"Tron Legacy" (2010)

Tron Legacy has opened to a fair degree of criticism. Nobody disputes the high caliber of design, and praise has similarly been directed towards the Hans-Zimmer-meets-dance-club score by robotwin duo Daft Punk, a natural fit for the neon-ensconced universe of Tron if ever there was one.

But the biggest thing holding this movie back from being more than a guilty pleasure is the script, penned by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. That fact is a bit of a letdown for me as a LOST aficionado, as their names will be familiar to fans of the show--the writing partners had their names on no less than twenty episodes of the series, in addition to serving as executive producers for much of its run. Where LOST had hugely imaginative big-picture stories to tell and had fun filling in the details, with Tron, it's quite clear the creative forces behind the project spent a lot of energy creating a world like you've never seen before, and relied on a very bare bones, How-to-Write-a-Screenplay story arc for the narrative.

I know, I know, I'd never guess they were writers either.

Such an imbalance of immense production resource and impotent writing is nothing new in Hollywood. In fact, it's endemic. Transformers, and in fact Michael Bay's entire oeuvre, is my go-to example of this imbalance.

I have never been a believer of the "it's just a popcorn movie" defense. I hold up Raiders of the Lost Ark and RoboCop as examples of "popcorn" movies that can be so much more than anything Bay has managed to conjure -- Raiders, for its bar-setting craftsmanship, and RoboCop, for its pitch-perfect blending of 80s genre convention and subversive social commentary. It's borderline offensive, frankly, that a studio will spend a half-billion dollars on a movie like Avatar. For all that film's technical showmanship, it featured a script that seemed like a second draft--its characters so archetypical, its political commentary so ham-fisted it made this dyed-in-the-wool liberal want to drive a Humvee through a tolerance rally on his way to the shooting range.

Pictured: Last of the Na'vi.

So why, then, did I not feel I had been patronized by the formulaic storytelling of Tron: Legacy? Why did I, in fact, really enjoy it?

Frankly, I was "bought out" by the allure of its images, its sounds, and its movement. But let us not forget that cinema is an art form that first and foremost is about the arousal of the senses. Unlike Avatar's techno-organic world, which echoed everything in the last decade already seen in the Star Wars prequels and Lord of the Rings, or the brutishly ugly, overripe world of Transformers, the screen has never seen anything that looks like Tron:

The movie's other saving graces come from the moments of lightheartedness that alleviate the grim mood practically mandated in genre pictures these days. Brides' Flynn has sort of morphed into Lebowski's 'The Dude' since we last saw him--it's been several years since I watched the original Tron, but I don't recall Flynn possessing the same kind of "New Mexico zen" vibe that Bridges gives off here, as he calls people "Man" and waxes philosophic on the "biodigital jazz" of his electronic world.

It's a good choice, though--Bridges' persona has become almost intertwined with that career-defining character, and it gives him a chance to stand apart from the techno-bobbleheads that populate Flynn's creation.

Olivia Wilde makes Quorra an alluring, tomboyish pixie of a sidekick, and for whatever faults the script posesses, the authors wisely never let her and protagonist Sam achieve the perfunctory late-second-act romance. Sam, for his part, is a stony-faced and rather forgettable character--the same kind of devil-may-care-rich-kid-who-learns-to-make-a-difference (spoiler alert) that is everywhere in these movies these days. No joke, before Tron started rolling, the trailers for The Green Lantern and The Green Hornet demonstrated virtually identical protagonists. (Some have pointed out the shot-for-shot similarities between how Lantern's backstory and Iron Man's backstory are established in their respective trailers.)

He makes this face in 99.8% of the film (margin of error ± 5%)

If it does come to pass that this most improbable of films--a mega-budget sequel to a once-forgotten children's movie from a quarter-century ago--garners a threequel, it will have to do better. The permissiveness granted by sheer novelty will have worn off. But for now, it's nice to go back to the Grid.

P.S.: So, this is a movie called "Tron," right? And the titular character is only in it as a second-string supporting character until he makes a crucial, if unexplained, decision late in the third act? And we never get a good look at his face? Umm, okay. Someone probably should have made a "note" to the writers on that one.

