Josh Levin on "Narnia" rap

The Chronicles of Narnia Rap
It won't save Saturday Night Live, but it could save hip hop. from Slate:

Rather than lampoon today's artists, Samberg and Parnell evoke old-school rap. The whole presentation—the lyrics, the flow, and the aesthetic—owes more to New York rappers from the '80s than to anything that's getting made today. The way they trade rhymes and enunciate the end of each line—"You can call us Aaron Burr / From the way we're droppin' HAM-IL-TONS"—recalls the delivery of 1980s artists like Run-DMC. The production values, New York street scenes, and silly similes call to mind early Beastie Boys tracks. Really, is "I've got mad hits like I was Rod Carew" any less ridiculous than "I love those cupcakes like McAdams loves Gosling"?

Jeff

Nina Gordon's "Straight Outta Compton"

Straight Outta Compton (2 MB MP3) by Nina Gordon. This is sublimely beautiful. A fair sight more polished than my own Night of the living baseheads (3.5 MB MP3)--beautifully sung and played.

Jeff

Chronic of Narnia redux!

Chronic-WHAT-cles of Narnia video from SNL. The best whiteboy rap since MC Hawking.

Jeff

Top Ten Most Revolutionary Action Movies of All Time

I'm in a list-making mood lately...

10. The General (1927)

Buster Keaton's "The General" may seem like an odd choice, but it IS in fact, an action movie, far more than it is a comedy or slapstick. It's a incredibly suspenseful action thriller, and one of Keaton's best films.

9. Seven Samurai (1954)

Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" raised the bar for action epics, creating a standard that would hardly be dented until Sergio Leone's Westerns of the late 60's.

8. Die Hard

"Die Hard" is the quintessential American action movie: a single tough guy against a legion of dangerous bad guys. "Die Hard" rises above the crop by making the tough guy so human and real, as played by Bruce Willis, and by making the bad guy so clever and resourceful, and well-played by Alan Rickman. It's sharp, solid action filmmaking at its best.

7. Hard-Boiled

Chow Yun-Fat stars in John Woo's "Hard-Boiled", which features more violence and a higher body count in its opening ten or fifteen minutes than most American action movies do in their full running time--and still manages to up the ante throughout, until its mind-blowing hospital shootout finale. It is absolutely the most beautifully-crafted gunplay film ever made.

6. Come Drink With Me

Cheng Pei-Pei in King Hu's "Come Drink With Me" stands as an icon of 1960's Hong Kong warrior women. She's tough and cool and the movie itself is a beautiful adaptation of many of the concepts of Chinese martial arts novels and legends into rich, vibrant color. Setting a new standard for quality in martial arts and action films, "Come Drink With Me" changed Hong Kong moviemaking forever, and that influence would be felt for decades to come around the world.

5. Drunken Master

Yuen Wo-Ping directed Jackie Chan in "Drunken Master", his second big success, which solidified his reputation as the successor for Bruce Lee and as one of Asia and the world's biggest stars. It's a perfect showcase for Jackie's slapstick comedy martial arts style, influenced by Buster Keaton as much as by the Peking Opera training he had as a child.

4. Project A Part II

Jackie directed "Project A Part II", his most sophisticated and well-crafted action picture yet, which again raised the standards of what could be done in Hong Kong moviemaking. By the time of "Project A Part II", Jackie had moved from pure comedy martial arts to lush and beautiful period pieces featuring a manic combination of stunts and action. It's one of his best movies and a landmark in action cinema.

3. Once Upon A Time in China

Tsui Hark's "Once Upon A Time in China" is a more serious successor to the lush period style of "Project A Part II". Jet Li plays traditional Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-Hung with gravitas and focus, without losing sight of the comedic elements of the story. The action direction, by the master Yuen Wo-Ping, features some of the most spectacular aerial fight scenes that had ever been done, and the movie's production values and musical score underline it all to create a truly epic action film of national pride and heroism.

2. Enter the 36th Chamber

"Enter the 36th Chamber", directed by Liu Chia-Liang and starring his adopted brother Gordon Liu, is one of the most sparse and focused kung fu films ever made. The bulk of the story features the main character training at the Shaolin temple, showing the hardships he endures, and the rigors of the martial arts life he chooses when his family and town are brutalized by the Manchurian oppressors. It is the prototype for dozens (possibly hundreds) of copycat films and it stands as one of the all-time classics of the genre.

1. Fist of Fury

If you're doing a list of action movies, Bruce Lee is gonna be at the top. Opinions vary as to which is the best of his few films, but "Fist of Fury" combines the high production values and cinematography of early Golden Harvest studios with a compelling story of Chinese nationalism (this time against Japanese oppressors in Shanghai during the 1930's). It's the most intense and tragic of Bruce's films, the one where everything works together to create a beautiful, sublime vision of physical poetry.

