Joyeux Noel

Year 5, Day 335 - 12/1/13 - Movie #1,594

BEFORE:  I found time on the night of Thanksgiving to assemble my annual Christmas mix CD.  This tradition started about two decades ago, when I put some of my favorite classic Xmas songs (Elvis Presley, Leon Redbone and Bing Crosby were probably mainstays then) on to a 90-minute cassette (yeah...) and gave it to probably about 10 people.  Reactions were good, so I did it again, and bought more Christmas music CDs the next year, and more the year after that, and it was feeding my typical obsession to collect things AND organize them, but it also started to serve as an all-purpose Christmas gift for family, friends, co-workers and even the UPS guy and the postal clerks.  People ask me if I'm going to run out of songs, and I've determined that's mathematically impossible, I could probably continue this process for the rest of my natural lifespan and never run out of versions of "Silent Night" (plus, if I pull songs from the CDs once a year, then technically I can't be called a "hoarder").

But as with everything I do, there needs to be a process.  There is a certain art, science and logic to creating a Christmas mix, plus I need to feel inspired.  I don't allow the process to guide me, even though the process could be more or less on auto-pilot at this point - just pick a bunch of good songs, make sure no two artists are singing the same song, the length is just under the 80-minute CD limit, and hit "Burn CD", right?  Not so fast.  I simply must have a theme, and that theme could be 80's rock, or jazz, or a cappella, or even Christmas music in the style of famous classic rock songs (one of my more difficult mixes to put together).  This year I had a rough idea for a theme, and it just wasn't coming together as fast as I would have liked, but I realized the clock was ticking.  So I sat down to log in the CDs I bought last year, and I realized I had put a bunch of post-it notes on the CDs, marking songs that I thought would fit in with a theme I've used before - and when I put this together with the songs that didn't make the cut in a previous year, for one reason or another, within a couple of hours I had a mix that was just a few minutes over the legal limit.

This is the best place for a mix of songs to be in - I know I need to cut just one song, and I'm golden.  But which one?  Well, when I pick songs I'm usually drawn to songs that show creativity or are different in some way - I'm most impressed by new arrangements, or singers that change the melody up a little, or stand out in some perhaps undefinable way.  Some versions that aren't just "the same old thing".  Then I'll listen to the mix, and choose the one that perhaps went a little too far (this year it was a very angry-ish version of "Carol of the Bells") and then what's left is usually the final group of songs.

Then it's just a matter of putting them in the "right" order, which is important.  I try to include 6 or 7 traditional Nativity-oriented carols, so that's a section, but I don't want so many that the mix gets bogged down in religious dogma.  Then there's usually a group of the weather- or party-related songs, like "Winter Wonderland", "Let It Snow", "White Christmas", and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree".  Any songs related to Santa / Rudolph / Frosty the Snowman usually constitute a third section, and then there are usually a few songs that are relationship-based, like "Blue Christmas", "Last Christmas" and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)".  Then there are generic well-wishing songs like "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", and other songs that I can take or leave, like "Feliz Navidad" and "12 Days of Christmas" - it has to be a really great version of one of those songs for me to even consider using it.  Plus I like to throw in one or two original songs, just to keep things fresh and maybe move the genre forward a bit.  Sometimes I like to challenge people's perceptions of what a holiday song sounds like, but I don't want to go too far.

Then, after a rough order is established, I have to listen through it one more time.  At this point I ask myself a number of questions, such as "Do I have too many female artists in a row?"  "Are the songs that mention God or Jesus too preachy?"  "Do I really want to alternate like this, fast song then slow song then fast song, or does that seem to bi-polar?"  "What's the overall tone of the compilation?"  Too many slow songs or songs in minor keys can potentially drag the whole thing down, and make it sound like a funeral dirge for Prancer & Vixen.  But too many loud or fast numbers could alienate the older relatives.  Usually cutting out the most egregious offenders in Step 2 takes care of this, and the rest can be smoothed over by just not putting too many downbeat songs together. 

I've got something now that I think is entertaining and even better, interesting.  And by that I mean it's got MY interest right now, and it represents where my head is at, and that's what I want to share with people.  There are a couple sad songs, perhaps "wistful" is a better word, and that's OK.  The mix made me sort of tear up in two spots, and that's a good sign.  But I don't want to depress people, so the cheer comes back to (hopefully) pull people back to a celebratory mood, and I think after a few more listens I'll be ready to mail it out with my Christmas cards.  An even better sign is the fact that right after listening through it, I want to hear it again.

