In honor of the release of Oblivion, Spencer and Greg discuss Morgan Freeman.

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So, as much as I love movies (and I LOVE them), I don’t actually watch many new ones. I tend to view films when I feel like it, and my interest has little to do with release schedules. I do go to the theater, but not that often, and usually to see older stuff. (Also, I was sick for a really long time last year and didn’t get out much.) My top 10 for 2012 list is a little different than most because it’s what I watched in 2012—not what came out. The only rule: it cannot be something I have seen before. (Otherwise it would just be all Hitchcock and John Carpenter.) Runners up include In Name Only (1939), Ball of Fire (1941), Public Speaking (2010), Sound of my Voice (2011), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Magic Mike (2012), 2 Days in New York (2012), Three Godfathers (1936), and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011). There is one movie that I saw, The Gatekeepers (2012), that would have made the list pretty near the top, but it is not being released for a while, so I’m leaving a space for it on next year’s list.

10. Trouble in Paradise (1932)

I could wax poetic about Ernst Lubitsch for just about forever. This move is an almost perfect expression of his art and exemplifies “The Lubitsch Touch.” It’s about two thieves (Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall) who decide to fleece perfumer Madame Colet (Kay Francis). Also featuring the divine pairing of Edward Everett Horton and Charles Ruggles, every performer is on the top of their game: Marshall is suave, Kay is smoldering, and Hopkins is as light as a feather. Its fine directorial touch, hilarious screenplay, and strict attention to detail make this film a must-see. I am completely ashamed that I had not seen it before now.

9. Bernie (2011)

I like director Richard Linklater okay, but I’ve been hit or miss on watching his films, because they never seem to really grab me. So I was somewhat surprised by how much I liked Bernie. Jack Black is really good as the Carthage, Texas murderer who is so well liked in his community that no one wants to see him prosecuted. Hell, even I wanted to see him get away with it. Black plays Bernie as kind, effeminate, and completely henpecked by possessive friend Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine). This is a role that could have quickly turned into a caricature, but instead Black stays warm and real. Performances by MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey are also spot on, and the whole film is given an aura of authenticity by their hard work. I thought this film deserved a lot more mention than it received, so if you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend giving it a try.

8. The Queen of Versailles (2012)

The lives of the rich are not like ours, especially the lives of Jackie and David Siegal. David Siegal is the founder of Westgate Resorts (time shares), and when the economy was booming, David and his wife Jackie decided their house was too small, so they started building the largest single-family house in the United States using the Palace at Versailles as their inspiration. When the economy went bust, so did Westgate Resorts, as did the plans for their new home. This movie is more than just the story of their failed home aspirations—it addresses race, class, ethics, gender roles, trophy wives, grumpy old guys, bad parenting, kindness, what friendship really means, the cluelessness of the nouveau riche, tastelessness, and what happens when you have no boundaries. It is also very kind to the protagonists, and while I was appalled by many of their decisions, I was also moved enough to care about what happened to them.

(Cont.)

Spencer and Greg give their DVD rundown for September 18th, 2012. In this episode they discuss Indiana Jones, The Cabin in the Woods, Chico & Rita, and The Game.

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As long as Sony rwants to hold on to the rights of Spider-Man, we’re probably going to continue getting a new film every few years. As successful as the previous iterations were, it was unsustainable in the long term due to the cost, though despite the failure of the third movie, I was still a fan of the series. Upon the initial news announcing the production of The Amazing Spider-Man, as well as through most of the advertising leading up to the release, I have been fairly skeptical about it. Thankfully the advertising didn’t live up to the reality.

Much like the first film from Sam Raimi, this movie is also a Spider-Man origin story. The details have been changed a bit, but essentially it boils down to: boy bit by spider, uncle accidentally killed when boy refuses to use his powers for good, realization that “with great power comes great responsibility,” and ultimately becoming a superhero. If you aren’t conscious of this yet I envy you, but for the rest of us the film takes its time going through this arc.

