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October/November Book Buys

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:20:00 -0500

I've been building up the graphic novel collection lately. From scratch. Never really been much of a comic book reader until recently, so I'm now discovering a whole bunch of truly excellent graphic novels and starting to get a handle on various writer and artists names. Like Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Rizzo's gritty, nasty neo-noir 100 Bullets. As you can see, I'm only up to book six, so I'll be trying to finish up this excellent story very soon.

G. Willow Wilson's Air is a wonderful slice of magic realism. She's only released two books in this ongoing series, but I'm enjoying it very much so far.

The Matrix Comics are an anthology of comics that were originally published by various writers and artists online to coincide with the films. They tell stories set in the world of The Matrix, but don't tie in directly with the main storyline, kind of like The Animatrix in comic form. Well, apart from 'I Kant' and 'Saviors', both of which are set after The Matrix Revolutions, and 'Bits and Pieces of Information', which gives some more detail about the first robot to be put on trial, some of which was seen in 'The Second Renaissance'. Generally, the stories are very good and expand the world in interesting ways, such as the story about the renegade Zion crew who go into the Matrix for the thrill of being chased by agents, or the collectors who find items from the past in the ruins of the real world.

Fables I haven't read yet, but has been one I've wanted to check out for a while.

Three unusual, though not hard to find editions of these important works. Le Morte D'Arthur contains over sixty illustrations and an introduction by Michael Moorcock, which is a very nice touch for any fantasy fans out there. I found it difficult to find any kind of special edition that also included an accurate, unabridged text, but this fits the bill very nicely.

The Borges collection is a very nice paperback edition that's part of Penguin's Deluxe Edition range and includes all of his short stories. The Metamorphosis is also part of this range as well and features a comic strip based on an extract from Kafka's diary on the front and back flaps. Very cool.

And finally, the boring theory stuff. Actually, I'm quite excited about all three of these ones. The Hoffman and Murphy anthology, Essentials of the Theory of Fiction, is a great idea as it brings together pieces that are relevant to the study of fiction, and not just the broader category of literature in general. Which is great for someone like me whose research is focussed on the novel and the concept of storytelling in fiction.

To be a little more specific, my research is concerned with popular fiction, which is where Samuel R. Delany comes in. Delany changed the faced of science fiction criticism when he originally published The Jewel-hinged Jaw in 1977. The edition pictured above is the 2009 revised edition that features two new essays from Delany and a new introduction by Matt Cheney. I consider About Writing to be a companion volume, as it focusses much more on the writing practice and as such, it contains a couple of essays that appear in The Jewel-hinged Jaw. But it's the essay 'On Pure Storytelling' included in this book that should proved invaluable to me.

Yeah, books are tops.

Top 20 Favourite Films Round Up

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:28:00 -0500

3 months, 20 films, 13,000-odd words. Took me a while, but I got there in the end. And even though 12,000 of those words were probably drivel, it was a lot of fun and something of a challenge to put into words why exactly these particular 20 films struck a chord with me. There's some notable omissions - no sign of Martin Scorsese, for one - but in the end this was a very personal list that I think perfectly captures the kind of films I love, circa 2009.

Thanks to everyone who followed this countdown and commented via Facebook or the Empire forums. To wrap this whole experience up, here's the complete list, 20 to 1. Click on any of the mini posters below to go to the full review, and let me know your thoughts.

No. 1 - The Fellowship of the Ring

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:20:00 -0500

I guess this entry really speaks for itself, and it might seem that The Fellowship of the Ring coming in at Number 1 is a no-brainer for a self-confessed fantasy lover like me. To be honest, though, while it always had a place in my Top 20, it wasn't until I actually started arranging my choices from 20 to 1 that I realised it would take the top spot. It surprised me because I don't find either the book or the film to be without their flaws, but whereas Ghost in the Shell satisfied my craving for intellectually stimulating viewing wrapped up in genre packaging, The Fellowship of the Ring is the kind of emotionally satisfying fantasy fare that I adore.

My major hangup with the book is the sense of nostalgia embedded in the text. In his essay ‘On Fairy-stories’, Tolkien argued that all fantasy stories are attempts to tell a universal story of human existence. I agree with his argument, as it explains much about both the human condition and our need to tell stories in general, but it irks me to no end that he himself is constantly looking back to a rural ideal in The Lord of the Rings, that this universal is somehow located in a romantic past that never really existed. It's quite surprising that such a deeply religious man wouldn't instead be looking towards a Christian future as the fulfilment of that universal story. That's basically my problem with The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's nostalgia permeates his work to such a degree that he ends up repudiating everything, good or bad, about our modern existence, which I don't think is as warranted or as easily justifiable as he makes it out to be.