But that's not why you called - so on with the countdown.  Linking from "The Patriot", an actor from that film named Peter Woodward was also in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" with Diane Kruger (last seen in "Troy").

THE PLOT:  On Christmas Eve during world War I, the Germans, French, and Scottish fraternize and get to know the men who live on the opposite side of a brutal war, in what became a true lesson of humanity.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "War Horse" (Movie #1,585), "Paths of Glory" (Movie #1,180)

AFTER:   Well, this goes right along with what I was just talking about.  Music is the initial thing that draws the French and German soldiers together on Christmas Eve.  Music, then alcohol.  Both are sort of universal languages (along with food, I suppose) and to a lesser extent here, religion.  The soldiers from France, Germany and Scotland end up having a mass together, which was easier back then because all of their masses were spoken in Latin.  

But let's start with music.  "Stille Nacht", or as you may know it, "Silent Night", was composed in German and just plain sounds better sung in that language (as does "O Tannenbaum"), but of course it's also recognizable in other languages.  "O Come All Ye Faithful" is shown here as a crossover too (sung as "Adeste Fideles", again, Latin).  I'm sure there are other Christmas songs that are uniquely German, or French, or English, but some of these are just plain universal.  I'm spoiled by the fact that 99% of my Christmas CD's recipients live in English-speaking countries, so I can worry about the theme and the tone and not worry if the messages are being understood or not. 

Speaking of messages, it's a little tough to land on just exactly what the message of this film is.  It's clearly anti-war, but it was a little hard to get much clearer than that.  Obviously it's much harder to shoot your enemy once you've shared a drink with him, and it shows that people on both sides of World War I were "dehumanizing" their enemy in order to make war acceptable in the minds of their countrymen.  It also highlights the difference in attitudes held by the people in government, and those held by the people in the trenches.

But it's tough to say whether this was meant to be seen as a sane moment in an insane war, or perhaps a more insane moment.  Putting Christmas aside, what happened still constituted fraternization with the enemy, and it was perhaps naive to think that their superior officers would never find out, or that there would be no repercussions.  The goals of war are to stay alive and kill the other guy, and however you feel about Christmas, celebrating it ended up interfering with the aforementioned other goals.  Besides, if celebrating with the enemy gets your unit disbanded or gets you transferred to the more dangerous Russian Front, then in the end it hardly seems worth it.

This is the end of the war chain, which began with "Red Tails" back on November 7.  Actually, it sort of began with "Gone With the Wind" in late September, or really you could say it kind of started with "Les Miserables" back on Jan. 1.  Whatever.  Now that peace has broken out, I need to step away and get my Christmas CDs made, my Christmas cards mailed out, the outdoor lights put up, and then I really should think about buying some gifts for people.  Damn, I've got just three weeks until Christmas, so this is going to be tight, and it's my own damn fault.   I'll meet you back here in about two weeks, hopefully, to knock off the last few films of the year, which are mainly holiday-based.

Also starring Benno Fürmann, Gary Lewis, Daniel Brühl, Steven Robertson, Guillaume Canet, Frank Witter, Ian Richardson, Thomas Schmauser.

RATING: 6 out of 10 bagpipes

The Patriot

Year 5, Day 334 - 11/30/13 - Movie #1,593

BEFORE: Happy Thanksgivukkah!  I wish I'd known months ago that the two holidays were going to coincide, I could have transitioned from "Pocahontas" to something like "8 Crazy Nights" - but I didn't.  Instead I went with a Mel Gibson linking, and as a result the war category is almost completely cleared.  I know it seems like July 4 would be a more appropriate date to watch this, and I agree, but I've covered just about every American (and Greek) conflict, except this one.  (OK, so I skipped the Spanish-American War, Korea and Vietnam this time.  You know what I mean.)

The truth is, I don't know what kind of chain I'll be involved in come July, and even though I have a couple other Mel Gibson films left on the list, sandwiching this film between "Payback" and "Bird on a Wire" didn't make much sense to me.  I don't even know for sure if I want to link with actors next year, we'll see. 

THE PLOT:  Peaceful farmer Benjamin Martin is driven to lead the Colonial Militia during the American Revolution when a sadistic British officer murders his son.

AFTER:  This is another war film that felt maybe too long by 25% or so - does any film really need to be 2 hours, 45 minutes long?  Couldn't some editing have been applied to cut out at LEAST 15 minutes, while maintaining the same storyline?  I mean, if we see Gibson's character saying goodbye to his children three times instead of four, isn't that enough?  There are some other redundancies in the plot as well, but I'm not going to mention major plot points for fear of spoilage.  But seeing the same thing happen again and again means that the story could have easily been simplified a little. 

