After the Dark doesn't work because nothing matters

Besides playing the Netflix game, I wanted to watch After the Dark because I remember watching the trailer when it came out, and it seemed like the kind of movie I would like. But about 20 minutes into the movie, I realized that I would not like it as much as I expected. There are a few reasons for that. Spoilers ahead...

1. Every significant thing happens in the thought experiment, not in real life, and there no real stakes for the characters. 

The exciting parts of the movie are in the thought experiment—how the group survives and the consequences of their choices. But in real life, these students are all just sitting around a classroom. Mr. Zimit, the teacher, threatens a couple of them with lower grades, but that’s it. Other movies have pulled off an alternate space that affects reality. Characters who die The Matrix die in real life. Things go wrong in Inception's shared dreams, and it affects the characters' goals in real life. But it’s difficult to care about what happens to the characters in After the Dark when their classroom discussions have no real consequences.

2. New iterations of the thought experiment don’t propel the story.

We find out more about each character in each iteration, but we still don’t know what the point of the experiment is in the first place. Is this the class’s final exam? Is Mr. Zimit trying to prove something? Is it about character reveals? We don’t know. At the end of the movie, we find out Mr. Zimit wants to be with Petra and was trying to show her that James isn’t the right guy for her. It's the kind of reveal that could work well, but it doesn't here. The writers withheld important information until the end, so we don’t see where the thought experiment is going all along, and that makes it difficult for us to care.

How could new iterations propel a story? Take Groundhog Day for example. We know upfront that Bill Murray’s character wants to stop repeating Groundhog Day. He wants a way out. First, he tries killing himself, but the day resets after each attempt. Next, he tries perfecting the day, and when he finally does, the loop breaks. We know what he wants the whole time—find a way to stop repeating the day—so we can empathize with his situation as the movie progresses.

3. We don’t know who to sympathize with. 

After the Dark has a large cast—20 students plus Mr. Zimit. Down to 10 people in the bunker. And we learn about each character in bits and pieces. All those people and all that information makes it difficult to know who we should be rooting for. It seems like our choices narrow to James, Petra, and Mr. Zimit. Of these three, James is the most likable. He is friendly and honest. He looks out for his classmates. He tries to act in a morally good way. Petra, on the other hand, seems cold, even as she emerges as the leader of the students. We see brief scenes of her and James together and where he is loving and sweet, she is distant and unresponsive. We don’t know if she’s holding back her feelings for James or if she’s lying to him about their relationship. We don’t know what she wants, so we can’t hope that she gets what she wants. And then there is Mr. Zimit who is cast as a villain for most of the movie. He kills the poet, acts impulsively, and withholds information that would help the group survive. We don't know what he's up to, but then at the end of the movie, it seems like we're supposed to feel bad for him.

After the Dark starts with an interesting concept but non-existing stakes, unclear character motivations, and too many characters make it difficult to enjoy the film. You can sit back and watch it purely for the philosophical stuff, but if you think about the story, it feels muddled.

A half-year in movies

Halfway through 2015, and these are the movies I have watched so far:

I'm not going to write about each one, because that would be a long and potentially rambly post. Instead, here are some highlights and surprises.

I knew I would like The Imitation Game, but I am always a little concerned that biopics will be a collection of scenes and lack an actual story. Totally not an issue here.

After I finished Odd Thomas, I immediately wanted to watch it again. I love when a movie has that effect.

I watched The Double after I heard that Jesse Eisenberg was cast as Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. No doubt that he is a good actor, but I couldn't really picture him as a villain until I watched The Double. Still, I'm not sure about him being Lex.

Parallels isn't even a movie but Netflix has it in the movie section, and I didn't know better—it's a pilot for a TV series that never got picked up. Good ideas and then such a let down. 

Everything about Big Hero 6 is stuff that I would like in a movie, but I didn't like it. The animation is stunning and the characters are good. It's a superhero story. From a technical aspect, it's a well-made movie. But something didn't connect for me.

I had zero expectations for Mad Max: Fury Road because I stayed away from reviews, reaction posts, and even trailers. That paid off—Mad Max blew me away. I love when a movie has that effect.

What have you been watching lately? Let me know over on Twitter.

Bits of Screenwriting 101 by Film Crit Hulk

I finished reading Screenwriting 101 by Film Crit Hulk, and I recommend it for anyone who writes stories—not only screenplays.

Below are some of my favorite passages. I highlighted a lot of stuff, so narrowing it down was hard!

Hulk's working definition of storytelling:

a good narrative is compelling to the audience, economically told, feels real either in terms of emotion, detail, or texture, and speaks to some thematic truth that you recognize in yourself or the world at large.

