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The Scariest Movie Ever?Locke's Very Quick, Personal, From-the-hip, Un-Official Answer

Earlier today, in regards to all this "scariest movie ever" hype around Paranormal Activity, reader Scott asked me "Locke, in your opinion, what is the "scariest movie ever"? Gigli? I kid, but that probably is a hard question, so what are your favorites?"

I started to write something in the comments, but soon my answer was longer than many full reviews here at redblog.

So here's my quick reply. A huge caveat: I was just answering off the top of my head--I haven't spent days compiling a thorough list or thinking over my choices and reasons. (If I had, like so many of my well-intended redblog columns, this piece probably would have never seen the light of publication.) But here's what I said:

Ah tough question, Scott...

First off, let me go on record as saying... Gigli? Not really a bad movie at all. Of course, I have a higher Affleck tolerance than most, but it's really quite watchable.

But scariest movie ever? Well, I guess my problem is with the label itself. Like "funniest movie ever," it's so utterly subjective--fear and laughter are such primal emotions and therefore so personal and so different for everyone.

Also you get into questions of "scary" versus "good." And of "overall scary" versus "scariest moment/scene." I will hand that to Paranormal Activity--one of the things it does better than most is it maintains a strong level of creepiness and dread throughout. But for me personally there was never a really scary moment, and it did not haunt me (so to speak) later at night.

For example, I love The Shining and think it's a classic film thanks to Kubrick's cold direction, Nicholson's madcap performance, and King's story and characters. But if you're asking about what movies get me right in the gut, dig deep down in my lizard brain and scare the hell out of me, The Shining doesn't really do that. (The book did when I first read it in my teens, but not the film.)

Likewise, I watch Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 almost every Halloween, but I adore it for its humor and flat out Looney Tunes sense of gory, gross-out fun--nothing about it really scares me.

As far as scary and good, number one would probably always be The Exorcist, which is not only deeply creepy throughout, and contains genuinely scary moments, and lingers with you days (and especially nights) later, but also is a tremendously well-made film, a marvel of cinematic storytelling from start to finish. (And yes, I like both versions, the original and the 2000 "version you've never seen" director's cut.)

But the scariest moment on film for me, as I was saying a few months ago in the comments, is actually in The Exorcist III, directed by the author of The Exorcist novel, William Peter Blatty. I personally think it's a good film, though it has a completely different tone and style from Exorcist I (and a terrible, cheesy ending tacked on by the studio). (The Exorcist II: The Heretic is scary only in how much whiskey must have gone into keep Richard Burton upright and "functioning" during the shoot.) But Exorcist III has a scene in it that is utterly terrifying in its set-up and single-shot payoff of a very simple image that isn't terribly scary on its own, but horrifying in context. (Everyone who's seen the film knows exactly what I'm talking about.)

Another very well-made and low-key scary film is Peter Medak's The Changeling from 1980 (not to be confused with Eastwood's from last year--completely different stories and genres). Again, it builds most of its scares from carefully constructed mood and atmosphere. (And, like Exorcist III, stars George C. Scott.) A near-perfect ghost story, The Changeling has no gore, no real "jump scares" and not even much in the way horrifying imagery. But it takes a child's rubber ball and antique wheelchair and makes them both utterly chilling. Also, like Paranormal Activity and The Grudge, (and Robert Wise's The Haunting) it uses sound to get you nice and freaked out.

Twitter is Destroying/Saving the Movie Industry 140 Characters at a Time!

I'm a notoriously late adapter. There were--and this is true--Amishmen in my home town who secretly had cellphones before I did. So I was kind of late to the game on Twitter. I hopped into the middle of the giant online cocktail party conversation early this summer and am now Twiddicted. I love Twitter for meeting like-minded folks and catching film news. Most of all, I love making my snarky, self-deprecating cynicism fit into 140 characters.

If used correctly, Twitter can be a wonderful, loose, free-flowing communication tool for quickly sharing news and opinions about everything from the Iranian elections to what people think of the latest blockbuster film in theaters.

Now see if you can guess which of those has Hollywood in a tizzy? Here's a hint. Unless they're being adapted into a Soderbergh movie starring Angelina Jolie and George Clooney, Hollywood does not care about the Iranian elections.

No, the big marketing story in Hollywood this summer is Twitter. Movie studios love to explore new ways to promote their product. But promotional hype is like a controlled burn: You want to generate a lot of heat. You do not want the fire to suddenly blow back and burn your very expensive mansion to the ground.

