I’m always rooting for good dystopian science fiction so it’s hard for me to report that Transcendence does such a bad job, not so much at building a world or introducing key concepts, rather, it fails at telling a story. Characters swing factional and ideological allegiances rapidly with seemingly no regard to the events going on, there seems to be no memory for specific events after the story gets going, most importantly the movie has no sense of morality at all making a rooting interest nearly impossible.
Growing up in New York meant the secondary channels – WNEW, WOR, WPIX – often ran the same features often enough you came to expect them and knew the films from their frequent advertisements. It’s where I first met Walter Mitty, as portrayed by Danny Kaye in the 1947 adaptation of the James Thurber short story which first appeared in the New Yorker on March 18, 1939. The influential tale is among the most anthologized short stories of the last century and is said to have inspired a young artist named Harvey Kurtzman. As a youngster, I loved the idea of an adult who had these amazing fantasies, meaning when I grew up I could continue to enjoy the fantasies I was imagining rather than doing schoolwork. The movie was fairly faithful to the story while allowing Kaye’s everyman to also sing and pater his way through some sequences, making the character permanently linked to the performer.
Satire and humor authors are often overlooked when examining the great writers of an era and Thurber, beloved as he was, lacked the prestige of Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald and other contemporaries. As a result, his works have been largely forgotten and are rarely taught outside of universities. It’s therefore interesting to note that it took nearly 20 years for a remake of this film and story to reach theaters. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the current edition, had a lengthy gestation period over rights agreements and a variety of high profile directors (Steven Spielberg, Gore Verbinski) coming and going. Originally conceived as a vehicle for Jim Carrey, it could have been an interesting updating. When Spielberg got to it, he instructed his writers to go back to the source material, a piece of advice I wish had been maintained by screenwriter Steve Conrad.
The remake, which opened to middling notices and so-so box office at Christmastime, is now out on Blu-ray and it’s got such incredible potential that it is ultimately a disappointment. Mitty is now an employee at Life, the venerable picture magazine that was about to go from print to digital and the vital negative needed for the ultimate cover image has gone missing. As a result, Mitty is propelled to search it out, using other negatives from photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) as a guide. Along the way, this average guy facing redundancy has a series of spectacular adventures that fuel his overactive imagination.
Thurber’s Mitty imagined the love of his life, who in the Kaye version (played by Virgina Mayo), intruded on his fantasies and took him on his first “real” adventure, winding up with her. Here, it is Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig), a fellow staffer facing unemployment who has been the object of his desire. From the get-go you know they will wind up together undercutting some of the emotional journey.
Where Kaye’s Mitty wanted to be a fighter pilot, lawyer, and surgeon, here Ben Stiller’s Mitty is now an explorer, heading for Greenland and tasting rea life rather than looking at the images in Life (get it?). He’s a likeable enough character and you do find yourself rooting for him, but this does not feel like Thurber and the social satire is entirely absent, robbing the film of its chance to be special instead of merely commercial.
The video transfer to Blu-ray is just fine as is the sound. There are a handful of superfluous Deleted, Alternate and Extended Scenes (15:45); The History of Walter Mitty (3:39), which briefly gives Thurber his due; The Look of Life (5:01); That’s a Shark! (5:57), which has Iceland standing in for Greenland; The Music of Walter Mitty (4:01); Icelandic Adventure (3:26); Nordic Casting (3:51); Titles of Walter Mitty (2:49), a look at title designer Kyle Cooper’s playful opening; Sights and Sounds of Production (5:11); Pre-Viz (4:15); “Stay Alive” by Jose Gonzales (4:22); and, Theatrical Trailer (1:55).
There’s a scene early on in The King of Comedy where late night talk show host Jerry Langford (played by Jerry Lewis) leaves his New York City apartment and walks through crowded midtown on his way to the studio. Fans greet him and kibbitz with him and Jerry, always on the move, waves, smiles, and tosses one-liners back at them. He gets waylaid at a corner by a woman on a payphone who gushes effusively—“You’re just wonderful. I’ve watched you your entire career. You’re a joy to the world!”—while he scribbles an autograph for her nephew, with whom she’s talking on the phone. Then, shoving the telephone at Jerry, she asks, “Would you just please say something to my nephew Morris on the phone? He’s in the hospital.” Jerry politely demurs, explaining that he’s late, and, in the blink of an eye, she turns from adoring fan to spurned maniac, screaming after him, “You should only get cancer! I hope you get cancer!”
