Alright, with no term papers and finals to worry about, grades in, presents bought and opened, families reunited, and the true Meaning-O'-Christmas realized, I can finally get back to writing. Liberation never tasted so sweet. Lots of stuff to discuss (more on that later - part of my blog is considering secession).
Here are the movies I've seen in the last seven days or so, in no particular order:
Sherlock Holmes. This movie exactly (almost eerily) lived up to my expectations. You (and by you, I pretentiously mean "I") came in looking for Robert Downey Jr. to make some clever deductions, verbally spar with Watson, and smack a few bad guys upside the head. The film delivers with class, and even throws in a couple brilliant exchanges between Holmes and Watson worth the price of admission on their own ("You're aware that what you're drinking is used for eye surgery?"). RDJ is perfectly cast - throw this man a Golden Globe - and while Russell Crowe might have lent Watson's role a bit more star power, Jude Law gives a suitably sharp performance.
Poor Rachel McAdams has been taking a fair amount of criticism for her performance as Irene Adler. IMHO, most of it is a bit unfounded - with such limited source material (remember, Adler was only featured in "A Scandal in Bohemia"), most of her character is left for definition, and the American femme fatale seems like the ideal niche. The only complaint I've taken seriously is that she seems a bit out of place in Victorian England - but it's steampunk, already intentionally anachronistic for effect, so I'll cut her some due slack and recognize the immense difficulty of sticking to a handful of character traits (while also avoiding getting overshadowed by RDJ and Law).
My one major complaint is that the film series (and I say series because Moriarty's absence is screamed at us in the final frame, no spoiler) has blown its load a bit early in terms of scale. An underground secret society (again, no spoiler here) is an integral part of the first film, leaving little room for expansion. Where does Ritchie go from here, the Cthulu mythos?
If you came in looking for Hound of the Baskervilles or A Study in Scarlet, you were disappointed, and I'm not terribly sorry for you. Take your snuff-box, pince-nez, and pocketwatch and go back to the 20th century!
(Yes, folks, we're a decade in by now, we can say that stuff).
Rating: Three and a Half Seven-Per-Cent-Solutions out of four.
Something, Something, Something Dark Side: As far as his profession goes, I trust Seth McFarlane to the ends of the earth (not unlike my trust in Bill Belichick or Quentin Tarantino). If something (something, something) is up in the air, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt - he's earned it. So when Fox decided to fork over Sunday evening, I wasn't opposed (and the Cleveland Show turned out to be less shitty than predicted, so hey, credit's due).
But his ventures into Robot Chicken/Mel Brooks territory have been...well, I can't call them failures, but when everything you do is genre-defining, mortal adequacy rings a bit hollow. There's no doubt SSSDS suffers from occasional delusions of grandeur, though (poking fun at Seth Green near the end of the show only makes the unfavorable comparison more painfully stark).
That said...I enjoyed it tremendously. McFarlane goes to absurd lengths to connect with fellow supergeeks (and those with photographic memories), shot-by-shot renderings exactly matching with the parodied film. It almost hinders his work when you start wondering about his priorities. Spaceballs gets credit for its irreverance, Robot Chicken for its transgressiveness (also Admiral Ackbar Cereal); SSSDS lacks both and worships its subject a bit much, but makes up for it with mixes of Family Guy-tinged character humor. Plus, Star Wars deserves some occasional fucking reverence to remind this generation that a world before Jar Jar Binks existed...and it was beautiful.
Rating: Three Giggitywatts out of four.
In Bruges. Not quite a recent film, so I'll cut down on this one. Colin Farrel gives an astoundingly-not-horrible effort as a troubled Irish hitman. Brandon Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes tear it up as, respectively, his partner and boss. Top-notch dialogue, intriguing twist (don't want to give this one away, it's worth a watch), and a central cast turning in some of their best performances ever. The script nearly took Best Original Screenplay away from Milk.
Rating: Three and a half "YOU'RE an inanimate fucking object!"s out of four.
---
Coming up on Fifteen Charisma...
-Recent book purchases
-D&D R&D with B&B
--kd
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
On the Suspension of Disbelief: Van Helsing and the Gravity-Defying Rope Swing
Now, let's get something straight - it doesn't take much to win my rapt ttention for a movie. I usually don't like excessive prying or pedantry when it comes to my entertainment, either. But sometimes, hilarious abuses of the laws of physics without any plot justification or explanation deserve to be pointed out.
