HIGGS BOSON - SO WHAT?

Particle-accelerators smash atoms together at very high speeds and then have monumentally sophisticated detectors read the data - quadrillions of data points could be possible and trillions of images could be taken, but millons are and then computers filter it down to a veritable handful for scientist to actually pore over and what they are looking at is trails of debris - from which they infer the composition of the debris that made it, i.e., the type of particle. In fact, all they are doing is liberating hidden mass (a term I coined in my self-published work The Fundamental Quanta c 1987). Cars smashing into one another at a stock car rally leave trails and bits of debris, and trails of debris pieces gone skipping off. This is what scientists are looking at. No doubt at even higher energies we'll find more "particles" - but so what? It still does not explain mass. I did in FQ - motion is the fundamental quanta - it has an indivisible unit size, a generally spheroid shape, and gives rise to all other forces and objects (motion is not merely an attendant property of those - it is the stuff from which they are made) ... motion held in bound states give rise to these "particles."  Higgs Boson, bah! Here's another skeptic

AVENGERS - YAWN

This spoof of Iron Man at left kinda sums up my feeling about the Avengers movie. It was serviceable. It was functional. It did the job. And Iron Man was the brightest, shiniest thing in it. But I can't say I had an emotional reaction to any of it. Quite a lot of script jujitsu was employed to connect all the things we've seen in other Marvel movies featuring these characters and it did end up all making sense - the way a complex series of strings connecting points on a map plotting out crimes makes sense, but it lent nothing to the drama at hand. Joss Whedon seemed intent on crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's, but it was a big so what - only the comics geeks will care. It was like watching a gymnastics routine or maybe an ice skating routine at the Olympics and the athlete nails it technically perfectly but without grace and elan or any sense of verve or spontaneity. It felt inorganic and leaden. The actors were all good, and the dialog was pretty crisp and finally a Hulk that looked and acted as it should. The best moment in the whole thing is when the Hulk smashes Loki like a rag-doll. Gwyneth Paltrow is aging well - never looked better (has a small role). Please please let David Lynch or Paul Verhoeven or Peter Greenaway do an Inhumans movie and give us fans something interesting.

PROMETHEUS REVIEW

RIDLEY SCOTT JUST DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE
Rated:

Review:
I had high hopes I’d be pleasantly surprised by the new Alien film Prometheus since Ridley Scott was taking another stab at the story. Instead I feel like I had my intelligence assaulted throughout every single moment of the film - almost a torture. It might well be one of the most terrible films I’ve ever seen. Imagining it as a stand-alone film it would be an okay B-movie because there are no expectations. But this story has a pedigree – a checkered one to be sure (Alien III and Alien Resurrection being the ugly step-children), but there stands a singular classic at the beginning of this family line with Alien and a powerful first-born which followed and charted its own course in James Cameron's actioner, Aliens.

Ridley Scott has clearly just given up as an artist. He doesn’t care anymore. Gladiator wasn’t half the movie that Troy was, yet a dumbed-down public loved it and Academy members voted it best picture that year. Robin Hood couldn't even lure me in for more than 20 minutes of my time. Scott has not done a first-rate film on par with his best since Hannibal. He has so many producing projects that he obviously just isn’t devoting the time to his directing duties. In an appropriate irony he brought on board Damon Lindelof (of LOST fame) to punch up the script for Prometheus and it was a terrible mistake – after all Lindelof gave us the cop-out it was all a death fever-dream ending to LOST. 


I’m sure there is plenty of blame to go around for one of the worst scripts I’ve ever seen put on screen. The dialog is so sophomoric, hackneyed and clichéd that you just felt like you were being beaten with a stupid stick as horrid line after horrid line of dialog penetrated your ears. Not to mention the sweepingly ridiculous plot structure. Soon after the open, our intrepid crew enters the atmosphere of the destination moon and are almost instantly over the area of the temples with nary a mention of having to, er, search them out, nor a mention of the Nazca Plains-like markings so clearly visible on the ground ... or that there are obviously several temples in a row and which one should we investigate first? Nope, they just land and go to the first one (we've got a sequel to get to). 

The original film Alien was not just a classic horror film but genius on film – the perfect combination of visual style, tight direction, wonderful performances, great conceptual art and production design, and a perfect build-up of suspense and then release at the finale. The tight-knit ensemble cast caught the ethos of the era with the clever but spare script by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett – the world is fucked, everything is corrupt, just look out for yourself and those you love sense of anomie that pervaded the culture in the late 70s was caught perfectly in the words and the actors’ conveyance of those words. The audience was with these people, rooted emotionally in their survival and desire to understand why the big, bad corporation would put them in this situation and how they would survive.

Contrast the perfect origin film with the mess that is Prometheus. First, I guess Scott wanted to work with Charlize Theron or something because her character Vickers is entirely useless to the story and could have been written out easily … as could the part of Peter Weyland played by Guy Pearce in some crappy old-man make-up. The big bad evil corporation could have been referenced in other ways.