Old Mel shows a bit of the "Mad Max" psycho here (or maybe it's the "Lethal Weapon" psycho) as his character is a pacifist at first, but then gets dragged into the conflict of the American Revolution.  I'm sure there must have been some people who voted against taking up arms, but according to this film, with the way that the British army treated even the Americans who were loyalists, by commandeering their slaves, land and supplies, they created more dissent wherever they went.  Which means that the U.S. might have remained colonies if the Brits hadn't been such royal dicks.

But when his family is threatened, and his son is in danger, Benjamin recalls his fighting days from the French-Indian War - there's a backstory which eventually gets told - and takes on a squadron of Redcoats thanks to a few well-placed already-loaded muskets and his trusty tomahawk.  It's only believable because of how long it took to reload a gun back in those days.  Seriously, it took like 5 minutes at best, and even then you weren't sure you did it correctly until you pulled the trigger and it didn't blow your own face off. 

What you see in the early battles of the war is a lot of gentleman-like behavior - you guys line up over there, and we'll line up over here, and you fire your weapons, and we'll get hit, then we'll take our turn.  Were things really like that?  Men were expected to just stand there and anticipate getting shot?  With the Brits' superior numbers, there was no way for the Colonials to win - until they started "fighting dirty", hiding in fields and forests and shooting without warning.  Yeah, they broke the rules but the rules sucked to begin with.  And isn't that what rebels do, break the rules?

I remember learning this sort of thing in U.S. History class, but I think it's probably an oversimplification to suggest this idea came from ONE guy, or was a practice used just by the South Carolina militia, for that matter.  But I suppose it makes it more dramatic to show the scrappy bunch of farmers, not professional soldiers, coming together to create more underhanded but efficient tactics. 

There are also some insights into the proper methods of courtship in the 1700's, and they sort of nailed how formal people acted back then - plus I think there are some keen insights into the motivations of the colonists, the reasons for the Revolution.  But there's also a large amount of melodrama here - like the young daughter who can't (or won't) speak.  Seems sort of a cop-out to explain why she wasn't given any lines, or if not that, then the use of a disabled character to wring more suffering out of this family's situation.

We also see Gibson's character melt down his tin soldiers to make his own musket balls.  Which was very effective since it turned out the British had no defense against irony.  You think that a gunshot hurts?  These also sting...

Also starring Heath Ledger (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You"), Joely Richardson (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "Recount"), Jason Isaacs (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"), Chris Cooper (last seen in "The Horse Whisperer"), Rene Auberjonois (last seen in "Where the Buffalo Roam"), Donal Logue (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Adam Baldwin, Leon Rippy, Logan Lerman (last seen in "The Three Musketeers").

RATING: 5 out of 10 rocking chairs

Pocahontas

Year 5, Day 331 - 11/27/13 - Movie #1,592

BEFORE:  It's raining today in NYC, which would only be a problem if it were a big travel day or something.  I'm fortunate that I still live within driving distance of my parents, relatively speaking, so we don't have to drive anywhere until tomorrow morning.  I spent about a decade meeting up with my parents on Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house in Rockland County, and I feel that all those years of holiday travel have given me something of a pass - now for Thanksgiving I can choose where I want to go, or to choose nowhere if I want.  But after another three years of driving out to Long Island to spend the day with my wife's brother's in-laws, this time we're going to drive up to New Haven, which had the foresight to position itself roughly halfway between NYC and Boston, and meet up with my parents for lunch tomorrow.  One of New Haven's finer restaurants (I hope) will be providing the food, my mother and I can always cook a turkey together for Christmas.

I had the foresight about 6 months ago to buy two pairs of sneakers instead of one, which came in quite handy when the weather forced me to admit that I've worn some considerable holes in the first pair.  It's like I bought myself a gift on layaway.  Speaking of gifts, I've got to get moving on Christmas stuff.  This Friday simply MUST be the day where I pick the tracks for my Christmas mix CD, and then comes the dubbing and the labelling and the mailing of cards and CDs.  Then I've got to make lists (I love lists...) of gifts and where to look for them, and then there will be a flurry of internet ordering - you won't catch me at the mall on Black Friday, I assure you.  But after one more film I've got to put movies on hold to catch up on holiday preparations.

Linking from "The New World", two actors carry over - Christian Bale and Irene Bedard, which is kind of amazing considering that both movies cover almost exactly the same material.

THE PLOT:  An English soldier and the daughter of an Algonquin chief share a romance when English colonists invade seventeenth-century Virginia.

