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It’s really a delightful movie with a lot of heart. It felt fresh, lively, and fun the whole way through.

We saw “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army” last weekend. I disliked it. It is for movies such as this that the 2.5 star rating was invented. There were some good ideas, in spots, but never that unified, compelling vision thing ( apologies Poppy Bush ) just never really materialized ( like Jr. Bush ).

So here’s the gig. Humans are greedy and destroy the earth’s natural sylvan beauty. Elves and goblins, understandably tired of this, put together an unstoppable army that numbers, in the Lovecraft ordinal series, “seventy by seventy” unstoppable soldiers. After these clockwork and aurium terminators lay waste to such a degree that the beloved elven woods are actually damaged by the excess of blood, the Good King, his Moody Son, and his Good Daughter ( the twin of Moody Son ) decide to split up the crown which entitles the wearer to command the horde and put the army into a slumber.

Moody Son is not too happy about this but Good Sister agrees with Wise Father-King and thus began a truce lasting unto the present day.

Guess which unspeakable crime Moody Son must inflict? Guess who he must hunt to get that elusive missing piece? The movie telegraphs its arc in the first 8 minutes. But they don’t call hero stories archætypal for no reason, so I don’t bear this as a mark against the film.

The movie’s art direction is excellent.

The entire backstory I recounted above is told in a “reading of a story come alive” with a stripped–down animation that looks like ornate chess pieces acting out this tableaux from the forgotten pre-pagan yesteryear. It was a great start. It was a compelling, and eerily child–like setting of the story’s parameters.

Now, in time I believe that director Guillermo del Toro’s notebooks will be revered like so many sticky-pages of “Heavy Metal” magazine. His eye for creatures presents a large section action set in “The Troll Market”, a cross between the Mos Eisley cantina and Diagon Alley.

Stunning art direction is also seen in the unbelievable “Angel of Death” who recalls some of the more disturbing elements of “Pan’s Labyrinth”:

Finally I loved the soldiers of the Golden Army as steampunk Terminators. The meticulous attention to the gearwork appearance worthy of Gabriel “Sylar” Grey was something not required but which really showed that del Toro loves the material and great art design.

On these levels, the movie is a stunning success and I would love to see a fan edit that turns this into 5 minutes of a deliciously beautiful visual nightmare.

Ron Perlman also deserves some kudos for playing the working class Apocolypse-bringer Big Red himself in a realistic way.

But here’s the counterpoint, and I think I could do no better to quote Dustin Rowles at Pajiba

Guillermo del Toro throws a ton of eye candy at you, and it’s difficult to digest the true mediocrity of a film when the director keeps plinking you in the forehead with shiny pennies. But more than that, del Toro makes the shiniest pennies in Hollywood—golden pennies that reflect sunlight like a funhouse mirror in Alice’s Wonderland.

Well said, the visuals aside, the story, quite honestly, is entirely lame…and I liked the first one!

First, important questions are brought up, and never answered. Red and Liz’s relationship is explored and some fairly significant issues ( at least to the mind of anyone who’s been in a real grown-up relationship ) surfaced that require some delicate and sensitive discussion or couples therapy.

Some things like “Why am I the only one who cleans up the dishes” cannot be replaced by “whew, we narrowly avoided death there, I love you!”

Further, mentors give advice that is supposed to come in as important at a tell-tale moment, when the character chooses to evolve, you know, “use the force” style, to stop being so immature and be a better man / woman / demon–but. Those moments never surface. Instead we have these sagacious chestnuts that never get converted into kinetic utility.

The dialog is also jarringly inconsistent. Seth MacFarlane (over-)plays a Stewie goes to Salzburg voice as ectoplasmic doctor Krauss. Krauss is a by-the-numbers paranormal investigator who inspires a major intellectual man-er,fish-crush in æsthete and polymapth Abe Sapien. Krauss has great learning, great technology, and a rigid adherence to “Just Following Orders”.

Now why, in Anung An-Rama’s good name would such a character ever have conceivable reason to utter: “Suck my ectoplasmic schwanstuker”. Verily, the studio was assured this would get those 12-year-olds in the aisle rolling. For the 30+ set it merely set the eyes a’so.