The only thing I did like were some visual references to the first Alien film. David’s interface helmet has yellow light, as do many of the other CGI interface panels and small blinking lights in hallways and such – referencing the look of the master computer Mother in the original film. And many corridors and hallways and rooms were made to look as if they could be earlier versions of what the Nostromo might end up looking like. [Note to sequel writers: If Nostromo is so much more low-tech looking in Alien and it is 90 years after Prometheus then maybe the equipment needs to be simpler because the mining crews are in hypersleep so much longer - that's a way to explain the lack of flashy touch-screens and pop-up CGI animations in the first film.]

I’m getting ahead of myself. Prometheus is that film which has artificial drama at almost every turn. Lights flash, buzzers sound, people shout with a sense of urgency when there is none. People could have talked in a normal tone of voice, walked rather than run, and so on. Contrast with the original Alien when each light, sound, reaction shot to camera by an actor, and spoken word felt absolutely necessary and organic to the genuine drama unfolding. Fake Prometheus drama: a sudden storm compels the action forward at one point and again lends to a contrived sense of urgency. Oh no, someone is trapped outside and must be rescued – ho-hum. People get lost when they have locators. [Oh, and every single important moment from the film was indeed given away in the trailers and my earlier post below did state the obvious in its predictions.]

The onslaught of stupid begins early in the film as they get right to the ship en-route to LV-223 (or whatever the number, which they'll change to LV 426 for the sequel) after the cave-painting “it’s an invitation” stuff (and once again we're on a space ship with cocktail bars, couches, a pool table (!) and other high-end hotel amenities … contrast that with the realistic spare digs of the Nostromo from Alien)  … once they wake the crew from their sleep chambers we get lots of Aliens-type dialog – not just an homage to James Cameron’s version but a lazy straight-lift of the scene and it is lame … it is getting so painful to watch these let’s introduce the characters to the audience as sketch outlines and spew character-specific one-liners that I just physically cringed – also, way too many characters for one thing  (that we never get to know nor care about as they die). In fact it is Aliens which is referenced in Prometheus more than Alien, which is interesting since you would think Scott would want to put his own stamp back on the story. The ground vehicle they drive to the temple look familiar? (and why exactly were there two extra little buggy vehicles at all? – they lent no value to the story and had no logic behind them and were used at times for artificial drama).

David the Android: Fassbender is a terrific actor and did as good a job as was possible with such a terrible script. The fascination with Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia and dying the hair was just too cute and distracting. I guess that's the writers’ way of showing these early android models were “twitchy?” as referenced in a later film.  I guess because audiences since the Gen-X era have gotten successively dumber we get hit over the head with the David is weird looks and creepy lines again and again. One look and one line would have sufficed to intrigue and engage an alert audience. All that was left was for him to wear a trench coat and flash us. Oh, and the whimsy. A whimsical android? An early model that was this way? To show how truly truly bereft of ideas the writers responsible for this pile of rubbish were we got David as the disembodied head as yet another straight-lift (Ash in the original film).

Many of the crew (were there 12, 20 or 40 of them?) get killed and you don’t care – again with the artificial drama … if we didn’t know them and they weren’t doing anything important, whey have them at all and why kill them?

There are two mega-stupid parts in the film. In the first, an infected crewman wants back on the ship (one of the bad actors, more on that later) and Theron’s character comes down to say no way and then she opens the ship bay door! If she didn’t want him on, why would she open that door? So she burns him alive later, but still. Then there is lead actress Noomi Rapace doing the Ripley surrogate character and she is a bore, for one, but the writers have her get into a surgical machine to remove the alien she’s had surreptitiously implanted in her by David (via a surrogate – sex with her infected boyfriend). The machine cuts her, removes the creature and staples her up and then for the next 20 minutes she is climbing, jumping, running non-stop and it is beyond-the-pale idiotic. Er, those staples wouldn’t work themselves loose? Her guts wouldn’t come spilling out? She didn’t need to rest and courses of antibiotics after major invasive abdominal surgery? She's healed up enough to take an android head and go find the Space Jockey homeworld?

The helmets: we get told that there is atmosphere being created in the temple and they can go helmet-less inside and in scene after scene in there, no helmets (not even carried on their backs). Did they just leave them in that room that was doing the “terraforming” (another cheap nod to another film in the franchise) … what if they needed their helmets in some part they had not seen yet? Dumb, scientifically dumb (and there are 100 other instances of bad science in the film).

The most cringe-worthy of the dumb bits has to be when the captain crudely seduces Theron’s character Vickers. This just would not happen. We had never seen established that they even knew each other (of course they did, she hired him but that was not shown). The actor playing the captain was a pretty bad actor, and his dialog was terrible too - he was less than a sketch of a character. The captain was so detached and unprofessional toward the mission and exuded zero authority that it defied logic that such a person would be in charge of this “trillion dollar” mission. At the end when the captain and two surviving crewmembers volunteer to smash the Prometheus into the Space-Jockey ship and make a rousing suicide war cry while they do it it is embarrassing to watch it is so hackneyed. Other bad actors were the boyfriend scientist with the worm in his eye (he’s a scientist and doesn’t tell anyone?), the tattooed guy and the nerd guy with glasses. All were bland or hokey or just bad. The medical assistant lady was clearly a nod to Veronica Cartwright from Alien with a similar look but otherwise lent nothing to the story.

