Screenhead

Studio Ghibli and co-founder Hayao Miyazaki must be very happy this year. Their children’s anime Ponyo is their biggest success in the US to date, earning $14 million dollars, 4 more than the worldwide hit Spirited Away. But the Japanese studio certainly won’t be resting on their laurels just yet. Not only are they developing a video game for the Nintendo DS, but their next film has been announced.

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is an adaptation of the first known narrative tale in Japan’s history. It tells the story of a strange child found inside a bamboo plant. The child grows up to be a beautiful woman, courted even by the Emperor of Japan himself, but soon her true nature, and her strange relationship with the moon, is revealed.

However, fans of films like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke should know that Tale of the Bamboo Cutter will not be directed by Miyazaki himself. Instead, co-founder of the studio Isao Takahata will take the reins. Isao’s anime films, which tend to feel slightly more real than Miyazaki’s fantasies, are less known in the Western World, although his Graveyard of the Fireflies is considered to be one of the best animated films of all time. Tale of the Bamboo Cutter will be out next year.

Despite the fact that the first installment of Silent Hill was widely regarded as  a huge embarrassing failure, the rumors have been confirmed true–there will be a sequel.  Writer Roger Avary will be heading up work on the script,  which will hopefully manage to be, you know, GOOD, this time.

Okay, I’m being unfair, not to mention grossly oversimplifying things.  It’s not that Silent Hill was BAD, really, it’s more like the last fifteen or twenty minutes or so were a horrendous wreck.  The rest of it was at least passable, so I confess that I’m kind of looking forward to see what they do with Silent Hill 2 just to see if maybe this time they can fix some of the problems they had before. Oh, and the whole “it’s already well underway” line turned out to be a load.  By all available reports the script doesn’t even technically exist yet.

And they definitely had a lot of problems.  In fact, the problems from the last one were so big that, as of right now, no one can be a hundred percent sure if any of the original actors are coming back.  No one’s even really sure as to what the storyline is, either.

But hopefully things will improve and we don’t need to be afraid of how horrendously this one will turn out.

Seriously, when I first heard that Steven Spielberg was looking to handle the Halo movie I was just all sorts of perplexed.

One, I thought that role had already been offered to District 9’s Neil Blomkap.

Two, seriously…what’s Spielberg doing handling video game translations?

Three, aren’t video game translations supposed to suck out loud?  What if this one turns out to be, you know, GOOD?  Granted, this isn’t so much a video game adaptation as it is an adapation of a book based on a video game (the movie’s script is slated to center around The Fall of Reach), but that’s really just semantics.  At its roots, this will be a Halo movie.

I’m not sure this will work out, but one thing’s clear, the whole thing will probably prove to be pretty interesting before it’s all said and done.  Whether or not Spielberg can make a video game movie is up for grabs, but considering his array of successes, I’d figure he’s got a chance.  Might be interesting to have a GOOD game movie to talk about for a change.

I knew this was going to be fun when I got my hands on it.  I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be good, but I WAS pretty sure that it was going to be a laugh riot.  It was going to be so lousy that I couldn’t help but laugh myself stupid at it.  And indeed, I got what I expected.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is pretty much what it says on the box.  It’s the legend of Chun-Li, going back to her childhood and growing up as a concert pianist before becoming the global crime fighter we all know and love.  (Special note for those of you who’ve played the game and know this is almost totally a crock, I know, I hear your cries.) She’ll take on the nigh-mythical Shadoloo crime syndicate in a bid to free the people of Thailand from oppression, and also recover her father from his captivity in Shadoloo’s clutches.  She’ll run into several of the game’s biggest names, including M.Bison, Balrog and Vega.

And it’s pretty much as I expected for a variety of reasons:

One, I’m sorry, but this new Bison–Neal McDonough–is a complete tool alongside the sheer over-the-top glee of Raul Julia.  Julia KNEW the role was a complete joke and he played it like a comic martinet gone insane, like Gilbert and Sullivan in the depths of a crystal meth haze.  Meanwhile this Bison is trying to be some kind of lunatic badass, and it just doesn’t match up.  It especially doesn’t help that McDonough can’t quite manage to lose his original accent, and thus leaves M. Bison sounding more like M. McBison.  Sure, they’ll concoct some ludicrous backstory about how Bison was the son of Irish missionaries, and an even MORE ludicrous backstory about how he got his powers from evil spirits, but frankly, this is all essentially window dressing and neither makes sense nor feels right.

Two, the plot’s logic is like some kind of madman’s logic.  For instance, does anyone want to hazard a guess how the clearly Asian little girl that was Chun-Li turned into the clearly Caucasian Kristin Kruek in just a few short years?  Or how Balrog managed to look exactly the same despite the fact that about twenty years passed between the first time he saw Chun-Li and the NEXT time he saw her?  Or how M.Bison did, for that matter?  Why is the Bangkok Business Times’ website printed in English?  All these and many, many other questions will be part of your Street Fighter experience.

