Quick Take: Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee

If you're getting a little tired of the complicated, bombastic and over stuffed blockbuster movies of the summer, then we have something for you. A break, if you will, from the loud noise of the summer movie season.

Jerry Seinfeld is back with a new series. One strickly for the web. It is called, simply, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. The title explains exactly what the show is. Seinfeld picks up a familiar comedian, in one of his classic cars from his vast collection. The two then proceed to talk, go get coffee and talk some more. It's such a simple premise, bare bones to its core, and thats the point. It has no plot, just two funny people talking about whatever is on their minds.

Here is the first episode which features Larry David. Hope you enjoy.

Quick Take: Critic Gets Death Threats For Not Liking "The Dark Knight Rises."

The Dark Knight Rises has just gained its first accomplishment. It is the first movie to have its comment section suspended on Rotten Tomatoes due to death threats towards a critic. And the movie hasn't even opened yet.

Marshall Fine of the movie blog "Hollywood and Fine" gave the first negative review of the much anticipated superhero movie. He then, in the next 10 minutes, received 200 replies from angry fans of the movie. Some were of course meant to be taken as slight jabs merely hinting at the backlash he might get. Other commenters however, were not so nice. The site at first started deleting these hateful comments, however it eventually got so jammed (it closed in on 1000 replies by Wednesday afternoon) that the site just decided to suspend the comment section completely.

I understand the circumstances that this movie has for some people and it's interesting to see that a lot of the internet crowd has a good grip on reality. But for the ones that don't I'd like to quote Alfred Hitchcock in saying "it's only a movie."

The rating a movie gets on a site does not and should not effect how you personally feel about the movie. We sadly live in an age that if your film does not receive the rating you think it should get by even a single critic, you either feel betrayed or, worse, your opinion may be wrong about the movie. What makes this even worse is that most of the commenters haven't even seen the movie yet.

Some critics are not going to like this movie. Quite a few people are most likely not going to enjoy this movie. For whatever reason. It doesn't matter. Everyone has an opinion and they should be shared, not attacked for not being exactly like yours. Or else, what's the point of creating art at all if just to make everyone happy?

Kevin Smith Explains His Motivation For Life

Taken from Kevin Smith: Burn In Hell

For the full Q&A click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCkI01_Kvf4

The Alternate Five: Comic Book Movies That Dared To Go Somewhere Different

Acting in the spirit of The Dark Knight Rises coming out in a week, we thought we would take a look at some groundbreaking comic book movies. These are the ones that wanted to separate themselves from the crowd, reach for something different, to try and do something that had never been done before. 


And the list can include any comic book adaptation, not just those in the recent onslaught.

This is in no way a ranking of the movies' quality, but instead a list showing how these fantastic five paved the ground for some different ways to think about comics-on-film. They are at the frontier, pushing the limits to get at something a little better.

In an age where every superhero seems to be getting his or her shot at 24 frames-per-second, (deserved or not) it's good to know that they aren't all trying to give us the same thing.

5. BATMAN (1989)

Close to the dawn of all comic-book movies, Tim Burton’s Batman is probably the most singular addition to this list. With Burton’s adaptation, we see a world created in and of itself for film. In all honesty, the Gotham of the comic books doesn’t really match up with Burton’s, but for god knows what reasons, we really don’t care. It’s thrilling to be thrown into such a wacky world for two hours.

 What’s strange about the timing of this release is that when Burton was developing his version of Batman, writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore and Grant Morrison were developing their versions of superheroes – two totally different views of the genre. It seems like Burton took no influence whatsoever from the then recent additions to the superhero library. (his infamous quote "I've never read a comic book in my life" speaks to this) In reality, it took 15 – 20 years before filmmakers were really starting to be influenced by the designs of these graphic novels.

So, of course, this is not in any shape or form a faithful adaptation of the original Batman comics. Far from it. What Burton really creates is an opera. A grandiose exaggeration of all things gothic. And while this specific style did not continue in many comic-book movies, what it did give way to was the idea that a whole new world could be created for superheroes to play around in. It doesn’t have to be grounded so close to reality, especially since the comics aren’t. Without this, I don’t know if we would have movies like 300, Hellboy, Spawn, or…

4. SIN CITY (2005)

While Burton created his own unique world for Batman, Robert Rodriguez tried to not change a single thing when creating his unbelievably faithful adaptation of the Sin City graphic novels. To even call it a adaptation sounds a bit weird since the film is so close to its source material. A better word would be "translation." With it's multi-story approach, ensemble list of characters, insane stark visuals and gruesome violence, this was no easy feat. 


Sin City, in the book or film form, is unlike anything either medium has given us. The author (and co-director) Frank Miller worked with Rodriguez in creating this black and white (and some colour) noir feast for the screen by taking a brand new approach: change the way the film is made to suit the novels.  It opened the doors on what was possible for comic book adaptations. Only this time, showing what can be done not in adjusting, but in terms of being faithful. Almost to a fault. All of a sudden, any piece of material seemed possible for the screen. Even if that material is deemed "un-filmable."


However, it's biggest advancement was its use of digital photography and technology. This broke new ground in what can be done. The very frames of the movie, for the first time, seemed as if you were watching the characters from the books move. The shots matched the frames not just in composition but also in its artistic design. This paved way for the free screen look. (See: 300) Where most studios push for things to work on an all ages level, Sin City seemed to say "Screw it. Let's do it shot for shot, line for line and make the camera work for us."

3. X-MEN (2000)

X-Men pretty much paved the way not only for comic-book movies, but also a large part of the 2000’s filmmaking sensibility. X-Men took a highly stylized source material and tried to shed off all the pomp and circumstance to render it in gritty realism. For the first half of the movie, director Bryan Singer succeeds, but then falls into a more traditional depiction of good-guy versus bad-guy. The movie is still amazing (perhaps the best of the series) but it’s the first half that really left an impression on filmmakers.

The big question before X-Men came out was how could they possibly show Wolverine in yellow tights, growling like an animal, and still make him watchable? Well Singer found the perfect way. Instead of trying to copy the source material directly, like in Sin City, he developed a new made-for-film version.

