Razzle Frickin’ Dazzle

We're alive!I can’t describe how much I liked this week’s episode of “Lost.” No exaggeration, it’s one of my favorite episodes of the entire series, and maybe even one of my favorite episodes of any television series. It’s like Darin Morgan “X-Files” good.

The reason I thought of Morgan is because “Exposé” does the same for “Lost” what Morgan’s episodes did for “The X-Files.” They’re darkly comic, they work on a bunch of different levels, and they make fun of the series and its format without being too heavy-handed or breaking out of the show’s mythology. Here’s some of the ways “Exposé” worked:

As its own story: The more cynical in the audience can object, but watching this show I lost track of how many times it surprised me; there were at least four twists in the first ten minutes alone. Every single reveal worked for me. Each one either genuinely surprised me, made me laugh (intentionally) at the implausibility, or just impressed me with how clever it was. Towards the end I, like I’m sure most of the audience, started to piece together what really happened, but there was still one last gruesome twist I hadn’t seen coming. And to go from the cameo at the beginning to the really creepy ending — that’s just plain good TV. And in just an hour, they had more character development than some of the regulars have after three seasons.

As part of the larger story: Sure, it started to drift into Zelig territory, seeing as how Nikki and Paolo were at even more of the major events of the island than Jack, Kate, or Sawyer. But it took a lot of balls to force them into so many places, and they all worked. I really couldn’t tell what was filmed new and what was taken from existing footage. No, there weren’t any huge revelations, but this series has had enough — what’s been lacking is fleshing out existing storylines and tying up loose ends. And all of them, from Juliet and Ben’s appearance, to the mention of Mr. Eko’s mysterious line after he encountered the monster, to Locke’s line about secrets, to Sawyer’s change of character, to Paolo and the toilet; just worked.

Did they have this planned from the first introduction of these characters? Hard to tell, but almost certainly not. Does it matter? Not one bit. In a way, it’s even more impressive that they had to work backwards and still managed to make everything fit together.

As commentary on the series: This was heavy on the self-referential humor, but never too heavy-handed. The comment about “you know what happens to guest stars” started it off, and it ended up being the most blatant one. (Well, except for the obvious joke of the whole episode, that they’re the characters nobody knows and nobody likes.) They poked fun at the implausibility of what happened to Boone, Locke’s nonsensical behavior, the reunion of dead characters, and Shannon’s over-the-top bitchiness at the beginning of the series.

If I remember correctly, Juliet reacted with disbelief when she heard about Ben’s “master plan.” That struck me as a great way to retroactively shoe-horn a “we meant to do that all along” rationalization for the convoluted plot of the second to third season, and at the same time poke fun at how convoluted it was. All with just one expression from Juliet.

As a reminder of “Lost”‘s potential: The series has been so dry lately, it’s easy to just remember what happened in earlier episodes but forget why it seemed like such a big deal at the time. At the end of the pilot, the show had already introduced a horrible plane disaster, flashbacks, numbers stations, a monster, a burgeoning love story, a jungle, and hints at mysticism, all on top of the marooned-on-a-desert-island concept. And it seemed like it could go anywhere from that.

As the show’s progressed, it’s taken some pretty big risks more than a few times, but has also settled into a pattern and a formula. Even big plot-revealing episodes (or at least as close as we ever get on this series) are still mostly straightforward. This episode showed that the series can be formulaic, and still have as much potential as an anthology series. Really, what other series on TV can show a black comedy film noir set on a tropical island?

Too much confusion

'Scuse me, while I kiss this CylonThe season 3 finale of “Battlestar Galactica” aired tonight. According to the SciFi channel, season 4 doesn’t start until 2008. Word on the street is that there’ll be a two-hour movie “bridging” the season, not continuing from the finale, but introducing things that’ll be resolved in season 4.

In my whole history of watching things, I can’t remember when or if I’ve ever had such a hard time deciding if I liked something. My gut reaction throughout was “oh hell yeah.” But there was just as much “what the hell is going on here?” I really can’t say whether I thought it was unbelievably, unacceptably cheesy; or was one of the coolest things I’ve seen on a TV series. Which means, I guess, that it was the latter.

