3-D Report: February & March 2012

3-D movies can be done well and they can be done badly. Unfortunately, people have seen too many movies with the bad kind of 3-D and thus think that they hate the format when in fact they really don't know it. I am compiling a report of the quality of 3-D for every month. Some of the movies could still be in theaters so you could consider seeing them based on this, or watch these if you have a 3-D player when they arrive on DVD. Or at least read this years later when 3-D home viewing is easier to come by. Still, the biggest reason I write this is that I hope readers who have seen the movies in 3-D will know how that movies' 3-D compares to other movies' 3-D. Then there might be less of a negative view towards what is in truth a great new invention.

Before reading this some people willlikely think "I hate 3-D because the glasses darken the image so much." Sometimes this is the case but I will tell you if it is. Now, obviously, if you watch the movie in 3-D and take off your glasses in the middle you will notice how much brighter the screen is. THAT DOES NOTE MEAN THE 2-D IS THAT BRIGHT--a well-made movie will lighten the 3-D version with the expectation it will be darkened by wearing glasses. It sounds simple but you would be surprised how many people think that a 3-D version viewed without glasses is the same as an out-of-focus 2-D one. The movies are presented in chronological order.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

A 3D movie made for less than $80 million is almost always bound to have poor quality 3D, and these odds increase exponentially when you add major stars (who gouge out huge portions of the budget). I was pleasantly surprised by how good Journey’s 3D is. There is no superfocus and there are rarely any depth issues. If there is one problem it is that the 3D highlights the scenery so well it can occasionally seem artificial (though I have no idea whether this is because of actual plastic props or digitally inserted background). Still, the 3D in general is a great addition to an already fun fantasy adventure. Hollywood has noticed: Director Brad Peyton was just contracted for an adaptation of the popular comic character Lobo, signifying they believe he is bankable with higher profile picture. A good choice seeing he did so much with so little in only his second feature film of his life!

Star Wars Episode I—The Phantom Menace

People tend to forget this, but this movie revolutionized the visual effects industry. There was barely any motion capture technology before this. Andy Serkis and Gollum were important, but long before that Phantom Menace managed to have real actors with real movements play the role and then turn it into fantastic creatures.

So, is George Lucas able to outdo himself with the 3D rerelease? Mostly, yes. There isn’t a single error in the 3D in this picture—the depth is perfect, the focus is perfect, the world you are seeing actually looks real. On the downside, The Phantom Menace was not made to be converted into 3D. There aren’t any scenes that use it to great effect—few landscape shots, or scenes looking down long distances, or scenes with perfectly focused background images. As a result, people might be a little disappointed that the 3D is just there—it isn’t an extra element to the story.

Also, for better or for worse, Lucas is in adamant opposition of using 3D to thrust images at the viewer. He has a point—it usually breaks the fourth wall, and it is this gimmicky style that prevents people from taking 3D seriously. Then again, viewers might want an in-your-face reminder of why they paid extra for a 3D ticket.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

This movie was made for $57 million: More than $30 million less than its predecessor. As a result, every shot looks low budget and cheap and not like an actual Ghost Rider film. For example, the movie often uses “Ghost Rider Vision” to show the action from Ghost Rider’s point of view. Unfortunately, Ghost Rider apparently sees an all-black background and a video-game style representation of his foe (in slow motion).

The 3D is not the worst part of the visuals by any measure, but it isn’t great. The background is often blurred out because it costs more to convert it. Also, the movie is shot in locations like “a vacant lot” and “a cave” and “a construction site.” Those places are cheap, but they are also bland and don’t have much of a background. Therefore 3D isn’t really noticeable or necessary.

People will accuse the 3D of causing the image to look dark and grimy, but that is in fact the cinematography. Cinematography employed when the studio refuses to give the cinematographers any money or equipment to work with.

On the up side, the 3D is the only thing that isn’t actively bad. So you might want to see it in 3D for that reason. Or not see it at all.

Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax

Illumination Studios has quickly risen to Blue Sky Animation levels of visuals and could very soon rival Dreamworks and Pixar in terms of special effects. It still has a long way to go with story-telling, but that doesn’t mean its movies like Despicable Me and now The Lorax don’t look amazing.

The 3D in The Lorax is great. The world stretches out before the viewer and the depth is used to aid the story. There is no superfocus, meaning that you won’t go blind trying to see which thing to look at. At the same time there is still a lot of background so you know why you paid to see it in 3D. And as a plus for the 3D industry, the movie doesn’t chuck 3D objects in your face like Despicable Me.

Deja & John

John Carter

In my review of this film I said the 3D was “solid but unspectacular.” I stand by that statement for the most part, though perhaps I was a little harsh. There are occasional errors in depth perception and the movie doesn’t use it as much as it could (or should, considering how the fantasy epic genre is supposed to be composed of long shots gazing at the scenery). That said, it is rarely poor quality, and the added dimension is probably a big part of how the world can become engrossing. John Carter is on a massive scale and it would almost be silly to have these level visuals compact into a flat picture. I think the 3D is worth it for those who like 3D, but should not be sought out by those who are more ambivalent.

Wrath of the Titans

Director Jonathan Libesman is unaccustomed to 3D technology and thus doesn’t use it as much as he should, and the dark, coarse cinematography and shaki-cam effects don’t lend themselves to the 3D style. That said, the 3D here is pretty good. The depth is never inaccurate and the action definitely looks cooler when you see it stretching out in front of you—I think without the 3D you wouldn’t get the scale of the army, the size of the monsters, or the height and depth of the fantasy world. The best parts are in the Labyrinth, where the spinning walls and bridges strait out Hogwarts seem all the more incomprehensible—and lethal—when seen in this format. It is a great start to atone for the blow Wrath’s predecessor did to 3D technology’s reputation.

That’s all.

The Cabin in the Woods (D-)

A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!!!!!!

A movie which oozes vanity from every pore, The Cabin in the Woods may be clever, but its story-telling skills are below that of a rejected script for a Ghost Rider film.
Five college kids go to an old cabin in the middle of a deep forest for some partying. They are suddenly attacked by a bunch of redneck zombies. But nothing is as it seems!
This movie—written by Buffy the Vampie Slayer and Firefly Serenity creator Joss Whedon and Cloverfield scribe Drew Goddard (who also directs)—isn’t a horror. It’s a parody of a horror. It isn’t a comedy though, since it isn’t comedic. It has one gimmick and that is “plot twists.” The only fun to be had is by 1) marveling at how creative the writers are to come up with increasingly bizarre and unpredictable stories and 2) marveling at how sophisticated you are for enjoying this high-concept art.
While obnoxious, the movie would be tolerable if it didn’t start mocking its plot twists by destroying the few morals modern day horror movies have. Yes, it is a convention that bad people get punished in horror movies, or that doing stupid things like getting high or having sex on Camp Crystal Lake beaches gets you killed. But it isn’t just a concept—it is a metaphor. How many times in the original Paranormal Activity did Kate ask Micah to stop treating the demon like a plaything? That is because (try as the sequels might to erase that fact) the movie had a point—some things you really shouldn’t mess around with.
It is like if at the end of Spider-man a ninja orc popped out of Aunt May’s head and killed Mary Jane. Yes, we wouldn’t expect it—because it is utterly stupid and meaningless. Even very simple films like Saw try to convey something to the viewer. And even if that something is merely an excuse for violence it is at least an effort to keep from having a negative value. Many horror movies have an end where everyone dies despite doing nothing wrong, but at least they don’t have bad deeds be the best way to not die. Yes, we expect that while everyone in Final Destination is screwed the guy who thinks killing his mother will make him immortal is in for the biggest shock. The Cabin in the Woods goes so far as to say “No, being selfish no matter who dies WILL save you and that is totally 100% all right.”
It is very hard to talk about Cabin without giving away plot points. I will say, though, that the biggest thing that concerns me about the characters’ actions is their heavy marijuana use. It isn’t a harmless form of recreation—it fries your brain. However that isn’t the only poor choice the characters are rewarded for doing. They are nasty, self-centered, immoral jerks who care nothing about the best of mankind. Also the main protagonist (played “iChannel” star Kristen Connelly) seems to be trying to be an utterly pathetic idiot. I don’t know how much of that is Connelly’s acting and how it is clear someone had the idea to mock the foolish young girl protagonist of horror movies by making their protagonist overly obnoxious, klutzy, and stupid. It doesn’t work—she isn’t so ridiculously annoying as to be funny, she is just irritating enough to make viewers on edge for the whole picture.
The most frustrating part is that the movie is dripping with the arrogance that this new style of filmmaking is superior to regular horror or comedy films. Ghost Rider films are awful, but they admit they are awful. The Cabin in the Woods is clearly meant to be a cult film, and the cult is definitely centered around ridiculing movies with actual themes or story. The glee with which the picture decimates all the story-telling conventions shows that the filmmakers see no need for the traditions of “theme” and “plot.” Was Cabin’s “creativity” so incredible it was worth paying for instead of a vastly more profitable traditional horror with actual theme and story? The arrogance of the filmmakers is apparent simply because they said “yes.” (If you are wondering what studio funded Cabin, the answer is MGM, and this movie has been on the shelf for three years since MGM went bankrupt and had to sell it for practically nothing).
It is rare we see a horror film that turns out to really be a stoner comedy. But that isn’t because everyone else is unoriginal—it is because that it is a terrible idea.

