Sunday, October 31, 2010

Pet Peeves

I don’t have many peeves, but I do have some. A few of them relate to Hollywood, so I thought I’d elaborate. Firstly, I’m annoyed that actors are paid so much. $20 million for a movie? Really? Couldn’t you just live with $5 million per movie and spend $15 million on wells so Africa can have clean water? But, since studios are willing to pay actors those fees, and since were willing to pay to see them, it’s pretty much just capitalism at work. I can’t really fault actors for trying to get theirs.

Secondly, I’m annoyed at critics who are more interested in good movies than fun movies. Inception – good but not fun. The Losers – fun but not good. Guess which one is preferred by critics, and which one is preferred by me. In their defense, critics see far more movies than I do (probably one a day or so) and they need the quality or they’d rapidly lose the will to live. It’s also possible that the critic position attracts the type of people who appreciate quality over special effects and banter. It’s not just any hack who can write about movies (as evidenced by this blog).

Mainly, though, I’m really annoyed at Hollywood inventions. These are the types of things that only show up in movies and TV, but never in real life. I don’t mind it in Science Fiction, because it’s supposed to be that. I don’t mind absurdly good martial arts or gun-play, because I’ll overlook a lot of flaws for good action. No, what really steams my clam is the type of thing like:

- Magic Phones. In movies and TV shows, phones have one of three settings. One, they will go directly to voicemail as soon as someone calls the number. Two, they will go to voicemail after one ring. Three, they will never go to voicemail, and the person phoning will urgently whisper “Come on, pick up the phone” as tragedy looms. Honestly, how many people actually set there phones up like this? Particularly ones that switch settings based on plot, not on whether the owner actually changes them. Almost all people have their phones set to go to voicemail after four or six rings. Dear Hollywood, please fix your phones. I’m afraid they’re going rogue, and may be the first step in Skynet taking over the world. You can see this in many episodes of Two and a Half Men.

- Visible Lasers. Lasers are only visible as a dot on the wall. They do not make a cool light beam across the room. Even if they did, they would need a surface to reflect light back to a sensor, so you can’t wave them around randomly. They also make lousy alarm systems. Motion sensors, sound sensors, vibration detectors, and thermal sensors work much better. Dear Hollywood, please stop putting visible lasers in movies and TV. Every time you do, I’m reminded how stupid you think we are. Stop insulting us! You can see this in episodes of Leverage.

- “Say that again” or “What did you say?” The main character will be trying to solve a mystery or puzzle. He or she will be completely bamboozled. They will have an unrelated conversation with another character. That character will say a word or phrase that’s also unrelated to the mystery, but will jar the lead into solving it. But the main character is incredibly dense, and needs to be jarred twice before he or she can solve the case. So they’ll inevitable ask “What did you say?” or “Say that again.” And so the side character will repeat what they just said, not five seconds ago, and suddenly a light bulb will appear above the main character's head, and he or she will solve the case (or possibly rush out of the room to solve the case, without explaining anything to anybody there, but I don’t mind that so much). As an example, say the victim was in a dark maze, but managed to get out. The lead character will wonder “How on earth did they possibly see in such a dark place? They don’t smoke, so they wouldn’t have had a lighter.” And they will be completely stumped until they talk to their friend, who would ask something like “Did you see the match last weekend?” referring to the latest soccer match between the woeful clubs they cheer for. But the word ‘match’ has jarred the lead character. Unfortunately, he’s to dumb to realise that the victim could use a match to see until his friend says it again. So he asks his friend to repeat what he just said (“Did – You – See – The – Match – Last – Weekend”) and suddenly he knows. It’s obvious after the first use what the clue is. Why do characters need it repeated? There’s only two times when you’d ask someone to repeat what they just said. One, if you couldn’t understand it, or two, if you couldn’t believe it. The first one would be used for a crummy phone connection, and the second could be used for something racist (and yes, I’ve run into both). You never, ever need it to solve a mystery. It’s my pet peeve phrase, and every time it’s used, I cringe. You can see it used in some episodes or Castle, and in the movie The Hangover.

