Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza: Part 5

Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, I'm writing them up for you, readers, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!

If you aren't up to date on the series, the rules for inclusion or the scoring, I'll put a recap at the bottom of this post, or you can read the full description and official rules at the table of contents page.

I... I kind of ran out of gas on this blog series, probably because as the pandemic got worse, watching plague movies stopped being quite so fun, but every half-finished blog post in my draft file bugs me, so here's a chance to move one from "unpublished" to "published"


In This Episode (Part 5)

The Crazies (2009 and 1973)
Day of Resurrection/Virus: The End (Fukkatsu No Hi) (1980)
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
REC (2007)
Blindness (2008)


The Crazies (2009) (IMDB Page) and 1973 (IMDB Page)

The Skinny: George Romero, creator of the modern zombie film with "Night of the Living Dead," took another kick at horror/plague can with the 1973 original, and produced the remake in 2010. An airplane crashes outside a small town, releasing a bioweapon government scientists have been working on into the water supply of a very small town. The infection causes people to either die or become extremely violent.

In both versions, the military sets up a perimeter to try to quarantine the town, and things turn really, really sour. For some reason the military wants to get everybody into the school gym for quarantine (sounds like a rotten idea if the infection makes everyone attack each other), which gives the military (and the filmmakers) an excuse to roam all over town in search of extreme situations. We follow different townsfolk and military personnel as the "Crazies" virus (nicknamed "Trixie") goes to work. Things get pretty ugly. The 2010 version follows Timothy Olyphant’s small-town sheriff character close enough that the film has a protagonist, which can’t really be said for the original.

Scoring: 1973 DNF. Night of the Living Dead was better, but a lot of fans of old horror and exploitation films have a soft spot for The Crazies as well. I'll be honest, I didn't feel the film made the most of its premise, it failed to create a real mood of menace or dread, and the gore was dialed down compared to your average zombie attack. There's something about 70s and 80s movies of this type -- there are just so many scenes of someone in military garb shouting "Shut down the thing" into a walkie talkie, while somebody else in a different outfit shouts, "You can't shut down the thing, dammit!" It started with a lot of shouting, and ended with a lot of shooting, but lacked a clear, compelling protagonist and amounted to quite a bit less than the sum of its parts, in my opinion.

Scoring: 2010 DNF/DQ’d. The 2010 film is a little slicker and better acted, and the imagery is quite a bit better. There is a bit with a pitchfork that’s quite well-done, and a set piece set in a car wash that is very silly, and people with the rage virus get more or less disgusting-looking, depending on how well the protagonist knows them. Now, I love me some late ‘00s Timothy Olyphant, but 2010 Crazies still never quite amounts to something impressive. These films are way better-made than Cabin Fever, but the 1973 version was not compelling, and the 2010 version was more of a monster movie than a plague movie, really, so given that it wasn't a great film to begin with, I'm not giving it a full write-up: it’s either DNF as a plague film, or DQ’d because it’s a monster movie.

Both films seem to be trying to make a point about government overreach -- as the military tries to contain the breakout, they herd people into fenced cages in 2010, and confine them in a school gym and confiscate their guns in 1973, but this muddles any thematic coherence the film might have had, because if the disease makes the infected do what they do in this film, the military is very much right to contain the outbreak at all costs, and the group (both films have one) who tries to escape the quarantine is incredibly reckless and irresponsible. The 2010 film commits the sin of multiple sudden-noise+hand-appears-out-of-nowhere startling the viewer, only for that person to turn out to be a friend. Bad enough once. There is also at least one, and possibly more, scenes where a character we like is in a bad situation, about to be killed by a baddie, only for them to be shot from offscreen by a character we hadn’t known was nearby. The sauce is too weak to forgive the story’s shortcomings.


Day of Resurrection (1980) (Fukkatsu No Hi)

The Skinny:
The most expensive Japanese film ever made at the time. It tells the story of a virus created by the military that makes other pathogens much more deadly, and kills all life on earth, except the inhabitants of a few Antarctic research stations. The Cold War finally over, the researchers try to imagine life repopulating the earth after the virus has died away, only to realize US and Russia have set up automated nuclear launch deterrents to a nuclear attack -- launches that will happen automatically if a nuclear explosion is detected, kind of like a dead man's switch, and that these automatic launches might be triggered by a coming earthquake. A few researchers and a submarine crew must go to Washington to turn off the automated retaliation machine before it leads to an automated nuclear exchange between all-dead USA and Russia that would irradiate the earth and perhaps end even chance live eventually makes a comeback.

The Good: There's something nostalgic about watching Cold War films in 2020, I admit. Jaw-clenched men in military garb shouting "Cancel the code red" at each other, gazing off in the middle distance and musing, "It could be the end of life itself, Mr. President" -- there's just something so cheesy and quaint about it now, even though in the 70s and 80s the stakes were so high. The film is competently acted and directed, a little slow, and gives the plague mostly superficial treatment as part of the premise for the drama happening at the Antarctic station.

This film was headed for a DNF until one scene so ludicrous it approached the sublime. An Antarctic station crew is trying desperately to find someone, anyone, still alive on the rest of the planet, and end up talking with a five-year-old who got scared, went on his dad's short wave radio, but doesn't know to let go of the broadcast button when he finishes talking, meaning that people can't reply to him. There's about a three minute scene of scientists and doctors huddled around a radio microphone, shouting "TOBY LET GO OF THE SWITCH" at a five-year-old who can't hear them. Of all the different ways to portray the world ending, they chose this.

Enjoy it with me.




The Bad: The film's premise is a little silly, and it ends on a serious downer. I guess the film's supposed to be a warning about nuclear weapons? Really, it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a plague film, describing the outbreak of the plague, or a "stuck in isolation" film about the people at the Antarctic station: the characters we meet and care about are just about all at the research stations, or dead in the first half of the film, yet the climactic conflict to be resolved involves a trip to Washington to shut off an armageddon machine, disconnected from almost all of the characters we cared about, rather than some problem that must be solved at the research stations. As the scientists decide what to do about the future, the women (there are 8 women on the Antarctic stations, at about a 100-1 man-to-woman ratio) agree to some pretty damn awful living conditions for the sake of the preservation of the human race, in a gross scene that doesn't fit the rest of the movie, and sure sounds like a middle-aged man writing out his sexual fantasy, more than something a group of women would actually agree to. The storyline jumps around between places, groups of characters, and time a lot, skipping around from before the breakout, to during, to the Antarctic bases' long stay and search for a cure, to the point that it feels like the story got away from the filmmakers, or the editor perhaps.

