the songs of angry men

January 20, 2013April 2, 2016 ~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ Leave a comment

I got caught up on some movies this weekend.

First I saw Les Misérables. Definitely worth seeing, if you're down with the whole singing thing. I understand that some people aren't.

I loved the way it violated so many of the "rules" for screenwriting. If you gave this script to one of those three-act-screenplay gurus, he'd probably go hide under the couch until you took it away again.

(I guess. technically, spoilers follow.)

After all, this is a story where:

The protagonist and the antagonist are mostly missing from the second half of the story, and when they do have their final confrontation, it's resolved by the protagonist being so nice to the antagonist that he goes off and commits suicide.
The lead female character dies halfway through the story (see also: Psycho).
There's a "love triangle" where there's not a moment's doubt about how it will be resolved, and where our sympathies are entirely with the one who is spurned.
There's a big rousing finale, sung by characters who are all dead.

Plus, there are those theater (and Hollywood) staples: "Comic relief" characters who aren't in the least comic, and a completely unsuccessful attempt by a female character to pass for a man (which all the other characters accept, of course – see also: Sullivan's Travels).

I'm sure there are rules about all of this.

My other comments are:

1) Some people were surprised that Tom Hooper wasn't nominated for Best Director. I'm not. Just because you can direct The King's Speech, which was basically a series of conversations in rooms, that doesn't make you the right director for this. Some of the songs are shot very awkwardly, and in the battle scenes it's impossible to figure out what's going on. Directing a movie is more than how you use the camera, but that is an important part of it.

2) I have to start paying more attention to Anne Hathaway. This was the second movie I've seen this week where she was the best thing in it, by a significant margin (and the other one, The Dark Knight Rises, was a somewhat different kind of picture). I enjoyed many things about the second half of Les Miz, but I wasn't really moved by anything after Fantine died (though Samantha Barks as Eponine was really good, other than her inability to look anything like a guy).

I also saw Django Unchained. Tarantino's non-nomination for Best Director must have been because of the controversy, because it's difficult to believe that there were five films in 2012 which were better directed than this one. Fierce, funny, smart, with wonderful dialog and audacious (and perfect) use of music.

One specific comment, in the context of Tarantino's entire career. In my review of Kill Bill, I pointed out how his movies (until then) had been moving steadily from focusing on men to focusing on women. Since then, he's been going back the other way. He has said that he considers Shosanna Dreyfus to be the protagonist of Inglourious Basterds, but I doubt if a lot of people would agree with him.

In this movie, about the only disappointing element was how passive Kerry Washington's character was. Just waiting around to be rescued, and then not even participating in the rescue when it's happening. What would Beatrix Kiddo say? (Heck, what would Princess Leia say? 🙂 )

I read one article about Zero Dark Thirty (which I haven't seen) and it said that the problem is not that the movie depicts torture, but that the movie tries not to indicate any opinion about the subject. If I remember where I read the article I'll link to it, but my point in mentioning it here is that there isn't a moment in Django Unchained when you're not aware of how Tarantino feels about slavery (and everything that's connected with it). Not because characters sit around making speeches about it (the big speech in the movie is in favor of it, actually), but because of his control of the actors, the camera, the music, and all the other elements of a movie.

It is, if I can make the comparison, like reading Henry James – that powerful authorial statement about the morality of what's being depicted.

I could use some examples. but I don't want to give anything away. I'll suggest instead that you go see it.

three great scenes, no bad ones

October 4, 2012 ~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 8 Comments

Martin, over at writeafirstnovel, posted about "Big scenes, little scenes."

That post made me think about the movie director Howard Hawks. Someone asked him once to define what made a great movie. His answer was, "Three great scenes, no bad ones."

I've seen this cited in a few different articles about movies, but there are times when I think the writer has missed the point. It doesn't say "three great big scenes," after all. Sometimes the great scenes aren't the big ones, the ones which drive the plot. Sometimes they're the quiet ones in between.

My response to Martin's post said:

One example would be the Lord of the Rings movies. The big battle scenes are really big -- lots of special effects and digitally-created crowds and things flying through the air and whatnot -- but the scenes I remember the best are the conversations. Sam and Frodo, Aragorn and Eowyn, Pippin and Gandalf, Aragorn and Theoden.

Here are two examples from Hawks' movies:

In To Have and Have Not, the plot involves whether Bogart's character will take a dangerous job because he needs money, but the movie is only petending to be a thriller – it's a love story (in dangerous conditions) between Bogart's character and Lauren Bacall's. Her character has nothing to do with the plot, but the scenes between the two of them, with Hawks' usual crackling sharp dialogue (provided in this case by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner), are what people remember about the movie. I'm sure there are fans who could quote the Bogart/Bacall scenes from memory but couldn't tell you where the movie even took place.

