Tag Archives: Movies

The Power of Listening

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I’m not good at it. Listening is not easy. Genuinely hearing what other people are saying is active – a verb. You are doing something, not just passively sitting and waiting for your turn to speak. Most people don’t listen with the intent of understanding, most people listen with the intent of responding.

I’m going to frame this conversation in terms of entertainment, both written and other media, but it is something that should be applied to any other communication.

The movies have always been for me. The massive, record breaking, blockbuster films for the vast majority of my life have been super white. The awards given out have been all white. The works they were based on were overwhelmingly white. It’s been a white, white, white world.

February is black history month. The Academy of Motion pictures is holding it’s annual awards this first weekend of February. Will diversity show up? I have my doubts. Check out this video to hear what prompted my thought process.

When the comic book adaptation film Black Panther came out I was very excited to see another part of the Marvel cinematic universe come to life on the screen. BP crushed at the box office and had amazing staying power in the theaters. It got extremely positive reviews. When I reviewed the movie the take away for me was “this movie was not aimed at me”. It was a black superhero telling a story that showed that white wasn’t the only way. It was aimed at NOT white kids to say, “look, this is for you too”. I thought that was one of the best parts of the movie. I have no idea the “realness” of the backgrounds of characters, the authenticity of the costume inspirations – non of that is history I know. It was wonderful, but in the end it didn’t have the same impact it would if I were part of a community that grew up with, knew or understood those things. I appreciate what it is and what it did, but it was not going to be inspirational to me or have the kind of impact it will with people not from my background.

I attempted to explain what I meant to another white person. This white person said something to the effect of, “What? You don’t like it? How can you not like it? Look what Marvel is doing! All those costumes and colors…”

This person wasn’t listening. To them the film was just another part of a bigger whole without the context of inclusion. To be fair – I don’t know if it was a matter of accepting this diversity without question or completely missing the point. The feeling I got during the conversation was that they were completely missing the point. It’s not easy to listen without putting forward your own view and making things fit into the framework you’re comfortable with. Saying that it wasn’t for me was not a condemnation of the film, it was an attempt to understand that an expanded and multi-faceted creation had more to offer than the same old reworked all white framework that I have known my entire life.

Sometimes when listening becomes action it means accepting a different role. Really listening means you’re open to changing your views. Sometimes the different role is not the “in charge” role. Not making decisions or leading. If you’ve always been in the lead it is not easy to relinquish that to anybody else, let alone someone that doesn’t mesh with the homogenized system you’ve become comfortable with.

This is also not an easy conversation to have. Being the middle aged white guy makes putting forward any thoughts on diversity of any kind dangerous. It’s easy to go wrong due to lack of understanding and a lack of willingness to listen. There’s a quote I heard in the past about media that essentially said if you let somebody talk long enough you will be able to take six lines out of context and use that against them – even if that was never what they meant. Sometimes you don’t know or can’t know the right context for asking questions. It can be challenging to put forward that you don’t know something. It will make you vulnerable and people don’t generally like that. The landscape of social media makes it easy to hide behind anonymity and scream out about the faults of others. Nobody wants to be vulnerable. Vulnerability scares people.

Great quote from a great movie, “I have the right to see fine in any color…”

I am trying to listen. I am hoping to be part of a meaningful change. It won’t be easy. It’s something I’m working on. I think I’m getting better, but that’s not really for me to judge. Diversity matters. It matters an awful lot more than we understand. Listen ~ and be part of the change.

Watching – on MY demand

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I am not a Luddite, but I am often accused of being one because I tend to express very negative opinions about tech and the issues that result from it not working correctly.

I spend an exceptional amount of time working with technology, specifically digital tools, at my day job. I am part designer, part modeler, and part film maker when I’m working on a project. I absolutely depend on having up to date hardware and software. I am connected all the time while I am working having three screens and up to a dozen windows open at any given time on my computer. I live in the future when I’m working. When I am not at work, totally different take on things.

