Issues in Story Telling: Unsympathetic Characters

This was supposed to be one of those great, underappreciated movies, right? Right? One of those movies that only the Academy can appreciate because all of the rest of us are ignorant, low class plebeians. Right?

Unfortunately, it's kind of true. Kind of. Because it is the kind of movie that only entitled white men can appreciate, and it's only because the Academy and other award agencies are mostly made up of entitled white men that this movie received any recognition.

This movie can be summed up in exactly one word: BAD.

The fact that it won the Oscar for best original screenplay is a travesty and can be summed up by the fact that it was written by a self-involved Boomer for other self-involved Boomers, i.e. entitled white men. I can't really argue Casey Affleck's best actor win because he was the only thing that made the movie at all watchable. I think it must take an amazing talent to bring such a lifeless, flat script to any kind of life at all. Or it could just be that the self-involved white male Boomers felt sympathy for the despicable character of Lee Chandler.

But Lee Chandler is an example of bad storytelling. The problem here is that we are, actually supposed to feel sympathy for Lee Chandler. Obviously, he has suffered some tragedy and doesn't know how to cope with it and it has driven him into isolation. On the surface, sure, he seems like a sympathetic character. But as the movie progresses and we find out what happened, we find that he's just an asshole full of self pity.

In a nutshell, it's like this:
Lee's brother dies and leaves his kid to Lee in his will. His teenage son. Yes, that's almost exactly how it happens, and I'm pretty sure you can't do that, but let's pretend there are no issues with that bit. Lee doesn't want the kid and is pretty much an asshole about the whole thing, including getting into bar fights with little to no provocation. Of course, the movie opens with Lee being an asshole before we find out about his brother, so the death of his brother has nothing to do with the asshole-ness.

Oh, wait, suffered a tragedy, right? Well, as the backstory gets filled in, we find that Lee was also a flaming asshole before that tragedy occurred and that the tragedy occurred because of his asshole-ness. Lee was the kind of guy who would come in while is wife was sick in bed with a fever and force himself on her after she'd said she didn't feel like having sex -- 104 degree fever, snot running out of her nose -- but Lee said he wasn't bothered by her being sick so it was okay and, so, she lets him do it.

I have a huge problem with that scene in the movie, but not because I disbelieve that she might have let him do it. It's the kind of thing where a woman might give in because it would take too much energy -- remember, she's sick! -- to say no, but they played it off as an "aw, shucks" moment. "Aw, you're just so cute when I tell you no and you won't listen. You know what, you go ahead and fuck me all you want, because me saying no really means yes." It's the kind of situation where an entitled white guy would totally expect to get his way for the sake of "white-guy-ness." It made me kind of sick, certainly disgusted. This is the guy you want me to have sympathy for?

But it gets better! Or, you know, worse, because they go on to show his asshole-ness in all its glory. Lee has a gathering of his white male friends over. They're in his... I don't know... his man cave? It's the basement room of his house and has a pool table and "man" stuff. There's probably like 10 of them, and they are all drunk and loud. Which is fine, I suppose, until we find out its 2:00am and they're keeping the whole house awake: his wife and his two young children. Lee and his buddies think it's funny when Lee's wife comes down and demands that they all leave. "She can't talk to us like that!" Even though they do. Eventually.

Lee is a self-involved, entitled white male asshole. He suffers a tragedy that he causes and, rather than use that situation for self-reflection or something beneficial, he continues to be a self-involved, entitled white male asshole. The death of his brother does nothing more than to give him greater opportunity to spread that asshole-ness around.

Then there's the kid: Patrick. He seems to take after his uncle (Lee) rather than his father, because he, also, is a self-involved little asshole who seems to be more annoyed at the inconvenience of his father's death than anything else. "Seriously, Dad, I'm busy trying to fuck my multiple girlfriends and your death is really getting in my way." He's a shit of a kid, and there is plenty of evidence in the movie that he's just a shit of a kid and not being one because his dad died. Like, evidently, he likes to start fights with his hockey teammates and is in trouble for that frequently. And I mentioned the multiple girlfriends, right? That he keeps hidden from each other because none of the girls in question would be cool with the way Patrick spreads the "wealth" around.

Look, it's okay to fill your stories with despicable characters, just look at Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, but you need to know they're despicable. Trying to write a complete asshole as a sympathetic character only serves to display your own asshole-ness, rather like Trump (#fakepresident) and his constant "woe is me" diatribe about how he's the one being persecuted rather than the one doing the persecution. Having your asshole actions pointed out is not, contrary to the belief of assholes, persecution.

The most unforgivable part of the movie is the ending. Lee's ex-wife -- His ex-wife who is married, now, to another man and has just had a child with him (I think? I can't remember now if she'd given birth by the end of the movie or not.). -- comes to him to tell him how she forgives him for causing the death of their children (the unspeakable tragedy) and that she's still in love with him...
What the fuck?!?!
I'm sorry, but this is the exact the same situation as her being in bed sick and telling him that she doesn't want to have sex. "Look, I know you burned up our house and killed our kids because you were busy being a drunk asshole, but, really, you've punished yourself too much and too long, and you need to move on; after all, I forgive you. Oh, and yeah, I'm still in love with you and never stopped loving you. Even though you killed our kids." In other words, "Aw, shucks, you're just a lovable white guy who shouldn't be held accountable for his actions, so stop punishing yourself."

To put it mildly, there was nothing I found redeeming about this movie. That anyone found the character of Lee Chandler to be sympathetic boggles my mind but, then, the entitledness of the Baby Boomers often boggles my mind. And, yes, the writer of the screenplay is solidly a Boomer. And a white male.

So I'm just going to put it out there: The protagonist in your story generally ought to be sympathetic in some way to the audience. Or you need to have the awareness that your characters aren't sympathetic and be using them to some other purpose. You should not, however, try to pawn off your asshole characters as somehow being worth our sympathy. That's just gross.

Dunkirk and the Slow Death: A Movie About Nothing

Christopher Nolan proves once again how easily dazzled people are when something seems deep, because, I suppose, Dunkirk seems like a deep movie, all about the desperation of war and whatnot; but, really, Dunkirk is a movie about nothing. It is a movie that says nothing. It is a movie that does nothing. Well, nothing other than lazily follow the pseudo-protagonist around as he spends the movie running away.

In fact, nearly the whole movie is about running away. It's a movie about running away that is capped off by Winston Churchill's famous we-will-fight-them-everywhere speech.

I know. That's so deep. Except that it's not.

It also contains a bunch of purposeless non-linear elements. And don't get me wrong; I have nothing against non-linear story telling... as long as it serves the purpose of the story, but this felt more like it was there because people expect it of Nolan. You know, it's his signature thing so he has to include it even if it doesn't belong in this movie. So what we get is incongruous shots of a mid-day dog fight cut with scenes of a ship sinking in the middle of the night.

