theMediaman.com

Well, normally I would only be writing this about a week late since Memorial Day just passed a couple of days ago. However, as I stated in my Summer Movies Prologue the movie season seems to be starting early this year. In fact, I think this is the first time we’ve ever had the first major $100 million opening weekend blockbuster AND the first major bust before the first long weekend of the summer.

I still qualify this entry as a “Preview”, because I have yet to see the four big movies that have hit the theatres so far. I can’t decide if it’s because I’ve been too busy or I’m just too upset by crowds to go to opening weekends. Maybe I just need to warm up first.

The first fact to note as someone who lives south of Eglinton is that there are now two megaplex theatres in the downtown core. With Paramount ScotiaBank Theatre now sharing the dense 2008 blockbuster season with the AMC24, there are still multiple showings of Iron Man instead of restricting it to two or three theatres while newer movies like Speed Racer and Indiana Jones fill up multiple screens.

The downside is that you’re no longer sure that the Paramount ScotiaBank Theatre will have “this week’s big movie”. It’s a requirement now more than ever that you have to check show listings to find out whether your movie is playing at John and Richmond or Yonge and Dundas.

It’s a small sacrifice I’m willing to make in order to ensure multiple showings per hour of whatever film I want to see. In the last few years I’ve often needed to resort to smaller cinemas like Varsity or Rainbow Market Square, or travel up to Eglinton in order to get a showtime I wanted for a movie that’s been out more than 14 days.

Iron Man I have discussed before. I was more thrilled about it before everyone was thrilled about it. While I’m hardly anti-establishment, I found that my interest in the film reduced as the general publics increased. Now that the film is sitting in the shadow of Indiana Jones I find myself ready to go see it. Maybe it’s just my fear of seeing movies with large crowds of stupid people.

Speed Racer was a “bomb”. It seems that all the layers of depth in the first Matrix movie have slowly disappeared in favour of pushing the limits of moviemaking. Along the way to making Speed Racer, the Wachowski Brothers changed the face of filmmaking once and that’s all it takes for immortality. However, reaching that bar again when it’s been set so high can be difficult or even impossible.

Just like a latter-day George Lucas, they may never make a true crowd-pleaser again. All they can hope to do is continue making movies they want - which is what I believe they did with Speed Racer. That’s what Lucas did with the prequels, and that’s also certainly what Peter Jackson did. After making his immortal mark on cinema, Jackson was given a blank cheque to make whatever he wanted. He decided to remake his favourite film, “King Kong”. The Wachowski’s made Speed Racer because they really wanted to. And although I know how bad a movie it’s supposed to be, a part of me wants to see it for that very reason.

The new Narnia movie has come out. I enjoyed The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but it suffered from the overuse of CG battle scenes prevalent in today’s epic films. Following the Lord of the Rings movies, every epic has liberal use of massive battles. It’s kind of sad to think that the last true all-extras battle scene made by Hollywood will probably be Timeline.

Prince Caspian is the first of a series of open-ended movies that have come out following LotR that has actually resulted in a sequel. Eragon and The Golden Compass are two movies that come to mind that were left so open-ended that I felt cheated having invested 90 to 120 minutes in a movie that was so bad, it doesn’t have a chance of continuing. Not that I was very emotionally invested in the characters, but I hope an Eragon sequel at least comes out as a Direct-to-DVD release just so I can see John Malkovich get his come-uppins.

Sadly, the first Narnia movie was a complete story in and of itself. If I was able to connect with the characters more then I might have a bigger urge to go see this one. As it is, I’ll wait for the DVD and probably watch it with my niece and nephews.

While I really should have been one of those geeks who took the day off to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (you know who you are), I chose to reserve my vacation days for my upcoming wedding. However, I have reservations with this movie too. While most people are concerned about the age of Harrison Ford and/or Indy, or the nearly two decades spanning since the last film, my biggest concern is Shia Leboef.

I’m not particularly impressed by him. I find it slightly ironic that the new “heroes” of the 21st century (looking twiggy, geeky and about five years too young to be in a grown-up’s role) keep showing up in these 80’s series revivals like Justin Long in Live Free or Die Hard. Bruce Willis has Samuel L. Jackson in the last movie, and now he gets paired up with “hi, I’m a Mac”. Harrison Ford shares the screen with someone even tougher than he is when Sean Connery plays his father, and now he gets the twerp from Transformers?

He might be a great actor but I have yet to see that come out. Either way he’s “The Shit(TM)” in Hollywood right now. Just remember, so was Andrew McCarthy.

The final big movie releasing in May 2008 is the completely unneccesary Sex In The City. I’m not a woman, and I’m not over 40. The only episode of the series I watched involved a shot with an 80 year old man’s buttocks in full view. I doubt he’ll be in the movie, but forty (and fifty) something, hot-and-horny women on a four story screen appeals to me about the same amount.