I have a deep seeded need for technology to simply work when and where I want it to. This is where the problem starts. There are a multitude of technology based things for any and all parts of the home these days. I find that most of them amount to solutions gone looking for a problem. Could I have voice commands turn all the lights on and off in my house? Yes, yes I could. Will I ever do that? Not a chance. I can walk over and flip a switch to complete a circuit. The only times I’ve ever had a problem with that is when the light itself failed to work. How many people can say they never have a problem getting their automated things to work properly every single time without more effort that flipping a switch? I’ve witnessed it at the office I work in. One office’s lights are connected to a digital assistant. Guess what set of lights constantly has issues? Good guess.

So, why am I on about digital tools and connectivity? I am also one of the people that still has the Netflix DVD by mail service. Yes, actual discs in the good old postal delivery service. I can’t say I’m a constant on the mailing list, sometimes not getting to my new disc for a couple of weeks, but generally I get to at least three or four per month. I also still buy actual discs of the movies that I know I really enjoy and want to go back to.

When I really want to watch an older movie that I love I follow a procedure that’s remarkably similar to the light switch… I get off my ass, walk to the shelf where the movie sits, then take the disc back to the DVD player and watch my movie. Relatively little failure there.

What if you wanted to watch Dogma tonight? Could you? Even with Kevin Smith out there all over the place promoting stuff you still can’t just get it if you don’t own the disc. Sure, there may be some digitally savvy folks out there that could come up with it, but at what cost? What system? Do you have the right service?

This article in GQ has some really excellent points on this.

My bottom line is this – If I own the disc, there’s not a service out there that can stop me from watching it when and where I want to. I don’t have to depend on Netflix having it in their rotation. I don’t have to worry that there’s some kind of transmission problem that’s bogging down Hulu. No buffering on my computer. I just watch it. Pause it, come back to it… basically all the things associated with streaming, without the need to worry about what service has the movie or IF my digital library copy is still available or not… or worse, if it’s been altered for some kind of directorial re-write (thanks for that Lucas).

IF that makes me a Luddite, so be it. I’ll still watch my movies whenever I want and not depend on some service to do it.

Digging into things

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Since I wrote up my post about the gap in my blog I’ve been going back and digging stuff up that I’ve been meaning to talk about. I often grab and save links to articles that spark something in me. I want to be timely in my discussions, but never at the expense of decent writing and forethought.

Back in July I saw this article over at Tor.

https://www.tor.com/2019/07/01/was-1999-the-year-nerd-culture-began-to-take-over-the-world/

You should read it. The two things that caught my eye were the claim of a ‘coming out’ year for fandom and an acceptance of the label(s) geek / nerd.

The first part about the coming out year caught my eye. I’ve written before about the influence of films on my own fandom. Movies that are still resonating today came out when I was a young teen (Terminator anyone?). I somehow thought this was a thing that might not have been repeatable, but then there was 2015. The movies that hit during that year were big and amazing. I’ve written a couple of times about how I think / hope my daughter will have positive memories and just as much influence from these films as I had with the crop from back in 1984. What I failed to understand was that this type of influence could be just about any year. The author of that article could have been on to something. I don’t agree with all the movie choices, but I wasn’t a teen in 1999. I absolutely agree with the assertion of the Matrix being a massively influential film. Things since then really have heated up.

The second part of that is more problematic for me. For a very long time my “nerdom” was something I made every attempt to hide. It was never popular to be called that when I was growing up. D&D wasn’t accepted as an influential part of culture, it was a derided thing that cost me friendships because some parents bought into the panic about the game. I learned to avoid talking about my favorite hobby. I was not immune to the social pressure to fit in and get along. That formative experience hasn’t left me.

No matter how popular “nerdy” things become I don’t think I’ll ever shake that. I hold my fandom close and tend not to share it.

I actively question the hot new trend to claim to be a nerd or a geek or a comic fan because you’ve seen all the Marvel movies. I’ve seen some of the so called celebrations of geekdom and I don’t think they’re as celebratory as people want to believe they are. The amount of things out there relating to science fiction and fantasy is stunning. It’s an unprecedented level of availability. All of those things feel temproary to me. It’s a bunch of people that don’t really care about fandom, but they DO care that they can make a buck from it. Media and movie folks are looking for any way possible to come up with, package, and sell the next ‘hot’ nerd thing. They don’t care about what’s in the package, just that they can sell it.

