Reay Jespersen

SPOILER WARNING

Iron Man 2 opens by introducing a new villain: Whiplash, aka Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of a just-dead Russian engineer whose work on the arc reactor that powers Iron Man (and indeed, Tony Stark himself) was allegedly stolen by Tony Stark’s father. Vanko sets to work building a powered suit of his own, and hunts down Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to get his revenge. The attempt proves short-lived, and he’s sent to prison.

For his own part, Stark is fending off attempts by the government - spearheaded by weapon design technician competitor to Stark, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) - to obtain the Iron Man technology. Stark has also found out that he’s dying; the arc reactor that replaced his heart is leeching toxins into his body. He wants to keep it quiet from assistant/would-be love interest Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), so transfers control of the Stark empire to her under the pretense of her being able run it more effectively. Enter Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), the overseer of the legal transfer of the company to Potts’ control, and now assistant to Potts.

Hammer, meanwhile, has faked Vanko’s death in order to spring him from prison and has put Vanko to work on Hammer’s own line of Iron Man-like suits, which Venko turns into robots.

As he faces his own mortality secretly, Stark’s behaviour becomes more erratic and dangerous, finally pushing his friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to take control of one of the Iron Man suits in order to keep Stark in check. As his downward spiral continues, Stark gets a wake-up call from the past in a recorded message from his father informing Stark that he alone has the key to finding something very important; something that will change the world. And something, as it turns out, that will also save his own life.

Woven into this, we find that Rushman isn’t just a rep from legal who can handle herself in a fight, but is in fact an undercover SHIELD agent working for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

It’s only when Hammer’s robots are put into action at Hammer’s very public product launch that Vanko’s real plan is revealed.

Robert Downey Jr. does a good job in the revised role as Tony Stark, but the subplot of his tailspin of behaviour from knowing of his imminent death didn’t feel like it fit the character as well as it may have. Stark’s life has always been about complete control, so his acting out at losing control over his own life ending too soon makes some sense, but not to the degree he depicts. The result, which borders on too long, comes across as somewhat contrived.

Gwyneth Paltrow was more likable in the first movie, here having far fewer endearing moments, coming across instead as cold and uncaring. Granted, Stark’s unaccountable behaviour pushes her there to a point - to paraphrase her, she’s an assistant trying to run the company that Stark should be running - but it would’ve been nice to see her try to care for him more and distance herself less.

Scarlett Johansson was good, but felt like she was too downplayed. When she finally flies into glorious action during the movie’s climax (the fight choreography for her is quite well done), it’s all too brief a release from the prim and proper - though seductive - guise she’s held.

Don Cheadle’s Rhodes felt less friendly and more official than it perhaps should’ve (and may have, if Terrence Howard had been brought back to revise his performance as the character).

Sam Rockwell was good as Justin Hammer, but the character felt a bit two-dimensional.

Mickey Rourke was the real surprise here, putting on a performance which was not only noteworthy, but at its best, stole the show.

Overall, most performances weren’t what they could’ve/should’ve been, but the core idea of the story, the action, the other subplot of Tony re-discovering a new element as passed down to him by his father - that which will change the world and which literally gives him new life, and notched up presence/relevance of the Avengers all still make for an entertaining movie. It isn’t as good as the first on a number of levels, but is still worth seeing on a big screen by old and (like me) new Iron Man fans alike.

And yes, Virginia, there is a teaser after the credits. Worth sticking around for, though its snippit of a hint may be lost on those not at least passingly familiar with other Avengers.

All cards on the table. I don’t like pitching. I get its use - encapsulating an idea in order to save the both writer and production companies/reps time in knowing whether or not it’s something that may be production-worthy - but I’m really not a fan of it.

Here’s my thing: I got into writing screenplays because my best friend suggested that since I’m a visual thinker (still true) and enjoyed writing (ditto), why not work toward a visual medium and write screenplays? Brilliant! So, many years later, here I sit, having written several screenplays, and over the last few years also getting into TV show concepts, development, and episode writing. All while working on short stories and haikus and book ideas and game concepts and whatever else srtikes me from one day to the next, of course. Take it from one who knows: inside my head is never a boring place to be.

