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More photos, articles, and ghoulish delights to warm the cockles of your nostalgic heart... with the Cool Ghoul Zacherley. Brought to you by Jim "Professor Kinema" Knusch.
Continue reading "Professor Kinema's Zacherley Fanzine
Issue 1 (Part 2)" »
"Bella, would you please stop trying to take your clothes off?" (Edward Cullen)
Zombos Says: Good (but you better be a romantic at heart)
"Well, if you must you must, but be prepared for the worst," said Zombos, shaking his head in dismay.
"Look, I'm a reviewer, that's what I do. This is just another movie to critique." I folded my arms with certainty. But I didn't feel certain.
"Another movie? Really? Die hard horror fans will have your hide piecemeal. Perhaps it would be better if you mentioned Zimba forced you to see it. Even better, put her name to this so-called review to play safe." Zombos reached for his cordial and smugly sipped it.
"Zimba didn't force me to see it, nor am I a mouse. Would Roger Ebert wince at reviewing this movie? Well, maybe while watching it, but I know he'd never falter at reviewing it. He isn't a mouse either." I reached for my cordial, forgetting I didn't have one. I shook off the faux pas and regained my composure. But I wished I had had a cordial to smugly sip from.
Dash it all, I wish I were as certain about writing this review as Bella (Kristen Stewart) is in her love for Edward (Robert Pattinson). Wait a minute, she isn't all that certain, now that I think of it. She's gone and fallen in love with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), too. Oh bother, why can't she make up her mind? She says she's more in love with Edward. He's certainly in love with her. Much of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is devoted to Edward and Bella's concern over their upcoming nuptials and her turning into a vampire. With Jacob it would be simpler; no bloodletting necessary, just an occasional rinse and shampoo and combing to get the knots out: werewolf hair can get very knotty, especially when you're as big as Jacob gets when he changes into one. I wish the CGI were better, though, to highlight his wonderful coat of bristling hair. They could certainly spend the money they save on his wardrobe--he rarely wears a shirt in this movie--and the special effects are light on gore and blood--blood for God's sakes--in a vampire movie you'd expect more of that.
"You're meandering," said Zombos, reading over my shoulder. I really hate when he does that. I refocused.
Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard this time around), still carrying a grudge, begins raising an army of newborns--stronger and feistier fresh vampires--with the help of Riley (Xavier Samuel) to kill Bella. Now into three movies and it's still all about Bella; her needs, her desires--
Zombos cleared his throat. I refocused. Again.
The Cullens (vampires) and the Quileute clan (werewolves) form a shaky alliance to battle the newborns and thwart Victoria's plans. Members of the Volturi, led by Jane (Dakota Fanning), watch and wait, apparently up to something but I'm not sure what that might be. Jane can throttle you with her mind so she's a formidable annoyance to avoid offending. Now, getting back to "feistier," Bella wants to do more than just kiss Edward, but he's all for abstinence before marriage. Sexuality, a recurring theme in all vampire movies and novels is nonrecurring here. There is passion, but it's tepid in comparison to the boiling friskiness shown by Bela Lugosi's or Christopher Lee's or Frank Langella's Dracula. I'm not sure about Jack Palance's Dracula, but I'll mention him also just in case.
Preparation for the impending battle with the newborns is guided by Jasper (Jackson Rathbone), who has faced a similar situation before. He knows how terribly destructive they can be. He tells Bella all about his past sins, and in doing so, Rathbone becomes one of the more interesting characters in this romance-heavy, horror-lite movie. The resulting battle between newborns, seasoned vampires, and werewolves is also bloodless, with vampires being broken apart, like statuary, onscreen, or mauled out of sight.
Most horror fans will balk (quite vociferously, too) at the bloodless and sun-walking vampires, and the large, but comely, werewolves in The Twilight Saga, but let's face it, horror is not at the heart of this series: it's the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob. Where many horror movies devote a multitude of endlessly spraying, bloodletting moments to butchering far friskier (and dumber) teenagers, The Twilight Saga devotes its time to Bella, mostly, and what she's going to do about Edward and Jacob. More time is spent with Edward and Jacob discussing what they think Bella should be doing with them. And the remaining time is spent with somebody, somewhere, trying to kill her, which gets everybody involved in keeping her safe. Which is lucky for us; if no one wanted to kill her, this would be a very boring series indeed.
