Maleficent - A Not So Jolly Tale

Maleficent has been out for some time in several territories, but I just had the chance to see it, and I have words to write.

When I first heard of Maleficent some years ago I didn't think much of it. We were in the middle of a fairy tale wave of blockbusters. Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Cinderella were all set to get big-budget busters of their own, and Maleficent just fell into the cracks of my attention span. Stuck there till Disney's aggressive marketing plan brought it back into my attention.
     Still it wasn't anything I was overly eager about. The trailers made it seem like most live-action fairy tale films of recent years, and I had never been particularly into Sleeping Beauty as a child - I was more of a Lion King and Aladdin kind of boy - meaning that I didn't really know who Maleficent was. I recognised her from her cartoon form, sure, but I didn't really know who she was apart from "evil, magic queen". I honestly expected it to do fairly poorly in the box office, I never heard anyone really talk about it, or express any interest in watching it.
     People did go and watch it, however. It easily won its premiere weekend with $50 million+ more than its only other real premiering competition that weekend. And $30 million+ over the second place which went to the giant hit X-Men: Days of Future Past which was only on its second weekend at the time. By the end of the week it had earned half its budget back in the US alone, with the foreign market easily securing it a profit. Disney knew what they were doing all along, and a film based on a familiar tale was all people really wanted that weekend. They knew the story, they knew Angelina Jolie, and that was good enough. Critics went out in droves telling the public "eh, it's alright, I guess", and that was good enough.

The film itself, I have to say, was indeed alright. The premise and characters were a lot more interesting than I thought they would be. The way they portray magic is particularly fascinating and actually kind of cool. It's all very casual and matter-of-fact, the way you could expect it to be for people who live with magic all their lives. There's no intense stares, or loud shouting, every time a magical act is performed. It just gets done.
     Maleficent herself starts of feeling kind of distant and two-dimensional, but as the film develops she does too. Making her more relatable and fleshed-out as times goes on. Even during her inevitable time as a rather cold and evil queen you can relate to her. You never question why she feels the way she does, or even really why she does what she does. Even though you won't agree with her on everything she does, it makes sense given what has happened to her. It doesn't really matter whether she's good or evil, she is a person.
     Due to the nature of the story some things feel rather odd, however. The entirety of the story takes course over several decades. Spanning from Maleficent's childhood, all the way until the child of her childhood sweetheart reaches the same age Maleficent was at the beginning. Cramming all those years into just above 90 minutes makes it feel a lot like a really long and oddly cut montage sequence. Times and locations changes frequently, but the characters mostly always look the same, making you question whether or not it is actually a different time. Towards the end they manage to keep it all within a relative short time-span, but it's too late to be saved. It's almost like hitting a wall when a montage suddenly stops after an hour, you start wondering how long ago some events were and how long it is till others events will happen. It becomes a mess, unfortunately.
     Fortunately the acting was strong on Jolie's part. She managed to make the different eras of Maleficent to feel slightly different, though it was far from enough. It didn't feel like I was watching Jolie at all, she felt like Maleficent throughout the film. Which was, honestly, a bit surprising. Angelina Jolie is a solid actress, but I did not expect her to bring any real acting chops to a film of this caliber. I was fully prepared for a decent-enough performance, just enough to make it feel like a film, but she really did put effort into it. Fanning, however, was less good. Which was also surprising to me. She's been rather good in the past, especially in Super 8 and We Bought a Zoo. Being an up and coming young actress I expected her to bring the best she had in one of the bigger films she's been in, but no. I felt like I was watching Fanning being a character. She felt lost and misplaced in the time and place of the film, not really fitting in with the universe at all. And that wasn't because of costume design, make-up, or anything like that. She just didn't act like she belonged. Maybe it was intentional, what do I know, but it didn't work.

All in all the film is an astounding "alright". It's not something worth watching at the cinema, at best it's the type of film you wait for to hit Netflix so you can watch it at no extra cost.
     Perfectly fine entertainment. Some great parts, some good parts, some parts that just doesn't fit.

