January 2015 Releases and Premieres

January Releases 

I know the first week of the month's already past, but I thought I'd share a few links showing what's coming out over the remainder of the month:

Movies

http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/january/2015/ 

Television

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

Games

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

Movie Review: The Interview

 
Movie: The Interview

Directed by: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Starring: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Randall Park

Verdict:

The Interview managed to survive the stormy political intrigue that threatened to suffocate it, but despite the surprising likability of it’s two male leads and a near-brilliant performance from Randall Park as Kim Jong-un, the film’s torturously-long comedic sequences and muddled direction ultimately prevents it from being anything more than average.

In-depth:

The Interview has been out for over a week now, so I’m probably more than a little late to the party.  To be honest, were this any other movie I probably wouldn’t have bothered with a review to begin with.  Despite this, I strongly believe that it deserves one - and not for any of the hollow claims of “patriotic duty” that’s been flung around the Internet lately.  Rather, I think the film really deserves a fair and honest review - one apart from the politics and jingoistic fervor, and without a preconceived sense of what it should have been according to one armchair sociologist or another.  See my “Interview analysis” post if you want my take on the royal mess this movie’s made over the past few months, but right now, I'll keep the focus where it belongs - on how well The Interview works by its own merits, and nothing more.  This may well be an impossible task, but I intend to give it my best.

The story should be familiar to anyone with pulse by now. Franco and Rogen play manic celebrity talk show host David Skylark and his down-to-earth producer Aaron Rapoport, respectively, who, following Aaron’s sudden existential angst born of a run in with a former classmate-turn “serious journalist,” decide to cap off their thousandth-episode by landing an interview with their most high-profile fan: the Supreme Leader of North Korea himself, Kim Jong-un.  Unfortunately, their plans get hijacked by the CIA, who want to use this opportunity to “take out” the young tyrant once and for all.  Adding to the mix is Sook, North Korea’s Director of Communications, who has an agenda of her own regarding our two witless would-be assassins.   And, as the saying goes, “hilarity ensues.”  We’re going to ignore the excuse plot, as well as the ridiculous and implausibly convenient premise; this is a Rogen/Goldberg production, after all, where suspension of disbelief isn’t just a requirement - it’s a commandment.  The real thing of note here is the surprisingly able showing by Franco as the perverted, pop-culture talking, slightly racist, and generally moronic Skylark.  While I’m normally not a big fan of Franco’s acting, I must admit that he did a fine job with his portrayal of a character that probably looked absolutely horrid on paper.  Despite Skylark’s obligatory stupidity and off-the-cuff references to brown sugar, honeydicking, and “stank dick,” (there is a context for those, but I’d rather not delve any further) he is also a good friend to Aaron and possesses an amazing degree of empathy - or at least, to the extent allowed by an intentionally-offensive comedy.  Rogen’s Rapoport almost fades into the background in comparison, serving strictly as a hyper-thin foil to the much-more interesting Skylark.  While Rogen’s character is more firmly tethered to the “plot,” such as it is, it was Skylark that kept the first 45 minutes of the movie tolerable and even enjoyable at times.

The real acting heavyweight, though, belongs to Randall Park and  his rendition of Kim Jong-un.  While the script initially called for a militant depiction of the Great Dictator, Park wisely choose  a softer, more subtle tract, elevating the character from what would have undoubtedly been a cliche to the most nuanced performance in the film.  Park’s Kim successfully blends sympathy with terror, coming off as a funny, cigar-smoking, pop culture fanboy with daddy issues before switching to a dangerously violent psychopath at the proper provocation.  Even when told that Kim Jong is a master manipulator of the press, it’s still hard not to be drawn in by his seemingly disarming and self-effacing manner, and Park’s quality acting - which, in my  opinion, would have stood out even in a more “serious” movie - made the sudden mood transitions logical and the ending interview with Skylark more believable (relatively speaking) than they would have been otherwise.

