Curtis C. Chen's Blog, page 12

#42Movies, Day 10: Totally Eighties

I'm referring to the 1980s, of course. I'm sure you've heard the legends.

InnerSpace (1987)
and
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Blather after the trailers.


https://youtu.be/7kQDIosuZuo


https://youtu.be/iXmFIoScT2Y

(Hey, remember when Steven Spielberg still made mostly good movies? Remember that? Those were the days, man. I guess he can do whatever the fuck he wants at this point, but I just wish he'd do more "ever" and less "what the fuck.")

The thing I love about both these flicks is how well they pull off the high concept thing. Not only do they deliver on the adventure promised in their trailers, but they are both outrageously fun, often in unexpected ways.

Last Crusade really should have been the final Indiana Jones movie. We all agree on that, right? It sure felt like it was the big closer at the time. And it was a hell of a great way to go out. It took all the familiar, established elements of the franchise and pushed them to even more interesting places. Sure, there were a few cheap, crowd-pleasing, throwaway in-jokes, but Indy's character arc—from the opening flashback to "It belongs in a museum!" to letting the Grail fall into the abyss—was the perfect way to wrap up the trilogy.

InnerSpace plays with the concept of miniaturization, which before then had last been explored cinematically in 1966's Fantastic Voyage (based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby). Some people consider InnerSpace to be a "remake" of Fantastic Voyage, but I feel like that's a stretch: there are many similar plot elements, but the vibrant escapades of InnerSpace are completely different in tone and execution from the somber Cold War intrigue of Fantastic Voyage.

(By the way, this year's Ant-Man manages to recapture some of the vivacious charm of InnerSpace. It's considerably weaker in the character department, especially with respect to the villain, but it's more fun than a lot of other Marvel stuff these days.)

#42Movies, Day 9: That's Funny

To be clear, I mean funny-ha-ha, not funny-strange.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
and
Galaxy Quest (1999)

Laugh it up, fuzzball:


https://youtu.be/5vsANcS4Ml8


https://youtu.be/B34jbC43XzA

Here's why these are both classic comedies: because they work as whole stories. The fact that both trailers give away many of each movie's specific gags doesn't diminish the enjoyment of actually watching them. They're not just frameworks on which to hang a string of jokes; they are deep, insightful satires which have great fondness for the source material they're riffing on.

The James Bond and Star Trek franchises were both very much products of the 1960s. (Galaxy Quest dials its show-within-a-show forward to the 1980s, but I suspect that was mostly for production design reasons—i.e., so the "old" footage wouldn't look too ridiculously cheesy, like some episodes of TOS do now.) And Austin Powers and Galaxy Quest, respectively, have things to say about how those franchises have aged and how they're still relevant in some ways, but very much outmoded in others.

One of my happiest memories is of watching the first Austin Powers movie at home with a group of friends. We literally could not stop laughing at certain points. I very clearly remembering Karin doubled over behind the couch, convulsing with laughter during the bathroom scene ("Who does Number Two work for?!"). Good times, y'all.

The sequels were not nearly as good overall, but they did have their moments. The opening of Goldmember in particular is a brilliant send-up of modern spy movies.

DeeAnn and I saw Galaxy Quest in the theatre on opening day: December 25, 1999. (I don't think we were doing #XmasMovieThon yet, but I could be wrong. Twitter didn't exist yet, so who knows?) It was a perfect Christmas Day movie. I also got to share it with my Clarion West classmates last summer, as part of our impromptu cinematic outreach series, which was great fun. (But Rich Larson still has a lot of catching up to do. STOP WRITING SO MUCH AND WATCH SOME DAMN MOVIES, RICH, GEEZ.)

Sadly, one of my favorite things about GQ is lost in the home video version. The movie actually starts in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, so the entire picture is "windowboxed," but it's not so noticeable in a darkened theatre. It doesn't change to the wider 2:35:1 image until about twenty minutes in, when Tim Allen's character is being transported back to Earth from outer space. The Thermians escort him to a dark room, the lights go out, and then the walls slide apart to reveal a dazzling, full-widescreen view of outer space.

