Great Movies: Dead Man (Jarmusch,1995)

 "It is preferable to not travel with a dead man."

                    My relationship with Johnny Depp is a complex one. One one hand, I respect his considerable range as an actor, his ability to shift between varied roles and infiltrate the sometimes complex psyches of his characters. He's been in some pretty good movies. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a phenomenal adaptation of a visceral, unapologetic novel with a ridiculously talented cast and Terry Goddamn Gilliam at the helm. Edward Scissorhands was a colourful, entertaining film, though it never covered any ground that hasn't been thoroughly trodden before. But among these hits are several misses. The abhorrent reboot/sequel of Alice in Wonderland is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. His portrayal of Willy Wonka was a bit better, but still wholly unremarkable considering the massive shoes he was trying to fill. Pirates of the Caribbean started off innocently enough as a decent, mindless Hollywood pirate movie but has turned into a cash cow that keep pumping out unnecessary sequels. Additionally, for the past several years Depp and director Tim Burton have been working together far too much. It seems like Burton wants to typecast Depp as the same eccentric character in film after film and it was funny at first but now the joke is old and no one cares except the delusional fans. Sweeney Todd was alright though I guess. OK. Enough about Depp. Every bad film he has ever starred in is redeemed by Dead Man because it is absolutely incredible and he TOTALLY KILLS IT in this one.

                    I suppose Dead Man could be classified as a western. I mean, it takes place in the west and there's outlaws and guns and stuff so I suppose that's the easiest label to stick on it. But instead of being about cowboys and indians (even though those things do appear in the film) the movie is about the main character, William Blake. Like many of Jim Jarmusch's other films, Dead Man is about the journey of the individual, the experiences and evolutionary arc of a person as they go through life. William Blake is a clean, well dressed, city-bred accountant, on his way to a job promised to him out west. Suffice it to say that things don't work out as well as he hopes, and after committing a murder he finds himself on the run from bounty hunters. After being shot early on in the film, Blake learns that he has shrapnel in his chest that cannot be removed, effectively sealing his own death in a matter of time. He meets an Indian named Nobody who takes him on a journey that ultimately leads to his death with him sailing out in a canoe to the spirit world, the way people from Nobody's tribe leave this earth. As I said before, one of the most remarkable things about this film is the progression of Depp's character. He goes from being a normal person to a cold-blooded, poetic killer. He effectively learns to live as a dead man, or the dead man he knows he will become shortly. These motifs of death start right at the beginning of the film, on the train to his new job a mysterious stranger shows up and tells him that he is likely to find his death where he is going. He sees skulls and coffins immediately after arriving in the town. Nobody essentially treats him like he is dead (or will be soon) for the entire film. Dead animals, dead plants and dead people dominate  the imagery of the film, accentuating the theme of mortality that runs throughout the entire plot. And as I mentioned before, Johnny Depp is excellent in this lead role. He plays the uptight city accountant and the apathetic unemotional murderous husk of a man equally well. It just goes to show that with the right director he can really excel.

                     On that note, Jim Jarmusch did an incredible job with this movie. At this point in his career he already had a few solid films under his belt, and that experience definitely shows. I really, really like his choice to shoot Dead Man in black and white, as opposed to colour. It gives the film an older feel, and makes the use of light and shadow that much more important. It's also more visually restrained, allowing us to focus more on the emotion of the story than the visuals. That's not to say the camerawork is lacking however, it's the same level of quality anyone familiar with Jarmusch's work would expect. Not overly showy or complex, but perfect for its context. There are certainly some great shots here. Another thing that Jarmusch is famous for that he injects into this movie is his love for music. All of his films contain music that is absolutely brilliant, perfect for the mood of the scene. Dead Man is no exception, the music in this film is completely original, a hallucinatory, haunting electric guitar soundtrack recorded by none other than Canadian rock icon Neil Young. Jarmusch is also known to cast musicians themselves in his films, Down By Law's two main characters were played by musicians Tom Waits and John Lurie, who created the music for the film as well. Iggy Pop makes a guest appearance in Dead Man. 

                     It's also been said that Dead Man is one of the few films ever made that very accurately portrays the culture and personality of First Nations people. There are conversations in native languages that aren't even subtitled, which keeps us as in the dark and as confused as William Blake, a technique I rather like. It was smart of Jarmusch to cast an actual Aboriginal actor (Gary Farmer) as Nobody to keep it as realistic as possible. Farmer frequently says the line "stupid fucking white man" in English, a line he reprises in a cameo in Ghost Dog, another phenomenal Jarmusch film I'll write about another time.

                      Above all, what I love and respect most about Dead Man is the emotion it evokes. At the end when Blake floats away in a canoe dying, I feel connected to him, having witnessed his entire journey and the events that brought him there. There's a real sense of progression and development in the character that not a lot of films can really achieve. William Blake is an entirely different person at the end than he was in the beginning, and you can't help but feel what he feels. There's a lot to be said about this film, and I may post a more in-depth analysis in the future. 

That's it for now though.

