Author: wd

i cant guarantee im always around, but when i am, consequences will never be the same.

Selected Scenes: Beneath the Planet of the Apes

1970

brent, like taylor, is a survivor. after travelling through the same break in space time, he crash lands on post-apocalyptic earth of the year 3978 where man is all but extinct and the planet is ruled by intelligent apes. they are losing numbers to a supernatural force preventing them from encroaching in to the forbidden zone, an area where monuments from the past still rise from the ashes of society as we knew it. brent escapes imprisonment by the apes and enters the forbidden zone to look for taylor, and finds a race of humans living underground. they are physically mutated, presumably from radiation poisoning, and have evolved a telekinetic ability that has prevented the apes from marching on their territory. however, as the apes grow wise and close in, the humans threaten a second doomsday on the planet with an atomic bomb they worship at the altar like jesus on the cross. all hope to prevent annihilation are moot. the apes enter the encampment. brent is killed in a flurry of machine gun fire. taylor, who is revealed to be alive and held captive by the mutants, is mortally-wounded. with his dying breath he actives the bomb, and the film ends.

on the list of great movie sequels beside star trek and the godfather, beneath the planet of the apes is unfairly treated. every couple of years a new planet of the apes movie comes out in an attempt to revitalize the franchise and the original sequels, from beneath to battle, are forgotten in this stream of endless reboots and sequels. those who have seen beneath as it rests within the timeline of the original series can agree though that it expands on the mythology of the original in a slick, fast-paced (ninety lean minutes) package. and the abrupt, nihilistic ending (courtesy of charlton heston, apparently to make sure his appearance in further sequels was never going to happen) is the definition of awesome. everyone dies horribly, especially brent in the third-to-last shot of the film (literally). the planet is effectively destroyed. fade to black. end credits. there was nowhere left to go from there but back in time.

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Jay’s Take on: West Side Story

2016

things age. stuff dies. facts of life. old electronics don’t last forever (but in nintendo’s case an eternity). people weaken. and works of fiction that once were considered timeless are now running through the eye of the contemporary critic. they will tell you that while a movie or stage play or any entertainment can age poorly it can be appreciated by anyone willing to acknowledge its place in history. i call bullshit. it boils down to one’s own opinion. at the end of the day you either like something or you don’t. it’s that simple. if you don’t like citizen kane it’s a moot point to argue that it’s aged poorly because it’s ignorant to think you will change another’s opinion based on the discourse of the establishment. that and citizen kane is a great movie and anyone who tells you otherwise probably has a queue of dtv steven seagal movies on netflix (though even some of those are watchable).

i have not seen the film adaptation of west side story. in fact before tuesday night i had never seen the play performed in any incantation, nor could i tell you what songs were associated with it. i was excited to go in fresh with only its legacy to help me along. the word ‘hack’ kept illuminating in my mind as i watched the live performance. sondheim is a god to many but to know that west side was adapted from romeo and juliet just made me play with the revisionist aspects in my head. shakespeare’s original is a simple story told through complex prose that dissected the motivation of its characters. at this point in our time every story you could possibly imagine has been done to death in every medium possible. so it is the method then that the story is told and the quality of the telling that will tell you if a work will stand up to scrutiny. the particular performance of west side story that i saw could not hold up to my scrutiny. it was poorly cast, with dream sequences cut in and out of the story like a warner brothers producer messing with the latest dc picture. the songs themselves, the pumping blood of musical theater, were quieting (though i feel pretty is a fucking classic).

so what was the problem? was it the show itself or the play? were the problems i had the choices of the director or were they intended by the writers to begin with? i am in a position now where i could watch the oscar-winning film adaptation, or seek out another live performance and make the call for myself, or hell even ask someone involved with the production i viewed. but i don’t want to. i feel like i have seen the show and it is not necessary for me to see it again. that finality tells me that it was more the script then the show. but the burden of proof is on the show i watched and not the original source material. i turned to my partner during the performance, who has seen the movie but not the play, and asked them if the balletic fight choreography and tempered delivery of the songs were deliberate. they said it was. good enough for me.

