Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Saw this with Jeff the day it came out without seeing the original first mostly because it was done by the same director that made Pan's Labyrinth and the creatures in the trailers looked amazing. I thought it would be a good lesson to see if a sequel could stand on its own as well.

Guillermo del Toro creates an absolutely believable and rich fantasy world. Charming, witty and completely original. Getting sucked into his imagination was the most pleasing part for me. Hellboy was a pretty great anti-hero, and I think Prince Nuada was almost a perfect anti-villain. His actions surprised me as he seemed to not be bent on evil for evil's sake, but reclaiming the parts of the world that the humans had destroyed and encroached upon. He was simply trying to reclaim the fantasy world that humans were destroying in their greed. He stopped his evil ways half-way through the film to almost mentor Hellboy in the fantasy realm. He was complex and unpredictable in a way I really liked. The end was predictable, with the Princess killing herself to stop her brother, but I forgive it.

The one disappointment I had was Selma Blair as Hellboy's girlfriend Liz. I think it was combination of her emotionless performance and bad writing, but her character was completely flat and one-dimensional compared to Hellboy's rude charm. She really was just there so Hellboy could be a father. I leaned over and whispered this to Jeff and he was appalled. He completely bought into her character. Jeff is a perceptive and smart guy so I don't want to just be like he is a man so he doesn't care if women are one-dimensional, because he isn't that way. He said I had to see the first one, then I would get her more. More on this in my review of Hellboy 1. To me this is just another example of women being marginalized in the blockbusters this summer. Princess Nuada was more interesting and tortured, but then primarily became Abe's love interest and motivation. No doubt that there is potential for Liz to step up in the next movie, due to the foreshadowing that none will suffer more than her, but I'd be scared that she would just die and trigger Hellboy to go evil or something. I think I need to clarify to myself what I think a good woman character is so I can understand how to make them.

A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila 2

Well last night was the finale of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila 2, a show I shamefully watched for most of its run both last season and this season. I have now idea why I watch it, other than it is like watching a train wreck. A horrible, awful train wreck that you can't tear your eyes away from. Yes, watching these people makes me feel good about myself, but there is something more. A social experiment gone terribly wrong, with painful stereotyping and categorizing of masculine and feminine that is just so damn intriguing. The whole show comes across as very scripted and calculated. Tila's speeches are well rehearsed and flawless. They have obviously done many takes to achieve this level of "reality," and people are eliminated in predictable fashion in order to heighten drama. I knew from the beginning of this season that Tila would have to choose a girl just to prove she was bi to all the skeptical people out there and sure enough she did.

But what I did not expect was to have a dream about Tila Tequila last night, where I felt the need to go to her house and comfort her after she was rejected by the girl she tried to give the final key to. So maybe I watch the show because Tila has this crazy way of making everybody care for her, even intellectuals who look down on her show but can't look away. In my dream I genuinely was concerned for her feelings. How does this girl do it? I would say that she is just a phenomenal actor playing a part, but I really don't think that is it. She comes across on her show as someone who genuinely cares for all the contestants, seems to honestly "put herself out there" and take risks with these strangers for not just the fame but maybe for love? Her concern for crushing the loser both seasons came across as very genuine. Her reaction to Kristi not taking the key was defensive and vulnerable. It was anger and sadness and loss and self-loathing for her mistakes and just felt real. So real that I had to have a dream where I went and comforted her, talked to her and let her cry on my shoulder. If I believed Tila could act I would still be very much under the impression that it really is all just an elaborate set-up for drama's sake, but despite the set-up there is something there that doesn't seem contrived. Maybe I am gaining respect for her? I think that is it. She is either a genius actor worth respecting for what it is, or a decent human being with real feelings for these people, worth respecting. Well, I'll be tuning in for A Shot at Love 3, gross as that sounds.

And because Dani is hot, here is a pic from season one. This must be a promo pic. I've never seen it before.

