Rands Fall Line-up
I still miss the West Wing of a few years ago. I don’t think there has been a show what was so consistently good on so many different fronts. Since then, the only show which has come close in terms of must-watch weekly TV has been Lost, but a chunk of that show’s magic faded in the second season as I became increasingly frustrated with the lack of resolution to an ever growing pile of questions. I’ll be watching the season premiere, but I could easily stop watching in three episodes.
I’m just about caught up with the second (third?) season of Battlestar Galactica in preparation for the season finale. Again, like Lost, what was terrific television has got a little confusing as we head towards the season finale. Recent episodes have featured horrible writing with blatant and annoying flaws in basic logic. Fingers are crossed as the season winds up and, based on the hallway buzz from folks who’ve already seen it, I’m hopeful.
Netflix did an amazingly thing and got their hands on the series premiere of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and I’m happy to say Aaron Sorkin delivers again. I love his intelligently dense dialog and while I’m worried about how much drama he can create when his characters aren’t in the White House, I can say that Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry have instant depth and chemistry.
The dark horse candidate for the Fall season is Jericho. I like for the same reason that I read all those Stephen King novels when I was a kid. I’ve got this love/hate relationship with horror. For example, I watched The Ring by myself from behind a large pillow, DVD controller in hand… probably muted 30% of the movie, but watched and rewatched the key scenes ten times. End of the world stories fall into the same bucket. I hate ‘em. I mean, I love ‘em.
Still, each and every one of those shows can fail. It’s all cool. I got a reliable back-up and it’s called Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. The premise is deliciously creative. Foster’s Home lives in a world where imaginary friends are real. Anything you imagined as a child is a living breathing creature. The problem is, what happens when you grow up and no longer need them? Welcome to Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. It’s a house chock full of every possible imaginary character you can imagine. Enter shenanigans.
Like Spongebob, Foster’s core demographic is pretty vague. I can sit and enjoy any episode alongside a 4 year old.
That’s good television.
Screwed by Sith?
When Return of the Jedi hit the theaters, I saw it on the first night. The theatre was, of course, packed. It was the first time I ever saw fans dress-up in costume for a movie. There was a Boba Fett, a Darth Vader, and a Princess Leia. I thought they were nuts.
When the movie started, the crowd cheered. When Darth Vader first showed up on the screen, everyone cheered. Each major character received this treatment and it made the experience something I’ll never forget. It set the stage for years of waiting and wondering if we’d ever see the rumored prequels. When Lucas finally decided to take a stab at the prequels, we all collectively cheered in our respective households.
… and then we were screwed for two movies plus six years.
I saw Sith last weekend in the middle of the day. I’m still one of those guys who doesn’t understand the sheer number of screens this movie is playing on so I panic the entire day about the lines, whether we’ll get tickets, whether they’ll be enough seats. I’m sweating when we arrived at the theatre… I’m tense… and when I see there are no lines because the movie is playing EVERY 20 MINUTES on twelve different screens, I remember that this is a different world than Jedi’s 1983. It’s different in a lot of ways, but the most important difference is this is a world where…
… we’ve been collectively screwed by George Lucas for two movies plus six years.
Sidebar: It’s best you take a moment to understand what I mean by screwed by reading my thoughts on why There Was No Trilogy. Read it? Ok, good.
As I sat in the growing audience literally counting the minutes to show time, I listened. Folks were giddy, but they were cautious. I overhead the following tidbits…
“If he screws this up again…”
“I’ll walk out if…”
“I can’t bear it if…”
We were a crowd of folks wondering if George Lucas was going to bitch-slap our hopes and dreams once again. Everyone in my group of friends had said the same thing since Clones, “I am never ever ever paying for a theatre view of Star Wars again. Never. Ever.”
Yup, we paid again. We’re all sitting in that theatre nervously giggling. Didn’t even get a matinee price. We’re prepared to be let down because the dream that had been Star Wars had turned into a special effects extravaganza populated with one dimensional characters who weren’t, well, cheer-able.
Show time. 20th Century Fox. Lucasfilm. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
And…
Wait for it…
George Lucas pulled it off.
To like a movie, it’s gotta stick with me. I need to be still chewing on it when I walk out of the theatre. I’ve gotta be talking about it the day after… and still noodling it on the drive to and from work.
The Revenge of the Sith is still wandering around my head and that means that George Lucas has created an engaging movie. If you are a Star Wars fan, you should see this in the theatre. The folks won’t be cheering at the beginning, but, by the end, they’ll know they saw a movie that deserves the Star Wars label.
As I’ve already said, the only character of importance in the prequels is Darth Vader and the way in which he was developed in the first two movies was high in concept and poor in execution. Did anyone believe that this bratty kid was going to turn into a villain of relevance? No. Was it because we couldn’t see through the utter lack of acting ability? Maybe.