Later, wannabe stand-up comedian and obsessive fan Rupert Pupkin (Robert DeNiro) shows up as an uninvited weekend guest at Langford’s country house, unsuspecting girlfriend Rita (Diahnne Abbott) in tow, in an effort to get Jerry to take a look at his comedy routine in the belief it will lead to an offer to appear on Jerry’s show. An earlier, brief encounter that ended with Langford telling Pupkin to call his office in an effort to get rid of him had only fueled the wannabe’s delusions that he and Langford were friends. Langford angrily dissuades the clearly baffled Pupkin of that notion and, like the woman whose nephew Jerry wouldn’t talk to, Pupkin’s response to his inappropriate demand on Langford’s time is immediate and visceral. Neither fan can understand how Jerry Langford can treat them this way. “I’m gonna work fifty times harder and I’m gonna be fifty times more famous than you,” Rupert tells him. “Then you’re gonna have idiots like you plaguing your life!” Jerry snaps.
It’s an interesting coincidence that the Blu-Ray edition of The King of Comedy, Martin Scorcese’s 1982 comedy about fame and obsession landed in my mailbox the same day Archie Comics released the news that their flagship character, was going to die in an upcoming comic book story which I wrote. The news thrust me into a Warholian fifteen-minutes of online fame. On Facebook, people who had earlier praised my work were now denouncing me for “daring” to kill off a beloved American icon, or vilifying me for my creative bankruptcy in participating in yet another comic book death “stunt,” feeling betrayed by my treatment of the character (that the Archie who’s dying is not the “real” Archie, but a future/what if?/alternate universe version of the character either escaped their notice or would have just interfered with their righteous indignation; the “real” teenage Archie remains alive and well in Riverdale.) On the flip side, strangers whose only connection to me was that most meaningless definition of “friend” ever coined, i.e. “Facebook friend,” were claiming reflected glory by posting that their “pal”/”buddy”/”friend” was behind this event, while others didn’t find it in any way inappropriate to email me asking to be let in on the secret of exactly how Archie was to die, or even requesting insider information on sensitive corporate internal affairs.
While my moment in the limelight pales in comparison with the plight of Jerry Langford, the experience did cause me to look at The King of Comedy from a very different perspective than I had in past viewings. I had always thought of the film as an indictment of obsessive fans, but it’s just as much a stark look at the price of fame. Rupert Pupkin is, in the very first scene, shown to be a member of the Day of the Locust-like swarm of obsessed, autograph seeking fans who haunt stage doors everywhere, but he holds himself above the hoi polloi. To Rupert, these aren’t just signatures dashed off by celebrities who probably didn’t even look at him while they were signing, but bonds of friendship between them.
Later, on a date with Rita, his high school crush, now a bartender in a seedy midtown tavern, he shows off his collection of signatures, casually tossing out facts and personal observations about the stars, trying to impress the clearly unimpressed and disbelieving woman. But Rupert can only see himself through the eyes of others and only in the way he needs to believe others see him. If he were deliberately inflating his talent and his connections to the stars, you would say he was shameless. But the sad, creepy truth is that Rupert, a thirty-something loser who works at a dead end messengers job and lives with his mother in whose basement he’s built a set where he hosts his own “talk show,” complete with life-size cardboard stand-ups of the stars, believes every word he says and is genuinely baffled when others fail to share his warped view of reality.
Jerry Langford’s reality is equally sad. He’s one of the most famous faces in the country, but his entire world is constrained by that fame. He can’t walk down the street without being badgered by everyone who believes that because he comes into their bedroom every night on their TVs he also belongs to them in person. Even a solitary dinner in his lonely apartment is violated by a fan who have somehow gotten hold of his telephone number and think it’s okay to call with their unreasonable demands on his time, attention, and, as we’ll see, love.
