Santikos Cine-opsis

When a major literary franchise is adapted to the screen, there are many factors considered in the process. “How closely do we remain to the source material?” “What parts of the source material can we trim to avoid turning the film into a bloated mess?” “How do we make the film understandable to new audiences?”  “Do we even care about new audiences, or is this a ‘fans only’ experience?”

And as each film in the series is made, the balancing act between source and translation, between fan and newcomer, continues.  Or, at least, it should.  However, that’s not the case in the “Twilight” series…at least, not through the first two films.  Even after a directorial change, “New Moon” follows the same formula as its predecessor, spending too much time on the dour mood swings of its brooding protagonists and not enough recreating the dark, imaginative story lines that “Twilight” fans assure me I’m missing by not reading the books.

But shouldn’t watching the movie provide the same experience?  After each movie, I’ve asked friends who saw the films and read the books if each movie lived up to its expectations, and without fail, they’ve told me “Absolutely!  It was great!  Just like the books!”  So, if that’s the case, then the “Twilight” books appear to be lacking in momentum and substance, yet still manage to be full of dangerous and misguided moral lessons for young adults to absorb.

In no particular order, here are some of the lessons I learned from watching “New Moon.”  I wonder how many parents would want their children believing that:

1.  The best way to handle a breakup is to do something insanely dangerous, because the adrenaline rush will help you remember what it felt like when you were with that person.  Or, you could die, which would also be fine, because then it would end the pain of being apart.

2.  An attractive young girl can repeatedly put herself in dangerous positions and somebody will always be there to save her.  In these situations she is at no fault of her own, and nobody is ever upset at her for putting herself in that position.  Again - and I can’t stress this enough - someone will always be there to make sure she is protected, and no harm will ever come to her.

3.  That same young girl can string along multiple men by showing them the slightest bits of affection, yet continue to shy away whenever they make any serious physical advances.  This will only strengthen their love for her.

4.  All physical contact is dangerous and could lead to death, so it’s best to just be abstinent.  However, don’t let that stop you from using your attractiveness to get what you want from men (see item 3).  If they call you on it, just say that you’re selfish and crazy and you’ll never be whole again.  Men love to try and fix things.

5.  When it comes to men, the best options for you are either a home-schooled mechanic who has a family history of violence and spousal abuse (and lycanthrope), but also some sweet pecs and a 6-pack; or a much older yet still attractive man who also has a family history of violence, a fear of commitment, and believes that allowing you into his world would destroy your innocence.  Sure, there are other guys, but they’re boring and wimpy and not worth your time.

6.  While the jury is still out on Meyer’s plagiarism of living authors, it’s obvious that Romeo and Juliet can be “sampled” at will and the only result is a big fat paycheck.  Hell, they practically spell it out in the movie (opening quote?), and one of the first scenes revolves around Bella and Edward reading R&J in class.  The warring clans of werewolves and vampires are supernatural Montagues and Capulets, and Bella (being the daughter of the sheriff who has been basically adopted by the local werewolf tribe) is stuck between her childhood friends (wolves) and new lover (Capu-er, I mean vampires).  Replace poisons and knives with cliff-diving and exhibitionism, give it a happy ending, and watch the money flow into those bank accounts.   Right, Stephenie?

7.  18-year-olds are legally adults and can leave their parents and run away with their lovers at any time, as long as they leave their folks a note.

8.  You can spend 80% of a film dwelling on non-plot-oriented relationship minutiae, and as long as you throw a couple of hastily choreographed scenes of vampires tossing each other around a cathedral in towards the end, it counts as a vampire movie.  Seriously.  This has to be the first vampire movie I’ve seen where NOBODY WAS DRAINED TO DEATH BY A F*@&ING VAMPIRE!!!! HOW STUPID IS THAT?!?

There are many more lessons to be learned from “New Moon” (it’s easy to make a nightmare scene uninteresting, it’s best to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet, etc.) but as I left the theater, those 8 were the ones that stuck with me.  Now, if those are all from the books, I take back every negative thing I’ve said about the “Twilight” movies.  If those are the themes learned from reading the books, then the movies are an accurate translation, and the books suck.  So if you’ve read all this, and you’ve read the books, please leave your comments and let me know if I’m right.  Until then, I’ll just assume that the “Twilight” films are accurate portrayals of a really crappy book series that happened to strike a chord with tweeny girls looking for something a little bit darker than Hannah Montana.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got 12 hours to kill.  “Lord of the Rings” marathon, baby!