Fortunately, this isn't something that carried over to Peter Jackson's film, and the really major flaws in his films are reserved for the second and third parts (why did you have to takle Frodo and Sam to Osgliath, Faramir?!). I don't have a problem with most of the changes, as any film adaptation must necessarily make some concessions. Pacing reasons aside, excising Tom Bombadil was the best decision Jackson ever made (a ludicrous addition to the original work, in my opinion. Bombadil always struck me as being completely inconsistent with the rest of Tolkien’s world and the tone of the work in general). Otherwise, I'm not that hung up on the novel as some fans are that I can't appreciate Jackson shortening the length of time between Gandalf's visits, attributing the cause of the avalanche on Caradhras directly to Saruman, or most of the other changes he made. Granting Arwen a greater role has always annoyed me, though. But I've put this down to the casting of Liv Tyler and her inability to keep up with the likes of Viggo Mortensen and Hugo Weaving in what is actually a very demanding role in the film. I never thought she and Mortensen shared the necessary chemistry to make the Arwen/Aragorn relationship work, which is vital to his sense of purpose in the film. All in all, though, it's a very worthy adaptation of a difficult novel.

Speaking of Hugo Weaving, his casting as Elrond surprised me when I first heard about it. I didn't think he matched up with the way Tolkien described the elves. But then you see him on screen, his thin features accented by the pointy elf ears and long hair, his stern demeanour; and while he still might not live up to Tolkien’s description (honestly, who could?), he perfectly captures Elrond. Likewise, Mortensen wears the burden of kingship like he was born to it, by turns the dignified leader and the rugged ranger. He does amazing things with this key role, especially stepping in at short notice as he did. Who decided Stuart Townsend was a good choice, anyway? Eek!

Then there's the casting of Elijah Wood, who we all know lobbied hard for the role of Frodo. Outside Lord of the Rings I don’t have any strong feelings about Wood as an actor one way or the other, but I truly believe he was a memorable Frodo. I believe in his playful hobbit spirit, I'm convinced by his decision to bear the burden of the Ring. But what sold me was when the Fellowship escape Moria and he turns when Aragorn calls him. That look is heartbreaking.

The Bridge of Khazad-dûm was always a favourite chapter from the novel, and it translates into one of the best sequences in the entire trilogy, let alone in Fellowship. The camera panning out to the endless halls and columns of the dwarf city is still a breathtaking image, and WETA has able to achieve a genuine sense of depth and scale with this completely computer generated sequence, even if the CG shots of the Fellowship itself running from the goblins doesn't really hold up too well. The Balrog, however, still horrifies and its introduction is a real show-stealer. The only thing missing from Moria was the drums in the deep actually sounding like doom-doom as Tolkien describes them. I was really looking forward to that.

While the fight at Balin's tomb is great, it's the Bridge sequence itself that is truly memorable. Ok, so we have to forget about the dwarf-tossing and stair-sailing for a moment. But you've got to admit that the stair-sailing, for all it's ridiculousness, makes for an exciting scene, especially when the Fellowship theme kicks back in as the stairs crash. The music following this is easily one of my favourite pieces from the entire score. Howard Shore utilised a male Maori choir to chant in Dwarvish, and the result is truly primal, centre-of-the-earth type stuff, utterly perfect for the sequence. Then there's Gandalf's confrontation with the Balrog and his subsequent fall. This is a moment where Jackson really shines, because he totally sells the idea of Gandalf's death to the audience, at least 50% of whom, like me, had already read the book and must have known that he wasn't dead. I know I bought it, and I put that down to a combination of Shore's music, and again to Elijah Wood – that moment when Frodo watches Gandalf go over the edge and he struggles against Boromir, screaming and crying, which of course culminates in that look on the ledge outside Moria.

I haven't mentioned Boromir or Sean Bean yet: as perfect a casting choice as any in the film. I'd always imagined Boromir as he is in Jackson's film, and nothing like the fur-wearing barbarian Ralph Bakshi portrayed him as in his 1978 cartoon adaptation. It's an unforgiving role in many ways, as we don't like Boromir from the moment we meet him. All the more reason to praise Bean then when he manages to completely redeem the character during the final battle with the Uruk-hai and his subsequent death scene. I mean, who wasn't wiping tears away as he uttered those lines: “I would have would have followed you, my brother... my captain...my king.”

These are the moments that I would identify as the major emotional peaks for me, but there's many technical elements that are worth highlighting. If we continue with the final battle for a moment, there's the flying fox camera shot that brilliantly traverses the running battle with the Uruk-hai, as noteworthy for its simple conception as any of the films more complicated shots. The use of forced perspective still holds up as well, and the many breathtaking sets are still works of art. Hobbiton and Rivendell are the standouts in this regard, of course. But even the sets pale in comparison to the many New Zealand locations that are showcased. Aside from the obvious financial reasons for filming in New Zealand, it lends the whole trilogy a unique visual style that helps to separate Middle-earth from the usual Medieval Europe that most fantasies locate themselves in, which is great considering Tolkien conceived of the book as an untold English mythology.