Just Watched: 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)

             OK, I'll admit right off the bat that I've seen this one before. Normally the "Just Watched" tag denotes a film I've just watched for the first time and consists of my initial reactions to the movie and thoughts  after the first viewing. I watched Fellini's beautiful masterpiece 8 1/2 a few years ago, but I don't remember it because I was completely stoned out of my mind, which means I appreciated the visual ingenuity of the film but wasn't paying as much attention to the plot as I probably should have been. Still liked it a lot though, just watched it again and here we are. Anyways, 8 1/2 is brilliant in the fact that it is basically a movie about a movie and the movie the movie is about is 8 1/2. Seriously. Charlie Kaufman must have been channeling Fellini when he created his own meta masterpiece Synecdoche, New York, which is sort of similar in concept, but also incredibly brilliant in its own right and worth watching several times. I'll write about that one later though, this post is about Fellini.

             In summary, 8 1/2 follows the struggles of a film director with writer's (or director's) block. He's achieved success in the past and has huge plans for his next film, but has no idea how to proceed. People are watching him and he doesn't want to let them down, but his greatest concern is creating a masterpiece, an emotional, personal, flawless piece of work. The feelings of Guido Anselmi, the protagonist, are established right from the start. The film begins with an ethereal dream sequence. First his car begins to fill with smoke and suffocate him while everyone nearby stares enthused, and then he flies through the sky only to find himself floating above a beautiful beach, and subsequently pulled down as he desperately tries to free himself from the rope that tethers him to the ground and the people below him who want to bring him down for good. These opening scenes symbolize Guido's (and Fellini's) desperation for creative freedom, to be able to create something personal and perfect without outside interference. Guido is constantly inundated by people asking him how his work is going, trying to help him speed things along, or attempting to change things about his film altogether. A writer Guido asks to edit his screenplay eviscerates his work, saying it has no point, no conflict or statement to give it a purpose. No one seems to understand his level of creativity and what he is trying to do. As a result of this, Guido spends more and more time in his own brain, closed off from the noise of the outside world. People talk, but he's lost in thought, barely listening. This, and some very clever framing and cinematography illustrate his separation from others very well.

            One of the things that makes 8 1/2 succeed so well at what it does is the intimacy in which it is made. Every thought of Guido's is made clear to the viewer, we get to explore his very dreams. Abrupt dream sequences and unannounced flashbacks may create a feeling of disorientation at first, but they also give us incredible insight into Guido's mind and accurately represent the unpredictable nature of memory and thought. Seeing his relations with his parents and the escapist fantasies of his subconscious mind let us project ourselves onto him extremely easily. Anyone who has struggled with any form of artistic block should be able to relate. And that's really one of the main points of the film, isn't it? That art is more than just production. It's expression of one's inner self created by their experiences and personality. Guido's producers try to stifle this creativity, claiming that his vision is arrogant or flawed, inconsistent with the state of cinema and what is culturally accepted to make a financially successful film. They tell him his film in inaccessible to the audience, his expression is indiscernible to the layman who will watch it. Therein lies a dilemma as well. Should Guido be creating this film for his own sake, or for the sake of the viewer? If the movie is perfectly consistent with his vision for it and turns out to be exactly what he wanted it to be, does that make is a success even if no one else understands it? Who is art for? The creator or the audience? Hollywood would say the audience, but this is a film of passion created by Fellini, born from the depths of his own creative mind. I, for one, think it's pretty cool that he took us along for the ride.

I'm Pissed Off Today, Let's Talk About Video Games

               God, I hate Call of Duty. If you play it and buy the games every year, I probably hate you too. If you pirate the games and play them, I still hate you because you have horrible taste in video games and if you're going to pirate stuff at least make it stuff that's worth having. Every year Activision insults the intelligence of the gaming community by releasing the same game, and every year you retards fall for it. It wasn't always this way though, Activision used to publish some pretty kickass stuff. Remember Tony Hawk Pro Skater? Those games rocked, until they ruined it by releasing a rehashed sequel every 10 minutes until they got so bad that no one cared anymore. The same thing happened with Guitar Hero. The first few games came out and were totally wicked, bringing a whole new gaming subgenre into existence. After that they started releasing far too many sequels far too often, with no real changes to the core game mechanic other than adding drums to compete with EA's Rock Band which was the same thing as Guitar Hero only much better. Wipe that smirk off your face EA, you're guilty of this too.

                The problem with strategies like this is that it places absolutely no value on the customers, and relies on the quality of the previous entries in the series to motivate consumers to buy the newest one, even if it's a half-finished, hastily thrown together copy of the great older games. There's no innovation, the reasoning is "well, it sold well last time so let's do it again". It seems like Activision is acting using Hollywood logic: if it makes money, milk it until there's no more money to be made. This is the logic that gave us a Spiderman reboot less than 6 years after the last one ended, or 4 damn Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Endless sequels, reboots, re-imaginings and remakes have been showing up in the last few decades, and it's reached a point where it's getting pretty ridiculous. I'm not trying to say that all of these are inherently bad, some of them are pretty great. I'll admit that I enjoyed Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, and the new Planet of the Apes reboot. I'm interested to see Superman this summer and the recent 007 movies (with the exception of Quantum of Solace) have been pretty impressive.There are some franchises that deserve to be re-imagined, considering the leaps and bounds technology in film has made in the last several decades. But not everything that was successful in the past needs (or even deserves) to get remade (lookin' at you, Michael Bay). You'd think after the steaming pile of crap that was the Star Wars prequel trilogy they'd leave it alone, but nope. There's money to be made, so here we go with another trilogy.