I was reluctant to see another origin story, and thankfully it has been changed a bit from the previous movie to keep it somewhat new. But while I overall enjoyed the story, I found the origin portion of it be a bit slow. It takes about an hour before we see Spider-Man in any sort of costume, and feels like about an hour and a half before he is even called Spider-Man. It could’ve been cut down by 15-20 minutes and still retained most of the core elements. The build-up is more detailed in this movie, but in a story as familiar as Spider-Man, unless you are dramatically altering things (à la Batman Begins), then it feels like you are just delaying the portion that people really want to see.

It isn’t without precedent for large studios to venture into the indie film realm for directors. Before his smash success as the director of Batman, Christopher Nolan was just beginning to get his feet wet in the studio system. The selection of Marc Webb for this film was a bit more of a reach, and while he showed a wide range of talent as he directed many different genres just within (500) Days of Summer, he really hadn’t done much in the action realm. Given his background, he joins the fraternity of action filmmakers who have come from music videos, including the likes of Michael Bay, David Fincher and Michel Gondry, so he does have good company there. Visually, this film is beautiful, and you can see this experience coming through.

Obviously the biggest question with the reboot is how Andrew Garfield does as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. I found him to be quite enjoyable, and, after speaking with my comic friends, perhaps more authentic to the comics. Ignoring a few scenes where he came off as Teen Wolf-esque, I thought he played the role quite well. But just because it is more authentic doesn’t mean it necessarily translates to film (for instance, if you are familiar with Wolverine’s outfit in the comics), and even though I found him solid, I still preferred Tobey Maguire at the end of the day. I thought Maguire played Spider-Man with a bit more complexity and vulnerability. This isn’t to say that Garfield can’t grow into the role, but he wasn’t the standout part of the film, and he really needed to be.

One of the strongest changes in the reboot was switching out Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst in the Raimi films) for Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone). Not only do I prefer Emma Stone as an actress, but her part felt more endearing. Mary Jane always felt like she only got interested in Peter Parker when he started to become “cool,” in contrast with Gwen Stacey, who legitimately seemed interested in Peter even when he was a nobody. If the movies follow the arc of the comics, it also looks like Gwen Stacey will have a much more significant role going forward than Mary Jane did in the previous movies. Beyond Stone, the supporting cast in the movie is wonderful. Martin Sheen and Sally Field are standout as Uncle Ben and Aunt May, both stealing a lot of the scenes they were in. The last major piece of the puzzle is the villain, and despite having no familiarity with the Lizard coming into the film, I thought Rhys Ifans did an excellent job and made the villain one of the most memorable of any of the filmes. One of the big kudos for this film has to go to the casting director.

Despite the concern about the scale of the project compared to (500) Days of Summer, the film feels quite polished. That being said, there were some technical aspects I could have done without. The 3D was good in a few scenes, but for the most part wasn’t really noticeable. Similarly, the first-person perspective work they did with Spider-Man was cute, but I didn’t really feel like it needed to be done. Overall, though, the CGI work (especially that of the Lizard) was executed quite well, and though it took a while to get to the Spider-Man action, it was great when it finally arrived.

At its core, there is an enjoyable movie in The Amazing Spider-Man. The actors and the action are both strong, but unfortunately it gets a bit muddled with the story at times, which is a common reality of most origin movies. Now that that is out of the way, I look forward to seeing where Marc Webb takes the series next. The potential seems high.

Final Grade: B

Considering the pedigree of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo—a fiercely successful novel and well-regarded Swedish film already exist—director David Fincher would have had to try really hard to mess this movie up. Since he is not a moron, this movie is well made, interesting, and slick; beautiful people in a dark and brutal world ponder a complicated mystery and exciting things happen. I don’t really think this movie was necessary, what with there being a pretty good film made of this book already, but I can understand why it was made: Hollywood would have been leaving money on the table by not making an English language remake.

Disgraced Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) has just lost a libel case against industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström, which has wiped out both his bank account and his reputation. He is approached by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to solve the mystery of what happened to Vanger’s niece Harriet: almost 40 years ago she disappeared into thin air, and Vanger believes someone in the family might be responsible. Since he now has a lot of free time, Blomkvist accepts the assignment, and during his investigations, he discovers a series of earlier killings that may or may not relate to Harriet’s disappearance. He gets stuck and the brilliant and antisocial investigator Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) is brought in to assist him. There is a lot going on here. Had this been a stand-alone movie, I would have accused it of being bloated, but some of the things that happen, while not being particularly important to the outcome of this movie, do have some bearing on the plot of the second installment. But it does make this movie a little rambling at times and not as tight as it could have been.