Suddenly everyone is claiming to be a geek or a nerd of some variety. The glut of marketing material for these ‘geeky’ things brings to mind a quote. “It’s the burning of the library of Alexandria by way of the Hot Topic t-shirt printing press”.

In short, I don’t buy it.

Another topic belongs right here – and that is toxic fandom. I won’t go into it right now (perhaps another post) but it’s a real thing. I suspect it’s a backlash to the popular thing. The ever present push back of being ‘cool’ by not buying into the trend.

I’m very glad there are folks out there who enjoy so many of the same things I do. I love the level of availability of all the cool things that tie in to my favorite books or games or movies. I’m thrilled to see an influx of diversity. I will continue to be wary. I’m in fandom for the long haul. I hope you are too.

Far From Home

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Non spoiler review of the movie right here

The family and I went to see Far From Home on this opening weekend. I’m going to hit potential spoiler stuff in here. I’ll try to avoid it, but if you don’t want spoilers you should see the movie before you read my review.

Going to see this movie felt different than other super hero movies since Endgame did what it did. This movie had a lot of ground to cover that wasn’t about Spiderman at all. In the end, it did exactly what it needed to do in that department. There was an explanation of why after 5 years these kids were still in school. There was (albeit brief) discussion of what happened when people “blipped” and found the world they returned to completely changed. It was a good thing to see these questions addressed.

It was also interesting to see the film makers continue to use “what people will believe” in the story line. It maintains all the crazy that has gone before and uses that to advantage in pushing this story forward.

Not being someone who read the comics or watched a great deal of preview stuff worked to my advantage on this film. I didn’t know Mysterio or anything about that character other than a vague recollection of a cartoon involving him in the distant past. I was able to take what was given and just enjoy the ride. I didn’t think too hard about it, and was able to be surprised at little turns the film took.

The biggest thing I can’t say I enjoyed landed right at the end in the first post credits scene. The bad guy pulls something off that did NOT sit well with me. It’s exactly the sort of thing that shows how well a character is written ~ because I loathed that it happened and wrecked the happy ending. I like heroic movies with happy endings and this dug under my skin. I could have done without it at all and been much happier.

IF you’re invested in the MCU, this movie definitely continues that work. IF you’re not, this is still a decent Spiderman movie, but you’ll miss a huge amount of the emotional impact without some background. I hope they get as many of these movies filmed as they can before Tom Holland moves on. I’m now impatiently waiting for the next one…

Here are two spoiler filled links about things to love and lingering questions.

Endgame – Part II

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I recently posted about a small moment in the juggernaut movie that is “Endgame” that my daughter related to.

I was not the only one that noticed this scene. Others were not impressed but did not have the same perspective I did. While my post has one specific spoiler moment, these posts have many. In my last post I was not trying to claim victory for the MCU. They’re a business (stupidly successful) and will do what makes money. IF they’re as smart as this long movie arc says they are, you’ll see more and better.

Given how politics have played out recently, I know we need more attention to this sort of thing. We MUST do better. I think we will. For my daughter’s sake, I hope we do.

Tor – long way to go for women:  https://www.tor.com/2019/04/29/avengers-endgame-shows-us-a-universe-that-still-cant-do-right-by-women/

io9 – deserved more:  https://io9.gizmodo.com/avengers-endgames-women-deserved-more-1834388344

The Kid Who Made No Money

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I took the family to see a movie. There are lots of movies coming out – and a lot of really good stuff to see. We went to see “The Kid Who Would Be King”. Yes, it’s a retelling of the Arthurian legend BUT it was new, it had at least one amazing actor and had enough of a budget to have really good special effects.

Guess what?

It bombed at the box office. It makes me more than a little sad to think that once again, just like Mortal Engines a movie that was not tied to a massive franchise, wasn’t a sequel and wasn’t a direct remake of something we’ve seen in our time dismally failed at the box office. I still hear people complain about movies and the lack of enjoyable new stuff that Hollyweird produces and yet once again there was a complete failure to show movie types that’s what anyone actually wants (by going to see a good film!).

