It seems that Hollywood is getting more desperate by the minute to find new stupid reboot ideas to ruin our daily nerves. In case you didn’t know Hollywood plans to reboot the reboot of Superman, wants to reboot Spiderman and reboots Fantastic Four, RoboCop and so many other franchises and wannabe’s.

I think we can all agree that this situation is slowly but surely getting out of hand. The best example truly is Superman which didn’t even scratch the surface of a true trilogy before a new reboot.

But this situation doesn’t have to go on forever. After some thinking I found a simple and straightforward yet ultimate solution to all this reboot madness coming from Hollwood:

Any director or writer can direct or write only one movie to realize his vision or take of a certain franchise. No more, no less.

In other words: every franchise would henceforth consist of a bunch of movies, which have no continuing stories as you might expect from a trilogy or sequels. Each movie creates its own universe and its plot gets wrapped up by the end of its run.

It’s a constant reboot!

No movie would be like the other before it or after it. You wouldn’t need the same actor, or even the same team working on it. Considering this everyone involved could have way more creative freedom in their doing since…hey, what could they possibly loose when it’s only one movie each time?

Of course each studio could lose some good amounts of money, but this problem could be solved immediately by incorporating one single rule: the budget depends on the quality and scope of the script. The better the script more money they get, the bigger the possible audience, the more money they get.

So, if someone wants to make an intimate movie about Superman there should be no problem. Since the scope is small but the script is wonderful, the studio ‘only’ invests $50m. Then the big blockbuster take afterward has a budget of $200 million. And so on.

The studios even could do some surveys or “battles” by which they let the audience decide which script should be filmed next. They could even to multiple versions at the same time, from one independent take to one with the usual big budget…Damn, I am dreaming again…

What do you say? Would you like to see such constant reboots? Or do you have a cooler idea to stop this silly reboot madness?

I really have to thank Mr. Deeds, I mean, Mr. Sandler for this movie. Thanks to him I found a new form of reviewing. I call it the Endureview which is a combination of “endure” and “review”. Basically this means I will review a movie up to the point my brain exploded from stupidity and I turned off. So, let’s get started…

First urge to turn off? When Adam Sandler starts singing Bowie’s Space Oddity in the helicopter. (~15 min. mark)
Execution of urge? Right. At. That.Moment.

Oh boy. This movie is not hard to swallow. It’s impossible to swallow. After 15 minutes I couldn’t continue to watch this shit and ruin my life by wasting my time on it.

One of the most amazing aspects of this finding is, by the way, the fact I once completely watched Mr. Deeds - and didn’t hate it. WTF? Either I was completely wasted at that time or my mind didn’t really mind it. Perhaps I wanted to watch this shit. Oh well…

So what can I possibly write about Mr. Deeds after only 15 minutes. It’s easy because using the sensitive elegance of a sledgehammer the director slams one single - if not the single - cliché into our skullcap: small towns are “yay” while cities are “ugh” filled with morons. The first part of Mr. Deeds starring our much beloved Adam Sandler basically is about nothing else…

Admitted, this particular director/writer was not the first one to introduce us to this shit kind of movie thinking. Just some months ago I was truly blessed to endure such gush in my movie theater of choice (it was a romantic comedy by the way…so much for surprises).

Those kinds of movies always use the same patterns which are in fact that much alike that even a nerdy Star Wars geek wearing glasses of epic proportions would have problems to spot the differences. On the one side we have the big city filled with moronic yuppies. They are smart, good looking and therefore astonishing assholes while wearing the well known “I’m with stupid”-t-shirt pointing to its wearer.

On the other side we have - of course - the small town. The small town is filled with the exact opposite. Here we have a bunch of idiots or weirdo’s of any kind and color but with a heart as big as the Milky Way. Everybody loves everybody. The small town is one big fluffy hug.

Mr. Deeds now not only incorporates this cliché. Mr. Deeds intensifies it to a level by which a multiplication of Jack Nichsolson would be regarded harmless: in a matter of minutes the movie manages to show us every.single.damn.inch.on.an.atomic.level of this goddamn cliché!

Adam Sandler of course is the titular Mr. Deeds who is so self-sacrificing and nice and loving and never angry that I thought at one time that I was watching a bad Scientology promo vid. The rest of the town is filled with the already mentioned usual suspects. We get the lusty bunch of seniors, a convict of some kind and a guy who wants to be an actor or a police officer. Of course everyone else is the same loving bunch of $&%!Ӥ.