Oh! But maybe that's deep!
No, not really. It's just sloppy, bad story telling.
And that doesn't even touch on how we cut back to the same dog fight toward the end of the movie but seen from a different character's perspective.
Basically, the whole movie is out of sequence. None of it serves the story. And some of it is actually conflicting.

But, you know, Nolan is so deep.

I'm not even going to talk about the acting. Generally speaking, the actors all seemed bored. I think Nolan wanted them to seem bored, so I suppose that's good acting, but it makes a movie that comes in at only about one hour and forty-five minutes feel like you were watching it for three. But, maybe, my problem was that I didn't watch it in the theater. I wasn't fully immersed in the bigness of it.
Except that it's really a small movie.

Look, let's use the potty meter to measure this movie. In a good movie, you don't want to have to get up and go to the bathroom because you're worried you might miss something but, in this movie, you could have gone to take a nice long dump and come back to find that you missed... nothing at all. Maybe some more guys died, because people keep dying all around the pseudo-protagonist, but it's almost certain you wouldn't have missed any important dialogue because there's really not any. Hmm, now I'm wondering how long the movie would be if you kept only the bits with dialogue. 20 minutes?

The biggest issue with the movie is that it is very unclear about who the enemy is. Or any context about what's going on at all. Sure, maybe Nolan just assumes that everyone should know enough about World War II to supply that for themselves, and maybe everyone should, but it's abundantly clear that a vast amount of people don't know anything about World War II and have no context for what's going on. Shithead Nolan couldn't even identify the Nazis as the enemy in the opening text. No, he just says, "They're surrounded by the enemy."

What the actual fuck, Nolan? You can't do better than that? What enemy? Aliens? Goblins? Ravaging hordes of barbarians? No, it was Nazis, and you should have been clear about that.

But, then, it's painfully obvious that this was your go-to for trying to win a best picture Oscar after losing with Interstellar, an artsy movie about WWII. But this movie shouldn't have been nominated at all. It's just a hollow piece of chocolate that is ultimately disappointing because it has no substance. Bad chocolate, at that.

Steve Jobs (a movie review post)

There's nothing about this movie that made me want to go see it. Steve Jobs was an asshole and, despite what may have been brilliance, I have no respect for the man. It doesn't take much, really, to just not be an asshole. And, despite thinking that Fassbender has been a fine Magneto, I have not thought much of him as an actor. If you need someone who can brood, Fassbender is a good go-to guy. No, the only reason I went to see this movie is because it has delusions of Oscar-hood.

That said, I came away pleasantly surprised. Not that it changes my opinion on Jobs, which is what it felt to me like what the movie was trying to do. It's very much a "See, he was just misunderstood" kind of movie. It's hard to misunderstand when someone is, rather purposefully, being an asshole.

But the movie was pretty good!

That the movie is good is completely based on the strength of the acting. Fassbender surprised me. As I said, I've never been overly impressed (or even slightly impressed) with him, so it was good to find out that he can do more than just brood and be angry. He had a strong performance in this. Then, Kate Winslet was even better.

Now, I like Kate Winslet. A lot. She's undervalued. I didn't even recognize her at first in her role as Joanna Hoffman. So, as good as Fassbender was, Winslet was better. Fassbender had to carry the movie, but I'm not sure he could have done it without someone good in the role of Hoffman. Winslet certainly made Fassbender's job much easier.

And without a doubt, there was no better person than Seth Rogen for the role of Wozniak. There's not really anything more to be said about that.

The movie is set around three major product launches in Jobs' career. I found that particular structure for the movie to be interesting while watching it. However, upon reflection, I've decided that it actually hampers the movie. The reason that it hampers the movie is that it is, in fact, a movie. The structure is such that everything that happens is through dialogue. We don't actually see any of the action of the story other than Jobs walking around and talking to people. As soon it was over, I felt like I'd been to a play -- and plays are fine; I like plays -- but, when I go to a movie, I want to see a movie, not a play.

So I'm glad I went to see it, because the acting was excellent but, if I had it to choose over, I wouldn't go see this in the theater. There's no compelling reason to do so.

The Theory of Everything (a movie review post)

I'll start by making it clear that I am not a Hawking fan. In general, I am not a fan of science that has a greater relation to the kind of "science" that Greek philosophers did than to actual science. But that has nothing to do with the movie, which is kind of unfortunate, actually, since the movie barely touched on anything to do with science other than that Hawking was working on his PhD in physics.

In fact, the movie doesn't seem to have much to do with anything. The trailers seemed to indicate the movie was going to be focusing in Hawking's survival of his early onset motor neuron disease, and, maybe, the movie looks like it's heading in that direction at one point. Hawking meets Jane (the movie opens with that), they fall in love, Hawking falls on his face and discovers he's going to die. He has two years. Jane proclaims, "We'll fight this together." And, well, that's it. They just glide on through and never mention the fact that Hawking failed to die or why he lived. So, basically, the thing that might have made the movie interesting is left behind as if it was nothing more than a conversation over breakfast, "Oh, and by the way, we'll fight your disease together. Have a good day at work doing physics."

I did become curious, though, as to why Hawking did survive, and I tried to find out, but there's not a lot out there on the subject, at least not any information that requires a lot more time to find than I was willing to put into it. Basically, though, it sounds like the general attitude is, "Oh, he just didn't die." Did he have better care (Jane) than other people? Was it love? Was it determination? Was it just that he's so smart? None of those things are touched on in the movie, and I didn't see anything in a quick survey about Hawking, either. He just lived. Kind of like Harry Potter.

As far as the movie goes, there was nothing compelling about it. It's not that it was boring (that would be something that could be said about it, at least), it just wasn't anything. If the power had gone out or the projector broken or, for any reason, the movie had to be stopped, I would not have felt enough interest to wonder what happened. When it comes down to it, more than anything else, the movie is about what a horrible deal Jane struck when she said she wanted whatever time she and Stephen would have together, but, then, she didn't expect that to be more than two years.

In effect, the movie is about the horrible marriage that seems so common amongst most couples and hardly needs to have Stephen Hawking in it to drive that point home. And if it has a point, it's probably during the fantasy sequence at the end where Hawking imagines himself walking again and gives his "where there is life, there is hope" speech. I don't think I needed a movie to make that point, and this movie certainly doesn't support that point. Not in any way that matters.

