Heartless is a very grim fairy tale and I don’t mean the brothers Grimm. Ugly duckling Jamie has been plagued with large prominent birthmarks all over his body giving him low self esteem and lack of confidence to seek companionship. The birthmark on his face is heart shaped, caused by his dad when he kissed him on the head at birth (or so his dad told him). His main passion is photography and he spends his days frolicking about snapping pictures of rundown buildings and trash in east London. When he’s not doing that he’s being chased by demon molotov cocktail wielding gangsters. Yes, literal demons. Or are they? By the end of the movie I’m not so sure. Yes, it’s one of those movies.
I don’t mean that in a bad way, but Heartless definitely tries to juggle a lot on its plate. This isn’t necessarily a weakness as this movie does an amazing job playing off on sheer moodiness. The movie does have horror themes but it offers so much more, the majority of the movie is painted with such a dark grim picture of despair, with no peaceful or beneficial outcome in sight. “There is no God” and “Suffering is eternal” are along some of the numerous disparaging remarks uttered in the movie by various characters which bring the point home, but amidst this despair is always the faintest glimmer of beauty and hope.
There is hope for Jamie, as he somehow comes into contact with a strange character known as Papa B. Papa B has the power to take away Jamie’s much loathed birthmarks, but for a price. Why does Jamie make such a foolish deal with such a shady character who openly admits he exists to cause chaos? Yes, this can be seen as very stupid, but I looked at in a fairy tale context. Many dumb deals in fairy tales have been made out of pure desperation, and this case is no different.Papa B also has this weird Indian little girl following him around; her role in the movie is mainly to goad Jamie into committing acts of murder.
See, the terms for that skin treatment was Jamie has to bring Papa B a human heart at the doorstep to any church (heartless…get it?). There’s even a very well done scene of pure dark humor when an arms dealer working for Papa B assigns Jamie the weapon he has to use to cut the heart out with (which just so happens to be an old hunting knife of his father’s).And this is all in about the first less weird half of the movie.
I got to say this movie was a fun little trip. I found it pretty entertaining, even when things from a story point perspective didn’t fully mesh. I was mainly watching for the experience, and in the end it has a proper moral like all good fairy tales.
It’s nice for once to see a movie that I was excited about that didn’t turn out to be crap.When I saw the first trailer for Real Steel I got really excited, probably more excited than I should have been, but how am I supposed to feel about a movie based on Rock’em Sock’em Robots?I would encourage everyone to see this film and support it so I won’t go into a lot of plot detail but instead try to explain how this was executed.
This movie is based on a few sources.First, is the 1956 short story “Steel” mentioned in the opening credits of the film where the world of boxing is dominated by robots after human boxing is made illegal.An old boxer now pilots a boxing robot and is in financial trouble and can’t find the money to fix his aging robot.This is the basic premise of both the short story and the movie.While I’m not a fan of short stories converted into movies, but when your source material is also a Twilight Zone episode you know you’re dealing with winning material.Second, the bulk of the boxing storyline is heavily based on Rocky.The unprofessional boxer fighting the world champion for a shot at the title has been used in many stories but in this instance the references to Rocky are clear.The champion bot’s name is Zeus, one step above the Greek god Apollo, the champion in Rocky, and the final boxing sequence is actually an exact replay of the final fight from Rocky IV.
With these two sources we have a setup and an ending but no plot in-between.The bulk of the film is not about where this mysterious robot came from or robot rights or Hugh Jackman making his big comeback.The story is about a son getting his father back and the whole robot boxing setup is just a plot devise to facilitate their interactions.
The film was directed by Shawn Levy whose work I’m not a big fan of, however I know that he can do good work because he did Night at the Museum.The real production star was screenplay writer John Gatins whose screenwriter filmography to this point has included only films that tell interpersonal stories against the backdrop of a sports theme like Dreamer and Hardball.In my experience the strengths and weaknesses of a screenwriter are rarely taken into account when they are hired but in this instance Gatins was the perfect man for the job.
As of writing this sentence Real Steel is getting rave reviews which I support but don’t entirely agree with.Half way through I felt like something was missing and I suspect that there was a lot left on the cutting room floor to make this film work.There are so many characters and unanswered questions both about character and robot origins and also about the world the story is set in.How did such an amazing robot end up in a junk yard, is anyone going to come claiming ownership, the robot seems like he might he sentient, is he, what about all that money Hugh Jackman’s character owes to people, are they going to come looking for him now that he’s famous, is it legal for an eleven year old to own a 1000 pound giant killer robot?You can see there was a little left out.But while this movie leaves a thousand unanswered questions, it did not distract the viewers from the central themes of the movie by answering a single one and starting a subplot that would interrupt the overarching story.
