Monday, May 27, 2013

The Last Act for Rob Ford

Rob Ford's administration is in his final days. I do not expect him to remain in office past Labour Day. As of today, his press secretary and deputy press secretary have quit, leaving him vulnerable to the media. He has never been able to handle the media by himself. What the Star has started, the Globe and Mail, with it's detailed account of the Ford family's involvement in the narcotics trade, has finished.

That is why I found this article by Joe Warmington of the Toronto Sun (ugh) to be...interesting.

"Doesn’t matter if the evidence is authentic? Impossible to survive? In football terms it’s bulletin board material. He got up from what he considers a blind-side hit and carefully tried to word his way out of what the Star reporters have alleged."

Let's see: dude has a DUI/marijuana possession, got kicked out of a Leafs game after getting drunk...not hard to see a pattern here. The man clearly has a history of getting drunk and high. And we have the Globe to thank for revealing just how prolonged and deep Ford's involvement with narcotics is.

"Ford Nation will fight on."

"They had him in check but not checkmate. In check good chess players still have moves."

This argument is pure drivel. Granted, things have changed (and not in Ford's favour) since Warmington wrote this. Ford's chief of staff and press secretaries have resigned: in the case of Towhey, he was fired after insisting Ford get treatment for his substance abuse issues. Not something to be proud of.

The clock is ticking in the hunt for the only thing that appears to have the power to crack this case. 

The clock is ticking all right: for the final few minutes of the most bizarre mayorship Toronto has ever seen.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

A Scott Pilgrim movie reboot is probably inevitable (and hardly a bad thing)

Listening to Paul Chapman's "Greatest Movie Ever" Podcast a week ago introduced the idea that Scott Pilgrim is a fundamentally flawed movie that got a lot of praise for executing the style of the comics right, but failed to make Scott a fundamentally solid character. Chapman was under the impression that Scott was an idiot man-child whose quirkiness covered up for the complete lack of any sort of meaningful character growth. I don't fully agree, but neither is this a point worth dismissing.

Scott Pilgrim is a movie I like, but it comes with a very qualified like. While most critics fell over themselves with praise, I couldn't help notice that the movie had some real flaws. Specifically, the movie acts as a solid adaption of at least the first two books of the series, and goes wobbly when trying to cram in the rest. Adapting a six volume comic book series to one movie is going to be a challenge---specifically when two of the books have not been written yet. Timing the movie to be released at the same time of the conclusion of the comic series resulted in an experience confusing to fans of the book and underwhelming to newcomers.

The result is a movie that trips over itself. Confining the series to a single movie (while it may have made sense to do so, especially given the movie's dismal performance at the box office) resulted in a jammed, bloated epic that struggled to keep up with it's own frantic pace.

The ending of the movie is completely unbalanced: it was written with the intention of Scott remaining with Knives, and when I saw the movie for the first time I was incredibly confused when it turned out that he was sticking with Ramona. Yes, it would have made sense for the movie to end in a way that was different to how the books turned out. If it would result in a more coherent movie, so be it. Bryan Lee O'Malley admitted that the (in progress) ending of the final volume was still up in the air when the script was being written.

The secondary characters remained criminally underdeveloped, especially given how talented the actors who portrayed them. I loved Alison Pill's Kim Pine, and her previous relationship with Scott was only lightly touched upon. This presented an opportunity to add depth to Scott's character as much as hers, to help show why Scott was such a dolt when it came to women. Kim herself is a fascinating character in the books who deserved more screen time. Similarly, Scott's relationship with Envy Adams deserves more attention, since it informed his relationship with Kim.

In hindsight, casting Michael Cera as Scott was a bad move. He didn't play the part wrong, don't misunderstand me, but at the time the movie was being made the public was tiring of Cera and his presence was more of a liability than a help. This is more of a marketing problem, one that neither aids nor harms the film as a whole. If audiences were uncertain before whether to give this movie a chance, Cera cemented opinions.