But the point is that screenplays and teleplays allow me to take the story visions I have and present them in a form which will, ideally, become a visual medium. And to have to pitch that not only removes the material one more generation from its intended form - a vision forced into written words, and then those written words re-formed into vastly truncated verbal ones which strive to convey the whole original vision - but also puts me in the uncomfortable position of having to be the proactive one in talking to people I don’t know. And not only has that never been a happy place for me, but worse still, I’m sitting there squirming to lay out part of myself - my stories - for the close scrutiny of these people.

Meanwhile there’s part of me saying hey, I’m an award-winning writer (albeit of severely modest degree). I know for a fact that at its best, my writing can convey more power and emotion than I’ll ever be able to manage while sitting and trying to convince someone else of its merits. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, as the saying goes. And verbally pitching about writing strikes me the same way: it’s one artform striving to relay another. Two very different disciplines that have been intertwined, and where failure at one could so easily result in the other never being seen at all, quality be damned.

Had I mentioned I’m not a fan?

In any case, I’m happy to say that despite the frayed nerves and buckets of sweat the day produced, Pitch Expo 2009 was generally a success for me. Not everyone I pitched to seemed huge on the various stuff I was offering up, but more did… and some just loved it. And it’s with thanks I offer a tip of my proverbial hat to the reps who went above and beyond the call to not only hear me out and seem encouraging, but also offer advice on how I could build on what I’ve got. In one particular case, this opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me to mull over and pair up with current (and future) TV series ideas, hopefully making future pitches (*sigh*) stronger.

Another cool aspect of events like this is bringing an ecclectic group of people together who form new relationships. And luckily, with most people in the world being more comfortable at breaking the ice than I am, several people took the first step and introduced themselves, or asked how my day had gone, or how such’n such a prodco rep seemed when I pitched, etc. To all of them I’d like to say a big thanks for being the ones to make the first move. I’m hoping you all got the (accurate) impression that I’m happy to talk once I get to know you a bit, but that making the first move to that end just isn’t my forte. Which of course may have something to do with my take on pitching…

In any case, a special thanks to Josh, Meryl, Kelly/Kaz, Jesse, and Yolanda. Glad to have met all of you (in Jesse’s case, again). What mutual writing benefits may come of the new relationships are one thing, but a good friend recently pointed out to me how important family and friends are in life. Here’s hoping we can all improve each other’s lives by staying in touch.

In the near future, the war against the machines is well under way. Skynet, once the latest answer to U.S. defense, has become self-aware and, believing humans are a threat to its existence, has begun systematically killing them. There are pockets of resistance, of course - groups of humans banding together to use whatever weaponry is available to fight back; to even just stay alive. One man stands apart from the others in this fight, believed by some through his actions and by others as destiny that he will be the person who will lead mankind to its victory over the machines. His name is John Connor.

While there were some good aspects to Terminator: Salvation, the unshakable feeling I had when leaving the theatre was that for all its hype, for all the money that the franchise had access to in order to do this right and knock it out of the park, it hadn’t been done as well as it could’ve on various fronts.