IF you have a kiddo around the 10 – 14 year old range OR you just love movies aimed right at that age group you should definitely check this film out. It was a fun retelling of the King Arthur legend and had the bonus of giving some total ‘gross out’ information that turns out to be quite real (Merlin’s diet info is REAL)!

Mortal Engines

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People have a lot to say about what the movie industry has to offer these days. Most of the time what I hear is, “Hollywood is out of new ideas…” in some form or variation. I will split semantics on this one. I am slowly coming to believe that they’re not out of ideas at all. They’ve got lots of ideas, just nobody with the guts to put something new out there. IF by some crazy chance somebody manages to push through an original and interesting idea that gets made into an actual feature film, the marketing team has no idea what to do with it. They attempt to cram it into a box and force it to fit some concept of ‘what will sell’ that may or may not actually have anything to do with the movie.

I believe that last bit is what happened to the film Mortal Engines. The movie is based on the book of the same title by Philip Reeve. I read the book back in 2009. That was actually before I started posting my book reviews here but those old words are still hanging around on Goodreads. I was excited to see this film in theaters. It’s new. It’s not a sequel. It’s not a remake. It’s NEW!

When I saw the box office results I was very disappointed. For all the people out there that clamor constantly for something new and different this was a staggeringly poor turnout.

 “…second straight flop for Universal… following “Mortal Engines. That $100 million film debuted last weekend with $7.5 million film in ticket sales.”

That’s dismal. I’m not in the industry and even I see that as dismal. On paper this movie had everything going for it. One of may favorite directors was on board (I’m trying to look past the Hobbit fiasco). Great actors were involved. There’s action, there’s a revenge plot, there’s romance. The characters are diverse. There were so many good things…

I’m not sure why it hasn’t been more successful. The visuals and special effects were excellent. The acting was good. I enjoyed it. I will buy the DVD when it comes out. I think it’s a movie that is worth seeing – above and beyond the simple fact that something new needed to be supported so that the people funding films put more new things out. The only thing this will do is push the number crunchers back to Dukes of Hazard 3 Accessible Parking and that is just depressing.

I put this movie directly into the same category as Jon Carter of Mars. That movie should have been a big box office hit with multiple stories to follow up and the people selling it just couldn’t figure out how to get it to you. Mortal Engines is a good film and if you get the chance to catch it you should.

Ready Player One – A Review

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Ready Player One

I went back and looked. I didn’t realize that it had been almost 5 years since I read the book. You can read my old review of the book here.

IF you’re interested in a synopsis of the book from a slightly different point of view (with spoilers), feel free to check this guy out (he’s really clever and I like his work) THUG NOTES.

The movie itself.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet – yes, there will be spoiler stuff in here. There has to be in order to cover my specific thoughts on the film. Before I get to that part, here’s the short, non-spoiler version:

It was a well done movie. There’s a lot of visual stuff that’s worth your dollars to see it on the big screen. I didn’t see it in 3D, but I bet that would actually help this movie. Go see it and support it, we want stuff that isn’t a sequel or a remake of TV shows from the 70s or 80s.

After this is the spoilery bits – you are warned.

I really did like the movie, but I went into the theater completely prepared to be disappointed. That might have helped my outlook by the end because it was better than I was afraid it was going to be when we got to the end. A number of my fears DID happen to come true and that made me more than a little sad.

There are a number of things that were different from the book. Yes, we know this and it happens to every film. The book ranged over worlds and games and took a really long time to cover certain ground. It wasn’t descriptive so much as pointed out pop culture from the past. There were going to have to be changes in order to make the movie work. The problem is changing or tweaking just the right thing and not losing the tone or message that made the book the success it is. There were three parts to that in my mind – the pop culture, the challenges and the characters. One at a time, in reverse order –

The characters. I know the story centers around Wade. The book has had some criticism about how his character plays out. The movie actually doesn’t do badly with him, and helps to get away from the stalker aspects of his character as he is shown in the book. The rest of the characters however have been ‘adjusted’ by Hollywierd. Wade gets taken to work for the sixers, not Art3mis. The movie takes her instead. Aech’s story is mostly background, but the part in the book where she’s playing as a white guy because she gets more respect didn’t need to be chopped out. Her avatar for the game should have still been a white guy. That bothers me. The movie hints at danger for the characters, but this is the movies – none of the main team actually dies. That’s not the case in the book. I don’t know if it was a ratings thing or if it was deemed to be bad for the story – I’m not sure. Whatever it was I think it weakened the movie when it didn’t need to. I loved that Simon Pegg was in there. I could have done without the changes to Og’s character, but it was less noticeable. His part was small but very good. The portrayal of Halliday was exceptionally well done. Much more than I had hoped for. That part of the characters was fantastic.