Scoring:
Frightening: This film starts out as a political drama, turns into a survival drama, and ends weirdly. None of the marks it's aiming for are trying to scare the audience. It's frightening that the Cold War led USA and Russia down such horrifying paths to find an advantage over each other, but especially now that the Cold War (as it was then) is over, the film and its stakes don't really hit the mark any more in 2020. 1/5

Scary: The scariest it gets is people coughing, and grossest part of the film isn't anything disease-related, but the women of the Antarctic stations agreeing to lend out their wombs to all the men of the research stations for the sake of the human race. There aren't any jumps or gross-outs: this film is not going for that audience. As I said, I probably would have turned it off if not for the unintentional comedy of the Toby scene, which got me to watch the rest of the film, but not to love it. 1/5

Plausible: The origin of the plague, the idea that USA and Russia might have been engaging in a biological warfare weapons race, the cloak and dagger around how the virus got developed, and got loose, are all ideas/plots/schemes/fears I've heard before in the context of the Cold War, and the idea that a reckless scientist would be the one to invent the pathogen that gets us isn't farfetched enough. We don't get too many details about the type or progress of the plague, and what we do find out is described in a few exposition lines rather than dramatized interestingly, but it's believable that a couple of diseases could interact with each other to create something much worse, or that low temperatures could make a deadly virus go dormant. 3/5

Awesome: This film is a real period piece, for its music and acting, the slower pacing than we get in films today, and for the Cold War context. It's been long enough since USSR fell that it's getting hard to remember just how scary the nuclear arms race was at the time. Moreover, as I said in "the bad" above, the film seems to be unsure of what it is, and not enough of the spaghetti they're throwing at the wall sticks. It was competently made, the short wave radio scene is transcendent, and peak Olivia Hussey sure was something, but none of that was enough to save the film. 2/5

But Wait, There's More! Stinger? You can't really tease more when you've already killed the entire human race save a few dozen, so... nope.

Verdict: If you're going to watch a film where the entire world gets wiped out, The Stand's "what comes after" is more interesting than this.

Total Score: 7/20


The Andromeda Strain (1971) (IMDB Page)
The Skinny: One of the older films on the plague viewing list, but also one of the very plaguiest, The Andromeda Strain is about a group of crack scientists sent into a deep underground scientific lab to study a virus that has wiped out an isolated American village.

The Good: This film probably gets into the details of how scientists would investigate a virus in more detail than any other film in this series: robot arms moving samples around airtight laboratories, computer scans revealing screens of data (in old timey 1970s beep boop green text on black screen style), and detailed discussion of how the virus reproduces, its size, what it feeds on, and how it kills, mean that if you really do read books on epidemiology for fun, this is the plague movie for you. There are a bunch of Very Smart Men (and a woman!) with PhDs gritting their teeth and making Very Important Decisions, and it's kind of charming, but anachronistic (in 2021) how much faith this film shows in science and the scientific method. It wasn't a problem with the science that led Covid to be as devastating as it has been.

The Bad: If you don't read books on epidemiology for fun, this film is a little dry. There are long scenes showing, for example, a robot arm moving animal cages around and exposing them to the virus. The scientists all wear identical red jumpsuits, so a few of the characters kind of blur together, and the way the plot hinges around certain protocols being followed or not, and a bit of a contrivance for the reasons a key piece of information doesn't come to light... well, I suppose it's better than Jake Gyllenhaal in VR glasses punching a virus in the jaw, but again, the film suffers from slow pacing and does a lot of explaining. Sure, every film from the '70s is a slow burn to the MTV-addled attention spans of 2021 movie viewers, but... this one is too, and maybe it's not them, it's me... but given that you, dear reader, probably also have an MTV-addled attention span, be warned.

Scoring:
Frightening: Nah. This film isn't really frightening. You sense academically that the virus is deadly, for one thing by how many precautions the characters take to avoid it (though those precautions slow the action waaay down). The animation and graphics used to represent the andromeda virus are also '70s nifty, and create a few moments of "whoa. It's coming!" but they don't linger enough to count as frightening. 1/5

Scary: There are a few mild gross-outs when investigators discover dead virus victims with entirely coagulated blood, and during the science testing a few animals are shown dying of the virus, but the purpose of this film is not to make us gasp in horror at the disease, but to marvel at the cleverness of those who unlock it secrets (and the writer who came up with it all). 2/5

Plausible: The idea that scientists would be doing science somewhat like this in a super-fancy underground science lab: plausible. The idea that the government has a super-fancy underground science lab and a set of disease investigation protocols including a pre-selected crack team of virus experts standing by for the call? Less plausible, especially after how the pandemic unfolded since 2020. They put a baby on a four-foot-high flat stretcher, keep it there for days, and he never once falls off. The science of the virus and the investigation are very well-thought-through, as they were in the Michael Crichton book. This film lives or dies on whether you think its investigation and results are plausible, and they mostly are.  4/5

Awesome: If '70s competence porn is your thing, there's lots to love here, and yeah, the details of the virus and the investigation are so thorough there's a ring of authenticity that if space viruses came down to threaten the earth, they might work this way, but yeah, it's also 70s cinema with the pacing and style that entails. 3/5

But Wait, There's More! Stinger? The virus escapes containment, but because of things they learn during the investigation, that turns out not to be much of a concern, so yes and no: no points awarded or deducted.

Verdict: The more you know and care about scientific process and epidemiology, the more you'll enjoy this film. The only other films in this series that come close to the level of detail in explaining the workings of their plagues are The Girl With All the Gifts and Pontypool, and of them, Pontypool has the best zinger at the end. It is very very sciencey, and very very plaguey.

Total Score: 10/20 ... perhaps I weighted scary/frightening a little heavy on my scale if the most sciencey and the most plaguey film in the set can only manage a middling score. Than again... it's my series, so I'll score for the things I like, by gum!



[REC] (2007) (IMDB Page

The Skinny: In this Spanish found footage film, a young news reporter follows a fire department call into a building where people are getting sick. While inside, authorities lock down the building, stopping anyone from escaping while a zombie-like infection spreads through the population of building tenants. This film was a huge success, spawning three sequels as well as the shitty tribute of an inferior English language Hollywood remake (which was alright, but close to a shot-for-shot remake, and if I recall correctly, lacked the manic energy of the original). It could qualify as more a zombie movie than a plague movie, but the fact that a lot of my readers are currently in quarantine, lockdown, or under stay at home orders of varying degrees of severity make it relevant enough for inclusion.

The Good: This film does a good job at slowly escalating tension and fear. Even more, the directing and acting strike me as realistic, simply because if there were a zombie breakout an apartment building, people would be losing their shit and the actors in this film actually show fear and panic. When something happens, people are all shouting at the same time, the cameraman doesn't know where to point, and three people have three different ideas about what to do. Most people wouldn't stay cool and turn into Vin Diesel zombie slayers in this situation, and even police and rescue workers are shouting, panicking and making rash decisions. The film does a few tropes well -- the creepy kid, the harmless old lady gone wrong, and the ending, in an attic, mostly in the dark, is a pretty darn great ending, probably good enough on its own to justify sequels and remakes.

The Bad: To be honest, all the usual reservations about found footage films apply. The premise -- that it's a professional cameraman -- helps sell the idea that camerawork should be mostly good, and there are a few haunting images that fit seamlessly into the story -- my favorite is when a character shouts for her friend down a spiral stairwell, and about ten zombies in the stairwell at different levels all look up, and all start climbing -- but there are also places where the shaky camera and dancing flashlight beams mean that horror reveals are too short, murky, or unsatisfying. It's a hard balance to reveal
just enough to be scary, but leave the rest to the imagination, but films that use found footage shaky cameras to skimp out on horror reveals are a bugbear of mine. This film had about 70% as many really frightening images as it could have, in my opinion.

