaking into a run, barely squeezing through the "big door." And then the police should be after him.

Sam then returns to his shipping container-industrial garage house with bay view. No bones about it, it would be cool to live there. Bruce Boxleitner, the Tron in Tron, Alex Bradley, tips Sam to go to the old arcade. There is some stiff, fill-in-the-blanks dialog, pure tell-don't show violating exposition about how Alan was a father figure in Kevin's absence. It could have been better but there's too much wrong to focus on this brief scene.

Sam heads off to the derilict Flynn's Arcade, recreated in precise detail and aged. In this wordless exploration scene, there is nothing to critique - it works and is paced well, drawing you in to the mystery.

This whole discovering dad's laser room works for me, and my interest level was perking up. Certainly once Kevin had returned from the inside of a computer program, he'd want to get the laser up and running in his own shop as a secret project. (I'm sure the off-screen question of who was paying the electric bill could have something to do with hacking, but Sam fires up dad's laser 2.0 and it sends him off into cyberspace.)

Wrong # 4
This time, we are not treated to an interesting abstract transition sequence, like the original. Scan and boom, it's Tron. (Although really, it's The Grid, Tron being a bit of a misnomer for both movies.)

Fix # 4
Simple - just make the scanning more visually arresting, and then treat us to us to a cool transition sequence. Not sure why we don't have one - would people not understand a brief artistic respite from the plot? It worked in the 80s.

Wrong # 5
Sam spends about 2 seconds being surprised that dad's virtual reality experiment is actually an entire world that you live in. The iconic Recognizer ships appear, made "real" with engine noise and steam, and no longer like the metaphorical physically disconnected video game graphics of the 80's. The Recognizer, however, is just a paddy wagon. Sam is immediately arrested and brought to a room and suited up for laser frisbie, with almost no protest.

Fix # 5
Sam should be a bit more disoriented and disbelieving. And he should get a chance to explore the grid, alone, marveling at the strange world he is suddenly thrust in. He could shake a few shoulders, desperately questioning passerbys, and the Recognizer should appear only after a while of exploration, as a massive and threatening vision that chases the tiny human figure down a digital street. The police state dynamic should be emphasized, it's one of the last horrific constructions that seem likely. And why not have this rebel actually rebel against what must be a terrifying mindblow? Remember, no one relates to characters unless they and their plight feels real. We can't do ALL the work for you, movie-makers. We can't invest these people with our sympathy just because "hey remember Tron?"

Sam then plays his laser sports in a gladiator matrix thing. I have no problem, except that the endless cutting and physically impossible wire-fu moves have been done to death. At least these scenes are not 180 degrees off kilter. I'd just ask for more clever direction and a deeper 3D effect.

Wrong # 6
Lightcycles follow - and what looked so radical in the trailers seemed a little flat to me. Somehow the right-angles and lo-res graphics of the old Tron had more physicality - imagine being forced to compete real-time death cycle maze! The new Tron Lightcycles look less iconic and seem to have arbitrary rules of engagement - both more realistic in a motorcycle sense, but less cool. Clu is in charge of these sports, Bridges again in his CGI form.

Fix # 6
I can accept the light trails as being able to be shut off. I'll even accept the multi-levels and the 360 degree motion. But it would have been nice to have some truly wide shots from the spectator level - this distance would give the color-coded moves some context. Instead of all the POV and low-level close camera work, some more breathing room.

After his cycle battle with Clu, Sam is rescued by Quorra, the Tron lady of this particular picture. She's an alright presence - not-bad-looking and even managing to not have any groan-inducing dialog or stock love cliches. Maybe she just sold it better than Garrett Hedlund's largely vanilla phone-in Sam, who could be Hayden Christensen's older brother in more ways than one.

We now meet the current-age (or old, if you are blunt) Jeff Bridges, playing Kevin Flynn, bit-napped since 1989 and residing in a circa 2005 Ikea catalog. It's worth mentioning that the visual design of the entire film is stellar and complete, though it lacks a little life - one wishes for the randomly-pulled Kodak stock which cause so much organic flashing in the original.

Wrong # 6
Jeff Bridges is great, undeniably talented and likable. But the movie decided that if you take Kevin Flynn and send him to a computer purgatory, he turns into The Dude. Yes, we all know and love The Big Lebowski. But it is the dumb side of Lebowski, the decade of Lebowski quotes and worship that inform this odd call. Kevin may have said "man" in '82, but since when did he mumble about his zen thing and the 60s and far out and tripped out, dude? Since people demanded that Jeff Bridges play Flynn as Lebowski, that's when, and it's weird.

Fix # 6
Shave the beard, lose the space robe, and for Christ's sake, have Kevin Flynn be glad he's being rescued from his solitary confinement in a fake zone of computer games! Really, the man hasn't seen the sun (or his son) since 1989, and he's not even really all that interested in an escape attempt? The Real Flynn would be hot to trot. This is an astounding oversight, and clearly Kevin would be damaged from years in his Tandy. Either play him as a bit paranoid prisoner or play him overjoyed at seeing his son and seeing an out. Either way, play him closer to the devil-may-care rogue of 82's Tron. And we don't need reminders of better Jeff Bridges movies in this mediocre one. (Daddy, I said I wanted Tron toys! Who is this old bearded robe guy?)