I chose The Fellowship of the Ring specifically for a number of reasons. One was because combining all three films into one entry seemed like a cop out, even if they do tell a complete story. I also think it does some things better than the next two entries (I’ve already mentioned how most of the more damaging changes happen in the second and third films, for example). Another was simply because it was the first film of the trilogy, and while it hardly slipped into cinemas unnoticed, it was free of the ridiculously high expectations and bizarre sentimental streak that greeted The Two Towers and The Return of the King upon release.

These films become a genuine pop-cultural and generational miletsone to rival the original Star Wars trilogy, and being there to experience that was an unforgettable. I'd never been as excited about a film as I was waiting in line at the cinema for that first session on Boxing Day, 2001. Even if the cinema was so packed we were stuck in the very front row, hard to the right. The sense of anticipation, the excitement about finally seeing The Lord of the Rings on screen, it all came together in such a thrill as those first notes of Howard Shore's beautiful, epic score unfolded. It was the quickest three hours I've ever experienced, over before I knew it. And not a minute that didn't live up to expectations. Having rewatched The Fellowship of the Ring for this entry – the first time I've watched it in nearly a year – I can honestly say it still has the same effect on me, and when I look back over these Top 20 films, it's strange to think I doubted it would take the Number 1 spot.

No. 2 - Ghost in the Shell

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:02:00 -0500

The fact that this, along with Akira, is considered one of the most important anime feature films ever to come out of Japan is reason enough to make sure you see Ghost in the Shell. Though its use of CG in certain scenes is dated and the English dub has moments that will make you cringe, it's extremely rare to encounter a science fiction film that marries complex philosophy, a well-considered future scenario, and exciting action to make for one of the most thought-provoking and visually compelling pieces of cinema out there.

In this future, humanity links directly into a global communications network (aka an advanced internet) via a cybernetic enhancement to the brain, known simply as a cyberbrain. Most people get by with this augmentation alone, but others have had other parts of their body replaced with cyborg components. Some, such as Major Motoko Kusanagi and Bataou, have left the flesh behind for good and are entirely robotic, the only thing legally classifying them as humans being the small amount of organic brain cells in their cyberbrain, and the presence of a 'ghost', a re-imaginging of the soul that can also be traced by computer. So, at the heart of Ghost in the Shell is that age-old and inescapable question: what does it mean to be human?

You only have to make an attempt at describing the film’s plot to understand how integral this philosophy is and how intricately it is woven into the story (you can go here for that). It's not just a theme the film raises, but the plot itself: is the Puppet Master, the film's antagonistic ghost-hacking AI program, capable of achieving a recognisable level of humanity? Where exactly are we going to draw the line on the issue of AI and sentient computers, especially when it crosses over to the cyberisation of humans?

It's this last question that gets to the core of the problem for me, and the reason I love the film so much. It's the question of where does the soul reside? If a human replaces all their flesh-and-blood physicality with cyborg limbs, as in Kusunagi's case, at what point does that person cease to be human and become merely a machine? Indeed, is it possible for that person to lose their soul in the process? The film takes the view that the soul is linked to memory, and memory to the brain, so that by retaining a portion of the brain in the cyberbrain, you retain a soul. At the very least, it's one hell of a conversation starter, that’s for sure.

Director Mamoru Oshii captures this philosophy visually midway through the film with a stunning montage sequence of Kusunagi wandering through the city (a cosmopolitan mix of nearly every major Asian city). From an animation standpoint, it's the film's crowning moment, and also a sequence where Kenji Kawai’s eerie score is foregrounded. His use of a traditional Japanese choir (singing a wedding song to ward off evil spirits) adds yet another, spiritual, layer to the film. Plus, it's just beautiful to listen to.

There's two aspects I love to encounter in a text (film, literature, whatever): intellectual stimulation, and unashamed (though not melodramatic) emotion. Ghost in the Shell always satisfies my need for the former, and its unanswerable questions keep me coming back to revisit this amazing film.

No. 3 - Spirited Away

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:49:00 -0500

Consider this an entry for Studio Ghibli's entire output. But, since I have to pick a single example from Hayao Miyazaki & Co.'s truly remarkable catalogue, it would have to be the explosion of imagination that is Spirited Away. It's one of those rare instances where the poster's tag line perfectly captures the essence of the film it's advertising.

Spirited Away is the story of Chihiro, a young, self-centred girl who begins the film bitter at her parents for moving to a new town for her father's work and away from her friends and the life she knew. Making a wrong turn onto an overgrown forest path, they stumble across an abandoned, crumbling theme park and her parents, ignoring Chihiro's protests, decided to look around. They come across a stall laden with delicious food and start chowing down but when Chihiro tries to pull them away, she finds they've been turned into pigs. She flees, encountering a whole range of extraordinary spirits and creatures until she's found by Haku, a young boy working for the witch Yubaba, who tells her what she needs to do to get her parents back and return to her own world. By the end, Chihiro will turn from a self-centred, moody ten-year-old to a girl who "learns to honour her friends and her family by valuing herself." (Film Freak Central review).

