Jason watches THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY in IMAX 3D HFR

And first and foremost, it's good to be back in Middle Earth. And I actually liked how Peter Jackson started at the beginning of Lord of the Rings, with the preparation for Bilbo's party. I thought it would just be a bit of fanboy service, an excuse to bring Ian Holm and Elijah Wood back...and maybe it was, but it worked, darn it (although it did bring up the question of why young Bilbo has more of an English accent than old Bilbo. I guess he lost his accent somewhat on his journeys.) And, in fact, the same with bringing Hugo Weaving back as Elrond (who is at least a part of the book) and Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and Christopher Lee as Saruman. They aren't in the book (as far as I can remember, unlike LOTR, I wasn't excited enough to go back and re-read the book just before the movies.) But they fit into Peter Jackson's Middle Earth easily, and their discussions about a growing evil and a "necromancer" who is turning the Green Woods into something the locals have started calling "Mirkwood" lends some much needed gravitas to a story whose source material is a much lighter children's story. I think balancing the silliness of the source material with the Middle Earth he's already created is one of Peter Jackson's biggest challenges here.

Speaking of silliness...Radagast the Brown. Okay, unlike a lot of criticism, I actually don't mind the eccentric, crazy hobo take on the character. I didn't need to see half of his face caked with bird crap. I don't care if it's in keeping with his character (his hair is a literal birds' nest.) Just...no. For that matter, I didn't need to see a troll blow his nose on Bilbo. For that matter, since when do trolls use handkerchiefs? (Again, I haven't read the book since I was a kid, so if that was in the book I'm sorry.)

I actually did like Radagast's sled pulled by bunnies. But then, I kind of have a thing for bunnies.

I also thought that stretching it out to three movies would be a big challenge (even though Jackson insisted he needed to do it because he came up with so much to shoot.) But I was surprised how the action kept going. I'm still skeptical as anyone about stretching it into three movies, but I have to admit that it never really dragged for me (maybe a bit during the introduction of all the dwarves.)

Ah, the dwarves. That's a sticky point. They are individualized enough that they all have their distinct characters. But there's so many of them and they're introduced so rapidly that it's still hard to care about each of them individually, other than Thorin Oakenshield. Perhaps this will improve with the next installments. But so far, nearly all the dwarves come off as comic relief, and that's more comic relief than this movie needs.

Now some of the technical points. First the IMAX 3D. It was generally okay. It broke Jason's Rule of 3D a few times and other times it just didn't make full use of the 3D potential (specifically, in one of the panorama scenes when the company was running across the screen, I thought a better use of 3D would be to have them running into the screen.) But all in all I'd give the 3D work a B-. And, of course, the IMAX screen is beautiful, and congratulations to Anchorage, AK for having an IMAX screen (at the Regal Tikahtnu.)

Oh yeah, I saw it in Anchorage, with (most of) my family. And that brings me to the next technical point--High Frame Rate, or HFR, or 48 fps (frames per second.) Movies were all at 24 fps from the advent of the soundtrack on the film until...now. Peter Jackson made THE HOBBIT an experiment in doubling that frame rate. And quite a bit of pixels have been sacrificed by others writing about it. Some say it looks "weird," "artificial," "plastic," "too real" (i.e., it looks like actors holding props, not dwarves holding axes and swords.) Alternatively, the action scenes are supposed to be clearer and easier to watch, since there's only half the motion blur. For the rest of my family, they thought it looked weird for a bit at the beginning, but they got used to it right away. For me, I thought it looked weird almost the whole time. The exception for the most part were night/low light scenes. And that's what I felt more than things being "fake" or even "too real," it's that light and shadows play a bit differently in 48 fps than 24 fps (this might also be a function of the Red Epic cameras they used.) I don't know a lot of the technical aspects of filmmaking, but it reminded me a lot of the first digitally-shot films where the digital cameras picked up light differently than film. It took a combination of art (learning to light digital video) and science (innovations and improvements in the cameras) to make DV look almost as good as film (cinephiles out there may now lynch me in effigy for suggesting that's even possible, but dammit, there is plenty of DV that looks great.) In any case, as I already said the rest of the family got used to it quickly, so this is bound to be a personal reaction. All I can advise is check it out for yourself and see what it's like for you.