AFTER: Once again, DisneyCorp. has seen fit to whitewash history.  Of course, with any life portrayed on screen, there are decisions to be made about what to leave in and what to take out, so no biopic can ever be considered complete, unless the running time matches the person's natural lifetime.  But with the story of Pocahontas it's pretty telling what was depicted, and what wasn't.

First off, even though it was the first Disney animated feature to be based on a real person, being the chief's daughter made her technically a princess, so you just know that's why DisneyCorp. was eager to tell her story.  Nothing like holding up another princess for little girls to aspire becoming someday...  OK, so she's not Caucasian, which makes it seem like a step forward, but is it really?  She is depicted as a woman who is unable to define herself other than through her future husband, so to me that's a big red flag, and a sign that we haven't really progressed as fast and as far as one might think.  Some stories maintained that she had a husband in the tribe before she fell in with John Smith, but of course they're going to just sweep that under the rug for a kid's story.  Additionally, history estimates her age as 12 or 13, not as an older teen as depicted here - we can't show cradle-robbing, now can we?  (also, she probably would have walked around topless, but I understand some concessions must be made for a kiddie film...)

Similarly, this story only covers the period that includes Pocahontas meeting Smith, their romance and tours through the animated Virginia countryside, and then their parting after Smith is injured and forced to return to England.  Man, that's a hell of a long ambulance ride.  At least in this version Smith doesn't feed her the "I couldn't call you, I was dead" line.  But there's no mention of the love triangle that includes John Rolfe - because god forbid that a kid's film suggest that relationships are at all complicated.  Nope, you meet your true love, and if you screw it up, you don't get another shot.  That ship has sailed - literally, it's leaving with the tide.

The relationship between Pocahontas and Rolfe constitutes the first interracial marriage in American history.  Doesn't it seem like that might be the more powerful story?  Shouldn't that be celebrated and depicted, instead of her dalliance with John Smith?  Although it was the first interracial romance seen in a Disney film, I guess that's something.  (Ah, I'm being told that Disney did produce a sequel, in which Pocahontas meets Rolfe and subsequently travels to London.  Never mind.  Carry on.)

Honestly, though, no one really knows the true nature of the relationship between Pocahontas and Smith.  Smith wrote his journals in the third person, so we don't get a lot of insight into where his head was at.  Seems like he was kind of ambivalent about it, if you ask me.  You'd think if he was tapping that, he'd at least brag about it.  But it was a different time, when some men were gentlemen, I guess.  The first account of their romance didn't appear until 1803, and that's quite a distance to be speculating from. 

As for Smith, "The New World" made allusions to his mutinous behavior on the way to the New World, but this film depicts him jumping overboard to save a comrade.  That's quite a discrepancy - but everything's conjecture, really.  However, it's just so blatant that everything was made to fit a particular formula, one where heroes are good and villains are bad and there are no gray areas in-between.

The other obvious complaint is that there are too many sidekicks - about three too many - but that's pretty standard for a modern Disney film.  Really, everything they do is a distraction, which means that DisneyCo. considers kids to be about as intelligent as a housepet.  "Hey, look over here!" is the overall effect, because we don't believe in the ability of youngsters to pay proper attention to the main storyline.  And they wonder why so many kids have HDAD these days - can anyone tie the growth of this condition to the increase in animated sidekicks?   There was even supposed to be a fourth sidekick, a turkey named Redfeather, voiced by John Candy, but when he passed away the role was not recast, and in fact all of the animals lost the ability to speak English at that point.

Yes, the original plan was to have the cutesy raccoon, pug dog AND the hummingbird speak English, which would have made "Pocahontas" just as non-sensical as "Madagascar" or "The Little Mermaid" or any of the others - I suppose it's a step forward that they merely make animal noises here, but I think it would have been a bigger step if their roles were reduced or even eliminated entirely. 

On top of that, the name "Pocahontas" is spoken way too many times.  After a character is introduced, there's not usually much reason for stating their name over and over - it almost seems like time-filler here, or an admission that most characters don't have anything else constructive to say.  Pocahontas herself even starts sentences with it, which seemed quite odd because why would she address herself before speaking to another person? 

Also starring the voices of Mel Gibson (last seen in "The Bounty"), David Ogden Stiers (last heard in "Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil"), Russell Means, Linda Hunt (last seen in "She-Devil"), Billy Connolly (last seen in "The X-Files: I Want to Believe"), Gordon Tootoosis (last seen in "Legends of the Fall").

