Word Press Blogs

http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/05/mission-statement/ Here are a few links to my own blogs elsewhere, for what it's worth. http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/04/leverage-and-support/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/13/friday-the-13th-2009-or-12th-movie/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/13/raise-a-little-hell/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/10/some-halloween-viewing/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/09/crawl/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/09/the-it-girl-and-her-grown-up-self/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/06/john-carpenters-the-ward/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/06/the-third-black-christmas-2019/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/03/generations-and-rick-moranis/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/26/in-praise-of-the-eighties/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/06/look-at-these-damn-shorts/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/08/29/perceptions-of-screenwriters-or-directors/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/08/21/audio-the-fault-in-their-star-wars/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/07/31/an-old-youtube-channel-is-back-up/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/07/17/letting-a-screenplay-go/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/06/09/internalized-or-imposed-knowledge/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/06/07/twitchy-twitter-tribes-and-fans/

many varied entries on CineCoup

Checking out various other prospective movies on the CineCoup.com site. This one below, The Last Canadian, seems interesting. Maybe it will be a Canadian Leon. I still hope Porno the Clown gets more attention than it has, but occasionally I'll share a link.

video blog Talking to a Wall begins

Occasionally I will throw one of these on-line, mostly random spiels about film making. From the perspective of a low-profile director clawing his way along.

imdb debates -further trashing of Star Wars prequels

Okay, here are a few things I've said in response to a young Star Wars prequel fan who refuses to look at them with a critical eye. I know it's beating a dead cat, but the upcoming aboninations of 3D-converted re-release make it part of the soft boycott I'm sort of doing.

OCCASSIONALLY wooden acting? Compare the work of any cast member to their non SW prequel work. Even Jake Lloyd is more bearable in Jingle All the Way. And I'm sure it's no accident that there isn't any mention of Haley Joel Osment screen testing for Anakin on the DVD documentary.

Minor plot holes with OT - Padme's death in III despite Leia's memory of interacting somewhat with her, as described in VI ? That's minor?

- Here, have something to drink without even sniffing it for poison despite the disturbance you feel in the Force.

- Why would anyone want balance to the Force when there are supposedly two Sith in the Universe and a community of Jedi? That's the right kind of ratio.

- The wisdom of the Jedi is apparently to be humorless, reckless and fearless despite paying lip service to the opposite. A character must REACT with fear to new surroundings so the audience can feel suspense, even if they summon the strength to overcome it.

- In OT, decisions were usually made under fire and in a crunch, on the fly. In the prequels, there is usually no urgency and things are decided or discussed in periods of rest. (Except of course scenes like "rational" Obi Wan jumping through a window instead of pulling the floating robot to himself with the Force, despite saying he "hates when" Anakin jumps from a flying vehicle).

- One point in the Sith review that makes GREAT sense is that it would be common practice for the Jedi to "watch the watcher" or keep an eye on Palpatine or anyone else in power. Knowing that absolurte power corrupts absolutely. They need only look into the heart of anyone they encounter, including Palpatine, and if they are blocked then they know that person is communing with the Dark Side in order to do so.

- I don't care about the rationalizations. "I didn't really come here to free slaves, " is an INFURIATING line coming from "Schindler" but it is also not befitting any Jedi or any protagonist in a heroic adventure. Freeing slaves and disregarding an outlying system's WRONGHEADED tolerance of it would have been a rousing and engaging central premise. And LEAVING Shmi Skywalker to live as a slave and not even check in on her for, what, 10 years?

Fear of Anakin's mother suffering is a REASONABLE fear, and NO relation whatsoever to Fear that we overcome, like prejudice -- which I what I thought Yoda was talking about when I saw the trailer, and what other fans nodded appreciatively over.

The business of "attachment" being forbidden is paradoxial, since a Jedi may be attached to irrelevant rules at the expense of what is worth a hero giving his life to defend.

- Anakin talks about a device he has invented for scanning where slaves have their incendiary devices planted in their skin. THAT should lead to a quite worthy sequence! Is Qui-Gon removing Anakin's explosive when he takes the blood sample? I don't recall WHAT he was doing. Then why not Shmi's explosive next? Why not make a point of covertly ridding all of Anakin's friends of their bombs? Maybe Shmi is off at work when this happens and she has to be among the last, and maybe she crosses a perimeter and Watto sees this and activates his remote.

