Staring at the sky…

This weekend I also saw “Jindabyne” starring Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney.

It’s a very moody piece (as it would have to be given the story), and it tends to plod a bit, and to be honest, I have no idea how I feel about it. The longer I’ve had to think about it since I saw it, the more I have to think about. It’s a film that provides no resolution, and nothing but questions.

In many ways, it reminded me of “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” though it wasn’t really supernatural, like that film was, and some of this may have to do with it being an Australian movie. All in all, though, I can’t really think of another film that isn’t a true story [NOTE: I always thought "Picnic at Hanging Rock" was a true story, too, but it wasn't], but feels like it is.

The premise is that Gabriel Byrne is a gas station owner, who enjoys fishing. His wife (played by Laura Linney) and he have a young son. The son has a friend whose mother passed away at some unspecified point in the past. Her grandmother is friends with Laura Linney, and her grandfather is friends with Gabriel Byrne.

The story mainly seems to revolve around a great deal of interpersonal strife happening within these families, and a few additional friends. Laura Linney’s character seems to have suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her son, and disappeared for a time to stay with her sister. The son’s friend is in need of therapy, and seems to be obsessed with death. Many other things like this are present, just below the surface, just waiting for a match to ignite them all.

This match is provided by way of a serial killer, who kills a young aboriginal woman on her way to a music festival, and dumps her body in the fishing hole that Byrne and his friends frequent, in the middle of nowhere.

When the men discover the body, they can’t return back to their cars, because it’s getting dark, and it’s a long hike. So they stay. And the next morning, they go fishing, rather than going for help.

What follows is an exploration of these person relationships, grief, small town politics, right and wrong, perceived and actual racism, life, death, and etc.

Linney’s character goes to inappropriate lengths to try and make amends for her husband, Byrne’s character isolates himself, and the murder itself, which in most films would be the main focus, seems to only be a catalyst. The men’s oafish act of stupidity, and the lack of a suspect in the killing, means that they are the only place to direct blame, even though they can’t be charged with anything, and had nothing to do with the killing.

It’s an interesting character piece, and Jindabyne, itself, seems to be a fascinating place. One those towns that had to be relocated due to intentional flooding, and the creation of a man-made lake. The scenery is beautiful, but stark.

All in all, I have to give it a mixed review, as I either really enjoyed it, or really hated it, and for the life of me, I can’t decide which.

Jack Sparrow’s back… again… and this time the film has an ending!

Before I get into discussing the film, let me again criticize the most common mistake of back to back film-making. If you’re going to make films back to back, they each have to stand on their own alone. The first half cannot be simply unnecessary set up for the second one — it can’t be filler.

There is a reason that there’s an Oscar for editing, and that is that it’s a tough balance — avoiding leaving out something important, but also not thinking that every stray thought you have needs to go into the film.

I enjoyed the second Pirates film, because these are very enjoyable characters, but it felt like it lacked much of the magic of the first one, because it pulled its punches. It didn’t want to stand on its own and make you interested in the next one — it was designed to act as prolog and advertisement to the third film.

Contrast this with films that are split into parts which work. For example, “Kill Bill.” “Kill Bill” was story that outgrew the time alloted for films, and part 1 was fantastic. It contained much of the necessary action, and part 2 acted as the prolog and the epilog, tossing in a bit of action itself. They work well alone. They work well together.

Take a look at the “Star Wars” trilogy (the original trilogy, as episode 1’s race scene made it clear that George Lucas assumed he didn’t need an editor, and part 3 made it clear that he was trying to make up for not hiring an editor for part 1). “The Empire Strikes Back” is the best made, with the most involved and gripping story. It gives you loose threads to ponder, but it works well on its own.

Take a look at the “Back to the Future” sequels, which were among the first major Hollywood films to shoot back to back (unfortunately, as it turned out, because they didn’t make as much money as expected). The stories are so different. Yes, there is a set up, again for the next film, but the plots are self-contained, and you feel satisfied at the end of the film.

Examples where this is failed include “Pirates,” and the “Matrix.” Admittedly, the “Matrix” series was not going to end in a way that would satisfy anybody. “Pirates 2″ however, started with no expectations — they could have gone any direction with this, and choose instead to turn it into what it is — fine on a certain level, but deeply dissatisfying on another, and only half of a film.

That’s why I am happy to report that “Pirates 3″ is much more satisfying. In fact, I would almost recommend avoiding the second film altogether, comparatively (were it not for Bill Nighy’s performance as Davy Jones, who apparently was not as whimsical before being paired with Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork).