My biggest complaint is a lack of connection to the Hellboy mythos. I love the Hellboy mythos. Black cult Nazi’s are manipulated by dæmonic elements into opening the gateway to Hell. They think they’ll get demons to defeat the Allies, but the demons plan no such thing, but rather to let their reign on Earth begin. The Nazi’s black ritual is interrupted and the plan is thwarted. By accident a single demon does come through, but it turns out it’s a young, naive, demon who incidentally happens to be the one who’s supposed to open Hell’s gate. Thwarting his destiny is the fact that he’s raised by loving and kind humans and thus is set up all sort of angst around Destiny, Duty, Fate, and to what degree a man can beat his fate ( probably explains my like of God of War, as well ).

Is that not some compelling mythos or what?

I can parallel this to the “X-Files” back in the day. You’d tune in for the show, but the ones that were like crack were the ones that advanced the mythos that covered the Scully abduction or featured The Smoking Man ( there was even a song about it ).

In “Golden Army” we get only but brief reminders that this red-chested Hudson Hawk is something of a Biblical–scale bad–ass but only once or twice ( Abe sees his flaming crown through special glasses, the Angel of Death calls him by his demon name, and Good Princes asserts his royal blood by naming him as a demon and heir to the Fallen One). These unique elements of his background never played into his motivation or into how he handled situations ( except for the Right Hand of Doom occasionally illustrating its superior ability as a bludgeon ). It was like watching an entire X-Files season and not seeing Mulder…who would want to watch that?

Lastly there’s a really irritating battle between the forces of myth here. So much of the movie hinges on just how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Hellboy, a demon, with an indestructible stone hand is beating a Middle Earth-worthy troll. In some ways it makes me think about debating who would win in a fight Terminator or Neo. Or would the Easter Bunny beat Santa Claus’ ass if he knew ninjitsu. It makes the audience’s appreciation and ability to scale threats accordingly difficult and, as a result, a lot of dramatic tension goes down the crapper.

Two-point-five stars.

Lauren and I just finished watching the turn–of–the–decade camp–comedy “But I’m a Cheerleader” starring Natasha Lyonne and featuring roles by RuPaul ( as a man ) and Bud Cort ( aka “Harold” ).

The opening song is April March’s “Chick Habit”:

Lacking a canonical video, I’m going for the one with the “Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! footage

This song is an amusing interpretation of Gainsbourg’s “Laisse tomber les filles” (literally, Allow the girls to drop or “Quit the girls” - so an excellent translation by March ) as recorded by yé-yé chanteuse France Gall:

The bass–line is infectious and definitely writhes like Jack Marshall’s “Munsters Theme”. It just screams out “go–go boots, 20–year–old ingenues and two–count–step.”

“Laisse tomber les filles” was written by Gallic naughty–fellow Serge Gainsbourg ( what, in the ’60’s in France wasn’t? ). Serge’s prolific work ranges from an early herald of “world music”, a great horns arranger, and a writer of not–so–thinly–veiled entendre for ever–so–corruptible girls—most “scandalously” his own daughter, Charlotte.

Next time Ms. March is in the area I’mma goin’.

We saw “The Dark Knight”. It was very good. etc.

I thought that the whole “Saw” turn in the writing ( difficult moral conundrums ) was an unusual turn, but it served very well to highlight the trouble with being a masked vigilate ( until March, 2009 when “Watchmen” will give the final word ).

I love Chris Nolan’s direction: he really seems to be the heir to the Hitchcock–style of suspense.

The movie is also very much a product of its times questions of how much humanity do you sacrifice ( torture, invasion of privacy ) of the things that made you once great in the name of preserving that state—at what point do you lose it in pursuit of protecting it ( any bells ringing? ).

“Iron Man”, “Wall-E”, and now “The Dark Knight” it’s been a good summer for movies.

You may see my last post in which I ask, how can it be that here in Austin there is nothing to do on Sunday night?

Well, Lauren and I took a wild stab at a solution and went to the campus area’s venerable “Hole in the Wall” for “shoegaze” night. I figured it couldn’t be all that bad as I always had a bit of a think for My Bloody Valentine.

We headed down and the bar was sparsely populated. Many people were seated out in the hallway alongside and in back of the bar, sitting in the humid night air with sweating bar glasses stacking indefatigably higher.

We played a game of foosball and I got shellacked. Our pool games that came after were much more balanced but I think I ended up losing that series as well.