Will "How I Met Your Mother" "Last Forever"? [Spoiler levels: High]

"How I Met Your Mother" ended its nine-year run this week, but could its finale hold up to the nine previous years?

"How I Met Your Mother" may have often been in the shadow of the more successful Chuck Lorre sitcoms "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory", but it has garnered its own decently sized fan base due a lot to it being part of a very rare breed. A sitcom with a goal. Most sitcoms don't have goals, they tend to just come in at a moment in someone's life and exit at another. "How I Met Your Mother" had a goal from the first time you even heard of it, it's the story of how Ted, the narrator, met his kids' mother. This has lead to the show becoming a mix of soap opera and situation comedy, because we know there is going to be some emotional endpoint of a character finding his future children's mother, the viewer is invited to dive deeper into the everyday interactions of the characters and speculate on what might happen next, and who everyone will turn out to be. This whole effect is magnified by the fact that this is all a story told by the main character. When you realise that this is all just a story told by a man you start to question everything. Why would he say this thing? Why would he share that with his kids? The fact it is shown time and time again that Ted's memory isn't top-notch (and who can blame him, he's telling stories of his everyday life that happened 25-16 years ago) tells us that even though one thing is said, it doesn't necessarily make it true. This has all made the show a casual watercooler. Unlike shows like "LOST" where there's a giant new mystery every week to be discussed, "How I Met Your Mother" offers weekly tidbits with evidence of a grander mystery sprinkled in.

The characters on the show also undergo somewhat more significant changes than most sitcom characters these days do. Lily and Marshall start out as a young, fanatically in love couple who can't wait to get married, and end up as an oldish married couple who everyone looks to for advice. Barney starts off as a womanizing forever-bachelor, and by the end he's proven that he can be in a committed relationship and give up on his old ways. Robin starts as a woman ready to see the world, and too busy to look for anyone to see it with, she ends up getting married. They aren't huge, unpredictable changes, but it's more changes than "Seinfeld", "Two and a Half Men" or "The King of Queens" can offer. It shows life actually happening. It isn't trapped in some undefined year in a familiar time period, it evolves quite organically and you find yourself changing with them. This is perhaps the main reason I am so unhappy with the series finale.

We spend 22 episodes going through almost every minute of Barney and Robin's wedding weekend. We are taught again and again that Ted has let go of Robin, and that Robin and Barney are a really great couple that deserves to be together. It's smashed into our heads as we're been spoon fed how great Ted and the Mother's relationship is going to be once they meet. It seems as though the entire season is leading up to a fantastic wedding reception, and we'll finally get the pay-offs we've been waiting for so long. Not only are Barney and Robin getting married, Ted is going to meet the love of his life. And what happens? Five minutes into episode number 23 we learn that Barney and Robin divorces three years into the future. We're told over the next fifteen minutes the story of how the gang slowly drifted apart, how the divorce tore the group apart, and how amazing Ted and the Mother are together. Barney has completely reverted to his old self. He's deep into his 40s and he's sleeping with girls half his age, drinking every night, and still talking about how legendary everything is. Robin is almost never seen again. Her job as a reporter takes her around the world, and when she's in town she finds it to difficult to be around Barney and Ted. Marshall and Lily are really the only anchor to what the show was about.

I get it, life changes, friends don't stay friends forever. But when you build up an entire season around the wedding of two characters, it's kind of a weird move to tear that entire season apart in its last episode. It is a perfectly legit outcome, however, we've even seen it happen before in the show. Barney and Robin just aren't good for each other, but the execution leaves everything to be desired.
The thing that both makes the most sense, and is the most annoying, is that Ted and Robin end up together. The Mother (whose name is Tracy, if you care) gets some illness and dies in some off-camera scene. The kids, after Ted finally finishing the story, notes how little the story was about their mom, and how much it was about Robin. They encourage their dad to ask "aunt Robin" out. "Come on, Dad. Mom's been dead for six years. Just call her." Again, perfectly fine outcome, horrible execution. We've just spent an entire show learning that Ted and Robin aren't right for each other, the entire last season is about Ted letting go of Robin, and then they suddenly end up together at the end? I know there is a 16-year gap between the wedding, and Ted and Robin getting back together, but they told those 16 years in a little over 40 minutes.

