film

“I’m the best there is at what I do, which is lose fights.”

Standard

I’d heard THE WOLVERINE was okay but not great so I thought I’d give it a watch. Personally, I think “Okay but not great” is overstating things by a mile, but it can be instructive to watch and talk about movies that fail, so what the hell.

Spoilers.

The basic plot is this: Logan is freed from a WW2 POW camp just outside of Nagasaki just as The Bomb is being dropped, and he saves a prison camp guard’s life, mainly because he freed Allied prisoners as soon as the air raid sirens went off.

Actually, never mind the motivations. Motivations aren’t going to make much sense here.

Anyway, jump to the modern day. Logan is living in the wild like a depressed hobo, dreaming about Jean Grey, the woman he loved and killed in the third Xmen movie, when a fellow mutant (one of those plot-convenient precogs) whisks him off to Japan to meet that same prison guard it seems he’s now the super-wealthy head of a giant corporation and he’s dying. He’s also willing to take Logan’s healing factor off his hands, since he knows (somehow) Logan thinks of his eternal life as a curse.

There’s some handwaving about how Logan’s healing factor has to be “suppressed” before it can be transferred, and he spend most of the movie in some weird gray area limbo of minor powers where he can be slowed down and made to limp from gunshots or whatever, but he’s not unkillable anymore. Nevermind that his powers are supposed to be genetic.

Anyway, there’s a snake woman villain named Viper who spits poison acid at people and brags about being immune to poison (I’ll bet that comes up all the time) but who seems to have no motivation other than to get paid and therefore has no reason to stick around for the lethal battle at the end. There’s a beautiful woman who, being Asian, has a sad history; also, she must get kidnapped as soon as Logan fucks her. There are ninjas who declare themselves devoted to the old dying guy but who shoot arrows at anyone the plot requires. And there’s the Silver Samurai, which in the movie is a gigantic robot-looking thing (actually a suit of armor, and boy will you be unsurprised to discover who’s driving it).

And you know what? This is all stupid and careless and a little insulting, but it’s not like I’ve never enjoyed a movie that was careless for the sake of being fun.

However! THE WOLVERINE has an astonishing lack of fun. There’s a fight atop a bullet train that’s inventive and different, but all of the other confrontations are nothing new or interesting. There’s a running fight at a funeral and through the streets of Tokyo that looks like the same mook tussle over and over. There’s a red neck bar fight. There’s a samurai sword/claw fight right where you would expect to see it.

And the ninjas, man. That whole sequence sucked the life out of the movie. Logan has to get off his motorcycle for reasons, and he has to not fight the ninjas because if there’s one thing Wolverine fans hate, it’s seeing him slice up a bunch of ninjas.

Worse, he just runs down the center of the street so they can shoot arrows into him. Not even a little juke to the side here and there.

The weird thing is that, Movie-Wolverine never says “I’m the best there is at what I do,” because on the movie hero level, he’s a really shitty fighter. Because he has a healing factor, filmmakers stage fights where he’s shot in the gut from close range, stabbed, bashed on the head with a bat… It doesn’t matter! He can’t defeat a trained samurai without his healing powers because he has to let the other guy get five or six lethal blows in before he can score one himself.

The ninjas kick his ass with poison arrows. The Yakusa who kidnap Sad Asian Lady shoot him in the leg because he helpfully announces that he’s rushing to the rescue. The Silver Samurai beats the hell out of him until Sad Asian Lady intervenes.

I mean, nevermind that the climax shows the baddie stealing Logan’s (unsuppressed) healing powers by… drilling into the stumps of his wrecked claws? How does that even work? But nevermind. The whole movie is about a guy who really sucks at what he does.

If you’re going to make a Wolverine movie, you don’t show/use his healing factor in every fight. You save it for the true badasses. And you don’t line up a bunch of ninjas opposite him and have him run away, ffs.

Disappointed.

Added later: Cracked’s “The 9 Worst Things Comic Books Have Ever Done to Wolverine”

Randomness for 8/1

Standard

1) A male comic artist puts out webcomics under a female name and sees things from the other side.

2) Saddled with student loans in the U.S.? There are ways to get rid of them without paying.

3) The best places to build wind and solar power by the map, and it’s not where you think.

4) Best way to out a superhero’s secret identity: UV gun. Superhero tan lines.

5) The Machete Order: How to watch the original Star Wars films and the prequels in a way that doesn’t suck too much. h/t LJ user blackhanddpants

6) William Gibson on the visual and thematic virtues of PACIFIC RIM.

7) Vanishing literature: more evidence that our copyright terms are too long.

Randomness for 7/25

Standard

1) Weird Ways To Burn 200 Calories. Video.

2) Excaliber, the world’s tallest (121 feet) free-standing climbing wall.

3) First of all, how do the astronauts was their hair in zero G? Awesome! Second of all, female astronaut. Awesome! Last, hair care tips from the woman on board? Hmph. I hope she gets to play guitar or something next time. Video. (Still, zero g hair-washing.)

