Film

While I’m not nearly as much of a movie buff as many, I do like ’em and watch ’em when I can.

John McClane for President in 2008

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Now here’s a presidential candidate I can get behind.

McClane was fighting the war on terror before it even had a name — and he’s proven he can win it.

John McClane believes in strong health care — he just doesn’t have time to get to a doctor when he’s being shot at.

McClane gets that technology creates as many problems as it solves. Relying on a gadget is no replacement for doing it yourself.

McClane knows that patriotism isn’t about waving a flag while you sit on the couch watching ‘American Idol’. It’s about getting off your butt and fighting for what’s right.

McClane is the American cowboy for our times. He gets how important action-packed portrayals of true heroism are.

Since he hasn’t announced a running mate yet, given that I’m not in entire agreement with his stance on technology, may I suggest Angus MacGyver? Equally as able to get out and get things done, but his willingness to use and adapt available technology would be a nice balance to McClane’s ‘hands-on’ approach.

(via nyquil.org)

Star Trek Optimism

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When I first heard that work was beginning on a new Star Trek film, I suppose you could have described my first response as ‘cautiously optimistic’ — however, that reaction would have swayed far more towards the caution side of things than the optimism side.

However, as more and more (non-spoilery) details appear, I’m moving more and more towards the ‘optimism’ side. While there are still a few little details that raise warning flags (for instance, that the script was written by the guys who wrote Transformers), overall, things are looking good.

Recently, director J.J. Abrams, writer and producer Roberto Orci and a fair chunk of the cast and crew spent a little time between shots doing a couple of Q-and-A sessions on the Trek Movie fan weblog. Full transcripts are posted here and here, but they’ve thoughtfully provided an ‘executive summary’ list. All in all, I think there’s a lot of promise here.

  • First full trailer currently in the works, targeting early- to mid-summer release
  • Principal photography is scheduled to wrap at the beginning of April [about 1-2 weeks more than originally planned]
  • Documentaries on the film’s pre-production and production process can be expected on DVD release; Making of… book also discussed
  • [J.J. Abrams friend and frequent collaborator] Greg Grunberg will not appear in Star Trek due to his commitment to another film
  • About 1,000 effects shots are expected to be used in the film (more than any previous Trek film)
  • Target MPAA rating: PG-13
  • The two biggest challenges for Abrams were getting a handle on the vision of the future and casting the film
  • Humor is a very important aspect in the film (“humor and humanity go hand-in-hand”)
  • Abrams’ goal is to make Trek ‘real’ and is thus utilizing sets and location shooting rather than green- or blue-screens wherever he can
  • The Enterprise “will be a combo of the physical and the virtual”
  • An image of the Enterprise is “coming soon”
  • The doors on the Enterprise will go “SWOOSH!” when they open.
  • The set of the Enterprise bridge will be stored for future use;
  • the movie’s script is about 128 pages long (indicating a roughly 2 hour movie)
  • the script took about four months to write
  • [Orci] and co-writer Alex Kurtzman will not be making cameos in the film
  • James T. Kirk and the film’s villain (Nero) were the most difficult characters to write;
  • the TOS episode “Balance of Terror” and the second, third, fourth and sixth films helped shape the writers’ takes on the characters, as did novels by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
  • Script shoots for many memorable moments akin to the “Never forget the name of the ship…Enterprise” moment in TNG “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
  • Film makers have kept with Trek tradition and brought in academic and scientific consultants (more info on this promised)

Good Action is Geography

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Vanity Fair has a huge article looking at the new Indiana Jones movie, and midway through, there are some quotes from Spielberg that sent two thoughts running through my brain. The first was that what he was saying was making me more excited about this latest sequel than I already was. The second was how desperately I wished more directors would think like Spielberg does here (don’t worry, there aren’t any movie spoilers):

Rather than update the franchise to match current styles, Lucas and Spielberg decided to stay true to the prior films’ look, tone, and pace. During pre-production, Spielberg watched the first three Indiana Jones movies at an Amblin screening room with Janusz Kaminski, who has shot the director’s last 10 films. He replaces Douglas Slocombe, who shot the first three Indy movies (and is now retired at age 94), as the man mainly responsible for the film’s look. “I needed to show them to Janusz,” Spielberg says, “because I didn’t want Janusz to modernize and bring us into the 21st century. I still wanted the film to have a lighting style not dissimilar to the work Doug Slocombe had achieved, which meant that both Janusz and I had to swallow our pride. Janusz had to approximate another cinematographer’s look, and I had to approximate this younger director’s look that I thought I had moved away from after almost two decades.”

That much already had me nodding and thinking good things, and then he went on….

Spielberg promises no tricky editing for the new one, saying, “I go for geography. I want the audience to know not only which side the good guy’s on and the bad guy’s on, but which side of the screen they’re in, and I want the audience to be able to edit as quickly as they want in a shot that I am loath to cut away from. And that’s been my style with all four of these Indiana Jones pictures. Quick-cutting is very effective in some movies, like the Bourne pictures, but you sacrifice geography when you go for quick-cutting. Which is fine, because audiences get a huge adrenaline rush from a cut every second and a half on The Bourne Ultimatum, and there’s just enough geography for the audience never to be lost, especially in the last Bourne film, which I thought was the best of the three. But, by the same token, Indy is a little more old-fashioned than the modern-day action adventure.”

