In the last week I have watched both ‘The Social Network’ and ‘Inception.’ Both movies are goodish, neither of them blew me away, but one is the better of the two (at least for me).
"The Social Network"
I didn’t really know what the plot of the movie was going in, other than it was about Facebook and its creator. I don’t know much about Mark Zuckerburg and I don’t know how accurately the movie reflects him and the events that transpired, but if it is close I like him. Why? Let me explain.
Mark Zuckerburg is a douche
I mean that in the most complimentary way. Some of my best friends would fall quite nicely under the moniker of douche, or the more often used douche-bag. This is not an indictment on who they are, it is just a reflection of who they are. The thing about Zuckerburg that I really enjoyed is the fact that he is openly hostile to the proceedings he is involved in. I love the honestly that he displays when dealing with the lawyer regarding his attention. The fact that the court case against him (in his mind) is without merit and the fact that he has more important items to deal with while being deposed shows a kind of dickishness that I wish I posessesd.
Money means nothing
One of the overwhelming themes through-out the movie is that Zuckerburg doesn’t care about money. At all. Of course being a student at Harvard there are doubts to whether a lack of money was ever an issue to him. Beyond that when he is in the courtroom he is approaching (or already has attained) billionaire status so it is kind of disingenuous for him to talk about how money means nothing. Kind of like a rich person spouting that money can’t buy happiness, you have to wonder how little money would matter to him if his net worth was in the hundreds rather than the hundreds of millions strata.
A girl will lead them
I think the thing that I enjoyed more than anything else is that this whole enterprise, this worldwide phenomenon, this amazing thing that has captured the world’s attention was, at its base, spurred on because some girl pissed him off. I think everyone in IT has had the moment where a relationship went sideways. Most of us got drunk. He, instead, set off a chain of events that now allows me to get friend requests from girls that wouldn’t talk to me in high school.
A let down
A long time ago I wrote a script called “Magnet and Steel”. It is actually one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, a nice tale about a geekish high-school Senior and his quest to win the love of the new girl at school. Of all the feedback I’ve received on it, the most common thread is “It just ends…what happened to…” That is the problem I had with the movie. I really wish it went on for another half an hour and the items that are summarized in closing title cards actually played out on screen. I was left wanting for more, which in a way, speaks to the quality of the film.
Sony can blow me
A special FU goes out to Sony for making this Blu-Ray disc unplayable on my Playstation 3. A second FU goes out to Sony for making it impossible for me to watch a ripped version of this movie on my Playstation 3…Thank FSM for the 360.
"Inception"
I walked into “Inception” (walked into my bedroom and put it in the aforementioned PS3) knowing that it was something about dreams and there was some uncertainty by viewers who had seen it before me regarding what was real and what was a dream. I knew that, and that it starred Leo DiCaprio, who I have a hard time seeing as an adult, no matter what stubble appears on his cherubic face.
What is Inception?
The idea that you can go into people’s dreams, create worlds, etc. is interesting. The changed idea of what happens when you die in a dream was also interesting. Even more intriguing was the idea of inception, that is the idea of implanting a thought in the sub-conscious within a dream that the dreamer will believe is their actual thought.
Who is this chick?
I think one of the most damning things about the movie for me was I spent a good portion of the time trying to remember where I knew the architect from. This became a constant nag in my mind, which means that the film never completely engrossed me. By a weird twist of fate I didn’t have my Ipad handy so IMDB wasn’t immediately available and I couldn’t figure it out until after the movie was over. She was the knocked up chick in Juno.
A dream within a dream within…
The rules they laid out for the dream world, the attacking of the subject’s subconscious, etc. were interesting, if somewhat convoluted. The whole idea of how time exists and the concept of being lost within the dream are interesting.
Finally
Was it real? Experts will tell you both yes and no, and there is supporting evidence for both. I usually love a movie that ends with some ambiguity, but this movie seems like it just missed the mark. For me it was entertaining, but not the earth-shattering thing everyone led me to believe.