"Chinatown" (1974)

One of the most emotionally-engaging and structurally proficient scripts I've ever seen. The finest balance of Hollywood classicism and European art cinema any director has ever conjured. A story rooted in the geographical psychology--and the pulse--of Los Angeles, something far too rare in the pictures considering the industry's location.

Chinatown is, quite possibly, the greatest movie I've ever seen.

Is it my favorite? Having seen it only in bits and pieces prior to Monday, when I watched it for the first time from beginning to end--it is far too early to make such a claim. But from a critical perspective, it's safe to say it's one of the best. 

The story is referred to on the Netflix sleeve logline my DVD came in as "onion-like" in its layers' revealing. And the Red Envelope's not kidding. The story takes many twists and turns, but it never feels forced or convoluted. It manages to surprise without making each surprise seem gimmicky--a tough thing to accomplish.

The direction by a post-Manson, pre-fugitive Roman Polanski is A-class. It's easy to imagine that Polanski's worldview, just a few years after the savage murder of his pregnant wife, had a profound impact on the pessimistic outlook of Chinatown. In fact, Polanski butted heads with producer Robert Evans over the film's dour (but unforgettable) final few pages. Polanski, thankfully, won out, and "Forget it, Jake...it's Chinatown" entered into the American popular lexicon forever. 

In fact, it's hard to find a single thing not to rave about in this movie, except maybe Faye Dunaway's occasional propensity to chew the scenery a bit. But one signs up for that when one watches a movie with her in it, anyway.

The "neo-noir" begins with Chinatown, released about fifteen years after the classical noir period ended with Touch of Evil (1958). Anyone with an interest in film history or style would do well to watch these two movies back-to-back. It's amazing how Welles' Evil is so clearly an "old" movie--a movie rooted in the classical aesthetic and ideology of the Hollywood studio system (its 'latin' protagonist, for example, is portrayed by a laughably-darkened Charlton Heston). In less time than it's taken us to go from Jurassic Park to Avatar--A period of technical, but not much artistic, progress--Welles' generation had passed the torch to the Copollas, Polanskis, and Scorceses of the 1970s.

A corpulent Welles in Touch of Evil (1958)

Chinatown is particularly impressive as a neo-noir because it does not rely on superficialities to reveal its heritage. Many films have attempted to follow in the noir tradition by reverting to black-and-white, high-key, Expressionist cinematography and hard-boiled dialogue. While there is something to be said for that kind of pageantry (2005's Sin City springs to mind), Chinatown manages to channel the spirit of unease and corruption endemic in the Angelino landscapes of classic noir, while invigorating the form with the aesthetic advances of 1960s and 70s "art" cinema of Europe. (To Evans' credit, this was why he hired a European director to reinvent an American genre in the first place.)

Lastly, I am a sucker for any piece of art which spotlights the history of Los Angeles. The Southland is my home, but as a place, it doesn't seem to garner much artistic attention. I feel as though the other great cities of the world--New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Rome--are all better-represented historically in fiction and nonfiction. Los Angeles, I suppose, lacks the romanticized history of a Rome or the visual theatricality of New York. But Los Angeles, more so than any of those other places, feels like it harbors a million secrets, a million stories left to be told. The greater Los Angeles area is a sandbox for the imagination--the deserts, beaches, mountains, and spread-out suburban jungle in the middle provide unlimited opportunities for an individual to get lost. Far more so than those other cities, I feel, Los Angeles provides a richly diverse array of stories to be told. (In the last decade, perhaps only 2000's Mullholand Drive and 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas take full advantage of L.A.'s mythological potential.) This film, however, interweaves the political history of L.A.'s landed gentry into the fiber of the movie--Chinatown simply could would not make sense anywhere else.

A million and one stories are out there.

Chinatown: If you've never seen this great American film, watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again.

Hiatus over (?)

Phew...the last few months have been crazy busy. But with a couple weeks' of vacation time before the winter intersession, I might actually have a bit of free time to post again.