For some reason, people seem to think that Eddie Redmayne did some kind of spectacular job playing Hawking but, mostly, he just sat in a chair with a grin plastered to his face. To say that I was underwhelmed would be an understatement. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing impressive about this movie, least of all Redmayne's performance. As to why it's being considered for any kind of Oscar has everything to do with the person it's based on and nothing to do with the merits of the film, of which it has very few. This has Heath Ledger written all over it to me, i.e., getting an undeserved Oscar for which there would have been no nomination if he hadn't died. Not that Hawking is dead, but it's the same kind of sympathy.

Maybe, I'm a heartless person, but I don't have that kind of sympathy. Redmayne hasn't delivered an astounding performance, and people wouldn't think he had if he was playing someone we'd never heard of. But, you know, it's Hawking, and we all feel bad for Hawking, so "Oooh! He was so good!"
Sorry, I cry "Bullshit!"

Captain Phillips (a movie review post)

Yes, we did go see Captain Phillips even though neither of us really wanted to. However! It was making a special appearance at the cheap theater, so we both got in for less than the cost of even one matinee-priced ticket at the normal theater. No, I'm not sure it was even worth that much.

The question I kept asking myself as I was watching the movie and have continued to ask since seeing the movie is "Why did this need to be a movie?" My wife says it's because we need to have movies each year that feature the American military as the good guys, but I'm just not quite buying it. I mean, that's probably true, but it just doesn't do it for me.

Yes, there will be spoilers. Not like everyone doesn't already know how this turns out.

There are a few interesting parts in the movie, but they're not enough to give the movie any real depth. For instance, the movie opens with a scene of Phillips readying himself for his trip. [It's actually the kind of thing I routinely tell my creative writing class not to do: Do not give us your character waking up in the morning, brushing his teeth and eating breakfast. We don't care. Unless there actually is some relevance to the story. Not that that is what see with Phillips, but it's the same kind of thing, but it does have a point.] It's completely normal and middle class, him going off to the airport. I have to say, though, that the dialogue between Phillips and his wife is terrible. It switches, then, to the character of Muse and how his day starts. It serves to show us how very different these two characters are and, yet, how they are similar. So, yeah, that was interesting, but that's the first 10 minutes or so and nothing's that interesting the rest of the movie.

The whole movie can be boiled down to one conversation between Phillips and Muse:
Phillips: There has to be something more than fishing and kidnapping people.
Muse: Maybe in America. Maybe in America.

I think that moment is so short that it gets lost in the rest of the movie. And the movie does nothing to support it, since it focuses on Phillips and not what drove the pirates to do what they do.

The thing I was most struck with, though, is not something I think I was meant to think about:
The pirates were trying to ransom Phillips for $10 million. In response, we mounted a huge Naval engagement which included airdropping in a bunch of SEALs and an aircraft carrier. The recovery mission took days. I'm sure the cost of the rescue mission dwarfed the 10 million the pirates wanted. I'm not saying we should have paid them off, because I don't that at all. I do think there has to be a better way, though. [And because I was curious, the cost to operate an aircraft carrier per day is $7 million! And it was one of only three Navy ships involved in the mission. The mission which lasted several days. So, yeah, we spent WAY more than $10 million to get Phillips back.]

As for the acting, I was unimpressed. Hanks showed up and was appropriately stoic through most of the film. The only real acting he did was at the very end after he was rescued, at which point he has a complete meltdown. That scene with him was great, but the rest of the movie was pretty flat. His acting, all the acting, the whole movie. Let's just say that, overall, I was particularly underwhelmed. It was kind of like watching the "high speed" chase of O.J. Simpson on TV a couple of decades ago. Oh, except for the brief moment where I thought the movie was about to become Home Alone as the crew did things like spread broken glass on the floor for the barefoot pirates to step on. But that didn't last long enough to be engaging.

Basically, the movie gets a "meh" from me. It wasn't stupid (which, you know, would have been pretty bad considering it's based on true events), but it also just didn't do anything for me. I never cared about any of the people involved except for brief moments for the "pirate" kid that stepped on the glass; he was only 15-ish. But, then, Muse was only 16-ish (which never comes out in the movie. If they'd highlighted that, there may have been some emotional investment, but, then, it might have been invested in the "bad" guys). This just isn't an Oscar caliber movie. It's better than The Wolf of Wall Street but not by much. It is, however, politically correct, I would suppose.

Blood & Magic

Man, with a title like that, it sounds like I'm about to go off on some dissertation about fantasy and magic within fantasy or, maybe, some new magic system I, personally, have developed for some epic fantasy epic that involves blood or something. Or maybe something with vampires. Sadly, it's nothing so fantastic. Actually, it's just what it says it is...

Blood
I have an ambivalent relationship with blood. I don't mind the sight of it, not at all. If you're gushing blood, I can even stay level-headed enough to help you or get you to help or whatever. I know this from personal experience (like when a friend of mine when I was a kid fell off of a wall and hit his chin on the way down (man, there was blood everywhere!), and I got him to his mom (so she could take him to get the bajillion stitches he needed)). So it was with some surprise that I found out I have a squeamish reaction to people having blood drawn.

I don't have a problem with needles. You need a shot? No problem. Well, unless it's in the belly; that's kind of gross, but it doesn't make me want to pass out (I know, because I had friend in high school with type 1 diabetes who had to give herself insulin shots in the belly. Gross. But no head issues). However, you so much as poke someone with a lancet, and I start to swoon. Not that I've ever actually passed out, but I think I've been close.

I found that out unexpectedly during sixth grade. We were on a field trip to a hospital, and they were going to centrifuge some blood for us, but they needed to get the blood, first, so one of the nurses or techs or someone popped his (or her (I don't remember)) arm out to have the blood drawn. I was trying to watch just like everyone else was, but, as soon as they stuck the needle into the person's arm and started to pull the blood out, I went "white as a sheet," as one of my classmates said, and broke out in a damp sweat, and felt like my head was going to pop off and float away.

To make a long story short, I have learned to avoid situations where I (or anyone else) am going to have blood taken out of me on purpose.

So it was with much trepidation that I had to go in to have my blood drawn last week. Just something for this program at my wife's work, nothing to be alarmed over. [We earn points for doing things like this and can redeem for, among other things, movie tickets. So, now, you know the secret to all of the Oscar movies.] Well, except for me. It was something for me to be alarmed over. Evidently. Because I didn't sleep well the night before (among other side effects). It was, after all, my first time to have my blood drawn.

I also had to have my blood pressure taken. I have had that done before. But it didn't go well. As in, she took my pressure the first time and it was really high. Too high. So she decided to take it again and started telling me to relax and stuff, so I told her it wasn't having my blood pressure taken that was the issue, and I explained the whole thing with taking blood out of people. During the discussion about that and her amazement that I had never had my blood taken before, she finished with the pressure for the second time, and it was even higher, and she was concerned, so she decided to try my other arm. I don't even know what it was that third time, because, by the time she was finished, she had decided to take my blood first. Yeah, yeah, I know she'd already done the pressure three times, but she didn't take any of those results.