- Computers. Hollywood, please get computers right. 90% of offices use Windows, not some proprietary software that renders everything in pretty graphics. Besides taking a long time to train, and not being able to use it anywhere else, it would be extremely possessor intensive. Also, when you log in, there is no screen saying “Password accepted.” It just lets you into the system. Thirdly, hacking is done mostly by typing (but not really fast gibberish. There is a spacebar. Use it) and not by using pretty pictures. Hackers was not depicting real hacking, and the expert you hired to give you realistic computer scenes was feeding you BS to see how much you’d buy (as it turns out, all of it). It would mostly be like typing in notepad or a command prompt (you know, C:\. C:\run. Run, :\ run!) and not a bunch of 3D images of breaking into buildings. You have it wrong. Wrong! WRONG!!!

So, what bugs you most about Hollywood?

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

RED

Last night, Evan and I went to see RED. It started off well, because Evan forgot about the preview game, so I got all but one. If fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever gotten the Green Hornet preview before him. He’s usually locked in on that one.

The movie itself starts of with Bruce Willis, living out his retirement. He has a house, spartanly decorated, and he rips up his pension checks so he can talk to the woman who handles that (played by Mary-Louise Parker. You’ll know her from Weeds or from guest starring frequently in The West Wing). Eventually, people try to kill him. He goes on the lam and takes Parker along with him (she’s now a target because ‘They’ know he likes her). He goes about trying to find out who’s trying to kill him and why, in the process getting his old team back together. His old team is played by Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren. They’re all ex-CIA. There’s a ‘with’ role (‘With’ roles are smaller than starring roles, but larger than cameos or small roles. The people playing them get introduced at the end of the credits by ‘with [insert actor’s name]) played by Brian Cox. Basically, everyone’s old and bad-ass. By the way, if you're wondering what RED stand for, it's Retired, Extremely Dangerous. Which seems like one of those things that only exists in movies, like KOAS or congress.

The action’s great. That’s to be expected. It’s a Bruce Willis action movie (hereafter noted as a BWAM). What was completely unexpected was the humour. This movie is Hilarious! Seriously! While there are enough jokes with punch lines, most of the humour is from Malkovich’s performance. He steals the movie. By the time the credits role, it’s completely clear he’s made of Awesome (and LSD). Mostly, it fits right into my comedy niche of zany antics (like Better Off Ted or Monty Python).

Of course, everyone in the movie can act. The biggest gamble is probably Karl Urban (he plays the opposing agent). And even though his accent shows through at times, he’s fine. Everyone else is fine. So pretty much, the acting is perfect. The comedy timing is fantastic. It’s pretty much a great movie. As a bonus, there are postcards that indicated where each of the locations are. Most of them are functional, but some of them are absolutely hilarious.

So yeah, it’s a theatre movie. Totally unexpected, but completely delightful. It’s like an older, classier Expendables (although Stallone probably could’ve been in both). Not quite as over-the top, but much funnier. For instance, there’s no possible way I could end this review as humorously as the movie did, so I’ll just leave you with the thought of Malkovich in a dress.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Movies and TV

The intersection of movies and television holds many interesting, and stupid things. Many cancellations, many box office bombs, but far more success than when movies and video games get together.

Turning TV shows into movies happens for usually one of three reasons. Okay, it’s only one reason, and that reason is money. But there are three other reasons to convert a TV show to a movie.

The first is nostalgia. Many movie executives hope to capitalize on the nostalgia of adults, so we get movies of the A-team, Get Smart, Charlie’s Angels, and The Avengers. The last one kicked off the recent trend, which is really odd, since it’s supposedly awful. Why anyone kept making more movies of old TV shows is anyone’s guess, but at least the rest of them are pretty fun. These are usually made many years (like 20) after the TV ended.