It goes without saying that big stuff follows, so don’t read the rest unless you want to have the finale (and maybe the whole season) ruined for you…

Continue reading “Too much confusion”

Winding Down

Sayid waiting for a pushTVSquad forwarded along a New York Post story, which is pretty much completely unsubstantiated speculation quoting from an anonymous “tipster,” that the producers of “Battlestar Galactica” want to end the series after the fourth (next) season. This is similar to the claims the “Lost” guys have made that they’ve got an ending in sight and are figuring out how to bring the series to a close after “one or two” more seasons.

It’s a good idea in both cases, and I’m not saying that just because I really really want to see “Galactica 2009.” I can’t think of any series that maintained its quality after four seasons, and with high concept series with a definite premise (finding Earth, getting off the island), it just makes it all the more clear that you have to have an end in sight.

By all rights, the most recent “Lost” episode, “The Man From Tallahassee,” should have had me jumping up and down making awkward grunting sounds. It was exactly the kind of stuff I’ve been wanting to see in the series. Real answers to questions, including one that’s been around since episode 1. A flashback that mattered, and had a really shocking scene in it. Hints at something larger, with a mysterious power about the island. Strong performances all around. A big explosion.

And a sign that they knew what they were doing, and Locke’s actions a few episodes ago weren’t just unmotivated idiocy. He had a plan, and we’re only seeing now what his real motives were.

I read a review of the episode that complained this development just made it clearer that the writers are making it up as they go along, and now they’d written themselves and excuse to pull any plot development they wanted out of their asses. (Or their magic boxes, as the case may be).

I had the opposite reaction. I thought this was the first in a long while that really showed steps towards tying things together. Jack’s dad, Kate’s horse, Eko’s brother Yemi, and now Locke’s discovery — they’re all connected, and Ben has seen this kind of thing happening on the island and is trying to explain it. Not only were the characters brought back to focus with this episode, but the events were as well.

Still, it ended with my feeling pretty unimpressed. I’ve been saying for a while that the “feel” of the show is more important than the answers. That anything the writers could possibly come up with to explain everything is going to feel like a let-down, because the hints at greater mysteries are by definition more interesting than the explanations. Now I’m having to back up that claim, and it’s tough. Myst-like hatches full of antiquated video monitors and mail slots that lead to nowhere, and underground bunkers with secret UV messages and record collections and secret serums, are always going to be more interesting than bright yellow compounds with swingsets and pool rooms.

And they’re already getting a diminished return on investment with their shocking revelations. I can guarantee you that had Locke’s flashback shown in seasons one or two, it would’ve been horrifying and exciting. But last night, it was just a brief flash of interest, like any other instantly forgettable TV stunt. After another season of this, they’re going to have to bring out the big guns to be satisfyingly shocking and relevatory.

In preparation for next week’s “Battlestar Galactica” finale, and the long hiatus until the next season, I’ve been going back through and watching the DVDs, starting with the miniseries. I came to the show late, so I always had the impression that the series was much larger than what I was aware of. That some of the events of the series had more impact to those who’ve been watching all along, seeing more than just the glimpses shown in the “previously on…” bits.

I’ve been surprised by two things: First, that I’ve seen more of the series than I remembered. I’d somehow seen the entire miniseries and first several episodes, apparently, and there are just four or five from the second half of the first season that I’d missed.

Second, that they covered so much in the first three hours of the miniseries. I’d thought that they’ve been building layer on layer of intrigue over the past couple of years, but 90% of what’s going on now (minus New Caprica and the Occupation) was established at the beginning. That’s both good and bad — good that they have had solid ideas of the characters and the central drama since the beginning, bad that they’ve kind of been coasting on that for so long.

I think BSG would do well to have a clear ending in sight, explaining what really motivates the Cylons, what is this plan we hear about at the beginning of every episode, and perhaps most importantly, finally explaining exactly what the hell is going on with Baltar and his visions of Six. I don’t know if they could do all that in one season, but in the past they’ve shown they can. Whatever the case, a fifth season would most likely kill the show.

And I guess I’ve realized a third thing about “Battlestar”: the value of subtext. My memory of the series was that it was just overwhelmingly, unrelentingly dark and depressing. Watching the miniseries again now reminded me that it’s not, really; in retrospect, it’s even a little bit manipulative and melodramatic. Obviously, now I know what’s going to happen, so the surprise is gone.