She had me lie down and she took my blood. Which was actually okay, because I just stared at the wall the whole time, and, other than a tiny poke, it didn't feel like anything. I was quite shocked actually that she had taken three vials of blood out of me. Three vials! My wife says that's normal.
Anyway...

She took my blood pressure again... and it was totally normal.

Which brings me to my point: I didn't feel any different after she took out my blood than I had beforehand. I mean, to me, I didn't feel any different, but something in me changed, because, immediately after, my blood pressure had returned to normal even though I hadn't felt stressed before and I didn't feel relieved after.
And I find that pretty amazing. Bodies are weird.
And that thing in particular? Well, that's magic.

Which brings me to
Magic
Last week, Nathan Fillion tweeted that he was learning to play Magic: The Gathering, "the game with more rules than game." Or something like that. Here are the things you should take away from that:

1. Yes, I am now on twitter (in case you missed me say that before). You can find me here. If you follow me, I will probably follow you back. Unless I don't know you, in which case you need to give me a reason to follow you, like interacting with me.
2. Yes, I follow Castle. Um, I mean Nathan Fillion. The guy who used to a space cowboy. I only follow cool celebrities, though (seriously, I already quit following one (unnamed) celebrity who turned out to be a <content edited>).
3. Fillion plays Magic! And was even tweeting Wizards of the Coast about some issue or another. He became infinitely cooler when he tweeted about that.

I hope he posts updates, because I really want to know what color(s) he settles on as his favorite.

Oh, also, if you have any twitter tips, let me know, because I'm still trying to figure the whole thing out.

Her (a movie review post)

On the surface, Her is a love story. Under the surface, it's also a love story, but it's not just a love story. Not a love story in the way that we think of love stories. There's no boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back in this. It's more of an exploration about relationships than anything else, but it does it in a fascinating and unique way.

Theodore Twombly, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a letter writer. That's his job. He writes letters for people to other people for a company called (something like) Hand-written Letters. This letter writing that he does is, in many ways, a metaphor for the entire movie as the letters are personal letters, sometimes love letters, that he's hired to write (and, in some cases, has been writing for the same people for years and years and knows them extremely well), but he dictates the letters to his computer and they are printed out to look as if they are written by hand.

It's unclear within the context of the movie whether the people receiving the letters know they are written by a third party, but I have a hard time believing that they wouldn't know this since the whole letter writing thing is a "thing." Basically, Theodore facilitates other people's relationships by filling these letters with, what I'll call, manufactured emotions, but he can't maintain his own relationships, which is something we find out at the very beginning of the movie, so no spoiler there. He's in the middle of a divorce with his wife and is distant from his friends.

Now, there will be spoiler issues in the rest of this.

With all of that in mind, it is no surprise that Theodore easily finds himself slipping into a relationship with his new Operating System, the first OS with artificial intelligence. As his wife accuses him later, he can't do relationships with people that are right there in front of him. It's probably why he's so good at the letter writing. And he is good at the letter writing, one of the best, at least. It's no surprise that he finds himself attracted to this physically distant intelligence.

But it does open the door to exploring the idea of "what is a relationship?" What is required for a relationship to be legitimate? Is his love real? Is Samantha's (the OS)? Does she need a body in order to manifest the relationship? And it's not just him, because we get pieces of information in the movie that other people in society are dealing with the same struggles. Or the opposite struggles, as we learn that at least one user has a real hate relationship with his OS.

The movie doesn't really try to answer these questions, which is good. It just shows us that the questions are there and should be considered. Although there are a few concrete answers, one of which is that, at least sometimes, we do need the physical presence of another person. Especially in dealing with loss.

Joaquin Phoenix was great as Theodore. It's a very subdued performance, because Theodore is a very subdued individual. I think performances like this get overlooked because they're not outrageous, but Phoenix is much more believable in his role than, say, DiCaprio as Belfort, which is not to take away from DiCaprio's performance, but I think it's easy to look at a movie like The Wolf of Wall Street and think, "Wow, he was amazing" but forget about roles like Theodore Twombly which rely on conveying emotion rather than exaggerated action. Phoenix was superb at conveying the emotion of Twombly.

Even more amazing, though, was Scarlett Johansson. Everything she did was conveyed through voice only, and it was incredible. I don't think I've really given her a lot of credit in the past for her acting ability, which is not to say that I didn't think she was good; I just didn't think she was, well, better. It's too easy with her to think, "Oh, she got this part because of her looks," and not really credit her for the actual acting. But she's not physically in this movie, and what she did with her voice shows that she is better. She didn't even have the help of animators to convey her emotion; she just had to bring it audibly, and she did. It is actually upsetting to me that she has been dismissed from the Oscar nominations because she wasn't physically in the movie. That's just wrong.

Her is a great movie. It's a thoughtful movie. There are no explosions or car chases or alien invasions. It's sci-fi that could happen. And, yes, it was interesting... but in a good way.

Saving Mr. Banks (a movie review post)

Two years ago, when The Artist won Best Picture, it was not difficult to understand why. It's the kind of movie Hollywood loves whether it was actually best picture material or not. I was going to say that I don't really think it was but, upon looking back at the other nominees that year, it didn't have a lot of strong competition, at least from the movies I saw. Come on, War Horse? Really? Which is not to say that War Horse wasn't good, but best picture? That's the best they could do? And as for The Artist, Singin' in the Rain already told that story and did a much better job of it. But, anyway...

Saving Mr. Banks is that same kind of film, the kind that Hollywood ought to love. It's about how one of the most beloved movies in movie history got made. And it's the first time Walt Disney has ever been portrayed in a movie, so that's saying a lot. And, just to put all of this perspective, when Disney first heard that the movie was being made, they're first reaction was to buy it and squash it. See, there's a reason Walt has never been portrayed onscreen before. However, after looking at it, they decided not only not to do that but to produce it! It's that kind of movie.

And it's good. I mean, it's really good. I know it is because my wife cried through about the last third of it. I will be extremely surprised if it doesn't get the best picture Oscar this year. Overall, from what we've seen so far, I think it's most well rounded show out there. And it leaves you feeling good after having had a good cry.

Not to get into what the movie is about, but it's about how Walt Disney convinced P. L. Travers to give him the rights to make Mary Poppins, something it took him 20 years to do. Along with that story, you see the story of the defining moment of Travers' childhood, which shows why Poppins was so important to her. From what I've seen from fact-checking, the movie is fairly accurate, which is another plus. A big one, actually. They did have hours and hours of audio recordings from sessions with Travers and some of the people working on the movie (because she insisted that everything be recorded), so they wouldn't have had a good excuse for it not being accurate.

