Movie Monday - Beowulf and things they are a’changing
I didn’t wax enthusiastically when Tim Russsert died nor now at Walter Cronkite’s death. The former was the heir of the latter. As one commenter to the link below wrote: Cronkite became the celebrity journalist, Russsert and so many more just steeped into his shoes.
Read this link to a Glenn Greenwald article in Salon:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/18/cronkite/index.html
It’s about Cronkite and Russert but more importantly about David Halberstam who many may not know was a yeoman-journalist covering the Vietnam War and who really did speak truth to power.
Greenwald quotes Halberstam. It’s at a press briefing in Vietnam and a general has just criticized Halberstam’s coverage of the war and basically told him to “stop it”:
And I stood up, my heart beating wildly -- and told him that we were not his corporals or privates, that we worked for The New York Times and UP and AP and Newsweek, not for the Department of Defense.
Read this link and learn what good journalism was once before the tinkle of coin and cocktails with the powerful replaced the grime and grit of fact checking.
Which brings me to my Movie Monday review of Beowulf and yes, it does all tie in. Just as Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green dies watching majestic nature scene from a past era, just as more and more people must read about the days of “real” journalism only in certain history books, so Beowulf may be the harbinger of the day when movie goers will say incredulously: You had real people playing the roles in movies once?
OK, Beowulf is a bad movie. I may be wrong in thinking this was all CGI; but I would rather think this was bad CGI than robotic acting throughout. It sure looked like a fancy-dancy cartoon. (I found out this is Disney theme park type animation - oh, for joy.)
The procedure does need some work. There are times the characters move with stiff necks and Sonny is I, Robot made his pivots more smoothly. Obviously, while they used actor’s faces -Hopkins, Jolie, Penn-Wright, etc, - they only paid them for use of their eyes since their mouths mostly stay prettily closed. And it is rather pretty. No botox needed here. There are no wrinkles on the women and Beowulf seems to only age through graying facial hair. However, the age spots given to Hopkins would probably work into an interesting connect-the-dots picture.
Having pretty much shot the movie down, let me say: I liked it. I liked in on my big screen TV where I could channel surf or walk around or ditch the whole thing and record it for later watching. Truth be told, even the worst movie can’t kill Beowulf since it’s a tale from the dark, primitive past of the human psyche: the hero facing and defeating the unspeakable monster/evil but often paying the ultimate price.
OK, so I remember from the epic poem that Grendel’s mom, all ugly and big, shows up at the mead hall to demand revenge. But I can accept a scene change with the ravishingly beautiful Jolie rising naked from a pool in the depths of a cave. I can even accept the added hanky-panky that occurs. Beowulf, the epic poem, is unkillable. This production may be a car wreck but it’s that rubber-necking car wreck on the parkway where onlookers cause a two-hour delay. Like that, your eyes keep returning to Beowulf. It has some magnificent shots.
However, I said that I saw Beowulf in context with the “fall” of journalism and a lost world’s grandeur as pictured in Soylent Green.
I’ve always thought that actors must be such pesky creatures for movie producers to handle. Fragile egos, inflated egos, no egos. You need an on-set psychologist to keep all the traumas at bay. And then, the salaries. Recently, the economy has curtailed the biggest actors’ pay checks but the money which had been paid to them, as with most of the big payouts in the U.S., was obscene. Plus this takes such a big chunk from the really big money people who are producing the films.
Beowulf shows the way out of this dilemma: pay actors for voice-overs and royalties for their faces and then: “Good-bye and thank you.” Of course, Beowulf also shows a major problem: movie makers have a long way to go to perfect this system but it can be done - silents to talkies; black and white to color.
But “No” you say: People want to see real actors in movies. They want real people. Perhaps, but a lot of their young target audience watches Saturday morning cartoons and love it; they will grow into adulthood still loving it if it’s presented correctly.
But “No” you say: How can you wrap your feelings around animated but in-animate objects. Let me see: Furby, Tamagotchi, Tickle Me Elmo, Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Kid, Troll Dolls... (source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/755393/10_popular_fad_toys.html?cat=7)
Still not convinced? Then there’s Anime, the brilliant Japanese originating cartoon work which was first inspired by the 1937 cartoon, Snow White. (Wikipedia)
Things change: journalistic integrity, natural wonders destroyed by pollution. These are bad changes.
But what about a sea change in movies? Would that be a bad change?
