WORST DVD ART OF ALL TIME: Northwest Frontier

Sometimes studios will change the dvd art of their movies in order to identify which discs are "for rental only" -- sold to Netflix or Redbox or Blockbuster. Basically all they do is put no dvd art, with ony the title across a grey disc. (I'm not sure exactly why they make the distinction between rental only discs in the first place. I guess in order to prevent resell.) But here it is, the worst dvd art of all time. Not a rental art disc, but an honest to God "for purchase" production dvd:

Riveting, isn't it? White background, bold black letters. Wow. You may ask, just what is this steamroller of a film about that would inspire such cataclysmic artwork? Here's the summary:

When the rajah of British India's most northwestern province is slain during a massive uprising, English army officer Captain Scott (More) is ordered to rescue the 5-year-old heir to the throne and speed the child to safety. Boarding their only means of escape - a decrepit old steam locomotive - Scott and the boy race to farway Kalapur, accompanied by a tempestuous governess (Lauren Bacall), a handful of passengers and an undercover enemy agent. Hurtling across 300 miles of rebel-held territory, Scott battles impossible odds on a perilous cross-country train ride jam-packed with hair-raising native attacks, death-defying bridge crossings and white-knuckle last-minute escapes!

I don't know about you, but I'd at least give it a look. So what about the dvd box cover art?

What could be the problem? Put that train on the disc!

Film Diary MARCH 2009

March was a little on the slow side. WATCHMEN proved interesting but in the end confusing (didn't we end up just where we started? The good guys were the bad guys? And why did the writer hate Nixon so much. I mean, he really seemed to hate Nixon.) RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN was a throwback to old school Disney when they made movies like BLACKBEARD'S GHOST and POLLYANA and THE BOATNIKS and you were a kid and you watched them and thought they were great cause you didn't know any better. DUPLICITY had some excellent dialogue and good scenes but in the end we'd like our heroes to win, thank you very much. (Makes them at least appear to be smart and clever; think THE STING). MONSTERS VS ALIENS was in 3D. KNOWING was strange and creepy in the end (what's up with the little kids taken to an alien world who are eventually supposed to repopulate the Earth -- just weird all over). The best of the month was definitely I LOVE YOU MAN.

Poster Art: DISTRICT 9

Every now and then a movie comes along that is the essence of "intriguing." DISTRICT 9 may not live up to the creeping attention that it is getting, but I'm definitely going to be at the head of the line to see it...

DVD Menu Art: LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE

Let's just call this "how not to make DVD menu art." It's not hard to find unimaginative examples of menu art for DVDs. Film is a creative medium. You're paying for an experience, whether it's in the theatre or at home watching a movie on tv. What I don't understand is why a company has gone to all of the trouble to make a film (and making film is definitely a hard edged struggle to get financing and distribution) just to give up when it comes to representative things like poster art or dvd art. This menu system and art seems to have been cooked up by some fifth rate outfit from a template. If the DVD menu art makes you want to fall asleep, what do you think the film itself will do?