            Video games are taking the same path. Instead of new, fresh games coming out every year we're getting sequels, remakes and reboots. And that's not necessarily a bad thing either. Far Cry 3 came out this year, and it turned out to be one of the best games of 2012 because it's easy to tell that the studio learned from the previous games and used that knowledge to make something special and memorable, not to mention incredibly immersive and outright horrifying (goddamn sharks). Last year also saw the release of Hitman Absolution, a reboot of a much beloved series that had been idle for quite a while. The game was great, staying true to its challenging roots while adding replayability and that aspect of creativity that thinking gamers crave. Sequels aren't a bad thing, but there has to be some evolution in them. A sequel should feel somewhat like the game that came before it, but it needs to have enough new ideas to distinguish it as an improvement over what came before. Some games hit this nail right on the head (see Mass Effect 2) and some games fail at this horribly. Which brings me back to my original topic, how bad Call of Duty is. I believe that creating a worthy sequel takes time. The developers need to reflect on what went well in the last game and what didn't, find out what the players liked and hated, and use that information to improve upon the last game. I think a really good example of this is Rocksteady's Batman games. There have been a lot of Batman games in the past, but none have even approached the level of depth and immersion that these have attained. The first game, Arkham Asylum, was fantastic, blending easy to learn but hard to master combat with hidden secrets, puzzles, clever boss fights and a tight, focused story that consisted of interesting, iconic characters and a great setting. Even after beating it there was a lot of stuff to find, and really hard challenge maps to master if you really wanted to get into them. Arkham City came out more than two years later and improved upon the formula a lot. It took place in a huge open world, with a lot more maps and enemies. There were a lot more boss fights and literally hundreds of riddles, secrets and collectibles to find. It also contained more subplots and character development for Batman himself, which was excellent. There were even more playable characters available as DLC, with Catwoman coming free with the game. City was just a massive improvement over Asylum, which is a huge accomplishment considering how great the first game was. This is an instance where thought and creativity brought forth a fantastic sequel.

             But in Call of Duty we see no such thing. Every year in the fall, in time for the Christmas rush, we see a new COD game come out. And they're all essentially the same. If you put any two of them side by side you won't be able to tell which is which because they all contain the same guns, virtually identical graphics, the same perks etc etc. I have to give credit where credit is due though, COD4 was a great game that brought life into a dying franchise. It was innovative, and cool. But Activision has been milking that once cool military game for far too long now. If they had taken time to think about what they were doing instead of rushing out the same game every year then maybe they could have released a few worthy sequels by now. But they didn't. And they haven't. The single player campaigns have arguably taken the biggest hit in this respect. They last around 3-4 hours in each game and just basically consist of running around shooting foreign people the whole time while stuff explodes. No replayability, no variety. It feels tacked on compared to the multiplayer modes, which is what everyone apparently buys it for. The multiplayer consists of running and gunning, twitch-based gameplay. Whoever sees the other player first gets the kill. Whoever sets up the most mines and find the best place to camp wins the match. There's no teamwork involved because it's all about getting the highest score. It's complete repetition. Don't feel bad though, if you're a Call of Duty fan. Most people that play it are younger and this generation of game consoles is their first gaming experience. People who grew up playing games like Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six know how great shooting games can be, and how shallow and narrow COD is compared to these games. So it's not your fault. You probably just don't know better.

               Another thing that really pisses me off about this game series is the amount of downloadable content that they release for each game. When a Call of Duty game comes out, it has multiplayer maps on the game, but throughout the year Activision releases more maps and game modes, usually around four packs a year at a modest 15$ each. This is an absolutely stupid practice. I'm not saying that DLC in itself is a bad thing, but Activision and a lot of other publishers release too much of it at too high a cost. It's cool to download extra levels and stuff for games that extend the playtime you'll get out of the game and enhance the experience, but paying another 60$ a year (the same cost of the initial game) just to have all the maps is ridiculous. And an obscene amount of people fork over the cash every year. Guess what Ubisoft did a few months after releasing Far Cry 3? They put out some new co-op maps for the 4 player game mode (which is excellent) for  the very reasonable price of FREE. Rockstar released new content for Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption, also free. Activision doesn't do this because they think of their fanbase as sheep and want to squeeze every cent they can out of them. To get the full experience of one game, you have to pay for it twice over. And they do this every year. And people still fall for it and somehow enjoy the games.

             Reader, you can play any game you want. If you want to throw down 120$ on Call of Duty every year and line the pockets of these Activision execs while they laugh because they can get away with it, cool. I just want you to think about what you're playing, and question whether the Call of Duty series is really worth all the money and time people dump into it.

*SPOILER ALERT*

It isn't.