Cold Weather, Hot Coffee, Warm Kino: Dark Knight

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Recent Release Reviewed!!!: Avatar vs. Inception

***Disclaimer: Okay, just to stress, this article is about the trailers released so far for these two films. I have not been blessed enough to see any more of these two than any other human being is able to. Nor am I reviewing some crazy mash up of the two – though that would be pretty tantalizing.***

Now that’s over.

Like most film-fans, I’d been waiting with some anticipation for the return of Jim Cameron. Titanic aside, this was the man responsible for some of my best loved childhood movies (True Lies, Terminator 1 & 2 – what that says about my childhood, I’ll leave you to decide) and I was keen to see his famous temper fly with a new set of actors. Also, I was hoping for him to re-cast Michael Biehn in something. That man doesn’t get used enough. So after rumour upon rumour of a live-action remake of Battle Angel Alita, Mr Cameron throws a curveball and sends Avatar our way.

Simultaneously, also working off the bat of one of highest grossing films of all time (hur hur), Christopher Nolan has decided to let us in on his new w

ork, Inception. Not much mind, the whole affair has been pretty hush hush, especially considering the dizzy heights reached by his last movie and therefore the increased interest. Despite the similarities these two directors have in regards to their previous films, the two couldn’t be travelling down more differing paths if they tried. Overall the sentiment leaked by both these films from the studios is that, in reward for their successes, they’ve been let off the leashes, allowed to take us to places only limited to their imaginations. I think that it’s incredibly interesting that, not only that two filmmakers are getting this extremely rare chance at the same time, but that we get chance to really see what these two personalities are really about.

James Cameron’s latest Avatar trailer opens with Jake Sully, our protagonist, wheel-chair bound, being told of a great opportunity off world. Cue an incredibly detailed, awe provoking shot of said planet. A voiceover begins where Jake tells us of his desire for a cause ‘worth fighting for’, whilst we feast our eyes on some bizarre pastiche of Aliens and the Lion King. In case you couldn’t see where this story is heading, some very nice military men are present to bring us up to speed. This planet is Pandora, it has floaty rocks and the local people, the 10 foot tall, bright blue, not the most realistic looking Na’vi, are pretty darn tough to kill apparently. This is unfortunate because they live on top of a resource which the military find very lucrative. What are the chances eh? So what’s the military’s plan? Well, they’re going to let Jake take control of a genetically engineered version of a Na’vi and send him in to infiltrate the camp. Apparently doing this will ensure that Jake gets his real legs back. From here things get a bit Dances with Wolves and Jake becomes accepted as one of the tribe, choosing them over the military. What’s made him decide this? Well, there is love involved, presented to us using some shots very reminiscent of the ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?’ scene in the Lion King – this time with bigger cats’ eyes. From here on out, we witness battle scenes akin to the Ewoks vs the Imperial Guard from Return of the Jedi, but with both sides jacked up a notch. In fact, the military here seem like a direct evolution from the destructive force from Apocalypse Now. After some confusion in the middle of the trailer as to which side Jake is playing for, the trailer ends with confirmation that he is with the Na’vi. Cut to title. End.

Summing up the Inception trailer is much easier. For a start it’s barely a minute long and, unless the movie is just a collection of unrelated images, it gives nothing away to its plot. Opening with the sort of themed adaption of the Warner Brothers’ logo that we’ve come to expect with its high profile projects, Inception takes place in a big city – looking quite similar to the Dark Knight’s Gotham. A spinning top spins, Leonardo DiCaprio looks out of a helicopter window, Cillian Murphy (at least, I think it’s him) gets dragged away, gravity goes a bit weird, Joesph Gordon Levitt (*sigh*) runs at some one, Leo looks at the skyline, gravity continues to be odd, Joseph Gordon Levitt continues wrestling in said gravity, Leo wakes up, titles appear in an overhead view of a city. That’s pretty much it. I don’t think I’ve left anything out, though, given the cryptic nature of the trailer, if I have, it may just unlock the whole puzzle. Joking aside, it doesn’t reveal much but it has mystery to it. Overall, it is a very enticing trailer.