In Rio Bravo, the plot involves whether a dangerious gang can lay siege to Sheriff John Chance's jail and free their cohort, who's being held for murder. The movie sets this situation up and then proceeds to ignore it for an hour, entertaining us with various interactions between Chance and his few (and very flawed) associates. (This was the model for the Avengers movie, BTW, where all the good parts involve scenes between the various heroes while the villain is in their custody.)

One thread that runs throughout Rio Bravo is that Chance's long-time deputy, Dude, has become an alcoholic, and will he be able to keep it together under the pressure of the siege? This is a fairly light-hearted movie, but this question is treated very seriously throughout (and without easy or pat answers), and the scenes between John Wayne (who plays the Sheriff) and Dean Martin (who plays Dude) are the best in the picture, though they don't have much to do with the mechanics of the plot.

Ther's one scene, near the end, which may be the best in the picture. Dude has failed. He's been captured, humiliated, and (in his mind, at least) replaced as deputy, and he's decided he really isn't any good any more (professional competence is always huge in Hawks pictures). He's sitting in the sheriff's office, about to take a drink The others are watching him, not about to say anything or interfere, and he pours the drink. Then, as he's about to drink it, he hears the "Deguello" music from outside. That's the music the bad guys are playing to remind them of the hopelessness of their situation. And, with an absolutely steady hand, Dude pours the drink back into the bottle.

It's a very quiet scene, with almost no dialogue, no big speeches or action, and it doesn't have a huge impact on the plot (Dude's decision doesn't determine how things go after that, and in fact he's taken prisoner again before the end), but it is a great scene.

I'm always leery of the advice I read here and there to get rid of any scene in a story that doesn't advance the plot. You could very easily end up with a very efficient engine that goes straight ahead, never slowing to look at the scenery and never turning to follow any interesting side roads.

movies (and a cautionary tale)

August 7, 2012November 23, 2012 ~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 2 Comments

I'm writing a couple of posts that aren't done yet, so here are a few comments about some current and upcoming movies (and other things):

1. I want to see Beasts of the Southern Wild.

2. David Cronenberg can be effective when he's being conventional and historical (as in A Dangerous Method), but his best movies are the ones that no other director could ever have made (Naked Lunch, eXistenZ). It looks like Cosmopolis could be one of the latter ones.

3. Still eagerly awaiting Resident Evil Retribution.

4. I am one of those people who views with dismay the news that The Hobbit will now be made into three movies. I was dubious about two movies, but three? I gather Jackson et al will be bringing in lots of material from other Tolkien writings, but will it then really be The Hobbit, a book which is very different in tone from Lord of the Rings? Yes, I know, the Lord of the Rings movies are great, but by that logic Prometheus would be as good as Alien. Which it isn't.

5. Oh, and here's today's cautionary tale (nothing to do with movies): "How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking." Repeat it with me: If data doesn't exist in three places, it doesn't exist. And "three places" means three different places, not connected to each other.

Later: A few more articles about the cautionary tale. There are some good suggestions in the second one:

prometheus seen

June 19, 2012November 23, 2012 ~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 4 Comments

Following up on my earlier post. I did finally manage to see Prometheus.

Well.

On the positive tip, there are some incredible scenes (no spoilers, but I'm referring to a scene of heroic self-sacrifice, and a scene with a surgical procedure). Fassbender, Theron, and Idris Elba are very good, and Noomi Rapace is great. I think the movie's many flaws would be more apparent with another actress in that role.

Many things look great, but that's mostly because they look like Alien. (Oh, and by the way, this is a prequel to Alien – you can see the pieces shifting into their proper alignment – and I think that Ridley Scott's comment that it wasn't a prequel but that it "shares some DNA" was intended as a joke, given how important DNA is to the film.)

The problem is that, common DNA aside, this movie loses the great virtues of Alien (a defined space, a discreet and clearly-defined group of characters, a hidden menace, and a clear connection between the plot and the underlying meaning) and replaces with with a lot of different elements that don't hold together.

Do you want to enjoy it as a scifi adventure film? It's constantly poking you with its "I have deeper meaning!" stick. Do you want to think about the deeper questions? Some of them the movie doesn't answer, and others it is clearly leaving for a possible sequel, where (I have the feeling) they won't be definitely answered either.

When I failed to see this movie the first time, I saw The Avengers instead, and they have an interesting difference, and an interesting similarity.

