The McWetlog

Like Amadeus, Immortal Beloved (Amazon.ca, Amazon.com), the biopic about Beethoven, plays fast and loose with the facts. Bernard Rose’s hypothesis about the identity of Beethoven’s mystery addressee is not widely accepted. Not only that, but the dates don’t add up. The letters in question date from 1812, when his nephew Karl was already five years old; Karl’s suicide attempt occurred two years after the premiere of the Ninth Symphony (whereas in the film Beethoven appears considerably older in the latter scene). And Napoleon’s attack on Vienna occurred six years after the Third Symphony. And so forth.

(But then Mozart didn’t die the evening of the premiere of The Magic Flute, either, and and in fact went on to write one more opera. And Salieri didn’t try to kill him. So go figure.)

Even so, Immortal Beloved makes interesting use of contemporary texts by or about Beethoven. The letters, of course, exist and are quoted. The funeral oration outside Währinger cemetery, given by Schindler in the movie, was written by the playwright Franz Grillparzer and actually delivered by Heinrich Anschütz, but the text is more or less the same. And in the scene after Beethoven’s deafness is revealed, a voice-over reads from Beethoven’s own Heiligenstadt Testament, written despondently in 1802 when he realized his deafness was incurable.

It was an interesting experience for me to watch the movie while checking my old copy of Hamburger’s Beethoven: Letters, Journals and Conversations (Amazon.ca, Amazon.com), which includes all these texts. It’s a sneaky way to build verisimilitude when you’re otherwise playing at fantasy.

(They even had an explanation for the appearance of “Muß es sein?” and “Es muß sein” in the manuscript of String Quartet No. 16 — how much Beethoven geekery is that?)

Do you recognize this scream?

Of course you do. It’s the famous Wilhelm Scream (Wikipedia), an audio loop that originated in the 1950s and has since appeared in more than 100 movies (Wikipedia), including the Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings series, which is probably where you heard it. (Blame Ben Burtt on its revival. Peter Jackson’s a big fan.) And now that you know what to listen for, you’ll always hear it. It’s everywhere.

More on the Wilhelm Scream from Eric David, WNYC’s On the Media, TheForce.net and MetaFilter.

Two thoughts about Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which was on the movie channel last Saturday:

1. Ten minutes could have been cut from each but the last act without seriously harming the movie. Too. freaking. long.
2. A giant-bug scene so vivid and awful I had to leave the room. Yes, I’m entomophobic, but I can usually handle movie bug scenes; this was just too much for me.

Snakes on Film is my latest project. It’s a look at how snakes are used in movies and television — whether they’re accurately portrayed, and which species are being used. Think of this as a nitpicker’s guide for reptile enthusiasts. History buffs have had great fun picking apart historical movies; science fiction geeks love pointing out errors in continuity. Now it’s the snakes’ turn. Five posts up so far, with five more in the immediate queue. (Yes, Snakes on a Plane is forthcoming; that was the movie that finally set this project in motion.)

I can’t be the only one who’s noticed the similarities between Mr. and Mrs. Beaver in the 2005 live-action movie version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Bell spokesbeavers Frank and Gordon (whose eponymous web site has mysteriously vanished):

The movie was on one of the pay channels the other day, and I couldn’t help thinking that the beavers were going to hand the Pevensie children cameraphones at any minute.

Now that I see them side by side, I’m not so sure any more.

I see most movies long after everyone else does. Last night The Aristocrats came up on one of the movie channels; I’d been meaning to see it for some time now, but an indie documentary about the world’s dirtiest joke isn’t the sort of movie that ends up at the O’Brien Theatre or at the local video store, and it seemed a little too slight to buy — I didn’t necessarily want to own it, but I wanted to see it. So I was glad of the opportunity. My impression? A low-budget film showing comedians dissecting the joke’s format. Dull in places, hilarious in others. My major disappointment was that they did not show Gilbert Gottfried’s 2001 Friar’s Club performance of it — a performance now considered the definitive version — in its entirety: what I saw of him left me gasping.

