phywriter.com|Prone to occasional grandiloquence

So this is a little out there.

Inception, as you know if you care, is the latest movie by Christopher Nolan, and has been called ‘James Bond meets The Matrix.’ Nolan is known as a writer and director for clever, intricate-ly plotted films such as Memento and The Prestige and the rebooted Batman franchise, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. He also did a film called Following, which you can find right now on Netflix streaming, a black and white little mindbender which is worth checking out when you have some time and are up for something a little daring.

None of Nolan’s films are perfect, but their flaws are the most forgivable I can think of. If you’re going to dream, dream different. Dream big. Roger Ebert noted:

I thought there was a hole in “Memento:” How does a man with short-term memory loss remember he has short-term memory loss? Maybe there’s a hole in “Inception” too, but I can’t find it.

I was chatting about Inception with friends on an off-topic e-mail list when a bunch of little things that had lain dormant finally coalesced and turned into something truly mind-bending.

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I saw Quentin Tarantino’s latest love letter to the movies yesterday, Inglorious Basterds. I very much enjoyed it, although the usual criticisms of QTs work hold true here. One thing I wanted to mention was Roger Ebert’s reaction to the film.

After I saw “Inglourious Basterds” at Cannes, although I was writing a daily blog, I resisted giving an immediate opinion about it. I knew Tarantino had made a considerable film, but I wanted it to settle, and to see it again. I’m glad I did. Like a lot of real movies, you relish it more the next time. Immediately after “Pulp Fiction” played at Cannes, QT asked me what I thought. “It’s either the best film of the year or the worst film,” I said. I hardly knew what the hell had happened to me. The answer was: the best film. Tarantino films have a way of growing on you. It’s not enough to see them once.

Therefore, if you’re not a better reviewer / lover of film than Roger (freakin’) Ebert, you might want to see ‘Inglorious Basterds’ more than once before pronouncing it a bad film. Or even a merely good one.

This is a really cool article that builds on another cool article. Adding to the fray, I think it’s cool who otherwise irreverent pop culture figures appear to have a sincere, unexpected reverence for Christ, seeing in him something noble where their own followers wouldn’t expect that of them in a million years (and I’m thinking here of both Monty Python and Penny Arcade).

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctmovies/2009/06/jesus-spartacus-and-monty-pyth.html

And then Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) came along and put the two stories together. At the end of that film, Brian is crucified along with dozens of other Jews (and at least one Samaritan), but then a soldier comes along, asking who Brian is so that Brian can be taken down from the cross. And whereas the extras in one movie all yelled “I’m Spartacus!” as a sign of self-sacrificial solidarity with their leader, the extras in the other movie all yell “I’m Brian!” as a way of selfishly trying to save their own skins, at the expense of the genuine Brian’s life.

It’s also interesting to consider that Spartacus was written by people who had an active interest in progressive politics — the screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, almost didn’t receive any credit for the film because of the 1950s blacklist — so it may reflect some of that left-leaning idealism, whereas Life of Brian devotes a fair bit of screen time to mocking British left-wing politics, albeit in first-century Judean garb.

I don’t think the Pythons were anti-liberal, by any stretch, but I do think they were somewhat cynical about the ability of humans as a whole to rise above their own self-centredness. And so, in a roundabout way, they brought the story of Spartacus back to the story of Jesus, as the “hero” of their story is exploited and abandoned by nearly everyone he meets.

Credit my friend Paul Glenn for pointing me to this. It’s refreshing to see a writer at the top of his game absolutely savage a film with nothing more than words and truth.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots, Deceptibots and Otherbots is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed.

The battle scenes are bewildering. A Bot makes no visual sense anyway, but two or three tangled up together create an incomprehensible confusion. I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with…fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples. They have tiny little heads, except for Starscream®, who is so ancient he has an aluminum beard.

Aware that this movie opened in England seven hours before Chicago time and the morning papers would be on the streets, after writing the above I looked up the first reviews as a reality check. I was reassured: “Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan!” (Bradshaw, Guardian); “Sums up everything that is most tedious, crass and despicable about modern Hollywood!” (Tookey, Daily Mail); “A giant, lumbering idiot of a movie!” (Edwards, Daily Mirror). The first American review, however, reported that it “feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time” (Todd Gilchrist, Cinematical). It’s certainly the biggest something of all time.

Baxter made a good meal.

He and Jill ate well on the remote space station, but he always made too much food. By now, they were the only two remaining. Kumquats,tube sirloin, and real hydro tomatoes; the guys in Houston said they didn’t eat so well. That was before their signal went dead. Now it was him, and her, and the kumquats.

No one knows where the space monkeys came from, with their luminescent fur and swirling eyes. Their saucer docked and they gained entrance without setting off the electroalarms. That was the first of many mysteries.

Jill went to investigate, but Baxter stayed behind to mind his chili.