RATING:  4 out of 10 shovels

The New World

Year 5, Day 329 - 11/25/13 - Movie #1,591

BEFORE: My on-and-off feud with the cable company is back ON (I won't say their name, but their initials are Time Warner Cable).  Every single time that my cable box switches off and reboots at 4 am (yeah, I'm awake, I notice...) it means they're downloading a software "upgrade" to my DVR, and every single time, that makes my system worse.  Forget the fact that the guide to recorded shows looks like ass now, and live TV is reduced to a small postage-stamp sized corner of the screen while I'm searching for shows - every time this occurs, I lose some feature.

I used to be able to type an actor's name and find all movies and shows he's in, but I lost that feature about two years ago.  Now I seem to have lost the ability to watch one recorded show while recording two others - but that's how I usually spend my entire weekend.  What's the deal, Time Warner?  Why does my service keep getting worse and worse while the bill keeps going up?  Why can't you test the software before uploading it to my DVR (and by extension, to millions of others, although mine is really the only one that matters...)

To make things worse, on Sunday my DVR went from being 11% full to 91% full, after recording two hours of a non-HD football game, which is mathematically impossible.  The last time this happened, I called the cable company and their suggestion was to unplug the cable box and do a hard reboot, after which I lost ALL of my recorded shows.  This time I called and was given the same advice, so I said "no dice".  I then located which recorded show was taking up 1100 hours of space (again, shouldn't be possible), and deleted it, and my service improved.  Why does the technician's advice always represent a "scorched earth" mentality?  Why can't they be trained to try to save the shows I've recorded and want to watch? 

Linking from "Immortals", John Hurt was also in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (a war film I have no desire to watch) with Christian Bale (last seen in "The Fighter")

THE PLOT:  The story of the English exploration of Virginia, and of the changing world and loves of Pocahontas.

AFTER: Speaking of first-world problems, I've got to find a way to link the last few films, which were all about armies invading foreign lands, and somehow tie that in with the European settlers coming to America.  Where's the link there?  JK.

I didn't feel comfortable commenting on the work of Terrence Malick after seeing just one film ("The Thin Red Line"), but noting the similarities between that film and this one, I can start to see some common themes - like a ton of internal monologues, and these random beauty shots of nature.  I know it's only two films, but if I were to watch "The Tree of Life" now, I think I'd know a bit more about what to expect.

But tonight it's a look inside Pocahontas' head as she meets Capt. John Smith, intervenes and spares his life (every schoolchild in America is taught this story) and they learn to speak each other's language - so together they represent what the relationship between the Native Americans and the European settlers could have been, but ultimately was not.  When Smith is recalled to England to lead a new expedition, he pulls the old "tell her I died" routine, and after a prolonged depression, she eventually forms a new relationship with John Rolfe.  See, love triangles are nothing new, they've been a part of our country's heritage from the beginning.

Rolfe is offered an opportunity to visit London (though I suspect the King wanted to meet Pocahontas more than him...) and Pocahontas gets to meet Smith again while in England.  Will she once again choose the man who rejected her, or remain with the faithful father of her child? 

It's obvious why I chose to watch this film this week, two days before Thanksgiving.  It's not only a celebration of the harvest, it's a reminder that the European settlers were really crappy farmers.  There's a bit here where the settlers are saved by food and clothing from the Native Americans (called "naturals" by the Jamestown residents) - and look how that led to such a long, healthy relationship.  The new world also represents a fresh start, as seen in Smith's pardon for his mutinous ways (we don't know what happened on the trip over, but there must have been trouble).

And we've got the contrast between the two societies - Smith regards his time spent among the naturals as a "dream", then later regards it as "the only truth", and it's with great regret that he looks back on his rejection of Pocahontas.  I'm still not sure what the overall lesson is, because the film seemed to go out of its way to be oblique, unless the contrast is the whole message.

Also starring Colin Farrell (last seen in "Fright Night"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Q'orianka Kilcher, David Thewlis (last seen in "War Horse"), Eddie Marsan (ditto), Wes Studi, Ben Chaplin (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Noah Taylor (last seen in "The Proposition"), Brian O'Byrne (last seen in "Season of the Witch"), Irene Bedard, August Schellenberg, with a cameo from Jonathan Pryce (last seen in "Tomorrow Never Dies").

RATING:  3 out of 10 tobacco plants

Immortals

Year 5, Day 328 - 11/24/13 - Movie #1,590

BEFORE:  I've had my eye out for this film, due to its similar mythological theme, but no pay TV channel has run it yet, it must be under their radar for some reason.  But I kept a slot open for it, so my next option was to watch it on iTunes, or better yet Amazon, which turned out to be a buck cheaper, or else I'd had to find another film to take its place.  This is also the first time I've watched a film on my iPad, which I'm starting to get more and more use out of to play games and check my e-mail, since the screen is larger than the one on my phone.  Better for the old eyesight. 