The characters in this film were well cast and well written.If this was an action movie as it was advertised casting wouldn’t have been as important but as it turns out dialog was incredibly important and the actors had to show a wide range of convincing emotions.I was especially impressed with Dakota Goyo who played the son.Uncharacteristically for child actors he actually portrayed an eleven year old at age eleven.He pulls off both tough backtalk and cute little kid perfectly, and this is important because he’s the main character.
What’s that you say?The only person on the cover is Hugh Jackman.The only credited actor on the poster is Hugh Jackman.How can I say Goyo is the main character?While Rango was an adult movie marketed to kids, this was a kids movie marketed to adults.This was a family film that was marketed as a violent action film and it is already proven to have hurt attendance numbers.The entire movie is about Goyo finally getting the father he always wanted and at the same time having a father son bonding experience through their robot boxing adventures.Jackman’s character is only there because while a small child can own a killer robot, sadly he still can’t drive, and the plot demands an adult to drive the kid and his robot to fights.The fatherhood theme is also evident from the very beginning as the young girls from the beginning of the movie are actually the director’s daughters.
For those who take a more careful look at this movie they will see many references to sports movies, Rocky was mentioned; The Best of Times has a few similarities.There are more than a few references to the previously mentioned Rock’em Sock’em Robots like upper cuts that knock off heads and controlling robots with joysticks.They also did a wonderful job creating the prober atmosphere emphasizing both the corporatized product placement of professional sports and the flashy and mechanical savvy world of street racing.Director Shawn Levy has been quoted on his attention to detail in this film especially with regard to the near future setting saying, “The cell-phone we used five or ten years ago looks different from today, but a diner still looks like a diner."And for the techies in the crowd the visuals were amazing with near seamless transitions between models and CGI.I would like to point out that that John Rosengrant was credited in the opening credits for animatronics.That this one guy half way down the list of special effects guys in the ending credits gets recognition up there with the stars, producers, and director at the beginning should tell you something about the effects.
I don’t pretend this movie is perfect because it isn’t, but it’s one of the most fun and energizing movies to come out in a long time, especially for kids.Every kid from the audience I was in was clapping and cheering with the boxing crowds in the movie.I’m a little disappointed that there is already a sequel in the works because this movie is so good on its own, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.This movie is well worth my $7.50 and I would watch it again in a heartbeat.I recommend this movie for everyone.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! So to begin with I don’t watch TV very often. That is to say rarely. That is to say almost never. It’s mostly a product of my upbringing, but increasingly it’s because television is so mindless and insulting to the viewer. And if that’s not enough, there is the added baggage that I know that the mindless crap I’m watching is loved and adored by millions of viewers. I saw an ad tonight that said Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon was the “greatest action movie ever”. Apparently whatever moron off the street they found to get that quote is not aware of Indiana Jones and the Raider of the Lost Ark, Terminator 2, or Die Hard… Did I mention that commercials piss me off? Anyway, Terra Nova!
Ever since Michael Crichton’s came along, sci-fi has been becoming more and more mainstream. And it was Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park that not only rocked the special effects world but also spurred public, and uneducated, interest in dinosaurs and cloning. Why I remember an Australian biotech company actually attempting to clone recently extinct animals from taxidermied samples, they never did it, but that the power of this idea got them initial funding should emphasize how much influence Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and the less awesome movie version were. It even spurred 3 sequels that got more ridiculous as time went on but they still put butts in seats so it was only a matter of time before we got another lost in dinoland story, this time airing on Fox, you know, because they love sci-fi so much. (read about Fox’s abuse of sci-fi series here)
Terra Nova is a series that starts in 2149 and mankind has finally destroyed the world…again! But as luck would have it we have just discovered the secret of time travel. But the portal was an uncontrolled accident or something so it only goes to one place. But that place is in the middle of the jungle 85 million years ago. Given this premise it sounds pretty cool. I thought so too until I started watching and realized that there is nothing new in this show.
We open on a scene of Jim, the loving father, coming home to his family bearing, GASP…an orange! I get the idea, the world is overpopulated and everyone’s lives are shit, but that doesn’t give you the right to blatantly steal from Soylent Green.