June’s looking good, but before I get there I really need to see at least two of the movies listed above. Stay tuned…

For one reason or another, Simone and I haven’t been to as many concerts over the last few months as we would like.

I won tickets to see an Edge “Next Big Thing” concert with The Constantines. These concerts are getting worse as time goes on. Mind you, the first NBT concert I went to was for the Kaiser Chiefs while Damon Albarn was in town signing copies of the new Gorillaz album. It was a high-point of the summer to listen to a live rendition of “I Predict A Riot” performed with the lead singer of Blur.

The next concert I won tickets to was Tokyo Police Club at Drake Underground.  They went on 45 minutes late and played for 44 minutes. I also came to realize that the vocalist really doesn’t have that much range.

At The Supermarket (located comfortably in Kensington Market), we sat in a freshly renovated lounge for a few hours while the opener went on 45 minutes after curtain time, and subsequently sucked. Some hippie, Kensington Market weirdo with a hemp dress and played the same three notes over and over while she mumbled into the microphone. After twenty minutes she left, and we waited another fifteen before the Constantines finally graced us with their presence.

They were good. Don’t get me wrong. But in the recent renovation of the club, they forgot to put in a decent sound system. The music was maxing out and distorting the speakers that were probably still tuned for the burnout who went on before them. It only served to accent the horrible opener they had. Even though we waited almost an hour and half, we left after three songs.

After that rather disappointing concert at the Supermarket, my motivation for the Toronto music scene was low.  Couple that with the virtual disappearance of some of my favourite bands like Crush Luther and The Salads and I was faced with a need to find some new music to follow.

Simone got a chance to go take photos of People In Planes for an online music mag and for the $12 cover I could follow. The doors opened at 9 and they went on just after the curtain time.  Very professional. From the very start, I had the feeling that I was in the presence of Rock Stars. They acted like they were performing on a big stage with thousands of fans, but crammed into the tight space that the Rivoli stage yields.

The lead’s guitar kept dying. While it was never determined whether it was his instrument or the A/V system he managed to croon his way through the set, occasionally strumming at his muted guitar to keep time. Looking at his watch he mentioned at the 50-minute mark in the set that this was the longest set they’ve ever played. They continued to finish off the double-set (~90 minute) with stuff from the debut album as well as from the forthcoming disc.

The night finished with two encores. They had the audience in the palm of their hands, and I think we had them in ours.

I’m just writing a short prologue to my usual Preview, since I haven’t the time to dedicate to this quite yet.

The release of Summer blockbuster movies are one of the few reasons I’m willing to release my grasp on the Winter season.  Every year it seems to get earlier in order to avoid a crowded, multi-release weekend. While the “Summer blockbusters” are being released before Memorial Day, they’ve been lasting shorter into the Summer months themselves… often petering out shortly after the July 4th weekend.

While this year has no shortage of early starting movies (Iron Man, Speed Racer, Narnia 2 and Indiana Jones all released on subsequent weekends throughout May), the big releases will continue well into August - typically a month reserved for tired franchises. Well, Star Wars will be releasing a feature-length TV show episode from the new series in August, so that could qualify. 

<rant>

For the record, anyone who complains about Episodes 1-3 isn’t allowed to see the Clone Wars movie. If you’re psyched up about it, then calm yourself down. It’s a fact that Lucas will never satisfy your lofty requirements for perfection. Just don’t bother sitting in the same theatre as me, or claim that you want your money back via online forums. And while you’re at it, stay away from Indiana Jones too.

Like it, or don’t go see it. It’s that simple.

</rant>

We’ve already got our first $100 million opening weekend with Iron Man, and there’s still the Indiana Jones movie (wide audience) and Batman movie (very high anticipation) to come out.

I wonder if I can get Air Miles with all the tickets I’m going to be buying?

Not that I’ve ever considered the Toronto Sun to be anything more than a cartoon version of a daily newspaper, but the last three days they’ve been running front-page articles on saving reindeer at the Toronto Zoo.

Canada lost another soldier to the war in Afghanistan, the Democratic nomination is coming down to the final stretch, and the Toronto Blue Jays had two players go on the disabled list last night. The Toronto Sun continues to play the holier-than-thou card and insist that the Toronto Zoo not euthanize overpopulated species in the budget-locked zoo.

It’s not a surprise that they could get the public behind this cause. Each day the cover page says “Rudolph” instead of “reindeer”, adding a childhood emotional personification of the young animals.

If they held a charity drive to save the animals, people would donate. If they insisted that people go visit the Toronto Zoo more, they would promise but I don’t think you’d see the turnout necessary once Summer hits. If they insist that the city raise taxes by 10 cents per-person and generating $300,000 so they could afford to keep them, there would be an outrage.