***BIG, FAT SPOILER WARNING***

To its credit, it is generally pretty well shot and acted, though for more than just me, second fiddle Sam Worthington (who plays Marcus Wright, a convict put to death years ago only to find himself alive again as a half-machine Skynet product) outshined lead man Christian Bale.
Then we get to logical issues. Allowing for the suspension of disbelief one must go into the movie with - followers of the series will remember that a terminator wrapped in real muscle and skin travels back in time to kill John Connor’s mother before the child is even conceived, and the soldier sent back to protect the mother has not only been sent back by John Connor himself, but ends up becoming his father, leading to one of Hollywood’s more memorable time-travel paradoxes - there are simply things that don’t make sense. A stories-tall terminator apparently sneaks up on a shack full of people (who it catches unaware, yet makes an awful racket after the initial surprise). And perhaps the most blatant logical issue: why the young Kyle Reese - the man who will eventually be sent back by John Connor to protect Connor’s mother, and who will end up being Connor’s father - doesn’t question a resurrected Marcus Wright when Wright shows up out of the blue, bewildered about the state of the world and asking questions that any human would know (”What was that [terminator]? What happened to the world? What year is it?”)
And finally, perhaps the biggest flaw in the writing for me is that for all the effort that Marcus puts into saving people and helping the humans (and Connor specifically), for all his human-ness despite being half machine, we find out toward the climax that Kyle has been a pawn of Skynet used to lure John Connor to Skynet’s headquarters (in his trying save Kyle Reese, as Connor feels he’s destined to) in order to finally kill him.
So let me understand: Skynet “built” Marcus in order to send him into the wild in order to find the resistance in order to make Connor trust him enough to bring Connor to Skynet to save Reese, all to kill Connor. Why, pray tell, wasn’t Marcus also programmed to simply kill Connor if given the opportunity? Most noteworthy here is one scene in particular where Connor is outside the compound on his own and is out of heavy ammo and is about to get jumped by an eel-like terminator that will surely try to kill him and… ? It’s stopped by Marcus at the last moment! Whew! Close call for Connor, who now finally has real reason to trust who and what Marcus is! Yes… or, alternately, had Marcus been programmed to let Connor be killed should such a chance present itself, he could’ve just stayed out of the way and let it happen.
Skynet is a machine. It thinks logically, so why would it not take any and all opportunities (as it seems to have done so far) to end the life of its one primary target, the only man it believes could stop it? Perhaps my old high school teacher could make some improvements to Skynet with a couple of programmed if/then statements.

At its best, Terminator: Salvation is well written, well shot, and well acted. At its worst, it has logic and plot holes you could drive a truck through. In the end, it works pretty well as an action movie, but as the final piece to the Terminator series puzzle, unfortunately leaves too much to be desired to be a truly satisfying Terminator movie.

This was the movie I was most looking forward to seeing this year, yet even notching it up for its decent action, I’d rate it a disappointing 7/10.

Earth follows Disney’s decades-long tradition of shooting footage of nature and letting the visuals tell their own stories, though in this case the narration by James Earl Jones guides us along the way. Following myriad animals as the seasons change all around the world, the film focuses on three animal familes in particular over the course of a year: polar bears, whales, and elephants. We share some of their first steps in the open, their trials of having to travel for hundreds or thousands of miles to find food and survive, and the triumphs of making it there alive, though as we’re shown, the circle of life can often be cruel on the journey.

The film is simply stunning in its cinematography and close-up detail of nature, to the point where I often wondered how a cameraman could possibly have gotten close enough to get some of the shots, along with the realization that cameras - including satellites - must have been placed for weeks or months at a time to get the fast-motion growth, flows of colour across fields of trees, and ice forming at the ends of the world. All the while, the accompanying narration by Jones is ideally minimalist, informative, and at times, playful.

If there’s one negative to the film, it would be the unexpected time spent on the struggle for life. Yes, it’s a nature movie and so it should fairly have both life and death portrayed, but as the prime example, the three slow-motion shots of a great white jumping from the water to snap a seal in its jaws seemed excessive (although, as ever, very well shot). Particularly with the polar bear family, the film edged a bit closer to the “climate change is causing these animals to have to adjust, and in adjusting, they’re suffering and dying” than I’d been expecting, particularly for a Disney film. Having said that, the point certainly did come across effectively, if perhaps a bit heavy-handedly. That was the only issue I had with an overall amazing film.

In short, simply a must-see for nature lovers, animal lovers, and those who can appreciate gorgeous, stunning film making. Young and old alike should definitely check it out when it hits theatres this Wednesday, Earth Day, April 22nd.

It’s 1985.
Over the years, America has had a number of costumed heroes in their midst - everyday people who dress up to protect their identities as they fight crime. A handful of these heroes have collected into organized groups, the most recent of which, including members from an earlier group, is called the Watchmen. After some members had been called upon by (still-reigning) President Nixon to help America in times of war, masked criminals were made illegal.

