Things we watch in the cinema or on tape, DVD, and streaming
I know some of my readers don’t like reading movie reviews. (Yes, I’m looking at you seed.) Here’s a good one on The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Maybe, I am trying to get a handle of what I saw. I really wanted to like it, but instead the film ruminated upon things I didn’t want to really think too deeply about in the summer. It also was more intellectually challenging than what I was looking for in an X-files film.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe was my most anticipated movie of the summer. I’m an unabashed fan of The X-Files and an even more bigger fan of the Scully character, so you know I was waiting for it: I wanted to believe.
If this was an episode of the series, and not a summer flick, it would’ve felt right at home in the seventh season of the show. The first three seasons were brilliant. The fourth and fifth seasons occurred at the show’s height of popularity with the fifth season anticipating the first theatrical film. After the first movie, the underrated Fight the Future, the show began its slide to mediocrity. The sixth season was a let down. The seventh season had the cast wanting out. The eighth and ninth seasons were the show in decline both as a pop culture leader and a good story. In the age of George W Bush, the fucktard president, the government spying on you isn’t a bug it’s a feature, so being paranoid is actually recognizing the truth.
So, I Want to Believe is a seventh season episode on the big screen. We have the dynamics of Scully and Mulder already outed as a couple (the noromo in me hates it). Their relationship colored by their love for each other. We have the story with hints at religion and faith which signifies a very Scully-centric film. She always has to explore the meaning of her faith in both the natural world of science and the supernatural world of paranormal activities, and she comes back to believing in herself as Mulder does, too. We have the point of view of the series shifting to Scully. In season seven, David Duchovny wanted out and slowly drifted away from Fox Mulder, and the series began to focus on Gillian Anderson and Scully.
This film was all Scully’s. She’s the first of the couple to be shown. And she was doing what we all knew she would be doing after the show ended: a doctor saving lives. When you watch it and feel the emotion of the ending to both the show and the characters, you end up knowing now that The X-Files was as much about Scully as it was about Mulder. She was, in the Pilot, the person that introduces you to the show. She is the heart of the relationship of Mulder and Scully swinging from non-believer/sceptic to a believer in Mulder. She’s just plain awesome. And to find that a summer flick devoting time to the female lead is jarring especially one so intellectual.
And that’s what was wrong with the film. It was not a summer movie. Like The Dark Knight its story is suited for darker evenings than the sunny skies of July. The exploration of faith and relationships, the lack of action, and wordiness of the film add up to a December prestige film rather than a summer blockbuster. And I was ready for a summer blockbuster. I wanted aliens, time travelers or ESP’ers. What I got was religion again, which as the series waned bored me. I needed them to chase something and that something to be more mysterious and harder to explain than a real serial killer.
But I got Scully. And I got Mulder. Both of them on the big screen made me happy. This was their swan song. Pairing this film with the first, you’ll find the wide range of stories inherent in the show. Only thing was it was a summer film not an episode on the television.
2 of 5 stars.
Since cutting back on my Netflix watching, I haven’t been too concerned when holding onto a film. It takes me a few days to get to my latest red envelope and a few days to send it right back.
My latest was the Japanese romantic comedy, Densha Otoko (Train Man). I’ve watched it twice and feel that I like it.
It’s the story of a Japanese otaku who saves a woman on a train from a drunken salary man. The savior gets a nice thank you gift from her, and they end up going out for dinner. You can imagine where it goes from here: straight to love.
What’s interesting about the film is that it was inspired by a seemingly true tale on 2channel, a Japanese message board. The eponymous Train Man wrote the tale onto this message board and received the help of its denizens to woo this girl.
Could this have been real? Or was it another internet hoax?
I don’t know but I liked the simple tale of geek falling for the girl. Or the girl falling for the geek. Simply adorable. And so heartwarming. It’s for all the inhabitants of the internet who get no love and want to aspire to that transcendent state.
The film follows the Train Man as he gets up the nerve to ask her out. His internet buddies cheering him on. He cleans himself up to not be too geeky and to be more human. His internet buddies guide and coach him. He falls for the girl and his internet buddies help him move their relationship forward. His internet buddies also gain from him as they take on assess their lives, loves and relationships they have in the meatspace.
While this is not for everyone, it’s really enjoyable for those lovelorn geeks in all of us. And also Miki Nakatani is cute.
4 of 5 stars.
On the Marvel-DC comics divide, I fall squarely in the Marvel camp. I know the rudimentary aspects of the DC universe. I know the major characters, their origins and even some of their story lines. I know some of the tangibles of the DC universe, but honestly, I really don’t care too much with any of the DC heroes. They were too “SuperFriend-ly” for me and seem to have that wholesomeness still grafted onto them. For what they are they can not be too dark.
Enter the new revisionist take on DC. Starting with Infinity Crisis, DC begins to remake themselves into a more grittier universe. Batman always being so dark takes on the mantle of chief dark character in the DC universe. Frank Miller writes the ultimate Batman tale of urban grit and grime in the immortal, The Dark Knight Returns, and ever since then it’s been a brooding, sinister, hard boiled Gotham for the Batman to prowl.