On inspiration carrying you through to the end of a story:

A finished film is as close to the inspiration that spawned it as that original scribbled note on a napkin. To the creator, they are conceptually the same thing, no matter how much they might have changed. Never forget that. Because the germ of your idea can be the thing that must constantly light the fire underneath you as you go forth. When you are in the slog of working out the logistics, you must find that same inspiration. Even if the project radically changes, the idea itself should be a through-line that saves your script throughout the process. The moment of inspiration is both your motive and motivation.

On endings:

If all the ideas in our films mean something, then your ending should say everything. [...] do not look at the ending of your piece as a burden, but as an opportunity. An opportunity to say everything you want to say in your movie. It is an opportunity to be poetic, resonant, and interesting. It is an opportunity to be soulful and underline the purpose of storytelling.

On heroes:

It’s not that anyone can be a hero, but that a hero can come from anywhere.

On the hero's journey, and how you don't have to use that model for a good hero story:

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is 1) about a superhero 2) one of the most respected and successful superhero films ever and 3) and it doesn’t even really touch the Campbell model in any strong way. Instead, it’s built around moment-to-moment propulsion of story. It grounds its characterization in theme and keeps things going in a far more involving and modern way.

On forward motion that keeps the audience interested:

So what I’m saying is that you come up with an idea and it’s like ‘okay, this happens’ and then ‘THIS happens.’ No no no. It should be ‘this happens’ and THEREFORE ‘this happens.’ BUT ‘this happens’ THEREFORE ‘this happens.’

On genre:

Every kind of story is different. Every one of them works with a certain set of expectations and catharsis. And part of being able to write any kind of story means you should know how to write every kind of story.

On Tarantino's mastery of cinematic mechanisms:

People think that Tarantino is always trying to be cool or that he makes “cool” films, but if you ask Hulk this is a spectacular misdiagnosis. Yes, Quentin wants his films to be cool, but that’s not how he actually constructs them! Seriously! Oftentimes, his characters are grounded in a kind of regularity and focus on the mundane. He obsesses in the obscure and the uncool. More than that, he constructs his films in terms of function: his long-form dialogues are just as much about classic innovations of drama and build up and tension. He’s a guy who knows his craft and knows the purpose of every single cinematic mechanism he’s employing.

On the most important thing in writing adaptations:

You want the people of the property to be the same people in the film. That’s everything, really. Audiences just want to recognize the characters they have come to love or be fascinated by.

On getting through the first draft:

Just write the first draft no matter what. Don’t care if it’s good. Don’t care if it even works. Don’t care even if it’s gobbledygook. Just get it done. It doesn’t matter. Get it all up on the page because no one ever has to see it. Remove the paralysis. Get in a place so you can see it all before you. So you can see what needs to be done and how it needs to be changed. And then? Do, like, 7 rewrites... at least.

On having thick skin:

James Gunn said: “The key to show business is to give 110% while simultaneously not giving a shit.” Give 110% percent because you can’t accomplish anything in this business without enthusiasm and genuine intent. Be joyful and take pride when things go well. But don’t give a shit in the sense that you have to take rejection in stride. Don’t let failure bother you.

Reverse engineering Odd Thomas

In Screenwriting 101 by FilmCritHulk, Hulk explains the process of creating characters by matching up specific kinds of information to the human body. You start at the feet and work your way up to the head: "You start factual, then get emotional, then ideological, and then amalgamate those details into an actual character psychology."

He details the process and then suggests an exercise: look at an existing character and fill in the information for them.

I want to work through that for Odd, the main character in Odd Thomas (movie version, not book version). I like that this is a superhero story where the character doesn't think of himself as a superhero, and I like the idea of pulling it apart to see how that character works.

So here I go with Hulk's process.

Feet (Physical details and basic facts)

• Appearance: Male, Caucasian, mid-twenties, average height, lean build, dark hair, blue eyes
• Family: Father is police chief. Mother has been in a psych ward since Odd was 12 years old because she claimed to have psychic abilities and had violent episodes. No siblings. Middle class. We don't know about any other family members.
• Friends: Viola (waitress at the diner); Stormy (girlfriend)
• Location: Pico Mundo (desert town in California)
• Occupation: works as a short order cook at a diner. Also unofficially helps out with police investigations because he inherited his mother's psychic abilities.

 

Groin (What does he want?)

• A simple life, because his psychic abilities complicate his life
• To keep his abilities secret (so that he doesn't end up like his mother)
• To be with Stormy

 

Heart (What does he need?)

• Needs to have a purpose for his abilities (he believes they are a gift he is meant to use)
• Needs to have someone in his life who accepts him as he is, despite all the weirdness in his life. (That person is Stormy.)

 

Throat (How does he sound and project himself?)

