...Dr. Horrible, that is.
Yesterday I watched three movies. Nope, not joking--three freaking movies. In one day. And what makes this even funnier is the three I chose to watch: The Godfather, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and Labyrinth. Find three movies that are more different from each other, I dare you. (Well, in all fairness, Labyrinth is slightly similar to Dr. Horrible, what with the inclusion of music and whatnot. However, these two musicals are EXTREMELY different--anyone who's seen both of them knows what I mean.)
I'd never seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog before, I'd just heard of it and brushed it off because I figured something with that much hype couldn't possibly be as good as cracked up to be. Well, guess what? I was wrong. VERY wrong.
For those of you who live under a rock and didn't know, Dr. Horrible is a forty-five-minute-long musical short starring Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day, written and produced during the Writers' Strike and created by Joss Whedon. I'd go into more detail, but in the interest of not boring you, I'll spare you my ravings about Joss Whedon and NPH.
What I WILL rave about, at great length, was the sheer epicness of this film. The stripped-down indie feel was what hooked me at first--think Funny Ha Ha as a vlog--but then in came the music, and I have to tell you, I never would've thought that the first musical number in a film about an evil scientist with a blog would be set in a laundromat.
Dr. Horrible is well-written, sweet, sad, and most of all hilarious. It had me cracking up from start to end--even the ending, which I won't spoil here, made me laugh (but I don't think it was supposed to). Between the musical numbers (I want the soundtrack!!!) and the acting (Nathan Fillion is my new hero), I don't think I stopped at least SMILING the entire time. The only thing funnier than the songs is the dialogue--"These are not the hammer" = BEST MOVIE INSIDE JOKE EVER. (No, I'm not going to explain this--see the damn movie if you don't know what I'm talking about.)
What I love most about the movie has to be the bare premise: We're rooting for someone named "Dr. Horrible" who is trying his hardest to be an evil scientist, and booing the "good guy," the town hero. Yes, I'm aware of how many times we're booing the town hero in other films, but the twist here is that we're rooting for the BAD GUY. In The Dark Knight, we aren't yelling, "Go Joker, KILL HARVEY DENT!" are we? No, we're rooting for Batman, the ultimate good guy. But here we're pulling for the would-be evil villain (Dr. HORRIBLE, guys, come on), and Captain Hammer the would-be hero, is a world-class jerk. Gotta love it, right?...
...No? Okay, how about the fact that this was shot in six days--twice the amount of time that Interlochen seniors are given to shoot their thesis films--by a group of friends--cough cough, thesis crew--and distributed completely free online? I think the reason that I love this so much is because this is exactly what I want to do when I'm out of college: Get together some friends and just MAKE A MOVIE. Does it have to be a Sundance winner? Hell no. Does it have to be a major motion picture? Of course not. All I want to do is make movies, and if I have to put up with bachelor science (BS, get it?) to do that, so be it.
Getting off my high horse about movies now...
Or maybe not, because I still have to talk about Labyrinth and The Godfather.
I will admit that the appeal of Labyrinth is mostly the crappiness of the film. As an MPA major I should despise that film. The script is horrible, at the time it was shot Jennifer Connelly couldn't act her way out of a paper bag (she has since improved, thank God), David Bowie is a better singer than actor, the most interesting characters are the Muppets, and no one and nothing makes any sense whatsoever.
All that being said, I love it.
To me, Labyrinth is just one of those God-awful movies you can't help but love. For me, the appeal lies mostly in the music, the Muppets, and the nostalgia (as in, a time when I would've considered this thing a piece of cinematic art). It's mostly a kids' movie (hence, the presence of Muppets), so it's pretty much one big extravaganza of nonsense, with the underlying message, "Don't take anything for granted." I assure you that should I ever have kids, I will quite happily show them this film. I will not, however, tell them that when I was sixteen I had a crush on David Bowie (don't worry, it was fairly short-lived).