So, first, let's talk Tom Hanks. Oh, man, Tom Hanks was... incredible. There were moments, especially when they showed him watching himself on the old black and white TV show Walt introduced, where he was just like Disney. And, from everything I've read, Hanks did capture Walt to an amazing extent. I do know that the folks at Disney Studios shaved Hanks' mustache to the exact dimensions that Walt wore his. His only being called a supporting actor for this role, but I think it's a safe bet that he will at least get a nomination for it. I will not at all be surprised if he wins. Actually, I hope he does. [I haven't seen Captain Phillips, yet, but he's also being talked about for a best actor nomination for that one.]

Then, we have to talk Emma Thompson, and she may just deserve best actress for her performance. That's a tough call for me, though, because Sandra Bullock carried an entire movie virtually by herself, and that's an impressive feat. However, I'm not sure anyone else could have pulled off Travers the way Thompson did. It was a great performance, and she and Hanks were perfect together.

Paul Giamatti was lovable as Ralph, the chauffeur. This role probably wasn't especially difficult for Giamatti, but he was perfect in it. Jason Schwartzman and B. J. Novak were awesome as Richard and Robert Sherman. Not the parts called for too much, but it was great to see them in the movie. They were good, too. Especially this one part with Novak, but I don't want to spoil it, so you'll just have to see it; then, I'll tell you which one.

Which brings us to Colin Farrell. Farrell is one of those underrated actors who is almost always excellent despite the horrible movies he's in. I mean, Alexander wasn't really his fault, and how can you blame him for not turning down Total Recall? At any rate, he's wonderful and wonderfully tragic as Travers Goff. He was my favorite part of the movie. I mentioned that my wife cried, but there were some scenes of Goff with his daughter where I almost cried. That's kind of saying a lot for me.

I loved this movie. Of the possible best picture nominees, if you have to pick just one, this is the one I would recommend. Sure, Gravity is visually amazing, but this movie has heart that Gravity just doesn't have, no matter how you feel about Walt Disney. And let me make this clear, the movie is not about Walt Disney; the script was written (and not changed) before Disney (the Company) had a hand in it; the movie is about Travers and how she was ultimately convinced to allow Walt to make Mary Poppins into a movie. It's definitely worth seeing.

Also
Make sure you stop by Indie Writers Monthly today. Check out my post and the contributors and follow along. I'm not really sure where we're headed with that, yet, but, if you like sci-fi and/or fantasy, I'm sure it's going to be a good ride.

Dallas Buyers Club (a movie review post)

I heard this interview with Matthew McConaughey on NPR a while back about how his family lost a lawsuit because he won the most attractive award (or some such) his senior year of high school. [It's an amusing story about his early high school issues with acne.] You would never be able to tell that from the way he looks in Dallas Buyers Club.

Seriously, McConaughey looks awful, and that's saying a lot considering who he is. He looks like he's wasting away, which is appropriate to the character of Ron Woodroof, who is dying of AIDS.

In the 80s, when I grew up, we were going to die of one of two things:
1. "Russia" (in quotes because it wasn't really Russia; it was the USSR) was going to destroy the world in nuclear fire (or a computer mistake was. It was probably 50/50 which direction that would go).
2. We were all going to die of "the AIDS."

Dallas Buyers Club completely captures the horror of discovering having HIV in the 80s and the prejudice that went with it. [Like when I was in middle school and all of my friends told me (completely seriously) that I was going to die because I sat in the same chair as someone with AIDS that had visited our classroom.] McConaughey is absolutely brilliant. The wail he releases in his car once he has actually confronted what's going on is... I have no other word than chilling.

Seriously, I have never thought much of McConaughey other than that he's mostly a pretty boy that can memorize lines. He's never stood out to me as more than someone with a charming smile, but, in this, he is amazing. His willingness to destroy his body for the part rivals anything Christian Bale has ever done, and he brings a stellar performance along with it. If he doesn't get best actor for this role, it will be a huge injustice.

Jared Leto's performance is also incredible as the fictional conglomeration character Rayon. The relationship between Woodroof and Rayon is demonstrative of Woodroof's changing views as he formed relationships in the community suffering from the same fate as he.

AIDS and the fear of AIDS doesn't carry with it the same weight as it used to, and I don't think people growing up in the 90s and later have the same understanding of HIV as people who went through the 80s when it suddenly became an epidemic. Safe sex has become normative, at least, the idea of it has. Prior to the 80s and HIV, the idea of using "protection" during sex was mostly to prevent unwanted pregnancies. At least, that's my perception of it.

At any rate, Dallas Buyers Club is a powerful movie, the most powerful movie I've seen in a long time, and I highly recommend it. It might be the best movie of the year, but I don't think it will get the Oscar for it.

Are You Being Hustled?

Some of these things actually happened.

But probably not many of them. At least not in any way close to the presentation in American Hustle. 

That doesn't stop it from being an excellent movie, though.

It's one of the few movies I've seen where I had no idea about what was coming next. At its base, it's a con movie, so you're never quite sure who's conning whom and what anyone has up his sleeve. Or under her skirt, I suppose, since the women are perpetually dressed as they are in the poster. And, then, at least a couple of the characters are at least slightly unhinged, and you never quite know which direction the story is going.

Surprisingly, the movie opens with one of those flash-forward/flashback type things that I normally hate, but they really made it work in this one. For one thing, the movie doesn't start near the climax, just at the point of the first sting operation. It's the place where we meet all of the major players, so to speak. Once the deal falls apart, we flashback with Irving Rosenfeld for a first person narration (which I also usually hate) of what brought him to that point. But what makes it interesting is that when we get to the part where he crosses paths with Sydney Prosser, she picks up the narration and, then, they have this kind of dueling narration giving us the back story, and it really works. It helps that it's not a "36 hours earlier" kind of scenario. It's the characters telling us about who they are, you know, as people, and that's what makes it work.

As interesting as the story is, though, it's the acting that makes this movie. The performances, all of them, are incredible.

Christian Bale shows us once again just what he's willing to do physically to become his character, this time putting on a bit of a paunch (which he shows off in the movie in a very unflattering way) and shaving a bald spot onto his head (also unflattering). He's what can only be described as a sleazy character, a con man, but, by the time we get back to the point in the story where it started, we have total sympathy for him. I just want to point out that I am not a Bale fan. I have respect for what he's willing to go through for a role (like in The Machinist and Rescue Dawn), and I think he's a good actor, but I don't really like him that much. That I say he was impressive in this role is, then, saying something.