Let's get a second question out of the way - I loved Van Helsing. Like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it gets categorized as a Shitty Movie, a failed experiment into an intriguing genre. Like the League, I think it gets a bad rap, even if it's easily mocked; give it the benefit of the doubt, and it's a genuinely fun two-hour romp that gets bonus points for creative application of otherwise stale cliches. And like the League, it finds itself in Victorian Europe, albeit around the forgotten, alienated eastern half of the Continent rather than London and Paris.
Okay, onto the subject matter. There are somewhere between six and a million rope swings in the titular flick; Van Helsing's priorities, in order, seem to be:
(1) Kill vampires
(2) Fly through the air at ambiguous angles to equally ambiguous distances
(3) Kill werewolves
..... (1,309) Bang hot Transylvanian chicks. (Seriously, he didn't take advantage of the aerosol chloroform...alright, gonna stop talking now)
Anyway, there are more than a couple moments in the movie where the esteemed fiend executioner bends the laws of physics over and...well, let's just say he followed up on the chloroform spray tactic. Let's replay a few moments in detail:
Scene 1: Leaving Castle Frankenstein (about sixty-five minutes into the movie)
Scenario: Van Helsing and Anna, fleeing the latter's werewolf brother, need to find a way over the ridiculous moat that clearly wasn't there a year ago (remember the flashback? The castle surrounded by rolling hills and a windmill?). Van Helsing pulls out his trusty rappel/grapping hook, fires a perfect shot hundreds of yards away, and prepares to zip down the secured tightrope, damsel in hand. Unfortunately, the werewolf snaps the rope behind them.
What should happen: They hold on for dear life and hit the gigantic cliff under the forest.
What does happen: They land safely in a clearing under the tree Van Helsing shot.
Why it should happen that way: let's say Van Helsing shoots about a quarter-mile away at slightly under a parallel angle. If his tightrope suddenly gets severed when he's halfway there, he's going to end up perpendicular, not parallel, to where he needs to be and about an eighth of a mile below. Unless the tree is over six hundred feet high (almost twice so as any in the world and not easily climbed down from), he isn't going to end up at its base, he'll end up splattered across the aforementioned rock face.
A Terrible But Nevertheless Necessary Explanation: Doctor Frankenstein, conducting possibly illegal mutant tree-growing operations, planted a specimen with a trunk only six inches in diameter, but, say, an eighth of a mile tall. Infuriated not at Frankenstein's scientific blasphemy but at losing the annual Eastern European Gardening Competition, the creepy coroner leads the village revolt.
Scene 2: Outside Dracula's Lair (about an hour and fifty minutes into the movie)
Scenario: This is split into two parts. First, Frankenstein gets 'swung loose' by Karl the Friar (with a K because he's badass) into the Werewolf Cure room right on top of Dracula's remaining wife. Then, after leaving the two of them to battle it out, Anna leaves the room by swinging back to the bridge to rescue Van Helsing.
Problem: Frankenstein swings down, on a rope below the bridge, to reach the room and certainly doesn't have enough speed to reach a point above the bridge before he hits the castle. Anna also swings down (so far down she needs to use a second rope) to reach the same bridge. Picture this in your mind (but don't end up like this guy).
What should happen: Well, either Frankenstein hits the castle smack on the side and plummets to his death, or Anna ends up on a bridge way below Carl. Either way, Van Helsing becomes a werewolf, Anna gets fucked up by Aleera (who gets immolated in turn by her sugar daddy's imminent doom), and Frankenstein is screwed. Carl (the only damn character left alive at the place) uses the suddenly vacant ice castle to corner the European sno-cone market for decades, and feels occasional twinges of remorse at his friends' demise.
What does happen: As described above, Anna arrives in time to save the day and everything works out for the heroes! Well, except the love interest inexplicably gets killed off after the villain.
A Terrible But Nevertheless Necessary Explanation: This is all structurally possible, Dracula just got a copy of The Fountainhead for Christmas and decided to seize his rational self-interest by become the most amazing (albeit surreal) architect in the universe. Fearing accusations of insanity, Carl never speaks a whisper about the Reappearing Bridge to anybody.