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Jay’s Take on: Devil’s Third

2015

i live in a part of the world that nintendo doesn’t know what to do with: canada. north american e-shop release dates don’t coincide with ours. is there even a nintendo of canada? where are they branched? what is their job? is the earth really round? recently there was a quiet markdown on the digital copy of devil’s third from 79.99 (!) to 44.99. CAD. first, i think they’re selfish for selling their games digitally for 79.99, not only devil’s third but all their first-party titles too! at that price you better give me a box and a disc (full discretion, i did buy a new physical copy for that price). second, nintendo should cut their losses. i doubt they are making any money off the game and its multiplayer microtransactions except in japan, if i am to believe wikipedia.

release it for ten bucks. i’m not even kidding. people who were afraid to jump the gun would go for it and the multiplayer would start to pick up again. who cares if it sucks (which it doesn’t). it’s an entirely serviceable (word of the day) shooter on a console utterly devoid of mindless shooters (except for the ones i can count on one hand), and the fact that it’s deeply-flawed but still immensely-playable makes it a bargain. for ten bucks.

if there was xp for most deaths in an online match i would probably win it every game. the multiplayer now nine months on is a wasteland of users who played fervently from the beginning and have maxed-out all their xp and are nearly impossible to kill. a far cry from the big bold promises of siege mode when the game was first announced. a year on i am still learning the layouts of enormous maps with all sorts of environmental play meant for 24-players on a game that only allows 16 of which you need 3 to even start a match from the two old-timers sitting in the lobby waiting patiently for their next victim. and those load times. don’t even get me started. but i beat the single player mode and spent more time playing multiplayer here then on ghosts and that ought to count for something.

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Jay’s Take on: Suicide Squad

i’m a firm believer of the ninety-minute movie. growing up, all my favorites seemed to be over and done before i knew. i watched and re-watched, and my parents bought me merch, and everyone was happy. but then, something happened. the age when Wild Bunch was cut to fit more screenings in per-day were over. people wanted more. but they didn’t want as much as Kevin Costner thought they wanted. enough bang for their ever-increasing buck. so, the meandering one-hundred-and-twenty to thirty minute movie was born. where twenty-to-thirty minutes could be easily cut as deleted scenes, or used as trailer-fodder. oomph-factor.

as i watched Suicide Squad, i was re-directing the movie in my head. i had read the tabloids and interviews. that it was retooled in post-production is evident from the first minute and i couldn`t help wondering whether a scene would feel better here, or there, or nowhere at all. excellent example is Jared Leto`s Joker. for months he was hyped with production stills and internet forums. we expected everything. when people got less than they thought, they were disappointed he was just a bit-player. i think they could have cut even more out. he should be there to support Margot Robbie`s Harley Quinn. instead the shadow of what his character should have been looms large over what he is, and could have been, performance not-withstanding. cut everything but the flashbacks with Harley in the asylum and axis chemicals, and have a legacy stand to bear fruit in future movies. have him as an end credit easter egg. or don`t have him at all this time around. but it`s everything-or-nothing.

other then that, it was a perfectly-serviceable suspense-comedy superhero origin story with the best unnecessary soundtrack i`ve heard in a while. we`ll see where Warner goes from here.

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Selected Scenes: Watership Down

1978

the English countryside of Watership Down is a land where lore and tradition walk hand-in-hand. where history isn’t just a story and legend not just fantasy. Fiver, a rabbit, begins to have visions of an apocalyptic future for his warren and, with the help of his older brother Hazel, convince a motley crew to leave their home and seek another. with help from converted royal guard Bigwig, these three lead the others on a quest inspired by their disturbed brother’s hallucinations. attacks from predatory animals, drowning, the basest elements: there IS something better out there for them beyond their trials, if Fiver’s visions are accurate. but they have to persevere. they have to be caught. the survivors arrive at an abandoned warren high up and away from danger and think that their worries are over, but an unexpected visitor in Bigwig’s former brother-in-arms Holly changes their fortunes. he is battered and bleeding. Fiver’s visions were true: the old warren was destroyed by human excavation, and on his way to find Hazel and the others, Holly was captured and tortured by a rival warren. the continued survival of their new colony rests in liberating the females from this dictatorship. because when the whole world is out to kill you, sometimes the greatest enemy of all comes from within.

this wasn’t what i was assuming it was. a staple of numerous “adult animation” lists, i thought it would be more “Saw meets Disney” based on what i read (rabbits getting knocked-off one-by-one as their trials progress) but what i watched was surprisingly formulaic (political commentary notwithstanding). the non-linear survival plot of the first half gave way to a second half “save the babes” plot, where the third-act villain in the rival warren keep the females hostage under a tyrannical head bunny with one eye missing called the General. but when the mature content finally transpired, such as Holly’s account of subjugation at the hands of the General, brief as they are they do remind you that the film is striving for a certain level of realism beneath the spiritual angle. a good watch if expectations are kept in check.

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