In the end we're left with the knowledge that nothing really changes. Lily and Marshal are a couple in love. Barney is a womanizing forever-bachelor (oh, but he's got a kid now). Ted is hopelessly in love with Robin. And Robin, she's finally ready to settle down with Ted. It leaves so much to be desired, and I think the main reason is the very reason that makes this show stand out from the rest. We've been following a goal for nine seasons. Nine years we've been waiting for the last episode. The episode when he finally meets the Mother. Of course it's not going to live up to everyone expectations, everyone has developed different ideas and meanings around the show. What it means, what it's trying to achieve, what is going to happen. We know that this was always supposed to be the outcome. The kids filmed their final scene at the end of the first season, the creators wrote the first draft of the final episode during the first season, this was always meant to be. But I think they got carried away with what they had to put in the middle. The last season seems poorly thought out, and is constructed in a way so you can't notice until the very last episode. It's as if they've spent an entire season trying to set us up for a different ending just so that the "twist" is more effective, and unfortunately it just didn't work. I watched an older episode of "How I Met Your Mother" a few hours after the finale. Knowing how it was going to end actually made me enjoy the episode less. I knew that there were going to be multiple seasons of misdirection and intrigue that would end flatly in a mess of a finale. It felt tainted.

So back to the titular question. Will "How I Met Your Mother" last forever? Will it last at all? I don't think so. I think the show is too defined by its finale. By its goal. We still talk about "Friends" and "Seinfeld" because they don't complicate things with giant story arcs. They're just slices of life that begin at one point in someone's lives, and end at another. Much like "LOST", I think, "How I Met Your Mother" will be tried copied for a few years, talked about every fall when the new sitcoms come, but eventually, just die off. Probably a lot quicker than we'd think. Maybe at some point in the future, some of our kids or grandkids will happen to catch a rerun on some beat-up old cable network. Maybe we'll sit down and reminisce, but it will never be quite the same. It will never be quite our show again.

Pacific Rim - Newt and Han: Super Drift [Spoiler level: Low, but cautious)

I know a lot of my audience probably already have seen Pacific Rim (you lucky bastards), but it just premiered in Norway yesterday so here are my thoughts.

Pacific Rim was one of those films that debuted in the USA long before any other part of the world, personally I had to endure three weeks of tweets telling me how awesome the film was, and how important it was. Because of this, I actually started to have low expectations, having been hyped up for so long it's pretty hard expect those hypes to be met, but boy, was I wrong.

First of all, Pacific Rim, yes, it was hyped out beyond compare, at least for me. Few of the tweets I've seen have reflected the same enthusiasm I had for the film, and that's kind of sad. It's sad that when a huge film market gets a film before the rest of the world and all the rest of the world hears is how amazing it was. We live in the information age, it's all but impossible to not hear news about this kind of tentpole if you're in the scene, or at least vaguely paying attention to it. On the positive side, however, it might have brought a bigger international market to the film. All those film buffs in the US who watched the film spread the word to film buffs in other countries, and they spread the word to their friends. We knew people had watched it and liked it, not like in the US were people was just hoping it would be good. It's amazing how much better and more convincing a "I heard this guy really liked it" is than a "from what I've heard of what's leaked it could be pretty good". All I know is that all the theatres at my local cinema that screened Pacific Rim were full. I've attended my share of screenings at that cinema, and I did not at all expect that kind of a turn out for this type of film on a Friday night with thirty degrees in the air (that's a lot where I'm from, I mean, a lot).