Another Terrible And Equally Implausible Explanation: Carl is actually Jesus Christ, the Right Hand of God, and can change the spatial location of bridges or ropes any time he damn well pleases. Unfortunately, he arrived too late to help Van Helsing, The Left Hand of God, squish Dracula in the most epic high-five ever.
Alright, I'll stop there. You get the point; sometimes fantasy takes liberties with physics and bends a few rules under the justification of artistic license. And I'm okay with that, for the most part - I think you can enjoy a movie despite some reality-bending without adequate explanation, and it'd be too difficult to write a damn script around every inconvenience without the whole thing sounding like a series of expositionary footnotes.
But sometimes it's egregious and fun to point out. There's probably a healthy balance somewhere in between.
Other notes about the movie:
1 - When running/walking, some people lead with their head, some with their shoulders, but Kate Beckinsale (sorry, Anna) leads with her quite prominent boobs. Not complaining at all. It's just kind of hilarious, and probably slows her down a bit (which, of course, means we get a longer look).
2 - The Machine Gun Crossbow is fucking awesome, but gets curiously underused later on in the film. Too bad; it's pretty sleek to see in action.
3 - The final confrontation/battle scenes run a bit long (something like thirty minutes passes between the heroes walking through the ice-wall and Van Helsing ending Dracula's shit). By the way, not a fan of Dracula's death; we get a bad angle on the fight scene and he just sorta bleeds out (although the dark skeleton was a sweet touch).
4 - Given the pre-Facebook era of the film's release, I'm not sure whether it sparked or took advantage of the Werewolf Versus Vampire debate. Either way, fuck that shit and every stupid facebook application to which I get endlessly invited - but go, pointless internet debates, go!
Alright, I had a bunch of complaints about the movie, but I liked pretty much everything not listed here. Cool style, interesting subject-matter, adventurous genre experiment; it deserves a degree of credit. Van Helsing himself isn't quite top-ten in my list of badass protagonists, but he's up there somewhere (top-twenty five?).
Fifteen Charisma will update more frequently now that term papers and most finals are behind me. Future subject-matter includes:
-Sherlock Holmes
-something about debate, only because I haven't talked about it much
-the blog's namesake, a D&D character creation rant (I know, you're excited already!)
--kd
Let's get a second question out of the way - I loved Van Helsing. Like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it gets categorized as a Shitty Movie, a failed experiment into an intriguing genre. Like the League, I think it gets a bad rap, even if it's easily mocked; give it the benefit of the doubt, and it's a genuinely fun two-hour romp that gets bonus points for creative application of otherwise stale cliches. And like the League, it finds itself in Victorian Europe, albeit around the forgotten, alienated eastern half of the Continent rather than London and Paris.
Okay, onto the subject matter. There are somewhere between six and a million rope swings in the titular flick; Van Helsing's priorities, in order, seem to be:
(1) Kill vampires
(2) Fly through the air at ambiguous angles to equally ambiguous distances
(3) Kill werewolves
..... (1,309) Bang hot Transylvanian chicks. (Seriously, he didn't take advantage of the aerosol chloroform...alright, gonna stop talking now)
Anyway, there are more than a couple moments in the movie where the esteemed fiend executioner bends the laws of physics over and...well, let's just say he followed up on the chloroform spray tactic. Let's replay a few moments in detail:
Scene 1: Leaving Castle Frankenstein (about sixty-five minutes into the movie)
Scenario: Van Helsing and Anna, fleeing the latter's werewolf brother, need to find a way over the ridiculous moat that clearly wasn't there a year ago (remember the flashback? The castle surrounded by rolling hills and a windmill?). Van Helsing pulls out his trusty rappel/grapping hook, fires a perfect shot hundreds of yards away, and prepares to zip down the secured tightrope, damsel in hand. Unfortunately, the werewolf snaps the rope behind them.
What should happen: They hold on for dear life and hit the gigantic cliff under the forest.
What does happen: They land safely in a clearing under the tree Van Helsing shot.
Why it should happen that way: let's say Van Helsing shoots about a quarter-mile away at slightly under a parallel angle. If his tightrope suddenly gets severed when he's halfway there, he's going to end up perpendicular, not parallel, to where he needs to be and about an eighth of a mile below. Unless the tree is over six hundred feet high (almost twice so as any in the world and not easily climbed down from), he isn't going to end up at its base, he'll end up splattered across the aforementioned rock face.
