Loo.me

I just finished seeing the latest X-Men men movie, X3: United. My take: the super mutants didn’t make a super movie but on the flip side, a pretty lame director didn’t make a lame movie. X3 is alright and i give it a 7.5 out of 10.

My main complaint of the movie is its failure to do more with the plot. After the movie is finished you notice while almost all the scenes are cool, they never really deliver. It took me a while to figure out why this is. I believe this is largely due to the fact that the plot isn’t pushed or really developed. Any good comic or writer knows there are 3 parts to every good joke or story: 1) the premise, 2) examples, 3) the punchline or finale. The punchline is usually key to wrap up a joke or story and make it all work – and this is what separates merely clever people and uber-funny folks. A punchline can deliver by taking the premise to the next level or a totally different and unthinkable directions or by simply exploring/deconstructing the premise with some new facts or new perspective. Some examples:

Caddyshack

• Premise: odd goofball golfers have fun on the course and local caddy Danny mingles with upperclass and worries about his uncertain future
• Examples: golfing events, pool party.
• Punchline: A hysterical battle between goofballs and straight golfers where the entire course is blown up and destroyed, which also determines the future for young Danny boy.

Jaws

• Premise: big-ass shark is discovered and terrorizes a small east coast sea town
• Examples: woman gets eaten, families on the beach are scared over Memorial Day, big shark teeth are found
• Punchline: Two guys track and actually find the shark, battle it, have their entire boat demolished in the struggle while managing to kill it in dramatic mano a mano final moment.

Compared to other films, X3 has a great premise and the examples of it are pretty frickin’ awesome, but you’ll see it all falls apart on the punchline…

• Premise: There’s a mutant cure developed by humans who are weaponizing it to wipe out the mutant race. The mutants can react diplomatically or violently. Parallels between curing mutants and modern-day homosexuality are lightly drawn. Also, there’s a schizo mutant who’s also the most powerful who threatens to do bad things – either destroy the world or kill everyone (nobody really knows)
• Examples: Some mutants are “cured” by humans. Schizo mutant kills some of the main characters.
• Punchline: battle between mutants and humans is interrupted by good mutants who stop it by “curing” some bad mutants. Schizo mutant starts mis-behaving is killed.

As you can see, this punchline does nothing to address the actual premise. The concept of what to do with the “cure” isn’t addressed in the finish. The battle doesn’t solve anything or isn’t even between two ideologies. One could argue that the final battle was whether there should be a cure offered to people. Of which you could say that the movie answers “yes, there should” but nowhere in the movie was it revealed that the good X-Men (Wolverine and company) actually cared about that fact. And to make it even more shallow, Jean Grey’s power is never fully explained or realized or solved in an interesting way.

So, all in all, a good flick but no way is it a classic.

Some other thoughts… Why is every mutant American (or even Canadian)? What about other countries, do they have mutants?

Also, imagine an Iranian or Iraqi or some middle eastern mutant who was both extremely powerful (on par with Magneto and Xavier) and a political terrorist for his nation – and he/she started committing acts of violence on the US citizens. Would the good X-Men protect the US? I have to imagine they would. Would then the X-Men be the sort of mutant army wing of the US government? If that was the case, would each nation have a stable of mutants protecting their country in case other nations used mutants in their army? Now, here’s a premise for a movie. Exploring the loyalties of a mutant is interesting. Are these people first American, and then mutants – protecting first the country and then their mutant race? Or, do they identify themselves as mutants who happen to be American? What if mutant terrorists were being hunted down – would good mutants have sympathy for them? Thoughts?

 

I read about some people recently discussing Fight Club (here) which is one of my favorite movies of all time. I'd like to take a moment to discuss some of items currently brewing around the classic….

• First, The are creating a musical on Fight Club. Yes, you read that correctly – a musical, as in Broadway. When did they start making musicals based on successful movies? I saw that there's a musical for The Wedding Singer – wft? Apparently David Fincher and Trent Reznor (from Nine Inch Nails) are involved in the project to direct and create the music. (Playbill News, BBC)

• There a great site here which talk about Calvin and Hobbes relates to Fight Club. Apparently Hobbes is reborn as Tyler (Brad Pitt) to rescue Jack which is a grown-up Calvin (played by Edward Norton). Some good points:
  • Hobbes, like Tyler, are completely imaginary to Calvin/Jack/Norton
  • Similar to 7th grade, Calvin in the movie encounters real life which is threatening and forces him to abandon
  • A passage:
    • Calvin has always idolized Hobbes. In Weirdos From Another Planet, he dresses up like a tiger and attempts to live in the woods. Like Hobbes, Tyler is cool, collected, and incredibly cerebral. Given this evidence, one can conclude that Tyler is Hobbes, reincarnated after being trapped inside Calvin/Jack’s brain for so many years. Just as Calvin is Jack, Hobbes is Tyler.
  • Marla Singer is the avatar of Susie. Similar to the reason Calvin hates Susie – she advocates everything he is not and embarrasses all that he can't – Jack loathes Marla.
  • And many more….worth a read. It makes me miss college where these kind of thoughts are actually encouraged.
• It's interesting to read the script for Fight Club (here) and see line for line how the movie comes to life through Norton and Pitt. Say what you want about them (Norton's latest Down in the Valley sucks and Pitt's gone off the deep end with Angelina, but then again, who wouldn't), but they rocked this movie.

