Fermat's room

So here's a little sketch of mine. Nothing fancy.
I kinda liked the movie Fermat's Room (I'm terrible at Spanish so I'll wave the Spanish original title.). The concept of this movie is that several mathematical-smart people are trapped in a room. This room shrinks smaller and smaller until there is no space left and the people inside get crushed. The only way to prevent this from happening is by means of solving mathematical riddles. A fun thriller of a movie, like Saw but without the bloodshed (at least the amount of bloodshed from parts 3 to 7).

The opening credits of the movie begin with a model of said room. So I made a plan to recreate it. Basically it's a chessboard with four walls. But I never went further than the sketch of a blueprint. So here it is, should anybody feel creative enough to actually recreate it.  

Frog game

A quick game I once made but never finished. Now the code isn't mine, I just altered an existing game. All credit goes to this one. Anyway here it is.

Brilliant moves in modern cinema

Here I want to talk a bit about –what I call- brilliant moves in modern cinema. It’s like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. It can be scriptwriting (the ending of The sixth sense), casting (see below) or any other trick a moviemaker pulled that makes the movie a better experience. I’ll explain it during the text. Maybe this will be an ongoing topic? Let’s start with this one.

Brilliant moves in casting.

Deadly pursuit (or shoot to kill)

The premise of this movie is that a city detective played by Sidney Poitier is teamed up with northern wilderness expert Tom Berenger to catch a diamond thief/murderer. This murderer just stole several million worth of diamonds and tries to escape across the Canadian border by joining a group of hikers led by Kirstie Alley (Berenger's character's girlfriend).

It's the typical fish-out-of-the-water story wherein Poitier is said fish.

A fun move the movie makes in the third act is flipping the scenery around from forest to city. This time it is Berenger who is out of his comfort zone and Poitier is in control. But that's not what I want to talk about here. The brilliant move the movie makes, in my opinion, is the fact that you don't meet the villain for a long while. You know it's a man and that's it.

So when you meet the group of hikers, anyone of them except Kirstie Alley could be the culprit. But, since I've seen a lot of movies (you've seen a lot of movie)- pinpointing the bad guy is usually a simple matter for the audience of discovering the biggest star amongst the bunch, especially if he played villains before.

Not this time around though. The entire hiking group is made up of recognizable actors who all played villains before. So until -literally- the gun drops it could be any of them. In a meta-sense the villain of the piece is hidden amongst other villains (who happen to be to be playing good guys this time around).

The same trick -sorta- was pulled in the slasher film Urban Legends (1998). Starting the movie with Brad Dourif (Wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings, but probably better known to horror fans as Chucky in Child's play) as a creepy gas attendant immediately puts you on edge. You wonder what the heck he is going to do with the young, female, would-be-victim.

Well, nothing, he's plays good guy who tries to help her -as it turns out...too late. 

But then the movie tops it off with introducing Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) as one of the professors at the school.

In a movie full of villains...who's the villain? 

Speaking of Urban Legends. There is one little fun fact I want to end with. I read online about this movie that the school motto ("Optimus Amice Numquid It") is visible in various scenes throughout the movie. Now, if you can read Latin you can pretty much guess who the hooded killer is.

However, I own the DVD, I've seen the movie several times, and I never found the darn motto anywhere. Moreover, such a peculiar easter egg, there must be some person on the interwebs who made a screengrap, right? Nope, nobody.

So, I wonder. Did somebody create an urban legend about the movie Urban Legend? 

Edit: Alright I finally found the time to listen to the Urban Legends DVD commetary track and: This whole idea of the school motto being 'the best friend did it' was actually an idea that was left out early on. So it's confirmed, not an urban legend. But, not visible in the film.

The tale of Despereaux movie - my thoughts

For starters I want to make a little point. If a movie is an adaptation try -please try- to judge it on its own merit. Take for example a book adaptation: I’m growing pretty tired of people either complaining that the book is better, or people praising a mediocre movie because they loved the book.

I noticed the same when I read reviews about Into the woods. Usually the people who loved the stage play loved the movie. But doesn’t that bias their opinion about the movie?

Now, is the tale of Despereaux a good movie? In my opinion no.