Scoring:
Frightening: Yes! The way this film turns a perfectly ordinary living area into a house of horrors is very well done, the suspicion that you never know what your neighbors are really doing is a good foothold for terror, and the idea of not being able to escape as things curdle is real and effective. The ever-escalating creepouts and scares make this film a very good variation on the Blair Witch Project template. Showing the raw fear of the building tenants slowly increase makes the frights work, and the cast really sells it. 4/5

Scary: Yes! The film bends its own zombie rules - the speed at which people turn into zombies keeps increasing - and the explanation of the whole thing is perfunctory at best, but there are enough surprises, things jumping out of shadows, and gross or startling images that the film takes the viewer where it wants them to go. Good use of light and darkness to set up surprises and increase suspense means that there are jumps, but none of them are cheap. 5/5

Plausible: Explanations or origins are barely better than hand-waves, but I it was refreshing that there
wasn't a "how do they know all these things/how did they find out so quickly and correctly?" character explaining things, the way Jeffrey Wright's character in Invasion or Hallorann in The Shining or Gottleib and Geiszler in Pacific Rim seem to always have a theory, or know something, or pop in with a bit of exposition, and always be correct. They point a camera around a creepy science lab and zoom in on some creepy newspaper clippings, but nothing is ever fully, or even partly, explained. It is fully believable frightened local authorities would quarantine a building and let everyone inside fester. Every zombie film is preposterous from the very premise, but this film was chaotic and fun and scary enough that it earns a little slack just for being fun. 2/5

Awesome: I've mentioned things like
people who know what's going on; a lot of films also spend screen time on the public official whose choices make things worse, and part of me was waiting for them to come along and clarify the situation. They never did, and for all the unanswered questions, I  actually appreciate how limited and narrow this film's focus was: we only see what the single cameraman recorded, we only know what the characters inside the building know. This film is a concise, adrenaline spike of chaos, panic and fear, and then it's over, and that's enough. It delivers what it promised. 4/5

But Wait, There's More! Stinger? Even though there are sequels, this film does not end with a tacky sequelbait scene. Plus one point.

Verdict: The film succeeds by knowing what it is, what its audience wants, and delivering that. The found footage genre has some inherent drawbacks, but I didn't find myself getting annoyed by them, because of the film's excellent pacing, tight narrative focus, and an excellent performance by Manuela Velasco.

Total Score: 16/20 A taut, tightly focused, scary film about small spaces. It might be hard to watch for someone quarantined themselves, but the film delivers on its promise and follows through its premise. It doesn't always make
sense, but between the pacing, the energy, and the scares, that doesn't matter.





Blindness (2008) (IMDB Page)

The Skinny: A mysterious infectious disease causes people to suddenly "white out" and lose their vision. Julianne Moore's husband, an optometrist, is exposed very early, so she travels into quarantine with him, while still sighted, to take care of him. Quarantine gets pretty rough as more suddenly-blind people arrive in the quarantine facility, and then, as the rest of the world goes blind, too, resources get scarce and the quarantine wards begin to compete. As the only sighted person in quarantine, Julianne Moore has some hard choices to make about how to use her sighted advantage over the other quarantinees. The first third of the film explores the spread of the plague a little, as Danny Glover describes what happened to the people in quarantine, and the middle of the film retells a Lord of the Flies type story of humans becoming shitty in shitty circumstances, and then the final third of the film introduces the theme of finding hope and home in dire situations.

The Good: Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo are two of my favorite actors to watch, so that is a pretty durn good start! According to wikipedia, about 700 actors had to be trained to act blind for the scenes in quarantine, and wandering around the city. The film is interestingly made, with some interesting visuals and excellent incorporation of music throughout.

The Bad: Trigger warning for sexual violence. Some of the men in the shitty quarantine ward do classic shitty man behavior, and the film is not shy about showing that, but at least also shows its impact and consequences, both on the victims and on the perpetrators. There is very little explanation of what is happening, or why, and the progress of the plague and its workings are less interesting to the filmmakers than how the film's characters react to it. That can be fine, but then I wish the scene-writing had drawn the characters' personalities and their choices in sharper relief. As it is, the film is almost an abstracted series of moods and ruminations rather than a character or acting-driven story... again, which is fine, but perhaps an underuse of Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Danny Glover, etc.'s talent as actors. Moreover, the final third of the film, where Julianne Moore (the characters are never named) and a few of her friends escape the quarantine and explore their benighted city, seems like almost an entirely different genre of film than the first part, the quarantine drama.

You're gonna have to get all the way off my back...
(source: pitch meeting)
Meanwhile, Julianne Moore seems to be the only person in the entire city, or perhaps the entire world, who retains her sight, and short of "that's just the premise of the film, so..." that's not explained or examined either.


Scoring:
Frightening: This isn't a scary plague film in either sense. The moods, the feeling of being hedged in and helpless in quarantine, the gross feeling as humans start being shitty, and keep getting shittier: this movie has some downer spots, but none of them are really frightening. The most haunting part, for me, was when Julianne Moore and a few of her closest wandered out of the quarantine, and wandered through the city trying to find food or safety: one of the group falls one step behind, reaches his hand out in the wrong direction to touch the back of the person ahead in line, and ends up getting separated from the group through simple bad luck and happenstance: he goes from being a part of the group, protected by numbers, to just another vulnerable, solitary soul in a city of lost souls. Just like that. 1/5

Scary: Other than the horror of sexual violence, as well as some physical violence with a knife, there aren't jump-scares or gross-outs here. Where it does get horrific are in the predatory behaviors of the men who control the food in quarantine, and out in the city, where if it seems like you have food, you'll get mobbed by groping, lurching bodies trying to grab at whatever you have, like those scenes in a zombie movie where hundreds of zombie hands reach through a doorway and pull a person back through. Also, there is a short scene of dogs eating the bodies of dead humans in the street. Gross, but a sharp underscore of the idea human life has no value once society has broken down. 2/5

Plausible: It's kind of a "Lord of the Flies" vision of what would happen if everyone lost their sight at once, but to be honest, none of the gross behaviors we see people do seem beyond imagination. And in the midst of that, effort is also made to show that the characters do continue to form and develop their relationships, and do those other, lovely things that humans do, too. 3/5

Awesome: As I said, any film with Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover is off to a good start. The film gives an interesting and well-realized portrayal of an interesting premise and, while I wouldn't say it's fun or always enjoyable, there are interesting things going on throughout. The initial dramatic tension that comes of Julianne Moore being able to see when nobody else can doesn't really yield much story-wise: she operates more as an observer and audience stand-in than as the story's driving energy, though she thoroughly refutes the idea that "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man (or woman) is king." The film is careful to include little moments of human connection, intimacy, spontaneity and surprise, for example when it rains and suddenly all the lost humans groping for food take a moment to enjoy the water pouring over them. On the other hand, with few exceptions, the film is not beautiful to see: colors are washed out, and almost every scene is full of clutter and human squalor, cruelty or desperation. If you are into films showing a lot of people down on their luck and heading toward bottom, people who don't know how to groom because they can't see mirrors, this film is for you. 3/5

But Wait, There's More! Stinger? None.

Verdict:
Perfect Sense was the uplifting art film about plague and loss of our senses. This one was the dark, cynical one. If you like that dark edge, Blindness isn't a pretty look at humanity, but it's well-made in its bleak vision of human isolation and meanness.

Total Score: 9/20 That seems about right for a film with some good bits, but slow pacing and parts that were hard to watch.



Series Recap:
Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, I'm writing them up for you, readers, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!

To sum up the ground rules:

Qualifying:
It has to be a film. There might be some great plague television out there, but I have a kid: binge watching six TV series that are too scary to share with my kid this week is off the table. It has to be a narrative film, not a documentary.

