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Critical Thought

Discuss: Why Are Movies Like '2012' So Interesting?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:02:00 EST

Filed under: Action, Drama, New Releases, Sony, Critical Thought, New in Theaters

Despite all the jokes about Roland Emmerich's love for blowing up cities, how the hell Lloyd Dobbler will save the world, and of course, the infamous line "Download my blog," 2012 earned $225 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

I dislike adding "porn" or "-sploitation" to descriptive phrases (torture porn, poorsploitation, etc. etc.), but if anything could be called an exploitation of our natural fear of an upcoming worldwide crisis, it would be 2012. Eerie shots of crowds praying en masse and major landmarks crumbling are juxtaposed with smaller stories, like the family struggling to stay together, a personal crisis set off by an ethical conundrum, and, of course, the prophet-kook in the woods who's happy to see his greatest suspicions verified.

Orson Welles's radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds sent Americans running for their bomb shelters in 1938, and once everyone realized it was just a radio show (and recovered from their terror), a new type of horror was born: the fear of massive worldwide destruction.

Every US generation thinks it's going to be the last. If it's not the Cold War, it's the Middle East, and if it's not aliens, it's the ice caps. But it's also a reality; it's mind-boggling to turn on the news and see footage of a tsunami that's killed about 230,000 people and injured and displaced so many more.

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Villains: The Highs and Lows of Recasting

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:32:00 EST

Filed under: Drama, Horror, Critical Thought, Fandom

Villains: The Highs and Lows of Recasting

Why recast the relatively small role of a doctor in a thriller? Michael Mann's Manhunter was an excellent thriller, featuring Brian Cox in a small role as the imprisoned, chillingly cold cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecktor. When the time came to adapt another one of Thomas Harris' bestsellers, Jonathan Demme went in a different direction, casting Anthony Hopkins as the good doctor. The character's family name was restored (Lecter, not Lecktor) and a whole new set of tics and tricks were placed on display. Hopkins may have been the only actor alive who could have hammed it up to such extreme levels and yet, somehow, made Lector creepy rather than campy, unnerving rather than unbelievable. For his memorable efforts in The Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins won an Academy Award.

Recasting villains is a tricky business. Everyone needs to love, identify with, and cheer the hero or heroine, but if the villain doesn't provide the requisite level of opposition, the picture runs the risk of becoming unbalanced, leaving a gaping hole that cannot be filled in with special effects. And if an actor has established the character in the public's mind, it's difficult for anyone else to measure up.

So Dylan Walsh has an advantage in The Stepfather, which opens tomorrow. Terry O'Quinn originated the title role in the 1987 original, and was a truly memorable monster. Yet the film is not steeped in the public consciousness to a high degree, and O'Quinn has become much better known from playing John Locke in Lost. Walsh's fame, such as it is, comes from the lesser-seen TV series Nip/Tuck. Walsh has a shot of creating his own distinct brand of villain.

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Discuss: Are There Too Many Film Festivals?

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:32:00 EST

Filed under: Critical Thought, Fandom, Exhibition, Movie Marketing

Discuss: Are There Too Many Film Festivals?

It all started in Venice in 1932 - the world's first film festival. Then other festivals began popping up for a variety of reasons, some political, given the growingly fascist government in Italy: Cannes in 1946, Edinburgh in 1947, Berlin in 1951, and so on, until the present day, when a journalist can spend a decent portion of the year (and salary) covering Sundance, the Toronto Film Festival, Telluride, South by Southwest, Fantastic Fest, New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CineVegas, and, more recently, San Diego Comic-Con, just to name as a few, as well as the aforementioned international festivals if they're really lucky.

As time has passed, the fests have become more than venues for movie buyers and sellers to haggle over movies or arbiters of taste in the finest of arthouse flicks. Along the way, critics and journalists have gotten into the festival circuit, which is a win-win for the movies and the writers; small films get the buzz that's sometimes a good push for them to get picked up by distributors, and the writers get access to films before they get hot, making them tastemakers and generally ahead of the curve when it comes to Oscar season, film trends, and insider-y scoops that can only occur when you find yourself sharing an elevator with a Weinstein. Festivals can be great litmus tests for movies that take forever to get picked up - you can pretty much guarantee they're gonna be a stinker by the time they arrive in theaters for a weekend and disappear after that.

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