SKYFALL IS WHERE IT STARTS...

I saw this tonight.

I'm not going to give any spoilers but I will say this: Whatever you do, don't ever, ever ever... EVER... lend James Bond any of your stuff.

Because he doesn't take care of it.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

PROMETHEUS: A REVIEW WITH MINOR SPOILERS

Prometheus gave mortals the gift of fire, an act which angered the rest of the gods who promptly punished him by chaining him to a rock where a great bird ate his liver for eternity.


The old gods were certainly less charitable back then.


But what if they were even less charitable? Suppose instead of confining their wrath merely to poor Prometheus, they decided to wipe out mortal man as well?

Ridley Scott rose to prominence as a director with the first Alien movie back in 1979. That film launched a string of sequels of fairly uneven quality in the intervening years. Now he returns with Prometheus, the prequel to the first film, and it is just as uneven.

The problem with the film is that it is trying to be too many things at once. It is both highbrow and lowbrow. It is fast-paced, and yet slow moving. It is an art film, but it is also a horror film. It is a philosophical examination of the nature of the relationship between man and his creator, but it is also an effects laden big-budget (3D) sci-fi flick. It is an ALIEN film but it is also something new. It is a zen garden but it is also a warehouse.

Does it sound schizophrenic? Because it kind of is.

That's probably why most other reviews of the film are all staring of with; "I liked it, but..."

Scott is trying to give something new, something massive, something epic, but at the same time is trying to satisfy the demands of the established franchise. It is a tricky balancing act that would be impossible for almost any other director, but Ridley almost... almost... pulls it off. (He is Ridley Scott, after all.)

After all is said and done the film manages to set the stage for the first movie. The fallout -- the detritus -- the leftovers -- of this film are the impetus for the Alien films. In fact the whole "alien" creature is depicted as an unintended afterthought of the epic events of Prometheus. For me that kind of cheapened all the other films. It also gives the lie to the titles of the subsequent films. Without giving too much away away, given the amount of human DNA that went into creating the thing, it can hardly be categorized as completely "alien".

A ubiquitous problem with a prequel made years after the "sequel" is that film technology improves. Prometheus is a beautifully designed film. The ships, the spacesuits, the technology is all amazing. So much so that it makes the first film, which takes place years after this one, look cheap and shoddy in comparison.

This is particularly true of David, the robot. Michael Fassbinder portrays him as a beautiful creature, with perfectly sculpted features and a Nazi precision that is genuinely frightening. He is the embodiment of human perfection. He is so perfect that he makes the subsequent robots (Ash, Bishop) look dumpy in comparison. To be fair, Ash and Bishop were designed to blend in better with the great unwashed of humanity -- Ash was designed to infiltrate a human crew who was unaware of his artificial nature -- nevertheless, they suffer in comparison.

Some scenes in Prometheus have an almost Kubrickian beauty and pacing. Other scenes "go for the gross-out". There are creatures of beauty and perfection contrasted with bloody, puss filled squiddy critters. Unfortunately the tentacles and blood tends to draw down the beauty and the philosophy --  like a New York steak served with a side of 'tater tots. You wouldn't really remember that as a fancy meal and it isn't fun enough to be junk food.

I can recommend it for the design alone. As I said, the space ships and space suits are amazing (and the actors look amazing in them) as is the look of the planet and the domed structures (with the skull faces on the side.) (It's funny that when the ship lands the skull is hidden from view. If they'd landed 45 degrees to the right it would have been visible and they might not have been so keen to go exploring.).

The "engineers" are beautiful as well and how they fit in with the "Space Jockey" from the original Alien is a surprisingly clever twist. Charlize Theron, is physically beautiful (and has an amazing ass - in 3D!) but she plays a character who is reprehensible -- batshit crazy and kind of scary. Idris Elba stands out as the captain of the Prometheus. Guy Pearce gives a surprising performance as well. Noomi Rapace plays the main character, Doctor Shaw. She has a very odd look and, although she is likable, I did not find her very interesting. She's a good actress but she's no Sigourney Weaver.