The film has to be about a plague or viral infection. That is, the film has to put significant attention on what the infectious agent is, how it spreads or works, and what can be done about the infection. If the response is "we need to hide from/kill all the zombies" it's not really a plague film: it's a zombie film. If the response is "we can beat this if we discover and exploit a weakness in how the virus spreads" then it's a plague film. (So, World War Z: yes; Dawn of the Dead: no.) There's a little wiggle room here, and I'll be making some calls. Deal with it.

Scoring:
Films that fail to hold my attention get a DNF (Did Not Finish)

Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:
Frightening (is it the kind of scary that's moody, builds up, and stays with you afterward?)
Scary (is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch? Surprises and gross-outs get points in this category.)
Plausible (does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)
Awesome (is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:
"But wait, there's more!" stinger - does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a sequel new location? You know...the montage where the contaminated water ends up at a bottling factory while ominous music plays? Yah those are cheesy, and I will be docking points for them, depending on the amount of cheesiness.

It's unlikely that any film will get a 20/20 on this scale, because frightening, scary and plausible are usually a trade-off: films that make me jump like a cat usually don't also make me fear door handles, and a film that does both probably asks for a big suspension of disbelief in the plausibility category.

Wednesday, April 08, 2020

Coronavirus CoVideo Corner: Rob interviewed by Rob

A fellow in the UK has started a Youtube series during his Covid 19 stay-at-home quarantine, and by sheer coincidence, he came up with the same name for his series as I made for my plague film series!

His name is Rob, just like mine, so naturally I agreed to be interviewed for his YouTube channel.

I'm fond of his channel and quite enjoyed this interview, so everybody, please check it out!



Saturday, April 04, 2020

CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza: Part 4

To Recap:

Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, dear reader, I'm writing them up for you, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!

If you aren't up to date on the series, the rules for inclusion or need a full description of the scoring, or you want links to the other installments in the series, I'll put a recap at the bottom of this post, or you can read the full description, the official rules, and find links to every part of the series on the table of contents page linked here.

Scoring:
Films that fail to hold my attention get a DNF (Did Not Finish) and no score (that would be unfair).

Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:
Frightening (Is it the kind of scary that builds up, and stays with you afterward?) Dread & anxiety get points here.
Scary (Is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch?) Surprises and gross-outs get points here.
Plausible (Does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)
Awesome (Is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:
"But wait, there's more!" stinger (Does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a sequel new location?) That's tacky, and I take away points depending on the amount of cheesiness.

Coming Up in this Review: 
Antiviral (2012)
Maggie (2015)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Pandemic (2016)
Stephen King's The Stand (1994)
28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology
The Invasion (2007)



Spoilers for every film, by the way.

Monday, March 23, 2020

CoronaVirus CoVideo Bonanza Side Quest: SOCIAL DISTANCING MOVIES

Hey there friends.

Source
Feeling a little cooped up? Self-quarantine and voluntary isolation getting you down? Climbing the walls like a capillary action food-coloring and paper science experiment... gone wrong?

Well, self-isolation is getting to me, too. So I'm taking a short break from my CoVideo Plague Film Bonanza for a mini-side quest to mention movies about... isolation! Ever been locked in a room, not knowing when you'd get out? Ever reached the limits of what you could do in your confined space, but you don't know when it'll be OK to leave? Ever hear people say things like "We might have to do 18 months of social distancing until there's a vaccine" and thought "Oh crap. I'm losing my grip already after twenty days!" This one's for you (and me), before we all start seeing ants.



For all the weirdos like myself, who deal with the anxiety of living in a time of plague by watching plague films, maybe you also cope with isolation and quarantine by watching movies about isolation, confinement and claustrophobia. In case that's you, here are some films about isolation and claustrophobia. I'm not going to watch new films for this because it's only a sidequest to my Plague Film Bonanza, and be warned that things are a little spoilery, but while my discussion of the film might require me to reveal that there's a twist (in order to talk about whether it was well done), I'll try not to give away what the twist is, exactly. Here are a few social distancing films I've seen, and I welcome your suggestions for further viewing in the comments.

Here is the rest of the CoVideo Corner plague film series.


Now on to the list!

Monday, March 16, 2020

CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza Table of Contents

The Plague Film Bonanza has sprawled large enough to require a central control and table of contents, so I'll have the rules here, and links to each of the installments.

To Recap:

Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies. Some people cope with stress and anxiety by rewatching The Princess Bride or Singin' In The Rain, but I do it by going dark. If you also deal with uncertainty by watching movies about other people in even more stressful situations, this here is for you!

Maybe you dealt with a coming lockdown by buying (or trying to buy) facemasks, hand sanitizer, and ungodly amounts of toilet paper, or adjusting weekend plans. Well, I went and found every movie about infectious diseases I could and have been watching them one by one. So if you're housebound anyway, why not pass the time scaring the crap out of yourself, right?

I'm writing mini-reviews of some classic, less-than-classic, and absolute garbage plague films, and because I love you, I'm writing them up for you, readers, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!

To sum up the ground rules:

Qualifying:

Rule 1: It has to be a narrative film. There might be some great plague television out there, but I have a kid who is apparently studying from home until he is forty: binging entire seasons of TV series' that are too scary to share with him is off the table. Documentaries would require an entirely different scoring system, so they're out, too. Most, but not all the films here are fiction, and I'm limiting the series to narrative films.

Rule 2: The film has to be about a plague or viral infection. That is, it must put significant attention on what the infectious agent is, how it spreads or works, and what can be done about the infection. If the response is "we need to hide from/kill all the zombies" (Dawn of the Dead) it's not really a plague film: it's a zombie or monster film. If the response is "we can beat this if we discover and exploit a weakness in how the virus spreads" (World War Z) then it's a plague film. Another example: if the vial of plague pathogen in Mission: Impossible 2 were replaced with a computer chip, or a piece of microfilm, the rest of the film basically wouldn't change. Mission: Impossible 2 is a MacGuffin chase, not really a plague film. There's a little wiggle room here, and I'll be making some calls. Deal with it.


Theory of Scary Movies (context):

Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions, with one bonus category, but for my first two categories, I need to explain my theory of scary movies.

Because plague films are usually scary, I need to explain that there are two ways scary movies scare us. Think of Alfred Hitchcock's bomb theory: a bomb exploding under a table surprises the audience, but if the audience knows there's a bomb under the table and it doesn't explode, we get suspense. A surprise can be part of good storytelling, but it can also be a cheap trick. Suspense makes small, mundane details suddenly important or compelling.

Scares work this way, too. Some movies scare us by having a monster jump out of the closet. I call these jump-scares, and they're scary for five seconds, like the bomb under the table exploding. The new It remakes use this again and again. A good jump-scare comes from sound design, editing, and camera work. There's a craft to it, but it's simple setup and payoff. Make people think something is coming, and then deliver it in a way that messes with their expectations somehow. I'm measuring this kind of scare in my "Scary" category. Does the film make me jump like a cat? The scary category also covers gross-outs, which are common in plague films. If there's blood, pus and gore making the audience feel squicky, points go here.

Like the bomb under the table that doesn't explode, other movies scare us by having a character suspect there's a monster in the closet, and find they're too afraid to open the door and check. Suddenly, that closet door is scary all by itself, and every time the character has to go in that room, or a muffled sound echoes through the house, we feel anxiety. My favorite horror movies establish an ominous tone that something bad is going to happen and let that dread build and build. The payoff, when it comes, is more satisfying because the film set it up so carefully. Think of the films Paranormal Activity, The Others, or The Babadook. It doesn't even need to be outright horror: We Need to Talk About Kevin does this beautifully. The imagery isn't gory and the jump-scares (where they exist) are understated, or contribute to the ominous mood that builds. This kind of scare sticks with you. Unlike the chill that's gone in five seconds, these movies have you checking your locks or changing your passwords a week after the film is over. I'm measuring this in my "Frightening" category. I personally prefer this type of scare, though the best scary movies (It Follows, The Thing, The Ring, A Quiet Place) do both.

