Motley Is A Fool's Uniform

Really hating this plague. It's rendered me incapable of seeing Tai Chi 0 today. And from tomorrow the film is only on at a session time impossible for me to get to. Just my luck I'll get healthy enough just in time to see the sequel.

Saw the most excellent Cabin in the Woods today at the cinema with a bunch of extremely lovely people from the Adelaide Discworld Convivium (get your tickets before Friday and the price rise). Most of whom spent much of the movie huddled underneath their coats with just their eyes showing. <evil grin>

I liked it a lot, and Joss didn't disappoint. It has all the Joss hallmarks. Definitely something to see on the big screen, from the night shots, if nothing else.

Commiserated by myself afterwards at the Sugarbowl with a rather sour Mango Black Sticky Rice. Not upt to their usual standard. Bad of me, I know. Was tempted to go riding down the Torrens since the Parklands were nicely foggy, but didn't, as I have the doctor early tomorrow. Then discovered I'm out of caffeine and am currently resisting the urge to head back out to get some.

Maybe. Mostly. Who am I kidding? <sigh>

Speaking of the dichotomy between those who have read the books and those who haven't, it is interesting to see the differences in opinion between those who have read the books and those who haven't (including myself), with regard to The Hunger Games.

Amongst the literati, there seems to be a focus on the fact that the social milieu was not explored in the film to any great degree, and I'm afraid I have to disagree with this. I actually think that writer/director Gary Ross did a marvellous job translating Suzanne Collin's book to the big screen.

First of all, you cannot take any reasonably-sized book and cut it down to make a two hour movie without leaving out substantial elements. Focusing on the actual Hunger Game itself allowed him to concentrate on the essential element, and the major concern of the protagonist (Katniss), which was "I'm now in the Hunger Game and am likely to die." The remainder is really peripheral for the sake of telling the story of her participation.

Secondly, the social milieu was constantly impinging on the consciousness of the movie-goer, from the ridiculous costuming (more style than substance) at the Capitol, to the extreme poverty of the outlying Districts. There were plenty of off-hand mentions, that intrigued people into wondering about this world and how this social custom had evolved. But there were no lamp-shades hung on them - no exposition. These were accepted facts known to everyone in the world, and didn't need explanation (remember we, the audience, are accompanying Katniss into the arena). So her acceptance, unhappy though it is, of the social order is taken as matter of fact. It is the stuff that is strange to her that attracts her, and the audience's, attention.

Now this is excellent story-crafting. It doesn't make any attempt to explain. Just accepts, but it raises questions and expectations. But it provides hints that there is a tipping point coming, and that Katniss might be critical to this event. The foreshadowing provided by Donald Sutherland as President Snow at the end of the movie was excellent (in conjunction with his performance throughout). Just the attentive and measuring analysis of her potential weak points in case she was ever to come to his personal attention again (as opposed to sinking into the guilty stupor of most survivors of the Game).

( possible spoiler )

All the actors were magnificent. Jennifer Lawrence did an excellent job as Katniss, but that would only be expected from her role as Ree in Winter's Bone. Donald Sutherland was marvellously inscrutable. And Woody Harrelson was suitably a haunted mess for having survived the games, and for knowing what happens when you buck the System.

Anyway I'm looking forward to the next one. Especially as it seems the critics are ensuring that there will never be another Barsoom movie to prove that their knives are sharp.

It was also interesting noting the number of people claiming that there was no way such an institution could have evolved, and that they would die to prevent their child being taken. But that's not the point. Would you be willing to die to let some other child (someone you didn't know), live? At the cost of your own child probably dying as well? Would you risk that? Especially when the alternative is the 99.997% probability that your child would make it safely through the seven years of choosing? As opposed to a 90% chance of them dying in open rebellion? Of course, if your child is chosen, you have a reason to be outraged, but by then it's too late. Everyone else will be secretly glad/relieved that it wasn't their child chosen, and that guilt is a powerful demotivator. And the human ability to rationalise away unpalatable facts is very impressive.