So, there you go. Prometheus ranges from really good to somewhat OK. There's nothing really bad about it. It aspires to be more than a monster movie, but it also aspires to be a monster movie. Unfortunately neither movie manages a home run. It answers some questions but then asks several more. There are many nice touches but not really any clear reason for their inclusion. David trying to emulate Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, for instance. Why?

Unless it is that when your creator rejects you -- indeed tries to kill you -- just like that other Prometheus, the modern one -- it hurts. "The trick," David says, mimicking Peter O'Toole, "is not minding that it hurts."

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

THE RAVEN

The Raven, far from being an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's immortal poem (nor a remake of the 1963 Roger Corman movie), is one of those movies of a particular genre of which I am quite fond. That is, a movie about a famous author being dragged into an adventure that is just like those that he or she writes about.

Not a biography at all, these films are adventures in their own rights but usually contain many literary allusions. Wim Wenders' 1983 film Hammet, starring Frederick Forrest as author Dashiel Hammet who gets involved in a Hammet-like hardboiled mystery, is one of the best examples. Another is Steven Soderbergh's 1991 Kafka in which Jeremy Irons plays the author Franz Kafka as he gets involved in a mystery that is... well... kafka-esque.

In The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe, played with a manic intensity by John Cusak, is drawn into a mystery that has overtones of Poe's own writing. Someone is literally recreating murder scenes from Poe's stories.


The film opens with a recreation of the murder scene from Murders in the Rue Morgue. Anyone who is vaguely familiar with the story can see it right away. Unfortunately the police in Baltimore are clueless except for Detective Fields (played by Luke Evans) who has read a book or two. He calls Poe in, at first as a suspect, then later to consult on the case.

What is the case? In a nutshell a deranged serial killer is racking up a body count all the while orchestrating the murders to resemble Poe's stories and poems. As a turn-of-the-century serial killer movie The Raven hits all the familiar notes: taunting messages to the police from the killer, a living hostage (in this case Emily, Poe's fiancee) whose life hangs in the balance, cryptic clues placed on the victim's bodies which tip the erstwhile investigators to the location of the next murder (where they arrive just slightly too late, of course). Time is running out for poor Emily and the detectives become more desperate as the movie progresses.


As a serial killer movie there is little here that is new, other than the inclusion of Edgar Allan Poe. Cusack plays Poe with a manic intensity and anger that seems more like a 19th century Harlan Ellison rather than the sedate and gloomy author that most would have expected to see. I'm not sure if I buy Poe as action hero, but then again, this is Hollywood.

Luke Evans is rather stiff as Detective Fields and Alice Eve plays Poe's love interest with a predictably modern sensibility, only falling into 19th century stereotypical behaviour when the plot calls for it.

The movie is kind of fun if one doesn't take it too seriously. The allusions to Poe's work are interesting, if  not overly clever. Nor is it entirely historically accurate. One of the victims, Griswald, was a real-life critic and rival who actually survived Poe and wrote some nasty stuff about him after his death. The film takes its revenge on Griswald in a particularly nauseating scene where the critic is very messily eviscerated by a giant pendulum (I saw that one coming) lovingly rendered using make-up and CGI. Not for the squeamish. I was only thankful that the film was NOT in 3D.

The film is visually arresting, particularly the opening a closing sequences which take historical fact and stitch it together with the movie's plot to try to explain the mysterious circumstances surrounding the final days of Poe's life. The cinematography is well done and the whole atmosphere of 19th century Baltimore is rendered well.


I do not know if the film is still in theaters, so even were I to recommend it (which I do, just) you could try to hunt it out, or wait until its arrival on DVD. It would certainly be worth the rental.

Or you could just go read some Poe. Hunt up a copy of Tales of Mystery and Imagination from the library or bookstore or Amazon.com and read for a change and stop being illiterate cretins!


Kidding... just kidding. Love you all, you know that.