DVD Menu Art: Quantum of Solace

Film Review: PUBLIC ENEMIES

Michael Mann makes solid movies. No one argues that. And without a doubt he has the artistic ability to get at the heart of a situation, the emotional point of attack that takes conflict and turns it into a series of moral questions which is definitely watchable and sometimes unsettling at the outcome. When he’s at his best, he puts his audience in the primary place an audience should be, anticipating the outcome of conflict between the protagonist and his nemesis. And he’s not afraid to tackle tough, weighty issues. Which is what makes Michael Mann something of a mystery. He’ll give you heart pounding action and exquisite visual tapestries only to miss the mark with decisions that seem to defy logic when it comes to telling his story. I don’t know if they’re decisions led by curiousity, “just to try something this way” or whether he has some idea in his head of what he thinks a Hollywood movie “should be”. (THE KEEP, though flawed with narrative ambiguity, is one of my personal favorites). HEAT and THE INSIDER are his best efforts. In both of these, you get an essential quality that great films must have: the collision of truth. The collision of truth is simple: it pits two characters -- the good guy and the bad guy -- at odds with each other, not simply in their desires or needs or motivations, but in their basic fundamental philosophy. Cop movies are, (as well as can be argued the Western ) the epitome of collision of truth movies: “might makes right” vs “might for right.” Expecting to get something along these lines (which of course is the best way to ruin a movie for yourself, by having expectations) PUBLIC ENEMIES skirts many moments of dramatic tension that it could have exploited while avoiding the critical confrontation of what made John Dillinger, Dillinger and Melvin Pervis, Pervis. Mann goes for subtlety here, concentrating on the love story between Dillinger and his girlfriend and seems to lose the sense of who Dillinger was. Instead, he’s going for “noble criminal”; but the truth of what created the essence of Dillinger is far more fascinating. The acting is good; Johnny Depp’s screen persona shines as always, but Christian Bale is so racheted down that he never gets a chance to steal the show (which may be why). The other thing that is odd is how Mann decides to shoot the film. The cinematography shoots for documentary style, and ultimately it makes the film look at times like a cheap BBC television show (apologies to Dr. Who and Primeval). The glory of the art direction is muted by close-ups and hand held shots which don’t add significantly to the level of dramatic tension already present in the scene. The film picks up speed when the visual choices move toward the conventional rather than the esoteric. Unfortunately, when the film really starts to shine, Mann turns out the light with his overthought choices.

Film Diary APRIL 09

April had its diverse share of movies. Biggest disappointment: ADVENTURELAND. A movie that wants so badly to be profound, but in the end, the experiences faced by the main character and his ultimately loser friends, aren't any different than anyone else's experiences. ADVENTURELAND wants to be ALMOST FAMOUS, but isn't. Again -- ADVENTURELAND wants to be ALMOST FAMOUS, but isn't. Second biggest disappointment: OBSERVE AND REPORT. Starts out using its strengths at hand (Seth Rogen’s rubber face and mediocre- at-best life view), but then takes some of the strangest twists along the way--fighting with the cops in the mall for instance--that it makes you question the sensibilities of the filmmakers. Are we trying to expel some personal demons, or does he think that's what people think is funny? There is, though, a reason to watch this movie: the performance by Collette Wolfe. Intense, electric, mesmerizing. When she cries, she makes you want to cry. Biggest surprise of the month: 17 AGAIN. Intelligent, good acting, good storyline, well written. Who knew Zac Efron had it in him? If he can break the Disney mold, he could become a real actor.

Film Review: ICE AGE 3 -- DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

The 3-D process is like cheese on your vegetables. Everything tastes better with cheese (cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, etc.). We LOVE cheese on our vegetables, don't we? And likewise, you can’t go wrong with 3D because it’s fun. Just watching 3D movies is like peering into a viewmaster like you did when you were a kid. 3D may have once been a cheesy gimmick to get people to fill seats, but with advent of new technologies, it has become respectable and it isn’t just something reserved for IMAX theatres, and when done properly, helps create a mood for telling the story. Which may be one of the reasons James Cameron decided to use it for his next film (AVATAR) -- 3D has definitely become a mainstream technique for seriously artistic filmmakers. George Lucas apparently is considering releasing the first three STAR WARS movies in 3D thanks to a conversion process developed by a company called In-Three (much like how the NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was reissued in 3D, as well as the upcoming TOY STORY 1 and 2). 3D transcends genre. Action, adventure, sci fi, comedy, horror – you name it, you can put 3d on anything. JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, BEOWULF, BOLT, UP, MONSTERS VS ALIENS, CORALINE, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE. Now, having acknowledged how wonderfully fun the 3D process can be, unfortunately, the 3D process is about the only reason to see ICE AGE 3, DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS. ICE AGE is one of those films that spools off the Hollywood assembly line like an enigma, something that looks good on paper and should be good, but in the end isn’t. The voice acting is good; the characters certainly have personality, and the animation is phenomenal. It even has 3D! But in the end, the movie is flat and uninventive and well ... boring. The storyline is forced and the jokes feel even more forced, as if the plot is servicing the jokes instead of the other way around. Definitely cute, but definitely no CARS or WALL-E or FINDING NEMO or MADAGASCAR.

