Stealing a Fun Idea

I've been mostly M.I.A. for the past couple of weeks and by the look of things, will be for the next two weeks as well until my exams are over, with maybe a one-minute review popping up here and there just to stay in the game during that time. Therefore, for one, if I haven't commented on your blog posts or contributed in some way, I apologize. It's not that I'm not reading, I'm just not taking the time to think up meaningful ways to respond. With that I wanted to write a post that could get people talking so that I can simply watch what is being said and chime in from time to time in the comments section. So, here it is:


Do you read The Movie Snob? Well if not you probably should start. The other day he wrote a post about how the next Batman movie should be cast. Check it out here.

One of my suggestions would be to have Ethan Hawke play the Riddler, if that is truly to be the next villain. The reason for this is that, I think anyway, the best actor for the job will be the least expected.

When Jack Nicholson was cast as the Joker way back in the late 80s it made sense but the end result was simply Nicholson doing his usual thing but with face paint. When there were talks of who could potentially play the Joker in The Dark Knight Robin Williams is one of the people who made sense to me. He'd worked for Nolan before and he can play characters that are both dark and zany. But, like Nicholson, he was too much of an easy choice. I know big stars sometimes like to take on the role of villains so that they can dress up and act devious and go over the top but generally, when movie stars are cast in such roles, they tend to simply rely on their presence and phone it in.

Therefore, when Heath Ledger was announced as the actual Joker I scoffed only to realize, like everyone else, Ledger did the unimaginable: he went for broke and completely disappeared from the scene, creating a fully realized character. I thus realized that villains need to be played by actors not stars. I think Hawke is such an actor. It's been seen over the duration of his entire career that he is intelligent, versatile, and can play both dark and brooding while also zany and off-the-way. I threw around other names in the comment section at Movie Snob's post so check those out there.


So what do you think? Who should play the Riddler? Penguin? Catwoman? Poinson Ivy? Mr. Freeze? Who could work that Heath Ledger magic and create meaningful characters within these roles as opposed to the movie stars who played them in the past? Let's throw some ideas around.

While we are at it: who do you want to see as the new Spider-Man and who do you want to see as the villain and played by who? I'm curious to see how everyone weighs in.

The Rating Scale

So the other day when I wrote a one minute review of Next Day Air Andrew over at Encore commented that the movie sounded passable but he was surprised by the high rating which I allotted (3.5 out of 5). This inspired me to throw out some context.

There is one fundamental rule that I believe when it comes to scoring films: it is pointless. I do it because it comes with the territory but really, what does a rating out of four or five prove? It doesn't assess the worth of the film itself because it is based on the preference of the writer and reflects their experience of the film and not the film's overall worth, in which case you should scrap the rating and just read the review seeing as that's what it is there for in the first place.

It also doesn't assess the worth of a film in relation to other films because every rating is the rating solely of that film and not all films. It is possible to use other like films to justify a certain rating but when I give a five star rating to Up in the Air that by no means it is the equal to The Godfather which would also get five stars. Up in the Air is a five star film in the world of corporate human comedies and The Godfather is a five star gangster movie. In no way do either of those five stars cross over in relation to one another and I don't even begin to know how they would begin to compare in the overall world of film. However if The Dark Knight is a five star movie then the other four Batman movies before Batman Begins are around 2-2.5s.

Now, as for why I use five stars. It's because I like that extra star for indifference. Four stars doesn't really give you much wiggle room. However, in terms of thumbs up or thumbs down, five stars offers the 3-3.5 range which is basically the same (overall indifference) but 3 reflects the thumb tipping slightly in the down direction while the 3.5 reflects the thumb tipping slightly in the up direction.

But again, we're beating a dead horse because, as proof right in the first paragraph, the meaning of these ratings exist solely in the mind of the review (Andrew perceives 3.5 to be of greater worth than me and that's his right). To me good film criticism has, is and will always be about someone who writes about film sharing their experiences with those who like to read about film. As I've said elsewhere on this site, I read a review not to know if the movie is good or not (I can decide that on my own) but to see what reviewer X had to say about it. When I read Andrew's blog I care much more about who his personal favourite actors and actresses of the decade are and why he thinks so rather than what films he thinks I should be seeing because, knowing me, I'll probably see them regardless.

With that said, in most cases, to reference Jean Renior once again, the reviewer is often more important than the film he or she is reviewing, which simply acts as a springboard or starting point from which that person can begin to share their personal thoughts, fears, anxieties, philosophies, emotional responses, etc. Film criticism, like all art, is fundamentally composed of two parts: the emotional and the intellectual. It's on one (or both) these two levels that all great film (and art in general) moves us on. If a film doesn't stimulate a viewer's mind or move them to some emotional response then it has failed and this can only be expressed in the body of the review, not in the arbitrary number I put in brackets after the film's title.

James Cameron

James Cameron is a great filmmaker, but he still kind of annoys me. I liked him better back in the 90s where he was proceeded by a reputation as being some sadistic, perfectionist tyrant on set of his movies and wasn't afraid to rip the people around him new ones. I can admire that. I like people who have a vision that is so determined and singular that they aren't afraid to call out the people around them who are hindering them on their journey to creating something great.

However, now that it seems Cameron has cooled down with age (or maybe it's because he got rid of the facial hair), he's still kind of pompous in that goofy Canadian way and tends to come off as the guy who says stupid things in public before thinking them out fully (announcing he needs to pee while accepting best director at the Golden Globes, like come on).

I say this because today Deadline Hollywood has posted four different videos of Cameron (three from MTV and one with Charlie Rose). In the first one, with Rose, his ego is on full display as he says he hopes Avatar wins best picture but he wants Kathryn Bigelow to win best director for The Hurt Locker, not because she deserves it, but because he doesn't need another best director award. I don't know if he is being sincere, is saying this because he knows the Director's Guild award usually determines the Oscar winner and that one went to Bigelow, or if he's just saying, "Ya, our film is the best of the year, but give my poor little ex-wife an honour because she's not as big a star as me."

Then Cameron is asked about any advice he'd give to Marc Webb for directing Spider-Man in 3D which gets Cameron talking about the rebooted Batman movies, which he liked so much better than the first four which he couldn't stomach. Of course, nice guy that he is, says he doesn't want to "throw anyone under the bus" immediately after calling out Tim Burton on being responsible for the first Batman movies. Sorry Jim, I think the Burton Batman movies sucked too, but once you call someone out, you can't take it back. I hope Burton catches this and responds like he did with the whole debate about how he stole the end of Planet of the Apes from Kevin Smith's Chasing Dogma comic book.

Then Cameron talks about how he is done with the Terminator series and has no comment on the plans for a fifth and sixth movie in the series other than he's glad someone else can make some money off it like he did, right before getting into information on an Avatar sequel. This whole Avatar sequel talk bothers me because it seems opinions on it change by the week. First Cameron says that it will probably be a long time before a sequel because he won't make one until he knows he has a great script. Then Rupert Murdoch came out saying that he wants another Avatar movie as soon as possible. Now here Cameron is saying he's been thinking about new projects and Avatar is definitely a strong possibility.

Personally, I could live without another Avatar film. It was a complete, self-sufficient story and I feel to continue it would simply be like the second and third Matrix films. They were good, but at the same time they felt like unneeded continuations of a singular film that still stands on its own without them and apart from them. Also, unlike Cameron's Terminator 2 which was the big sequel to a minor film, Avatar 2 would need to be the ultra-major sequel to a major film. Expectations would probably kill it on arrival.