John Carter (B)

John Carter is overstuffed and thus underdeveloped, but the harmless action flick manages to accomplish at least one thing: Amaze us with the excitement of seeing a whole new fantasy world that we really want to explore.

The movie starts with Edgar Rice Burroughs (a real author who wrote the book this film is based on back at the start of the 1900s) inheriting a massive fortune from his mysterious uncle John Carter, and with it getting a book. Actually, the movie opens with a Martian prince receiving a gauntlet of near infinite power from some ethereal beings with blue eyes as a voiceover tells us this is an evil tyrant who will soon enslave all of Mars. Then, it cuts to Edgar reading his uncle’s book. He starts reading a tale which takes place fifteen years ago (a year after the events with the Martian prince). John Carter is living in the wild west, a former Confederate fighting machine whose wife and child were murdered by Indians right after the Civil War ended. A group of Yankee cavalry want him to fight Apaches, but he is depressed and crazy and keeps punching them in the face. As he tries to escape to go find a cave of gold he saw a couple months ago, a bunch of Apaches attack (actually, he rides a stolen horse into an area with a bunch of Apaches while being pursued by the cavalry, triggering a bloodbath that he is completely responsible for). When Colonel Powell, the head of the Yankee Cavalry, is shot, he runs off to a cave to hide out with him. The Apaches don’t follow because there is a big spider carved on the side of the wall and they are very fearful superstitious people (the book was written a while ago). In the cave is one of those ethereal beings from the prologue, who is wielding a knife. John Carter shoots him, then grabs the amulet around the guy’s neck and ends up traveling through space and lying in a dessert on Mars. He is soon captured by a group of green tusked people led by Tars Tarkas (a particularly green and tusky green and tusky person). He is trying to avoid a coup from another one of his tribe, while is also concerned because his daughter Sola just got branded for helping John Carter and now is one more crime away from being executed. However John Carter sees a Martian dog being beaten and decides to punch one of the Martian green men in the face for it. Turns out since Mars has a different gravitational pull than Earth he is super strong, so whoops, he just killed another person (or alien). Luckily for him, the green people are pretty impressed, and Tars suggests he become the people’s champion. Just then an airship flies by with a human-looking Martian princess named Deja Thoris. Her airship is being pursued by an airship with Sab Than, that prince from the beginning of the movie. He wants to force Deja to marry him so he can enslave her race, because that is what the ethereal beings want. In the battle, Deja fals off the airship. Luckily, John and the green people are watching, so John uses his super strengths to save her. He then decides to start slaughtering Sab’s men even though, unlike the audience, he doesn’t actually know which side is good and which side is evil. The green people tell him they will spare Deja if he is their champion, so he agrees. However he manages to screw it up that same day by walking into their temple, and manages to get Sola in trouble too. Then we reach the twenty minute mark in this two hour forty minute movie.

