Disenfranchised: Or, I'm All Superhero'd Out

I of course saw Christopher Nolan's recent The Dark Knight Rises with most other people, but this is going to be the last big movie I see for a while. After already watching The Avengers (twice, unfortunately) and The Amazing Spider-Man, I feel like The Dark Knight Rises will put our house at its superhero movie quota for the year. Throw in franchise films (we saw Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol earlier this year, as well as Prometheus and unfortunately the latest Twilight), and we've definitely done our part for mainstream Hollywood cinema.

The main thing is I just feel kind of bored by all these big, bloated action/morality tales. Not that they're anything new, but I feel like they've never been so... pervasive. And a fundamental problem with virtually every superhero movie is that it's rarely about the superhero, or even the movie: in one way or another, movies like these are products. Big, expensive, flashy products, designed solely so you will buy something. Tickets, at least, but the kids will want the toys; car companies are jumping on board; there will be the happy meal. Like any product, some franchise films are better than others, but after so many... I don't know how to describe it. My soul just feels drained.

Additionally, there is virtually no suspense in these movies. They can be exciting, thrilling, funny - great genre films hit all sorts of emotional tones - but no single franchise movie will ever endanger itself. That's the part about The Dark Knight Rises that I'm not looking forward too - we know that no matter how hard things may get for Batman, no matter how dire things may seem, he will emerge victorious. If the hero can never be put in danger - and I mean real/life-or-death danger - then there's always this feeling at the back of your mind, that you're watching a movie. (Consequently, this is what makes the work of someone like Guillermo del Toro so exciting - you never know what's going to happen.)

I realize I'm to blame. I bought the tickets, and for the most part we enjoyed the fruits of Hollywood's mechanistic labor. The point I'm trying to make is that after a while, you just need to stop and be a little more selective in your intake. Find something a little more unusual - something you may not even like - just to have something different. It's like food. Burgers and fries will get the job done, certainly nothing wrong with it, but when that's all you have, you start to feel... well, kind of gross. Even if you have a really great burger every once in a while, most of them are just so-so, and you kind of owe it to yourself to take a break.

So that's what I'm doing. After this, a little "burger break," if you will. Time to see what else is out there.

The Amazing Spider-Man - 3/5
(dir. Marc Webb)

The latest installment in the Spider-Man franchise is a better movie than perhaps all of its predecessors, it just happens to be completely unnecessary. After shattering box office records ten years ago, and then shattering them again with sequels, and then ending on a universally-agreed bad note, it seemed Spider-Man was done with the cinema... Not so. Someone thought that five years later would be a good time to essentially "do-over" the series. This time around, Peter Parker isn't the broad geek played by Tobey Maguire - he's angsty, he rides a skateboard, he argues with people, he researches cross-species genetics in his spare time... He's still a nerd, but a nerd with an edge, played quite convincingly by Andrew Garfield, despite the fact that Garfield could never pass for a high school student (why not do the logical thing and just make Peter Parker a college student?). Emma Stone likewise does a nice job, bringing moxie and humor to her role as love interest, a welcome change from the doe-eyed damsel played by Kirsten Dunst...

One of the big problems this time is the villain, played by Rhys Ifans. He starts off well, bringing subtlety, guilt, and internal conflict to his role, but once he "becomes" the Lizard, he's just boring. And that's the biggest problem with the movie. The first half is really quite spectacular: it fully captures the innocence and even some of the campiness of the Spider-Man comics, while still establishing its characters and their motivations. Martin Sheen does a great job as Uncle Ben because he has a purpose beyond just a plot device (though he is eventually boxed into that role). It's funny, it's interesting, it's dramatic, but gradually all of that slips away. Even during Peter's initial reactions to his superpowers and his self-made "training," the film still remains strong. It's when the Lizard shows up that everything goes on autopilot, and it feels like the rug was pulled out beneath you. His motivation is weak, and even Peter's motivation for stopping him is fairly weak. The action scenes, the climax, and the ending are all fine and hit the right notes, but they're so by the book that they lack the freshness of the first hour. (Also, sidenote: I understand his increased strength, reaction speed, all that, but one tiny issue I've always had with Spider-Man is his world-class gymnastic ability. Just doesn't make sense to me. Looks cool, yes, but it's too much of a stretch for my mind.)