So, Snakes on a Plane. Saw it Tuesday night, and I’m finding myself in agreement with Kent Williams’s review in the Madison, Wisconsin Isthmus:

The movie’s neither good enough nor bad enough to leave much of an impression. Director David Ellis does seem to have gotten the memo about camping it up, but perhaps not as early in the filmmaking process as some would have liked. And so the movie kind of careens between Airport (with snakes) and Airplane (with snakes), genre and genre parody. Itching to get things started, Ellis lets his snakes — all 400 of them — out of the cargo bay much too early, passing up any chance for suspense. And most of them are so clearly digitized, you feel like you’re watching a cartoon.

That it was self-consciously over the top was what made it watchable; that its over-the-top scenes were so scattershot was what made it disappointing. You can tell where the gratuitous language, nudity and gross-out scenes were added: without them, the movie would have been more earnest, less fun, and just plain mediocre — it would have been a forgettable, low-budget bomb.

Even so, the character development and writing were profoundly weak; we needed Samuel L. to come alive more, to inhabit his typecast bad-ass persona more — in other words — say the 12-letter M-word more — in order to breathe more life into this film. As it stands, you can see the plastic surgeon’s scars.

But never mind that shit. What about the motherfucking snakes?

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For a while now, I’ve had the idea of recording an audio commentary on a few favourite movies and making them available for download on the web. (Never mind which ones, though I’m sure you can guess.)

I was a little worried about the copyright implications: I thought it’d be okay, because I wouldn’t be reproducing any copyrighted material, just a recorded commentary that you could listen to as you watched a DVD; since you had to buy or rent the DVD in the first place, no harm no foul, I thought. But you never know. Anyway, I put it on the backburner; I had plenty of other things to worry about.

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Oh dear. Lucasfilm is releasing two-disc sets of each of the original Star Wars movies: each set will include the 2004 remastered version and the original, unsullied theatrical version. Which means Han shoots first, Jabba doesn’t show up, Clive Revill is the Emperor in Empire, Vader says “Bring my shuttle,” and the Jedi songs are the originals — and the films don’t look like patch-jobs between early 1980s and late 1990s technology. I’m actually having trouble believing this. Via Slashdot.

Movies recently passing through our DVD player that I saw for the first time:

• My Neighbor Totoro (perfect little movie; I want a catbus)
• Howl’s Moving Castle (awe-inspiring but a bit incoherent)
• March of the Penguins (noisy, noisy penguins; behind the scenes is actually stronger than the sanitized main film)
• Good Night, and Good Luck (claustrophobic in scale and focus; lots of smoking; eerily allegorical to current political discourse)
• Stand-in (an early Bogart in a supporting role behind Leslie Howard)
• Only Angels Have Wings (my first exposure to Howard Hawks, I think; an early Cary Grant)
• Madagascar (delightful; far better than expected; Sacha Baron Cohen’s a show-stealer)

On a related note, in response to Jason’s post about this list of 102 must-see movies, alas, my count is only 40 — but not the same 40 as Jason: my 40 are probably more obscure and older than most others’.

Update, May 8: Added Good Night, and Good Luck; I forgot about it earlier.

I did a bad thing. While my father was here last week, I made him watch the Star Wars prequel trilogy. He didn’t like those movies, no sir. (Sorry about that, Dad.) Oddly, he hated Phantom Menace but didn’t mind Jar Jar. His complaints were more fundamental: a weak storyline where characters were engaged in pointless activity up until the second half of the third movie; inane dialogue; poor writing; too many damn coincidences (in a word: droids); too little lightness and too much tendentious focus on the epic; and an over-emphasis on special effects.