For the most part, this is a pretty well made film. The story is interesting and at no point was I bored or distracted during any of its 158 minutes.  (And I am someone who firmly believes that very few movies need to be longer than an hour and a half.) All of the actors are good, although some of them have Swedish accents, some of them have bad Swedish accents, and others, like Daniel Craig, make no effort at all. It’s not particularly bothersome, and if I can accept this film’s premise that almost everyone in Sweden is exceptionally good looking and extremely well dressed, then I can accept the accents. It’s a movie. But the impeccable grooming and luminous faces of the cast help further the cold, almost antiseptic, tone of this film. Dark things happen here, but we are kept at arm’s length by the slick, perfect presentation. (During one of the sex scenes, even Lisbeth Salander’s pubic hair is perfectly fluffed.) This is a valid tactic, as bringing the audience in closer might make them feel complicit in some of the very nasty things that happen in this film. And making the audience feel creepy is not very good for business.

There are some things about this movie that I find deeply problematic. This story truly belongs to Lisbeth Salander, and by extension, Rooney Mara. Who is amazing, by the way. Salander is a character of mythic proportions, and Mara manages to capture every nuance of this feral, heartbreaking, larger-than-life character. Unfortunately, for every time Salander behaves in a manner true to her character—acting instinctively and guided by a very ambiguous moral compass—she is either objectified by the film or forced to do something totally out of character to reinforce her status as a mere woman.

Early in the movie, Salander suffers a horrific rape, to which the audience is witness, in all of its gory details. (There is a second rape in this movie that is more spoilerish to discuss, so I won’t. But I wish I could.) While the general brutality of the event and the cool tone of the film helps keep the scene from being titillating, the set up of the shots is more ambiguous. No shot in this movie is ugly or unflattering to anyone really, except for the rapist. At no point when Rooney Mara (or possibly a body double) is naked is she shot unflatteringly. Quite frankly, I don’t want to notice what a nice butt she has right before she gets raped. Fincher does show us the horrible physical effects of the rape in the obligatory post-rape shower scene, but like everything else in the film, its impact is muted by the tone of the movie.

And I am not even sure what the point of showing a rape in such graphic detail is. To get across how horrible it is? According to the latest numbers I’ve seen, one in three American women have been raped, beaten, or stalked. I’m thinking a lot of people already know rape is horrific. Is it to set up the dark tone of the movie? Don’t really need that much detail to do so. I thought a lot about Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Frenzy while watching this scene. In Frenzy, there are two rape/murders that are dealt with in detail, one that is shown and the other taking place behind a closed door. The latter has always been a more effective scene to me because my dread of what could be happening is always completely devastating, even though I’ve seen the movie more than once. I thought for a moment Fincher was going to go that way, but he doesn’t. I’m kind of over using graphic depictions of violence against women (or anyone really) for entertainment purposes, but maybe I’m the only one.

And then there is all the female nudity. Now I understand the issues with full frontal male nudity and not wanting to push the MPAA when the film is already so graphic, but all Craig shows is a little butt crack at the top of his man panties. Yes, he is kind of beefcakey in this movie, but he is an object that maintains boundaries, whereas Mara bares it all. Seriously, either everybody should get naked or no one does. We view Lisbeth Salander being treated as a thing by her rapist in one scene, and then the film objectifies both character and actor by presenting her as another type of thing for us to admire during the sex scenes. And yes, this is standard procedure in a Hollywood movie. So standard that I might not have brought it up had it not been one of many things this film does to make sure that Lisbeth Salander’s kick-assedness is limited.