But of course, no one comes to see a movie like The Interview for its acting chops; we want to laugh, and it’s in this area - very unfortunate for, you know, a comedy - that it falls somewhat flat.  The usual Rogen/Goldberg fare is on full display:  penis jokes, pop-culture references, and the blatant homoerotic (sub)text prevalent in bromances aimed at 30-something males, so anyone watching only for the lowest comedy denominator surely  got a few chuckles out of it.   However, the usual sharp dialogue and keen timing are noticeably absent, replaced instead by cliches and long comedic sequences that take up significant portions of screen time.  One particularly painful episode stemmed from an act of stupidity on the part of Franco and blossomed into a 10-minute long scene of Rogen crawling through the North Korean undergrowth at night, narrowly avoiding tiger attacks, and having to resort to hiding a tapered missile in his anus to avoid detection from Kim Jong's guards.  While that whole thing isn’t exactly an Oscar-worthy showcase, the problem is not so much with the scene itself as with its length; 10 minutes is a long time to endure a moronic set up for a spy outing, several bad anal sex jokes, and the continued and puzzling confusion of a tiger for a large dog.  Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it’s also integral to other forms of humor, and those 10 minutes lost could have been better spent  elsewhere - even if only to give more bathroom jokes in a different context.  When you stretch a gag out too long, you lose the humor along the way, and what had  been up to that point a decently-paced bit of comedic torture starts to feel more like actual torture - and I’m amazed comedy veterans like Rogen and Goldberg forgot that simple truth while making it.

Then again, it’s hard to know what, if anything, The Interview’s creators would have put in place of these comedic wastelands, since the film seemed patently unsure of what kind of movie it wanted to be.  Many of its most vocal defenders and “anti-critics” claim that it shouldn’t be judged by it merits as a smart political satire because it isn’t one, and never had aspirations to be anything more than a silly blue comedy.  I beg to differ; I believe the film did have some aspirations towards relevant satire - in addition to silly slapstick, with a bit of entertainment mass media parody thrown in.  This attempt to wear multiple hats is, in fact, the movies gravest and most damning sin, and the one to ultimately banish it to the dustbin of mediocrity.  The development of Director Sook is a major part of the blame here, for despite a competent effort by actress Diana Bang - arguably the best after Randall Park - her character, by introducing an alternate plan to bring Kim Jong-un down nonviolently by breaking him on television and invalidating his claims to godhood among his people, added a level of potential seriousness that, by this point, the audience wasn’t willing to buy.  The overly-long joke scenes and massive exposure of Kim Jong-un were all done in support of a storyline whose ultimate culmination was...what, exactly?  A maudlin display of affection that capstones the film’s media parody? A real attempt to address North Korea’s serious humanitarian problems?  Or just a great big good-natured mess that completely overturns any potential for biting satire?  The answer -  without giving anything away to the two or three of you who have yet to see the ending - is all three; The Interview by the end completely embraces its schizophrenic tendencies, and in the process falls short of either moving satire, tongue-in-cheek parody, or even convincing toilet humor.    

None of this is to say that The Interview is a bad movie.  So long as you have adjusted expectations, it can be an enjoyable and surprisingly clever experience.  It’s the lack of commitment at the heart of its story that really weighs it down; had it worn any one of its “hats” with full confidence (and yes, that includes even the slapstick, gross-out one) it would probably have a higher rating, especially with the surprising strength of its characters.  As it stands, the movie’s befuddlement subtracts from all quarters, and despite the outcry swarming around it, I would be surprised if anyone- friend or foe - remembers it a year from now.

Grade: C

"The Interview," Propaganda, and the Power of Art (PS: Happay New Year!)

Unless you were living under a rock last week,  you probably know all about the buzz drumming on the media airwaves regarding the whole “ Interview” debacle (those of you who have been under rock can catch a summary of the whole sordid affair here).  While this is old news in most quarters, and I’d prefer to reserve an extended discussion on the movie itself for my review, I would like to note that although I applaud Sony’s decision to ultimately give the film its due release, the conglomerate rightly got a sound spanking from the media for its initial choice to pull the plug.  I’d rather ignore the usual round of “whodunnits-and-why” extrapolation, since other avenues have provided that angle with a substantial amount of coverage as is. Rather, I’d like to examine how  this story illustrates yet again the power and paradox of the creative media, and its impact - whether through book, film, or visual representation - on the minds of those who ponder its meaning.