I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

YUP. JOHN CARTER OF MARS SOUND BETTER.

I saw JOHN CARTER last night. I went with a certain amount of trepidation but I was completely blindsided at how damned good the movie was. It was not a perfect adaptation of A PRINCESS OF MARS. Elements from the later books have been brought in to flesh out the story, but most everything that I loved about Burroughs' novel was up there on the screen and more!

Aside from a slightly annoying "character Arc" that has been grafted onto John Carter himself, all of the characters were there exactly as they are in the book, particularly the tharks. Far from being merely skinny versions of Shrek, they come across a real beings with emotions from a real culture. Tars Tarkas and Sola in particular are there on the screen exactly as they were in the book.


The filmmakers have had to make concessions to the modern filmgoing audience (hence John Carter having more in common with Clint Eastwood than with earlier heroes in whose mold John Carter was originally written) but they have translated the story so wonderfully and so powerfully upon the screen that it was not onerous at all.

It is an amazing and wonderful film, even in a 2D version, which is all our local theater is showing. (It must have rocked in 3D).


So why is it doing so poorly? Why is it doing better outside the US than it is domestically? Others have posited that a change in studio executives is behind it all. A new studio head has made it his mission to scuttle this film which was given the green light by his predecessor. Disney itself is responsible for its poor performance, not the poor schmucks in the marketing department. They had the marketing right at first. The film was even called John Carter of Mars originally, but it all changed to the marketing campaign that had everyone scratching their heads.


Whatever the reason, I'm afraid that I contributed to that negative buzz with my misgivings and now I must take back anything negative I have previously blogged about this film. All my misgivings have been melted away.


Except for one thing...


As I said, I really loved this movie but there is one thing that has nagged at me and that is that, as a Disney production, Dejah Thoris would necessarily join the ranks of the Disney Princesses. Can you imagine it? Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Princess Jasmine and... Dejah Thoris?


I shudder at the very thought. I think I'd rather drink a cup of hemlock than see that happen.


So if the film does not generate enough money or interest to let that nightmare become a reality, I'm really okay with that. It is a beautiful film and nothing will take that away. A sequel would have been nice, the film becoming a runaway hit would have been nice, but I honestly couldn't face a world where John Carter and Tars Tarkas join Mickey and Minnie on parade through the streets of Disneyland.


I'd rather die in the Warhoon arena.


Still, the film deserves to be seen.


Do yourself a favor: GO SEE JOHN CARTER!



I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A Game of Shadows

Went and saw this last night. Not sure if I liked it better or not quite as well as the first one. It was on a par with it, nevertheless.


However. I have read all of the Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories and I can tell you that the original stories did not contain a lot of explosions, gattling guns, urban camouflage, martial arts and slow-motion-MATRIX-like fight scenes. If you really like that stuff then you will be fine with this movie. If, on the other hand, you're a bit of a purist when it comes to Conan Doyle, you might want to give this a miss.


Despite the Victorian atmosphere (sometimes a little overwrought) and Stephen Frey as a flamboyant Mycroft, these films don't really capture the essence of the Conan Doyle stories as well as Stephen Moffat's excellent series SHERLOCK.

Despite being transported to modern day London, SHERLOCK captures the feeling and the essence of the Conan Doyle stories in a way that hasn't happened since Jeremy Brett was still alive and playing the great detective.


Nevertheless if you don't mind the "Big Screen Experience" overwhelming everything, then by all means go and see A Game of Shadows. You will be entertained, if not educated.


I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

SUCKER PUNCH

I went and saw Sucker Punch last night. I know it's a bit late in the game, most people have seen it and it is leaving most theaters soon (we saw it on its 2nd to last showing). I don't have too much to add to what has been said about it already so I'll just post a few thoughts.

The film starts off in "reality" although it is presented in a highly stylized, music video way which makes it seem more dreamlike than the fantasy that follows. That would be our "Meta-reality"

In the half-second before the hammer drops on the lobotomy pick we are plunged into a fantasy which is presented in a more realistic fashion. I think this is the cause of much of the confusion about the movie. The majority of the movie takes place in this fantasy but it is presented in a way that is more realistic than the "Meta-reality" of the framing sequence.