I was perusing Slashfilm when I saw a lively discussion about the possibilities of a third film in the “Mortal Kombat” franchise.  Sure it began 3 months ago, but it’s never too late to chime in!

I thought I’d comment on that, and it turned into a dissertation about video game movies in general that I thought might stimulate discussion in here that didn’t come from spammers.

Enjoy.  Oh, and here is the link to the slashfilm discussion on MK3.

“In general, video game movies don’t work because most video games are based on playing through levels of increasing difficulty, dating back to the first Mario Bros. game (and talk about a horrible idea for a movie!!)

It’s only been recently that advances in technology have allowed for video games to include cinematic plots, but even then, most players tend to buy games for their playability, and in the current environment, online playability.

Let’s look at World of Warcraft.  Blizzard created an entire universe complete with tolkienesque races and a lore-filled history.  Why do most players buy it?  To nerf their characters to the highest level and join guilds.  Or to run the same instance over and over.  Or to spend 5 hours as a ghost hitting the run button to find their mutilated bodies.

But even if we said that all these obstacles could be surmounted, a fighting game is still the most difficult to adapt to film.  Whereas most RPGs at least have a goal (save the princess, retrieve the artifact, kill Diablo) fighting games all follow some sort of tournament formula.  This makes writing a compelling script that stays true to the spirit of the game nigh impossible. You either abandon the initial premise (new street fighter movie) or try and follow it as closely as possible (MK1).  Either way, the result is usually pretty bad. And having just netflixed MK1, I echo the sentiment that it was mostly cheese, but still one of the better video game movies out there (not saying much).

In my opinion, the first “Resident Evil” was probably the most successful transition.  While the plot deviated from most of the games, it hit all the high notes and was for the most part an enjoyable zombie action flick.  I agree with the comments about “Silent Hill”.  But let’s not forget that there have been some successful Final Fantasy movies as well.

Currently, I think that the franchises that would best make the switch are Metal Gear: Solid and Soul Caliber (see!  I even picked a fighting game!)  The Metal Gear: Solid games are so close to movies already that it’s almost cheating to pick them, but they would be really easy to convert and they have great action and plot, so how could you fail? (I’ll answer that myself: by casting Nicolas Cage or Tom Cruise as Snake)  As for Soul Caliber, yes it’s a fighting game, but the Soul Caliber franchise has always had an interesting “story” behind it, and a tale could be weaved blending the Soul Caliber characters into an Arthurian model that could be quite successful. And no, we do not need another MK movie…unless it’s MK vs. DC Universe.  That would be sweet.

That’s my 2-million cents.  Any thoughts on who would make a good Snake?  Kurt Russell anyone? Hehheheheheh.”

There’s a scene in the new Harry Potter movie where one of Harry’s classmates accidentally comes in contact with a magic talisman meant for Dumbledore that drives her insane….and floaty.  You’ve seen it in the previews. It’s the girl in the red coat who goes all screaming Jesus Christ pose 30 feet in the air.  Harry and friends immediately deduce that she was cursed, and blame Drako Malfoy and his crew for the dastardly deed.  When they go to tattle to the Hogwart’s faculty, Alan Rickman (whom I never refer to by character, because…why bother?) accuses Harry of making wild accusations without any proof.  Which is true.  But we are supposed to hate him for it. “Ooh!”, we say.  “That dirty Snape!  He’s just doing this because he promised a sacred oath to help Malfoy!” (I refer to Rickman as Snape here only because it’s we the audience, not me the writer).

This scene is quickly passed over as we go back to more snogging and love-potion brownie-making at Hogwart’s, but I wanted to draw attention to it because I believe it’s the one scene that can best illustrate the moral relativity that often goes unexamined (at least by its creator) in the Potterverse.

Harry’s wild accusation is just the tip of the wand, as it were, and is rightly dismissed (even though it proves out in the end because for all her “cleverness”, JK Rowling doesn’t know a plot twist from a broomstick).  The more difficult assumption is that his cursed classmate had no prior knowledge of the talisman.  In the movie, it’s explained that she didn’t have it, and then went to the loo (brits are so classy) and had it with her when she came out.  Thus, she was cursed, becuase she obviously wouldn’t have knowingly tried to injure Dumbledore.

What an assumption!  Anybody familiar with the Larry Craig scandal knows that all sorts of deals get made inside public restrooms.  Maybe she was bought with promises of more love-brownies and snogging?  Maybe someone slipped something into her Butter Beer? Who knows?  The point is, she couldn’t possibly be evil because she doesn’t go to Slitherin and her name does end in a Malfoy.  This teaches children classism, and to blame others for their mistakes.  If she had just done what smart girls do and taken her friend to the bar bathroom with her, she never would have gotten cursed in the first place!