THAT would have been an ideal circumstance for her to die, right in front of Anakin, and maybe in reflex he mentally swats Watto against a wall like a fly. Might not be apt for a children's film, but certainly okay if Lucas cared to establish a tone that naturally ended with the PG-13 finale of Anakin's legs being chopped off before he burns beside a lava lake.

- The chief accomplishment of Attack of the Clones is they manage to have a battle between armies of robots and Jedi and make it boring. They have also made peace boring, which is quite offensive in a set of stories about war and mostly released during war time.

That's not even the tip of the iceberg. Years from now melchiahdimension-1 you'll watch these prequels and wonder WTF you were thinking.

On close examination of the most basic points, it all falls apart.
George Lucas is all about negotiations and deals and those transactions are a big part of the "story" in the prequels. It doesn't make them more civilized. It makes them false and out of touch with the human spirit.

The fact that Lucas will re-release The Phantom Menace in 3D February 2012 and not stick to the OT just willfull greed and shortsightedness. The prequels are a disgrace.

Red Letter Media's review of Attack of the Clones

Harry S. Plinkett's bang-on observations use clips as proof, whether or not he is as insane as his home movie clips demonstrate from time to time throughout the visual essay on Attack of the Clones.

deleted imdb reviews

Most of the time these are referred to as "comments" but when they are deleted the alert refers to them as "reviews." So I'll stick with that wording.

I'm not entirely sure why one or the other was deleted, except by another user.
I'll modify them when I get the chance and re-post, but for now I'll just paste them here as they were. The second one, for a terrible spoof movie, is a justifyable deletion. I think I pasted some wording from a critic's blurb. I don't fully recall. I thought I had changed the context of it. I recognize the first wording (for good or ill) as my own though at first skim.

Iron Man 2 (2010)
Skip the reviews; watch the movie, 7 May 2010
(This review was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user)

An ongoing pet peeve of mine is the ease with which critics publish falsehoods. I don't even mean subjective arguments with which I disagree, but unqualified statements contrary to the evidence on screen. Here is an example, having looked at a review of Iron Man 2 before seeing it, since I was thrown by a claim that caught my eye. Ordinarily I avoid reviews of movies I already intend to see.

False statement number one is that Mickey Rourke doesn't have enough screen time. Fact: he has exactly the right amount of screen time for a primary movie heavy. Does he have as much as in The Wrestler? No. Does he have as much as Nicholson's Joker in the 1989 Batman? Of course not, because there was no writer's strike during the shooting of Iron Man 2 and Tim Burton doesn't always know when enough Jack is enough. Jack had way too much screen time in that flick, entertaining as he was.

False statement number two is that we don't see Iron Man in the suit enough. This might actually be offered as proof the critic didn't even see the movie. We see as much of Iron Man in full costume as the story permits, which is exactly the right amount. Then we also get to see War Machine in his own similar costume, and Mickey again in something still similar. Not to mention the collection of Iron man suits on display in Stark's home. This of course is even clear to people who have seen the trailers. No spoilers here.

I could go point for point through the whole "review," but those were the to most laughable that drifted into my thoughts as I was watching them be disproved during the film. Proof once again that a movie should be seen as cold as possible (despite the omni-present trailer) and there is no point having a critic's nonsense rattling around in your head.

Let's face it, you are in better hands with the team behind Iron Man 2 than with even a competent critic. The themes are well explored, the character flaws of Stark are exploited for substance, and it is as it should be. I don't think I'll show up for any Stark parties or Expos, but I will keep showing up to his movies. If there's a quibble, it can be for the hurdles placed before the filmmakers by the studio when it announced the release date of this flick before telling its director - who then had to round out whatever draft of a script with an ongoing workshop with his cast. Let's hope they are given more time for part 3, but they managed to maintain the standard of the first one to a large extent.

I'm really only posting a comment at this point as a way to vent. I may never have the time to compile an archive website of disprovable quotes from critics, and there is the danger anyway that it might inadvertently promote their names.