I'm updating the summer movie schedule. Kevin Smith has a very funny quote on his blog (no-joke) about why he's moving Clerks II up:

In a ballsy move that says “Fuck you: we’re a five million dollar flick and we’re coming out in the fucking middle of the summer, bitches!”

So, the schedule is now:

• May 19: Da Vinci Code
  • Up in the air. Tom Hanks was a bad choice and i don't think they can wedge all the cool code cracking stuff into 2 hours. But Ron Howard is usually pretty awesome so we'll see.
  • Also coming out is Over the Hedge which looks pretty funny.
• May 26: X-Men: The Last Stand (trailer)
  • Looks awesome! I couldn't be more excited about this one although i've heard that Brett Ratner has totally destroyed it (early review here)
• June 2: The Break-Up (trailer)
  • This looks really funny because Vince Vaughn in clearly in his comedy prime. I also heard that in the original they actually breakup, but test audiences have so much sympathy for Jennifer Aniston that they wanted her to get the guy at the end so they reshot it so they end up together – which is pretty lame. But, on the other hand they reshot Casablanca 4 times and it ended up pretty good.
• June 6: The Omen – looks scary and i loved the original 1976 Omen, so i'm excited for the latest. (trailer)
• June 9: Cars – Pixar is batting 1.000, can they continue to rock? Everything has to come down sometime and i wouldn't be surprised if this movie is sub-par – the trailers look stupid. But then again, you never know with Pixar they always pull it out somehow. I guess we'll see. UPDATE: Actually, the just released a trailer that doesn't look half bad – check this out.
• June 16: Nacho Libre
  • This looks so damn funny. Jack Black is fan-tas-tic! Napoleon mixed with Tenacious D. Can't wait. The trailer is hilarious
• June 23: Click – If it wasn't adam sandler, i wouldn't even waste my time writing about it. Chances of this being good: 3%
• June 30: Superman Returns
  • This looks really good. I just saw the new trailer: Spacey looks great as Lex, Bosworth is good. I also like how the story now has Clark Kent and Lois once being together and then him ditching her – and then returning. Some good spice there. Matt Lewis had a good point: could be a bad idea to make it retro. Why make it take place in the 50's and 60's? I like superhero movies that are more modern.
  • Also coming is Devil Wears Prada – a lame chick-lit book turned into an even lamer chick-movie only without any romance, just an old boss yelling at an assistant – wow, sounds great.
• July 7: Pirates of Caribbean: Dean Man's Chest
  • Johnny Depp nails this character and i think this looks like a fun ride. Let's just hope they don't make the plot too screwed up.
• July 14: Pulse – japanese horror movie that will scare the crap out of you – originally done by Kurosawa.
• July 21: Lady In The Water
  • This is the latest M. Night Shyswe*an…movie. I liked The Village more than most, and thought Unbreakable was very underrated and, of course, Sixth Sense was awesome. At least he tries to be different and original
  • Super Ex-Girlfriend – Uma and Luke Wilson. Uma has super powers. Could be cool, could be Prime. I think it'll be pretty lame. Luke is a great 6th man (Old School, Wes Anderson movies) but can't carry a movie and this just feels too weak for me. Then again, Ivan Reitman is directing and he's done mostly good (Old School, Stripes, Animal House) but also some bad (Beethoven's 2nd, Evolution) flicks.
  • Clerks II. (moved up from August!) Not sure what i think about this. My guess is that it probably has some funny dialogue but fails pretty hard as a movie.
• July 28: Miami Vice – NOW we're talking. In case you weren't aware, this is made by Michael Mann who made the amazing movie Heat and did the original Miami Vice tv show. And, it has Jamie Foxx who's probably the coolest actor going right now. I mean how many actors can you think of who were probably the cool kid in high school? That's what i thought. I want the cool kids of my movies to have actually known what it was like to be cool.
• August 4: Talladega Nights – Will Farrell being a total Nascar moron. Could rival Nacho Libre as the funniest movie of the summer
  • Also coming – Flags of Our Father – Clint Eastwood's latest written by the same guy who did Million Dollar Baby. War movie of Iwo Jima – could be sweet.
• August 18: Snakes on a Plane. I must admit, the hype (and blogs) have totally worked for me. It's absurd, it's stupid – but so am i – and i'll see it. If fact, one of the few movies with a Wikipedia entry

That's the summer. Should be one of the best in a long time. A few good sequels, a few funny comedies, and some mindless fun. Bring it.