fine whine

Today I finished watching the fiftieth Indian* movie I've seen. It was called Tarzaan: the wonder car (imdb) and there's a very good chance you'll never watch it, so I'll tell you what it's about. Anybody not wanting the story spoiled should skip past the blockquotes below.

It's about a kid who likes cars - designing them, driving them, fixing them and putting them together. We see in the beginning scenes that his father designed cars too, creating one so advanced that the mere royalties from selling the design should have set him and his family for life. The story takes a sad turn almost immediately as the designer is cheated, and then killed, by the corrupt partners of a major car-maker who intend to bury the innovative design forever. Nothing stays buried forever, though, and we find that our protagonist discovers the car his father was killed driving, and decides to rebuild it. He's got a few factors in his favor - he's got the determination that comes from being teased by the popular kids, a girlfriend who supports him whole-heartedly, a job as a mechanic with a boss who's willing to pay him to work on his pet projects on company time, and he's a mechanical wizard.

After a long montage he's almost finished with the rebuilt car, which looks nothing at all like it did before. The only piece he couldn't find or fix was the fuel pump, but overnight the existing one supernaturally fixes itself... spooky. The next day he drives it to school and it becomes the object of envy for all the students, especially the ones who bullied him. Later that night, while he sleeps, the car, apparently driving itself, tracks them down, and beats them up in a pretty humiliating fashion. They of course do not know that he's not at the wheel, and begin treating him considerably better from then on (after recuperating from their injuries, of course).

Faring less well are the partners who killed his dad - one by one they are hunted down by the car which can not only drive itself, but also can completely repair itself too. The last one turns out to be the father of our protagonist's fiancee, and the climactic battle on land and sea (the car can fly, submerge in water, and float) reveals the driving force to be the spirit of his father. He walks off into the light, and the car never drives itself again.

The father, it should be mentioned, christened his car "Tarzan" as a child, and the name stuck over the years as he hung a figurine of Tarzan (from Disney's animated version, oddly enough) from the rear view mirror.

Some might call it a rip-off of Christine, or perhaps The Wraith, but it's those things and so much more. It could well be the strangest Bollywood movie I've seen so far, but it's by far not the worst. Now that I've seen a good number of them, I think I can pretty well say that.

By now you may be wondering why I've done this. Early this year I happened to watch a horrible Hindi movie entitled Dhund (imdb), though the title "The Fog" figured prominently on the cover. I'd not found many promising movies to borrow from the library that day, and happened to stumble across this one in the foreign languages section.

It was the worst movie I'd watched in a long time, no matter what the language. I was surprised that fog only figured into a scene and a song (I'd heard Bollywood movies included songs and dance, sometimes jarringly, throughout the film) and the plot was much closer to any of the I (still) know what you did last summer films. Except that it was much, much worse.

As a connoisseur of bad films, though, I saw some potential and began to do some research. Namely I talked to any Indian people I could find about the films they liked. The consensus was unanimous - it was an awful movie. I then watched one better - Dus - and started off on a long list of other, much better, Bollywood and Hindi movies.

So now I've seen fifty of them, including one I watched without any subtitles (borrowed VCD), and another that had been dubbed into German (pirate download). Now that one may be a contender for the worst one I'd seen, more conceptually than anything, as it was a remake (in name only) of Fight club, I kid you not.

But that's enough for now. I've got both versions of Don to watch - that's at least six hours of film. Maybe I'll write about them too.

* It's probably safe to call them 'Bollywood' movies, though I might argue against that on one or two.

Despite having joined a fair number of the social networking sites*, I don't really do much on them other than upload a photo or two, identify some "favorite" music and movies, and connect with one or two people (often the same one or two on every site) and then I let my profile languish, logging in very occasionally to check the notifications that don't show up in my email.

The flavor of the month this month is Facebook (see my profile) and I must admit, it's a pretty clean, usable site that blows Myspace (see my profile) out of the water for ease of use, visual appearance, and third-party expandibility.

It's no wonder there has already been a mass migration from the latter to the former.