As with the first film, much of the simple joy from the film comes in watching Johnny Depp and Goeffrey Rush chewing the scenery together and apart. These two characters could work well together in perpetuity. Perhaps they should do a talk show. Bill Nighy could be the musical director. Or maybe Keith Richards, who does an impressive turn as Jack Sparrow’s father.

The special effects are stunning, but not the most interesting part of the film (which is fortunate as the most impressive special effects are shown right in the preview).

The film like its predecessors, of course, is as accurate with regards to pirates as “Shanghai Knights” is with regards to British history [NOTE: If you haven't seen that film, it's pretty clear that the writers had heard of England, but not much else other than the name of the country was left untouched for the sake of the story]. But, it’s a Disney film, and they are the heroes, so it’s hard to fault them. However, it’s struck me as very strange that it was necessary to imbue all of the characters with a magical and mythic background which wasn’t obvious in the first film. It made the story bigger, but again, that’s kind of my complaint for the above — it didn’t need to be so big, it could have done with just being one focused film.

Also, I do take issue with one Historic detail in the film, which seemed very small, and appears at the very beginning of the film. I don’t believe that the Writ of Habeas Corpus could have been suspended in this particular case, given the Habeas Corpus act of 1679. Owing to the debacle of justice which lead to the creation of that bill, I doubt a little thing like Piracy would allow the governor of the region such leeway.

Granted, I don’t expect a legal scholar to have written this, nor am I one myself… and it is just a movie after all, in which a squid faced man fights with a pirate on top of a mast during a maelstrom which is caused by a goddess, during a war with a trading company. I suppose that if I can sit back and suspend my disbelief on this matter, I should probably do the same on complex legal questions for the British government.

Well, so, the MPAA has decided that smoking is a good thing to take into account when creating a film rating. I personally am disgusted.

Listen, it’s not that I’m pro-smoking, but you know what? 25% of adults in this country smoke. They smoke on the street, in plain view of others. It’s still legal. Do we rate based on Alcohol consumption? If not, we should, but then again there are no more people railing against the evils of demon rum, so I doubt that will happen if it hasn’t already [NOTE: I have no idea, and have not been able to find it online].

The recent treatment of smoking in the entertainment industry is a bit galling. From the fact that no one smoked in “Pearl Harbor” (at a time when 1 in every 2 Americans smoked), to the decision to get rid of ALL “Tom and Jerry” scenes where a hero smokes (but not a villain), simply because of fear of the message that it shows, is the wrong way to handle things.

And this is especially odd, in the case of cartoons, that while the people complaining have decided that the dropping of anvils on someone’s head (a physical impossibility in real life) will cause increased violence in young people and an anthropomorphic cat smoking (which if seen in real life would indicate something far stronger than tobacco had been employed) will make kids run out and light up - they do not feel the need to remove time honored racist portrayals of characters, which have remained untouched since the 1940s.

Maybe we shouldn’t show kids’ heroes smoking, fine. But not all movies are made for kids, and not all movies which are made for adults should be rated R. It weakens the purpose of the rating — which is already a poor indication of the content in a film.

Fine, if you feel that smoking is being glamorized, put it in the tiny notes under the rating, but if it’s a valid reason to make a film rated R, you really should rid yourself of PG-13, and just make anything that has more than 5 profane words an R rated film.

So, I saw “Spider-Man 3″ this weekend, in the Uptown, which is the best Theater in Washington, DC, bar-none. It’s the last theater in this area that only has 1 screen, and the screen is huge. It’s not quite the size of an IMAX screen, but it’s the biggest you can get for a standard screen, as I understand it. This is the Theater that saw the US premier of “2001.”

So, really, any chance I get to go to the Uptown is always a treat in an of itself. As I understand it, they keep trying to close it down, so I’m trying to get the most trips possible out of it.

Now, before Spider-Man started up, they had a preview for Harry Potter. Now, Ann’s had me listen to the most recent 3 HP books on CD in the car, and fine, now I’m into it. It looks like this one is going to be fantastic. Based on the preview, they included everything in the book, and a few additional things, so I’m a bit worried (see the previous post on Harry Potter). because I imagine this film will have very little time to spend on any one facet, after the most recent cuts. All the same, I highly recommend the trailer. It’s probably the best trailer I’ve seen since Russian Ark.

[NOTE: While I recommend "Russian Ark" to anyone with an interest in film history, or Russian History, and plainly agree it is an amazing and beautiful movie, the trailer makes it seem much more action packed than it actually is].

Now, onto the feature presentation [NOTE: I guess this probably contains spoilers] — Spider-Man 3 really feels like half a season of a TV series. There’s so much going on, and much of it doesn’t have time to breath. So, it’s action packed, and it moves. Even though it’s two and a half hours long, it’s over before you know it, which is good in a way, but it honestly seems like the sort of film that should have been cut into 2 and done as 2 movies (a practice that I am getting sick of, I admit, but in this case, and a few others — Kill Bill, for example — makes a lot of sense).