The second is to get the gang back together, or to tie up loose ends. Movies like Sex and the City, or Serenity (the film from the criminally cancelled show Firefly) are examples. I can understand the desire to make them. After working for years with the same people, you start to miss them after a few months by yourself. That, and the large amounts of money thrown at the actors, are why they do them. Sometime they’re successful (Sex and the City) and sometimes not. Despite the fan outcry when Fox cancelled Firefly, and the millions of fans that support it after its death, the movie made less than $40 million in theatres worldwide. The direct to DVD movies from Futurama would also fit in here, and they were so popular they helped uncancel the show. So kudos to fans for that one. These movies are usually made few months or years after the show ends.

The third reason is because the writers have an idea that wouldn’t fit in a normal episode. Or the producers think they can sucker in fans to go see a movie, so they set about writing one. These are made during the show’s run. The best example I can think of is probably the Simpsons Movie, although many Pokemon movies probably fit in here too. I’m guessing it’s easier for an animated show to make a movie during the show’s run than a live action show, because the production of the movie can be spread out and the show can be made at the same time. Trying to make a live-action movie would require a significant break in the filming schedule of the show so that the actors could film their scenes in the movie. It has been done with The X-files, and the made for TV movie 24: Redemption.

There is one last reason that I haven’t seen much, and don’t really think it works that well. It’s used when a movie tries to sum up what happens in a TV show. The only example that comes to mind is The Last Airbender, based on a TV show called Avatar – the Last Airbender (it’s quite good, by the way). It’s bad mainly because of M. Night Shyamalan, but also because it had to hack out many of the things that made the show great in an attempt to fit the important plot points into 90 minutes. It … was … awful!

It failed because turning a TV show into a movie is about one of two things. Either the TV show had an idea that the movie ran with (4 war veterans get unjustly jailed, break out, and now get hired to do actiony things: the A-Team). Or the TV show created a universe that the Movie can be set in (Serenity, in the Firefly universe. Which Joss Whedon then used to kill popular characters. Thanks a lot, Joss). You can’t just sum up a TV show to make a movie. It’d be like summing up a video game to make a movie, and we know how well that goes over.

Turning a movie into a TV show works on the same principles. The movie creates a universe that the TV show is set in. Usually it follows on with the same characters, after the adventures of the movies. Sometimes it’ll just be a small cartoon (Clerks: the Animated Series, MIB: The Animated Series, Droids, Ewoks), but mostly it’ll be live-action, sometimes even with the same actors. This is especially true if the movies is a made-for TV movie, as it can serve as a pilot to the show (as in the case of Due South, a fish-out-of-water show about a Mountie in Chicago. It’s very good). A lot of times, nothing gets off the ground (see: Mr. & Mrs. Smith). Sometimes the movie is forgotten when the TV show rockets to popularity (see: Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

And of course, sometimes interesting things are just bound to happen. Star Trek wasn’t terribly popular when it originally aired in the 60’s. Once it ran on syndication, though, a lot more people tuned in. With money to be made, thoughts of a new Star Trek soon formed, and filming for a new series (called Star Trek 2) was planned with the original cast. What they had was too big/good for TV, and became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And now we have Star Trek movies, something fans are alternately grateful for and hateful of.

This was also the case of Star Wars, the Clone Wars. A new animated series was being made, so they jammed the first four episodes together and released it on the big screen. And it was awful. In fact, pretend I never mentioned it. There were only 6 Star Wars movies in theatres. You know what? You can forget about the most recent ones, too. There are only 3 Star Wars movies, and George Lucas retired after Return of the Jedi. Got it? GOT IT?!?

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Sports Movies

Just a short post today, because I'm also watching the 'Riders play (See? I can multi-task ... okay, I can't, I just get bored easily and need to constantly switch tasks). Onwards!

I like sports, and I like movies. Naturally, when these two collide (well, combine), I like the results. That’s not to say I like all movies with sports in them (ahem, Jerry Maguire), but I’m also more tolerant of bad movies than others (martial arts movies count as sports … right?)

