The Stuart Little movies are racist

Stuart Little is a charming book I fondly remember reading as a kid.  About a family where one of their biological kids is a mouse.  (Yes, the mom gave birth to Stuart.)

However, when Hollywood decided to make a movie based on the book, they saw fit to change the color of the mouse.  In the book, he's clearly a brown mouse.

But in the movie they decided to change that to white.

Because Hollywood can only make movies with white heroes.  Even when it's a white mouse.

They also changed him from being a biological child to being adopted, because realism is important with a movie about a talking mouse who wears clothes and has opposable thumbs.

3D will never fly

Walter Murch is a badass. One of the best film editors on Earth (Apocalypse Now, Cold Mountain), great sound editor, oscar winner, smart guy. And guy whose experience in a classical radio station library still blows my mind. [28 minutes into that linked podcast.]

He thinks 3D movies will never work. (And he edited Captain Eo, one of the best 3D short movies.) His point is that in real life, our eyes point at objects AND focus on them. But in 3D movies, 3D tricks us to point at things that aren't there, but we have to focus on a screen that's further away than the illusory object our eyes are pointing at.

3D just breaks the way we see, and will never, no matter how good the technology, be a convincing way to see things. It's an interesting trick, but will never displace 2D screens.

Nintendo and others hope he's wrong, but I think he's right. 3D TV and movies are like the internet refrigerator and the video telephone. We don't want it because it doesn't align with who we are.

Brother From Another Planet

I just saw a great science fiction movie. If you haven't seen Brother From Another Planet, you should. It has low budget effects, but fantastic writing and acting. And lots of clever things in the background as well.

It stars Joe Morton, who you've seen in lots of stuff. I most remember him as the scientist who invented Skynet and destroyed humanity. His character is mute, but his acting is so great in this, you're almost glad he can't talk. It also features David Straithairn and a VERY young Fisher Stevens, who do very good work in the movie.

It's a great allegory about immigration and being black in america, with a funny, charming alien who you just want to find a home.

District 9 banned in Nigeria

Because it portrays Nigerians in a very racist light, the movie District 9 has been banned in Nigeria.

It's ironic that an otherwise excellent allegory about racism and apartheid simultaneously uses such racist stereotypes as lawless mercenary warlords who eat the flesh of powerful people to obtain their power.

The Nigerians have a point. The African characters in the movie are all stereotypes. But I wonder if banning the movie does any good. Censorship doesn't seem to me to be a good solution to anything. I'd show the movie and stage massive protests. But then I'm not being depicted as being brutal and violent - oh, wait. I am.

District 9

I saw District 9 last week. It's a very good movie. A very violent, good movie.

It's about aliens who land in South Africa. But it's really about apartheid. The humans treat the aliens with the same racist contempt that whites treat Africans. And the parallels between the apartheid history and the movie plot are many. But being about aliens you can tell the story without fear of being too honest. And you can use fantasy technology to find a different way out of the problem than is possible in real life.

It's interesting how in the movie the humans keep the aliens oppressed, even though the aliens have superior technology. But their technology is all broken down, or the humans take all their weapons away from them. Of course, this parallels the Colonial experience: so long as you have superior weaponry, you can control the natives, but there's a constant fear that they will rise up and overthrow and take control themselves.

District 9 based on a 6 minute short film with the same premise, but doesn't explore the themes in the same way. It's called "Alive in Joburg".

Star Wars makes no sense

John Scalzi wrote recently about flaws in the Star Wars universe.

I enjoyed his list very much. Until he said he's coming for Star Trek next.

Star Trek Villains

I did see Star Trek today. It was truly awesome. And not just because it's a new star trek movie. The writing is spectacular, the acting is skilled, the editing is superb. The story just FLOWS.

Except the villain is hollow. He seems really unexcited about destroying the universe or whatever. Which is a shame because if he were a fully developed character, the story would have even more points of resonance and awesome. There are limits to what you can do with horrible, wooden acting, I guess.

But that makes me realize that Star Trek has struggled (until now) to overcome its TV nature and have really dangerous villains who truly posed a danger to things around them. Great villains in stories are just as interesting as the hero. The Fugitive works very well because both hero and nemesis are strong characters, and the story is of their struggle against each other to achieve their own definition of justice. Day of the Jackal is a great struggle of two men against each other. Batman movies are good when the villain is truly imposing, and ridiculous when the villain is a joke.