In a perfect world, this lesson would need no reiteration, since history is littered with the metaphysical wreckage left behind by one creative whirlwind or another.  Think Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Jungle;  even if you’ve never read either book,  no one can deny the impact each has had on how slavery and industrial dehumanization, respectively, are viewed in America.  Yet despite this recognized influence across time, it’s often hard for writers, playwrights, and movie makers to get any respect from either politicians or paragons of “practical” industry .  This is not a matter of measuring the quality or merit of a particular work and finding it wanting.  Rather, it’s about whole segments of the human population who believe that any piece of fiction, however serious or lauded,  is fundamentally trivial, frivolous, and a waste of time.

The irony is that these perpetual pooh-poohers are often the very first to take up arms whenever these “trivial” arts do anything to upset their sensibilities.  The paradox of art’s power is that it’s simultaneously impotent and dangerous in the minds of ruling elites.  “Good art” is a nice moment’s distraction - or it’s an incendiary ready to destroy the status quo.  “Bad art” is an awful waste to be soon forgotten - or its a corrupting influence that must be bottled at all costs.  Whether good or bad, whether  popular or unpopular, those who fear art’s ability to seep into the skull and shape minds in an uncontrollable fashion usually find it more comforting to clothe the whole enterprise in insignificance.

These layers of self-deceit become complicated when a film like “The Interview” suddenly thrusts itself onto the national stage.  While the goofy, gross-out comedy centered around the assassination of North Korea’s supreme leader (read: dictator) is unlikely to be hailed as the next Citizen Kane, the hoopla surrounding its release was far outsized for a movie of any stature.  In the West, it became a clarion call for the Free Speech truckers, with everyone from author George R.R. Martin to the President himself criticizing Sony’s timidity.  Meanwhile, North Korea was willing to use military force in order to keep the movie out of its borders.  Big fuss for such a frivolous comedy film, right?  

Wrong.  North Korea, like most oppressive regimes, fully understands the subtle power of the arts; they are, after all, the primary vehicles of propaganda, which is really just creative fiction with an agenda, even when masquerading as “truth”.  The most insidious element of propaganda’s influence is just how many people don’t take it seriously  - after all, it’s just a war movie, just a Reconstruction Era film, just a painting.  And yet the very act of dismissing propaganda as harmless grants it a doorway into our minds and our hearts.  The thing is, while you can force someone to follow an order, you cannot force them to believe anything - like, say, the larger-than-life status of their “supreme leader”.  But with a fully functional propaganda machine in place, you can plant the seed of an idea even in the most resistant of minds, for while a persistent rebel can reject and protest any attempt at coercion, this modus operandi is not as effective against a siege on your mind.  You can sneer at the latest government-backed “documentary” on the greatness of the nation, crumble the newspaper extolling why your leader is practically God on Earth, and convince yourself that it’s all just propaganda swill.  Fiction masquerading as truth.  Bad art.  But since you can’t take up arms against a movie or a painting, the contrarian is usually left with no other recourse than to sit back and watch these fictions sprout around him and even within him.

It’s a very effective system, but it has one caveat for the would-be dictator: doubt can spread just as easily along the same channels.  This is way North Korea is willing to mount a military defense against “The Interview”; while I sincerely doubt the movie would spawn a legion of vigilantes gunning for Kim Jong-un’s head, the fact that no one can predict the type and magnitude of its effect is exactly what scares oppressive regimes everywhere.   To elites in the (so-called) free world, the triviality of the arts is a comforting fiction to soften the blow for when an Uncle Tom’s Cabin occasionally upsets business as usual. But for nations like North Korea, this same triviality is part of the psychological artillery used against their own people, and they’ll be damned if they let a silly foreign movie upset their delicate acts of manipulation.

