Author Archives: Bob Evans

Movie Review: Joker

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the film Joker, there has been talk of awards and Oscars, there has been praise and adoration as well as criticism and sharp commented dislikes. With an open and mind and trying to set aside all expectations and since I had today off from the day-job I attended a late screening.

Joker  is a possible origin story for the iconic nemesis of that caped crusader Batman. I say possible because the cannon for the comic book character stretches back many decades and as with all comic book histories that ancient it is filled with revisions, reboots, and flat out contradictions in the character’s backstory.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck a troubled young man living with his mother in the decaying crime infested city of Gotham during the turbulent 1980s. Arthur makes his living as a clown, working promoting dying businesses as they hoist one final sale and providing mediocre entertainment to children in hospitals. Suffering from an unnamed neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable fits of laughter whenever Arthur is emotionally stressed Arthur dreams of success as a comic, living out detailed delusions of what he life might be as his mother sends endless letters to Thomas Wayne lost in her own delusions. As economic, physical, and mental stress takes their toll of Arthur his losses the frail support network he barely possesses and soon confronts terrible truths about himself and truth of his life. Caught between fantasy and reality and unable to tell the two apart he loses his identity and discovers a new one.

My opinion on this film is somewhere between the two extremes that are common on the Internet; the film is interesting and had a decidedly pointed theme it is trying to express. This film is a commentary on the result of a society that ignores the under-privileged, the unreal world of the wealthy and the pressures that explode from that dangerous combination. Yet this film is also flawed. Nearly all of the film is from Arthur’s point of view and that is on point, it is his story we are experiencing, and yet there are sequences where the story steps away from Arthur solely for the purpose and nudging the audience in the side with reminders that this take place in DC’s continuity. These excursion weaken the story, undercut the theme and serve no purpose but fan service. This film also felt like it didn’t quite know how it wanted to end. Twice before it actually ended the director services up visions that would have made for a powerful final image, only to continue the film with unrequired wrap-up.

Some of the criticism I have read and heard about this film I think say more about the critics than the film. Much like Star Wars: The Last Jedi  it seems a number of people came into their screenings with preconceived notions of the film and its subject matter and those pre-judgments formed the core of their critique, however unlike The Last Jedi  these critics hail from the liberal side of the political spectrum and betray their biases just as much of the right’s criticism betrayed theirs.

Over all this film was well made and interesting, a little editing would improve it punch, but it achieves neither the heights or the lows so many are ascribing to it.

 

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Does Gemini Man Herald the End of Acting?

In a recent article over at VOX an author expressed the fear that the near perfect digital recreation of an actor’s younger version is merely the camel’s nose in the tent that will lead to the replacement of actors with entirely digital creations. This is not a new concern and formed the one central question in Connie Willis’ novel Remake and then as now I do not foresee that as a concern for the near future.

Acting is not just walking from mark to mark and parroting the words from the script. If it were there would be a far large number of great actors entertaining us and it would not b so plainly evident when a talented actor was simply ‘phoning in’ their performance. Acting is an art and like all art is requires a conscious creative act. There are numerous choices an actor makes in their performance that go far beyond simply repeating the words.  There will not fully digital actors entire there are self-aware computers capable of making those emotional choices.

A second often expressed fear is that there will be endless films using recreations of stars that have passed and while there will the occasional use of a dead actor to recreate a famous role, for example Peter Cushing’s double in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  it will never become a vehicle for a star powered film. Firstly there is still the creative aspect that will fail to double the original actor’s unique vision but more importantly is that younger generations will never simply adopt their parent’s stars. Even an eternally young John Wayne would not have continued to be the massive star of his earlier days as the country and culture changed around him.

Change is coming but actors are not about be wholly replaced by bits and bytes.

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Choice versus Ability: What RPGs Can Teach Us About Writing

The other day I listened to the episode of the podcast Scriptnotes  where the two hosts, Craig and John played the role-playing game Fiasco  with a fellow writer and it sparked some thoughts about story telling and how characters become compelling. John and Craig in addition to being successful screenwriters, show runner, novelists, and playwrights, are role-play gamers notably playing Dungeons and Dragons  the wellspring of all role-play gaming today so listening to them play Fiasco  a game that is entirely focused on storytelling with only extremely limited mechanics intrigued me, especially since I had thoroughly enjoyed the episode of the web series Tabletop  where I first learned of Fiasco.

In Dungeons and Dragons  characters have a well defined set of abilities, usually derived from a ‘class’ that defines the character profession, thief, wizard, warrior, and so one but in Fiasco  the only thing that defines a character is their relationships to the other characters of the game. There are not statistics for physical or mental abilities, no rule set for determining if a gunshot hits a target or misses, in short characters have no defined abilities whatsoever. A Fiasco character is defined by their choices and in fiction writing it is the same.

