Movie Update 12

At this point I'm starting to see the finish line on the list of classic movies I compiled last year (and have repeatedly expanded on since), about in time for Netflix' two disc plan with streaming to increase in price. I might just watch regular old crap for a while after that, though there's plenty of lists I haven't gone through yet, mostly consisting of winners of various awards. Anyway, movies.

American Graffiti


This is the first non-Star Wars film directed by George Lucas that I've seen... not very surprising, since only one other such film exists. It's an entertaining and charming nostalgia-laden film about mid-century cruising culture, which consisted of teenagers in California hooking up and aimlessly driving their cars around town while listening to music. It's obvious Lucas has a history with this sort of thing, and it comes through in the movie, which is too light on plot to really be a sex comedy or anything like that, but tells a simple and interesting story about two high school graduates struggling with whether to go to college at the other side of the country while summer comes to a close. The young cast is pretty good, it's funny, and it's shot well enough to make you forget for a little while what Lucas' career has turned into. Nothing too incredible, but a good film.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


I liked this more than I expected, but it's still pretty far from the best work by David Fincher. Despite the apparent grab for awards with the sentimental, broadly-reaching script and big name cast, you can still definitely tell it's a Fincher movie from the specific color scheme and interesting using of CGI (the effects to create young/old Benjamin are far from real looking, but they're definitely interesting) among other things. And I liked most of the performances, especially surprising ones like Mad Men's Jared Harris as a salty, drunken sea captain. It's just much too long of a movie for how much story it has. It's like screenwriter Eric Roth couldn't think of anything beyond combining an intriguing short story concept with an earlier-set version of Forrest Gump. Some cool ideas, but the experience is kind of a drag.

La Dolce Vita


This is the third film by Federico Fellini that I've seen, and I was again impressed by some things he did without being really drawn in or terribly entertained by the work itself. It's very much a 60s European art film, and is very identifiably good at that. I was somewhat intrigued by the episodic nature of the story, as it progresses through various mostly unrelated events, examining the mindset of the central character. Really though, the part that grabbed my interest the most was when Anita Ekberg was just sort of walking and dancing around on screen, so maybe I'm not quite the target audience. This is another film that was quite long, and I got through it fine but wouldn't want to watch it again.

Nashville


Robert Altman is definitely known for those ensemble casts, and this is a premiere example of that. Nashville is about the coming together of many people, lots of them musicians, at a political rally for a candidate that is never actually seen. Much time is dedicated to the musical performances, and it's quite a long movie, giving fair shake to a lot of different stories. It's a well put together film, and while I'm not familiar with a lot of the cast, they all tend to do good jobs. I didn't like a lot of the movie though, which I found to be incredibly uncomfortable and hard to watch. It's the product of a very dark sense of humor, some real proto-cringe type stuff. I understand what they were going for, but too much of it was too far on the painful side of the spectrum without being that funny. It's just personal taste, and I respect the movie, but I had trouble with it.

Sullivan's Travels


Sullivan's Travels is about a comedy director who thinks people don't know enough about the real suffering going on in the world, and tries after a few false starts to discover real trouble so he can honestly make a movie about it. I tend to like movies that hold up mirrors to Hollywood, and Travels does it about as well as any. It's a nice snappy 40s road comedy, which happens to take a strange, dark, and surprising turn near the end. It's a little off-putting, but not enough to really damage a film that's otherwise got a pretty good point to make about what people really want to get out of cinema, and is honestly just entertaining on its own. The biggest issue is perhaps the movie trying to get me to believe a girl who looked like Veronica Lake would have trouble getting a break in Hollywood, but that's pretty much how movies work. Somehow not as famous as other movies of similar type and quality from the period, but deserving of a watch.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 3

The most common feeling I had as the third season of this show was winding down was that I couldn't even remember why I ever liked Star Wars. And that's a pretty bad thing to be thinking about one of your favorite film series. The Clone Wars is not completely terrible - it looks pretty nice, and there will occasionally be a well crafted action scene, and it will sometimes pay homage to a classic moment from Star Wars or just another old adventure movie which can be fun. But I just find it a drag to turn it on every week, not knowing if it will be tolerable or just completely irritating. There was enough of the former to keep me watching through three seasons, but now that I'm working forty hours a week and have to get the most out of my free time, a half-tolerable show based on a favorite property is not nearly worth it. I now feel that a show is only worth my time if I'm actually excited to see a new episode every week, and there are a number of series that don't fit that bill that I'll be dropping as their latest seasons end this Spring. The Clone Wars is the first.

