Mokka mit Schlag » Movies

Yesterday afternoon after visiting my accountant (tax time, you know) I stopped over at FIAF for the Tuesday afternoon movie. It usually doesn’t matter a great deal what’s playing. It’s mostly just about practicing French, but boy did this one test me. If I didn’t have another event at 7:30 I might have left early. Apparently Eric Rohmer is not the only nouvelle vague director que je deteste. The poor sound quality in the print we watched didn’t help either. It’s hard enough to follow French without having to strain to hear every word.

I wasn’t the only one who felt this way either. At least a third of the audience, most of whom speak much better French than I ever will, had left by the end of the film. That the audience is almost entirely composed of FIAF members who get free admission may contribute to that. Mostly it’s Francophone senior citizens who show up no matter what’s playing. Usually one or two people leave early, but I’ve never seen an exodus like yesterday before.

Still, I can’t help but think there was something more going on that I (and most of the audience) just didn’t get. The Don Quixote theme was apparent, but there were lots of hints of other things. I suspect this may be a deeply symbolic movie, but if you’re not clued into to the symbolism, it’s just flat-out incomprehensible. I’ve googled a little looking for further info, without a lot of success so far. Does anyone understand this picture?

Yesterday Beth and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine. Wow! This is the single funniest movie I’ve seen in years. It’s up there with South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut; Clerks; and There’s Something About Mary. (It’s completely different from those movies, and never goes for the silly, teenage, gross-out humor those three are known for. It’s just that those are the only other movies I can think of where I laughed so hard tears were rolling out of my eyes.) If there’s any justice in Hollywood, Little Miss Sunshine will win the Best Picture Oscar in a landslide, along with every acting and writing award there is. There hasn’t been a comedy this good in a really long, long time. It is simply perfect. Don’t wait for the video release. Go see this movie now.

Beth and I went to see Casanova Saturday. It was quite an amusing movie, much better than expected. Part of the fun was just seeing Venice, which we’d recently visited. Venice is a very unique city, and it was fun to sit in the relatively empty theatre and nudge here and say “We were there!”, “Remember that?” The city really is beautiful, and the movie shows it to best advantage. If you get a chance to see it on the big screen, by all means do.
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The Guardian explains how copy protecttion is now even befuddling and bedeviling wealthy movie producers. When are people going to realize this stuff is more trouble than it’s worth? It’s not like I can’t go out onto the streets of New York City right now and find a pirated copy of Munich. Copy protection only hurts the honest, who in this case include people who might have otherwise voted for a Munich for a BAFTA award.

Beth and I went to see the Chronicles of Narnia last night. It was close to as good as could be expected given the truly hideous story on which it was based. The one real flaw was in the Turkish delight. My wife, who has not read the books, did not understand why Edmund was such a prat. The books make the addictive nature of the substance much clearer. That was too easy to miss in the movie if you didn’t already know the story. The actors were all excellent even if Anna Popplewell doesn’t look anything like my picture of Susan.

The special effects were pretty good overall. The talking animals were better than any I’ve ever seen. Aslan was especially impressive. I doubt he could have been any better. Yes, when he talked the lips didn’t really quite match what he was saying; but that’s pretty much guaranteed given that lion mouths aren’t anatomically correct for making human speech. Tumnus the faun was excellent too. The beavers looked a little cartoony, but that didn’t really detract from the story.

However, there was one obvious flaw that keeps cropping up in movie after movie; and I don’t understand it because it would be so easy to fix; far easier than developing a realistic talking animal or even building a good looking ice castle model. When are directors and cinematographers going to learn that if you shoot somebody in front of a blue screen and then composite in a far background, you have to defocus the background as much as it would be defocused if you’d really shot the scene? Basic physics prevents a single lens from focusing on two different distances at once whether that lens is a camera’s or an eye’s. When the screen shows two widely separated places in simultaneous clear focus, it looks fake, even if you can’t always put your finger on exactly what’s wrong. Why does this mistake keep getting made?

Last week I caught Disney’s Chicken Little at the Downtown Disney AMC 12 of all places. For those who’ve been hiding under a rock, this is Disney’s first independent foray into 3D animation. Previous Disney 3D efforts like Finding Nemo and Toy Story were essentially Pixar creations distributed by Disney. However, the Disney-Pixar relationship has been rocky lately with Pixar threatening to go its own way after its next release. Chicken Little is Disney’s effort to stay relevant after a long string of 2D flops. (Treasure Planet anyone?)

Did it work? Let’s put it this way: for the first time I can remember I had to fight to keep from falling asleep in a movie. My wife did fall asleep. Chicken Little is really that bad. And it’s not just boring. It’s not just derivative. It’s occasionally outright disgusting, and not in a good way. One of the real strengths of Disney and animation in general has always been cute, memorable, cartoon animals. In fact, as a walk around Disneyland will prove, the characters are often more valuable than the movie itself. (When’s the last time you saw Mickey Mouse in a movie?) But not this time. These characters are outright gross.

The ugly ducking character is genuinely ugly and cringe-inducing. Bill the Cat has more charm than she does. Foxy Loxy is merely annoying. Runt of the Litter (the pig) is not just pleasantly plump. He’s morbidly, grossly obese. The main character, Chicken Little, is at best inoffensive. Perhaps I just have my mind in the gutter; but the head of Chicken Little’s father reminds me of nothing so much as one large testicle. (Not that this is necessarily a bad thing: Joe Camel proves that children just adore characters designed in the shape of male genitalia.) Only Kirby and Fish Out Of Water seem like genuinely cute funny animals.

Disney is really in trouble. The problem at Disney has nothing to do with 2D vs. 3D and everything to do with corporate designed plots and characters meant to sell toys rather than tell a story. Unless Disney figures this out, their animation division is doomed. Until then the best they can do is license good movies from 3D companies like Pixar and 2D animators like Hayao Miyazaki.