JD Hansel

Harry Potter 8 Review

April 5, 2015 by JD Hansel

Let’s talk about Hermione. By that, of course, I mean let’s really overanalyze her character and make theoretical presumptions about her mindset without having read the books. What, you don’t want to talk about Hermione? You just want a review of the movie?

No. We’re talking about Hermione.

I love this character. Hey – I see that smug smile on your face, and no, I don’t mean it that way! I mean I care about this character because I empathize with her. I like her approach to life … unless of course what I really like is my assumption of what her approach to life is. Let’s think about this – she’s muggle-born, and that means she’s doomed to be mocked, scorned, and called a – cover your ears, kids – mudblood. Ouch. So, putting myself in her shoes, I think about what the best way to handle the insecurity that comes with such a burden would be.

Here’s the cool thing about wizardry: it’s established by Hagrid early on in the franchise that pretty much any wizard can cast the same spells with about the same effect as any other wizard, after enough practice. There isn’t much in the Harry Potter world, or at least not the cinematic world, to suggest that the purebred wizards always do better wizarding than those with human blood mixed in. So, it would seem that being a great witch or wizard is not determined solely by nature, but is in fact largely just know-how. Essentially, in a world in which everyone has access to the same spells, and with practice can use them to about the same effect, whoever has the most knowledge has the most power.

Let’s bring it all back to Hermione. She could have handled her insecurity about being muggle-born in a number of negative ways. However, Hermione, in her awesomeness, was wise enough to instead take on a pursuit of knowledge, which would naturally give her power over most other witches and wizards regardless of bloodline. This is where the genius of Hermione lies; it’s not in her book smarts, but in her passion for learning. She doesn’t need to be a chosen one, a prodigy, or a legend in order to have power. She has her brain. So, when I sat down to watch the final film in the franchise, I was waiting to see how good ol’ Hermione ends up.

I’ll come back to that in a moment, but first let’s get the real review-ish part of this review out of the way. The film looks as good as its last two predecessors, with a score that’s about the same, although maybe slightly vamped up. The story is by and large very fascinating because it keeps the audience asking new questions while simultaneously answering old questions. I was mostly sucked in, although it’s hard for me to care about what happens to Harry as much as I care about what happens to Little Miss You-Know-Who. I could have used more focus on the relationships in this than on the Horcruxes, but it’s still cool all in all. I love the Snape twist. I was actually very thankful for the epilogue scene because the series didn’t feel like it had enough closer without it, and it made it a little easier to say goodbye to these guys.

But Hermione. What was her reward for her brilliance? Surely J.K. would reward being wise more than being chosen by fate, right? After all, to do otherwise would essentially value superstition and luck over reason and thinking. Guess what! In this movie, Hermione has more bad ideas than good ones, feels like a side character, marries Ronald, and is upstaged by the outstanding development of … wait, I have to go look up his name again … oh, right, his name’s Neville Longbottom. I forgot. I’m not making it up; I really did.

I’d have jumped up and cheered had the wand Harry was using, upon flying into the air, flew through the sky over to Hermione, but noooooo . . . it makes far more sense for it to go to Longbottom. Look, Longbottom is allowed to really grow as a character, and he’s allowed to avenge his parents, but it’s just not right for him to be given more glory than Hermione. Heck, when I was a little boy, I’d get to suck on a red Dum Dum lollipop if I was reasonably well-behaved at the doctor’s office. That’s a decent prize for a small feat, but since Hermione has just been flippin’ brilliant throughout the whole franchise, she deserves a lot more than getting to suck on a redhead dum-dum for the rest of her life. Does it show that I don’t particularly care for Ronald? I really don’t. His only role in the franchise seems to be showing up, eating, panicking, swearing, and leaving, and I had no interest in seeing him together with Hermione, who honestly seemed to have more chemistry than Harry anyway.

I digress. Wait, no I don’t. I’m still not totally okay with this. I care about Hermione, and I don’t even know if she ever gets to reunite with her parents. The movie could have focused on her a lot more than it did, but on the whole, it was a good, fun film that seemed to give the series the completion it deserved. It just didn’t give Hermione what she deserved. Ten points from Gryffindor.