4) The terrible and wonderful reasons I run long distances, by The Oatmeal.

5) Favorite movies laid out as vintage treasure maps.

6) Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal. This is so simple and absurd. I love it.

7) This is what happens when you try to take video of police in Sweden. Video. (h/t to James Nicoll).

Movies that work without making any damn sense

Standard

PACIFIC RIM: the story of a talented but troubled pianist searching for love.

At least, that’s what I told my son it was about when I told him we were all going to see it. He’s old enough to to tell when I’m joking most of the time, but I kept telling him it was part of music appreciation and homeschooling, so he eventually just flat out admitted “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or serious.”

Note to self: teach son meaning of “sarcastic.”

Anyway, once he saw the poster outside the theater, he knew there would be zero piano players. He bought his usual treat of a small popcorn with extra butter, but when the movie ended it was completely untouched. He’d been so engrossed in the film that he’d forgotten all about it.

A big question for me is: WHY? He wasn’t half a block away before he started picking nits. Why did the pilots have to be inside the robots? being the big one. My wife and are were also laughing about how ludicrous the whole thing was: Our Hero has a jaeger that is analog, not digital, because it’s nuclear powered? I guess that mind-meld technology runs on diskettes.

Anyway, the whole thing is deliberately absurd, but also powerfully affecting. When we got home, there was a Netflix disc in the mailbox. It was THE MATRIX, another movie that worked like gangbusters despite the fact that it made no damn sense at all.

So why do they work? It’s not the spectacle. There are plenty of dull movies full of spectacle. (We just watched 2012, so that’s fresh in my mind.)

The real secret is that the relationships between the characters, and the way the characters change, is what draws us in. Yeah, there’s a visceral thrill from the sight of claws, teeth, and roaring. Yeah, the music gooses your emotions.

But all of it falls flat if the emotions don’t work.

The funny thing is that I spent years trying to understand narrative structure, and so much of that time was spent on plot mechanics and exposition. It wasn’t until I began using the structure to focus the characters’ emotions and relationships that I began to have any success at all.

Stories are better if the plot makes sense, but if the characters don’t appeal no clockwork plot in the world will make it worth the audience’s time.

Randomness for 7/1

Standard

1) Mars Rover takes a billion-pixel photo so you can click and zoom around in it to explore the red planet.

2) How To Use Math To Crush Your Friends At Monopoly Like You’ve Never Done Before.

3) A series of photographs showing various types of rounds cut in the cross-section. Way more interesting than it sounds.

4) Beautiful kinetic sculptures. Video.

5) An offer of free lodging always has some kind of catch to it, right? (People are weird)

6) The Ten Best Superhero RPGs ever. I’m not obsessed with them like the author of this article and I certainly haven’t played all the games on this list, but I agree with his top two.

7) If movies were reviewed like video games.

Beautiful things we find online

Standard

People make fun of Google plus, but like any social media it has exactly the value that you and the people you interact with put into it.

For example, Fred Hicks posted this:

It’s amazing. Seriously, you should watch it with the sound on. Don’t bother if you can’t listen, too.

Social media is a lot like real life socializing. It’s not usually what you do or where, but who’s there with you.

Writing about PTSD and more than PTSD

Standard

The Public Insight Network has posted a comic called Moral Injury, Beyond PTSD (well, they’re calling it an “illustrated story” but so what). It’s incredibly powerful stuff and I recommend everyone read it. I’d originally planned to drop it into a Randomness post, but it felt too big for that.

Seriously, you’ll want to read that.

I’ve seen this sort of thing addressed in fantasy before, but not in a way that satisfies me. Not in a way that breaks out of the hero/villain paradigm.

Part of it, I think, is the incredibly powerful appeal of the dehumanized enemy and the heroic capable figure. Is Aragorn supposed to have nightmares about all the orcs he’s killed? Is he supposed to change his most basic self-concept after all that killing? Frodo returns from his adventure a ruined man who can no longer live in his own community, but that’s due to the proximity to and temptation of the power of evil. It’s not because he recognizes that he did evil to an enemy that was very like him.

I’m also revisiting Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (by watching the dvds). The whole thing plays like a parody of the superhero genre written by someone who wants to call out its most fascist aspects. And yet, even while I’m disgusted by, for example, Miller’s contempt for peaceful protest, I’m also feeling the powerful pull of the narrative of justified violence.

It’s incredibly affecting and entirely artificial. Reading that comic I linked to above makes me a little ashamed of it. #SFWApro

Best Purge Holiday Specials

Standard

Most of us have favorite holiday specials from when we were kids (and after!) so I thought I’d take a moment to list my favorite holiday-themed movies, specials, and TV episodes about everyone’s favorite holiday, The Purge.