It's a wonder they haven't just turned her into a vampire already so she could protect herself for a change. Maybe we'll see that in the next movie. It would be cool if she'd become a vamp-wolf or something like that, but that would sideline the romance a bit much. But it would be cool to see.
But now, a third alternative reveals itself. A harrowing possibility that I, more than anyone, should have considered! My night's wicked reveries conjure monsters. And if I sleep--Providence dies.
Zombos Says: Very Good
Madness wags the tail of Lovecraft's fiction. No reason it shouldn't since it dogged him every day of his life. But there are many forms of madness, though each one eventually distills into one consummate abyss surrounded only by the boundaries of chaos. Not benign, nor reticent, nor remorseful is the journey to this abyss, and shadows of malevolence dot its rim, poking furtively into consciousness, just enough to chill the bone and heat the blood.
Such is Lovecraft's legacy to fantastic literature: he gives us the briefest of glimpses into that awful abyss, which leaves a taste like salt sucked after the bitterest glassful of Tequila spirit is downed with a chewy biteful of the thickest worm. But the worm is only in your imagination, of course. Con gusano is a myth perpetuated for the gringos who don't know the difference between Tequila and Mezcal. But myth can be powerful, nonetheless, especially when cosmic in scale, yet kept personal in the telling.
The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft issues 1 through 4 are collected in Image Comics trade paperback. Written by Mac Carter and drawn by Tony Salmons, Howard Philips Lovecraft becomes his own haunter of the darkness, shaded over by his spiritual dissolution, doted over by his two perpetually tipsy aunts, weakened by his mentally-deranged parents, and nearing a void in his life ready to trip him into that abyss. Of course this is the imagined Howard Philips Lovecraft, the fictional one who unwittingly becomes the Gate, the reluctant welcoming committee and tour guide par excellence for those Others, the Ones patiently waiting at the rim of the abyss to return insanity and chaos to its proper place in the cosmos. Their cosmos.
Carter keeps it all very personal for Lovecraft. Howard has writer's block big time, but his volatile dreams betray his inmost desires, the ones he can't seem to man up to during his waking hours. This bottling up becomes his uncorked genii at night, speeding off on more than ethereal wings, and soon the people of Providence--the ones he can't seem to get along with all that well--are madly stroked into Picasso paintings colored in chaos.
Being an underground artist, Salmons doesn't quite capture the flux of unreality, the melting of sanity, or the horrors-beyond-time as morphologically lucid as I'd like, but between Carter's narrative for Howard's plight and the repercussions of his cosmic gate-keeping, there is a symbiosis of intent between Carter and Salmons that realizes the action more than adequately. The frantic elucidation of the Necronomicon's influence on Howard's fragile mind, the subtle murmurings from its long dead compiler goading him on (the opening pages in issue 1 are some of the best in the series), and his psychological instability converge into a fast-paced tale of terror that makes it all very personal for Lovecraft and us.
Zombos Says: Fair (watch the animated series instead)
When everyone kept mispronouncing Aang's name in The Last Airbender I realized M. Night Shyamalan was holding true to form, which means once again he exhibits his propensity toward ponderous, preachy, hubris-driven moviemaking. It's the kind of moviemaking that comes from writing and directing inwardly for one's self and not outwardly to others. George Lucas is the king of hubris-driven moviemaking (the best episode in the Star Wars series, The Empire Strikes Back, was not directed or scripted by him). I now crown Shyamalan the prince and heir apparent.
The Last Airbender (really Avatar: The Last Airbender, but possible confusion with James Cameron's Avatar led to "Avatar" being dropped from the movie's title) is based on an American anime series filled with engaging, colorful characters living in a mystical world divided into Four Nations according to the four elements of Air, Earth, Water, and Fire. These nations include the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads, and the Fire Nation. Within each of them are gifted individuals who can manipulate the natural element of their nation using martial arts-like movements: they are called Airbenders, Earthbenders, Waterbenders, and Firebenders respectively.