It's a subtle difference, but makes for a glorious effect in the theatre. On home video, the entire film is presented in 2.35:1, and it loses that moment of wonder—you may not have noticed that the picture didn't reach all the way to the edges of the screen before, but at that point you become fully aware of how huge it is. (If I'm ever lucky enough to own a movie theatre, I will screen Galaxy Quest every Christmas Day. BELEE DAT.)

Finally, how excited am I that Galaxy Quest might become an actual television series now? I mean, I'm not holding my breath—"in development" is Hollywood-speak for "somebody might be working on this maybe but nobody else really cares that much"—but Amazon's been pretty aggressive about getting into the content game. Here's hoping they manage to pull off a GQ series that doesn't suck.

#42Movies, Day 8: The Musical

You knew this was coming, right?

South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut (1999)
and
Frozen (2013)

We'll talk after the trailers.


https://youtu.be/aes3Iz8QPgA


https://youtu.be/FLzfXQSPBOg

I'm not going to explain or apologize for my love of musicals. If you can't handle the singing and dancing, stop reading now.

A lot of people aren't into musicals. (Our friend Bryan, for one, despite being a Disney superfan. Ironic.) Note that in the South Park movie trailer above, the only hint of the actual film being a musical is the Big Gay Al bit. Of course, if you've seen the TV series, you'll know that musical numbers are a frequent occurrence; even the original short included a couple of songs.

Maybe Paramount thought people who hadn't seen the TV show would be less likely to want to see an animated musical than a for-mature-audiences cartoon. In any case, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone do a brilliant job of subverting both genres, which is not surprising considering their early film work Cannibal: The Musical! and their recent Broadway triumph The Book of Mormon. Not to mention eighteen seasons (and counting) of South Park episodes.

(Speaking of which, the documentary 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park is a fascinating look at TV production. You can also check out Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show for a broader overview of the industry.)

The preview for Frozen touts its music but does NOT showcase "Let It Go," perhaps because Disney never expected that particular song to be such a runaway hit. Sure, it's designed to be a show-stopper, but it is by no means the best number in the book: it's basically a rehash of "Defying Gravity," Idina Menzel's act one closer from Wicked, in terms of emotional beats; and the lyrics are, let's be honest, not the best. (She literally says "the past is in the past" at one point, you guys. LITERALLY.)

That song sells—boy, does it sell—but it's in the recording, not on the page. (I still say "Love is an Open Door" should have gotten the Oscar nomination instead.) And my favorite lyric of the whole show, "like a girl who's bad at metaphors," actually comes from a song that was cut from the final movie. (It's also a punchline which requires an elaborate setup in the preceding lyrics, but that's part of the fun.)

The deluxe version of the soundtrack album includes demos of half a dozen numbers from earlier versions of the show, with commentary by composers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and it's fascinating to see how the book changed during production. There are still traces of the "prophecy" plotline in the trailer above, but it's definitely a stronger story without hokey supernatural predestination.

By the way, Robert Lopez also worked on The Book of Mormon, which is again not surprisingly since he co-created the raunchy puppet musical Avenue Q. And some more connections for you: Christophe Beck, who composed the score music for Frozen (and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, back in the day), was in the Yale Spizzwinks(?) a cappella group alongside not only Robert Lopez, but also Internet musician Jonathan Coulton and my good friend Sean Gugler!

Yes, yes, go ahead: sing that other song that nobody wants to hear anymore.

#42Movies, Day 7: The Princess Who Saved Herself

The title of today's post is a reference to the Jonathan Coulton song, recorded for Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti , which later became a charming children's book written by Greg Pak and illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa.

Today's movies are also about capable and clever young women:

Mulan (1998)
and
Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Roll the trailers!


https://youtu.be/7olnEJC6pwU


https://youtu.be/5vMEOvZ1ODk

These are both Disney movies, which means their production values are impeccable. Lilo & Stitch in particular has a beautiful, watercolor-influenced look, and Mulan makes great use of computer-generated images without letting them overwhelm the picture. And they are notable examples of Disney—a titanic commercial juggernaut not known for playing well with culture—straying from its usual Western European folklore to showcase other civilizations.