Meet the Spartans (2008)
the first "place holder" movie, 28 January 2008
(This review was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user)

Some writers write what they call place holders when they know a movie could use something here or there or an explanation or a name for a character. . .This is the first time I've noticed someone let a whole movie go through the process and keep the place-holders.

It's a generic piece of crap with nothing to say, least of all anything to say about the pop culture it references. I love spoofs. I love satire too. Naked Gun, Airplane, Mel Brooks, even the last couple of Scary Movie installments. This isn't even an attempt. It reminds me of an old TV charity event "Night of a Hundred Stars" which ended up cramming people in by having them step out and bow, one at a time if you are lucky. Except that this is not as inspired, hasn't got the stars, and hasn't got the charity.

The closest thing to a decent quote I can find is :
"Meet The Spartans makes Epic Movie look like Scary Movie."

Good quote # 2:
"The movie follows the essential narrative of 300, with some obvious detours.
It plays as if someone handed over a laundry list of popular-culture flotsam, and the recipient took it to be a script."

That's about all the good that has come from this movie being made.

A series of walk-ons for one look-alike after another.

It is made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Any film that indicates these names as directors can be guaranteed to suck. What they do right is they say yes to distributors and get something shot which can be marketed close to a better film it is trying to ape. They keep the budgets around 20 million dollars and they make a profit in the first weekend before the teen audience realize that on every website the films are rated maybe two or three out of ten, and with single-digit percentages on the tomatometer. They are a brand name of suckage. Sadly a decent Canadian musical about vampires called Suck received no theatrical release and yet these garbage merchants crank out a place-holder called Vampires Suck and it gets between 2000 and 3000 screens. Why do Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer still get hired? They really have nothing to say about anything they are ostensibly spoofing. There are Second City improv troops who can whip up a 90 minute spoof on any topic or movie in much less time than it takes these dweebs. The studio heads need to get out more. The Kentucky Fried Theater was running for a while before Zucker Abrahams and Zucker ventured into film spoofs. Mel Brooks cut his teeth with the best of the best in live television. These putzes don't know how to generate comedy. I can watch hours of student films for all the energy and urgency and experimentation but I can't sit through the films of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer for free on the internet or on a DVD that is handed to me or when I am forced to hang tight with others who are watching their crap. I have forced myself a couple of times and it is rough going.

--

Okay, by the time I was done reading over my post I realized it was not worth reposting something that had been an inexplicable word-count of mostly a published review someone else wrote. I decided to trash that and rip on the two dudes who have ruined spoof movies for half a decade.

Seriously thinking about deleting this blog or just posting elsewhere for obvious reasons. But at least it's a place to paste some useless observations while procrastinating about my own crap.

Friday the umpteenth

Voorhees - a jolly bad fell-ow.



If I ever get a rampaging zombie maniac in a vulnerable position, I'll remember that letting a chain strangle him and giving one token stab isn't enough to make sure he's dead. Then I sure won't move his body from the crime scene and throw it off a dock, especially if there is a perfectly good shredder handy - like the one in Fargo - and he has already shown me how to use it. For most of the movie the characters are above-average intelligent for horror victims-to-be. Except for the perhaps intentional laugh it gets for the line, "You better go out to the tool shed" the screenplay (by mostly the same team as Jason X and Freddy Versus Jason) adds to and improves upon the scatter-shot mythology of Friday the 13th many of us ended up seeing at the dawn of VHS and Beta tapes. It's not a straight remake of the 1980 film Sean S. Cunningham (Spring Break) directed. The very beginning is taken from the first, and the ending reminds us of it, but an apparently enchanted locket is added and elements of Part II and Part III are woven into the new movie. This time I stood in a rush line for a free preview screening and the crowd had a positive reaction to it. One person said, "Pretty good. I'd give it a 9" which to me sounds incongruous. I admit I spent much of the movie - especially when there is a cumulative effect of the jeopardy - curled up with my nerves on edge. So the film succeeds in doing what it intended. There is character development, so we care what happens and there is even one guy (other than Mr. Vorhees) that we want to see killed. But I can't give it full marks because of the frustration it leaves me with over the rote ending and the stupidity that allows for it to happen. I didn't expect them to reboot this character only to kill him off for good, but I think given the trauma these characters had gone through they might not permit the denouement to go the way it does. The rest of the audience appeared to have a little better sense of humor about it though.

