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6
May 12

The Chaos Factory’s Summer Movie Preview

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is awesome

This photo has me irrationally excited about Looper

As the release of the final Harry Potter movie approached, I was fully convinced it would be the greatest movie I had ever seen, as I vociferously pronounced to anyone who would listen. The Deathly Hallows Part One was fantastic, my favorite so far, and with its ending–Voldermort coming face to face with Dumbledore’s dead body*–I was totally primed for all the fantabulous action that would propel Part Two to the saga’s conclusion. Unfortunately, I was to be disappointed.

Part Two was a decent movie, but it wasn’t the work of transcendence I was hoping for. It probably missed its mark mostly because of its failure to nail some of the emotional high points–such as Fred’s death and Dumbledore’s final visit–that should have been chilling in their poignancy. Most of all, though, it was undone by the tremendous weight of my prodigious expectations. Allow me to repeat: I was convinced that Part Two would be the GREATEST MOVIE I HAD EVER SEEN**.

I have come to realize (the hard way) that our enjoyment of something is a direct measure of our expectations of it. When George Lucas announced the prequels, I spent the next several years hoping that I would live long enough to see all three movies. I couldn’t imagine my life being complete if I died before I finished the Star Wars saga. What is wrong with me?

As The Avengers opens all over the world, it’s time for me to reveal my expectations for Hollywood’s summer blockbusters, where I measure my level of excitement on a scale from 1 to Phantom Menace. Will I be as disappointed as I was last summer, or have I learned my lesson? Only time will tell.

The Avengers

Reasons for unbridled excitement: I love comic books and super heroes, and I’m particularly partial to Marvel. Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Iron Man. The reviews have already started coming in, and they’ve all been extremely positive. Joss Whedon made Dr. Horrible.

Reasons to be scared: Iron Man 2, Captain America, and Thor were all average. I never really got into the Avengers like I did the X-Men and Spiderman. Will be extremely difficult to balance all the characters and make a worthwhile movie out of it.

Expectation Level: I will not be happy unless this movie is at least as good as the animated Avengers movie.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Reasons for unbridled excitement: Because of my low expectations for the first one, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. The sequel returns Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and adds some new characters, such as Bruce Willis, who is sometimes awesome. Plus, I always, always love the Rock***.

Reasons to be scared: Bruce Willis is sometimes awful. Because I enjoyed the first one, I will expect more of the second one.

Expectation Level: I will not be happy unless this movie is at least as good as Saved By The Bell: The College Years

Looper

Reasons for unbridled excitement: I am purposely keeping myself in the dark about this movie, but I know that it’s some kind of dark, time travel actioner with the same character played by Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis. Count me in! Joseph Gordon Levitt is currently one of the best bets around (The first G.I. Joe not withstanding). Bruce Willis is sometimes awesome. I love time travel movies when they are done well.

Reasons to be scared: Bruce Willis is sometimes awful. Time travel movies are not often done well.

Expectation Level: I will not be happy unless this movie is at least as good as Heat.

Prometheus

Reasons for unbridled excitement: I refuse to watch any trailers for this one, because I don’t want my enjoyment ruined. This prequel returns us to Ridley Scott’s Alien universe. This has great buzz associated with it, plus it features the original girl with the dragon tattoo, Noomi Rapace. It could be the best thing ever…

Reasons to be scared: …or a second coming of Attack Of The Clones. The track record for respected auteurs returning to their masterpieces after more than a decade is very poor.

Expectation Level: I will not be happy unless this movie is at least as good as The Matrix

The Dark Knight Rises

Reasons for unbridled excitement: Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker will probably go down as the best villain performance in a comic book movie ever (though Sir Ian Mckellen might have something to say about that). The Dark Knight is the third highest grossing film of all time. Christopher Nolan made my favorite movie of this millennium: The Prestige.

Reasons to be scared: But he also made Inception. The trailer looks bad. Anne Hathaway is Cat Woman. The first two movies, other than Heath Ledger and Michael Caine, are over rated. Nolan doesn’t do well with action. I’m starting to get sick just thinking about it.