In particular, huge battle scenes that go on too long: it’s a chronic condition that also, for example, afflicts Peter Jackson — but that is symptomatic of the movie industry lately. I think it’s because directors are still having fun with their new toys; they were, until the last decade, limited by technology from putting anything they wanted on the screen, and now they’re going all out. But those limitations made for some inventive storytelling: look at any threadbare BBC production from the 1970s and see how much story can be told on a shoestring. (Current indie films, on the other hand, aren’t necessarily interested in storytelling, so it’s not necessarily a fair comparison.) I imagine the pendulum will swing back once directors get bored; it always has before.

Back to the Star Wars prequels. No, they’re not great. But they do have their moments, in isolation: audiovisual confections. Ambitious failures in that it’s extremely difficult to write a story whose outcome is not only known, but the whole point.

Rented The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Monday night; it took me a while to figure out what was wrong with it. The problem with this movie is twofold. It captures the later, sadder, more morose Adams (think Mostly Harmless), rather than the free-form, Pythonesque silliness of the early Adams. An incoherent movie at best, it also ruined the jokes, as though they decided to save time by removing all the punchlines. Granted, it’s no great shakes to perform jokes a quarter-century old, but if you’re going to start the joke (e.g., have Arthur lie down in front of the bulldozer), at the very least finish it (i.e., have the foreman lie down in front of it for him — the absurdist punch line). If the jokes are old that you have to change them, at least replace them with new ones that are just as funny. (And make sure they’re funny, viz., if you’re going to feed Trillian to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, fans of the book will tell you that there can be only one way for her to get out of it. Unfortunately, the movie opted for something more mundane.) In the end, half-finished, half-performed and almost half-hearted. Catchy title song, though. (But why two sets of opening titles?)

I’d heard good things about Batman Begins (Amazon, trailer), but did not get around to seeing it until last night, when we rented it. I know I’m not alone in thinking that it’s easily the best Batman movie ever done. Intense, character-driven, and most of all, intelligent; for once I didn’t think I was watching an overgrown cartoon. (Ironically, Warner Bros.’ TV cartoons have been far more thoughtful, with better writing and character development, than any of the four live-action films prior to this.)

Saw Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit last Sunday at the O’Brien Theatre in Renfrew, where, despite it being a weekend matinee, the kids in the audience were reasonably well-behaved and kept their patter to under 100 dB or so. (Worth putting up with for $4.) Anyway, an incredibly enjoyable film, but it’s a long way from groundbreaking: the plot’s not dissimilar from A Close Shave, and the characters are static — there’s clearly a lot of affection for them, and all the old tropes (especially cheese) are trotted out. By comparison, Chicken Run had just as much energy, but a better story and polish.

Super Size Me, which I just saw on one of the movie channels, is the kind of documentary that will frighten you into swearing off meat, joining a vegan commune, and living on a macrobiotic diet for the rest of your life. Or, at the very least, make you take a hard look at your eating habits. If you’re not uncomfortable about eating fast food after watching this, there is no hope.

Two more of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies were released to DVD in February with new English-language voice tracks — Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Porco Rosso (1992). Of course we got them shortly thereafter, though it’s taken me a while to tell you about them. The executive summary is that they are both good and you should buy them both, but I thought I should say a bit more. As usual, I’ll say everything except what the movies are about; you can find that out through the links.

Nausicaä is widely regarded as Miyazaki’s masterpiece, though I believe he himself is less happy with it. I can’t imagine the impact it made in 1984; I’ve seen so much of his later work that it’s difficult to evaluate. Princess Mononoke (Amazon) covers many of the same themes, and is in many ways a more mature and successful work. Nausicaä, though, was Miyazaki’s “first” film — the first he wrote and directed, if I’m not mistaken; he’d directed and worked on other animé before. It has all the topoï that keep recurring in his later works: young protagonists, strong women, flight, reconciling humanity and nature; no unamibiguously good or evil characters.

Porco Rosso, on the other hand, may well be Miyazaki’s least Miyazaki-like, simply because the characters are mostly adult. The conflicts are personal rather than epic, which would place Porco alongside Kiki’s Delivery Service (Amazon) and Spirited Away (Amazon), were it not for the clear children’s focus of the latter two movies. In its focus on flight, it’s quintessentially Miyazaki, though airplanes are quite mundane in comparison. Except for the fact that the protagonist has the face of a pig — pigs show up a lot in Miyazaki’s more recent films, don’t they? — it has few fantasy elements.