Amy Adams--cute, sweet Amy Adams--shows us she's anything but as an ex-stripper trying to reinvent herself. Her boobs should probably also have received some sort of credit. Not that they ever fully appear onscreen or anything, but it's hard not to be aware of them when she's onscreen. She's like some 70s porn star or something. Or like what I think a 70s porn star must have been like. I'm not really sure. At any rate, her performance is pretty amazing, and you're never quite sure what she's up to, just that she is up to... things. It's her performance that provides a lot of the tension in the movie, because you're never really sure whose side she's on. Well, other than her own, that is.

Bradley Cooper is amazing as a somewhat overzealous FBI agent. And I'd say more about him, but I don't think I can without spoilers. I'll just say that I think Cooper has a certain intensity about him that not many actors can equal. And, according to my wife, he and Adams deliver one of the sexiest scenes she's ever seen. The amazing thing about that is that nothing happens in that scene. Well, not nothing but, you know, nothing happens: there is no loss of clothing or anything like that. But it's intense, and most of that is from him.

Jennifer Lawrence continues to show that she's more than just a pretty face. I'm not quite sure she deserved her Oscar last year (not that her performance wasn't good; it was. I've just never been convinced it was "best actress" quality), but, if she gets a best supporting Oscar for this role, it will be deserved. The scene with her and the "science oven" is almost enough all by itself to earn her the Oscar.

And, then, there's Jeremy Renner. And his hair. Because if Amy Adams boobs almost deserved a screen credit, Renner's hair certainly did. I could not take my eyes off of it. It was amazing. And, in a movie where everyone's hair was pretty amazing, that's saying something. This is the first movie I've seen him in where he shows me he can do something besides play "taciturn hero" (and, no, I haven't yet seen The Hurt Locker, but, knowing what it's about (loosely), I'm guess he plays "taciturn hero" in that one, too). He's pretty great as a New Jersey mayor in this. He's pretty great in the sense that I did not actually know he was in the movie before I was seeing the movie, and, then, I kept wondering if I was wrong and maybe that wasn't really him, so that, I think, is a pretty good performance.

Louis C.K. also fit in nicely. I don't think there was any kind of stretch for him as an actor, but he worked well with everyone else. As did Elisabeth Rohm (from Angel); I didn't recognize her at all.

The end result is a lot of compelling performances and an interesting plot. Enough so that, as I sit here writing this up, it makes me want to watch it again. Especially Jeremy Renner's hair. I don't think I've been so captivated by anyone's hair since the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl back in '93 (I think) and someone (Emmitt Smith?) poured a cooler of water over Jimmy Johnson's head, and his hair didn't move. It was like he had on a plastic, hair-shaped helmet. It was fascinating.

Oh! And the cameo appearance by De Niro... the perfect touch.

Paperman

I wasn't really planning to post anything today, but I had to share this. This is nominated for best animated short film, and, without having seen any of the other shorts that have been nominated, I hope this wins. You should all watch it and go off and have a great weekend.

The Producers In the Heat of the Night

The Producers

Mel Brooks is more than just Space Balls amazingly enough. Not that I don't know this, but he's one of those guys that I'm always surprised is behind whatever work he happens to be behind. Except Robin Hood: Men in Tights. That's the kind of thing I expect Mel Brooks to have done. And I don't know why! Because he's done so much great stuff: Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and The Producers to name a few. Of course, The Producers may be the best of his work (although I am very partial to Get Smart. That TV show was a work of genius).

Brooks won an Oscar for the original iteration of The Producers back in 1968. It was his first movie. It was adapted as a Broadway musical in 2001, and a film was adapted from the musical in 2005. In 2012, my son was involved in a production of The Producers (the musical) at his high school.

It was magnificent.

In fact, it was the best high school production I've ever seen. It was better than any college production I've ever seen. It was better than many professional productions I've seen including the production of The Pirates of Penzance that my son was in last summer. I wish you could all come and see it. (There's one more weekend of shows.)

My son is only part of the chorus (because he didn't try out for it despite urgings to do so), but that's okay, because he was a great part of the chorus. Especially his performance as a little old lady in the song and dance number with the walkers. The leads, however, were tremendous. The guy, a senior, that played Max was... well, I have no words. I would not have believed he was in high school; I'll just put it like that. And the entire show was choreographed by students. Amazing!

All of that to say, this musical production is an example of why we need to support the arts in our schools. The ArtQuest program at my son's high school is superb; it's sad that there is a constant need to defend the arts and such a struggle to get funding for them.

Anyway, like I said, I wish you could all come see this show and be as blown away by it as I was. Short of that, go rent the movie. The one adapted from the musical. It has Matthew Broderick and Will Ferrell. Although, even with Broderick, I'm not sure I can say that it's actually better than the high school production I just saw.


In the Heat of the Night

Sticking with our (not) theme of movies from the late 60s, I just watched In the Heat of the Night. It was the 1967 winner of the best picture Oscar, and, I have to say, it was well deserved. I've seen 4 of the 5 films nominated for that year, so I'm not just saying that.

Here's the thing that most impressed me about the movie in comparison to movies like, say, There Will Be Blood. It's about something and it has a story. As opposed to many newer movies (like Blood) which are clearly about something but don't have a story, a vehicle, for telling what the movie is about.

In the Heat of the Night is about civil rights and the racial inequality that was still clearly present in much of the United States at the time. Inequality that is still present even if it isn't present to the same degree. Still... drive through the deep south sometime, and I bet you can still find scenes that seem right out of the movie. I know you could 20 years ago, because I was still in the deep south back then. However, the story is a murder mystery. And a good one. (I'm used to pegging the killer in these kinds of things within the first 1/3 of the story, but I had no idea about this one right up until they showed whom it was.)

Sidney Poitier is quite good as Virgil Tibbs. I don't think he had to stretch much for the role (meaning he seemed much like he does in other movies I've seen him in), but there's probably not anyone else that really could have done that role at the time.

Rod Steiger got best actor for his role as Bill Gillespie. His was an interesting character to watch, and Steiger really pulled off the ambivalence he felt in dealing with Tibbs. The struggle between his dislike of blacks and his growing respect for this one particular black man. In that, Steiger was excellent.

It's a great movie, a movie that deserved its Oscar, and people still need to see it. Especially considering that it's more than 40 years later, and a movie like Red Tails can't get studio funding.

There Will Be Disappointment and Peculiar Children

There Will Be Blood

Way back when I was still in school working on my degree in English, I had a particular English professor. There was one pretty sure way to do well in his class and that was to have "huge... tracts of land." True story: One day after class a female friend and I were waiting to ask him a question. We were both English students and in the same year, so we had a lot of classes together, and this wasn't the first time we'd been in this professor's class together. So, finally, he turns to us and before whichever of us could ask whatever question it was, he looked at her and said, "You don't happen to play volleyball, do you?" It wasn't until much later that we realized what he'd meant by that question. Huge tracts of land.

