Newsflash: People don’t give a shit about the Oscars

Morgan Avery4 Comments

Or at least the results don’t particularly impact on their viewing decisions. According to a survey on that beacon of fine journalistic integrity, that bastion of quality writing (and complete heap of crap, losing relevence by the minute) the New Zealand Herald, we really don’t give a shit about the Oscars, with only around 26% saying they have some bearing on their movie watching decisions.

(I don’t want this to be about the Herald, but just how bad are they? Really bad. They appear to only hire new graduates – and from what I’ve picked up, journalism pays worse than street sweeping, so very few Smart Folk move into the area, which is why you can name so few journalists. Those few you can name have been in the game for a long time, work extremely hard to do a good job, and make a living by keeping irons in several fires. All the kids though, will probably be in the game for the short haul at best, and are little more than grist for the mill.)

Given that the Oscars are little more than another opportunity for the movie making industry to kiss the back of its own neck, where do people find out about which movies to watch and which to avoid?

Well, mostly our friends. Right?

I know I wouldn’t have heard anything about the upcoming Will Smith comedy Hancock if a friend hadn’t mentioned it. (Not yet, anyway, but of course once the buzz really started to pick up, sure.)

And depending on your interests, you might not have heard about the new Iron Man movie until I mentioned it 5 words ago, but it looks very exciting, with Robert Downey Jr as the titular lead.

(Hur hur, I said tit.)

Of course it’s not fair to say that we only hear about stuff from friends, because where di they hear about ‘upcoming movie fun’ from? Well, maybe another friend. But track it back far enough (which might not be very far) and what do you find? Almost certainly a highly skilled marketing person, carefully cultivating and shepherding the ‘buzz’. I wonder if those self-same marketing folk feel a sharp stabbing pain when all their hard work turns to naught once we discover what a POS their shiny new movie is. I hope so.

Stab stab. (Dear Jumper, thanks very much for costing me $15.50, please die.) Stab stab.

It’s too bad you didn’t listen to me about Michael Clayton, it’s George Clooney’s best movie in years.

Now check out the Iron Man trailer. It looks like a good fun superhero (in a manner of speaking) boy-movie to me.

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4 Girls, God is Dead

Morgan Avery

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Today we’re talking about ‘4 Girls Fingerpaint’, if you’re hoping for a laugh watch ‘Redux’ or ‘I Can Has Ollies?’ instead. I find the subject (exploitation) pretty serious, so it might be a bit of a bummer.

Jumper (2008)

Morgan Avery

When I saw the first teaser trailer I knew I was going to like this movie.

Then I heard about the chops of some of the people behind its production: director Doug Liman made Go & Swingers, Mr & Mrs Smith, and The Bourne Identity.
The writing team includes David Goyer who wrote the Blade movies, Dark City, and Batman Begins, and Jim Uhls who wrote the screenplay for motherfucking Fightclub.

So, chops. I knew I was in for a good thing.

But I was just so goddamn wrong.

Not that there weren’t a few good ideas… I mean, I guess. I liked all the bits with the library. And the Tokyo driving sequence with the stolen Benzo was fun.

But the thing with the bus was cooler on the trailer than in the movie. And the teleport-fighting was much better dealt with in X-Men 2 (that whole sequence with Nightcrawler in the Whitehouse was osome), than it is here in a movie entirely about teleporting and fighting!  This movie is awful.  It’s childish.  And an unrelenting idiocy pervades it, from shortly after the beginning until the end.

It felt like a good writer crafted a few scenes, and then they had some idiot’s second generation idiot teenage son come up with all of the rest of the ideas.  And it just didn’t work.

The main character (Hayden Christensen) is entirely unlikeable, only barely coming above the appropriately loathsome bad guy (Sam Jackson with badly dyed hair, phoning it in).

Hayden Christensen shouldn’t be allowed to stand around in any more movies. Just cut him a cheque and tell him to fuck off.  He’s done.

If the movie had been about the other Jumper, it would have had a chance. So much potential, but the stupid goddamn stupid stupid fucking stupid.

Just skip it.

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Morgan Avery1 Comment

It’s hard to know where to start with this latest Coen brothers movie.

Not only will you be creeped out by Javier Bardem’s peformance as the massively defective, bowlcut hairstyled bad guy.

And not only will you cheer for the skilled, capable and smart good guy who seems to do the things you assume you’d do (or, should I say: I assume I’d do).

And not only will you feel sorry for all the dog shooting – not to mention brutal serial killing of innocent bystanders and bad guys alike.

And not only will you wonder just what is wrong with the sound track – nothing, music simply used extremely sparingly,  to powerful effect.

But you will also have all of your preconceptions of ‘normal’ movie structural stereotypes subverted as the film makers go completely off the playbook.  (Not in the Memento sense, but you’ll see what I mean when you watch the movie.)

It has numerous graphically portrayed instances of realistic violence, so if you can’t stand that, I do suggest you skip it.

It’s been out for a long time, so I’m sure you’ve already seen it.  I mean, I saw it 3 weeks ago.  But just on the off chance you’re a complete idiot and can’t see that this is certainly one of the movies of the year: Go see it (allowing for the aforementioned violence caveat).

Michael Clayton (2007)

Morgan Avery

A fixer for a law firm (George Clooney) works to patch up the fallout of his old friend and partner in his law firm (Tom Wilkinson) going off his meds, and seemingly going moonbat.  Exceptionally well cast.  Strong performances performances all around – including some seriously brave work by Tilda Swinton, as the evil big corporate lawyer.

Good from beginning to end, I thought, with particularly strong (if understated) closing titles.

Strongly recommended.

Rogue Assassin (2007)

Morgan Avery

It turns out we can probably formulate a few simple rules…

  1. If you’re making an English language movie, you should probably skip Jet Li
  2. If you’re making a Jason Statham movie, it had better be jokey
  3. If your movie isn’t about superheroes, don’t call any of your characters Rogue

If you break these rules, your movie will suck – as evidence of this I present Rogue Assassin, a steaming pile of crap.

Don’t bother.