I just don't identify with hardcore Star Wars fans, I guess. I get no joy out of a universe expanding to the point where it's unrecognizable, or seeing every possible idea from the movies being revisited even if it makes no sense, or learning the origins of every single god damn bit character from the movies that happened to be alive when the show takes place. And some of the original stuff is even worse. Ziro the Hutt returned this season, and watching him and his mother and his interspecies girlfriend was an exercise in seeing how much a cartoon could make me wish I was dead in just 22 minutes. There was a little story arc where Obi Wan and Anakin visited a planet where a family of extremely force sensitive people talked to Anakin about his destiny and all of this nonsense and I felt like I was watching a direct to video fantasy film you'd find buried under stacks of The Land Before Time sequels at the rental store. The show has no real direction, it's basically an anthology series of vaguely Star Wars-related story ideas rather than something that actually has a goal to accomplish. It's filler, a way for kids who think light sabers are awesome to pass time, and there is really no reason in the world for me to watch it, so I won't anymore.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 2

I have to admit this show's come a long way since the execrable movie that kicked it off. It's still not great, and rarely even better than decent, but at least it's not plain bad anymore. They've found some sort of groove and realized what sorts of stories will work for both kids who like shiny lightsabers and grown up dorks like me. There's less goofy crap and more simple yet respectable stories and homages to classic movies from all sorts of genres and periods in cinema. The main characters aren't as annoying, they've been introducing villains that pose an actual threat, and in some cases, like the stellar second half of the season finale, they actually pull off something pretty darn cool.

Not that I didn't have things to complain about. Because the show is kid friendly, not every plot handles some of the dumbed down elements as well as the others. Just things like the sort of logical holes in alien cultures that would never allow them to survive long enough for the Jedi to meet them, and isn't justified as well as other similar science fiction shows because the main audience doesn't care enough to think about it. And when some leaders make bad decisions and miss obvious information, it's easy to wonder how the republic lasted this long before Palpatine took it over. Not that he's immune from some terrible ideas of his own. Also, it's hard to root for the good guys when they spend so much time protecting him. Just screw up and let him die, idiots! You'll save the whole Jedi order! For now I'm going to keep watching though, to see if the upward trend in quality continues, especially since there's a very sad dearth of competent genre television right now.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 1

The first twenty two episode chunk of Lucasarts' continuing struggle to milk the Star Wars name for all its worth is considerably better than the film that preceded it, which isn't saying very much at all. Still, as a weekly, quickly-digested dose of competent action, it's pretty decent. It's still peppered with annoyances, but their relative infrequency and the plot working better to push twenty minutes instead of a whole movie make it much more tolerable. The droids are still dorky and not funny, but they're not making asses of themselves at every available opportunity, and Ziro the Worst Idea Ever is limited to a couple minutes in an otherwise decent finale instead of being a major villain throughout, although that could be a problem for next season. They also managed a way to make Jar Jar Binks even worse, after I had nearly come to terms with his idiocy - make his character model ugly as sin, replace his actual voice actor partway through the season with an even worse imitator, and make his bumbling, unfunny antics the linchpin of several episodes' stories. Impressive.

I could keep going with mistakes and screw-ups, and probably will, I just want to make it clear that unlike the movie, I mostly enjoyed or at least tolerated the series. Star Wars is still an interesting setting to me, so even if what's actually happening is silly or doesn't really make sense, I can usually handle it. The show is more aimed at kids anyway, even though they're going to start airing these episodes on Adult Swim soon. Each episode tries to have a moral, which can be grating but fine enough, and there are some multi-episode story arcs that are often pretty decent. There's some inconsistency in the art and animation, with some characters and even entire episodes looking kinda bad, though they're getting the hang of doing a decent light saber duel at least. I'm really not a big fan of the art style, although by this point I've gotten used to it. Only children and big Star Wars fans need apply, but it's not terrible.