Because in addition to the protagonists of both films being female, they are nonwhite. In fact, there are basically no white people anywhere in either of these movies. It's persons of color all the way down. (And yeah, I don't love that term either, but it's the current vernacular. Don't worry, we'll cycle over to something else soon enough. America!)

And these stories and characters are not simply diverse for the sake of being diverse (though that's not necessarily a bad thing—different topic). These stories are about their main characters' struggle to live in societies where they are marginalized and denied personhood. They are stories about wanting to belong, to be accepted, to have the same opportunities as everyone else. Those are universal themes, but we can apply race and gender as storytelling tools to heighten the emotional impact of those struggles. It helps nobody to pretend these aren't problems in the real world, and why make up fake issues when the real ones are already at your doorstep?

Anyway. Just hearing the phrase "ohana means family" will still make me tear up, no fucking joke. And I continue to love how Mulan turns into goddamn Air Force One in the third act, because WHY THE FUCK NOT. Almost as if the filmmakers said, "You know, guys, one of our main characters is A TALKING DRAGON. This isn't history class. Fuck it. Let's just fucking GO FOR IT and blow some shit up. BLOW UP ALL THE SHIT." And it totally works.

(By the way: no, I have not seen any of the direct-to-video sequels to either of these movies. I learned my lesson after The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves. Watch the latter if you're a Robin Williams completist, but otherwise, rent something else to babysit your kids.)

Finally, I wish Disney would do more with their massive influence to advance gender equality and representation. It's bad enough that they don't include Lilo in their official list of "Disney Princesses," but did they really have to sex up Merida when they first inducted her? Are you only a "princess" if you're old enough to be sexually desirable—and are you only attractive if you look a certain way? Eff that noise. (And don't give me any crap about Lilo not being of royal blood—these aren't literal princesses. Belle wasn't a noble; neither were Mulan or Tiana. And we don't need to reinforce classism either.)

If I were Disney, I'd want to stop making products that only appeal to 50% of the population at a time and start marketing everything to everyone. Girls can be superheroes. Boys can wear pink. You could be selling twice as many toys to the same number of kids! Just think about it, okay, Bob?

#42Movies, Day 6: Chinese Feud

(All right, you got me. This entire blog series is, in fact, just an excuse for me to make up terrible puns. Deal with it.)

Today we're talking about:

Rush Hour (1998)
and
The One (2001)

Let's get it on after the trailers.


https://youtu.be/JMiFsFQcFLE


https://youtu.be/2VwRKLp1Gk0

Yes, these are both American movies which feature Asian performers. I suppose I feel an affinity for them because my life has followed a similar trajectory: I was born in Taiwan, and many of my early life experiences there shaped who I am today, but I grew up in the United States, and this is where I'll succeed or fail.

And yes, there are many excellent kung fu movies made in other countries, but it's interesting to look at how the stars of these two films were imported and repackaged for American audiences.

Jackie Chan and Jet Li in many ways represent two opposite ends of the martial arts movie spectrum: Jackie became famous for always doing his own stunts (and sometimes suffering grievous injuries in the process), and Jet was well-known for his wire fu special effects. Jackie tends to go for comedy, and Jet usually plays the badass fighter character. But they both act as ambassadors for Eastern martial arts, which are a huge part of many Asian cultures but have no traditional counterpart in the West. (Wrestling? Boxing? Let's be serious here, folks.)

Fun fact: John Rogers, now known for showrunning TV's Leverage and The Librarians, also created the animated series The Jackie Chan Adventures back in the day. And if you think a cartoon about Jackie Chan is an odd idea, perhaps you're misinterpreting his brand. It's not about the "real" death-defying stunts; it's about a very specific, precisely choreographed style of action comedy. Rogers later wrote a draft of Rush Hour 2... but I digress.

The original Rush Hour also features Chris Tucker's second-best career performance to date. His best work was, of course, as Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element. FIGHT ME.

Speaking of science fiction, I know The One is completely ridiculous, but I love how it's totally okay with being a gonzo spec-fic riff on Highlander. And come on, you gotta give it up for a movie that has its own TV Tropes page.