The introduction of Singer’s Wolverine is probably one of my favorite introductions of any superhero to-date. Seeing him in a bar surrounded by drunks and smoke and steel, even if you already know who the character is, marks the moment in film when we all realized there was another way, a much harsher way, to adapt comics. They don’t have to be all wearing flamboyant costumes and say catch-phrases in order to have a faithful, and good, adaptation.

2. THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)

Without X-Men to start us off, we probably would never have gotten a movie like The Dark Knight. For the first time, critics and audience were floored by how un-comic book a comic book movie could be. At times it moves beyond any semblance of what we think a comic book movie should be, and while it stays close to the good-versus-evil dilemma, Christopher Nolan goes so far beyond any adaptation that came before it, he has come close to creating a whole new way of seeing these stories on film. 

Even Batman Begins feels like a comic book movie: the introduction and growth of a superhero, the love interest, the hidden identity, the sepia colour tones, etc. And while most of these aspects are still present in The Dark Knight, (blue replaces sepia) its scope expands far beyond its predecessor. It became a crime saga, with a hero and a villain that dress up. 

What’s even more impressive is how these are original stories. Nolan does not literally translate a source material like with Sin City, but instead takes the influence from years of Batman’s mythology, shifts and shapes them to create his own. The opening bank robbery, or the boat dilemma, or the magic trick are scenes Batman fans get to see for the first time. And this ability to create all things original allowed for Heath Ledger’s Joker: perhaps the quintessential performance of any realistic comic book villain.

It goes without saying that Nolan’s Batman is probably the best film-depiction of the caped crusader, and we would be hard pressed to imagine a better one arriving in the years to come. We wait with eager anticipation if Nolan can in fact top himself with The Dark Knight Rises, but the real accomplishment will always be injecting the comic book realism and raising the bar to levels that will be hard to match. 

1. WATCHMEN (2009)

This is the one that really did it all: it creates a new world, plays out like an opera at points and a gritty drama at others, dives deep into the psyches of superheroes,  and still remains quite faithful to its source material. Watchmen is at number one on this list because there is really no other movie like it.

No, it might not be better than The Dark Knight, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Other than maybe Batman, Watchmen exists as one of the most unique superhero movies of all time.

The sheer length of the film separates it right off the bat. With a director’s cut of 186 min and an ultimate cut of 215 min, the movie, like the graphic novel, is a whopper and dense. But in all that extra time, a world is presented to us like no other: a world of multiple superheroes, powerless superheroes, a god-like creature, retired heroes and villains, death and sex and brutality and altogether, a world of unfettered madness.

Watchmen is a comic universe lacking in good guys and bad guys. There are no heroes and there are no villains in this movie – there are only people, all lost in a moral haze. The dramatic questions that arise for the audience are not things like “will he catch the wrong-doer” or “will they find out who he really is”, but rather are questions the audience asks themselves about what the psychological ramifications are of being a hero in a dying world. Watchmen is a dark story without any sort of moral compass to guide you – even in the end you don’t know whether to clap or cry.

The saddest part of this movie is that, much like the graphic novel that birthed it, it will probably only be fully appreciated many many years from now. It certainly has mixed reviews by critics and audiences alike, but for us, despite its problems, Watchmen went where no other comic book movie had gone before, or has gone since, and deserves the place at the top of this list.

An Off Take: All You Have To Do Is Make Me Care: Or How Chael Sonnen Forced Us To

Indulge me for a bit here...

If you are objective enough to realize when a life lesson is being presented to you, literal or metaphoric, you will grab it and remember it forever. There are also moments in life when you realize just how powerful one person can be, just by their sheer ability to be so.

On Saturday night (July 07) Chael Sonnen, a UFC Fighter, participated in the biggest MMA fight not just of the year, but perhaps of all time. It was against Anderson Silva, the best MMA fighter on the planet. As I sat in the bar my friend and I were at, awaiting this most epic of all epic encounters, I found myself getting far more nervous for this than even when I went sky diving. I looked around the bar, just as the fight was mere seconds away, and nobody was talking. I mean nobody. Everyone had their eyes glued to the TV’s.

I have been watching UFC/MMA for over three years, which is not very long compared to others. I did, however, watch WWE for most of my childhood and teenage years. Even then, there was nothing in that “Sports Entertainment” brand that ever came close to the anticipation of this fight. At this moment the PPV buyrates have not come out, and we don’t know how many people in fact watched this fight, but no matter the size of the audience, everyone in the MMA world was intensely focused for a moment in time on just these two men.

Fights with a lot of build only come around every couple of years, and nothing has ever come close to this. The only way you get this kind of intensity is getting an audience, one way or another, to care about the outcome. As Andrew Stanton says in the famous TED talk “Make me care.” It’s a simple as that, and is probably the hardest thing to do in storytelling, especially film making. However, it’s not just a rarity in MMA, it borderlines on myth.

For those of you who don’t know, Chael Sonnen is an MMA fighter with a heavy amatuer wrestling back ground. The first time he fought Anderson Silva he was a 4-to-1 underdog. Silva, at this time, was on the brink of being called the greatest MMA fighter of all time. Going into the fight, nobody gave Sonnen a chance, yet Chael began talking so much trash, it gave a new meaning to the word “hype". On August 17, 2010 he backed up everything he said. He beat up Silva for four and a half rounds. It was a spectacle you had to see to believe, and all fans were in shock. Near the end of the fifth and final round, Silva submitted Sonnen in a come-from-behind victory that will go down in history.

After this fight, Silva went on to defeat two more challengers and Sonnen fell on hard times. He was suspended for elevated testosterone (not steroids) and had some run-ins with the law that forced him out for 14 months. He won his first fight back (October 2011) and called out Silva in a now infamous post-fight interview. Silva, who had an injury at the time, did not accept the fight. Sonnen then fought another fighter (Michael Bisping) for the chance to fight Silva in the summer. Needless to say, Sonnen won and got his rematch.

Those are the facts. But the bigger story is how Chael Sonnen, not just trash talked, but promoted himself and the rematch in ways that MMA fans can’t even begin to understand.