Ever want to talk back to a critic?

A “Fanboys” review by Roger Ebert becomes a discussion with Jawsphobia

EBERT: A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them.

JAWSPHOBIA: So how do you explain them disregarding their own hygiene ?

EBERT: Their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion.

JAWSPHOBIA: Like Jesus is irrelevant to the Christian?

EBERT: Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.

JAWSPHOBIA: That’s fair enough.

EBERT: Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other.

JAWSPHOBIA: Not exactly an ideal springboard to romance, if you recall the films. . .

EBERT: If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else.

JAWSPHOBIA: How do you explain the enterprising Star Wars fans and Trekkers who write some of the most respected shows today?

EBERT: They're always asking you questions they know the answer to.

JAWSPHOBIA: Asking the Answer Man or me? Who is “you”? How is Fanboys?

EBERT: Its primary flaw is that it's not critical. It is a celebration of an idiotic lifestyle.

JAWSPHOBIA: What lifestyle? Do actual fans end up in replica trash compactors, take pilgrimages to Skywalker Ranch to physically steal movies for friends dying of cancer each week? That lifestyle?

EBERT: If you want to get in a car and drive to California, fine. So do I. So did Jack Kerouac. But. . . . beam your ass down to Route 66.

JAWSPHOBIA: I see. The lifestyle of Jack Kerouac is our yardstick. Very stable.

EBERT: "Fanboys" follows in the footsteps of "Sex Drive."

JAWSPHOBIA: Missed that film. I was “on the road” you might say.

EBERT: This plot is given gravitas because one of the friends, Linus (Christopher Marquette), is dying of cancer.. . . it's one of those movie diseases that is mentioned occasionally so everyone can look solemn and then dropped when the ailing Linus dons a matching black camouflage outfit and scales the Skywalker Ranch walls with a grappling hook.

JAWSPHOBIA: Let me tread lightly here, sir. I know you’ve had close calls with cancer and this is real and serious for you. But someone else can make the movie about sitting around waiting to die. There is a time to live, a time to die, a time to scale walls.

EBERT: "Fanboys" is an amiable but disjointed movie that identifies too closely with its heroes. Poking a little more fun at them would have been a great idea.

JAWSPHOBIA: Just how great? Ever hear the term “easy target?” As it stands, the movie has William Shatner in it. Difficult to forget that the best slams have already been delivered. “You’re almost thirty – have you ever kissed a girl?” So it’s been done and well. I take this movie as being the tone of Detroit Rock City. We can take for granted that loving KISS music is an arbitrary obsession, but it is also about all journeys.

EBERT: They are tragically hurtling into a cultural dead end. . .

JAWSPHOBIA: Only in the most literal 1999 sense, aiming to see The Phantom Menace which is a film that seems to have earned only one “thumbs up” and it was your own lonely thumb. Up what, we don’t want to know.

EBERT: That are mastering knowledge which has no purpose other than being mastered, and too smart to be wasting their time.

JAWSPHOBIA: What knowledge is worthwhile? Movie Answer Man articles? Your DVD commentaries (which I actually like)? Or porn? You know – these people do still have to attend school and get jobs.

EBERT: When a movie's opening day finally comes, and fanboys leave their sidewalk tents for a mad dash into the theater, I wonder who retrieves their tents, sleeping bags…

JAWSPHOBIA: Well, I’ve looked it up Mr. Journalist. They stuff that under the theater seat and hold it on their laps and then they all sit around while one of them reads your advance review. And the ushers walk the aisle with air freshener.

Welcome

This is the blog of Jawsphobia. It will not be limited to my condition which causes me to flinch and look away from the Jaws logo or most pictures of sharks. In fact it will mostly be a collection if reviews old and new and general comments, a few of which are salvaged from my comments on imdb.com and other sites.

I don't much like critics, so I am an anti-critic.

Happy New Year