Olympus Has Fallen
Take the recent Gerard Butler Ass-Kicking-Fest "Olympus Has Fallen." It's about a secret service operative who has a scar in his past that he has struggled to get over, yet he is thrust into a situation where he is the only person standing between the bad guys and the annihilation of the United States.
Let's get this out of the way right now. This movie is terrible. The only -- and I mean ONLY -- redeeming factor in this movie is that Gerard Butler beats the ever-living shit out of some folks. But they seriously could have just cut the rest of the movie out and let us watch Butler knife, punch, and shoot his way through the White House and I would have been happy. But no, they had to ruin it by trying to make some semblance of a story.
First of all, if one retro-fitted cargo plane can take down three F-22 Raptors, and kill hundreds of people as it circles D.C., then we are in serious trouble. Honestly, other than the fact that they look badass, what good are F-22s if they get wrecked by a pelican from the 90s? I love that North Koreans are initially blamed for this whole operation, but then the movie stealthily gets away from any "official" North Korean knowledge. It's like "hey we want you all to hate North Korea, but we don't want to be blamed if something goes down between our two countries." I'll hand it to them, considering how ham-fisted the rest of the movie was, that was a nice little bit of maneuvering.
I'm shocked at the caliber of talent that agreed to take part in this pile of crap. Aaron Ekhart? Morgan Freeman? I get Gerard... I mean if you told me I got to play a secret-service badass who beats the crap out of everyone, I'd be in that movie no matter how bad it was. But these are top-notch actors playing roles that would be better suited for, oh I dunno, Michael Ironside maybe? The dialogue was absolutely horrible. I'll never forget one exchange between a group of soldiers standing outside the White House:
Soldier: "Sir we're ready to move in with our forces right now!"
Commander: "Okay but not until I give the order!"
Soldier: "Yes Sir!"
Now in plain text, that looks pretty harmless I'll admit... but it was the most stilted, painfully awkward exchange I have EVER heard in a movie. And I've seen a lot of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. It's like they found two chumps on the street, slapped uniforms on them, and fed them lines from just off camera.
They couldn't even get real military gear to help them with this movie. If nothing else, this could have been a nice sales piece for the military, showing off their fancy new hardware and letting us watch as the incredible White House Defense System shredded everyone and everything. But no, they had to CGI all of the military hardware, except for the beat up old trucks that they used to transport in the troops. Maybe some of the technology was "classified" (i.e. fake), but still, come on guys.
Now to the WORST part about this movie. In a rare turn of events, I decided to watch this one in theaters. I'm always a little on the fence about that, preferring to watch movies at home whenever possible... but I decided what the hell I'll give it a shot. I'm glad I did, because it was a mind-blowingly disturbing look at where our society is today. Forget the fact that the theater was jam-packed with everything from fat people, to little kids, to groups that look like they came out of the woods to check out the fancy technology civilization had developed. Forget the fact that all of them (and I) were duped out of 12 bucks to watch a piece of crap. What really shook me was the way the audience as a whole reacted to this movie. The guy directly in front of me was particularly vocal, so I'll use him as an example.
1) The North Koreans punch the President: "uh uh! UH UH!"
2) Butler stabs a North Korean in the throat: "YEAH! Get that bastard!"
3) The President makes a bold move assuring everyone they will never get his code: "That's RIGHT!"
Again, I'm writing this and seeing that there's something lost in the translation. But my point is, this was the most emotionally involved crowd I have ever seen in my life. Literally thousands of people were brutally killed in this movie, and it was a TERRIBLE movie, and yet the crowd was totally into it! They cheered when Butler killed North Koreans, they shouted when the North Koreans killed Americans, it's like they were watching something real unfold.
And that's when it hit me. This country, our society, is ready for war with North Korea. It appeared that nothing brought them more pleasure than watching us beat the crap out of their little strike team. I've seen a lot of action movies... a lot of action movies about war... and I've never seen an audience so into the idea.
So this terrible, awkward, ridiculous movie, was actually a positive experience for me. It opened my eyes to the state of our union right now, as it stands with North Korea anyway. Of course there's a pretty big margin of error, and this was certainly not a scientific poll. Maybe I'm just grasping at straws, trying to justify how I could have spent 12 bucks on such a terrible, awful, waste of my time.
Samsara
The IMDB description for this movie says it was filmed over about five years in a bunch of different countries. The whole thing was shot on 70mm film, which I understand to mean it is shot at a higher resolution than your average movie. I believe it. If you have a badass TV, this is a great way to show it off.
The visuals in this movie are absolutely stunning. The music is stirring. There is no VO track. No real "story." At its core, it's just a collection of random, beautiful shots. But there is a story weaved in there, as certain shots definitely lead to others and an overall message and theme starts to develop. But the visuals are what really sell it here. I consider my TV to be pretty awesome, and I only saw one or two shots where the noise in the dark areas became apparent. And seriously it was probably the blu-ray compression more than the movie itself.
I do, of course, have a couple of complaints. This movie does get repetitive. I understand that the film makers were most likely trying to bring things home by showing us some of the same stuff they'd shown us before, but when there is no defined story it can get to a point where, as a viewer, you're like "seen it." Also, because there was no defined story, I honestly found myself forgetting what I had just seen. The movie assaults your brain, and while that is good, I do think they would have benefitted from some kind of break-up in the action... something that works as a change-over for us. But that's debatable... there's definitely something to be said for the pure form that they went with. No story, just the world.
The worst part though is the mechanic of having people stare longingly, frozen, right into the camera. It works well in some instances, like when we see a poor little girl who has been rummaging through garbage, turn and look at us. Look through us. But after 10 or 11 times, that concept gets a bit stilted. The worst one for me was when we had a family standing in their garage, each of them holding a gun, and the little girl holding a rifle with a pink stock. For literally one solid minute they just stand there, staring into the camera. I don't get it. I mean I get what they were going for, but that felt like wasted time.
This movie, like "Olympus," transcended the movie itself and moved me. Though while "Olympus" moved me to ask for a refund, this film moved me to really think about the world. On the one hand it made me feel very small, like what in the hell is my life worth when this is all going on around us? On the other hand it was an awesome way to look at the world, most of which I will probably never see otherwise.
I'll probably pick this movie up just so I have something to play in the TV during the next party. That is, of course, if we're not having a mad dance-off.
I leave you with this.
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