It seems a bit odd to me that my least favourite sport to watch (baseball) is also the main sport in my favourite sports movie (Field of Dreams). Although that could be that Field of Dreams is centered around baseball, but there’s so much else in there (the soundtrack, James Earl Jones). Baseball also offers The Natural (where the iconic shot of exploding stadium lights comes from) the great comedy Major League, as well as a bunch of movies starring Kevin Costner (he’s not all bad).

Golf gives us The Legend of Bagger Vance (which I have successfully avoided) as well as Tin Cup (hey, Kevin Costner again) and Happy Gilmore.

Football (my favourite sport to watch) gives us We Are Marshall, a movie I recommend everyone watch once. Or I used to, until I found out Matthew Fox cries in everything he’s in. Then it lost a bit of its emotional edge. Football also has Remember the Titans, Varsity Blues, and Friday Night Lights (the High School Football “Let’s Overcome Adversity” trilogy). For takes of professional football, it has The Replacements (Keanu Reeves! Gene Hackman! Contrived Plot!) and Any Given Sunday (home of one of the greatest speeches of all time).
Football movies can get a little tedious though, because there’s only so many times you can win the game on a last second 75-yard Hail Mary.

Hockey is a little barren. Maybe it’s because Hockey is less popular than other sports. The only ones that come to mind are Slapshot (a great comedy) and Youngblood (not so much). I’ve avoided both. I guess there’s always the Mighty Ducks movies, but I give them as much weight as the entire Air Bud franchise.

Basketball is a little barren as well. Glory Road. Blue Chips, He Got Game. The Sixth Man. Like Mike. I’m sure there are more actually quality basketball movies around, I just haven’t seen them. I supposed I enjoy seeing real basketball more. There'll never be a movie character as awesome as Ron Artest.

Other sports offer up there own movies. Dodgeball has … well, Dodgeball. Poker (probably not a sport) has Maverick and Rounders ("In the game of life, women are the rake."). Swimming has Pride. Boxing has the Rocky Series.

And that’s about it. Sometimes it's easy to get bored of sports movies (how often can an underdog win before it gets boring?) but if you have any more, be sure to mention them. I’m sure I’ll be a fan.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Movies and Video Games

Separately, movies and video games each have a rich tradition of excellence. Movies have been around since the late 1800's, and video games from the early 60's (although they didn't really get going until the mid 70's. As soon as computers were invented, people started playing games on them, but the lack of promulgation meant that computers weren't widespread until home video games systems like the Atari 2600 and such).

Together, however, movies and video games have a terrible tradition of suck. Video games based on movies suck. Movies based on video games suck. Video games based on movies based on video games (Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game) are especially awful, but are rare enough that we don't often venture down into that particular region of awful.

Why do they suck? Well, the main reason, in both cases, is time. Most video games are between 10 and 15 hours in length (or 5 to 10 minutes, for those addicting pop-cap games). Most movies are 2 to 3 hours long.

To make a video game into a movie, a large section of plot has to be hacked off. Either that, or a similar plot written with a lot fewer elements. Sometimes this can be a good thing. Video games that take dozens of hours because the character chases after 8 pieces of one artefact and 6 pieces of another (we're looking at you, Zelda) can easily lose some of the repetitive sections without losing any plot elements. However, even with that, a lot of plot will go out the window. With the plot, also goes a lot of the reason for character development. So either the characters remain static (differing from the game and angering fanboys) or the characters grow more mature for absolutely no reason (making for a terrible movie).

There are more problems with turning a video game into a movie. For one, a lot of the game might be impossible to film (due to physics or gravity or whatnot). It's possible that the characters’ models might not be able to act, so the people on film look and sound different from the people in the game (Max Payne! Among numerous other problems). Large casts might have to be cut down, making for boycotts of the movie when favourite characters are left out. And of course, the most hated two words in the movie or gaming industry: Uwe Boll.