The film is filled with instances where Salander must be reigned in. In another important scene, she requests Blomkvist’s permission to commit an act which is a no brainer, and in our final moment with her, she is reduced to a jealous and insecure little girl. For every brilliant, morally wrong, revenge-taking, rule-breaking, gender-busting, heartbreaking, line-crossing, crime-committing, bad-decision-making, overcoming the bullshit that life hands out moment, there is another moment that drags her down to secondary status. I don’t want to hear about what was in the source material; Fincher dropped or changed plenty of other things to suit his vision of this story. Instead of making something truly transgressive, he’s made a beautiful-looking film about a dark subject that is disappointingly conventional. And I’m gonna grade him down for it. You should not have a character with as much potential as Lisbeth Salander and squander her like that.

Final Grade: B

Another MacGuffin Film Podcast Top 5′s segment. Inspired by the film Moneyball, Brandi and Allen share their top 5 Brad Pitt films.

This segment is also available on Stitcher, iTunes, and Zune. The audio version can be downloaded directly from here. After you’ve watched the video please vote in our poll and share which one you think is the best.

In September 1995, another serial killer film was released. Two cops, one about to retire, the other new to the big city—sounds about as cliché as they come. The killer has a theme that he follows. The dark and spooky trailer has lines such as “this is not going to have a happy ending.” The director had one previous film under his belt, which was the third (and least favorite) of a film franchise. It didn’t really add up to much on paper. But onscreen, it was an understated masterpiece.

The power and artistry of Seven begins and ends with the villain. As Hitchcock said, “The greater the evil, the greater the film.” John Doe, an enigmatic figure if there ever was one, is killing one victim for each deadly sin. The first sense we get of the viciousness of our killer is the method of death in the first victim. “An obese man forced to eat until his stomach explodes” is how one of the characters describes it. As an audience, after we hear this, we know we’re in for something really twisted. The second victim bleeds to death after cutting a pound of flesh out of his own body. Before we get a chance to fall into some predictable pattern, a third victim is discovered, but he is still alive. He’s essentially brain-dead, but still alive.

In the first three crimes, the devotion, madness and message of John Doe start to appear. We begin to understand him, but even worse, we begin to feel for him. Everyone has been disgusted at one point or another when a shady defense lawyer is able to get a murderer cleared of charges. When a morbidly obese person sits down next to us in a public place, we wonder how they let themselves get that way. We’re disgusted by these people. John Doe is disgusted as well, but he’s doing something about it. He’s taking the disgust and elevating it to the level of the Old Testament. We say to ourselves, we would never do that. Right?

John Doe’s intelligence and passion in his master plan may be what makes him evil, but what makes him a great villain is his care and meticulousness. He cuts his fingertips off so that he won’t leave fingerprints. How twisted is it to inflict that pain on yourself instead of wearing gloves? He visits one of his victims every day, caring for his bedsores just enough to keep them from getting infected and killing him. His patience is staggering.

Another thing that adds to his mystery and the power of his villainy is that we never see him kill anyone. The first time we see John Doe (aside from glimpses in a chase scene) is when he walks into the police station to surrender. From that point on, he’s in handcuffs, not a threat. By not seeing him kill any of his victims, we individually construct mental images of him killing his victims and these images are the absolute worst things we can visualize.

Finally, a happy accident adds to the believability of Kevin Spacey playing John Doe. Kevin Spacey was not in the opening credits, and the producers asked reviewers not to reveal who played the killer. So, for many movie-goers, the appearance of Kevin Spacey was shocking and extremely effective. Effective because a scant five weeks before Seven was released, a low-budget film about criminals called The Usual Suspects hit the big screen. That film had one of the cinema’s greatest villains ever in Keyser Soze, played by Kevin Spacey, who would go on to win the Oscar a few months later for his portrayal of Soze. So when Seven came out, everyone was easily sold that this plain-looking actor could be the epitome of evil.

There’s much more to the film Seven than the villain, though. The casting is perfect. Brad Pitt as a cop who gets frustrated when he has to think, Morgan Freeman as the reserved cop who bottles everything up inside, Gwyneth Paltrow as the wife who just wants to be anywhere else. Even the minor actors take their craft to the next level. Leland Orser, the man who was forced to kill the hooker, didn’t sleep for three days before his scene and right before shooting, he began to hyperventilate. Michael Reid MacKey, the sloth victim, weighed 96 pounds when he auditioned for the role. Fincher jokingly asked him to lose 6 pounds. He did and he did this for a part in which he doesn’t even have a line. Both roles are small, but neither character escapes easily from the memory.