One of the applications Facebook supports comes from movie rating site Flixster which I had already joined some time ago, played with, and hadn't returned-the interface is slow, rating movies en masse is not simple, and not enough people used it at the time. I connected to a new Flixster account (see it here) and started rating movies again**.

Tired of that, I clicked over to the "never ending quiz" which had drawn Rebecca in, several months ago. It's worse than I remember. More than half of the questions concern Nicole Kidman and Moulin Rouge or Alan Rickman and the Harry Potter films, none of which I've yet seen. Other questions are poorly written, with no capitalization, poor grammar, and misspellings galore.

But what bothered me the most was the True/False questions. Without a single exception every one was always "true".

The questions, I should point out, are all user-submitted, and there are quite possibly millions of them. I'm basing that "every one" statement there on the thirty or so that I encountered so far.

So I started writing my own True/False questions, and (unsurprisingly), making them False. It's a much bigger challenge, fabricating believable movie trivia, than it is to merely copy an item from the Internet Movie Database's extensive trivia archive.

So far I've written eight of these questions (and seven other multiple choice questions) and I'm proud to say that the quiz-takers (who number more than a thousand as of today) have only been correct at most a third of the time. You can see the complete list of questions I've written here. I admit I bookmarked the link and have checked it a few times just to see how I'm doing, and the numbers amuse me.

One example? As of right now, only nineteen of 1,133 people guessed that I'd made this up: "While filming Man on the Moon, Jim Carrey performed weekly comedy shows in Los Angeles, in character, as Andy Kaufman."

As a kid I greatly enjoyed the game Balderdash, though I didn't get many chances to play it.

Anyway, to the quiz. As my questions began appearing for the other people (they're supposedly random) and I kept answering others, I began to see other new questions that were also false, though none (I say this humbly) as convincing as mine.

Now I can play the quiz and know that some of the True/False questions may actually require some thought after all. Frankly, though, I think I'm enjoying writing them more than answering the other ones.

* I'd link the complete list, but based on what I saw from upscoop and pipl, I can't even remember all of the ones I've joined. A halfway-comprehensive list can be found on my about page.

** I was a bit inconsistent - apparently I'm only 84% compatible with myself.

... or rather, lack of content.

First, let me be the last to wish everybody a Happy New Year 2007*. I never intended to let the entirety of January pass without writing anything at all, but the fact that I'm actually writing this on February second would show that exactly that has happened.

I didn't have any drafts started for the month, at least not in my software.

This is not to say that nothing interesting has happened; only that writing about it isn't atop my to-do list anymore. Coincidentally, neither is beating up the denizens of Azeroth - I'm almost completely weaned from the World of Warcraft, too.

But enough about things virtual and insignificant.

It's been a big month for our daughter, too. Just last week Natalya started attending daily day care, and Jessica's gone back to work. Our day-to-day routines continue to evolve - I now wake up more than twenty minutes before I leave as it is my responsibility to feed (and sometimes re-clothe) Natalya. I think I'm going to assemble a DVD or two of TV episodes to watch in the morning as I feed her, since my initial experiments into holding a baby, a bottle, and a Playstation 2 controller have been less than successful.

I haven't added many new photos of her to my gallery recently, and in fact haven't taken as many either. But I do have a few to upload, and have no intentions of stopping taking pictures anytime soon.

So then you ask, other than not taking pictures of my daughter, what have I been doing these last several weeks?

At work I've been spending a considerable chunk of my time doing workshops that are not exactly in the scope of my day-to-day responsibilities. My day-to-day responsibilities have not exactly shrunken to accomodate these added demands, however, and as such have had some extra workload issues.

As such, I've been borrowing a laptop at night. A laptop which, I have discovered, gets better wireless reception than any of the ones I've tried before in my house. In fact I am able to piggyback onto the wireless network of one of my neighbors across the street, as long as I stick to the front rooms of our house, particularly near the windows. I've entertained the notion of trying to figure out exactly which house houses the router to which I connect, but haven't tried very hard so far. I have, however, finally seen the first season of Arrested development and the first two of NBC's The Office, and I must say, they're quite funny.