What we get is a lot of bells and whistles and bright shiny things, but a lousy story with gargantuan plot-holes, an infection of inanity and way too many cute references to the other films. They have their conference in a bay that reminds you of the end of Aliens. The table they dine at is meant to remind you of the scene with John Hurt and the chest-burster. The David-head.

The greatest crime of the film is what I predicted in my earlier post, that they would make the horror mundane by making it literal and that is exactly what they did. The magnificent and mysterious chamber of the derelict ship with the creature sitting in the giant chair in Alien is now a pasty-skinned buff 7-footer with a helmet that has the elephant snout. We saw all kinds of CGI glowy lights in that metal room. We were compelled to believe that the organic look to the metal came from the Space Jockeys’ pathogen covering the metal of their ship, whereas the original art by H.R. Giger for the first Alien film was always about integration of the organic and machine as is Giger's vision, not organic veneer covering machine so Lindelof can connect-the-dots for his sequels.

I could I go on. The worms in the soil at the temple. Did some PA just grab a handful outside the soundstage one day for Scott to shoot? Were they indigenous to the moon? If so, why were they never before integrated and co-opted by the malignant organics of the vase jars (which by Nostromo’s time 90 years later when John Hurt’s character Kane finds them have an organic outer layer that appears all organic)? Were these tiny worms brought by the humans? Was that room sealed all that time from them if they were a local lifeform? Because in short order the gooey black organic oil oozing from the vase jars transmogrifies them to dangerous eel throat-stuffers. Later the alien the Ripley knock-off cuts out of herself (the mean little bugger held in place despite violent struggle by a simple pair of forceps) looks like a squid-thingy. And at the end the squid-thingy has in less than an hour grown room-size huge and quickly throat-stuffs and births its offspring out of the last Space Jockey into a full-grown proto-alien complete with extending inner jaw (snap-snap) and (this must be a joke) a complete set of what look like porcelin veneers on human chompers in its main outer mandible. I wanted to throw something at the screen. 


Oh, the score, I've read several people say they like the score. Listen to Wrath of Khan (pretty darn close) and other elements are very similar to other soundtracks too - I found it unremarkable or evocative of other films if not dangerously similar in legal terms.


Want to read a hilariously funny version of the above? This guy just killed it with his script spoof - here

DAENERYS IS BURNING

Good finale for the Season 2 closer of Game of  Thrones. After several episodes stuffing plot points into themselves like one of those dishes that stuffs a quail inside a chicken inside a duck inside a goose - the finale unfolded cleanly and we got some quality time with good characters. 


The Big Girl killed some scumbags and showed Jaime Lannister that he might be in for quite a fight if she ever goes after him one-on-one. Eery face-changer guy finally showed his true 2nd face. The blue-eyed undead are on the march, Winterfell is burnt to the ground and in a hilarious bit the buffoon Theon Greyjoy is clobbered by an Iron-born after giving a rousing speech. Poor Tyrion gets no hero's parade, no thanks even for saving Kings Landing - instead he wakes up with his large face-gash to find he's been abandoned and shunted aside. Only Lord Varys remains true (as a self-serving power-player can), as well as his lover, but Varys says he must distance himself for the time-being. 


The main takeaway for a fan who has not read the books is that the people of these novels are completely unsentimental and rather ruthless in their approach to life.  Everyone seems to be scheming about their next move and what they have to give up to survive or get power. The broad sweep of the story is still a bit overwhelming with so many characters and conflicts to follow, but it is entertaining to be sure. Our Dragon Lady Daenerys finally got some answers in the Warlock Tower (visions of possible futures and alternate realities - including a touching scene with her dead king Kahl Drogo stuck in some kind of purgatory) and she burned at least one copy of the Warlock by coaxing her little reptile children to belch fire. Over 9 months until Season 3 - yikes ... how will it be possible not to read a bit about what is to come?

C'MON HBO - MORE EPS PER SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES

Game of Thrones has been terrific through 1 1/2 seasons - it is a great show. But the 6th, 7th and 8th eps of Season II felt pretty rushed to me - they are trying to cram so much story in there that you don't get to sit and rest a spell with these characters we love and bask in the brilliance of the words, performances and production - HBO is skipping along too fast to dot the "i"s and cross that "t"s in the plot development and it is lessening the enjoyment of the series and overall story. HBO needs to extend the seasons to 12, 14, or even up to 20 episodes per season, starting with season III. The show is a gigantic hit, you can afford it, HBO. At least extend 2 or 3 of the episodes to 2 hours. HBO could easily make feature films to accompany the series and they would be a hit. There are so many characters, so many stories to tell and we the audience are getting short shrift these