• Speaks quietly but confidently
• Sarcastic, especially with Stormy
• Gives off a casual, easy-going vibe, despite all the danger that surrounds him
• Is confident about his abilities and insistent when he needs his father's help
• Accepts his abilities as a matter-of-fact—he doesn't brag about them and he doesn't shy away from them. 
• Is honest when he can be (with his father and with Stormy) about what he sees and what he knows. When he can't be completely honest, he tells people what they need to know so that they stay safe.
• Knows how to fight and take care of himself, but he isn't aggressive or violent unless he really needs to be (like when the bad guy is after him or people's lives are in danger)

 

Left cheek ("left-brained" abilities)

• Intelligent, sometimes more than he lets on
• Investigates on his own and sometimes will talk through things with Stormy
• Good observer
• Works a lot like a detective would: figure out a suspect, piece together a timeline, go through a process of elimination until he has a clear picture of a situation

 

Right cheek ("right-brained" abilities)

• Thinks outside the box (because of his psychic abilities)
• Strong belief in justice and righting wrongs
• BUT will break the law for a greater good
• Acts on gut feelings as much as logical decisions
• Doesn't see himself a superhero
• Believes in a higher power and an afterlife (but isn't more specific than that)

 

Crown (Who is this character?)

Odd Thomas is a man with psychic abilities that he uses to solve crimes and help people. Because of the weirdness in his life, he tries to keep other aspects of his life simple and grounded. He is confident about his psychic abilities and helping people but also humble, never bragging about what he can do and never considering himself a superhero. He is intelligent and methodical in solving crimes, but he can also be impulsive. He has a matter-of-fact mindset about his circumstances, accepting his abilities and using them to help people.

Give me uncertain heroes

When I watched X-Men: Days of Future Past, I realized that one of my favorite things about these characters is that they are allowed to be imperfect and unfinished. They make poor decisions. They're selfish and stubborn. They lie. But they also change, and we get to see the whole process.

Other superhero movies give us an origin story or a full-blown hero, but not many deal with the hero's uncertainty as the main story. Uncertainty comes as a brief scene or it's used as an excuse to see the hero act out of character. But it's rare that we see uncertainty used for character development and executed well.

Days of Future Past shows us a young Charles who gives up his ability because he doesn't want to cope with other people's pain in his head.

We see a young Magneto who chooses to act in ways that benefit the mutant community as a whole, over and over, even if it means killing a friend (Raven). Nothing is personal with him—it's only mutant or human.

But then we see Charles accept that he needs to open his mind in order to save others, and that allows him to grow into the mentor/leader that is so calm and assertive in the future, even when all odds are against him. We see an older Magneto in the future fight to protect his friends with little concern for himself, even missing a piece of shrapnel that ends up fatally wounding him, because he was more concerned with saving the others.

Besides seeing these characters develop and change over time, I also love that we see them lose control of their abilities or be afraid of what they can do.

Too often in superhero movies, we're given the over-confident hero who always knows what to do. Or at least, he tries his best and gets lucky.

In Days of Future Past, though, the character don't always know what they're doing.

When Magneto is drowning in the fountain, all the cars on the street shift and tilt toward him. It isn't because he was going to use them, but because he was in danger and freaking out—so his powers went haywire.

Charles's abilities go out of control too. When he puts on Cerebro, he says "these are muscles I haven't stretched in a long time," meaning maybe he will have trouble operating Cerebro, but he ends up shorting out the machine. Part of that might have been his nervousness, but it seemed like he underestimated his power and then used too much.

I like watching characters who don't fully know themselves and can't fully control their abilities. It's so much better than a story about a static, finished hero.

Movie recommendation: Moon (2009)

Moon is the most recent success of my Netflix Game. My one criteria was a character-driven sci-fi story. Otherwise, I didn't know anything about the movie.

Moon is about an astronaut, Sam Bell, who has a three-year contract to work alone on a lunar station. That's all I'll say about the story because I don't like spoiling movies while I'm recommending them. Instead, I'll briefly list the things I liked about Moon. In no specific order:

1. The soundtrack. From the first scene, I knew I would love the soundtrack. The music is sparse, haunting at times, and gives a sense of yearning. It reflects Sam's mood, so when he is going about his daily routine, the music feels at ease. When he's scared, the music expresses his fear.

2. Character-driven. You watch Sam the whole time. That's it.

3. No explosions. There aren't high-speed chases, brilliant flashes of light, and booming sounds in Moon. You get to pay attention to the story instead of being distracted and interrupted by typical blockbuster action scenes.

4. You're rewarded for thinking as you watch. Moon lays out just enough details that you can guess at what's happening before it's confirmed on the screen. Despite that, the movie didn't feel predictable to me. The movie kept my attention and a level of suspense because I guessed what should happen and then watched to see if that did happen.