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Return of the Jedi is what made me like Star Wars and will always be special to me, even if I can see how the predecessor was superior as a film. I like stories with good endings, and Jedi puts a nice bow on the series, with the destruction of the bad guys and redemption of the most important character. A lot of people hated the Ewoks, and I can see why, but at least they had the balls to show them getting killed. From the opening on Tatooine to the speeder bike chase to the final battle in three locations, Jedi is packed with some of the series' best action scenes, which are better than a lot of the vastly more technically complex and visually busy ones in the prequels. The emperor's also a much more effective villain when he's sitting in a chair and pressing every button the good guy has than when he's cackling and spinning around with a lightsaber. He really knows how to twist the knife.

To be honest, I'm about tapped out on things to say about the Star Wars movies. Marquand seems like an okay director, but he never really did much else. Seeing all the hanging threads get resolved was good. I really hope the children of the future don't watch all the movies in chronological order, because the prequels really just ruin all the great moments from the sequels, including one of the best twists ever. Will people even really want to show them to their kids, after so many claimed that the new ones raped their childhoods? Maybe not. That catfish guy who flies in the Millenium Falcon with Lando is pretty weird. I now find it weird that Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar just show up and act all important in this one. Why haven't we seen or heard of them before? Carrie Fisher used to look really good in a bikini. The redone musical number in Jabba's palace for the special edition is completely moronic. I checked out the original ending on Youtube, and I'm not bothered that they replaced the Yub Nub song. I think I did a pretty good job of padding this out. I'm done now.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Is it a coincidence that what is generally regarded as the best Star Wars film was not directed by George Lucas, and that he doesn't even have a screenplay credit? It does make you think a bit. I'm not a huge fan of cliffhangers myself, but Empire is a good film that improves on the first one in a lot of ways. Without an obvious goal to shoot for, the movie is more about developing the characters than moving them all towards a big climax, and it really succeeds at doing that. Han and Leia's love story is not only 100 times better executed than Anakin and Amidala's, it's one of the best I've seen on film, period. Their bickering is comedy gold, and things like "I know" cement Han as the series' greatest personality. Harrison Ford's the quintessential hero, the perfect balance of blazing his own path and always managing to do what's right, and the sense of humor just adds to his likability. Carrie Fisher brings a respectability to the role that you might not expect from a princess, and holds her own against him quite well. They really have a great chemistry.

Luke's journey gets more interesting too as he begins training as a Jedi. In the first movie he was an idealistic, somewhat naive kid going on an adventure in space. The whole movie is somewhat a coming of age tale, with a nice, happy ending. Empire really shows the darker side of the war, and Luke facing his demons with Yoda, abandoning his training, facing off with Vader and finally learning the horrible truth is the best example of this. Yoda seems like a silly joke of a character at first like Jar Jar or something, but before long he's telling Luke how afraid he's going to be. It's all good stuff. It's not as action-packed as the sequel, but as a piece of film making it really is superior.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

I'm not sure I ever saw Han shoot Greedo first before I looked it up on Youtube today. The decision to reverse that might be when fans realized that something had gone wrong since 1983, causing George Lucas to forget what made his world interesting in the first place. I didn't know any better, since the last one is the only one I'm sure I saw in its entirety before the Special Editions were released in 1997. But the fact remains that it encapsulates Lucas' weakness, the inability to let the series go. He has to keep tweaking and updating, and constant technological improvements are making it worse. And the fans are the ones paying for it. First the movies were released on video, then the special editions were. Then the DVD boxset, then "limited" edition DVDs with both versions of the movie. The problem with this was the original version really was original, with all of the errors and degradation intact, not even anamorphic widescreen. The best thing would have been to keep the cleaned up versions and remove the silly content changes, but instead, they decided to release another boxset with the only new feature being a box to hold the "limited" DVDs, and in the future you know they're going to rerelease in every new format and never stop adding new scenes and computer effects.

