Dstrict 9

I follow some directors on Twitter because I like to pretend I know people heavily involved with the movie industry and out of all of the directors I stalk through the internet, only Duncan Jones (director of Moon, which I liked) talked about Disctrict 9 and the Great Wall of Hype that surrounded it.
"Disctrict 9 made back its budget in less than a day. Great movie or not, that's some fantastic marketing."

Truer words. Never spoken.

For a while I've been worried about District 9. With the crazy cool marketing campaign, the increasing amount of hype and perfect reviews I keep hearing about this "achievement in modern filmmaking" I was hesitant to see this movie at first, because with great hype usually comes disappointment (i.e. Cloverfield).

However, District 9 has turned out to be the movie of the summer you can't seem to ignore so I really felt like I should see this movie and who knows, it could live up to all of the hype (LAUGHS CRAZY LOUD FOREVER).

So now that I have seen District 9 does it live up to all of the glowing reviews, wall of hype and all that noise? REST EASY READERS. BECAUSE IT SOOO DOESN'T.

Now, before all the fans of this new movie get their alien panties in a bunch, let me say that, no, District 9 is not a bad movie. It's actually really good. But not like...

OMG, TWILIGHT! DISTRICT 9 IS THE BEST THING ANYONE HAS EVER MADE EVER AND WE HAS A HUMAN RACE WILL NEVER TOP THIS MAGNIFICENT CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE UNTIL MAGIC TECHNOLOGY BECOMES AVAILABLE THAT ACTUALLY THROWS THE AUDIENCE INTO THE WORLD OF THE FILM! THAT'S HOW CRAZY GOOD IT IS.

No.
Shut up.

It's good for a Summer film and if it was released during Winter movie season people would probably still give the film its props but it's not the second coming of Christ. So calm down everyone! Jeeze.

Again, it's better than probably better than most of the films on the Box-Office summary list. (G.I. Joe, Time Travler's Wife, Julie & Julia, G-Force, The Goods, Harry Potter 6, The Ugly Truth, Ponyo and (500) Days of Summer) But, it has its flaws like every other movie.

Pacing and style change-ups are big ones for example.

The film moves at a very strange pace, changes quite erratically and I'll tell you why I think this. This film is (what I am calling) an expansion film. Much like a sequel or a remake, an expansion film takes a film and expands on it. In this case and expansion film expands a short film into a full length feature. This has been going on for ever as long as I can remember. Unknown filmmaker at the time, George Lucas, did it with THX 1138 when he got the go ahead from big shot producer Francis Ford Coppola and this sounds crazy similar to me when I think about how unknown to most Neil Blomkamp got to expand his short film Alive in Joburg into District 9 with got the go ahead from big shot producer Peter Jackson.

(OMG, TWILIGT!!!! FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA = PETER JACKSON AND BLOMKAMP = LUCAS! I CAN'T WAIT FOR JACKSON'S POPULARITY TO CONTINUE SINKING WHILE HE REGRETS DOING THE ONE THING THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS OR FOR BLOMKAMP TO MAKE A TRILOGY AND THEN LATER IN LIFE COMPLETELY CONTRDICT WHAT HE ONCE STOOD FOR!)

Expect the difference between the expansion of THX 1138 and Alive in Joburg is Alive in Joburg is a fictitious documentary that was expanded into a somewhat linear narrative (this is not the case with THX 1138)

This is why in the film has so much shifting of tones, there's a large amount of Alive in Joburg in this film. The documentary style at the beginning mixed in with a fictional non-linear narrative can definitely bring a viewer out of the film alone, put that with camera quality that changes constantly and we have a first half of a film that will constantly throw the viewer out of the film like the view was a Frisbee.

This also affects the pacing, and the for the most part it's fine actually. The pacing works really well with this pack and forth switching about between news footage, documentary style, stock footage, DV tape quality, this idea constantly keeps things moving (something that Michael Man is aware of) even though this rapid fire editing is pushing people out of the film. (It appears we're are at an impasse!) But, once the rapid fire editing is gone, something bad happens, the film gets too relaxing and the tension and suspense are lost.