This is where the movie started to lose me. Perhaps if it had started here I would have enjoyed it more but I kept having this nagging feeling that what I was seeing was not real and that interfered with my willing suspension of disbelief.

So Baby Doll is such an awesome dancer that the only way to represent this fact is to enter into her mind and these sequences of even more heightened fantasy -- the "Meta-fantasy" -- which is where the movie really starts to rock-and-roll.

I enjoyed the battles with mythical oriental statues and dragons and steampunk nightmare nazis although I found my willing suspension of disbelief again being challenged. I knew these were fantasy seqyences but why was it that these pretty, dainty girls in schoolgirl outfits were such kick-ass warriors when the grizzled soldiers all around them were such schlepps? I minor point. This is a fantasy and, more importantly, it is Baby Doll's fantasy.

As the movie moved along I got into the rhythm. The songs re-presented during the fantasy sequences were also some of my favourites -- I've got them all on my iTunes -- so hearing them being co-opted for the fantasy sequence didn't help with my suspension of disbelief. Rather than helping me
"in" to the fantasy for me it became a barrier.

Another point: if Baby Doll's reality takes place in the 1940's (which it seems to do) then how can she know about songs by The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane and Queen?. A minor quibble, but again, you really don't want to be interfering with that willing suspension of disbelief.


Fanboys and other pundits have been talking about SuckerPunch in terms of comic books and video games -- not surprising given director Zach Snyder's other films, WATCHMEN and 300, both of which are based on popular comics. This film was conceived and written by Snyder himself and, although it is saturated with images derived from video games and comic books, I got the sense that the story that he was trying to tell was much more personal to him. At times it felt like the overwhelming images were dwarfing a smaller, more personal, symbolic story -- an idea that seemed important but one that I think kept getting lost in the Sturm and Drang.


Actually I'm surprised that critics like Ignatiy Vishnevetsky don't seem to make the connections between this film and European cinema. At its heart Sucker Punch is clearly more akin to Ingmar Bergman or Luis Bunuel than the comic and video game derived images would suggest.


Unfortunately for me it was those elements that dwarfed the very small and, I suspect, Personal story that Snyder wanted to tell about courage, strength and self sacrifice. The final points were made to images that were uber-American: A bus stop in the midwest. This is symbolic filmmaking being handled by a master -- he has recreated the Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post America.


Unfortunately I think this message gets lost in the cascade of images that juxtapose WW2 elements with sword and sorcery and fantasy like Ralph Bakshi on steroids.

However, it wasn't until this morning that I realized what fantasy film Snyder was riffing on and I was surprised that I didn't recognize it while I was watching it or even before because once you realize it it seems so obvious.


Sucker Punch is Snyder's paean to THE WIZARD OF OZ.


Think about it -- Baby Doll

is based on Dorothy Gale

here played by Judy Garland.


It is so obvious and it was right there in front of our noses all the time, even before the film was released. Take a look at the iconic Sucker Punch logo:

Compare this with the classic title card from The Wizard of OZ:

See the similarities?


There's more. Characters from the "Meta Reality" show up in the fantasies -- Sweet Pea, Amber, Rocket, Blondie, Blue, Dr. Gorski, Scto Glenn's character -- just the same way that the characters from OZ all have counterparts in the scenes from Kansas, especially Miss Gulch who wants to destroy Toto. In Dorothy's "fantasy" of Oz she is made manifest as the Wicked Witch of the West.

Sucker Punch is gone from my local theater now but I think I will probably pick it up when it comes out on DVD. I think watching it in light of its correlation to The Wizard of Oz will probably make it more enjoyable. And I suspect, just like The Wizard of Oz, that Sucker Punch's estimation will rise with time and it will eventually overcome the lambasting that it has taken at the hands of critics.


That's the way I see it anyway.





I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio