Turning the Wheel of Time

The movie section of “Morgan on Media” dominates the other sections, and that doesn’t bother me one iota. I spend more time being entertained by movies than by other media nowadays anyway. Well, with the exception of music; I almost always have music playing, but obtaining new albums to review is something of a rarity (I suppose I could review old albums that are new to me, just as I do with old movies, but somehow that doesn’t sound quite as appealing.) Still, I do want the other sections to be represented, if not regularly, at least occasionally.

Robert Jordan’s fantasy series The Wheel of Time was one of the earliest fantasy series I started reading, back in middle school. It’s still going. Robert Jordan himself is not, having passed away in 2007 from a rare blood disease. He had stated a year earlier that he had every intention of completing the series before his death, but as he was quite a ways from wrapping it up at the time and wasn’t exactly young as it was, that would have been just a bit questionable even without the illness. (George R.R. Martin fans, take note, and prepare for the possibility. Just saying.) Fortunately, he did complete the outline of the end of his story, and hand-picked a successor, Brandon Sanderson to take up where he left off.

Goin’ South

There are some things that are always interesting when it comes to movies. Films directed by someone primarily known as an actor, especially if they also star in the same film. Genre-blending, such as comedy-westerns. Film debuts of actors and actresses who would go on to become big names. Seeing actors in roles that are different from what the audience has come to expect from them. Jack Nicholson. Goin’ South, released in 1978, has elements of all of these, being the second film directed by Jack Nicholson, and starring him in the lead role as horse thief Henry Moon.

Moon is the run from the law, as horse rustling was a capital crime in Texas at the time. Riding his horse across the Rio Grande into Mexico, he finds himself safely across the border just as his horse faints, and the posse chasing after him is on the other side, with no authority in Mexico. Except they don’t even slow down for the river, and grab him and drag him back into U.S. soil anyway.

The Great Mouse Detective

In the 1980s, Disney’s animation department was not in a particularly good place. The last few pictures hadn’t been particularly successful critically or commercially. Reportedly, there was even talk of abandoning the department (though it seems like Disney without animation would be a grand example of shooting oneself in the foot.) In 1986, the film The Great Mouse Detective was released; while it did not kick off what would become the Disney Renaissance, it did start laying the groundwork, being a relatively successful film and confirming that Disney could still be profitable producing animation.

Somehow, despite being a kid in the 80s whose parents bought and rented many Disney pictures, I never saw The Great Mouse Detective (nor the next feature, Oliver and Company). I suspect this may have been due to my parents’ tendency to rent films for us when we were sick and home from school, and my tendency to get sick less often than my siblings. So I missed out on this film for many years, and just recently was able to rectify that situation. I’m glad I did.

The Focused Filmographer’s Avengers Initiative

With The Avengers coming out in theatres soon, Terrence Faulkner of The Focused Filmographer is running an Avengers Initiative blog-a-thon, featuring bloggers from various sites reviewing and discussing the movies that led up to the series: Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 1 and 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Thor. We’ll be looking at the roles different Avengers played in the films, how the films set up The Avengers, and what we expect from the characters in the film.

Fogs, of Fogs Movie Reviews leads us off with a look at Iron Man. Be sure to check it out. Also participating are Aidy of Aidy’s Reviews, Ruth and Ted S. of Flixchatter, Jaina from Time Well Spent, and Tajuana from TajGreeneMoviesInReview. You might recognize some of those names from the comments section here, but whether you know them from here, elsewhere, or not at all, be sure to check out their articles as they’re posted. I’m sure they’ll all be good reads. You can check out this page for the schedule of posts.

My own entry in the blog-a-thon will be going up Wednesday, May 2. I’ll be taking a look at the roles Loki and Hawkeye play in Thor, and how they’re set up for their parts in The Avengers. I hope you’ll head over there to see it when it goes up, and follow The Focused Filmographer for the entire blog-a-thon (and beyond! It’s a good site!) as we all get ourselves psyched up for The Avengers.

TV Exhumation: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Time for another exhumation of a long-dead TV series, and yes, I’m aware of the inherent punny-ness of doing an “exhumation” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was not one of those that watched the show during its seven season run (1997-2003); I was unaware of it at first, and at any rate, it was on WB and then UPN, neither of which were networks I received at the time. Since some of the circles I hang out in consist of genre fans, I’ve occasionally been asked to “turn in my geek card” for not having seen the show. So I decided to humor people and find out what all the fuss was about.