My Theory of Functional Illusions

March 31, 2015 by JD Hansel

About a year ago, I coined a term called “Functional Illusions.” A Functional Illusion is an understood lie that the people of a certain culture generally accept or allow because it serves a purpose that the culture sees as important. A simple example is a mirror, although this is a very weak Functional Illusion (as I explain in the following paragraph). The mirror deceives the eyes by creating the appearance of another person who isn’t really there, but we don’t really think of mirrors as “lies” because we are all well aware that this illusion isn’t reality, but it is very helpful. A slightly stronger example would be puppetry. We know that puppets aren’t real, but we allow ourselves to act as if they are so we can enjoy the stories they tell, and sometimes we tell children that the puppets are real, which is essentially lying. Therein lies the danger of the Functional Illusion.

A strong Functional Illusion is one that people really, really want to believe is a reality, and a weak FI is one that everyone is perfectly fine dismissing as a meaningless illusion, such as the mirror. Some FIs are strong for some people, but weak for others. To an adult, Santa Claus is a very weak FI, but to a child, discovering that his/her parents lied all those years can be devastating, and in extreme, rare cases, lead to bad trust issues. The discovery that an FI isn’t real can be handled well by taking an interest in how the illusion is created. It can be handled badly by hating either the illusion, or those who reveal it to be only an illusion. (In some cases, people hate puppets because they were so devastated to find out the characters on Sesame Street aren’t real, whereas others, such as myself, become fascinated with puppetry because of the discovery that it’s an illusion.) Naturally, a very strong FI that many, many people want to believe is a reality can lead to intense fury throughout the culture.

America is essentially a Functional Illusion. Well, okay, the nation that is the United States of America is real, and the landmass consisting of North, South, and Central America is real, but those are not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the Idea America (yes, I thought that term up to, and I hope no one else has used it first). The Idea America is the American Dream, the American Way, and freedom and justice for all. There is clearly a big difference between the Idea America and the USA, but some people don’t see the gap, or at least try not to, because they are such a big fan of the Functional Illusion. Essentially, everyone who claims that America is or was the greatest country in the world and the city on a hill is overly attached to the FI. This is somewhat scary because FIs need to be understood in order to serve their proper purpose, and in order that we can make progress. The best purpose of the Idea America is not for people to be proud to be American, but rather for people to see that which America must become.

The Functional Illusion is important. Mirrors are helpful, Santa Claus is fun, makeup is an interesting form of expression, and auto-tune can be a great artistic tool if used appropriately. However, there is a danger to encouraging faith in them. People in the music industry may all be aware that the industry is to a large extent comprised of FIs, but people outside that culture may not be aware of this when they set out to make hits of their own. Some FIs become a sort of dogma that is detrimental to intellectual progress. The answer to problems that come from Functional Illusions seems to be better education, encouraging young people to use reason to question the illusions without assuming they are good or bad. Like many human tools, Functional Illusions will only do harm if humankind is not yet smart enough to use them wisely.

UPDATE 4/8/15 – There is now a follow up essay on a specific type of Functional Illusion, available to read here.

Ed Wood Review

March 29, 2015 by JD Hansel

(MINOR SPOILERS)

There are a couple of downsides to doing movies about real people and events. The first is that it can often limit one visually; the filmmaker almost always must portray a world that is believable to the audience, which typically means no animation, no theatrical lighting/color, no surreal sets or props, etc. Secondly, some liberties have to be taken with the characters since they are based on real people, meaning that names must be changed to avoid lawsuits, or the people must be fictionalized to seem likable and interesting. There’s also the simple, obvious problem that the series of events that take place in real life are seldom as interesting as what is commonly found in fiction. Did Tim Burton’s Ed Wood successfully avoid, or at least properly handle, all of these potential dangers?

On the whole, yes, the movie manages to have very interesting visuals, characters, and story flow. Mostly. To be fair, there were a lot of times when I was a little bored by the movie because it can be kind of tedious. With a slightly faster pace, I would have enjoyed it a lot more, but I did still enjoy it. It was really the characters that got me through it, because I did enjoy the majority of the cast.

This may not be my favorite Tim Burton film that I’ve seen thus far, but it is my favorite Johnny Depp performance. Yes, he’s playing the type of character that he tends to play too often, but heck, I’ll take this over his Willy Wonka any day. Ed Wood is a very likable character and relatable character, in spite of the fact that he’s kind of an idiot. I just can’t help but admire his passion and enthusiasm for making movies the way he believes they should be made. Also, Martin Landau is fantastic as Bela Lugosi, and Bill Murray is Bill Murray at being Bill Murray all throughout the Bill Murray. Bill Murray.