Population control then busts in looking for their youngest child, because she’s a dirty third! (see Ender’s Game…) The issue of population control through “one child policy” schemes has been approached before in sci-fi like The Fortress. This series went out of its way to talk about how much importance society places on a phrase like “a family is four” but then points out later in the episode that if Jim hadn’t struck one of the officers who found his daughter he would have gotten off with a fine instead of 6 years in prison. Oh, and nothing happened to the daughter. So the oppressive government they live under is actually not that oppressive and our protagonist is rash, quick to anger, and lived outside the law for 3 years before his daughter was discovered.
Now there is a lot about the first 10 minutes of this series that I could pick apart with a dull butter knife. Forget the fine toothed comb, the plot holes are miles wide, but I’m willing to let all this slide. It’s all to engineer a situation for the family to escape an “oppressive” society. I’ll even ignore the massive gaps in time travel logic, causality continuity, and failure at basic TV technobabble. What I will neither ignore nor condone are stupid characters we are supposed to identify with or ridiculous and implausible secret keeping that drives the plot.
For a long time there has been a genre, especially on TV, about a group of people cut off from all they know in a hostile environment. Lost in Space, Star Trek, Land of the Lost, Sliders, Andromeda, Star Trek: Voyager, Farscape, Stargate Atlantis, LOST, Stargate Universe… so there is plenty of precedence for the success of a series like this. However within the last 10 years the sitcom narrative structure has given way to a more continuous narrative with every episode as a to be continued, encouraged by series like 24 and LOST which were both wildly popular. Terra Nova is no different and that’s ok, there is nothing wrong with a narrative structure like this, but the shift away from the old style also came with a shift in character types as well which conform more to those of horror movie conventions.
I noticed this years ago but it didn’t hit me until I watched Sunshine. For those of you who don’t know, the plot of Sunshine is that the sun is dying so earth builds a giant spaceship to take a handful of earth’s best minds to the sun and do some pseudoscience to save the day, figuratively and literally. Well the screw up and are never heard from again, so we silly earthlings do it again and use up all of earths remaining resources to build a second ship with the second best handful of people on the planet to save the day. And wouldn’t you know it, this crew is at each other’s throats the whole way and there is not an ounce of common sense or survival instinct among them. You might think that psychological instability would raise a red flag in the approval process for a mission of such importance but no, making sure your characters are dumb as rocks so they can screw up and die makes for an entertaining movie. I can deal with all this. It hurts but I can deal with it. What I can’t stand is when I have to put up with this insanity for years in the form of a television series.
Let me list some of the horrible choices the characters make in episode 1:
The son doesn’t “read the pamphlet” or go to the orientation meeting on living in a dinosaur infested jungle.
The son leaves the compound with his new free spirit friends stealing a car and traveling into the forbidden zone.
Security does nothing when a patient in the hospital flips out taking the doctor hostage and stealing a gun.
The base commander has neglected to mention to the people in the future who keep sending people through the portal that he is dealing with a civil war which has effectively crippled the development of Terra Nova.
There are things that look like alien hieroglyphs on some rocks in the jungle but don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret…even though half the main characters know about them…
And then there’s the everyday TV stupidity of people running into dino infested jungles expecting to come out ok, typical horror movie fare. My major problem with series like this is the leap in logic that if this project is so important, why are the scientists, the soldiers, the administrators, everyone, so completely incompetent and not informed about anything? I got really mad when they had the audacity to quote Aliens with the lines “They mostly come out at night.” To which the other character responds, almost breaking the fourth wall, “mostly…” Sigh…
In a rare occurrence Fox gave funding for 13 episodes instead of just a pilot. It is also backed by producers Steven Spielberg and Brannon Braga of Star Trek fame, so there is definite possibility that funding will not be cut in the foreseeable future a la Firefly. Terra Nova has an average episode budget of $4 million. Sadly it looks like most of the cost of season 1 was construction of sets and paying supposedly high filming fees. There was speculation before this came out that the dinosaurs would rival the ones in Jurassic Park which is not the case. The dinosaurs also come across as extra creepy because they have human like eyes instead of lizard or general purpose animal eyes.