So now a list of Star Trek movie villains:

1: A broken old space probe. Ugh. I watched that?
2: KHAN!!!! (Ricardo Montalban, Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island.) Awesome.
3: Klingons (Christopher Lloyd, Doc Brown from Back to the Future. Well, not his fault the movie's stinky.)
4: Whales. Although this one's a comedy, so that kind of works.
5: God. Really? I know Shatner talked his way into directing, but you had to use THAT bad a script?
6: Klingons (Christopher Plummer, Captain Von Trapp.) God, I wish he had sung Edelweiss in Klingon.
7: Malcolm McDowell. Too bad they wasted time killing Kirk to turn the villain of Clockwork Orange into a ridiculous cartoon.
8: Borg Queen. Super awesome.
9: Super wrinkled Salieri. I'm sure I paid good money to see that, too.
10: A clone of Picard. Not played by Patrick Stewart. I don't know whose idea that was. Seems like if the whole concept is nature vs. nurture, they're biologically identical, and you write in a scifi loophole about accelerating age, why not just make him the same age? Then you could do all sorts of trading places identity theft stuff.
11: Romulan time traveler. Nice ship. Too bad you don't seem to really CARE about destroying the universe.

R rated movies

Some nerds are worried that since Watchmen didn't make a ton of money, studios will stop making R rated movies out of comics.

Honestly, what puzzles me more is how The Dark Knight was R rated to begin with. Sure, there wasn't gore or nudity, but that was a scary, violent movie. I guess if the fear is in your mind instead of in the images you can show it to middle school kids. They only have to be 17 to see it instead of just imagine it and have nightmares for days.

Watchmen may open after all

They've probably fired whoever screwed up at Warner, since talks between them and Fox are going well.

See, Warner Brothers thought they had the rights to make The Watchmen, a graphic novel, into a movie. But Fox originally bought the rights, and while a bunch of other people worked on the idea, no one ever actually got Fox to sell them the rights.

Hopefully, it's good, and we'll get to see it. I don't really care if it gets stuck in legal limbo if it stinks.

Voice

Having finally seen Juno, I see why the media was abuzz about this movie. It earned its screenplay Oscar.

As much as I really enjoyed the movie, its unique voice did not extend to giving the different characters personalities. All the characters in the movie were are really the same person, or different aspects of the same authorial voice. Which isn't necessarily a flaw. I think Shakespeare does that, too. (Of course, so does Edison Lee, a "comic" strip whose "humor" allegedly comes from a precocious child, but the child is just an old person in a child's body, talking to other old people. Vomit. I'm glad my local paper finally stopped carrying it.)

I look forward to Diablo Cody's next project. I'm curious to see what else she'll write. And I wonder whether her writing will evolve so that more than one voice will present itself in her stories.

Run Fatboy Run

Speaking of movies with great acting but less than stellar plot, I recently saw Run Fatboy Run. It's a movie with an extreme premise, but lacking extreme instincts.

Simon Pegg does fantastic work as a schlub whose life sucks because he sucks, who's inspired to run a marathon to try to win back his ex.

But it's hard to swallow the extreme premise that he should be our hero, since he left her at the altar. Pregnant. And the script doesn't make her shine particularly much, and the villain new boyfriend is caricature, not character. And I'm pretty sure that the middle finger is an American gesture, not likely to be used by children in London.

But Pegg is awesome, as well as one gag as he runs a very slow marathon.

I wouldn't pay more than $3 to see it, but I don't want two hours of my life back.

Enchanted

Speaking of sexism, we recently watched the movie Enchanted.

It was pretty well made, but I could have done with a great deal more irony. There were a couple awesome moments, especially the musical number where the princess cleans up the apartment in New York with the aid of pigeons, rats and cockroaches.

And Amy Adams and James Marsden were very focused actors, totally committed to their characters' reality. Which was very fun to watch.

But I wished the traditional princess story had been turned on its head, not just stretched a little. If the princess had been truly shattered by the darkness of the real world, then found her inner strength to truly kick some ass, not just throw a sword to save her true love, with the aid of her trusty chipmunk.

And given her talent with animals, I would have preferred her to be seen in the epilogue as a talented zoologist, rather than a celebrated dressmaker. Although at least she did run her own business.

But this is too much to expect from a Disney movie, even one that occasionally winks. The eternal Disney dead-mother trope is still there, even if she's not dead, she just "left".

I did enjoy the irony of Disney's portrayal of Times Square as a horrible place, after Disney worked to make the real Times Square a less horrible place. And casting the star of Wicked as the woman who's replaced by the princess, but ends up with the prince? Nice touch.