Honorable mentions:

James Cameron's "Aliens". It was on the list until I realized I hadn't name-checked John Woo. I couldn't really list "Aliens" AND "Die Hard", since they both cover similar territory as the best American action movies. But "Aliens" has such a great, catchy script and fun performances I just think of it as one of the most perfectly-made movies ever.

"The Matrix". Again it was hard to leave off, but there's only so much space on the list and I wanted to include movies from past and present AND from around the world.

Peter Jackon's "King Kong". I really do think it will stand up there with the best of them, as it features absolutely the most intense action sequences put on film in years--but since it's only been out a few days it might be a bit premature to list it with the Top Ten "Of All Time".

Chang Cheh's body of work, especially "Five Venoms". A kung fu classic, but I just didn't have room on the list.

Liu Chia-Liang's "Mad Monkey Kung Fu". It's my favorite movie ever, but with such limited space, "Enter the 36th Chamber" was a more representative film, and far more revolutionary.

Top Ten Revolutionary Effects Movies of All Time

Some ABC affiliate did a little article about "Top Ten Revolutionary Effects Movies Of All Time", but they got it about half wrong, so I did my own version:

10. Citizen Kane (1941)

"Citizen Kane" was one of the best examples of insinuating special effects into a serious film and making it appear seamless. From forced-perspective shots to compositing of multiple images, to breakaway miniatures to matte paintings, Orson Welles used special effects to expand the world of what he could show on screen and how he could show it, all the while hiding its presence from the audience.

9. The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

"The Wizard Of Oz" remains one of the most effective and influential fantasy movies ever made. Its Kansas twister is an incredible effect even today, its sepia-to-color effect is magical, and all its characters are convincingly created through the work of the actors, the costumers and the special effects department.

8. The Invisible Man (1933)

In 1933, Universal had shown audiences some incredible sights through its wildly-successful horror movie releases, "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", but "The Invisible Man" was the most ground-breaking in its special effects--clothes dancing around on their own, bicycles riding by themselves, footprints appearing in the snow--all of it beautifully done by John P. Fulton working for director James Whale.

7. Godzilla (1954)

Considering that Godzilla films are an industry of their own and a cultural pastime in Japan, I think an argument can be made that 1954's "Godzilla" (aka "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" in the US) is one of the most influential effects pictures ever made. Tokyo miniatures, rubber suits--it's not always technically realistic, but it's almost always compelling entertainment that became a phenomenon.

6. Jurassic Park

Here's where I start agreeing with the original list. "Jurassic Park" was watermark of computer animation, finally showing that CGI could create convincing, realistic animal characters. And in spite of almost fifteen years of advancement in computer graphics, its dinosaurs still look convincing.

5. Toy Story

Another ground-breaking film, showing that when complete computer animation is used in service of a good story (written by "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon, who won an Oscar for his screenplay), the results are infectious and compelling.

4. Terminator 2

"Terminator 2" was the first movie to really make use of computer effects on such a scale, and proved how effectively they could be done. Plus it gave the world "morphing".

3. The Matrix

"The Matrix" has had a huge impact in just a few years, virtually single-handedly creating a bullet-time, wire-fu craze in the US. Many of its techniques had been used to great effect in Hong Kong and elsewhere, but John Gaeta's "bullet-time" was the real standout that no one had seen before.

2. Star Wars

What can you say? "Star Wars" virtually created the modern blockbuster action effects movie (with a little help from "Jaws"). Still as convincing as it needed to be to tell a strong, solid story and deliver the audience into a science-fiction universe that looked unique in movies at the time.

1. King Kong (1933)

If Star Wars created the modern blockbuster action effects movie, 1933's "King Kong" was the ORIGINAL blockbuster action effects movie. The first film whose lead character was a special effect, the first movie to create such emotion and pathos with an animated character. Willis H. O'Brien and his team were pretty much inventing the concept of special effects on a new scale with this film, developing stop-motion, camera and film printing techniques that would be used for the next hundred years and beyond. It is impossible to overstate the influence of the original "Kong" on moviemakers and audiences, even today.

There were a couple of movies I had a hard time leaving out:

I felt like "Tron" should be listed for being so far ahead of its time in computer effects and animation, but had a hard time justifying it against this list.

I was also wondering--if "Toy Story", a completely animated film, is on the list, then shouldn't "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" be there, too? "Snow White" was as groundbreaking as "Kong" in 1937, and to make it (and "Fantasia" a few years later) Disney's animators and technicians created some amazing ways of filming animation.

But if you bring actual animation into the list, there's plenty of other films that would need to get considered.

Jeff

The Chronic of Narnia

I was checking the iTunes Music Store just now and noticed something interesting:



Here's an enlargement of the listing for "The Chronicles of Narnia":



Perhaps Dr. Dre produced the movie's soundtrack!

