Movies
“Nicole Kidman sucks” says Forbes
I like to think myself an avid reader, just perhaps not the most exploratory one. A few years ago I was at a Scrabble party at a friends place and, in reaction to a debate about the latest Harry Potter novel, Phillip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ series came up. Not long after that I saw the initial trailer for the box-office flop Golden Compass; starring Nicole Kidman, and I was mad excited.
The dismal rating on IMDb, accompanied with that from RottenTomatoes embarassed many a dear fan. I was a dear fan.
In this case, I firmly believe the lack of (local) success of this film can be mostly blamed on the producers and a tamed down script. Regardless, this movie bombed, but luckily (for the sake of a possible sequel) it saw a few hundred million in profits overseas. That being said, this summers blockbuster, The Dark Knight, has made more than three times as much money with half the budget.
Where am I going with this? Forbes just named Nicole Kidman (Compass‘ Mrs. Coulter) the most overpaid actress in the business. Their format for this conclusion is to average the amount she made on her last three movies (The Golden Compass, Margot at the Wedding and The Invasion) in relation to how much she is being paid. Her movies have averaged a profit of $1 for every $1 she is paid (or £1, that works too).
This is my beef with Hollywood, as much a popular and trendy beef it is; actors and actresses are repeatedly hired for their popularity and not necessarily their actual talent. The existence of an actual ‘career’ for Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez and Drew Barrymore are testament to this fact, but save for ‘Jenny on the Block’, I have no idea why any of these examples are even popular at all. Other cases would be Tom Cruise and his rich-boys-cult, Nicolas Cage’s history of actually decent movies and Will Farrel’s Legend. Diaz is just a damn babe.
The argument for Kidman seems to be the same one against remakes/ book movies. I was not even a sperm when the first two Body Snatchers movies came out, so any opinion in regards to Kidman’s The Invasion is completely theoretical. But I have seen enough book-movies and as aforementioned, I get wet of Phillip Pullman’s HDM series. As was the case with not properly using Kidman’s talent (argueable), so was the case of not properly using the source material that was given to them.
Thankfully, however, with the success of Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Hollywood is starting to take this genre seriously, and in the wake of Compass’s bomb, so have the writers for the (possible) Subtle Knife sequel.
AI: Artifically Intelligent
In the wake of my fanfic-esque piece the other day, I thought I should go watch a good ol sci-fi again. At first, I saw none at the rental store, but low and behold, AI was there. Yipee!
Have asked me yesterday and I would have sworn I actually saw the entire movie before. I liked it and it was great. But take note of my strategic use of past-tenses in that sentence.
This thing is horrible.
The first bit was really cute, with the kid and his ‘mother’ and all that jazz. When the real son came back alive I was as surprised as when my poo this morning fell into the toilet, and didn’t actually bypass all laws of physics and start to fly and talk and write Shakespeare in 10 minutes. That is where it really went downhill. I though it was all sad and crap when she dropped her kid off in the forest with the creepy Teddy bear.
And then he met this damn… robot American Gladiator/ Mad Max crap-fest.
And then some retarded step-brother of Blade Runner up until he meets his ‘father’ and he gets mad and jumps out the building and gets pulled up the the Gigolo fucker.
And then when the dudes try to pick em up, they forget that David is a robot as well and magnets don’t effect him.
So he goes and drives his sub to the ‘Blue Fairy’ and sits there for 2000 years. And after 2000 years no building has been destroyed. Look at any of the shit from Ancient Greece and shit, that is a bit less than perfect condition, and only a bit more than 2000 years.
So these alien robot things revive his mom from a 2000 year old lock of hair that a creepy robot-teddy bear was carrying around.
I was actually yelling and swearing and mocking the movies sexuality, to the point that I decided, rather explicitly, why DVDs have holes in them.
It would seem that I am not the only one of this mentality. Although half the people I whined about this movie to called me an idiot and it was above my level of apparent intelligence, the other half (duh) agreed with me whole heatedly. Of that latter portion, David Schwartz (of Heckler Spray fame) actually had AI in his list of ‘The Eight Dullest Movies Of All TIme‘.
“This film was so mind-numbingly bad, we’ve spent the last 10 hours gnawing at my own hand to distract from the pain.”