It has been greatly amusing and also surprising to read the quotes from the respective filmmakers about their projects. Both of them are shaping the direction that Hollywood films are heading down, even if James Cameron is the only one shouting about it. Despite all of Avatar’'s grandiose designs on representing the future in how blockbusters look and its grotesque budget ($500mil anyone?), it’s actually the more intimate project. Cameron has deliberately kept the sizes of his crew small in order to keep ‘consistency’1 with the work. Even on the current hot topic of 3D in cinemas, Nolan agrees that it is more ‘intimate’.2 Ironically, a $500 million film is James Cameron’s idea of a personal project, where as a small, intelligent film coming off the success of the Dark Knight, represents ‘grandeur’ and a ‘larger than life’ approach to filmmaking.3

Quality wise, there is no contest between these trailers. With respect to Mr. Cameron, his desperate attempts at ‘photorealistic’ images have really disappointed here. Sure, when looking at any shot of Avatar, your breath can be taken away quite easily with the amount of detail crafted into each landscape, however, compared to the detail of an IMAX camera, it looks nothing but cheap and, more importantly, fake. I personally cannot submerge myself into this world because it never suspends my disbelief. Considering that Cameron has been away for so long working on this film, the Na’vi themselves look beneath anything Pixar has put out during the last 5 years. However, after years of supporting Nintendo over Microsoft, Sega and Sony (I think I was one of the only people in my town with a Gamecube), I’m well versed in the argument that looks aren’t everything; in fact my main issue with Avatar is far more fundamental.

After Titanic, James Cameron has effectively been give free licence to make whatever he wants. Whatever story fascinated him, held his attention, made his imagination fly, he could bring to the screen and not one executive at any studio would have stood in his way. He chooses to bring Avatar – what does this say about him? Granted, I have not seen the film, but based on the information presented in interviews, soundtrack listings and the trailer, this looks like a bland and insipid motion picture. For all his attempts to present it as high art (3 hour running time), it looks just as shallow as any Michael Bay robot destruct-a-thon. One feels that, although like Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, the level of hype is set so high that Avatar could not possibly live up to it, it wouldn’t hurt if it didn’t look so rushed. To me, the attitude that the trailer gives off is one of indifference. I’m well aware this is not the case, but in my mind I could quite easily picture James Cameron spending the majority of his 10 year sabbatical playing video games and then suddenly remembering that he had to make another film – which is my only explanation as to why this film looks so much like Halo.

My feelings looking at Inception are quite different. Here we have a filmmaker at the very top of his game, presenting us with a story that he obviously wants to tell. More importantly, he can tell us it in a way such that we want to hear it. Herein lays the difference. Christopher Nolan has our appetites whetted and he knows it. By forcing himself and his cast into a vow of silence, he is actually trying to make the film itself a new experience – something that Avatar desperately wants to be. By the time Avatar comes out, all its secrets will no doubt have been revealed to be not very spectacular at all, whereas Inception will be an enigma. This is of course only my two cents, but come December 18th, I’ll be surprised if people are queuing up to see anything more than big battle scenes, predictable storylines and hammy acting, all in “glorious” 3D.

1) http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31191
2) http://www.collider.com/entertainment/article.asp/aid/8567/cid/13/tcid/1
3) Ibid.

Sunday, 25 October 2009

Rantings and Ravings: Is Hollywood Dying?

For a few years now, every time a new comic book franchise is rebooted or a knock off Harry Potter is green lit, I’ve heard people collectively sigh and state that the end of Hollywood is upon us. Ask some people and they’ll tell you the great behemoth is already a still and lifeless corpse and that the workers of Hollywood are tricking everyone into believing is all well - much like a cross between a H.P.Lovecraft story, the Wizard of Oz, and those Castro rumours from a couple of years back.

Is this Hollywood?