In fiction a character’s attempt at any action is not random determine by lucky or unlucky dice rolls but success is predetermined by the author compelled by the needs of the text. The character’s abilities are there to allow the possibility of success at any particular action but not to drive that action. What makes a character compelling is the choices that they make. If you can remove the character from the action and replace them with another person with a similar skill set and nothing changes then it is likely that your character is not very compelling. It is the choice that defines the character, it is in agonizing dilemmas where there are no good choices that forces a character to grow and confront their own true nature.  From quiet dramas such as The Remains of the Day  and Mr. Stevens choice to not speak up and tell Miss Kensington how he really feels to special effects spectaculars such as Captain America: Civil War  where Steve has to decide to confess to Tony Star the truth that he had kept secret the truth of Stark’s parents’ murder it is the choice that a character that makes them empathetic.

Abilities can be switched out, anyone can be an expert of some skill ort knowledge but only this particular person with this particular background and experience can be tortured with a specific choice and there you will find the compelling character.

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Streaming Review: The Corpse of Anna Fritz

Premiering in 2015 at the South X Southwest  festival The Corpse of Anna Fritz  is a Spanish Language thriller/horror film about  morgue attendant Pau (Albert Carbo) who finds himself alone with the body of a young and extremely popular actor Anna Fritz (Alba Ribas.) Pau texts photos of Anna’s corpse to his friends Ivan (Cristian Valencia) and Javi (Bernat Saumell) who join Pau in the morgue to ogle the actor’s corpse. Being men of low character and with their inhibitions eradicated by cocaine the word of the day becomes necrophilia. A bad and immoral idea turns disastrous when Anna awakens from her unexplained comatose state and the three young men are faced with the serious criminal charges but lack the moral fortitude to do anything approaching what is right.

Anna Fritz is a horror film that presents no supernatural elements existing in the continuum of thriller and thrillers turns on their characters and their acting. This film does an admirable job at both of these factors. The young men with their limited intellect and obsession with partying are sadly not outside of the bounds of reality and their divergent reactions to Anna’s living state drive the dramatic conflict at the heart of their relationship. Alba Ribas as Anna is phenomenal, her character at times is paralyzed leaving the actor with only her eyes to express her terror and shock and she is terrific at it. The most empathetic character in the small film Alba’s Anna is the emotional heart that beats the movie’s lifeblood of tension.

With a brief running time of just 74 minutes Anna Fritz  does not overstay it welcome, moving directly into the tense plot and telling its story with economy.  Currently streaming on Shudder  Anna Fritz  is not a film to everyone’s tastes but it successfully captures the terror, tension and idiocy of its character without devolving, despite prominent nudity, into titillation with the real horror always centered in Anna’s experiences.

 

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Movie Review: Ad Astra

In Ad Astra  Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride an astronaut whose father, Clifford McBride also a revered astronaut, vanished on a mission beyond Neptune in the outer solar system to survey extra-solar planets for signs of intelligent life. Sudden intense burst of gamma radiation from outer solar system now threaten human on Earth, the Moon, and Mars, burst of radiation that appear to be coming from Clifford’s list mission. Roy is dispatched to send a message to his father and hopefully end the threat the humanity.

Sharing some thematic elements with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness  this film is a slow mediation on the shadows they live within the human spirit and the dangerous of isolation and disconnection that can happen even when we are surrounded by people. However while those are the themes of the screenplay, and the film is filled with talented veteran actors Ad Astra  fails to fully engage on a character level leaving the audience to experience repeated long sequences of Brad Pitt stealing Ryan Gosling’s thunder of staring expressionless in the middle distance.

Now, I love good slow cinema. The Remains of the Day  a film about one man’s repressed emotions set in the sedate world of less English nobility is one of my favorites but Ad Astra  fails to find the character at the center of the story and never forces the character to engage in a meaningful choice. A much better science-fiction film on these same themes and also with a careful slow pacing is the US version of Solaris. These films are possible but ad Astra  simply isn’t it.

The science in Ad Astra  is bad, but I have come to expect that from Hollywood science-fiction but without a good character story to catch the viewer that allows the bad science to become that much more noticeable.

The film is tonally inconsistent. It tries to balance quiet character contemplation with scenes of intense action and fails at both. There are two major set pieces of action that simply have no story reason for existing: a sequence with lunar pirates and an unmotivated attack on Roy McBride as he transits between lunar locales and a rescue mission to space station that apparently orbits between Earth and Mars solely for animal research.

All in all Ad Astra  was a dull plodding affair that thought is had much more profound things to say than it really did.

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Streaming Review: Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday The 13th

I love a good documentary and that is only amplified if it is a documentary about films or filmmaking. After all two Christmases ago my sweetie-wife got for me the 13 hours documentary The Story of Film  and I was thrilled. So discovering that the streaming services Shudder  is offering the massive 6 hour and 40 minute Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th  was exciting news.

Crystal Lake Memories  covers every installment in the successful franchise from the first film in 1980 through the most recent re-boot and including the 90s television series and the monster match-up movie Freddy vs. Jason.