Linking from "Wrath of the Titans", once again I fall back on the Harry Potter films, which starred just about every British actor at one point or another.  Ralph Fiennes was also in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" with John Hurt (last seen in "Heaven's Gate").

THE PLOT:  Theseus is a mortal man chosen by Zeus to lead the fight against the ruthless King Hyperion, who is on a rampage across Greece to obtain a weapon that can destroy humanity.

AFTER: It's another "Greek salad" tonight, by that I mean a lot of the elements from the last two films are re-surfacing here.  The plot tonight combines some of the elements of "Troy" (large army trying to break down an enormous wall) and some of the elements of "Wrath of the Titans" (releasing the titans from Tartarus, Gods aiding humans, plus there's a minotaur).  The central plot is SO similar to that of last night's film that it leads one to wonder who copied who.  Sure, this film was released first, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the rip-off - it could have sped through production to hit the market first.

They just replaced Perseus with Theseus - and changed his story quite a bit.  Theseus was the man who, according to the myth, traveled through the Cretan labyrinth with the aid of a ball of string, and successfully slew the Minotaur within.  He had other adventures, too, possibly as one of the Argonauts, and eventually became the king that united Athens.  But none of that is here in this film, which concentrates only on his struggles against the invading King Hyperion.  Ironically, in mythology, Hyperion was the name of one of the Titans, but here he's just a human king, leading an army of soldiers who like wearing fetish-style leather masks.

And once again everyone is looking for a fantastic weapon, in this case it's the Epirus Bow, which shoots these magic arrows that just appear as needed, so an archer would never run out.  And these arrows can apparently kill Titans, and the bow never misses.  Let's hope the bow doesn't fall into the wrong hands...whoops, too late.

NITPICK POINT: Let's talk about these "Titans", who by the definition of their name, are supposed to be giants.  Literally "titanic", so that's one thing that "Wrath of the Titans" did better.  But here "Titans" just seems to mean "regular-sized evil guys who lost to the Greek Gods eons ago".  For this all 16 of them (they all look alike, so forget about naming them...) were imprisoned in a small cell in Tartarus, standing up with big bars through their mouths, making them collectively look like a giant foosball team, but standing still for all eternity.  Or at least until some idiot fires a magic arrow at their cell.

NITPICK POINT #2: This then puts them into a battle with the Greek Gods.  But again we wonder, can the Gods be killed?  Apparently so - because if not, what's the point in fighting with them?  But if they can be killed, then how the heck are they God-like?  And if the Titans get killed, do they go to hell?  (They were JUST there!)  Apparently not, because the battle is shown to continue, in heaven, for all eternity.  So the good guys AND the bad guys go to heaven?  And if they live on in heaven forever, then what's the point of continuing to fight?  I'm going around and around on this and it's just not making any sense. 

NITPICK POINT #3: I'm not even going to get into how Theseus knew where to find the bow.  They didn't bother to explain this one at ALL.

Also starring Henry Cavill (last seen in "Man of Steel"), Mickey Rourke (last seen in "The Expendables"), Stephen Dorff, Freida Pinto (last seen in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"), Luke Evans (last seen in "The Raven", but he was also in "Clash of the Titans", hmmm...), Kellan Lutz, Isabel Lucas, Steve Byers, Joseph Morgan, Mark Margolis (last seen in "Hardball").

RATING: 4 out of 10 oiled-up ab shots

Wrath of the Titans

Year 5, Day 327 - 11/23/13 - Movie #1,589

BEFORE:  More Greek stuff tonight, and tomorrow night too, then I can kick off the Thanksgiving films.  After this, four more films before I take a break.  Linking from "Troy", Brendan Gleeson was also in "In Bruges" with Ralph Fiennes.

THE PLOT:  Perseus braves the treacherous underworld to rescue his father, Zeus, captured by his son, Ares, and brother Hades who unleash the ancient Titans upon the world.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Clash of the Titans" (Movie #923)
 
AFTER: Now, this is more of what I think of when I think about Greek mythology.  Unfortunately, it's also patently ridiculous, especially when compared with "Troy".  To be fair, no one really knows what happened in the Trojan War, so anyone complaining that Hollywood wasn't "faithful" to the Homeric epic is really wasting their time - Homer wasn't even telling the exact story, unless the Greek Gods did look down from Mount Olympus and influence the events below.