Film Diary May 09

Continuing the film diary series... The movies are in the order in which I saw them. When a movie shows up more than once in the matrix, it just means that I saw that movie more than once. May, as you can tell, was a very Star Trek month. (I was hoping that May was going to be a very Terminator month, but unfortunately, McG doesn't seem to understand that there should be more than three terminators guarding Skynet Central.)

Film Diary June 09

Well, I suppose you can tell the nature of a person by the kind of movies they go see at the theatre. It's easy to sit on the couch and watch something on TV, a little harder to pop in a DVD, but when it comes to making the trip to a movie theatre, usually there has to be something worth the trek. Especially in Vegas when it gets to 110 in the summer. I play a game with myself called lets-watch-every-first-run-movie-for-any-given-month at my favorite movie theatre (in this case, at the Rave Motion Pictures Theatre in Las Vegas). Haven't made it yet; there's always some movie that comes out that I just can't bring myself to watch. Almost made it in April (but was savagely stopped short of my goal by THE HANNAH MONTANA MOVIE). Almost made it in May, but was denied by MY LIFE IN RUINS. Was doing great in June, until the unmovable object of MY SISTER'S KEEPER struck my irresistable force. Oof. At the end of the month I'm going to post my film diary at the bottom of the right column. In the next few posts, I'll put up all the movies month by month that I've seen at the Rave, starting way back in October 07. Has it been that long? Wow. It has. You'll never guess what the first movie I ever watched there was...

Film Review: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Okay, so this is a great example of a "best friend movie." Sure, structurally it isn't very well done. There's plenty of redundancy around, including redundant characters who don't add anything to the plot, contrived situations that wouldn't happen in a million years -- i..e, Shia LaBeouf can't tell Megan Fox he loves her (you've got to be kidding me -- is there a guy on the face of the planet who wouldn't tell Megan Fox he loves her, especially knowing she wants him to?); plus a teenager with a twelve foot intelligent car robot in his garage, who just wants to be left alone to live his own life? Again, you have to be kidding me. That is your life. Who wouldn't want a cool sportscar that turns into a protective robot for a best friend? And who in their right mind wouldn't take that car -- or Megan Fox -- with him to college? (The contrived explanation is that Megan Fox has to take care of her father, and that cars aren't allowed at college. Huh?) And it suffers from the same problems the first movie had -- when the robots talk, it's very difficult to understand what they're saying, and when the robots fight, they are so intricate looking that you can't figure out what is happening. Like other Michael Bay action sequences, the fighting is tedious and the least entertaining moments of the movie. Michael Bay has never been one to subscribe to the first and most basic tenets of movie making: bad movies are about plot (and special effects and action sequences and explosions etc...), great movies are about character. But the point is, it is still a very entertaining film if you like to see giant robots creating chaos and doing stuff. It's great how the Decepticons all look very very sharp. And there are some great moments of humor and fun, not to mention the first sequence at the beginning of the film which may be one of the best moments in sci fi film history... Overall, it's like your best friend. Sure, he has faults. He can't balance his checkbook all the time, flakes out on you every now and then, but ultimately, he's your best friend because you can count on him to be who he is, and you always have a lot of fun with him. You take the good and the bad because in the end, you know what you're going to get...

DVD Menu Artwork #1 Del Tenney

If you like old, cheesy, cheap B movies with crazy plot twists and makeshift ideas, then Del Tenney is definitely on your to-watch list. He produced some of the oddest horror films ever made, including THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH, ZOMBIE, and in particular, PSYCHOMANIA, in which “The Living Dead motorcycle gang is on the rampage, wreaking havoc in their small English town. For gang leader Tom however, mere earthly violence is not enough: he's obsessed with the occult and is convinced that he can kill himself and then return from the dead -- with the help of a frog-worshipping cult and his séance-conducting mother. Remarkably, Tom succeeds and soon joins the ranks of the walking -- and riding -- dead!”