The big city morons are - of course - the total opposite so I save you the description of them. Just one hint: one of them is a bad female reporter who survives the day by buying shoes. I believe she ends up as the girlfriend of Deeds. So not very surprising…

Sigh.

Okay. Of course the plot doesn’t play out completely in the small town since Deeds is not a millionaire but a billionaire - so he has to leave. Now the moment when Adam Sandler is preparing to leave his Huggy-Town almost reached the level of urge called “turn this shit off” because basically the whole damn city was coming to see him off. It really was borderline.

The moment when the urge to turn off this shit really hit me was the gracious moment of Adam Sandler singing some cheesy Bowie tune. Not only did he do it for no reason at all (I don’t take “I am flying” as an excuse!). No, even the pilots started singing. Why? I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t waste any second.

I turned off this bad cliché in moving pictures.

Did you have the power to endure it completely?

Aaaah. Help me, help me! The horror is too much! My brain!!!!

…

The good old movie cliche. It is as old as the movie itself. Heck, they even produced cliches during the silent movie era before they even knew it. Of course it has not become any better. Movies rip off cliches from the classics and use them until the brain of the viewer takes a nap in the nearest bar - or worse.

Do you want to want to feel the agony again? Here are the Top 10 Worst Movie Cliches any director can come up with.

10. Languages? Is there more than one?

It doesn’t matter if it’s Star Trek, Star Wars or Stargate. Any franchise beginning with “Star”, what am I talking about, every goddamn sci-fi movie or series knows only one goddamn language: English. So if you ever have to go to space beyond our reach don’t worry. All aliens talk and behave like normal American people. The difference? Boy, of course, it’s the costumes!

9. There is no “Man of Steel”. There are Thousands!

if you can rely on nothing else, you can rely on the fact that in an Action Flick For Men™ there will be a Manly Fight To The Death™. So, the hero of the movie and the villain of the movie beat the crap out of each other for days, if not even hours . But even though they Fight To The Death™ there is one single problem: they never loose any blood and have only minor scratches. I know the human body can sustain some awesome amount of injuries. But I never knew that skin is made of steel.

8. Be a Hero! It’s important to Survival!

This is - with very rare examples - the major of rule anyone trapped in a disaster: be the leader! You have to be it, even if it kills you. Because otherwise you will be killed for sure. Whenever you are trapped in a disaster with some bunch of walking cliches (i.e. a old couple, an artist, a dog etc.), be their President. Otherwise you are doomed. It’s the Iron Rule of The Movie.

7. Look at that. Look! How cuuuuuuuuuuuute!!!!!

Animals - dogs especially - almost never die or even get harmed. An asteroid can vaporize the whole earth, a big explosion reduce any city to ashes - but the dog survives. It even gets better: The dog shows up out of the debris, wags its tail and barks as if nothing happened. And we all go: Aaaaaawwwwwww…. how cuuuuuuuuuuuute. With twelve ‘u’. And don’t even forget that dogs are everywhere in movies. Because…shall I repeat it again? They are so cuuuuuuuuuuuute. With twelve ‘u’!

6. Safer Sex played Safe!

What’s a movie without sex! Damn it, it’s the spice of life, so to say. So each bigger male-oriented flick has it. And there is one thing to be sure of: After this obligatory sex scene both of the two characters lie in the bed dressed with something (hey, who wouldn’t). Or the women - when standing up - hide their beauty with a blanket. Because, gasp, their lover could see them *gasp* naked!!!!! Girls and writers: he saw much more than that! There is basically nothing anymore to hide. So, either go the full realistic way, or cut this sex shit out altogether. I’m bored of it since twenty years. Oh, by the way: there is always the mysterious blanket in movies. You know, the one which covers the woman fully but the man only up to his hips. Genius!

5. Because he never stands up again…

Ok. The movie hero has been dealing with a real bad movie villain for almost hours - if not minutes. Or he has been chased by some crazy zombie maniac. Or something completely different. What’s always the same is this: after some intense confrontation (See Fight To The Death™) the hero wins the fight. But WTF for crying out load: What does he do? Of course, nothing. He doesn’t finish him off by shooting all the bullets he has into his head or by beating him to pulp. You know, just to be sure HE DOESN’T STAND UP AGAIN IN THE BACKGROUND. Sigh.