Hancock

The last of the films I saw on the marathon movie day and honestly the most surprising. I was expecting predictable Will Smith humor, plot and explosions and ended up getting a bit more. It may be a case of having extremely low expectations and being surprised when it isn't terrible, but this movie might have had something different to say. I'll write a bit about it and see if I can't uncover what that is.

The first thing I noticed after watching 3 films before this one was demographics. There were decidedly more black people in the audience. Will Smith's humor is more urban and "black" (whatever this means, but I can't think of a more PC way to describe it in this moment) and this played to the crowd. As frustrated as I get not seeing any well-depicted lesbians on screen, blacks must be equally frustrated. There is never a black superhero that is the main character and not some side-kick to the white guy. God Iron Man was frustrating on this level. It appears as though this movie was aiming to play to a slightly shifted demographic and hit its mark. They were looking primarily for the Black audience and then banking on Smith's star power and the white side-kick/Charlize Theron to bring in some of the white audience. (I wish things could be colorblind, but they still are, as our Presidential campaign has clearly highlighted. Just as I have to still worry about my sexuality and being a woman in the entertainment industry.)

The movie started out rather predictable and just as the trailers indicated, a screw-up superhero, who is alone in the world and depressed, but wants to make a change and needs help to realize his full potential as a noble good superman like figure. A depressed and lonely superhero is a common enough theme, but it is never the premise of the film, just hinted at. Batman is good at hinting at his loneliness, but he always has a woman interest to at least give him hope of normality. This was about drunken depression and isolation as an outcast from society (which I can relate to and the X-Men films under Bryan Singer alluded to) where being a superhero didn't solve all your problems, but created them.

And then Charlize Theron popped up which was a shock to me. I had no idea what she was doing in the "housewife" role and the whole time I was like, she is way to good of an actor to be playing this vulnerable, angry yet attracted and emotional woman whenever Hancock is around. There must be more to it. I knew something was up and when she busted out her super strength too, I knew it was coming, but in a "Now I'm really excited way!" She was stronger than him, but he was always the "hero." Sure this is a play on femininity and her "maternal" instincts and her desire to settle down, while the man is the hero. It would have been nice to see her become LA's hero and him NYC's hero in the end instead of her staying the housewife, but the whole premise behind their story was interesting. Opposites attracting, becoming mortal when they are near each other and eventually dying, tying in with history and mythology of multiple gods and human nature to love, the desire to settle down and die even when given the choice to be immortal. Hancock's memory loss had a similar effect as Jason Bourne's in that it made him re-examine who he was without social conditioning (literally ages of it). And he was still a hero who loved the same woman, but gave her up to survive even though all the others of his kind had chosen love and death. It was more than I expected from the film and made me think. I like unexpected strong women, even if they are just a counterpoint to men and I wasn't as bothered by this as I should have been. I think because Theron does not allow her characters to be one note. Even as the "homemaker" she came across as having chosen this for herself out of strength of will. Although it should bug me that she can have the world and chooses to houseclean and make cookies like a good embodiment of traditional femininity, it didn't. Perhaps this is why the movie piqued my interest. If only I could pinpoint why it didn't bother me like it should.

Also, congratulations to Daeg who was Michel the bully in this film. What a great little part for him. I hope he continues to have success.

Get Smart

Honestly, I don't feel like I have much to say about this movie. I saw it on the marathon movie day mostly out of convenience. It was campy and predictable. It was goofy and entertaining. Steve Carell is a funny guy. Anne Hathaway was hot and quirky and beautiful in her goofy way. She was not anorexically thin which was a nice relief. I was amused the whole time, but not particularly enraptured. It was just some fun fluff. It never transcended its silliness to say anything more deep about crime or villains and politics of fear or the world (despite the fact that we are at war). It did make fun of George W. with the inane president, but that is just standard anymore. They rationalized the Carell-Hathaway romance by saying she was older before her plastic surgery reconstructed her image. I'm not really sure how I feel about that, but nothing in this movie was serious so I'll let it slide. This movie just kind of invited you to let everything about it slide which can be dangerous, but most likely it too will slide right into obscurity, unless it made enough money to make a sequel which I have no interest in researching right now.

