So, that happened

[trinityvixen]

This weekend, I got an idea of what my next year might be like. For all three of you I haven’t told, I intend to see a movie a week at the movie theater for all of 2011. I saw two movies in one weekend, and I’m beginning to understand that there may be some theater-going overload with this plan. Then again, going to two movies right after the other is a good way to really put my reasons for liking/disliking them in perspective.

 

The two movies I saw were Tron Legacy and Black Swan. I didn’t particularly care for either, but both had a strange effect on me in that, while watching them, I was rather transported. It was only upon their ending that I felt dissatisfied. This is entirely due to heightened expectations, though I hadn’t really realized how much hope I’d sunk into Tron Legacy in particular until it ended and I almost wanted to cry because I was so depressed about how little I liked it. I admit to having been inordinately in love with the idea of seeing Tron on the big screen, especially after falling in love with it via the original on DVD and by playing alongside Tron in Kingdom Hearts. I seriously <3<3<3<3<3 Bruce Boxleitner, especially as the adorable, innocent –but-kick-ass Tron, and there plain wasn’t enough of him. I am glad, at least, that mithras03  was with me on finding his silver-fox status THE SEXXAY, even as I spent much of the movie bemoaning the lack of him. While I admit that this is my own bias making me inordinately hard to please, I do not think it too much to ask that the movie feature the goddamned character it from which it took its name. Alas and alack, the siren lure of Oscar-Winner Jeff Bridges combined with the endlessly rapacious studio need to build a franchise on the back of a younger star meant that Tron was given the short-shrift in his own sequel.

 

And? Honestly? Neither Bridges nor Flynn-the-younger had the chops to carry this thing.

Or, perhaps, in Bridges’ case, the inclination. The Dude walked on the Grid, and that was about as hard as Jeff Bridges worked, in either of his roles, for the entire movie. Makes all the heartache and emotional turmoil at the center of the movie really hard to care about.  The central plot is about father and son reconnecting, trying to make up for lost time, save each other’s wounded souls, etc., and for Jeff Bridges to be so disengaged it just totally flatlined that the emotional heart of the movie. In fact, Jeff Bridges’ performance sabotaged just about any caring I might have done for the people around him--his surrogate parent relationship to Quorra, his love for and friendship of both Clu and Tron back in the day. I mean, Tron risks himself for Flynn more than once, Clu outright betrays him, and still, Jeff Bridges is the Dude about it all, knocking on the sky.

 

To the credit of Flynn-the-younger, Garrett Hedlund, he did his best to sell his character walking wounded but too proud to admit he missed his daddy growing up. He looked suitably destroyed by how his father was unable to really connect with him (as a result of being stuck inside a computer for a decade) in addition to being pissed off about it. But one scene and some laughs do not a real performance make. I would interested to see what else this guy goes on to do. He didn’t embarrass himself with Tron, he just couldn’t make up for the lack of coherent anything in it.

That said, getting to watch lightcycle racing and the disc wars gaming in the movie was supremely satisfying. The updated effects were fun, though as moonlightalice  pointed out, dreary in their palate. It was a thrill with the early action sequences, though. I happened to love the soundtrack, though others thought it was distracting, especially because it added a drive to the movie that was otherwise lacking, plot-wise. If nothing else, the booming base kept things surging.

 

Black Swan intrigued me, and, although my expectations for it were lowered by reviews, I did go in with an open-to-optimistic mind. I wasn’t thoroughly disappointed as I was with Tron Legacy, I was just indifferent to mildly unimpressed by it.

Far from profound, I found it remarkably bland and predictable. Again, this is after the movie ended. Watching it, you were pretty well swallowed up by it. Natalie Portman’s performance is great, though I do wish there had been more eruptions from her burgeoning nasty side other than the occasional not-really-all-that-extraordinary-for-a-normal-person-losing-her-temper acting out. Her performance was too restrained, if anything, at times. Like the director in the movie, I found her misbehaving to be too restrained, if anything.

