Twelvefield Reviews

Watchmen (2008–2009)

Why unfilmable books are unfilmable

[3/10 · 21 July 2009]

For the longest time, "Watchmen" was considered an unfilmable property. It took years to get the script, visuals and story into a form that was manageable for a motion picture, let alone the rumored miniseries.

While I appreciate the talent that went into the "Watchmen Motion Comic", I can't help but think that the project just took a few weeks or months to put together in an effort to cash in on the Watchmen marketing blitz. Some bits of it are rather well done, most of it is just long and expositional, and a few parts, especially the female characterizations, are embarrassing to watch. The original "Watchmen" comic was none too kind to women, and this video is even less so.

Apart from the single baritone male voice that reads the entire comic aloud, the whole thing has one massive issue with pacing. When you read a comic book, you set your own pace. You can spend half an hour gazing at a single panel of ultra-violence, or you can blip through a dozen panels of navel-gazing introspection, it's your choice.

I suppose you can advance the DVD at whatever pace you'd like, but sometimes the voices and the animation just do not flow naturally, and the motion comic lingers over scenes that should be brief and skips over stuff that needs more visual attention.

After a while, I found myself becoming obsessed that the characters never (or seldom) blinked and their mouth movements would periodically and reliably go askew. Maybe you like the theatrical film, or maybe you don't. Maybe you like the motion comic, I know I don't. If you want the best Watchmen experience, bloated, misogynistic, dated, self-important, and yet compelling and even a little beautiful under all that blood and ick, just read the book.

Eroica (2003 TV Movie)

An intimate look at pre-modern music, in post-modern style

[7/10 · 15 June 2009]

I stumbled across this film being played on television. I figured that the TV guide had misspelled "Erotica", but as it turns out this is very much a G-Rated picture. It's almost a biopic, a bit more than a lengthy music video. It's an afternoon in the life of Ludwig von Beethoven, set to the music of his third symphony.

The events of Beethoven's life seem compressed and shoveled into the 90 minutes of the film. We see how he deals with large issues like Napeoleonic politics, patronage, love, and hearing loss, as well as smaller issues like arranging music and the most efficient means of belittling his assistant.

What I found fascinating was being able to see how the characters of the period responded to the music as it was being played. I have a distant knowledge of Beethoven's works, and while they are certainly powerful and turbulent, I lack the context of the music of the era. Seeing the patrons react to various passages of the music (which to my untrained ear just sounds pretty) and hearing them comment on the work as it progressed was for me highly illuminating.

What a thrill it would be to be able to walk around an orchestra as it plays! That would be the ultimate in surround sound! I was jealous of the characters as they mingled around the players, who from what I can tell were using period-correct instruments.

Walk All Over Me (2007)

At Least It Isn't Part Of A Trilogy...

[4/10 · 13 May 2009]

This is the kind of film you could watch if you were sick in bed with the flu and there was nothing else on TV. Beyond that, consider lowing your expectations.

I remember when Leelee Sobieski and Natalie Portman were considered rivals in the media for being precocious up-and-coming teenage actresses. Both girls have grown up, and Hollywood has done them no favours. Ms. Portman will have to work very, very hard to overcome Queen Amidala, and Ms. Sobieski has gone from the supernova superwierd vixen in Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" to, well, this film.

That's not to say she doesn't have appeal, at least to some folks. In this show, however, talent is wasted, ability is squandered, and the audience is assumed to be sick in bed with the flu. I would compare this film to "Bon Cop, Bad Cop", another Canadian production that took actors with chops and turned them into chopped liver.

Put another way, I think if you laughed uproariously at the humour in "Bon Cop, Bad Cop", and you never figured out that "Harry Buttman" in that film was a parody of a real person, then you will love "Walk All Over Me". I didn't think "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" was funny at all, nor entertaining, but it was "Heat" combined with "Ghostbusters" compared to this turkey.

Screwball comedies work because the humour arises from the peculiar logic of the situation. "Walk All Over Me" has precious little logic, just a long list of cliché peculiarities that fail to amuse or arouse.

The Thin Man Goes Home (1944)

Love the dialogue, not so much the plot

[6/10 · 4 August 2008]

If a Thin Man movie is on, it's always watchable. What gets me is that in movies these days if the plot runs thin, the director warms up some pixels and amps up the special effects.