A Terrible But Nevertheless Necessary Explanation: Doctor Frankenstein, conducting possibly illegal mutant tree-growing operations, planted a specimen with a trunk only six inches in diameter, but, say, an eighth of a mile tall. Infuriated not at Frankenstein's scientific blasphemy but at losing the annual Eastern European Gardening Competition, the creepy coroner leads the village revolt.
Scene 2: Outside Dracula's Lair (about an hour and fifty minutes into the movie)
Scenario: This is split into two parts. First, Frankenstein gets 'swung loose' by Karl the Friar (with a K because he's badass) into the Werewolf Cure room right on top of Dracula's remaining wife. Then, after leaving the two of them to battle it out, Anna leaves the room by swinging back to the bridge to rescue Van Helsing.
Problem: Frankenstein swings down, on a rope below the bridge, to reach the room and certainly doesn't have enough speed to reach a point above the bridge before he hits the castle. Anna also swings down (so far down she needs to use a second rope) to reach the same bridge. Picture this in your mind (but don't end up like this guy).
What should happen: Well, either Frankenstein hits the castle smack on the side and plummets to his death, or Anna ends up on a bridge way below Carl. Either way, Van Helsing becomes a werewolf, Anna gets fucked up by Aleera (who gets immolated in turn by her sugar daddy's imminent doom), and Frankenstein is screwed. Carl (the only damn character left alive at the place) uses the suddenly vacant ice castle to corner the European sno-cone market for decades, and feels occasional twinges of remorse at his friends' demise.
What does happen: As described above, Anna arrives in time to save the day and everything works out for the heroes! Well, except the love interest inexplicably gets killed off after the villain.
A Terrible But Nevertheless Necessary Explanation: This is all structurally possible, Dracula just got a copy of The Fountainhead for Christmas and decided to seize his rational self-interest by become the most amazing (albeit surreal) architect in the universe. Fearing accusations of insanity, Carl never speaks a whisper about the Reappearing Bridge to anybody.
Another Terrible And Equally Implausible Explanation: Carl is actually Jesus Christ, the Right Hand of God, and can change the spatial location of bridges or ropes any time he damn well pleases. Unfortunately, he arrived too late to help Van Helsing, The Left Hand of God, squish Dracula in the most epic high-five ever.
Alright, I'll stop there. You get the point; sometimes fantasy takes liberties with physics and bends a few rules under the justification of artistic license. And I'm okay with that, for the most part - I think you can enjoy a movie despite some reality-bending without adequate explanation, and it'd be too difficult to write a damn script around every inconvenience without the whole thing sounding like a series of expositionary footnotes.
But sometimes it's egregious and fun to point out. There's probably a healthy balance somewhere in between.
Other notes about the movie:
1 - When running/walking, some people lead with their head, some with their shoulders, but Kate Beckinsale (sorry, Anna) leads with her quite prominent boobs. Not complaining at all. It's just kind of hilarious, and probably slows her down a bit (which, of course, means we get a longer look).
2 - The Machine Gun Crossbow is fucking awesome, but gets curiously underused later on in the film. Too bad; it's pretty sleek to see in action.
3 - The final confrontation/battle scenes run a bit long (something like thirty minutes passes between the heroes walking through the ice-wall and Van Helsing ending Dracula's shit). By the way, not a fan of Dracula's death; we get a bad angle on the fight scene and he just sorta bleeds out (although the dark skeleton was a sweet touch).
4 - Given the pre-Facebook era of the film's release, I'm not sure whether it sparked or took advantage of the Werewolf Versus Vampire debate. Either way, fuck that shit and every stupid facebook application to which I get endlessly invited - but go, pointless internet debates, go!
Alright, I had a bunch of complaints about the movie, but I liked pretty much everything not listed here. Cool style, interesting subject-matter, adventurous genre experiment; it deserves a degree of credit. Van Helsing himself isn't quite top-ten in my list of badass protagonists, but he's up there somewhere (top-twenty five?).
Fifteen Charisma will update more frequently now that term papers and most finals are behind me. Future subject-matter includes:
-Sherlock Holmes
-something about debate, only because I haven't talked about it much
-the blog's namesake, a D&D character creation rant (I know, you're excited already!)
--kd
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