Category: Films and movies

Whether big-studio or independent, celluloid or digital, anything about movies

Wall-E

Emily Horn kissing a statue in the Supreme Court of Canada

The Wall-E trailer did not impress me. It made the film look cute and trite. Nonetheless, I was convinced to see the film by strong recommendations in various news sources and ongoing debates about its environmental messages.

The film is definitely well done: engaging and entertaining, emotive without being sappy. Some of the messages are indisputable: that resilience is a virtue (Wall-E has learned self-repair), that the planet is vulnerable, and that technology can isolate us from natural processes, making us unaware of the impacts we are collectively producing. Others are more dubious: that people ignore their environmental impacts because they are half-hypnotized by machines, rather than because it is convenient to do so, or that a simple imposition of will is sufficient to turn things around. The danger is less that robots will mutiny, and much more that we will be willing to make exceptional ecological sacrifices in order to keep our favourite machines running. It’s not that our creations will defy our will, it’s that we will refuse to temper our desires, whatever the long-term costs associated. Wall-E does make the second point (largely though the vehicle of the floating, near-helpless humans), but it gives a bit too much of a free pass on the first.

It seems fairly likely that this film is destined for the cannon of ‘environmental films for children,’ alongside stalwarts like The Lorax. It deserves the slot, combining old messages about conservation and the sanctity of life with the imagery of contemporary society. It also deserves to be widely seen, by children and adults. That is as much on account of the strong storytelling as anything else – the dialogue is minimal, but it is never the slightest bit tedious. The story is strong, the film is beautifully made, and it generates thought.

On a side note: the various nods to Apple were slightly amusing, rather than tacky. Wall-E’s startup noise will be familiar to anyone who has used a Mac, as is the whole styling of Eve. The original iMac ‘mice’ infesting the garbage heaps in space were also an entertaining touch. Of course, it is a bit ironic that the main object of desire in the film – the robot Eve that Wall-E pines after – is fundamentally modeled upon a much hyped consumer product.

[Update: 8:01am] Emily’s review is here.

The Dark Knight

Giant praying mantis, Montreal

Ordinarily, comic book movies are an exercise in the aggressive non-suspension of disbelief, for me. Whether internally criticizing absurd physics or ludicrous plot points, I generally entertain myself more despite them than through them. The Dark Knight was an exception.

I posit two major reasons for this. Firstly, it is a result of the character of the Batman universe. It exists at a larger scale than many fictional or comic universes and, as such, has more freedom to establish its own rules and expectations. It is much more Lord of the Rings than Spiderman, despite greater superficial similarities with the former. Gotham City simply differs enough from our world to make it a clear allegory, rather than reality with implausible supernatural additions and equally implausible smoothing over of plot progression (How do characters put things in place to appear at the middle of chaotic chase scenes? How does the Joker recruit and train people? Why can everyone use unfamiliar equipment instantly? Etc.) It takes a pretty good film to suppress such questions in my mind, and this one manages it notably well.

The second is simply that the acting and presentation are quite compelling. The over-the-top action sequences are less asinine than in many smasher films, and there are some decent character and thematic issues addressed. Probably more importantly, the film has a powerful aesthetic – one that even a fairly reluctant appreciator of alternative universes can respect. Where the later X-Men films felt tacky and emotionally overdone, the gritty and chaotic Batman style remains stubbornly consistent.

Of course, Batman’s moral code remains ludicrous. Simply refraining from actually killing people immediately and with your own hand seems like a bizarre form of self-limitation, when you are perfectly happy to set off massive explosions and otherwise indirectly kill large numbers of people. The film isn’t entirely divorced from point-scoring on contemporary political issues (such as the security value of mass surveillance), but it wears such garments in an accessory fashion, rather than serving as a vehicle for polemic.

On a side note, the film demonstrates the degree to which Hong Kong is itself an alternate universe, at least as viewed from the air. The place looks like Ghost in the Shell made flesh, and provides an almost visceral reminder of the rise of Asia – one that the upcoming Beijing Olympics will doubtless reinforce.

Improv everywhere

The internet creates the possibility of organizing amusing mass pranks. Improv everywhere (who have done some funny things in the past) came up with a clever idea employing twins and subway cars.