The Dark Knight Rises - 3/5
(dir. Christopher Nolan)

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a Nolan apologist. Meaning, the man has his problems, and I will grant you that. While his budgets have ballooned immensely, he has not really grown as a filmmaker. Virtually every story is told in the same way (ie, lots of cross-cutting, an overabundance of medium shots despite the widescreen format, near incessant exposition); he still can't really shoot an action scene despite several attempts; and the sound mix has a bad habit of coming out of balance... But the man has gumption, and he has ambition in spades. He's clever (too clever?), he has a penchant for high-brow, original concepts, and he always manages to structure and pace his stories very well. Nolan's making high-quality entertainment; and while there's nothing wrong with that, he's yet to make a great movie.

So, how is his latest, The Dark Knight Rises? From a cinematic perspective, with everything that happened in Aurora, the movie itself kind of got lost (and rightfully so in comparison)... That said, though, we're not going to get into the shooting (not now anyway, maybe a gun control post one day?), and we're going to focus strictly on the movie... It's pretty good. I have to say, I was kind of let down. Just a little. But then, it's also better than I expected. I'm not a comic book reader, but I thought the casting of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman was a terrible idea; likewise Tom Hardy as Bane (also, there is not enough of a dynamic between Bane and Batman for a movie). Surprisingly, Anne Hathaway is actually quite good in the role. Her "sexiness" is more campy than alluring, but she manages to imbue the character with more humanity than the script demands. Hardy is decent, there's just not enough to Bane for him to be as compelling as, say, Joker, or Ra's al Ghul... at least, not enough to him for a movie in which he's a supporting character.

The rest of the cast is good as always (Gordon-Levitt in particular does a nice job), it's just the structure and script that leave you wanting. Nolan has gotten a tad bit better with his writing - ie, he's still over-explaining things, just not the whole time - but he's not a good enough action director to make the knock-down/drag-out fights visually exciting. Example: there's a lengthy brawl between Bane and Batman early in the movie in which Batman quickly realizes he's underestimated Bane's strength. I like that the sound is dropped out, reduced simply to these two talking and hitting one another, but visually it's a dull scene to watch. The two are literally walking around, punching each other... I'm not saying we needed some Paul Greengrass/Bourne-style frenetic cutting, but Nolan should realize that he needs better choreography if he's going to use these lengthy static shots. The fight scenes aren't all like this, but that's just an example of what I'm talking about: it should be epic, scary, intense, maybe even visually exhausting; instead it just kind of ambles along.

Overall, I liked it. The story is interesting, there's a nice twist I wasn't expecting but still works, and the conclusion is excellent. The movie ends in probably the best way possible - venerating this cultural icon while still celebrating his humanity, leaving open possibilities for the future, and definitively ending Batman's story. I just wish it was a more exciting film to watch viscerally.

New Pass-Time

I tend to go through phases with certain things.

A few years ago, I bought a guitar because I missed playing music and wanted to learn something more portable than drums, which I already knew how to play. I progressed fairly steadily, but it was definitely hard - not as easy to pick up as percussion. Once I started going back to school, though, the guitar had to be put on the shelf... and that's pretty much where it's stayed for the last sixteen months. I hope to get back to it one day.

Likewise, three-ish years ago I decided I needed to be healthy and get into a gym. I'd never really worked out before (I was horribly underweight and didn't want to be the target of any tough-guy heckling), and I felt there was no need to wait. After some free personal training sessions and a bit of adjustment to my diet and exercise regimen, I settled into a good five-day workout routine that involved extensive weight and cardio training, as well as a daily protein shake. In two years, I gained thirty-ish pounds.