I bring up the robot battle that is seen in the trailers. Far before this part of the film, the documentary style, news style are long gone to make way for the narrative (which is mostly linear). We have a big robot vs. man fight, crosscut with Christopher (One of the Prawns (btway, I think they look WAY more like mantises)) and his child starting an alien spaceship (ALSO SEEN IN THE TRAILER NO SPOILERS). Now this robot vs. man fight doesn't go on for that long, but our minds have been so conditioned to think that one anything starts moving in this movie, something will cut in explaining it, and when this doesn't happen, the fight seems like it's been going on forever and the viewers in the audience will gradually recline from the edge of their seats, exhausted from paying too much attention. This happens a lot. I thought it would be fine with the cross-cutting of Christopher and his child but those sequences were far too short for me to really appreciate or understand what was going on.
In a tense scene there needs to be something that the audience can calm down with, one sequence needs to be suspenseful THEN CUT TO something not as suspenseful CUT BACK TO suspenseful scene.

This is film making 101 here and I was so sad to see this giant spectacle of GC go to waste because the story didn't have something else going on.

For all of my complaints however, District 9 is probably the 4th best Summer movie of 2009 that I've seen (Black Dynamite, Departures, Thirst being the first three) and everything else in this movie is great. It's just got some big problems in some areas. But the areas that are safe from rapid-fire editing and boring sequences are great. The story is pretty good and it keeps you guessing, the characters feel way more realistic than any Sci-Fi characters I've seen since Children of Men (*sigh* remember when that film just fucking blew us away?), and the CG is really god damn good. I'm sorry, I didn't bring enough attention to this, but there is a lot of eye candy in this film and I'm surprised I didn't talk about it more.

(EYE CANDY IS MY FAVORITE CANDY)

So for every perfect review you hear about this film from a friend, a newspaper, or a blog, remember that most films aren't perfect and people just pretend they are because of the hype. This film isn't perfect, it's got big problems but at points even I believed in the hype.

Back In Time: A Nostalgic Review of THX 1138

[Since I saw District 9 I've started thinking that History is repeating itself. In the early 1970's a big shot director-turned-producer Francis Ford Coppola introduced the film world to George Lucas. Coppola somehow having seen George Lucas's short film THX 1138 must have seen something in the short film that could be expanded into a feature film. So Coppola took Lucas under his wing and together (I guess) they made THX 1138 the feature film. Whenever I see the TV spots for District 9 I'm reminded of what once was. Back then we had a fantastic artist taking another younger artist and showing him the ropes. Now we have something similar to that with only hopes that this new pair of artists don't turn into the old ones, what with one of them betraying everything he originally stood for and the other carrying with him a lump of failure with only a few shiny diamonds at the top.

Here is a review I wrote a while back about a favorite film of mine.]

Isn't it interesting to see how someone can get from point A to point B? Well, I guess sometimes, depending on who it is, but if that person goes against everything they originally stood for and decided to become nothing but a toy maker for kids then I guess we have a story. You hear that George Lucas? You're life is a very sad story.

I say this because THX 1138 (Oh god I'm gonna have to keep typing this) is a very original look at the "dystopian parallel future" idea. I mean, sure I would say that the movie isn't original but it's structured really well and it's points come across really well and this film get's back to what sci-fi is all about, the message of, "OH GOD, WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO TREAT PEOPLE WITH RESPECT OR ELSE WE'RE GONNA HAVE THIS TO LOOK FORWARD TO."

The film follows THX 1138 and his "mate" LUH somethingsomethingsomething and they both live in a future that is similar to the problems of today (spooky noises). Their world is underground, monitored by the government, and heavily medicated to the point where everyone is like Zach Braff in Garden State.

Eventually LUH tells THX that she's in love with him, and she mixes up his medication so that he starts feeling the world around him. Which is done in this fantastic cocoon like way, and once he starts seeing the world around him everything starts going to shit. LUH is preggers and she's also kidnapped by the government, one of his friends "became alive" as well and is now growing very strong homosexual feelings towards THX 1138. THX is also imprisoned for "chemical imbalance" and the prison is nothing but white open space. He has to escape or die tryin'.

