Nightmare on Elm Street - Nearly bored to death.

What's most amazing about the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot that just released is how utterly and completely boring it is.  With such great source material, and such an iconic villain in the form of Freddy Krueger, it boggles the mind how the director and screenwriters managed to cobble together a horror film that has absolutely no tension whatsoever.

I enjoyed Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen and thought he was a good choice to cast as the new Freddy, and he's pretty good in the movie, he just doesn't have much to work with unfortunately.  The rest of the cast seems comprised of kids who didn't make the Twilight call backs and, thus, had some free time in their schedules to work on a watered down, WB knock off version, of an 80's classic horror flick.


I had vaguely high hopes about this flick, as the original was a kind of seminal moment in my early movie watching career (I have a vivid memory of watching the original sitting on the floor at the foot of my parent's bed one sunny afternoon and being scared out of my mind.)  Like the recent Alice in Wonderland, it seems as though the team behind the project decided to cherry pick some of the most memorable moments of the original story (however not the Johnny Depp blood geyser for some reason??) as way of paying homage, but then they decided to cut those moments down to about 15 seconds of screen time (again with no tension) and quickly move right past them.  For the rest of the film's "scary" beats they opt for lame jump out and get you moments that you can see coming from a mile off, or badly edited quick cuts to supposedly "frightening" imagery that...well....isn't.


There's honestly not much more to say.  The first is a far superior film in just about every way.  It's scarier, the plot is better, and Robert Englund is given more time to terrorize.  It's weird because, there is a moment or two right near the end of the film where you can tell that Jackie Earl Haley's Freddy has real potential to be a world-class creep.  The final climactic beats where he's facing off with the new Nancy are, in fact, creepy mainly because this version more directly addresses Krueger's backstory as a pedophile.  However, just as he's getting warmed up the credits roll (after a quick cut to black on a lame final beat.)  It was in these few final moments that I found myself thinking, "Wow, if we'd seen this side of him the whole movie this really could have been something." and instead they went for cheap scares and watered down imagery to frighten you.


Stay home and rent the original.  Now, on to another point I want to discuss briefly....


You know what sucks?  Knowing that this reboot is the most recent in a long, long line of reboots that's just begun with scads more coming down the pike.  This line includes such titles as the recent Wolfman, Clash of the Titans, The Crazies, and the upcoming American Pie, Spider Man, Robin Hood, The Thing (okay it's a "prequel"), Arthur, Fright Night, Red Dawn, I Spit on Your Grave and, (yes Andrew) Footloose.



I understand the idea behind all of the "rebooting", Hollywood figures it's better to bet on a known quantity that's been successful in the past to get people into theatres rather than betting on new properties that are unfamiliar to audiences and, therefore, less likely guaranteed to draw a crowd.  Hollywood has been hit hard by the recession like just about everyone else out there, so the math makes sense.


What pisses me off about this trend, especially what we've seen of the product so far, is that the studios don't seem to give a damn about the material they're rebooting (I will admit that Star Trek was a great reboot....)  To me that's insulting, and a slap in the face to moviegoers.  I'd like to believe that if you're going to try to retell a story that's already been told once successfully, that you'd want to try to not only service the original, but do it one better, add to it in some new and insightful way.  Instead the idea of all of these remakes seem to be focused on telling a rough outline of the original story and filling the rest of the screen time with lame special effects and overblown action sequences that add nothing at all to the story being told.


It's a nasty game to be playing on us moviegoers and I hope that some of the upcoming reboots buck the trend that's been established or the movie going horizon is going to be bleak for the foreseeable future, and that sucks for all of us.  Here's hoping.

The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski puts together a densely plotted, tightly woven thriller with his most recent film The Ghost Writer. Polanski, who's probably best known for Chinatown and Romsemary's Baby seems to excel at storytelling like this and this recent effort is no exception. Full of twists and turns, supported by a strong cast, excellent pacing, and delightfully atmospheric music that serves to elevate the tension, Ghost Writer is compelling from the opening frame to the closing credits. It isn't the fastest paced movie you're going to see this year, so if you're attention wanders easily this one may not be for you. But if you like a movie that takes its time, has a clear focus, is crammed full of intrigue and betrayal, and is topical to the world around us today, then you couldn't do better at the cineplex right now than Ghost Writer.

