To Transcend or not Transcend
Those with a keen interest in cinema will already know this, but not too long ago a film called Transcendence was released internationally. It’s fairly fresh on the screen in more ways than one, as it’s the directorial debut of Wally Pfister – the cinematographer in charge of shooting almost all of Christopher Nolans films including Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and Inception. There’s been a noteworthy amount of hype surrounding it, especially as Christopher Nolan was announced as a producer, the budget was raised to 100 million, and some of Nolan’s favourite players like Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy joined the project. In addition, the rest of the cast included Paul Bettany, Johnny Depp, and Rebecca Hall, so the only thing left to potentially disappoint us was the plot.
“As Dr. Will Caster works toward his goal of creating an omniscient, sentient machine, a radical anti-technology organization fights to prevent him from establishing a world where computers can transcend the abilities of the human brain.”
– IMDB
Alright, it’s not exactly a dramatic indie gem, but I do love a good science fiction premise. Pfister himself described it as a throwback to 1970’s sci-fi like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, and Westworld. Sounds good to me, I’d love to be transported back to the days when films like this were more about ideas, questions, and ultimately something fundamental concerning the nature of humanity as a whole. Cinema can be a wonderful medium in which to explore the consequences, benefits, and untapped avenues of technology as its roots grow deeper and deeper into our established society.
So how did the movie do when it opened?
Transcendence has tanked miserably. Both critically and financially it is an undeniable failure, having only made half its money back worldwide and garnering an almost unanimously negative response from critics. The word of mouth on it has totally putrified by now, so the chances of it making its money back are shot. So then why am I sitting here like this:
I have to be honest with myself…I’m interested! The idea seems good, I like the actors, I like Wally Pfister, and all the promotional material intrigues me. In summation, I have nothing to indicate that I won’t enjoy this film…besides everyone else telling me so.
Now I’m someone who takes film reviews and majority opinions very seriously. When 9 out of 10 people agree that a film is bad, there’s usually a reason. Mixed reviews are one thing, but a %13 debut score on rotten tomatoes is pretty much cut and dry.
Ok, so there we have it. I won’t bother wasting my money on it. After all, I’m in my own personal recession at the moment. Having basically no money means you can’t afford to take a chance on such a lambasted film. If it had a %60 then maybe, %50 perhaps, hell even %40 but dammit…it isn’t worth cutting a pound of flesh from my side just to satisfy my curiosity when the rest of the village condemns it like the plague. Just out of interest, what are some other films that critics and audiences hated when they were initially released?
Great, so now I’m back to square one. What do I do, follow my whims or follow the crowd? Carefree and exciting or responsible and dull?
Perhaps I’ll try something new. Transcendence is still in theatres and one hopes it will be so for a little while longer, thus I have a little time to call upon the audience.
Yes! The Cinema-Rant audience…all…3 of you…or thereabouts, will now have the chance to decide my fate. I’ve given you no middle ground here, so as to hopefully leave me with a definitive answer. It’s ok if you haven’t seen the film, all I’m asking for is a hunch, a feeling, a blessing or a reservation, if nothing else…a mere tilt of the head one way or the other.
You have one week!
– Rant Over!
Against the tide
See this?
That’s what’s known as an “Unpopular Opinion Puffin” meme. It’s used when admitting to an opinion that generally clashes with the socially acceptable majority view…and that’s what I’m about to do.
As a bilingual, bicultural, bi-bachelor bipede I often find myself shifting from one collective opinion to another as I cross borders. I have two homelands; Norway and Australia. Aside from some ever-so-slight differences in population, history, landscape, climate, vegetation, wildlife, and language they’re actually quite similar countries. Politically, Norway may be slightly more left-leaning and somewhat less capitalistic, but the core values, laws, and principles of both nations mostly match up.
However, as an “Ozwegian” living in Australia, I find myself at odds with everyone else around me when it comes to these:
I absolutely love whales. In fact, here’s my favourite kind of whale:
A well done marine mammal steak drenched in pepper sauce with potatoes, green peas, and fresh tomato. Mmmmmm! Does everyone out there thoroughly hate me now? Ok.
I will admit my bias up front, I do love the taste of whale meat. If you haven’t tried it, then you seriously don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a semi lean steak that tastes like the sea! Except, not in a gross seafood kind of way. My interest in the food is not the entire foundation of my stance of the subject of whaling, but it is the initial cause of my dedication to it.
The Norwegian whaling industry, as of 2006, hunts and kills an average of 1,052 whales a year out of an estimated population of 107,000. In other words, 0.98% of whales in Norwegian waters are harvested for food. The only species of whale that the government permits killing is the Northern Minke Whale, which is specifically not endangered.