Beyond that business though, the original film is still a good, but not great adventure. The core cast is pretty darn good, even though only one of the main three went on to a big career. They rush through their lines once in a while ("Faster and more intense!"), but generally make the world feel believable. And Harrison Ford illustrates one of the many things the prequel trilogy lacks: a counterbalance to all the force mumbo jumbo. Han Solo is the series' best character, and they could have used him in the past to slap Anakin in the face and tell him to stop being such a wanker. Not everything has aged that well, but the final space battle remains one of the most thrilling sequences in film and it just feels like a genuine, entertaining movie. Its legacy has slipped, but it still brought joy to millions of kids.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

For some reason, when it came out, Sith got a decent amount of good press, and I'm not sure why. It's certainly darker and more violent, but that's not exactly what critics go for. It was critical for Anakin's inevitable turning to the dark side to work for the trilogy to be close to redeemable, and unlike a lot of people apparently, I don't think it did. It has to be believable that he'd turn, and making his motivation protecting his wife works. He should have been smart enough to see how he was manipulated, but it's understandable after seeing how emotional and selfish he can be, despite his characterization in Episode I as the nicest little boy in the galaxy.

But the scene of the actual transformation is awful. For one thing, it's somewhat laughable. Palpatine and Windu trying to convince him of the other's wrongness while moaning in their struggle, Palpatine's goofy-ass "No! No!", it's hard to take seriously. And it culminates with Anakin causing Windu's death because killing Palpatine would be wrong, even though he's the guy who made him kill Dooku. Tell me if that makes any sense. Yeah, he really helped Palpatine because he thought he needed him to save Amidala, but it was still a weak scene. Why's he sending the Jedi to arrest him anyway if he needs his help? Did he figure he'd visit him in his cell and learn the secrets of life there?

Besides the botching of the most important scene in the trilogy, Episode III is a combination of enjoyable violence, fan service, and too much post production. For some reason, the sound mix seems a bit off. Like, they rushed through adding the sound effects or something. And the over-reliance on visual effects is ludicrous. It's okay to declare that every clone trooper will be computer generated when they're all helmeted automatons, but when you're superimposing the actor's head onto a fake body, and it's obvious and looks terrible, what's the point? Make a costume, dude. It's fine. A lot of the movie just doesn't go right. Why is McGregor playing such an obnoxious cock now? How could anyone write romantic dialogue this lame? Why are all the robots starting to sound like idiotic children? It's really pretty sad. On one level it's satisfying to see how the world becomes what it was back in 1977, but I just wish it could have been better.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

When it came out, I thought Attack of the Clones was better than the first prequel, because I was 15 and it had MORE ACTION. But it's really not true. Is there some rule that people named Hayden have to be bad actors? Panettiere is pretty crappy on Heroes and Christensen is the same here. I hesitate to blame the prequels' badness on him because I honestly don't dislike that guy, but what else can you say when he's the star? I lay most of the blame at Lucas' feet, but a great Anakin could have done a lot of salvaging of the emotional core that makes these movies even close to relevant to the other ones. Without them being the story of Anakin's downfall, they're really just typical brainless science fiction. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here, really. I've heard that Christensen has been pretty good in other movies, and no one really seems to do their best on a green screen sound stage with Lucas' ability to direct actors being unknown beyond saying "faster and more intense!", so I'll go with my nerd instincts and blame it all on George.