This "phase" has not stopped, but it has certainly been altered several times. First of all, I don't go to a gym any more. Trying to balance school and full-time work just got to be too much, so there were weeks - even months - at a time where I wasn't going, but still paying. So after a while, I finally dropped it. I vowed, though, to keep in shape. Kate and I would jog in the neighborhood and make our own training center. This has been more or less successful. At her peak, Kate was regularly running three to four miles (I tend to poop out after about two - I don't like cardio), and we've made good use of medicine balls and (most recently) kettlebells. Anything versatile which doesn't take up too much space.

With the insane heat, we've fallen off the wagon a bit when it comes to cardio, and crazy night shifts and school schedules make for some odd workout times, but we're at least fairly consistent. We're trying.

The latest thing for me, though, is Wing Tsun. A little history: Wing Tsun is an off-shoot of Wing Chun, a Chinese martial art made famous by Donnie Yen in the Ip Man series and of course Bruce Lee decades earlier. I've always had an interest in martial arts (probably all those Van Damme movies), and I actually studied Aikido for a few years when I was in second and third grade. When I started working out a few years ago, I likewise wanted to start doing martial arts again. I don't know why - despite what they say, it really has no practical application in daily life - but it's been nagging at me that whole time.

I kept putting it off. Martial arts study is, after all, pretty expensive, depending on what you want to do, and where you want to do it. After a bit of research, I decided I didn't want to do Krav Maga, Muy Thai, Taekwando, or any of the "major" sports. I didn't want to do anything that involved lots of kicking, basically. And apparently, the Chinese martial arts are known for their empty hand work, so that's where I started looking. For a time I thought of Ba Gua Zhang, but then assumed I would be too clumsy for something so convoluted; then I moved to Xingyichuan, which seemed a better fit. Both were taught in one location with two weekly classes for about $170/month. The times were not convenient, and the price seemed a little steep, so I hesitated on pulling the trigger... After a while longer, I found another school which focused more on popular Japanese arts (Judo, Karate, and Jujutsu being the most popular), but nevertheless had one Chinese form - Wing Tsun. Because the school offered more convenient times, more weekly classes, and a better price, I finally decided to go for it.

So far, it's been a blast. I've only had three sessions, but the people are very friendly; and even though the art can be very showy, and seasoned practitioners can get caught up in "slap fights" if they lose sight of proper technique, the instructors nevertheless focus on real-world applications as much as possible. Plus, this is something I can actually do. I don't have the best coordination. Thankfully, the amount of footwork in Wing Tsun is fairly minimal - the whole idea being that you want to move forward as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to neutralize an opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'm having fun, it feels nice, and I'm hoping I can keep this going for a while. We'll see how it goes once school starts up again.

What does all this mean? Well, with any luck I'll be doing this in a few days...

Or maybe this...

...but I'm really hoping to be the guy in this last one.

Apparently, I'm trying to become a modern-day Buckaroo Banzai.

Financial Frustration

This will sound like a rant... well, it is a rant, but don't let that steer you away.

Life is too expensive. Everything. Costs keep going up, but the quality is not. I understand that as inflation rises, companies raise prices to keep pace, and thus we all have to pay more for the same product just to keep things on an even keel, but it seems that some time between our generation and the last, things got out of hand.

I was raised on the belief that if you work hard, study hard, and make good, responsible decisions, your life would reflect that: you would have a happy home-life, a happy work-life... I admit, it was a modest (naive?) view of the American dream. Frankly, this seems all but impossible in the modern era. I've been responsible, I've worked tirelessly, and I've studied like a madman for most of my life. But to what end? Those traits alone are not enough.

What do I have to do?

