"The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea."

Alright, I'm going to have to paint a picture for you. Imagine that you're at the movies and you're walking down the hall to your theater. One of your friends, rather rudely, announces that he has to go to the bathroom and continues to do just that. To avoid confusion created in the darkness of the theater, you wait for him. As you and your other friends make conversation, your eyes glance towards something on the wall. It's a promotion for something. Your eyes well up with terror when your brain processes this image:

Now that you have processesd that information, you try to figure out who's to blame for your terror. Was it Mr. and Mrs. Wayans who decided to have way too many children? Is it Hollywood? Was it your friend, Sean, who decided to go to the bathroom? Well, they are all to blame but, there is one main problem with the Hollywood system. Many ask the question "Why do they keep making these movies?" Well, the answer is simple. Have you seen the trailers for "films" such as Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, Superhero Movie, etc? I would link them but, you know. The trailers give the impression that these films are made for a relatively low production value. So, if the studios put these movies into theaters on a slow weekend, they make a quick buck off of bored, braindead moviegoers. Since the scripts take little creativity and effort, they can churn them out rather frequently. Meanwhile, filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro are having problems getting financial backing for films that sound really fucking awesome (Such as Del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness adaption.) In case you couldn't guess, I'm really not looking forward to Dance Flick.

P.S. And as for the "Funniest Dance Movie of All Time" tagline, well, from the looks of it, the ending to They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is going to be funnier than this unfortunate pile of celluloid.

I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man

Well, apparently the Coens are going to remake True Grit. Well, they are re-adapting the novel, hoping to make a more faithful adaption. To me, that almost seems worse. The Western is a dying genre. There are still some films with Western themes but, they are very distilled along with other factors to paint a larger picture. A full out Western is seldom attempted anymore. It seems that you have to be an established director to even get the financial backing to do one. It's the Coens turn to try a full out Western.

The feeling I have is that, in oder to revive the Western as a genre is to experiment with it. There needs to be some changes made. This genre is very much an American institution, for obvious reasons. Not many international filmmakers tackle the subject matter because, well, it seems foreign to them. Though, ironically, for such an American genre, the best filmmaker (arguably) to work within it was an Italian director.

So, because of the American mainstream's influence, there was little experimentation done with the genre. Since the True Grit remake will be closer to the source novel, this will not change. That is a shame. Despite a couple here and there, I don't really enjoy straightforward Westerns. It is the few that mix it up and play with expectations that I enjoy. A film like Near Dark is considered to be loosley Western, and it does not hide that. The film is excellent and is probably my favorite vampire film (well, until i saw Let the Right One In). Another film which I felt was vitally important to the Genre was Johnny Guitar. Nicholas Ray's offbeat Western took Joan Crawford and made her a badass. And it fucking worked. Mix in some themes of sexual confusion and frustration and you've got a whole new can of worms. Unfortunately, that can did not stay open for long since there were no offshoots of this broken seal of a film. Hell, they haven't even released the movie on DVD in the United States. This seems frustrating to me. Though, the film was not an immediate hit, it gained a reputation and has now been inducted into the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". I would have hoped that this influential film could actually influence someone to make a Western that strayed from the norm. The genre has so much potential. There has been little done to experiment with it so I hope that one day, a stream of creativity will strike the Western.

Well, I still have faith in the Coens. Even if their last remake, The Ladykillers, was a giant heap of misguided awful, I believe they still have the ability to do this film correctly. Even though I don't think they can pull off another great streak like Barton Fink to Hudsucker Proxy to Fargo to The Big Lebowski, I am confident that they can make a good film. The Coens have definitely earned my optimism.

Enough of symbolism and these escapist themes of purity and innocence.

This is an analysis for a scene that I adore.  This is most likely my favorite opening scene in all of cinema.  If you have been unfortunate enough to not see this scene, please click on this.

The tracking shot establishes that the protagonist is in a traffic jam.  Inside of the car, we see the main character, from behind.  A pan is used to display what Guido is looking at. He sees a man is staring at him, then that man glances toward a sleeping woman, only to glance back at Guido.  It pans back to inside the car, as Guido wipes away something not seen on the windshield.  This is the first hint as to why this may be a dream, as Guido is wiping away nothing.  Another hint is the lack of sound (cars running, horns etc.)  As the camera pans further, we see more people are staring at him, as smoke starts to emanate from inside the car.  This is another clue that this may be a dream, as the smoke in unexplained.  The camera pans back to Guido trying to break out of the car, unsuccessfully, it cuts to many people staring aimlessly, most likely at Guido.  There is also a bus filled with people, faces unseen and with their arms sticking out of the windows.  A close crane shot follows Guido’s attempts at escape, while also revealing more people staring at him.

