April Releases

April Releases

Well, it's that time again, and these April showers bring along some old classics revamped, along with some fresh blood promising a whole new movie experience.   On the music scene, Canadian indie outfit The Strumbellas are set to release Hope later this month, so be sure to catch it when you can.

Movies

http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/april/2016 

Games

http://www.ign.com/games/upcoming?time=1m 

Music

http://www.allmusic.com/newreleases 

Books

http://www.bookreporter.com/coming-soon

Anime
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime/upcoming/tv 

See you at the movies! 

 

The Visual Side of Writing

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’re sitting at the writing table, pounding out the voices in your head for a scene or an interaction sequence, and you get stuck trying to find the right way to convey a dialogue.  What do you do?  Well, if you’re like most writers, you try to imagine what your characters are saying and how they come across.  You might agonize over tone, or flip-flop on the right voice, or worry whether or not you’re using the right words.  And always, always, you ask the same questions over and over: Does the dialogue flow nicely?  Do the characters sound believable?  Is it too wordy, or not wordy enough?

But I bet most writers aren’t thinking about how their characters look.  Body posture, gestures, the whole slew of animated stances and positions we adopt in our daily lives...these tend to get lost in the shuffle of wordsmithing and verbal manipulation.  True, most probably grant that a basic grasp of scene visualization is essential to almost every writer, but few truly take the time to develop the character as a visual entity in its own right.  This is really unfortunate, since often what we see factors considerably into how tone and meaning shift in any given exchange.  When it comes to character creation and interactions, observation of real people is just as crucial to the writer as it is to the artist, and usually what sticks out the most stands squarely on the nonverbal side of the fence.  This is true especially for writers working in a visual medium, where squeezing every ounce of detail you can into a scene helps to minimize confusion and push your point across more clearly to the rest of the production cast.

While you can probably write a whole book on the contribution gestures and body movements make to communication (and in fact, many scholarly-types have done just that) you can summarize the most important aspects as they pertain to visual writing under just three categories:

Hand Gestures

Remember that we humans are an animated lot, always waving fingers and twirling wrists at nearly every moment in a conversation.  Gesticulation is so second nature to us that we usually take it for granted, but adding a touch of it during a character exchange can really work wonders.  Though it may be hard to capture, try to observe the way people move during a particularly heated exchange.  Mimicking that on the page can add just the right spice for a dramatic dialogue.

Body Posture

Arm folds, head tilts, and hands akimbo are common sights to anyone with a modicum of human attentiveness, but body posture can take less subtle and more intriguing forms.  I have a friend who has a habit of crossing her legs while standing whenever she's talking to someone.  When I eventually brought it to her attention, she admitted having no clue she was even doing it.  These little quirks and their tweaking can bring an surprising degree of personality to the character creation board.

The Expressive Face

Whether it’s the smile in a person’s eyes or the finicky way they dart back and forth when speaking, there’s good reason to pay attention to the whole face, and not just the mouth.  “Uh-huh” can go from an expression of disinterest to one of rapt attention, simply by adding a smile and an arch of the brows, thus changing the entire tone and dynamic of the conversation.  This information is especially crucial for animators, who have the responsibility of rendering character motions into a believable and lifelike facsimile.

This advice may have minimal impact on the dedicated novelist - or even, to an extent, the comic book writer - but anyone working in television, animation, and film will undoubtedly find their writing enriched by donning the eyes of an artist, if even for a moment.  Never forget that God is in the details, so capturing the full range of human expression on page will really bring your characters to life.

'Zootopia' is a beast of a movie with a valid message

 

Product placement ahoy!

Movie: Zootopia

Director: Byron Howard, Rich Moore,Jared Bush,

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Shakira

Verdict:

Part buddy-cop dramedy, part racial allegory, Walt Disney’s latest offering is a touching and timely movie, blessed with well-rounded characters, smart dialogue, and top-notch storytelling that’s sure to leave you howling with joy on your way out the theater.

