I can’t stand internet memes. I think they’re dumb. I hate reading entries that are nothing but list after list with no explanation or story attached. I became particularly annoyed with them during Holidailies because so many participants relied on that kind of entry on slow days.
Having said that, Pooks tagged me for a meme for screenwriters, and I fear that if I refuse, she might stop blogging entirely. And I’m quite enjoying her site. Also, it’s related to movies and movie writing in some way, so it does fit in with the general theme of this site.
Therefore, I will attempt this here meme thing, but I’m doing it my way, with my rules. I will not resort to single-word lists. Also, do not think that the rest of you can tag me with your little memes. I do not intend to do these things more than once every six months, so this is it until July.
Serenity (2005)
Serenity: 2005, dir. Joss Whedon. Seen on DVD (Dec. 30, 2005).
I heard a lot about Serenity even before its release, because I have many friends who are loopy for anything touched by Joss Whedon. They were terribly excited that a movie was being made from Whedon’s science-fiction TV series Firefly. Serenity had a lot of sneak previews in select cities long before its release date, presumably to build up word-of-mouth. What it did was confirm to many of us non-fans that Serenity would appeal strictly to fans. The trailers we saw in theaters provided further proof—it appeared that if you weren’t familiar with the TV series, the movie was not for you. (The low box-office numbers for the film prove my theory that the marketing campaign backfired.)
However, my friends who went positively ga-ga over Serenity assured me that the movie was not just for fans, that they’d brought along this person or that one and every single person just loved the movie even if they had never heard of Firefly (except perhaps as Rufus T.’s last name). My boyfriend and I were skeptical at first, but eventually we succumbed and rented the movie on DVD.
It turned out we had been right in the first place: we found Serenity to be dull and flat and even annoying, and I suspect that it relied too heavily on the audience already knowing something about the characters. We had no idea who these people were, if they were new for the movie or regulars on the TV show, but we never learned much about them and some of them never showed much depth.
The Producers (2005)
The Producers: 2005, dir. Susan Stroman. Seen Jan. 2, 2006 at Alamo Lake Creek.
I’ve had music from The Producers stuck in my head since we saw the movie on Monday night.
However, the song stuck in my head is the version of “Prisoners of Love” from the end of the 1968 film, not from the recent musical adaptation/remake. We don’t have a term yet for a movie adapted from a Broadway musical adapted from a movie, although my boyfriend thought of the perfect word to describe the film: unnecessary.
The Producers is one of the most unnecessary movies I have seen in the past year, the other one being the remake of The Bad News Bears.
I can only assume that these movies aren’t made for people who have seen (and like) the original films. Filmmakers, studios, and/or distributors assume that the audience will be a younger crowd who has heard of this movie title in a vague sort of way—in the case of The Producers, as a highly successful Broadway production with charismatic movie stars in the leads. Therefore, no one sees a problem with lifting scenes and dialogue wholesale from the original movie, trimming out some of the best lines, reworking others to make them more contemporary, and re-creating these beloved bits so that they are pale shadows of the source that will cause people who like the original film to wince.
2005 in (cinematic) review, part two
Read part one of this entry first, which covers January through June 2005. This entry lists the films I saw in July through December 2005.
I also noted the films I saw at various festivals: aGLIFF, Fantastic Fest, and Austin Film Festival.
It’s difficult to say how many films I actually saw in 2005. However, more than 100 films are listed in these entries. I think that’s an acceptable number. I admire people who plan to average a film a day throughout the year, but I would have even more trouble writing about all of them, not to mention that I also enjoy getting out into the fresh air once in awhile.
2005 in (cinematic) review, part one
Everyone is posting lists of their top ten (or five, or 15) 2005 films. I thought I might want to make some lists myself, but first I needed to remember which films I actually saw in 2005. The great advantage of reviewing or just writing about movies on a weblog like this is that theoretically, I would have a record of every movie I saw and even when I saw it.
For the first few months of the year, I wrote at least a summary review of nearly every movie, even the number of films I saw at SXSW. Somewhere in the long, hot, overtime-filled summer, I started slipping. I used my Netflix list and my stack of ticket stubs to help me figure out what I saw and didn’t write about, but a few movies may have slipped through the cracks. And while I know I saw Bright Leaves on PBS, I can’t figure out exactly when (it wasn’t the first viewing in August).