It’s The Purge, Charlie Brown! Sent to buy supplies for all of his friends just before the big night, Charlie Brown returns with only a single, undersized firebomb. The other kids mock him and drive him away until the realize that, with a little laundry soap and a bag of fertilizer, the tiny firebomb isn’t so bad after all, driving home the true meaning of Purge night.

The Grinch Who Stole Purge Living a lonely hermit’s life, The Grinch hates that the Purge disturbs his solitude every year with the sounds of gunfire and screaming. One year, he sneaks into the local village to steal every gun, bladed weapon, and explosive they have only to discover the true meaning of Purge night when the villagers begin to murder each other with their finger nails and teeth.

Purgetown Starring Debbie Reynolds. Three kids find themselves transported to a magical town where every night is Purge night.

It’s a Wonderful Riot Facing scandal, prison, and bankruptcy, George Bailey wishes he had never been born. An angel appears and grants his wish, taking him on a tour of the smoking crater his gated community would be without him.

Miracle on 35th Street The skeptical young daughter of a psychoanalyst experiences the true joy of The Purge when, against all logic and reason, a NY court rules that cathartic rage for therapeutic purposes is totally a real thing.

(This post inspired by @timcarvell’s tweet.)

Randomness for 5/27

Standard

1) An innovative student project for simplifying fast food packaging. Me, I hate having to carry the cup separately from the food.

2) 7 Awesome Moments in the Greatest Police Training Video Ever via Chris Sims

3) Making a laser-cut LP out of a disc of wood.

4) The Palme d’Awful: worst films for sale at Cannes. NSFW due to a naked male butt in one of the posters. Wow, do these movies look terrible (except for FDR: AMERICAN BADASS) and every actor whose name I recognize makes me cringe with embarrassment for them. Sharknado, dude? Really? I guess it beats selling air conditioners. via @BarrSteve

5) Public spaces that appear to be private.

6) Fun fantasy chimeras created by Photoshop.

7) Social Media Fails from 19 companies. I love these.

REMO WILLIAMS: THE (PROBLEMATIC) ADVENTURE BEGINS

Standard

Guess what turned up on Netflix Streaming recently? (The subject header above is a subtle hint.) Yep, it’s the 1985 non-classic REMO WILLIAMS, starring Fred Ward. Apparently, the film is based on a series of men’s adventure novels that I haven’t read and never will, so whatever. It’s the movie I want to talk about. Remo’s adventure might have begun with that picture, but it didn’t go any farther. (I live in the happy world where the TV pilot doesn’t exist.)

Anyway, I saw this movie a great many times in the bong-fueled haze of post-college daytime cable and I loved it. Watching it again last week with my family reminded me how charming and fun it is.

It also brought back how completely fucked up this movie it. Seriously.

First, have this: How to be a fan of problematic things. It’s a good article written from the perspective of a person fighting for social justice who’s following GAME OF THRONES. Even if you’re not such a person, it’s worth reading.

And it applies to REMO in spades.

Let’s talk briefly about the setup: Fred Ward is a tough NYC street cop who is “killed” in the first few minutes of the movie. He wakes up in a hospital bed with a new face and identity; he’s been recruited by a secret government organization headed by Wilford Brimley. Why?

Brimley’s character sums it up like this: “This is a great country, my boy, but the justice system doesn’t work the way it should.” I know what you’re thinking, right? They’re going to reform the justice system!

Actually, no. They’re an assassination squad operating domestically under the direct control of the president. The only limits to their power is that they must never “embarrass the president.” That’s it. They investigate people and, if they have too much money/power to be prosecuted, they arrange a convincing “accident.”

Oh, 1980’s.

To effect this plan, Ward is to be trained in the ancient and mysterious martial art of sinanju, which will allow him to dodge bullets, run without touching the ground, and other goofiness.

If that were the end of it, REMO would be little different from other odd 80’s action movies about heroic vigilantes. Unfortunately, the elderly Korean master who teaches Ward is played by… Joel Gray.

Yeah. It’s a white guy in yellowface.

Here’s the thing. The yellowface makeup was nominated for an Oscar. Gray’s performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination. If he’d done a shitty job in the role this would be an utterly forgettable movie. Actually, until Gray appears onscreen, it IS a forgettable movie. Ward is charismatic. Kate Mulgrew is terrific as a major in the army trying to prove that the bad guys are breaking the law. But until Gray appears as Chiun, the movie feels rote. I watched this with my kid and I had to beg him to stick with it. By the end, he was laughing and giving it a thumbs up.

Gray and Ward have fantastic chemistry together; their scenes (which are mostly amusing training sequences of one kind or another) are pretty much the only heart the movie has.

So, you know, it’s complicated. It’s a terrible idea to cast a white dude in yellowface to play the part of a Korean man. It’s certainly possible that an Asian actor could have done just as good as job as the prickly, obnoxious, condescending Chiun. But we don’t live in that world; we live in the world where Joel Gray got the part and did a fantastic job with it.

Anyway, the movie’s on Netflix Streaming. It’s problemmatic, but I’m a fan of it anyway.