Now, as for this sequel to a remake (yes, I remember the early 1980's original...) I have to wonder if it was at all influenced by the "Percy Jackson" films - here Perseus, the son of Zeus, has to team up with the son of Poseidon (man, these Gods got around...) and defeat Hades and Ares (Perseus' uncle and half-brother, it's complicated...) who's trying to restore Kronos, Zeus's father (and therefore his own grandfather, though there's not really any resemblance).

To do this, Hades siphons off power from Zeus, which means that Gods are like batteries.  Also we learn that Gods can die, which seems a little odd, especially since they can go to Hell and still be alive somehow.  I thought Zeus killed his father, but I guess he just imprisoned him in Hell, which is not really the same thing.  So how come Gods like Poseidon can die, but the Titans can't?  And if Kronos leaves Hell and attacks Earth, can he be defeated - and if he's killed, does he just go back to Hell, where he just came from?

Come to think of it, why is Kronos a giant, and his children like Zeus and Hades are regular-sized gods, who just look like old men?  What's the rate of mutation among Titans, or did his power get divided among his kids?  But the children of Zeus were also gods, unless he slept with a human woman, which made demi-gods.  

There's some reference to the Gods losing their power because people are not showing devotion to them.  Maybe if the Gods would stop resurrecting old flaming giants to come step on their village, people might be a little more inclined to come worship at the temple once in a while, but what the heck do I know?  Maybe people are trying hard not to believe in the Gods so they can have a peaceful rest-of-their-lives and not incur the wrath spoken of in the title.  (And why don't the religious nuts condemn this film for showing Gods other than the Christian one?)

In the same way that "Clash of the Titans" threw a lot of mythological elements together (the Kraken isn't even Greek, it's from, like, Norse mythology or something) this one throws a similar bunch of characters and things together.  Hephaestus, the Minotaur, Cyclopses, chimerae, they're all tossed into the blender.  It's kind of like putting a salad together, you gotta start with a lettuce base, but then you can put in just about anything - I've been partial to beets lately, but once you put beets in a salad they kind of limit your dressing options because they'll turn any dressing purple.  And then I can put turkey in the salad, but not tuna.  What I'm saying is, you put in too many weird elements and they're going to start conflicting with each other.

Anyway, Perseus finally figures out that they've got to get Poseidon's trident, Zeus thunder-thingy, Hades's umm, staff? and a few of the Horcruxes together to defeat the evil power before he rises up and slowly tramples everybody.  I'd say they set themselves up for another sequel, but they're probably running out of mythological beasties to defeat.

Also starring Sam Worthington (last seen in "Clash of the Titans"), Liam Neeson (last seen in "The Dark Knight Rises"), Danny Huston (last seen in "Marie Antoinette"), Edgar Ramirez (last seen in "Zero Dark Thirty"), Rosamund Pike (last seen in "Die Another Day"), Bill Nighy (last seen in "Shaun of the Dead"), John Bell, Alejandro Naranjo.

RATING: 5 out of 10 British accents (dear God, why?)

Troy

Year 5, Day 324 + 325 - 11/20 + 11/21/13 - Movie #1,588

BEFORE:  Back to war films, and if you don't see the connection from horse films to this one, then go and read the Iliad (go on, I'll wait...).  SPOILER ALERT, there's a giant wooden horse in here somewhere.

Linking from "Hidalgo", it's an easy leap from Viggo Mortensen through the "Lord of the Rings" films to Orlando Bloom.  Which reminds me, I have to add those confounded Hobbit films to my list. (Should have been one film, damn it, not three...) 

THE PLOT:  An adaptation of Homer's great epic, the film follows the assault on Troy by the united Greek forces and chronicles the fates of the men involved.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "300" (Movie #300)

AFTER: The Spartans are loose again!  Actually it's not just Spartans here, there's a whole bunch of Greek city-states, or maybe it's kingdoms, since there seem to be a bunch of Greek kings.  Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseus, etc.  And then in the other corner is the king of Troy, Priam, and his prince sons, Hector and Paris.  Then we've got the soldiers, most notably Achilles for the Greeks and Ajax for the Trojans. 

There are certain things you just can't get from reading Homer's story in English class - you have to set your mind to imagining 1,000 ships sailing to Troy, and tens of thousands of soldiers battling on a plain, and the carnage and the chaos involved.  Now that we have CGI, all that can finally appear on screen and we can all be on the same page, so to speak.

