Summer of Discontent

Conditions: The Spiral

The Industrial Disease

When you first realise that 2013 is actually the 25th anniversary of the release of Die Hard, you stop for a moment and have a think, or at least I did. Die Hard was one of the key films of the Blockbuster era we’ve all been living through since Jaws and Star Wars first kicked things off, so long ago. Before then films were quite different. They were mostly small, and usually slow, and somewhat depressing on occasion. Of course there were plenty of exceptions to the rule, but for the most part movies were about story telling, front and center. The Blockbuster era introduced a new dynamic to moviemaking: this idea of bigness. Big events, big drama, big stars, big action, all designed to entertain, for everyone to enjoy. Of course the commercial aspects came to the fore almost immediately, big movies meant big money, and potentially big profits. And it’s that formula that has driven the industry ever since. But tucked away amongst the stars and the explosions there was still always this sense of art: that a good filmmaker could and sometimes did still weave a meaningful story, threaded with ideas and drama, amongst all the crowd-pleasing. Recently however there has been some speculation about the quality you get in your average modern Blockbuster movie. There is a sense that while budgets are still going up and up, and the explosions seem bigger than ever, the actual movie making quality seems to be in decline.

Hollywood movies are terrible right now, so terrible that many of the biggest names in the biz are speaking out about it. The epidemic of introspection began in April at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where Steven Soderbergh delivered his now-infamous fare-thee-well to Hollywood and to moviemaking. [...]

Not long after Soderbergh spoke out, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas—two of the most bankable men in American movies today—went public with their own difficulties getting financing. According to Spielberg, his massive critical and financial hit Lincoln came “this close” to being an HBO production itself. “You’re at the point now where a studio would rather invest $250 million in one film for a real shot at the brass ring than make a whole bunch of really interesting, deeply personal—and maybe even historical—projects,” said Spielberg. He and Lucas went on to warn of a coming industry “implosion”—a cataclysm triggered by a succession of unexpected, massively expensive flops. [...]

The shift started, Obst explains, when the bottom fell out of the massively lucrative DVD market less than a decade ago. In order to make up for all that lost revenue, the industry turned to booming foreign audiences—particularly those in China and Russia, where screens have proliferated and restrictions on Hollywood imports have greatly eased. Not long ago, foreign box office accounted for about 20 percent of a film’s gross; now it accounts for about 80 percent. (According to Obst, China will surpass America as Hollywood’s No. 1 market by 2020.) It hardly needs be said that movies with cultural specificity don’t translate well to non-English speakers. Accordingly, it’s now all spectacle, all the time.

- avclub.com/

So there we go, apparently in order for Hollywood to appeal to a worldwide audience in order to make a profit on their bloated modern blockbusters, they have to dumb them down as much as possible. I find this a terribly sad prospect. I always thought internationalism enhances ideas instead of reducing them. I find it surprising that filmmakers of all people would even accept this approach. But with budgets becoming insane, maybe film makers aren’t really in control anymore. Maybe Blockbuster movies have now gotten so big that they can no longer be crafted anymore, and instead are assembled, like cruise ships. I tell you what, though. This summer’s batch of hits has been less than impressive. A certain blandness seems to have crept into this years offerings in particular. The Lone Ranger, Man of Steel, After Earth, World War Z, Star Trek Into Sequels, Die Hard Already - all inoffensive, PG 13, sanitized doses of big explosions and cool characters, with not a pulse to be found amongst them. When you have to look to the likes of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker to save the summer, then things must be particularly dire.

Yippee Ki Yay



Film Review: The Wolverine

Technically the most latest last time we saw Logan was that X Men movie where the golden gate bridge got ripped up and Jean Grey went mad, with Logan ending up having to kill her. That was quite a long time ago, so to set off on this new film with Logan back to being a sad loner who keeps having nightmares about it is a bit of a surprise. That’s the underlying drama for this entire film, Logan being haunted by Jean’s death in his dreams, and for some reason feeling bad about his immortality. Also, he’s living in the woods somewhere, with only a bear for company. So when a Japanese girl shows up and offers him a chance to go to Tokyo to say goodbye to some old dying tycoon that he saved in WW2, he almost jumps at the opportunity. So it’s a Japanese Wolverine movie, filled with Ninjas and Samurai and paper walls and stuff. Actually, underneath all that it’s really just a save-the-princess movie: The granddaughter of the tycoon is to inherit the company and her father is pretty angry about that so he’s arranging to have her killed and yadda yadda yadda. Also, before the tycoon dies he says he wants to relieve Logan of his immortality so he can learn what it’s like to grow old and die himself, which surprisingly isn’t something that causes Logan to simply buy himself the first ticket to the Hell Out Of There.

No instead he accepts a cup of tea, and wakes up sick. And in the ensuing action sequences and fights as he gets the princess to safety he isn’t healing as fast as usual. See, the problem with the Wolverine as an action hero is he’s essentially immortal, although at least unlike Superman he’s not invulnerable. Here the story finds a way to make him vulnerable, and it’s a welcome change. But then in the middle of the film he figures out the problem, fixes himself, and then comes at full-strength and full-rage at the evil father Samurai dude. A rousing sword fight later and vengeance has been properly delivered. But oddly this is not the end of the film. Logan charges off to a hidden northern installation where he must do battle with a Ninja army before finally fighting a... giant robot ...that’s controlled by the old tycoon ...and has been built to suck the immortality out of the Wolverine.

Yeah. So apparently our summer quota of robot battles had not yet been met. And while the final fight is, well, loud, and delivers some lasting damage to Logan, frankly it feels like the ending to a different film than we’d started out watching. Tricking the audience into thinking the tycoon was dead and then bringing him back right at the end prompted more annoyance than surprise: no one spends the film wondering if the old guy faked his death and is now waiting in robot armor for Logan to show up. We don’t really know who this guy is, in fact it’s not as if anyone bar Logan gets any exploration. Dumping us into this family feud, not explaining what is going on, and what the end game is just creates confusion. Also, making this film in particular PG 13 is a really stupid idea, as every fight is jagged, difficult to follow, unsatisfying, and has no real impact. I realise the kiddies love the Wolverine, I’m just not sure that that is actually a good thing. Ultimately he is a fairly simple angry soldier with some bad memories. I suspect the real reason this movie was made is contained in the post-credits sequence that sets up the next X film. So, see you next year I guess. One and a half limps out of five.



- Peace out