I must admit, I'm biased too. I'm a massive script junkie. If the script (and story on screen) is bad you can throw all kinds of beautiful animation (more about that later) and music into the mix and the end result, to me, is still a bad movie.

I'm sure the book the movie is based upon took its time to connect all the different story-elements. But in the ninety-minute span of this flick it doesn't work. The script meanders between separate story-lines (rat, princes, mouse, and servant-girl) and it takes almost an hour before the film finally starts weaving them together. By this time, I had pretty much given up on caring.[1]

Combine this with the boring character-development (basically the movie cuts to the next storyline the second a character starts to become interesting) and all that's left is a bunch of characters I don't give a hoot about.

You can tell complex fairytales with multiple characters, but not by bluntly introducing them in separate stories. It's like the movie spends the first hour telling me to stare at four main ingredients for soup and the cooking only starts in the last thirty minutes.

A second peeve I had was with the human animations. The animals and backgrounds look great, no problem (a bit outdated by now but that is to be expected). But the human characters look horrid. Especially the princess. She had a very stretched head, razor nose and stapled-on hair -intended to make her look beautiful but as a result makes her look like a botoxed-horse.[2]

The fact that the animators hadn't managed to give her a lot of facial expressions doesn't help the problem. It is like there was a sub-par group of animators working on the humans while the A-team worked on the rodents.

This, results in a split movie. The beautiful Mouse- and Rat world and the ugly humans. It further divides the movie in those separate storylines I just mentioned.

Third peeve, paycheck, paycheck, paycheck. Never before have I seen so many celebrity names on the voice-list of an animated movie (with the exception, perhaps, for Prince of Egypt). I mean, it is great that everybody has work, acting is still a job. And yes, they do a reasonable job (but definitely not great). But I can't shake the feeling that the amount of celebrities involved is the studio’s attempt to mask the bigger problems this movie suffers from. But, this is a rather weak argument, I know.

Fourth peeve, the directing. The first-billed director later on went to make the absolutely brilliant Paranorman. So maybe this movie was a misstep because a lot of the directing felt amateurish straight out of film school. I loved the first long-take shot of following the vegetables into the soup. But after that every single shot isn't very good. Which is weird because 3D animation allows all kinds of amazing shots. The 'camera' can be anywhere. So what went wrong? There’s a second director credited (which is quite common in animated movies) is it his fault? Did the studio meddle with it?

As a fifth, and final little peeve I want to make another point. To paraphrase some people on the Internet: they claim that this movie is too dark and boring for children. This is true. It is a dark tale and yes the script is rather boring. However I politely disagree on the ‘for children’ part because I don't believe in children’s movies. I believe in movies…which some children may watch (and some adults might find annoying).

The sleeping beauty is a great movie, not only for children, I like it too (and I'm older than time). A good ‘children’s’ movie isn’t solely focused on giving children a good time but the audience as a whole.

This is my view on children cinema. And, as such, allows movies to break away from expectations and tropes. Which, sometimes results in complaining parents on the internet.

So, no the Tale of Desperaux isn't the best movie in the world. I believe the main problem is the script and the bad animation on some of the characters.

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[1] It doesn't even start with the right main character rodent. And somehow the timeline between his banishment and Desperaux's birth happen at the same time since the mouse remembers Soupday. Something went wrong during script draft one and thirty-seven. 
[2] I must admit I love insulting a cartoon character on his or her looks. Nobody gets hurt (except the animator...ah shoot...sorry?).

The forger (2012) - tricked promotion

The forger (2012) has quite the interesting poster on imdb. This one:

Now, my first instinct is some kind of National Treasure movie. If that’s not the case. Maybe, something like that TV-show relic hunter. And even if that’s not the case, the title at least promises me something like a thriller about an art-forger. The art-forger part is right, the thriller aspect not so much.

Nothing in the title and poster tells me anything about what this movie is about.[1] If they kept the (I think) original title and poster of Carmel-by-the-sea –at least- I wouldn’t have to shift my expectations twenty minutes into the movie.

Also, for a movie titled the forger you see very little forgeries going on. You only see Josh paint in three short scenes. Carmel-by-the-sea would have been a better title.