Edgar Wright is the only movie maker of his generation that can capture the style and the spirit of the books, but the depth of the story remained elusive. In twenty years, when we (for some reason) are nostalgic for this period in history, Scott Pilgrim is going to be reexamined. People who will complain about the reception about this movie, and it would not surprise me if someone made an attempt at a reboot. Purists will be up in arms, but let's face it: as good as Scott Pilgrim was, it had potential that it simply did not achieve. An attempt to improve upon what came before is anything but a horrible fate.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Star Trek Into Darkness: One of the Best, yet also one of the Worst

Leonard Nimoy has a fun cameo in the new Star Trek movie, wherein Spock calls him up asking for advice on how to deal with Khan. Spock the Elder confirms to Spock 2.0 that there is a way to kill Khan. But it comes "with a great cost."

Such is the new Star Trek movie. Technically speaking, it is an excellent action scifi movie...but it is also a Star Trek movie, which carries additional weight. Not that this movie was expected to be cerebral (go see Star Trek: TMP and Star Trek 5 as examples), or not fun (see Star Trek IV for an example of how Star Trek genuinely can be fun). It is not bad, certainly not horrendous, and immeasurably preferable to the sorry run of the TNG movies, and several of the TOS ones.

But it is not going to be in the top tier of Star Trek movies, along with Wrath of Khan, Voyage Home, Undiscovered Country and (to an extent) First Contact. It is not a terrible movie, let me stress that. I got my money's worth. It was an excellent space opera---but it did not live up to Star Trek's pedigree, not one bit.

It achieved what it set out to do, but at the cost of having a weighty story to it. It is the proverbial step forward, and also two steps back.

What I Disliked

Shallow characters and motivation

We don't know what drives Admiral Marcus, aside from a belief that war is inevitable with the Klingons. Why? Has there been some recent event necessitating a harder line with the Klingons? If so, what? I found him to be a textbook bad guy, which is always a major disappointment.

Similarly, we only know Khan is a genetically superior human who aims to destroy all that is not as perfect as he is. Now, in the original series we knew him from the episode Space Speed; and in Wrath of Khan you did not need to know who he was in detail to enjoy the movie. Here he comes out of nowhere, and you know he's a bad guy, but I feel disappointed that we did not know more about him in tremendous detail, other than he is evil.

 Lifting so much of the movie from The Wrath of Khan, and completely missing the point.

Wrath of Khan is deservedly regarded as the best of the Star Trek movies. It deals with themes of life, death and sacrifice, themes picked up by Into Darkness, carefully examined and ultimately discarded. The movie apes the actions and borrow the characters, but fails to build a meaningful story to really arrange the proceedings. Ripping everything off of this movie except the theme makes ripping off Khan abjectly pointless.

This movie is too derivative of The Dark Knight's post-9/11 plot system: bad guy does something bad, good guy goes after him, bad guy gets captured, bad guy escapes (although they were a tad more clever this time around by turning Khan's release into a necessary evil), final confrontation. Fini. That too precedence over the themes of the movie, which was a major mistake.

Khan now has Wolverine-esque healing powers, you see. The use of his blood to save Kirk's life was predictable (I saw it coming from a mile away), though it rendered the importance of Kirk's "sacrifice" meaningless. Spock's death in Khan had importance because it was permanent; it could not be turned back. Doing so would have cheapened the movie's principal theme of the no-win scenario, and "how we deal with death is as importance as how we deal with life." Into Darkness completely invalidates that theme so recklessly its actually jaw dropping for those who love and cherish Wrath of Khan.

The fact that Kirk was willing to go to great lengths to save his crew as much as possible was excellent, and him dying for good (hey, Khan killed off Spock, after all!) would have carried some major dramatic weight (the inversion of the ending of Khan, with Spock racing to meet Kirk in the radiation chamber, while derivative, was a nice touch, I thought). Kirk would truly have learned the importance of sacrifice, of saving so many lives...yet not being able to save himself. But hey! He's all better now!

Hey, I hope Spock didn't bogart Khan's blood, seeing as how now there's a city full of dead people following the crash of the Vengeance into San Francisco. Strange that it gets glossed over so quickly---perhaps that was why the ending had the recommissioning of the Enterprise rather than any indication of the human loss.

Random moments of illogic

Why was the very important captain's meeting held ontop of a skyscraper where they could be attacked instead of a secure underground location? Why was the Enterprise hiding underwater in the beginning of the movie instead of space (y'know, being a space ship and all)? Why were the rescue shuttles arranged in such a fashion that they keeled over when the gravity got all wonky?