I don't live an extravagant lifestyle, and I'm finding it hard to make ends meet. Last year I decided to go back to school. I stayed in-state, even went to a community college to make things as cheap and simple as possible. I worked full-time through each semester, even worked two jobs at one point because I thought that would help augment the huge sum going into my education... Wrong. No matter what I did, the cost was too much.

I know it's silly, and I apologize if this makes me sound arrogant, or like I'm complaining without due reason, but doesn't that seem especially unfair? Shouldn't I be able to easily afford a quality education if I'm working full-time? But I can't. Can anyone?

Even at a community college, the cheapest around, I still had to borrow money and basically forbid myself from living a normal life in order to get by without debt. It was so bad that at one point I only had seventeen cents in my checking account, with a couple days till the next paycheck.

Some suggested I take out a loan, but they're missing the point - I shouldn't HAVE to take out a loan, not for a cheap school and a handful of courses. I will take out a loan for grad school, but that makes sense - at that point, I'll be so overwhelmed by material that I won't be able to work. That part I get. The schoolwork is too intense, you won't have time for a job, so you need a loan to pay for it. Fine. But if I AM working - and working A LOT - shouldn't that be enough?

Yes, it should, but it's not. And THAT, I'm saying, is just not right.

I don't know what the solution is. It's not my job to know what the solution is. But clearly this is a problem. The cost of education is too high to be realistically manageable, and as such the American dream cannot realistically be achieved.

Fistful of Reviews

I said a long time ago that I wanted this blog to be much more autobiographical/philosophical than my last one - ie, not just reviews/opinions - and for the most part I feel like I've failed. On the one hand, I've written these massive entries detailing my thoughts and ideas on issues of politics and religion, but the vast majority are critiques of specific movies, or if not, then they are generally media-based... So while the last few entries have been extremely autobiographical, there have still been quite a few movies, books, and CDs I've consumed, so they need their fair treatment. For brevity, I've limited reviews to a paragraph, so we'll see how it goes...

MOVIES

Breaking Dawn: Part I - 0.5/5
(dir. Bill Condon)
I've written about Twilight before, and I hoped that would be the one/only time that dreadful series would be mentioned on this blog, but alas - while on our Disney cruise, one of the many, many movies we watched was this miserable dreck. I commend Stephenie Meyer for defrauding people out of millions of dollars and years of their lives, but that does not elevate the level of the material. This is garbage - and not even entertaining garbage, a la True Blood. We could pick apart the script, or the effects, or the cinematography, or really anything, but where the series really goes wrong is simply the casting. These actors are the definition of wooden - not an ounce of personality found anywhere in the cast - and thus no matter what happens, the film is dreadfully, terribly boring. (Save one sequence, which actually manages to elevate awful to hilariously awful - found here... if the rest of the film were so ridiculously bad, it would be at least entertaining.)

The Adventures of Tintin - 3.5/5
(dir. Steven Spielberg)
What a delightful (albeit hollow) experience. Spielberg's animated film utilizes every bit of animation wizardry possible to, essentially, create a world even more cartoonish, over-the-top, and absurd than Indiana Jones (which already pushed those traits to the max). The film never reaches greatness - far too content to explore empty avenues for the sake of visual showiness than to ever really focus on a central story - but it nevertheless remains incredibly fun, fast-paced, and entertaining. I'd love to see another one.



The Vow - 1.5/5
(dir. Michael Sucsy)
Another vacuous "true story" that probably could have been good if it actually followed the true story. Instead of something elegiac, which would really capture the pain of such confusion, we instead have this rote melancholy surrounded by plot devices. This isn't "I have to win my wife back because she can't remember me," this is "I have to win my wife back because she can't remember me and these things stand in my way" - if you catch my meaning. McAdams and Tatum are fine to watch (though I don't for a moment by Tatum as the soulful artist/hipster he's supposed to be), but the concept is stretched thin and everything feels so mechanical that it all just feels like an exercise.