4. Computers for anyone?

Movies love computers and computer geeks. The problem? Either we only get Apple Computers for whatever reason beyond me or we get a teenage hacker breaking into a government mainframe in a mere seconds. If not even milliseconds. Heck, even Apple cannot do that one. Moreover there’s those interfaces. They look so cool it is no wonder they don’t exist in real world: there is shit moving all the time, although they only use the keyboard most of the time. The reason is simple: “Where the hell is the button!!!!!” The first good use of computers I remember was in The Ring. Oh, and there was this Sandra Bullock flick…

3. That’s a $200 Fine! Please Come Again in the Next Movie…

Time or something else is running out and our movie hero is on its way in a car. Sometimes it happens that he has to go into a building. Pffft. No problem. Nothing is more easy in any movie than finding a parking lot on the spot. Right.In.Front.Of.The.Building. It can be anything. From a small shop to the biggest government building on the world. There always will be a parking lot waiting just for him. Damn! I think we all should become the heroes of our own movies so this nerve wrecking search for a parking lot is over.

2. Bullet Reload Time is for Losers.

It doesn’t matter how much our beloved action hero has to shoot. He never sees the need for a reload. Again, what am I writing about: he simply doesn’t have to reload. Reloading is for sissies. So he has endless ammunition. Just imagine he had to reload once. The universe would tear apart immediately because he’d be wearing tons of rounds with him. Therefore he can shoot and shoot and shoot. Isn’t the parallel universe called Hollywood great, or what? This directly leads to the most nerve-wrecking movie cliche of them all…

1.Henchman training suspended for monetary reasons

It doesn’t matter how many henchman a bad guy has hired. They could form their own nation. It doesn’t matter  because when shooting they almost every time miss their target with utmost precision. Think of Star Wars or any buddy cop flick. The hero can stand at point blank range and they still would miss with utmost precision. Perhaps this is the reason those guys are hired as henchman only. The best thing they can do is to be some kind of distraction.

So this is the list of the Top 10 Worst Movie Cliches. Of course there are some other ones out there but they would have been too easy. I call them the honorable mentions:

• the woman always falls down while being chased by The Evil. A car explodes - always, not regarding the reason. The you-fly-through-glass-without-a-scratch-move. Noise in space. The bad guy not simply shooting the movie hero. And the countdown bomb with big red numbers showing the remaining time.

Did I miss something?

Not using this movie blog for some shameless self-promotion is as if James Bond would stop wearing or showing off product placements. Not only would the financial crisis get worse, but also this blog would have one post less to boast on Google.

This cannot happen!!!

On the other hand, is it bad to rely on a double fantasy for men and women to justify ones actions? After I consulted my doctor about it this night (he was thrilled…by my call) and after I asked the buddy cops that arrived some minutes later I knew it: no one gives a shit!

Thanks to them it’s time again for a little bit of creativity. You know, my creativity. You know, my creativity which I snitched from here and there. A little…

I think the internet watchers new-fashioned-ly call this remix. Well, at least it didn’t turn out to be a reboot Hollywood is so hot for. Have fun watching the psychedelic ride…

I hope you survived and enjoyed the trip. For crazy info maniacs like myself who find background stuff more interesting than a action scene filled with good old Ahnold, here are some information regarding the production:

I tinkered with this short movie for about three or four days fulltime. The visual stuff is from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 - A Space Odyssey (for those people whose knowledge of sci-fi starts and stops with Star Wars), the audio part is from the Fuck Buttons. Yes, they really call themselves the Fuck Buttons. The track I used here is called Colours Move, which gave me the initial idea for this project.

Of course the seasoned special effects viewer of today immediately notices that I mainly worked with an epic amount of layers here. This brought my computer to edge of binary insanity. At times there are up to fifteen layers at work here. Although this sounds nothing for Photoshop freaks like me, doing this stuff for an eight minute long movie is a whole different level of madness.

And now it’s your turn to praise my work of genius in the comments. Don’t hold back. Give it everything you got. Let the Praise of the Mad begin…

Some days ago James added a comment to my review of Pixar’s Up. Well, normally I wouldn’t reply to a comment via a post but by a comment myself but I think that James raised an interesting point about which I never really wrote about: movies and realism. Basically James called my criticism of Up uncalled-for because Up is not meant to be realistic but more about the feelings of the main characters.

Okay. I get his point but he also totally misses my point because…

Since when did I ever care about realism in a movie?

I don’t know if I ever truly wrote it on this blog, but to me a movie is per se not realistic. It cannot be.  It’s impossible. Period.

If you head over to Wikipedia it states that realism in the arts is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life without interpretation. Basically you could call a movie realistic if its characters appear normal and don’t sprout wings or believe they can walk in a straight line.