In depth:

What does it mean to live in a diverse environment?  Is it possible to be prejudiced without being malevolent?  These are some pretty heavy questions - too heavy, it seems, for Hollywood to tackle in any sophisticated way.  Every now and then a feature crops up, condemning all the usual suspects, parading a cast of dubious and unsympathetic antagonists, just to drive home the point that racism is bad.  But simple, everyday prejudice?  That’s been left mostly out in the cold, untouched for reasons I'm sure any psychologist would happily examine.  So it’s amazing to find the first mature treatment of so sensitive a topic in a 3d movie supposedly aimed at children.  But the facts don’t lie: Zootopia delivers a powerful message on tolerance and racism that doesn’t sacrifice its characters, plot, or humor, making it one of the most enjoyable and well-rounded family films ever released by Disney.

It all takes place in a world where humans don’t exist, and both predator and prey have presumably moved past their primitive instincts toward something…sorta like peace and harmony.  Country bunny Judy Hopps (Goodwin) aspires to be a police officer in Zootopia, the sprawling metropolis serving as the nerve center for this interspecies cosmos. Though from the beginning we start to suspect that not all is hunky-dory - particularly as young Judy contends with both a bullying fox and her own fretful parents - she remains unperturbed, and after a grueling run in the police academy sets off to fulfill her dreams in the big city.  It’s too bad that everything in Zootopia is hell-bent on crushing her fragile, hard-won optimism.  After all the fanfare thrown at her for being the city’s first rabbit cop, Judy finds her fellow officers, including police chief Bogo (Idris Elba) less than thrilled to have her on the force.  She’s immediately bumped down to parking duty, her hope of making the world a better place frustrated at every turn, before a flash of impulsiveness and a stroke of bad luck lands her before a sticky ultimatum: solve a missing predators case in 48 hours (sound familiar?) or turn in her badge in disgrace.  Her only lead is entrepreneurial con artist Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a sly fox with his own complicated relationship with Zootopia to work through.  As Judy and her unwilling partner race against the clock, she finds out there's a lot more to everything and everyone around her than appearances suggest - including herself.

"Yeah, seriously - don't."

From a set up that promises nostalgic flashes of Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in PG form, Zootopia quickly swerves into some pretty serious racial territory. The amazing thing is how it does so without losing any of its charm or comedic flare.  Like an agile predator, it nimbly straddles the line between buddy cop comedy and social commentary - often blending the two, like when Judy lays out “C-word privileges” to a fellow officer (“...a bunny can call another bunny cute, but when other animals do it…” ) or when Nick has an awkward “can I touch your hair?” moment with a sheep.  It’s a brand of hilariously uncomfortable humor aimed squarely at the parents in the theater -  reminding us, perhaps, of similar indiscretions in our own lives - and doesn't come across as preachy in the least.  But when the movie gets serious, it doesn’t pull any punches; few, if any, animated features from mainstream productions tackle the often insidious and overlooked existence of institutional racism and personal biases.  By sheer brilliance, the filmmakers avoid both moralizing and direct analogues to real life, eschewing simple fables of acceptable targets to examine the roots and wreckage of prejudice lying within everyone.

 

And this wouldn’t have worked had it not been for the strength of the characters inhabiting this world.

Pretty much exactly like the DMV in real life.

 Judy is a pure joy to watch, an energetic and enthusiastic persona obviously constructed with great care and foresight.  She’s the perfect blend of naivety and strength, believing in her ability to make her dreams come true, but not immune to doubt and insecurity, especially when her rose-tinted view of Zootopia cracks right before her eyes.  Goodwin injects our young heroine with enough sweetness to almost convince you that she’d fall for just about anything...before she slyly manipulates the tar out of many characters perceived as more cunning and ruthless.   But she isn’t just the innocent victim in all of this, fighting against an establishment with narrow expectations of her.  Judy’s flaws, like her impulsiveness and need to prove herself, are often her own worst enemies, and she comes with her own racial baggage, profiling foxes specifically and predators in general, which culminates with her delivering the film’s most troubling instance of institutional prejudice -  all without malice or any ill intent.