Expectation Level: I will not be happy unless this movie is at least as good as X-Men 2.

*Spoiler Alert

**The Empire Strikes Back has been firmly entrenched in that spot since 1980.

***This includes my irrational love affair with The Tooth Fairy

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24
Apr 12

Abaji In Beijing

Abaji in Beijing

Photo by Bao Jin

I had the pleasure of meeting an amazing musician over the weekend. Abaji is a French-Lebanese songwriter, though it’s actually an injustice to label him at all. His mother is Turkish, his father Greek. He was born in Lebanon, but has lived much of his adult life in Paris. He speaks six languages with varying degrees of fluency.* And if that sounds eclectic, his music is even more so. I’m guessing he is able to play any instrument that you hand him. Watch his performance on Tiny Desk Concerts to have a look at him play 3 different songs with 3 very different instruments. I watched him sit in a hutong (a Chinese traditional alleyway) playing a bamboo clarinet in one hand and strum a bouzouki, a kind of mediterranean guitar, in the other. If there’s such a thing as a musical superhero, Abaji is it.

But even more impressive was Abaji’s personality. He is one of the most open, most generous people you could ever meet. Being around him for five minutes is enough to warm your heart. He performed Friday night in a rock club with an audience comprised of Chinese, Americans, French, Singaporeans and who knows who else. Within one minute, he had the crowd responding, singing along, clapping, and dancing as enthusiastically as if we were at a wedding celebration. He reached out to the audience and the audience responded. After getting to know him, I have no doubt this relationship with the audience depended entirely on Abaji’s personality. He put himself out on a limb and it was up to the audience to either prop him up, or let him fall spectacularly.

If you have the chance to see Abaji in concert (and it’s likely that you will, he tours all over the world) I highly encourage it.

*I hope I got all that correct

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12
Mar 12

Twittawho? Twittawhat?

I’ve been doing a lot of tweetering lately. Tweeter is a short message platform that lets you announce to the world what you’ve been having for dinner and how often you poop. I don’t really know how to use it. I just yell at Siri and like a good robot servant she translates my curses into 140 character diatribes and posts them to the world.

I recently heard that you can make a lot of money on Tweeter. I like money, so I figured it was time to figure out what exactly it’s all about. That’s when I came across a new documentary called Twittamentary. This groundbreaking work of interactive narrative shows how Tweeter has changed the lives of business owners, the homeless, prostitutes, superheroes, lizards.

I highly recommend it to anyone who is big into the social networking thing.

Full Disclosure: I nor anyone I am related to by blood has any stake in the Twittamentary, Tweeter, or Social Networks, though my mother insists that Mark Zuckerberg is my second cousin thrice removed on my father’s side. Unfortunately, he refuses to return my phone calls so I don’t know who to believe.

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11
Mar 12

Why LOTR Sucks: You Will Be Forced To Admit I’m Right

It’s taken me a long time to write this post. I had wanted to find closure right away but maybe what I really needed was anesthesia. I needed to pretend I could wake up and it had all been a nightmare. There was no Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings. Or if there was, it wasn’t a godawful travesty.

You know how sometimes in a dream, you feel like everyone is laughing at you. You showed up to school naked, or you’re playing football but have forgotten how to move. That’s what the Lord of the Rings has become for me. This living nightmare, where I’m the only one who realizes what a bad movie it is. This blogging experiment was an attempt to quantify what exactly is wrong with these movies, which I think I’ve done, and to try and figure out what everyone else sees in them, which is still a mystery to me.

I’d like to forget these movies exist, or failing that, just remember the good parts. I’d like to think the Hobbit, part one of which comes out this year, will be a masterpiece, and Peter Jackson has learned from his mistakes. But he may not even know he made any mistakes. The trilogy made millions, probably billions, of dollars, and won countless academy awards. Peter Jackson is a hero. Peter Jackson can do no wrong. Peter Jackson hasn’t made even a half way decent movie since and shouldn’t that fucking tell you something? He’s not a good story teller. He butchered my favorite books of all time, he made an awful remake of a beloved classic, and he’s hoping that by directing the Hobbit he’ll be back on top again. And it will probably work.