You see, Sonnen created an alter ego, which he and the fans now call ‘Chael P. Sonnen.’ With this character, he was able to say things that were disrespectful, (bashing Silva’s home country of Brazil) outrageous (claiming he didn’t understand the rules of the first fight) to almost crossing the line (commented on Silva’s wife cooking him a steak). There are interviews of him on sports shows, MMA websites and he was even on TMZ. For the latter, his humor and classic sayings had the entire place laughing like it was a comedy show.

But how did MMA fans react? Well half of the audience loved it and the other half hated Sonnen with such distaste it seemed as though someone would attack him physically before the fight. He created such a polarizing view of himself, that the audience either loved him or hated him. Nobody, not one UFC fan was on the fence about Chael Sonnen. You either wanted 'The Bad Guy' to win gloriously or be defeated embarrassingly. It was more intense than any movie. Because it was real.

And that’s the point.

So often in story telling we are presented with such indifferent stories and characters that the audience just doesn't care on a basic and fundamental level. Too often do we sit in a movie theatre and are indifferent to how our main characters will end up at the end of the film. It doesn't matter what situation they are in, how good your action sequences are, how intense your romantic or break-up scenes are, or even how funny your scene is - if you do not care on a basic level about a character, it's death for the story.

I use the example of Chael Sonnen not only because it’s rare to have such an intense story unfold in front of your eyes in MMA, but for all sports in general. This rivalry he created with Anderson Silva is one of the greatest that the world of sports has ever seen. Sure, the UFC has guys who fight each other that don't like each other. Guys with some history between the two. But the level that we experienced leading up to UFC 148, was above and beyond.

So why am I praising a UFC fighter on a film blog?

MMA has fights almost every week. Two men enter a cage, or ring, and fight. It's as basic of a sport as you can get. It's just one on one. Professional Wrestling has been doing a 'fake' version of this for years. While they benefit from a script and a much more spectacle-type show, MMA is completely unpredictable. You just never know what's going to happen. All these ingredients should on their own add up to every fight being intense. But it's just not. In fact sometimes I find myself cheering for fighters I don't know, simply because they are wearing a cool set of shorts. Even in a simple, brutal and intense sport like this, people usually find themselves completely indifferent to the outcome. Even if a fighter does an amazing knockout, it wont be as impressive since you had no stakes in the fight anyway.

Sonnen made you choose to hate him or love him. He showed us the power of not just hype and promotion, but of basic story telling. At its very core, when I say "made you care" I really mean "made you have an opinion." That's what it's all about. Half the people that watched that fight wanted to see him get beaten and they did. The other half wanted to see him win and they didn't. But for those 7 minutes of fighting, no movie on earth has ever made me that emotional or nervous. Everyone wanted to know the outcome. And whether or not you got your desired outcome is next to irrelevant. The joy in this has been the months of hype and build. The debate's and the articles. The name calling and the shoving between these two. The stare-downs. Then the fight. That's what we want to be apart of.

I know it will be hard for people who don't watch UFC to understand the specifics of what went down, but I believe the overall point is glaring. Story telling after all its bells and whistles, no matter what medium your in, all comes down to emotion. Whether it's watching two people falling in love, a Superhero saving the world, or two guys in a cage fighting, the very first thing you have to get right, is making me care one way or the other.

Quick Take: Movies Are Meant for the Theatres, Nowhere Else

Movies are meant to be watched on the big screen and beg to be watched in groups, so when we have a generation of movie-watchers delving into cinema through the 4 inch screens of handheld devices, I weep inside. People like watching movies of all kinds, and instead of trying to bring people to the theatre by developing worthless gimmicks like 3D, they should be creating an atmosphere that allows for the love of CINEMA, not just what’s new.

I just went to theatres to see the most classic of all theatre-films, Jaws. I was one of two people who dared to go alone, but surprisingly, even on a Monday evening there were roughly 30 people who came out for the thirty-seven year old movie. It was an amazing experience and I thank theatres like TIFF Lightbox for doing what most theatres don’t. Which brings me to my question, why don’t more theatres show older films?

I would gladly pay 10+ dollars to watch Terminator 2: Judgement Day on the big screen, or Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, etc., but I hesitate every time I have to pay 15 dollars to watch a movie in 3D. We don’t need new technology to draw us into the theatres, because 3D doesn’t make a movie any better, it just changes the texture of what we’re seeing.

What we need is the theatre to be the central hub of film-lovers. Bring us back to the theatre with great movies, movies we’d actually pay again and again to see the way it was meant to – that’s how you’ll win our hearts. I can't wait to go back and watch more, and if you're in Toronto, I implore you to go to the TIFF Lightbox and check out the older screenings. If you're not, find a theatre near you that does and bask in what so few of us are able to nowadays. 

“Show me the way to go home.”

Why Some Adaptations Just Don't Work

Some of the best movies in history have been adapted from other sources. The Godfather was originally a novel by Mario Puzo, The Shawshank Redemption a novella by Stephen King, The Batman series a comic by Bob Kane, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest a novel by Ken Kesey – you get my point. Interestingly, these novels are not necessarily considered the best of their medium, yet their film counterpoints often are. How does this happen? Some stories work really well in film, yes, but it’s also due to the writers knowing how what may work for one medium, works much differently in film.

I really enjoy adaptations when they’re done right, and I wanted to know what some people thought were bad adaptations compared to the ones I just mentioned. So I looked up a number of “Worst Film Adaptations” lists and was surprised to find, despite all the regular inclusions, that Dragonball: Evolution was not even on one of them. I’m sure there is a list out there that has DB:E located at number one (I know mine would place it there) but I suppose the fact that people aren’t really discussing this movie as one of the worst adaptations ever made isn’t that big of a deal. And for the purposes of this post, I have no intention of completely bashing the movie for what it is, because I believe that the movie is actually so bad, it is such a piss-poor adaptation of one of the greatest modern mythological stories, that it can actually teach us why some adaptations just don’t work. Yes, I want to learn from DB:E, not just laugh at it.

First things first, I don’t believe that it’s impossible to adapt Dragonball’s convoluted and overreaching story. There is a way to do it. But DB:E isn’t the shining example.  

The first sin of the piss-poor adaptation, not just DB:E, is focus. When a fan thinks of what he/she likes about a show or movie or book, the first thing that comes to mind is what makes it cool. Dragonball allows for fans to fall in love with and personally imagine the possibility of flying, fighting, teleporting, creating energy blasts, having super-strength, telekinesis, etc.