Tim Burton makes a splash with Batman and adds some color to Bruce Wayne’s Gotham. It was a joyous romp taking inspiration from Miller’s The Dark Knight, but adding some sense of whimsy and playfulness to Gotham. Burton knew that he’s doing a comic book movie. His main character is a man in a tight fitting suit. While embracing Miller’s Darkness, Burton weaved into the Batman movie a feel of enjoyment in the comic book.
Almost twenty years on and the DC universe goes through another revision to make it more darker. Superman has a kid. And Batman, well, he’s dark and all.
The first Batman movie of this century, Batman Begins, takes place in the more modern Gotham. It’s like a version of New York in an alternate time. Yet, it still had some fun as a comic book movie: Ra’s Al Ghul, the Scarecrow.
The Dark Knight lacks any sense of comic book-ness and instead goes for reality. You know it when the Joker’s sense of playfulness arises from being completely psychotic. The film is not a summer comic book movie to enjoy, but one to sit in the dark and meditate on what darkness lies in men’s souls. Is the Batman dark? Is the Joker dark? Their souls are joyless in this movie and the seriousness hurts it as a fun time.
And it was forty minutes too long with several endings. I thought the Joker was the main baddy. He’s joined by TwoFace. And then the Penguin, Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy would show up next. Yet, if they did, it would ruin the seriousness of the movie, because we must be shown that in all of us there is a darkness and a happiness battling it out all the time. Except for the Joker who is a loon.
So The Dark Knight bored me. Every turn in the plot made me cringe. “What more is there,” I thought exasperated! And can’t they capture one guy shooting at the mayor while surrounded by the entire police force? I mean this was at a police funeral with everyone on high alert. I mean everyone. Right down to the mayor’s wife! Everyone should’ve been ready and when the shots occurred not twenty feet from the mayor and twenty feet from several hundred officers the best the police could do was duck and cover?! How convenient. Let’s just add another forty minutes to the movie. It’ll just suck all fun from what should’ve been a comic book romp of ass kicking goodness.
And that’s my problem with The Dark Knight. Its soul as a comic book movie probably died with Heath Ledger. They wanted to make it more serious in tribute to the fallen actor so that the audience can remember him as a serious actor not as a man dressed up as a clown. Yet, the clown show is what we wanted to see. His jokes were not funny, just ask the guy the guy about the pencil.
Most likely, my reaction to the film comes from my Marvel fandom. Not one to associate myself to much with the DC universe, I could care less about their major characters. They bore me. So too with this film.
2 of 5 stars.
I would be remiss if I forget to note that today would’ve been Barbara Stanwyck’s 101st birthday.
Watch one of her movies today. Let me suggest Walk on the Wild Side. It’s got a little bit of yuri flavor to it. And a fiesty Jane Fonda.
While TheSeed was sleeping and Marge was fighting to keep awake, I was struggling to block the headache induced by new car fumes. We were all trying to watch Hellboy II.
This one had a lot more action. It was quicker paced and it had more laughs. I was missing that one dude from the first movie, but he was written out because he stood out like a sore thumb. Hellboy is still a great character and Ron Perlman is the perfect actor for that role. Abe Sapien gets no love from the writers, but watching it you would’ve guessed the ending anyway since it will always be that way for fate-intwined twins. Johann Krauss was hilarious. He is a cartoon character what with the voice of Ludwig von Drake!
I don’t know if this was del Tormo’s Hellboy or Mignola’s. I can’t imagine Mignola writing something featuring that menagerie of creatures. They were all too vivid. I haven’t read the Hellboy comics too much, but they don’t seem to dabble in ancient mythological history of elves, but of Lovecraftian design. The monsters were more del Tormo.
3 of 5 stars.
“You know something Fox. Right now in Europe they’re trying some 80 year-old camp guard for Nazi war crimes. And all around our country they got guys on death row for murdering 1, 2, 3 guys. And they probably deserve what they’re going to get. But you & I… we know a couple of people that are personally responsible for the death of what, 50,000 non-military personnel? Librarians, teachers, doctors, women, children. All dead! We’ve wiped-out entire cultures! And for what? Not one C.I.A. agent has ever been tried, much less accused of any crimes. You guys think you’re above the law. Well, you ain’t above mine.”
Nico Toscani (Steven Seagal), Above the Law
Wall E: Amazing first hour. Silent film. Second hour a little bit shaky as a story. Liked the deranged robot room like the robot torture chamber in Jedi.
4 of 5 stars.
Hancock: Unexpected. Surprised. Somewhat delighted. Amazed that some Hollywood producer would have the nerve to create a comic book character without the comic book. First movie in a while that tried to establish its own universe. You knew from the first minute you realized that Charlize Theron was in the movie that something was going to happen.
3 of 5 stars.
“I am leaving soon and you’ll forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure. Now this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. A t the first signs of violence they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is we live in peace without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war, free to pursue more profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”
Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Stilll
Wall-E and how it was made. From the perspective of the director of photography. Pretty neat stuff, but I always wonder what a DP would be doing in an animated movie?