Studio marketing departments are perfectly happy to use new technologies and communication mediums to get their message out. Except the problem with Twitter is that it's mostly regular people talking about whatever they want, not about what talking TV newsertainment heads or press-touring stars or PR folks want them to talk about. And just as you can't run around a cocktail party full of hundreds of people and make them all stop saying bad things about the hostess, you can't keep people from sharing their honest opinions about films and doing so immediately on Twitter. As a wise man once said, you can't stop the signal.

So two different Twitter stories have emerged from Hollywood this summer. In one story Twitter is the lovable, rascally hero who helped spread the positive word of mouth about District 9 and Inglourious Basterds. In the other story, Twitter is the reckless, destructive loose cannon that ran around and shot off its mouth and single-handedly sunk big-name films like Land of the Lost and Bruno.

Character Posters: All the Cool Kids Are Doing It!

We've talked about several movie trends (video game adaptations, board game adaptations, toy adaptations, remakes of '80s films, reboots of classic franchises, etc., etc.) over the last year here on redblog, so I felt it was only fitting that we discuss a veritable movement, if you will, that's been impossible to ignore in the film marketing arena: character posters.  

Before I go any further, let's make sure we're all on the same page about what a character poster even is.  It's not simply an advertisement for a film that spotlights only the main actor or actress.  All of the Will Smith movie posters featuring nothing but a big ol' Big Willie head?  Nope, those aren't character posters.  Same goes for this infamous promo for The 40-Year-Old Virgin.  While it only has Steve Carell's angelic mug on it, between the movie's title and Steve's awkward pose, a lot about this Apatow comedy was communicated to potential ticket-buyers.  So I wouldn't consider that a character poster, either.

Rather, a character poster is one that doesn't reveal much about the film itself, but instead spotlights a character that may or may not be the lead.  For example, look at the main poster for the upcoming Mike Judge workplace comedy, Extract:

Then compare it to these two character posters:

Is the definition of a character poster a bit more clear now?  Affleck isn't even in the main promo for Extract, yet he warranted his own separate sheet... probably because he's a big enough name that his involvement (or maybe just that awful 'do) will intrigue people.  And while Kristen Wiig's character did make an appearance in the main poster, through the tagline on her character's dedicated piece we learn a little bit more about her role: she's playing Jason Bateman's wife, she may represent one of his main sources of stress... and apparently she likes to be comfy. 

Read on for more examples from several other 2009 and 2010 films...

Celebs, Save Your Voices

A question nagged me as I suffered through G-Force last week: why do studios cast celebrities in voice roles for animated films?  Seriously, what was the thinking behind choosing Sam Rockwell to voice Darwin the guinea pig?  He's Sam freakin' Rockwell, for pete's sake -- the actor Roger Ebert deemed "the go-to guy for weirdness."  King of quirky characters in deep, dark and (more often than not) independent films.  No kids know who he is, and I'd wager a lot of money that 90% of adult audience members (in the theater for G-Force) wouldn't have been able to put a face with his name, either.  I'm personally a big fan of the guy, but if I hadn't already been informed that he was behind the leading four-legged agent, I certainly wouldn't have been able to identify his voice on my own.  As far as Tracy Morgan and Penélope Cruz go -- their voices might have been recognizable, but did they make their characters memorable or the movie better overall?  No.  Anyone else could've voiced Blaster and Juarez and my opinion of the movie wouldn't have changed one bit.  (Don't even get me started on Nic Cage as Speckles -- there were literally gasps of shock in my theater when the credits revealed Cage's involvement, since the poor-sighted mole sounded nothing like the unfortunately tressed action star).

So this got me thinking about other animated films I've seen over the years... and I realized that there are very few instances where a well-known actor or actress has actually added something to their two-dimensional character.  Sure, it's neat that Tom Hanks was Woody and Tim Allen was Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story films, but ask yourself this: would you have honestly liked these films less had the toy cowboy and the spaceman been voiced by unknowns?  Do you think your enjoyment of The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast was negatively effected by the lack of A-list stars in its cast?  Was Ray Romano's voice truly crucial for the character of Manny in the Ice Age franchise? 

Locke Looks at Potter, Part 1: The View from Outside

Before I get around to laying down my take on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I want to map out where I'm coming from on the whole Potter thing.