The problem becomes the desire to focus too much on the spectacle and not enough on characters. At most, a writer can balance the two equally, but if the spectacle becomes more important than the characters, the film is lost. Very, very rarely does a film work where this is the case, and even when it does work it doesn’t make for a great film, just an enjoyable one.

An excellent example of creating an effective balance between spectacle and character is the movie 13 Assassins. No, it’s not an adaptation, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it. Anyone who knows anything about this movie knows they are going to watch it so they can see samurais do what they do best: kill. But for the first hour of the movie, the audience might be left unsatisfied with this desire. There are hardly any moments of samurais swinging their swords around and all we get is an old samurai recruiting many others. There are a few scenes which tease us, giving us a splatter or two of blood, but the majority of the first half develops the assassin’s motives, and the truly malicious nature of the younger brother of the Shogun.

The writers of movies like DB:E think completely opposite to those of 13 Assassins. “They’re coming for the action,” they say, “so let’s just give it to them right at the beginning, not waste any time with characters”.

The problem with writing an adaptation is the mistaken belief that your audience already knows the characters you’re trying to present, and therefore won’t have the time or the attention or the need to relearn the facts they gained from the source material. This then leads to the thought that you don’t need to develop the desires of your characters as much as in other movies because it’s already been done, and the audience would much rather see the action of the source material rendered as semi-realistic CGI.

If anyone reading this is thinking of adapting anything, ever, never skip out of character development. I don’t care if every person in the world already knows the stories of the characters, retell it for film. If the audience doesn’t care about the people in a fight, the fight is shitty, no matter how well choreographed (refer to The Protector). We need ample time to know and experience the people involved before getting to the visually appealing stuff. Think of it like sex. Well, like good sex.

Any great lover will tell you that foreplay is probably the most important part of the whole process, making the finale multiple times better than it would be without it. And character development, my dear friends, is that foreplay. DB:E is a terrible movie because Piccolo is never shown to be a deplorable villain like the one in 13 Assassins is. The Street Fighter and Dead or Alive writers think all we want is stupid people fighting each other. Joel Schumacher believes the appeal of Batman is over-the-top bad guys in colourful clothing, who often yell when speaking their lines. Of course, there are many other reasons why these adaptations are poor films in general, but I think you get my point.

 And if you don’t get it, this is my point: you can’t tell the same story in the exact same way for two different media.

The adapted material MUST exist as a different entity. The storytelling rules of film are not congruent with the rules of television or novels or video games. The same story that is told by a critically acclaimed video game (such as Max Payne) does not translate to film as easily as taking what worked in the game and making actors act it out in real-time. Even within those categories, there are subdivisions that have their own set of rules as well. Television can be divided into sitcoms, one-hour dramas, cartoons, anime, etc. – and each of these formats tells their story in very specific and unique ways. Dragonball Z, for example, is not a cartoon, and does not follow the same storytelling principles of a show like Powerpuff Girls, despite both being stories about superhero-esque adventures. They are vastly differently is their approach. DBZ is an anime and must be adapted from that perspective. (I have heard that there’s a Death Note movie in the works. I am, of course, highly skeptical of the acclaimed anime being converted to film because so much is necessary in the story that I wouldn’t know where to begin to cut scenes, I wouldn’t know how to make what seems natural in the anime (the shinigami, for one) and convert it to seem natural in a live-action film. They’ve already tried to do it in Japan and the movie was terrible. Plus, the show is already so tight at 37 episodes, cutting it down to 2 hours seems like a grave error. But hey, stranger things have happened.)

 

 

So without this mentality, what we often receive are adaptations that don’t live up to the source material, causing a whole audience who loved the original to bash the adaptation because it didn’t feel the same. But there are two errors here. First, the director/writer must think about adapting material in a way that works for film. As I’ve said, DB:E takes on too many properties of an anime, which don’t work in a 90 min movie. The original must be changed so that it can function as a good piece of art.

If this first error is corrected, the second error is on our part, the audience. We have to stop griping and moaning when a film is not exactly like the source material. We need to accept that the story will change from one medium to the next and that it is a necessary change. Nothing irked me more than Harry Potter fans bashing the movies because they left out some good scenes from the 700 page novels. It’s going to happen.

Or even worse are the complaints that the actors in adaptations don't really match what readers imagined the characters would be like. Again, continuing with Harry Potter, some people were angry that Daniel Radcliffe was chosen as Harry (bad acting, maybe?), or Emma Watson as Hermione (don't understand this one). It is the closest thing to impossible to have real life actors match what you've come up with in your head by reading the source material. And furthermore, resemblance shouldn't be the criteria for determining whether an adaptation is well done or not.

Yes, these are not perfect movies, but neither are where they come from. Harry Potter has its problems. So does Dragonball Z, The Road, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Lord of the Rings, and yes, even The Godfather.

There is a responsibility of the viewer to know that not every aspect fiction will translate properly onto film. Directors need to shift focus, choose actors based on different criteria, even reshape the original story to create something that is worth being put on film. They also need to do it properly, and with DB:E as an example, we know how easily it can fail. But if you want the feeling of the source material, return to the source material. The film is going to, and should, give you something different. If it doesn’t, what the hell is the point?

Character Actors and The Superstars

As I sat there, watching Will Smith’s big return to not only the Men In Black franchise but to acting itself, I realized how bloody entertaining he is. He hasn’t acted in three and a half years and during his performance he never missed a beat. I’m not talking about the movie itself, which of course has it’s flaws, I’m just putting the spotlight on Big Willie himself. He’s so charismatic you love watching him do whatever it is that he does. But what is it that he does?

You see, Will Smith doesn’t really act. Well, he does in the sense that he is an actor and he is given lines to say. He performs, sure, but as what? Will Smith, at least to my knowledge and taste, has never really been known to transform himself. To lose himself in a role and become something nobody even imagined he could do, or, become something where you forget you are watching Will Smith - THAT he’s never done. However, audiences love him, think he’s a great actor and adore his on screen presence. Will Smith is just cool. And we enjoy watching him just being cool as himself. Will Smith isn’t so much an actor, as he is a “Superstar.”