Of course both shows would be perfect feeding-time entertainment, but this idea has only occurred to me after I've already watched them, before I was consistently feeding Natalya every morning. I suppose I could always re-watch them, of course.

As ever, though, watching TV shows is the merest fraction of the time my TV is on; I'm watching movies at pretty much my usual pace. Unusual, however, are the movies themselves: I've begun watching Bollywood movies. Though I haven't made it through ten of them, I (arbitrarily) decided to watch 50 Hindi movies by 2008, though I may need to revise that goal to 'movies from India' to better cover the non-Bollywood films (i.e. ones not in Hindi). Even from the few I've seen I have much about them to write, and hope to get around to doing that soon, since I've been bouncing the ideas around in my head for quite some time.

At the risk of promising almost nothing and still failing, I'm not going to make any promises or resolutions about posting more.

And any rumors that this post is timed to match yet another threadless sale are, well, nonexistent until now, and entirely untrue. They are, in fact, doing another sale, however this time around to save $5 per shirt you need to buy two of the same, for you and ostensibly for your sweetheart. This is also your chance to stock up on duplicates, I suppose.

Whenever Jessica and I inadvertantly wear the same color shirt I'm tempted to change clothes - I'm not sure I'd be interested in wearing the same (trendy, hipster approved) shirt as her. So it goes.

* Or may I be one of the first to wish a Happy New Year of the Boar? Chinese New Year is rapidly approaching - it won't be 4704 much longer!

Yesterday I made mention of watching a movie, and surprisingly I'm going to mention it again. I use the word 'surprisingly' because it came from Adam Sandler and company (a Happy Madison film) and yet I found bits of it to be rather a bit better than I expected.

As far as news on the baby front, we had something of a rough night in the hospital, but Jessica covered that far better than I could, so click that if you wish, and I'll go back to discussing films.

Well, movies at least. "Film" may be aiming too high for a movie with Rob Schneider in it, since its own sights are set so low.

I've seen more than my fair share of the Happy Madison oeuvre, and I think the movies can be divided into two camps*: the movies that saddle a simple, decent story with goofy characters, meaningless side plots, in-jokes, bad accents and painful cameos and Rob Schneider; and the ones with everything I just listed but the simple, decent story.

So I make no bones about it: there are many, many things to dislike about this movie, and only four or five of them pertain to Rob Schneider and his hammy 'acting' and accent.

Several other of the bit players have roles that must have taken a good two or three brain cells a second or two to create. Sean Astin has fallen far to go from playing sturdy, dependable Sam the hobbit to Doug the lisping bodybuilder. Dan Aykroyd has done better and done worse, but I didn't stick around for enough of the credits for the animal cruelty disclaimer to see how the other whales were treated. I suspect more time was spent finding good trained dolphins, a walrus and a penguin than was spent on re-writes and dialogue coaching.

But enough about the negatives. Deep down at its core, this movie hinges around an intriguing, if not simple and convoluted idea. A capsule description probably doesn't sound too bad: A former playboy finds himself loving a sweet, damaged woman he must reintroduce himself to every day.

Even in executive summary form it doesn't sound so bad: Drew Barrymore plays a woman unable to form any memories lasting longer than a day because of a tragic accident. Adam Sandler plays a commitment-phobic marine veterinarian who finds himself smitten with her, and wants to add himself into the routine her father, brother and some friends have created to insulate her from her painful past and present. Despite the obvious difficulties, they fall in love, until she decides she's keeping him from his future by continually re-living her present.

Not so bad, eh? I actually found myself wondering, around the one hour mark, how they'd meet the critical romantic comedy requirement of "boy loses girl" but that is handily explained with a rather significant plot point that nobody found fit to mention beforehand. It's cumbersome and halfway predictable, but the story more or less makes up for it in the end.

Whether this is the contribution of first-time writer George Wing or an effort Adam and his chums have made is up in the air - I'll be looking forward to future movies George pens (like the upcoming Outsourced) more than I will the next Happy Madison product.

