By Aaron Shay
It’s rare when a second film in any given franchise is superior to the original.

When I got word of Guillermo Del Toro trying again to breathe life into the Hellboy franchise, I was puzzled. The first film was a mediocre attempt to blend Men in Black, The Mummy, and The City of Lost Children. The second film continues the visual mood but structures a story with a more genuinely epic conflict, pitting the world of Myth against the world of Humanity. The film also continues to plum the depths of Hellboy’s character: The first film explored his identity, while this new film explores the demonic hero’s place in Human society by presenting a tempting alternative.

The story: A long, long, time ago, humans were at war with the mythical creatures of the world for control. The mythical creatures, in order to beat the powerful humans, created an army of indestructible soldiers, the titular Golden Army. So merciless were these warriors to cause horror in the King. So he and the humans made a pact: mythical creatures would keep the forests and man would have every other piece of land for themselves. You can see where this is going. So, zoom to the modern day, where the son of the King returns from exile to awaken the Golden Army and exact revenge on humans for breaking the pact. Who’s going to stop him?

You get three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
The first thing to commend in The Golden Army is Del Toro’s use of puppetry. For this production, he acquired the services of the Jim Henson Shop’s artisans, a move which was vital to the production. At one point, the team of heroes enters a Mos Eisley style bazaar called the Troll Market, featuring many creepy yet intriguing wares and dark, mysterious denizens, such as a man with a miniature castle on his head. Del Toro has come to realize, as many of his viewers have, that costumes and puppets are still more real than computers, so he only uses CGI when necessary, such as when animating an army of seventy times seventy indestructible goblin-made soldiers. He leaves the trolls to be costumed.

Allow me to get the critique out of the way: [Read more →]

The Los Angeles Times posted pieces from Kenneth Turan and Charles McNulty, their stud film and theater critics, respectively. It’s part of an “ongoing series” (which is newspaper-ese for “slow news day”), but the conceit is great.

Each critic was asked if there was a review that they regretted writing. The question itself is the job-interview analog of “So what’s your biggest weakness?” It’s a tough question to ask anyone and get an honest answer. The answer isn’t going to be an honest sharing, instead, it’s a carefully chosen anecdote that makes the respondant look wiser and provides a platform for sharing a worldly lesson.

The good news is that one critic offers a very insightful look into the role of the critic and the pitfalls they face. Turan’s piece is like his reviews - mildly informative and tepid.

What criticism offers, ideally, is informed, thoughtful, well-written opinion, an expression of personal taste based on knowledge, experience

Yawn. That’s what he teaches in a USC class, and it’s almost as interesting as an amateur lecturer holding forth before a class of bored and over-privileged film students.

Charles McNulty’s piece knocks the answer out of the park. It’s mostly about theater, but the take on criticism in general is enlightening.

Yes, I have often found the plays of Martin McDonagh and Neil LaBute to be manipulative, I don’t always think Tony Kushner is dramatically up to the task of his unfailingly big ideas, and I’m on record as saying it’s premature to induct Tracy Letts into the pantheon for “August: Osage County.” But these writers are too good not to be challenged. And as my loyalty lies with the art form, not with institutions or individuals…

That concept - that loyalty lies to the art form - is the real key to being a successful critic. Any critic who offers a free pass because of a name, a studio, or a budget, isn’t worth the ink they waste.

McNulty’s ‘regret’ anecdote is terrific, and shows the care and precision that big-league critics must use when crafting their reviews. Small shades of nuance can make a big difference on a theater’s marquee. And as he writes at the close of his piece:

…criticism survives because each of these remarkable writers understood that there was something of greater value to their theater writing than fallible opinion. With implacable style, they allow us to observe a mind wrestling with itself, then dare us to join them in the fray.

True that.

Just as pretty flowers spring can spring forth from beds of manure, the tedious Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is turning out to be quite the fertilizer for interesting critical writing.