One thing I found maddening was how elliptical these two films — especially Porco — could be. Too many plot points — key plot points — were left dangling in Porco: the FAQ clears up some of them, but the film by itself leaves you guessing. A little ambiguity is by no means a bad thing — but in the right places, please. (A similar bit about Nausicaä’s clothing changing colour was insufficiently clear.)

In other Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli related news: the English-language dub of Howl’s Moving Castle will be released in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on June 10, with a wider U.S. (and hopefully Canadian?) release on June 17. Mark your calendars and check your theatres.

Finally, Joe Hisaishi is responsible for most of the music on Miyazaki’s films, and let me tell you, he’s responsible for some of the most insidious cinematic earworms I have yet encountered. What’s frustrating about that is that the soundtracks are hard to find. You can usually find “image albums” — music based on the storyboards — as imports on Amazon, but they’re something on the order of $35. So far I’ve only been able to find soundtracks for the two most recent U.S. releases on Amazon; certainly they’re not on iTunes.

Never got around to telling you how much we enjoyed The Incredibles when it came out in November; but you could probably infer that from the awe in which I hold The Iron Giant (Brad Bird’s previous movie) and the high regard I have for Pixar films generally. Though some were hoping for a best-picture nomination, I think the fact that a cartoon has been nominated for best original screenplay is a very positive sign. Though, if you’ve seen this movie, it’s not at all a surprise.

Chances are that by now you’ve already seen the extended edition of The Return of the King — even if your name is John Moltz — but here’s my take on it.

The first thing that bears mentioning (as Andrea noted) is just how chaotic putting this film together was — something that’s abundantly clear from the appendices and from the writers’ commentary. Not just in the mad, last-minute rush to get the film completed, but in the changes in the story between principal photography and the final result. They took the footage they had and used it differently — in a different order, say — when the story changed. It looks like ROTK was the most reworked of the three films.

These explain some of the inconsistencies that people like me love to pick over: why Pippin is riding with Gandalf when the old boy rescues Faramir and Co. from the Nazgûl, why Arwen’s and Elrond’s apparel changes from one second to the next in Rivendell, and why the newly added scene with Saruman seems a little unfocused. (Presumably this explains where Aragorn’s horse went at the Morannon.)

All of which speaks to how big a project this was, and how easily they could have ended up over their heads. It’s amazing that it was done; even more that they did it as well as they did.

But if they had gone ahead with their plan for a duel between Aragorn and Sauron — they used some of that footage in the fight with the troll — I would have slain them all. No no no. Thank you for not following through with that foolishness.

The extra footage is the usual mix of the following four types:

1. Essential material that I wish they hadn’t cut. (All the scenes of Frodo and Sam in Mordor that had been cut, for example. Also, the fine scene between Denethor and Faramir.)
2. Important material that helps us make sense of scenes that would otherwise be confusing. (More material on the White Tree, what happens to Gothmog, the Houses of Healing.)
3. Neat material that adds considerably to the movie, but isn’t vital. (I’d put the Mouth of Sauron and the extra footage during the siege in this category.)
4. Superfluous material, the benefits of which are outweighed by the penalty inflicted on the movie’s pace — and on your bladder.

In a change from the previous two films, the extra footage does not just add to the film, it changes it: lines are given in a different order; characters suffer a different fate; events occur at a different time of day.

The end result is a film that is more cohesive than the theatrical version, with some fine moments that deserve not to be missed, but that really, really feels long. At least there are fewer superfluous bits in this one than there were in The Two Towers.

Don’t miss the insane bits. The easter egg is in its usual place, but it’s not what you’d expect: it’s not as high concept as the previous two, but it’s funny as hell. And the actors’ commentary: do not miss the actors’ commentary. Pure chaos.