Now, I would have liked it better if I wasn’t expecting a rollercoaster ride. But, regardless of the title or the poster, is it a good movie?

It’s a slow drama that tries to tell a sweet morality tale. It isn’t good. But it isn’t awfully bad either. It is just bland. You’ve seen it all before, done better.

The script isn’t the best in the world.[2] You see most of the actors struggle with the boring dialog and character choices (honestly? A guy attacks you twice and you still want him to date your sister?). The camera makes all the paint-by-number choices you expect (including an annoying crane-shot at the end). The music appears to be lifted straight out of a videogame. And the main story doesn’t really know whether it wants to stay focused on the main characters troubled life or the crime element.

But there are gems hidden in the film. The landscape is beautiful. I liked the (few) paintings and the art during the credits. Pretty much every character is a sweetheart at heart (even the villain is likable). And the great, wonderful, Lauren Bacall graced us with her presence for the last time before she left this world.

It’s one of those movies that are promoted entirely wrong. But when you look at the film for what it is you can understand the white lie why the movie poster has the two young stars front and center. But it remains a lie just the same.

Fun fact: according to the credits - Hayden’s younger brother is in it also (playing an annoying kid who somehow believes he can take on kids twice his size). As are Clint Eastwood’s (now ex) wife and his son from a previous marriage. Quite the family gatherings going on.

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[1] Apart from the fact that Josh Hutcherson and Hayden Panettiere are in it. But to be honest Hayden doesn’t have an awful lot more to do than be pretty. She’s great at that –mind you- but she can take on meatier parts. 
[2] It’s always a danger sign when a movie uses a voice over right at the beginning, especially if it is the main character (there are only a few movies that pulled if off successfully. The Shawshank Redemption being one of them).

Two or three (maybe four) little problems with Tomorrowland.

Spoilers obviously

(Again a) problematic third act

I really liked this movie. It was a fun ride, had a great opening and some fabulous action sequences.[1] But, unfortunately, the film doesn't work. Now the main reason for this is the flat third act. The minute the heroes actually (re)enter Tomorrowland (far too late in the movie) the whole house-of-cards that the filmmakers painstakingly built de hour and a half previous comes tumbling down. 

The main problem I have with this third act is that it is only then when the problem is posed to the  characters (Spoiler: the end of the world – again). The hour and a half before that they were simply trying to get to Tomorrowland, like a road movie. Moreover, the minute the problem is posed, thirty seconds later the 'solution' is plucked from the air and our heroes know and decide what to do. You could have made that choice ages ago. Now it just lands like a ton of bricks.[2]

The following action sequence doesn't really amp up the tension because there wasn’t time for me –the audience- to come to terms with the problem. It’s just like: “Hey…problem” “We need to destroy that machine.” “Okay let’s do it.”. It feels like a stamped-on finale (turning Hugh Laurie’s character into the villain in the last moments).  And the little-girl robot scene. Well, I was actually hoping it wouldn't happen because I have seen this so many times before and it hardly ever works.

Two movies in one

I would actually have preferred a few more scenes between young Frank and the girl because here we have all kinds of themes to explore (can robots love?, What is it like for an outsider to fit in?, etc.). I did like the -gender reversed- Peter Pan take between the two.

But that's not the main story. And I think that is part of the problem. This movie is also a bit two movies in one. The flashback story (far more interesting -and it holds all the answers about the magic of Tomorrowland) and the main road-movie story (that has a direction but doesn't really add to the plot).

Don’t show it if you don’t need it

Another little thing that bugged me was the trip to Paris. In this movie we have a girl traveling by bus, travelling by car, getting George Clooney, travelling by car again, travelling in Brundlefly teleporter, entering space rocket, going to space and returning to another dimension...phew...finally Tomorrowland..."where is everybody?". 

It was a bit much (and to be honest, the only reason they wanted to use the Eiffel tower was for that rocket-scene...couldn't they use the one in Vegas?). They should have cut the Paris sequence (even though it is very cool) and just kept the movie in the USA.

Why this need to kill everybody?