Spirited Away also marks a stylistic departure for Miyazaki. His film prior to this, the excellent Princess Mononoke, featured many very well integrated CG components and a dense visual style, but nothing on the scale of Spirited Away. Once Chihiro enters the magical world of Yubaba's Bathhouse, the colours and sheer detail on display is extraordinary (remember, of course, that the vast majority of the film is still hand-drawn). While Miyazaki has always had a fantastic imagination and conjured up many original scenarios and interpretations on classic material, it's the sheer scale of imaginative force that makes Spirited Away a stand out. It's a quality the director would follow through with on Howl’s Moving Castle and even in the more sedately paced Ponyo (see my review for that one here).

In the hands of a lesser director, the entire thing would be overwhelming and the story would collapse under the weight, but not with Miyazaki, who is rightfully considered the world's foremost animated film director for exactly this reason. He moves the film from brisk, exciting sequences, to moments of contemplative calm and covers a lot of emotional ground that a lot of filmmakers would be too scared to go near for fear of giving in to sentimentality. Not so with Miyazaki, who, as I've written about before, always allows his characters to rise above sentimentality to a space where the same emotion becomes genuine and heartfelt. Just take the sequence where Chihiro helps Haku remember his real name as an example.

There's the wonderfully gooey stink-spirit sequence; Haku in his dragon form being chased by paper birds; the final test Yubaba sets for Chihiro – so many scenes that you don't mind giving in to the wonderfulness of it all and find yourself smiling like a kid. Miyazaki's regular composer Joe Hisaishi also delivers another excellent theme ('The Dragon Boy' on the soundtrack release), as strong as anything he's written for Laputa: Castle in the Sky or My Neighbour Totoro.

Miyazaki and Ghibli consistently achieve the sense of wonder and delight that inspires the likes of John Lasseter and Pixar to continually scale new heights, and Spirited Away is probably the best example of this amongst their many achievements. It was also the first anime film I'd seen after a long hiatus from the genre and it immediately inspired me to make up for lost time. Don't let it pass you by.

If you're already a fan, then this news will be more than welcome.

No. 4 - The Godfather

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:27:00 -0500

Story, story, story. That's what keeps people coming back time and time again to The Godfather. While Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece has many technical elements in its favour, it all comes back to the engrossing saga playing out on screen.

Coppola's friction with Paramount Studios is well-documented: from the casting of a notoriously difficult Marlon Brando and a then-unknown Al Pacino to the cinematography (Paramount had issues with Gordon Willis' extreme use of shadows - take a look at the poster as an example), and even the studio's insistence on including more violence to give the film greater appeal. What I find most surprising though is that Coppola, who wasn't Paramount's first choice to direct, wasn't interested in the film either until he began to think of it as a metaphor for American capitalism. This is interesting because the gangster genre has always existed at the intersection between American economics and culture, so it should be no surprise that this lifestyle, or this genre, flourished.

Coppola highlights that intersection, makes the metaphor more overt. The Godfather isn't about the cops catching the bad guys, it's about lifestyle. It's about the American Dream of living better, richer and happier than your parents. The desire and opportunity to do so must have been enormous when you were one of the thousands of immigrants coming to America circa 1901 (see The Godfather Part II). As an audience, we're just not interested in the other side of the coin, in following the police investigation and how they might bring these gangsters to justice. How can we be, when their lifestyle is so captivating, when they're living the fantasy we'd like our lives to be, doing what we want, when we want with little regard for the consequences.

The film is just complex enough to reward repeat viewings, but not so confusing as to lose its audience. It doesn't mind dropping major characters for extended periods in order to develop story threads, and brings those threads together in a magnificent, bravura conclusion as Michael Corleone solidifies his position as the Corleone family's new Godfather. It's Michael whose development as a character holds the film together, gives it its narrative and thematic focus, and as such is an entirely convincing piece of writing. His moral descent from decorated war hero to ruthless murderer covers a wide trajectory; love, revenge, loyalty to family. All the while the presence of Brando's Vito Corleone is felt, despite having very little screen time. The character's influence on the other's is palpable, and his death scene is, well, really sad.

There's so many other stand out scenes: Michael's hit on police captain McCluskey and rival gangster Sollozzo, Carlo beating Connie, and Connie's retaliation and Sonny's intervention, Sonny's violent death, Fredo naively hosting Michael at the casino and, of course, the baptism sequence. Coppola stuck to his artistic guns and came out on top. His sensibilities were spot on and he created a truly classic piece of cinema. While Part II is, of course, not very far behind at all, my preference is for this first film. Its story is more cohesive, the world more self-contained; the result being that the whole has a greater overall focus than Part II manages (though I have to admit this is a fairly arbitrary criticism and both movies really need to be considered as a whole). The Godfather remains the quintessential gangster movie. It took the best elements of what had gone before in the genre, while paving the way for all future mob movies.