I would like to say that I will avoid the Hobbit, but I know I won’t be able to resist. The fact I tortured myself with this rewatching of the Lord of the Rings tells you everything you need to know. I enjoy the pain.

But if I’ve done one bit of good, it’s this: I defy anyone to read through this blog and ever be able to enjoy the Lord of the Rings in the same way again. You won’t be able to do it. You’ll tell yourself that I’m all wrong, but when you see Frodo crying in slow motion for the 50th time, or you see Liv Tyler mooning for the camera, you’ll realize that I was right. These movies suck.

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18
Feb 12

Why LOTR Sucks: You Won’t Believe This

But according to the two words of text on my screen, the editors, producers, studio execs, family members, and everyone else associated in any way with the making of the Lord of the Rings have gotten together for an intervention and forced Peter Jackson to finally, at long last, end the movie.

I can’t help but cry a little.*

Minutes Watched: 3.4:01.31

Number of Montages: 17

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 138

Start at the beginning

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17
Feb 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Finally

Damn you, Peter Jackson. Just when you thought the credits would roll, he added another 10 minutes. I think every single frame had crying hobbits in it. It goes without saying the entire scene was shot in slow motion.

I think I know why it won best picture. No one actually sat through all 4 hours. The entire academy just assumed it must be a good movie. I may in fact be the first person to ever actually sit through the entire extended edition of all three movies.

Minutes Watched: 3.4:00.05

Number of Montages: 17

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 138

Start at the beginning

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17
Feb 12

Why LOTR Sucks: And On And On And On And On

Nope, still not over. And Frodo just warned us, with what I think was ominous music in the background, that it’s still got room for a little more.

Excuse me. I need to check if euthanasia is legal here.

Minutes Watched: 3.3:52.19

Number of Montages: 17

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 126

Start at the beginning

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17
Feb 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Now It’s Over

I jumped the gun, but now it’s over. Just had to make sure we saw Sam get married. No one cried, which was a surprise. But maybe all the hobbits are too pissed to cry, because none of their taller friends bothered to come to the wedding. Sure, everyone was their friend when they needed them to save the world, but now that Sauron’s dead, it’s like, “We’d love to come to the wedding, but we’re too busy what with the holidays and all.” Typical.

Minutes Watched: 3.3:50.30

Number of Montages: 17

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 126

Start at the beginning

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17
Feb 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Fuck!

Turns out I totally fucking forgot about Liv Tyler. The movie isn’t over yet. But it does seem to have completely transitioned into slow motion. Even the music has slowed down.

Here are some of my most recent gripes:

The speech Aragorn gives after his coronation is totally lame. He’s got a bigger stick up his ass than Elrond does.

The elf extras are all ugly. I think Peter Jackson just asked his cousins to fill in so he could save his money. I now have zero interest in dating an elf. Well, except maybe for Will Ferrell.

The funniest part is when Aragorn says to the hobbits, “You bow to no one.” It maybe the greatest line since Patrick Swayze said, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

The movie has definitely slowed down, what with all the slow motion, but it’s finally over.

Minutes Watched: 3.3:47.32

Number of Montages: 17

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 126

Start at the beginning

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17
Feb 12

Why LOTR Sucks: All This Slow Motion Is Making Me Seasick

I’m convinced that if Peter Jackson hadn’t used so much slow motion, all three movies would have clocked in under 9 hours. As it is, we’re getting close to 11. But everything just faded to black, after Frodo, Merry, and Pippin had a pillow fight in bed while the others watched (no judgements here). I’m sure the movie is finally over.

Minutes Watched: 3.3:42.42

Number of Montages: 17

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 116

Start at the beginning

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