I'm not going to review the whole plot of the Iliad - which actually started out as a poem, and only covered a few weeks' time during the 10-year siege of the city of Troy.  But it covers the difficulty that Agamemnon had keeping Achilles in line, and mentions the events leading up to the siege, and some of the key battles.  But the Iliad was already a simplified version of a 10-year war, and now this film is sort of a simplification of THAT, so really by now we're getting a very watered-down version of things.

One thing that really got played down here was the involvement of the gods.  In the original Iliad, the Greek gods are characters, and their actions are depicted right alongside those of the humans - you had Zeus, Athena, Hera and Ares taking sides and manipulating the events.  As a modern audience, are we supposed to take this seriously, or interpret this as some kind of metaphor, based on the priestesses and oracles interpreting the events on the battlefield, and determining which God was responsible for what?

I suppose it would be somewhat cartoonish to depict the gods in this film as characters, I think it was a wise decision to leave them out of it, and just show the humans fighting on the battlefield.  They do mention the "will of the Gods" a lot, and when the Trojan horse is found, the Trojans say, "Surely it's an offering to Poseidon!  Let's bring it to the temple of Poseidon, conveniently located inside the walled city!"  And that's also a great excuse to further the plot.

This leads to perhaps a more realistic depiction of the war itself, but some things unfortunately had to be sacrificed to achieve this.  Achilles was supposed to be a demi-god (his mother was a nymph) and he was supposed to be invulnerable after being dunked in the river Styx, except of course for that part of his heel that his mother held on to while dipping him.  What happened to all that?  Here he's depicted as a great warrior, but no mention is made of his invulnerablity or weakness - I guess he's such a great fighter that he only seemed invulnerable?

ASIDE: They also managed to whitewash most of the, umm, gay stuff out of the story.  As depicted in "300" and other sources, it wasn't uncommon for these Greek soldiers to have wives and home and male companions on the battlefield.  Factor this back in, and the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus takes on a whole new meaning, and read up on Achilles and Troilus sometime if you've got the nerve.

While I'm talking about the sexual habits of ancient Greece, what was up with the soldiers' wives?  In the myths Zeus was always appearing to women as a bull, or a swan, or a shower of gold (heh...) and impregnating them and creating demi-gods like Hercules or Perseus or even Helen of Troy herself.  So either these wives were trying to cover up their preferences for farm animals, or they needed to explain how they got pregnant while their husbands were off fighting one war or another.  "Umm, honey, while you were at war, Zeus came to me, disguised as you, and one thing led to another, and now we have a son, but hey, he'll probably have super-strength or something, so that's good, right?"

And from there, it's not a big leap to explaining the Christian nativity story, is it?  (Blasphemy, I know, and with Christmas coming up!)  I think it was the comedian Greg Giraldo who pointed out that we have a whole religion based around a young Jewish girl who REALLY stuck to her story.

The other thing about "Troy" that I found was a little weird was the relative lack of fighting - it's the Trojan WAR, after all.  It seems to me that if you've got an army of 1,000 guys on one side, and 1,000 guys on the other side, it's a little strange to make the whole battle come down to one army's best guy against the other army's best fighter, and that's going to decide everything.  Maybe that's the way that Homer wrote it, or maybe that's the way it actually happened, but it's more than a little odd to have all these actors on film just sort of standing around.  Isn't there supposed to be a huge battle going on in the background or something?

Yet, time and again, it comes down to THIS one guy vs. THAT one guy.  Which made sense when Achilles rode up to the gates of Troy and called Hector out for a duel.  It made less sense in the heat of battle to have Agamemnon take on Paris, if he was going to attack the city anyway - did anyone think he'd sail there with 1,000 ships and NOT attack?  Or for one warrior to take on another in the middle of a huge battle scene and for everything in the background to come to a dead stop until one of these guys is slain.  Maybe these guys are very important, or maybe it was just a cost-cutting measure.  You decide.

Still, some great fight choreography, all things considered - 

Also starring Brad Pitt (last heard in "Happy Feet Two"), Eric Bana (last seen in "The Other Boleyn Girl"), Brian Cox (last seen in "Red Eye"), Peter O'Toole (last seen in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips"), Sean Bean (last seen in "Flightplan"), Brendan Gleeson (last seen in "Cold Mountain"), Diane Kruger (last seen in "Unknown"), Julian Glover (last seen in "For Your Eyes Only"), Garrett Hedlund (last seen in "Tron: Legacy"), Rose Byrne (last seen in "Bridesmaids"), Saffron Burrows (last seen in "Reign Over Me"), Tyler Mane, Julie Christie.

RATING:  6 out of 10 funeral pyres