Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category

  • 13 May

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    Motion Seats. Stupid.

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    zoom*

    To me, 3-D movies have always been just one big gimmick to get people into the seats and convince them that they have to pay more for the “more immersive” experience. Well hold on to your hats (literally) because thanks to the wonders of D-Box technology, movie patrons of the new decade will now experience the movie in a much more physical way: your seat will actually move “in perfect sync” with the action on screen to give the viewer the feeling of actually being part of the movie.

    And this isn’t a new idea that is simply in the development stage; this is something that is happening. Now. In my city. At the already bombastic tourist trap known as the Mall of America (which I already loathe at an indescribable level), the multi-plex within is installing 30 of these motion seats in one screen room which will premiere on May 21 with the movie to be announced later (gee, you think it will be Terminator: Salvation?). Oh and it will be $7 more per ticket for the experience (i.e. $18).

    Here’s an edited version of what appeared in our local paper last week:

    Moviegoers will feel as if they are living the action – experiencing every explosion, car chase and even flight scene … the movie is coded, frame-by-frame, to create customized Motion Effects resulting in subtle, refined movements that work in perfect sync with the action taking place onscreen.

    “The movements that these seats make are sophisticated and refined; moviegoers will not be jostled around the entire time, rather they will feel much more a part of the movie,” stated President and CEO of D-BOX Technologies, Claude Mc Master.

    While audience members will experience motion during action sequences, the seats will remain still during the quieter, dialogue-driven scenes and come equipped with individual adjustable settings to customize each experience.

    Now my initial gut reaction to this is highly skeptical and negative. I don’t always (if ever) want to be immersed physically into a film. As a one time novelty experience or something to bring the kids to as a treat, fine. I can maybe get behind this. But if this is the way of the future, you can count me out of any theater that does this. Even if I can turn it off on my seat, you’ve still got the annoyance of the crowd around you either making yelping sounds or just moving all over the place. And you thought text typers were distracting; ugh!

    I also question what “highly refined” means. If this feels anything like a rollercoaster in terms of smoothness, then no thanks. I’ll go to Wally World if I want that. Nope, personally I’d rather sit quietly, eat my popcorn and let my imagination go through the proverbial motions for me.

    This is the first set of these seats to appear in Minnesota and only the third in the country. I’ve never even heard of these before. Has anyone actually experienced this set-up with a full scale, wide release, feature length film? I’m curious.

    * The picture above is my mind’s eye of the experience. The actual seats look a little more appealing and what we’ve already come to expect from theater seats…

    D-Box seats
  • 16 Apr

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    Post O&R Fall-out?

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    observeSo, have you been following the observing & the reporting on the latest Jody Hill comedy? The internet has been a clamoring about the movie and where it lies in the fabric of modern society (from date rape questions to the ‘comedification’ Taxi Driver). Probably the most interesting thing that I read was from Phil Nugent in the comments section of Daily Greencine’s post on the film.

    Anyone who’s read those interviews in which Jody Hill gives props to “Taxi Driver” knows that he thinks he was trying to challenge heroic-vigilante movie stereotypes, and anyone who’s actually seen the thing knows that either Hill’s execution wasn’t up to his concept or that he chickened out in the key violent scenes, where the movie seems to be implicit in the celebration of Rogan’s homicidal viciousness. Because Hill couldn’t figure out a way to make something that looked any different from the average Adam Sandler movie, he would up making a movie whose point seems to be to raise the acceptable level of mayhem for Adam Sandler movies.

    One reason why I don’t by the date-rape thing is because the movie is so obviously not of this real world. The mayhem, carnage and destruction of property and law by Rogen’s character (in the most glaring example of this, freely admits in a police station while bringing in a boy to murdering the boys father and five other guys). The movie isn’t aiming for any sort of realism or weight depicted in something like a Todd Solondz or heck, even a Martin Scorsese movie. Yet I do think the movie is doing something right making folks consider how they process a gag-driven studio comedy that in its non-realistic delivery can still ask interesting questions in unique ways. Will there actually be a post-O&R fallout in how a studio comedy is designed and where the bar is actually set at? Is the quote above over-reacting, prophetic or simply irrelevant? I tend to skip nearly all Adam Sandler, The Judd Apatow Collective and Will Farrell comedies (Even the ones directed by Adam McKay) anyway, although occasionally I catch something like Anchorman or The Wedding Singer) or Superbad to see what I’m not missing. The only thing that got me into Observe & Report was the (red band) trailer that did seem to promise something different. (Ditto on Pineapple Express for that matter, although there was the David Gordon Green factor there)

    While there is no formal text review of the film around here, Andrew, Matt & Myself talk about some of this in our latest Row Three Cinecast

    Other interesting pieces on Observe and Report around the web: IFC Daily, Jay Cheel, Kim Voynar, Ian Pugh, Greencine Daily.

  • 26 Jan

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    The Five Films That SHOULD Have Been Nominated for Best Picture Oscars

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    Alright, so maybe right off the bat this is a stupid article as everyone (including the thousands of Academy voters) will look at a collective group of films (hundreds released in 2008) and each would pick five different films that they think should be up for best picture. So yeah, to say THESE are THE five films that should’ve been nominated might sound pretentious and/or ignoramous; but bear with me here.

    Like most internet pundits/readers/trollers, I was baffled by some of the choices that were nominated for best picture at the Oscars this year. Let’s put all of the other major categories aside as they can be debated endlessly and pointlessly. The Best Picture category however, is its own beast and can be looked at a little less subjectively. As soon as the nominees were announced, I (and thousands of others collectively) thought, “WTF?”. Instantly my mind reeled off several film titles that “should’ve” been nominated instead. And as I think about it, the more and more I think I/we are right.