 

There were some good parts to the movie that the overall faltering of tone didn’t ruin for me - some gorgeous direction, visuals, and the penultimate dancing scene, wherein the Black Swan dances, was fantastic. From the report of another movie-goer, the representation of madness, of OCD was spot-on. Myself, I couldn’t say. I only felt that the tension that accompanies the descent into madness was near-constantly sabotaged by one or another event being all, well, just madness. There really felt like there were no consequences to the protagonist’s actions, seeing as many of them never appear to have actually happened. This is why the movie didn’t really fail me until the end—I kept expecting pay-off, and, as I had been throughout the movie, I was disappointed when there wasn’t any. Still, it did string me along that far, so that’s something.

 

Another improbable thing that happened--besides my seeing two movies in a weekend and liking neither of them? I won Twilight Scene It. I'd bought it as a Christmas present for viridian , who, along with feiran was the only person to have read the books and seen the movies. We had to play it. Predictably, those two ladies dominated most of the game. If I got anywhere, it was out of sheer luck. The best run of said luck was where I followed someone else who revealed, in her question, what the name of Dakota Fanning's character was and what her SOOPER vampire power was, and then the next two questions I got were about those exact things. (So as with other franchise-specific Scene It games, Twilight Scene It suffers from a lack of sufficient material upon which to make questions more varied.) I'd been far behind the leaders for most of the game, then I ended up tied with them at the end. I got lucky on a couple of questions and guessed correctly on the third to win. HIGHLY IMPROBABLE VICTORY. I don't know whether to be ashamed or pleased that I continue to dominate at Scene It given that this dominance was achieved PLAYING TWILIGHT SCENE IT. (I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE.)

I will take this moment to credit glvalentine for making a point of saying how awesome Bella's friend Mike is, because I did win a question with his name. Thanks!

Comments

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

For all three of you I haven’t told, I intend to see a movie a week at the movie theater for all of 2011.

Is there a reason you've decided to become a crazy person?

(How far afield are you going to go? Like, are you going to see art house stuff, or are you just going to suffer through March and April watching the rejects that they don't think are worthy of May?)

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

are you going to see art house stuff

That would definitely be key in my opinion. You could also go see stuff at dollar theaters that you missed in their main runs.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I do hope to see more arty movies, maybe even by attending a festival in the city for once. I'll also cheerfully ease up on literally going to a movie a week if, say, there are two in one weekend I want to see. And, yes, seeing movies I missed in early run will help, too. That may be the only way I survive January, which is looking like a film graveyard even more than usual this year.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Really, when I'll be suffering is in January/February. Those are the real dumping grounds of cinema. March and April are increasingly the site of movies that won't make it in May but that are interesting enough in their own right. Sucker Punch comes out in March, and I'm reasonably excited by that one.

Granted, I will end up seeing both the terrible Nicholas Cage movies coming out in Jan/Feb at the rate I'm going, but that's the price I pay for making this my resolution.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I may try to do this resolution but allow the movies to be one a week once averaged over the whole year, rather than literally, and not insist on the in the theater part. Because, honestly? It shouldn't be that hard to watch a Netflixed movie per week.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm well over the movie-a-week cap. Hell, one more season of TV this year, which I have plenty of time to get in before the year ends, and I'll have seen a season of TV a week this year. My real challenge will be managing my ultimate goal of a movie-a-day one year.

But, yeah, I'm happy to average out movie-in-the-theater/week. I'm going to have to because January and February are a dead zone. All the terrible movies I thought were coming out then aren't, so I'll be struggling to get in movies for those months. Fortunately, the Oscar Showcase is in February. It alone could make up for the entire month of suck.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Oscar showcase!!! We have to make it out to that one this year, since we missed it last year.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

Have you ever watched "Scarecrow and Mrs. King"? Bruce Boxleitner and a Charlie's Angel - he's the cuter one (but I may be biased) :-P

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I have not, though I have a friend who absolutely adores that series. May have to check that one out!