British readers, help me out here: It’s been my impression that Margaret Thatcher at this point is really only still lionized by the American right-wing; and that her “legacy” isn’t looked upon favorably by anything approaching a majority of her own country. Yes? No?

I mean, is there ANY market for what appears to be a gauzy, mostly-favorable biopic boiling Thatcher down to a “tuff broad takes on the Boys Club” story? Or is this another “British” movie only Americans (well, American AMPAAS-voters) will care about?

“Hunger Games” – which is basically a U.S./European version of “Battle Royale,” which was in turn a Japanese-schoolchildren version of “The Running Man,” which was in turn a Reaganomics-era “Rollerball” – now has a trailer, embedded below.

Pro-tip: You do NOT want to be eating or drinking anything around the 1:53 mark…

Seriously; what the FUCK is up with Wes Bentley’s beard??

Okay, so I’m the LAST possible person who should be giving anything but the benefit of the doubt to adaptations of niche properties with fiercely-devoted fans; but while I’m sure the various flashes of characters, names, banners, logos, outfits, distinguishing-hairstyles etc. is all “ooh! it’s _______!” for HG fans… I’m sorry, this looks pretty underwhelming as a movie. ::ducks::

I’ve not yet read the series myself, so I don’t know whether to blame the material or filmmakers first for this. Are the descriptions of the “futuristic” society in the book ALSO as bland, cheap and “generic dystopia” as they appear here?

This is, of course, another adaptation greenlit largely because someone has mistaken a passionate online fanbase (which means deceptively-MASSIVE traffic numbers) for genuine overall interest… the books sell well, but not “Twilight” or “DaVinci Code” well. Sometimes that kind of thinking works out – in the greater-good “a great movie gets made” sense, certainly not in the financial sense – and we get a “Scott Pilgrim” or a “Watchmen” out of the deal. This does not (so far) look like one of those times.

It’s good.

“Intermission” has arty action movies.

Tim Burton’s incredibly shitty “Alice in Wonderland” made a shit ton of money, so someone in Hollywood decided that “dark fairy tale” was the next big trend; so now we’ve got two TV shows running with the “fairytale people hiding in modern world” concept, and next year there’ll be two seperate live-action “epic fantasy” re-dos of Snow White.

Below, the trailer for the first one – “Snow White & The Huntsman” – (the other is Tarsem Singh’s “Mirror Mirror,”) which doesn’t seem to feature even one Dwarf but DOES feature Charlize Theron as The Wicked Queen, Chris Hemsworth as Thor But With An Axe Instead and Kristen Stewart as the (functionally mute?) title character. It looks, shockingly, not horrible…

What can I say? Recasting the Wicked Queen as a high-fantasy shine on Elizabeth Bathory  (I’m literally astonished they were able to resist making her a straight-up vampire) is kind of inspired, the bald-faced LOTR-knockoff aesthetic works and I kind of love that the “X-TREEEEEEME!” version of The Magic Mirror is essentially a medieval T-1000.

Also, let’s not be coy; Theron looks amazing. In fact – and there’s just no way to say this without sounding mean, but it’s true – the least plausible thing in this swords/sorcery/monster/fantasy is the idea that Charlize Theron is grousing around the palace jealous of Kristen Stewart’s (or anyone else’s, really) looks.

…Just what the FUCK are people rioting about at Penn State? I mean, yes – I know that they’re ostensibly there because coach Joe Paterno was (justly) shitcanned after it came to light that he (and, apparently, what seems like the entire governing aparatus of the school AND the state) covered up multiple cases of child-rape over a period of several decades… but WHY the rioting? How can any thinking human possibly look at this scenario and be angry about about anything other than the fact that he didn’t get the axe sooner?

I mean, I can almost understand why people wanted to go head-in-sand-denial when the Catholic Priest abuse scandals started to break – almost. After all, if you take religion at all seriously there’s this kind of mystic “human representative of God” aura attached to The Clergy; so I get why that might’ve been a hurdle for some people.

But this guy? He’s not a priest, or some kind of world-leader, or great civic figure, or uber-important doctor or engineer or something… he’s just a fucking College Football coach – even without the child-rape scandal, his having or not having a job is literally the least important thing you could POSSIBLY pick to riot about. What the HELL is wrong with people?