There are a lot of great scenes in the film that work for a variety of different reasons. The scene in which Bela is about to commit suicide is the most Burton-ly shot scene in the film, and is thus my favorite visually. My favorite in terms of character and story, which is probably more important, is the exchange between Ed Wood and Orson Welles. That’s the scene that makes the whole movie worth watching. The scene in which Bela appears on television (with no idea how to improvise) is really a painful scene to watch, but not because it’s a bad scene. Rather, it’s because it hurts to see him struggle in such a difficult, awkward situation.

The big problem with this film is not historical inaccuracy, a cinema sin that is also present, but is actually the simple fact that this guy’s life was difficult to focus into one cohesive story that clearly moves in a particular direction. It’s always a little difficult for me to watch a movie if I get no sense that each scene is a part of getting the story to its climax, and Ed Wooddoes kind of drag for that reason. Still, I would recommend that everyone go into the movie prepared to be a little patient, and then enjoy getting to meet this delightful character called Ed Wood. Plus Bill Murray.

Pulp Fiction Review

March 25, 2015 by JD Hansel

So,there are some movies I’d recommend that people see without any knowledge of what the film is about, what’s going to happen, or who’s in the film. The Truman Show is a good example, as is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Then there’s a movie like Pulp Fiction. I think I was only able to like it because I knew all about it going into it.

I knew the type of storytelling and approach. I knew it was a weird Tarantino film that would jump around, and I knew he had carefully structured everything so that he was ahead of the audience, and no one could ever predict where the story would go next. I knew he would use everything that the movies have trained us to expect to happen in a story against the audience to trick them. I knew to expect that I would never know what to expect, and most importantly, I knew better than to play The Movie Game.

The Movie Game is my term for when the audience member tries to figure out where the plot is going, and what will resolve everything, with the understanding that the movie has to set up its twists and turns ahead of time, and the story will follow the standard structure. This is partially based on a great quote from screenwriter Terry Rossio: “You know that the audience will try to guess where you’re going with the story. It’s a given. It’s fun. After all, they’re sitting there virtually motionless in the dark for two hours, with nothing better to do but second-guess you.” When The Movie Game is too easy, it’s a boring game, so it’s a bad movie. I played a great game with The LEGO Movie, and the movie won. I beat Frozen, but it was still a good game, and therefore a good film.

Naturally, when I get most upset by a movie is when I feel cheated, particularly because the movie doesn’t follow any normal structure, so I don’t get to play my favorite game. The way to avoid feeling cheated is simply to know what game the movie is playing before going in, rather than assuming it’s playing the same game as I am. What game is Pulp Fiction playing? I have no flippin’ clue, but it’s not quite as fun as The Movie Game.

It’s nice, every once in a while, to see a movie that does storytelling really differently. However, because of how different the storytelling is from what I’d ever seen in a movie before, and because I didn’t get to play the game, it didn’t feel like a real movie to me. It felt like a crazy Tarantino art project. I happened to find out that Tarantino felt the same way about it when it first came out. I respect it since so much in the film is impressive, but it didn’t feel quite like I was watching a movie, nor was it quite as entertaining as a more ordinary film. The entertainment value is lost to some extent when the movie doesn’t build in any normal sense, so some scenes are essentially pointless. Again, they may be impressivescenes, but they serve no purpose other than displaying themselves because the director feels like showing these scenes to the audience because they mean something to him, even though they mean nothing, in some cases, to an overarching story.

I don’t identify with the characters, so they are not my favorites, but they are strong. The dialogue is perhaps more profane than it needs to be, which I generally view as a Cinema Sin of sorts because that generally means the writer is either going for shock value, or simply can’t think of anything meaningful or interesting to write. However, the writing is very, very impressive – Tarantino is pretty darn good at dialogue. The way he interwove the three main stories was clever. The soundtrack is nice overall, and the visuals, while sometimes more bloody than I like, were overall very well done as well.