I’ve been a science-fiction/fantasy/comic-book geek all my life, from Planet of the Apes to James Bond to Star Trek to Star Wars to The Lord of the Rings to Spider-Man and X-Men. (Not to mention Buffy & Angel, Farscape, and the Battlestar Galactica reboot in the past decade.)

So it’s been a bit odd to stand on the outside and look in at the massive Harry Potter (and to a lesser degree, Twilight) book and film series. I recognize all the geeky traits, the obsessions, the nitpicking over details, and the frustrations. And I understand the joy, the devotion, the way a beloved franchise warms the cockles of your geeky heart on cold, lonely nights when it seems the rest of the world is watching shows about The Most Horrible Housewives in the World.

(Likewise, I never watched the Transformers or GI: JOE cartoons in the '80s, though let's stay focused on franchises that at least try to do something other than sell toys...)

I read the first couple Potter books a decade ago and fully intended to keep going, but when the hardbacks started approaching the size of Medieval tomes I shrugged and wandered away. I didn’t dislike the books, but they didn’t grab me or move me or engage me in any deep, meaningful way. I thought they were part delightfully imaginative, part silly, part childish, part intriguing. But all those parts never added up to enough to keep me around.

I did warm to the films a bit more—the first two by Christopher Columbus were pretty hackneyed and blandly flat, but with The Prisoner of Azkaban (by the brilliant Alfonso Cuarón) things clicked and I warmed up to the increasingly dark and cool moods. However, until this week I don’t believe I ever saw a Potter film a second time outside the theater. I dutifully bought my niece the DVDs for birthdays and Christmases, and always thought about re-watching them, and, like the rest of the books, never got around to it.

So this week I re-watched Prisoner, Goblet of Fire (from Mike Newell), and Order of the Phoenix (from David Yates, who directed Half-Blood Prince and will see the series out through the final two films). I was stunned at how much stuff I’d forgotten and at how richly beautiful these non-Columbus films are—not just the wildly imaginative scenes with fantastical creatures, but things like the Hogwarts train’s journeys through the English countryside and of course the Gothic wonders of the castle-school itself.

Yet at the same time, while I enjoyed getting a crash refresher course on What the Heck is Going On in the Potterverse, in the end my response to re-watching those DVDs was very similar to my initial response in the theaters: pleasant enough dazzle and enjoyment while watching, followed by an almost methodical flushing of the experience from my brain within hours of the closing credits.

I Want Control!

Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books?  Didn't they rock? 

For those of you unfortunate enough not to know what I'm talking about (I weep for your childhood!), Choose Your Own Adventure books (there were nearly 200 of them published between 1979 and 1998) allowed their readers to determine how the story unfolded.  You'd get through a few pages and then be asked to make a decision about what should happen next.  It'd go something like, "If you want to follow the mysterious man into the alley, turn to page 52.  If you'd rather head home instead, turn to page 71."  Each book had multiple endings, and I used to love working my way through all of them.  I thought these books were the coolest, little nerd that I was.  (I obviously wasn't alone, as this children's series sold over 250 million copies during the '80s and '90s.)

About five years ago two former classmates of mine from graduate school came up with the brilliant idea to make a Choose Your Own Adventure DVD.  They got William H. Macy and a bunch of other celebs to provide voices for the animated characters, and the DVD went on to win all sorts of awards. It turned a child's passive movie-viewing experience into an active one, as kids could use the DVD controls to guide characters' actions and explore eleven different variations of a tale about the Abominable Snowman. 

With ever-shortening attention spans and the trend toward increasingly interactive technologies, I'm frankly surprised we haven't seen more of this kind of entertainment.  Then today I saw a Variety report about the planned film adaptation of You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero! by Bob Powers, which is kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book for grown-ups.  Its cover includes a sly nod to the CYOA franchise through a banner that states: Book One in the 'Just Make a Choice!' Series. Your Choices. Your Story.  More Than Thirty Different Ways to Ruin Everything.

A Disagreement: Erika and James on Public Enemies

(This week at redblog, we're sharing a head-to-head discussion between Erika Olson and James Rocchi about Michael Mann's Public Enemies -- and their very different views. After James and Erika make their case, please feel free to share your thoughts on the film. ...)

Usually I’m right there with you on your reviews, James, but when I read what you had to say about Public Enemies I felt as though we’d seen two different movies.  I left the theater not only disappointed, but also completely befuddled as to how Mann and his fellow screenwriters (Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman) managed to make a film about the final years of John Dillinger’s life — as well as the storied “War on Crime” era at the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover  — so... well, boring.  