One thing constant about old b-movies is is how the poster art promised much more than the film actually delivered, as if the filmmakers put more money into designing the artwork to lure you in to the theatre than the making of the films themselves. Which makes them fun in a different, almost childlike interactive way. (In the old days before video games and CGI, when you were a kid, a stick wasn't just a stick, it was a Buck Rogers ray gun, and a rock was an unearthed jewel. Cars were monsters and shrubs were jungles.) What you saw on the poster was definitely NOT what you got, but the creative effort was appreciated someplace deep in our brains. As if your imagination helped the experience. Sure the films were clunky and over the top, but you accepted that going in – and your brain smoothed over the wires and the rubber suits. Today we expect more, rightly so, but back in the fifties there was still a kind of childlike innocence in our monster movies.

True to form, the dvd artwork and menu art of THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH recaptures that feeling of promised-reality-not-quite met…

Rent and Decide #1

Everything old is new again. After a few months of hiatus, I’m back! Hopefully the followers are still out there….still thinking, still challenging, still posting. As for me, the future holds more film reviews, more dvd art, more introspections, more essential questions, must see movies, movie company art -- in general, just overall more fun with Hollywood (plus a few new categories – “monkey” movies, dvd menu art, movies I wish I’d written, and like this post, something called “Rent and Decide.”) And keeping in line with the title of this post, here’s one for you. A few years back a movie with Queen Latifah came out called the Last Holiday. This week on DVD, another Last Holiday arrives. What’s the connection, you ask? Well, let’s see.

Here’s the summary for Queen Latifah’s movie: It's advice to follow for shy New Orleans cookware salesclerk Georgia Byrd (Oscar® nominee Queen Latifah) when she's led to believe that she has less than a month to live. It's time to give her life a serious makeover, so Georgia jets off on a dream vacation to live like there's no tomorrow! Enjoy hearty laughs and rollicking comedic misadventures when Georgia shakes up a glamorous European resort spa while enthusiastically embracing a new look...new moves...and a new attitude! LL Cool J is the handsome suitor back home who's not about to let Georgia slip away. Timothy Hutton, Gerard Depardieu, Alicia Witt and Giancarlo Esposito also star in this comedy hit that makes the good times last forever.

Don’t you just love “hearty laughs and rollicking comedic misadventures?” Anyway, here’s the summary for Alec Guiness’ Last Holiday: Told by his doctor that he has no more than a few months to live, drab British workingman George Bird (Alec Guinness) decides to spend his savings on lodging at a seaside resort. Once there, however, he finds his identity caught between upstairs and downstairs, the guests and the "help." A droll social commentary as well as an unpredictable dark comedy about life, death, and luck, Last Holiday is one of Guinness's finest moments.

Ah. Another example of Hollywood updating a classic for a contemporary audience. Of course, all the while not bothering to mention that this movie’s already been made (unless of course you look carefully at the credits. Writers Jeffrey Price & Peter S. Seaman are credited with the screenplay, with a nod to the original J.B. Priestley script. So, it takes two guys to “rewrite” something already written. Maybe we need a credit for “rewriters.”) Take out the substance of the original, the insight, and literary nature, and you end up with a relatively forgetful Hollywood outing, because obviously contemporary audiences don’t want all of that literary-ness and thinking stuff after all,right...

So what is the genesis of such projects? Is it somewhere deep in the dark recesses of the Hollywood creative director offices, where an astute decision is made to resurrect a financially solid property and give it new life? Or a choice to go with something a Hollywood executive can see, as opposed to something (new) which they a) have to read and b) understand? (Which some, maybe most, can’t do.)

Or is it because some Hollywood writer who has become lazy walks in and pitches a movie they’ve seen a long time ago, and it’d be a hell of a lot easier to rewrite that than create something spanking brand new?

Well, no matter. But in the watching is the answer. Which is better? Rent, and you decide.