Directed by James Wong, who co-wrote the script with Glen Morgan—they're the same team who co-created the TV series Space: Above and Beyond and shared writing credits on 15 episodes of The X-Files, including "Squeeze" and "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man"—The One is kind of the bright, brazen, balls-to-the-walls antithesis to the often dark and brooding TV shows they worked on.

By the way, if you're watching it on DVD, make sure you check out the special features. The pictures of all the different alternate-universe Jet Lis are a friggin' hoot.

#42Movies, Day 5: British Invasions

What's all this, then?

Shaun of the Dead (2004)
and
Attack the Block (2011)

You'll see what I'm on about after the trailers, mate.


https://youtu.be/12Ok6bbV7rQ


https://youtu.be/m0ntk1o4V3k

I've been a bit of an Anglophile ever since high school, when I discovered that my local PBS station broadcast reruns of not only Monty Python's Flying Circus but also other British imports like Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served?, May to December (quite possibly the most adorable depiction of that trope you'll ever see), and Red Dwarf. (OMG RED DWARF but that's another topic.)

For me, British television shows are basically secondary world fiction: the setting is similar enough to my own home that I can understand why and how people do things, but the details are foreign enough to lend an air of the exotic. Everything from the way people speak (both accents and vocabulary) and the way specific social or political constructs work are just a little different, which makes it interesting to decode and remap to my own experience of the world.

But we're not talking about TV right now, otherwise I'd be going on about The IT Crowd and Spaced and Coupling and No Heroics and BlackAdder and 'Allo 'Allo! and Downton Abbey and many, many others. No, we're talking about movies, and how Great Britain perceives and presents itself in fiction as a beacon of civilization. The UK certainly has a lot of history to lend gravitas, but history also means a lot of cultural baggage which may now be outdated or downright reactionary. And that friction between past and future can make for very interesting stories.

These two movies cleverly repurpose the well-established zombie plague and alien invasion tropes, respectively, and in particular show us how groups of unlikely heroes deal with their homes being threatened. How do you react to a heretofore unimagined danger that's now staring you in the face? How do your friends react? Who and what do you choose to protect when you can't save everyone, and what does that tell the audience about your character? (And for me, watching what are essentially humanoid aliens endure these stories provides a welcome psychological buffer to mitigate the horror.)

Last but not least, both films are entertaining at their core, and managed do a lot of cool stuff with modest budgets (an estimated £4 million for Shaun and $13 million for Block, per IMDb). I like a good special effect as much as anyone, but I also appreciate when action set pieces are held back or kept offscreen in order to focus on characters and relationship. Because that's what any life-and-death crisis is really about—not the thing that might kill you, but who you'll be if you manage to survive it.

#42Movies, Day 4: Corporations Are People Too

And now for something almost, but not entirely, completely different:

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
and
Brazil (1985)

Discussion after the trailers. Wait for it...


https://youtu.be/TKPmGjVFbrY


https://youtu.be/4Wh2b1eZFUM

You may recall that two days ago I declared my personal belief that corporations are not people. So what's up with the title of today's post? Well, it's ironic, innit? Literary device and all that. Also, it embodies the idea that organizations can get out of hand when we pretend they're separate from the people they're made of.

Last year, author and activist Cory Doctorow tweeted this:

Human beings are the gut flora of immortal, transhuman corporations @cstross

— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) October 2, 2014

And this summer, he expanded on that idea in his Locus Online piece "Skynet Ascendant":

Corporations run on a form of code – financial regulation and accounting practices – and the modern version of this code literally prohibits corporations from treating human beings with empathy... We humans are the inconvenient gut-flora of the corporation. They aren’t hostile to us. They aren’t sympathetic to us. Just as every human carries a hundred times more non-human cells in her gut than she has in the rest of her body, every corpora­tion is made up of many separate living creatures that it relies upon for its survival, but which are fundamentally interchangeable and disposable for its purposes. Just as you view stray gut-flora that attacks you as a pathogen and fight it off with anti­biotics, corporations attack their human adversaries with an impersonal viciousness that is all the more terrifying for its lack of any emotional heat.

That's a pretty bleak interpretation, to be sure, but it's only one point of view. It's the attitude that gives us phrases like "I don't make the rules" and "I just work here" and "I was following orders"—which have become cliché, but many still hide behind those doctrines when trying to avoid responsibility for their actions.