The Scoring Categories

The Failed Experiments:
Not all these films are going to be what we conventionally call "good films," but even bad films have ways to hold one's attention. If a film was so dull, poorly made, or predictable that I didn't watch it from beginning to end, and instead skipped to the "good parts," it gets a DNF (Did Not Finish). I tried, but even as I pretend zombie films are relevant to a global pandemic, I have enough integrity not to review a film I haven't seen through.

The Categories: Each is graded out of five points.
Frightening (Does it create that moody, ominous feeling of dread that builds up, and stays with you afterward?)
Scary (Is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch? Surprises and gross-outs get points in this category.)
Plausible (Does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen? If unrealistic, does the film follow its own rules, and unfold believably, granted the initial premise?)
Awesome (Is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks? Are the scary parts scary, the sad parts sad, and the joyful parts joyful?)

Finally, for bonus demerits/points:
"But wait, there's more!" stinger - does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a sequel new location? You know...the montage where the contaminated water ends up at a bottling factory while ominous music plays, or the one infected cat escapes the exterminators and heads toward the Lincoln Tunnel and the mainland? Yah those are cheesy, and I will be docking points for them, depending on the amount of cheesiness.

By having two categories -- half the entire scoring -- on scariness, this system will over-rate scary movies and under-rate things like dramas or love stories. We'll discuss that as we get into the reviews.

It's unlikely that any film will get a 20/20 on this scale, because frightening, scary and plausible are usually a trade-off: films that make me jump like a cat usually don't also make me fear door handles, and a film that does both probably asks for a big suspension of disbelief in the plausibility category.

Here, then, are links to the film reviews.
CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:
This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Cube (1997)
The Shining (1980)
Room (2015)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Oldboy (2003)
Chicken Run (2000)
Groundhog Day (1993)
The Descent (2005)

Go to Part 1 
Films reviewed:
(Carriers (2009)

Deranged (연가시) (2012)
Patient Zero (2018)
Outbreak (1995)
The Bay (2012)
Perfect Sense (2011)

Go to Part 2
감기 (The Flu)
Black Death
Pontypool
Extinction: The GMO Chronicles
괴물 (The Host)
Viral (2016)
The Girl With All the Gifts

Go to Part 3
And The Band Played On (1993)
12 Monkeys (1995)
Cabin Fever (2002)
Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)
World War Z (2013)
Contagion (2011)

Go to Part 4
Antiviral (2012)
Maggie (2015)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Pandemic (2016)
Stephen King's The Stand (1994)
28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology
The Invasion (2007)

Go to Part 5

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza: Part 3

To Recap:

Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, dear reader, I'm writing them up for you, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!

If you aren't up to date on the series, the rules for inclusion or need a full description of the scoring, or you want links to the other installments in the series, I'll put a recap at the bottom of this post, or you can read the full description, the official rules, and find links to every part of the series on the table of contents page linked here.

Scoring:
Films that fail to hold my attention get a DNF (Did Not Finish) and no score (that would be unfair).

Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:
Frightening (Is it the kind of scary that builds up, and stays with you afterward?) Dread & anxiety get points here.
Scary (Is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch?) Surprises and gross-outs get points here.
Plausible (Does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)
Awesome (Is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:
"But wait, there's more!" stinger (Does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a sequel new location?) That's tacky, and I take away points depending on the amount of cheesiness.

Coming Up in this Review:
And The Band Played On (1993)
12 Monkeys (1995)
Cabin Fever (2002)
Planet of the Apes Trilogy (2011-2017)
World War Z (2013)
Contagion (2011)

CoVideo Corner sidebar: Social Distancing Edition:
This post discusses a set of films about claustrophobia, isolation, boredom and helplessness: the feelings we're all feeling during our stay-at-home quarantines and self-isolation.


Click to read the reviews!

Monday, March 02, 2020

CoronaVirus CoVidEo Corner: Plague Film Bonanza: Part 2

To Recap:

Weirdo that I am, I'm commemorating the CoVid19 lockdown by watching plague movies, and because I love you, dear reader, I'm writing them up for you, and I'll end the series with a nice best-of countdown!

If you aren't up to date on the series, the rules for inclusion or need a full description of the scoring, or you want links to the other installments in the series, I'll put a recap at the bottom of this post, or you can read the full description, the official rules, and find links to every part of the series on the table of contents page linked here.

Scoring:
Films that fail to hold my attention get a DNF (Did Not Finish) and no score (that would be unfair).

Films that hold my attention are scored on four dimensions:
Frightening (Is it the kind of scary that builds up, and stays with you afterward?) Dread & anxiety get points here.
Scary (Is it the kind of scary that makes you jump in your seat, or wish you'd eaten a smaller lunch?) Surprises and gross-outs get points here.
Plausible (Does the plague, and people's response to it, seem realistic, as if it could possibly happen?)
Awesome (Is it a good movie? Does it hit its marks?)
Each of these dimensions will be scored out of five.
Finally, for bonus demerits/points:
"But wait, there's more!" stinger (Does the film end by hinting that the infection is on its way to a sequel new location?) That's tacky, and I take away points depending on the amount of cheesiness.


Coming Up in this Post:
감기 (The Flu) (2013)
Black Death (2010)
Pontypool (2008)
Extinction: The GMO Chronicles (2011)
괴물 (The Host) (2006)
Viral (2016)
The Girl With All the Gifts (2016)


Buckle up!

Friday, February 28, 2020

CoronaVirus Special: The CoVidEo Plague Film Bonanza: Part 1

Well I'm a bit weird, I guess. While most people respond to an epidemic scare like CoViD 19 by buying facemasks and hand sanitizer, and adjusting their weekend plans, I went and found every movie about infectious diseases I could and have been watching them one by one. If you're housebound anyway, why not pass the time scaring the crap out of yourself, right?

Now, I'm writing mini-reviews of some classic, less-than-classic, and absolute garbage plague films, and after the summaries, I'll finish off with a big ol' countdown from worst to best... so stay tuned!

Also, if you have a suggestion for a film I should include, please mention it in the comments!

Now not every film I mention will get a score. A few films just couldn't hold my attention all the way through. If a film was so dull, poorly made, or cliched I ended up skipping to the "good parts" it gets DNF (Did Not Finish). I tried. Also, some films that seem to be plague films actually aren't. I'll use some discretion in the margins here, but sometimes a film that seems to be about a plague actually isn't. For example: if the vial of plague in Mission: Impossible 2 were replaced with a computer chip, or a piece of microfilm, the rest of the film basically wouldn't change. Mission: Impossible 2 is a MacGuffin chase, not really a plague film. A lot of the plot of World War Z is about Brad Pitt trying to figure out how the zombie virus works, and that focus of attention makes it a plague film, while Dawn Of The Dead is more about people escaping zombies and less about the workings of the virus, so it's off the list.