DVD Art 3/18

Watchmen

The Watchmen characters are well drawn, and actually have history and emotional tangibility, something that most superhero movies can’t muster because they can’t breech the wall of suspension of disbelief --- though some superhero movies like Spiderman and the Dark Knight definitely do. Creating a character isn’t simply about picking and choosing the circumstances of their life (what they look like, where they live, etc.) the key is to create a plausible history but also to put the character into situations which cause them to make choices (action) which will define them. The Dark Knight does. Spiderman makes an a yeoman effort if only to stumble through the same territory, hashing out the same drama over three films (little or no growth). X –men, however, falls short because the characters tend to be drawn in black and white. The Watchmen, on the other hand, fall into all kinds of moral grey areas which makes them compelling and likable and even, at times, hateable. But even when they become hateable you still understand them. Background + situation + choice + WANTS VS NEEDS is the only way to work a character “into the grey”. Characters have to want something (as we all do) but they also have to need something (as we all do). These must be integrated together, not just stand apart. And, just as in life, just as with us, what a character needs isn’t always what he wants (or should have). It is the ultimate dilemma we all face, of the universal traits of the human condition that film illuminates in a way that only film can. One of the best things Watchman does is create a nuanced sense of loneliness in its characters that is hard to achieve without becoming melodramatic.

Just Because (the tv version)

Just Because...

Fun With Movie Titles #2: ELEGY

Main Entry: el·e·gy
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural el·e·gies
Etymology: Latin elegia poem in elegiac couplets, from Greek elegeia, elegeion, from elegos song of mourning
Date: 1501
1: a poem in elegiac couplets
2 a: a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead b: something (as a speech) resembling such a song or poem
3 a: a pensive or reflective poem that is usually nostalgic or melancholy b: a short pensive musical composition
4: A movie just released on DVD starring Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz in which a middle-aged college professor who, for years, has lived in a state of "emancipated manhood." His romantic conquests are many; his lasting commitments, few. But when a stunning young student named Consuela Castillo enters his life, her otherworldly beauty captivates him to the point of obsession.

5: See Also:

Fun With Bumpers 1

Everybody’s seen ‘em, knows ‘em and really may not even think much about them despite the fact that the studios spend millions designing them so that they are immediately recognizable – the bumper: the studio trademarks and logo at the beginning of the film. Some have been around forever, some even undergo a process of evolution depending upon the movie involved. What I like about bumpers is how filmmakers will include them as part of setting the mood for their film. Again, not one second is wasted in a film. Everything has to be thought through. For instance: Warner Brothers changes their bumper depending upon the movie, like this --

The Classic Warner Brother Logo

A "Red" Variation

For"THE SILVER CHALICE" (as if embossed on the

side of a silver cup)

For "FRED CLAUSE"

Stayed tuned...

The Pink Panther 2

I saw this movie last night, primarily because my wife doesn’t want to see FRIDAY THE 13th. I pretty much figured it would be a “throwaway” movie, but instead I found it to be charming with several good laugh-out- loud laughs. There was a time when Steve Martin was the king of stand up comedy, and was unrivaled in his ability to inhabit a character that was silly and vapid, but this silly and vapid character would be so effective that you’d find yourself imitating his mannerisms or speech patterns for days on end. The challenge with THE PINK PANTHER is how to overcome the shadow of Blake Edwards and the incredibly unusual talent that was Peter Sellers. Certain movie are “time locked” – the stars line up, the time has come, the zeitgeist has smiled, or something, and for whatever reason, they become part of that year’s (or a series of years’) pop culture. (JAWS, STAR WARS, INDIANA JONES come to mind, but so do movies like CORVETTE SUMMER and CARWASH, oddly enough.) Blake Edwards’ PINK PANTHER movies commanded audience attention for many years. Probably largely forgotten by today’s audiences, they were a definite presence when they came out, and were enjoyed by quite a few people. (Who could ever forget the “Does your dog bite?” bit, or the “Kato, my little yellow friend...” gags?) Sure, Blake Edwards hated Peter Sellers, but together they created the icon of Inspector Clouseau, and no one but a comedy master like Steve Martin can come close to pulling off the impossible feat of wearing those shoes. I laughed more in this movie than I did in the last two comedies I’ve seen. Thanks to Steve Martin. Who still has such screen presence that it’s a shame he doesn’t do more films. It’s also a shame that most people now who hear the words "Pink Panther" think of the trademark cartoon cat. Who, as I remember, was even used to sell housing insulation once..