Aiding Rupert in their shared obsession with Jerry Langford is rich girl groupie Masha (Sandra Bernhard). But where Rupert wants Jerry’s fame, Masha wants Jerry himself, in body if not in soul. Where Rupert’s fanaticism seems constrained, at least at first, Masha’s is crazed and out of control; Rupert at least tries to see Jerry in his office even if his “appointment” is only in his head, while Masha stalks the star through the streets, forcing the frightened star to make a mad dash for safety. And, when Rupert finally accepts that Jerry will never voluntarily have him as a guest on his show, he enlists Masha as an accomplice in his scheme to kidnap the comedian and hold him for the ransom of a guest-shot on The Jerry Langford Show.
While it’s probably heresy to say, I prefer Martin Scorcese’s directorial efforts on films like The King of Comedy, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, After Hours, and Hugo over his gangster oeuvre. His humor is always dark regardless of genre, but it shines much brighter for me when I don’t have to wipe away the blood to get to it. And while his crooks and killers always brilliantly realized as the broken people they are, I have a hard time finding common ground with Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito or Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill no matter how real they are. But an ordinary guy like Griffin Dunne’s Paul Hackett in After Hours or the orphaned Asa Butterfield’s Hugo are relatable and, ultimately, have more to share with me as a viewer than even his greatest gangster.
While everyone expects high caliber performances from Robert DeNiro, it’s Jerry Lewis who steals the show here. As a life-long and unabashed Jerry Lewis fan (several of his movie posters and other paraphernalia decorate my living room) I am a bit biased in his favor, but, like many great comedians (Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Milton Berle, Robin Williams, to name a few) his dramatic chops are impressive, giving credence to the old line, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” Even while trussed up by kidnappers Pupkin and Masha like a mummy with tape up to his nostrils, Lewis is able to convey his entire performance with just his eyes. (The King of Comedy isn’t just a lucky one-off performance under the guidance a great directors either; Jerry Lewis delivers as well in dramatic roles in Raising Arizona and Funny Bones and turns in TV series such as Wiseguy and Law and Order: SVU.) And both actors are backed up a solid supporting cast, including Bernhard and Shelley Hack, and 1980s celebrity cameos ranging from announcer Ed Herlihy, band leader Lou Brown, Dr. Joyce Brothers, comedian Victor Borge, and Tony Randall, as well as Scorcese himself as Jerry Langford’s TV show director, and the then-Tonight Show producer Fred De Cordova as Bert Thomas, his producer.
The King of Comedy Blu-Ray is a nice package, featuring the fully restored and remastered film as well as the usual assortment of extras for those who like that sort of thing, including a Tribeca Film Festival conversation with Scorcese, DeNiro, and Lewis, a “Making of” documentary, some deleted and extended scenes, and the original theatrical trailer. For myself, I prefer a film to speak for itself without filmmakers and actors explaining to me how and why this or that was done or without wading through excised scenes or trimmed footage; if they were so important, they wouldn’t have been excised or trimmed in the first place.
The King of Comedy stands the test of time and then some. In fact, it’s even more relevant today with our cult of undeserved celebrity, fueled by the rise of reality TV starring non-stars like the housewives of wherever, Snookie, and Honey Boo-Boo, nobodies made somebodies by virtue of appearing on television. Maybe if Rupert Pupkin had known how easy it would one day be to become a star, he might have rethought his strategy. Or maybe come to the conclusion that in a world where everybody’s a “star,” it just wasn’t worth the effort.
I first read The Hobbit back in high school, during the tail end of J.R.R. Tolkien’s renaissance, sparked by the Ballantine Books editions that first popped up in the 1960s. I later learned Tolkien wrote this as a children’s tale and when asked for a sequel went away for a decade and came up with the adult Lord of the Rings. A few thoughts come to mind starting with how far children’s literature has fallen since this debuted in 1937 so thinner and lesser works are now receiving acclaim.