The difference is that The Avengers has basically two ambitions: to entertain you for two hours, and to get you to want to see all the various movies which will follow it (more Iron Man, more Thor, more Captain America, I guess possibly some Hulk, possibly some Black Widow, and more Avengers). In that, with the caveats I wrote about before, it succeeds. Prometheus has more ambitions, but it succeeds at some and fails at others.

The similarity, and this has application to anybody who does serial storytelling, is that neither movie stands alone. The Avengers has to follow the four movies which preceded it, and lead into the ones that follow, and that constricts the options at every turn. Prometheus has to leave things in their proper alignment for Alien, and it also has to leave the audience wanting Prometheus II. [Later: and as was pointed out by a commenter here, Prometheus is also apparently trying to be a remake of Alien itself (there are quite a few plot points which are clear echoes of the earlier film).]

This is possible to do well, however (and a good thing, too, for me 🙂 ), and thats illustrated by Serenity (which is a better movie than either of these). Serenity had to follow a failed TV show (Firefly), so it has to take up plot threads and characters from the show, but it also has to bring in the audience that never saw the show (presumably the majority). It doesn't do this perfectly, but it does do it very well (I saw it before I saw the show, and am now backtracking to watch the episodes). The ending leaves the door open for more stories, but it does end, and quite satisfyingly. And, like Prometheus, it raises big questions, but it is comfortable with them (as opposed to Prometheus, which always has one foot in and one foot out), and it's clear how the themes relate to the plot.

One final point, which is that Joss Whedon and Ridley Scott are very different types of filmmakers, and therefore comparisons are difficult. Many people, including me, have compared The Avengers to Rio Bravo, and Howard Hawks is a good comparison for Whedon. Characters, timing, dialogue, acting, those are where he's focused. There is only one really memorable visual moment in Serenity, and it's an image of a person.

Ridley Scott is a different type of artist. There are some incredible visual moments in this film, and some sequences of sustained action and suspense that are beyond anything in The Avengers (or Serenity).

Joss Whedon will never give you the first few minutes of Blade Runner, and he wouldn't try. But Blade Runner holds together a lot better than Prometheus, partly because back then you could make a science fiction movie that didn't have to lead into sequels. (And, it should be said, Alien produced sequels, but it doesn't set things up for them. There's nothing in Alien that says, "Hey, we're leaving this in place for the next movie!").

At some point I may write about Prometheus and Avatar, which is an interesting comparison, but I think I'll have to wait, since it wouldn't really be possible without spoilers.

prometheus unseen

June 8, 2012November 7, 2012 ~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 8 Comments

As I've said before, I've been looking forward to Prometheus. Ridley Scott, the Alien universe, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, etc. Guy Pearce. What's not to like?

So, I got to the theater in good time. Took my seat. Watched ads, and then watched trailers, and then put on my 3D glasses for the 3D trailers. Saw a few reminders to turn off my cell phone, which I did. Saw a little ad about how much better it is to see movies in a theater as opposed to on a TV set. Then I watched the screen. For a while.

As we, the audience, are all sitting there, looking at the blank screen, I'll tell you about the trailers. Battleship looks moronic, in that way that a lot of movies look moronic these days. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter looks moronic in more unusual way. The Tom Cruise movie where he plays a rock star looks like a bad movie adaptation of a bad Broadway show about bad rock music. It looks like they've invented entirely new ways to be bad, ones that no movie has ever used before.

Total Recall might actually be good, or maybe it's that I generally like movies where Kate Beckinsale kills people.

So, meanwhile, I'm still sitting there. We're all sitting there. The lights go on, they stay on, theater employees come in and tell us various things. I wrote a few pages of the last part of Stevie One (today's lesson: always have paper on you).

They turn off the lights and try again. We see the Abraham Lincoln trailer a few more times (each time giving thanks that it's not the Tom Cruise one).

We see the thing about how much better theaters are than TV sets a few more times. We were, by this point, not a receptive audience for this message. In fact, some guy yelled, "My DVD player works better than this theater!" (Oh, yeah, that was me, and I got a laugh, too. It's all about knowing the crowd.)

Then they gave up and gave us passes. I could have seen the next showing of Prometheus, but the next showing was in 2D, and I've heard the 3D is good, so I decided to see The Avengers instead. There was about 45 minutes before it started, so I sat and wrote more of the last part of Stevie One.

The Avengers was good. The comparisons to Rio Bravo are pretty accurate. A villain is established, then captured, then there's a ton of fun byplay and arguing and so on between the heroes until things have to start getting "interesting" again. Basically, everything you will remember fondly about this movie is in the first two-thirds (though the fight between Thor and Iron Man is stupid). Then things get blown up for a while (and by the way, this movie definitely goes above and beyond my desire to see familiar parts of Manhattan get blown up – but maybe that's just me), and various characters who aren't possibly going to die seem like they're about to be killed.