The story was very fun and it reminded me of "The Fugitive" but in space. The cast is nothing short of spectacular and the characters are interesting because they are products of the world they live in. And also you get this weird feeling through out the film that you are watching these people who are also being watched by more important people which makes you just cringe at the person you've become.

However the film isn't without it's flaws. During the beginning of the film, George Lucas decided to give you not just a peak into this world but a guided tour with a bunch of different spots. To the point where you wonder if the story will start soon. I know you need to set up a lot of stuff because your world is crazy deep in metaphor George Lucas but if there's 45min of intro I'm gonna start wondering when I should leave.

To add to that, most of the film is seen through the eyes of the government, which means, like 80% of the film is seen through 1970's TV monitors. Which must have been the shit at the time but now that America has HD on the brain I'm looking at this wondering if my eyes are gonna start going bad.

But the film overall is great. Spectacular if nothing. If you want modern Sci-Fi then you should start with THX 1138, that's if you don't forget what it's called at the rental house of your choice and start spouting off numbers like a dumb kid at a spelling bee trying to spell 'truck.'

However, once you watch it, don't get angry at Geogre Lucas for going back in time and adding GC. God knows and decent person would be furious. But I've thrown my hands up in the air and yelled my favorite expletive because I've surrendered. I know you believe in Kurosawa's saying Mr. Lucas. That; "A film is never finished, it's only abandoned." But let me tell you what you're doing wrong, don't give people something that they like, then take it away from them, then give it back to them with dodgy GC. You are the only director doing this. Coppala doesn't go back to Godfather: Part II and say, wait, Marlin Brando's not in Godfather: Part 2 or Part 3 let me add him in with some laughable CG.
There we go all better!

The fact that you think you can get away with this is hilarious and sad, because it makes me think that I've started following you along with all these people to some sort of promise land that you showed for us in your vision of heavenly sci-fi but now I'm starting to realize you're nothing but a man who just promises people what they want to hear and I've fallen for your trick as well.
Now that we've all grown wise to what you're doing you're trying to trick our kids into following you but not if I have anything you say about it, you crazy, former genius who is now just a puppet of what he used to be.

Trailer Park Trash: A Serious Man

(THIS WHOLE ENTRY GOES OUT TO JEREMY MORAN WHO LINKED ME TO THE TRAILER LIKE 5 TIMES THE DAY IT CAME OUT. I SAW IT. I GOT SO MANY EMAILS FROM FACEBOOK THAT WERE JUST LINKS TO THIS TRAILER. I HATE YOU. SIGNED BRENDAN.)

Since I'm just getting started here I thought I'd tell my few viewers (I'm guessing, like zero at this point) that I am a fan of trailers. Like most people, I think of trailers as tiny movies. And whenever I go to the movie theater I always get excited if there's a trailer I haven't yet (but FAT CHANCE ON THAT one since there is Apple Trailers, Trailer Addict, Ain't It Cool and YouTube). It seems that nerds all over the world have been getting more and more into trailers because more and more of their favorite comic books as well as other favorite literary works often get turned into films due to a lack of creativity and milking of the cash cow. And this increase of interest has led to more and more attention to trailers so I thought why not talk about trailers since they've always been pretty popular and in recent years even more so.

A Serious Man

Alright, I've been wanting to talk about this trailer for a while. When the A Serious Man trailer hit the internet, the nerd community was a flutter, oozing with glee. Most nerds love The Cohen Brothers (something I do not share) and the trailer was...something to see...I guess. So I got at least 50 Facebook updates and 3 links to the same god damn trailer in the course of an hour. I saw this trailer and while I don't argue that it could be good, I think we, the nerd community, should be cautious.

Yeah.
Fuck yo hype.
I'm not falling for this again.

The first thing I noticed with this trailer is that it's pretty much a music video.
"But Brendan! Nothing like this has ever been --"
SHUT UP!
Yes it has.
Trailers now a days are looking more and more like music videos and it's been going on for the past couple years.

I direct your attention to The Cottage
The Cottage is a less than well known UK Horror film that was pretty much panned when it came here. As you can see it also uses the same percussion elements with a different song. And sure, it doesn't use it's own movie like A Serious Man, a Pogo song or something written by Eclectic Method
I would still say it's similar because it's a trailer playing with editing like it's a Dance music video.