A good pestilence film is scary, but any connoisseur of scary films can tell you there are two kinds of scare. One is like oatmeal: it sticks to your ribs, and hours later you're still full. Days after a scare like this, you're still checking the closet, adding locks to your doors, and changing your passwords. These scares are often a slow burn, and they spend a long time building that feeling of dread before finally paying off and messing you up. It Follows, Fulci's Zombi, Paranormal Activity and We Need to Talk About Kevin are like this. The other type of scare, the jump scare, is like wasabi: it sure is intense, but five seconds later, its impact has dissipated entirely. For sudden noises and things jumping out of the closet, films like Drag Me To Hell, It 2017, The Grudge, Final Destination and most slasher movies are examples. The best scary movies do both (The Shining, The Thing, The Ring, It FollowsA Quiet Place). Personally, I prefer the first type, but I'm easy. A scare is a scare.

Scoring: Of course I need a scoring system.
Frightening (How scary is it the first way - the ominous, the creepy, the "I'm never leaving the house without hand sanitizer again" way?) (Scored out of five)
Scary (How scary is it the second way? Is it startling, chilling, or gross?) (Scored out of five)
Plausible (Does the film make me believe this could actually happen? Does it make sense and at least have some modicum of logic? Does it follow its own rules, and unfold believably within its premise?) (Scored out of five)
Awesome (Is the movie awesome? Like, is it an actually a good movie? Do the payoffs pay off? Are the scary bits scary and the sad bits sad?) (Scored out of five)

Does it end with a cheesy "but wait, there's more!" stinger? (negative one or two points, depending on the cheesiness)

It's unlikely that any film will get a 20/20 on this scale, because frightening and scary are generally a trade-off: films that make me jump like a cat usually don't also make me fear door handles.

In this review:
Carriers (2009)
Deranged (연가시) (2012)
Patient Zero (2018)
Outbreak (1995)
The Bay (2012)
Perfect Sense (2011)

Skip to Part 2
감기 (The Flu)
Black Death
Pontypool
Extinction: The GMO Chronicles
괴물 (The Host)
Viral (2016)
The Girl With All the Gifts


Skip to Part 4
Antiviral (2012)
Maggie (2015)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Pandemic (2016)
Stephen King's The Stand (1994)
28 Days Later (2002) / 28 Weeks Later (2007) duology
The Invasion (2007)

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Reading Racist Books To My Kid

I ran in to a hiccup at bedtime. It wasn’t actually the first time I’ve run into this particular hiccup, but it got me thinking.

Almost every night, I read to my son. It’s great, for all the usual reasons. He gets to discover characters and worlds I loved as a kid, or we discover wonderful new ones. He hears the stories that helped teach me things about bravery, honesty, loyalty, determination, or silliness. We’ve heard from some titans of children’s literature: Roald Dahl is wonderful to read out loud. C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles are better than I remember them: the moral choices children make in his stories are valuable discussion starters for father-son talks about responsibility, consequences, kindness, and listening to your conscience.

But then… at bedtime… there are passages like this.

Cover art from the version I read as a kid.
Turbans and scimitars. Source
From The Horse and His Boy:
"This boy is manifestly no son of yours, for your cheek is as dark as mine but the boy is fair and white like the accursed but beautiful barbarians who inhabit the remote North [meaning Narnia].” (Chapter 1) C. S. Lewis. The Horse and his Boy (Kindle Locations 79-80). HarperCollins. HOLD ON! So... C.S. Lewis believes dark people are ugly? Am I reading this right?

"The next thing was that these men were not the fair-haired men of Narnia: they were dark, bearded men from Calormen, that great and cruel country that lies beyond Archenland across the desert to the south." C. S. Lewis. Last Battle (Kindle Locations 263-264). San Val, Incorporated.

Yes, the Calormenes, from Calormen, across the desert south of Narnia, worship the cruel god Tash (with hints of human sacrifice). They feature in The Last Battle and The Horse and His Boy and they are clearly coded as Muslims: they are dark-faced, wear turbans, and wield scimitars. They are also described as cruel and exploitative. Oh... and some Dwarves mock them by calling them "Darkie.” And in case you thought you could omit a few details and remove the racial coding... they're drawn on the cover of the version I read as a kid. No getting around it.

The Silver Chair's treatment of the character Jill Pole in particular falls into many old tropes about what girls are and aren't, can and can't do.

Cover art of the version I read as a kid.
Source.
Roald Dahl, whom we’d been reading before reading Narnia, had this buried in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator:

'It is very difficult to phone people in China, Mr President,' said the Postmaster General. 'The country's so full of Wings and Wongs, every time you wing you get the wong number.' (Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (Kindle Locations 302-303).

When they do call someone in China... their names are Chu-On-Dat and How-Yu-Bin, and they address the president as Mr. Plesident. Yeah. Roald Dahl went there. Just skip Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, folks. As sequel letdowns go, it gives Jaws: The Revenge and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a run for their money.

So what do we do about this?

Monday, December 18, 2017

Thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi (ALL Spoilers)

May as well put this all in one place on a blog post, because I hate digging through social media to find what I've said.

I will include spoiler warnings in the text, but generally, if you haven't seen The Last Jedi yet, maybe put this post off for later.

Even though it's crappy writing, let's put this in Question and Answer format:

Did you like it, Rob?

Yes.

Come on. Get in the weeds a bit.

OK. The Star Wars Films in order:

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope (the original)
3. Return of the Jedi
4. The Force Awakens (could have been 3 if it hadn't mostly been a remake of A New Hope)
5-6. Rogue One and The Last Jedi (could have been 3 if it were 30 minutes shorter and lacked an extended commercial for the new Christmas toy)
7. The Last Half of Revenge of the Sith
8-9. The other prequels make me feel dirty.

On Facebook, I'd put The Last Jedi above Rogue One, but thinking back, Rogue One had a much leaner story, a clearer objective that better defined and guided all the action in the film. I like action films that move in a straight line, most of the time.

That's a little low, for The Last Jedi, isn't it?

For perspective... my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe films (Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok, Civil War and Spider-man: Homecoming) ... I don't think I liked any of them more than #5 on this list. My favorite Superhero films ever, The Dark Knight or Spider-man 2 (Doc Ock) might be between 4 and 3. I really like Star Wars. It's magic.

Rogue One?
Well... if Rogue One had been less meandering in the first half, it would definitely have been 5. The final sequence of Rogue One, from the tower invasion on, was one of the most exciting sequences in a star wars film. On the other hand, if The Last Jedi had slimmed down the subplots, character bloat and toy ads, they could have taken that spot easily, as their main cast has a clear advantage over Rogue One's. But neither of those things happened, so I'm not making a call right now. I'll watch each of them one or two more times before deciding for sure.


SPOILERS FROM HERE ON

So what were the little things you liked?

Luke's crowning moment of awesome was truly awesome (and much needed after how low he'd been brought through the rest of the film.)

The best scene in the film was Snoke's throne room, and Kylo and Rey vs. Snoke's guard was everything we've been waiting for, while the twists and turns of who is offering what and who is willing to throw down with whom is fantastic.

Kylo Ren is a great villain, as I said last time I talked about Star Wars. That he is conflicted makes him more interesting and less predictable. The way he will derail an entire battle plan to chew on one of his obsessions like a dog on a toy makes him interesting... but he (like Luke Skywalker) understands the power of a symbolic moment. (which is why he was able to be baited). That he is trying to PROVE to himself how evil he is gives him a higher ceiling of evilness than Hux. Hux is smart enough to create a successful battle plan and accomplish more evil overall by taking over the galaxy for his evil purposes, which is scarier from five thousand yards. But Hux wouldn't derail a battle plan for the sake of being especially mean to this person over here, just because fuck them! He's too calculating. When they're in a room with you, Kylo is more likely to do something cruel or horrifying than Hux, just because, so for the purpose of an interesting scene in a film, Kylo Ren is more interesting than red-haired Hitler.

