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Monday, January 18, 2010

The Book of Rewrites

Denzel Washington stars in The Book of Eli


Caution: Major Spoilers Ahead. Seriously. Don't read this post until you've already seen The Book of Eli... unless you have no interest whatsoever in seeing the film. And if you don't... then you probably don't care about this post anyway. And if you did, and you LOVED it... then you probably don't want to read my criticism of it... So basically, this post is only for those people who already saw The Book of Eli, liked it, but didn't quite love it. So, um... Hi.

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I'm a pretty big fan of the apocalypse. Or rather, what happens afterward. A common dinner conversation with me is: If the radioactive mutant zombies are taking over Seattle tomorrow, what would you pack the truck of your car with before heading for the hills? Seeds? Shotgun shells? Disinfectant? Skin moisturizer? Morphine? Pornography? Butane? Blank paper? Or would you skip the hills and try to make it on a decent sized sail boat? If you can avoid the inevitable pirates, perhaps that's the ticket to survival. I think about this stuff a little too much... perhaps because it asks us to think about what is truly valuable, and what we would miss the most if the infrastructure of our fair civilization completely collapsed.

The Book of Eli is a success. It's a good movie. The filmmakers took on a serious challenge in bringing this world and these characters to life. The undertaking is ambitious... not quite on the same scale as the Matrix or Lord of the Rings trilogies... but they still painted a gorgeous representation of the genre. While the Wachowski Brothers brought Cyberpunk to life, and Peter Jackson animated Middle Earth... The Hughes Brothers breathed arid virulent life into Post-Apocalyptia. And since I'm a fan of the genre, I left the theater wanting several more stories to be told in this exact same world.

The movie is like a video game. To be less kind, the movie is a video game... called Fallout. And the sequels have been quite successful... especially Fallout 3, the latest incarnation from Bethesda Game Studios. This entire film could have been the plot to Fallout 4 and it would have worked seamlessly. Fans of the game will notice the various stylistic details lifted straight from the Fallout universe, including the muted color palette and sandblasted landscapes, the use of certain weapons (did I notice a bottlecap mine in there?) desert raider culture, the mystical role of Christian theology, creepifying cannibals, and steampunk style scavenger-engineers (great to see Tom Waits properly cast.) The only thing missing was Ron Perlman. But Denzel did a better job as warrior/monk than Perlman would have anyway. (See The Mutant Chronicles for proof.)

I'm sure the filmmakers worried about people claiming they ripped off Fallout 3. Which is why they erred when it came to soundtrack choices. Fallout has a signature sound (the doo-wop sound of The Inkspots) that harkens back to an innocent 40's style America... when the American Dream thrived, and we started building bomb shelters and filming Duck and Cover educational films to protect it. The juxtaposition of this classic sound with a gritty post-nuclear wasteland is particularly haunting. When Denzel whips out his iPod and jams out to some sweet 70's soul music instead, I tried to play along. But having the old cannibal couple George and Martha crank up a vintage record player and spin disco classic Ring My Bell? Not really funny or haunting. They should have just given the nudge-and-wink hat tip to Fallout and given us 30 seconds of The Inkspots instead. It would have been the classier move and made a lot of fanboys happy.

Then there's the whole Zatoichi-style blind swordsman hook. Toward the end of the film it's revealed that the main ass-kicking character is blind. It feels strangely tacked on and I spent a long time thinking back to every scene trying to remember if there were telltale signs that Denzel's Eli was sightless. It would just be an unnecessary strain on our disbelief, but then they reveal a plot device in which the contested Book turns out to be in Braille. So just when you thought the evil Carnegie would prove unstoppable, it turns out he's screwed. And evil's defeat is doubly poetic since Carnegie was such a bastard to his blind wife, who was the only other person who could have read the Braille manuscript. And if cribbing Zatoichi isn't bad enough, Eli's loss of the book sets up a Fahrenheit 451 ending. His daily reading has allowed him to memorize every word... which he spills to a scribe as he lays dying from a mortal gunshot wound. When your denouement mainly consists of gluing together a Japanese pulp hero and a Ray Bradbury gimmick, you could use a little editing.

So I propose a modest rewrite to the final act. In my version, Eli can be blind or not. It doesn't matter. It should probably be scrapped though, because it distracts from what is otherwise a fairly believable world. Leave the blind superheroes for Daredevil comics. He doesn't have to be blind to have memorized the entire bible, just devoted. In my version, Eli still winds up going west to the promised land and delivering the King James Bible to the scribes. He still finds his peace and there's hope that some folks will use the Word for their spiritual betterment.