Even worse, because Harry turned out to be right, kids learn that it’s ok to level baseless accusations against their classmates because they  “just know” that they were doing something bad.  This is the worst kind of snitching, and it won’t be tolerated!  Not in this blog!

And worst of all, because Harry was right, and Drako was behind the plot, kids learn that it’s ok to write tediously long stories that are bereft of any mystery or suspense, as long as they have quirky cultural twists and magic in them to take their readers’ minds away from the blatantly obvious plot.

There are other morally ambiguous moments in the film (Ron dumps a girl while he’s in a coma and doesn’t care, a girl is peddling earwigs that “make your head feel fuzzy” on the train to Hogwart’s, one of the new professors invites his underaged students over for late night “dinner parties”, Ron eats a whole pan of date-rape potion brownies) but the one above was by far the most fun to dissect.  Now, at the risk of being long-winded, (too late!) on to the rest of the review!

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is very much like how my dad described being a pilot: “hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror.”  There are some bloody creepy moments in HBP, and they’re beautifully fleshed out with excellent visuals and quite a bit of danger.  The cave scene towards the end of the film is particularly nasty…and fun!  Unfortunately, by the time that happened, my girlfriend had already written the movie off and walked out to the bar (and she’s watched almost all of “Battlestar Gallactica” with me, so she’s no slouch when it comes to slow-moving plots).  As a whole, it’s still one of the darker, better HP films I’ve seen.  But it’s also one of the ones I wouldn’t want to watch multiple times.

In my TV review, (plug!) I say that HBP is the “Empire Strikes Back” of the Harry Potter franchise…and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has pointed that out.  The darkness of the film and its ending invite such comparisons.  But unlike HBP, I could watch “Empire’ over and over again.  It’s by far my favorite Star Wars film, and the most entertaining for me.  And it’s short by most modern day epic movie standards (124 minutes…HBP is 153!).   And the revelation at the end of “Empire” is one of the most memorable surprises in movie history.  The big reveal at the end of HBP feels like an afterthought.

When the final two films are released, (they split the last book up into TWO movies! WTF!?!) one of the most prolific movie series in cinema history will be complete (we hope?). “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” could have been the lynchpin of that series. It was good, but “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” is still the true Potter prince to me.  (Leave your reviews and your picks for favorite Potterfilm below!)

*JT Street’s reviews are not the opinion of Santikos Theatres or anyone involved in the promotion or distribution of any of the films he reviews.   Santikos Theatres wants you to see this and all other movies that they offer.  Mr. Street is an independent critic with free license to speak his mind so that potential customers can make informed decisions about how to spend their time at Santikos Theatres.  Thank you, and enjoy your movie!*

I’ll get to my review of  “Year One” in a second, but first, some biz talk for all you movie pros.

Despite its decent (for a silly comedy) opening this weekend, I think it’s safe to say that “Year Two” won’t start filming any time soon.

Harold Ramis’ caveman caper “Year One” came in 4th place in its opening weekend with a remarkably decent $20 million gross, according to IMDB.  That’s a third of its budget in the first weekend.  So the film will probably break even.   Still, that’s probably a disappointment for the guy who wrote “Ghostbusters”. Not a “Stuart Saves His Family” disappointment, but still…you can’t beat a Sandra Bullock rom-com???

Jack Black and Michael Cera should be pleased, though.  $20 mil is nearly twice what Eddie Murphy’s “Imagine That” made in two weekends!

I was a part of that weekend gross (and yes, that is a poly-entendre).   Let me start by saying that “Year One” is not the worst film in Harold Ramis’ career (see “Stuart Saves his Family”, or rather, don’t).  Nor is it Jack Black’s worst movie (take your pick).  It might be Michael Cera’s worst movie so far (Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist?), but he’ll do worse before his career is over.

“Year One” is a slightly funny, mostly gross, PG-13 romp through the bible age (that’s “small b” bible, as the stories are mangled almost beyond recognition in an attempt to cram as many circumcision references into the plot as possible.  The film begins with Jack Black and Michael Cera (I’ll just use their names, as there’s no real acting or attempt by either to be anything other than themselves) getting tossed from their tribe after JB eats the fruit from the tree of knowledge, which makes him (think he’s) all-knowing.  So the two decide to travel to the ends of the earth, because otherwise, there’s no movie.