No. 5 - The Fountain

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:19:00 -0500

I admire Darren Aronofsky as a filmmaker. I think he came out of the gate strongly with Pi and has so far continued in that fashion with Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler. Even so, The Fountain isn't quite as leftfield a direction for Aronofsky as it might at first seem. Pi, for instance, certainly established a precedent for exploring overtly metaphysical and spiritual themes. What makes The Fountain important in Aronofsky's filmography are the densely layered visuals and unconventional storytelling – two aspects that differ greatly from the otherwise naturalistic and linear approaches to his previous films.

So that puts Aronofsky in context, but why do I think so highly of The Fountian? It doesn't shy away from tackling the big issues of death, grief and loss (themes that I find resonate with me), and it utilises a fantasy framework to do so. The reason the later is so important is because I've always felt that fantasy has the unique ability to consider the human condition in the abstract, offering an original perspective and recasting what is familiar in a new light, revealing an awful lot more in the process than naturalistic modes of storytelling. And yes, I do consider The Fountain to be more a fantasy than science fiction, closer to magic realism and myth-making than extrapolating a potential future based on current scientific trends. The medical science we see in the film is incidental to its thematic development – the later informs the former. We tend to find the reverse is true when dealing with science fiction.

Perhaps part of the reason for the film's critical and commercial failure is because it is so unreservedly honest about our struggle with death and finding meaning in dark places. As a Christian, I don't believe in the idea of rebirth as portrayed in the film, and I actually find the image of the nebula reducing Tom to nothing to be decidedly nihilistic (he isn't reborn; the tree is), but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the very human struggle that's at the heart of the film. Rarely do we see someone break down on screen as we do when Tommy returns home from Izzie's funeral, realises he is still missing his wedding ring and, through uncontrollable tears, begins to tattoo his ring finger using the pen and ink she gave him. It's a sublimely acted, but confronting scene, showing grief at its most raw, and I don't mind admitting that by the time it rolls around, I'm a blubbering mess. As Izzie, Rachel Weisz brings a childlike acceptance to her condition, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. The film is really a two-hander between Jackman and Weisz, and their chemistry is evident.

I've also stopped trying to shoehorn the film's three timelines into a convenient, explainable narrative. I've finally realised that doing so was never, ever, the point. Instead of narrative cues, Aronofsky chooses to connect the timelines with numerous visual ones – geometric patterns, harsh transitional lighting, the image of the Xibalba nebula – which in turn become metaphysical and spiritual associations that bridge the time between the periods, leaving the story itself open to interpretation and refusing to offer any trite or sentimental conclusions (something Aronofsky also handled magnificently in The Wrestler).

On a geekier note, I love the dark fantasy feel to the Conquistador sequences. From the scenes in Spain with the Inquisitor and Queen Isabella's palace, to the dark jungles of New Spain, the set design is less concerned with accurately recreating the period as it is with enhancing the idea of an ongoing struggle for meaning, occasionally finding beauty (the amazing, surreal palace with its floating points of light, the Tree at the top of the pyramid) amidst the brooding atmosphere. A lot of that atmosphere is down to the sound design, which in this case I find to be extremely immersive; a fairly dry mix that avoids a lot of reverb that would ordinarily be used to space out sounds. The future sequences, for example, are nearly devoid of any sound.

Another factor that works magnificently in the film’s favour is Clint Mansell’s score. His minimalist approach – building on short, repititious phrases – builds on the format he used for Requiem, again utilising the Kronos Quartet and adding Scottish rockers Mogwai to the mix. As with Michael Nyman's score for Gattaca, Mansell’s work here was unfairly criticised because of this approach, minimalism being something that is definitely not appreciated by film score fans (not to mention that fact that Mansell comes from a rock and isn't classically trained). The end product, especially on album, sounds like something approaching a 70's prog-rock concept album. There are three major ‘timeline’ themes, which are really just versions of each other and again reinforce the idea that the search for meaning is one we have struggled with forever. The score culminates in the exquisite 'Death is the Road to Awe' sequence, a piece that builds to such a climax that the burst of choir and piercing strings as the nebula goes supernova becomes an extraordinary act of catharsis. As the credits roll, it's followed by one of the most haunting piano pieces I've ever heard, 'Together We Will Live Forever'. I'd recommend paying a couple of dollars to get a good quality download of both pieces.

When I first saw The Fountain, I was also striving to 'make sense' of the whole thing, and a lot of people's criticism revolves around not being able to do exactly that. To write the film off because of this is to miss the point though. You just need to let it wash over you, let the catharsis do its work. If humanity has always struggled with accepting death and whatever comes after, then it's hardly fair to expect a film of all things to have all the answers. In this sense, Aronofsky has done the best that could be expected of him, especially given the hoops he had to jump through to get this picture made. I'm looking forward to reading the graphic novel, which I should have soon, which Aronofsky wrote after the first incarnation of the film fell through. It's supposed to be based on his complete script and include a lot of the more expensive set pieces he had to remove for the final film version.

Watch The Fountain again without forcing it to make ‘your’ kind of sense, and you should find, as I did, that it relieves some of the baggage we bring when we consider death, love and life.