The trailer itself sounds like a mash-up and while that is indeed the shit, keep in mind that these trailers are designed to create hype. So people saying "OMG, TWILIGHT! THIS TRAILER IS SOOOO COOOOL!" does nothing but spread awareness for this upcoming like a disease. Then people get excited and then the editor, the directors and the execs just get a fuck-ton of money.

Now, I was excited for The Cottage after seeing the trailer. Who wouldn't be? All you see is murder and mayhem to a soundtrack. You don't see anything wrong with it, you don't see the bad dialogue, the awkward plot line, bad acting or any other part of the film besides what we saw in the trailer. But I assure you, all of these horrible qualities I just listed where in The Cottage. The Cottage is not worth seeing. But I saw it, because of that stupid trailer. Who's to say the same wont happen for A Serious Man.

This film COULD be good, keep in mind that we don't really know anything about it, we've only see maybe one whole scene in this trailer, The Cohen Brothers maybe make a serious film every three years (They make two kinds of films, ones that they're making because they feel like making art and the other kinds are just them getting paid to hang out with their friends) and finally, (true this is more of a private note) I just don't like The Cohen Brothers. All of their "comedies" are just people who have awkward ticks that The Cohen Brothers accentuate because they think that a man who coughs every time after he says vacation is god damn comedic gold. NO IT IS NOT AND STOP!

So while I'll admit the trailer is a good music video mash-up and sure this movie has the possibility of being the best thing since ever. At this point it also has as much chance to be another Cohen Brother comedy that stops being funny as soon as you sit down. They did make Burn After Reading and Intolerable Cruelty after all.

Don't get caught up in the hype. Now if you excuse me I have to watch the other Where The Wild Things Are trailer. OMG TWILIGHT! IT LOOKS SO COOL AND THEIR IS SO MUCH HUGGING!!

Good? No. Funny? Sure.

My first review of Funny People:
"Imagine if F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was told by someone who thought dicks were hilarious. Pretty much what we have here."

First real comment about my review of Funny People:
"What?!"

Let me expand. Judd Apatow has been a popular director for quite sometime now for a couple reasons. One of them is that he's pretty much making films for the bro-mance demographic (i.e. People who find guy comedies funny. Being mostly men) and the other is because he puts a lot of big popular funny cute stars in his films (This goes out to the ladies who find Jason Swarzman, Paul Rudd, Steve Cartell and James Franco attractive).

Now, I don't like to generalize but the fact is I can in this situation. Judd Apatow has only made three films including Funny People (Knocked Up and 40-Year-Old Virgin being the other two) and all of his films are about guys being friends, realizing that friendship is great, conquering their problems with women. All of these films have big funny stars in them. So naturally people are starting to catch on to the Judd Apatow formula. So, what's a big shot to do?

His solution: Make a personal story with a lesson that relates to something he is going through right now. Brilliant. I love it. Let's start talking about it.

In a couple of interviews Judd Apatow has said that Funny People has two main influences.
1. His life.
2. "The Great Gatsby."

SAY WHAA!

Yes. The story arch of Funny People is pretty much F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" with comedians. Okay, sure, not the most original idea but it's the thought that counts. Judd said that he saw so much of himself in this book. He's been both the struggling comedian, and the cold-hearted rich writer who forgets that life is all about the connections that you make and not how successful you can get. Great. That's a terrific story. Sad thing is though; "The Great Gatsby" is a story that Judd Apatow has never told before. He's told these two stories:
1. Marriage is hard.
2. If you see a girl you like, don't be a pussy. Ask her out.

He's never told the "It's and empty existence at the top and you're better being unsuccessful with your friends at the bottom" story. That's more of a story you would expect P.T. Anderson or Stanley Kubrick to tell. So can he do it?

In a way. Sure. Actually...No.

Judd is so excited to tell us this story with actual depth and he has so much great material for it that it's a little bit of an overload. It's like if you wrote a paper about a subject you really liked in one day and then turned it in without reading it. It's gonna be full of information that wasn't needed and you might have rambled a bit just because you're excited that you get to talk about a favorite subject of yours.