Nick had to grow on me for a bit, since he came off at first as just another “savvy” male foil to energetic female protagonist that’s become such a tired mainstay of anime and modern Disney features alike, with hardly an independent trait to call his own.  But once his backstory kicks in and Judy’s own shortcomings become more obvious, you appreciate his witty interjections and calm, thoughtful counterpoint to the often hot-headed bunny cop.  He reveals how much he’s personally suffered under Zootopia’s strained interspecies tolerance, and it’s obvious that however much he plays up the “scam-artist fox” stereotype, he’s too earnest and too disgusted by inequity to completely pull it off.  Bateman’s timing and humor really carry the day, and the chemistry between Nick and Judy isn’t just palatable - it’s damn-near explosive.  These characters, individually complex and fleshed-out, never overshadow one another, and while there’s enough fodder to keep the shipping segment of the fandom occupied, their layered and touching interactions - as close friends, partners, and confidants - have enough power to back a sequel or two, or even a television series.

Scenery porn?  Damn straight.

Besides the phenomenal story and characters, the 3d is gorgeous, as expected.  Judy arrives in Zootopia in a realistically rendered high-speed railway meant solely to showcase how much detail went into designing the animal metropolis - from the smokey clouds in the Rainforest District, to the frigid beauty of Tundratown.  But the scenery isn’t just there to be gawked at; it’s almost a character in itself, at times living up to the ideal of a beautiful, bustling city with unlimited opportunities, but only a trick of lighting and the right color palette away from exposing a seedier, darker underbelly, complete with mob bosses, hidden agendas, and unresolved tensions forged in millennia of predator/prey conflict.  The animators spared nothing in bringing this cityscape to life, and it should be a lesson to anyone interested in creative world-building.

With so much praise, there has to be some drastic misstep to balance it out, right?  Well, yes and no; it has its flaws, of course, but they're minimal at the very worst.  Disney’s recent obsession for the “surprise villain” shtick is getting old, and anyone tired of it will surely roll their eyes at the big "reveal."  However, the blow is softened by the weightiness of Zootopia’s plot.  The problem with these kinds of antagonists is that they’re too often given insufficient motive or development in order to keep the “shock” factor in play.  But Zootopia comes complete with its own “build your villain” package, thanks to the racial and political ramifications of only half-heartedly embracing diversity.  Was Hitler’s rise a product of 20th century Germany’s ethnic milieu?  Would the Rwandan genocide have occurred had there not been such a sharp line drawn between Hutu and Tutsi?  Who knows, but a little understanding of history puts Zootopia's bad guy in a pretty believable light.

Beyond that, and a little exaggeration when Judy finally confronts her own inner demons, I have nothing bad to say about it.  I admit I hissed through my teeth at everyone claiming this was the best thing since The Lion King, but that might not be far off the mark.  I don’t know if the crew at Disney has anything else in mind for Judy, Nick, and the rest of the cast, but this is one franchise I'd be thrilled to see take off.

Grade: A+

March Releases

March Releases

Here is a taste of just some of the cools stuff set to premiere this March.

Movies

http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/march/2016 

Television

http://www.tvguide.com/special/winter-preview/calendar/march/ 

Games

http://www.ign.com/games/upcoming?time=1m 

Music

http://www.allmusic.com/newreleases 

Books

http://www.bookreporter.com/coming-soon 

See you at the movies! 

Sci-fi at the Oscars

 

 

  

 

I’ll be honest: the Academy Awards never loomed much on my horizon. The affair smacks of the kind of self-congratulatory swill so necessary to feed certain species of ego, and even the red-carpeted stars and spangles, shimmering with bright camera flashes and expensive regalia, do little to rouse much out of me. But I reserve the bulk of my disillusionment for the staggering amounts of bias that permeate the Academy  - and no, I’m not just talking about the justified accusations of racial and gender  shame hovering over this year’s nominations like an angry storm. Rather, the bias I address is far subtler and, in many ways, even more insidious: genre bias.  A casual glance at the history of Oscar nominations reveals an overwhelming trend towards drama and long, historical epics, with maybe a good nod or two towards the occasional black comedy.  Most comedies and mysteries, along with what one would call the “speculatives” - science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other visions of what isn’t and what could-be - usually come up with the proverbial short straw when awards season comes a’ knocking.  