Being male, I didn't have huge tracts of land, so I had to rely on the alternative method of doing well in his class. In actuality, I'd accomplished that the first semester I'd had him. It's going to sound easy, but, really, it wasn't. The way to be even more assured of doing well than having huge tracts of land was to write a paper that was beyond his grasp. Scores of kids went into his classes with the assumption that that was an easy thing to do. Easy A. Just write a "deep" paper that the professor couldn't "get," and he'd give you an "A." And this was true. But it took a lot more to be able to do that than most students had in them. I did it with my very first paper before I'd heard about that "trick." I sort of became his prized student and everyone always wanted my help with their papers.

Several years ago, my wife and I decided we were going to watch all the "Oscar" movies. Mostly, this means we're watching the best picture winners, but we also branch into the ones nominated for best picture and some with best actor and actress wins. The idea here is that these should be the best movies of each year. However, sometimes, movies win not because they are good but because the professor just couldn't understand the paper. Because the critics or the panel or whomever didn't understand the movie, they assume it must be "deep" and decide it's great. Mostly so as not to look like they didn't get it.

We recently watched There Will Be Blood, and this was just such a movie. Now, I'm not going to say that Daniel Day-Lewis didn't deserve the best actor Oscar for the movie; he certainly did. He was tremendous and scary. But the movie was also nominated for best picture, and I have no choice but to believe that it was nominated because people just didn't understand it and decided, because of that, that it must be great and deep. It was based on an Upton Sinclair novel, so that must be true, right?

I haven't read Oil!, so I can't speak for the novel, but I was extremely disappointed with the movie. It wasn't about anything. Which is not to say that it wasn't about anything except that it wasn't. It was only about something in that it was about the life of Daniel Plainview, but it wasn't anymore about anything than the life of someone off the street is about something. Things happened. Lots of things happened, but none of them were about anything. You get to the end of the movie and look back and the only thing to say about it is, "what was that about?" and there's no answer for that question. I suppose, maybe, some people may consider that deep, but I call that not being about anything, so, really, what's the point?

[Note: I looked up some stuff about the book, and it backs up my assumption that the movie isn't about anything. The movie switches the main character to a supporting character and focuses on one of the supporting characters. A character which does not make it all the way through the book and a character without an actual plot arc. Basically, the movie ends at around the point where the book is really getting into whatever is going on. This would be kind of like making an adaptation of The Three Musketeers with Porthos as the main character and ending the movie when he gets wounded and has to stay behind.]

Related to that was the music. The music was... well, I have no good word for it. The music was the kind of music that makes you think something bad is about to happen except that it played that way throughout the entire movie. It made my wife tense so that she kept actually talking about what could be about to happen, and it (the music) was very distracting from the whole experience of watching the movie because nothing was ever about to happen. Well, except for a few times, but, mostly, no, nothing was about to happen.

The best part of the movie, the most artistic section, was the first 10 minutes or so. At first, there's no sound. Then, there's no dialogue, just Plainview doing his thing. Just a solitary man without sound in his life because he's alone. The movie descended from there, and I felt like I'd wasted my time after it was over; although, the conversation my wife and I had about it the next morning at breakfast made it worth watching, I suppose. Neither of us liked it, though, which is saying something.

My biggest issue, I think, is that the character ends up just as he started. He undergoes no change. No change means no story. When it comes down to it, this is a man vs himself story, but Plainview not only didn't win, he didn't even bother to show up for the conflict.


Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

I wanted to like this book. I expected to like this book. I mean, it has a great title. It also has a great cover. And it has a novel idea, the idea of using photographs as part of the story. I'd heard so many good things about this one from people posting about it and such, I figured it must be good. Plus, it was recommended to my wife by people she knows. And, well, it is a best seller, but, maybe, that should have served as a warning. I mean, I really know better than to trust that best seller=good book. It can mean that, but, more often than not, it's a signal to be wary.

All of that said, I didn't enjoy Peculiar Children. The first thing that really bothered me, and I mean it really bothered me, was that the Jacob went on and on about how he must be losing his mind. It was just annoying. The constantly trying to convince himself that he was crazy. Even when he was past the point of finding things unbelievable, he continued to tell himself that he must be going crazy and couldn't have seen or experienced what he did see and experience. If the author wanted to cast doubt on whether Jacob's experiences were real or not, he should have found some better way to do it, because the audience is never in a position to doubt Jacob's experiences, so the fact that Jacob doubts them is completely unrealistic. Especially since it's told 1st person.

The next issue I have with the book is that Jacob makes grand, sweeping, general statements about things fairly frequently early on in the book and, then, immediately contradicts them with more specific examples. And this is more of an editing issue, but the story occasionally slips into present tense. It's told past tense but every so often there will be a few sentences in present tense. It makes me wonder if it was written present tense and the author's editor or published wanted it changed, and they missed some passages. It was very disconcerting every time it happened, though. (And it was probably heightened for me, because one of my creative writing students has this problem of switching back and forth between past and present tense, so I'm hyper aware of it, right now.)

But my biggest issue with the book by far is that, out of nowhere, there is time travel. What the heck? Seriously? In general, authors should just stay away from time travel. Especially when the author is trying to pass of magic as science. [There will be a post about this at some time.] Everything in Peculiar Children is told from a very modern, scientific perspective, but, then, there are all of these stupid things the author throws in because he wants it to be that way although there is no scientific reason for it. Like technology from the present not working in the past. Why? Were the laws of physics different 60 years ago? I don't think so. It's just DUMB! Also, if people from the past come to the present, the weight of all of their years catch up with them, they age super fast, and they wither and die. Why? Because the author wants it to be that way not because there is any scientific rationale for it. It's a STUPID idea! Not just in this book, either. This is something I see trotted out a lot, and it's just DUMB! From a scientific point of view, at any rate. If you want it to be that way, just write a fantasy story and make it magic so that you don't have to explain it. If time travel was possible, scientifically, there is no reason why anyone should suddenly age by jumping into the future. That, by definition, would mean that time travel is not possible. At least not in a way that anyone would want to do it. Oh, and he conveniently forgets about all of this at the end of the book, because it suits his plot. None of the time travel stuff is even consistent within his own world, and that is something that screams bad writing at me. When you make up a world, be consistent to your own rules!