Jeff

"King Kong"

Peter Jackson's "King Kong" is incredible. It's one of the most intense spectacles that has been made in the movies. It does the remarkable job of updating the 1933 original for a more "sophisticated" time, while increasing its scope, majesty and running time. Everything is heightened--the violence, the emotion and the romance.

Where the original 1933 film was a fairly short, light film suitable for virtually any age, Peter Jackson's version is definitely designed for adults. The violence is far more intense and brutal than anything he's made since the gruesome zombie pic "Brain-Dead" (aka "Dead/Alive"), featuring giant dinosaurs, multiple T-rexes and an insect pit that must have been designed in a nightmare.

The stakes are raised on the emotion, too. Where the original featured filmmaker Carl Denham as a noble adventurer, Jack Black plays the character as an opportunistic hustler who cares about little except himself and his fame and fortune. The original featured Ann Denham falling in love with Jack Driscoll on board the tramp steamer Venture, with Jack saving the helpless, terrified Ann from the giant ape's lair. In Jackson's version Ann and Jack's relationship pales next to her bond with Kong. The lyrical, operatic quality of the story was more an implication in the original--here it IS the story.

Kong himself is a masterpiece, as created by actor Andy Serkis (who also created the movements and voice of Gollum) and WETA Workshop's computer animators. He's absolutely the most sophisticated animated character who's existed yet, with a personality and a realism that makes it easy to forget he's a computer creation.

I spotted only a couple of places where I felt the animation or the computer effects were "obvious", or could have been done a bit better, and I can't think of any complaints about the story or the acting. Jack Black is ideal for this part, with his bluster and bombast, and Naomi Watts is terrific as Ann Darrow.

If you haven't seen the 1933 original, it is still the father of all special-effects blockbusters, with nonstop action from start to finish. Peter Jackson's remake is the movie of someone who loved the original film with a passion, and seeing it will only help you appreciate the remake that much more. But Jackson has definitely done it justice in updating the story and the effects. It's truly a masterpiece.

Jeff

"cry for anarchy?"

About the new "V for Vendetta" movie, Harry Knowles wrote:

This is the most intense cinematic cry for Anarchy since A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. They made the comic. Alan Moore is a bitch for even thinking of bitching about this.

Okay, two things:

First--"A Clockwork Orange" is not a "cry for anarchy". "A Clockwork Orange" is about violence and fascism and the ethics of punishment. It makes a case that oppression is a terrible thing by taking the most unredeemable character conceivable and showing that, even in the case of a sadistic, violent thug, oppression is a terrible thing.

I honestly can't even figure WHY Knowles would think "A Clockwork Orange" was a "cry for anarchy". Where's the part that makes a case for anarchy? When it shows the anarchic behavior of Alex and his droogs as they rape, rob, brutalize and murder? Wow, what a compelling case! "If we have anarchy, we can also rape, rob, brutalize and murder!" I really don't follow. It seems that Knowles is just another one of those kids who thought Alex was a cool, awesome sympathetic hero because he's so charismatic and colorful. He probably wishes there was an ongoing "Rorschach" spinoff from WATCHMEN because "Rorschach is cool, man".

And second--I'll reserve judgment about my own opinion on the "V for Vendetta" movie til I see it, but I think Alan Moore is a little more qualified to judge whether he thinks it's worth bitching about. He only CREATED the fricking thing.

Everything that'd been adapted of Moore's for the movies has been turned into complete crap, and the advance word on this movie certainly didn't sound faithful to the original story--apparently it is set in a world where Germany has conquered Britain and THAT'S why it's a fascist country? The entire point of the original "V for Vendetta" story was that England was becoming more fascistic in the REAL world and that this was a natural progression of its policies.

I like the Wachowski Brothers, but I'm withholding judgment until I see it.

Jeff

TV Writers must sell, sell, sell

From Wired News:

TV networks are turning to product placements to fight back against ad-skipping technologies like TiVo, but now some writers are putting up a fight, demanding more pay in exchange for scripting product plugs into their shows.

...

In a recent episode of the NBC series Medium, writers had to work the movie Memoirs of a Geisha into the dialogue three times because of a deal the network made with Sony earlier in the season. They even had the characters go on a date to an early screening of the movie and bump into friends who had just viewed Geisha to tell them how good it was.

I am sure I saw an example of this. I was channel surfing and saw a bit of NBC's "The Office". In this episode, the office was having a Christmas "White santa" party with a maximum gift price of $20, and the Steve Carell character got someone a video iPod. There were a few jokes made about it, and some trading of presents because someone else wanted the iPod.

On that same night, the iTunes Music Store started selling episodes of "The Office" which can be downloaded and played on a video iPod.

Jeff