It was lighter and sprightlier than its follow-up but in the hands of Peter Jackson, it has been uncomfortably shoe-horned into a cinematic continuity where it has struggled to find its way. In order to flesh things out, Jackson and his initial collaborator Guillermo Del Toro turned to the appendices to find supplemental story material, which worked out fine with the first trilogy. But the tone and approach to this children’s story has grown darker and certainly designed to act as a prequel trilogy to the more substantive LOTR. As a result, it’s almost impossible to judge the Hobbit films against the source material. The first, released in 2012, was maybe 60% from the novel and now The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, out on disc now from Warner Home Entertainment, is even less so.
Looking at the second installment as a film and not an adaptation, it works wonderfully well, a stronger middle chapter, much as The Empire Strikes Back deepened the early Star Wars universe. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) continues heading for the Lonely Mountain and its protector, the giant dragon Smaug. He is there to help the brotherhood of dwarves and honor his commitments, emboldened by the experiences in An Unexpected Journey. As is his wont, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has gone off with Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), seeking to learn more of the dangers he senses, all prelude to the following trilogy.
This film is really less about our hobbit and far more about the coming of age, as it were, of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). While there are some thrills as they encounter Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) and an army of giant spiders in Mirkwood, his major test comes when the band is captured by a darker, more malevolent elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom), accompanied by Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). By inserting Legolas here feels odd since at no time in the LOTR trilogy does he comment at all about having met Bilbo since the notion hadn’t yet occurred to Jackson but bothered me. And while the diehard loyalists decry the whole cloth creation of a female elf, she works just fine for the purposes of the story. As the captured dwarves are delivered to Elvenking Thranduil (Lee Pace), we finally get to see Bilbo uses the One Ring to affect a nifty recuse. The characterization that both helped and bogged down the opening chapter is lessened here, which is keenly felt at times.
Finally, our merry band arrives at Esgaroth, setting up the confrontation with the amazing CGI creation of Smaug, voiced perfectly by Benedict Cumberbatch. Just like that, 2:40 slide by and you’re left with a cliffhanger that had fans stunned last December. This is a far stronger film than the first and feels justified as part of a trilogy, avoiding the sag many middle films suffer from.
As expected, the film transfer is gorgeous and glorious to look at from the couch. The sound is equally strong so you’re in good hands here.
What you have to decide now is whether or not having this version is all you need or should you wait for the extended cut edition no doubt coming next fall. The current set comes with the film on Blu-ray and DVD along with an Ultraviolet copy plus a Blu-ray disc of extra features. You get Peter Jackson Invites You to Set (40:36), four Production Videos (36:41), Live Event: In the Cutting Room (37:52), New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth, Part 2 (7:11), and a Music Video for “I See Fire” by Ed Sheeran (5:42).
Warner Bros. was counting on a home run from the misfire that was the live action Green Lantern film. As that film was in production, the animation division was producing their first CGI-animated DC series, also featuring the hero of space sector 2814. Arriving on the Cartoon Network with much fanfare, the Green Lantern: The Animated Series ran from November 11, 2011 to March 16, 2013 for a total of 26 episodes. I disliked its look and found little reason to watch when it was apparent it had little resemblance to the source material. I gave it a second look when Warner Archive recently released the entire series as a 2-disc Blu-ray set. I have not changed my opinion.
The series immediately takes Hal Jordan (Josh Keaton) away from Earth and his sector to send him to “Frontier Space” and establishes the Guardians of the Universe actually have limits to their sphere of influence which makes little sense. He’s partnered with Kilowog (Kevin Michael Richardson), who apparently is no longer needed to train recruits and they jet around space in a spaceship, The Interceptor, which also makes no sense. The ship comes complete with an artificial intelligence, Aya (Grey DeLisle), who takes humanoid form and as she gains independence actually goes from ally to threat in one of the few interesting touches in an otherwise wretched series.
Why are Hal and Kilowog dispatched to the edge of space? Because Red Lanterns, led by Atrocious (Jonathan Adams), are picking off these fringe GLs as an act of revenge for his homeworld being destroyed by the Manhunters. During one of their first encounters, Razer (Jason Spisak) abandons the Reds and accompanies the Corps aboard the Interceptor. The series also features various familiar Guardians and members of the GL Corps.