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - 3.5/5
(dir. David Fincher)
God help me, this is going to sound shallow... No matter how many plot holes I might spot, or how utterly disgusting and downright nasty some things in this movie are, I just couldn't dislike it. Even during the (multiple) (anal) rape scenes, or the (multiple) drawn out, grisly torture scenes, I couldn't tear my eyes away. And this wasn't attraction by disgust (a la Cannibal Holocaust, which purposely tries to offend every possible sensibility), this was attraction by respect. For all its problems, its shoddy storytelling, its overlong/redundant/non sequitur conclusion, and its weak characterizations/motivations, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remains engaging, interesting, and (yes) entertaining because it is such a great example of filmmaking. Every single shot is perfectly composed, adding layers of depth and intrigue to a story which (frankly) seems more built on shock than suspense; the music ebbs and flows with the moods of its protagonists; and actors do such a great job that you forget that you basically know nothing about them - they're plot devices, travelling around gathering red herrings and MacGuffins, but you really don't care because they're so interesting to watch. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is full of such devices and problems, but it's so exquisitely crafted and finessed that you just don't care. You want to watch these horrible things. David Fincher may be Hollywood's most skilled filmmaker - too bad Hollywood doesn't seem to care.

Prometheus - 2.5/5
(dir. Ridley Scott)
What a paradox... Like Fincher's aforementioned The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Prometheus is a visual marvel. Beautiful to watch, the film is awash with wonderful imagery... but unlike that film, Prometheus is undercut by inadequate (even inappropriate) material. Specifically, the film is too smart for the script. The story starts off well, with ambitions no less lofty than the very origin of species and the relationship of man, god, and creation... but then quickly devolves into standard horror fare, constantly bringing these questions up again only to sidestep them and kill off some side characters. Prometheus is, in short, a disappointment. I was expecting great things, instead I got only mediocrity. I commend the film and its makers for bringing up such Big Questions, but if you're never going to address them (really address them, that is - a few characters constantly raise the questions, no matter what is happening in the scene or the rest of the film, but these rumblings seem to be more reminders than actual discussions), then it's all for naught. There are likewise some massive mistakes in the basic science of the film (I know, I know - it's science-fiction, but I'm talking about fact-checking, not conceptual items)... It all adds up to a film which is profoundly shallow, and I get the feeling that if this existed on its own rather than as part of the Alien series, it would have been much, much better. Unfortunately, we have to take the movie as it is, not as it should be, and Prometheus is simply not good enough.


Hanna - 3/5
(dir. Joe Wright)
A friend of mine summarized Hanna as "Run Lola Run, but with a plot." While I find his comment too dismissive of Tykwer's wonderful little film, he's not entirely off the mark. Hanna is almost entirely about itself: how it looks, how it sounds, how it feels. There is very little character development; in fact, many times the only thing which distinguishes one character from another (really) is a particular accent or costume color scheme. Like Run Lola Run, the music and editing drive Hanna more than any identifiable story, which can be summarized thus: Hanna has been genetically modified and trained to be a super soldier, and when the government finds out about her, they want to kill her before word gets out that she is an experiment gone awry. Tykwer's influence is clear, but I also detected a pretty sizeable influence from Wayne Kramer's fantastic Running Scared, especially with all the fairy tale/fantasy elements. Hanna only exists in a filmic sense, which both emboldens the film and hinders it. A hesitant recommendation.


Brave - 3/5
(dir. Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, & Steve Purcell)
For Pixar, this is slumming... Not that Brave is a bad movie or anything, it's just so... typical. There is not one moment within Brave's entire running time that you wonder what is going to happen, or if the princess will succeed. So what, you say - the same is true of virtually all kids' movies. Too true, but Pixar has branded themselves by being surprising. We knew Wall-E and Eva would succeed, but there was a sense of desperation in the villains and characters that actually set your heart racing and made you wonder if they would... likewise, we knew the Incredibles would be victorious and the family would be all the stronger, but I don't think anyone expecting the villain to be so cunning and threatening... It's these little things that set great family films apart from something like Brave, which never has the guts to take a chance with its characters or its material. The film speaks on themes like fate, destiny, and changing your fate by following your destiny... Perhaps if Brave wasn't so fated in virtually every scene, it would fit in with Pixar's destiny.