“Robin Hood” reboot
It sucked.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Nostalgia – Looking through Rose-Colored Glasses
I originally titled this “Nostalgia, rose-colored glasses that makes shit not stink”, but then I realized that the title ends up as the title bar in Firefox, or IE (if you’re a noob), or Safari (if you’re a douche/mac-user), so as a service to the ones of you that may peruse this, I changed it for you.
Recently there was an announcement that all six Star Wars movies will be released on Blu-Ray. Along with any Star Wars related news there is always much gnashing of teeth regarding how much the Prequel trilogy sucks, how George Lucas raped your childhood, etc. I could write a lengthy blog regarding why the Prequel trilogy stands up fairly well with the original trilogy, placing two of the three in the top four spots. I’ll give you a hint, the worst is Episode II, and the second worst (blasphemy approaching) is Episode IV. But I’m not going to rehash the Star Wars argument, because nobody will win the argument, it will just back and forth (Jar Jar sucks, Ewoks suck, etc.)
The thing is special effects are so different from era to era, and frankly are even quite different three years down the road, so at the end of the day it is the story that defines a work as good or not. This is why TOS of Star Trek holds up today. The special effects are pretty much anything but, but the stories hold up. The Wrath of Khan has some spectacular effects, but some terrible ones also, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is light years beyond any other Trek movie.
This isn’t about Star Wars or Star Trek though; this is about something that stretches back much further (sort of, but not exactly). This is about Buck Rogers, specifically Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
I remember seeing the Buck Rogers reboot (it was a reboot with source material going far back into the early 20th century) in a theater. Star Wars was still a hot property, and was just Star Wars, and wasn’t yet Episode IV. Action figures were flying off the shelves and movie and television companies were scrambling to pick up some of the scraps from the Star Wars table, which had hungry fans that couldn’t wait for Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (the thought to be title of the second Star Wars film, based on a novel by Alan Dean Foster). It was different than Star Wars; even my six year old brain knew it at the time. Kind of like how my Kmart shoes with a similar swoosh were not Nikes, this was not the same thing.
It wasn’t terrible to my mind, but that is probably because I was distracted. I was distracted by the wealth of flesh on display. Unlike Star Wars, which wouldn’t go into fetish territory until slave Leia entered the masturbatory fantasies of many men (young and old) in 1983, Buck Rogers had somewhat clad women front and center. Erin Gray became a pin-up model, which makes me think of Twiki uttering “Bidi-bidi-bidi, shave that bush, Wilma” as Doctor Theopolis winces unapprovingly.
The movie did well enough to garner a television series. The difference between movie and television is, in hind-sight, staggering. There is one shot of a Earth Defense Directorate ship firing directly towards the viewer which has appeared no less than two dozen times in the eight episodes I have managed to get through. There are also some really obvious continuity problems. These are not Trek geek continuity problems like “Transwarp drive wasn’t invented until the Excelsior was completed.” No, these are continuity problems where they are on a different planet, but use an establishing shot that has been used many, many times as New Chicago. In one scene two fighters (which were cool as hell by the way) and a freighter take off. The next shot shows four fighters, the next a fighter and a freighter. Who was editing this? Helen Kellar?
What does this have to do with nostalgia? I fondly remember watching Buck Rogers on television. Perhaps this was due to the complete lack of Sci-Fi back during my formative years, or perhaps I was just a stupid kid. The show isn’t bad, it’s horrible. Really, really bad. It’s not the special effects that make it bad, it’s not the costumes that make it bad (hell the flesh on display is one of the redeeming items), it is just so poorly done. Plus it is a who’s who of oldey time actors. I don’t mean, old now, I mean old then. Buster Crabbe pops up in an early episode as does Peter Graves. It was odd hearing him talk about Gladiator movies in the 25th century. Still waiting for Gary Coleman to show up and talk about his new kidney.