Earlier posts here have alluded to the underground re-make of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Two Mississippi teenagers spent most of the 1980’s making a home-made shot-by-shot recreation of Raiders. An article from Lee Sandlin in the Chicago Reader provides a must-read take on the project.

Sandlin does an excellent job of excoriating the original Raiders

Raiders is a global adventure with no romance, a historical epic with no feeling for the past, a thriller with no trace of real danger. It means nothing, feels like nothing, and carries the implicit message that absolutely nothing matters.

His take on the world of film before Raiders and after it is worthy reading on it’s own. What’s more thrilling to read is his rave review of Raiders Of The Lost Ark - The Adaptation. [Read more →]

The good folks at Ain’t It Cool dug up this promo from England’s Channel 4 Television, promoting an upcoming run of Stanley Kubrick’s films.

It’s a lengthy, Kubrick-styled tracking shot behind the scenes of “The Shining”, and as with most things Kubrick, the attention to detail is astonishing. There isn’t much there for non-Kubrick fans, and might not wow casual viewers into tuning in, but it’s an uncompromising treat for members of the cult of Kubrick.

Perhaps I’m so awed by this because Kubrick’s been on my mind lately. Recent viewings of Full Metal Jacket, 2001, and Dr. Strangelove (thank you Universal HD Movies - you should really look into licensing this spot for your own run of Kubrick films, by the way) has gotten me ruminating on the icy obsessions in his work. I’ve been clamoring for high-def screenings of the less famous Kubrick works - Lolita and Barry Lyndon.  I even recently attempted to watch Eyes Wide Shut, and was dismayed when UHD switched it out for the other Tom Cruise obsession and desire flick, the awful cinematic travesty Vanilla Sky.

Regardless, this promo isn’t a one-note gimmick, it exudes a reverence for the subject and the source material that you would never see on American television. Stateside promos shamelessly chase after what was cool ten minutes ago, network executives feel that there’s far too much at stake to push any sort of edgy, non-branded content. And the neurosis over being “cool” leads to cramming as much evocative sound design and swirling-nebula graphics as possible into each :20 spot. Crafting a :65 spot that unfolds with a deliberately creepy and engrossing rhythm would never, ever fly on American television.

Maybe my career work in promo has biased me against domestic television sales. This spot, though, is a beautiful piece of work. Would this work on American television? Could you see CBS or ABC running something this languid and compelling for “Lost” or “CSI”?

If you’ve missed the link above, the promo can be seen HERE.

The New Yorker’s back-up film critic has just published a surprising review of Hancock that is an unqualified rave.

If critics were cars, Denby would be a Ford Taurus. His writing is clear and logical, and almost as exciting as a tan-colored, four-door sedan. He not only lacks the flamboyance and savage wit of Anthony Lane, the top gun film critic at the New Yorker, he seems almost wholly devoid of personality whatsoever. Denby, at heart, is a dry academic lulling his readers to sleep with his texture-free analyses.

However, once in a while, he fires one hell of a shot across the bow of the film critics community. Imagine hopping into grandpa’s Taurus, and finding out at the first stoplight that he’s got a 230 horsepower V-8  engine in there that can take a Corvette off the line. There’s the shock of “holy shit, where did this come from?” Months ago, he illuminated the teen-dance flick How She Move with eloquent prose and made you look at a generic teen movie as an intriguing cultural artifact. This week, he tackles Hancock.

Fanboys have been circulating negative reviews of Hancock for months. The Rottentomatoes.com rating is at 36% and falling. (Notably, though, J.R. Jones at the Chicago Reader also gives it a thumbs-up, and the Reader has long been a high-water mark of film criticism.)

Denby digs in to Hancock, essentially calling it the next evolution in pop entertainment:

If everyone knows that digital has tossed realism overboard, then why not turn that knowingness into a joke? Hancock flips an obnoxious neighborhood kid into the sky and, looking up now and then, carries on a conversation with Ray, only to put out an arm and catch the howling towhead as he falls to earth. That’s a pretty funny trick, and there are others just as good…

He follows that thought with some eloquent observations about Will Smith and Charlize Theron.