The second aspect of HFR is how the action scenes are supposed to look clearer. And certainly it's good for that. But the thing is, Peter Jackson was already excellent at making battle scenes you could actually follow. The battles in LOTR are about a thousand times better than your average shaky-cam action scene. And the thing is, I felt like Jackson used HFR to engage in more shaky-cam antics than he ever had before (especially in the early scenes of Smaug's attack.) Going from relatively smoothly shot 24 fps to shaky-cam 48 fps is a step backwards, not a step forwards.

So, in the ultimate analysis...I don't think this experiment in HFR entirely worked. But I'm also not ready to abandon the experiment entirely. So here's hoping they get it to work better in the next couple of movies (and hoping other filmmakers make their own HFR experiments.)

Running Time: 169 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,569

Jason goes to Bad Movie Night and watches THE NUTCRACKER 3D in glorious 2D

It doesn't lose anything with that missing dimension, unless the third dimension isn't depth, but competent filmmaking.

Apparently I didn't learn my lesson last year. To make things worse, as part of my 'I-won't-be-a-total-ass-(just-a-half-ass)-at-Bad-Movie-Night' pledge, I watched it sober this time. That was a mistake.

So let me continue to harp on the fact that Nathan Lane...plays Albert Einstein...in THE NUTCRACKER. This is empirically a worse career move than voicing a cartoon animal from Africa that most Americans have never heard of.

Consider this. In an alternate universe Nathan Lane never got famous for voicing the meerkat in THE LION KING. He is basically still a struggling actor, getting enough work to make a living but never being in high demand. This movie is in fact the biggest thing on his resume. He meets with a lot of casting directors and the conversation goes something like this.

Nathan Lane: Hi, I'm Nathan Lane, here's my resume [hands resume to casting director]
Casting Director: Interesting...[scans down the page, then stops] Oh! I see you were in a film version of THE NUTCRACKER, a delightful holiday classic! One of my favorites!
NL: Yes, I'm very proud of that one.
CD: What role did you play?
NL: Ummm...[whisper-mumbles] Albert Einstein.
CD: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
NL: Albert Einstein.
CD: Get the fuck out of my office!

Running Time: 110 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,400

Jason sees YOU NEED TO READ POETRY!

PUS (Performers Under Stress) have a new show playing now at Bindlestiff, and all it needs is more...audience. I know, everybody is busy with holiday plans, parties, etc. But go ahead and take a break from that and read some poetry...or watch other people read and perform it for you.

So I really didn't think I was much of a poetry fan, but that didn't stop me. And it shouldn't intimidate you, either. They start with poems and performance about poetry, leading with the thesis that poetry should be performed and experienced in all ways possible, not chained up on the page to be studied and analyzed.

And then they move briskly from poem to poem--politics, sex, humor...probably other stuff, too, but that's actually what I remember most as the overarching theme. There are a lot of poems about politics, sex, and humor. I'm not going to get into the weeds of all the poets they showcased. It simply moved to fast for something like that, and besides explicating the poems and throwing a list of names you might never have heard of at you is exactly the sort of intimidating barrier to poetry appreciation that this show is tries to break down. I will say that even in the couple of times when my mind wandered and I caught myself not even knowing what words were being spoken, I was still enjoying the rhythm of the words.

Then, after a short intermission the second half started out with a poetry slam. And I got to be a judge. And there was a poem about bunnies! You might not know this, but I like bunnies! You can catch more of that kind of action at the Oakland Poetry Slam.

And you can catch YOU NEED TO READ POETRY! in their handful of remaining shows--Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until Dec. 23. Tickets available on their website. And if I remember my program guide correctly (I seem to have misplaced it) the Friday and Saturday shows include the Oakland Poetry Slam, the Sunday show includes poetry readings and something called The Explication Game. Sounds interesting. Anyone who goes to (or has gone to) a Sunday show, go ahead and let me know how that is.