Eventually the first band came on and sure enough, they were latter–day disciples drunk from the fountain of St. Greenwood.

This morning I got up and watched the ending of “Shine”, the movie that gives you way-too-many opportunities to view Captain Barbaossa’s butt. I thought the pivotal scene of the Rachmaninoff 3 concerto was absolutely astounding. The emotional scenes between young Noah Taylor and Armin Mueller-Stahl are among the most wrenching put to film.

I loved “Wall·E”. It was a superlative and moving effort.

In the, surprisingly heartless, “Be Kind, Rewind”, Mia Farrow’s character proposes a toast to movies with “heart”. Well, “Wall·E” is one of those movies.

It explores, in touching, subtle, expansive movements, the experience of abject loneliness. It expresses the Heideggerian dichotomy between dasein and sein, of how distracting dasein is and how debilitating the long reflection of sein is.

It also expresses the jubilation of finding her. One of the best wedding sermons I ever attended was for my friends, The Dowiaks. In it, their minister described the moment of Adam seeing Eve as a moment of total jubilation. It wasn’t: “Oh, her” no it was an ecstatic exclamation of “There’s the one that is the match for me!”

I cite:

[19] And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
[20] And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
[21] And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
[22] And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
[23] And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Gen 2:19-33

Even if you’re not particularly Judeo-Christian, if you’ve ever been in love, it definitely feels like that.

Can’t you just see it. Adam is there, in his peaceful idyll:

God: Adam, what’s this?
Adam: Zebra.
God: Adam, what’s this?
Adam: Uhm…is hippopotamus taken?
God: No.
Adam: Hippopotamus, then yawn
God: What about this
Adam: Def Leppard plays Woman! Guitar solo

I profoundly felt that moment of ecstatic jubilation when I watched Wall·E’s camera-lens eyes focus and re-focus to view the lady ( never mind that she’s a robot ) who set his dreams and heart a-flutter.

To have accurately captured loneliness, the story then captures the essence of falling in love. Not content to leave off there, it then captures: the tragedy of loving people as canonized in “Romeo and Juliet”. Wall·E’s bumbling attempts to make her see him ( and don’t we all feel that the other is so much more than us? ) as worthy of her affection are at the same time foreign, yet universal. The sweet and tender mess-ups, the self-sacrifice, the film captures it all ( often in the style of of the YouTube æsthetic, it looks like there’s some camcorder filming some of these awry moments ). And in the denoument we see just how transformative to the lover loving is. Said Hugo: “What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!”. Without love in our lives we truly do become automata; slaves ( for which the Czech word is robota ) to the quotidian.

And all that is before the bildungsroman truly gets underway: what happens when your love-interest is the vessel of the (re-) birth of human kind ( the Genesis parallel is particularly apt )?

In it Wall·E reminds us of just how fragile life on this planet it, and how it’s up to a more conscious generation to think of how to be better stewards of it, instead of being pleasure-addicted drones content to let cronies and corporations stuff their coffers in the short term, while unconcerned about the long-term direction.

Conservative morons have said that this movie is an indoctrination of Californian, Left-Wing lunacy. They are idiots. This movie is advocating responsibility and stewardship, virtues that real Republicans like TR espoused.

I thought Iron Man would be the best movie this summer, but no, sorry Stark, Wall·E is full of win.

A few spoiler-y comments after the jump.

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While I lauded “Control” in the previous post, we also caught “Get Smart” and “Baghead”.

June, in the run up to the 4th of July hot zone of movies, seems to go through a doldrums just as the air truly begins to stultify. Left few other choices, we saw “Get Smart”. It wasn’t especially bad, but it wasn’t especially good either. I had the same feeling I had when I caught “Evan, Almighty”.

I wanted Steve Carrell to do well, and I wanted it to be funny, it just, well, failed to deliver. Not even the cute Anne Hathaway in ( I am told ) Chanel could really keep me interested. Steve, my man, get you back to Apatow lest you be relegated to Shamalyan-dom.

In what shall serve as a wooden circus-tent stake through the heart of Indydom, the Duplass Brothers’ latest film “Baghead” was also seen, and was deemed to be just about the same as “Get Smart” ( take that, indie film hipster scum ).