Keeping a peaceful balance between each Nation is the Avatar, a person who's been reincarnated many times and the only one who has the ability to bend all four elements with mind-blowing power when his (or her) Avatar Spirit state is awakened. When the Avatar goes missing, the Fire Nation conducts a military campaign to subjugate the Water and Earth Nations. Fearing the reincarnation of the Avatar within the Air Nation, Fire Lord Sozin has it destroyed and its people killed. The series ran for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Shyamalan begins with Book One: Water from Season One, when the Avatar, missing for 100 hundred years, returns to stop the Fire Nation and restore harmony to the world.
Young Aang (Noah Ringer) is the Avatar. Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) of the Southern Water Tribe free him from a ball of ice, where he's been trapped in suspended animation, protected by his Avatar Spirit state after getting caught in a tumultuous storm. Katara and Sokka, after a long-winded and unnecessary explanation of the spiritual nature of their world and the significance of the Avatar, accompany Aang on his quest to learn manipulation of Water, Earth, and Fire in preparation for fighting the Fire Nation. Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), ostracized and disfigured by his tyrannical father, Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis), for speaking out of turn, is obsessed with restoring his father's approval by capturing the Avatar.
What makes the animated series endearing, charming, and just plain groovy fun to watch is the interplay between its characters, their humor mixed with serious situations, and the overriding spirituality—a mix of 1960s Psychedelic Movement, Eastern Religions, and New Age riffing—that imbues its story with purpose and contextual sensibility. The combination of American cartoon and anime styles creates a unique visual playfulness and verve that is never overly dark in tone or preposterous in its unfolding.
None of these endearing qualities made it into this live-action movie, which is ponderous to tears and burdened with tedious voice-over explanations and lengthy exposition crumpling the sparkling creativity of the animated series.
Shyamalan's casting choices do not fit their animated counterparts well at all. Acting ranges from wooden to pretentious: Katara is a smart, confident, go-getter in the anime; here she's awkward, uncertain, and burdened with clumsy dialog; Sokka, lighthearted and Jim Carrey-styled improvisational in the anime is rendered here broodingly serious and a killjoy; Aang, the pivotal character who's aangst over facing his Avatar responsibilities and his fear of causing harm through his unbridled anger when in the Avatar state providing room for emotional growth in the anime, tempered by his boyish spirit of adventure, can,t muster a strong presence here. Look at any still picture of Noah Ringer as Aang and you will see no chi energy emanating from his posturing. He has the Avatar tattoos and glider staff but that's all. Appa is a big fuzzy plush toy of flying bison perfection (Aang rides him through the clouds), but we don't see much interaction between Aang and his cherished Appa, although they are practically inseparable in the anime.
The showdown between the Fire Nation's armada of ash-belching ships and the Northern Water Tribe is rendered incomprehensible for anyone who hasn't seen the animated series, and near gibberish for those who have.
The movie is missing important bridging scenes for what eventually wound up onscreen and a key dynamic of Aang's involvement, a more plausible reason for why he traveled to the Northern Water Tribe in the first place, is pushed to the side. Shyamalan's insistence on drawn-out movements to bend anything exaggerates those motions to absurdity, and his action-stopping slow-motion overuse during battle scenes undermines their intensity and suspense. When Aang finally enters his Avatar state to combat the armada, this live-action confrontation appears anti-climactic when compared to the similar animated sequence, where his destructive power is rendered more awesomely than shown here. The movie's texture is dark with bright colors muted. Even the flares of fire are dull and lifeless, and do not convey a sense of heat. Critics have noted the retro-fitted 3D version is even darker. I watched the 2D version and it is pretty murky.
As a fan of the anime series I'm disappointed in this confused, overly complicated, and pedantic adaptation. As a movie critic I can say that for a movie version of the anime’s spiritual journey, one filled with wonder and energy, this first movie in a potential series does little to emotionally involve us and gives even less to wonder at.
Unless you're wondering what I'm wondering—and it's not to find a duck and a hose at a 7 Eleven—I'm wondering how a heavy-handed director, with a lately spotty track record, is given a movie that requires a touch as light as air.
That's what I'm wondering.