This definition is quite good and almost reaches the point I am for some years now when it comes to movies. Basically my take is this: even if the characters or the story appear realistic it isn’t because a writer wrote it, a director directed it and so on. To me, on a practical level, a movie ceases being realistic with the first cut since a cut changes either position or time or both.

Of course, there are too many faults in my theory to count and if you want you can gladly point them out in the comments. But you know what?

Thanks to this take, I really don’t give a shit if a movie is realistic or not because to me it cannot be. As a result I care about only one thing: can a movie make me smile about what I am watching? Can a movie surprise me? Or in other words: can a movie entertain me?

In all those years of watching hundreds if not thousands of movies I came to this obvious but basic conclusion with my own formulated theory you read above.

And you know what? With this take I am someone you can basically throw anything at. I take it. I am someone who is a genius at the thing called “suspension of disbelief”. But don’t dare to throw at me the same shit I watched thousands of times already. And don’t dare to throw at me a shitty story that makes no sense.

What’s important here is the strict distinction of the words “realism” and “sense”. With a story making “sense” I basically mean sense in the context of the universe the writer/movie established and fleshed out. For example: a movie can play on a planet without gravity. If the story is great I love this crazy idea. But if at one moment the people start walking it’s a moment where the story officially starts to make no sense anymore. Okay, the example is way beyond bad…

Let me go back to Pixar’s Up to give you a better example. The first twenty or thirty minutes Up established a rather normal universe. I even wrote about this fact in my review. Up is one of the most serious movies up to date in which you can see an old man struggle against the harsh realities of life including lawyers. I also mentioned in my review that they could have made the start of Carl’s house one of the most poetic moments in the history of cinema as a reaction to this lifeless and harsh universe. As you can see, I didn’t care about realism here at all. I totally accepted this idea and wanted the movie even go farther than it did. Such wieners…

But the dogs? Way different story here. The dogs were and still are one of the major faults of Up to me. They simply don’t fit in (neither did this crazy bird). To me, this would have been something completely different if they did one simple thing: establish it early on. At one moment in Up they showed a documentary about the hero of Carl. In this segment they could have added the talking dogs or at least have established the point that the guy was a genius in any way possible who claimed to have succeeded in letting dogs talk. You know, something like that. But they didn’t. And hence, the talking dogs jumped out of nowhere. It’s like watching a comedy in which suddenly Michael Myers jumps out of the bushes. It doesn’t fit. The tones don’t fit. To me this was the point the movie officially began to fall apart.

I could continue to write on, also in regard to James’ comment in my review, but the post is long enough already.  Well, I hope I at least could shed some light on my take on moves and the way I see them.

Do you think there is some truth in my take or is this complete nonsense? Let us know!

You know, I don’t want so much from life. There are only some things I wish for - a good  and entertaining movie is such a thing. Hence I love each and every movie that just gets this one thing right that entertains me, makes me laugh or wonder. As I recently had again to learn with Avatar this is rare nowadays. But it’s not impossible. Because where Avatar failed so miserably Tokyo Godfathers succeeded.

Tokyo Godfathers blasts Avatar to atomic dust to with its funny and lovable characters, with its simple yet engaging story. Even more: it does it so well I even don’t care about the deus ex machinas and some other small problems it has.

Originally I planned to restart my blog (see here for details) with a review of the anime classic Akira but after watching Satoshi Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers I had to change my plans because the experience is simply too charming and funny while wearing a heart of gold to be ignored or pushed back.

Tokyo Godfathers basically tells the story of three homeless people who one day find a baby in the trash and instead of going to the police decide to find its mother. Of course, this goal is not that easy to achieve which leads to a 90 minutes long short movie in which there are so many things happening that your head starts spinning.

Not only do we get the hunt for the mother, there’s a shooting, a kidnapping, a near death experience, a mix-up, a car chase and more. In a way you could say that Tokyo Godfathers had more plot going on in its 90 minutes than Avatar in its three hours.

Besides all those elements, one thing is sure: after watching Tokyo Godfathers and thinking about it I knew that the director Satoshi Kon really got guts when making this movie. You know, the Japanese society seems to have the habit of ignoring the problems it faces or already has. One of those problems is the broadening poverty and therefore the existence of homeless people. There is the saying in Japan that if a nail sticks out you hammer it down. Well, they really don’t know what to do if one nail is sitting too low. In light of that kudos to the whole team for reminding the Japanese of this very serious problems.