Cut to the current day, when nuclear tensions between America and Russia are at an all-time high. Someone has killed the aging Comedian, the gun-toting, violence-loving member of the Watchmen. Enter fellow Watchman Rorschach, a man of extreme social and political beliefs whose face remains unknown even to fellow members, always hidden behind a shifting, blotted mask. He believes that the killing was something more than just a grudge. Someone killed the Comedian for a bigger reason. While the theory is played down by his former partner Nite Owl, it’s underscored when another Watchman, the god-like Dr. Manhattan, chooses to remove himself from Earth after he’s confronted with having been the cause of cancer in past companions. Then Rorschach himself is set up, framed for murder and caught by police; not only finally unmasked taken out of action, but put into a prison with a lot of people he brought to justice. And as he fights to survive, we and two other Watchmen - Nite Owl and Silk Spectre - realize that he’s right: someone is taking out masked heroes, maybe to get them out of the way. Something’s going to happen. Something big.

Having waited twenty-odd years for this story to jump from the comic page to the big screen, fans of the published version certainly won’t be disappointed by the movie. It doesn’t capture everything that the comic portrayed - forgoing the subplots of the pirate story-in-story and its vociferous newsstand man tie-in, as well as the literary excerpts found in the comic - but instead focuses purely on the main storyline. The widely publicized comment from Terry Gilliam that the Watchmen was unfilmable isn’t disproven here, because what we see on the screen isn’t everything that’s in the comic. Nor could you likely capture everything that’s in the comic in a movie while still keeping the timing realistic and maintaining viewer interest. As featuring just the main story goes, however, the movie does an excellent job.

The performances are generally top-notch. Billy Crudup beautifully captures the detached Dr. Manhattan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a great Comedian, Patrick Wilson is very well-suited to Nite Owl, and a tip of the hat to Jackie Earle Haley as an absolutely perfect Rorschach. Haley doesn’t top Heath Ledger’s Joker as my favourite comic movie support character (it’s arguable no one could), but he isn’t too far off the mark. He puts in a flat-out excellent performance.
Less impressive, unfortunately, were Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre - she looked great but lacked a bit of passion, fading into the background a bit - and Matthew Goode as the brilliant and dangerous Ozymandias, who plays a role which simply felt bigger than his charisma could carry.

The music in the movie makes its presence known. Clearly the choice had been made to have it help both the feel of the story - the 80s pop reminding us when this is all taking place - as well as certain scenes, such as the subtlety of having “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” playing softly in the background when Ozymandias is confronting top drawer business icons about his intent to devise a way to give the world free power. The music isn’t always on the money - Jimi Hendrix’s classic “All Along The Watchtower” makes an appearance during a jail riot setting, arguably both too precisely apt and totally out of the 80s context - but it’s generally quite well done. It marks the first time in years that I’ll probably hunt down the soundtrack on CD to at least see what it features, if not buy it.

For all its exceptional execution, however, the Watchmen isn’t perfect. The effects, for one, were generally very well done but at times seemed like effects. As movie-goers know, the best effects are the ones you don’t notice, and here, for all their fine detail, they unfortunately made themselves obvious at certain points. A few times, Dr. Manhattan seems wholly superimposed on the background, wrinkles in aged heroes played by younger actresses look artificial, and the overhead reveal shot of Ozymandias’s Antarctic retreat looks every bit like the miniature version that was shot.
Also, for what’s generally done as a story where the real world is dark and troublesome and these real people in costume are standing up and trying to protect the public that hates them anyway, Nixon was portrayed as borderline cartoonish, complete with oversized nose and never assertive - at one time buffoonish - presence. That aspect totally lost the heavy feel of a looming threat of doomsday which was so integral to the feel of the comic.
And finally, what will likely be the biggest point of contention for comic lovers, is the much-buzzed-about change at the end of the movie. I’ll not spoil it for those who’ve read the comic but haven’t seen the movie (or who have now seen the movie but haven’t yet read the original story), but suffice to say it’s an aspect which purists will certainly have an issue with. For me, it was an unneeded change but one which, if they were going to make the change anyway for their own reasons, was handled very well. It essentially takes an alternate route around one aspect of the story and brings it back around to wrap same way anyway. As an aspiring writer, I can appreciate the craft and execution used to manage that so well, even if I don’t understand why it was done.

All told, Watchmen is a very well made movie adaptation of one of the most - if not the most - significant comic stories ever written. They didn’t set out to put everything in the original story on the screen, but instead stuck to the story that moviegoers would most want to see. And in that, combined with some exceptional acting and genrerally great effects, they certainly succeeded admirably.

If you’re a comic or superhero fan, it’s simply must-see.

Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is an Interpol agent who’s working with Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) on what’s become an extended investigation into a mega-bank dealing in the international weapons trade. The problem is that everyone who gets close to the truth - or is willing to tell it - is showing up conveniently dead. Added to that, both Salinger and Whitman are getting threats of another nature from their respective superiors: either make this case stick, or it has to be dropped once and for all. Neither of them is willing to simply drop the case, but how far will they go to bring justice to the guilty?

Though The International sets the audience loose into the story right off the bat - Salinger and Whitman are actively investigating the bank in order to secure their case - it still has a broad development arc. It doesn’t follow the usual patterns of movie formats, but instead keeps setting up our heroes for success before they’re confronted with a failure roadblock, which takes them on a detour to apparent success before another failure roadblock turns up, etc. Then the filmmakers throw in an extended gunfight that seems oddly juxtaposed with the scenes around it, as though it were tacked on after the fact (as it perhaps was; early screnings determined people wanted more action in it, and what little action was shot later on seems to have been spliced pretty ham-fistedly into the story), which only helps underscore the odd pacing of the movie.
It’s perhaps from this unconventional approach that the climax a) doesn’t feel as climactic as previous scenes had and b) rather fizzles. It ends with what can’t truly be said to be a deus ex machina moment, but feels almost that unsatisfying anyway for it not ending the way it feels it should end. And really, when you have people sitting for two hours for a movie these days, they’re going to want a solid ending. What we’re given instead didn’t feel like an outright cheat, but it did fall pretty flat given the lengthy story and process we’ve seen.

If you’re a big Clive Owen fan, The International’s worth checking out at some point. If you’re a conspiracy or thriller fan, you’d probably do just as well to take a pass. After all, Angels & Demons is just a few months away…

World War Two Germany. The Nazis continue to experiment with human psychic abilities in the attempt to create an army whose collective minds are the true weapon. The Nazis are ultimately defeated, but the experiments are continued, Stateside and around the world in what are known as Divisions. Some of those people with psychic abilities who’ve escaped have had children, even as governments track down and capture or trace as many as possible who are known to have these abilities. And the abilities are myriad: those with telekinetic abilities are known as Movers, while those who can see glimpses of the future are Watchers. Pushers are people who can make you believe anything they tell you, as though you’re remembering it as reality. These abilities are joined by Smiths, Stitches, Bleeders, Sniffers, Shadows… the list goes on.
A drug has been created which should greatly enhance the psychic power of these people. Ongoing experiments prove fatal to those who are forcefully injected. That is, until one woman is injected in the current day setting and survives, then is barely able to escape the Division facility. Those with psychic powers working for Divisions help track down those with psychic abilities, but it will take time to find her, and there’s not much time to lose.

Nick Gant (Chris Evans) was told ten years ago by his Mover father that he was “special” just before his father was killed by Division agents headed by Pusher extraordinare Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou). Nick has been living on his own ever since, trying unsuccessfully to master his Moving skill. Division knows where he’s staying in China, and two of their Sniffers show up looking for the woman who escaped a few days earlier. Just as they leave, Cassie (Dakota Fanning) shows up at his door. She’s a Watcher who’s still honing her own skills, and offers to help both of them become rich. She’s seen where six million dollars is being stored, and with his help, they can get it and split it. Nick is walking away before she even has a chance to explain the plan. She runs to catch up with him but then sees a glimpse of the future: there are people already in the market with them who are going to attack them. A Chinese family, themselves a group with psychic powers, have been tipped off about Nick and Cassie’s future windfall and want a piece of it.
Barely surviving, Nick and Cassie finally connect with the woman who survived the injection and escaped from Division; it turns out to be Kira (Camilla Belle), Nick’s former girlfriend and a (newly drug-enhanced) Pusher. The three of them go on the run, now pursued by Division and the power-hungry Chinese family who not only want what the trio have, but what they’re soon going to get.