I really don't hate any of these movies that much. Besides The Clone Wars, I mean. I can enjoy a silly movie with entertaining action scenes. And that describes Attack of the Clones pretty well. It's just disappointing to see the heart get slowly sucked out of a beloved series. Making Yoda digital is probably what really got the ball rolling. Yeah, seeing him flip around with a lightsaber like a mad man is hilariously entertaining, but at what cost? Why is doing so many extraneous tumbles through the air anyway. I prefer the old days when the fights weren't quite so elegant but every move had a purpose besides looking neat. Luke was trying to beat Darth Vader, not do the better triple salchow. The overreliance on computer effects is really what gets me more than the silly things that change the series' tone. Besides some background elements, they're rarely convincing, and it just pulls you out of the experience. And as the movies go on, they're pretty much all that's left.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Episode I confirmed for long-time Star Wars fans what they feared after seeing the Special Editions of their beloved series: George Lucas doesn't know what a good movie is any more. I didn't really notice this when it came out, because I was 12, and I could relate to annoying little kids, and I liked sword fights, especially ones with glowing magic swords. And watching it again now, I don't see it so much as the beginning of the end for Lucas, but a funeral for his good sensibilities. In retrospect, it's the best of the trilogy, and not just because it contains the two best action scenes: the pod race and the fight with Darth Maul. Sure, it introduced many of the things that made the prequels shit on the old movies. Turning Jedi from people naturally attuned to the universe's mysticism into people with a larger infestation of parasites than others was a tragedy. Making everybody know everybody for the sake of cute winks to the audience (Haha, Darth Vader built C-3PO!) is stupid, and just hard to believe when your setting is a galaxy filled with turmoil and not a small town. But it did some things right, before the sequels continued the vicious cycle of more and more visual effects and absurd characterization until we ended up with The Clone Wars, also known as when Star Wars died.

Hell, Yoda's still a puppet in this one. Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor are two completely likable actors from the British Isles, Natalie Portman is somewhere between cute and gorgeous (Did you know she was born in Israel? Just found this out.), and the three form the nucleus of a decent adventure movie. Yeah, Jar Jar Binks sucks and is mildly racist. Yeah, Jake Lloyd is one of all too many kid actors who piss off grown ups in one or two movies and are never seen again. But the Battle Droids are just soldiers with digitized voices, not an army of fucking clowns. A lot of the sets actually existed in real life. "Duel of the Fates" is probably my favorite piece of Star Wars music. There's still a soul in the production somewhere, and as long as the main characters are good, you have a watchable film. I would not call it a good movie, because as I said earlier, George Lucas forgot what that is. But it's not that bad.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Well, I ended up seeing it anyway. Fan reaction to the long-delayed fourth Indiana Jones movie was very divided. Some accepted the sillier elements for what they were and enjoyed where it stayed close to the spirit of the original movies, and others hated it for the outlandish plot tarnishing the integrity of what they forget was always a pretty goofy series. There were a few moments that deserve questioning, but overall it wasn't too far out of line. There was some unnecessary usage of computer graphics on small animals in multiple scenes, which was intended for comic effect but never that funny, and stuck out in a movie that usually tried to avoid effects that take you out of it. There was a scene near the beginning with a refrigerator that was completely moronic and utterly pointless, and I can't think of why they thought it was a good idea, but that was the only thing that really bothered me.

It helps that it's modern and benefits from current technology and stunt techniques, but the action sequences are the most exciting in the series. There are some pretty good ones in the other movies, but to me they were more about the character than a car chase or whatever. There aren't as many of those character moments, but there are some pretty good ones, and they acknowledge his advanced age without making a big joke out of it. The addition of Shia LaBeouf as heir apparent shifts the dynamic and it's interesting to see Indy as more of a mentor instead of just a leader. Harrison Ford isn't the young buck he was twenty years ago, but he really didn't seem out of place in the role. He doesn't dish it out as well as he used to but he can still take it pretty good, and his intelligence when it's required still make him quite a compelling protagonist. The main plot twist and especially the resolution were pretty out there, but I liked the movie all the same and wouldn't mind if they decided to make another. I was skeptical of the idea at first but they pulled it off fairly well.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Last Crusade returns to the formula from the first movie, with lots of high adventure and killing of Nazis. Instead of a Chinese child, his sidekick is his dad, played by Sean Connery. They have an entertaining chemistry, Indiana being pretty rough-and-tumble and his dad getting things done without ruffling his clothes. A lot of the things they do end up being pretty corny, but that's the way of the series. This film is probably the most family friendly of the three, though it still contains some scenes with an obscene amount of vermin and surprisingly grotesque deaths. John Rhys-Davies and Indy's older college friend both reprise their roles from the first movie and make likable companions. This time, the female lead is physically attractive and actually an interesting character, so she's an improvement over her equivalent in the first two movies.