So, in the end, I really like this movie for what it is, but I don’t know that I like it much as a movie. When I don’t get to play The Movie Game, I feel a little like I’ve been invited over to a friend’s house to play a game with him, but he’s just playing it by himself and encouraging me to watch him; I don’t feel included, and that’s just boring. I think I’ve certainly learned a lot about film, storytelling, and myself from watching it, which means it has good reason to be considered a classic. So, I like it. It’s good. But give up on The Game before it begins, because he just isn’t playing along.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3 Review

March 24, 2015 by JD Hansel

*Sigh of mild disappointment, but understanding why it is what it is.*

It has its moments. It was fun seeing their take on the Academy Awards, even though I missed a few of the references. (The girl in the traditional Native American attire was a clever throwback that got me laughing.) The 24-hour Johnny Mathis station was brilliant. Aside from that, the movie is rather weak. However, this is the type of sequel that is enjoyable not because it is on par with the original, but because it is an opportunity to spend more time with the characters we love and miss. Those are important too.

How to Write a PIXAR Movie in 10 Easy Steps

March 13, 2015 by JD Hansel

Make the audience terribly sad. The easy way to do this is to take two seconds to establish a character, and then kill ’em. Even if you have to play the same two bars of sad music on the piano over and over for an eternity, you must force the audience to cry.
Find something that obviously does not have consciousness and give it consciousness so the kiddies will have guilt whenever they don’t show it proper care. Should they ever mistreat a toy, bug, fish, rat, or car, all of which are apparently people too, they will be hurting a conscious creature, and their guilt will remind them of your film, so they will always think about it and buy the merchandise. Nothing’s too ridiculous – PIXAR’s beloved mascot is a conscious desk lamp. So remember, kids: that toy felt pain, that bug had a life, that monster under your bed needs your help to survive, and that bear is your mom.
Have two or more characters argue with each other. Forget the fact that arguments are some of the most annoying experiences in life – the audience won’t see it as annoying. They’ll see it as either great comedy or great drama no matter how pointless the argument is.
Throw in some pointless physical comedy. Did you ever see the Mr. Bean cartoon based on the Rowan Atkinson character? No, nobody did, because it wasn’t funny. The physical comedy had no effect because the cartoon wasn’t physical, it was animated. The audience somehow won’t notice the same problem in your PIXAR movie, so with the right score you can work that physical comedy whenever you need a laugh.
Add a character who can’t get a simple idea through his/her head. He/she can continually forget the whole friggin’ plot, or ignore the fact that he/she is a toy/animal/vehicle/whatever, or simply not notice that nobody likes him/her. The only thing that matters is setting up a chance for another character to force your ignorant character to come to grips with reality, which will lead to more sadness and drama.
Shock ’em with a big reveal about the villain that’s really kinda obvious. You know that explorer/pilot that the protagonist always adored so much? He’s actually the villain! You know that teddy bear who shockingly turned out to actually be the villain? He’s gonna start being nice now… no, wait, he’s still the villain! They’ll never see it coming if they’re in your target demographic of six-year-olds.
I must reiterate the first point about making the audience cry. You have to do this a few times because everything seems funnier if it’s pulling you out of a sad scene. Works like magic.
All hope must be lost, and it must be really dramatic. All movies do this old trick, so you have to do it more to stand out. It doesn’t matter if it’s all no big deal in reality. You can make the audience believe that toys getting stuck on a plane to Japan is the worst thing that can happen to the universe. A fictitious French restaurant getting a bad review can be a terrifying thought, and a town on Route 66 getting closed down because hardly anybody lives there can be a travesty. There are no molehills; there are only volcanoes erupting on top of your audience.
Wrap everything up with a precious moment that’s so dang heartwarming they’ll get heartburn. Use the old Three-Second Test: if the ‘awww’s of the teenage girls in the audience continue for three seconds or longer, you’ve done your job. A great way to do this kind of scene is having some characters who’ve moved apart, if only emotionally, reunite. If that’s not strong enough, have one of them quote something the other said earlier in the film/franchise, perhaps (but not necessarily) slightly adjusting it to make it even nicer and more precious. Any crap about the importance of friendship is good too. Actually, on second thought, put these throughout the film any little chance you get. These are the moments PIXAR is all about.
You now have a hit movie that’ll make lots and Lotso money (see what I did there?) and now you just need to do it over and over again for the sequels! Happy franchise-building!