Three, the depth of the cliches in this movie is just astonishing.  Just purely astonishing.  Pat Morita is rolling in his grave right now (assuming he’s even dead, I’m not totally sure on that one) thinking of all the wax-on-wax-off style kung-fu drollery that’s involved in this.  For instance, one great scene involves Chun-Li training with a former criminal named Gen, who informs her of such great kung-fu movie wisdom as “Anger does not guide”, “Believe in your true self”, and “You are only hurting yourself”.

And this is just the beginning.  Rest assured, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li will only get more aggressive in its sheer senseless lunacy.  The farther in you go the less sense it makes.  Some might enjoy this–I’m not one of them–and unless you do, chances are you’re not going to get much fun out of this one either.

As an action movie, it’s a terminal flop.  As a kung-fu movie, it simply restates all the old conclusions.  The phrase “thoroughly unwatchable” comes to mind, and with good reason.

Amazing!  I remember playing this game as a kid and can’t believe that a story will actually come from this simple Atari video game. It looks like it will happen because Universal has won a four-studio bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game “Asteroids.” Matthew Lopez will write the script for the feature adaptation, which will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

As I remember, the concept of the game was so simple.  A player controlled a triangular space ship in an asteroid field. The object was to shoot and destroy the hulking masses of rock and the occasional flying saucer while avoiding smashing into both. 

As opposed to today’s games, there is no story line or fancy world-building mythology, so the studio would be creating a plot from scratch. I can’t imagine what that story would be about that could keep an audience interest for at least an hour and a half.  But I guess, Universal is used to that development process because, according to THR, the studio is in the middle of doing just that for several of the Hasbro board game properties it is translating to the big screen, such as “Battleship” and “Candyland.”

When a short Flash animation like Mad Mad Mario hits Newgrounds and comes with a caveat like: “…me and my buddy drank way too many beers and came up with this little gem.  I about wrecked my voice on this one.” you can be fairly confident that what you’re about to see will be a total winner.

Well, I’m rather convinced that it’s a winner. I’m just not sure of what.  Because in this one, we’ll finally discover how Mario, of Super Mario Brothers fame, feels about continually rescuing Princess Toadstool from Bowser.  And it turns out, he’s not happy about it.

It’s sort of a one-note joke, but for all the time you’ll put into watching it, it’s worth the time just to see Mario’s fantastic rage blast and Bowser’s surprising reaction to Mario’s fury.  It’s funny, if a bit misogynistic and angry, but still–watching Mario have a screaming meltdown is no less funny for the awkwardness. This is worth the minute and a half or so you’ll put into it.

Max Payne is one of those fairly pleasant movies that’ll require your brain to be partially malfunctioning to enjoy fully, but once you’ve had a couple vodka stingers or something similar, you’ll definitely be in a frame of mind to enjoy it.  After all, it takes a kind of brain damage to fully appreciate the bringing together of Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges and Ludacris, which if you’re playing Celebrity Bingo qualifies as a Royal Sampler.

See, Max Payne is one of those hard-boiled gumshoes that…oh, wait.  No. I’m thinking Humphrey Bogart.  Max Payne is a barely contained sociopath. And the reason why Max Payne is a barely contained sociopath is because his wife and baby were killed one fine day by drug addicts.  This left Max to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and use them to cut open the throats of pretty much every criminal that so much as wanders into frame.  As he progresses through this gigantic killing spree that will wind up bankrupting New York from the sheer number of lawsuits it’ll be facing, he’ll discover conspiracy in the hallowed halls of corporate power, extending even into his own department.

I remember my jaw dropping, slightly, when I found out Mila Kunis was in this—my exact words were, “My God, is that MILA KUNIS?”—because she is not who I think of when I think of action heroine.  Thankfully, she’s also not what the director thought of as an action heroine either because she’s not in this wreck for more than like ten minutes or so.

And someone needs to get Mark Wahlberg back into an acting class, hasta pronto, because his Max Payne will go about blasting the first thing he sees at literally any opportunity, and his facial expression will not even change when he does so. That may be the creepiest part of a movie where people on a regular basis hallucinate dark angels flying around and snatching them up and carving them into teeny bits.  Seriously, Mark—you want to change facial expression when you’re blasting those gangbangers with twelve-gauge buckshot fury?  Maybe arch an eyebrow or quirk the upper lip, something to show that the TAKING OF HUMAN LIVES ON A GRAND SCALE is registering in that hunk of dryer lint you laughingly call a soul?