I didn’t wax enthusiastically when Tim Russsert died nor now at Walter Cronkite’s death. The former was the heir of the latter. As one commenter to the link below wrote: Cronkite became the celebrity journalist, Russsert and so many more just steeped into his shoes.
Read this link to a Glenn Greenwald article in Salon:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/18/cronkite/index.html
It’s about Cronkite and Russert but more importantly about David Halberstam who many may not know was a yeoman-journalist covering the Vietnam War and who really did speak truth to power.
Greenwald quotes Halberstam. It’s at a press briefing in Vietnam and a general has just criticized Halberstam’s coverage of the war and basically told him to “stop it”:
And I stood up, my heart beating wildly -- and told him that we were not his corporals or privates, that we worked for The New York Times and UP and AP and Newsweek, not for the Department of Defense.
Read this link and learn what good journalism was once before the tinkle of coin and cocktails with the powerful replaced the grime and grit of fact checking.
Which brings me to my Movie Monday review of Beowulf and yes, it does all tie in. Just as Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green dies watching majestic nature scene from a past era, just as more and more people must read about the days of “real” journalism only in certain history books, so Beowulf may be the harbinger of the day when movie goers will say incredulously: You had real people playing the roles in movies once?
OK, Beowulf is a bad movie. I may be wrong in thinking this was all CGI; but I would rather think this was bad CGI than robotic acting throughout. It sure looked like a fancy-dancy cartoon. (I found out this is Disney theme park type animation - oh, for joy.)
The procedure does need some work. There are times the characters move with stiff necks and Sonny is I, Robot made his pivots more smoothly. Obviously, while they used actor’s faces -Hopkins, Jolie, Penn-Wright, etc, - they only paid them for use of their eyes since their mouths mostly stay prettily closed. And it is rather pretty. No botox needed here. There are no wrinkles on the women and Beowulf seems to only age through graying facial hair. However, the age spots given to Hopkins would probably work into an interesting connect-the-dots picture.
Having pretty much shot the movie down, let me say: I liked it. I liked in on my big screen TV where I could channel surf or walk around or ditch the whole thing and record it for later watching. Truth be told, even the worst movie can’t kill Beowulf since it’s a tale from the dark, primitive past of the human psyche: the hero facing and defeating the unspeakable monster/evil but often paying the ultimate price.
OK, so I remember from the epic poem that Grendel’s mom, all ugly and big, shows up at the mead hall to demand revenge. But I can accept a scene change with the ravishingly beautiful Jolie rising naked from a pool in the depths of a cave. I can even accept the added hanky-panky that occurs. Beowulf, the epic poem, is unkillable. This production may be a car wreck but it’s that rubber-necking car wreck on the parkway where onlookers cause a two-hour delay. Like that, your eyes keep returning to Beowulf. It has some magnificent shots.
However, I said that I saw Beowulf in context with the “fall” of journalism and a lost world’s grandeur as pictured in Soylent Green.
I’ve always thought that actors must be such pesky creatures for movie producers to handle. Fragile egos, inflated egos, no egos. You need an on-set psychologist to keep all the traumas at bay. And then, the salaries. Recently, the economy has curtailed the biggest actors’ pay checks but the money which had been paid to them, as with most of the big payouts in the U.S., was obscene. Plus this takes such a big chunk from the really big money people who are producing the films.
Beowulf shows the way out of this dilemma: pay actors for voice-overs and royalties for their faces and then: “Good-bye and thank you.” Of course, Beowulf also shows a major problem: movie makers have a long way to go to perfect this system but it can be done - silents to talkies; black and white to color.
But “No” you say: People want to see real actors in movies. They want real people. Perhaps, but a lot of their young target audience watches Saturday morning cartoons and love it; they will grow into adulthood still loving it if it’s presented correctly.
But “No” you say: How can you wrap your feelings around animated but in-animate objects. Let me see: Furby, Tamagotchi, Tickle Me Elmo, Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Kid, Troll Dolls... (source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/755393/10_popular_fad_toys.html?cat=7)
Still not convinced? Then there’s Anime, the brilliant Japanese originating cartoon work which was first inspired by the 1937 cartoon, Snow White. (Wikipedia)
Things change: journalistic integrity, natural wonders destroyed by pollution. These are bad changes.
But what about a sea change in movies? Would that be a bad change?
No comments:
Post a Comment