Ah-I knew there was a fourth little thing- the murders of innocent humans. I don't care if an evil robot gets killed. But killing humans simply to show how evil the robots are (like the black suits weren't a big enough hint)? This is a Disney movie targeted on children. And I'm perfectly fine by showing some death and scary stuff to the kiddies (the corpse in the freezer in The Goonies). But it has to be necessary. Why kill those cops if you could just as easily have used your robot superpower to make them forget they ever saw anything?

But, still, apart from these little problems it is a great fun movie. It just comes crashing down the minute they actually arrive at Tomorrowland.

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[1]  Maybe the title card should have been shown the minute the boy enters Tomorrowland - it would have made a nice prologue/introduction. 

[2] Heck, they could have made George Clooney wanting to destroy that machine and that was the reason why he got banished. A simple solution to two lingering questions.

James Bond – Spectre

James Bond Spectre is a good movie but very underwhelming. The story, in short, has Bond following a lead that brings him to a shadow organization called SPECTRE. Its leader –once he notices Bond- has a vendetta with Bond. And after this meeting Bond has to fight his way to save the world.

Like any James Bond-film the story is simple. But, as I will try to argue throughout this article, the script is also littered with errors.

James Bond 24 looks beautiful, is well acted and has a good soundtrack (I even like the song). But the script undermines what could have been a great movie.

Plot

To start with my biggest problem, the script. As we all know Skyfall is a hard act to follow. Was Skyfall a perfect Bond movie? No not at all. There were scriptural errors throughout the movie (e.g. Silva’s magically appearing subway train). But, thankfully, the movie was so much fun that I happily waved away all those little errors along the way.[1]

Spectre, however, didn’t learn from those mistakes. The plot is needlessly convenient and vague at the same time. The spark that sets off the mission works, but it requires a bit of suspension of disbelief (which I didn’t buy). So, basically, Bond goes off to investigate something and along the way people are trying to kill him. And that’s the problem; because the audience doesn’t really know what he’s investigating or why people try to kill him.

A Bond movie is one of the easiest movies to write. Bond receives a mission, Bond goes to investigate. Each time he gets close to what he’s looking for baddies try to kill him (oh, and he survives in the end). So why remove the threat?

I think the best illustration of this is what Waltz’s Oberhausen at one point states: “I’m the author of all your pain.” Referring to the fact that he was the mastermind behind all the previous villains Bond thwarted (from Casino Royal up to Skyfall). But he doesn’t mention how. He just states it and you have to believe him at his word.  There isn’t a moment in the movie that the audience gets a glimpse of Oberhausen’s involvement in, for instance, Silva’s rise to power. Not a moment that tells you just how dangerous SPECTRE really is or how far its tentacles reach.

Directing

So the plot isn’t very strong. Then how about directing (and cinematography)? What I liked was the long take opening shot in Mexico City. But the minute the helicopter fight begins somehow the action is off key. And the action stays that way for the remainder of the movie.

Mendes is a great actor’s director with an eye for pictures. But he’d never been really good at action sequences. He prefers to put the camera at a distance and let the fight-choreography do the rest.

That’s why Skyfall worked on an action level. The sequence at the mansion, for instance, was all about rooms and traps. Just put a camera there and the rest will follow.

But in Spectre it doesn’t work. The obvious moment is Bond’s escape from the evil lair in Tangiers. It’s an escape, but somehow it looks like Bond just entered the God mode-cheat. The villains just fall and not a single bullet ricochets past Bond’s head. Even though the following explosion look great-it is rather unimpressive. There is no real sense of danger. Not a feeling of pay-off as “Thank God Bond survived.”

Still, in contrast to Quantum of solace, Mendes does take his time to show the surroundings. He does cut away during the helicopter fight to show the people below. Those are the best shots. The minute the camera re-enters the helicopter it becomes messy once again.

The villains

Now for the villains. Every good Bond movie has great villains. And I argue that Spectre has some of the best. Oberhausen en Mr. Hinx are both formidable bad guys. But they don’t work together. There isn’t a moment of true interaction between the two (like Goldfinger and Oddjob wherein the latter fully acknowledges his allegiance to the former by crushing that golf ball).