days with the television eps. I hate to nitpick, but there have been a few flaws in the last few eps. The scene where Brienne of Tarth puts prisoner Jaime Lannister in the boat we see them walk side-by-side and in two shots the illusion is killed that she is a giant - showing her at nearly the same height as him whereas previously all the movie tricks to frame her in other eps had given the illusion of being a giant. The big battle scene outside Kings Landing in tonight's episode IX fell flat. It looked like 80 people fighting 120 and was strangely lackluster. Lena Headey made up for it with her delicious wickedness as Cersei as she chewed up the scenery again and again with the wonderfully cynical dialogue. HBO is serving us a magnificent 20-course meal and rushing the courses before we even get more than a look at this dish, a taste of that one, a sip of that fine wine before clearing and bringing out the next course.

PARSING OUT PROMETHEUS

Let's see if we can parse out the whole story of the new Prometheus film given all the goodies they've given away:

ACT I
STONE AGE ART IS FOUND to contain the same star map, "an invitation" to some, and funding is secured to launch an exploratory mission to those coordinates. ENTER ECCENTRIC BILLIONAIRE - based on a combination of Richard Branson and Steve Jobs. This money man is our MALEVOLENT CORPORATE INFLUENCE - infusing the story with greed and avarice and naked lust for power. He runs the ANDROID COMPANY and insures one of his synthetic humans is along to KEEP TABS ON THE HUMANS and report back and to FOLLOW THE ORDERS OF THE BILLIONAIRE first and foremost. Sleep chambers, flashy CGI graphics and skin-tight suits to sex up the story with cooler imagery and younger bodies than in the first Alien.


ACT II
A TEMPLE IS FOUND with a HUMAN HEAD STATUE. Turns out HUMANS WERE SEEDED so human life on Earth did not evolve there independently. ANDROID LAUNCHES PROBES into temple and finds "seed" chamber and realizes that there is also a chamber with a ship - a SPACE JOCKEY SHIP from the first Alien film. An INFECTION - either organic to the moon (we are on LV-426) or brought there by an asteroid, the newly-arrived humans or the Space Jockeys themselves infects all life on the moon. The INFECTION AFFECTS SEED PODS and some of them open and WE SEE THE FLANGED EELWORM early Face Hugger and it attacks crew. At least a couple of the CREW GET INFECTED with an EelWorm egg while others battle the infection. MOST OF THE HUMANS DIE, but the corporate witch is one of the last to go and makes sure the android can do his mission (collect data and/or samples) before she is offed. 


ACT III
SOMETHING WAKES THE SPACE JOCKEYS (android jiggling their controls?) and they attack the humans, communicate with some of them. The android MAKES SURE THE DATA GETS BACK TO THE EVIL ANDROID-BUILDING CORPORATE ASSHOLE ON EARTH (so he, in turn, can make sure the Nostromo in Alien lands on LV-426 and that his android Ash will be assigned to that ship some 99 years later). ANDROID ATTEMPTS TO FLEE WITH SAMPLES and the humans know he must be stopped, hence the RAMMING OF SPACE JOCKEY VEHICLE. Two possible endings: ANDROID SURVIVES and ABDUCTS AND FORCIBLY CRYO-SLEEPS ONE CREWMAN (the heroine) who is infected, for return to Earth ... Or, THEY ALL DIE, the last couple willingly, to keep the organism and disease from getting to Earth - not knowing the ANDROID ALREADY TRANSFERRED THE DATA. [Space Jockeys were in their own form of cryo-sleep or a 2nd ship landed once they were signaled that their ship on site was activated]


Analysis: Prometheus will be a good action film and a good, but not great, prequel to the Alien film series. What will be lacking is the camaraderie among the crew and the working-class disgust with the elite corporatists running things that so infused the first film - they were all in it together unwillingly doing the bidding of the man and sacrificed on the alter of greed and power - with a heroine who overcame the odds to survive.
[Update 6.12.12: to quote the Ripley surrogate "We were so wrong" ... the movie is terrible and even worse, the android-head and Ripley surrogate are going to chase down the Space Jockeys in the sequel]

MET BILL PAXTON

I get to meet a lot of famous people at my job, including many actors. The other day I met Bill Paxton (really nice, unpretentious guy). So so soooooo tempting to say the words: 
"Why don't you put her in charge!?"

FAVORITE POST-BATTLESTAR PERFORMANCE

Katee Sackhoff as Bitch Pudding on Robot Chicken 

WOWIE ZOWIE - VAN GOGH MORPH

found on Reddit: Van Gogh Morph - click link to view it in actionhttp://i.minus.com/iFJhhFR80wAYo.gif

PROMETHEUS BARES ALL

Thank you 20th Century Fox for continuing the modern tradition of giving away nearly every plot point and action sequence in the trailers for your films the way the rest of Hollywood does, this time for  for the upcoming Prometheus. The latest trailer is killing yet more mystery about the story and even gives us the pre-human-contact version of the Face-Huggers - they're more like worms or eels with flanges that will evolve into fingers by the time Ripley and crew find them 99 years later. The Face-Hugger-EelWorm is kinda cute - see my version?

