District 9 is currently the hot movie racing up the charts. This is true both in terms of box office dollars and critical praise. I saw it last night with great expectations. In short: It disappointed me. The absolute bottom line is that this is like many Peter Jackson's productions. It is strong on core concept and visual effects, and pretty lame overall. It is hard for me to put my finger on precisely what the problem was, but the movie is basically flat. I watched it, and I really didn't care. I just didn't give a damn.
So why did it fail? Perhaps it is a vain attempt to say something about race relations and international relations when you really don't have anything to say (of importance) about race relations or international relations. Perhaps it is because this movie is too sharply derivative of Alien Nation and Starship Troopers. I think this is probably the most important factor. Neill Blomkamp & Peter Jackson basically ripped an Alien Nation meets Starship Troopers Frankenhooker script, and shot it to the best of their abilities (which are fairly good). There are also elements of Kafka's Metamorphosis, and also the hand-cam movies like Cloverfield and Quarantine.
For those who don't yet know this, I took the basic film appreciation course at UCLA. It was the only fun course I took during my 2.33 years there. I did it for shits and giggles. The two most outstanding units in that text book were titled:
1. The truly rancid sequel
2. The Frankenhooker script
These two chapters attempted to explain at least two-thirds of epic disasters that have occurred in Hollywood history. When I say epic disasters, I mean tragically failed films which lost tens of millions of dollars, terminated promising careers, and sunk studio franchises. Transformers 2 is an example of the truly rancid sequel phenomenon. So was Blade III. The studio ordered up a sequel and scheduled the production budget before anyone had even bothered to think of a plot, write a script, or do a story board. That's how you get a truly rancid sequel.
The Frankenhooker is a bit different. A Frankenhooker script is one where the studio bosses demand the recombination of large components of other previously successful movies. You stitch together large story parts, as doctor Frankenstein did with body parts, and try to bring it to life with a jolt of electricity. A Frankenhooker is a concept that should be sexy, because it is composed of sexy body parts. Unfortunately, the surgical sutures are highly visible. The pieces that have been stitched together have inflamed red scars all over the place, showing signs of rejection and infection. Wanted was the great Frankenhooker of last year. It too was financially & critically successful. Two years ago, Doomsday was the big Frankenhooker. I actually liked that one, although it was neither critically nor financially successful.
Blow-by-blow, play-by-play, minute-to-minute, District-9 botches the game with fatious attempts at ultra-satire. It is very clear that Paul Verhooven is Neill Blomkamp super-hero and idol. He wants to make a snarky ultra-satire of the sort Paul Verhooven would be proud of. OCP in the Robocop movies is replaced with MNU in District 9. Their first job is to run around in District 9 getting the aliens to sign eviction notices. The Prawns have been given names like "Christopher Johnson". The Prawns engage in cross-species prostitution just as the aliens in Alien Nation did {when you see the Prawns, you will realize that this is fatious attempt at humor}. MNU is even more heartless than OCP, with the Big Bossman willing to vivisect his own son-in-law and leave his daughter widdowed in order to discover how humans can manipulate alien weapons. We have some preposterous leaps of faith in this script as well. I am expected to believe that exposure to an alien fuel cell will cause a human being to mutate into into a Prawn. I find this no more believable than the notion that a Prawn might mutate into a human after being exposed to battery acid.
What shocks me is that supposedly intelligent, high-minded art critics are greeting this film as an intelligent work of art!?!?! They hell you say waaahhhh? WTF? Who did what? I am absolutely sure I have no idea of what the hell they are babbling about in their reviews. They must not have seen the same movie I did. At the core, this is an incredibly stupid film, without any point to make. The only point was the Frankenhooker point: To recombine pieces of a previously successful pair of films, and make some money with a new property.
So can we laugh at this movie? Is it funny? Nope. Unlike Paul Verhooven's movies, my audience only laughed once during District 9. This was during the preposterous photo of Wikus fucking a Prawn. That was outrageous enough to make the audience understand that this was a clear-cut attempt at humor. They obliged the film makers by laughing. I thought it looked foolish as hell. Nobody would ever do such a thing. Any corp that broadcast this picture to discredit a guy, would itself become the subject of ridicule. Do you really expect us to believe this?
Ultimately, this is not a wretched-bad film, but it isn't a good one either. It is just a mediocre weird film. Put this in the same category with Peter Jackson's King Kong and with the recently departed Watchmen. It's just one of those mis-begotten concepts that almost panned out, but couldn't escape weak ideas & writing.
Showing posts with label Wanted. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wanted. Show all posts
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
So we have two killer movies to see in the theater this weekened
All week long I have been monitoring RottenTomatoes.com. A very interesting phenomenon has been in progress there all week. Specifically, two of the highest rated movies of the year were setting in the blocks for launch today... Highest rated by professional movie critics, that is. We'll see how the crowd likes them.