Still, I managed to pull together a fairly thorough list of all the movies I saw in 2005. I’m dividing it into two entries because it is so long. The films marked with an asterisk are movies that had a U.S. theatrical release in 2005, although in a few cases “theatrical release” means “a couple of nights at Alamo Drafthouse” or even “an airing on PBS.” It’s more difficult than I realized to determine what was released in 2005 and what was not. (The list actually includes a few 2006 releases, which I saw at various film festivals.)
unto us a film geek is born
My brother and I spent some time together on the day after Christmas, eating sushi and driving by old ex-movie theaters (more on this another time) and listening to selections from the eclectic CD collection strewn throughout his car. We even stopped at Lakeside Mall and I caught a glimpse of the hoilday train setup with the little village that had blue FEMA roofs.
We got back to my parents’ house to discover that my dad was watching my nephew, who is about 3.5 years old. Usually he is a very active, mischievous child, but he was lying on the sofa near the TV. My dad was semi-napping in a nearby recliner, and Madagascar was playing on the TV screen. My dad has three primary methods of babysitting: take the child shopping, feed the child, put a movie on TV for the child. I can’t argue.
now I get it
When Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released earlier this year, a lot of people were unhappy before they even saw the film. My baby brother was one of these people. He said it could not possibly be the same without Gene Wilder. He thought it was wrong to see someone portraying a role that Wilder had characterized so perfectly. I disagreed because I never liked Wilder in that role; his performance always made me feel weirdly embarrassed. And I like the re-adaptation better than the earlier film. So I didn’t quite understand.
That is, until two nights ago, when I watched a clip from the new version of The Producers, in which Matthew Broderick (as Leo Bloom) launched into blue blanket-related hysterics in the scene where he meets Nathan Lane (as Max Bialystock) for the first time.
It’s just wrong. He’s nowhere near as believable as Gene Wilder. Gene Wilder had wonderful hysterics, and he was believable as a mousy accountant even though Wilder (like Broderick) is instantly recognizable. I think that the three good Mel Brooks movies (The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein) were also Wilder’s finest hours, and I love The Producers best of all.
Who are these people imitating Wilder and Zero Mostel, and doing it wrong? Wrong!
I may or may not see the movie. Part of me wants to see what they did with it, and part of me knows I’m not going to like it. I grew up watching The Producers, and the 1968 film has great sentimental meaning to me, and I get the impression that this movie just isn’t going to match it, not in any way. I want to see the dancing number with the little old ladies and their walkers, but can it possibly top Estelle Winwood? The only real improvement I can see so far appears to be Uma Thurman’s legs.
So I feel like I should go apologize to my little brother for not taking him seriously. When someone remakes the favorite movie of your childhood, and recasts the actors who seem irreplaceable, you can’t get past that no matter how good the movie might be. In the case of The Producers, I hear the remake is not that good. Maybe I’ll just watch the 1968 film again.
merry Christmas, dude
My brother and I hope you’ll tip back a White Russian and enjoy the holiday season:
four six-minute reviews: in Houston airport
Can I write movie reviews while waiting in Houston Hobby airport for my flight (currently running 30 minutes late) to be called? Let’s find out. I have a list of movies I haven’t written about, and while I can’t randomize very well, or time myself, this will be the Airport Edition of six-minute movie reviews.
1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2005, dir. MIke Newell. Seen at Alamo Village.
I felt a bit sad because this is the first Harry Potter movie I saw alone. For the other three, I slipped out of work early and saw them with co-workers, hoping that the matinees would be less crowded. We saw the second and third movies at Alamo Village, because the pre-show stuff they play beforehand is agreeably silly.
Continue reading four six-minute reviews: in Houston airport
Hildy checks out the Coyote sale
I found a ad for a film-production garage sale last week on the Austin Film Society site. Austin being the filmarific town it is, these sales seem to happen regularly on the Austin Studios stages. A film wraps production and Austin Studios holds a garage sale to get rid of all the props. A few weeks ago, it was for The Wendell Baker Story, which Luke Wilson has written and co-directed. The ad I saw last week was for a movie I didn’t recognize, Coyote. The ad said nothing about the movie at all other than the title, which was unusual, so I figured it was an ultra-low-budget film.
I wanted to post info about the garage sale in my weekly News from Slackerwood column for Cinematical, so I looked up Coyote on IMDb. No info found at all. Even for ultra-low-budget films, that was unusual. But on a whim, I ran a search on the Cinematical site itself … the name was ringing a distant bell in the back of my head and I wasn’t sure why.
Sure enough, there was the info, plain as day on Cinematical: “Coyote” was rumored to be an alias for Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Fast Food Nation. Linklater wanted to shoot in locations where the reputation of the book Fast Food Nation might present problems (like restaurants, perhaps) so he created an alternate title, a coverup title that no one would find suspicious.