As per usual, if you want to go in with a blank slate then go ahead and stop reading here. I'm just going to do a brief discussion of the plot real quick before wrapping this up. No spoilers this time around.

Ewan McGregor stars as the film's titular "ghost writer" who's been hired to clean up the rough draft of a memoir for ex-British Prime Minister Andrew Lang's life. Lang, played well by Pierce Brosnan, begins the film under investigation for war crimes committed while in office, specifically dealing with the unlawful holding and interrogation of terror suspects. McGregor is asked to come on last minute because his predecessor committed suicide before finishing revisions on the final copy of the book. An apparently talented writer who is known for working quickly under deadline, McGregor feels well suited for the job as he knows little about politics which, in turn, should allow him to get to the heart of what Lang is about. McGregor is quickly whisked away to meet lang and begin work, his publisher wants the final draft in hand within the next fours weeks so there isn't a moment to lose. This is the set up for the film which quickly becomes a sprawling labyrinth with new suspicions and revelations around every turn.

It's an immensely satisfying movie to watch, in a time when we seem to be getting louder, bigger, brighter, flashier, and more explosive in our movie story-telling, it's nice to see a movie that really builds tension by letting the actors do what they do best, act. No cheap smoke and mirrors here, just a really strong plot that we can all relate to a little bit if we've watched news in the last few years. Get to a theatre and check it out if you've got the time. It's not a big release so you might want to look at your local art-house theatre instead of the AMC 24 at the mall, but if you can find it it's well worth it.

Let's talk about Avatar, and 3d...

It’s simple for me to say that you’ve never, in your life, seen anything like James Cameron’s return

to cineplexes with his newest film Avatar. The truth of the matter is that I’m probably too close to the film at the moment to have a proper perspective on what I saw in order to write up a decent review. But I want to write a bit about it while it’s still fresh in my mind, so bear with me, and I reserve the right to recant some of my thoughts later if I change my mind. There are some generalized spoilers below, but I won’t go into specifics, and I will label them so you know when they’re coming. Cool?

First things first, the movie is an absolute wonder to behold from a visual spectacle standpoint. All of the hype that this film is getting for being revolutionary, changing the way we will see movies in the years to come, amazing CGI, and everything else, is well deserved. Cameron has put together a feast for the eyes that is second to none. It’s like the best Thanksgiving dinner you can remember, the most amazing Christmas of your life, and the most insane Times Square New Year’s Eve, all for your eyeballs. Seriously, the old cliche of wanting a cigarette after spending some special time with that special someone? I felt like, if my eyeballs could smoke, I would have run to the nearest 7-11 and bought a pack for each of them after I walked out of the theatre.

The magic of his world of Pandora is in the exquisite detail down to the smallest of minutiae. Yes, we’ve seen good CGI before in films like King Kong or The Lord of The Rings, and numerous other big budget flicks of late. But none of them have come close to this level of detail. Every single thing in this universe is painstakingly realized, and given extreme care. From the biggest of creatures, to the smallest of plant life, it’s all a treat to look at. The more amazing feat, is that I didn’t find myself thinking “Oh, that’s CGI. And so is that. And yep, that is too.” It all looks incredibly believable. And the giant blue people from the previews? Yeah, they’re the main characters more or less, and to see crowds of them running, fighting, interacting with one another and the actual human actors is pretty amazing. They have pores, fingerprints, wisps of hair coming separated from their dreadlocks, facepaint that rubs off, and they’re all individually distinct from each other. The motion capture of the actors is really excellent, if you thought Gollum was good in LotR, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

It’s like the entire production team sat in a room and James Cameron said, “I want to make as many cool animals, amazing plants, ridiculously slick robots and spaceships, planets, action scenes, fight scenes, and things blowing up scenes as possible and I want to put them all in a single flick, I want to include people, and I want to make sure that no one in the audience can tell where the real people stop and the computer graphics take over.” I can’t even fathom how much time was spent in post production putting the finishing touches onto every single frame of film. It must have been absolutely exhausting, and I can see why it’s reported to be the most expensive film in Hollywood’s history.