Sure, there were prison breaks and shoot-outs and getaways, but not once was I swept up in the action.  Not once did I care whether Dillinger pulled off another heist or Purvis got his man. Instead, I spent the bulk of the film’s two-hour-plus running time (way... too... long) trying to figure out who was who among Dillinger’s men (I know not everyone can look like Depp, but seriously, I couldn’t tell the other guys apart), who was shooting at whom, what in the heck they were doing/planning overall, and why they were so popular among normal folk — celebrated, in fact — for holding up banks in the middle of the Great Depression.

That’s why I have to ask, were you already familiar with Dillinger’s story before watching Public Enemies?  Because I wasn’t — I knew he was a bank robber and that he was shot in front of the Biograph Theater here in Chicago, and that’s it. Therefore, since Mann neglected to set the stage with how Dillinger and his fellow gangsters rose to infamy or give so much as a hint as to why in the world the public loved him so much, I was in a constant state of Waiting For An Explanation while watching the film.  Little did I know that I should’ve read up on my 1930s American history before settling into the theater.  So while I agree with your statement that Johnny Depp made it easy for the audience to like Dillinger, I definitely don’t think he helped us understand the man anymore than we’d already naturally understand the fact that criminals generally try to avoid getting caught.  

Summer Event Movies, Part 2: Popularity vs. Quality, Criticism and Playing Nice

You can read Part 1 of Summer Event Movies here.

There's been a lot written this week about how Transformers ROTF marks one of the deepest gulfs ever for a film between public popularity and critical distaste.

Certainly, the comments sections on Erika’s and my reviews, as well as my piece on the charges of TF:ROTF racism, etch out that gulf in fine, screaming detail. Yes, we feel that popular doesn’t always equal good. I’m guessing that every person who uses the “Transformers 2 must be good because it’s making so much money” argument has a half dozen works of art--be they TV shows, books, CDs--that they love dearly and can’t understand why they’re not more popular. Or conversely, I’m guessing everyone has looked at the year’s best sellers or top albums and thought, “why THAT?!?!”

In 1967 the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Who had The Who Sell Out, Dylan released John Wesley Harding, the Stones had Between the Buttons, and the Velvet Underground’s debut record was released. The best-selling album of 1967? More of the Monkees. Nothing against the Monkees—I dig ‘em, but still…

I think any critic struggles with this issue. At times you want to scream your opinion at the top of your lungs from the tallest IMAX screen and shout, “Why can't you see this the way I see it?!?!” And other times, hopefully more often, you may holler a bit (it’s kind of part of  the job, you know), but in the end you accept that everyone has different tastes, and really the fun of criticism is to toss your tastes out there and then enjoy discussing and arguing over them.

(Later this week I hope to answer a request in the comments for my favorite action films of the past decade and talk a bit about what I think makes a good action film, one that lasts, that has a chance of becoming a classic of the genre.)

Which brings me to my final point, one that was never planned as part of my “Batman and Event Films 20 Years Later” piece. I write film criticism because I love film. And because I love film, I love talking about film, arguing about it, discussing it, sharing tastes and defending those tastes—in case the rambling length of my pieces isn’t a giveaway. That is supposed to be the point and purpose of redblog: to bring film lovers together to share their love of film. Even if that love gets tough on occasion because some of us are disappointed that films we had hoped to enjoy didn’t deliver for us.

So people, please. Argue all you want about the movies—please do! That’s why we’re here. But try to do so without falling back on that laziest of arguments: “Well, you’re just a smelly poopy-head!” I know the standards of public discourse in this country have slid a bit since the rise of 24-hour cable news, talk radio, and Internet chat rooms, but let’s try to give the better angels of our nature a spin. Let’s try to argue passionately and fervently about our likes and dislikes, make our points, and counter each other’s points without it turning into “well, you suck because I disagree with you about this summer's movie about giant fighting robots!”

I may not agree with some of you about Transformers, but I really do want to hear why you liked it, what it delivered for you that it did not for me. So let’s keep that conversation--the one between film lovers--going all summer, and all fall… Both in the lines at the Cineplex and here in the redblog comments sections.

Summer Event Movies, Part 1: Batman, Transformers, and Line Hopes

I’d meant to write last weekend about the 20th anniversary of Tim Burton’s Batman, which hit theaters on June 23, 1989.

