chapter 8
released June 29th, 2001
(ten years ago today!)
Today, as we celebrate the opening of the third Steven Spielberg produced Hasbro adaptation about overly detailed space robots with different accents wiggling around and smashing buildings, let’s also take a moment to note the tenth anniversary of that one time when Spielberg tried to make a thoughtful robot movie.
You guys’ll have to forgive me. I’m not a “gamer” or “gamey” or whatever, so I don’t know how much of Dave Cronenberg’s video game exposee eXistenZ is 100% factual and how much is very, very slightly, almost imperceptibly exaggerated for dramatic purposes.
Maybe you can help me out: the “gamepod” controllers are little lumps of flesh, like mutated breasts. They plug a tentacle into a “bioport” on your spine, but if yours is installed wrong (which it turns out can happen if you let Willem Dafoe install yours at the gas station) it can overload your game pod and it will have to be repaired, which is a surgical procedure. The pods are actually genetically modified amphibians. (more…)
I’m not 110% sure but I think there may be a new movement poking its head out from over the Hollywood hills. Only a few years ago it was unimaginable that a Hollywood studio would make an entertainment-oriented movie with recognizable stars but also with a premise so weird and convoluted that it is hard to even explain. Then all the sudden there was this movie starring John Cusack and Cameron Diaz and it was about how there’s a door hidden inside an office building that you can go through and you will be able to control John Malkovich and make him quit acting to become a puppeteer. Then also there was the movie by the same director and writer where Nicolas Cage played twin brothers who try to write a movie based on a non-fiction book about collecting rare orchids but they can’t do it and instead write the movie that you are actually watching about twin brothers who try to write a movie based on a non-fiction book about collecting rare orchids but they can’t do it so instead they write the movie that you are actually watching.
Usually Hollywood is all about what they call “high concept” where the movie can be explained in one sentence or less. For example, Martin Lawrence has to go under cover so he dresses up as a fat old lady. Or, the Wayans brothers have to go undercover so they dress up as creepy blonde zombies. Or, Robin Williams is a bad father and husband so he dresses up as an old lady and lights his fake tits on fire.
But now all the sudden we got this different category of film that cannot be summed up so easy. And I’m not talking about some experimental arthouse type deal, I’m talking about movies that are intended to entertain the audience, etc. I don’t know what to call this movement other than Kaufmania in honor of its founder, Charles Kaufman. Or Kaufman Fever. Or Kaufmandomonium. (more…)
Sometimes it almost seems like there’s a whole genre of “INDIANA JONES-TYPE” pictures – movies that look back nostalgically to those golden days when George Lucas looked back nostalgically to those other golden days. THE MUMMY is one example of this horrible type of picture.
I bet some individuals consider SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW to be in that same category, but I think it’s different. It doesn’t have that same third generation xerox feel, because this movie actually feels alot more like the old serials and pulp novels and crap that influenced the genre than the STAR WARS pictures and what not do. The technology used is very modern (apparently it was all shot with actors in front of blue screens and everything else is computered in there) but there’s not a whole lot of modernizing going on here. It takes place in some alternate 1930s where THE WIZARD OF OZ exists but the Hindenburg never blew up and some British fighter jet hot shot named Joseph Sky Captain defends America and the world from evil science with his “army for hire” and wacky inventor sidekick.
I know what you’re thinking: what the shit kind of dumbass 2004 idea is it to do a whole movie with actors and bluescreens. Well I thought the same thing but watching the movie, you don’t really think about it that much. I think what makes it work is that it’s not trying to look completely real, it’s trying to look old fashioned. So you don’t really care that it looks artificial. It’s like the modern equivalent of a movie shot all on a soundstage, like MARY POPPINS but flying in jets instead of umbrellas. It doesn’t have to look real, it just has to look good. (more…)
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