The River Green

Yesterday, while at the library to return my movie assignment for class, I came across this movie, lying on a return cart. Ever the fan of Beethoven that I am, I picked it up.

There was some promise in the beginning, but it quickly faded when the central theme of the story became so difficult to pin down. Is it about a female trying to break into a man’s world? Is it about how Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony, or maybe it’s about how his copyist wanted to become a composer. There were so many focuses, it was hard to determine exactly where the story was going or where it was coming from.

Within the first ten minutes, the intent of the movie becomes disappointingly obvious- it is meant to be an ‘Amadeus’, only with Beethoven. Only certain portions of Mozart’s life were exaggerated to accentuate the dramatic aspects in Amadeus. With Copying Beethoven, so many pointless plot devices were inserted, that the result is a portrait of a fictional man.

The acting left very, very much to be desired. Ed Harris played Beethoven like he was in a constant state of constipation; trying to force out the character, but failed miserably. Diane Kruger’s portrayal of a fictional copyist reflected the unrefined nature of her character.

So consumed with making Beethoven’s life into a movie as successful and critically acclaimed as Amadeus, it even recreates the image of an artist composing from his deathbed. It was based on conjecture in Amadeus, but it is based on nothing in Copying Beethoven.

Beethoven’s music is divine, an aspiration for humanity. His life is tragic, yet accomplished and romantic; anyone can find the agony and the ecstasy in his life by listening to his music.

The entirety of his work was a challenge for the classical age to put into music the human condition; a symphony of the soul. He was a heroic figure in his romantic compositions, but a tragic figure in his life.

The life of Beethoven is romantic enough and dramatic enough without inventing whole aspects of his life out of thin air. Almost every part of this film is a contradiction to the truth of Beethoven’s life. The film ultimately renders a disservice to the actual life of this great composer.

Labels: movies

Déjà vu has been attributed to fatigue of the mind, whereby a synapse fire is perceived twice in rapid succession, leading to the formation of a memory. Accordingly, the event that initiated the synapse triggers the feeling that it has happened before in exactly the same order and under the exact circumstances. What is not considered is that this is not possible in the course of human existence, unless a TARDIS is involved. After a run-in with déjà vu, it might becomes easy to question one’s sanity. I’ve been told on many occasions that if one can question one’s own sanity, one isn’t insane.

SPOILER ALERT!!

This is always a relief to me, but imagine what it might be like to someone who really is insane. That is what Natalie Portman’s character, Nina, experiences as she prepares for the role she has dreamt about since childhood, the Swan Queen. At first, the insanity manifests itself in slight, explainable afflictions. But soon, the sanity takes on a life of its own. Nina is constantly trying to perfect the Black Swan role, one that she has no apparent personal background from which to draw.

Eventually, Nina’s situation devolves into a life that is, trapped, on one end, by an overbearing mother, on the other by the role that slowly begins to take over her every moment of her life. Even as she attempts to gain life-experiences that might lend some breadth into her Black Swan persona, her insanity becomes even more evident. As the role consumes Nina’s life, bit by bit, her situation becomes even more extreme and she is left to ponder the same fate as that of the central Swan Queen character that she is portraying.

Upon realizing that her understudy is the same person who Nina thinks is attempting to harm her in order to get the part, the last strands of sanity leave her. At the climax of the movie, Nina’s performance is halting at first, but becomes flawlessly perfect, by the end, culminating in her perfect performance of the Black Swan- much to the delight and excitement of the director.

The story of the White Swan revolves around a love triangle between the Prince that the Swan Queen falls in love with and the Black Swan who lures the prince into her graces. At the end of the story, unable to decide between the man she fell in love with and a life without him, she commits suicide, jumping from the top of a mountain.

The dancer in the role is, of course, saved from the fate of her character by an air cushion. As the audience becomes drawn into the insanity narrative, it is almost expected that the understudy will kill the star by removing the cushion.