What does all this mean? It means that television, movies, etc. are really no better nor any worse than any other time in history. Each era has it’s crap. Just because something is old doesn’t make it good. Just because something is new doesn’t make it bad. It just is.
Recently there was an announcement that all six Star Wars movies will be released on Blu-Ray. Along with any Star Wars related news there is always much gnashing of teeth regarding how much the Prequel trilogy sucks, how George Lucas raped your childhood, etc. I could write a lengthy blog regarding why the Prequel trilogy stands up fairly well with the original trilogy, placing two of the three in the top four spots. I’ll give you a hint, the worst is Episode II, and the second worst (blasphemy approaching) is Episode IV. But I’m not going to rehash the Star Wars argument, because nobody will win the argument, it will just back and forth (Jar Jar sucks, Ewoks suck, etc.)
The thing is special effects are so different from era to era, and frankly are even quite different three years down the road, so at the end of the day it is the story that defines a work as good or not. This is why TOS of Star Trek holds up today. The special effects are pretty much anything but, but the stories hold up. The Wrath of Khan has some spectacular effects, but some terrible ones also, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is light years beyond any other Trek movie.
This isn’t about Star Wars or Star Trek though; this is about something that stretches back much further (sort of, but not exactly). This is about Buck Rogers, specifically Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
I remember seeing the Buck Rogers reboot (it was a reboot with source material going far back into the early 20th century) in a theater. Star Wars was still a hot property, and was just Star Wars, and wasn’t yet Episode IV. Action figures were flying off the shelves and movie and television companies were scrambling to pick up some of the scraps from the Star Wars table, which had hungry fans that couldn’t wait for Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (the thought to be title of the second Star Wars film, based on a novel by Alan Dean Foster). It was different than Star Wars; even my six year old brain knew it at the time. Kind of like how my Kmart shoes with a similar swoosh were not Nikes, this was not the same thing.
It wasn’t terrible to my mind, but that is probably because I was distracted. I was distracted by the wealth of flesh on display. Unlike Star Wars, which wouldn’t go into fetish territory until slave Leia entered the masturbatory fantasies of many men (young and old) in 1983, Buck Rogers had somewhat clad women front and center. Erin Gray became a pin-up model, which makes me think of Twiki uttering “Bidi-bidi-bidi, shave that bush, Wilma” as Doctor Theopolis winces unapprovingly.
The movie did well enough to garner a television series. The difference between movie and television is, in hind-sight, staggering. There is one shot of a Earth Defense Directorate ship firing directly towards the viewer which has appeared no less than two dozen times in the eight episodes I have managed to get through. There are also some really obvious continuity problems. These are not Trek geek continuity problems like “Transwarp drive wasn’t invented until the Excelsior was completed.” No, these are continuity problems where they are on a different planet, but use an establishing shot that has been used many, many times as New Chicago. In one scene two fighters (which were cool as hell by the way) and a freighter take off. The next shot shows four fighters, the next a fighter and a freighter. Who was editing this? Helen Kellar?
What does this have to do with nostalgia? I fondly remember watching Buck Rogers on television. Perhaps this was due to the complete lack of Sci-Fi back during my formative years, or perhaps I was just a stupid kid. The show isn’t bad, it’s horrible. Really, really bad. It’s not the special effects that make it bad, it’s not the costumes that make it bad (hell the flesh on display is one of the redeeming items), it is just so poorly done. Plus it is a who’s who of oldey time actors. I don’t mean, old now, I mean old then. Buster Crabbe pops up in an early episode as does Peter Graves. It was odd hearing him talk about Gladiator movies in the 25th century. Still waiting for Gary Coleman to show up and talk about his new kidney.
What does all this mean? It means that television, movies, etc. are really no better nor any worse than any other time in history. Each era has it’s crap. Just because something is old doesn’t make it good. Just because something is new doesn’t make it bad. It just is.
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