5. The soundtrack. I'm repeating this point because, seriously, the soundtrack is so good. I'm listening to it as I write this post. It fits the tone of Moon and encapsulates emotions so well.

Man of Steel got some things right

Spoilers for Man of Steel.

I heard mixed reviews about Man of Steel and these two things kept coming up:

1. Way too much destruction. Buildings fall apart. Explosions. Lots of civilians in danger. But Superman wouldn’t put that many people in danger. He would take the fight away, out in the middle of nowhere (or even into space).

2. The first half of the movie feels different from the second half. Stylistically, visually. It’s like you’re watching two films mashed together, and they don't mash well.

As I watched the movie, I thought these were valid points. Man of Steel has its flaws, but it also got a lot of things right. I'll go through the bad stuff first, and then get to the good stuff.

The bad stuff

1. Too much destruction, and I know why it happens. This version of Clark doesn't don the suit until he faces Zod. Clark hasn't faced major threats before, human or otherwise, so when he fights Zod, it's messy and desperate. Clark doesn't have enough experience to control the situation, and that's why there's so much destruction. I still think it's excessive, but I understand why it happens.

2. Stylistic changes. One issue is with the flashback scenes. I like seeing Clark at different ages, but a few of the flashbacks feel forced and interrupt the flow of the present action. I don’t know if there was a better way to include them. Another issue is all the fighting in the second half of the movie. Lots of explosions, broken glass and stone, and loud noises in contrast to (relatively quiet) scenes around the world in the first half.

3. Clark doesn’t work at the Daily Planet until the end of the movie. I have mixed feelings about this. I like seeing on-the-farm Clark, but the mild-mannered reporter is a big part of the character and usually a more prominent role for the actor. One of the best things about Superman I is seeing Christopher Reeve shift from Clark Kent to Superman, but Henry Cavill doesn’t have the opportunity to do that.

4. Zod was born to be a soldier and protector of Krypton, but we find out too late. Jor-El says that for centuries, everyone on Krypton was born for a specific purpose, but Clark was born naturally and with the freedom to become whoever he wanted. Zod was born to protect Krypton, and that helps us understand why he is willing to do whatever it takes to build a new Krypton on Earth. Clark takes away the purpose of Zod's life, and that's a Big Thing, but the revelation comes too late in the movie for us to care.

5. Jonathan’s death was sort of...ridiculous. In other versions of Superman, Jonathan dies from a heart attack. It’s fine if the writers want to do something new, but Jonathan's death in Man of Steel could have been prevented so easily. Jonathan should have picked up the little girl and gone to the overpass with Martha. Clark could have rescued the dog and used the excuse that he “got really lucky” that he didn’t get hurt. I understand that Jonathan was willing to die in order to protect Clark’s secret, but this was a poor way to show it.

6. Lines that failed miserably. I'm sure there are more, but these two stuck out to me:
---Zod: “Where did you train? On a FARM??” This sounded cartoony, like a cheesy villain. What Zod meant was, he dedicated his life to protecting Krypton while Clark had relatively insignificant experiences on Earth.
---The female military officer at the end who said Superman is “kinda hot.” Completely inappropriate. Her character wasn’t even well developed and still that line was out of character.

The good stuff

1. Clark as a drifter. We haven’t seen this stage in Clark’s life on screen before, even though it’s been hinted at a few times. Man of Steel has thirty-three year-old Clark moving from place to place, job to job. He has this great power and he isn’t sure how he should use it, so he helps where he can. It’s nice to see Clark in ordinary situations. Bus boy at a bar. Part of a ship’s crew. He wears t-shirts and jeans and even though he looks ordinary, there’s an Otherness about him. He wasn’t pretending to be a bumbling reporter and he wasn't a demigod with a cape yet. Just Clark trying to figure out what he is supposed to do.

2. Lois is an ace reporter and she respects people’s boundaries. Lois finds out where Clark lives and says she wants to tell his story. When he explains to her that the world isn’t ready to find out there’s life on other planets, she backs off. She keeps his secret and doesn’t push him. Other versions of Lois Lane (but not all of them) have her arguing for the sake of arguing. If someone says she can’t do something, that’s all the more reason she wants to do it. It becomes predictable. “Lois, don’t get into trouble.” And then oh, there’s trouble and there's Lois. This Lois thinks about more than the news story. She realizes there are some things she shouldn’t do, even if she has the ability to do it.

3. No Kryptonite. No meteor pieces that came to Earth with Clark’s spaceship. No crutch for the bad guys to use. I like what the writers did instead. Clark adapted to Earth's conditions and so he has a bad reaction to the Kryptonian air on the spaceship and the Kryptonian atmosphere spewing out of the World Engine.