First Sam, then Kevin and Quorra take off for the city or whatever. This tips off Clu where Kevin had been living, although it was stated that they couldn't get there before. Clu and his minions arrived at the apartment to ransack and emote.

In one of the film's only genuine laughs, Clu's number 2 disturbs a nicknack in Flynn's apartment.

Things happen and we find ourselves in a club, where Daft Punk have also been sucked into the internet or whatever. We assume they can teleport back to France when the gig is over. Michael Sheen is a Glam du Soleil ringleader/revolutionary/Calrissian, and his performance, while very Batman 1966, at least energizes the movie with a presence other than the 2D tone of every other actor. Stock Rocky Horror-style flamboyance is a welcome change of pace, and I wish he'd have gone on. RIP Tony Blair and the Spiders from Mars, in an explosion. Wait, explosives? Why not some weird math bomb? All the literalism makes me wish for the derezzing effects of the first movie.

There are chases and dialog scenes, all with the black and neon piping scheme established early on. No complaints, but there is not much variety on the grid and we start to lose interest. Clu is revealed to be a good guy gone bad, Nazi-ing it up in flashbacks and eventually leading a huge army of programs, programs who don't have purpose. Quorra is revealed to be some higher order of AI, the last survivor of a spontaneously created form of digital life, as if evolution produced consciousness in the world of computing, just as it did on Earth. None of this is shown, of course, it's just explained. Quorra seems like everyone else, except she read some of those books on Kevin Flynn's shelf. Kevin Flynn, who was not really a reader in the original Tron.

Finally, after some racey-chasey airplane stuff, we get a final showdown, Clu merges with Flynn, Sam and Quorra make it to the portal, and the boy and girl emerge in the real world. Dad's stuck inside until a sequel.

Wrong # 7
Really? Quorra, a computer lady, just manifested in reality, now Sam's girlfriend? No one seems to think anything is very odd or special, a cue for the audience to do the same?

Fix # 7
The same basic events could be saved if there was just a sliver of gravity to the whole situation. Not grimness, not unearned mythic importence. Just some grounded reactions, and you do that through the words the characters say and they way they treat each other. Some miracle girl, the last of her kind, turned real? Sure, just hop on my old motorcycle, I'll drive you to a diner, then we can hit the mall. Clearly, everyone needs to take things more seriously - and that investment will make the jokes work better. It's called "earning it."

Wrong # 8, 9, 10
This one is so rampant throughout the movie it gets 3 numbers. It's the terrible "snappy" dialog. Just shy of puns, Sam Flynn is constantly saying things like "this can't be good" and "we got another customer" and "whoooo!" and lame stock meatheaded sayings that not one, especially a genius tortured soul searching for dad in some self-invented virtual hell scape would say. Maybe Sam Flynn was raised on shitty movies. He's certainly in one. Send me a script and I'll hit all the groan-inducing, Lucasy flop-phrases with a yellow hi-liter. I will need 5 hi-liters.

Fix # 8, 9, 10
Just don't write the first terrible thing that pops into your head, writers. Think about how people have to watch the movie, smart people as well as dumb folk, and how dumb folk don't care what the words are anyway. Pay a writer or any blogger who seems adverse to stupid cliches to fix the words so that your actors can look their children in the face one day and say "I was in Tron." We don't need to reinvent the English language or go all Tarantino, but consider NOT having the lamest kiddie-movie dialog come out of the mouths of actors. Let it happen for Tron 3: The Guy From Inception Is Cornering The Market On Being The Son Of A CEO.

Closing Argument
There was so much that this movie could have been. It could have been the best sci-fi action movie of the last 10 years. The Original was flawed but had soul. Its imperfections make it a handcrafted experience, full of time-capsule qualities and adventure film memories, and it seemed to be some kind of allegory about tech from the dawn of tech, a moral viewpoint surrounded by spooky CGI and animation. The new Tron features lots of great design and music, but a almost willfully ignorant approach to movie making and the source material. And it's a literal film with no viewpoint or lessons to be learned. Finally, it's not the first blue-screen epic with a 3D world, so it does not break any interesting ground.

Likely arguments against my rambling takedown may include the following: "Hey, this is just a Kid's movie, it's Disney, lighten up, critics are just haters, blah blah blah," et cetera.

First of all, Tron legacy is not a kid's movie. It is far too grim and boring, and too stupid for kids. The average Pixar movie has more emotional resonance and attention to detail that Tron did. (I heard that Pixar polished part of the script, but I can't tell where or how.) The fact is that when popular entertainment fails to entertain, then it is a failure - or a lost opportunity. Calling out the many poor choices taken by whatever committee assembled this film is not a personal attack on the many hairtrigger-offended fanboys who bristle at any high-minded attempt to point out the kinks in the armor.