There are other issues and inconsistencies, too, but, even if there weren't the time travel thing would be enough for me to not like the book. The hollowgasts, the big bad in the book, are freaky early on when they're just being talked about, but the actual thing in the book doesn't fit the image of what is created early on, and what they end up being is really rather dumb, beings that crawl around on their tongues. >insert eye roll here<

All of that said, there were some spots where the writing really took over and pulled me in. I could actually get immersed in the story from time to time. Until something new and stupid popped up, then, I would sigh and wonder how I'd forgotten how dumb the book was overall. The worst part is that I still want to like the book. I want to like it in that I wish the author hadn't decided to throw in time travel and all of the other stuff he did that makes me not like it. I wish someone had been there to say, "hey, this time travel stuff is inconsistent at best. You need to tighten this up if you want it in the book."

There are two lessons to learn here:
1. Don't use magic as science. Just don't do it. If you don't have good science to go with what you want to happen, don't present it that way.
2. Be consistent to your own world. One of the biggest issues with, well, all stories are authors doing whatever they want under the umbrella of "magic" (or whatever) and losing all consistency. If you have a rule, follow it. (So, if you're characters can't leave their time loop at one point in the book because they will age 80+ years and die within a matter of hours, don't decide at the end of the book that this is no longer an issue.)

Both of these works were disappointments, which is unfortunate since I wanted to like them both.

[Note: "The Evil That Men Do" is now available for the Kindle. And only the Kindle. Yeah, sorry about that for you Nook people, but I've put it in the new Kindle only program, so that's where it will be for the next few months. Lucky for you all that there is a free Kindle app for the PC (which is what I use), and it's a fairly short work that won't chain you to your PC for several days. See the link at the right to purchase "The Evil That Men Do," or click on the Tiberius tab for more information.]

The Legacy of Tron

Greetings, Programs...

It doesn't always take great writing to make a great film. Of course, I'm sure there are many out there that would argue that Tron is not a great film. I don't feel like debating the definition of greatness, at the moment, though, so I'm just going to say that based upon it's cultural impact and cult status, it's a great film. After all, how many movies get an actual sequel after almost 30 years. Not a re-boot. Not a re-make. An honest to goodness sequel. It's almost a singular achievement (it may be a singular achievement, for all I know).

Tron is the movie that opened the door to computer generated special effects. In fact, John Lasseter has said that without Tron there would have been no Toy Story as it was Tron that opened his eyes to the potential of computer animation. Despite that, Tron contains far less computer generated material than most people might suspect, but what was there was completely new, much of which was never used again due to the costs involved. Interestingly enough, Tron was not even nominated for a special effects Oscar possibly because of the use of computers, which was considered "cheating" by many in the Academy, at the time.

The story of Tron is fairly straightforward and ironically appropriate for Disney. The conflict revolves around a corporation (Encom) taking advantage of the little guy (Kevin Flynn) by stealing his work and the little guy trying to prove the work is actually his. Even at 12, when the movie came out, I knew that the story was just the vehicle to get Flynn into the "digital" world of the computer so they could show off their stuff. Still, it's a solid plot even if it's not original. We still seem to be having issues with that aspect of corporate greed in America, so I can't say it's not a story that needs to be told anymore. They may have done better to have centered Tron: Legacy on that same type of story since it opens with those same overtones, but Disney isn't brave enough to do that story again, or, perhaps, realizes it's a message that strikes at the heart of their business model, so they abandon it as soon as the younger Flynn enters The Grid.

There is, however, one bit of story genius that I was struck with at the time, and it has always stayed with me. This one thing made the movie for me, made it great in my mind, as it completely fascinated me at 12. I thought it was SO cool, and, yet, most people miss it entirely (along with the significance of it within the confines of the story), and some have even argued that it didn't happen that way at all. The key to the weight of the story of Tron is getting Flynn into the digital world himself. Flynn is our connection, the eyes that allow us to see this digital world as real. But they have to get him inside the computer. Utilizing another emerging technology (lasers), they have him zapped by a laser that is being developed as a quantum teleportation device. Early in the movie, we get to witness this laser being tested on an orange. The process only takes a few seconds. Zap target with laser. Digitize target. Reintegrate target. The implication, then, is that Flynn's sojourn in the digital world happens within this span of a few seconds.  [They support this idea in the sequel by quantifying the time discrepancy, although I'm not remembering the ratio, right off the top of my head.] It was a fabulous notion.

Still, it took time for Tron to really grow on me. And repeated exposure to the video games. There was, of course, the Tron arcade game, which made more money than the movie. We owned it for our Atari. Although I liked the game, it was never one of my favorites. However, Discs of Tron... that one, I loved. It was more than just a joystick game. None of my friends liked it because it was "too hard," and, indeed, it was one of the most complex games around. For years. But I loved it. Except for one thing, it wasn't just a quarter to play it. I don't remember what the actual cost was, but I remember being constantly put off by the fact that it cost so much. However, when I was in college, they put a Discs of Tron in the student center (at the one quarter/play cost) during my freshman year, and I ruled that game. Literally. Not only did I have the high score, but no one could beat me at head-to-head play, either. I was extremely sad when they removed the game at the beginning of my sophomore year. For that game alone, Tron holds a special place of nostalgia in my heart.

And, then, there's Jeff Bridges. Between Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, Bridges had a lot of competition back when I was 12, but I noticed him, which is saying a lot. I noticed him more with Starman in 1984, but it was Tucker: The Man and His Dream that really convinced me of how great an actor he is. I spent my 20s telling people that he was the most underrated actor in Hollywood, and I wasn't wrong. It's great that he's now getting the recognition that he's deserved for so long. The fact that he has been so instrumental in the return of Tron says a lot both for whom he is and the film. The legacy of Tron.

My boys were immediately excited when they heard there was going to be a sequel (to the original), and the initial trailers for it sent them both into a frenzy of excitement over it. It's hard to fault them for that. The trailers were nearly as visually stunning as the movie. And it was. Visually stunning. The film is worth seeing just as a visual masterpiece, and it was... well, it was spectacular in 3D. It's true that the plot is a bit more contrived and, therefore, weaker than the plot for the original, but, again, the story is really only there as a vehicle to display the digital landscape they've created. I will say, though, that it's only upon reflection that the holes in the story become apparent. Bridges' talent is enough to make everything believable, and Garrett Hedlund, who plays Flynn's son, is more than adequate in supporting him. Truthfully, the film is dazzling enough just on its own that it's hard to contemplate any weaknesses while watching it. At least on  the big screen.

A new Tron trilogy is supposedly in the works. At any rate, there should be a Disney television series next year and, at least, one movie sequel. Assuming that Bridges is now out of the equation (although I don't know that I believe that he's gone for good), I hope they actually write a really compelling story. It would be a shame for this to become another fiasco like The Matrix. It could. There is some promise, though, in that Disney is planning ahead on this instead of just having the "oh, this made buckets of money,  let's make another" reaction. I have to say that I'm very curious to see where Tron takes us next. I only wish it could take us there on our very own light cycles.

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