Sure, there’s a lot to be said comparing Burton’s Batman with Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (and each director’s follow-up), and about how Burton’s blockbuster has weathered the decades, especially now that Heath Ledger’s Joker has pretty clearly blown the screws off the doors of Jack Nicholson’s.

For the record, no, Burton’s Batman doesn’t hold up all that well—it has for the most part become a cultural artifact, a giddy, uneven, somewhat incoherent pop snapshot of that moment in cinema. And that’s more what I’d intended to write about: How Batman ushered in the Event-Movie Era.

It seemed apropos last week, as we were in the midst of this year’s Huge Event Movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. (I’m so worn out on the subject of Transformers, I can’t even bother to come up with "clever" mock subtitles anymore… that’s how far I’ve fallen... but if I had, it would have been Return of the Fallacy.) I’d intended to talk about the idea of the Event Movie, how it has its roots in a fun, personal bit of excitement (looking forward to a film, getting more and more excited for it, standing in long lines the first day, that rush when the lights go down), but has, like so much else in our society, been hijacked and co-opted and turned into a crass, calculated, clockwork marketing strategy.

Certainly Warner Brothers knew what they were doing back in the fall of ’88 when that gold and black Batman logo began popping up on signs and billboards. But part of the reason we all got so jacked up for Batman the following summer was that this was a whole new ride—to get that swept up in what (I know it sounds corny) felt like a national movement. Everyone wanted to see Batman—the film itself became almost incidental, we were riding the hype and loving it. "I'm Batman," became the mantra of not just the fanboy film geeks, but seemingly the whole damn country.

Sure, I’d stood in lines for Return of the Jedi, but that was the final (ha!) chapter of an already beloved (ha!) trilogy. And movies like Ghostbusters and Aliens were massive summer box-office hits, but they had to prove themselves first as films, then they became must-sees. Batman was different: it wasn’t the movie, it was the anticipation.

Hey, Who Wants to Talk About Racism in Transformers? Wheee! (Come On, It'll Be Fun! There's a Poll!)

Most critics--and more than a few filmgoers--who saw Transformers: Revenge of Jimmy Fallon came away from the super-mega-huge flick with a bad taste in their mouths, a ringing in their ears, loose fillings, and the feeling they'd been repeatedly mugged by a giant metal lizard brain.

I get why everyone rushed to make Transformers 2 one of the biggest-opening films ever. (After all, I was there midnight Tuesday, and I didn't really even like T-Formers1 that much.) And I do get why some fans are saying it was awesome, they loved it, it's just a fun summer movie, escapism, don't think too much about it.

But the point most of us are trying to make is that we like big, loud, fun summer escapism, but not poorly made summer escapism--great effects, but sloppy, lazy storytelling and characters. And just because it looks cool and gives you a momentary rush, doesn't mean it's good for you or your mind or your artistic taste buds.

Many critics who hated TF:ROTF(L) have also zeroed in on the film's perceived racism in the portrayal of the twin comic-relief Autobots, Skids and Mudflap. It raises a chicken/egg question: does the presence of what many of us consider to be minstrel-show-style racial stereotypes make TF:ROTF worse, or are they merely one of many bits of ickiness in the film, but make for an convenient broad target for our ire?

Here are the arguments for and against Skids and Mudflaps being racist:

Why we see them as racist:

--They speak in robo-gangsta "jive" or Ebonics, including rapper-style insults and threats of violence. (Calling others "pussy" and saying they'll "put a cap in your ass.")

--They are more simian-shaped than the other Autobots, with bulging eyes, and one of them has a gold tooth.

--When pressed, they admit they don't know how to read.

All this, many of us say, makes the characters little more than minstrel clowns, playing off cheap, negative African-American thug stereotypes. The movie site CHUD has labeled them "Little Black Sambots."

Now, the defense of the characters from some quarters:

--They're just comic relief, for fun, and not meant to be taken so seriously. Stop being so overly-PC and sensitive and laugh at them!

--They're robots, not human, so how can robot toys be racist?

--These kinds of stereotypes are often used to humorous effect by black film makers.

--The characters grew out of the voice acting done by Reno Wilson (who is black) and Tom Kenny (a white voice actor-comedian who is also the voice of Spongebob) and the actors were playing off the idea that these two Autobots learned about human culture from gangsta rap on the Internet and are just silly wannabees.

What say you all? Pick as many of the following poll options as you like and by all means elaborate on your opinions in the comments section directly below this post!

Online Surveys & Market Research

More about the controversy, the response of the film makers, and my take on it all over the jump!