What I Liked

 Khan played by the Cumberbatch, natch.

Khan here is formidable: a deadly warrior, a canny intellect, someone who cannot be left off of his leash for a second (and yet Kirk is forced to). Cumberbatch even manages to elicit a moment of sympathy for him, since he is fundamentally caring about his people...who like him are genetically engineered super beings  incapable of coexisting with what they consider to be inferior lifeforms. He is pretty much invincible  you can't kill him, all you can do is buy yourself a few moments to think while he is down.

 The culture of the future Earth.

Earth does not feature as prominently in Star Trek as it really should. We don't see alot of the world outside of the Federation and Starfleet. I nodded approvingly when I saw the British flag flutter next to the Federation banner, because it reminded me that there is a culture here (especially a pop culture) that Star Trek usually sanitizes to within an inch of it's life.

I liked seeing scenes of Earth of people driving, or walking underneath the towering structures that now dominate Earth's landscape. I also liked the look of the uniforms. The uniforms no longer had the baggy, cheap look of the original series, and carried the proper authority of command that Starfleet deserved.

 The look and feel of the Enterprise.

Granted, the iPod-y look of the Enterprise did get excessive. But I liked the way the warp core looked, because it screamed, "This is a warp core!" It looked like it had purpose and a function, that if you took every piece of it apart, you could determine what each component did. It was functional, and I really give the movie credit for that instead of using some plastic prop.

What this means for Star Trek

Well, the franchise lived to see another day, which ain't a bad thing at all. If Star Trek is going to survive, butts need to get into seats, and this movie will certainly deliver that. The needs of the shareholders outweighs the needs of the fans.

What Star Trek needs desperately is a weighty story, which we cannot get right now, since the important thing is to show that the Star Trek brand has not gotten stale. That means necessary concessions to the needs of the mass-market movie consumer. I do not believe we are doomed to stupid Trek movies from here on out, but while Abrams is at the helm, we're going to get slick, enjoyable, albeit weightless, movies. This is not the worst possible fate Trek deserves, but it does deserve better, and I do hope that the movies Abrams makes are the foundation for a Trek renaissance.

The next movie, hopefully, will boldly go where no man has gone before. Until then, we have the not enjoyable but not completely satisfactory either Into Darkness to tide us over.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Orson Scott Card is his own worst enemy (and the enemy is winning)

There is an Ender's Game movie coming out. Big revelation, I know. I'd like to address one Tweet from one of my favourite internet critics, MovieBob, when he pondered what kind of damage Orson Scott Card could do to that project between now and November.

I'd say it's a simple question to answer: he already has.

There are mountains of quotes, articles and posts he has made on the subject of homosexuality (in particular), climate change, Israel, the Iraq War, etc. Mountains. The dude doesn't have to breathe another word, in all complete seriousness. If you know where to look (and there are many, many people who will help point you in the right direction), you can get volumes of his screeds.

Timing is everything: as recently as five years ago Card could probably have skated by consequence free. Remember, the election that brought in Obama also struck down same sex marriage in California. Four years before the Republicans won the White House for a second term by exploiting fear of same sex marriage. Now, with Minnesota proudly joining the ranks of the 12 states that recognize same sex marriage; and New Zealand, Uruguay, and France now recognizing same sex marriage, its going to get harder to rationalize away Card's "traditionalist" beliefs.

I'm actually interested to see what will happen to Card's creative output in a decade when same sex marriage gains more traction. I don't believe its going to be legalized nationwide for another fifteen to twenty years at least, though perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. I don't expect him to be completely forgotten, as Ender's Game is a seminal work within science fiction; but his luster will dim, that much is clear, with the consequence of the rest of his body of work being ignored. Within half a century all he will have left is one book and a handful of angry screeds. That will be tragic. But it will not be unearned.

Naturally, the producers will (when Card's nonsense inevitably get raised) distance themselves from him. Card will go on a tangent about being censored and the media distorting his words, the first reactions of someone who has espoused unpleasant beliefs and is now being held to task for it. He'll double down further on his beliefs; and as America changes he will continue to be more and more isolated to the point where people will wonder what was so magical about him to begin with.

That's the way he wants it. So long as he's happy, I suppose.