[The Gestapo had a wonderful technique for turning people through guilt. They set up an apparatus where a close relative was given an electric shock. But you could take the electric shock instead by pressing a (spring-loaded) button. Unfortunately there is a limit to how much you can endure, so it is inevitable that you release the button eventually. Each time you do, the charge gets ratcheted up a small amount, so it becomes harder to endure. Eventually the close relative dies, and you cannot help believing that it is your fault. If only you were a little bit stronger. If only you could have been shocked to death instead. The guilt/failure was incredibly powerful – even though there was nothing you could have done and you might as well not have pressed the button yourself and just let your mother/father/wife/husband die (and then be shot yourself) – and very effective at breaking the target. Especially if another loved one was available and held hostage as well.]

Just saw John Carter in glorious 2D. [They put the 2D sessions on at the most inconvenient times (I believe that the closing credits are the only part of the film where you get any actual benefit from 3D - all the rest is CGI modified 2D).] Great film. Makes me want to ressurect my Martian D&D game (although that owes slightly more to Michael Moorcock's Mars trilogy than Edgar Rice Burroughs).

It hewed relatively closely to the spirit of the books, produced, written, and directed by someone who plainly loved them and wanted the experience to be as authentic as possible.

And the good news is that there is a new costume idea for all the Slave Leias, that being Wedding Dress Dejah.

That only leaves the Carson of Venus series untapped.

Quite liked The Artist. I suspect all the actors had lots of fun mugging for the camera. It's curious the effect that a silent film had on the audience (it was the quietest audience I've known. The musical cues were definitely more profound.

Definitely deserved its Oscar wins.

And this doesn't break my rule of "no more than one Fring show a day" (which I have already broken twice), because it wasn't a Fringe show. But I do have sore feet and a bad knee.

But there was also a cat and a drunkard doctor...

Just got two packages in the mail. One was the Bone Orchard CD, A Romance of Ghosts, but the other was a DVD of live action Uchu Senkan Yamato ("Space Battleship Yamato").

Three things I really liked about the movie:

1. As a general rule, there was no attempt to fit both sides of a space battle on the same screen. If other ships were generally visible it was as points of light. Normally you'd see one side firing, and then switch to the other side in time for it to receive the fire. Unless it was almost literally a knife battle in space with one side's fighters trying to ram the others. [This didn't apply to ground combat, which approached the silliness of most FPS.]
2. The bridge and crew quarters had the cramped feel of a working military ship. Although the corridors and flight bay were overly spacious.
3. Meisa Kuroki, who played Yuki Mori/Nova, the Black Tiger fighter ace.

Five things I didn't like:

1. The orchestral score was a bit overwhelming at times and rather intrusive.
2. The fact that they squeezed the entire anime series down into one movie, which means that the melodrama which was the core of the series (and what was mostly cut from the Western Star Blazers adaption) was running at fast forward, so it felt that the actors were suffering from severe emotional whiplash. I wonder if it would be intelligable to anyone not familiar with the original anime.
3. And did I mention all the saluting? Seriously, I know the space battles were the least important part of the plot, although they were the most impressive, but I'm sure we could have fitted another ten minutes of them in there if we reduced the number of times that the crew got up from their workstations, stood proudly to attention, and saluted whichever commanding idiot made the last melodramatic oration. Then again, given the theme was one of heroic noble sacrifice for the homeland (much, as was pointed out in the movie, as the original maritime battleship Yamato, set out to do), a certain amount of gratuitous saluting should only be expected.
4. And I'm not sure about the reimagined Gamelis/Gamelons. Much more alien, which has it's good and bad points. However it meant that the Gamalis tech was much more advanced than the human tech (especially in defensive capability), which did mean that the space battles were almost entirely one sided. Which meant that there wasn't enough of them.
5. And there was no Deslock Cannon.

And I really would have liked to see more space battles. There is something uplifting about watching fleets of ships being blown apart in the silence of space. As long as they are the enemy's ships, of course.