Sith does the job of creating a complex person behind the mask.
In his final scene, we see Vader in a familiar place… a scene which heavily borrows from Empire and Jedi. He’s walking down the bridge of one the star destroyers… his back to the camera… his officers are garbed in A New Hope costumes… worryingly glancing at their new commander. He walks up to the Emperor and gazes at the primal Death Star. No dialog. Profile shot of Vader and the Emperor.
What Sith changed for me is that I now see the person behind the mask. I know the circumstances that put him there and it’s changed my view of one of the greatest villains in film history and that’s what I wanted. The Vader I saw in Return of the Jedi was done… he was dead. Sure, he saved Luke, but we were all wondering, “Whom is Luke saving?” We finally know. Too bad it took two movies plus six years of pain.
Random Thoughts + More Minor Spoilers + Serious Star Wars Nerdery:
- Hayden Christensen took it up a notch. This was easy to do because his notch in the prior movie was firmly set at “Incompetent Boob”. Still, his acting, will sometimes stilted, was palatable.
- When did Padmé turn into such a useless twit? Wasn’t she running a country and/or planet a few years ago?
- I appreciate the fact that C-3PO had his memory wiped and R2-D2 did not. There is something comforting knowing that, at least, one entity knows it all.
- The Chewbacca cameo was a waste. Actually, the whole Wookie planet scene was visually interesting, but what was the point?
- I think we have officially explored every possible type of lightsaber battle including all variations of locale, number of lightsabers, and styles of battle. I realized this when General Grievous whips out four lightsabers. It was supposed to be a “HOW COOL IS THAT?” moment, but all I saw was “OVERKILL”.
- One comment I’ve heard is that Anakin succumbs to the dark side easily. His reasoning: “Well, my wife is going to die, I need to save her, so I better go start killing children.” Personally, this wasn’t a sore thumb for me, but I attribute this to the poor development of Anakin in Menace and Clones.
- Lucas is talking about a live action TV series. I’m sure the same crowd that grooves on the books and other Star Wars spin-offs is happy about this, but I’m quite comfortable with my sense of closure.
- I was secretly hoping to see the Millennium Falcon in this movie and I was carefully watching during hanger scenes. Didn’t see it. Good news is that’s actually there… albeit tiny.
Lastly, there was a heated debate in the car drive home regarding whether or not Vader knew he had kids at the end of the movie. Given that Yoda+ObiWan were actively trying to hide the kids and Padmé is apparently buried looking pregnant, we resolved that Vader assumed his kid died when Padmé died. This means there must be a moment in Empire Strikes Back when Vader realizes he has a son. The question is, when?
Surprisingly, this moment was added in the Empire Strikes Back re-release when Vader talks with the Emperor whilst looking for the Falcon in the asteroid field. In the original movie the dialog went:
Emperor: “We have a new enemy. Luke Skywalker.”
Vader: “Yes, my master.”
In the last re-release, they heavily edited the dialog while also adding in the correct Emperor. The revised dialog neatly ties in the Vader we meet in Sith with the Vader of the original trilogy:
Emperor: “We have a new enemy. The young rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt that this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.”
Vader: “How is that possible?”
Emperor: “Search your feelings Lord Vader. You will know it to be true.”
That’s it. That’s what I wanted. I wanted the new trilogy to tie into the original trilogy. This one edit of Empire reminds me that Lucas had a plan. He had a backstory that tied into the frontstory… and it’s a great story.
Hollywood Death List, #2
It’s sequel week on the Hollywood Death List.
Gore Verbinski is listed in Good condition. The director of Pirates of the Caribbean can essentially write his own ticket after the monster that was Pirates (Current domestic gross: 302 million). He’s doing so with his next production “The Weather Man” which is rumoured to feature Nicholas Cage.
Incidentally, Verbinski was also responsible for the American remake of The Ring ($129M), he’s apparently decided to bail on Ring 2. This would normally strike me as a bad move, but all eyes are on Verbinski to ht it out of the park with the planned Pirates sequel in 2005.
Gore Vebinski| Good Condition | Trade Value: $126.70
Vin Diesel continues his pattern of bailing on potentially lucrative sequels with news that he’s out of xXx 2. The first movie grossed an impressive $142 million, so why is Diesel bailing on a franchise in the making? The head scratcher here is that Diesel apparently ditched xXx2 for a sequel to Pitch Black which grossed a forgettable $39 million. Must be quite a script.
Diesel also vacated his spot for the second The Fast and the Furious movie ($144M). 2 Fast 2 Furious didn’t appear to suffer from Diesel’s departure grossing $127 million domestically.