But more than that, I’m watching to see specific plot developments instead of just the “feel” of the show. They communicate that feeling so well, without having to repeatedly state it directly. It makes the more recent episode seem all the more heavy-handed and deliberately obtuse by comparison. The best thing I can say about the series is that at least in the early days, it doesn’t overstate its message. During the miniseries, you’d get a line of dialogue like, “It’s the end of the world, Lee,” and that was enough. Lately, it’s been more “It’s the end of the world, and that is why we need to maintain strict demands on fuel production and remain anti-labor in spite of our push for democracy, and it is this kind of thing that shows what a gray moral area we now live in.”

41,398

NOW look where the Earth is! Let me drive.I’ve been negligent in my “Battlestar Galactica”-watching duties for the past month, so I spent the last couple of days getting caught up on the last four episodes.

I’ve got to be vague, here, since there may yet be brothers of man, out there, among the blogosphere, who are waiting for the DVD release to watch the show. I’ll just say that it’s been troubling, and I’m getting really creeped-out by my TV series-destroying powers.

It’s not even the obvious plot events that are bugging me, as much as the general up-and-down nature of the show. People keep acting wildly inconsistently — they’ve got a basic character type that they mostly stay true to, but within that, they’re all over the map. What’s an unforgivable sin one episode becomes standard practice a few weeks later. A guy can commit treason and get a “no harm, no foul” from the Admiral in one episode; a short while later, Adama is threatening to shoot the Chief’s wife to get back at him (and just a couple of weeks before that, he was getting all emotional trying to save her).

One of the strengths of the series, as I understand it, is that it tries to put everything in a moral gray area, and it tries to add contemporary relevance to the events instead of just making it a sci-fi action series. That’s all fine, except that when you don’t have a stronger backbone for the story, and real consistency across episodes, it all comes across as self-contained Ripped From Today’s Headlines stories. I’m glad they have the conscience to tackle real issues, but there are some places where stories about racism and labor disputes and class warfare just don’t fit.

The most recent episode (the one about Baltar’s lawyer) shows signs they might be pulling out of the tailspin. I honestly couldn’t tell you if the writing was actually intelligent, or if it was just obtuse but meant to sound intelligent. Whatever the case, it worked for me. And it looks like they’re finally committed to building up to something big.

This is the only series I can think of where I’ve disliked the individual stand-along episodes so much. Usually I look forward to them; as the “series mythology” stuff is generally tedious, and smaller episodes give writers the chance to experiment and present a fully-fleshed out idea. On “Battlestar Galactica,” they just get in the way.

Update: I guess I should’ve waited until after tonight’s episode to start complaining. Because tonight’s was pretty damn cool. And I can’t remember when I’ve ever watched a TV series and had no clue what was going to happen. I can’t even speculate how things are going to turn out next week.

Grindhouse

Before The Host, they ran a promo for Grindhouse. It’s easily the best movie trailer I’ve seen in decades:

I’ve never been this excited to see a movie that I’m probably going to miss half of because my I’ll have to keep my eyes closed. It’s easy to get taken in by cool trailer, dull movie syndrome, but word on the street is that the theatrical release has fake trailers in between the two “features.” I’m sold.

The Host

That'd be up the Han River, BobFor the past few weeks, I’ve been hearing about The Host. I’ve been deliberately avoiding details about it, to keep from spoiling any potential surprises, so all I could ascertain was that it’s a South Korean movie about a giant river monster attacking a family.

And that I needed to see it. From the near-unanimous praise on Rotten Tomatoes, to breathless reviews like this one, it was described as a rapturous, life-changing experience.

So maybe my expectations were too high. The first twenty or thirty minutes are most definitely excellent. I’m not spoiling anything by saying there’s a monster attack at the beginning, and it’s just great movie-making. The CG effects are good but not exceptional; what’s exceptional is the way they’re used — pacing, staging, dialogue, everything is just dead-on, and you’re never given a chance to believe that what you’re seeing isn’t real.

After the attack, it goes into horror/comedy mode, with the family interactions and incompetent government officials and some of the best “black slapstick” I’ve seen since Cape Fear.