For the first few minutes of the film, I have to admit, I wasn't very impressed. It seemed to be just another run-of-the-mill, cliché action film. All of the praise I had heard, I just couldn't see where it came from. But the more the film went on, the more I got it. I think maybe what made it so ordinary in the beginning is that they begin with an origin story, and I am really starting to get sick of origin stories. Personally I think this film would've been better off with just bypassing that entirely and feed the needed information to the public gradually when they need it. The main character, Raleigh, starts off the film with his brother. They fight a kaiju (the monsters) and the brother winds up dead. This is what's going to work as Raleigh's trouble and misunderstandings for the rest of the film, and it really didn't have to be shown. In fact, I think it would've worked better if we didn't know about it at all. Make Raleigh a bit more mysterious and interesting, because as he is right now he's one of the most forgettable and unlovable main-characters I've ever seen in a film.

Throughout the film Raleigh proves again and again that he's just another action hero, he's not a real character with any significant depth. He spends his time either fighting, loving or saving. To be frank, there were points in the film were I actually forgot he existed. And that brings me to another point. In the set-up of the film, the period that's supposed to tell you what to expect from the rest of the story and how the film works, is more or less completely centred around Raleigh. Making it seem like the film is supposed to centre around him, he's the main character and we're supposed to root for him. However, fairly quickly after the set-up we start to drift away from him. We start exploring other characters and actions unrelated to Raleigh's. This isn't in itself a bad thing, but because they've set it up for me to expect to follow Raleigh every step of the way it's kind of confusing. It makes Raleigh even less of a likable protagonist, because honestly, most of the other characters we explore are tenfolds more interesting and lovable than he himself is. 

And that brings me to the parts that I really loved about the film. The monster fighting is great and all, but what's really interesting (to me at least) was the way society outside of the jaegar program worked. Newton and Hannibal are perhaps the two most well done characters of their class I've ever seen. Every second of them on-screen were pure bliss to me, and I can already imagine a potential sequel revolving around either or both of them (Hannibal in particular). Newton seems at first to be a really standard, geeky scientist, the must-have of any sci-fi blockbuster these days. But the way he evolves throughout the film is just amazing, all the things he is willing to do - not just because he wants to save the world, but because he just loves doing them - is inspiring. He seems much more real than most of the other characters. The jaegar guys are too shallow, they are all about defending the Earth at what ever cost, and we know little to nothing about any of them. And what we do know, just reinforces how badass and military they are. They don't feel like real people to me, and that's a shame. Hannibal is an example of how they should have done badass and military. Even though he is a bad guy he is more likable and relateable than any of the robot jocks. He dares to show his real self, he isn't just about selling black market items, he cares for himself and have real-world worries. 

I think it speaks mountains when I can tell you, right now, that even though I can barely remember a single main-character, the two characters of Newton and Hannibal - on their own - make me love this film. If I could have talked to Travis or Guillermo before they made this I would tell them this: "Please, let Newton and Hannibal be the main focus. You can have the jockeys there still, but make them less important, let them be the tools of Newton and Hannibal, not the other way around." But I fear, if they did that, the film would have been too awesome for anyone to have ever survived a screening. 

So yeah, after all of that bashing on shallow characters, and that the monster fighting wasn't really my main love - it was just filled with weird choices (seriously, if the swords were that effective, why the hell didn't they use them all the time before?) - I sit here and I dare to tell you to go watch this film. It is amazing. I don't think it's stretching it too far to say that this is this generation's Jurassic Park. It is without a doubt the most fun I've had at a cinema this entire year, and I can't wait to go watch it again.

The Wolverine - Watcher of Man

People keep saying that Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, but no actor is a character like Hugh Jackman absolutely is James Howlett.

Hugh Jackman has portrayed the Wolverine in six films (seven as of next year's release of Days of Future Past) since the year 2000. I read somewhere that that's a record for a superhero character, but even if it isn't that's a pretty decent run. The original X-Men film was what got me into live-action superhero films to begin with so long ago, and the Wolverine has followed me ever since. It's funny, because I can't say that the Wolverine has been one of my favourite superheroes for that long. In the beginning he was more like a watcher, he was always there, always watching over man and the films. I knew of him, but he never really stood out. I can't pinpoint a moment where that changed, but somewhere over the last thirteen years it did, and the Wolverine began to be one of my highlights in superhero films.