Whereas the second movie was a departure, Last Crusade really follows in the first's footsteps. The opening scene is a flashback to Indiana's youth, an improbable day in which he managed to pick up four of his notable character details. It connects with the modern day (1938) by showing him after the same artifact, and then leads to the real story, which like the first movie, happens to feature the same treasure-hunting villain who has the support of Hitler's regime. There's lots of action and humor as Indiana searches for his kidnapped dad and then the ultimate goal. There are some more great parts, like the "no ticket" scene on a gigantic zeppelin. Too much of the action is slapstick in nature, but it's still an enjoyable movie. I'm not sure what it is, but something about the whole trilogy just felt like it was missing something, though I can't say what. Still, entertaining films.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The second film in the Indiana Jones Trilogy (soon to be a quadrilogy) seems a little out of sorts. It just has less in common with the other two movies. The first and third feature Indiana following clues, hopping around the global to exotic locales, exploring perilous tombs, fighting Nazis, and spending a bit of time as a normal professor of history. Temple of Doom has almost none of this, and this is what's appealing about the series. Not to say it's a bad movie, it has plenty of fun moments. It's just... off. He starts off in China involved in a conflict that gets completely dropped when he, his Asian sidekick Short Round, and annoying female lead Willie crash in India, leading quickly to the underground chamber where almost all of the action takes place.

The cultists Indy fights make adequate villains, and the chief is pretty solidly evil, they're just not as entertaining as Nazis. Since they don't use guns, it wouldn't be fair if he did, so every fight is a lot of barefisted slugging. That can be fun, but you like to have some variety in your confrontations. Thankfully, they made one of the series' more exciting sequences for this, a very unlikely high-speed chase on mine carts suspended by tracks over lots of molten lava. It's hard to say how they managed to build those tracks there or how the carts maintain velocity with all the rises, but it's an easy issue to ignore. There are some pretty violent moments, and this is one of the films that finally caused the creation of the PG-13 rating. None of the face-melting found in the other movies, but some scary stuff for little kids. The girl kind of really sucks a lot, but the kid is surprisingly not that bad. Ford is his usual self, and holds the movie together. Maybe the worst in the series, but still a really fun movie.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

I'd previously seen some of the more famous scenes from the Indiana Jones movies, but never actually sat down and watched one from the beginning. I figured I should really see the trilogy, even though I don't have a plan to see the new one or anything. The idea of Indiana Jones fits in quite well with George Lucas' penchant for making entertainment franchises in the style of old serials from the beginning of Hollywood. He started it with Star Wars, his take on science fiction which he admits borrowed from many earlier classic films, and the Indy movies are the same thing with adventure, going on action-packed journeys around the world without taking themselves too seriously. There's something a bit strange about them, because they're definitely aimed at families yet there's some stuff in them that I would be surprised to see in something with a similar audience today.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a fun movie, filled with iconic and memorable scenes. The whole opening sequence with the golden idol and rolling rock, then the escape to the plane, the confrontation with the swordsman, the Well of Souls, the truck chase, opening the ark. Lots of entertaining moments. Harrison Ford is a great, charismatic protagonist. The character is an interesting one, having two sides; the knowledgeable historian and reckless adventurer. There's a decent supporting cast around him. The female lead can be a bit silly sometimes, but John Rhys-Davies is a good ally, and a couple of the villains are pretty solid. Steven Spielberg admitted it was basically a B movie when he made it, and it's fine being that - it's definitely aimed to keep kids happy, but still has plenty of action and intrigue for older viewers, if you can handle some goofiness. The whole ending is really good, with a slightly shocking climax and cool, if somewhat hard to believe final shot. Pretty good movie.