But is it worth slogging through all of the dreck to find the good bits? Would I have felt so sentimental if I weren't watching it with my new baby daughter laying asleep on my chest? Would I have enjoyed it more if I weren't so worn out and tired?

Possibly not. This matters not.

I have had an idea, though. What should be done in cases like these? Is there a way to throw out the bad and improve the good?

Of course there is: remake!

Why wait a decade or more to revisit this movie and freshen it up?

After all, nobody blinks when two blockbusters appear in theaters hinging around the same plot, the same action-packed set pieces. Why wonder if the second film just takes a little bit longer?

Perhaps this is a cause for the French to take up. Hollywood has a long history of remaking their films romantic, comedic and otherwise; why not do one the other way?

Or maybe Bollywood will take up the challenge. For all I know, they already have.

* I checked to make sure: Punch drunk love was not a Happy Madison production.

Nor was The wedding singer, but probably only because the company was formed to make (the first) Deuce Bigalow.

... at least, more forgiving than I'm willing to be.

I realize I'm probably at least twice the target demographic for Jon Favreau's Zathura (and I've never seen Jumanji, to boot), but I don't know if that can explain my dissatisfaction with the film. I'm not entirely certain I can explain it well, but I'll try.

First, an aside. Why didn't the people who put together the trailer (really just the first important scenes of the movie) have any input on the cover art? The trailer, to its credit, revealed a lot without giving too much away, and left rather major plot points out entirely. The cover, on the other hand, pretty much ruins the surprise on most everything. This is something that is not limited merely to this film, or its cover. Lots of DVDs have covers and menus and whatnot that spoil stuff, but this time around the trailer seemed so well crafted and the cover so, well, not, that I thought it merited mention.

The trailer wasn't the only thing done well. The two kids are very believable as two brothers, and their actions for the most part ring true. At one point the younger brother hits the older one in the face with a ball, not out of malice but simply because it seemed like something to do. Something in his expression or manner shows that so well. The kids, both of them, did a good job but they deserved better.

First of all, they were slaves to the game. Nothing they did had any bearing on the final outcome, save for occasionally figuring out how they were supposed to use what they were given. In those cases there was only one way to do things, so they were trapped anyway.

Second, they were robbed of characterization when from the first few minutes it became obvious that the two of them, initially at odds, would become best buddies forever. Moreover one of the boys doesn't really get much of an arc at all, other than he's a tad bit less timid at the end than the begninning. He's on screen almost the entire time, doesn't he deserve a little bit of personal growth?

Of course, this is a movie for kids, and they won't really care about those things. They probably won't care about oversights and shortcuts taken in the special effects, the most glaring of which is the static 'stars' outside the windows that are so obviously a wall four feet away. If Star trek: the next generation could get this right on TV couldn't they have done the same? After all the effort put into effects like the meteor shower, overlooking something like that seemed just cheap to me. But the kids won't notice. Nor will you, if you don't know what you're seeing (if you haven't been told, of course. Sorry).

Next up, Charlie and the chocolate factory. Few so-called family movies are more divisive* than 1971's Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory: In none of the conversations mentioning that movie I recall did anyone admit to being lukewarm or wishy-washy on it. People love or hate it. Those who love it, really love it, though, and as such a remake was all but inevitable. It's a shame that with the improved technology, the filmmakers didn't spend time on an improved story (or even one to rival the first film or original book).

The movie's actually dumbed down. The story's dumbed down and Willy himself is dumbed down. The writers found fit to add not only scenes to show things that don't need to be shown, but also entire subplots to explain things that don't matter. In previous incarnations, Mr. Wonka was an enigma, and even now we don't need to know his life story. And to contradict what I said about Zathura: just because he's a major character doesn't mean he needs a character arc. After all, his name's not the one in the title anymore.