Finally, it’s time to discuss David Fincher and his vision. I won’t discuss the obvious things, such as the tone he set, the pacing throughout the film or the music. I’m just going to mention some interesting choices that he made. First, the rain. It comes down constantly, which adds to the dreary atmosphere. But it comes down in such a desperate hope, as if to imply that enough rain could wash all our sins away. It finally stops raining when John Doe steps out of the cab to surrender. From that point on, there is no rain. Even nature has conceded defeat. Another interesting choice is the library. How many guards are there? Five, six? We don’t see that many guards anywhere else in the entire film. The library is also the only peaceful, violence-free location in the entire film. Yes, Somerset browses through some violent drawings in books, but those are pictures, they are disconnected from the film. Violence is everywhere else. The crime scenes, the police station where they discuss the crimes scenes. In Somerset’s apartment, he’s throwing his knife into the dartboard, while Mills’s apartment shakes violently because of the passing train. Even in the diner, Somerset and Tracy discuss abortion, which could be argued is a violent action.

In the end, though, the impact of the film comes from the villain being successful with his dark plan. But we’re okay with that, because John Doe knows he is not above any of the sinners that he has punished, therefore he must be punished as well. Justice is served. The message is delivered. Not since 1939, when Ten Little Indians was first published, has a villain succeeded in such a satisfying manner. There are more parallels between that book and this movie. I’d suggest you read and watch each to see how masterfully constructed both are.

A lot of people see ‘product placement’ as a dirty term, where faceless advertising companies diminish all artistic merit from film and instead use them as advertisements to hawk their branded wares to the public. We’ve all seen it; sometimes it can be subtle and sometimes blatant, like Nintendo’s promotion in the 1989 film The Wizard, which created my lifelong unfulfilled need for a Power Glove. I never knew one kid who actually owned a Power Glove, but the idea that out there somewhere a child sat at Christmas of 1989 and unwrapped a brand new one still gives me a slight pang of jealousy. This probably says more about my own stilted emotional growth, but I like to think it shows how intoxicating product placement can actually be. Brands and products are shown in movies in such an awe-inspiring and positive light that it’s only natural that we want in on them too, especially as children. On the surface, product placement appears to be a modern invention created by cynical advertising companies attempting to covertly reach our consumer driven society, but it’s really been here for a long, long time.

The first use of product placement was in 1920 with the Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle film The Garage. The film used its setting and its high profile star Arbuckle to advertise Red Crown Gasoline; the movie’s star appeal sold both the film and product to the audience. It was this film that really made the connection between star appeal and the potential for advertising sales, which would grow side-by-side within the development of mainstream cinema. In 1927, Wings, the first film to ever win the Academy Award for best picture, featured a scene with a Hershey’s chocolate bar. Wings wasn’t just an award winner, but also one of the highest grossing films of the decade, allowing Hershey’s to advertise to every one of the film’s viewers. However, it really wasn’t until the 1980s when product placement really came into its own with Steven Spielberg’s E.T., and again Hershey’s were leading the charge.

At the beginning of the film, there’s a scene when Elliott coaxes out the alien using Reese’s Pieces as bait. In the script, this was originally written to be M&M’s, but after they pulled out, Hershey’s, paying an estimated $1 million, filled in instead. E.T. went on to become the highest grossing film of the 1980s, and this in turn saw Hershey’s sales of Reese’s Piece’s rise 65% in the year after the films release. E.T. didn’t just promote Hershey’s, it really became a watershed for product placement due to the sheer amount of brands shown throughout the film. Looking at Jaws, released just seven years before E.T. and the second-highest grossing film of the 70s, as well as the film that pretty much created Event cinema, it had nine separate instances of product placement showing seven unique brands. E.T., on the other hand, showed in total 21 different brands that were incorporated within the 29 instances of product placement throughout the film. A Spielberg movie in general is a safe investment for a brand; the film will inevitably gross highly and will commonly be a PG-13, allowing the largest potential amount of consumers. 25% of Minority Report’s $102 million budget was reportedly provided through product placement alone, including Nokia paying $2 million to design the futuristic phones and Lexus with a $5 million investment to design Tom Cruise’s car. Minority Report held the record for the amount of cash earned solely through this form of advertising, but this is soon to be eclipsed by the new Bond film. The producers of the upcoming Bond 23 have recently announced that one-third of its costs would come directly from product advertising, which could be roughly in excess of $45 million. So, it’s safe to say that product placement isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s not just about some greedy executive pawing after a few dollars; it has now really become a viable and secure way of fleshing out a huge chuck of a film’s budget.