Whale meat is a luxury, it’s expensive, and is therefore actually rarely eaten by Norwegians anyways. The animals are shot by a high powered gas-pressure harpoon tipped with an explosive charge which detonates inside or upside the whales skull and maximises the chance of instantaneous death, with unsuccessful “unclean” kills ranging from a thus-far record low 30 seconds to around 3 minutes. All in all, it is as much of a humane practice as any other form of “meat-extraction” currently being practised on land animals in every other nation and it could easily be argued that a whale’s death is usually quicker and less painful that that your average stalked deer. And yet, I find that it’s the norm here in Australia to sympathise with this bullshit…
Let’s get one thing straight, the crew of the Sea Shepard (the cast of Whale Wars) is nothing but a group of terrorists. As someone who usually hates the ambiguous ease with which that term is used and the baseless blacklisting that inevitably follows, I can only apologise…there is simply no better term for it. I won’t even give them the dignity of calling them “eco-terrorists”, because they’re so deluded and fanatical about their cause that they do nothing but soil that prefix. Specifically:
No, that’s not Steve Irwin after faking his own death and living out the rest of his life incognito before stupidly naming a boat after himself and standing next to it. That is Paul Watson. Watson is notorious for destroying whaling vessels and endangering people’s lives in the name of marine environmentalism. He proudly claims to be responsible for sinking ten ships as of 2009 and has attempted to destroy many more. His favourite tactics include planting bombs and filling the front of ships with concrete before ramming other vessels head-on (reminiscent of Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). It’s undeniably dangerous and illegal activity for both his crew and the whaling vessel’s and has resulted in known human injury and millions of dollars worth of damage. He’s been charged with jail time in Norway, a punishment he’s been dodging for years by boating in and out of several waters and hiding illegitimately in various corners of the world. Greenpeace officially expelled him in 1977, calling him a violent extremist who undermines the very cause he stands for.
With respect to the Japanese part of this equation. Yes, if and when Japanese whaling vessels provably enter into Australian waters against the law they should be prosecuted. One hopes Tony Abbott would start attaching a different meaning to “stop the boats”. However, my plea to the Australian people is not to confuse the illegal and often environmentally unfriendly Japanese whaling industry with the Scandinavian one. It’s completely standard “down undah” for the average layman to be “like totally against whaling”, without much knowledge of the subject. I hear people cry about how intelligent whales and porpoises are, so wonderfully social and playful, dear god could any animal be more worth conserving than a cute and graceful marine mammal? How about…
Pigs, Gorillas, and Chimpanzees are the only animal that are considered more intellectually and socially intelligent than whales and porpoises. Chimpanzees and Gorillas are protected. Pigs? Pigs are bacon, and here’s how that happens:
(WARNING: Graphic)
Mmmm, pork.
The electric shock that renders the animal unconscious (although I’m not sure how much of a “reflex” all that kicking and twitching really is) is only used in places with a Humane Slaughter Act implemented on the industry. Several countries which export meat and livestock do not have these regulations, and are therefore cheaper alternative trading parters for large corporations. Now, are any westerners going to stand up and fight for the rights of pigs? Mostly the answer is no.
The only real different between slitting the throat of a 50 kg land animal and grenade-harpooning a 10 ton whale submerged in water is that there’s more blood, which gives protesters this kind of emotional ammunition:
“Oh jesus, look at all that red! It must have been painful!”
I want to be very clear. I am not necessarily advocating against environmentalism, I just want consistency. Sanctimonious hypocrisy is very unbecoming, especially in a country that sells Kangaroo sausages in the meat isle of every Coles supermarket. I believe it was Shakespeare who said “check thyself before thou wreck thyself”. Wasn’t it? Oh no, sorry, mixed him up with Ice Cube. Common mistake.
I agree that humanity needs to find a way to ease off the slaughter of animals, but will still have to maintain its meat industry because…let’s face it, people aren’t going to stop eating meat. To that end, almost a year ago now, this thing was unveiled:
That’s a burger grown in a lab. No animal sacrifice, just your average 300 thousand dollar muscle-cell patty prototype. And what was the media reaction presented to the common man?
“Meat made by a scientist? Ew! It’s probably all genetically modified and stuff!” Apparently the first one didn’t taste quite like beef, so fuck that! What else you got?
How about organ cloning? Science and technology has now reached the point where it is possible to clone parts of creatures, as opposed to the whole thing, and keep them alive for necessary transplants and research. So why not clone whole muscles? Create a muscle farm , or ‘meat farm’ if you will. Invest in the growth of the industry, and soon enough the techniques for injecting fats and nutrients into them will be perfected, giving you the same result as a piece of flesh torn from an animal. Anyone?