I’m not picking on Smith, so much as just using him as an example of how people will go out in droves to see actors like Smith just be themselves. Smith has a range, and it is a small one. Even branching out to do something like Ali was still just Smith doing his version of Muhammad Ali. While I really enjoy that movie and think his performance is amazing, I never stop being aware that Smith is playing Ali. 

This is the exact opposite of what a character-actor does: someone who completely transforms themselves into a character. You don’t know it’s them or you're at least not constantly reminded of who is playing that character. 

Take for instance, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He has built his career on taking roles that are so vastly different from each other. You can actually get confused on where he gets his talent from. His range is vast, jumping from a quiet and timid personal nurse in Magnolia, to Truman Capote in Capote to a cold and unsettling Priest in Doubt. He’s all over the map, and while before and after the films you know it’s him, you are never reminded during the performance.

So why compare these two styles of acting that dominate Hollywood, when one clearly has the so called “talent” factor? Because they need each other. 

Superstars make the big money. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. From Smith, to Brad Pitt, to DiCaprio, to Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson, they demand and command the big bucks. And rightfully so. You can’t put Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Paul Giamatti at the top of a movie poster and expect at least 100 million at the box office. Sure, good acting is to follow, no doubt, but not big bucks. You place Tom Cruise above a title on a poster, and you got yourself a summer blockbuster or the big event movie of the Christmas season. It doesn’t even matter if the movie has good or bad word of mouth, people will come out in droves just to see someone like Cruise or Jolie. 

And why do we do this, when Cruise and Jolie are far from the best actors on the planet? Because we feel connected to superstars. We know so much about them (since they’re celebrities) that while their careers are not our own, we feel attached to them. We want to see them succeed or fail. Superstars are burdened with having to live their lives almost as its own movie, and thus we get to watch that and we get to see individual pieces of work they do throughout it. 

On the other side of the coin we are left with the character-actors. While the Superstars take the brunt of the attention, character-actors are now left to do what they do best: work. They’re not the exciting people that go to clubs or big Hollywood parties every other night and make a scene. They aren’t the ones that the paparazzi are going nuts for to get a picture. This allows free reign to pick a number of projects, without too much consequence. 

However it allows for something else, something far more important. With them not being on every tabloid cover, character-actors like Hoffman, Giamatti, Gary Oldman or even Meryl Streep can more convincingly transform themselves into a role where you aren’t reminded every other second that they are an actor. They just are the role. This is in large part due to you and I not knowing what they did last night, what they did two weeks ago, or if their marriage is on the rocks. They are just known to us as actors. Not stars. 

The only example that breaks the mold and combines the character-actor with the superstar is Johnny Depp. While he is one of the most famous people on the planet, Depp still finds a way to transform himself into a character that is completely different from the last one he just played. Edward Scissorhands to Jack Sparrow to Sweeny Todd to The Mad Hatter are just a small group of characters from his collection that showcases how far he goes to be different. 

While I'm sure arguments abound occur about whether you can even consider Depp a character actor since his fame renders him unable to hide in plain sight on the screen, as character actors do, there was a time in which Depp was not the mega-superstar he is today. Before Pirates of the Carribean, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t consider him a normal character actor. An actor that jumps from oddball role and genre every project. Sure, you knew “of him” but you wouldn’t consider him a blockbuster star. And that’s all it takes. One amazing role (Captain Jack) to propel from obscurity. 

So what about decade long character actors that have a number of roles, but never have made the jump like Depp has? Well that’s tricky. Character actors by their very definition are “every man” (or woman) types. William H. Macy and Paul Giamatti are perfect examples to this. They play roles that most middle aged men can relate to and women may be with or married to. There aren’t many summer tent pole movies, especially now with comic book movies ruling the box office, that demand every man type actors. 

Which leads us to why superstars, who obviously lack the chameleon ability, rule the big films. Because superstars are escapes. They are bigger than life. We each know someone “like” Will Smith, or has qualities like him, but we don’t know him. Superstars are our projections of what we want to be like. I would like to be as confident as Brad Pitt, as witty as Ryan Reynolds and have the charm of Tom Cruise, but I don’t. And from a male perspective, superstar actresses like Johansson or Kristen Stewart or Keira Knightly are the dream girls. The objects we want. But they aren’t real. They are the dreams. 

The character actors play us. They play and are in movie that are closer to problems we actually deal with. As much as I’d like the idea of having to decide between which Spider-Man costume I want to wear before I fight bad guys, my issues in life are like yours. Paying bills. Getting to work on time. Do I have enough clean socks? Take your pick. 

But in the end, these two groups need each other in order to survive. While the Superstars are still the ones we most want to see by and large, character-actors need the superstars to get movies made. So many stories are told of movies that only got the green-light when someone like Brad Pitt came aboard. Lesser known actors can’t throw that kind of star power around, but they can throw it down in a scene, making movies much more dynamic then just a crazy superstar bonaza with no substance. Just ask the dudes in The Expendables.

The Alternate Five: Great Movies You'll Probably Only Watch Once

If you feel too good about your life, if things are going well and you'd like to feel bad, watch these movies. We can almost guarantee you'll only want to watch them once. Unless you enjoy being depressed, then by all means watch away.

In no particular order, we have compiled a list of movies that, while not judging the quality, seem almost created for the sole purpose to effect us on such a deep level, we never want to experience them again. They're all artistic feats that should be commended and definitely viewed if you love movies. However these films, at least for us, have left us devestated once the end credits roll.

The key reason why these films are so tough to repeat is that they provide an experience for the audience that is exhausting. By the end of the story you are physically and mentally drained.

Most Depressing Moment = MDM
Reason to Watch Again = RWA

 

Requiem For A Dream (2000)

This is probably the movie on the list that most of you have seen at least once. Famous for its depicition of how heavy drug use can help you lose weight in all sorts of creative ways, Requiem for a Dream is Daren Aronofsky's devastating tour de force. The focus is on four characters: Harry Goldfarb, his mother Sarah, his girlfriend Marion, and his best mate Tyrone. Harry and Tyrone have the classically brilliant idea of selling heroin to make mucho money and live the easy life. However, things go awry, let's say, and hilarity ensues. While this is going on, Sarah Goldfarb is feeling a little self-conscious about her weight, wishing she could fit into an old dress, and she takes a few prescription pills to help her simultaneously lose weight and clean at an alarming rate. Marion is an addict who is more or less along for the ride. While the laughs come easy with Requiem, there are a few scenes that are difficult to get through, especially the ending (no spoilers, don't worry). But if you haven't guessed by now, this isn't actually a very fun movie and is possibly one of the toughest on the list. We absolutely recommend it though - especially to heroin addicts.