That’s the creepiest part, by far.  The second creepiest part is how anyone accounts for the “valkyries” being hallucinations when they’re actually seen pulling people out of windows and cutting them into teensy bits.  The biggest problem with that, of course, is no one does.  This is why the bit of brain damage comes in handy, because then you won’t notice these teensy-tinsy gaping plotholes and will instead look at the monsters and gasp over how COOL they look.

Because they really DO look cool.

And that’s Max Payne in a nutshell.  It LOOKS cool.  It SOUNDS cool.  And if you’ve got a mild case of brain damage to ignore the massive structural failure that is a plorline, you’ll probably even find it cool.  And you’ll probably even be happy to note, that based on the ending, a sequel is almost certainly guaranteed.

Meanwhile the rest of us will go watch movies that don’t require a baseball bat to enjoy.

Once again, Capcom proves that it can solidly handle a zombie movie by offering up the best in the industry.  It’s called Resident Evil: Degeneration, and it has the honor of being the best Resident Evil movie to date.

Paul W.S. Anderson et al, take note. The reason WHY Resident Evil: Degeneration beats the sludge you were continually chucking at us in theatres is very simple–it’s because they actually STICK TO THE CANON!!

In this installment, set about five years after the nuclear destruction of Raccoon City, Umbrella has folded (a joke they’ll manage to make very convincingly in the film itself) and much of its intellectual property has been taken over by the WilPharma corporation, that’s managed to develop a vaccine for the T-virus.  That of it, of course, that isn’t being sold on the black market to random terrorist outfits by former Umbrella employees, most of whom are probably disgruntled because their unemployment has run out and their 401k’s were probably exclusively in Umbrella stock.

There are, of course, two problems with this–one, they haven’t managed to develop a LOT of vaccine, and they also don’t have any vaccine yet for Umbrella’s other hot property, the G-virus.

So now, Leon and Claire, two plucky survivors from Resident Evil 2, are on a worldwide manhunt for the former Umbrella employees and anyone else who thinks they’ve got a lock on the whole T- or G-virus thing.

Most of the entire first half hour of Resident Evil: Degeneration is so jam-packed with action that it’s impossible to tear your attention away for very long.  Gunplay will wildly ensue, zombies will come stumbling out of every dark corner in a room, and you will be firmly locked on the edge of your seat watching it.  The plot is deep and complex, and once again, blows away anything that half-baked hack Anderson could’ve come up with.  The voicework is top-notch, and video game and cartoon buffs will easily recognize the voice of jack-of-all-trades voice actor Steve Blum.

Perhaps the only issue I had–and a lot of people have with this sort of thing–is that the animation was all CG.  While this is common, and lends the series a note of authenticity as it closely mirrors the CG cut scenes of the original games, it has a tendency to waver into the so-called “uncanny valley”, where characters look realistic, but just to the left of comfortably so.  Also, I agree with those who would have liked to see more T-virus zombie action and less G-virus superhuman nightmare monster action.  Both are purely matters of personal taste–it doesn’t affect the film quality at all–but if you get creeped out easily by CG characters, or can’t stand the antics of monsters that can leap several stories straight up then this will not be the film for you.

It was, however, definitely the film for me.

Everything is solid in Resident Evil: Degeneration.  If the game–if the next movie–is anywhere near this good I will be eagerly in line for both.

Coming out on Blu-Ray this week is the special edition of Doom, a movie that proves that sometimes, all you need is a name.

Only vaguely resembling the video game, Doom plants us squarely on Mars, along with a half-squad of  Space Marines who’ve been sent to investigate recent disturbances at the Union Aerospace Corporation’s facility there.  What’s causing the disturbances?  Why, what else but a series of genetically engineered horrors!

For those of you who thought that demons were actually causing the problems on Mars in the Doom universe, well, you’re not alone.  This is only one of several  discrepancies between the original game and the movie.

This isn’t to say, of course, that Doom isn’t a fun and fairly exciting little piece of fluff.  There’s lots of gunplay and explosions and big creepy nasties roaming around and getting blasted.  There’s a sequence toward the end that’s almost exactly like the video game, in a fairly clever homage.  But no one’s ever going to mistake this for an Oscar candidate, or anything more than a mediocre action film featuring nothing less than The Rock.  The Rock is very familiar with cheesy action film.

And can we ever smell what The Rock is cooking…no pancakes this time, but rather a half-baked warmed-over leftover of a movie.

20th Century Fox has provided a new Max Payne movie trailer at its official website. The film, based on the popular video game, opens October 17^th. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Chris O’Donnell, Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Mila Kunis, Donal Logue, and Amaury Nolasco.

The updated site tells of a maverick cop determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murder of his family and partner. Hell-bent on vengeance, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery grows deeper, Max (Wahlberg) is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.