It was one of those movies shot on the cheap that professes to be a send up of LA types by being an indie movie about LA types. At the end we’re supposed to feel smug and Sundance-y, but instead I thought it was needlessly self-obsessed, self-referential, and self-reverential. This proves yet once more that if you stick around long enough, you too will be the enemy you once raged against.

Here’s the plot. 4 people in LA leave self-congratulatory indie film festival and decide to make their own movie—for real, no fooling around. They go up to a cabin with a ton of booze ( always a great start for serrrious work ) and plenty of latent sexual tension. In the midst of writing a story about a murderous “man with a bag on his head” they are beset by, uhm, a murderous man with a bag on his head. Thanks to the IndyScope jostleCam and badMakeUpVision, we get motion sick as the adventure(?) plays exhaustingly out. At the end, guess what, LA people are rubes obsessed with their own promotion and will do anything to break out of the rank of anonymous extra-dom. I restrain myself from sighing.

Not biting satire, not particularly insightful, just kinda, boring, really. I’d rather watch other peoples’ vacation slides.

Last night Lauren and I watched Anton Corbijn’s “Control”, the bio-pic about the late frontman from Joy Division, Ian Curtis.

Who knew that Maccleston also imported my site CSS file

You cannot explore the tangent to the late Glam Rock / punk / pre-goth fertile period of English music without coming across Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”.

With its rich synthesizers, Curtis’ unintelligible Doors-influenced baritone, and driving bass work, it marks a shift that would move to richer, more ambient, more experimental sounds in the New Wave.

The film is short beautifully, Corbijn’s eye for composition showing off his years of experience in still-shot photo journalism.

In “Control” we see the mundanity of northern England’s post-war culture. Jobs exchange, economic stagnation, row-houses and the stifling need of the war generation to re-impose the burgeois Englishness that made the world post disaster make sense again. In this the iconic pharos of Aladdin Sane-era Bowie and Lou Reed serve to give the idle, bored, expressive souls a way to dream of a diferent path for themselves.

Ian, as if acting out the rules from a Pulp song ( “…dance and drink and screw, ‘cause there’s nothing else to do” ), asks his sweetheart, Debbie, to marry him at the tender age of 19. Samantha Morton’s character agrees and Ian is tied to the wheel of expectation and convention — something that he assuredly was never really going to rest peacefully with. As Debbie tries to be a good wife ( cooking, making tea, cleaning, and naively assuring him of her unending love for him ), Joy Division, Ian’s band, inexplicably takes off and suddenly Ian is introduced to a much larger world ( encompassing, at the very least, London and the Western European continent ) and the exotic Annik Honoré.

As the upswing to superstardom begins to approach the exponential, Ian’s shyness takes hold. He didn’t mean for superstardom to be so demanding, to be so large, for there to be so many people. At the same time he begins to experience grand mal seizures which agonize, embarrass, and humiliate him. To combat these he takes an array of pills potent enough to tranquilize elephants which fail to check the seizures, which put him further out of sync with the rest of society, and which increase his sense of isolation.

It was at this point in the movie that I noticed an odd similarity between Curtis and Kurt Cobain who, at the height of the rocket ride, began to experience intense stomach pain and frustration with having become quite so famous.

The two both follow the same path from there on out.

In some ways I wonder if there aren’t people in this world whose cling to the mortal coil isn’t just a bit too light. Their souls are too light for their bodies, too scared by noise and the weight of social expectation. When prompted with the choice of becoming heavier, of binding into the body, they choose to fight its demand for their souls to settle firmly there.

If ever I get to cast a “History of New Wave” music, I already have Michael Score to be portrayed by Macauly Culkin, but who to play Colin Moulding of XTC?

Answer: Jon Heder

I am a completionist fetishist. I read all of Atlas Shrugged, I read the entire “Ender’s Game” series, and I stuck with the Vampire Chronicles through Memnoch, but I simply could not complete twisted animator Terry Gilliam’s pile of eye-pain known as “The Brothers Grimm”.

Perhaps most shockingly for a Terry Gilliam movie, it was entirely derivative. The steampunk machinery and effects? Seen it in “Sleepy Hollow”. What about the brighter than life set and costuming? Seen it, “Big Fish”. Assembly of hot, as-yet-unsee-by-American-eyes European actresses, well no one tops Terry in that.

Please, stay away.