On the lighter side, I am tickled that they got Stephen Lang to play the base commander in Terra Nova, because he was my favorite character in Avatar. And did I mention that the people he’s fighting against are blocking his mining operation… Oh well, nothing new under the sun…
I suspect that this show is going to do very well. Action sells and it sells more when you have enough extra named characters to kill one off every once and a while. As much as this one episode got to me I’m going to keep watching, at least for now. While I take issue with the execution I find the basic concept of this series intriguing. And to be fair they had a lot to do in one episode and there were a lot of competing themes. Our characters are now free of the old world, and lots of things raised in the first episode will never matter again. So let’s hope there’s a little more continuity of thought from here on in. And for those of you who don’t mind any of the complaints I’ve brought up, watch this series, it will blow your mind!
I finally saw a film I’ve been wanting to see for a long time, the independent 2006 film Special.Special is one in a long history of superhero movies, of which I seem to have covered a lot of recently.Special is the story of a man who joins a drug trial and begins having delusions that he is a superhero as a result.
As originality goes, this plot has been done a thousand times.Our hero has wants and dreams that suddenly become reality and the question is always there, is this reality or are they just crazy.The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Harvey, Bunny Lake is Missing, Almost an Angel, Total Recall, Contact, the list of films that have approached this concept is a long one.However what is interesting about all of these is the ever nagging question at the back of everyone’s mind, is this happening or is it all a delusion?I would say that Total Recall did this best by not revealing the answer.A more recent example would be Inception.Other films choose to leave the audience guessing until the end and then there is a reveal and cue the credits!It’s a sloppier ending but it usually gives a happier ending than a more unsettling cliffhanger.Special however hurts itself right out of the starting gate by making it clear that our “hero” Les is delusional.
We start with Les being accepted into a drug trial for Special, a drug that makes you…better?What the drug is actually for is not made clear.What is made clear is that Les has a crappy life and is a 30 some year old comic book nerd in a crappy job with low self-esteem.Whether he has any preexisting psychological conditions or not we don’t know so let’s assume he’s just an average guy, which is a pretty sorry state of affairs for the human race now that I think about it.When his powers first manifest he is watching TV and begins to levitate.He doesn’t notice at first as it comes as naturally as breathing to him.Wow, that’s pretty cool, I wonder what else he can do!He goes to the drug trial doctor to show off his progress from the drug only to treat the viewer to an alternate view of Les lying on the floor in the doctor’s office thinking that he is showing the doctor he can fly.This movie goes out of its way to prove to the viewer that Les is just crazy which gets rid of any suspense or tension that would have been built up otherwise.
As his doctor begins explaining to him his adverse reaction to the drug he discovers he has telepathy and has an alternate thought conversation with the doctor further convincing him he has superpowers.From here on the superhero story is merely a tool with which to tell the story of a deeply disturbed individual who has been completely detached from reality and had constructed a world around him full of self-fulfilling prophecies and conspiracies that all point to him being a superhero.From that point on it loses the charm of something like Kickass where the characters spend their time fighting crime and living a double life.Les takes on his superhero persona completely, getting noticed by the police immediately and terrifying the people around him.
The most interesting part of this movie was the way it was filmed, that is showing the world as it is perceived by Les.For most of the movie, we get to see him run through walls, levitate, make cars disappear, and read minds.As I said earlier, we are shown at the very beginning that all this is just his perception of reality and is not real.This shifts the focus of the movie away from him being a superhero to the plot of the pharmaceutical company and how their experimental drug ruined his life without him noticing.But except for a few scenes that show us he is delusional, the rest of the film is shown from his perspective complete with blocks of his memory erases, hearing voices, and showing his believed superpowers.
At the heart of this film is a split in what kind of a story they wanted to tell.Is it a superhero movie with the reveal being he has no powers, or is it a drama about a man whose life is ruined by an experimental drug?This independent film was made around the time when superhero movies were hitting the big time.What makes this film interesting in that it seems to have been right at the beginning of the big push for in modern superhero movies to go for a more realistic approach.I interpret this as the original inspiration for films like Kickass where normal people become costumed vigilantes blending the lines between heroism and sociopathic behavior.Special was the guinea pig for this genre and it had plenty of flaws.But I give it credit for transforming the superhero genre into the more thought out plots and characters we get today.
The movies that generally get remembered are the ones that get it right the first time like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and then everyone copies them hoping to achieve the same wild success.Others like Special, don’t quite get it right but are important because of the new ideas they present that are experimented with by others and manipulated to the point that great movies come out of it.This film isn’t for everyone, but if you have any interest in the modern superhero genre you should check this out.