I believe that this whole incident with “The Interview” will soon die down, and everything will go back to “normal.”  However, I do hope that a recognition of the power of the arts could linger just a little longer in the national imagination, as well as an understanding in elites everywhere - in both “free” and “unfree” nations - that their fortunes can rise or fall on the propagation of a simple, even silly, unrestrained idea.

Movie Review The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

Movie: The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

Directed by: Peter Jackson

Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage

Verdict:

The Battle of the Five Armies finally brings Peter Jackson’s grand Hobbit trilogy to a close, and while there’s more than enough fighting and orc cleaving to keep action aficionados on the edge of their seats,  the rest of us are left shaking our heads as the film (almost) collapses under the weight of weak characters, awkward pacing, and its own overinflated bombast.

In-depth:

The opening lands us right where we left off in The Desolation of Smaug, with the enraged dragon-in-question torching Laketown to the ground.  Unfortunately, we’re denied Cumberbacht’s deliciously hammy performance that made the last movie such a delight to watch;  this time around Smaug’s more interested in chewing buildings than chewing the scenery, all in preparation for his swan song at the hands of Bard the Bowman.  Our would-be dragonslayer had just escaped from prison and was mounting an admirable (and convincing) Last Stand atop the bell tower against the bellowing beast with help from his courageous son, Bain.  Meanwhile, Turiel, Kili, and the remaining Lakeside dwarves struggle to stay afloat amidst falling debris and panicked inhabitants, while  back at Erebor Bilbo Baggins and Company could only look on helplessly as the city burned.   I am sad to say that these first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, right up to when Bard pierces the dragon’s heart with the infamous black arrow, were the single best stretch of film for the entire movie.  The action, while perfunctory and predictable, was still engrossing, and I was eager to see who would be left standing, despite knowing full well how it would end.  Luke Evans had a big part to play in this, for it was his rendition of Bard - a man both noble and pragmatic, a quintessential anti-hero played with depth and understatement - that held my attention throughout the entire first act of the movie.  

It’s just too bad that the rest of the cast couldn’t quite cut the same mustard.  Turiel and Kili have a “touching” farewell at the lake’s shore after Smaug’s demise, where the dashing young dwarf gives his hilariously dimorphic mate a keepsake for him to claim later.  The whole scene was stomach churning, and not simply because the attempt at romance came off as tacky and formulaic.  I suspect that Turiel was introduced in order to bring some “gender balance” to a largely male cast, but in truth she was little more than a vestigial appendage for Kili and Legolas, initiating a ridiculous semi-love triangle and saturating every moment of her screen time with the threat of becoming a plot tumor.  Thankfully, her appearances in this film were brief and Kili-centric; the title of “Most Extraneous Movie Irritant” is reserved for another character introduced  by Jackson and his writers: Alfird, the Master of Laketown’s parasitic Yes-Man.  No doubt intended for comic relief, Alfrid’s cowardice, greed, and general nastiness moves him well beyond “love to hate” territory and lands him squarely in the realm of “seething hate.” The pain of his presence is significantly compounded by his overexposure; for the first hour or so of the movie, he arguably has more screen time than Bilbo himself.  It didn’t help that otherwise sensible folk like Bard and Gandalf entrusted him with duties he was obviously unqualified to carry out.  Alfrid seemed to serve little purpose other than to further hammer home Jackson’s rather heavy-handed treatment of The Hobbit’s light fable against avarice and greed - which, quite frankly, could have been better served through a much less annoying avenue.