Look… the most important thing – the ONLY important thing – is getting justice for the victims here… but if anything else can be taken away from this monstrosity; maybe it should be that the disgraceful lack of perspective being shown by the Penn State rioters is one of the clearest examples EVER of the shameful over-importance placed on the bloated, funding-sucking, resource-diverting institution of College Football. You want a picture of everything wrong with America? Look at these riots, look at what they’re rioting FOR… and then look at how much is SPENT on what they’re rioting for versus everything else at what are supposed to be institutions of Higher Learning.

The continuing buzz I’ve heard on Tarsem’s “Immortals” – which I’ve not seen yet – is that the trailers are unable to capture it’s real selling point: namely, that it’s excessively violent enough to the point of out-goring “300.” Here’s a newly-released clip (hat tip to io9) of the Gods (gold guys) versus the Titans (gray guys) that seems to suggest what we’re in for…

Wait… is that… is that… COMPOSITION!? And… and a… CAMERA TRIPOD!!?? In a FIGHT SCENE!? What a novel approach 🙂

Below, the trailer for “Gyakuten Saiban” – known to Western gamers as “Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney” – directed by the legendary Takeshi Miike…

I’ve said it for years: Adapt the games that have their own wholly unique aesthetic and put it in the hands of filmmakers who “get it.” If I’m to be proven right, all the better that it be by Miike.

It goes without saying that anyone who’s reading/watching me should also be reading Drew McWeeny, once known as AICN’s “Moriarty,” one of the men responsible for “inventing” this ridiculous profession of mine. Drew is a living legend among “film geek” personalities – a onetime video store clerk who became part of the first wave of “name” writers to emerge from the nerd-gossip-site pack; went on to write screenplays for John Carpenter (among others) and has now settled into a star-columnist role at HitFix; where he still finds time to remind everyone why he broke out in the first place.

This is one of those times.

Presently, McWeeny is married with two young sons, and he’s been writing up his experiences in sharing classic movies with the boys in a series of columns called “Film Nerd 2.0.” It’s always been a good read; but when he decided to start introducing them to the “Star Wars” films it became something else entirely – a series of six thoughtful, moving, excellent pieces that now comprise what I think is easily the definitive “Decade Later” look at “Star Wars” post-prequels and post-special edition.

Thus far, every appraisal of “later day” Star Wars has mainly been about older fans being disillusioned or dissapointed about Lucas, alterations and the series in general… and after awhile, it’s all become rather irritating. The backlash during “Phantom Menace” was one thing – that what was always going to be a letdown on some level wound up being in fact a pretty lackluster movie overall touched off a combination of delayed-reaction rage (“Wow… I’m really NOT ten years-old anymore. Damn it.”) and nerd-nitpick feeding-frenzy that has for good or ill (mostly ill) defined the fan/filmmaker relationship to this day.

Frankly, it got out of hand quickly and it’s endurance at this point is kind of sad. Yes, I was as impressed as anyone with Mr. Plinkett’s tenacity and attention to detail… but to be honest the REAL value of that series is that it’s a TON of really good filmmaking/storytelling advice structured around the review of a movie everyone has seen… as yet another excuse to pass around the bile-bucket and spew about Lucas “raping your childhood?” Guys… it’s time to give it a rest. And it’s sort of fitting that THIS new appraisal comes from McWeeny, whose original semi-negative review of Phantom Menace as “Moriarty” was a major touchstone of the “wait… a Star Wars movie… sucks?” sweep of the era.

THIS, though, is a guy writing about the reactions of his kids – kids who don’t have the weight of expectations and preconceptions that “Generation Zero” SW fans had; who’ve always known a world where it’s ubiquitious and are familiar with it – at first – mainly from the “Clone Wars” cartoons. He made an interesting decision regarding the order in which to screen the films – New Hope and Empire first, THEN all three prequels, then wrapping up with Jedi – that overall seems to have paid off gangbusters.

You should read the whole thing yourself (links below) but what’s really great about this is the way it cuts through both the obnoxious fanboy-entitlement AND the very real objective criticisms of the prequels etc. to find a more essential truth that’s been ignored by many, myself included, for much too long: That the things that WORK about Star Wars – yes, even in the prequels – are A.) uncoincidentally the things that are bigger and more vital than who-shoots-first or whether this or that creature looks like a puppet and B.) perhaps best understood by children… who, at the end of the day, are who Star Wars has always been for.

GET READING, FOLKS:
A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Phantom Menace
Attack of The Clones
Revenge of The Sith
Return of The Jedi

When I see “Phantom Menace” on the big screen for the first time in over a decade in it’s “3D” release next year, I’ll be doing my damndest to try and watch it on it’s own terms; outside the swirl of negativity it’s existed in for so many years in the collective psyche. And this series will be the big reason why.