But he does capture some key parts of the story that need telling. He captures the bitterness of the successful comedian George Simmons (Sandler) and he gives and insightful look at being a comedian in this day and age. He even makes the affair between George Simmons and Leslie Mann's character one of the most fascinating parts of the film. So those are great moments right there. However, Judd Apatow's style rears its ugly balding head when it really shouldn't, sometimes during the strongest moments of the film.

For those of you that haven't realized it, Judd Apatow loves to let his funny cast members improvise as much as possible. It's great sometimes. All of the cast members are incredibly witty, it's not like letting actors improvise is something that's never been done before and he's usually only done it for comedic reasons. But, Funny People isn't really the kind of movie where you can have dick jokes constantly fly across the room like a tennis match. The story is pretty serious even though it's about comedians. Sure, those numerous dick jokes have their place in the film, but it's like he couldn't get rid of all of the ones he wrote and he had to put them all somewhere. Like he had a whole storage facility of dick jokes and he had run out of room there so he put the huge pile of ones that wouldn't fit in the facility in this movie. Dick jokes are everywhere in the film when they're not needed. You know, I don't watch Sophie's Choice and after the child death scene and make a witty remark. No. It's a serious moment. So due to all of these cock one-liners the pacing of the film gets muddled as well as some characters (Simmon's character seems like a bi-polar cancer victim because of this. His character will be having the time of his life one moment and the next scene he'll be singing songs about death and bombing in front of crowds for being too depressing. No natural arch here) and the overall tone of the film will switch from comedy to drama randomly and as fast as you can say cock-smoker.

Also, he allows his actors to not only improvise with comedic dialogue they might have written on the set that day of filming or when they were high earlier, he lets them improvise dramatic lines too. Which, sadly, shouldn't be done with most of the actors in this film. Adam Sandler is the only exception strangely. Sandler has proven himself that he can be a serious actor when he needs to be but the same can't be said for Judd's wife Leslie Mann or Seth Rogan. All of their improvised dramatic dialogue comes across as awkward and stiff. This might be because they might not have had their A-Game for this movie or different reasons but sadly, the bottom lines are that some actors that play key roles hold back the film with not letting a serious moment be a serious and being awkward when they have to be serious.

To go back to the acting note, and I must bring light to this. Adam Sandler is the strongest actor here. The strongest. Which isn't surprising but it's not that he's the strongest actor in the film that's the part I want to talk about, he's the strongest actor BY FAR in the film. Sandler as usual brings his A-Game but Rogan is still trying to find himself as an actor and I don't know what is up with Leslie Mann. Rogan doesn't seem to have trouble with the aggression that is needed to play Simmon's assistant. Whenever Sandler gives Rogan shit, Rogan hits him back, usually hard. So their tension is great. It's just every other thing that is awkward. When they're getting along it doesn't really look like Rogan is enjoying himself even though he supposed to worship this guy. And when he's supposed to be impressed by all of the things that come with being rich, it all seems so unnatural. Leslie Mann's problem is mostly that she can't really play dramatic well. When push comes to shove her heart breaking decision face looks like a "you stood me up at the prom and I am mad at you!" face. Call me shallow for thinking that facial expressions are a big part of acting but it's hard to believe what she is saying when she doesn't look serious about it.

But I should talk about some of the great parts about Funny People before you think it's the worst film in the world.

Uhhh...
Hm.

It's really hilarious. All of the stand-up scenes are great and their jokes seem to make everyone laugh and even though a lot of dramatic moment get trampled on by inappropriate ad-libbing there are some moments that shine like a diamond.

But that's really it sadly.

Here we have a movie that feels bloated with too much dick joke material, has a bad case of the bad acting bug, and the only great attributes about it is that it's funny and when the ad-libs don't get in the way and the plot is great. (Actual film is completely different case)

I know Judd wants Funny People to be his strongest film and it could have been. This is a story that I wanted him to tell because it seems to personal but he just got lost in what he was trying to say.

This movie needed a good editor that isn't afraid to trim the fat of this movie that Judd Apatow finds so appealing.