And then… it starts wandering. You’ll frequently see reviews that say it isn’t a traditional monster horror movie, and while that’s correct, it implies a genre mash-up that just isn’t there. The movie doesn’t dip into the big bag o’ cliches; the plot keeps going off on tangents you don’t quite expect. But you quickly discover that there’s a distinction between “surprising” and just “unexpected.” Stuff keeps happening, but it’s not the oh my God he’s been dead all along! level of surprise as much as well, would you look at that, he ordered corned beef instead of ham and cheese.

There’s a consistent theme throughout most of the movie, that of the struggle between an unsympathetic, monolithic, and incompetent government against a barely sympathetic, incompetent, but heartwarming family. But although it’s a recurring theme, it never breaks through into full-fledged satire. It just remains an idea — the value of the individual versus that of society. A nice enough theme, but nothing groundbreaking, and there’s not much new added.

So in the end, it’s a reasonably well-made slice-of-life movie of the type that’s kept Sundance festivals going for decades. But with an amazing opening sequence that hints at so much more potential than the rest of the movie can deliver. It should definitely get points for being neither a stock, by-the-numbers horror movie; or a bland and predictable indie comedy/drama. But I just didn’t think it was cohesive or powerful enough to hold my interest.

Death comes in threes

The road not taken, in which Wendy honked againIt’s a little weird that I’ve been so engrossed in the Final Destination movies lately. I’m not a big fan of horror movies in general, because I don’t usually have the constitution for them. And the movies, frankly, just aren’t that good.

I was initially interested by the TV tie-ins. Ali Larter from “Heroes” is in the first two movies; and two elements of the series: the hit-by-a-bus scene from the first, and the overall concept that once you’re marked for death, you can’t escape, are being “borrowed” by “Lost.”

More than that, I’m just fascinated by how the whole thing works as a franchise. It’s easy to have a dismal view of Commercial Entertainment Product, and the typical laments about art versus product, insipid marketing tie-ins and focus-testing and sequels, and how Hollywood (and big business in general) ruins everything. The Final Destination movies leave me feeling kind of optimistic — I’d point to the third movie as proof that there’s still plenty of room for art and talent in the process.

I’m obliged to point out that warm, fuzzy, pro-Corporate Media Congolmerate feelings aside, Final Destination 3 is not a great movie; in fact, it teeters precariously on the precipice of “good enough”. I don’t want to get carried away here; we’re still definitely in “it’s better to aim low and hit than aim high and miss” territory.

But it takes the basic template of Final Destination 2, a truly awful movie, and shows what’s possible when you put some talent behind it. It’s got the big action sequence at the beginning, a callback to explain the plot of the first movie, then a series of increasingly complicated death sequences interspersed with scenes of your tedious and unlikeable heroes trying to figure out how to save themselves. I’m impressed that the filmmakers didn’t just completely ignore the second movie, but recognized what worked in it and took only the parts they needed — the basic formula (less “X-Files” episode, more teen horror blockbuster), and the increased gore level the kids go crazy for.

The trick, of course, is that unlike the second movie, they took the formula and did it right. The cinematography is way better than a movie like this needs to be. The opening sequence is genuinely creepy. I’ve read some reviews complaining about the CGI in the roller coaster sequence, but I thought it worked well; everything looked hyper-real and unsettling. And throughout the movie, there are interesting shots and set-ups that just have the feel of a bunch of people who know what they’re doing.

Of course, the roller coaster sequence is completely ludicrous — they actually have one of the characters go on about how a coaster is nothing but physics in action, and then still show the coaster stopping at the top of a loop (like in Chris Elliot’s “Get a Life” series). But whether intentional or not, it’s goofy, and funny, and sets the tone for the rest of the movie. The events are ridiculous; the non-action scenes are talky, plodding, and pretty dull; and the characters are tedious and unrelatable.

Which all works, because the movie’s all about the suspense, and again, with the pacing and editing, there are signs all over that the filmmakers know what they’re doing. The characters exist only to get killed, so they’re just relatable enough to distinguish them from a crowd scene. The talking scenes are slow and dull on purpose, to give the audience enough time to calm down after the last death scene. And the ridiculous nature of the deaths keeps you on edge, because although you know that someone’s going to die, you spend agonizing minutes watching, trying to figure out exactly how it’s going to happen.