In the end, it was Nina herself, who caused her assumed demise, having finally succumb to the madness of being trapped in a seemingly unrelenting world of unlikely perceptions and demanding emotional pressures.

I loved this movie for the psychological journey into madness that the character took. It was a creative way to tell the story of insanity. The visuals were strikingly similar to Nina’s voyage. At first the film is nothing but pink, prim and proper ballerina, whose dedication to her art is reflected in the structured life of discipline she leads. As her descent into madness begins, the images become more disturbing and creepy. Paintings of portraits by her mother, for example, would shift their gaze.

Some of the most disturbing images were also some of the most hebidyjebidy. Broken bones, peeling cuticles, feathers coming out of the skin, one wacked out moment involving a nail file and someone’s face, gave us goose flesh, if the expression can be excused.

It is recommended, and is best viewed in the dark, with all the lights turned off.

Labels: movies

My experience in finding a good movie has been that if there is a story wherein my own story is relatable, my reaction will be strong. The story must speak to an event or a time period in my life and it must be based at least fractionally on reality. When those criteria are met, my reflex is to either completely embrace the story or completely reject the story (usually due to bad acting or bad story to begin with).

The King’s Speech relies on a well known aspect of Prince Albert, Duke of York (Bertie): his terrible, debilitating stammer and a slight impediment. By his own admission, an affliction that plagued him since age 5, and one which followed him, as King George VI, to the throne. The impediment seemed most evident when the letter ‘r’ was attempted. His stammer seemed to occur at the beginning of words, as is a typical presentation of a stammer.

For anyone unfortunate to have or have had a stammer, it is acquired through environmental factors as opposed to being born with one. As Rush states in the character of Logue, “I assure you that children do not begin speaking with a stammer.” For the King, his stammer began as a result of abuse, both physical and emotional that he suffered at the hands of his nanny. Born left-handed, his father, King George V, encouraged Bertie to use his right hand nonetheless and he had genu valgum, which required years of painful metal braces to correct.

After acquisition, the stammer reduces self-confidence of the afflicted, which, in turn, provides reinforcement of the stammer. Eventually, the stammer is learned along with nuances of native language one learns with age and practice. The stammer embeds itself into the mind, constantly eroding certainty in oneself. Only with devoted application, can a stammer be managed.

Despite his life of incredible privilege and station, King George VI lived in at least partial fear of speaking, even to his wife. With his stammer, he was underestimated, questioned, patronized even into the last days of his life.

In The King’s Speech, Lionel Logue provides the King with tools to overcome the worst part of his stammer, to the benefit of the entire British Empire in the opening hours of what would become World War II. At its heart, the story is an examination of a romantic hero dealing with and overcoming adversity with the love and support of a close friend and adoring wife. While dramatic license is taken in certain areas to accommodate the timeframe of a film, most of the story behind the movie is based on the journals and diaries of Lionel Logue himself, whose modesty reflects a typical British commoner in service to his Sovereign.

My stammer developed shortly after being thrust into a family that I didn’t know when the second husband of my mother became the only parent of his two children upon the death of their mother. At first, it was an interesting novelty to have an instant family in such short order. However, my new ‘sister’ had a talent of torturing me in ways that went far beyond the normal definition of sibling rivalry. My new ‘brother’ and I were forced to share my bedroom. He was cruel to me and held nothing in reserve whilst taking every opportunity to berate me as a person.

I felt betrayed by myself when I began to exhibit a stammer. At first it was only when confronted with verbal abuse by one or the other, or indeed, their father. It just felt like I wasn’t smart enough since they were 4 (her) and 9 (him) years older than me, and I couldn’t get the words out. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have a problem with words that use the letter ‘r’. Even my name is difficult for me to articulate without using a technique that I was taught whereby a 27th letter exists, similar in sound to the letter ‘r’, but just different enough to allow me to use it in place of the evil ‘r’ in words such as my own name.

