The Nirvana Paradox

I know, it's been a couple of weeks. I had been planning on seeing some of the new movies like "Godzilla" and "X-Men", but haven't so I didn't feel like I had much to say. I do, however, have something to say about something a little random.

Nirvana. Lots of talking about them recently since they've just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but let's talk about their contribution to said rock and roll history. I'm not out to convince you of anything in particular or to make you "hate" your favorite band (if it is), no, I just want you to maybe re-evaluate and question what the music industry wants you to believe.

I want to start by admitting that I've never been a huge Nirvana fan. That isn't to say that I don't like them, just that I'm not someone who rushed out and bought anything they did. In fact, I never bought any Nirvana albums. I liked them enough to listen to them on the radio, but never thought they were so great that I needed to listen to them over and over again.

Which brings me to my first point. Were they really all that talented? I think not. Now, Dave Grohl is an exception (which I will talk about in a minute), but honestly I'm not convinced that they were. The songwriting is actually terrible and stupid even for a rock song (which are not known for being terribly poetic). And the simple 3 chord progression (which admittedly is a staple of rock) wasn't ground breaking in any way. So what was so great about it? Well, it was the complete opposite of everything that had been happening for the decade before. The late '80s and first year '90s was just characterized by hair bands and the rise of hip-hop. Then Nirvana hit. Grunge was the exact opposite of all that. It struck a chord with the youth of the time (including lots of my friends) and was the latest trend in a long line of disenfranchised youth music, which is what rock has embodied in some way for generations by punk, goth, and more recently emo.

So we have a new genre that emerges from Seattle and the first band that breaks is immortalized as

who brought it to the world. Sound familiar? Sex Pistols anyone? What if it has been Alice In Chains or Soundgarden? Would the world hold them in such high esteem? I think so, but then again, it could be that Kurt Cobain's death was just timely enough to send them into legendary status. Think about it, they only had 2 mainstream albums and were at the very height of stardom, so they never really had a chance to fizzle out and all the controversy and theorizing about Kurt's supposed suicide kept them in the news for a long time (hell, even in the last six months as the photos have been released).

If he hadn't died, what might have happened? Well, there wouldn't have been the Foo Fighters, that's for sure. Dave would never have been allowed to blossom on his own since he was always overshadowed by his eccentric front man. Also, I really feel they would have fallen flat on their face in terms of their following. Sure there would have been die-hard fans and they could have continued for some more time, but I'm sure the trends would have left them behind. I would point to another band of the '90s that had more #1 rock singles than anyone before and now is all but forgotten (except by hardcore fans like myself) which is Collective Soul. Had Ed Roland passed after "Dosage" would they have the same fame as Nirvana? Hmmmm.

I know I rambled and probably could have written better, but I just wanted to get a few points across. Hopefully you will re-think Nirvana's role in history.

Throwback Thursday-Gosford Park (2001)

I don't really want to make this a long post, so I will get right to the point. Today won't be a full-on review, because this movie is over 10 years old, but I do want to kind of convince you to try it out since it's one of my all-time favorite movies. Firstly, a little bit about the movie:

Summary from IMDB:

"Multiple storylined drama set in 1932, showing the lives of upstairs guest and downstairs servants at a party in a country house in England."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280707/

"Gosford Park" is a quintessentially Robert Altman film that follows in the footsteps of "Mansfield Park" and, more to the point, "Upstairs Downstairs", but really is its own beast. Altman was one that didn't dwell on the small details, he was more about capturing the soul of the moment. His movies always were made with lots of ad-libbing from the principles and essentially the art of the conversation. Sure there is a murder mystery involved which serves as the "plot" to drive the story (or really stories) and ensure that no one leaves while the various storylines (that mostly revolve around motive) play out, but it is the conversations between the various characters that really defines the narrative. What's kind of cool is that it is almost entirely shown from the servant's perspective. There is ALWAYS a servant around listening.

What I absolutely love about "Gosford Park" is that nothing is blatantly spelled out for the audience. Everything comes down to gestures, stretches of silence, reading between the lines, and snide, under-handed remarks. You have numerous storylines that twist and turn around each other that sometimes relate one to another and sometimes do not. They all play out well and without leaving a bunch of loose ends. Sure, some are left for the viewer to fill in the blanks, but that's intentional. Especially because, even though I've seen the movie probably 15 times, every time I see it, I make new connections and epiphanies as to what is really going on. It's hard to even keep track of who's who (since the servants are mostly called by the name of their "upstairs" counterpart) and how they are related to each other in the first viewing, but it gets much easier on repeated viewings. The writer of the movie (who won an Oscar for this) is who writes "Downton Abbey" so if you like that, you might really like this movie.

The actors are all superb. Many you know well like Maggie Smith (Prof. McGonagall!), Ryan Phillipe, Helen Mirren (Queen Elizabeth II), Clive Owen (who shoulda been Bond), and Michael Gambon (Dumbledore!); others like Charles Dance (Tywin), Tom Hollander (Pirates movies), and Bob Balaban (several Wes Anderson and Christopher Guest films) you'll go "Hey! It's that guy that was in that thing with...". Then there's the people that must only be famous in England. Still, they all are great in their respective roles. No one stands out as particularly bad, though Phillipe is out of his depth with the rest of the cast.