Along the way, they help Cain get away with murder, save Isaac from his knife-happy father (but not ALL of Isaac! Get it??  Sigh…the circumcision jokes could have been “cut” from the movie, don’t you think?) and wind up in Sodom, home of hookers, sinners, sodomy jokes, and a very randy (and heavy…and hairy) Oliver Platt as a high preist.  But wait!  To keep the plot moving, JB and MC’s love interests have made it to the big city as well, as slaves.  So it’s up to our intrepid heroes to follow their destinies, save the girls, oil up the high preists (one of the funnier scenes in the film) and live happily ever after.

So there’s no acting, very little writing, and yet, some decent cinematography (ya can’t lose ‘em all).  Yet this silly, stupid little movie manages to keep itself entertaining enough to walk out of the theater chuckling.   As long as you hit the Agora pretty hard beforehand (that’s a Palladium joke).

Oh!  By the way!  Keep your eyes peeled to this site!  I’m watching a sneak screening of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” tonight, so expect a full review tomorrow!

In “The Taking of Pelham 123″, Denzel Washington and John Travola face-off against each other to determine once and for all who has the better goatee.  Seriously.

Typing “Face-off” and “John Travolta” got me thinking (and not just about silly plastic surgery action flicks).  Let’s take these two Hollywood veterans and take their roles…..off.

John Travolta.  Denzel Washington.  Any one of their roles.  Put ‘em against each other.  Which pairing would be the most fun to watch?  It’s called role-playing, and it’s a fun thing to do when you’re bored on a Friday and you’re not going to watch Pelham 123 until later in the evening.

So, here are a few examples to get you started.

1.  Denzel Washington as the detective turned demon John Hobbes in “Fallen” vs. John Travolta the angel in “Michael”.

2. Denzel Washington as detective Alonzo in “Training Day” vs. John Travolta as Vincent Vega in “Pulp Fiction” (my personal favorite)

3. Denzel Washington as detective Keith Frazier in “Inside Man” (Denzel likes being a detective much?) vs John Travolta as “not-kingpin” Howard Saint in “The Punisher”.

4. Denzel Washington as Melvin B. Tolson in “The Great Debaters” vs John Travolta as “Vinnie Barbarino” in “Welcome Back, Kotter” (maybe my other personal favorite).

So now that you know how the game is played, I look forward to reading your ideas.  And yes, you can use IMDB. May the best response win (something to be determined later)!

Every week (almost), I host the “Preview Review” segment on KABB Fox 29.  (If you don’t believe me, click here.)  Each week, I end my segment with the line “Until next time, when you’re going to the movies, don’t miss the previews.”  That’s usually pretty sound advice.  However, in the case of the new Todd Phillips movie “The Hangover,” DO NOT, under any circumstances, watch the previews. 

Because if you do, you may miss out or ruin what could very well be the funniest movie of 2009.  “The Hangover” is a hilariously raunchy, over the top, debaucherriffic ride that is absolutely sullied if you know the jokes ahead of time.  So much of “The Hangover” is predicated on surprise…the tiger in the bathroom, Mike Tyson’s kareoke cameo, Ed Helms’ toothless discovery…it’s just not the same if you’ve seen it all ten times in advance.

I’m just saying, sometimes a movie can be mis-promoted.  I was watching TV with my parents tonight and a new trailer for “The Hangover” popped on the screen.  In 30 seconds, the trailer ruined about 8 or 9 new jokes that hadn’t been shown in the other previews.  Then, my mom turns to me and says “THAT movie looks AWFUL!” 

It’s tragic, really.  The film’s misguided promotional strategy not only ruined many of the jokes for the films fans (and set up the inevitable complaint that “all the best jokes were in the previews”, even though they arent), but it also gave prospective viewers a poor opinion of the film.  Like Phillips’ “Old School”, “The Hangover” is a superficially sophomoric premise that turns out to be every bit as silly and stupid as you expect, and yet, in the end, is also much more intelligent than it appears.  But that’s very hard to put in a 60 second spot. 

It’s my job to watch previews of upcoming films.  Many times, those trailers generate levels of xcitement and anticipation that ultimately make the experience of seeing the film more gratifying.  Sometimes they turn off viewers who would otherwise really enjoy the film.  I think “The Hangover” is in real danger of not being as successful as it should be because of an inept promotional campaign (also known as the “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”).  

So go see “The Hangover”.  You’ll be glad you did.  But please, before you do….ignore the previews.