Before my stammer became manageable, it was the source of endless commentary by my step-siblings. Not even school bullies were as cruel as what I experienced at home. My classmates gave me the nickname ‘ribbit’, after I vehemently protested against a frog dissection slideshow; I was trying to say ‘right, but’ as the beginning part of my argument, but instead of moving forward with what I wanted to say, it just kept repeating. Eventually, some super-genius made a connection with the subject of the class and a nickname is born. The name became a term of endearment and I wore it proudly, for it was fairly innocuous compared to what I faced at home.

One of the first lessons I learned during my therapy in school, was that I wasn’t the only person who had a stammer, which is when I first became acquainted with the story of King George VI. I knew he shouted vowels out of an open window as part of his therapy. It became a part of my own therapy, along with learning violin. Eventually, the worst parts of it went away (right around the same time my step-siblings decided that I was too difficult to get along with and fled to their grandmother’s house to live). However, it’s still there and I get held up by it now and again.

The King’s Speech is very similar to my own. I’ll admit to being a sucker for a historical heroic drama. This movie was superbly masterful in its telling of the story of how King George VI overcame his stammer enough to provide leadership and morale to his country and empire in a fight for its life.

Do yourself a favor and apply the rental fee to the purchase price. It’s well worth it.

Labels: movies

“A History of Facebook” or “How Zuckerberg Betrayed His Only Friend,” might be suitable alternate titles for this film. Marieke said, almost from the beginning, that it was compelling. That is definitely an accurate summation.

In the first scene, the founder of Facebook is portrayed as having some social oddities, but as the movie progresses, he is also incredibly aware of the interactions of others and how impactful social situations can be. It is almost as if Sorkin wanted Zuckerberg to be depicted as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder. He is in the same breath socially skillful by organizing coding competitions, but then socially awkward and inept at communicating in person with other people. He seems altogether capable of starting a business and being able to run the business successfully, but is also portrayed as needing the input of Timberlake’s character in order to lift the business toward success.

The character is a contradiction, but the story is, as most modern biographies, a caricature of the actual person or events. Sadly, this common practice relies too heavily on dramatic license and not enough on facts. This isn’t to say that there aren’t facts in this movie, but I am left with the impression that Zuckerberg is probably not the socially inept, betrayer of friends that Sorkin puts forth. Nor is he probably a model programmer. I’m happy to leave the movie with a composite image of how Facebook came to be and who Zuckerberg really is.

Some of the more interesting facts that surround the creation of Facebook is mention of ‘Hollywood Stars,’ which is a reference to Natalie Portman, who revolved in some of the same circles as the Winklevoss twins. It has been said that the girl that Zuckerberg pines for in the film is, in fact, Portman. Obviously, such an element would require certain facts to be validated.

I rather enjoyed ‘remembering’ certain aspects of the development of Facebook as a social networking site. It is still quite amazing just how quickly a website can move to not only change, but define the social network.

Labels: movies

The story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named Hiccup aspires to follow his tribe's tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. After finally capturing his first dragon, and with his chance at finally gaining the tribe's acceptance, he finds that he no longer has the desire to kill it and instead befriends it.

At first glance, the movie is concerning because it threatens to produce a generation of children who grow up with the impression that the Vikings are Scottish. They are not. Neither are the children of Vikings American. Why movies lack the ability to produce characters whose accents accurately portray the setting of the story is quite frankly perplexing. The Hibernian Island has a rich history of Viking settlements, whose decedents are part of the present population of Ireland. Scotland has a history of repelling most Viking raids. There is far more evidence that the Vikings fought dragons in Wales or Ireland than in Scotland. With that in mind, it is surprising that well-known Scotsmen would lend their talents to a project re-writes their history at best, slanders it at worst.

Having said that, the rest of the movie is absolutely great. It’s sometimes hard to tell what the motivating factors of the protagonist to change the centuries-old lifestyle of his Viking culture is. It seems that it might be his less than Viking stature and habitual clumsiness that make him an outcast from the rest of his people. A self-fulfilling prophecy could have contributed to his already outcast nature- thus paving the way for his eventual challenge to the status quo.

