John Carpenter's The Thing

One of my favorite monster movies The Thing by John Carpenter is a remake of the 1951 film with the same name. The basic plot is that a group of people stationed at an Antarctic research base come in contact with a faceless, nameless alien. It acts as a virus and disguises itself as the prey in which it killed. What I find so interesting and terrifying about this creature is that it poses itself as the creatures it has killed. Isolated from rest of civilization, the group does not know who amongst them is still human and who has become part of the creature.

What this film does brilliantly is play upon the fears we have of trusting one another, do we ever truly know someone? The group begins to grow paranoid and communication becomes more and more hostile. The once friendly group is now ready to point a finger at any one of the other members that they may have turned into the Thing. It is an omnipresent creature that plays upon our fear of the unknown. This film at it's core depicts what happens when fear takes hold of us and shows the way we treat each other when we are not sure if we can trust anyone. This film shows communication between the team of researchers as a vital tool for survival. They must communicate with each other to stay calm and calculate what they must do to survive.

I highly recommend this film to anyone who hasn't seen it, it is pretty freaky but if you like horror it is definitely worth checking out. It's from the 80s but I will say right now I think the puppetry/animatronics in this look way cooler than any cg used in modern day horror. It is absolutely crazy. This film is horror on multiple levels, it is quite psychological in playing upon our fears of trust and isolation while at the same time being one crazy monster movie.

Bridging the gap between video-games and the film making

The gap between movies and video games has shrunk. I have thought about this for awhile in the relationship between the two. As the technology for video games has been rapidly evolving so has the story telling. I believe there has been great examples of story telling in this format for a long time. For me the super nintendo was the first gaming system I ever owned and there are games with truly unique stories I have never seen anything quite like since. The lack of graphics and voice acting forced a narrative driven game to depend on it's personality alone. If anyone has played Earthbound for super nintendo, the game is incredibly simple in presentation, but in terms of personality and story, it is unlike anything else.

Today we are seeing advances in the way we can tell stories in this format, voice acting used to be a rarity for games and now it is found in almost every title. The Metal Gear Solid series to me was the first time I felt I was experiencing something that had a cinematic style that felt like I was playing a game and at the same time, experiencing a film that had an incredibly deep and complex story. We also see the development of motion capture through out this series, the first one had top notch voice acting but pixelated unmoving faces. With the 4th installment, we see how motion capture can give these characters facial expressions and actions that are mapped out from a person acting out a scene. This gives the character emotions and depth unlike anything we have seen before.

Video games seem to be coming closer and closer to blending with the art of film, while it has been successful for games to adapt facets of film making into itself, the video games that have had movie adaptations have failed miserably. There have been multiple flops when attempting to adopt a games story and style into a film yet people are still trying to successfully accomplish this.

I would love to hear examples of games that you have loved, that you felt adapted film like narratives and techniques into the experience. I would also like to hear your thoughts and opinions on video game adapted movies.

Franchise Reboots

Hollywood has been in a pattern of reviving old franchises, for example the batman movies. Christopher Nolan reinvented what Tim Burton started by directing Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. This was a franchise reboot and one that was creative and made sense to make. This is not always the case with films though.

Spiderman has gone through 3 films and Sam Raimi was going to be directing number 4 but when Raimi was being pressured for a summer release and didn't feel he could deliver a quality film by then he dropped it. WIth Raimi out so was Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. So what does the studio do? Gets a new director and plans to reboot the franchise.

Now with Batman the reboot made sense, Tim Burton made his films back in the 80s and they were very stylized films. Nolan needed to restart what had been built to create his vision. This Spiderman reboot is a back up plan for the fact that they cant continue Raimi's vision without him so they are rebooting it. It seems to be purely for a profit to push box office sales by having the Spiderman brand attatched to it.

This reboot is just feeding the audience the same thing they have been given before. I am worried that the popularity of rebooting franchises may lead to feeding the audience the same tasteless mush over and over again. This is a prejudiced rant I know, because I have not seen this new Spiderman franchise, but they are just restarting what was already built by films that were made not even 10 years ago. It hasn't even been a decade and they are sending Peter Parker back to high school because they can't think of anything else to do with him.

I hope that franchise reboots stay appropriate like some films have. Does anyone welcome this reboot for Spiderman? What do you think of the idea of rebooting film franchises?

The Virtual vs. The Physical

I have a question for you, do you go out and buy cd's anymore? I personally have not liked the switch to the non-disc era of music. I understand why others do like it, it is easy to organize your music through an itunes library and you can instantly download more any time you like. It can also be cheaper since most songs are .99 cents each while letting you buy that one hit you want off the cd without having to pay for the rest.

Now why I prefer cd's. There is a presentation factor when buying cd's or vinyl that gets lost when you download. I like to have something tangible in my hands. The artwork and booklet is part of the presentation of someones creative work. Some will argue there is no difference but the sound quality of a cd is richer than that of a downloaded mp3. The difference is even greater when your dealing with vinyls vs. downloads.

A factor that I account for is that when listening to a iPod or full library of music many are prone to shuffling around songs to get to there favorites. I do this to but this instant gratification can make you miss hidden gems within your library. Recording an album tells a story, a track 1 might not work as well as a track 8 or 9. Listening to a cd from start to finish will allow you to see the story being told in its whole. Often it helps me find a deeper appreciation for the music. Almost all my favorite cds were nothing special to me when I first heard them. I can be prone to wanting to skip to my favorite songs, but when I listen to it from start to finish a few times some of those songs that didn't seem like much to me at first will begin to grow on me and end up being a bigger favorite then the ones that I initially wanted to skip to.

I would love to hear anyone's opinion on this. Whether it is for or against the download. What do you prefer and why?

Theater Sales are up

Ticket sales for Movie theaters have gone up in 2009. Why this is interesting is because there has been a slight decrease in sales over the past few years and many predicted that dvds and downloads were going to slowly take over. The home theater becoming cheaper to create as well as better technology for a better picture and sound was thought to dwindle ticket sales but 2009 goes to show that this might not be the case.

I know that I have always loved going to the theater with my friends and am happy to see that others are sharing this love for the theater, but why has there been this overall increase? I can see a few reasons for this to have happened. IMAX for one has gained ground in its popularity. These theaters strengthen that gap between a home theater experience and an IMAX experience. It is not possible for anyone to recreate something like these theaters at this time. It offers a new experience especially with new technology that gives the viewer an even more immersive experience.

It could also be said that it is from the films themselves. 2009 had a lot of huge box office hits. Could it be as simple as the films themselves have been more desirable to see? I am not certain what the reason is for sure and I am sure it is a combination of a few variables. I am curious if it is the format itself that has growing back into popularity.

To me the theater can be looked at as a community experience, sitting in a dark room with others (friends and strangers) can create an experience unlike that of watching at home. Is it the experience itself that has grown in popularity? Is this a cultural change? Do you prefer to go out to see a film rather than staying in? I am curious what you think of going to theaters vs. staying home.