4. Jor-El is AI you can see and trust. Russell Crowe’s Jor-El is visible (and not a translucent hologram) and integrated with the alien ships. He explains things to Clark in a straightforward way, no mind games, and Clark trusts him. What bugged me about Jor-El in Smallville was that he was always ambiguous—Clark never knew if Jor-El was manipulating him. It is so refreshing to see Jor-El as a guiding figure that Clark can work with.

5. Normal danger doesn’t faze Clark. In one of the flashbacks, Clark is on a school bus that goes off a bridge and into water. All the other kids are screaming as the bus fills up with water, but Clark is looking around, observing, because he knows he can force his way out of the bus if he has to. The other kids are scared because they’re trapped but Clark is calm because he has a way out. It’s part of his Otherness, that he can't be hurt as easily as humans. In contrast, Clark is cautious when he fights Zod and Faora-Ul because they are actual threats to him.

6. Heat vision is uncomfortable for Clark. The skin around Clark’s eyes turns dry and veiny, which is something that might happen if searing heat suddenly burst from you eyes. In fights, Clark uses heat vision in desperate moves and it takes him a moment to shut his eyes and turn it off.

7. Superman teams up with humans. The military needs Superman’s help and Superman needs to coordinate with them in order to defeat Zod. It isn’t Superman as mankind’s savior but rather Superman as a leader. Which is how it’s supposed to be. Superman leads mankind into the light, not Superman solves all of your problems for you.

8. Lois knows Clark Kent is Superman. She tracks him down to Smallville, and then she keeps his secret. The writers completely bypassed the notion that Clark’s disguise fools Lois, and it suits the characters perfectly.

9. Coming to Earth was about repopulating Krypton. This was the central conflict: would Superman help Zod build a new Krypton or would he defend his adopted home? It's an internal conflict for Clark and it has external effects and consequences. In theory it would work well, but the movie doesn't quite get there.

Man of Steel focuses heavily on Kal-El’s side of the story. It’s a film about the last son of Krypton with some flaws and some highlights. I’m still waiting for a story about Clark Kent. Scenes hinted at what that would be like...young Clark suffers from sensory overload; middle school Clark risks revealing his secret in order to save his classmates; young adult Clark is frustrated about what his purpose is. I want to see a story about what an extraordinary man does in an ordinary world, but the Superman movie we usually get is an extraordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.

I like the five-star rating system just fine, thank you

Netflix developed a virtual assistant, Max, to make recommendations for the content that you watch. So far, it has been tested on PS3. VentureBeat's article doesn't mention any plans for Max to be part of browser-based Netflix, and I hope it stays that way.

For starters, I don't want a trying-too-hard artificial personality hovering around. Take a look at this video that explains how Max works. It's annoying and unnecessary. Genre-specific recommendations and choosing movies based on the leading actors are already parts of Netflix. Besides pre-recorded quips, the only new thing that Max offers is a randomly-selected title. Netflix can do that with a Random button.

Besides all of that, I'm having bad flashbacks of Clippy.

Except Max is worse, because he makes you play mini games before you choose something to watch.

I like the five-star system that Netflix has—simple, easy to use, and its predictions work really well for me. I like that the rating system is always there, but I can easily ignore it too. It seems like Max is an optional feature, but I wish Netflix would put its efforts toward something more useful, like separate user profiles on one account.


Image is remixed with graphics by Mike Licht (flickr) and Nemo (pixabay).

Seven Ways to Watch a DVD

I recommend trying at least one of the following on a repeat viewing, and it may or may not increase your enjoyment of the film.

Don't do these the first time you watch a movie because you might get angry, annoyed, or frustrated, and that is not my intention. (The goal when watching movies is either to have fun or to broaden your experiences.)

1. On mute. No sound means you're going to pay more attention to visual details: lighting, camera angles, cuts, composition, and body language. If you want to improve your awareness of these elements (say, for a film class or to impress your movie buff friend), definitely watch a movie on mute.

2. Dubbed in a foreign language. If you're studying a foreign language, here's an opportunity to work on your listening skills, especially if you don't have the story memorized.

3. Watch side characters and ignore the main character when he/she is on screen. I don't realize all the acting that goes on in the background, and I bet neither do you. Here's a way to notice that.

4. Turn on commentary. Good for director's explanations, cast stories from the set, and random bits of trivia.

5. Skip every other scene. (Not recommended for movies that involve heavy time travel.) I haven't tried this yet, but I imagine it's sort of like Choose Your Own Adventure with more fixed parameters.

6. Watch with headphones on. The movie will sound different from the time you watched it on TV or in the theater, and in a cool way.

7. Create your own intermission. Break the movie into two or three parts, with a fifteen minute break in between each part. (Or break for however long you like. Doesn't matter to me.) When you pull away from the movie and give your mind some time to process what you've already seen, you might pick up on something that you normally would not have realized until the movie was over.