And that makes me feel good, because the opinion of Internet polls is more important than those IRL chumps…
Bill O’Reilly only likes it if its his OWN head up his ass
I have always found O’Reilly to be monstrously hilarious. Before getting into the misuse of the term indoctrination, I would first like to point out that of the many of American’s of which Billy speaks of, he seems to be unable to get any of them on his show. And do not worry about a Canadian commenting on American politics - this is the most un-political topic, coming from O’Reilly, the most un-political news caster.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This in·doc·tri·nate
Audio Help [in-dok-truh-neyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –verb (used with object), -nat·ed, -nat·ing.
1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.
2. to teach or inculcate.
3. to imbue with learning.
Personally, I think the way JKR approached this was intelligent. Intelligent, yet still British. I am double-minoring in Psych and Creative Writing, and during classes in the birthing of novella, we were often insisted to create our character long before hand. Colors, foods, nuances, personality, all of that stuff. Have it in our mind so that when we write for them, we can imagine how someone of those traits may act, and have them act accordingly. It was actually discussed how important a trait may be, even if it is one never revealed. A good writer would be able to hint at that in their character, so if they were exposed, it all just made sense. To an avvid reader, Ablus’ jock-fettish was a blip in the radar. A proverbial ping in the proverbial search engine of life. If that was the way the cookie crumbled, it didnt crumble very much.
But not as obvious (or hilarious) as Lance Bass, that was just LOL’s all around.
I find this entire backlash from Billy to be rather ironic. As am I, and as has been mentioned before, JKR is in fact a Christian. I do not know her stance on the matter, but my own is rather evident in this article. JKR is, also in fact,
“Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, and the University of Aberdeen“.
This information would leave one to assume her lack of moronicness, perhaps one manifested so well by Bill O’Reilly. And in this assumption of non-retardation, it would be safe to assume she knows how well her books are selling, and how huge an impact they have been, and will be, on children and their parents bank accounts alike. As well this, she knew what flack she would have aimed at the back of her head if she gave off the vibe of trying to introduce a homosexual character. Or maybe she didn’t, maybe it was a non-issue, or maybe even it was just never an issue, and she never though of a way to appropriately portray the character without such a stereotype bolstered to his favorite pair of socks.
What do I think she did with this revelation? I think she was just being honest. She wrote a character, she invented him in the vast Outspace within her mind and she, with faith in her own curosity, thought not to change a fact she lived with for a decade. And although no one but JKR and her Editor may know her reason, changing Dumbledore’s sexuality, as unknown a process it may be, would be incredibly discriminatory.
Dumbledore is as real to us fans, if not more, as he is to JKR. He is a great character, he did some great things and had some great sacrifices. This entire personality advocacy was never an attempt to ‘indoctrinate’, as O’Reilly praises so adamantly, it was to show to kids that even homosexuals can be good role models. Did his sexuality change or tarnish any of his character? No! The only part of his character that I now think of differently, is that I am now less than 100% certain he bonked McGonagall.
In a galaxy far, far away, they stoppped at one trilogy, maybe two…
Earlier today, AOTS had Steve Sansweet, “head of fan relations for Lucasfilm” on their The Loop segment. They spoke of galaxies, and how they are so damn far away. Also, the future of the Star Wars franchise. Hopefully, the future is going to be better than the last few years…
Star Wars Episode II ended with the start of the Clone wars. Palpatine issued ‘Order 6′ and the clones turned on the Jedi.
Wherein Episode III started with the end of the Clone wars. Judging by the complete lack of character development/ the complete lack of character in Christiansen, you would be surprised to know the movies were actually 3 years apart.
Tomorrow releases the Clone Wars movie, originally a cartoon series that was actually edited to fit a feature film. Clone Wars was, originally to the tenth degree, a drawn cartoon series, short lived, unfortunately. When Lucas had seen the first screening of the new series, he had to watch it in a theater, and saw promise. The series will continue in the fall. But the part I was not aware of is… well, they are doing another trilogy. In between III and IV.
So theoretically, this movie and series (same animation, same everything) will explain the gap between II and III, but what are we missing in the ~17 years between III and IV?
Also, what will they call them? Star Wars Episode III.25, III.5 and III.75?
The only thing I can find between the good trilogy and the bad trilogy is Obi-Wan. Although powerful, Obi-Wan was a pretty crummy Jedi, even at the end of Episode III. As much a non-political fellow I am, I have a thing for that side of the Star Wars politics. I just find it more interesting when the apparent brutal campaigns actually involved beheadings. Although I have not read the myriad of Star Wars novella, my friends have, and the massive infinate expanse of Star Wars is bound to inspire some good stories.
In ending, I admit myself one of those kids who will, no matter the rating, see any Star Wars movie released. I am part of the population that lets Lucas afford to do whatever he wants.