The Big Stare

Primer (2004)

Primer is not on the list. I watched it anyway. Sometimes I am the kind of man who does these things.

The first thing I should say about Primer is that I understand Primer. OK? I do. I know what happens in Primer. But it was not clear to me immediately. I had to watch Primer once, then watch it again and pay close, close attention, and on the second watch I also had a plot synopsis to help me keep track of things. The first time you watch Primer, you will not understand what is going on, at all, after the first use of the word “failsafe”. Even if you’re paying attention. You will have a vague idea of what might be happening, but it is not clear. There are major plot points that are only alluded to, or that you have to infer from throwaway sentences. The thing is, what is actually happening is not THAT complex. It is made complex by the fact that the movie delivers information in half-sentences and muttered conversations which are sometimes difficult to hear. I call this “poor storytelling”.

I like Primer, but let’s not pretend that its complexity makes it somehow a “smart” movie. It is a labyrinthine one - a single, simple path made to look like a maze through twisting.

Minor update

Getting a bit behind on my film-watching what with work and stuff. Haven’t watched any more of the List, but I did watch The Man From Earth today and enjoyed it - might give a more detailed opinion later.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

This was on last night at midnight, right around when everybody had gone to bed, so I rearranged the lounge, put a big recliner in front of the TV, rested my netbook on one knee and a glass of wine on the other. Bliss.

I’ve always heard good things about L.A. Confidential and for some reason I’d built it up in my mind as a film that couldn’t possibly not be incredible. I think it’s something to do with the fact that it came out when I was ten or eleven and thus just starting to become a thinking person instead of a precocious-but-dribbly cake-disposal device, and it was the film that grown-ups were always talking about that I wasn’t allowed to watch. Combined with the Kim Basinger cleavage shot on the VHS box, I remember thinking that the movie must be positively pornographic in content. I dare say that if I’d seen it then, it would have been.

Instead, what it is is a really good film. I don’t have that much to say about it, but I enjoyed it. It didn’t completely grab me from the beginning - it has to establish all three main characters in different ways and the first half of the movie is a little jumpy and can be confusing. By the time the main plot is revealed, though, you’ve realised that it’s not the important part of the movie - it’s just there to give Spacey, Crowe and Pearce a frame to paint their characters in. Each one has an excellent arc of development capped by a powerful climactic scene - my particular favourite was Crowe’s. All three of the leads perform admirably, though, and the result is a film that’s as emotionally strong as it is violent. Really enjoyed it.

(I also got a kick out of seeing just how much the movie inspired the game L.A. Noire. Almost entirely.)

The Thing (2011) / Up (2009)

So, yeah. I was supposed to watch all of The Seventh Seal, and The Maltese Falcon, and The Hustler by now. That was my plan. That would have been three more movies off the list, but then I happened to get the opportunity to watch the Thing prequel/remake, so clearly anything else was right out the window.

I’d actually been avoiding reading critical consensus about the film, since I’m such a big fan of the original. I didn’t get the opportunity to see it at the cinema and had been waiting to get my hands on the Blu-ray, so I’d avoided the internet’s opinion in the vague hope that I’d go into it fresh and it would be just as good as my beloved 1982 Thing. Of course it was never going to approach Carpenter’s movie, I’m not a fool. But I wanted to believe that it would.

It’s not a BAD movie. I’ll say that for it. If it was a new franchise with nothing behind it it might even have been a good movie, something fresh and new and interesting. But it’s up against a real classic in the monster movie genre, and comparisons have to be drawn.

Not that the 2011 movie is shy about the comparison. It works as both a prequel and a remake, which is rather unusual. It’s set at the Norwegian base visited in Thing ‘82, a few days before the Thing itself infiltrates MacReady’s crew. We already know that the Norwegians were wiped out by The Thing once they discovered it, so the film gets to tell the exact same story in the same setting.

There are differences, of course. Thing ‘11 doesn’t begin at the Antarctic base - the main character, Kate, played well enough by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is a scientist working in America who is called out to the Antarctic base to investigate a mysterious discovery that the team leader, Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen), won’t discuss before Kate has seen it for herself. If that introductory premise sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the opening to at least three Michael Crichton books. It’s a slow, clichéd, bumbling start - very little happens for the first ten to fifteen minutes. Remember the introduction to Thing ‘82? The chess-computer scene that establishes’ MacReady’s character and motivations in just two wordless, well-filmed minutes? The helicopter dog chase that establishes the remoteness and isolation of the Antarctic bases? Garry killing the frantic Norwegian guy? Nothing so dramatic or thoughtful here. Everything is explained to the viewer directly while Kate is helicoptered to the Norwegian base.

Once the story does get going, it abandons the scarceness and subtlety that gave the original such a good build-up. In ‘82, the first hint of something being amiss is a lingering shot of a shadow on a wall - in 2011, Kate’s introduction to the Thing is when Dr. Halvorson leads her into a massive ice chamber containing an enormous CGI spaceship.

The CGI is perhaps one of the weakest parts of the film. The original used practical effects - models and perspective shots and trick photography and real, solid things covered in real goo. Hell, I don’t need to tell you how good they looked, the original is out there on DVD and Blu-ray, why don’t you already own it? When someone splits open to reveal a Thing in the new movie, it doesn’t look solid or real, it looks like a videogame. There’s a shot later in the movie where the CGI does genuinely enhance a shot and the result is rather creepy, but most of it doesn’t look that good at all.

So, the story’s not as good, the effects aren’t as good… what about the characters? Well, to put it bluntly, there aren’t any. There are too many people in the movie and no personalities between them. You’ve probably seen the Red Letter Media reviews of the Star Wars prequel trilogy where he asks a bunch of people to describe the personalities of characters without referring to their jobs - you can do the same here. Alright, not as many people are familiar with The Thing as they are with Star Wars, but for those of you who do rewatch the Carpenter movie as often as I do, when I name characters - MacReady, Blair, Windows, Palmer - you get a specific image and perception of each one, right? They’re all well defined characters. Thing ‘11 does not manage this. You can describe Halvorson as being “a bit grouchy”, and then there are about eight other interchangable bearded Norwegians, whose names I don’t remember, and Kate, and another lady who dies pretty early on.

Even Kate, ostensibly the main character, brings no specific personality traits to the movie - she’s just there. Remember when we found out how strong MacReady’s will to survive was when he broke back into the base and held everybody up with a stick of dynamite? Nothing like that happens with Kate. Her claim on “protagonist” is shaky at best. She’s the one who makes the big speech about how they have to stop the Thing or it’ll kill millions, and she suggests the film’s equivalent of Thing ‘82’s hot wire test, but she never takes command or makes decisions in the way that Kurt Russell did. (In fairness, this movie’s version of the wire test is ingenious and one of the tensest and best scenes in the film).

I’m sure I’m not the only one to make this observation, but it’s terrifically ironic that this movie is simply an inferior imitation of the original. It’s worth a watch, especially if you’re a fan of the original, but it’s not a good film. As the opening foreshadows, this is The Thing, but written by Crichton - overblown and flabby. But it’s done with great respect for the original and so I don’t outright hate it - it just doesn’t really deserve to be tied in with Carpenter’s tense, thrilling masterpiece.

***

I’m not going to critique Up, I’m just mentioning it because I got it on Blu-ray today and watched it instead of a movie from the list. I thought it was good. Not outstanding, mind.

Content restored!

Well, that was weird - tumblr suspended my account last night, seemingly by accident. They have now kindly restored it, so there will be some new stuff today.

In other news I couldn’t resist getting myself a .com - so professional.