Specifically, I speaking of Pixar's new movie UP and Sam Rami's new movie Drag Me to Hell. It is no surprise that Pixar is getting this kind of reception. Sometimes I think that all the great artists and story tellers have clustered in one spot in this historical epoch. That is Pixar headquarters in Oakland/Emeryville. I wonder if these guys ever go to the Blackhole to watch a Raider game? Seems like a damn unlikely place for the greatest art studio of this epoch. On the other hand, I am astounded by Sam Rami's critical reception.
By a score of 87-2 Pixar's new movie is scoring a killer 98% on the T-Meter. Although this is a 3d comedy, they say this is actually Pixar's most serious subject ever. It is based on a Dutch proverb which say that "We grow old far too soon, and wise far too late." It is unbelievable that this movie is outscoring both The Incredibles and Wall-e
Much more surprising than this is the score Sam Rami is hauling down with his new horror movie called "Drag me to Hell". By a score of 69-4 this flick tallies a massive 95%, and is tied with Star Trek for the #2 score of the year. Un-goddamn-believable. I don't remember the last time I saw a horror movie score this kind of critical praise. The Descent only got 85%. 28 Days Later only scored 88%
Gotta see them both!
My greatest concern is that Pixar is going to suffer another unexpected spoiler-launch this year.
Last year Wall-e went head-to-head with Wanted, a movie that nobody expected to do as well as it did. Wanted damn near split the box-office with Wall-e, despite that fact that it was absolute crap on film. I am talking about bullshit rubbish of the most obnoxious and pompous variety. It was a Frankenhooker movie that stole it's first 20 minutes from the Fight Club, the next 20 minutes from The Matrix, the next half-hour from Star Wars. It crapped out in the final quarter. A Frankenhooker is movie that stitches together dead body parts from successful classic movies. You can identify the original owner's body parts clearly. The surgical stitches are visible and ugly. The result is bad laughs... if you are lucky. Wanted had one nude scene with Angelina Jolie, perhaps the most overrated Heroin Skeezer in the history of film, and therefore it made tons of money. I was completely horrified. The poor taste of the American public is often astounding. Lamentably, the critical press mostly went along with the bandwagon.
The consequence of this was Wall-E had a much smaller box office than it should have had. Fuck Slumdog Millionaire. Wall-E was the best movie of 2008. It should have won Best Picture at every event. It also should have made a lot more money.
2009 is just like Deja Vu all over again. Everybody knew Sam Rami was making a horror film. Nobody cared until recently. Everybody thought this would be a very small recreational project for Sam. He's just taking a break between Spider-Man movies, that's all. Now he has stunned the critics, and we are going to see a stamped at the box office.
You see, horror movies are big business. Good, bad, or indifferent, they almost always make money. The lowest risk investment you can make in Hollywood is to invest in a cheap horror movie. LIONSGATE has almost achieved major studio status by producing a ton of these movies. When you get a preferred director with a reputation with the people, and combine that with massive critical praise, all teens will head to the theater.
Why does this happen? It is a documented fact that horror movies make the best date flicks. If your a teen guy, and you are trying hard to fuck your teen girl for the first time, take her to a horror movie. She'll pop wide-open. She will need the comfort of a strong male presence during the most intense sequences. She will bury her nose in your armpit for the very first time. There, she will acquire a fairly good dose of your pheromones. Don't use too much soap on your pits, and don't put on any deodorant. It will obfuscate the scent she needs to acquire. If she gets a shot of those pheromones, her hypothalamus will light up visibly on a CT scan. Neuro-Endocrinologists have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is the moment when she discovers that she loves you, and can't live without you. She needs your comfort. She's going to start fantasizing about having children with you. She has been chemically activated and turned on.
Another interesting theory is that death seems to stimulate the female reproductive instincts. Men kill each other. Women have to replace them quickly. The tribe would die out quickly otherwise. This seems to be a deep unconscious genetic biological motive that we do not perceive or comprehend at the rational level. Still, it is real and powerful and effective.
A lot of guys score after horror films.
So what is the consequence of all this? It is likely that Pixar is going to be severely challenged at the box office again in 2009. It is conceivable that UP might even loose this #1 spot this week. If that happens it will be the first time in recent history that Pixar has failed to acquire this spot on launch week.
Although I am glad that we have two good prospects for this weekend, I grimace at the thought of a superior art work loosing the box office to a teenage fuck-fest horror movie. I regret that a movie which promises to be Pixar's greatest achievement yet may be spoiled by teen sperm-pressure, and a misinterpretation of the current banking real estate market.
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