There is a fundamental tension between the desire to build "a government of laws and not of men"—i.e., a set of rules which apply fairly to everyone, without bias or prejudice—and the need to recognize that it is still people who apply those rules to each other, and people are never free from biases.

We're not re-animating corpses here. Any legal entity only exists because we say it does, and we can always change the laws if they're not working, or simply dissolve the entity in question. It's not a monster that we can no longer control; it only becomes monstrous if we choose to let it run amuck.

To use an analogy, it's like playing a tabletop game (especially a role-playing game) and finding that some of the rules don't work well for your particular group of players. If you're all not having fun, do you continue following the rules as written, or do you house-rule something to improve your particular experience?

It can be a complicated question, and the answer will depend on your particular situation. To paraphrase Commander William Riker: "Justice is never as simple as a rulebook."

But back to our movies. They both come out of the Monty Python comedy troupe (American member Terry Gilliam directed Brazil), and I see each one as a meditation on how a group of humans can be less than the sum of its parts—that is to say, the whole is sometimes less empathetic and rational than its individual members. Both films are tragic and funny—sometime simultaneously—but there's always a kernel of truth in even the most absurd scenes.

Humans are amazingly creative and imaginative, but that also means we can talk ourselves into believing all kinds of crazy made-up stuff. I doubt we can ever prevent ourselves from occasionally slipping into irrationality, but let's remember that we're all just people, and always do our best to be excellent to each other.

#42Movies, Day 3: We Can Be Heroes

Finding your favorite cover of the Bowie tune is left as an exercise for the reader. Meanwhile, let's talk about...

The Specials (2000)
and
The Incredibles (2004)


https://youtu.be/1wMvv924Gks


https://youtu.be/eZbzbC9285I

Astute readers will notice that, like yesterday, I've chosen to feature two relatively recent superhero movies. Again, this is not because I don't love older superhero flicks, like Richard Donner's Superman or Tim Burton's Batman or even Sam Raimi's Darkman. (Seriously, Darkman. Check it out.) It's because I have more [thoughtful] things to say about these two films.

I first saw The Incredibles at Pixar headquarters in Emeryville—which, as you might expect, has an amazing all-digital theatre, and in 2004 (ten years before all American cinemas went digital), it was stunningly beautiful. I was singing with The Richter Scales at the time, and one of our members who worked at Pixar got us into a private screening. One of the best moviegoing experiences of my life, both in terms of presentation and content.

Full disclosure: I've loved Superman (the character, not any particular incarnation) for as long as I can remember, and perhaps largely because of that was drawn more to DC than Marvel, comics-wise. The good news is that meant I was right there in 1986 when Watchmen changed the world. My original bagged-and-boarded issues are probably still in my parents' garage somewhere.

Incredibles deals with a lot of the same themes and issues as Watchmen, but in a less gruesome and more modern way, and is way more overt about the tropes it's playing with—and I like a good inside joke almost as much as I like terrible puns. I also love that director Brad Bird is able to swing the mood from ridiculously funny all the way over to deadly and back again. It's not quite as deft as It's a Wonderful Life, which often does both in the same scene, but it's still remarkable.

On a smaller scale, The Specials also deconstructs what it means to be a superhero, and because it's a low-budget independent film (written by and co-starring James Gunn, who would go on to direct Guardians of the Galaxy), it's mostly the characters talking to each other about stuff. You know, like normal people. Except their concerns and anxieties are just a little off-kilter, because of who they are.

It's funny, it's a little dark, and it's the first time I can remember seeing a Judy Greer performance (and being instantly charmed by it, of course. Go read her memoir. Or, better, yet, get the audiobook and have her tell you stories like she's your best friend. And then get the paperback edition which has an extra chapter about Archer). It's also the only place you'll see Rob Lowe and Jamie Kennedy compare how tight their pants are. Really. You want to see this movie.

Unlike my friend Bryan, I'm not yet burned out on superhero movies. I'm still enjoying the Marvel flicks, and cautiously optimistic about the upcoming DC slate. Just don't screw up Wonder Woman , guys. Though honestly, I'm more psyched for Supergirl on TV. (It's Supergirl! Every week! SQUEE)

[image error]

#42Movies, Day 2: In The Not Too Distant Future

Out of all the science fiction movies I've seen, why would I choose these two?