Jill hadn’t returned by lunchtime, so Baxter went looking for her after rinsing his favorite ladle.

He turned a corner and saw a crowd of them fighting over something on the floor. They seemed glad to be able to stretch all their many limbs. They were kind of funny.

One of them saw Baxter and produced a cheesy plastic ray gun in an awkward simian paw. Its aim was not effective, pointing the weapon at Baxter’s head, but melting the “You are here” display in middle of the corridor instead.

“That was rude,” muttered Baxter. He darted forward and wrested the weapon from its hairy grasp, and stepped back.

“Take that, you damned dirty… monkey,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Turns out, their teeth were more effective than their aim. They leapt forward and ate the gun. Startled, he turned to run.

Baxter made a good meal.

This month, Overlord Paul Christian Glenn—the silent, crafty one of the galactic trinity—unleashes a bold new design for Ray Gun Revival magazine. Get a taste of the best space opera pulp adventure here in Issue #52!

43 pages
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Knowing is a film by Alex Proyas (“Dark City,” “The Crow,” “I, Robot”) and stars Nicholas Cage. I saw “Knowing” today, and my little brain has been loudly, intelligently, chillingly, fearsomely, alarminlgy blown. I’ve wracked my imagination to try to think what sort of story would scratch the itch of this time, these days. As I watched this film, I realized with great satisfaction that Alex Proyas has accomplished what I have been trying to discover. This is a great film for our time, and while it is not perfect, it is very powerful. The last time I was moved in a movie theater was last summer for Chris Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.” This feels like a more important film. It deals with titanic themes in a thoughtful way, and tapped into the growing dread of a future that may be spinning out of our control, if indeed we had any control over our lives to begin with..

This is the sort of film that the less you know about it going in, the better, so I’ll write this review in very general terms. Those who have seen the film will know what I’m referring to, but those who haven’t will only get a taste of the overall production.

“Knowing” is not an easy movie to unpack, so I’ll divide this review up into sections. There are a few interesting things going on here:

• A discussion of determinism versus randomness
• A filmatic style that is part thriller, part mystery, part disaster film
• A musing, as Roger Ebert wrote, “…about the hidden nature of the world men think they inhabit”

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Quantum of Solace
4 stars out of 5

I was wowed by Casino Royale, a story that gave us a bonus act to finish fleshing out the genesis and arrival of a new secret agent who was refreshingly old school. My dad had the Ian Fleming novels on his bookshelf, and this Bond reminded me very much of the Bond I grew up with my imagination. This Bond isn’t afflicted by quip-itis, doesn’t have the gadgets written in just for the finale, or the preposterous encyclopedic memory. Instead, he is good at precisely one thing, getting his hands dirty in the service of his country.

However, as I read the reviews for Quantum of Solace, the second film in the rebooted James Bond franchise, it quickly became clear to me that people by and large didn’t know what to do with this film. After all, it has a weird title and action sequences by the people that did the Bourne movies, so it must be dreck, right?

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As long as there have been Browncoats, there have been rumors of another Firefly film. And as long as there have been rumors, there’s been Joss having to set the record straight.

Well, he’s done it again. Can’t say I blame him. But I’m still disappointed. Can’t say I blame us.

“The rumors are there because people really wish it would happen,” Whedon said.

“It’s an improbable fantasy,” Whedon said. Then again, “so was making ‘Serenity’ [given the cancellation of 'Firefly'], and so is half my career, which is why I never write it off.”

Like Summer, “I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Whedon said, “because I love those people so much.” But that doesn’t change the fact that the rumors are not being circulated “by anyone who owns a studio,” and “nobody’s knocking on our door.”

“There’s been no movement,” he said. “Those rumors are just rumors, and I don’t think they’re going to stop, no matter how many times I say, ‘No, it’s not happening.’ Because somebody will say, ‘He said yes. His eyes said yes. His nose said yes. There was a yes-iness about him.’ Because people want it.”

I’ve been thinking about The Dark Knight for three solid weeks, now. This really has got to stop. I’ve got me a new job, a serial novel to finish writing, a monthly magazine to develop and release and publicize, and some grinding to accomplish in Age of Conan–my ranger and conqueror won’t get leveled up by themselves. The problem is, I’ve got something like 6k words written, and I still don’t have an elegant way to approach the things on my mind and in my head. Unfortunately, my experience has been that the only way to rid myself of them is to write them out. Therefore, since I don’t know how to approach this, but I clearly have to do something to work these things out, I’m going to take a stab at writing about these things in a couple of chunks. This is the first one.

In this summer’s biggest blockbuster, The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer have a great deal to say about the will and the character of their vigilante hero.

For one thing, this is no mere superhero movie–it is an epic crime drama of the sort I have never seen before. For another, when they started filming The Dark Knight, it turned out they weren’t done crafting Batman’s origin story. However, by the time the final credits run, they will have finally completed creating the legend we think of as Batman. Read the rest of this entry »