This might be a bit of a harsh treatment for an animated fantasy. It was cute. The dragons are awesome and the animation is outstanding. The story, I think, says a lot about following one’s conscience rather than blindly following a culture that ultimately undermines that conscience.

It was a good movie. I’m just long winded, and perhaps a bit droning.

Labels: movies

3D movies are weird. The glasses fit over my own and apparently caused a resemblance to Roy Orbison. Getting used to the way the movie looked and the 3D effects were difficult to get used to and the warning on the package stated that if you started to feel strange, you may be experiencing a seizure. Yikes. Almost immediately, the main protagonist has to adjust to his new alien body. I felt a connection to him because I was trying to get used to the 3D aspects.

Overall the movie was good. I liked the way the alien culture was created using aspects of both native American and African cultures- both strongly identified with nature. The effects were amazing, and the 3D was great. Due to the nature of how the movie rendered in 3D, it was impossible to tell if the computer animation was realistic; the entire thing looked like a viewfinder and even the 'real' people looked animated.

The central antagonist was very much over-the-top and I thought the role as a composite, was not properly averaged out over political, military and corporate evils, but rather simply added up. The actual corporate token character was too weak.

It was all very imaginative and the environment aspects were incredibly original.

During the progress of the story, I felt that certain portrayals betrayed suspension of disbelief. There already is so much to suspend, that even the slightest departure from a realistic human condition, provides an element of utter disbelief.

Another part of the movie that sort of bothered me was the romantic scene. So, here we are on this world with large blue beings with tails and a 'bonding braid', who have connections to animals and even the planet itself, and you are trying to convince me that all there is to intimacy is light kissing? I was expecting something strange or a higher intimacy level. It seemed like 'The People' had a closer bond with their horses than with each other. It was all very strange.

Even with all of the plot difficulties and character establishment issues, it was still an amazing movie with a powerful message. I'm not convinced it should have been nominated for 'Best Picture,' though.

Labels: movies

The first thing I'll always remember about Star Trek is Kirk yelling 'KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!'. I was 6 years old and that was about my first movie theater experience (my first movie was E.T. at the drive-in). Admittedly, Trek didn't sink it's claws into my cerebrum until The Voyage Home (movie #4). That was a classic Kirk/Spock story that really got me into the whole thing. The quote '...I'm from Iowa, I only work in space,' did it.

I've been a faithful Trekkie ever since. I've seen every episode of every series and all of the movies, even as the Enterprise series eked out a slow, painful death and the last movie (Nemesis) killed off a favorite character, to say nothing of the franchise itself.

After that, nothing. For literally the first time in my life, there was no Star Trek.

For at least the last couple years, I knew the new movie was coming and tried not to get obsessed about it. Of course, it was common knowlege that the franchise was being handed off to a whole set of new, fresh talent and that it was going to be a prequel.

My mind had been made up that when it was time for the movie to come out, I would wait to see what everyone said about it and then go see it at the dollar theater if it was any good.

Until December 28, 2008.

That was the day that Tanner and I went to see The Day The Earth Stood Still. The first preview started out with some misfit young boy in a convertible careening through the desert headed straight for a cliff. Suddenly, he jumped out and stopped himself from being pulled over the edge by the inertia at the last minute. A police officer stood in front of him and asked his name. The response was 'James Tiberius Kirk'. I had no idea that this was the preview for Star Trek. Before a single space scene came on the preview, I quickly threw out my previous decision and resolved to see the movie on its opening day. Isn't that something... that a space adventure movie can hook someone without even showing space.



...I digress...

May 9, 2009. I hadn't been overly excited to see this movie until that morning; I didn't want to have my expectations crushed if it were terrible. My mom and I are the Trekkies in our family, so it was only fitting that this was my birthday present from her. We found our seats and became giddy as the lights went down and the opening scene lit up the screen.