The script, Spielberg says, can provide the blockbuster pace. “Part of the speed is the story,” he says. “If you build a fast engine, you don’t need fast cutting, because the story’s being told fluidly, and the pages are just turning very quickly. You first of all need a script that’s written in the express lane, and if it’s not, there’s nothing you can do in the editing room to make it move faster. You need room for character, you need room for relationships, for personal conflict, you need room for comedy, but that all has to happen on a moving sidewalk.”

Not just yes, but hell yes.

I was skeptical when I first started hearing about Indy 4, but the more little bits leak out (though I am endeavoring to stay spoiler free), the more I’m looking forward to seeing this one.

The Ratings Game #2

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Given that I don’t have enough of a regular readership to really make this a game, and that I don’t want to have to constrain myself to any sort of real schedule, I’m going to change the way I’m doing this ratings game thing. Seeing as how the point is really just about the silliness of the MPAA’s ratings rationales, I’ll just toss one up whenever I feel like it. I won’t immediately give away which movie the rating comes from, but you can click through the rating to figure it out. It’s all just for fun, after all!

Ratings Game 0002

The Ratings Game #1

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Some time within the past couple years, it seems to have become standard (whether voluntarily or by decree, I don’t know) for all new DVDs to flash the MPAA rating on screen for a few moments just before the movie begins. Additionally, for the past few years the MPAA has been including a brief description underneath the rating of why the movie in question has received its particular rating.

I’m constantly amused by these little blurbs and their attempt to rationalize, in fifteen words or less, what prompted the MPAA to assign the rating it did to each movie. So, I thought we could try a little game: every so often (whenever I get around to it, hopefully no less than once a week), I’ll post the MPAA rating and rationalization. Your goal is to try to guess the film, based solely on the MPAA’s rating and their description of its faults. I’ll post the answer either after someone guesses it correctly, or later on if it has remained a mystery.

Number one, then…any guesses?

Ratings Game 0001

Zoom

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  1. 1957: Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps, by Kees Boeke.

  2. 1968: Cosmic Zoom, a Canadian animated short film inspired by Boeke’s book.

  3. 1977: Powers of Ten, a short film by Charles and Ray Eames, inspired by the prior two pieces. This is the most commonly known version of this presentation.

  4. 2004: The Simpsons parody version (10.3 Mb .mov file), as the couch gag for The Ziff Who Came to Dinner

All links via Kottke.

Meme: The ’80’s Movie Scientist Test

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Your Score: Jordan Cochran

140 Heart, 138 Genius, 157 Cool, 144 Excitability

Jordan Cochran — (Michelle Meyrink)
Real Genius (1985)

You’re Jordan Cochran, the adorable fast-talking GIRL scientist of all things. While she may not be up there with the other super-geniuses of the ’80s, her awesome mechanical aptitude and geek-girl cuteness have made her the sweetheart of nerds for over 20 years.

“I never sleep, I don’t know why. I had a roommate and I drove her nuts, I mean really nuts, they had to take her away in an ambulance and everything. But she’s okay now, but she had to transfer to an easier school, but I don’t know if that had anything to do with being my fault. But listen, if you ever need to talk or you need help studying just let me know, ’cause I’m just a couple doors down from you guys and I never sleep, okay?”

Other scientific possibilities: Gary Wallace, Wyatt Donnelly, Peter Venkman, Jordan Cochran, Egon Spengler, Doc Brown, Newton Crosby, Paul Stephens, Ben Crandall, Wayne Szalinkski, Winston Zeddemore, Ben Jabituya, Lazlo Hollyfeld, Ray Stantz, Buckaroo Banzai, Chris Knight

Link: The Which 80s Movie Scientist Test

Amusing side note: Jordan is one of the first movie character crushes I ever had when I was growing up. :)

Historical side note: Jordan was based on a real Caltech student:

And, yes, Jordan of Real Genius was based, at least in part, on me. My class’s president and social organizers decided to ask me in on an interview being done by the movies producers and so there I was in one of the fanciest restaurants in Pasadena wrapped in a slightly oversized sweater that I’d knit myself one night when I was cold, talking blithly about life at Caltech without, from what folks say, a single breath. One of the most amusing things in my life was, fifteen years later, seeing that movie with a roomful of my friends from Temple Square and, the minute Jordan introduces herself in a long string of breathless sidetrains having the entire room turn to just look at me afterwards. That was most amusing. As Cera says, she has my voice.

I’ve learned about commas since. Also about breathing. And, finally, yes, I’ve also learned to finally sleep once in a while, though that took staying up 72 hours for a project while I was doing my MSEE at the University of Washington and having my body literally fall asleep on me before it shut down completely to really bring that lesson home.

Hm. I should put in here, also, that I’m the only Caltech woman that I knew was actually interviewed for source material; but I tried for a whole perspective about the female experience at the school. Not just me. It was an ME friend of mine that did the scuba gear testing in the pool, and while all the physically possible things that Jordan did were done by some Caltech woman, it wasn’t necessarily me. I’m also very sure that Dave Marvit and the other Caltech consultants for the movie all contributed some of what they knew about the females of the school to Jordan’s character as well. So I’m pretty sure she’s a composit of the others who were there at that time. Personally, I was just glad that they got her right.