On the whole, I liked the film a lot, and there were a lot of really good points to it, some examples :

- Bruce Campbell’s best cameo, yet, in the role of a “French” waiter.
- A tremendous sense of in-film continuity
- Less time wasted on explaining details with pseudo-science
- Character development occurs
- Complex moral choices made
- An amazing final battle scene

But there were things that bothered me. First off, I was a physics major, so both Spider-man 2 and this one, annoy me with-the way they do science. I have never seen either a major scientific discovery being made in a room filled with reporters (you really need to work out the kinks first, and prove that you can do it a second time before you go announcing it to anyone), and I have yet to see a major particle physics experiment done in anything that was open to the outside. Granted, the particle accelerator I used to work for was probably releasing low energy neutrons into the parking lot, but to the best of my knowledge that will not cause super human powers.

And, keep in mind, it’s not that scientists are astute careful people, realistically, it’s that they don’t want to lose funding, and an accident can do that. Scientists are people, just like everyone else, so I can imagine in the case of the “Sandman” experiment that the scientists would have just run out of money to put a roof on the thingamajig that whirls (I believe this is the appropriate scientific verbiage). If this were the case, however, you’d expect that they would also have a pretty lame area to view from — typically, in my experience, your average particle physics project is done in a room containing outdated computers, a refrigerator from the 1940s, a couple of sleeping bags, and which is made entirely out of cinderblocks. It’s possible that this is the difference between physics in the south and physics in NYC, however.

Secondly, and this more amused me than anything else — Venom’s back-story is non-existent. And having read a few interviews with Sam Raimi over the years on his plans, I totally understand why. Raimi never cared for Venom, because a) Venom’s background is too complex, and b) he was introduced after Sam stopped reading the comics. Fair enough, but just a little detail would have been nice. Again, from a scientific standpoint, they would have felt a meteor that size land, and it would have done much worse damage (I know, it’s a comic book movie).

Putting aside the symbiote, Eddie Brock’s character is pretty one dimensional — I didn’t care for him at all. In the comics, he can actually be a bit sympathetic, and often just pathetic, but here, even when you should be concerned for him, you just want him to be smacked around.

Third, Harry as the new Goblin, was an interesting addition. I liked this story line, though I know a lot of people wanted it to focus more on the new villains, and it probably should have.

Fourth, apparently where the spider bite gives you the proportional strength of a spider, the symbiote gives you the proportional strut abilities of John Travolta, as well as 5 years training on jazz piano, and 7 of tap. Honestly, I’ve just been lead to believe that Peter Parker really wishes he could be an extra in “West Side Story.” Really, they should have canned the dance scene, and played up his dark side more. Maybe they could’ve had him do something more than play with his bangs.

Finally, Kirsten Dunst. I like Kirsten Dunst a lot. I like Sam Raimi a lot. All the same, in the first film, the two of them pulled off the worst line in film history - “Only a friend (tilts head to 70 degrees, gets blank stare, smiles slightly), Peter Parker?” I can’t watch that line — it’s painful, because I know they could do better. I could blame the script (why in God’s name would she call him by his full name, there’s no reason for that — it’s insane), but I’ll just chalk it up to everybody makes mistakes.

In this one, she’s more herself — she has a character with self-doubt, and struggle, which is something MJ really didn’t get to have in the first two movies. We saw her mainly through Pete’s eyes, and now we get to see her and Pete through her own eyes. And MJ has, admittedly never been the raving egotist she was introduced in the comics as, but this was her first chance to really help carry the film. And almost as a show that her character has changed, there’s no gratuitous scene in which she’s wearing a wet see-through shirt (unlike both of the previous films).

Spider-man is, at its core, the most fundamentally perfect comic book concept. He is simultaneously both all the failings and weaknesses of the stereo-typical male comic book fan, and the embodiment of all of their hopes and dreams. He’s broke, too smart for his own good, and yet constantly makes stupid mistakes, but he’s also got an alter-ego who can do amazing things, and a girlfriend who’s a supermodel in the comics, and Kirsten Dunst in the films. It’s impossible to screw up Spider-man, unless you get away from this, much in the same way it’s nearly impossible to screw up Batman (and yet, somehow Joel Schumacher, you succeeded - kudos). So while the film has things that bothered me, I still have to say, it did not get away from those core principles, and so it gets high marks, and I recommend it. There’s nothing wrong with it that a couple more hours wouldn’t have solved.