No. 6 - Gattaca

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:28:00 -0400

Writer/director Andrew Niccol debuted in 1997 with this powerful science fiction film of genetic manipulation and discrimination in the near future. Yes, it's science fiction. You could even label it biopunk; but what makes Gattaca such an impressive film is its use of this SF framework as a call to remain vigilant about discrimination specifically, and to explore the human condition generally, which any worthy piece of art does. It's a masterpiece of minimalist filmmaking. Not just in the sense of less-is-more, though that certainly applies, but in a truer artistic sense where the minimalism itself is an aesthetic starting point, consistently referencing itself on both a thematic and visual level.

Many of the locations used date back to the 1950s style of 'brutalist' architecture – all hard corners and repetitive angles. Some do date earlier, but still fall within this visual aesthetic. As a result, the film has a retro-futuristic noir overtone that suits the murder mystery driving the plot. There's also the 1950s Los Angeles-style sunset that bathes any outdoor scene as well. It's a technique that has always reminded me of a kind of duality, regardless of the film; of something both beautiful and on the verge of ending. In Gattaca, thanks to the advancements in genetics, these people represent a pinnacle of human existence. But the film’s theme reminds us that such an existence is a fundamentally hollow one if the individual feels no compulsion to better him or herself: "there is no gene for the human spirit."

Gattaca also represents the first major film appearance of Jude Law. He is Jerome Morrow, genetically perfect, but confined to a wheelchair after damaging his spine in a car accident (it's hinted he stepped in front of the oncoming car on purpose). Though he is one of society's elite, he lacks the ambition to make anything of his life. Enter Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), a 'faith birth' conceived the old-fashioned way and therefore relegated to society's new underclass of genetically (read: mentally, physically) inferior humans. He desperately wants to go up in one of many manned space missions that the Gattaca Corp operates, and so he becomes a 'borrowed ladder', conspiring with Jerome to take on his superior genetic identity to enter Gattaca and realise his dream (in return Vincent must keep Jerome in the lifestyle he has become accustomed to as an elite). The murder of one of the mission directors promises to make the last days leading up to Vincent’s launch dangerous and threatens to bring his secret to light.

One of the film’s strengths, particularly as a piece of science fiction, is that it’s through the acting that theme is fully realised. Andrew Niccol doesn’t rely on mindblowing visuals or an over-abundance of CGI: he elicits entirely believable performances from his cast. He does what all good SF does: extrapolates a potential future based on our present and places his characters within that space. It's the opposite of the science fantasy of Star Wars, where Harrison Ford's infamous quip "George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can’t say it" couldn’t be further from the world of Gattaca. That’s not a criticism of Star Wars, just a way of highlighting the different kind of science fiction Niccol is producing.

There’s also the relationship that blossoms between Vincent and Irene (Uma Thurman), in which the contradiction of being human is played out. Just as he is about to realise his life’s dream, Vincent finds a reason to stay. Irene is also more than just a love interest. Like Jerome, she is one of the elite, though for whatever reason, her parents chose to leave her with a heart condition, making her less than perfect. It's something she struggles with the entire film – how can she be elite if she's fated for an early death? She therefore occupies a grey area between society's elite and inferior classes.

Gattaca is also a superior film for a number of other reasons. Take, for instance, the brief scene where the cleaners arrive at Gattaca – they are all white, middle aged males, visually supporting the idea that this future no longer discriminates on the basis of race, sex or religion, that the divisions these things once caused have been reversed. Next is Michael Nyman's excellent score, perfectly capturing Vincent’s journey through a series of poignant themes (the opening sequence, for example), while also marrying his stark minimalist trademark to Niccol’s location choices (Nyman, and the score for Gattaca are both somewhat misunderstood by the film score community, I might add).

You need a criticism? We’re never really treated to a wider view of this world. There's a sense that it's a little Big Brother-ish (the police line-up, for example), but no proper indication as to how genetic manipulation at this level came to be so integral in this world, andhow it might have impacted other facets of society.

Gattaca wins such a high place from me, though, because all of its many positive elements combine to one final, emotionally-charged gut punch. The fact that the doctor and, it's hinted, the surviving mission director are both aware of Vincent's secret, yet neither decide to turn him in is a sign of their belief in the human spirit; Irene’s realisation that her heart condition needn’t stop her from leading a full life; Jerome’s belief in Vincent, not to mention his decision to take his own life; and Vincent finally entering the rocket, taking off with the starscape laid out in front of him. Gattaca is a very beautiful, surprisingly grounded, and ultimately optimistic film that has actually had a significant impact in the debate surrounding genetic manipulation. Not bad fora stodgy SF film the Los Angeles Times labelled "far too serious to be takenseriously."