From that point until the moment we left the theater, I was stunned. Amazed. Awestruck. This movie grabbed me first by the heart, then by the shoulders and shook me until everything I thought I knew about what to expect from Trek fell out, reformed it, then threw it all back in with a force that made my head spin.

From the standpoint and perspective of a Trekkie, the movie made some pretty unorthodox twists and turns around what I've come to know about Star Trek. I'll admit, I was surprised. That's what made it good. From the perspective of a general audience member, the FX are wicked, the story is riveting and the fight scenes are awesome. That is what made it great.

As far as Trek cannon goes, well, the movie made a noble effort at sticking to as much of it as the story would have allowed. Yes, there were a couple plot twists that came up in the movie which may beg the question, 'WHAT?!'. Vulcan was destroyed and Kirk's father was killed. We've known for the past 40 years that neither of these events took place in Trek's past. Granted.

Perhaps cannon is better left to the Catholic church as far as absolutes are concerned. It was essentially cannon that caused Star Trek to founder. There was no where else it could have gone with what had already been done; the whole concept of Trek was at the mercy of and had become claustrophobic from the cannon closet. Introducing a few new elements is probably just what the franchise needs to allow for a much larger, broader, less confined creative process.

It is possible that cannon is perfectly, perfectly fine anyway. I mean, Kirk's father was the inspiration in his life for joining Starfleet. In this movie, he still is. Every 3rd grader knows that Vulcans have no emotions, so they probably renamed the planet they resettled on Vulcan again- without an emotional attachment to the planet itself, the culture was preserved and they rebuilt their population. It's not that difficult. Humans have managed to double their numbers in 50 short years. And now that Spock from the future is there, he can warn everyone that Romulus is about to be destroyed and can take quicker action to prevent it from happening again.

But... that might keep the events in the movie from occurring, thus not enabling future Spock to travel back in time and warn everyone... ...and maybe it might all happen again? Paradoxes are for the birds.

...I digress...

One of the precepts of Trek cannon is that the books and comics are not part of Trek cannon. Among the elements thrown into the movie is a central plot devise called 'Red Matter'. This is a concept that is taken from one of the comic book series. Other elements of the story, not as central as Red Matter to be sure, come from books and other sources. One of the other precepts of Trek cannon is that only what is shown on the big or small screen is accepted cannon. So that rule, in and of itself, makes the events depicted in the movie cannon, in its strictest sense.

I've made my peace with these issues thusly: contradiction be damned! If Jack Ryan can go from a young Alec Baldwin to an old Harrison Ford to an even younger Ben Affleck, why can't Trek blow up Vulcan?

Abrams did an outstanding job saluting all of Star Trek that came before him with the classic shots, lighting, those indelible lens flares. What a tribute. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script expertly transforms our well known heroes into a young group rife with immaturity, love, lust, angst and anger. Doesn't everyone have a past like that? Nods to the Trek pop-culture were great! There was even an unfortunate death involving a red-shirted officer. This team of three laid a perfect foundation upon which the seven main actors were able to build a flawless performance culminating in hands down the best Trek movie ever made.

The box office returns seem to agree with me: the domestic total as of May 11, 2009 is $86,706,315 and it broke the record for an IMAX movie premier.

Maybe the franchise isn't dead after all.

I have this to say to a potential Trek 12: 'You're predecessor was daring in its concept and bold in its delivery. It surpassed the opening weekend of the 10 that came before it and shot the bar up to stratospheric heights. I dare you to do better.'

Labels: movies , Star Trek

In a previous blog post, the 11th Star Trek movie is discussed, which premiered in the US on May 9, 2009. I liked it alot.

My views are not shared with the idiot City Paper movie reviewer Harry Kloman, whose scathing review not only proves that he hasn't seen the movie, but further cements the popular posit that he is no longer capable of writing reviews (none of the movies he has reviewed this year have fallen within his good graces).

He writes: 'There are some, I'm sure, who will argue that the Star Trek we all know (and, if you're reading this, probably love) had nowhere left to go with its original template, and if it were to survive at all, then someone had to erase the disk and begin compiling new data.'