MUSIC

Clockwork Angels - 4/5
by Rush
I'd venture to say that despite their near-four-decade career, it's probably never been a better time to be a Rush fan... or maybe even an actual member of the band. Just a couple years ago, the band had a highly-acclaimed documentary hits movie theaters; they've been on the Colbert Report; their latest tour was so successful they actually put off finishing this very album... Everything's coming up roses for the Canadian power trio, and it's actually a kind of vindication for them and their fans. Any Rush fan worth his salt has been a fan for years (these are not "fair weather" fans interested in the latest single - they stick around), and it really does provide some comfort when an obscure band of gifted musicians finally gets their due... That said, though, how's the album? Clockwork Angels is, thankfully, really damned good. Fast-paced, hard-hitting, endlessly listenable and entertaining - everything a good album should be. And it's a concept album! So if you really want to, you can delve into the lyrics and examine a fully fledged narrative about oppression, suppression, and the triumph of free will (pet topics of lyricist/master drummer Neil Peart) - but each track also manages to stand on its own, drawing comparisons to The Who's Tommy. Long cast to the sidelines as a "second-tier" guitarist, Alex Lifeson shows that he's still got some fire to those fingers - all the more impressive when most men half his age couldn't manage these licks. Tracks like "Headlong Flight," "Caravan," and "BU2B" highlight the band's legendary musical skills, but "Wish Them Well" and "The Garden" also manage to show a soft side the band has mostly ignored. It goes without saying that the album plays better if you're a fan, but I'd be willing to venture that Clockwork Angels packs enough punch to win some converts. Welcome back, boys.


BOOKS

Cloud Atlas - 3.5/5
by David Mitchell
English author David Mitchell has earned himself quite a reputation over the past thirteen years. Of a scant five novels, two have been short-listed for the esteemed Man Booker Prize (and two others were long-listed). Cloud Atlas is one of these. One of the major problems with Cloud Atlas is that it's kind of a gimmick... okay, not kind of a gimmick - it is a gimmick. Six individual stories are told such that they interrupt each other about halfway through, until you get to the sixth story, which is told all the way through; and then you work your way back through the conclusions of the remaining five. So you start with one character, read his tale, which is then interrupted (sometimes mid-sentence) by another tale, which is likewise interrupted by another tale, and so on, like a series of nesting dolls. And on top of that, each story takes place in a different timeframe, a different part of the globe, and is written in a distinct style. For example, the opener is set in the nineteenth century and is written as a diary; jump ahead to an epistolary written by an arrogant orchestral composer; then to a seedy crime novel set in the 60s; then a dystopia full of clones and product placement, a la Philip K Dick... you get the idea. The novel forces you to recognize Mitchell's talent, and at times his prose can be so clever it borders on inane... And yet, it remains something special, unique, at times extraordinary. You get caught up in the gimmick. Each story is absorbing, engaging, funny, shocking - you could resent Mitchell for his skill and intelligence, or you could just give in and admire him. Besides just keeping track of what is going on, there are a number of major themes here which beg to be examined further... Some of these are made pretty obvious (toward the end, for instance, a number of passages deal explicitly with the permanence of war and man's violent nature), but others remain much more intriguing and subtle (for example, the cyclic nature of the novel underlies the unstated theme of reincarnation; or the abrupt shifts in time/space can be indicative of our own memories or perceptions of time and location). I'm very intrigued to see how on Earth a movie can be made out of this, but it will also be nice to see such a challenging yet rewarding book get the inevitable boost from that adaptation.