Of course killing reindeer isn’t a good thing, I’m not heartless. However I also have faith that the people who work at the Toronto Zoo are ‘animal-people’. They wouldn’t euthanize an animal unless it was essential… and it is. Reindeer, in spite of their cute, cartoon selves, are highly territorial. Too many males in a group and things get violent as well as dangerous for the animals and staff.

In a similar way, I pulled myself out of the CBC Radio2 protests when the organizers refused to listen to reason and hold protests outside 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. Face it, the kind of person who listens to symphony music tends to have an office job. I wouldn’t generalize, it’s not everyone. However, I’d be willing to bet serious money that the vast majority of listeners do work those hours.

The response from the Facebook branch organizing the cross-country event was that there would be enough “musicians, students and mothers(?)” out to support the group.

It seems that even the sophisticated protest-hippies don’t want anything to do with us ’suits’ who work day jobs. I had first considered switching my stance after reading the point that an in-house orchestra was once a necessity when recording equipment was heavy and expensive. Now a recording studio can be set up wherever a performance is held. The illogical actions of the protest organizers secured my position on the other side of the fence.

This was another situation where the masses want it all, but are not willing to accept that there are real costs involved… often tax-funded costs.

However, in the end, “Rudolph” was saved. This time. So my question is simply this:

For those of us who wish to be logical and reasonable in our efforts to better the world, does aligning ourselves with front-page grabbing, strategy-free neanderthals hurt or help?

To be honest, I was more interested in seeing Iron Man when it was just a Jon Favereau-directed, brilliantly typecasted, comic-book movie.  Since it started getting good reviews and the occasional blasphemous comments that it’s “better than Spider-man” *ptui*, then I lost interest in going opening weekend.

I’m more of a “bandwagonner” than an “anti-establishment” type of geek, but I had my mind set on watching Iron Man as an individual choice, not looking like I’m one of the crowd.  I also don’t like crowded theatres.

Last year I saw Spider-man 3 on opening night at Paramount, and again later that weekend with a theatre full of kids. It was more enjoyable watching it with the kids, because they were allowing themselves to be pulled into the storyline - as cheezy though it may have been. The twenty-somethings at the first showing wouldn’t shut the f*** up. 

I’ll wait a little bit before seeing Iron Man, but I will be seeing it soon. This summer is a little too packed to put off any movie for too long.  Speed Racer comes out this Friday, but I doubt it will top the $100 million that Iron Man brought in.

However, I have seen a few new(er) movies over the last couple of weeks. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was typical Judd Apatow material. Nothing new (besides full-frontal male nudity) but more of the same formula. If you enjoyed Superbad, Knocked Up and 40-year-old Virgin, then this is good. But again, nothing new.

The next night I was treated to yet more full-frontal male nudity with Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay . I guess weiners are the new taboo-of-the-moment to break in high concept filmmaking. For some reason, Sarah Marshall, the movie with full-frontal male nudity, simulated sex scenes but no female nudity, alcohol consumption but no drugs, and very limited swearing got an 18A rating, while Harold & Kumar got a 14A rating.

It would seem that simulated sex scenes and a few extra shots of weiner gets a higher age-limit rating than excessive female nudity, swearing and drug & alcohol abuse. I guess it really is the new taboo of the moment.

Again, Harold & Kumar was just as good as the previous film. Nothing new, but worth watching if you liked the first.

These sound like disappointing assessments, but it really is an accomplishment when a series manages to maintain its quality while spawning sequels. Not every writer/director/acting team can do that.

Following up two days of immature adult humour, I went to see Nim’s Island with my neice and nephew. Simple movie, but good for kids. Jodie Foster plays against type as a person who has several phobias, including the inability to leave her house. The irony being that she’s a successful writer of Indiana Jones-style adventure novels. She has to leave her house to help save Nim, but doesn’t get to the island until the last twenty minutes of the movie.

If her struggles paralleled Nim’s a bit more closely, then it might have worked. Instead, the effort was clearly made but did not succeed in the final film. This feels like it might have been a studio edit, but it could simply have just been badly translated to the big screen.

The last movie I’ll mention is Mr. Brooks. There was a lot of critical acclaim for this one, and it’s well deserved.  The writing is brilliant, the direction fantastic, and the acting is very impressive. For someone like William Hurt, you just hire him and have him show up and he’ll put in a good performance. However, the director managed to get another great performance out of Kevin Costner (small difficulty), Demi Moore (medium difficulty) and even Dane Cook (high difficulty).

The film changes gears as frequently as a Schizophrenic changes personalities, and I think that’s what was intended. That being said, there was very little difference between Kevin Coster and his alter-ego, William Hurt. I bought this movie on DVD and I’m glad I did, I will be watching it again.  I’ve always wanted to see Kevin Coster get his second wind after the problems he had following Dances With Wolves. With this performance he might be able to get back on the horse and make an enviable career after all.