Explaining the why and how such a bottle-necking of creative output occurs would take another post - and maybe a foray or two into social psychology.  But this season the Powers that Be decided to throw the much maligned science fiction category, at least, a bone.  Two films about would-be worlds were nominated for Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Martian.  This ties with 2009’s Avatar and District 9, but it doesn’t smack of shallow placation implied in that year; these films are genuinely great, and have as fair a chance as any of carrying away the big prize.  Fury Road got a flurry of other nominations in the the sound and effects categories - old staples of sci-fi films - but also netted a Best Director for George Miller, while The Martian landed a Best Actor for Damon along with Best Adapted Screenplay.  I expected Ex Machina to join the coveted Best Picture club as well, but nonetheless made due with a respectable Best Original Screenplay nomination.

I suspect that pop culture osmosis has a part to play in this, with the superhero tsunami mounting six or so years of momentum, along with some smart showings across the speculative fiction board (although conventional fantasy, unfortunately, has been on the downbeat for the past decade or so).  Only time will tell how well science fiction will do this time around, especially since it’s up against such stiff competition.  But who knows?  We just might see history in the making tomorrow night.

Book Review: Leonardo's Legacy

Book: Leonardo’s Legacy: How da Vinci Reimagined the World

Author: Stefan Klein

Cambridge, MA : Da Capo Press, c2010

Curiosity isn’t just a gift–it’s a gateway. Children endowed with an unquenchable thirst for figuring things out will be a real force in the world–as long as they never lose the simple joy in finding the bridge between knowing and not knowing. As a kid, that bridge was always over another horizon, obscured by a mountain of books and a plethora of facts, equations, theories, and gadgets–the collected wreckage of my endless pursuit for understanding.  I used to fumble through my local library, digesting facts, flitting from shelf to shelf and from subject to subject. It was there that I first discovered the quintessential “Renaissance Man,” Leonardo di Vinci. The fabled “Universal Genius” was my first encounter with the polymath concept, and every book on him I explored filled me with the hope that it was both possible and desirable to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of some.

But there was something missing. Many authors tended to rattle off his accomplishments like a Wikipedia list: he IS a scientist-mathematician-painter-sculptor-anatomist-writer-engineer. Any insight into his mind, his motivations, are usually swept under the rug or left unexamined. But there is one notable exception: Leonardo’s Legacy: How da Vinci Reimagined the World. A spectacular book penned by Stefan Klein, noted physicist and essayist, it departs from the laudatory fluff of most da Vinci biographies and examines some of the core tenets driving not just the man, but the polymath paradigm as a whole.

For instance, while da Vinci’s extensive resume usually places “mathematician” near the top, he in fact only knew the basics of long division–pretty advanced for his time, but hardly the stuff of pure genius. Instead of firing labels like a rabid kid with a paint gun, Klein looks for the origin of da Vinci’s unique mind view in his notes, letters, and sketches. As it turns out, da Vinci’s drive and most of his discoveries sprung from his pursuit of the ideal expression of art. His examinations into anatomy were born out of dissatisfaction with the outdated models of his time, so often used by artists; his discoveries in optics were spurred by his obsession with accurate light and shadow, and his engineering feats were extensions of these findings, fed also by his need for patronage and the demands of his volatile slice of Italy. Klein presents da Vinci’s achievements as both an extension of his artistry and as an outgrowth of his social and historical context.

By moving his development and discoveries beyond the vague and unhelpful “genius” label, Klein introduced me to a fuller and, dare I say, more accurate model of the “Renaissance soul.” Da Vinci never viewed his varied accomplishments in isolation. Though stricken by a lifelong love for knowledge, he tried to fit what he learned into a comprehensive framework, one much greater than the sum of its parts. Though Klein doesn’t quite mention it by name, his book is a nice primer on the idea of “systems thinking”–an approach to problem solving that views different elements and ideas in the world as part of a larger, interconnected whole, however isolated they appear. To da Vinci and other polymaths, knowledge isn’t just a series of disparate facts, separate leaves to be admired and collected in isolation. The objective is always to get at the “root,” so to speak, to see the tree in its entirety–leaves, branches, and all.