Many people despised X-Men Origins: The Wolverine, the film that was set to launch an entire new series of X-Men films for Fox. So much they despised it, that four years later no other film in the series has dared emerged, and instead a new series was started to wash away the foul taste that was Origins. I, on the other hand, never had much trouble with the film. I thought it was good fun, and I kept waiting for other films to follow. Back in late 2009 or 2010 I heard about an entirely new film, simply called The Wolverine. Its title alone suggested that it wanted to erase the previous Wolverine centric film, which most referred to as just The Wolverine. I was wary at first, in the early days it sounded like they wanted to reboot the character to an extent. Erasing past events and putting in new as they saw fit, and the wariness never completely faded.

I was never really looking forward to The Wolverine as I've been with many other superhero films, it was more of a piece of knowledge in the back of my head that knew it was coming and that I wanted to see it when the time was here. Then all of a sudden I received an e-mail from my local cinema that tickets now were available for purchase. I was quick to jump online and reserve my seat, quicker than I had thought I would be. Finally there was but only a week till I could watch the film. The knowledge in the back of my head spurt forward and my eagerness grew each day. It was like all the desire to watch it came out at once, it had hidden for so many years but could not wait a second longer. And it was a week of torture as I waited for the screening.

Today finally came, and little over four hours ago I got in my car and headed for the cinema. On my way I kept going over all of the X-Men films in my head. Both the ones I had loved, and the ones... I had loved less. I couldn't make up my mind of what exactly I thought this film would be, or even what I wanted it to be, I just wanted to see it for myself. And I have to say, whatever my expectations were, they were not disappointed.

I left the cinema with a feeling of relief. They had managed to make a really good Wolverine centric film, sure Origins was fun, but this was a genuinely good film. I'm sure there are people out there right now screaming at me, saying that it wasn't good, but I don't care. In my eyes this was good.

Almost every film featuring the Wolverine to this point has been centred around his origins, figuring out where he came from and why he is like he is. And that's why this film is so refreshing, it's about Logan as he is now. It's his present and he's trying to figure out what he wants to be, not what he used to be. Before you shout your eyes out, yes, there were flashbacks, and Logan did reminisce over old times. But it wasn't the same as before. It used to be that the whole idea of Logan was his past, he's old, he's lived through a lot of things, and he remembered little of it. But now he knows who he was, he doesn't care about the past, it's the future that worries him now.

The film has everything you'd want and expect from a Wolverine film. We have Logan running around being badass, kicking people's asses using both his claws and wits. We have the occasional burst of anger, revealing the real beast that is beneath him everyday. And we have the ongoing signs of compassion and love, showing that even though he is more animal than most, he still loves and cares for others. There is one point in the film that shows this that I particularly liked, it's not really a spoiler, so you should be fine. We have Logan out on a balcony, and a vision of Jean appears. Logan has just been running from the yakuza, saving a woman who's being chased. Jean says: "I thought you were done being a hero." Logan simply replies with: "She was in trouble."
That one line is probably my favourite line out of all of the X-Men films, the very sentiment that lays beneath it. Even though he didn't want any part of heroics, he saw someone in trouble and didn't think other thoughts than to help them.

I think The Wolverine is the best superhero film of the year so far, and in my opinion one of the better ones ever made, period. But don't let my words and thoughts mean everything to you, just go out and watch it. You might hate it, you might love it. All I know, is that I loved it.

Back-up: White Pig - Mmmm, Bacon

I've gotten more and more into Kickstarter and Indiegogo lately, probably mostly thanks to Iron Sky and its crowdfunding endeavors. There's something about seeing projects you like and give them your personal green light, and I know I'm far from the only one. Veronica Mars's campaign for a film tore Kickstarter's roof off, and Zach Braff's Wish I Was Here did tremendously well right after. It seems that right now we are at a state where everyone knows about crowdfunding, and a lot of us are actively contributing.