MDM: While the ending montage is like being in a boxing match without arms, it's a toss up for us between Ellen Bernstien's psychotic trip on the subway and her monologue to Jared Leto about becoming insignificant. Both are wildly mezmerizing but just about the most pathetic, hard-to-watch scenes on the entire list.

RWA: It's Aronofsky's relentless directing style that might bring you back.

 

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

This is a perfect example of the difference between never watching a movie again because it's bad, and never watching a movie again because it's downright depressing. Yes, despite his recent run of sub-par choices, Nicolas Cage did make fantastic movies back in his heyday - Leaving Las Vegas being one of his better performances. In it, Cage plays an out-of-work writer with the determination to drink himself to death. No food, no water - just alcohol. The effect the process has on his body is hard enough to watch, but the way it affects his relationship with Elizabeth Shue's character is even more difficult. Both are desperately pathetic people and sadly never reach that moment of redemption, making the audience feel like although they went through shit, the character's reach a point of innocent happiness.

MDM: "I'll stay with you, but you can never ask me to stop drinking."
RWA: Cage's Academy Award winning performance.

 

Antichrist (2009)

This is a movie that isn't so much depressing as it is gruesome. Take away the subject matter and one might call the film beautiful, but alas, this movie is far from a love story. Lars Von Tier is known to shock. To go places most normal-minded people won't even go in the darkest parts of their minds. He puts those images on film and then tops them. Antichrist is just one of those movie watching experiences that you have to watch once, not just to say you did, but to immerse yourself in the most disgusting parts of human emotion. The film centers on two characters (the only ones in the film) 'He' (Willem DeFoe) and 'She' (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as they travel/stay at their cabin in the woods after the accidental death of their infant son. What follows is an abyss of despair, horror and mutilation as He tries to bring his wife back from the depths of despression. While von Tier says he failed at making a horror film, anyone who has ever seen Antichrist know he succeded. 

Most Gruesome Moment: The many instances of mutilation, espeically the self-mutilation by 'She' done at the end.

RWA: The cinemetography. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful films we've watched, most notably the first scene rendered in black and white. However, with that said, the irony in this choice is that the most disturbing content we've seen is filtered through the most elegant images.  

 

Buried (2010)

 Ryan Reynolds, we love you, but god damn, Buried is a hard movie to watch. The plot is simple: Paul Conroy is buried alive. That's about it. There are some political overtones and a bit of a hostage taking, but other than that it's just Reynolds for 95 minutes. The camera never leaves the makeshift coffin that surrounds Reynolds for the duration of the film, so we really only get to hear someone else's voice and see someone else's face very briefly. The difficulty with watching Buried is just how many times things don't work out for Conroy. And we've tried to think of a moment in the film where you actually become happy for Conroy, but haven't found much. We wish we could say more about this movie, but we've decided to not give any spoilers in this post, just in case. All we will say is this: yes, the plot does seem simple and it may be entirely clausterphobic to watch someone trapped in a box for 90 minutes, but there is a reason to watch this movie that takes so many risks in its production. And yes, while being buried alive is probably one of the biggest fears for most people reading this, it shouldn't deter you from watching this at least once. 





MDM: Scene where he finds out he is no longer employed, so his family is no longer covered by his possible death. It is this that leaves the whole film without much, if any, redemption.

RWA: While Reynolds' performance is outstanding, the intimacy of the film, taking place all in one very small area, is unlike any other movie we've seen.

United 93 (2006)

It's difficult watching a movie when you know the ending and still feel like you've recived the entire experience. United 93 has that burden, yet instead that is what makes this film so excrutiating to watch. We all know the story (the fourth and only flight of the 9/11 attacks that didn't reach its target) and we all know how this ends, and how tragic it is. Yet that's exactly why watching this film is not only depressing and exhausting, it's just 110 minutes of dread. You know what's coming, and the more you get to know these people the harder it is to continue watching, knowing these are the last moments of their lives. No movie on this list, of that year or even since then, has done such an insane job at putting you right there. The director Paul Greengrass gives you no room to breathe. For most of the experience it feels like you are right there, on the flight, with these heroes. You know the plane is going down, and there is nothing you can do about it.

MDM: The last ten minutes might be one of the most intense expereinces ever in cinema, but the phone calls placed to loved ones when the passengers are about to try to take back the plane are beyond heartbreaking to watch.  

RWA: The great use of the docu-drama style. (But even that might not be enough).

Honorable Mentions

Hard Candy (2005)

Naked (1993)

Blue Valentine (2010)



The Quick Take: Star Wars Radio Play - Just Watch It

If you haven’t watched it yet, then for the next hour and a half you’ve got something to do, kid.

At the Emerald City Comic-con on March 31^st 2012, there was a gathering of some of the greatest voice actors of our generation. Introduced one by one, they proceeded to sit in a row in front of an ecstatic crowd, each with a shortened script of the first Star Wars trilogy laid out in front of them, and they read it. Not as themselves of course, but as Zoidberg, Christopher Walken, Yakko, Raven, Batman, Bender, Brain and a whole host of other characters that these gods-among-men are able to produce in a moment’s notice.

Who are these gods, you say? They are known as Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche, Tara Strong, Jess Harnell, Billy West, John DiMaggio, and Kevin Conroy. My friends, these are the ingredients to one of the funniest performances I have seen in a long, long time.

The best parts aren’t even when the voices the actors perform don’t match the script characters (such as when Bubbles voices Darth Vader right out of the gate). It’s when the actors are riffing, making each other laugh, bringing back favorite phrases from childhood memories – NARF! – or just screwing up the lines. When they go beyond the script, they show the reason they’re the best in the business. It’s 80 minutes of pure, laid back hilarity.