Children of Men (2006)
and
District 9 (2009)

I'll explain after the trailers.


https://youtu.be/2VT2apoX90o


https://youtu.be/DyLUwOcR5pk

Yesterday I talked about one of the reasons I love Star Trek more than Star Wars: because genre-wise, I've always been more drawn to science fiction than fantasy. I prefer imagining a somewhat-possible future to a totally-impossible secondary world.

But why feature these two very recent, rather dystopian, and stylistically similar films? How could they possibly have influenced me much in just the last few years? Wasn't I already "fully baked" as a human being by the time I saw these movies?

Well, yes and no. I do believe that much of our personalities are shaped at an early age, which is why I avoid debating adults about anything substantial—I'm pretty sure I'm not going to change anybody's mind about politics simply by talking at them. And though I believe I'm fairly open-minded, there are certain positions that I'm not likely to budge on, either. (For the record: Household pets are people. Corporations are not.)

But I'm still learning new things, all the time, and I want to continue. The day I stop learning is the day I die. And those accumulated bits of learning can change my perspective gradually, like a pile of pennies overflowing a piggy bank.

Children of Men and District 9 both focus on disadvantaged and oppressed populations, with glimpses of the ruling class, but the heart of each story is the powerless struggling against the powerful. I'll be honest: I was pretty sheltered growing up, and I think that was by design; my parents wanted their children to grow up safe in the suburbs, with every possible advantage in life. I love them for wanting the best for my sister and me, but the consequence of growing up in our particular upper-middle-class Southern California society was not really understanding some of the worst things in life.

Obviously watching a couple of movies didn't change my worldview overnight. These two films are simply emblematic of something I've come to understand in recent years: that charity is not necessarily sympathy, and though it may be feel difficult to be an ally, it's more difficult to live with yourself knowing that you didn't do the right thing.

#42Movies, Day 1: Star Power

In which no one is surprised by my first double feature:

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
and
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).

Commentary starts after trailers...


https://youtu.be/vOIYaRb6XpQ


https://youtu.be/7L8p7_SLzvU

Yeah, yeah. Did any of you expect that these would not be the first two movie franchises I talked about? Raise your hand if you're surprised. (If your hand is now raised: HELLO. HAVE WE MET.)

It's safe to say that absorbing these two series at an early age directly influenced at least 47% of my character. The original Star Wars (yes, I mean Episode IV - A New Hope, you fucking nerd) was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, and Star Trek (TOS, duh) was one of the first three television shows I remember watching—while standing up and gripping the bars of my crib, no less.

(The other two TV shows were Space:1999 and Bewitched, in case you're wondering. Explains a lot, doesn't it?)

I am a lifelong fan of both Trek and Wars. I'm a little more hardcore on the Trek side, and you can psychoanalyze that if you like, but it really comes down to liking science fiction more than fantasy. That's just who I am.

So why did I pick these two films in particular? Why not, say, the one with the whales or the fanboy favorite?

Because this is a personal retrospective, and these two particular movies made very specific impacts on me when I first saw them. Wrath of Khan was the first time I witnessed the onscreen death of a beloved fictional character, and one with whom I strongly identified to boot. Return of the Jedi was the biggest "event" movie I had attended up to that point, and I distinctly remember waiting outside the theater for the previous showing to end and hearing parts of the soundtrack (mostly explosions) leaking through the walls. These were big, bold, bombastic stories, and images from both climactic space battles are permanently burned into my brain.

(Side note: I have never been into the "Slave Leia" metal bikini look. And by the way, check out the trailer above; her voiceover intro is "the strength of a leader." Yay for that, but boo for pretty much every other way in which Star Wars shortchanges its only female main character. Another reason I like Trek better, honestly.)

I could go on about this for days, but I'll stop here. Accost me in person if you want to talk about either Star franchise. Excruciating details available upon request!

Finally, this series of animated GIFs captures all I have to say about J.J. Abrams (video source - 02:28).