Of course the original template had nowhere to go. That's exactly the reason it hasn't gone anywhere since the last movie. What Captain Obvious fails to recognize in his first paragraph is that the team behind the 11th movie is new to Trek. J.J.Abrams wasn't even a Trek fan until he came on board the project.

Paragraphs 3 and 4:

'But what's wrong with saying something is over? How about a little death with dignity? There may have been one movie left in this graying enterprise, but Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost), isn't that movie. You can't grip an audience by destroying things that we all know still exist. The planet Vulcan -- obliterated? And Romulus -- just gone? Impossible! We've witnessed their futures in myriad detail.

And yet, they are gone, just like that. In fact, that's the concept with which I choose to quarrel. Why create a prequel about the lives of characters we've come to value by starting their lives over? Why not just concoct a snazzy action plot that shows us how they met and how they formed a peerless team?'

Death with dignity? Nemesis was no dignity and this is not death. This is new life. Gene Roddenberry himself once said that he hoped that the future of Trek would include a new generation of writers taking what he left us with and updating it and making it relevant again. That is what has happened here. I'm not going to belabor this point... Marcel does an excellent job of schooling Kloman in his comment to the article. Proof that Kloman did not see this movie? '...And Romulus -- just gone? Impossible! We've witnessed their futures in myriad detail.' Romulus wasn't destroyed in the timeline of the film, but 189 years in the future, after everything we knew about it had already taken place. Idiot.

Yes, Vulcan was obliterated in this movie. Also, Kirk's father died. Both of which we've known for the last 40 years not to have happened in Trek's history. It's called time-travel. Look into it. If the idiot Kloman thinks he knows everything there is to know about time-travel, perhaps he can educate us as to why he thinks M-theory is so asymmetrical. Oh wait. M-theory is supersymmetric, isn't it? Sorry to get all nerd up in here, but when an idiot such as Kloman begins to speak about things they clearly have not the first clue about, it angers me. Just like when people describe something that takes a really long time in terms of light years... I want to smack them. A light year, just so we're clear, is a measure of distance, not time. If one were to say 'that took five light years,' they would be saying that it took 1,825 days... which is five years.

If there is something about this move 'with which to quarrel,' this is not it. If it is, you didn't follow the story and you didn't see the movie, because in fact, a snazzy action plot that showed us how the original crew met and how they formed a peerless team, was what I took away from the movie. Perhaps the idiot Kloman saw a different film and thought it was Star Trek?

Paragraph 8:

'If they make another movie with this cast and its reiterated world, what character stories are there left to tell? The original Star Trek crew boldly went with a sense of wonder and adventure. Their clones are emotionally damaged in ways that make the galaxy a menacing place of perpetual war with no hope of even temporary peace. It's a completely different premise, masquerading as a brand name, and it promises no hope of originality.'

This is the overwhelming proof that Kloman is no longer fit to review films, since he obviously doesn't know a good one when it smacks him square in the face.

'...what character stories are there left to tell?'

How about Spock and Uhura? How about Spock rebuilding his race? How about Scotty becoming chief engineer? How about anything with Sulu, since we know nothing about him other than the fact that he fences. Seriously, is this guy stupid or what?

'...a menacing place of perpetual war with no hope of even temporary peace.'

Star Trek has always, always, always reflected the present. Our time is that of a menacing place of perpetual war with no hope of even temporary peace. What an idiot.

'It's a completely different premise, masquerading as a brand name, and it promises no hope of originality.'

The whole point of this movie IS that it is a completely different premise, you dolt. The whole story was nothing short of original.

To support my point of view, Leonard Nimoy says, 'Star Trek began in a time of great upheaval. There were antiwar demonstrations. There was political turmoil. There was social unrest. The world was a mess. A lot like it is now.'

Kloman needs to stop writing reviews of movies he hasn't seen before. And then he needs to go see this movie and realize just how utterly wrong he was.

Labels: movies , Star Trek