DVD ART 2/17

Movie Believe it or Not! TAKEN

A precise action story that doesn’t become action-tedious. And while you don’t really like his wife, and you think his daughter is not much more sympathetic, Neeson’s character is definitively likable. After the obligatory setup, his character leads us through a staggeringly simple – and engaging -- journey of brutality and violence that is purely motivated and uncomplicated. He lives up to his “specific set of skills” that his character boasts of in the trailer. He is clever, forceful, and not since Dirty Harry, is a character we wish we could be given the same circumstance. Question is, why hasn’t Liam Neeson been making this kind of movie the last three + years? Where has he been, exactly? After all, this isn’t just any actor (how soon we forget). This is Oskar Schindler. This is Michael Collins. This is Robb Roy. (Okay, so this is even Kinsey.) So what’s he been doing? Sure the short appearances and ultimate death scenes in KINGDOM OF HEAVEN and BATMAN BEGINS. But beyond that? Video game voices. Believe it or not.

DVD ARTWORK 3/2

Structural Fallacy: THE UNINVITED (2009)

In their Film Studies Two class, students take on building the first act of an original screenplay. To this end, they have to learn some fundamental filmic storytelling structures and concepts. While the exercises they undertake tend to be relatively simplified, they acquire the basic tools to create as sophisticated a story as they want (and in many cases, their story concepts tend to be commercially viable). One of the first exercises is to create the characters for their movie, and they base their decisions on the character types delineated by Frank Danielle in his study of America film structure since the blockbuster era, and distilled by Michael Hauge in his Writing Screenplays That Sell. The four basic character types are: the hero, the nemesis, the reflection, and the romance. One of the most basic rules is that film characters should fall into one of these categories, and cannot switch categories. The reasoning behind this tenet is that these specific character types provide the most efficient and organic means of telling a filmic story, and constructs a structural matrix supporting emotional response from the audience. If characters switch categories, it becomes a point of confusion and / or frustration for the audience, which has invested emotional time rooting for the hero and fearing / hating the nemesis. THE UNINVITED, out this week in theatres, violates the “no switch” rule to the core, and the result is confusion to a point I haven’t witnessed since Statham and Li in WAR. In the screening I attended, several teen age girls began to shout at the screen that they didn’t understand what was going on. Literally. They then began a conversation while the rest of the audience was shaking its collective head and looking at each other, trying to work their way through the plot they had just seen. (Definitely NOT the response the filmmakers want, I'm sure...) Later, after leaving a screening for a different movie, I saw a small clique of teenagers from a different viewing of THE UNINVITED standing outside their theatre -- like an adolescent think tank -- trying to decipher what had happened in the last ten minutes of the movie. They desperately wanted to understand; they were rooting for this movie and for the hero, but felt cheated by their experience . Now, confusion is easy to create – it is not a mark of the uber creative or imaginative. The Hollywood “twist” at the end of the movie is the easiest and most commonly corrupted technique in any art, more often than not justified as some kind of superior cleverness.

Essential Film Books #1

If you are serious about your study of film, and want to know not only about the most important trends and events in American film history but also in the development of World Cinema, this book is a must have. It’s not cheap, however, running about 60 bucks for a new copy (a used copy still commands about 40). This was THE history text used at USC and will give anyone a firm grounding in the essentials of film history. David Cook covers everything-- the origins of film; silent films in America, Germany, and the Soviet Union; the arrival of color and sound; the American studio system; the Golden Age of American Film; World War II; the French New Wave; Cinema vs. Television in the 50’s; Eastern European Film; African; Latin; and Asian film. The great thing about this book is that it is easy to read, has plenty of photographs, and touches on major directors, stars, and producers. Add this to a Netflix account, and you can rival the best film schools in the country in the privacy and comfort of your own home.