Okay, so you got there is a lot to take in? Writer/director Andrew Stanton (Wall-E) really loved the books and he can’t bear to part with anything. As a result, it is way too difficult to remember all the characters and events. Also, there can’t be much character development because there are so very, very many of them. A better strategy would probably have been to either (a) depart from the book more often or (b) split the book into two movies.

That said, it is possible to have a really great time at John Carter. This is a movie that is full of amazing ideas and creatures and adventures. Maybe too many to be realized, but even reading my above plot description probably makes you mildly interested in somepart of the plot.

The John Carter book series has been the inspiration for the modern sci-fi genre. Among people who took directly from the series in order to craft their own fictional universe are George Lucas (Star Wars) andJames Cameron (Avatar). John Carter lacks the groundbreaking visuals of either of those series (not that the visuals are bad, mind you), but it certainly has the ambition. When you watch a movie likePirates of the Caribbean, you are entertained, but your interest is likely to vanish after the credits, and your investment in the story was never conceived. Star Wars, however, is a world so full of ideas and excitement that you want to visit it again and again. John Cartergives you that childlike sense of wonder.

The majority of this review focuses on the scale of John Carter, which is both the main selling point and the main detractor. Other smaller details worth noting is that while there is little theme to be found here, there is certainly nothing that would turn anyone off morally (unlike the similar Prince of Persia and Avatar). The protagonist isshirtless for much of the movie, but it is not in a sexual manner. There is barely any profanity and the violence is quite tame. In fact, it is a pity Disney decided that it deserved its PG-13 rating, as pre-teens would love the film and suffer no negative consequences. Don’t let the fact that The Dark Knight and Insidious have the same rating as this keep you from taking small children to it—Carter is probably tamer than the Narnia films.

The creature design is typical, but well-executed (too the film’s credit, many films have purposefully copied the ideas originated in this book). The 3-D is solid but unspectacular. The costume design is poor (a combination of trampy apparel stolen from the Prince of Persia set and shirtlessness).

Taylor Kitsch, who was previously known only as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (in other words, no one knew who he was), doesn’t have enough of a chance to prove himself in this film despite playing Carter himself. The original choice was Tom Cruise; that would have been perfect. Still, Kitsch doesn’t screw anything up and could turn out to have more acting abilities than the film shows. Lynn Collins(another Origins alum who no one has heard of) shows some potential as Dejah—she might seem a little silly at times, but her enthusiasm certainly beats a Natalie Portman monotone. I’m curious to see her next role. Dominic West (TV’s The Hour) manages to take the unenviable role of thuggish moron Sab Than and make him surprisingly interesting: West shows that Sab is aware he is being used but is mostly reconciled to that fact. Mark Strong plays the big bad guy—one of the ethereal blue-eyed beings—because he feels compelled to be the villain in everything (watch The Young Victoria,Sherlock Holmes, Kick-Ass, Green Lantern or any other movie for proof).

Way to stuffed to have a profound impact, John Carter nonetheless provides some harmless fun on an epic scale.

The Real Issue in the BULLY Debate aka The Weinstein Co. Just Did Something Really Despicable

The controversial R-rating of Bully has provoked a lot of discussion on whether (and if so how) to reform the movie rating system. I think the biggest issue here is not what Bully is rated or whether the rating system should be changed but how the Weinstein Company has done some morally despicable acts to achieve it—and getting away with it.