The Three Forms of Product Placement

Product placement (or under its recent title of ‘embedded advertising’) is usually seen as a blanket term, but there are specifically three separate ways in which a brand can become embedded within a film.

• Screen placement: when the brand is seen in either the foreground or background of a shot, like the use of Reese’s Pieces in E.T.
• Script placement: when one character openly names the brand in the film’s dialogue, such as Marty McFly ordering a Pepsi in Back to the Future.
• Plot placement (low intensity): the brand has some, usually small, relation with the film’s plot, e.g. in Demolition Man, Taco Bell being named as the only restaurant franchise in future; the main characters go there and eventually there’s a massive fight next to it. Plot placement (high intensity): when the product is frequently associated with the lead character or central storyline—Bond’s watch, car or phone, or the Delorean in Back to the Future.

Getting all three placements in one scene is obviously the coveted holy trinity for any brand; having their product seen, spoken about and intertwined within the film’s characterization and/or narrative development is ultimately the best way for maximum exposure.

Forrest Gump is a master class in product placement. The entire film’s plot revolves around Gump’s involvement with huge cultural events: Gump teaches Elvis to dance, inspires John Lennon to write “Imagine,” uncovers the Watergate scandal, and tons more. So, with the film lending itself to so many cultural significant moments, when Gump is involved with branded products, like his cross-country run for “2 months, 14 days and 16 hours” while wearing his trusty footwear (Nike) or his investment in a “fruit company” (Apple), it feels natural to the tone of movie. With the film dealing 100% in nostalgia, the products fit seamlessly in both grounding the film in the time period and allowing them to be a part of Gump’s story. However, when a film attempts to use this type of high intensity product placement without it feeling organic to the setting, tone or plot, it becomes too apparent to the audience and fails. In I, Robot, Will Smith’s character is a technophobe—he hates all modern appliances, especially the robots. The makers of the film choose to highlight this with Smith buying a pair of Converse All Stars at the beginning of the film. So Smith’s character’s a Luddite, but it’s not like everyone else in the film is wearing rocketboots or anything; they’ve just got really normal non-futuristic shoes on, and Smith wearing Converse isn’t a succinct way to highlight the character’s technophobia. Converse just paid the most. Whereas the products in Forrest Gump maintain consistency with the nostalgic tone of the narrative and interact naturally with the central character’s journey, the ones in I, Robot don’t; it just looks like Will Smith is taking timeouts throughout to appear in a Converse advertising campaign, which essentially he is.

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Spencer and John give their predictions for the 2011 Academy Awards, before closing out the episode with their DVD picks of the week.

For his DVD pick, John selected the release of Dragon Tattoo Trilogy in one collection (DVD/Blu-ray). Spencer went for the feature rich 10th anniversary blu-ray release of Memento.

This episode is available on iTunes and Zune. It is also available on Miro and Stitcher, or you can find our podcast RSS feeds on our subscribe page and use whatever system you want.

You can follow all of the happenings on our website through our blog’s RSS feed.

Spencer and John share their top 10 films for 2010, before closing the show out with their DVD picks of the week.

For his DVD pick, John selected Mark Romanek’s follow-up to One Hour Photo, Never Let Me Go (DVD/Blu-ray). Spencer chose the indie monster movie, Monsters (DVD/Blu-ray).

This episode is available on iTunes and Zune. It is also available on Miro and Stitcher, or you can find our podcast RSS feeds on our subscribe page and use whatever system you want.

You can follow all of the happenings on our website through our blog’s RSS feed.