We’re also puzzled by [director] Berg’s visual style, which, in these intimate scenes, depends on a handheld camera, restlessly moving yet pinned to the actors in super-tight closeups. It’s as if he were making a Cassavetes psychodrama….Suddenly, we realize why he stays so close. We are watching genuine actors at work, not well-paid hired hands filling up the space between agitated zeroes and ones.

I haven’t seen Hancock yet, so I can’t hold forth on his accuracy, but kudos to Grandpa Dave for breaking from the pack, and giving us a fresh way to contemplate a film that you might otherwise completely ignore. Right or wrong, that’s what good film writing is all about.

Wanted.

What did I want from it?

It’s easier to ask what I expected from it. Let’s go down the list. One, Angelina Jolie showing off her finely-toned posterior: check. Two, the most heavily enhanced CGI gunfights since… Shoot ‘Em Up, I suppose. Double check on that one. Three: heavy-handed social commentary. Check. Four: an unfaithful adaptation of the comic: check. Finally: Every action movie cliché. Check that one with permanent marker.

What did I not expect, that I actually received: To be on the edge of my seat; a satisfying resolution; to have fun; to not expect the twist when it came.

[Read more →]

I haven’t been writing about the BBC’s Life On Mars because it would be criminally unfair. It’s one of the greatest television shows in recent memory, and except for a brief run on BBC America, it’s been completely unavailable on these shores. No DVDs. No endless repeats on BBC America. Nothing.

The bad news is that ABC is prepping an Americanized version for the fall and it’s going to be awful. So it’s time to break radio silence. Find a torrent site, search Ebay for DVDs and buy a PAL DVD player, or scramble around online anywhere you can and download Life On Mars.

There’s only two 8 episode seasons of the British version, so it’ll be quick to pull down. If the powers that be won’t make it legally available - because they’re prepping a vastly inferior version - then civil disobedience to the IP laws of the land is the only option.

The premise of Life On Mars is simple. DI Sam Tyler (that’s Detective Inspector for us Yanks) is an obsessed, procedure loving detective chasing a serial killer in London in 2007. He gets hit by a car while investigating, and wakes up in 1973 as a junior detective working for the blustery DCI Gene Hunt. The opening credits ask the question - is he mad, in a coma, or has he really gone back in time?

It’s a simple gimmick, and the first episode plays out like a goof on the CSI procedurals. DI Tyler is used to extensive lab reports and forensic science tests. In 1973, it takes two weeks to match a fingerprint. Civil rights are an alien concept. Women and minorities can’t be taken seriously as detectives – even by themselves. And DCI Hunt is a garrulous English redneck, happy to beat a confession out of any poor sot in his interrogation room just so he can get to the pub by five.

What unfolds from there is some of the most engrossing television to have aired in years. Imagine Lost if it promised a satisfying resolution without jerking the audience around. Imagine Battlestar Galactica with a sense of humor. Imagine House playing out as a semi-surreal detective show.

[Read more →]

From our friends over at Trailer Trash, this is perhaps the best review of an M. Night Shyamalan movie trailer:

“The first stage is loss of speech. The second stage is physical disorientation. The third stage is fatal.

These are the symptoms of watching this trailer.

The Happening is M. Night Sham-alan’s newest descent into the bizarre and unexplained world of disappointment. With its cornucopia of overtly-stylized nonsense, this preview conjures up enough memories of “Lady in the Water” that I can only hope a bunch of trees will try to kill me (spoiler alert).

And because this is a trailer review, I can beat all the other film critics to the punch and be the first to christen this movie “The Crappening”

- Steve Jarczak”

Bravo, Steve. Couldn’t be said any better.