Push worked for me better than it may for others, in part because I’m a sucker for psychic powers that are handled well. I’ve actually been working on a similar idea to this for a few years, though clearly I’m not the first one to tap the “government experiments on people who(se children) gain psychic powers” concept. The main problem that I had with the movie was that it was good for the first half and plateaued too much in the second half. Once we’re introduced to the abilities and the characters who have them and the set-up is made - all of which was handled pretty well - it feels like it winds down too slowly, rather than winding up toward the climax.
Added to that was some confusion about what exactly the powers were. Watchers are supposed to be able to see the future, which potentially changes with every choice made. Yet the daughter of the Chinese family, herself a Watcher with more finely-honed abilities than Cassie has, later on sees not only the future but what has just happened in the immediate past, letting her close in on her selected target even when choices aren’t being consciously made for her to pick up on. A Stitch shows up early on to heal Nick’s battered and bruised body, yet shows up later to inflict a great deal of pain upon him, the same sound effect suggesting that she’s perhaps un-doing (or re-doing) that damage back to him.
Early in their partnership, Nick and Cassie approach a friend of Nick’s to ask for his help. He has the psychic ability to turn one physical thing into another (evidently really, not just as a mind trick), but it only stays changed for a limited time before reverting to its actual state. And not that the audience has to be told everything about everything, but it struck me as odd somehow that such an ability was limited. If his altered physical state reverted after a time, why wouldn’t a Pusher’s influence only last a limited time, rather than apparently being long-lasting, if not a permanent fixture in a person’s mind?
Finally, Nick is supposed to be a Mover, but there are hints that he may be more than that. His father tells Nick he’s special, perhaps suggesting that he’s special beyond inheriting his father’s Moving ability. Later on, as they’re re-connecting, Nick playfully asks Kira if she’s Pushing him. She tells him to just Push back. And as the movie approaches its final confrontation, Nick writes out personal instructions for each of his ragtag group which they’re to open and follow at specific times, and then has his memory of writing them wiped out so he can’t be Watched. The way the instructions play out is clockwork perfect. Yet how would he have known precisely when they needed to open and follow their instructions without knowing what events and twists would be happening in the future, a Watcher’s ability?
I understand that there are enough powers at play here that the use and limitations of them can’t be itemized for the audience, or it could get very dull very quickly. But as with any other universe created for a viewer/reader, once the rules are introduced and put into play, they must be adhered to. Changing them out of the blue later on will only serve to confuse people who have been dutifully playing along and think they know what’s what.
That aspect, along with the hints but no follow-through on Nick’s “specialness”, and with the unforunate winding down feel from the half way point, only serves to make Push an alright movie but not nearly as good as it could’ve been, had it revved up what it started off with.
It’s left with enough open-endedness that a sequel could be written for it pretty easily, but unless the writers tie up some fat loose ends regarding the abilities, and ramp up their story to a true climax next time, they’d do as well to not bother putting in the effort.

In short, an alright rental if nothing else on the shelf grabs your attention, but as cool as some of the stuff in it may be, taking a pass on it completely wouldn’t leave you missing a whole lot.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a father who has retired from a special ops combat life in order to try to get to spend more time with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). He realized too late that his time in the military kept him away from his family too long. Bryan’s ex-wife (Famke Janssen) has since married to a very well-off man who she and Kim now live with, and encouraged by his former combat buddies, Bryan is striving to connect with Kim in spite of his ex’s jibes.
Bryan signs off on Kim going to Paris despite his reservations about her going abroad, and though things start off well, they quickly turn. Kim sees her travelling companion kidnapped in another part of the palatial apartment where they’re staying, explaining what’s happening to Bryan on the global cell phone Bryan had given her. Kim herself is taken as well, and while recording the ordeal, Bryan has a brief conversation with the kidnapper, explaining that he has a very specific set of skills from a very specific career; that he will find this kidnapper, and he will get his daughter back. “Good luck” the kidnapper mocks before destroying the phone.
Bryan flies into action, uploading the recording to one of his buddies and explaining the situation to his ex-wife and her husband, who gets Bryan on a private jet to Paris.
His friend has pinpointed the group that Bryan is looking for; Armenians who moved into Paris some years before and have since become a criminal force which even local underground groups don’t mess with.
Armed with only his special ops experience, Bryan hits the ground running in Paris. There’s no time to waste. His friend’s research concluded that Bryan has 96 hours before he’ll never see Kim again.