The best parts? Robert Downey, Jr., of course. Mark Ruffalo is a great addition to the group. Chris Evans is fine as Captain America, but he was a lot more fun as the Human Torch. Samuel R. Jackson does his thing. And I have never been a big Gwyneth Paltrow fan, but I'm realizing that I do like her as Pepper Potts, and it is nice when she shows up. The bickering between Pepper and Tony was about the best part of the second Iron Man movie (or at least I guess it was, since it's the only part I can remember). The villains here are tedious and generic, but so were the villains in Rio Bravo. With certain types of movies that really doesn't matter.

And, of course, there is plenty of snappy Joss Whedon dialogue. But I will say this: if you want to see a really good Joss Whedon film, see Serenity. I just saw it, and it is quite excellent. Now I'm backtracking and watching the episodes of Firefly (the show that preceded Serenity). Whedon is a better writer when he can create his own characters and cast his own actors and have a story that goes where it should, not where it has to go to lead into four more upcoming movies.

But, that being said, there are a lot of pleasures in The Avengers. And then, after that, a lot of explosions.

storytelling lessons from the first class

October 30, 2011July 21, 2016 ~ Anthony Lee Collins ~ 11 Comments

I just re-watched X-Men First Class on DVD and I think there are some good lessons to learn.

There will be some spoilers.

Always remember which stuff is the good stuff.

The first half of the movie is so strong because it's focused on Erik, Charles, and Sebastian Shaw. They are the strongest characters, and their relationships with each other (or, really Erik's relationships with the other two) are by far the most complex and interesting relationships in the movie. The second half is less engaging because more and more time is devoted to the newly recruited X-Men, who are not all that interesting.

The best action scene is in the first half, too (the confrontation between the Coast Guard and Shaw's yacht and how that plays out). Way more compelling than the ending (except, of course, for the final scenes between Erik and Shaw and Charles).

There's been some good discussion of this question ("what is the good stuff?") over at Bunny Ears & Bat Wings, in response to my guest post.

Some things do need to pay off.

As I talked about in the post about Chekhov's gun, not everything needs to pay off, but some things do.

Sebastian Shaw praises Emma's beauty, and then sends her out to freshen his drink (like "a good girl"). Her resentment at this is obvious, but it's never referred to again.

Two of the CIA men talk about getting information about Shaw through "a back channel," indicating that somebody on Shaw's team is really working for them, but this is never referred to again either.

What messages are you sending?

In general, and especially because this is a movie that uses mutants as a metaphor for real minorities, the final good/evil breakdown is unpleasant. Of the X-Men, who ends up on the good side of the ledger? All the generic non-ethnic white men. Who ends up evil? The Jewish guy and the two women. And, of course, the Black guy died early (google "the black guy dies first" to get some idea how predictable this is).

Think through what you're saying.

Throughout the X-Men movies, Charles and Erik debate how humanity and mutants could, or could not, co-exist. Erik always asserts that humanity will try to wipe mutants out. Charles always holds out hope. The events of the movies always show that Erik is right, but the movies never acknowledge this. I gather there will be more sequels, so maybe at some point one of the students will say something like, "Yo, professor, we like you, and we're learning a lot at your school, but, dude, you really need to wise up."

I'll throw in one more.

Sometimes the geeks are right.

Comic book enthusiasts sometimes get worked up when the movies take liberties with comic book stories and characters. I'm pretty relaxed about that, since I realize that changes need to be made, for a variety of reasons. The main thing I want is for the movies to get the characters right, even if the story-lines and relationships are altered.

That was one of the pleasures of the first X-Men movie: it got the characters right (so I didn't really mind the idiotic story). And when I heard that this movie would have Emma Frost (The White Queen), I had high hopes. Emma Frost, at her best, is one of the best characters I've ever read in a comic book. A former villain, still capable of cruelty, she is smart, sarcastic, witty, and complex. (I have a character who is somewhat inspired by her, in fact, though both are really the daughters of Angelique from Dark Shadows.) In the movie, as one critic pointed out, Emma has two characteristics. His words were "bosomy" and "sullen," and that pretty much says it.

What a lost opportunity. At one point, Emma Frost was supposed to appear in the last movie, played by Sigourney Weaver. That might have been something to see. But, of course, a strong female character like that might not have fit that well in such a boy-oriented movie as this one, where the two main female characters spend most of their time trailing along after the men. When Raven says she's been Charles's pet all those years, she's pretty much nailed it – and her solution is to switch her allegiance to Erik instead.

Which is also quite different from Mystique in the comics...

But don't get me started.