HUMANITY AS VISUAL SPECTACLE

Looking forward to this:

GAME OF THRONES, er ... I, CLAUDIUS

Not having read George R. R. Martin's books, but so far loving the HBO series Game of Thrones, I can't help but notice that either the original writer Martin or the television version's writers love the PBS series I, Claudius (itself based upon the Robert Graves novels). In two scenes specifically there were almost direct lifts from I, Claudius: When Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) sends Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) off to King's Landing the scene plays out almost the same as when Claudius is invited to dinner with Livia and the one in power realizes that the person they thought a fool was no fool at all and, in fact, quite crafty and capable. And when Tyrion replaces the Chief of the Guard of King's Landing with his own man, it is much like when when Macro replaced Sejanus and when Claudius had Cassius condemned to death as an example for leading the conspiracy to murder Caligula that put Claudius on the Roman throne. I have noticed that many of the characters in Game of Thrones have analogs to I, Claudius characters. Here is my take so far. I, Claudius has no Daenerys Targaryen. Offer your own comparisons in the comments. [click on image for larger version]

PROMETHEUS, ALIEN PREQUEL

Because it's Ridley Scott, it looks awesome and gorgeous ... but because the story is by Damon Lindelof (who along with the rest of the LOST writers were great at giving you tantalizing tastes but not a satisfying meal) - we may be left wanting by the end. Based upon the trailer images, it looks like we're going to get the life was seeded angle with some 2001: A Space Odyssey themes and visual elements thrown in. We may also have the story made too literal and have it weaken the Alien lore by giving us their version of Star Wars' midi-chlorians as an explanation for The Force. It looks like advanced races may have used the Aliens as a bio-control mechanism or bio-warfare, but  it escaped. The thing about a ruin is that you never actually know how those people lived and what they believed - you only get some of the information. This time around we'll know all the nitty-gritty details which evaporates mystery

The IMDB Prometheus page has a longer clip of a fake TED seminar with the film's villain - a corporate titan responsible for the first androids (a nod to Cylons) ... over at Aliens.wikia they have detailed analysis based upon all the known material regarding the so-called Space-Jockey from the first film ... the really good trailer is this one, the international trailer: 



Don't watch this third trailer unless you want to see them give away the store - pretty much the whole tale is told here [My story breakdown below]  

Super spoilery: Seems pretty clear: Messages left by ancient aliens invite space-faring humans to come visit a particular place. We go. We get bad news. We are to be used to take the Aliens back to Earth (to rid it of humans or some other nefarious purpose) and the Space Jockeys are not friendlies, or if they are, they've been compromised through Alien exposure. If they seek to tie this story to 1979's Alien then the information will have been held closely by the android-building villain in 2023 and hence when "mother" the computer and Ash the android conspire to have the Nostromo land on the moon LV-426 in 2122 it will have been 99 years since the events in Prometheus happened

OUR MOON'S EVOLUTION

THE JJ ABRAMS STAR TREK DOES NOT HOLD UP

Time-travel is always a cheap gimmick in science-fiction - a way to solve plot problems, especially when it is not central to the story. Abrams' film does have good qualities and is entertaining but it is pure cornball and really disrespects the source material. From the cheap plastic sets (dome on the bridge, pool light covers as transporter pads), idiotic choices like making Engineering look like a brewery and having an endless amount of shuttle crafts and especially that stupid rock-dwarf sidekick, to the lens-flare aesthetic choice it really comes across as more of a children's movie upon repeated viewing. The most ridiculous aspect of the film is how the characters we know from previous incarnations of the story are "re-imagined" here and essentially put into the Plot Scrambler and somehow they end up sitting in the right chairs on the bridge. Rumors about as to what JJ's nest Star Trek film (now shooting) will be about: possibly a Harry Mudd story, or the end of Christopher Pike, or yet another Khan story. 

VAN GOGH'S STARRY NIGHT PUT IN MOTION

Starry Night (interactive animation) from Petros Vrellis on Vimeo

BEST SHOW SINCE BATTLESTAR

American Horror Story is genius. Wasn't drawn to it initially, then heard many good things about it and finally watched an episode and I was hooked. I haven't looked forward to watching a new episode of anything this eagerly since the first couple of seasons of BSG. Jessica Lange is a marvel, pure and simple. Watching her perform is like watching a world-class athlete - you are just baffled at how someone can perform at such a high level again and again. Lange chews up the scenery as Constance and you just wish she were in every moment of every scene she is so good. All the cast is terrific and the story is great. I think it's on Hulu. A must-see.