Back in the day, when the plot got thin, there weren't a lot of optical effects, so the director leaned on the writer and actors and got great dialogue and snappy acting.

This Thin Man has a plot as thin as a 1940's projection screen. As long as Nick, Nora, and Asta, and the supporting cast is up for the fun and mayhem, though, plot doesn't seem to matter so much.

I thought the last reel dragged on in comparison to the rest of the film, but there are some great scenes and snappy jokes throughout the film.

And where do sailors learn to dance like that?!?

Flight of the Intruder (1991)

Not aging well

[5/10 · 30 July 2008]

"Flight Of The Intruder" at this writing is no longer available on DVD. I ended up watching it on TV. Unlike, say, "Hunt For Red October", "Flight Of The Intruder" is not aging well. Blurry special effects, clunky dialogue and pacing, deviation from the source material, and strange casting choices make this film a curiosity and something of an eyesore in places.

Some of the aircraft carrier scenes are authentic, though, and should appeal to anyone who has spent time on a carrier at sea.

"Flight Of The Intruder" as a book is getting a new 25th Anniversary re-printing. The book stands on its own today much better than the film. Although written in simple language, the book is powerful, personal, and classic.

"Flight Of The Intruder" as a movie seems under-rated by most viewers, but not by as much as you'd think. It's still very much a mediocre effort.

Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner (2007 Video)

Longer than the film, Dangerous Days is best left to the fans.

[7/10 · 5 February 2008]

The "Making Of" featurettes we see with DVDs sometimes grow into feature-length proportion. "Dangerous Days" takes its name from an early title for the "Blade Runner" movie, and it's beyond feature-length on its own.

This is a decent production, and a must-see for fans of the film. However, compared to other Making Of... featurettes, Dangerous Days is over long and might be dull for those who don't fully appreciate the source material.

To my mind, "Hearts of Darkness", the Making Of... documentary for "Apocalypse Now" is about the best Making Of... documentary there is. I would also include the full-length Making Of The Abyss as must-see viewing for science-fiction film buffs. Dangerous Days falls short of these.

Both "Apocalypse Now" and "The Abyss" featured film-making that went past the edge of human physical endurance. People were risking their lives and sanity to get the films made, and it shows as superior documentary-style drama. "Dangerous Days" mostly shows film-making that goes past the edge of endurance of the film crew for director Ridley Scott, and past the patience of the producers. Yes, it's dramatic, but not nearly as much as Martin Sheen about to get eaten by a ravenous tiger (Hearts Of Darkness) or Mary Elizabeth Mastrantionio nearly drowning at the bottom of a man-made water pit (Making Of The Abyss).

I would put Dangerous Days in roughly the same category as the Making Of... featurettes you get with the Star Wars DVDs, except that it is very long.

The pieces I found the most interesting were the features with Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, who were rival writers for the Blade Runner script, and the special visual effects segment which shows some of the thought process behind the particular model-making and lighting events in Blade Runner, without being all George-Lucasey in terms of the granularity of explanatory detail. Alternate screen tests also make for interesting viewing.

Maximum Surge (2003 TV Movie)

This film will bring you closer to your grave.

[1/10 · 19 January 2008]

I joined IMDb with the intent of writing about Maximum Surge. In the event that something may have happened to me before I signed on, I would have been unable to warn people away from watching this terrible, awful film. That, I imagine, would have been extremely bad for my karma. It's taken a few years since this film was made, but now perhaps my soul will find peace.

First and foremost, Maximum Surge is just excruciating to watch. Beware of films that are so bad, they are good, this isn't one of them. Likely you will only see it on television, if you do, you must change the channel or turn it off lest you become one of those sad, lost minority who sat through the whole thing.

Much of the filming took place at a school I used to work at. The filming was brief. Although the school had a policy of showing films every weekend, Maximum Surge was never shown. This was the film shot in the one place you'd figure would guarantee that it would be shown. Nope. It was so bad, you couldn't even show it to the people who worked at the location is was shot in. The school has since been sold to a large American conglomerate.

Maximum Surge will induce maximum purge of brain cells, of slack, of life force, of anything that you value as important to your life and well-being. Stay away at all costs.