And just to keep things colorful, we get a bunch of Blue Lanterns, Star Sapphires, and good ol’ Larfleeze (Dee Bradley Baker) of the Orange Lanterns. The relationship between Carol Ferris (Jennifer Hale) and Hal is as tense as in the comics but doesn’t really make either character more interesting. In fact, the writing is perfunctory and not very interesting and it could be the unfamiliarity of the writing staff led by Michael F. Ryugan, Jeremy Adams, and Jim Krieg. Milestone and DC Animated writer Matt Wayne is the only comic veteran on hand.
I will credit the final episode, “Dark Matter” as a cosmic adventure that does a good job raising the stakes but it’s too little, too late.
I love Green Lantern and he’s probably my favorite of the DC heroes which may be why I am so hard on this series and the film. Such incredible potential is continually squandered. Of late, the various incarnations are so busy being sweeping in scale while leaving characterization in the dark.
The transfer to Blu-ray is excellent with great audio and video. Being from Warner Archive, there are no extra features.
Only Lovers Left Alive is such a waste of a film. Two hours of nothing happening but Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton looking very attractive and exchanging meaningful glances as they struggle to tolerate the presence of any other characters. If the main characters can’t seem to care about the people around them or the events happening it’s going to be very hard for me to do it in their stead. They’re also vampires who do almost zero vampire things, Hiddleston’s Adam moves really fast twice and Swinton’s Eve seems to be able to tell how old a thing is by touching it. These are not the big moments I expect when I sit down for a movie about vampires. No one even drinks blood out of a person on camera. Nosferatu had more action than this movie when it came out 92 years ago.
There’s one of the most flagrant and direct violation of the Chekhov’s gun principle I’ve ever seen. The whole first section of the movie is devoted to Adam obtaining a wooden bullet, the kind that could kill a vampire, and once he has it that gun never gets fired. It’s the impetus for a short exchange about how tired Adam is of the actions of humans but that conversation had already happened by that point and is really the entire plot anyway. The bullet serves to kind of underline his despair but it isn’t good storytelling to show a gun that never gets fired. I could perhaps forgive it if I was satisfied with the rest of the story, but there was just no satisfaction to be had.
The dialogue is aggressively not clever. They’re vampires you see so they frequently talk about how old they are. They talk about all the famous events they were at and how many great things they’ve done. One of the peripheral vampires wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays. I expect vampire movies to have enough self-awareness to not feel like they can trot out tropes that were widely mocked in Buffy the Vampire Slayer over a decade ago.
Much like the vampires who inhabit the film Only Lovers Left Alive feels like a movie trapped out of time. I was struck while watching that the movie reminded me profoundly of movies like Suburbia or Clerks where rather than have a tight plot the movie was more like a loose character study. If this movie also came out in the mid-90s maybe I would be prepared to feel more generous about it. As it is, it just feels like an antique. Also, none of those movies had anything nearly as shiny as vampires to dangle in front of me but never explore.
Properly channeling Japanese culture for American audiences has been a challenge given how different our tastes and expectations are. We find the content of much of their Manga and anime either not to our taste or outright incomprehensible. So, the challenge of adapting their bushido Edo-era and adding in some powerful fantasy into [[[47 Ronin]]] was going to be a challenge. Mix in American performer Keanu Reeves as a half-breed you have an uphill challenge in making the film palatable to enough moviegoers to justify the $170 million budget.
It has some terrific concepts and incredible visuals but it’s a mess of a movie, with a long, sluggish middle that loses the audience. Even amazing CG and a strong Asian cast can’t support a messy script.
The story, in short: Lord Asano Naganori (Min Tanaka) is disgraced after the efforts of Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano), conspires with a shape-shifting witch (Rinko Kikuchi). He commits seppuku and Kira takes charge of Asano’s family by arranging for him to marry Asano’s daughter, Mika (Ko Shibasaki). She agrees to the marriage but extracts a promise to have a year to mourn her father. Asano’s 47 samurai has acknowledged the deviltry that befell their master and they become ronin, masterless samurai, vowing revenge. Enter Kai (Reeves), who just happens to be in love with Mika, who partners with Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada), the ronin’s leader.