I really don't have much more to say about it. Watch it and see for yourself. If you don't like it, sorry to have wasted your time, but if you like tight scripts with lots of dialogue and don't mind a movie where nothing really "happens" other than conversations, then see it.

Damn, now I'm going to have to watch it AGAIN...

The Amazing Spider-Man 2-Review

Yes, I finally saw it. You will quickly see that I really didn't like it, so let's just get that out of the way. I think the world is realizing it too, because when your tent-pole movie gets beaten in its second week (after a 60% drop, btw) by a comedy with Zac Efron (nothing against him or the movie which I've heard is really funny) then you have a problem. Sony is really going to have to re-evaluate going forward after this.

What I find most intriguing, however, is how people I talk to say it was "ok" or "good", but then when we start talking details, they really didn't like it as much as they thought they did. That just goes to prove that it is not an awful movie, but has major glaring issues that most moviegoers quickly forget because of the pretty, shiny parts.

I'm going to try and limit spoilers here to things that are at the very least inferred in the trailer, but when you're doing a negative review people are going to want examples so you have been forewarned.

Summary from IMDB:

"Peter Parker runs the gauntlet as the mysterious company Oscorp sends up a slew of supervillains against him, impacting on his life."

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1872181/ 

Technical (2) - I had a difficult time with the scoring here because much of the fault of the movie falls into this category, but so does some of its triumphs. Like I said above, the faults get super-ceded by the wins by most people, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. To me, the editing was a huge problem. Especially early on, the scenes jump frenetically from one to another without much breathing room or time to absorb what you've just seen. I feel like they made a 3+ hour movie, then realized it was way too long and then started to cut out anything that wasn't absolutely necessary to the set-up (not of the main plot, mind-you, but another type of set-up which we will talk about in script). Not good.

Another thing that got annoying quickly was product placement. I've said before that it is just part of movie making, but when you're only showing one brand of product it is noticeable so much faster. Any frame they can do it, the SONY (or VAIO) logo is prominently displayed. I was a little surprised that they didn't shoe-horn in some other products that didn't flow organically into the story, but maybe they realized the mistake in doing that a few movies ago.

There's more problems, but the one that immediately took me out of the movie was the CGI. It actually is really well done for most of the movie. Especially when he's web-slinging around New York. The webs he shoots really look real now (except for one silly moment towards the end) and most of the action sequences look pretty good. There were at least 2 incidences, however, where the CGI was just unbearably bad. I'll only mention the face of Rhino in his suit looks badly photoshopped in. UGH.

Script/Dialogue (1) - This one is just bad. Here's the thing: this is a 2+ hour set-up for The Sinister Six and many other Spider-Man related movies for the unforeseen future. Sony knew this one would make money after the success of the first one, so they just crammed as much name-checking as they could into it. What purpose did Rhino serve in the plot? Nothing. Why was B.J. Novak in the movie? To set up for a future villain. Green Goblin shows up for all of 10 minutes and only serves to do the one thing we all knew was going to happen in this movie and then set-up for The Sinister Six. Electro just kinda flails around causing destruction, but isn't really given a clear motivation or even a reason why all of the sudden he hates Spider-man. Plus, his origin is eerily reminiscent of Riddler in Batman Forever.

Speaking of Electro, why is he suddenly Dr. Manhattan? And how did he suddenly get a costume with lightning bolts on it 10 minutes after his escape? The mind boggles. And don't get me started on the eye-rolling way they come up with to eliminate the threat of Electro. He just absorbed the entire power grid of New York and you are gonna get rid of him how again?

My biggest problem with this iteration of Spider-man is the absence of "With great power comes great responsibility". Yet again, they dance all around it without saying it. And this all-consuming quest to find out what his father did shouldn't be the driving force of who he is, it should be the guilt of not stopping his uncle's killer. Why is GWEN STACY'S FATHER'S ghost haunting him instead of Uncle Ben? GRRRRRRRRRR.

I will say that the Gwen Stacy/Peter Parker love story is actually done fairly well and sets up the payoff at the end pretty good, but there's so much other ridiculousness surrounding it, that it gets lost. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the camp. I can thoroughly enjoy camp done right and even welcome it in a comic book movie (since we're so used to the "realistic" comic book movie now), but this stuff is just plain silly.

Oh, and Peter Parker was never the cool kid. EVER. Period.

Acting (3) - I've been droning on and on, so I will try and keep this portion pretty short because most everyone is decent except Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn (I always want to add an 'e' as in Ozzy) who chews the scenery like crazy, overacting every scene he is in and looks terrible as the Green Goblin to boot. And while the chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield is riveting (giving lots of life to the actual drivel they are reciting) the scenes between DeHaan and Garfield have the opposite effect, just showcasing how idiotic it is that these two guys who haven't seen each other in almost 10 years would call each other besties. Dumb.