Rose Tico was pretty cool, and it's about time we saw an Asian face with speaking parts in the Star Wars universe, she had one of the best lines in the film about saving what we love rather than fighting what we hate, but her and her plotline slowed the story down... and was a waste of a perfectly good Benicio Del Toro.

Rey was pretty great. After TFA she was in a dead heat with Poe and Finn and Kylo, but now she and Kylo have separated themselves from the pack, and she gave me chills a couple of times. Finn's subplot felt shoehorned in at times, and Poe was reckless: as likable as he was, he was dangerous and wrong and deserved worse than he got as a penalty for his mutiny.

I like that they batted away the fan theories about Rey's parents. And the conversation where they addressed that was devastating. I was ready to go to the dark side for Kylo at that point.

Best line in the film:

Rey: "If you see Finn before I do..."
Chewbacca: "GGGrrrrRRRRAAAWWWWwwwWWW"
Rey: "Perfect. Tell him that."

The fact they replayed the twists and turns of the Return of the Jedi throne room in Episode 8 means that we're in uncharted territory for episode 9. Who knows what will happen now that Kylo Ren is without his big bad. I predict the rivalry between him and Hux playing into a few crucial moments, as Ren and his urge to be dramatic continues to get in the way of Hux's sound military strategies. In fact, I'm gonna go on record saying that The First Order's undoing is going to be Hux stabbing Kylo Ren in the back, or vice versa, as they decide they can't stand each other and can't work together. Mark it down.

What is great about Star Wars? Are there problems built into the basic premises of the Star Wars Universe?

Yes, there are.

First, what's great: Good star wars movies have always made you care about the characters -- the heroes and the villains, or at least understand what they want. That makes THIS space opera different from the others. Star Wars stories live and die with likable characters, so the casting is really important, and the two good trilogies (Original and VII and on) have really nailed the casting with leads that are fun to watch and easy to care about. The Star Wars juggernaut will start to falter when they start flubbing the casting. This is why people say Star Wars has "heart." Because they make us care about the characters.

The original Star Wars used a couple of brilliant storytelling devices as well... but two of them also have the seeds of problems the audience will have as we see more and more Star Wars.

The droids as storytelling devices 1

R2D2, and droids that bip and squeak, as well as Wookies, are great foils for exposition. You get to talk about what's going on and what you have to do without it seeming cloying, and then you get to respond to their reactions even though the audience doesn't understand them. It is a way of downloading information to the audience without getting tiresome, because the audience is still filling in gaps even during bald exposition. R2D2 and Chewbacca stood in for the audience so that we got the information we needed, in a way that wasn't annoying.

Meanwhile, the droids and wookies were all very technically accomplished, meaning that instead of dropping a load of technobabble (see: star trek) on the audience, we could have a growl, or R2D2 could shove a plug into a panel, beep, whistle, and the alarms would stop ringing. Basically... authorial intrusion in the form of robots and wookies that could do anything the plot required to bloop over in order to get to the next action scene. The conversation between Finn and Rose about how to stop the First Order's tracking device on The Last Jedi is the first time I can remember a technobabble conversation in Star Wars.

Chewbacca and the droids were seriously underused in this film, which means we had things explained with technobabble instead of blipped over. More of that and Star Wars will have the same problem as other Space Adventure Shows.


The droids as storytelling devices 2

C3P0, on the other hand, basically operated like a little golden Greek Chorus, (a group that underlines the scenes' importance and explains the action to the audience, but doesn't take part in the plot) reminding us of what's at risk, how dangerous the thing is they're about to do ("Never tell me the odds") and adding little commentaries that, while annoying, let us see the story through his eyes... in which the events appeared bold, thrilling, and terrifying. The Greek Chorus doesn't factor into the plot, neither did C3PO. He was just there commenting on stuff.

The fact he didn't operate this way is why K2S0 was a character in Rogue One, and fit into the story differently than C3PO does.

So far it's worked, but C3PO barely figured into The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi. Are audience stand-ins and Greek choruses absolutely needed in Star Wars? I'm not sure. But that might have contributed more than we thought to the way the old Star Wars had that epic, massive, sweeping feel to it. Visiting new planets doesn't necessarily accomplish that same feeling (or Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets would have had a different reception), though there are other ways to do it that don't necessarily have to use droids. "Freaking out at everything Finn" did that in The Force Awakens, for example.

Lightsabers are awesome, but... the problem of melee weapons in space sagas:

The four awesomest types of action scenes are (in no particular order):

1. Aerial dogfights
2. Chase scenes (especially car chase scenes)
3. Swordfights
4. Martial arts style hand combat

The rarest of these is sword fights, because they can only plausibly appear in swords and sandals and martial arts films. George Lucas' idea of space wizards with lightsabers is genius because it lets us put sword fighting into the same universe as aerial dogfights -- not just aerial dogfights, but SPACE dogfights! A universe where all four awesome kinds of action scenes can plausibly appear in the same film is pure genius!

The fact is audiences like to see battles come down to hand combat scenes, two heroes going at each other with melee weapons. Seeing armies swoop across a field from an eagle view just isn't as gut-exciting as seeing two warriors punch it out, even though most real battles or wars aren't decided by Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler getting into a knife fight. Even great battle scenes that are mostly about maneuvers on a battlefield feel more satisfying when they end up close and personal. This is better when it ends with this (Game of Thrones, Battle of the Bastards).

The problem is, in a space epic where everyone's flying around in space ships, it's hard to get people together in a room to swing lightsabers and vibrating bludgeons at each other. There are only so many plot devices that accomplish that, and we're close to having seen them all now. I worry that it'll start to be like the James Bond movies where Bond has (yet again) been captured and the villain explains himself (yet again), puts Bond in (another) slow-acting, easily-escapable death device, and (predictably) walks away: it worked, and then it didn't, and then suddenly it was self-parody. There are only so many times we believe a hero would turn themselves in to the head villain before we start smacking our foreheads and updating the evil overlord list. Why on EARTH (why IN THE GALAXY) would Snoke allow Rey in a room with him and lightsabers, knowing what happened to Palpatine?

Getting Finn in a room with Phasma took a 40 minute subplot that turned out unnecessary. Their fight was too short anyway. Getting Rey in a room with Kylo Ren was a little too easy, but involved inventing a new Force Ability (Force Skype) that we haven't seen before. Neither was a satisfying way of moving the characters from place to place, in my opinion.

What didn't you like about this film?

NO DISNEY! BAD! You get ONE toy craze per trilogy (cf Ewoks-bad enough in their own right), and that was BB8. Don't be greedy.

Snoke's throne room was ridiculous. A red scrim cloth? It looked great burning, though.

Snoke was ridiculous, too. Vamping in a Hugh Hefner robe was NOT what I expected from the buildup he got in The Force Awakens. Yes, I get that you have to make him different from decrepit, creepy, creaky Palpatine, but Snoke was not doing it for me.

Snoke was underused and a letdown after the buildup he got in TFA. So, basically, everything about Snoke was bad. Except when Rey tried to call her lightsaber and Snoke made it hit her in the head. That was awesome. If he'd had a sense of humor like that all through I'd have been down with mischievous, petty evil Snoke. That wasn't what we got though.