This is not to say that some of the new additions are unwelcome. The Small World-esque sequence at the factory in the beginning is an intriguing idea, and pays off unexpectedly later in an almost throwaway bit you'll miss if you blink ("This is the puppet hospital and burns center. It's relatively new"). The design of the glass elevator was much closer to Roald Dahl's original vision (and illustrations, if I recall) than the one in the 70s film, and they used it the way they should, as an elevator that could go in any direction, and, as such, was done well (though I thought back to the very similar Magrathea bit in The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy that at the time was simultaneously cool and tedious). The squirrels bit is amazing, at least until the plot takes hold again. The new approach to the Oompa Loompas was refreshing, if for nothing else to be rid of the hideously ugly costumes and makeup. The new Oompa songs, though, were a failure of style over substance, in that I couldn't make out a good half of the lyrics and was far too distracted by the visuals (elaborate staging and production design) to want to try much harder. Most of the other new problems suffered similarly in execution, but weren't as good of ideas.

Johnny Depp plays Willy as an aloof idiot, and talks in a manner that mixes the worst of David Spade, Dana Carvey's Church Lady, and a four year old. He doesn't just talk like an idiot, he often acts like one too, walking into the glass doors of his elevator not once but twice. Humor doesn't work like that, at least not for me. The kids are a mixed bag as well, acting into cliches more than characters, but Charlie and his family come off as more or less genuine, a feat none of the other characters even approaches.

But still the question remains: why did they need to bludgeon us with the message about family**? Why did Willy need to change? We may never know the answers, at least not until the next producers and writers take this on in the next remake cycle. Give it another 35 years, and we'll see.

Rather than remaking any one of the 'classic' Universal Studios monster movies, the makers of Van Helsing chose to appropriate the star attractions of pretty much all of them. Frankenstein's monster met the Wolf Man back in 1943 (and then Abbott and Costello and Dracula too) but rarely since have so many monsters shared the screen in the same two hours. Trivia buffs more well-versed than I am in these 'classics' point out that there wasn't a Universal Jekyll and Hyde film other than the Abbott and Costello spoof, but that part does make for a very watchable sequence and does somewhat propel the movie forward. That's all the movie does, all the way through - rush forward without many a moment to waste. It follows the video game pacing (that Scott Tobias mentions in his review of Silent hill) of action-exposition-action-exposition for a while, but soon leaves out the exposition altogether and we're left seemingly knowing even less than the characters do.

The effects are mostly good and the atmosphere okay, if a bit drab, but so much is so silly for me to take this movie seriously. All but its most ardent fans will admit it's a mindless popcorn film, but when I watched it I guess that wasn't enough.

So these movies weren't exactly horrible, but none were great. In my opinion. Which we know can't count for too much, because I can recall thinking that Spawn wasn't all that bad, at the time, and am willing to admit that now. If you've seen it, that should clear things up. If you haven't, well, don't. Give one of these three a try instead, and who knows, maybe you'll like them more than I did.

* One word that always, always, always eludes me is the one that you use to describe this sort of thing: Opinions are divided completely for or against; there is no middle ground. The word occasionally comes to me, but when it doesn't I can't find it, and founder about with the wrong words like "galvanizing" and "catalyzing". I know I'm on the right track with those two, as the word I seek is vaguely scientific, but neither is the right one. Each time I recall or rediscover it, I know it right away, but every single time I've forgotten, and the quest begins anew. What is this word? It's more than just "controversial" and "divisive", it's... what?

** To see a movie that gets the whole 'family' message right, watch Disney's Lilo and Stitch. There's a movie about families (and aliens), not a movie about a boy and a chocolate factory and other stuff with a family message and subplot grafted on as an afterthought.

I've wondered this before, but the idea resurfaced as I watched The Apple Dumpling Gang: For being so-called 'family entertainment', Disney movies don't show many of the generally-accepted 'standard' family: mom, dad, 2.5 kids, etc. Gang's about three orphans, and it's not the only film that comes to mind about kids raised by other relatives, foster parents, or animated creatures*. I realize there's a point to be made about amking do with what one has, but still this pheomenon strikes me as a bit odd.

* In fact, the only Disney film we could think of, in ten minutes or so, containing a mom, dad, and their kids was 101 Dalmations, and they're not even people.