Not sure if I’ve made it clear howexcited I am about Pacific Rim.
I’m REALLY excited.
So when you get to see a behind the scenes featurette (as these are now called), it makes me giddy.
What struck me about this video is that gives the movie a bit more depth than the mere razzle dazzle of the robot vs. monster plotline. (Not that robot vs. monster isn’t enough, cuz it is)
Two people, piloting as one…how romantic
Clearly there is something emotional and potentially explosive going on with this “drift” concept. As Inception and Total Recall before it have shown us, seeing what is going on in someone else’s head doesn’t usually end well. Having total access to another person’s memories and feelings and life experiences might sound cool and interesting, but our minds are a tangled nest of insecurities and regrets that we don’t really want to share with anyone. And when that is tied in with the fate of humanity and life on earth as we know it, I foresee some issues.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Pacific Rim will be more than just crazytown fights. Guillermo Del Toro really has a grasp on the human psyche and the dangers within – just see Pan’s Labyrinth for proof. Even Hellboy showcased some of the darker angels lurking within. Either way…I’m counting down to July 12.
With just a few days left before Netflix unleashes new Arrested Development episodes upon us, the interwebs have been a-flutter with lists, interviews, essays, videos, and anything else they can think of that would relate to AD.
Yes, we are all really that excited.
The sheer volume of stuff out there to peruse and read through before 12:01am May 26 can make you dizzy like the side effects from one of the drugs pushed by Dr. Fünke’s 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band Solution. So I thought I would share my favorite links and videos over the few days, to help cut down on the noise.
Then, an amazing supercut of all the comments about Ann Bland Egg Paul Veal and all the “Her?” statements in general. When you see all of Michael’s reactions put together, it’s amazing. And you forget how that “Her?” was used in some other choice situations.
Next is a list from Uproxx of the 20 most obscure pop culture references in AD. Some of them I knew, some of them made sense in retrospect, and some were highly educational – especially Buster’s plaintive cry of “I’m a monster!” (Which incidentally I say to myself on a semi-regular basis. I do have both my hands, FYI)
I just blue myself for nothing
Then a nice little piece from Esquire about why Tobias is the heart and soul of the show. I don’t know if I would necessarily go that far, but he is one of my favorite characters, if not merely for the creation of the position of “analrapist”. Plus the images of him with his failed hair plugs are a thing of beauty/horror.
Finally for today, one of the AV Club’s many, many, MANY pieces on Arrested Development. I choose this one for the sweet comfort of all the quotes and how they can be used to respond to the new episodes. How meta.
In closing…there’s always money in the banana stand…
If you answered “yes” to these questions, then by all means, go see The Great Gatsby.
However, if a “no” crept into your mind at all, I would save the $12 and the possible headaches from the unnecessary 3D.
I should probably say that I loved Moulin Rouge when I first saw it. It was something I’d never quite seen before, the colors, the music, and visual fireworks…it seemed magical. It was easy to get swept up in it all and allow myself to be absolutely and completely dazzled.
The thing about that sort of magic is that it doesn’t always work the second time around. And clearly that is the case with Gatsby.
If you can -can-can….
I should also probably say that although I’ve read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s permanent reading list contribution, I remember almost nothing. It’s one of those books that I know should have had a larger impact on me, but just didn’t.
(Side note and True Story: when I was in 7th grade I had to read Of Mice and Men. Being the last minute worker that I am, I waited until the night before and decided that with only a few pages left, I didn’t really have to finish the book to know what happened. When my mother and I sat to talk about what I was going to write about the book, I expressed sincere shock when she mentioned that Lenny died. She then sent me back to my room to reread the ending of the book. It’s amazing what a few pages at the end of a book can do)
Note: From here there be spoilers…
What this all means is that I came into Gatsby with minimal preconceived notions. I knew that the book ended with Gatsby floating face down in a swimming pool a la Sunset Boulevard, and that someone got hit by a car. But that’s about it. So I my mind was pretty open as the movie started.
It then snapped shut almost immediately.
The first hour or so of Gatsby is Moulin Rouge Part 2: The Rougening. And I really wish I were joking. Everything from the pacing to the camera angles to the voice over made me feel like I was back watching Luhrmann’s other film that featured anachronistic music and flashy costumes and a doomed love story. It wasn’t that it was bad – it was gorgeous to watch and the music was pretty good; it’s just that I’ve seen it before. And as I said, the second time around it all loses something.
Daisy, a beautiful little fool
My other problem with the film is that it tried so hard to make the focal point the doomed love story between Daisy and Gatsby, without really delving into the class issues and social issues going on behind the scenes. Just because Leo is in this, the movie doesn’t need to be a sequel to Titanic – and it shouldn’t be. And as I start to vaguely remember some of the issues in the book, I realized why I had such an issue with Daisy — don’t give Daisy depth just because you can’t figure out how to make her character worthy of a lifelong obsession. Carey Mulligan did a fine job with what she was given, but what she was given was a very strange interpretation of the character.
Nice to see you, Old Sport
I will say that Leonardo DiCaprio was fantastic. He captured everything you wanted Gatsby to be – dashing, charismatic, with the odd insecurities befitting his background. Leo is no longer that fresh faced young adult who won the hearts of all the teeny-boppers as he sunk to the bottom of the ocean. His body has filled out, he has developed lines on his now non-angular face. But this has just made him more appealing; looking like he’s actually been living a life gives him more depth.
Joel Edgerton was also great as bully and bigot and racist Tom Buchanan. Newcomer Elizabeth Debicki is also great as Daisy’s pal Jordan Baker. Tobey Maguire’s Nick Carraway did nothing for me. I find him too weak to really make an impact on me. Even as he yelled and raged at the end, I just found him wanting.