Taken works better than I’d first expected it would’ve. Liam Neeson is one of the least likely actors for making my Top 5 List Of People Who’d Be Awesome Former Commandos (were I to have one), but it’s to his credit that he makes it work, and work well. He doesn’t come across as cocky in everyday life, nor when he’s on the job; he’s just all business. But he’s also not depicted as a superman who can take anything that’s dealt to him and walk away from it unscathed. The man takes his lumps. And it was frankly a refreshing change to see him getting out of breath. Granted, it was only toward the end as the climax was approaching (all the better to draw the audience to his plight and pull for him), but it was nice to see a touch of human limitations in a character with such impressive abilities.

In that vein, a tip of the hat must also be made to writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Besson has written or been connected to a few of the best action films in the last twenty years, including La Femme Nikita (both original film and the television series), Leon (aka The Professional), and The Transporter. He worked with Kamen on a number of projects, and Taken will surely remain one of their better collaborated films.

All in all, a definite must-see for action film fans.

While having done some movie reviews for both my website and friends who don’t hit theatres as often as I do, I’m by no means a movie expert. Having said that, I tend to see more movies than most people I know, which gives me at least a bit more insight into cinematic goings on than some. And I’ve got to say, when the Oscar nominations came in, not only wasn’t anything there that particularly surprised me, but nor did any of it even really interest me. Again, I’m a movie fan; shouldn’t the Oscar nominations have generated a least a little interest for a pretty regular moviegoer?

But look at the contenders for Best Picture. I grant Slumdog Millionaire was very well done - and I think both for its small/underspoken origins and the momentum it’s gained over the last few award shows, it’ll take the Oscar as well; everyone likes a Little [blank] That Could story - but there’s nothing else in the contenders that really interests me. Slow-moving dramas and/or biopics? They’re doubless well done, but seriously… meh.

Maybe it’s just the kid in me (the one that will never grow up), but where’s all the… well… cool stuff? Why wasn’t The Dark Knight nominated? Granted, I thought it was a wee bit long (and I realize I seem to be in the minority on that), but at 166 minutes in total, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button clocks in at 14 minutes longer. And Benjamin Button is, by some recent buzz I’ve heard, a very long-feeling 166 minutes. The Dark Knight didn’t feel nearly as long as it was. How does a movie that well done, which so engrosses you that you literally lose track of time, passed by as a Best Picture nominee?

It would’ve been awesome to see a superhero movie nominated for best picture, but given its overall quality, its being passed by makes me wonder if such a thing ever could happen. Does the Academy have it out for superheroes or flash-bang action/thriller pics, even if they still manage to hold their own cinematically despite what genre they’re pigeonholed in? Does something have to be a drama (or combined genre thereof, as each of the Best Picture nominees are) to get the Academy’s green light? A quick check of the last few years of nominations would seem to suggest so.

So if you make a great movie that’s hugely entertaining and rakes in hundreds of millions across the globe from its popularity (which it’s going to owe in part to quality; word gets around and sinks even big name, super-hyped movies in short order if they aren’t well done), it doesn’t mean a thing and will get passed by for Best Picture if it’s not some type of drama? And it doesn’t stop there. The Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress categories are also all for dramas (again, as they have been for at least the last few years). What is it about the drama genre that makes an actor/actress somehow more worthy of a nomination than any other genre? To take a quote from arguably my favourite performance of the year, why so serious?

It’s not all about my take on things, of course - everyone has an opinion; in cases like this, based on their own tastes; and it’s the opinion of the Academy that these five movies are the best of the year - but somehow this time around I expected to be pleasantly surprised by the Best Picture nominations.

Perhaps I’m my own Curious Case. The older I get, the less interested I become in some things that older people are supposed to be into, while “younger” things become more prominent. Though doing it for research to help gear some of my own writing toward it, I’ve been reading more kids’ books in the last few years than ever before. And my wife bought me a Nintendo DS for my birthday last month, as another for instance, which I’ve been playing entirely too much. More to the point, however, I’ve got to say I’m more interested in the MTV Movie Awards these days than in the Oscars. Not only standard categories like Best Picture and Best Leads, but Best Villain? Best Comedic Performance? Best Fight? Best Breakthrough Performance?