The rest of the movie’s first half was thoroughly unremarkable, with the resettlement of Dale by Laketown’s survivors, the arrival of Thranduil, and the retreat of Thorin into the ruin’s of Erebor so as to sharpen his insanity rendered rushed and incidental by Jackson.  A notable exception was the rescue of Gandalf, in which Elrond, Saruman, and Galadriel all flexed their fighting muscles and faced off against Sauron and his Ringwraiths.  Jackson is a master of battle scenes if nothing else, and watching the most powerful beings of Middle-Earth duke it out while keeping the light show to a merciful minimum was a refreshing reprieve from the general monotony of the pre-Battle build-up.  Thorin’s descent into “dragon sickness” also deserves special mention, though the results are a little more mixed.  The film does a fair job at incorporating symbolism and proximity in order to show the gravity of Thorin’s sanity slippage: bedecked in robes matching his grandfather’s, he roams the halls of his ruined kingdom in a similar wild-eyed fashion, in the process wrecking himself and his relationships with the rest of his Company by account of his greed for the Arkenstone.  Thorin’s moral decay bears a rather Shakespearean countenance, which is impressive considering Peter Jackson is hardly known for his literary subtlety.  Throughout Thorin’s breakdown, Bilbo remains a convincingly conflicted character; although our Hobbit hero is purposefully out-of-focus for the final film, his scenes, especially in the company of Thorin, showcase Martin Freeman’s aplomb for both pathos and bathos.  Bilbo, who had kept the Arkenstone hidden for fear that it would hasten his friend’s unraveling, wavers between guilt over lying to Thorin, and conviction that keeping the stone from him is for his own good, and the brief interactions between the characters are truer to Tolkien’s subtle tracks against covetousness than any of Alfrid’s inane acts of bastardry.  Still, at times Thorin’s sickness can feel a little too put on, often to the point of near parody; a particularly cringe-worthy example occurred when Bilbo, after yet another failed attempt to talk some sense into him, heard him repeat Smaug’s lines of “not parting with a single coin” - complete with dragon voice to boot.  Thorin’s sickness would have perhaps been more poignant had the film drawn closer analogies with the greed of his deceased grandfather King Thror, rather than the original sin of a giant reptilian war machine.  Likewise, his quick and complete recovery in very little  time made the whole episode feel like a plot contrivance, one to be shed when no longer needed.

Of course, Thorin’s sickness was a plot device in the strictest sense, a hurdle to surmount in order form him to participate in the titular Battle of the Five Armies.  As the principal draw of the movie, it’s hard to say anything negative about the fight itself, whose highlights include Thorin’s boisterous cousin Dain Ironfoot, smashing Orcs with a warhammer while astride a pig and bellowing in gleeful bloodlust the entire time, as well as the triumphant return of Azog the Defiler.  The Pale Orc’s inclusion in the film series was met with great  resistance from fans, especially as he proved inapposite to the flow of the first film and was mostly absent for the second.  Now, during the movie’s recognized climax, he was both a competent strategist and a brutal adversary, and his various ploys and misdirections were what kept the fights from becoming too wearisome.  Still, this was a 45-minute long fight scene, when all is said and done, longer than most television programs and largely bereft of anything resembling character development.  And here, in all honesty, lies the core problem with The Battle of the Five Armies: minus the few aforementioned gems, the entire movie feels like a rushed setup for the final fight, which, clocking in at nearly an hour, rode out for entirely too long.  Despite the film’s shorter length compared to its predecessors, the lack of proper pacing made its final act seem endless.  It was as if everything rose to a crescendo far too quickly, and then carried the wave - and the audience along with it - to the point of rot.  Was the action good? Yes, admittedly; and yet, for anyone not fully committed to the repeated chopping of flesh with sword, 45 minutes is entirely too much, and it’s likely even the action connoisseurs would shift uncomfortably in their seats had the scene extended 10 or 15 minutes further.  When the inevitable character deaths eventually happened, it was hard to truly feel anything at their passing - both for the lack of any character depth, and the fact that riding the war film wave for three-quarters of an hour drains one of even the capacity to mourn.

It’s hard to call the Battle of the Five Armies a bad movie; any who came into it expecting, well, a battle, and nothing more were likely not disappointed, and after two years of Jackson's bloated offerings, good character development was probably the last thing on anyone’s mind.  Still, this bookend to the Hobbit Trilogy highlights to a greater degree than the others the problems inherent to transforming a short children’s book into an extended film series. 

Grade: C

New Beginnings

A greeting to all, and welcome.  The name’s SpiderG, and I’m here to commemorate the long-overdue resurrection of this blog.  You see,  I carved out this little corner of the Internet five years back as a storehouse for my writings.  Poetry, short stories, philosophical diatribes...I was hellbent on painting the world with prose and letters.