    Now this list isn’t just some fanboy listing off his favorite films of the year and crying foul. I want to make that very clear: these are NOT my personal choices for best pictures of the year. Got it? NOT a top five list. These are films of higher quality than those actually nominated and based on several factors, it is a fairly objective list. I thought about this quite a bit (meaning three coffees and a doughnut into my Monday morning) and came up with some reasonable choices for “proper” nominations using gut level instincts, a critical film eye and general Academy tendencies of years past.

    Now having said that, anyone that bothers to do some research will see that three of these choices are in my personal top ten of the year and two of those are in my top three; hence I’m likely to hear cries of bullshit on my previous statements. So yeah, there is some subjectivity in here and of course that’s unavoidable; but these picks are still reasonable and as objective as possible with those reasons being explained below.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 23 Dec

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    VHS

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    VHSHere is an interesting tidbit of information. According to the Los Angeles Times, the VHS format has finally died. While this is not necessarily news (when was the last time you watched a VHS tape? Purchased one?); within the article, it is indicated that David Cronenberg‘s A History of Violence was the final studio film released on VHS in 2006. There is a certain poetry in having Mr. Videodrome himself representative of VHS’s swan-song.

    I have many nostalgic memories of VHS in terms of some of the crap we watched, or some of the films we watched far too many times. I will not miss the rewinding, tracking errors or in the worst case, the wearing out of the tapes themselves; this the case with both Night of the Creeps, A Boy and His Dog, and oddly enough, The Big Lebowski). The first of which was the most painful since it is not out on DVD yet, the others have were replaced eventually. The source of my film education on the Hollywood front in my childhood and in late teens and beyond the foreign language and art-house/indie films came from VHS rentals.

    The format has been gone a while for most people (although like anything dead, it has it share of oddball collectors and enthusiasts that trade big $$ for films that haven’t made the transition to DVD or other formats yet), and has already been ‘nostalgized’ by Michel Gondry in Be Kind, Rewind. Consider this a potential Trivial Pursuit question and carry on with your day.

  • 12 Aug

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    Anne Shirley Turns 100

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    Anne of Green Gables Still2008 marks the centennial of the release of one of Canada’s most well known and prized novels, Lucy Maud Montgomery‘s “Anne of Green Gables“. Written by Montgomery based on notes she had made as a young child, the book tells the story of the Cuthbert’s, a middle aged brother and sister who request that the nearby orphanage send them a boy, likely to help out around the farm, but instead, they’re sent a red haired independent girl named Anne.

    The book has become a staple of Canadian fiction and the much acclaimed CBC mini-series which has, gasp!, garnered even more acclaim than the BBC version, premiered in 1985 and re-invigorated interest in the classic. I remember growing up watching the entire saga, the 1985 series and Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel which premiered a few years later. My aunt had a VHS collection of both series and we’d spend entire days glued to the TV with cookies, tea and the occasional bathroom break to take in Anne’s adventures (and mishaps). Canadian actress Megan Follows has continually reprised her role in the various adaptations, growing in the roll, which has given all of the subsequent installments an authentic feel. In addition, the series made director and producer Kevin Sullivan a very rich man but it also encouraged further adaptations of Montgomery’s works not to mention, a number of spin offs including the upcoming “Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning” miniseries which is due for release in 2009 and which is not based on any of the novels.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 23 Jul

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    Standin’ in the Rain Talkin’ to Myself

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    You’re a director. You have a vision. It’s a final fight scene. A first kiss. A monster’s revelation. Yet, your vision seems incomplete… something is missing and you can’t put your finger on it. Then it hits you, something so simple, so obvious, you can’t believe it took you so long to think it up. Rain. That’s how you make almost any scene exponentially cooler and one to remember. Myself, I’ve always been a fan of the effective usage of rain during a scene, specifically a scene that includes fighting. I’m not sure what it is, but I think it’s the way I’m wired – the same way that watching a football game during a torrential downpour is just so much more fun.

    So, without further ado, let’s take a look at memorable rain-soaked scenes throughout the years in cinema.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 24 Jun

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    Mamma Mia!: The Box Office Surprise of the Summer?

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    Mamma Mia! Movie StillI don’t do box office tracking and frankly, I’m not certain I fully understand or buy into the “art” and/or “science” involved in essentially guessing box office numbers but the other day, while sitting with mom and dad watching a Portuguese trailer for Mamma Mia! on the direct satellite feed, I did have a thought that the upcoming ABBA inspired musical film may actually make a nice chunk of change at the box office.

    I fully realize that it opens against every fanboy’s wet dream The Dark Knight, and the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale/Heath Ledger train isn’t likely to derail but that film has a very specific audience in mind and I’m not sure it has either the star power or appeal to bring in the older demographic.

    Other options: there’s Space Chimps for the very young and Mamma Mia! for everyone else. And even if the movie doesn’t do well in the US, I don’t think one can simply overlook the power of ABBA. And laugh as some do, I’ll admit that there’s something a little bit exciting about going to the movies and being able to singing along with every song. It’s like being a kid again and singing along with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or The Sound of Music.

    Whether that’ll equal money at the box office, I don’t know; I’m no expert. What I do know is that this is the first North American film I’ve seen widely advertised and discussed on RTP. Doesn’t say much but it does speak to the universality and love people have for ABBA and who knows, maybe that will equal big returns. Mind you, having Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård in the cast doesn’t hurt either.

    I’m not conceding that the trailer looks good but I must admit I am curious to take in the spectacle.

    For fun (or pain), the trailer is tucked under the seat!

    » Read the rest of the entry..

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