The challenges. I know there was some effort made to engage with people who don’t remember the 80s and don’t particularly care about any of the nostalgia related things in this story. I get it. You need to make the money back that you put into the product. WHY would the Dungeons and Dragons portion of the challenges have to be dumped? They only call outs – despite appearing to have the go ahead from WoTC (and I watched for that in the credits) – were a t-shirt, a couple of posters on a bedroom wall and the face on the back of the van. Yes, that face is from the original art in the module that is the challenge in the book. WHY? I fail to understand that. It can’t be some leftover garbage from the days of the satanic panic can it? Has the film maker in this case fallen back onto news from the 80s in the decision making process too? The Shining wasn’t even in the book! IF there was going to be a movie that would be referenced it should have been Ladyhawk. Cannon! IF the argument for removing the dungeons and dragons references is some attempt to connect with a modern (non-80s) audience The Shining sure isn’t the way. In fact, since Stranger Things hit there’s been a resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons. It would in fact make MORE sense to include it than not! That leads me into the last of the three portions.

The Pop culture. Fine, I’ll give you Iron Giant over Leopardon for a giant robot. Fine. We got Rush music in one trailer and then it wasn’t in the movie. Sure, there are scads of background things that you could pick out – but get them right. Atari 2600 plays a central role to all this AND THEY GOT THE DETAILS WRONG. The controllers on the one game console they show are for the Colecovision! IF you’re going to send people looking for Easter Eggs expect to be called out on that sort of thing. People are going to be pulling this apart for a long time. Again – a little bit of effort and it’s soooo much better. There were a lot of things that just dragged at my willingness to go on this ride and tried to pull me out of the story.

In the end, yes this is a good movie. It should be supported on the big screen so that we all continue to see many and varied offerings like it on the big screen. If you go in with low hopes, no nostalgia hooked into your brain nor any desire to see a particular portion of the book displayed ‘just so’ then you won’t be disappointed. I did like it, and I will own it at some point but maybe not until it falls into the discount bin or the clearance shelf with all the other nostalgic things that got put back in the closet.

Not For Me

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The family and I went to see Black Panther tonight.

A movie that is part of the Marvel cinematic universe gives one high expectations. It brought a lot to the table in an attempt to meet those expectations.

My wife loved it. She wants to see it again and has told me that we will own the film.

BUT you might be asking, what did you think of it? You’ve said what it is, but not what you thought of it. True.

This movie met all those expectations. It was a gorgeous film. The costumes, the backgrounds, the action and the colors were all a treat for the eyes. It was a good story. All of the characters were believable people (with some leeway for the fact that this IS a comic book film of course). The emotions, the love, the ferocity shone through. No pandering, no excuses, just an excellent cinematic work.

I believe all of what I just wrote there, but I also believe something that might not sound like an endorsement when it truly is. This film was not for me. I thought it was great. I’m crazy happy that it’s killing the box office. The women in the film were stunning. There was so much to see that I’ll watch it again and again without doubt – but this film was not for me.

And that’s great. It’s fantastic. That’s exactly the point. There is so much stuff out there in movie land that IS for me and fits with all the things I’ve always seen in the movies that this film was long over due. There needs to be amazing movies out there for everyone. As they say in this movie, the world is getting smaller. Seeing and learning about something that isn’t you is going to be a vital tool moving forward. It matters that the characters never apologized for the times they didn’t just speak English so everyone could understand. Not having hair that works the way yours might – or not having hair at all is not a detriment to beauty.