Still, I had my hopes too high for this movie. While it pushes on the concept of the princess fairy tale, it ultimately affirms that worldview, rather than subverting it. Mocking feminism by turning Marie Curie's death into a cheap irony instead of a noble sacrifice. I hope someone will tell stories that balance the world, of smart women and caring men. I think it's ok for a powerful heroine to fall in love, but it should be ok for her to succeed in a non-traditional career, too. I just won't hold my breath for Disney to tell that story.

No Country for Old Men

I had some thoughts about this movie, but now all I can think of is the Ninja's observation.

Which totally gives away the end of the movie. But let it be said the title is really misleading.

Damn, that is one scary, scary movie. Very excellent. And just a few moments of Coen brothers wackiness. Although it does seem to have a lot of the violence of their early work.

Waitress

I really enjoyed Waitress.

It's a really excellent movie. The writing sparkles, the acting is laser-sharp. It's a simple story about people and pie. I was really impressed by the way the plot resolves, and by the portrayal of an abusive husband. A very scary man, with nearly no physical violence. Just emotion, expectation, and suspense. With a Hollywood ending that works for me.

I was really impressed how the script and the actors made all the characters, not just the main character, fully complicated human beings instead of stock supporting characters.

You may not want to read related news until after you've seen the movie.

Sweeney Todd

I love the music of Sweeney Todd. And the movie does not disappoint. Johnny Depp is fantastic, as is Sacha Baron Cohen. Helena Bonham Carter is great, too. The songs have been in my head for days, ever since seeing it again. (Heck, hearing the review on NPR, which heavily quoted the music, planted the seed of that earworm.)

They cut some scenes, but mostly the chorus stuff, which was usually folded into the orchestration. The villanous judge's personality was cut down a little bit. I think it makes the story more tragic to have him be less detestable. Fascinating.

I also noticed that the funny parts of the script were deemphasized. It all fit together as one masterful artistic vision and story, and the parts that would have distracted from the main story were weakened or removed. Very well done.

Johnny Depp was particularly fantastic. I gained new understanding of the path of the character of Todd. He's dangerous, evil, vengeful, but then he snaps. It's awesome to behold. I look forward to seeing There Will Be Blood, because I'm believe those who tell me it's even better. But I have heard that it, like Sweeney Todd, is what all the previous work has been building to. The careers of Depp and Burton up to this point all laid the ground work and the foundation for this most excellent film.

Violent movies REDUCE violence

A new study reveals that violent movies produce a DROP in violent crime. Yes, violent movies reduce violence.

The author, a mormon who hates violent movies, looked for a correlation between violent movies and violent crime, and found that during a week when a violent movie is showing in theaters, violent crime goes down. His theory is that young men, who commit most violent crime, are busy watching movies instead of getting drunk and hurting people.

The haters all will say that violent movies and TV and video games desensitize us to violence, so even if there's a short term drop in violence, movies of torture eventually lead to long term increases in violence. Both sets of studies beg the correlation question: do violent criminals become violent because of media, or are they already violent, and drawn to that media.

In any event, the mormon economist observes that any movie that draws in young men results in less crime. The final line of the Times article sticks the landing:


“We need more Adam Sandler movies,” he said. “Even though I’m not a big fan of Adam Sandler, that’s the implication."

Paprika

This movie is excellent. And very weird. It's anime, and it's about a machine that lets people enter other people's dreams. Japanese dreams.

Props to Sam and Erin for pointing me to it. It's disturbing, but awesome.

Stranger Than Fiction

This movie is fantastic. Beautiful story, gorgeous pictures of people in Chicago. Well acted. Being about a man who finds out he's the main character in someone's book, it has to have a great plot. And it does.

Interestingly, this movie is one of about twenty titled "stranger than fiction". If you include "Ruth is stranger than fiction", which probably sucked.

Bourne Ultimatum

This movie is awesome. So well done. Tightly directed and edited, well acted, subtly written. Better written than the book, which would have made a good movie, but didn't resonate with all our issues in politics today.

The act 5 car chase is terrifying, with cars shedding shards of red reflectors like people shed blood.

I wonder how long this movie will last, and how much greater Matt Damon will become.

Harry Potter and Spiderman

I really enjoyed this year's sequels really quite a bit. I thought I would appreciate Harry Potter, and I was right. Each book got better, and the movies seem to continually improve as well.

I was pleasantly surprised with Spiderman 3. The acting and directing were really quite excellent. I thought Thomas Haden Church did an excellent job making his villain morally ambiguous and helping us empathize with him. I thought the writing was a bit shallow, and elements were ocassionally forced, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.