Review: Enjoyable. Discuss.

Time Magazine's Richard Corliss wrote a not-so-favorable review of Robert Schwentke's Red, the action comedy based on Warren Ellis' graphic novel of the same name, condemning the movie for many of the same reasons that made me like it enough to see twice. I contemplated sharing my thoughts via tweet, but then realized that it would take more than 140 characters (442 so far, counting html; 357 not counting it).

Corliss writes (and I apoligize if I end up quoting a huge block of text, but it's actually a fairly well-written article that I enjoyed reading):

A more thoughtful film might have investigated the chasm between the dreams older people have of reliving their youthful exploits and the exhausting reality of all that running, killing and flirting. But since this is not a movie about defining true-life heroes but rather about watching movie stars, the audience is instead asked to be impressed by the blinding whiteness of Dreyfuss's teeth and Borgnine's ability to look nearly as spry at 93 as he did in The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Bunch, back when he was a colt in his 50s.

Early on, Frank tells Sarah he hopes she'll look back on her kidnapping "as the great big adventure that it is." Red isn't great or big or much of an adventure; it's a movie designed with no loftier intention than to fill the hours on a long plane ride, and it need not be put on anyone's bucket list. Best to think of the film as Hollywood's latest contribution to the stimulus program: it provides gainful employment for some very pleasing stars and modest enjoyment for the rest of us.

This is one of the problems I had with many of my cinema studies comrades and with cinephiles in general. They make it sound like a bad thing to go to the movies, buy popcorn, and have a good time. I've quoted him before, and I'll quote him again, so like my professor/advisor Pat Day once said (and I paraphrase because he said this three years ago and I have a terrible memory), "Some movies are brussel sprouts, and some movies are twinkies. Some people like brussel sprouts, but some people like twinkies, and that's okay too."

My mom often makes fun of my for liking "bad movies." She says she questions my taste, and wonders if I learned anything from my four years at Oberlin. My response is that yes, I enjoy "bad" movies. I also enjoy great movies, and mediocre ones as well. Watching a movie is an enjoyable experience, and rarely do I leave a theatre/turn off my TV/computer thinking that the last ~2 hours were a waste of time and money-- M. Night Shyamalan's recent Airbender movie a glaring exception. That movie was just awful. Worst thing I've ever seen.

But I digress.

I liked Red. I realize it wasn't Oscar-worthy, but it was $30 worthy (which is about what I spent on tickets and concessions).

Take that, Corliss.

Six Directors I Like and Why

Hello again, I'm here with another post. I could start playing catch up and talk about everything that's happened since I last wrote, but I'll save that for another time.

This time I'm going to talk about, as you may have guess from the title, directors.

As I was formulating this post in my head last night when I couldn't sleep, I started with three directors, then moved to four, then five, then decided to round it up to six partly because six is my favorite number, and partly because I thought of someone else.

A note of clarification before we begin: this is not a "best of" list, nor is it a list of my favorite directors. This is a list of six (current) directors who I like and feel like talking about. They're not the only directors to display the traits I discuss, they're just the ones I decided on. They're in no particular order, other than the order in which I thought of them and an order which flows well one into the next.
That said, let's begin.


An Overview

When I tell people what my major is was (omg wtf past tense), they often ask me what's my favorite movie. This is a really hard question for me to answer. Maybe I'm taking the easy route, but mostly I can't answer because I like way too many movies. I enjoy almost every movie I see. That's why I love cinema, that's why I became a Cinema Studies major, that's why I've seen six movies in the three weeks since I graduated.

Similarly, people ask who my favorite director is. Here's what I usually tell them:


1. Michel Gondry

What I love about Michel Gondry, and what sets him apart from many other directors, is his limitless creativity. Most directors have an idea, then work with the tools and resources available to them to achieve it. Gondry has an idea, then creates a new method of achieving it. James Cameron did it by inventing a new camera / 3D motion capture technology. Gondry does it using cardboard and string. It's very kid-in-his-parent's-basement cinema.