The thing about Labyrinth is that it doesn't HAVE to be "good" as far as acting, script, cinematography, etc. The point of the whole movie is that it's FUN. And believe me, as far as fun goes, that film hits the mark. Just TRY to keep from at least smiling a few times during that film. Even us cynical, art-student teenagers managed to have a good time watching it last night, even though we were outside and freezing our backsides off in the Interlochen Bowl.
On to the movie which everyone swears is the greatest thing since sliced bread: The Godfather, which I skipped church yesterday to watch (ooh, I'm SUCH a rebel...) and spent three hours wondering for what purpose this movie was ever created.
Yes. You read that right.
I am well aware that all of the MPA alumni from last year, as well as a good half of this year's department, read this blog. And I am also well aware that saying anything bad about The Godfather will inspire the Movie Mafia to come after me and beat me to death with production slates and C-stands. But you know what, I'm entitled to my opinion. Just like some people are allowed to think that Breaking Dawn is a good book, just like some people are allowed to think that recycling is for losers, just like some people are allowed to think that Nick Jonas can sing, I am allowed to think that The Godfather is in the top ten worst movies I've ever seen.
To begin with, the script is just plain disastrous. Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola commit every conceivable storytelling sin, including the unforgivable one of confusing the living hell out of their audience. I couldn't follow the story at all. I was told "It's supposed to make you think." Well, here's what The Godfather made me think: "Who is that? Where'd he come from? Who's that chick? What's up with the horse? Why is there a horse's head in that guys bed? Why does Marlon Brando mumble all his dialogue? Why did that guy just get shot? Why'd they just strangle that guy? What? Huh? Who? ?????"
I should add here that nine times out of ten, the lack of understanding was heightened by the fact that I could not understand a damn thing that anyone was saying. Brando was the worst perpetrator of this crime, but the only person who bothered to speak clearly was Diane Keaton (and, on occasion, Al Pacino).
Random things happen at regular and frequent intervals in this movie. At one point, Al Pacino's character randomly decides to marry a girl in Italy, who is later blown up by a car bomb. Why does this happen? Hell if I know. Why did he marry this girl in the first place if he had a girlfriend back in America? I was told that this signifies "loss of innocence." I'm sorry, but the gangsters did not force him to marry that girl. He did it of his own accord. And to me, marrying someone else when you have a girlfriend does not signify "loss of innocence," it signifies, "being an asshole."
Added to that, I felt no sympathy whatsoever for the characters. I'm sorry, but if you want me to feel invested in a film, I have to care about the characters, and in The Godfather, all of the characters I cared about were either killed off or simply vanished from the story. Subplots are never tied up neatly, leaving you wondering, "Wait, whatever happened to the guy with the horse head in his bed?" Characters disappear and then reappear, adding to confusion and detracting from character sympathy. If you want me to cry when someone dies, make it so that I KNOW WHO THEY ARE before you kill them off. They only pulled off one death scene (I won't spoil this one, it's the only death scene worth watching), but that was one of exactly TWO moments in the movie that stirred any emotion other than confusion. Two moments out of three hours? Not good.
I will be fair: The movie DOES have good points. Diane Keaton never fails to impress (her character was one of the few sympathetic ones in the film), the music nearly made me cry (that being the only thing in this movie that did so), and the cinematography was beautiful. My compliments go mostly to the composer, the director of photography, the gaffer, and the camera operators. The script may be a hot mess, but a few select actors--namely Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and James Caan--give strong performances.
I will admit right now that I was extremely disappointed in The Godfather, after all the hype surrounding the film and knowing that it has ranked extremely high among critics and gained a cult following, I expected more.
I'll also confess that I'm a bit nervous expressing this opinion--yes, me, the one who proudly blogged about her obsession with Michael Jackson and complained about her thesis adviser in a very public way, which could've ended in much more trouble than a few Godfather fans saying, "Are you out of your mind?!" But knowing the rabidness with which I defend my own favorites, and the intensity of a movie's fans, I'm a bit scared of what people are going to say to me, both online and in person, after reading this post.
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