Stargate Universe

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:35:00 -0400

The SyFy Channel premiered the latest installment in the ongoing Stargate franchise two weeks ago with a feature length pilot. I loved it. Here's some thoughts:

Let's talk about the elephant in the room first. Stargate Universe is the offspring of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) and Star Trek: Voyager. It's impossible to deny the obvious similarities (heck, they even mention FTL – faster than light – more than once, a term that, while not original to BSG, is certainly readily associated with it), but fortunately, it remains faithful to what's gone before, and never feels like it's ripping off its influences. It's appropriated BSG's dingy interiors and handheld work, adopted Voyager's sense of isolation and general narrative thrust, and already made them its own. Actually, it's surprising how much it still feels like a Stargate show: there's the ever-present Stargate itself, of course, the continual discussion of the Ancients, the race that built the Stargates, between Dr Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle) and Eli Wallace (David Blue), the design of the Destiny, the ship they find themselves on, resembling Thor's Hammer (from Stargate SG-1 season one, ep 10), which is a design that crops up a lot in relation to the Ancients, and the cameos from Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks all help as well. Basically, it ties in directly with established canon. So yes, to answer the obvious question, this is still Stargate.

It's also the next logical step for the franchise to take. At least in terms of aesthetics and tone. Fans are already criticising Universe's moral ambiguity (check out the comments from SciFiCool's review, for example), citing the franchise's sense of a firm moral foundation clashing with the narcissistic, unlikeable and constantly fighting characters of Universe. But honestly, can you blame these people, given the situation they find themselves in?

Before I get too ahead of myself, let's recap that situation:

The SGC (Stargate Command) has established the Icarus Base on a planet where they discovered a Stargate with nine chevrons, one more than the usual eight. Dr Rush assumes the ninth symbol to be the point of origin, as the eighth is on a standard gate, but can't get it to work. What he does know is that the gate is tied into the naquadriah-rich planet core and concludes that it must require huge amounts of energy to power it. He hides the mathematical problem in a MMORPG in the hopes that a player will unlock it. Enter Eli Wallace, an MIT student/graduate/dropout (which one is unclear at this stage) who solves the problem, is recruited by the Air Forceand whisked off to Icarus.

While trying to get the gate to work, the base is attacked by three Goa'uld motherships. The attack set off a chain reaction in the planet core and the personnel are forced to evacuate. They can't dial Earth, though, for fear of the massive amounts of energy translating through the gate's wormhole and destroying the base on the other side, so in a last ditch effort, Rush and Eli manage to open the gate's ninth chevron address and everyone is forced to go through to whatever lies beyond. This turns out to be the Ancient seeding ship Destiny, which jumps to FTL travel as soon as everyone is through and the gate shuts down, and which seems to have sustained a large amount of damage during a previous battle. The survivor's first order of business is to fix the life support systems or they'll be dead in a matter of hours. Without warning, Destiny drops out of FTL around an unknown planet and automatically dials a Stargate located on the surface. From what he's been able to deduce from the ship's computer, Rush informs everyone that this is a pre-programmed stop and they should find the parts they need to fix the damaged systems. The pilot finishes with a team going through the gate.

So, as you can see, the situation the survivors find themselves in is urgent and life threatening. Because Colonel Everett Young (Justin Louis), who was in command of Icarus Base, is injuried and unconscious for those important first hours aboard Destiny , there's some confusion over whose in charge, with Rush claiming he's been in contact with the SGC via a set of Ancient communication stones and that he's been put in charge, while Young's 2IC, Lieutenant Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith) maintains that he is in charge, at least until Young gets back on his feet. Basically, no one trusts the megalomaniacal Rush, who seems to have an agenda of his own, or Eli, since he's the least experienced of anyone, and it seems that Camille Wray (Ming-na), a representative of the International Oversight Advisory, a civilian committee established to monitor the SGC, is going to throw a spanner in the works as well. Like Battlestar Galactica proved, it doesn't take much for a society to break down. Unlike BSG, however, the chain of command that seemed so indelible at Icarus quickly breaks down aboard Destiny; accusations are made, tensions are high and sacrifices are made.

But enough with the comparisons – what worked with Universe? Well, for starters I loved the non-linear presentation. It's not something I expect to be sustained throughout, but the use of flashbacks was very well integrated, opening up character back stories while maintaining a brisk pace in establishing the show's central conceit. The effects work is also a step up as well – the Goa'uld attack looks stunning, thanks again to some ideas from BSG, the Stargates themselves seemed to have been redesigned and are more detailed, and the exterior of Destiny is very detailed and gives a great sense of the enormous size of the ship. There's space on this ship for plenty of mysteries to be unravelled.

Robert Carlyle is another highlight – a fantastic piece of casting and a very conflicted character should combine to make for some very interesting moments.There's already been a few: the photo he kept in his drawer (his wife, I assume), the nefarious smile from the gantry, the uncertainty about his communication with SGC (we see him take over Bill Lee's body at SGC using the communication stones, so we know he made some kind of contact, just not the details), and most importantly, I feel, his apology to Chloe Armstrong (Elyse Levesque), which summed up the dichotomy of the character extremely well: the driven scientist vs. the deeply scarred and lonely man. The rest of the cast we are introduced to seem well-suited as well, though none stand out yet as much as Carlyle.