So should you see Gatsby in the theaters? If you were interested in seeing it at all, and of course answered yes to any of those Moulin Rouge questions, then go see it and definitely see it in the theaters – if for nothing else than the amazing sequence in which we are actually introduced to Gatsby himself, pomposity at its greatest. But if you were on the fence and weren’t really all that motivated in the first place, I wouldn’t rush.
In the end, this version of The Great Gatsby is a 2 hr 20 minute movie that feel like a 2 hr 30 minute movie.
Actor, analrapist, Blue Man, Tobias Fünke has done it all.
I blue myself
Now, thanks to Vulture, we have his audition reel for Ron Howard.
It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from Tobias, but my favorite grace notes include his obvious attempt to create a catchphrase (“Yippy dippy dippy”), the repetition of “Insert me anywhere” which utilizes Tobias’s great ability to be unaware of exactly what he’s saying, and the omnipresent Tobias in leather-daddy outfit.
With less than 11 days left until Netflix releases the new Arrested Development episodes, it’s little tidbits like this that whet my appetite.
This return of this show is going to be off the hook!
While I have been very guarded in my enthusiasm for the return of Arrested Development, this trailer has me as happy as a spring breaker at Senor Tadpoles! Everyone seems back in full force and right back in character, some even with a bedazzled hook hand.
Though I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, this might just be the greatest thing ever.
The first thought I had about Room 237 was “Wow, these people have a lot of time on their hands.”
My second thought was “Wow, these people are INTENSE.”
My third thought was “I kinda admire them in all their crazy crazy intenseness.”
Because it is crazy. Just insane. But there’s also a sort of genius.
Now, I have to be honest: I don’t particularly care for the movie. I read the Stephen King book first and was fascinated by it. The way Jack Torrence, an essentially decent husband and father with a decidedly undecent alcohol problem, is destroyed by this evil hotel was an incredible story. Much like King, I felt that the casting of Jack Nicholson was the first mistake that Kubrick made; there was no incremental trip to madness – Nicholson’s Jack was a mean jerk from the very start. And don’t get me started on Shelley Duval’s utterly ineffectual and insipid Wendy.
So I do come to this documentary with my own set of baggage.
However, even I can see the seduction that The Shining holds for the right person. All you need to do is watch that opening, the little yellow car, climbing higher and higher in the Colorado mountains, the Dies Irae ringing in the background…the movie can draw you in. In fact so many of the documentary’s never-seen-only-heard-narrators talk about that opening scene and how it changed their lives.
Assuming that every frame of The Shining has a secret meaning put there deliberately by Stanely Kubrick, there is a special group of people who watch, and rewatch, then re-rewatch the movie, both forwards and backwards. These uber-fans have decided that this movie cannot simply be a retelling of King’s brilliant horror novel about an epic evil that lived in a sprawling hotel in Colorado. To this select group, Kubrick’s version is a testament to the glory of film in telling multiple stories, using visual and audio cues to reveal a secret to those willing to discover it.
And who wouldn’t want to think themselves worthy of discovering those hidden meanings?
At times these conspiracy theories seem almost rational – the movie tells the story of the genocide of the American Indian by the United States and the Westward Movement. Thinking about all the American Indian artifacts and decorative touches throughout the hotel, plus the statement that the Overlook was built on an Indian burial ground – a fact that was not remotely in the novel – and you kinda, sorta buy it.
Other theories aren’t that plausible, though to hear those disembodied voices of the throngs who have a fervent need to publicize these conspiracies, it is almost possible to get caught up.
Look, it’s a German typewriter! Just like the Nazis used!
Is it a stretch to say that The Shining is really about the Holocaust because the number 42 appears frequently, and because Jack Torrence uses a German typewriter? Let’s be honest, yes. It is an incredible stretch. But the man who believes this, sells it to you in absolute faith.
This sweater = no moon landing photos?
Is it even harder to believe that The Shining is really Kubrick’s way of telling the world he helped fake the photos of the moon landing? Yes. (NOTE: This theory posits NOT that the moon landing itself was faked, the author of this idea says probably did happen, but that the actual photos we use as proof were created by Kubrick in a soundstage). Are shots from Kubrick’s own 2001:A Space Odyssey enough to sway? Ehhhh, that’s really pushing it.
But while Room 237 allows these Kubrick devotees the space to prove their interpretations, as silly as they might seem, it also opens up the world of movie criticism. So what if Kubrick didn’t mean 95% of what these people are saying. He made a dense film that allows the viewer to wildly theorize about what all that layering might mean. As with any meaningful work of art, the meaning lies in the viewer as much as in the artist. And Room 237 and The Shining show that in spades.
The documentary itself is well made. Scenes from The Shining are interspersed with other Kubrick clips – primarily 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut. Careful maps and diagrams help translate the mad imaginings of the unseen narrators, and occasionally – as with the Impossible Window in Stuart Ullman office – help prove a solid point. And while you as the viewer might find a moment to snicker or guffaw at any of these theories, the director Rodney Ascher never does. It’s unclear if he agrees with them, or merely wants to give them the respect they deserve for their utter devotion and scholarly efforts. I applaud him for that.
Map of the Overlook, including the Impossible Window – a window that looks outside…but in reality should only look out into a hallway
However, when Juli Kearns starts explaining how a poster that advertises skiing is a really a poster of a minotaur (and exclaims that the nearby poster of a cowboy is absolute proof), I’m not so sure I could always be as kind.
Still, the documentary is worth seeing if you are a fan of The Shining, of conspiracy theories, or of the fact that there are 101 ways to see a movie. All the ideas and proofs can be dizzying, but just take it all with a grain of salt and you’ll find your way back out of the maze.
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