DR. WHO TRIBUTE VID

GENIUS VIDEOGAME SPOOF OF BSG

[thank you Anonymous poster for the tip]

LINK:  http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6683770/battlestar-galactica-rpg

DICAPRIO CASTING A MISFIRE FOR CLINT

Leonardo DiCaprio is a character actor. Great as a youth in This Boy's Life and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, he was almost a parody of a leading man in Titanic with his fey, boyish look and manner (which didn't stop an uncritical public from making the film a huge success). He's had a few good parts since, such as Catch Me If You Can and The Departed, but much of his work has seen his people and him making some weird or not-quite-right choices: The Quick and the Dead, Gangs of New York, Blood Diamond (with that awful fake accent), and Aviator (a very uneven performance that veered from very good to outright caricature). Now it's clear that he was terribly miscast in Clint Eastwood's new biopic J Edgar. I'm glad to see DiCaprio drifting back to character parts, but this big, showy type of character is not the way to transition into quality character roles. Character actors have the longest careers and often the most interesting titles in their resumes, and DiCaprio has had his fill of fame and has plenty of money and women, so if he's smart, he'll do the occasional leading role and stick with well-written and appropriate character parts. What is so crystal clear from just the stills and film-clips making the rounds for the pending release of J Edgar is that DiCaprio failed to capture the inner being that was J Edgar Hoover. It's all in the eyes. There is an evil queen lurking inside that head of J Edgar and DiCaprio didn't come near it. The image composite I've included shows you (and these are the best examples of DiCaprio getting sorta close I could find). Brilliant New York actor Kenneth McMillan captures the essence of J Edgar without even trying in his performance of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in David Lynch's Dune (1984). The real J Edgar Hoover was a power-mad aggressive homosexual predator who would look you over like a piece of meat. Those who encountered him in an official setting would often perceive this as a powerful person taking stock, but anyone with any gaydar knew when he was sizing up a piece of man-meat with those eyes. There are all kinds of gay men, but one particular type take on a portion of their mother's persona - often with mincing little facial gestures or physical flourishes, and Hoover was this type. Even from the still and clips it is clear DiCaprio missed it entirely. 

TIME FOR THE INHUMANS?

   The X-Men franchise has proven that Hollywood can actually respect the source material when it comes to some much-beloved Marvel comics, and I have long hoped they would never touch my favorites besides the X-Men, The Inhumans. But I've had a change of heart and think maybe it's time. They are really better as ancillary characters - they seem more mysterious. Most important is that a director who specializes in moody atmospherics be chosen to realize them onscreen - their representation on film should be surreal.

I'm not so excited about the upcoming Avengers movie, since it has none of the characters I would put in the lineup: Vision, Quicksilver, Wanda the Scarlet Witch, Dr. Strange, Nova and Black Panther.

THE SHUFFLING DEAD

Tonight's return of AMC's Walking Dead had a scene near the beginning where our intrepid band of survivors decide to leave Atlanta for the highway and a military base. Of course a radiator blows on one of the vehicles and they become trapped by a hoard of zombies walking past - that don't seem to smell them or sense their heat. Move along, nothing to eat here. Then, in an even stupider turn of events our cop hero chases after the two zombies who've flushed the innocent little girl out from under a car and the run and run through the woods and rather than just pop off two heads shots with his gun and be done with it, he hides the little girl in a hole by the creek ... an alligator den? ... a zombie corpse hole? No such luck in this series without irony or humor, the little girl escapes unharmed when it would have been so much more satisfying for smarty-pants cop to stuff her in a zombie feast-cave or have some raccoons eat her, or for the zombies to catch her and tear her apart for snacks. Aw, now it's Little Girl Lost.  And why didn't he use his gun? (and he lost his rifle chasing after her) ... so a fake speaker-stone was used to smash in the zombie extras' heads. After the commercial break we'll see if they are now lost on their own - a little side-plot, or if they merrily skip through the forest back to the road and their companions - oh, a worse plot gimmick - she's wandered off on her own and now they must search for her while avoiding zombies. Meanwhile, a screwdriver to the eye of one zombie and some other close zombie kills don't seem to get dangerous zombie splatter on anyone - or it is harmless because our characters aren't afraid of it. This is one dumb show.

THE THING REMAKE - WORSE THAN YOU COULD IMAGINE

Why did I think for a second that this film might be good? It is terrible in so many ways it is hard to know where to begin, other than to say that Hollywood studio system cookie-cutter movie-by-committee produces crap like this. The advance press on the film kept saying how much the filmmakers respected the original 1982 John Carpenter version ... well, if true, they never understood what made the first film so good. 


This version is entirely without suspense, features full-frontal CGI creature effects, terrible casting, a worse script, and feels like a child't connect-the-dots exercise more than a movie experience. Rather than tie this film to Carpenter's 1982 version it feels more like a companion piece to the first awful X-Files movie. In instance after instance the film tries to reference the Carpenter version and lifts bits completely but comes off entirely stale with zero feeling of continuity. They really should make a drinking game as a companion to this version, so you can pound a shot of booze every time you recognize that's from the other film [alcohol poisoning for everyone!]