As the date on the last post painfully shows, that didn’t go over so well.

School, work, and writing for other avenues soon took up my time, and unfortunately the blog fell into disuse.  But I never really forgot about it, so after some serious thinking (and a swift but loving kick in the pants from a good friend) I’ve decided to completely restructure it in accordance to one of my favorite hobbies - critiquing mass media.

So now that my sorry tale of neglect is out of the way, here’s what you can expect:

Entertainment News & Reviews

The blog’s bread and butter.  I do everything: big budget new releases, pilots, notable episodes of hit TV series, and important documentaries, as well as indie and foreign films I think you REALLY need to see.  I’m a bit of a media omnivore, though, so don’t be surprised if the occasional video game, theater piece, or novel passes under my scrutiny.  I try to catch the movies “fresh” whenever possible, so be sure to visit my tumblr for pictures, audience interviews, and the general shakedown on life as a theater hopper.

Media Analysis

If you’ve ever been moved by a gorgeous slice of cinema, intrigued by a game’s symbolism, or even just had the good fortune to come across a “very special episode” done right, then you probably understand the need to lay your mind out onto a page and really peg down what is was that made it click.  Thus, every once in a while I’ll write an in-depth article focused on a well-done, galvanizing, or otherwise insanely popular work of art and try to tease out the root of its power.  The goal, basically, is to understand what worked (or didn’t work), why it worked, and (I hope) how to make it work better.  

So there you have it.  I’ll make more posts as the days pass, but until then, take care, and I’ll see you at the movies

GOOOOOOL!!!!!!

The World Cup's here and in full swing, and I'm mighty proud that it's held in South Africa. I'm a big soccer fan, and even though I'm pretty busy and miss most of the live matches, I still save every match I can to watch later (God bless whoever invented DVR).
If you got any favorites, please share; as much as I'd like South Africa to win - or anyone from Africa, really - I'll settle for a more realistic choice in Mexico and the Netherlands; they're both really good teams, and both deserve at least one win. I'd like the US to get high, if only so that soccer might become more popular here.

Math and Beauty - Part 2: Brevity

Many many moons ago, I had the idea of writing a series of blogs documenting how I defined beauty by recourse to mathematics...and have since, apparently, forgotten all about it. I won't bore any viewers with half-hearted excuses on why I've been gone for nearly a year, but needless to say, I'm back, and I hope to continue the series with some regularity. So, with that out of the way...

Most of us know the standard definition of brevity; it means, in short, to be brief, or concise. Brevity is considered "the soul of wit", since its qualities are deemed pleasing to the ear when expressed in a short, biting apothegm. However, brevity doesn't belong to wit's domain alone; I hope to show that brevity is also the fountainhead of artistic beauty, and an important consideration in the creative process. How, you may ask? I'll try to be brief...

Now, take a look at the following:

E^i*pi+1=0

This equation - known as Euler's Identity - is regarded by mathematicians the world over as arguably the most beautiful ever produced. The reasons are manifold, but there's no doubt that it's short form and simplicity play a big part in it; accustomed as we are to the idea that mathematicians love large tracks of arcane equations, in reality they prefer short statement like the above. It's not hard to guess why; something like Euler's Identity is much easier to remember and communicate to others, which was really the point of creating the thing in the first place (well, not really, but let's roll with that for now).

You see, many people - including artists themselves, unfortunately - seem to forget that art is useless if it fails to communicate something - that "something" being all the dreams, ideals, and definitions of beauty which fog the creative mind on a daily basis. Brevity is, in essence, good, concise communication; no matter how long the novel or sonata movement, or how vast the mural, such expressions are but the end product of a vast and murky process of the creative spirit.

Hm... on reflection, this post can hardly be called "brief"; still, I hope it opens a door into thinking about all these little faucets of artistic expression and beauty. Next topic will be a bit more abstract, but don't worry - I'll try to be bri-

...Oh, never mind.