It also matters that my daughter went to see this. She’s not viewing this with a jaded eye. This is the sweet spot for story telling for her. She’s at the exact age where films and big event things like that will stick with her into her adulthood. I remember to this day all the amazing films that came out when I was her age. All the characters that blasted onto the screen for me. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rocky, Superman… seeing the connection with them? Yeah, they’re all “for me” being powerful white guys. I asked my daughter who her favorite characters from the film were. Who was the hero of the film? She said the general, or the king’s sister. She liked the warrior and the scientist. Not some person just waiting about to be rescued or randomly fall into love at first sight and get married, but people of action and determination. Strong, caring and intelligent people that do what they need to for their home and their family.

This movie was not for me – and that is what matters the most. Go see it. Support the diversity and the connection that something like this can represent.

Bright

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In a rare moment of timeliness I’ve actually had the opportunity to watch “Bright”, the new film from Netflix. It was released yesterday (December 22, 2017). I watched at home with a couple of close friends. I think that’s the most telling thing ~ this is a movie production with a number of well known Hollywood actors that I didn’t go to the theater to see when it opened, I went to the couch. Best seat I’ve had for a new movie in a while. That was a good thing because this movie felt like it was longer than the listed two hours it was supposed to be.

Spoilers ahead ~

I thought it was a very interesting choice by the storytellers to just dump us into a modern day society where elves and orcs simply live. There was no long text explanation about why or when this happened. There was no “this is when things changed”, it was simply the way things are. Interesting, but maybe not the best choice. I get it, you can’t do a LOTR thing where you’ve got 6 hours of movie… OH, wait. It’s Netflix, so yes that totally could have been done. Netflix routinely posts entire seasons of shows all at once. People then watch when and where they can. I hear some folks out there, “but this is a movie…” and I will counter that with the abomination that was a string of special effects and made up romances supposedly based on The Hobbit. Those three awful things are one film. As much as I dislike the result, the example stands. Netflix and the storytellers could have really expanded this world and given a deep, rich background that wouldn’t leave people looking at light up milk bath trees and thinking “what?”.

I will actually compare this to a role playing game / series of novels from the 90s – Shadowrun. Shadowrun did the world building behind the change. They brought magic and magical races into the world and then shook society up to make the changes in the world understandable. In Bright ‘Elves run the world’ really felt like a cosmetic application that allowed for comparison to how “gritty” the part of the story we’re dealing with really is. In Shadowrun Native Americans gain power based on how the world changed. It’s explained in terms relative to the story. It mattered and followed through. Bright felt like they wanted to paint over a things as they are today with a makeup brush and say “it’s allegory” without explaining what happened to bring us there. Telling me you’ve got 2,000 years of history isn’t the same as making me believe it in the story without being told. We never learn anything about the background that makes a “prophecy” believable in this context.

On to that portion of our program. OF course Will Smith was capable of picking up the wand with his bare hand and not blowing up. Saw that coming all the way. That’s why we’re riding with these guys. OF course they were going to win, there was very little doubt of that.

I will say I didn’t see the resurrection of the orc coming. I thought it would have been really interesting if they’d just let him die and deal with the results of that. OF course that would have meant a movie that went a very different direction and that’s never where we were headed. Now ANY future show or movie in this franchise will be required to deal with the idea that people who were dead can be made NOT dead by waving the magic stick around – even if the person waving the stick has only a “new recruit” level of training. The cost looked totally survivable, although that was tossed directly into the “obscure character death” category so we didn’t need to deal with what that meant in this world.

The other thing that bothered me was a standard thing with films. It’s so standard that I’ve actually taken to trying to avoid watching movie trailers altogether. I used to love to see what was coming out. Now all those trailers do is spoil all the best parts of any movie. The same was totally true for this film. I saw all the best parts in the previews. That was the most disappointing part of it all. Not only was the story predictable, but the best and funniest moments were all shown before I started watching. There were really funny parts that still landed in context, but I knew they were coming.

All of this might sound really negative, but I did actually enjoy watching the film. I don’t think I’m rushing back to watch it again but I will be interested to see how this all plays out ~ will there be more from this world? Go, check out some urban fantasy and see if you think this will be the next trendy thing in film or if it will just die and go away… and maybe be brought back by magic wand.