Wanted

I watched this movie second on the marathon movie day at Universal Studios because I clearly had high hopes for something of value to emerge from this film. I was sorely disappointed and ended up enjoying both Get Smart and Hancock more than this film. (Obviously, Wall-E was ahead of it as well since it was my favorite of the day.) I knew it would be a krosh krosh action flick, but Angelina Jolie's ultra tough assassin character intrigued me and I thought for sure something of her strength in this "man's world" would prove redeeming.

The driving force behind this movie is the same as Jumper and really hits on why our society has become so obsessed with superhero movies. People no longer use their bodies for manual labor and computers have made the majority of our jobs sedentary. People literally sit in a cube all day and stare at a screen. That is where the main character Wesley starts at the beginning of the film, just your average guy. As Morgan Freeman's character puts it, he is a "sheep herded by fate" and it is time to take control of his own destiny. (Which, ironically, means blindly carrying out orders given by the "loom of fate." Yes you heard me correctly. An actual loom that weaves the names of assassination targets into the fabric in binary code. I laughed out loud during this explanation and the movie was all downhill from here.) So we are fascinated with superhero films because boys sitting in front of computers all day want to believe that one day a beautiful woman will come along and tell them that their body is magical and that they can use it physically in extraordinary ways to escape their humdrum life. People want control over their bodies again and superheroes represent the ultimate control and escape from monotony. So Wesley, the boy suffering from anxiety learns his anxiety is really a super human gift, tells off his crappy fat lady boss (not a stereotype at all) and becomes a super killer in 6 weeks. Not to mention he gets to make out with Angelina Jolie.

The one intriguing part of Jolie's character was that, although there was a make-out scene and her naked-ness was tossed around to make her the blatant sex object (as expected) she was not the love interest. The kiss was only to make Wesley's ex-girlfriend jealous. Jolie's character remained aloof and beyond caring almost the whole movie, indicated by her face which had practically the same expression plastered on to it in every scene. It was interesting to not make her the automatic love interest and to have the story not be about love. She was more of the mentor, but this also made her character fall flat for me and proved to be the downfall in the end. Her aloofness was a distance and disconnect for the audience and she refuses to question and examine why she is doing what she is doing. Wesley begins to question the loom, but she believes in it blindly, thinking that her family died because an assassin didn't do what the loom told her. The whole time I was like, how do you know that they weren't just telling you what you wanted to hear so you would be loyal? For a movie that touts taking control of your destiny it was strangely shrouded in blindly following fate. So much so that Jolie's character ends the film by killing herself and every other assassin supposedly put on the hit list by the loom. This was just absurdity to me and indicated no character arc for her at all. Because I found her character so shallow, the blatantness of her being the sex object and eye-candy seemed even more pronounced.

The movie derailed into explosions and killing and Wesley finding out he was lied to. He then takes down the whole operation single-handedly after only 6 weeks of training. I just got really bored during all the fighting and shooting in the end. What started out as cool, just got very tiring. One thing I did notice, was that in the car, right after Wesley gets picked up, he was appropriately scared for his situation. I know I was mentioning in the National Treasure 2 post that people in these films just aren't as scared as they should be for someone who is that close to dying. His fear was really just used for comic effect and although it seemed appropriate, used in this context of humor, it just didn't play. It made me question how it is possible to integrate real human psychology into these fantastical worlds and make it play. Can it be something besides comic relief? Is it necessary at all because these worlds are so clearly not real. This is something that can be learned and experimented with and why I must do my webseries!