Both of my brothers did improv of the more conventional on-the-stage variety. These sorts of surreal social experiments don’t require creative skill on the part of the performers, though they do produce entertaining bafflement among passers-by.

iTunes movie rentals

Ezra Pound quote

Last night, Emily and I tried renting a film through iTunes. I think it’s fair to say that this is another media technology that Apple got right. There are endless problems with systems that promise to let you buy films in the form of downloads. There are limitations on usage, and no guarantees that you can use them on future devices. Renting is quite different. Apple offers a service akin to that of a video store for a comparable price and without the bother of picking up and returning discs. With a bit of equally convenient competition, costs may even fall further.

Indeed, it seems pretty fair to predict that video shops have no future among those customers with computers and broadband access. Eventually, web based services will offer far more films at similar quality and far greater convenience.

Personally, I am rather looking forward to the day when it will be possible to spend $4-5 for two days worth of access to most any film ever made.

A bad new copyright bill

Canada’s proposed new copyright act is unacceptably poor, most importantly because of its treatment of Digital Rights Management (DRM). Under the new law, circumventing any such system – no matter why – is against the law. This means that if the company that sold you a song decides to stop letting you access it, you are out of luck. Under the new law, it would be a crime to copy music from a DRM-protected CD that you bought to an iPod that you own, with an associated fine of $20,000.

The law would also mean that organizations like libraries cannot have any confidence in their future ability to use digital materials today and people with disabilities will not be able to use technology to make protected works more accessible. It would make it a crime for me to use VideoLAN player to watch DVDs I bought in Europe, just because people selling DVDs have decided to use monopolistic regional codes to boost profits. Indeed, it would criminalize the distribution of VideoLAN itself.

It must be remembered that the purpose of copyright law is to serve the public good, not copyright holders. We allow copyrights because they create a legal environment in which it is possible to profit from a good idea. As a result, copyright protections help to ensure that people are furnished with new and high quality music, books, etc. By failing to protect the legitimate needs of consumers, this bill fails to enhance the public interest. As such, it deserves to be opposed and defeated.

Accuracy in films

The Russian Communist Party is protesting the new Indiana Jones film, arguing that teenagers will assume it to be historically accurate and thus become confused about the history of the Cold War. St Petersburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich has said that: “It’s rubbish… In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the US.”

Of course, this is all reminiscent of the open letter from Neo-Nazi groups to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in 1981, asserting that absolutely no Nazis were killed by ghosts that flew out of the Ark of the Covenant. Similarly, they argued in 1989 that the depiction of an officer of the Third Reich being turned into a skeleton after drinking from a false Holy Grail would give a misleading historical impression to the world’s movie-watching youth.

Also in the tradition were the many complaints Baz Luhrmann received about Moulin Rouge: for instance, how much of the pop music portrayed was not written until seventy years or so after the period in question.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I was feeling kind of down as I went in to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but that situation could not persist. Every scene challenges your mind with something even more ludicrous: whether it is non-sensical plot points, egregious physics, or absurdly over-the-top scenarios. It is no exaggeration to call the plot incoherent and trivial, and most of the acting wooden. Indiana’s James Deanish young foil is particularly flat and uninteresting. This is no thinking man’s film; nor is it one for the DVD library.

That being said, the film does a good job of redeeming itself as a piece of entertainment. It may feel like an awkward, alien-obsessed re-imagining of the original trilogy, but there is still some humour and charm. The main appeal of the film is that it provides you with ample fodder for internal joking criticism, as well as plenty of mindless sequences in which to mull it over.

One side note on the graphics: for some reason, the set design, lighting, and computer graphics were all strongly reminiscent of the Harry Potter films. Both the indoor sequences and the outdoor shots had the same distinctive feeling, less cartoonish than untextured early computer graphics, but still inescapably false.

[Update: 12:53am] Emily has also written a review.

Fevered imagination

Yellow spring flower

While sleeping off fever, I had a surprisingly coherent and well developed dream. If anyone wants to turn it into a Major Motion Picture Event, they can contact me about the rights.