The Netflix Game

One of my favorite games is The Netflix Game. I haven't talked to anyone about this, so it might be my invention or maybe loads of other people do it too. (Let me know in the comments if you do.)

This is how you play. You choose one element you want in a movie. For example, specific genre, a certain actor, earlier works of a director, John Williams soundtrack...It can be any element you want.

You search for movies on Netflix that meet that one criteria (and that you haven't seen before, if that wasn't obvious). Depending on what your element is, you might have to enlist help from IMDB and/or Rotten Tomatoes. When you find potential movies, do not read the plot summary or reviews or cast listings or anything about the movie.

Find the potentials that are rated at least 4 red stars. Those are Netflix's predictions about how much you will enjoy the movie. Add one of those to your Netflix queue.

When you watch that movie, you have almost zero information on it (assuming you didn't cheat). You might not have any expectations of it (which is fun!) and hopefully, you'll enjoy it because Netflix thought you would, and Netflix's rating system is four kinds of wonderful.

There are no points in this game, but you can consider a "win" when you enjoy the movie and a "loss" when Netflix's prediction lets you down.

So yesterday I played the Netflix Game with Runaway Jury and it was a win. My One Element was John Cusack as a main character. I got bonuses, though, because Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman were in the movie too (and I didn't know that until I was watching. More fun when you don't cheat, see?). Netflix predicted four stars for me, and yes, I liked the movie but didn't love it.

It's a good way to spend rainy afternoons, the Netflix Game.

I want movies loosely based on novels

The major problem with making a movie based on a novel is, most people expect the movie to be very close to the novel and it's difficult to do that because stories in books and stories on screen work differently.

You'll never be able to fit everything from a 300-page novel into a 2-hour movie. You have to cut scenes, maybe eliminate characters, and probably rework parts to make the story work for the movie.

I wish instead of seeing "based on ", we would see more movies "inspired by" novels. Instead of trying to recreate the book on screen, take the characters and some plot elements and run in a new direction. 

This is how the Bourne movies were made. I watched The Bourne Identity, liked it, and then read the book, expecting it to be similar to the movie but with more fleshed-out parts. But the book is so much more than the movie. More scenes, more locations, more challenges. The movie took the essential characters and one thread from the plot and that's what you watch on screen. You don't need to have read the book to understand the movie, and watching the movie does not spoil the book for you. They are separate but related, and each great stories in their own mediums.

Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons

Last week I watched Rise of the Guardians and afterwards, I went through the tag on Tumblr and I found out about The Big Four—a mega-crossover with Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon, Brave, and Tangled. Combine the titles and you get "Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons." There are entire blogs about this combination of characters and worlds, including this one.

People are writing fanfic, making videos, drawing fanart, and cosplaying. This is my favorite kind of fandom, when people take elements from things they like and re-combine them into something greater, something we won't see from the original creators.

Here are some of my favorite works about the Big Four:

princekido | Deviant Art

jiidesu | tumblr

The Man From Earth stays in one room

One of my favorite things about Netflix is, it predicts how much you'll like a movie based on what other movies you have watched and rated. Yesterday I was looking for something to watch and I looked at what's in my instant queue. The Man From Earth was sitting there with five red stars next to the title.

Netflix's prediction was right—I loved it.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Quick summary of the plot

Professor John Oldman surprises his friends and colleagues by his unexpected decision to leave the university and move away. They come over to his house for a last-minute goodbye party and he reveals to them that he's actually 14,000 years old. He stopped aging at about age 35 and he moves every 10 years or so, when people start to notice that he's not getting older. He's lived through major shifts in civilization, wars, and plagues. The entire movie is the conversation he has with his friends. He explains parts of his life, they ask him questions, and they try to figure out if he's telling the truth or making it all up.

This is why I loved it:

1. Bottle movie

The whole movie takes place in John's house, mostly in his living room. The simplicity makes me pay attention to the characters more, and staying in one room for an hour and a half means the dialogue and the characters are doing all the work. No room for fancy cuts, car chases, explosions, or special effects. You have to focus on the people, much like what happens in 12 Angry Men and bottle episodes on TV.

2. Scholarly discussion 

All the people in the room are professors (and one student). They cover history, archeology, anthropology, biology, religion, and psychology. The conversation reflects their academic interests, and the scenes play out like an intellecutual game. They're playing with an idea: if someone were to live for 14,000 years, what would that person be like? Each person in the room asks questions and weighs in from his or her academic viewpoint.

3. Mind game

The characters waver back and forth in believing John. John can answer all their questions with thoughtful, detailed answers, but he can't offer any proof besides his words. Some points of their conversation go to far for some of the characters while other characters want to hear even more about John's life. It isn't so much a mind game between the audience and the movie because we're just sitting in on the conversation. We can't participate. But we watch the characters figure out where they stand and what they believe.