But thanks God they don’t forget the characters. And what a lovely bunch of characters they are. You simply gotta love them. There is the tomboyish girl who by Japanese standards behaves so not Japanese and therefore is so funny to watch. Then you have the transvestite who is simply made of pure win with his over-the-top but still lovable antics and a heart of gold. And last but not least the deadbeat dad who is somehow the most normal one of those three. In a way you could call them the modern version of the three Stooges because their interactions are so fantastically written and executed it’s simply great to watch them interact. By the way: The background story of each one of them shows that there is no massive naivety at work here because everyone really, really messed up their lives on their own accord. And they know it. The plot makes great use of this fact because, as the story unfolds, we see the smaller and bigger changes this adventure makes in them and the people they meet.

This fact, that everyone gets their story finished, might be one of the biggest problems of Tokyo Godfathers because the plot basically is one giant coincide. Each and almost every time they - by chance - meet their past in one way or another, or people which are important for the main plot. If you want you could make a drinking game out of this and be sure to be drunk beyond heavens when the movie is over. But you know what? I didn’t care about the massive coincides because I loved the characters, the atmosphere, they style, the pacing. In fact, I even like those coincides since they help the plot resolve all major questions. There is even a small joke with a lottery ticket by the end of the movie to top every other coincidence so I guess the director knew very well, what he was doing.

So even if by now you aren’t convinced to watch Tokyo Godfathers I present you another reason why you should: the humor. Some idiotic reviewers might call it a drama, but after some minutes into the movie I knew it was a lighthearted - no warmhearted - comedy with some serious tones here and there.

And boy, what a comedy they managed to create. Holy crap! It’s been months since I laughed that hard during a movie. Toyko Godfathers in its best moments is classic screwball comedy at its finest accompanied by pitch perfect comedy timing. There are way too many moments, one-liners and jokes to count so I won’t do it here because it would spoil all the fun. But for those who already seen the movie: smelly train and open eyes. Tokyo Godfathers solidifies my impression that Japanese anime directors simply “get” comedy whereas the Hollywood directors don’t. Or can’t. In any case - if any screenwriter or director reads this - rent it, buy it, but watch it immediately and learn!

The same applies to you, my beloved readers: even if you only have an ounce of interest in animation or a bunch of lovable characters you need to give Tokyo Godfathers a chance - believe me, every minutes is worth it.

Tokyo Godfathers is a fantastically funny, heartwarming Christmas movie that yet never gets too naïve for its own sake. You know, I have some classic Christmas movies I watch each and every year during Christmas. One is Wonderful Life, the next are Christmas Vacation, Scrooged and Christmas Carol.

Consider Tokyo Godfathers added to this list of mine. It’s a worthy addition.

I finally gave up. After all of my friends nagged me to watch James Cameron’s Avatar I finally let my rejection flow away and go to my cinema of choice.

Since everyone is praising Avatar as the new holy grail of movies I will take my time here and rip this thing to shreds talk about my humble impressions and why some elements just don’t live up to the hype. (Be aware of spoilers (see flag on the left of the title) and length of post)

Avatar is a visually extremely impressive movie that at the same time feels strangely empty and hollow. I don’t think it’s only one big reason but many smaller ones which give me this feeling about Avatar.

When I went to my cinema of choice I went to it while not expect much judging by the various reviews I’ve read on the internet. I kinda knew what was coming to me. Yet - in review - it is shocking to see how bland and unbelievably predictable Avatar turned out to be. There was not one single big plot element I didn’t see coming miles ahead. For example, in one scene they were briefly talking about some legendary men who united all people by riding on the back of the most dangerous dinosaur-flying-thingy you can find. It took only two sentences long but I immediately knew that Jake would be the one to do just that. When the scene finally came…it was only ten seconds long.

To call the love story of Avatar ridiculous would be an understatement even by the very low love comedy standard established years ago. James Cameron follows the cliché formula by the letter with the boy gets girl, boy looses girl and boy gets girl back. While the first two plot elements were done rather nicely it’s the boy gets girl back moment that I cannot stand. After the destruction of the tree and the dead of her father, all you need is just to become a legendary hero and everything is forgiven. The double play, the deaths and the destruction of everything holy to her. Hey, no problem, because he lost her only because she had fear!(?) This scene was a truly and mind blowing wtf moment.

Besides the love story the overall plot in many parts was waaaayyyy too cliché. That Jake was the “chosen one” or at least a “special one” is one such story element I’d be glad Cameron would have cut. It would also have been better if Jake wouldn’t have been written as a guy who seems to be perfect for the Avatar-program - without training or exercise. He simply wakes up in his new body and voila, everything works perfectly. You know, there are many bad anime which utilize just such a story archetype and Cameron’s name on it doesn’t means it starts working now.