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the box office is clogged with what some critics deem unimaginative trash. Currently in the top ten, there are two children’s books, one remake and one re-release. Meh, only 40% of the top ten, I’m sure we can find worse. In fact, consider last July. Over in the States, 70% of the top ten grossing films were remakes, sequels, comic books or musicals based on existing shows. A similar thing occurred in August 2007, where 60% of the top ten fell into this category [1]. So what do we know so far? Well, if I pick the week well enough, I can show you a box office list with a majority of these critically ‘undesired’ films.

So what? Sure these films aren’t original stories, but why does that equate with the death of American cinema? I guess that unlike most of us, Hollywood can suffer two deaths, the demise of quality products and the loss of its financial income. Yes, cinema is one of those odd economics products that classes as art, so unlike most other products they don’t rate themselves only by how much demand there is. For example, despite their huge returns, I don’t think any of us are going to claim that Titanic or the Phantom Menace are perfect films. No, film is an art and therefore should be rated on more than receipts, but noting that Hollywood makes a lot of sequels (and lots of people watch them), does that equate to a creative decline? Well, it doesn’t. Every year, stunning new American films are released by newcomers and old favourites alike. Sure, critics like to put a lot of foreign cinema on their end of year lists, but if you pressed any of them, they’d be forced to admit that the US still makes good films and in an abundant quantity. The difficulty is in getting these films into cinemas and doing them justice in terms of promotion. Seeming these days, the only way to get people to flock to an imaginative film is to slap a Pixar logo on the product credits.

In April 2006, Focus Features released Brick, a neo-noir film set in a Californian High School. This wasn’t a camp parody however; in fact its serious and sombre mood was refreshing in a year dominated by seemingly generic family friendly cinema. Directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who I maintain will be the great American actor of his time – although that’s another story), its nods toward Hammett, Chandler, Bogart and Mitchum helped it net over $3 million and a Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance [2]. Not bad for a first time director.

Rian began work on his follow up, the Brothers Bloom in March 2007. The budget was a huge increase from Bricks $450,000, estimated at $20 million [3]. The Brothers Bloom has currently grossed less than Brick. Having not seen the film, I cannot comment on its quality, but I can tell you that its journey into cinema was far from helpful. Delay after delay hit the film, not due to usual guilty parties of postproduction or spiralling costs. No, this time it was the fault of the distributor. Summit Entertainment had decided that too many similar films were scheduled for January [4], so it was pushed back until summer. Of course, the entire buzz from its premiere at TIFF the previous December had evaporated and currently the film is waiting for its DVD release in order to maintain some dignity.

This is a prime example of what people worry about when observing Hollywood’s current strategy of remake, rehash and reboot. The Brothers Bloom’s chance to shine was squandered due to a decision based on economic returns. Fine, cinema is a business and Summit need to look after their capital as best the can, but to let a film with such promise, a film that many internet critics rate as one of their favourite of the year, simply slip into cinema quietly and die is a waste.

Economically speaking, noises about the demise of Hollywood really came into force in 2006, with the New York Times going as far to state that it would suffer a fate similar to Detroit [5]. The apparent issues included box office receipts and DVD sales falling significantly, the writers strike, the rise in quality of home entertainment products and stale, bland films filling cinema screens[6]. However, whatever the cause of the downturn, it was obvious that Hollywood needed a good kicking and I believe that the Dark Knight certainly was the jumpstart it needed. Whatever your opinion on the film, for better or worse, it was proof that ‘high grossing’ and ‘critical favourite’ were not mutually exclusive terms, which is sadly what we have become accustomed to.

In the end, this is the chief problem and success of the Hollywood system. Ingmar Bergman famously rejected Hollywood, claiming it to be too obsessed with box office returns [7], unlike the Soviet Cinema of the 30s or the Polish cinema of the 80s. This hinders the success of creative film, but that isn’t to say it kills it. The beautiful thing about great stories is that people will find a way to make them, even at their own expense. Hollywood just doesn’t make it easy. Depending on your opinion, the downside to this is that so many people have so much tied into this leviathan that they won’t let it sink without a fight. Much like the French nobility of the 1700’s, it is a very self-obsessed and self-serving system. Who knows if there is a revolution coming?