What’s so fascinating about voice actors is their ability to transform into beloved characters instantaneously. Rob Paulsen positions his jaw differently and he becomes Pinky. Jon DiMaggio throws his head back and he is Tracy Morgan. Maurice LaMarche jerks around and physically overacts to he becomes Calculon.

There are very few live actors, and they are most often impersonators, who can change into character and have the audience really believe the transformation. Even if they can achieve it, there is something lost in the performance. They are older, or too fat, or too thin, or what have you. When Billy West voices Stimpy, his pitch and clarity is absolutely perfect. You wouldn’t know that even a day has gone by since the show ended.

But if it isn’t for the laughs, watch this reading simply for a brilliant, albeit rare demonstration of what cartoon lovers always want: actually seeing voice actors perform. Too often is the face behind the voice left in the dark. We only get short featurettes on DVDs showing actors in a sound booth, or a grainy video online of an actor doing a line or two. This video is clear, and best of all, its long.

Granted, perhaps there is a reason we shouldn’t see the actors themselves that much. If we did it would start to ruin the illusion of the cartoon. But don’t listen to that now. Watch this video and just enjoy it.

Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBzRmWeC6Ds

Immediate Sequels and the Organic Follow-Up

If you go back far enough through three (now) mega-stars of comedy, you’ll find the movie “Anchorman” on all of their resumes. It was the giant breakthrough for Will Farrell, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell. Before that, you would have only known them in indie films, off-Broadway theatre or Saturday Night Live. Then Anchorman came along, with its Apatow sense of humor, ridiculous performances, and all the while never winking at the camera. Afterwards, Farrell, Rudd and Carell all became super-stars.

Anchorman launched the Apatow-comedy film movement. So, why is it, that after almost a decade, the sequel is finally announced? You would think, with all the immediate sequels that pop-up after even semi-successful movies open in theatres, Anchorman 2 would have come out at the very latest in 2008. Yet, all we heard through the studio grapevine was “delay this” or “not enough of an audience” that.

Then about a month ago, on Conan, Ron Burgundy (Will Farrell in character) came on in a surprise appearance to announce that the studio and the creative team had finally come to terms on a sequel for Anchorman. Just this past weekend, the first teaser came out and spread like wild-fire across the internet. Everyone I know is pumped for this movie. Over the moon excited for it. And they haven’t even started shooting yet.

All this got me thinking. In an age where we constantly hear about scripts being developed for sequels of movies that haven’t even come out yet, I find myself puzzled at what took them so long at Paramount to green-light one of the biggest comedies of my generation? However, at the same time, I'm also glad they didn’t. Why? This is the perfect time for an Anchorman sequel. So, my question is, when is it exactly right for a sequel to come out?

As I said before, it seems the recent thought process for studios is to get the sequel in development before the first movie has even come out (and we thought studios were being more careful). The new Spider-Man reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, already has a script in the works for a sequel. This is baffling to almost everyone on the planet since the buzz around this movie is not good. I don’t know many people that are looking forward to this movie. Another studio took this route with a would-be franchise: Green Lantern. We all saw how that turned out. This is a pretty glaring sign that the studios are just waiting for that opening weekend box-office number.

On the other hand, let’s say it’s smart to just go straight into another one, right away, even before you get the long lasting effects of the movie. Look at Transformers. That movie really took people by surprise at how solid it was, especially coming from Michael Bay. Yes, of course it had its detractors, but nothing on the lines of what was to come. That film series started with huge success based on a cool idea, amazing CGI and, funny enough, a well told story. It’s pure popcorn fun – maybe a bit too silly at times, but a solid summer movie. So of course people wanted a sequel. It was a no brainer. In hindsight, you can really see where it went wrong for the series. Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen was victim to the writer’s strike of 2008. It’s pretty much a half-baked movie and a total mess. It was rushed. Even without the writer’s strike, the gap between the first two films was only two years. That’s a blink of an eye for a movie of this size. I’m surprised they even got it done (and some of you will argue that it isn’t a finished movie).

Michael Bay went even further and made the third entry with only a two year break between Revenge. That’s 2007, 2009, 2011 as release dates. All in the summer. That’s tough. Say he started development in 2005, that’s six years of just robots. He clearly needed more time. So did we. We were over-exposed to these films. They were just too much too fast. If they had been spread out by three years instead of two, we would instead have been waiting for Transformers 3 to come out next summer. Ample time to breathe and enjoy the movies.

If Bay had another year, maybe he would have axed these bad ideas.

Which brings me to my next observation: the filmmaker. I feel they need to break off from the franchise and should make a different type of movie in between their sequels/entries. A director, as well as the audience, needs to grow and evolve between the entries.

While it’s hard to compare Christopher Nolan and Michael Bay (maybe even sacrilegious), it’s interesting to see how Nolan as a story teller has evolved by doing The Prestige and Inception while also going back to his Batman franchise. There is clearly a more mature and developed director behind the camera each time he goes to a new film. That’s because he keeps things fresh. I wonder how different things would have turned out had Michael made his pet project Pain and Gain or another original project in between his robot films.

All the while, maybe the director or a creative team shouldn’t be the main force behind when a sequel gets made. Maybe it should be the audience. But we are just as unpredictable as the studios claim us to be. Using myself as an example, I love it when a film series takes a while in between its entries. The idea of waiting four years for The Dark Knight Rises and the new Star Trek film just feels right to me. Many disagree, especially with the former example, as they have seemed to move on to more current franchises (The Marvel movies). To their benefit, I am reminded by times when sequels waited too long to follow up its predecessor, and not only was it not worth the wait, you actually question why you liked the franchise in the first place. Look no further than Indiana Jones 4.

Perhaps the only way to be certain that a sequel will both be anticipated and accepted with excitement is by going the “Lord Of The Rings” route. If you tell the audience it’s going to be three movies, one each year for three years, we will buy into that and go on the adventure with you. We sign the contract and know what we are in for. It’s the same situation with Harry Potter. If you’re going to watch the movies, you first must accept that the story will be eight movies long, spread out over a decade.