It is truly sad how shallow the character of Jake Sullan turned out to be (the rest of the cast unfortunately are simply walking cliché cardboards). In those 162 minutes we almost learn nothing about Jake or his past. Sure, there were some hints here and there but come on: anyone could write those tidbits of info about your usual standard cliché marine with some traumatic events in the past. As a result it was inevitable that the change of heart in Jake felt too shallow and unimportant. Why did he change? Did he learn something about himself or his life? No - which is a shame.

Imagine what a cool story Avatar could have been if Cameron would have done something else, for example interwoven both main elemts of the movie: the planet Pandora as well as the inner demons of Jake. The Navi could have shown him a way out of his own grave with their teachings and their kindness. They could have shown him something about life and living, letting go and so on. But since Cameron didn’t do this, we more or less get some borderline esoteric blabbering of your standard good natives accompanied by some impressive visuals.

This leads me right to the next point: Avatar overall felt too simplistic for my taste. James Cameron didn’t even try to avoid this kind of black and white painting of the good Navi and overall bad humans (with some usual good guys to counter the bad impression).

You know what would have been great? Just imagine a story in which the humans still act as assholes, but instead of doing this for money, they do this for their own survival. The stone material could have been a crucial element to save Earth which is not found anywhere else. This way we would’ve got a perfect moral dilemma and a story way more powerful because it would’ve naturally avoided your cliché ending of the bad humans leaving the planet instead of trying to work together. You know, something like this. The 162 minutes would have been enough time to flesh out such kind of plot.

All of these points above don’t necessarily mean that Avatar is a bad movie. Somehow far from it. With the exception of the end perhaps which is really bad. Sorry dear friends out there, but as I really don’t like this let-me-become-a-navi-moment, I really laughed out at the scene beforehand when Jake Sullan rides flies with his dinosaur-flying-thingy into the sun while telling us that the hero wasn’t needed anymore. Ugh!

Well, but I can understand why so many people forgive little Cameron for what he did with the story because of the effects. And those are truly fucking impressive as Hell on Afterburner^TM, there is no question about it. Just like the Lord of the Rings some years ago and The Matrix before that Avatar is raising the bar to a new level for the movies to come and I am quite sure it will take some years until other production will start to come close to this. Cameron managed to bring a whole planet to life and I almost never felt I was watching some CG renderings. In fact, I often wondered if they shot some elements live or did that in post. The visual result is that impressive.

On the other hand, I often felt that the visual impressiveness is just the trap James Cameron fell into while realizing Avatar. Some scenes gave this feeling of that See-What-I-Can-Do-syndrome (or in short: The George-Lucas-Syndrome), like the flying scene in the middle of Avatar or many smaller moments in which I thought “Okay I got it, could you please continue with the story? Thanks.”

But on the yet other hand I am also quite sure Cameron knew what he was doing. He probably absolutely knew that some scenes felt too long but still went on with it. Why? Because he knew that the environment of Pandora with its lush alien vegetation and esoteric mysteries was enough to fill the time and please the viewer. Heck, even I didn’t get angry by watching the pseudo documentary because of those very reasons. When Titanic was a perfect exploitation of a love-catastrophe, then Avatar is your perfect exploitation of lush, awesome looking, wallpaper-like backgrounds and vivid environments - with some added people here and there to create some kind of “story”. Remove all of that and you basically get nothing we haven’t seen dozens of time already.

It’s really sad that James Cameron, the guy who did Aliens, couldn’t or didn’t want to achieve more. This doesn’t mean that Avatar was a horrid movie. It means that Avatar is okay but definitely doesn’t deserve this praise and this mesmerizing amount of box office.

So, what is my final impression? Well, this fact is driving me nuts: I simply don’t know. As I said Avatar is not bad but also not great. Avatar is a movie that wants to be loved but to me fails on way too many occasions. I want to love Avatar but I can’t. I could hate Avatar but I can’t. Avatar is “meh”, is “I don’t know”, is “perhaps I know it one time in the future”.

And you know what? I hate this kind of feeling.

Others write about improvements. I simply improve!

Others may try to sneak changes slowly into their blog. I simply do them openly and immediately.

Sounds crazy after just another year of small and big changes? Well, this is madmind!