Ok, well then there’s no helping you. It would be nice if all those belching finger-wagging and poster-bearing anti-whaling protesters would spend some of that time and effort supporting an alternative steak and poultry source but apparently it’s too much bother for them to say something positive. All people seem to want to do is scream, shout, bomb ships, and condemn a foreign culture for not being like them. Basically, be a dick!
So why did I devote so much time talking about this issue? This isn’t a political blog, or at least it’s not supposed to be. It’s meant to be about cinema, right? Well, in fact, it’s all been a prelude to what I’m about to show you.
If you must, by all means watch Whale Wars or The Cove. Know, however, that they’re one-sided manipulation pieces meant to depict ‘The Japanese” as evil in order to justify a call to action on behalf of dolphins and whales. Not once do these propaganda movies and shows attempt to understand why the Japanese utilise their available marine sources in such a manner. Nor do they compare the industry to any western equivalents. Simplistic at best and racist at worst, it all just amounts to showing us gallons of blood, tears, and passion without much truth at its heart.
However, there are good documentaries to be found on this subject. The 2013 docco Blackfish, which I included in my list of films you probably didn’t see last year, is a fantastic expose on the dark underside of Orca Whale captivity at SeaWorld. Following on the heels of that, I recently came across a brilliant low budget online docco named Chasing Giants.
You can watch the whole thing here. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this movie entirely echoes my sentiments, it’s merely a film that I commend for asking the whalers about what they think of their own profession. It explores the history of whaling in Norway, as well as the reasons why it was banned and then resurrected in the 90’s, and is by far one of the most manipulation-free depictions of a globally controversial issue that I’ve ever seen.
In the end, anyone who knows anything about the whaling industry knows that it will most likely be an extinct profession in the not-too-distant future. Not because of people like Paul Watson, but because the general population just doesn’t care about having it on their plate. So be it, as much as I love it I can live without my whale steak. What anti-whalers need to do is, frankly, focus on more important issues. Climate change is by far the biggest threat facing life on this planet, and has relatively no proper solutions being seriously discussed at high political levels in any country. Take your signs, your pirate ships, your Whale Wars, and your Oscar winning documentary talent and do something useful with it for a change!
To end all this, hopefully not on a downer, I’ll leave you with a 5 minute audio file…not something I usually do. Whale Wars and The Cove were brilliantly parodied by Matt Stone and Trey Parker in their 2009 South Park episode “Whale Whores“. Although their frustration with the Whale Wars crew is based more on the setup of the show rather than the exhibited vigilantly behaviour, it still makes for a hilarious commentary by the two of them.
– Rant Over!
Noah Truth
Brace yourselves, for a storm is coming. I’m about to address religion. Well, sort of…
Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is about to hit cinemas, and is due for release here in Melbourne on March 28th. Obviously I haven’t seen it yet and one shouldn’t judge a movie just based on a poster and a premise. Still, the whole concept of this film bothers me. I’m an atheist, sure, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy films with religious stories, religious themes, or even some religious messages. I like Michael Tolkin’s The Rapture, M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. The problem I have with this one, however, is entirely factual.
The story of Noah and the Great Flood is not history. It’s not fact. It’s nothing. It amounts to no more than a fable or a fairytale, like Red Riding Hood. I have no problem with fictional films, of course, so long as they are clearly fictional.
When I watched the trailer for this bilge, I couldn’t believe my eyes. What struck me the most was how Aronofsky and the producers have decided to set the film not in any historical setting that we know of…but in Bibleland. The whole thing appears to have been shot inside Ken Ham’s “Creation Museum“. Where is this tribal European world where people walk around speaking modern english and wearing burlap sacks? Darren, what the fuck? Let me show you something:
See that juicy red slice of jelly pie? See the number on it too? That’s the percentage of U.S. Americans who think the Noah’s Ark story is actually true!
That’s right, it’s not all fun and games anymore is it? With a significant majority of the American public believing that this myth either does or should reside in college textbooks next to chapters on The Roman Empire and Ancient Egypt, I strongly suggest that making a 160 million dollar feature film about it with no clear and resounding declaration of its historical inaccuracy is, at best, irresponsible. I don’t honestly care about how moving the story of Noah is, or how allegorical it may be with modern environmentalism. All that literalist Christian audiences seem to see is the American film industry embracing the same ignorance that they already cling to and it ends up effecting things like this:
That’s the percentage of Americans who reject the theory of evolution in favour of something else, typically creationism, as the origin of man.
It’s unbearably depressing to see human ignorance dissected in front of you like that and usually you have to sit back and go “hey, people are stupid, what you gonna do?”, but in this case Aronofsky has provided me with a specific target to aim for.