Jason celebrates the apocalypse in The Vortex Room with THE ΩMEGA MAN

Yeah, check the credits, it's not THE OMEGA MAN, it's THE ΩMEGA MAN (or, if you want to spell out the Greek letter it's THE OMEGAMEGA MAN.
Anyway, Charlton Heston as the last man on Earth...kinda. During the day he loots L.A. for survival necessities. At night he bunkers up in his home while he's attacked by sunlight-averse ex-humans. Unlike the Will Smith piece of garbage, these aren't brainless zombies. In fact, they're called The Family and are led by the rather articulate Mathias (played by Anthony Zerbe--Charlton Heston, you got Zerbed!) In fact, the scenes where Mathias pontificates about how Neville (Heston) is the last of the true evil to infect the earth and his race is the new, deserving replacements for humans...well, those are easily the most interesting parts of the movie. Well, that and a naked Rosalind Cash.
I really should read the Richard Matheson novel it's based on. And see the Vincent Price version. And stop thinking too hard about how the light-averse Family's primary weapon is fire. You know fire gives off light, right?
Anyway, Merry Apocalypse everyone, and if the world doesn't end I'm looking forward to many excellent nights in The Vortex Room next year (their Apocalypse series continues, but I'll be out of town.)
Running Time: 98 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,290

Jason watches SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

And if it's me reading the signs, it's waaaay overwritten.

I really wanted to like this movie more. There's a lot going for it. Although I've been accused of not liking romantic films (and I'll admit they're not exactly my cup of tea) I do appreciate them. Especially a good crazy-meets-crazy romantic dramedy (BENNY & JOON is still a classic to me.) And the leads--Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence--are plenty appealing. Bradley plays a guy who just got released from a mental hospital, after he caught his wife cheating and flipped out a bit (the fact that he was undiagnosed bi-polar just made things worse.) Jennifer plays the little sister of his best friend's wife, a widow who has psychological issues of his own. He's still trying to get back with his wife (despite a restraining order) even though she's just perfect for him. And the supporting cast is so high caliber it includes Robert De Niro as his Eagles-obsessed bookie father with his own anger issues.

So why didn't it work for me? Let me explain the inside joke in the first line. I've given enough spoilers already, so highlight to read more [SPOILER WARNING] A large part of the plot revolves around Bradley Cooper's character trying to get a letter to his wife (illegal, what with the restraining order and all.) Jennifer Lawrence's character agrees to help him, in exchange for him being her partner in a dance contest. Well, he hands off the letter and a few days later she brings him a reply. First clue his wife didn't write it (other than that's obviously what the plot called for)--it's typed instead of hand written. But there's the conspicuous phrase, "if it's me reading the stars..." in the letter. Later, they have a confrontation with his whole family where she defends him spending time with her rather than watching the Eagles (his dad has this superstition that he's a good luck charm for the team.) Not once, but twice she uses the phrase, "if it's me reading the stars," as if it wouldn't be obvious enough the first time. Then, just to drive it home, there's a scene where he steps outside and re-reads the reply letter. I got it the first time (and I assume he would've, too. He's crazy, not stupid!) you don't have to repeat it. And that's just one of the more glaring examples. And it all just bugged me. It's not even so much that it took me out of the moment and made me notice I was watching a very distinctly written movie, it's that it made me realize I was reading something written by someone who doesn't think much of the intelligence of his characters...or his audience. [END SPOILER.]

But then, it has a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so what the hell do I know?

Running Time: 122 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,192

Jason goes to the Roxie and watches THE COMEDY

It bears repeating, there is still time to donate to the Roxie's Kickstarter campaign. I know they've already reached their goal, but anything extra is...well, extra. And as any film fan in San Francisco knows, our single-screen art house theaters need all the help they can get. R.I.P., Bridge.