I recommend watching The Man From Earth if you like movies with good discussion. It's technically a sci-fi film, but it plays out more like a psychological mystery. You spend the time watching a group of smart people play with an interesting idea.

Skyfall: A Bond Intro, Shakespeare Style

If you've read Romeo and Juliet, then you know that Shakespeare outlines the story in the prologue. Before the first scene even starts, you know the play is about two star-crossed lovers who die. Skyfall does something similar in its opening credits.

Spoilers for the movie below. Here's a video of the opening credits, for reference.

The opening titles give the audience a glimpse of what's coming in the movie, including plot points, locations, and themes.

Here a few examples, and you could analyze and dissect the opening titles to even greater detail.

Time - Image in opening credits - Connection to story
0:30 - Bond continues sinking in the water - Bond presumably drowns and MI6 pronounces him dead
1:00 - Fallen knives and guns form cemetery gravestones - The death of "the old ways" in espionage
1:15 - Zoom in on Bond's eye - Bond returns to London
1:31 - Shooting the shadows - Bond's tests before returning to fieldwork, M's idea about "working in the shadows"
2:18 - Dragon dance - Shanghai
2:47 - Black skull - The black skull image that flashed on M's hacked computer
2:50 - Cemetery - Exposed MI6 agents who were assassinated, the graves of Bond's parents at Skyfall estate
2:52 - Fall into a grave and then Bond is walking on the ground - Bond's "resurrection"
3:05 - Shooting at mirrors - Scene in the Shanghai skyscraper, mirrors in Skyfall house to distract Silva's men
3:21 - Blood stain on Bond's suit jacket - M lets Bond go back into the field even though he didn't pass the tests (he's a damaged/injured agent)
3:28 - Blood and fire falling over a large house - The final fight at the Skyfall estate where most of Silva's men die, M dies, and the house blows up

The opening titles do not obviously tell you what is going to happen in the story, but the imagery gives you a general sense of what's coming. I noticed how connected the opening credits were only after I finished watching the movie.

Worse than a book cover with the movie characters

When a movie comes out that's based on a book, I'm always annoyed to see the re-released book with the movie poster as the cover. The actors don't necessarily fit the character descriptions and even if they do, most readers do not picture those actors as the book characters. The movie-poster-as-the-book-cover is a marketing device and that's frustrating enough, but I found something worse: re-naming the book to match the movie title.

I watched Limitless, which is a great movie because it explores what it's like to have full access to your mind—learning, memory, and critical thinking skills—but doesn't expect its viewers to fully use their minds as they watch the movie. Great, because it contradicts itself and yet remains entertaining.

I like the ideas in the story, so I looked up the book. If you go to bookstores now, it's called Limitless by Alan Glynn the cover looks something like this:

  

 

That's Bradley Cooper, the lead, in the middle panel. The movie came out in 2011, so if you look for the book before then, the cover looks like this:

Still a novel by Alan Glynn, but it's called The Dark Fields. A perfectly good title and a perfectly good cover, so why does a movie based on the book have to bring on these changes?

Anyone can find a book that a movie is based on. Search for it online. (Wikipedia is especially useful in this matter.) Or, hey, movies based on books say so in the credits.

Let the book title stay the book title and it's okay if the movie is called something else. I prefer a different title on the movie, actually, if the movie is only a loose interpretation of the book.

I know for marketing purposes, it's easier and more effective to have the movie and book titles match. New book covers to match movie posters is cross-advertising and you draw the movie goers to the bookstore and the readers to the cinema. But people can link the book to the movie (and vice versa) on their own. Give the audience a little credit.


Image sources: Limitless cover | The Dark Fields cover

Cloud Atlas: Watch for Themes

I usually don't read much about movies before I see them, so going into Cloud Atlas I knew that 1) Tom Hanks and Halle Berry were the leads 2) scenes mixed from periods in the past, present, and future and 3) it was based on a book but I haven't read it.

I walked in to the movie expecting that it would be one story that jumped around, but about 45 minutes in, I realized that the best way to watch it was by themes and not try to think too much about the stories. The scenes jump around and the character introductions are too fast to keep track of everything in that way.

So instead, I looked for ways to connect the segments according to common themes and that worked pretty well.

Spoilers under the cut.

The narrator in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Spoilers below.

Robert Downey Jr. is the main character, Harry Lockhart, and he narrates most of the movie. But besides typical narration, the movie breaks the fourth wall. Harry addresses the audience, as if he's having a conversation with us. He pauses scenes to add comments and rewinds when he forgets to tell us something.

The one problem with narrated movies is that you know the character makes it through to the end. Not a problem for family dramas and comedies, but Harry is in constant danger. Hearing him tell the story in the past tense means he survives all the trouble he gets in to.