It begins with a medium-sized dry cleaning shop in an American town dominated by a huge army base. The shop is struggling because the huge majority of the business comes from the armed forces, and it is all assigned through huge low-bid contracts. The owners decide that, small or not, they need to get into that system. Hoping to build some name recognition, at least, they decide to put in an a bid they feel sure will be higher than that of anyone else for the next thing to come up.

Meanwhile, some high ranking officers are discussing a problem. Due to a shipping problem, the dress uniforms of 1,000 soldiers returning from abroad have become soiled. (The film includes a shot of a non-waterproof cargo container sitting on the tarmac beside some jungle in the pouring rain. A mid-level officer has a muddy uniform half-pulled out and is shouting at someone more junior, though you cannot hear any of it through the rain.) They uniforms are needed clean for a big ceremony occurring in 24 hours. As a result, an urgent tender for contracts is posted on a government website.

Seeing the order, the dry cleaning shop owners decide that this is their chance to get noticed. They don’t have the resources to handle 1,000 uniforms in a day, but it’s not hugely beyond their capabilities. This is the kind of deal they want the military brass to consider them for. Not wanting to take on something they cannot handle, they bid $15,000,000 and leave it at that.

At computer terminals across the city, brief scenes show the big cleaning companies considering the contract and deciding it is too small to bother with. As a result, nobody else files a bid.

As a result, the small firm finds itself with a contract to clean 1,000 uniforms in 24 hours, for $15,000 each. Working flat out themselves, they are sure they can manage about 350. In the opportunity of a lifetime, they offer two other similarly sized companies the opportunity to clean 350 uniforms each for $10,000 a piece.

The portion involving the actual cleaning has your standard movie mixture of minor problems, clever solutions, and emotive demonstrations of why the various cleaners really need the money (to deal with higher interest mortgages, pay medical expenses, etc). At the last minute, the biggest truck owned by the dry cleaning firm breaks down, but, through a favour from the Hispanic army officer cousin of one of the owners, a big army truck comes by to collect the uniforms.

Sitting around celebrating with pizza and beer, the cleaners are surprised when a flashing message appears on the army requisition computer. For completing their contract on time and on budget, they are being given a 20% bonus.

One odd thing about my experience in dreaming the above is that the actual dream alternated between watching segments of the film which I had made in a room in my high school and walking around the building explaining various aspects to friends and acquaintances of mine. For instance, I was explaining to my friend Kate how, ideally, the film would work on two levels: as a feel-good story about an upstart out-maneuvering big competitors and winning a big reward and as a comment on the wastefulness of the armed forces. It would appear the the combination of influenza, NyQuil, and chocolate chunk cookies can have strange effects on the human subconscious.

The Aragorn Fallacy

Stencil chicken

Watching films, I find myself very frequently annoyed with what I shall call The Aragorn Fallacy. The essence of the fallacy is to equate importance with invulnerability, especially in the face of random events.

Consider a battle that employs swords, spears, and bows and arrows. To some extent, your skill reduces the likelihood of getting killed with a sword (unless you are among the unfortunate individuals who find their line pressed into a line of swordsmen). No conceivable battlefield skill makes you less vulnerable to arrows (or bullets) once you are in the field of fire. As such, mighty King Aragorn is just as likely to be shot and killed as some forcibly drafted peasant hefting a spear for the first time. Sensible military leaders realize that their role is not to serve as cannon fodder, and that they needlessly waste their own lives and those of their men by putting themselves in such positions.

Of course, people will object, there have been military leaders who ‘led from the front,’ put themselves at points of great danger, and went on to high achievement. The problem with this view is that it completely ignores all the young would-be Rommels and Nelsons and Pattons who got felled as young captains or lieutenants by a stray bit of shrapnel or gangrene in a wound produced by a stray bit of barbed wire. With a sufficiently large starting population, you will always end up with examples of people who were reckless but nonetheless survived and thrived. The foolish conclusion to draw from this is that recklessness is either justified or likely to produce success.

Clearly, storytelling and life are different things. We admire superhuman heroes who shake off bullets and arrows like awkward drops of water. We may rationally accept that nonsense like throwing all your best commanders into the front line of a battle is strictly for the movies. The fallacy here is less that we believe these things to be true, and more that we feel them to be excellent. The grim fact that war is a brutal and largely random business sits poorly with our general affection for the things.