For those unfamiliar with the background of the story, Bully is a documentary on youth bullying. It shows the lives of several children who live in misery because of unfair and malicious treatment by their peers. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated it “R” because it has six f-words. The movies distributor—the Weinstein Company--appealed, lost, and then sued (and lost again), arguing for a PG-13 rating instead. It eventually released two versions of the film—one unrated and one with three of six f-bombs bleeped out. This feud with the MPAA (which is composed of members from six major film distributors but not the Weinstein Company) has been longstanding , dating back to the days when the company’s big wigs—Harvey and Ben Weinstein—worked for Miramax. So it isn’t something just centering around this one PSA documentary and its message. That isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. However the Weinstein Co. is definitely spinning it thus.

That isn’t the biggest problem here. That is the backstory. The big issue is that to help raise public awareness against bullying (that happens to be resting solely on the number of people who see a very noble picture that just happens to have the potential to make millions upon millions of dollars for the Weinstein Co.), Harvey Weinstein stated his biggest concern was that he wanted it to be played in schools. Theoretically, an R-rating would stop that. Obviously, that is total bologna—my school’s 5th grade class watched Glory in order to learn about the Civil War.

Weinstein—yes, while it is a company decision, it is being spear-headed by Harvey Weinstein, so I have no problem referring specifically to him—approached school executives and teachers and explained how terribly upset he was that children could no longer see this movie that had the potential to reveal the horrible epidemic of bullying (yes, the word was epidemic) because it had six f-words. At one point someone might have let slip that schools play movies with the f-word in it all the f-wording time, because Weinstein—in his typical altruism as a crusader for the greater good—offered to show the movie for free to the students. Some schools said no, but several said yes.

Right now there is a petition signed by 20,000 school children with the support of hundreds of teachers begging the MPAA to reverse its decision because bullying needs to be stopped. This sound noble and all, but the simple fact is the Weinstein Company was just able to get several middle schools to go to a special publicity showing of an R-rated film. Not a normal showing—a special, pre-release screening. Movie screenings have one purpose—to generate publicity for the movie. And sure enough, with teachers bringing the kids out of class and explaining that the purpose of this was to stop bullying—and then emotionally overloading the elementary and middle school children with horrible images of bullying—these kids suddenly need to encourage everyone to see the movie no matter what.

Movies can change people. That is definitely true. But lots and lots of speakers and essays and movies and youtube videos have been made to help stop bullying. I am sure many of them have had at least some degree of success. This one movie is not the one hope to stop bullying. And kids could probably convince their parents to get the movie if they really want it. Yet a sad, bullied kid is not going to see that. And neither is a perfectly happy kid who’s friends all believe that the movie will solve everything. If they are brought to a movie with all their friends and implored to do whatever it takes to stop bullying they will of course feel it is necessary to encourage everyone to see the film and order the dismantling of the entire rating system to do it.

I am sure the teachers and administrators who brought these kids to the movie (and plan to show it to future classes on DVD) are genuinely trying to fight bullying. And the kids who signed that petition genuinely want to as well. But this isn’t just some effort to help the community—it is a product being sold by a multi-million for-profit company. It shouldn’t be this easy to get this product distributed to every child in a district.

When you go to Wal-Mart, they offer you samples of the food. Why? Because they know you will buy more of it, and tell your friends to buy more of it. Yet Wal-Mart will have a harder time coming into a school and giving that food to kids and encouraging them to tell their friends to buy some too.

Bully was likely made with the goal of helping fight bullying. It might have the capacity to do so. But it is also a product being sold. Just because it is linked to a real cause does not mean it should be advertised to young children in public schools.

This isn’t a movie picked out by teachers who think it will be helpful. It was the Weinstein Company that approached the school. By giving permission, schools are letting a business advertise directly to their students—and worse, involving the students with the Weinstein’s Company crusade to take down the MPAA. And the business didn’t even have to pay.