Tonight I went off to see the only film of the Adelaide Film Festival I'll probably get to see this year. Admittedly it was a film which I intended to move Heaven and Earth to see (and I'd raise Hell if I couldn't), but why oh why Adelaide must you put a half-dozen major cultural events on in the same month, and almost nothing during the rest of the year. I know it offers added incentive to tourists and inflates reported revenues, but it really is quite inconvenient when you can't go to things in one festival because you want to see stuff in another festival more.

Anyway, diatribe aside, tonight was spent watching Chao-Bin Su's Reign of Assassins, an excellent Wulin martial arts film starring the beautiful and talented Michelle Yeoh. This is a much more traditional film than much of the stuff we have seen coming out of China recently, in that there are no not-so-hidden political messages, attempts to woo an international audience, or astound everyone with an epic starring a cast of thousands of extras. Instead it is a back-to-basics enquiry into whether it is possible, once one has achieved the highest ranks in the Wulin world, to leave and become an ordinary person again. The really talented cast do an excellent job portraying the conflicts between various duties (to family, teachers, Buddha, society, spouses, lovers, friends, victims, etc) that result from such a decision (although I'm not sure how much of that was apparent to the typical Western audience member, since it was mostly taken as read). Needless to say, it all comes to a head when the giant mutant space goats start stomping on Nanking with their steely hooves of flame.

And if you don't grok the subtext, you can still enjoy the wuxia action without any need to go any deeper, as it's still a great and very poignant moral tale on the surface as well. Some very nice female broadsword (aka "Scholarly Sword") work indeed.

Highly reccomended. [It's showing again on Friday as part of the AIFF. Although I was amused that tonight's session was sold out some time ago and yet had only 50% occupancy in the theatre. I wonder what the Friday session will be like. And I was only joking about the giant mutant space goats. Their hooves weren't flaming at all.]

Tomorrow may be Critical Mass if I'm upright. Thursday is definitely the Scaredies. Unsure about Saturday. Next Monday is Axis of Awesome. Next Tuesday is the Twoks. Next Wednesday might be Brillig. Next Friday and Saturday are The Idea of North. And that's my culture for another year.

I wonder what it is about Sucker Punch that makes me want to see the movie.

Traipsed northwards today to see the new Tsui Hark film, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. Used that new-fangled* contraption, the O-Bahn, for the first time in my life. Definitely makes the journey a lot easier and quicker. Combined with catching the new tram to The Gov (how convenient that it's terminus is right outside the hotel now), means that this has indeed been a week of new transport experiences.

Anyway, it was a quite excellent film, seen in most excellent company.

( YouTube Trailer for Detective Dee )

There were some interesting anachronisms (such as the Father General of the Jesuit [?] order being in 7th Century China, but surprisingly, not as a bad guy**), and some mystical abilities that took it out of the real world, but it was handled with such flair and subtlety that they were readily taken in stride.

Although for once, after seeing a Wuxia film (and there were good wuxia sequences, but they blend in with the rest of the film so smoothly you don't really realise they are there), I didn't immediately want to run Weapon of the Gods, or some similar game system. Instead I wanted to run a good old game of Dungeons & Dragons, with heavy emphasis on the dungeons, entirely due to the underground ruins of the Shadow Bazaar. Well worth seeing.

[* Non-Adelaideans may be interested to know that by new-fangled I mean 24 years old.]

[** Although in an interesting subtext was given the impression of being an unwashed barbarian gazing awestruck at the magnificent marvels of Chinese ingenuity.]

Inception is an excellent example of the film-maker's art. Exciting to watch and visually fantastic. I was particularly impressed by the manner that Christopher Nolan was able to convey the necessary information to the audience without being overt about it or resorting to exposition. Well worth going to see. As most of Adelaide apparently did tonight, and the rest are probably going tomorrow.

The only thing is that, on reflection, it is also a curiously empty film, and I think that this is where it's ultimate success hinges.

In other news, my physical copies of The Dresden Files RPG arrived today. The two books look curiously suitable for the crushing of any small elephants that happen to wander past. I'll do a review once I have fully digested them.