The sequence in the hardware store, in particular, sets the “murder weapon” up in the very first shot. And then shows you about ten minutes of red herrings, tedious plot development, and fake-outs while you wait for the end to come. That’s how suspense scenes should be done. And again, the way they filmed this scene, and in fact every other scene in the movie, repeats the idea that every single thing around you is dangerous and potentially lethal.

My biggest problem with the first movie, after listening to the commentary, was the frustration that the filmmakers seemed so close to understanding what their movie was about, and then dropped the ball trying to turn it into something it wasn’t. Final Destination 3 addresses all of that; it feels as if everybody involved is on the same page.

In the first movie, the commentary points out that they used “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver for death scenes, to show a contrast between what you hear and what you’re seeing. Get it? That’s irony! The third movie uses basically the same gimmick, but does it 1000 times more effectively and less clumsily. “Love Rollercoaster” plays during the first death; a little obvious, but still a great choice. Even better is the recurring theme, “Turn Around, Look at Me” by the Lettermen. (The version linked is by The Vogues, which is less creepy than the earlier one, but still the same idea). It suddenly starts playing on the radio whenever Death approaches, and it’s a perfect choice.

And in keeping with the “Hooray for Corporate Entertainment!” theme of this post, there’s the “Choose Their Fate” feature of the DVD release. Before the death scenes, you’re given a choice as to what the characters will do, and then can see how it plays out in the movie. I’ll go ahead and ruin the surprise: it doesn’t make a bit of difference. You get a few extra seconds of footage in a slightly altered scene, and can only really “save” one victim. (The DVD even makes a joke to that effect, asking you, “Was he worth saving?”)

So it’s yet another sign of crass marketing ruining the artistic process, right? I say no! It’s a perfect example of how to exploit the system. According to the extra features and commentary on the first movie, it was plagued by focus-testing, alternate scenes, and the need to re-shoot the entire ending. By the third, they took advantage of the DVD feature to try out all their alternates. For example, the option at the end of the movie changes nothing, but lets you see the original, dull ending, before preview audiences demanded a new ending.

Another case just shows two versions of the exact same death (inside a football workout room), but edited and paced differently; a shorter version was requested by the studio to mimic the hit-by-a-bus scene in the first movie, but the longer, superior version made it into the final movie. The marketing types get a bullet point for the DVD case and the PR surrounding the movie; the filmmakers get to try alternate takes and save the best stuff for the theatrical release. Everybody’s a winner.

So whether or not it’s a Modern Day Classic of Cinema (hint: it’s not), I’m still impressed by it. In videogames, TV, movies, and every commercial entertainment medium, we hear over and over again about how big corporations ruin everything, marketing/publishing/the studio is The Enemy, and art can’t survive under the pressing weight of cold, soulless commerce. Final Destination 2 still sucks all kinds of ways, don’t get me wrong. But the third one shows what can happen when you take a less antagonistic attitude towards the business end — talent can still shine through, and you can end up with something that might not be art, but is a hell of a lot of fun.

Hey, I remember that show!

Screengrab from lost-media.comLast night ABC aired a new episode of their series “Lost.” Apparently it’s about a bunch of people marooned on an island or something. Watching it, I was reminded of a series that ran two years ago, also coincidentally called “Lost.”

In last night’s episode, though, everyone was acting strangely out of character. Not five minutes in, and Locke is actually chastising someone else for not exchanging information. Later, Kate asks Rousseau a question about something that happened very recently, and, amazingly, she got a complete answer. People made a plan to do something, told each other about the plan, and then actually accomplished it. Not once, but twice!

Charlie and Desmond were, of course, completely annoyingly evasive throughout most of the episode, but that’s to be expected, since Desmond’s still relatively new and Charlie’s still relatively a total dick. But by the end, Claire reveals, “Desmond told me everything.”