            A cut is then made to Guido’s mistress, though this is yet unknown within the film, as this is the opening scene.  An older man is looking at her, caressing her.  A pan is made, revealing even more people staring, right at Guido’s smoke filled car.  A cut is made to Guido emerging from the car, onto the roof.  Another crane shot is utilized to reveal that pretty much everyone in the traffic jam is staring at him.  The crane pans to the right to reveal Guido is floating above all of the cars.  This cements the idea that this is, in fact, a dream sequence.  This can be read as being Guido’s re-birth.  He is out from a confined area, free to move about and explore the world.  From a cultural perspective, Guido’s pose can be compared to the of Christ.  This fits within the film , as it explores questioning faith.  Also, the director used an image of Christ floating through the air in his previous film, La Strada.  This film is seen as very personal and sort of an Autobiography of Fellini himself.  The lighting in the beginning in the traffic jam increases the anxiety of the situation while simultaneously supports the re-birth perspective.  Once Guido has escaped the darkness of the “womb” the sun is seen for the first time in the film, illuminating over Guido’s body.

            Guido continues to float above everything and eventually floats into the sky.  The camera cuts to a first person perspective, with Guido turning through the air.  He then floats past a piece of scenery Guido is to use in his next film.  A cut is made to just a man on a horse, perhaps the antithesis of a traffic jam, as there is not machinery, just one horse with plenty of space.  The camera follows him then, pans down to reveal another man on the beach.  These two men are producers on the film Guido is working on.  Yet again, this is unknown as this is just the beginning of the film.  The camera cuts to another, probably perspective shot to reveal that Guido is no longer allowed to float wherever he wants to, as the producer has a string tied around his foot.  This is an obvious metaphor for the studios reducing his artistic possibilities, and the limits of their set time constraints.  The producer then yanks Guido back to earth.  As Guido then slams into the ocean, dream sequence ends.  What appears to be Guido's hand arises.  A dream to end the sleep.

Even in the Face of Armageddon

Well, this has been an unavoidable subject as of late.  Watchmen has been on the cusp of everyone's fingertips for a while now.  Well, until last week but, I'm a firm believer in being fashionably late.  So, I shall offer my opinion on a film that almost reached mythical status, as it lingered in development limbo.  Finally, after several failed attempts, the deed has been done.

I've seen it an I enjoyed the shit out of it.  Though I do feel that there were some points missed by Mr. Snyder and his crew.  In his past films, Snyder has had some crisp clarity of image to get across his blurry ideas.  This does not change.  When a film is already perfectly story boarded for you in original form, it's hard to mess it up.  Snyder does in some respects but, he translates the main story very well to the screen.  I admire his attempts to do so and I am looking forward to his directors cut, rumored for dvd release.  Now, even if you are not a fan of Zach Snyder, you have to pay him respects.  Look at his resume.  The fact that he hasn't been ritually murdered by fanboys should attest to something.

Besides some changed lines, omitted characters etc, there were some things that i felt were misrepresented in the film.  There were some nods to the homosexual preferences of some of the characters, which gave a little nod to fans but, the theme of sexual frustration was nowhere to be seen.  In the comic, when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre go out in "Archie" after Dan's embarrassing impotency, there is a sad, pathetic tone to the ordeal.  Dan takes on his role as Nite Owl and starts up his ship, a misguided attempt at masculinity, perhaps.  Silver Spectre, embarrassed for Dan, goes along in a mere attempt to humor him.  In the film, however, apparently they miss the old days (though it is obvious Silk Spectre does not at all, she detests it) and go out to fight crime.  Simple.  Obvious.  Unflinching.  The whole ordeal lacks any type of meaning or theme.

Later, when they "rescue" Rorschach from prison, they have a fight, oddly similar to one in Oldboy, of epic use of slow motion.  In the book, there is only one frame of them beating people up, all the while they are discussing possible ways to get out of their ordeal.  You know, thinking.  We just shut our minds off from what is going on to enjoy some rib crunching, abnormally flexible fighting.  Given Zach Snyder's affinity to stylized violence, this did not surprise me that much.

What I did find surprising was the amount of punishment these characters could take.  This was the one thing that actually got me angry.  Alan Moore took superheroes and made them human.   Snyder took these humans and made them superheroes.  Watchmen, as a comic, was seen as either a dawning of a new era or the end of one.  Apparently, pertaining to film, its neither.  It continues the trend of impossible violence and, because of this, it does not tread new ground and therefore does not create a deeper breed of comic book films.  Though, it is unfair to ask that of the film.  I just got my hopes up that the originality of the comic would spread to the screen.

Those are my main grievances and they are pretty minor ones.  It does succeed at being more than a "popcorn flick,"  and I am grateful for that.  Watchmen is not my bible in comic books, that would be Hellblazer.  They already fucked that up.  I just hope in this era of reboots, John Constantine gets a fair chance.