Well done, Mr. McWeeny.

Seems like everyone else is running their impressions of Eastwood’s movie early; so I’ll jump in. I may or may not have more in-depth to say in a colyumn at some point, but for now here goes…

SPOILER WARNING

“J. Edgar” is pretty much what one expects both from Eastwood as a director (great performances, terse no-bullshit direction, comprehensive “and then this happened…” plotting and a detached-to-the-point-of-“funerial” tone) and from a present-day biopic about J. Edgar Hoover (grim, scheming and bitter.) It doesn’t have much “new” to say about the man or the era he lived, and the main selling-point will be DiCaprio’s Oscar-worthy lead performance, but there’s nothing “wrong” with it and it’s a solid, thoroughly-engaging – if not precisely “entertaining” – work.

If it has an “issue” it’s that it’d be difficult to make a “fair” biopic about Hoover that wasn’t just a little bit unpleasant to sit through, since Hoover himself was – by even admiring accounts – a fairly unpleasant fellow to be around. The film doesn’t deviate very far from the generally-accepted view of the late FBI-founder: Repressed, paranoid, obsessive, arrogant and opportunistic; and to it’s credit it presents the sketchier aspects of his methodology – secret files, wiretaps, legal-circumvention, outright fraud and deception – as both innovative and effective (i.e. against the anarchist-bombings of the 20s and gangsters in the 30s) and as petty and fiendish (i.e. his fixation on MLK and The Kennedy Brothers.) Incidentally, somebody needs to tell Kevin Costner that “Burn Notice’s” Jeffrey Donovan, as Bobby Kennedy, has stolen his title as owner of the worst New England accent ever committed to film.

It also doesn’t reach too far outside the box for an “explanation” of the man – Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay is couched comfortably in the widely-rumored thesis that Hoover was a profoundly-closeted homosexual, and that his innability to accept this (along with his myriad other “issues”) stemmed from his relationship with his cold, controlling mother. The central relationship is between Hoover and his longtime companion Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) who is depicted as having a more self-aware grasp of the nature of their friendship than Hoover himself does.

Interestingly (and possibly without direct intent, since Eastwood has never been one for showy symbolism) it’s the small scenes of Hoover breaking his own stone-cold facade in regards to said relationship (and/or his sexuality, such as it is) that the film itself briefly breaks free of the Eastwoodian straightforwardness and attains a kind of melodramatic earnestness; and it stands in such direct contrast to the rest of the film the effect is almost like minimalist-“camp” (critics at my screening compared it to “Mommie Dearest.”)

The big showpiece scene, Hoover and Tolson having an unconsumate “lover’s quarrel,” is almost quaint (approaching caricature) in it’s Eisenhower-era rendering of gay men – DiCaprio and Hammer dolled up in slicked-hair and monogrammed bathrobes (!) having a catty back-and-forth about their friends’ taste in shoes (!) and escalating to a screaming brawl when one of them mentions a girlfriend (yes, brandy-glasses-hurled-at-the-walls; yes, big cowboy-style haymakers) complete with bloodied kiss and awkward backpedaling. In another, Hoover grieves his dead mother by donning her robe and pearls (you knew it was coming) and talking to himself “as mother” in the mirror, Norman Bates style, before crumpling up into a sobbig fetal position.

If there is ONE thing that doesn’t work at all, it’s some of the makeup. The film leaps back and forth through Hoover’s life and career without the aid of subtitled dates; relying on multiple stages of old-age makeup to clue us in to where/when we are… and it only looks good some of the time. Naomi Watts (as Hoover’s secretary Mrs. Gandy) has the most subtle work of it, though she seems to be aging about 1/2 slower than everyone else. DiCaprio actually fares best, which is appropriate, though given how differently the public tends to percieve him as an actor (re: an “eternally boyish” guy who’s actually approaching middle-age and DOES look it sans makeup) it’s possible that he NEVER appears fully “himself” over the course of it – his final “elderly” appearance makes him look an awful lot like John Voigt. Sadly, Armie Hammer is just a little too young (a DECADE younger than DiCaprio) a little too tall and in far too good a shape to be plausibly transformed into an elderly man for the later scenes. His performance is fine, but the makeup-appliances make him look like a zombie as opposed to “old.”

Overall, it’s one of those movies that’s more “admirable” than “likable,” but probably more worth seeing than a lot of what’ll be out right now. Plus it’s going to be up for a boatload of awards so you might as well.