Vin Diesel | Fair Condition | Trade Value: $55.34
A name I’m sure you haven’t heard is our last patient this week. Doug Liman’s condition is listed as Undetermined. Liman has been hot and cold directing such hit-it-out-the-park flicks such as a Swingers ($4.5M) and The Bourne Identity ($121M), but he’s also had a dud in the form of Go ($16.9M) — every heard of it? Didn’t think so.
Liman is Undetermined because he’s apparently opped out of the sequel to Bourne, the Bourne Supremacy, and the buzz on his current directorial effort, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, is that he can’t appear to pull together a cast.
You can’t say much to malign a guy who did Swingers (Did it really gross only $4.5 million?), but his hot and cold directorial record remains a concern.
Doug Liman | Undetermined Condition | Trade Value: Not traded on HSX.com
From the WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY THINKING file: Richard Donner is actually excited about a sequel to The Goonies which this article calls “a classic”.
Trailer of the week honors are split between the new cineamatoghical musings of director Alfonso Cuaron’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Robert Zemeckis’s The Polar Express. Take a long moment to watch The Polar Express — it represents the best rendering of human beings that I’ve ever seen. Don’t get too excited, it’s not out until Xmas 2004.
Hollywood Death List, #1
My NADD had some unfortunately side effects when the second Star Wars movie came out. The problem was, I knew everything which was going to happen before I walked into the theatre. It didn’t help that the movie blew chunks, either.
The issue was that I spent the two years before the Clone Wars landed reading TheForce.Net. Every day. Didn’t miss a damned thing. While this fulfilled my NADD information empowerment desires, it made for a lackluster movie viewing experience.
This time around, relative to Star Wars, I’m ignoring the rumor sites, but I still have a deep desire to know what is going on in Hollywood, so I’ve developed a habit of reading news on three different sites:
What is interesting about this habit is what I learn via cross-referencing the three sites. Movies.go.com yield miscellaneous rumors about movies, IMDB tells me about casts and production crews, and Box Office Mojo shows me how these folks are doing… financially. The combination of all this data often tells stories that you don’t read on Ain’t It Cool News and I figured it was time to indulge my habit in writing.
Welcome to the Hollywood Death List.
For this column, I’ve borrowed the American Hospital associations guidelines for describing a patient’s condition to the media. These guidelines use one-word descriptions regarding the patient’s condition. These one word assessments:
Undetermined : Patient awaiting physician and assessment.
Good : Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious and comfortable. Indicators are excellent.
Fair : Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious, but may be uncomfortable. Indicators are favorable.
Serious : Vital signs may be unstable and not within normal limits. Patient is acutely ill. Indicators are questionable.
Critical : Vital signs are unstable and not within normal limits. Patient may be unconscious. Indicators are unfavorable.
What I’ll be exploring in this column is the health of those in Hollywood by the facts I find in web sites like the ones I describe above. This is entirely my opinion which happens to be the opinion of a software engineer who really hates going to LA, but finds the movie development process to be a distant cousin to the software development process, but that’s another column.
Here we go:
The first entry for the Hollywood Death List goes to a Brit who has written some of my favorite romantic comedies. Richard Curtis is rated Fair with the release of Love Actually which brings together a litany of your favorite EuroActors in, what looks like from the trailer, a combination of all of Curtis’ prior movies.
Curtis is rated highly mainly due to his writing pedigree which includes Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and the chick favorite Bridget Jones’s Diary for which a sequel is currently being filmed.
He’s taking his life in his own hands by directing Love Actually, but he’s got the sequel to Bridget Jones’s already written and in production, so a stumble in the director seat would not be life threatening.
Richard Curtis | Good Condition | Trade Value: Not traded on HSX.com
Will Ferrell is rated as Fair with the release of Elf. Who didn’t love this guy in Old School? Looking at his upcoming work, it’s hard to imagine him coming out of the other side without some type of life threatening injury. He’s got Elf, Anchorman, The Wendell Baker Story, Winter Passing, some Woody Alley project, Bewitched, a Confederacy of Dunces (daring), and a random Soccer Comedy. Ferrell looks like he’s taking advantage of a modicum of fame to th extreme
This type of sprint strikes me as unsustainable and also increase his chances of generating complete crap. Keep an eye on vital signs.
Will Ferrell | Fair to Serious Condition | Trade Value: $46.00
The little-known-tidbit-award goes to the Matrix’s Revolutions Hugo Weaving. Not only has he starred in two of this decades blockbusters, he was also the voice of Rex the Male Sheepdog in Babe and Babe: Pig in the City. Woof.
Trailer of the week goes to Day After Tomorrow. The guys behind one of my favorite popcorn flicks, Independence Day, are at it again.
Trailer honorable mention: Shrek2 trailer.