I know, I know, this sounds utterly ridiculous, like taken from a cheap action movie. But I am serious and here’s the meat behind the words or in other words…

Here’s what you can expect from this blog in the year 2010 (with some background information regarding the reasons)…

First and most important of all, I will start to write much more movie reviews than ever before. You could say, that madmind finally will become what it already claims to be: a movie blog.

In the past year or so I tried to find a niche in the vast sea of movie blogs while having a nasty time problem, meaning that since I live in Germany I am two months to half a year late until I can get my hands on a movie. This is simply because of the late release date compared to the US. What could I possible compete with the amazing sites out there with that drawback…Well, because of this I decided to go more for an industry approach - what’s hot in the industry, what’s shit and what movie/genre got some interesting statistics.

Although this was kinda fun I realized some weeks ago that this cannot be madmind. For one, posts for which I need many, many hours to prepare are simply too much too handle. For the other: those statistical posts are interesting, but also fucking boring!! Basically they give you some insight you can also gain on BoxOfficeMojo. The industry specific posts are not that great either, because they deal not with the movies themselves.

So, how did I circumvent the time problem? I didn’t. But I think I found two simple solutions that might be fun for everyone and interesting to you, my dear readers:

1. I will focus my reviews to those movies I really like, hate or care about.
2. I will widen the focus of my reviews: besides Hollywood movies I will start to do reviews of anime movies.

“Anime movies? Are you nuts?!?!” you might think. So, let me explain.

Although I will and want to increase the amount of Hollywood movie reviews there is the problem that I simply don’t give a shit for most of them. So often it’s the same shit with toned down writing, boring sequels with boring characters accompanied by boring stories from people that love to boast about the technical achievements (i.e. 3D). How possible could I then give you something funny or nice to read on a weekly or even daily basis?

Funnily enough, what I so miss from Hollywood I got from anime movies and anime series in the last weeks and months. As crazy as this might sound but I found some anime more entertaining, more interesting and more fruitful to write about than this stupid Hollywood shit. The only reason I didn’t write about anime was the focus of this blog and its claim “movie blogging with smyle” which basically meant “Hollywood movie blogging with smyle”.

To circumvent this problem there will be a change next week. Starting next week this blogs claim won’t be “movie blogging with smyle” anymore but “movie and anime blogging with smyle”. This change is not final at first, therefore I didn’t add the anime part directly into the claim but added this addition as an image.

This image thing directly leads to the last announcement: starting next week the design of this blog will change. Although I like the current theme the main problem is its somehow cold and technical feel. Because of this I did some redesign of the current style and since I am a sucker for minimalism I came up with something even more minimalistic.

Basically what you will get is the same visual structure with even less visual clutter and a more warm feeling to it since the main background is not white anymore but light grey.

So, as you can see I did a lot of thinking and coding during the last few weeks (sorry for my lack of posts during that time).

To sum everything up: madmind will be soon redesigned with a new focus on movie reviews and anime reviews while not completely ditching industry posts or statistics.

Let’s have some fun…

The end of the year is near and soon we have fewer years left until a meteor, alien invasion, malfunctioning earth core, solar eruption or George W. Bush completely destroys humanity in the year 2012.

But don’t think I’d let me (and you) off the hook so easily - until our fated doom I serve you blog posts with a smyle and a heart, even if it’s only list posts to review the past…

Therefore here are the best blog posts of madmind of this year in no particular order. Thank you for your support albeit how small it may be.

Let’s get started!

• Ten “Plot Holes” and Errors in Wall-E
  This post caused quite a stir in a certain Wall-E fan forum but despite that I firmly keep my stand regarding my observations. I still love Wall-E but plot holes, plot errors, mistakes and blunders still remain in it. But let’s be frank, anything perfect is boring.
• The most successful Genres of 2008
  If you ever wanted to know which genre fared best - in 2008. Perhaps I will post something similar again despite the work accompanied by it.
• Why Sequels are a Wise Investment decision
  I hate to admit it, but sequels still are a wise investment decision. Read this post about the why’s.
• To Disney
  Disney could have remade the industry and started something completely new. Well, could have. This is a rant I wrote after reading some details about the movie which was released some weeks ago.
• Genius Party Beyond - Moondrive
  a short movie which is part of an anime anthology. Nothing much on the outside but so funny and interesting once seen that I give a wholehearted “Yes” to anyone who asks if he or she should watch it.
• How to spot a Bad Movie in 1 Minute
  You really don’t need much time to spot a bad movie and you really only need one minute - or less. Read it and you know why.
• The Top 101 Sequels of All Time
  one of my biggest analyses I’ve done to date. If you want to know which sequel stands where from Evil Dead 2 to The Dark Knight, here you find the answer.
• Fooly Cooly
  Two words that describe another word: genius. Anyone even slightly interested in highly-imaginative, creative but crazy laugh-fests with a deeper meaning behind everything and a soundtrack to behold, you have really missed something. Fooly Cooly is one of the best. Read this post to learn more about it, get it, watch it! You won’t regret it.
• A Moment beyond the Alphabet
  Bad acting is bad. Horrible acting is great. Horrible acting in a C-movie is marvelous. This video proves just that.
• Stupid German Additional Movie Titles
  Germany can be a funny place, at least if you don’t care too much about movie titles. Or about additional movie titles which get plastered under almost every movie title. Head to this post to see some examples which range from funny to wtf.