Downsides: there's about 80 or so survivors, but we were only introduced to the absolute core characters. I just hope that the other 75-odd people, who appear to be mostly civilians, don't just fade into the background. They worked at the Icarus Base, so they must be highly qualified in a range of fields. There's plenty of time for more survivors to emerge as main players and broaden the scope and emotional depth of stories the series can cover though.

The pilot also did a great job of incorporating all those BSG influences. If it can continue in this way, or, better still, forge a distinctly Stargate-ish taken on those influences, then there won't be any problems. It'll be a balancing act to ensure the series maintains its own identity though. My only other criticism is – what happened to Richard Dean Anderson?! The once athletic, sprightly Jack O'Neill is now a jowly general! Oh, some of the spark is still there, but he suddenly seems so old.

Unlike some fans, I didn't have any problems with the early word we were hearing about how Universe was shaping up. There was a lot of concern that it was going to stray too far from the tone of SG-1 and Atlantis, and I picked up on the BSG and Voyager similarities like everyone else. But I felt that the idea, if balanced well, could be a nice injection of spark into the franchise. Not that there's any glaringly obvious problems with the two previous series, but a third series in a similar vein would've been dull. I agree that a show doesn't have to be morally ambiguous, dark or gritty to be quality TV, but these days it certainly helps. The only other way I could imagine the Stargate franchise going is a series set maybe 100-150 years in the future, with the Stargate Program fully disclosed and Earth integrated and actively participating in a galaxy-spanning network of planets, much as we saw in the episode 'Space Race' from SG-1 season 7. In other words, a genuine space opera.

My one big hope for Universe, though, is that it can avoid becoming another military SF, avoid the idea of solving everything by force of arms and turn to the other survivors, the civilians, for solutions.

No. 7 - The Dark Knight

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:58:00 -0400

Maybe this is a really obvious, noobie pick. It's the most recently-released film to make it onto my list, and the only direct sequel, but it had a really profound impact on me in terms of what a superhero movie could seriously achieve, and what a crime drama could be made to do. I didn't really know what to expect after Batman Begins, but this is a different beast entirely. By taking the concept of a masked vigilante utterly seriously, Nolan was able to transcend the limitations of previous superhero films, most of which ultimately failed because they either stayed too true to their source material, or strayed too far. Batman, however, because he lacks super powers, is one of those characters who can be as fantastical or grounded as writers want him to be. In the case of The Dark Knight, by removing the 'comic' element from the 'comic book' character and locating him in an utterly realistic space, we actually have an idea how a costumed vigilante might function in the real world; much more convincingly, I think, than Zack Snyder managed with Watchmen. That's not a criticism of comics, or Watchmen in particular, only that The Dark Knight continues to surprise me with the depths it plumbs. And, I think, the fact that Batman never treats his existence as a joke causes the likes of Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes to accept him as well.

If I have a criticism, it's the unwavering linearity of the narrative. Not that I expected flashbacks or felt the story called for any Memento-like screwing of chronology, but, as Yazz once pointed out, 'the only way is up.' Escalation seems inevitable when time is marching inexorably forward, as it does here, with the effect being that The Joker's downfall feels almost predestined since there has to be a point at which people – humanity – will just say 'enough is enough.' But this is really a minor criticism, as that same escalation is also riveting and daring – the first time I saw the film I was utterly convinced that one of those ferries was going to blow up, such was the audaciousness of what had gone before.

But audacious isn't the right word. It implies a sense of recklessness or cheekiness that just isn't present in The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan is in complete control, and while the utter seriousness of the film might also be considered another flaw, it's also one of its greatest strengths – an utterly compelling and very brave adaptation of an extensive and much-loved mythology that will not be matched for a very long time.

Here's some thoughts from my original review:

"Heat, a film which Nolan was clearly influenced by, proves the necessity of this kind of sprawling, epic narrative, as it mirrors the sprawling nature of the cities which are at the centre of these stories."

"Comparisons to Heat are totally justifiable for two reasons: firstly, the cinematography loves to linger on the cityscape.... Secondly, when the action hits, it hits hard. It's brutal and bone-crunching."

"Bale's performance is ... like watching a slightly less psychotic Patrick Bateman (or maybe just a psychotic who channels his neuroses differently? It's certainly a question the film raises)."

"[Aaron Eckhart's] transformation into Two-Face is horrific and tragic, thanks in no small part to The Joker whispering in his ear, and their scene together after Dent's little accident makes for one of the film's most convincing and blackly comic scenes."

"After all the trailers and images of The Joker, I still have trouble recognising Ledger, so deeply immersed is he in the role.... [He] effortlessly sweeps aside any lingering memories of Nicholson's over-the-topJoker."

"The Dark Knight should easily go down as the movie of the year. It's epic without losing sight of its characters, it actually develops themes established in Batman Begins (that's themes, not merely plot threads – some sequels tend to confuse the two), and it doesn't pull any punches."