It's difficult to worry about the main character when you know he'll be okay, so Kiss Kiss Bang Bang forgets about the narration for the middle of the movie. Harry is still on the screen but he isn't talking to us anymore. We lose the certainty that he survives until the end because he's not cracking jokes about what's happening. Maybe he doesn't live to tell the rest of the story so we just have to watch and see.

It's an interesting move, to use narration to lure us into a comfortable zone and then take it away to let us question the character's safety.

Two decades of sports movies

D2: The Mighty Ducks was on TV earlier today, and I started thinking about sports movies that were released in the 1990s versus the ones that came out in the 2000s. Specifically, I was wondering if one decade had more sports movies than the other.

I went to IMDB and started searching. These were the parameters I set: released in the U.S, from the years 1990 to 2010, rated G or PG, and categorized as a Sport movie. As I went through the results, I excluded movies where a sport was not the main plot.

Here's the list:

1991 - 2000 - 34 total
The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend (1991)
Talent for the Game (1991)
The Babe (1992)
The Cutting Edge (1992)
A League of Their Own (1992)
The Mighty Ducks (1992)
Airborne (1993)
Rookie of the Year (1993)
The Sandlot (1993) 
Rudy (1993)
Cool Runnings (1993)
Little Big League (1994)
The Air Up There (1994)
The Next Karate Kid (1994)
Major League II (1994)
Little Giants (1994)
Angels in the Outfield (1994)
D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994)
The Big Green (1995)
Snowboard Academy (1996)
Ed (1996)
D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996)
Space Jam (1996)
The Ride (1997)
Air Bud (1997)
Possums (1998)
Without Limits (1998)
Golf Punks (1998)
Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998)
Soccer Dog: The Movie (1998)
Endurance (1999)
A Little Inside (1999)
MVP: Most Valuable Primate (2000)
Remember the Titans (2000)

2001 - 2010 - 48 total
Snow Dogs (2002)
The Rookie (2002)
Like Mike (2002)
Hometown Legend (2002)
Jumping for Joy (2002)
Just For Kicks (2003)
Radio (2003)
Mickey (2004)
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
Guarding Eddy (2004)
Soccer Dog: European Cup (2004)
Miracle (2004)
The Game of Their Lives (2005)
Madison (2005)
Herbie Fully Loaded (2005)
Kicking & Screaming (2005)
Ice Princess (2005)
Rebound (2005)
Racing Stripes (2005)
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)
The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005)
Believe in Me (2006)
Everyone's a Hero (2006)
Cars (2006)
Nacho Libre (2006)
Glory Road (2006)
Facing the Giants (2006)
Church Ball (2006)
Rocky Balboa (2006)
We Are Marshall (2006)
Invincible (2006)
The Final Season (2007)
Pride (2007)
White Air (2007)
The Game Plan (2007)
Surf's Up (2007)
The Longshots (2008)
Fast Girl (2008)
The Express (2008)
Speed Racer (2008)
The Mighty Macs (2009)
The Perfect Game (2009)
Chasing 3000 (2010)
The 5th Quarter (2010)
Ice Castles (2010)
Wildfire: The Arabian Heart (2010)
The Karate Kid (2010)
Secretariat (2010)

As it turns out, the 2000s had more sports movies. I've seen more from the 1990s, though, which is why I thought that decade had more.

That popping sound in The Sandlot

I've seen The Sandlot at least a dozen times, and it was on the third or fourth viewing that I noticed a popping sound in two scenes. The first is when the boys tell Smalls to walk over to the fence and peek through the hole. The second is when the boys are looking down at the ominous busted baseball.

To me, it sounds like bubble gum popping. We see the boys chewing gum throughout the movie. The sound could easily be one of them popping a bubble off-camera. But somehow, the sound doesn't seem like it's part of the film.

I like to think that the popping sound is supposed to be part of the world outside the film, part of the audience. Maybe it's the narrator, popping his gum during a quiet moment in the story. Or maybe we're supposed to imagine the sound coming from an audience member, someone else in the theater.

I haven't decided where this falls on the scale of Creepy to Cool.

Saving John Carter

Last night, before I watched John Carter, I checked Rotten Tomatoes. I don't consider the site to be the definitive measure for a film's quality, but I tend to agree with the Tomatometer. I wanted to see what it said about John Carter.

John Carter has a 52% rating. A bit below Decent Movie status. I watched it, and even though it won't have a place on my Favorite Movies list, it's far from the worst thing I've seen. And yet, the blurbs on the movie's Rotten Tomatoes page call it "a mess" and a "a curiously dull film" with a "tiresome" story. There's some merit to those criticisms, but there's also a lot to like about John Carter.

Spoilers after the cut.