Sometimes his ideas are the processes themselves, leading him to film something just to try out his new method-- as in tying strings to Bjork's fingers which were connected to bottles of paint suspended over a piece of paper, so that as she played piano, the camera (set to turn with the spin art turntable below) captured a painting in progress, timed perfectly to the music because it was created by the music.

Gondry's work is always whimsical and fantastical, but at the same time real and accessible. He makes me want to try a certain shot or effect, and gives me the confidence that I can figure out a way to do it. If I write more about Gondry than the other directors, it's only because I've written papers on him before and I absolutely love him.

Must-see Gondry: (movies) Be Kind Rewind, The Science of Sleep; (commercials) Smirnoff - Smarienberg (pre-Matrix era bullet time), Levi's - Mermaid, Diet Coke - Tingle & Bounce; (music videos) Oui Oui - Les Cailloux, Lucas - Lucas With the Lid Off, Cibo Matto - Sugar Water, The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar, The White Stripes - Hardest Button to Button, Steriogram - Walkie Talkie Man, Kanye West - Heard 'Em Say


2. Guy Ritchie

Ritchie's work is impeccable. What I like most about him is his pacing. His writing, editing, and execution are flawless and compelling. He's only made 10 movies, but they're 10 fantastic movies. He's a perfectionist, and makes me want to be one too.

I don't have much to say about Guy Ritchie, other than I really like his movies.

Must-see Ritchie: Snatch, Rocknrolla, Sherlock Holmes


3. Tarsem (aka Tarsem Singh)

Tarsem is first a storyteller, second an artist, and third a director. His movies take on a scale that sweeps the globe and gives you the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Where some directors would rely on special effects and CGI, you know Tarsem actually went to some far off country, constructed a 50-foot tall set, bought 80 yards of fabric, and got 100 people running, spinning, and dancing (numbers made up, and I'm talking of no one scene in particular).

Like Ritchie, Tarsem hasn't made many movies (a grand total of two, with a third filming), but he honed his craft in commercials. Unfortunately, this makes it really hard to track down a full list of his works. I met him last summer while I was interning at Radical (see July 21st of last year), and I highly recommend you check out his Radical site to see more of his work.

Must-see Tarsem: (movies) The Fall, The Cell; (music videos) REM - Losing My Religion; (commercials) Gatorade - The Quest for G, Nike - Good vs. Evil


4. Julie Taymor

No, I'm not including Julie Taymor just because she's an Oberlin alumna and she spoke at my graduation, or because she's a woman and the feminist in me needed a woman on the list. I'm including her because, like Tarsem, she's a storyteller who goes to great lengths to share an experience with the viewer. Taymor flawlessly blends Shakespearean tradition; Indonesian tradition; and her modern, liberal, Obie perspective to create one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable projects. I never got the chance to see her production of Lion King and boy, do I regret it.

Must-see Taymor: Titus, Across the Universe
I'm also looking forward to The Tempest and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (there, I said it).


5. Takashi Miike

Where Tarsem takes years planning and Ritchie takes years perfecting, Takashi Miike just makes and makes and makes. He's one of the most prolific directors I've ever heard of: over 70 titles to his name, 15 in the years 2001-2002 alone. He doesn't pidgeon-hole himself, either. He is a master of horror, action, and not quite family-friendly fantasy, while maintaining in all of his films a bizarre dramaticism.

Must-see Miike: out of all his work, I've only seen Audition and Yatterman, but on my own personal must-see list there's Ichi the Killer, Zebraman, Crows Zero, and Crows Zero 2.


6. Jon Favreau

To be honest, I know way more about Jon Favreau as an actor as I do a director, but what I like about him is that he can do both (and do both well) without carrying around the cliché "actor/director" label. He's also very accessible, updating fans on his films' progress via twitter and responding directly to fan feedback (notably during last summer's Comic Con where he asked what people thought of the cut screened there).