The flashback wasn’t just repetition of stuff we already knew (everyone suspected Claire’s parentage, but it wasn’t confirmed), but real character-building stuff that resonated with the theme of the episode; it didn’t just repeat the theme of the episode outright. Nice to see an episode say, “Claire is consumed with guilt and self-doubt, and because of frequent abandonment, has trouble trusting people,” without having Claire say, “I’m consumed with guilt and self-doubt. And also, because of frequent abandonment, I have trouble trusting people!”

All that, some duplicitous behavior on the part of Locke, a pretty creepy death scene (with an explanation!), and a little clever twist of intrigue at the end!

And did you notice how I’m not still bitching and moaning about their quickly killing off a mysterious character that showed so much promise from a Boba Fett-style fleeting glimpse on a security monitor several episodes ago? See, “Lost” guys, it’s easy! Just keep making solid episodes where stuff actually happens — they don’t all have to be show-stoppers — and a lot of your whiny fanbase will stop complaining about all the loose ends and details, and just get back into the action. We’re easily placated by competence.

Neko on a Hot Tin Roof

or, A Rickshaw Named DesireI rented Onibaba (Demon Woman) because a website recommended it to fans of Yokai Monsters and Kwaidan, two movies about Japanese ghosts and monsters. Plus, it’s got a big demon on the cover!

The truth is that, except for the last twenty minutes or so, it’s not about obakemono at all, and it isn’t what I expected. But it’s one hell of a movie.

It’s unlike any other Japanese movie I’ve seen, contemporary or otherwise. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s what would happen if you had a Japanese New Wave director take sets and costumes from a samurai movie and make an interpretation of a Tennessee Williams play. With maybe some John Steinbeck and William Faulkner thrown in.

The story is set near Kyoto during the warring states period, and it deals with a woman and her daughter-in-law living in poverty because of the war. The war has ravaged the land and made farming impossible, so they’re forced to murder dying samurai from the battlefields, loot the armor and weapons from the corpses, and sell them for food. Things become even more complicated when a neighboring farmer returns from the war and attempts to take the place of the daughter-in-law’s dead husband.

Onibaba is very much a 60s movie; despite its setting, it’s aggressively modern in its style, editing, music, characterization, and subject matter. There are all kinds of film tricks which come across as tedious and pretentious in other movies, but work perfectly here. Long shots of nothing but flowing grass perfectly convey the idea that civilization has been squeezed out and overtaken by wild nature. Jump-cuts and super-imposed shots give everything a surreal feeling and perfectly capture scenes of people overtaken by passion.

The characters are portrayed as being genuinely destitute and desperate — hairy, filthy, and generally nasty. There’s a lot of breasts and ass to be seen, and even though it’s sexual, it’s not erotic. That’s because they’re living in the most primitive conditions, and also because one third of the breasts belong to an old woman, and most of the ass is that of a dirty, hairy, male war deserter. It was still nice to see a movie showing characters not as “movie-peasants,” carefully arranged to have just the right amount of muck about them, but in true squalor.

Some of my favorite scenes are the ones in which the daughter-in-law runs across the fields at night to meet her lover. Kaneto Shindo filmed the scenes in silence except for the sound of cooing pigeons; in the movie, you can’t quite identify the noise, but get the subliminal impression of surreal urgency and passion. In an interview with the director included on the disc, he points out that he used pigeons because they’re “known for their fecundity,” which adds another layer of meaning to an already effective gimmick.

What impressed me the most is how well the film* conveyed its message, even to those not receptive for it. After watching the interview with Shindo, I realized that I’m a lot more of a prude than he is. Still, I got the message of the film completely, on an almost instinctual level, and I was surprised to hear him describe the process — everything he claims he tried to do with the movie, worked. It’s more like a film you understand than a film you watch.

The movie is about sex. Or more precisely, it’s about people as animals as opposed to products of society. The characters are living in a state of nature at the beginning of the story. Our protagonists are quickly established as murderers, but they’re not the villains. They’re only doing what needs to be done to survive. The war is described several times as a general’s war, a product of the cities — it’s causing the terrible conditions for the peasants, but giving them no benefit. So in the movie’s logic, the protagonists’ actions are justified.

It’s not until the horny newcomer arrives on the scene that the conflict starts. Suddenly, the concerns are societal concerns — jealousy, fear of abandonment, repression, guilt. And it’s only after the mother feels threatened (and unsatisfied in her own lust) that she begins to talk about sin and religion. Not as a means of finding the truth, but as a means of repression and control.