I don’t know that I’ll care too much if I miss the Oscars this year, but with its more interesting categories and apparently broader scope of what constitutes “good”, when the MTV Movie Awards are on, pass the popcorn and turn up the volume. And hands off my DS!

Based on the book by Neil Gaiman, Coraline opens as the Jones family - Coraline and her distracted parents - move into a spacious new residence. They have part of the main floor of a huge old house, while aging former stage performers Misses Spink and Forcible stay in the basement with their Scottie dogs, and Mr. Bobinsky lives in the attic along with the mice he’s training for his mouse circus. Bored while her parents finish writing their gardening articles, Coraline starts to explore around the new grounds, meeting a local black cat and the offbeat neighbour boy Wybie, who soon gives Coraline a button-eyed doll which looks oddly like her.

When rain moves in and she’s forced to stay indoors, Coraline starts to investigate inside the house, and finds a small door which has been wallpapered over in the unused study. Her mother unlocks the door to show Coraline the brick wall behind it. Meeting the literal dead end, Coraline thinks nothing more of it and distracts herself elsewhere.

That night, Coraline is woken by small squeaks, and finds a mouse in her room. She chases it through the house and into the study, where it dashes behind the small door in the wall, which Coraline opens to now find a tunnel leading to another small door. Ever the explorer, she crawls along the hallway and through the other door to find she’s back in the same house. Only, it isn’t quite the same house. Things are different here, from minor changes to vast ones, including finding her mother at work cooking in the kitchen; something her mother never does. When her mother turns around, however, we see the buttons that she has for eyes. This isn’t her mother, we’re told. This is her other mother. And her father - in this world a cheerful pianist - has buttons for eyes, as well. Yet in spite of the creepiness all around her, Coraline still finds this home oddly appealing. The parents here pay attention to her and feed her delicious food, doing everything to make her feel welcome; to make her feel wanted. It’s only when she goes exploring in the ever-night outside, however, that we get the first word of warning. It comes from the same black cat she’d seen earlier, who talks in this world, and warns her of dangers, albeit done in an aloof style one may expect from a cat.

Coraline travels back and forth between the worlds a number of times, continuing to find the other world more appealing than her own, until she’s finally approached with the option of staying there permanently. It’s her choice, her other mother tells her. All she has to do is sew two big buttons onto her eyes, and she can stay there and be loved for ever and ever. It’s only when she declines that things turn bad. The increasingly horrifying other mother traps her real world parents, so despite her own escape, Coraline has to return to the other world and confront the other mother to release them, along with three other children who have already fallen into the same trap that had been set for Coraline. The cat tells Coraline that the other mother loves games, though she most certainly won’t play fairly. Coraline knows she has no other choice, and challenges the other mother to a game that will risk everything.

Coraline was filmed for the first time ever in a steroscopic 3D stop-motion animation, though the 3D version will only be shown for a short number of weeks after its release this Friday, the 6th. The process took the film crew a number of years to complete, with director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) opting to go the old school route of stop-motion - Gaiman’s own preference for this story - rather than using digital animation.

The 3D effect was far from mindblowing, but there are a couple of nice “it’s coming right at us” moments, and there was a definite sense of depth created throughout the film. More impressive to me was the animation itself, and I had to remind myself a few times that nothing we were watching was done on a computer (aside from “painting” some elements). Everything that moved on screen was moved by hand, and photographed, and moved and photographed again, in order to create the age-old illusion of movement. That a movie this well done and highly detailed was completed using that approach is the real feat.

The film is decidedly less dark and more kid-friendly than the book, which Gaiman wrote as a bedtime story for his own children. Even so, parents should - as always - be doing their due dilligence on this material before letting their kids see it. This isn’t a Disney/Pixar release, remember, and its subject matter may end up giving some kids more nightmares than comforting or entertaining them. Eyes sewn over with buttons and the increasingly possessive “other mother” who gradually turns into needle-limbed spider aren’t going to be every kid’s idea of a great time at the movies.

Gaiman’s immagination and execution are excellent in the story, as always, but as much as I enjoy his work and applaud/admire this new fairy tale, it has to be said that this is one of the darker and more unsettling “kids’” movies I can recall. Definitely worth checking out for Gaiman and fantasy fans alike, but parents will definitely want to scout it out before bringing the kids along.