Finn didn't have enough to do and wasn't nearly as fun as last time, and the thing he did get to do turned out to be mostly plot wheel-spinning, little but a pretense to get him on the bad guy spaceship.

Poe was an idiot. Likable, but an idiot in this one.

It was the longest Star Wars film, but one whole subplot was mostly unnecessary and a waste of Benicio Del Toro, who is a limited natural resource.



The Big Thing: Pacing

It felt like they were cramming as many "ooh!" scenes as possible in. The final act had enough of them for any two films. I counted three storylines going on at once for most of the last half of the film. Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi gave us jump-cuts between multiple storylines, but this was the most crowded finale yet.

With such hectic pacing, and so many subplots, all the story had time for were the characters' big motivations and desperate needs. We never got to just hang out with them. The situation was a good one to see the characters strain under the pressure, too. Cornered, running out of fuel... that could have shown us (better than it did) what they were each made of. Instead we got a tour to a casino planet, as if this were a James Bond film!

This film lacked little, personal moments like Han offering Rey a job, or Maz giving Rey advice in The Force Awakens. Those moments let us see what Rey wanted, what kind of a person she was, and start liking her. The little jacket bit between Finn and Poe was a touch of color that humanized both men (not to mention the lip bite that launched a thousand 'ships). The reunion between Leia and Han didn't advance the plot, but it let us see who they had become, with so much unsaid between the lines they said. Our old friends were back!

This film never gave the characters time to stretch their legs, and that stuff matters. Star Wars "A New Hope" played like a slow burn, with lots of slow spots where we got to know the characters - little "Let the wookie win" moments don't make the highlight reel, but that's where the quotes come from, that's where we feel like the world they live in is real, and they are real people.  I am starting to like the characters less when all we see of them are their desperate needs, and not How They Normally Are. Show me Finn and Poe playing cards together. Show me Rey and Chewbacca learning to work together piloting the Millennium Falcon.

Most of all: let us spend some time with Chewbacca, Luke and Leia as they grieved Han Solo! He deserved at least that.

That said... being beaten over the head with different characters' desperate needs is better than getting static cutouts bouncing off against each other the way we're getting now with the established characters in the MCU, so...

All in all, I'll take Star Wars over any other franchise going, but the distance between Star Wars and Marvel, the second best extended universe still going, is getting smaller.

Force Skype and New Force Abilities

The scenes where Rey and Kylo could talk to each other from far away were cool in this film. They were. But we're now nine films into the Star Wars universe, plus a TV series or two. How far in do we get before The Force's powers are pretty much set?

I mean,  storytellers have always nerfed or buffed existing powers to serve a story (Superman gets weaker or stronger from storyline to storyline, but he always has super strength), but storytellers aren't inventing NEW powers for Superman anymore, and for Batman or Iron Man to invent a new gadget the story has to build up to it. If you're pulling "Bat-Shark-Repellent" out of your ass, your storytelling is shit.

So how long before we say "No. It helps the story, but inventing more force powers is now bullshit" -- because looking back, Force Skype would have been really handy during the execution of Order 66. Yoda was super strong in the force: if Snoke and Luke could both do it in this film, SURELY he could have used it to save some Jedis from Order 66. Freezing Blaster bolts, as Kylo Ren did in TFA would have been an incredible move for young Anakin or Darth Vader when they needed to intimidate an enemy, and his way of raiding someone's memory would have been much more effective than Palpatine's "I feel your anger" kind of stuff.

In storytelling terms, it made sense for Harry Potter to be learning new spells because he was a student. It also made sense for Luke to be... and we were learning about the force too. But we've seen enough force users now that it strains credibility to think that Yoda couldn't have done Force Skype, or frozen a blaster bolt, if he'd wanted to, and if he could, why didn't he? It would have been handy in a few tight spots where we saw him NOT use those abilities. Why have we never seen a Force Ghost do something other than appear, shimmer, and talk before - then suddenly Yoda called down lightning onto the Jedi Temple as a Force Ghost?

What is the nature of force powers anyway? Are force abilities like X-men powers -- different users have a different "suite" of force powers? This would explain why Rey picked up a few of the skills so easily, and why Kylo Ren is the only Force user we've seen freeze a blaster bolt in the air, even though Yoda and Palpatine were (presumably) both powerful enough to do it. This accounts for the way Force Lightning and Force Choking are dark side powers, and why nobody on the Jedi Council in the prequels could simply look into little Anakin's mind, which would have been handy, and the kind of skill the Jedi Council would probably have recruited for.

Or are force abilities like spells in Harry Potter -- anybody can learn them, but learning them takes work, and there's nothing to say a clever enough force user couldn't develop a new power if s/he worked at it, just like Hermione or Dumbledore could invent a new spell?

Or are force abilities like a Green Lantern ring, where anybody who puts one on (has the sensitivity) gets access to the same set of powers, (accounting for training and natural ability)?

But mostly: how far into the Star Wars universe do we get before we say "Storytellers should no longer make up new Force Abilities that aren't plausible combinations of other abilities we've already seen"? I'm reaching that point now, myself, as cool as the Force Skype scenes were, I don't want The Force to be the site of a bunch of storytelling ass-pulls and deus ex machinas.


Final Word on Super Franchises

Film Franchises, in order of "Knowing What They Are And Delivering What They Promise"

1. John Wick
2. The Fast and the Furious
3. Star Wars
4. Mad Max
5. Marvel Cinematic Universe
6. Pirates of the Caribbean
7. Transformers

Every other movie that ever got a sequel

162. Justice League/DC Extended Universe

Of these, Star Wars is in the toughest spot because new Star Wars movies are competing against two generations of fans' nostalgia of seeing the other films as kids, so expectations are ridiculously high, storytelling is most important, and how do you add more "heart" in postproduction? Justice League has the hardest spot because they've decided they want to compete with Marvel, choosing to play a near-insurmountable game of catch-up, while starting from the back foot because of bad creative choices at the outset. Marvel has done an amazing job of threading the needle between story continuity, fresh looks at superhero films, rotating in new heroes, while warding off superhero film fatigue, showing respect for the heroes and their storylines, and giving the films mass appeal also for non-comic reading fans. The question is how long they can keep all those plates spinning. Every new film where they continue this streak increases the difficulty rating.


Transformers is in the easiest position because they can just throw money at digital effects artists, cast a few stars from foreign markets, and make half a billion in China, and Pirates is in the second easiest position because Johnny Depp likes big paychecks and Jack Sparrow is good at selling pirate zombies, and again, global audiences seem to eat it up. Fast And The Furious looks like it's in a good spot, but more than you think depends on audiences believing in the vision of family that Dominic Toretto talks about, and the cast being believable as a cohesive unit built on loyalty and love. John Wick films could keep being good for as long as Keanu Reeves' body holds up and the fight choreographers have a free hand. But I have a feeling after three or four they'll walk away and leave John Wick as a perfect series of films preserved in amber. I really hope they don't beat it into the ground like Taken did.

But Star Wars is great. Laser swords, space adventure without technobabble, and oh mercy, that music always gets my blood going! They've had more "punch the air awesome" moments per film than any other series, by a far sight, and as long as they keep nailing the casting, people will buy tickets to see laser sword fights. They just will.

Comment moderation is on but I'll let everything pass through except spam; I'm always up to chat, but be patient please: it's grading period.

See you all at Episode 9!


EDIT: Here is a great article that sums up why TLJ had to be the way it was. More later, maybe.