In horror, what lurks in the shadows and our imaginations is much more frightening than what is seen clearly in the open. Monsters that hint at their presence (or scuttle by quickly) send your mind reeling whereas CGI creatures with insect appendages and toothy maws center-screen and well-lit, just make you want to laugh after the fifth time. Modern horror films speed the action up, now we have fast zombies and a Thing that whips around it's flower-arm and rips organs right out of victims one after another ... your liver ... and your pancreas!  Just as with the slow dumb Zombies in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, it is the relentless, unstoppable creep of evil which is frightening - not the whip-snap of a monster's fleshy tentacle. Duh.


The Gen-X / Gen-Y idiots responsible for greenlighting and ordering certain things be in this movie should be tried and convicted for bad filmmaking. Obviously some studio suits came in with their marketing charts and said the movie needed Americans, blacks and women in order to sell tickets to those moviegoers. It is my recollection of the Norwegian station from the Carpenter version it was all white, male Norwegians. A good story and a good script and the black and female audiences would still have come to see the new version without their surrogates in the film as characters. A good, scary film will draw an audience, every time. This exercise in movie-by-marketing-committee deserves to see a huge loss on this piece of crap.


The lead actress is a blank and a bore and her character - if you can call it that - is just an archetype of the brainy, no-nonsense science nerd with some looks, and is so badly written maybe it isn't the actress's fault. There is no internal logic as to why the senior and veteran members of the Norwegian team would start to follow her or listen to her, or why she suddenly is Sigourney Weaver in Aliens by the end of the film - toting a flame-thrower and treading bravely into the alien's lair. The time period is referenced once at the beginning "Winter 1982" but the hair, clothes and cultural idioms are wrong and nothing else suggests the era - nor does anything suggest the absolute remoteness, harshness and isolation of the place. There are way too many people at the base, way too much equipment, the place internally is way too spacious and the suggestion of the cold and the harsh elements is almost dispensed with it is done so poorly (especially the plastic snow on windshields). 


This is the kind of bad movie you leave the theater feeling like you got mugged.

LISTEN TO THE MAGIC

Best portions of the soundtrack from Vangelis's Bladerunner music 

NEW THING MOVIE - DUMBING IT DOWN FOR GEN-X / GEN-Y

I was originally excited to see the new version of The Thing, but after seeing the trailer not so much. Once again the Gen-X/Gen-Y suits that now run studios and make the films have less sophisticated tastes and talent and are dumbing-it down. 
What made John Carpenter's The Thing a masterpiece of horror was it's slow pace and sense of remove. You felt the isolation of the people, you felt doom closing in and the unrelenting attack of the alien even if you didn't see it. 
It is the same complaint I have with modern zombie pics - they are smart, fast zombies now whereas the original zombies in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead were slow, dumb zombies and ultimately scarier ... an unrelenting force coming after you that you can outrun in the short-term but which will never stop for any reason is far more frightening ... the scariest thing in the new zombie series on AMC is that half-lady hungrily crawling around. The trailer for the new Thing shows lots of quick-cutting, fast-change special creature CGI effects, a girl (shamelessly going after the female demographic when they don't need to given the classic status of the Carpenter version), yet it supposed to take place in the Norwegian camp earlier in the story referenced at the beginning of Carpenter's film. I hope I'm wrong - the casting and production design of the film look good.

PETER DINKLAGE GETS AN EMMY

I'm shocked - shocked - that he won this year for Game of Thrones. He deserved it, sure. But these awards shows never seem to give it to the right person, rather they give an award later on for some sucky part after you've already turned in outstanding performances. I predicted he'd win next year for GoT, since his character will have a much bigger, juicier part. An award well-deserved, Peter, and for a body of consistently good work. He may be the first actor who is physically a dwarf to transcend the stature issue through his talent. People think of him, and what he can bring to a part, and then consider that he's shorter than average.

SAM ROCKWELL'S MOON

Director Duncan Jones' Moon (he's David Bowie's son) is pretty good - not great. Aesthetically it borrows from 2001, Alien and some other good sci-fi films for its story of a clone learning he's a clone from his clone. Rockwell has been one of my favorite actors since I first saw him in the terrific Lawn Dogs back in '97. It's a tour-de-force performance opportunity for Rockwell, but he underplays it a bit which makes the film all the better. There is a bit of an inside joke to the film because there are lots of shots of Rockwell's butt.

AN ALMOST PAYDAY FOR COLIN FARRELL

Update: Review below
The unneeded remake of Fright Night with star Colin Farrell looks to take the box office crown this weekend, and I'm thrilled because one the best actors working will finally get a great payday worthy of his talents. [update: the movie tanked at the box office due to bad marketing] He's the big name attached to the picture and will get the big chunk of coin. Colin Farrell has done superb work in every part he's ever touched and I hope he works in film for many more years to come because he elevates the material he's in. Fright Night is his first big commercial movie in a while. He's mostly chosen more interesting character parts (The Recruit, Ask the Dust, The New World) and worked with interesting directors (Terrence Malick, Oliver Stone), although he did do S.W.A.T., Minority Report, and the recent Horrible Bosses (in a goofy character turn). Farrell is a true talent. Do one of these commercial films every fourth film, buddy, and you can have plenty of money and do the type of parts you find more challenging the rest of the time. Colin Farrell box office

REVIEW:  Terrific. A perfect remake that for once stays true to the source material in content and tone. It was light and fluffy fun then and it is that now, but updated for the times. And the always entertaining Christopher-Mintz Plasse will one day get a very meaty dramatic role and get nominated for awards.

io9 STICKS THEIR FINGER IN J.J. ABRAMS EYE

But they didn't seem to get many takers. Not too many comments and not much buzz around their gesture.