Picking up just after and slightly acknowledging the movie of the same name, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was written and produced by Joss Whedon, who was reportedly displeased with the film. I haven’t seen the film, maybe he had his reasons, I don’t know. It starred Sarah Michelle Gellar in the title role, and sent Buffy to the town of Sunnydale, California, which sits atop a “Hellmouth”, a source of malevolent energy that attracts vampires and other demons. This, of course, provides the fodder for the show to have a different threat every week.

Rocky II

As I mentioned when I reviewed the original Rocky, when I obtained the DVD of that film, it was part of a double feature with the first of the sequels. Having it close to hand, I knew I wasn’t going to wait too long to bust out Rocky II and see how well it held up to the first. Well, it seems like three weeks was about as long as it took for me to decide that it was time.

As with the first one, Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for Rocky II; unlike the first, this time he also directs, the studio apparently having been convinced he knows what he’s doing after all. Writing an Oscar-winning movie will do that for you sometimes. Naturally, Stallone reprises his role as Rocky, and all the other major actors from the film return as well. Talia Shire returns as Adrian, and Burt Young as her brother Paulie. Burgess Meredith returns as Rocky’s trainer, Mickey. And Carl Weathers returns as Apollo Creed… who has decided he very much wants a rematch against Balboa.

Favorite Films: The Matrix

“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”

That quote by Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) during a pivotal scene in The Matrix illustrates not only a central aspect of the film, but also handily sums up a problem with reviewing the film. It’s not one of those films that is only able to be watched once; I’ve watched it several times, personally, and enjoyed it every time. But it is a film in which that first viewing is substantially different from every subsequent viewing. There is a mystery at the heart of The Matrix, a central question that drives the first half of the film, and like all good mysteries, there is a lot of foreshadowing to the revelation. But like all good mysteries, it can only be mysterious once. The question “What is the Matrix?” that was used so heavily in its marketing — including the web site for the movie, back in 1999 when that was still a relative novelty — is a question you now know the answer to. And yet, what remains is still one of the best modern science fiction films and a great action film.

As Morpheus offers Neo a choice of a red pill representing a dangerous truth, and a blue pill representing safety in ignorance, so too must I offer the reader of this blog a choice. If, perchance, you have not seen The Matrix for yourself, I suggest you take the blue pill. Spend time on my other articles, or go elsewhere on the web; though I do not wish to drive you away, I also have no wish to spoil this for you, and it is impossible for me to discuss it without doing so. Take the blue pill, you stay unspoiled, and you can believe… whatever you want to believe until you see the film for yourself. If, on the other hand, you have seen the film, then take the red pill, click the continue link, and we shall see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Pay Day (1922)

I’m certain that comedic short films are a difficult medium to create for, and they definitely present different challenges than a long-form movie. There isn’t much time to develop characters, construct an intricate plot, or to set up gags that will pay off later on. When it’s an older film, such as Pay Day, with the constraints of a silent film, it has to be particularly difficult.

Pay Day was Charlie Chaplin’s final short; after this, he only created feature-length films. He wrote, directed, produced, and scored the short film, as well as starring in it. Supposedly it was one of his favorites of his short films. But watching it, I have to admit I didn’t find it as impressive or as funny as his feature, The Circus.

Superhero Movie News Roundup

John Cusack may think that Hollywood’s putting out too many superhero movies lately, and not enough middle-budget fare (such as his film The Raven), but Hollywood and the fans are flocking to yet more adventures featuring individuals who are just a bit beyond mortal men. Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki in Thor and The Avengers, offers up an eloquent defense to the validity of the genre, and in the meantime, Hollywood is putting the pieces in motion for the next superhero movies to come out after this summer’s The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises.

A lot of these are just tidbits, which is why I’m not giving them separate posts, and I haven’t seen anything lately on 2013′s Superman movie, Man of Steel. But for fans of the flights-and-tights crowd, there are some interesting little news bits on the futures of the Avengers and X-Men related properties, as well as word on a rather unexpected DC Comics movie project.

Reservoir Dogs

I get the feeling sometimes that Quentin Tarantino’s sole knowledge of what constitutes a good movie is “Do I think this is awesome?” I’m not knocking the notion, really; that’s an important criteria, and one that all too many film-makers forget. And it certainly helps my enjoyment of his films, as what he thinks is awesome is usually fairly congruent with what I think is cool. So it’s almost always fun to watch Tarantino’s films.

Reservoir Dogs, released in 1992, was Tarantino’s directorial debut, but it already shows some of what would become his hallmarks. There’s a lot of nattering by the various characters about random topics, there’s a degree of anachronic order, and there’s an awful lot of blood and gore. It could be lumped into the heist movie genre that I’m so fond of, but the majority of the film takes place after the heist — and after the heist has gone terribly wrong.