Oy.

One of the goodies I got Jen for Christmas was Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Essentials, a two-disc set consisting of Manos: The Hands of Fate and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. The latter film will probably turn into a holiday tradition in our household. It’s Manos I want to talk about here.

Again: Oy.

That concludes my discussion of this awful film, this awful-out-of-focus-overdubbed-badly-edited-cornball, morimaite-sincahonda, hoom —

Um. It’s pretty bad. The MST3K folks had a field day with it. There’s a reason why this was voted the most popular of their episodes, and why it’s on the Essentials DVD.

Before you rush out and view this film, prepare yourself by reading the Agony Booth’s review of Manos and this Mimosa article, which looks at the experiences of the crew who worked on the film. The poor bastards.

In other MST3K news, my father gave Jennifer Vol. 3 of The MST3K Collection, which contains another batch of short films. This is worth noting because one of them features famed Florida reptile impresario Ross Allen — the Steve Irwin of his time: the Everglades rat snake, Elaphe obsoleta rossalleni, was named after him — chasing down wildlife in the Everglades. None too gently, either: this wouldn’t pass muster today, not by a long shot. And there were two dreary Union Pacific safety films, one on level crossings, the other on workplace safety, both of which taking forever to plod to the point. Yech. Of course, if they weren’t bad, you wouldn’t have wisecracking robots in silhouette there, would you?

Update: Here’s Jen’s take on Manos. Yes, she has a blog now.

We rented Hero last night. With a narrative structure (and naïveté) seemingly poached directly from Rashomon, delivering one alternate, colour-themed flashback after another, the film is far more effective than if it had played its rather thin plot straight. Though it’s a bit repetitive. And slow-paced (which also reminds me of Rashomon). It’s also a pretty film. Its presentist and somewhat heavy-handed celebration of Chinese unity has been noted elsewhere, and is a bit jarring: apart from the propaganda value for the current regime, it’s not contextualized enough (other than the opening map). (To be fair, even Shakespeare’s plays frequently toed the Tudor line.) Still very watchable, especially if you don’t know what’s coming (note the absence of spoilers in this mini-review) and you like the weirdness that comes off a different narrative form. Oh yeah, and freaky wu xia swordfighting.

Hayao Miyazaki’s next film is called Howl’s Moving Castle; it’s competing at the Venice Film Festival next month and is scheduled for release in Japan in November. More information at Nausicaa.net; there are also Japanese-language trailers on the Studio Ghibli site. I can hardly wait for the inevitable English-language release, though I expect I shall have to.

Shit. How did I miss this? (Richard didn’t.)

James Bow watched Castle in the Sky the other night; he’s got a pretty thorough review. A lot more thorough than my brief note, anyway.

Saw Shrek 2 last Thursday night: a lot of fun — there were moments when we were laughing convulsively — though the busy plot sometimes lacked the coherence and elegance of the original. On the other hand, there’s a lot of raucous energy. It’s enjoyable.

Finally saw two more Hayao Miyazaki films on DVD last week: Kiki’s Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky. Both are, of course, fantastic, and you should see them.

Castle is the earlier of the two, and is convulsively, exuberantly imaginative, full of flying contraptions that should never work and other stunning bits of brain candy. It’s a full-on adventure story that reminds me somewhat of Tintin — but on shrooms.

Kiki is, for a movie about a young witch who flies around on her broom, somewhat more down to earth; like Spirited Away, it’s about, and mainly for, young girls — an animé Bildungsroman. It’s lighter and funnier, too. Two words: the cat. Voiced in the English version by the late Phil Hartman, the cat is a show-stealer.

In both films, Miyazaki, who is reportedly obsessed with flight, animates it very well: you can absolutely feel the wind when someone is in the air. Oh, he’s good.

Pixar alert: there’s a new trailer for The Incredibles available. More information on the cast at the movie’s site (Ratzenberger, of course; Samuel L. Jackson?). Sounds an awful lot like a sendup of the Fantastic Four.