If you’re going to see it, I can’t stress enough that you should see it on an IMAX, and you should see it in 3D. Really. That’s the way the movie was meant to be seen, so do yourself a favor and throw down the extra few bucks to see it properly.

But.... You knew there was going to be a “But” didn’t you?

Minor, vague, non-specific spoilers ahead....

It’s the plot/story that I’m really stuck on. For my money, the plot is where the movie struggles. There are some really amazing action sequences, reminiscent of some of the classic action of Cameron’s earlier works like Aliens, Terminator 2, and True Lies. But around the big action scenes are a lot of big chunks of not terribly interesting story/plot scenes. The movie runs 2:40 long, and the last 40 is one big, long, ridiculously fun action set piece, But the plot is kind of a plodding, uneven, lumbering, all over the place....bore. I’m not sure why that is honestly. I don’t know if it’s trying to do too much, with too many threads of story, so that it doesn’t ever really hone in on one thing specifically. I just don’t know. It’s an amalgam of some Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, Star Wars, and Romeo and Juliet(?). Then sprinkle in a morality discussion about human and corporate greed, sidelong commentary on the plight of the Native American’s(?), more allusions to the “West’s” need for oil and it’s relentless determination to have it by any means necessary, and you’re getting a rough picture of what the story is all about. Does it sound complicated to you?

The complexity of the plot and the fact that the majority of the movie is spent with the giant blue natives, don’t really help one relate to anything that’s going on on-screen. Yes, you’re sorry for the events that are going on at points, and yes, you even find yourself caring for the (completely CGI) natives...at points, but those points are few and far between. And I think the fact that I just didn’t really feel like I connected with anyone/anything in the movie, is my biggest issue. The spectacle is all really great, but if I don’t care about what’s going on or the people involved in it then, ultimately, the movie isn’t a success. It’s actually easy for me to relate this to the field that I work in currently. Yes, you can put a fantastically elaborate, decadent, well designed, and aesthetically pleasing opera on stage, but if the story is weak or not terribly compelling, then what are you left with? You’re left with saying, “It sure did look pretty.”

Is it a movie worth seeing? Yes. Especially if you can see it on a huge screen, and in 3D. I don’t really know that I would have been quite as impressed if I’d seen it in regular 2D. I’m just not quite that sold on the story, or at least the way the story is told. I’d love to hear some other thoughts...

AND WHAT ABOUT 3D?

Ok, I’m almost done, as I know this has gone on too long. A couple last thoughts....

If you didn’t know it already, the first 3D televisions are set to start hitting the markets at the end of 2010 or so, and are expected to ring in at a cost of somewhere above $3500 a piece. As I’m an avid gamer I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little interested in this new technology coming into the home. Sony has already stated that 3D games will be a major part of their Playstation gameplan in the years to come. So that’s cool. And watching Avatar today, and the onslaught of 3D movies around the corner, I can definitely appreciate the technology and the opportunities it gives filmmakers. And for video games, well the more “in the game” you can feel, the better.

But I have to wonder if it’s absolutely necessary that we switch all future movies to 3D? Is it really necessary? Sure it’s great for action, sci fi, animated, and horror flicks. But is it really necessary for dramas like the recent Precious? Or The Blind Side? What is gained by the 3D in these scenarios? What about classics? Do we need a Gone With the Wind or Citizen Kane in 3D?

In bringing the technology home I can certainly see the appeal for gaming, or the aforementioned genres of films, and I’ve got to think that the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals would be awesome to watch in 3D from the comfort of your living room. But do I need to watch Friends or The Office in 3D? I don't know. Thoughts?