Each installment gets it’s own chapter in the documentary, part of the reason why it is so massive in its extended running time, with cast and crew interviews and a history of the writing and production decisions surrounding the films. This makes it very easy to watch the documentary over several viewing. Full disclosure I am not the most engaged fan of this franchise. I have not seen every entry; I did enjoy the series though it had nothing to do with the main storyline of Jason and killed campers. I still enjoyed this documentary quite a bit and for people who are fans this is a rare glimpse into the decisions that shaped the franchise and why some of the most controversial calls were made in the manner they were.

Shudder  has become one of my favorite streaming services and gives in my opinion fantastic value for the low monthly cost.

 

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The Terror of Impeachment Blowback

As the nation hurtles towards Trump’s impeachment, and yes it still may not happen but everyday the odds grow, people look back at impeachment of Clinton and the Democratic gains in the following mid-term elections. People on the left fear impeaching Trump will do the same with GOP gains following the likely failure of removing Trump from office. I think such fears are generally misplaced.

The investigation Bill Clinton started a real estate deal that to many smelled of fraud. Eventually the investigation spun off into his extramarital affairs and the civil suits that followed. When the Starr learned that not only that there was physical evidence of Clinton’s affair and after failing to convince Monica to ‘flip’ on her lover, he set a perjury trap for the president. A trap that Clinton proved willing to leap into when he perjured himself and lied under oath, which produced the charge of obstructing justice that powered the impeachment charges. Clinton’s defender tend to frame the entire thing as ‘lying about a blow-job’ but the facts is that it was perjury, it was under oath, and Clinton was disbarred as a lawyer. However despite the actual violation of his oath the emotional reaction from the general population was one that empathized with Clinton. Many people could see just how easily they would react the same way. There’s a reason why there is a common saying that ‘everyone lies about sex.’ In the end the Republicans came off looking puritanical, petty, and prudish.

What is threatening Trump is wholly different in its emotional tenor. It is not sexual in nature; it does not endear empathic feelings but rather is a direct abuse of his position as president. Even setting aside the heightened partisan culture this scandal is not one where people see themselves in the actions. That is not to say the Senate would remove him from office. No, the GOP base is enthusiastically in Trump’s corner and they will hold their representatives feet to the fire. What I think will not happen is that persuadable people will turn against the Democrats for impeachment. Not on the facts as we currently know them. Such fears should not dissuade officials from doing their duty. Right now around the world US Armed forces personnel are putting their lives on the line for this country and for what it stands for, it is not too much to demand that politicians be willing to risk an office.

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I’m Shocked, Shocked to Find Corruption in This Administration

And just like Captain Renault in Casablanca  the state of surprise is entirely contrived. Donald Trump strikes me as a person who has never ever been held accountable for any single action or misdeed in his entire life. Credibly accused of draft dodging, tax evading, charity abusing, sexual assaulting, and who knows what else he has escape any serious consequence which has fed his ego, inflated his sense of entitlement, and made this non-drinker drunk with power so it is wholly unsurprising that he has abused the office of president and attempted to get foreign powers to interfere in our elections. I do believe that we are now on the fast track to impeachment, though I seriously doubt that the Republican Senators would cut their own electoral throats and remove him from office. Power and position are far more important than any oath of office and even a pretense of honor.

For about 23 years I was a registered Republican but the growing unhinged base and the party’s embrace of torture while clutching their pearls over equality for LGBTQ persons drove me from the party and every day that Trump remains in power and with better than 85% of the base enthusiastically supporting him I only grow prouder of my decision. I hope that the disaster that results from this administration burns the GOP to the foundation because only then is there any hope of a rational opposition party.

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Secret Morgue 2: Alien Autopsy Edition

This past Saturday was the second Secret Morgue a marathon of horror film presented at the theater in the ComicCon Museum by Film Geeks San Diego. Last year the theme of the marathon was VHS horror, films of the 70s and 80s that you may have discovered at your local video rental store back when that was a thing. This year’s theme was SF horror with an emphasis on aliens. As has become the tradition the selection is film presented is kept secret with the schedule providing a chronology that gives the starts and stop films of each film and the breaks for snacks but no titles. (The running times did allow me to eliminate the possibility that one of the films would be Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires.)

In order of presentation here are the films that were screened.

 

The Space Children

The Hidden

XTRO

Night of the Comet

Without Warning

I Come in Peace

Galaxy of Terror

 

There was a bonus feature but I simply could not muster the energy for that and left after the end of the seven-feature run. Of the films in the marathon I had previously seen two of them, The Space Children  and Galaxy of Terror  and the rest were known to me but for various reason had remained outside of my personal viewing history. This is a departure from last year’s run when I had seen none of the films screened. Of the film I think Night of the Comet  was likely the best made and the most entertaining while Without Warning  proved to be a chore to endure and I could not recommend it to anyone at all.

The food/snacks this year included a buffet of Indian Food, Pizza, and bakery bread with some green sauce that I did not try.

I adore Film geeks San Diego and everything they do to expand interesting cinema experiences in my town and I am looking forward to next year’s Secret morgue with its theme of ‘The Undead.’

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