So I saw a second movie at the Roxie last night (Tuesday,) and it was as different as night and day from THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (inspiring a rather odd tweet.) It's the story of a 30-something hipster Swanson (Tim Heidecker) and his small group of friends (most notably Eric Wareheim, Tim's partner in "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!") Swanson is set to inherit his father's estate, which is large enough to make it apparent that he's a trust fund hipster who has never really worked a day in his life. I assume so are all his friends. When he does decide to work (which seems more of a curiosity than a necessity) he doesn't even know what typical dish-washing wages are. Instead he and his friends hang out, drink (and spit) beer, and make bizarre jokes to try to make each other laugh (like riffing on how clean hobos' dicks are because they all go to Wall Street at 5:01 where all the investment bankers just can't wait to suck them off.) But they don't laugh--they're hipsters so they're way too cool to laugh. The audience last night laughed quite a bit, but the characters didn't. And that awkward dynamic is what the movie is all about. People who are too cool to laugh trying to make each other laugh. And how far that practiced indifference can go. What's surprising is how well it seems to work for him. I would never have believed you could get a girl naked by talking about how Hitler had some good ideas...and horrible flatulence (I almost said "bad gas," but that could be taken the wrong way.)

Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,070

Jason goes to the Roxie and watches THE HOUSE I LIVE IN

A reminder, there is still time to donate to the Roxie's Kickstarter campaign. I know they've already reached their goal, but anything extra is...well, extra. And as any film fan in San Francisco knows, our single-screen art house theaters need all the help they can get. R.I.P., Bridge.

Anyway, on to the movie, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN is a powerful documentary about the effects of the War on Drugs. Especially powerful are the stories of the men charged with fighting the war. The narcotics officers who are no longer rewarded for good police work but are rewarded for the easy work of routine drug busts. Or the judge who sees the inequity of harsh drug sentences (e.g., 100 times harsher punishments for crack vs. powdered cocaine) but whose hands are tied by mandatory minimum sentence laws. It's a particularly chilling statement to hear a judge--a man whose entire calling in life is to dispense justice--talk about going home knowing he was forced in his job to dispense injustice (BTW, for all the fury over 'legislating from the bench' why are there so few complaints about 'adjudicating from the legislature?' Checks and balances are supposed to go both ways.)

And that's not even getting into the common people's lives that are affected--people who need medical treatment, not incarceration. What's so powerful there is not that drugs have such a strong pull on them or that they made bad choices. It's that so often given their living situations and employment prospects, drugs (doing them or selling them) was a completely rational, sensible choice. The doctor in the film has a great metaphor. People do drugs to escape the misery of life. Attacking drugs instead of treating the underlying misery makes as little sense as suppressing the cough associated with pneumonia. So often the "tough on drugs" policies just make life more miserable in those communities, creating conditions where dealing drugs is the only viable economy and doing drugs is the only viable means of (temporary) escape.

It's also full of interesting historical perspective. You may know that Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs" but I didn't know that under Nixon spending was 2/3 treatment and 1/3 law enforcement (privately he knew treating it as a health matter was more effective, publicly he knew "tough on crime" wins more votes than "fair on crime," "sensible on crime," or even "effective on crime.") Going back even further, many drugs used to be legal. We all know Coca Cola got its name because it contained cocaine. Hemp was a major textile crop (Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag on hemp, etc.) And opium was commonly used and sold in toothache drops for children. But California outlawed opium in the 1800's. And why? Well, there was a major influx of Chinese immigrants--hard workers building the railroads for low pay. They couldn't exactly criminalize being Chinese, so they looked at what vices were more prevalent in the Chinese community compared to the white community...and opium is outlawed. Similar with cocaine and blacks (particularly blacks of the post-slavery migration to industrial northern factory jobs.) And marijuana--that's illegal to keep the Mexicans down. There's a fascinating documentary that could be made just on that history.

But ultimately, what makes it work as a movie are the personal stories, including director Eugene Jarecki's good friend Nannie Jeter (his former nanny, although they never called her a nanny, they just called her...Nannie, because that's her name.)

Running Time: 108 minutes
My Total Minutes: 307,980