Alas, not everything can be set out like the Lord Of The Rings or Twilight. Perhaps all you need to do is tell a good introductory story and let people know that there’s more to come. In this way, we will organically want more. However, it will always remain a somewhat mystery to when we should be given more. There’s just too many variables to really nail it down. Just ask Francis Ford Coppola. He directed two of the greatest films ever, Godfather 1 and 2, in 1972 and 1974 respectively. An amazing one-two punch of storytelling power. It had lots going for it. It’s based off a book series. They’re only two years apart, and Francis still made a movie in between, The Conversation. It won Oscars. People loved it. Then 18 years later he comes out with The Godfather Part III, which was set many years later. Not only does the film not live up to the hype, it’s a disappointment.

Looking back, is the movie that bad? Not really. But it’s nothing like the first two. Even though you can see, Coppola has something to say, it just didn’t connect with people anymore.

After all that, I really don’t have an answer to when a sequel should be made. Obviously some are too soon, and some are too late. You always hear people saying “strike while the iron is hot”. Then you look at something like Anchorman 2 and while it might not have been planned, it really served the studio and everyone involved to wait till the iron cooled, almost to point of it never happening again, before giving the Channel 5 news team another go around. While it’s clearly a result of a studio not trusting the size of its audience, they did fall into a money pit by accident.

Here you have three of the biggest comedy stars on the planet, all enthusiastic about coming back to the characters that gave them super-stardom, all willing to take pay cuts. Which is incredible since they all headline their own movies now. An audience would never want to see a sequel without the full cast or god forbid, with replacements. The director of the original, Adam Mckay, has gone off and done other comedies with Farrell and is returning. And the audience for this only continues to expand.

Now with it officially being announced and the teaser getting everyone excited to a fever pitch, you realize that this is the equivalent of a “getting the band back together” type of a reunion. It’s almost a super-comedy movie in line with The Avengers. Alright, maybe not that big, but the idea of seeing Will Farrell, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell on screen at the same time in 2004 was nothing special. Now, in 2013, it feels like the can’t miss reunion tour of the summer. Something that can only happen when given the right amount of time to grow.

They reunite, summer 2013.

The Quick Take: "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" Retreats

For a sequel to a film that really didn’t do all that well with critics and did just okay at the box office, G.I. Joe: Retaliation has a lot of buzz going for it. A slick marketing campaign, heightened sense of visuals and an almost completely new cast, things were really looking up. And they still might be, just not till March 29, 2013.

Announced today, G.I. Joe: Retaliation has been moved back nine months from its June 29 release date for a... wait for it... 3D conversion! This came by surprise, since the movie was a month away from release, had a ton of buzz and seemed not into the 3D idea.

One can only speculate why the studio (Paramount) has decided to do this, but there are a few things we can rule out. It can’t be from the quality of the finished product, since you would be able to tell the quality of your film much earlier than a month before the world sees it. A slight factor may be it’s competition (The Amazing Spider-Man opens the week after) but the studio had this release date for some time.

Actually, it may have come down to a film that just opened last weekend to poor box office results. Battleship, a non-3D movie, made slim pickings domestically and while it has been doing well overseas, Universal is looking at a $150 million loss. Now, if it was in 3D we might be looking at a much smaller number.

If you’re a Paramount executive and you see the possibility of only one big weekend for your movie before you get lost in shuffle of a stacked July, yeah, you would want that extra two dollars a ticket during a slower month.

Watch the trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ip8CgUplzk

The Quick Take: "The Master" is Revealed

Joaquin Phoenix in The Master

My brother walked into my room, telling me he needed to commandeer my computer and two minutes of my time. Being the endlessly generous man that I am, I conceded. He turned the computer away from my view and said, “don’t look yet, you need the full experience”.

So I sat down, only sure that I was about to watch a trailer of some kind, but unknowing of what movie. My brother begins the video, which he has expanded to full screen, and for the next one minute and forty seconds, I was blissfully introduced to the illustrious world of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.

The Master is the latest film from PTA since his 2007 release There Will Be Blood. With the footage present in the teaser released yesterday morning, it seems PTA might have squeezed out as good of a performance from Joaquin Phoenix as he did from Daniel Day Lewis. Phoenix is captivating, like he often is, bordering on hypnotic.

Watching the teaser, the twisted face of Phoenix peers past the camera, his gravelly voice overlays images of a beach and what appears like the inside of a navy tanker, and a Waitsian, somewhat out of tune beat drives the intensity of the scene like the rhythm of a fluttering heart. But it is with this simple construction that we see PTA has created one of the most enticing teasers in a long time. This is how you make a great trailer.

But one thing we believe here at The Alternate Take is that you should watch trailers until you’re sold on the movie. If the first one does it for me, I won’t be watching any more. So for me, I won’t be seeing any other footage of The Master until I’m sitting in the theatres. I suggest that no matter what the movie, don’t ruin the final experience for yourself by being over exposed to images or jokes you’re eventually going to see anyway. Be patient. This one will certainly be worth the wait.

Go experience The Master for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WTM8eO1Oec

The Quick Take: The Community Shake-Up

Dan Harmon

Dan Harmon, the creator, show-runner and creative force behind the NBC show Community, has been unceremoniously fired from his position. This came as a sort-of-shock to most people, as his feud with Chevy Chase (one of the stars of the show) and his intense way of running a show didn’t score him a whole lot of points with NBC. News of this broke even before Harmon himself knew. His status with the show now, as either a creative consultant or other wise, is TBD. Oh, and Community just recently got picked up for a fourth season. So firing the show-runner makes sense, right?

While you can get into the specifics of who is right and who is wrong in this situation, the main issue with this is: Networks believe that if you have a problem with viewership, talent, or any other type of issue, replace the man in charge. Even if the show is a critical hit. Community has the problem of being a very-specific type of show. It has its own sense of humor. Networks hate this because it doesn’t appeal to everyone, so it doesn’t do as well in the ratings. Networks need to understand that if one person is the driving force of a show, it is going to be a specific-type of show. Taking something that is unique and trying to make it broad just makes it like everything else on TV that is decided by committee: Boring. Just ask the people over at another NBC show, The Office. In an age where sticking to source material seems to be a perfect way of catering to your audience, firing the individual with the vision and doing something new seems like the worst possible idea.