Similarly, time works the other way when turning movies into video games. Movies being two hours, and video games being ten hours, the makers of the video game have to invent 80% of the content. Some of them can do that well, but are often pressured to include elements of popular games, even if the genre doesn't fit. Which is how you can end up with sandbox-like sections in games where the movie was fairly linear, or racing sections in games that have no business having racing sections. Grand Theft Auto and Need for Speed are popular, so wedge similar parts into games, or people will complain!

Time works in another sense as well. Games these days take quite a while to develop, from concept to publishing. The problem is that video games based on movies don't have that much time, because they have to match the release date. Often, the makers will get the first script and go from that (so revisions go into the movie, but not the game). They may have a year to get everything done, if they're lucky. More bugs than usual make it in, because they're rushing to get the programming done, and more bugs make it through Quality Control because they only have half the time they need. The end result is a lot of bugs in a crappy game. Whee.

Next, the characters’ looks. Instead of seeing a film of Shia LaBeouf running around with the Allspark, we get a poorly rendered version of a creepy looking LaBeouf that's smack dab in the middle of the uncanny valley. So we really don't care if it gets run over by a giant transforming truck or not (some of you want this to happen to the real one as well. Shame on you. I'd never mess up a real giant transforming truck that way).

Can these problems be avoided? Yes indeed they can. For movies into video games, taking a lot of time to make sure everything runs correctly is a great step. Goldeneye came out quite a while after the movie, but was incredibly good. This may also be due to the fact it was ridiculously fun to play with friends. Which also points out the fact that if you have to put extraneous things in your game that weren't in the movie, make sure they're fun (and make sure no one picks Oddjob as well).

The biggest thing is probably not to make a video game based directly on the movie, but more on the universe they're set in. Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of the best reviewed games in 2009. While similar in style to the two most recent Batman movies, it was simply set in the Batman universe. Transformers: War for Cybertron is pretty good, but not based on any Transformers movie. The actual games based on the movies were pretty bad, from what I can tell.

Making successful movies based on games is a lot trickier, and hasn’t been done yet. The closest we’ve come is probably Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (which threw in a female character because you can’t have a movie without a love interest) or Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The former is perhaps the best reviewed (a backhanded compliment if I’ve ever heard one) and the latter has been the most successful commercially.

I’m not sure what the problem is, but I guess Hollywood just doesn’t know how to make good transfers. After Valve made Half-life (an incredibly good first-person shooter, surpassed only by its sequel), they were inundated with offers to make a movie of it. After the torrent of horrid ideas had passed, they realized they’d have to make their own movie of it if they wanted it to be any good. Apparently, all writers are hacks. Which gives me hope that I might one day write a movie script, but also fills me with dread, because World of Warcraft (one of my favourite games) is being made into a movie and Mass Effect (another one of my favourite games) has been optioned for a movie. I love both of those games, and will be bitterly disappointed if the movies don’t live up to my expectations. I think Hollywood will have the last laugh, though, because I’ll end up paying money to support it. But beware, Hollywood – I have a blog, and I’m not afraid to use it!

The history of suck between video games and movies probably started in 1982, when Atari tried to capitalize on the popularity of E.T. by making a video game of it. They had one guy program it in 5 weeks and then mass produced the snot out of it. One urban legend is that there were more cartridges of it than were Atari's sold at that point (so way to get ahead of yourselves, there). It was an incredibly terrible game (I know, I played it) and killed video games for two years until Super Mario saved the day (like he usually does. It's like Fun was kidnapped by the video game slump, and Mario stormed into the castle and saved it ... what, I'm not smoking anything ... I'm not)!

The first movie based on a video game I can remember sucking was, ironically, Super Mario Brothers (by the way, how much did Luigi get shafted when that pairing got named? Known only by your brother's name? That's gotta suck). It was abysmal, and everyone involved wishes you would just forget it.

But the sorry contributions have continued on both sides ever since people thought gamers would pay for an awful film with some familiar elements, or buy terrible games based on their favourite movies. I’d post a list of examples, but it might make your eyes bleed. And besides, we promised we’d forget these abominations, and I intend to honour that. You know, until the next mindless movie comes out.

If you want more (accurate) information, you can go here and here.