Unfortunately, Klein also points out just how fragile this peculiar brand of curiosity can be when not nurtured or funded by a generous patron. He argues that while we often lament the dearth of “modern day da Vincis,” our current emphasis on specialization and compartmentalization in education can hammer a budding polymath’s interests flat. This, of course, is a debatable point–but even so, Leonardo’s Legacy is a great book for anyone whose passions branch in many directions by offering a peek into one of our most illustrious champions.

Recommendation: Must Read

Movie Review: Deadpool

 

"Heh...load!"

Movie: Deadpool

Directed by: Tim Miller

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Ed Skrein, Morena Baccarin

Verdict: Crude, shameless, and often hilarious, Deadpool flips the overplayed superhero movie milieu upside-down with its dark humor, subversive wit, and surprisingly solid joining of bathos and pathos, topped with a strong showing by a likable lead that somehow manages to carry to plot over the weighty trappings of its own convoluted origin story.

In depth: Alright - let’s be honest: who’s sick of superhero movies?  Sure, it was great when Toby Maguire was shooting web all over the place, or when Christopher Nolan stepped out of his comfort zone to create compelling drama out of a man in a flying rat costume.  But it seems like every three months, one universe or another is spitting out a new baby to add to a growing family of increasingly superfluous flicks and sequels.  All this swill creates is perfect fermentation for a character like Deadpool to dip his grubby little feet into.  Deadpool is arguably this generation’s iconic Marvel personality - sure, he shares the spot with the still stubbornly popular Wolverine, but as a whole he’s come to represent the general mood of many superhero comic fans: he laughs at conventional morality, breaks the fourth wall with all the delicacy of a cavity search, and basically fails to be or do anything remotely heroic.  So with my expectations running high, I walked into Marvel's latest showcase featuring him in hopes of finding reprieve from all the larger-than-life, apocalyptic and/or origin stories that have saturated the movie scene for some time.  And I got exactly what I wanted, for despite a few slips here and there, Deadpool was a fast, furious ride through Marvel’s wild side, delivering a much-needed antidote to spandex overdose.

Reynolds stars as the legendary Merc with a Mouth, carving a bloody (and side-splitting) path of vengeance as he tracks down the mutant mad scientist Ajax - played by British actor Ed Skrein - who's responsible for ruining his life.  Along the way, he kills a few people, has a run-in with the X-Men (alright, two, including the unfortunately named Negasonic Teenage Warhead) and even gets a chance at love with kind-hearted prostitute Vanessa (Baccarin).  Stocked full of mythology gags, fourth wall malfunctions, and crude humor and below-the-belt shots at everything from cancer to blindness, Marvel’s bad boy revels in the film’s R-rating, all while somehow managing to piece together a mostly coherent plot line - certainly Marvel’s best effort in over a year.  

Ironically, (or maybe not) Deadpool accomplishes what Origins failed so terribly to do: provide an interesting origin story that matches the source material as closely as possible while still allowing necessary breaks from conformity.  From the delightful in medias res opening and laugh-out-loud gag credits, to Deadpool taking time out of his busy car-flipping schedule to delve into flashback, the movie doesn’t pull the punches right out of the gate and somehow makes exposition actually fun.  The detailed cinematography really stands out, with the action scenes almost literally hitting you in the face, and Deadpool's animated mask making you feel like you've actually stepped into one of his comics.  This shouldn't be surprising; this is a (sorta) superhero movie, after all, and actions scenes normally bear almost no commentary in this genre because of it.  But in this case, it wasn’t just the action, but how it was used to enhance the ridiculousness of the situation to spectacular effect, that are really noteworthy; the bullet time sequences, for example, were elevated to the point of parody, but bucked the usual trend by melding with and enhancing the action, instead of just taking away from it.