While the action is swell along with some stuff I have not seen before, the characters are flat, one-dimensional. There are the brooding glances, clichéd dialogue, and predictable character beats that spoil the film’s potential. Much of this is a result of delays in shooting, studio interference and an emphasis on visual wonder and not enough on content. The film was a major bomb in the United States, bringing in under $40 million. As a result, you likely missed this last winter but can make up for it now with the Blu-ray release from Universal Home Entertainment. The video transfer is stunning with equally strong sound.
Clearly, the studio gave up on the film and went with a perfunctory suite of extras including four Deleted Scenes (8:00), which are interesting but easily excised; a brief Re-Forging the Legend (7:00); Keanu & Kai (4:00); Steel Fury (6:00), which looks at the film’s training, swordplay and battles; and Myths, Magic & Monsters (8:00).
The film is a curiosity and there are glimpses of what it could have been.
You probably don’t know this because it almost certainly isn’t in any of the books about the comic book racket and it happened before most you were born — in the neighborhood of 50 years — and even if you’d been there, in the offices of Marvel comics when Marvel was part of a parent company, Magazine Management, you might not have known about it and if you did know about it you might have forgotten by now because we are talking a half-century here, but… I once wrote Captain America and I’m pretty sure I used fewer words than are in this sentence.
And — stand aside now and watch your head — I hereby claim credit for the current, and generally excellent Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a film now playing at a theater near you, unless you live somewhere that is seriously rural.
Marvel’s promise that everything will change after Captain America: The Winter Soldier was no understatement. A solid plot, witty banter, some very surprising returns and couple seeds for future films resulted in what may well be the best Marvel film yet. Marvel seems dedicated to show that not all comic book movies are the same. The upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy is clearly set up to be an action comedy, and Winter Soldier is at its heart a political intrigue thriller. It still carries the hi-tech trappings and gadgets of a superhero story, but it’s a much more grounded film, touching on rather sober topics like dealing with life back home after a term in combat, the eternal questions of how much freedom will people surrender in the name of safety, and the simple question, “Who do you trust?”. There’s no way to discuss the film without hitting numerous spoilers, so before we do this, does anyone want to get off? (more…)
Okay, let’s begin by looking at today’s Times. Bad news, there above the fold: A U.N. panel says climate change is getting worse. Melting ice caps, acidic coastal waters, sea life migration – all negatives caused by ecological woes that we noble humans are causing.
As Bill Maher observed, in other nations conservatives and liberals disagree about how to deal with global warming, but neither side denies that the problem exists. Not true for us.
Seen Noah yet? Me either, but apparently some religious folk are upset because the filmmakers have taken liberties with the source material. Maybe somebody in a film seminar someplace will tell us how one could avoid taking liberties with that particular source material. I mean, there’s not a whole lot of source material to take liberties with and… hey, I’m not going to enter the debate about the literal truth of scripture — I’m old and I don’t need anyone else hating me — but two of every living creature? Every one? In one boat? At the very least, that needs some explaining, and since no such explanation is given in the source material, any such explanation would be taking liberties and… you can see the problem.
Why did Darren Aronofsky, who does not deny being an atheist, decide to direct this particular flick? Maybe if I see it, I’ll have a clue.
I wonder: could it have something to do with our American monomyth?
Marvel’s promise that everything will change after Captain America: The Winter Soldier was no understatement. A solid plot, witty banter, some very surprising returns and couple seeds for future films resulted in what may well be the best Marvel film yet. Marvel seems dedicated to show that not all comic book movies are the same. The upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy is clearly set up to be an action comedy, and Winter Soldier is at its heart a political intrigue thriller. It still carries the hi-tech trappings and gadgets of a superhero story, but it’s a much more grounded film, touching on rather sober topics like dealing with life back home after a term in combat, the eternal questions of how much freedom will people surrender in the name of safety, and the simple question, “Who do you trust?”. There’s no way to discuss the film without hitting numerous spoilers, so before we do this, does anyone want to get off? 