Also, he "credits Dungeons & Dragons with giving him '...a really strong background in imagination, storytelling, understanding how to create tone and a sense of balance.'" (via Wikipedia). He's a geek and that's great.

Must-see Favreau: (as actor) PCU, Swingers (which he also wrote), Friends; (as director) Elf, Zathura, Iron Man, Iron Man 2





So, there you have it. Six directors I like and why. There are a lot of other people I could have included, but I'm happy with these six.

Chris out.

FX Wizardry!

I work 3 hour shifts at the Media Lab every Wednesday, which means a lot of time with not a lot to do.

So, I've decided to work on teaching myself how to do the Special Effects editing I'll need for my senior project, then uploading my progress onto YouTube.


last week




this week

Arrr!

I know it's been forever, and as I'm no longer in California, the purpose of this blog has changed slightly. I'm not going to explain why I haven't been updating regularly, other than to say that I suck at this and you shouldn't expect me to write very much very often.

That said, I was listening to Stephen Fry's podgram from the 2009 iTunes Live Festival, which got me thinking about piracy and copyright issues in the digital age.

In his podgram, the amazing Mr. Fry talks about the history of intellectual property, starting from the first homo sapiens telling stories to one another around the fire; to the invention of writing on clay, wax, and papyrus; to the church taking over and restricting access to language; through to Gutenberg's printing press, Edison's phonograph, reel-to-reel tap recorders, readily available cassette recorders; all the way to bittorrent, YouTube, and Napster. He expresses his somewhat controversial views that the recording/production industry is taking entirely the wrong approach to file sharing by coming down too hard on so-called "pirates." He says that certainly people who do it on a large enough scale as to make money off of bootlegging enterprises should be stopped and held responsible for their actions, but the average consumer, who is merely a fan of music or movies or whatever, but is either too poor or too lazy to buy something for themselves, isn't really doing anything wrong.

When cassette tape recorders and VCRs were first released to the public, people were able to start copying albums, movies, radio and TV programs, and sharing them with friends. This isn't so different than what goes on today, except with the World Wide Web, it's happening on a much larger scale. Now it's possible to listen to singles before the album is released, watch movies before they come out on DVD, or even while they're still playing in theaters. Yes, the quality suffers, but it's possible nonetheless.






I pirate music, movies, and TV.

There, I said it. I might get in a lot of trouble for saying it in a public venue, but it's the truth, and I don't think it's an unexpected revelation. (Besides, hardly enough people read this blog as to turn me in to the RIAA or MPAA or whomever)

I'll admit that some of what I download is stuff I should watch/listen to legitimately, but the majority of what I download/stream from less-than-legal sources I do because I can't watch it otherwise.

Those who know me know that I'm an Anglophile and Japanophile, but that I currently live in Ohio, which is almost as far away from England and Japan as one can get. I also don't own a TV, and even when I'm somewhere with a TV, I hardly have time to watch it. Still, there are shows/movies I want to watch, things I am a huge fan of! So I download as many episodes as I can get my hands on. Later, when I have the means, I very well might purchase legitimate merchandise from these people, but as a broke-ass college student who can't afford to import paraphernalia from Japan or the UK all the time, I have to make do.

Another thing I download a lot of are shows that are no longer on television, or backlogs of shows that I've only now jumped on the bandwagon of. Part of it is nostalgia for shows of my childhood, part of it are shows I didn't know about until years or even decades after they left the airwaves.

I don't think my actions make me a criminal. I think they make me a fan. The entertainment industry-- which I have the intention of entering as soon as possible-- survives on fans. Without fans, music, movies, TV, books, video games, et cetera ad infinitum, would serve no purpose and die out. Without people to watch/listen/read/enjoy their work, everything artists do is pure self-indulgence and wouldn't be able to exist in this world/culture/economy.

So you need me, entertainment big-wigs. I contribute.

...just, maybe not as much (financially) as I could or should.