Ryan Reynolds hops into the title role surrounded by a small bit of controversy due to both his lackluster film corpus lately, and his connection to the horribly conceived big-screen debut of the beloved iconoclast in Wolverine: Origins.  I can’t say that I shared the same worries; his one-scene wonder was just about the best thing in that train wreck, and while his record has admittedly been spotty as of late, his aptitude for black comedy and wit is solid.  He proved me right, for while his comparatively nasally voice after Nolan North’s inspired renditions took some getting used to, in no time you couldn't help but to revel in Ryan’s profanity-laden tirades.  The actor’s natural motor-mouth tendencies served him well, and it seems like, after a little of fumbling, he’s found the role he was born to play.

That said, I can’t say that the other actors help him in carrying the movie in any way.  True, Morena Baccarin was delightful, even if she did fall into the damsel in distress trope way too easily, but Skrein’s odd cross between bored sociopath and soccer hooligan didn’t quite do it for me, nor did his butchy henchwoman Angel Dust.  Granted, this may have been part of an elaborate joke on the shallow and almost laughably stupid characterizations of many super villains in this genre, but it’s hard to tell.  I kept hoping that Deadpool would pop up and skewer or at least explain the inane choices and motives driving some characters - the most glaring to me being why Frances - sorry, Ajax - thought it was a good idea to taunt, and then lure, a virtually indestructible psychopathic killing machine to his location, with no real plan on how to, you know, kill him.  Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (and yes, Wade gave that name the poking it so richly deserved) came off a little better, played by Stefan Kapičić and Brianna Hildebrand, respectively; it helped that they were essentially there to play off of our main hero in different and very funny ways - one being the straight-laced dogooder, the other, simply a bored teenager who marvels at the stupidity in every single adult around her.

Besides that little gap, though, I found the story strong - surprisingly so, since of all the adjectives I’d use to describe a Deadpool movie, “touching” wouldn’t usually be in my top ten.  And yet, it managed to choke a few genuine drops of emotion out of the proverbial offensive turnip, particularly in Wade’s romance with Vanessa.  Their relationship wasn’t overplayed for the most part, and only delved into sentimentality once or twice, which already outstrips most romantic comedies by a mile.  It also gave Reynolds a modicum of room to maneuver, allowing him to show off his genuine nerdy charm - something most incarnations of Deadpool never get the chance to flex in anyway that isn't borderline creepy.  Unfortunately, this undeniable movie strength hides one of its biggest weaknesses.  While Deadpool doesn’t fudge up in indecisiveness like so many other movies that play both sides of the tragedy/comedy divide, it does make the mood whiplash hard and painful - particularly in those rare points when the bridging joke leading from one end to the other falls flat.

Worst of all, the tender moments, while well-done all by themselves, take away a bit of the... meanness, you’d expect in a Deadpool film.  Don’t get me wrong - it was plenty mean on most occasions, sometimes outstandingly so, especially as it concerned  legitimate pot shots at Marvel’s own ridiculousness.  But the movie was just a few snarky comments and subverted expectations shy of really twisting the knife home, and I was personally disappointed that it seemed to pull some of its punches.  But maybe I’m being a selfish; this odd balance was probably necessary in order to keep Deadpool from sliding into complete parody, which wouldn't have done the story any favors.  In the end, Miller found a good middle ground, between self-effacing parody and genuine storytelling, and following his example wouldn’t be a bad thing for any future superhero movie makers.

At the final stand, Deadpool was a fun, witty, and irreverent joy ride through the sometimes twisted, sometimes heartbreaking story of one of Marvel’s most iconic heroes of recent times.  Reynolds nails his role like the bulls-eyes he lands on his unfortunate on screen adversaries, and minor nitpicks aside, Deadpool is arguably the most fun, witty, and tongue-in-cheek superflick since Guardians of the Galaxy.  In a movie market overflowing with heroes and their sequels, here’s one franchise I wouldn’t mind seeing more of in the near future.

Grade: A