I’ve read some online reviews that describe the movie as showing what happens when people are reduced to their primitive state, but I think that’s just a shade on the simplistic side. It shows societal constructs as just that — man-made constructs, separate from what’s needed for our existence. In Onibaba, the murder of invaders and sex outside of marriage aren’t sinful; the only true sins are jealousy, repression, guilt, and the lust for power and control. I believe a better message to take from the movie is that we’re never completely removed from our “primitive” state, and we should never lose sight of the distinction between what we want and what we need.

* After a year of film school, I resolved never to use the word “film” or “cinema” to describe movies — my token battle against pretension. I’m making an exception in this case, because everything Shindo attempts to do, works, and it works almost like poetry.

Update: One other thing I wanted to mention: I’ve read a few reviews online that translates the title Onibaba as “The Hole,” but that’s incorrect. (It means “Devil Woman” or “Demon Woman” or just “hag”). But the hole, the first thing introduced in the movie and a symbol revisited almost as frequently as the flowing grass, is an important character. In the story, it’s where the two women toss the bodies of their victims. In the movie, it gives an ever-present sense of danger and dread, and also of course represents hell. But hell in a very practical sense — not just a place of punishment for sinners, but the place where everything that’s no longer needed is cast away.

How many Spartans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Plenty of stabbin' goin' onI’ve got to admit I was biased against 300 from the start, because I don’t like Frank Miller. I don’t like his art, and his writing only works for me when he sticks to one or two of his strong areas.

And I can never tell where he’s coming from — he always strikes me as being completely humorless and devoid of self-awareness. Everything of his I’ve ever read has been locked in adolescent male comic book-reader fantasy mode, without ever maturing past the “fuck yeah!” moments. I’ve got no problem with bone-crushing awesomeness for its own sake, but when you’re in your late 40s and still making stuff that doesn’t seem to serve any higher purpose than making 14-year-old boys say “RADICAL!” then it just smells like arrested development.

But for all I know, he totally gets it, and there’s a level of depth there that’s just way, way too subtle for me to pick up on. I loved the SinCity movie, even though I hated the comic books, because of the visuals and because it seemed to hit exactly the right tone: it was purposefully, gleefully brutal and over-the-top pulp.

300, though, is your standard, straightforward ancient war movie. Lots of guys slapping each other on the back, talking about honor, making speeches about freedom, then commence with the stabbin’. There’s not a lot of new material covered in the speeches, so the movie makes sure to repeat each one at least twice. King Leonidas shouts out “For Sparta!” and variants so often, at times I thought I was watching a high school football movie.

The Spartans themselves are portrayed as a kind of cross between neo-conservatives, smug libertarians, and Klingons. Even though they’re ancient Greeks, they make a point of mentioning that it’s those pansy-ass Athenians who are into the buggery. The Spartans are all about reason, not anything fruity like Gods or philosophy, and everybody in the government is corrupt, easily bought, and slow to act. And of course, the only honorable death is a warrior’s death. Unless I mis-heard it, at one point a character actually says, “Freedom isn’t free.” The whole message of the movie is basically the lyrics to a Hank Williams Jr. song; I kept hoping that Leonidas would confront Xerxes and shout, “This is no rag; it is a flag!

Now, that’s not to say the movie’s completely without irony. Most obvious is that it’s easily the gayest war movie I’ve ever seen. Leonidas makes a dismissive comment about the “boy-lovers” in Athens, then spends the rest of the movie with the rest of his buff pals wearing nothing but capes and leather briefs, their hairless chests on display like well-buttered dinner rolls. Nothing exactly wrong with that; I’m just sayin’.

And for a movie so gung-ho hell-yeah this is a MAN’s war, dammit!, it’s overwhelmingly pretty. Astoundingly so, in places. Every shot is perfectly composed; I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie where I so frequently and consistently said “wow” when seeing a new visual. Not even Sky Captain had as many “wow” moments. Now granted, a lot of it had the feel of a Skittles commercial. And the bit with the Oracle, while interesting, reminded me a little too much of a Calvin Klein ad. But more often, I was reminded of Jacques-Louis David, in particular the shots that seemed straight out of Oath of the Horatii. For imagery alone, it’s genuinely stunning.