A recent article by io9 invites readers to come up with a better ending to LOST, noting that J.J. Abrams (the show's creator) is well aware of the mostly negative response to the show's ending. Now that my brain surgery is done and I have some time, I'll finish the better version in the next few weeks. Some of the story already exists here ... we deserved answers to the numbers, time-travel, and so many other questions.

HARRY POTTER AND WEAK ENDINGS

I never read the books - wizards and potions and all that is not really my thing, but I did enjoy the H.P. movies as they came out - especially the 3rd one by director Alfonso Cuarón (which was more adult and sophisticated in tone and imagery). 

Warner Bros. absolutely got greedy by dividing The Deathly Hallows into 2 films: the first half felt draggy and heaped with exposition, whereas the grand finale Part II felt rushed and anticlimactic. It's great when filmmakers want to be true to the source material of much-beloved written works ... but so often they forget the adage that A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words. You can never convey the depth and nuance the written word allows, unless it is a line of dialog, all you can do is represent it visually. Sometimes you get lucky and a terrific actor conveys with one facial expression a whole chapter's worth of story. It is my sincere hope that Warner Bros. will release a combined and truncated version of Deathly Hallows as one 3 1/2 hour film ... it would work so much better.

My beef with author J.K. Rowling is the meek ending she gave the story. I guess she didn't want a bunch of crying children coming up to her asking, "Why did you kill Harry?" so she opted for a tacked-on happy future for the main characters that sets them nearly 20 years into the future. What was most perplexing is why the villain, Voldemort (played with his usual excellence by actor Ralph Fiennes), waited until his power was weakening to launch his final assault on the good magic of Hogworts and to have his final battle with Harry Potter. 


As each Horcrux holding part of Voldemort's soul and power is destroyed by Harry and the gang, Voldemort grows weaker, so by the time Voldemort faces off with Harry in the forest he's down a few, and by the final battle at the school, his horcrux tank is empty.   Lastly, whether written that way, a decision by the director (David Yates), or the actor's portrayal, when Voldemort faces off with his Goth army of evil wizards against the now seemingly-vanquished good guys amid the rubble of Hogworts, it is positively a ho-hum moment, when the full evil of the once human Tom Riddle (now Lord Voldemort) should have exploded into a gloriously vulgar display of mayhem. Someone this evil and now devoid of humanity should be cruel and vicious and a bad winner - wantonly murdering before settling down. 

Instead we get a who's who of bit players having heroic moments (including everyone's favorite character actor Alan Rickman) and über nerdboy Longbottom (or whatever his name was) gets the big dragon-slaying (er, snake) moment with the magic sword. This Warner Bros. flick was really feeling like Disney toward the end there.  And Harry and Voldemort's face-off? Voldemort goes limp in the middle of his money-shot and Harry's wand-bolt vaporizes the big bad man. 


Oh yes, the best example of how books don't often translate to film is the whole bit with Who Controls the Elder Wand? I saw who used it and got a lot of exposition through the characters about who had possessed it, lost it in battle, won it in battle, and enjoyed its allegiance ... didn't care - what I saw mattered and I saw Voldemort use it and have it run out of juice at the end. 


Too bad Rowling didn't have the courage of her initial convictions and had Harry Potter die - sacrificing himself to vanquish that evil, twisted Tom Riddle/Voldemort. 

ICE AND FIRE - WELL DONE GAME OF THRONES

Loving Game of Thrones on HBO - casting is near-perfect, and if you're going to steal dialog, steal it from I, Claudius by all means. Very entertaining. I'm usually a spaceships, aliens, lasers kind of guy, and don't go much for the trolls, elves and fairies, but this is much more fun than Lord of the Rings. Longer post and review to come.

FALLING SKIES - TERRIBLE

Think you've seen and heard it all before? You have, and done much better. This show is a colossal bore - the worst mixture of Jericho, Red Dawn, the original V, and countless other post-apocalyptic sci-fi. It tries to lift from Independence Day, the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, a few Stephen King stories, but fails. The show looks cheap, for starters, and the Library Guy (Noah Wyle)  is much better in those mystical Library movies because he isn't hampered as he is here with mountains of cliches and story and scenes that go nowhere that no actor could overcome. 


Plot-wise, you see a bunch of dirty people spewing hackneyed dialog as they wander about and do stupid things and you can almost name the show or movie or story they stole this scene from, or that line of dialog - and everything just seems so obvious. TNT should dump this show and just rerun The Lost Room - that was a good show.