Do not do this kind of thing! Making a film like this with no connection to the real world, packing it full of symbolism and inferred messages, and then expecting the average cinema audience to get that it’s not meant to be a factual event is so fucking stupid I can’t even begin to describe it. I know that you, Aronofsky, know it’s not meant to be taken literally, but an alarming amount of people out there aren’t intellectually positioned to understand that. You think I’m being arrogant, elitist, and condescending?
How about now?
Most people do their work, pay their taxes, buy their groceries, and then kick back expecting the TV to take over and tell them about the rest of the world. It’s not a judgement I’m making on them, it’s simply understandable behaviour from the common man who is too busy to spend time analysing what’s fact or fiction. It’s up to you, the makers of entertainment, to not needlessly lead them astray.
I know that Darren Aronofsky is an intelligent man, and doubt that he’s especially religious himself (if religious at all), so I expect this film to be less of a preachy Bible epic and more of a sweeping character piece with frequent memorable and arresting images. Yet, what worries me is that if this film is sufficiently successful it may cull back an era where religious thinking is in the mainstream rather than peeled off into the fringe to die a natural death (as it should be).
Luckily for me and those likeminded, the film seems to have already run aground in some waters (lame pun intended). Not because of any secular or anti religious criticism…but because of other religions. Noah has thus far been banned in Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, which is not good news for a film which likely has the greatest chance of success amongst a religious audience. The filmmakers pleaded, therefore, for an opportunity to screen the film in front of everyone’s favourite hippy Pope Francis, all in an attempt to give it the official Vatican seal of approval and hopefully open the door to the most hardcore of catholic christians. Indeed, people seem to forget that the biggest threat to the expression of their own beliefs is not atheism, but theism.
Enough of that, though. I have two antidotes to this singular but persistent problem. This is the first:
Many people will already know this, but Cosmos is back on television for the first time in 28 years! For those who are unaware, the original Cosmos was and still is the most famous and financially successful scientific series ever to premiere on the small screen. All the show ever consisted of was astronomer Carl Sagan talking about and illustrating our current collective knowledge of…well, everything. It was fact, it was science, it was truth. Sounds dry, I know, but he infused it with such love and passion that it became the most watched series on American public television for the next ten years. Now, it’s been resurrected and reinvented by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlene, with an equally charismatic new host; cult science hero and astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Oh, and it’s fucking awesome!
McFarlene “spared no expense” putting this thing together, with state of the art CGI, animation, and a powerful theatrical score from film composer Alan Silvestri. Cosmos is by far the most cinematic learning experience you can get your hands on; a show that (if you’ll pardon the poetic licence) speaks as much to your heart as it does to your mind. Never have math, chemistry, biology, or physics been this exciting!
My second antidote to stupidity is a weird little under-promoted film called Mr. Peabody and Sherman. I recently went to see this by myself at my local cinema, surrounded by nearly a hundred tiny children high on sugar and adrenaline…and I had a lovely time!
Based on the original cartoon Peabody’s Improbable History from the 1950’s and 60’s, you’d think a movie about a genius talking dog and his adopted human son traveling through time and meeting historical figures would be nothing but lame. Not at all! It’s absolutely brilliant. This movie is so funny, but at the same time manages to be educational. There are sharp jokes and intentionally blunt “dad” puns that play to both younger and older audiences. Along the way, you’re treated to a thick collection of historical trivia and even corrected on several of your commonly held historical misconceptions, making it something akin to a feature film version of a Q. I. episode.
Here’s a mere 62 second clip in which you get the specific date of the Trojan War, a plot point that spoofs the Trojan Horse, references to Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Agamemnon, Diomedes, Menelaus, and a hilariously weird depiction of Odysseus.
For more historical figures, like Leonardo da Vinci, George Washington, Tutankhamun, Vincent Van Gogh, and Einstein, followed by a host of inspired gags at their expense, please do go check out Mr. Peabody and Sherman at your nearest cinema. Better yet, bring along any young child you can…that you know. Don’t, like…grab one off the street or anything. Hell, go see it twice, while intentionally boycotting Noah.
– Rant Over!
Ignoradamus 2014 Volume 2
So this was me before Oscar “night” here in Melbourne, Australia, a nearly 2 weeks ago:
I laid out my predictions, stocked up of foods and sugars, and hoped to the gods of film that I’d do a little better this year.
How did I do?
To be fair, it was a very predictable year. Everyone knew that The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle, Nebraska, Captain Phillips, and Philomena had practically no chance of winning anything. So I shouldn’t be so proud of myself…right?
Only four wrong guesses! Woohoo!! That’s a massive improvement over last year’s effort! With the celebration going on in my head you’d think I’d won an oscar myself, instead of just guessing the outcomes. Yeah right! HAHA HAHA HAHA haha ha ha…ha…ha…ha…. …ha…
– Rant Over!
Cinema Rant 