But, there should remain an uncomfortable duality. If Eli isn't blind, then the Bible he carried would have been legible. Paid for in blood and betrayal... Carnegie too should have the Word. The film created a brilliant paradox about the Bible being useful to those who would exploit, manipulate and subjugate the fearful masses; and those who seek it as a script for spiritual emancipation. The official ending short circuits this contradiction. The gritty realism is reduced to a morality tale and a testament to faith. The far better ending would be for Eli to find his haven, while Carnegie is left plotting in the squalor of his own little fiefdom of hell. Rather than a Hollywood ending, we would see that both have used the Book for their own ends... and the world will have to deal with their coexisting and opposite outcomes.

I was willing to buy into Denzel's defense of the scripture. In fact, it was often beautiful. I just wanted to see it balanced with an equally valid prosecution.

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Thursday, January 07, 2010

Geek Boy Moviegasms for 2010?

When I saw Avatar at the Cinerama, this trailer was more exciting than the following 2.5 hours. It'll probably suck, but I'm a sucker for mythological monsters.



And in case you loved the video game Fallout 3, there's this bit of tasty cheese:



And then there's this one. Apparently Paul Bettany is still drunk on communion wine after slumming it Dan Brown style.



And we always need more Vampire movies... or more Ethan Hawke movies... or... um... okay, but it looks slightly more intelligent than Underworld.



And Marvel is hoping this sequel keeps the fire alive for superheroes, so that their plans for an Avengers movie will still pan out... since Hulk, Thor, Nick Fury and Captain America have yet to make any money or any sense on the screen.



Anyway, it's a fair crop of blockbustery blockheadedness to look forward to in the next few months. And I'll probably wind up seeing all five of them. Any guesses which will end up on the Worst of 2010 list?

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Interesting Movies of 2009

I punted the 2008 top 10 films list, opting instead to write a spoof piece. While it remains one of the funniest things I've written on Stave It Off... A return to form in 2009 is in order. So I'll write genuinely about this year's crop of films. Don't worry about looking for sarcasm. I promise not to use any. I also learned (from the sheer number of people who missed the irony of 2008's list) that no one wants to read blurbs about the actual movie in these sorts of lists... they just want to see your names and compare them to their own.

This year, I'm also changing up the format slightly. I figure there are five categories of films worth talking about. All of them deserve some sort of credit or notice. Together, they represent the most interesting films of the year. You can think of the categories as 5 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars, movies I still need to see, and embarrassing disappointments.

Late edits are made it italics.

Brilliant Films
These five knocked it out of the park. These are the best and brightest, and I recommend them without hesitation. If you haven't seen these films, you're a boogerhead. If you've seen them and weren't impressed, I hate you.

Where the Wild Things Are
Hurt Locker
Up
District 9
Moon
A Serious Man

Flawed, But Still Very Good Films
This category is a place to honor films that won't necessarily appeal to everyone. They have some wrinkles... but manage to do something intensely well and are impressive achievements. I might still like you if you avoided or disliked one of these films. But you're really missing out on some good stuff here.

Watchmen
Away We Go
Fantastic Mr Fox
Coraline
Star Trek
Zombieland
Sugar
The Girlfriend Experience
Sherlock Holmes
Up in the Air
In the Loop
Youth in Revolt
9
The Road
Precious
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Also-Rans
These were either merely enjoyable but little more, or seriously flawed. By all means, go see them... but if any of these made your Top 10 list... then you have suspect taste, or don't see enough movies.

Avatar
500 Days of Summer
Julie and Julia
Whip It
The Hangover
Paranormal Activity
Capitalism
The Hangover
World's Greatest Dad
Ink
Observe and Report
An Education
Broken Embraces
Inglourious Basterds

Unseen/Unranked
As with every year, I feel a great swelling of shame when I'm stuck trying to rate the best of cinema despite missing so many important contenders. These are the films I still intend to see. I cannot comment on their worthiness... but either the hype or the trailer or the cast/director has me curious. I'm going to try to watch as many as possible in the next week and update this post accordingly. Anyone up for a double-feature?

A Town Called Panic
35 Shots of Rum
Crazy Heart

Bombs
Sorry, I didn't see many this year. I managed to avoid all the flashy fantasy/sci-fi trainwrecks like GI Joe, Transformers 2, Twilight and Dragonball Z. And I never see films like Couples Retreat. I don't think I had the time or money to waste on films that I knew were going to blow chunks. Here's a shortlist of the films that disappointed me though. Even if I had low expectations to begin with, these were all pretty feeble.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Inkheart
Year One
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Public Enemies
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Paper Heart

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