The CD of the Return of the King soundtrack showed up yesterday, courtesy of a little birthday gift certificage from the brother. (“Because it’s my birthday, and I wants it.”) Howard Shore’s stuff is fun to listen to — your usual movie soundtrack symphonic score with signature themes à la Wagner, only it’s a kindler, gentler Wagner, just like Tolkien, whose own Ring saga is much more humane. (The Silmarillion, on the other hand, is just as brutally operatic.) And if they release a CD of the two-hour, eight-movement symphonic version — as in it’s structured as a symphony, not just played by a symphony orchestra — which had its North American premiere in Montreal last night, I’ll snap that up too.

The original Star Wars trilogy is finally coming to DVD; a four-disc set will be released on Sept. 21. Except that it maybe shouldn’t be called the original trilogy: only the special (read: altered) editions will be available (via Slashdot):

Of course, the big question mark amongst fans has always been whether Lucas would allow the original, unaltered original editions of the trilogy to also be released on DVD. Not possible, said Ward, who confirmed that the upcoming set will feature only the 1997 Special Edition versions of each film. “What George did in 1997,” Ward explains, “was [to] make the movie he originally wanted to make.”

So what are the faithful to do if they don’t want to watch the altered 1997 editions of the trilogy? Either give in, or don’t buy. “We realize there’s a lot of debate out there,” says Ward. “But this is not a democracy. We love our fans, but this is about art and filmmaking. [George] has decided that the sole version he wants available is this one.”

Not surprisingly, there is some controversy about this (via Mr. Barrett).

It’s not uncommon to find something in Jackson’s films that somehow betters Tolkien’s original, dramatically speaking. Here’s what Brian says about diction in ROTK, film vs. movie:

For what it’s worth, its tone and style is so like the other two movies — whereas the third book is so profoundly different from its predecessors, all stilted and high-tongued — that it’s another testament to Jackson’s abilities that he made it into such a well-rounded unifying piece for the story arc.

I’m re-reading the book now, and it’s all declamation and description, rather than the ordinary dialogue that began the trilogy. (Which, I suspect, reflects how the book was written.)

Think I’m going to need to see it again.

Not satisfied to leave it at this, here are some more thoughts on the film version of The Return of the King that develop from the original post, or that I forgot to include in it.

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Hopefully I’ve procrastinated enough that most of you interested in this post will already have seen the movie, but if reading my impressions of Peter Jackson’s take on The Return of the King would somehow spoil it for you, read no further.

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Garfield: The Movie. The Apocalypse: Nigh.

I won’t be able to see The Return of the King until tomorrow; I worked today — we’re putting together our Christmas issue early — and it’s snowing a little too much for our liking, so we’re holding off opening night. Reviews from the 12:01 set are already starting to proliferate across the web (never mind the newspapers): Ceejbot, Locust Wind, Making Light, Polytropos.

Correction: The Locust Wind and Polytropos links are not to reviews per se, as Nate himself points out in the comments, but to discussions of what Tolkien would have thought about the films. See the Polytropos ROTK review here.

There is a problem with commenting on a DVD release before listening to the commentaries — your Profound Insights, such as they are, basically parrot (or are answered by) the director’s comments before you even get a chance to hear them.

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Polytropos is much more coherent than I was in his review of the extended edition of The Two Towers (via Electrolite).

Newsweek gets the jump on breathless Return of the King coverage, with the usual amount of behind-the-scenes movie-making inside baseball, which is all you get because the movie isn’t out yet (via Slate). Entertainment-industry journalism: feh.

So my copy of the four-disc, extended edition DVD of The Two Towers arrived in the mail Wednesday. Bloody fast shipping time for Shawville: Amazon only announced it had shipped two days before. I picked it up from the post office around noon.

Guess what I did Wednesday afternoon? If you guessed that I sat, rapt and slack-jawed, in front of the screen for four hours straight … well, you’d be dead-on.

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