That’s it! The Best of madmind 2009. I hope I will reach new heights in the next year to further increase your reading pleasure…

Happy New Year!

Originally I didn’t plan on writing anything before or during Christmas. But…I have a confession to make: I can’t stand hypes and anything behind it. In the best case I get suspicious of the hypey-thingy, in the worst case I’d love to kick it off this ball.

I think I have this habit because to me a hype is nothing else than burning love in disguise. You don’t see the weaknesses, you do anything a normal person wouldn’t and you plaster the world around you with the usual lovey-thingy crap nobody wants to hear about.

Many Apple products and the company as a whole are a perfect example. Okay, perhaps I should start to call this phenomena religion than hype because it nothing else (sorry, evangelists). To me the products look cool and are nice, but…they are some freaking pieces of hardware and software for crying out loud!

I have another confession to make: the last weeks weren’t easy for me. Because another hype hit the net and me with full force. Of course, I am writing about Avatar, the newest movie by uber-director James Cameron.

At first I thought more or less the same as all the other guys out there: Finally a new scifi-movie from the guy who made Aliens. Let’s rock and roll. At the beginning I wasn’t suspicious at all because the first news where real news. Anything new was good to see to learn more about it.

But then it happened.

I watched the trailer (a thing that more or less should answer all important questions anyway) and I was not that blown away as I have should been. Well, at least I then knew everything important I should knew (premise, plot, characters, style…) and I was fine with that.

But the net full with movie bloggers kept writing and hyping.

“Here is a new image…from the trailer.” “Look at that awesome movie still and the poster!” “Another news that is none but is because it is about Avatar!!!” “The new Avatar website launched!” “Here are my thoughts about a movie I haven’t seen yet!” etc. etc. etc.

I couldn’t let pass one day without hearing anything “new” about Avatar. And the more headlines I read the more I wanted to kick this movie off this ball. (If nothing else this shows that too much is not good as well as too less).

The final match to light my inner hate and let it burn with the intensity of thousands sun are the posts or PR stuff about Avatar’s box office. Avatar made around 73 million dollar. Not too bad but not too good either judging by the hype. At least I was surprised by the low result - which indicates that normal people don’t give a shit about hypes.

So what do the hyper-people do? Of course, they try anything possible to make it look good. I read something about being one of the best ever - for December. I read something about Avatar having one of the most successful openings ever - for a movie not being a sequel, from another world, from a comic book and so on.

What we all can witness here is something just like any other hype at works which I so friggin’ damn hate. They should simply admit that their hype was simply a hype and the movie good but not the Revelation Of Cameron. Let life go on! Don’t sugarcoat everything. Please!

By the way, the icing on the cake of post-opening hype is the following headline which seems to directly stem from Fox’ PR machinery that perfectly uses this hype (don’t shoot the messenger): $232 million dollar opening weekend for Avatar. Of course, this movie made $232 million in its first weekend - internationally including US. Domestically it still lurks around $73 million dollar.

If someone’s an avid fan he can of course either use this PR stunt to make the numbers look good or he can blame anything and everything for the not-being-three-digits box office weekend (the weather is always good - and I even read that excuse somewhere).

It might sound a little bit harsh but to me it feels kinda good that Avatar didn’t break every record ever from the start. If nothing else this puts back some reality and down-to-earth attitude into this hype-game so many people seem to be so used to. Moreover it proves something very important: Avatar might be great and the new Star Wars for many movie geeks but it nevertheless is still only a movie.

But perhaps I am too harsh on hypes in general and Avatar. What do you think? Would you agree with my statements above, or do think I should readjust my inner sensor for The Hype? Let us know!

By the way, here is a fantastic review from That Guy with Glasses which not only sums up my feeling about Avatar, but also nails the surrounding hype:

(via)