One more item of note was that Bridget McManus was the checker in the store when Wesley was buying all the Peanut Butter. She was literally in the film for a split second, but I recognized her. After IMDBing her, I found out that she was also the Producer's Assistant. Apparently AfterEllen has enough connections to get its Vloggers decent work on big gigs. This encourages me even more to find my niche with in this market.

Wall-E

This film was by far my favorite of the marathon trip to Universal Studios Theater, which included Wanted, Get Smart and Hancock. What stands out the most is just how human Wall-E was with his child-like wonder. He was fascinated with the world and so the audience was fascinated with him (much like Daniele and Hagen's description of the enraptured cat on-stage stealing all the attention from the actors). Also the level of detail in each frame of the animation was riveting. I could not look away. I know I caught a glimpse of the Dinosaur from Toy Story in there and I am sure I will see something new every time I watch it.

The political commentary was blatant, and really aimed at making sure kids got it. I was OK with this because the focus on the movie was on the robots and not the humans and the fact that the robots were more human than the humans (who acted like robots completely immersed in their technology) was a bit more subtle. The Buy'N'Large company was obvious in what it stated about our waste and consumption driven society (aka capitalism) and how advertising tells you what to think and want. The chairs that walk for you was a warning against our over-reliance on technology and the computer screens in your face were a clear parallel to cell phones and our recent obsession with being constantly connected to people through technology without actually connecting to real people and the world around us. Primarily it was a warning against our ever-increasing technology mediated existence. Will humans forget what it means to be human and become machines of the system, capitalism and technology? We will forget how to connect with people as people? Clearly the answer is no. Wall-E represented an extreme that our society will never reach because we are so diverse and different as people, but extreme and blatant as it was, I think it will still present a mirror for self-reflection as to where our society is headed, especially for children who I think will really connect with the commentary about waste that the film represents. Obviously, something like 1984 is much more profound as an extreme representation of our future and had Wall-E been more subtle it would have had more potential to connect with adults, but it was a delightful film with an important message about our immersion in technology and capitalism, which isn't usually a message delivered to kids.

Fool's Gold

This movie reminds me of what Ron Bozman told me about his career. Sometimes, you make bad movies just to make a living. Producers recognize bad movies, but know they will make money and that is why they get made. Well our definitions of "make a living" are vastly different. Perhaps this is the key to not having to settle? As far as this movie goes, clearly the producers were banking on star power and charisma from both Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson, back together on screen to sell tickets because I didn't hear much else from the ad campaign but this. That immediately makes me think the movie will be complete crap, but honestly, it was pretty watchable. Their chemistry and charisma together was great and I didn't even mind MM's seeping arrogance. I actually really enjoyed the father-daughter relationship, with the Paris Hilton-esque diva girl trying to bond with her billionaire father. The scene where she describes her 24yr-old mother and stands up to her old dad was touching. Kate Hudson was absolutely charming in her quirky, beautiful way. And I am a sucker for the history mystery movies. I did feel like I was learning something whether it was based in fact or not.

McConaughey's character had an Indiana Jones like appeal. A screw-up who is completely passionate and one-minded in his focus. This quality is what always got him (and Indy) through and made him relatable to the audience. Some of the lines were really great. Hudson says "We just had sex in a church and we're not married and now we are digging up a grave. What is that like a triple sin?" McConaughey digs up a barrel in the grave and says maybe its the grave of a "midget with cheap relatives." I laughed. The killing and shooting got a bit crazy at the end. So many bullets flying and no one got hit? That really undermines the danger of guns and is just plain ridiculous, not funny. I'm not sure if it was edited because we were an a plane, but the plane crashing in the water was completely cut. They were headed for the water and then it cut to them floating amongst debris. It felt like they ran out of budget. I can only assume it was "edited for content" because that was just plain bad filmmaking. So what happened with this film. It was good plane fare, but how did it fair at the box office? Well rotten tomatoes gave it about the most scathing reviews imaginable. Maybe all those people went in with expectations, but I clearly had none and was able to enjoy many moments of this film.