Hinx (a very cool Dave Bautista). His introduction is impressive but not a treat to Bond at the time. He just kills some random baddie to show his evilness. After that he shows up every once in a while to attack Bond and fail. Again, there is no real reason given why he does this. He’s just there being evil and indestructible.[2]

For Andrew Scott’s part. You know from the second you see him that he’s a baddie. But, again, he never interacts with the big-bad Oberhausen. So, he’s just there. Again no treat until the audience learns his reason for existence. [3]

Oberhausen has another great introduction. But again, we don’t really know why he’s evil, what he’s plotting. We learn in the end, but by that time it’s too late. To refer back to “the author of all your pain” statement. As long as the audience doesn’t really get a good feeling of how personal Oberhausen’s vendetta is from the get-go there is no real overpowering sense of danger.

The Bond girls

The Bond girls then. Well Monica Bellucci is a great actress, but she doesn’t have a whole lot to do here (I do love that fact that Craig’s Bond finally gets lucky again, it’s been a while). She’s only in two scenes and she certainly elevates the scenes but after that we never see her again.

The second Bond girl: Léa Seydoux. Great girl, but useless. What does she really do to help the plot along? She’s just there. I don’t mind badly written female characters (the A view to a kill “Help me JAAAAAAMMMMMEEEESSSS.”) but at least give them something to do. I guess after Vesper and M I got spoiled. Also her final goodbye (which sent all kinds of alarm bells going off in my head) felt far too convenient. Why did she have to travel all the way to London to tell him this, honestly? But that's plot again.

The third act

Then, apart from the opening long-take shot, what did I do like?

 I did like the last act of the movie. I even liked it so much that it made me wonder why I had to sit through the third act to get there. The fourth act works, Oberhausen gets all vengeful and there are multiple clocks ticking. But you don’t really need the third act to get there? You could just as easily have rearranged some elements in the second act (Rome and Austria) to get the same result (did she really have to be his daughter?).[4]

So yes, as a result of this, the movie is too long. It takes too much time to get to the point. Which is a shame because if you cut away some stuff and readjust some others it would have been very good.

Money, money, money

Also, as a final gripe, I can’t see why this movie cost 250 million dollars to make. The Mexico City scene, with all those extras and costumes, yeah I can see where the money went. But after that, no not really.

This is something that stuck with me ever since Quantum of Solace. At the time the most expensive Bond ever made. Now, we all know, the cinematography and editing made a mess of all the fancy (expensive) stuff on screen. But my biggest problem was the ‘floating opera house’ that –I believe- was built for this movie. There was no reason at all to have a floating opera house (it didn’t sink, for instance). Just build a set on the ground. It’s just throwing away money.

If it isn’t needed for the plot you don’t need to show it. Here it wasn’t needed.

In  Spectre, thank God, they didn’t build unneeded sets. But somehow I feel that a lot of money could have been spared if they merged some scenes together. Did we really need the entire Tangiers third act? I don’t think so. I think that part of the story could easily have been merged into the second act. It would have saved some money and the movie would have been far more streamlined. 

Better luck next time Mr. Bond

So, to sum up this rather negative rant. Spectre isn’t the best Bond movie in the bunch. It doesn’t have a clear mission. Therefore you don’t know why the baddies are bad and why they want to kill Bond. It is an action flick without a purpose. In short, again, the script’s faults undermine the entire movie, even though it looks beautiful. 

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[1] SPOILER: Especially the skewered timeline. Did Bond do Goldfinger between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall? But, for the sake of this article I won’t go into this here. But I wish to have it mentioned, because the Bond timeline is getting far more skewered in this one. 
[2] Now, to sidetrack a little bit, this new Bond is all ‘kill and don’t take prisoners.’, So, when, after a lengthy action-scene, Hinx is unconscious after another failed attempt, why Bond didn’t double-tap him in the head is a big question to me. This is just poorly written. Hinx should have fallen in a chasm or something so that Bond couldn’t get to him and, thus, have to assume that he’s dead. We all know he’ll pop up later on, so don’t let his body lying about, that just makes Bond look stupid. 
[3] SPOILER: I do love that fact that Moriarty got killed by Voldemort. But that’s just me. 
[4] As I wrote this I learned about the Sony Hacks. Apparently some executives at Sony were wary about the third act also and demanded a change. Nice to know that I’m not the only one who noticed. Unfortunately the third act is still underwhelming.