Sally Field is great as always (even though she's terribly miscast and Aunt May is not used to correct effect); Jamie Foxx is passable; Colm Feore as always is great, but completely under-utilized; ditto for Paul Giamatti and B.J. Novak; and the rest of the support cast works their roles fine.

Tilt (3) - Can't say I completely hated it. I rolled my eyes and pleaded with the screen saying "oh come on!" more than once, but it wasn't an absolutely awful movie. I had to take it as it was, a set-up for the future. As was the first one. Sony needs to stop thinking with their wallets entirely and if the performance of this movie (which echoes the performance of Spider-man 3, though not with even as strong an opening weekend) isn't enough of a wake-up call for them, I don't know what will be.

Total Score - 2.25

Review-Frozen

I already know that I will (and already have) get flak for this review, but I stand by what I say. Maybe someone will have a point I missed, but that really doesn't change much about my feelings about the movie. I must say that much of the issue stems from people over-praising it before I saw it, so that may have had an impact on my feelings, but the more I think about the movie, the more firm I am about said opinion.

Here we go.

Summary from IMDB:

"Fearless optimist Anna teams up with Kristoff in an epic journey, encountering Everest-like conditions, and a hilarious snowman named Olaf in a race to find Anna's sister Elsa, whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom in eternal winter."

Frozen (2013)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Technical (4) - A beautiful film. I will absolutely give it that. With touches that echo the time and area the film is supposed to be in without going too overly ornate and overblown, the backgrounds and costumes are really well done. The textures are amazing with leather looking like real leather and metallics having a realistic sheen (and the lighting moves realistic as well). Character's skin looks the most natural I've ever seen with real looking freckles and flushing from the cold and embarrassment looks natural as well. Of course the ice and particle effects are done flawlessly (as they better be in a movie called Frozen).

I found it interesting that in the special features that they make reference to one of the original Disney animators pushing for this story ("The Snow Queen" from Hans Christian Anderson) to be made into a movie AND feature at Disneyland, but that the makers of the film obviously didn't use any of his work because they didn't know about it until after the fact. Some stuff coincidentally looks similar, but that's about as far as that goes. I kinda wish they'd done some research and pilfered some of it, because it was AMAZING.

The music, which is a main feature of the film, is decent if not particularly memorable. I did find it a little disappointing that there was just so damn much of the singing and, with the exception of 2 songs (which I will discuss in the script part more), are mostly forgettable songs (more on that in script as well).

Script/Dialogue (1) - Here's where it all just falls apart for me. And here be the spoilers. There are lots of plot holes (and yes I realize this is a kid's movie, so this is all a moot point). Where to start. I guess at the beginning. I was kinda disappointed in the establishment of the sisters at the beginning. You can just say that they short-handed them as sisters, but you don't really get why Anna holds Elsa in such regard. They didn't show much of their relationship before "the incident" and they didn't interact much after that except for Elsa saying "no" to the quick engagement. So why would Anna be so quick to defend Elsa? She has no real reason to do so.

There's no real "villain" of the movie in the Disney sense, but basically Elsa takes on the role. Sure there's Hans (which we will get to in a minute), but she is the main antagonist here. I get the whole "misunderstood" part, but here's the thing: they don't establish very well the whole premise that she shouldn't stifle and hide who she is because the big song that everyone loves highlights when she runs away and hides. "Let It Go" is not a bad song, just placed in the wrong part of the movie. It highlights her running from the problems and shutting herself away. Great message for kids. And speaking of bad messages for kids during songs, the only other song in the movie that is memorable is "Fixer Upper" which gives little girls the impression that he's not perfect, but you can change him (or her). Overlook those glaring flaws, because he's gonna be so capable of change. I get that they're referring to smaller flaws, but is a kid really going to distinguish?

And lastly, Hans. Hans, Hans, Hans. His motivations just don't quite gel with his actions. Why did he go after Elsa at all? She was gone and her reputation was completely shattered. What did he gain by going after her? The whole thing is a little secondary as well. It serves only one decent point: don't rush into anything too quickly.

Oh, and one more thing. Poor Sven is horribly under-utilized, as was Kristoff.

There's probably more, but I'm tired of writing.

Acting (5) - All the voice acting is pretty damn good especially for most of them being relative unknowns (except on Broadway and "Glee"). I was really surprised how well Kristen Bell can sing! I'm also glad Idina Menzel is getting some recognition, because she is really good. I really don't have much else to say on this front because there isn't much more to say.

Tilt (3) - Despite me railing against it quite a bit here, I didn't HATE it. I just think it isn't nearly as good as everyone made it out to be ("Brave" was a helluva lot better). I'm sure the hype around the movie really colored my perceptions, but it still wasn't that great. An average movie at best, but watch "Despicable Me", "Tangled", or "Wreck-It Ralph" instead. LOL.

Total Score - 3.25