As for the action scenes, I was underwhelmed. The first couple of battles are great, but it all quickly gets monotonous. The problem is that nobody does anything particularly clever, so it’s just wave after wave of disposable Persians getting stabbed by a bunch of indistinguishable Spartan guys. They do all they can with film speed changes and Matrix-style spin-cam tricks to make it seem like something different is going on, but the fact remains that you’re watching two hours of a bunch of dudes defending a canyon.

And Leonidas’ little maneuver at the end was just plain dumb. I guess it was supposed to be deeply poetic or something, but just didn’t make sense, didn’t work in terms of story, and showed nothing other than that Leonidas can’t aim for shit.

Now, I’m always bitching about how moviemakers have gotten too preoccupied with being hip and post-modern that they crank out shallow, irony-laden nonsense. So what’s wrong with an earnest, straightforward action war movie with some great visuals? Does the touchy-feely San Francisco anti-war liberal only complain when the movie doesn’t agree 100% with his politics?

Well, there’s some of that, I’m sure, but I think I would’ve enjoyed the movie more if it just hadn’t been so shallow and juvenile. How cool would it have been if it actually had something to say to measure up with how great it looks?

The best song of the BOSTON band of all the times

John Scalzi’s blog passes along the story that Boston’s lead singer died on Friday.

He also passes along some damn lies, saying that the band’s “moment is over.” Spoken like a guy who never played Guitar Hero.

Or, for that matter, never heard Boston. There are very few “perfect” pop/rock albums, and Boston is one of them. Even if it didn’t have the spaceship on the cover, it starts out with five songs that knock it out of the park, only letting up with “Something About You” at the end. And it doesn’t hurt that “More Than a Feeling” works both as a single and as the intro to a classic album; I thought that’s what album-oriented rock was all about.

I’m listening to “Foreplay/Long Time” right now, which starts with the trippy prog-rock organ opening and transitions to yet another of the album’s 10,000 unforgettable hooks. “The moment is over?” Are you high?

So here’s Boston living their moment:

And proof that the moment’s not over yet. Playing this song in Guitar Hero (note: this isn’t me, of course; I can’t get to “Expert” yet) is nothing short of transcendent:

Flight 180 Part 2: The Pile-Up

Seems like every time I make an effort to meet Hollywood halfway, they slap me down. Last night I watched Final Destination 2, and it used up all my good will towards idiotic consumer entertainment product.

In this case, Flight 180 Part 2: The Pile-Up is a better title. Partly because they mention Flight 180 even more than the first movie did, but mostly because you watch the thing and can’t help thinking about piles. In both the flaming, irritated hemorrhoid sense, and the big pile of crap and cliches sense.

I have to admit I’m impressed, but only because they somehow managed to cram every single thing that’s bad about sequels into one movie. They completely abandon any notion of subtlety. Even worse, they spend so much time beating you over the head with the “rules” of the movie, only to abandon them towards the end. (Apparently two people can get killed simultaneously, out of order, as long as one of them is a star from the first movie who really, really wants to get out of this franchise).

The only thing I can say in the movie’s defense is that there are two pretty effective death scenes — indirect death by airbag, and garroting by flying barbed-wire fence. But even that they screwed up, by putting them back-to-back with absolutely no sense of pacing. Earlier, they make an attempt to emulate the Rube Goldberg-style death from the first movie, but blunder it on several counts: it happens too early in the movie to be satisfyingly tense or surprising. And since they’ve already done it, the overly-complicated set-up later in the movie, with gas leaks and PVP pipes and cigarettes and airbags, loses any sense of tension. Plus, any tension in the scene is lost because you can’t stop thinking, “Who the hell comes home from buying a computer, then immediately takes his shirt off and starts frying up fish sticks?”

You can’t even enjoy it as a stupid horror movie, because it’s so aggressively stupid, it drains all the horror out of it.

I know nothing about the behind-the-scenes goings-on of this franchise. But I have to wonder if the reason Morgan & Wong came back for the third movie is because they saw this one and realized, “maybe ours didn’t suck as bad as we’d thought.”