Right now projects for films are basically just pre-sales for DVDs and posters, you put in X amount of money and receive items that will later sell at X-1 amount of money. At the campaign they have to up the price, because the DVDs and posters are just perk. You're supposed to pay for the film to be made at all, and that's where the main problem lays. The project runners have to really think through their campaigns or everything can be ruined, it's more or less a full-time job just making sure the campaign runs smoothly and everyone gets what they need. The smaller guys who are doing it all on their own can end up burnt out before even starting to produce what the campaign promised. Even the bigger guys run into this, just look at the recent Double Fine Kickstarter, they got two and a half million dollars more than what they asked for, and they just didn't know what to do with the money. Now they're having to release half the game, sell that to the general public and use the profits off of that to deliver on the promises they made to their backers. It's no easy task.

This will be a new irregular series of blog posts to give you a break from my film reactions, where I show you various film projects in need of funding that to me look interesting and worthy of you contribution. I will put a disclaimer here right away, I may not personally back all of these projects financially (I'd end up broke quicker than the Flash can run to Sweden) but they will be projects that I do believe should be made. The first film on my list is a Danish project on Indiegogo called White Pig.

White Pig is coming from director David Noel Bourke who's previously directed No Right Turn which got critical acclaim both in its homeland Denmark and internationally. With White Pig he wants to tell the story of a racist murderer and the police woman who is trying to track him down. On the surface it seems like a really standard story, one that we've seen many times before, and that was my initial thought as well. But upon further inspection it seems like he's trying to do something different with this.

I've always believed that every story has been told, it's up to storytellers to tell them more interestingly and in a different way, and that really seems to be the case here. It seems like they are really trying to convey what racism really is. What it means and how it feels. It's not the generic "racism is bad, m'kay", they're taking a real racist, putting him through trials and want us to understand him. Remember now, understand and agree are two completely different things, I do not believe they're trying to promote racism as a good thing. They're trying to make us think about it again. I feel that in many places, at least here in Scandinavia, racism isn't much of a discussion topic anymore. Even though it happens all the time. Everyone wants to believe that everything is fine and that if you do not poke at your scab nothing bad will happen. Unlike a scab, however, racism isn't a thing that's just going to fall off when it's good and ready. We have to actively poke it, stir it and think about it. Action is a result of thinking, we cannot do anything about anything before we think about it.

The reason this film is on Indiegogo and didn't just go through "the normal channels" is more or less the reason everyone else is doing it, they want more creative control. They have already gone to studios with the films, and there has been interest, it's just that they want to cut out a lot of violence and language that will hurt the message it's trying to tell, it'd probably just end up like any other cop-murderer-chase film.


White Pig Movie MOOD TEASER from david noel bourke on Vimeo .
Even in the mood teaser seen above they start throwing around offensive words, words that I myself am uncomfortable saying, and really violent imagery. It just reinforces my thoughts that they're wanting to share what goes through such an extreme racist's mind.

Now here comes the part that's really great, and something I've seen rarely mentioned even in the aftermaths of big-time campaigns, White Pig has gotten an international distributor ready to sign on. Angel Scandinavia has agreed to distribute the film on what seems to be just one condition (at least what's made public) and that is that the Indiegogo campaign gets 60 backers. They are currently at 47 so that's just 13 more and there is a guaranteed international distribution. There will also be a local cinema release which's extent I'm uncertain of, probably contained to some cinemas in Copenhagen, Denmark. With this information the project managers are promising to complete the film no matter what, even if they do not hit their funding goal (on Indiegogo you don't have to hit the goal to receive funds).

So come one, come all, for just ten euros (roughly thirteen US dollars) you can get your own digital download of the film estimated to be distributed by April of 2014. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go throw some money at my screen and see what happens.

Indiegogo page
Facebook page
Director's twitter