Sam Worthington's Eyes

I recently wrote a paper on Christopher Nolan's The Prestige using some concepts of semiotics, a field I have recently been exposed to and absolutely love. If you are interested, check out the book Mythologies, by Roland Barthes. I could go on about semiotics, but that's not the point of this post, and I don't have much time these days, so maybe I'll write about it another day. So, what do I want to write about, you may be wondering? Well, I shall tell you. It's The Prestige. And the new Clash of the Titans. And Christian Bale. And Sam Worthington. I don't think this post will contain any spoilers, but if it does, I will certainly warn you.

NOTE: For the abridged version of this entry, please scroll down.

Those of you who know me likely know that I am a HUGE fan of Christian Bale. No, not just because he's Batman. I don't even think those films have his best performances. Don't get me wrong, they're amazing performances. The crazy thing is there are lots of other movies where he's even better. I know, hard to believe. Moving on. So in order to write my paper on The Prestige, I had to watch it several times. Every time I watched it, I enjoyed it even more. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman give us amazing performances. Now a word about Clash of the Titans.

So while I was working on my paper, I took a break to watch the new Clash of the Titans. What a disappointment. I couldn't believe how bad the film was. I think if I were to describe it in one word, it would be: odd. The acting was odd, the lighting was odd, the characters were odd, the cgi was odd, the gods were odd, the action was odd, even their hairstyles were odd! The only good thing in there was Mads Mikkelsen. He's what kept me going. Also, the trailer for the film was pretty cool. 

So, what do these thoughts on these films have to do with each other? The principal actors: Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. The more I thought about the reasons why I think Bale is such a great actor, the more I realized why I think Worthington is not. Or at least hasn't shown me that he is yet. 

First, my thoughts on Worthington, or Sammy W, as I like to call him. I want to like him, I really do. I think he's got a great face and an undeniable presence. He's a cool-looking dude. The problem, I think, is in his lack of emotive abilities. More specifically, I don't see anything in his eyes. The music, lighting, and dialogue of a particular scene might tell me that his character is upset, overjoyed, or in love, but I don't buy it in his eyes. They're just blank. Full disclosure, I've seen three of his films: Terminator Salvation, Avatar, and Clash of the Titans. Of those, I think Avatar probably has his best acting. But even then, there was something missing in his eyes. Know what I mean? That's where I think not only Christian Bale, but a lot of actors that I think are great really shine. Hugh Jackman, Clive Owen, Eric Bana, Tom Cruise, Matthew Fox, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc. They emote with their eyes to such a degree that if they're happy, I can't help but find myself smiling along with them. The same goes for all their other emotions. When that tear swells up in their eyes because they're either scared, terrified, frustrated, or furious, it blows me away. 

Like I said before, I like Sam Worthington. I want to like him as an actor. I remember around the time Avatar was coming out, there were some articles comparing him to Russel Crowe, another actor who can go up on that list of emotive actors. I think it was mainly because of the action roles Worthington had lining up and his Australian roots as opposed to his acting abilities. Part of the problem may also be attributable to the directors he has so far worked with. Compared to those other actors on the list above, Worthington has not really been involved with directors known for their films' acting strengths. Maybe that is why I feel Avatar was his best role, because James Cameron has a lot more experience as a director than Terminator's McG or Clash's Louis Leterrier. Perhaps Worthington's methods require more of an interaction with a director willing to work with him or to his strengths? 

I think this hypothesis holds some weight when we look at the other actors around Worthington in Terminator and Clash of the Titans. I think Terminator probably has one of Christian Bale's weakest performances. Helena Bonham Carter and Bryce Dallas Howard also gave us some odd bits of acting. Even Linda Hamilton's re-recorded voice sounds strange and bizarre compared to the identical lines she speaks in Cameron's original Terminator. Now let's look at some of the actors in Clash of the Titans: Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes! World-class actors who gave some of the strangest and most awkward performances I've ever seen. Gemma Arterton, who I'm not too familiar with, was also the focus of some seriously bad acting. And was that Danny Huston who played one of the gods for a single line of dialogue? What?? 

This is not meant to be a bashing of Sam Worthington. It would be more accurate to call this the response of a disappointed but hopeful fan who sees a lot of potential in an up-and-coming actor whose films have mainly been action spectacles that have failed to show his dramatic range. The next few films he has lined up definitely look promising. The Debt, where he plays an Israeli Mossad agent is being directed by John Madden, who among other things directed Shakespeare in Love. He also directed Proof. A really good film, based on a play, that was all about the acting and the drama. While The Debt definitely has action in it, it looks to have a lot of drama as well. The screenplay was written by Matthew Vaughn and others. Worthington will also be in the remake of that old Schwarzenegger film Commando, to be written and directed by David Ayer. Ayer wrote Training Day and wrote/directed Harsh Times, which starred Christian Bale in a particularly explosive role. Here's hoping he can get the same intensity of performance out of Worthington.

ABRIDGED VERSION: Sam Worthington, get your act (and eyes) together!

...time to nut up or shut up

Return of the Niblog

Hello dear readers,

Munib Rezaie here, coincidentally coming to you exactly one year since my last post. As you can see, I have redesigned and revamped this blog and will likely be making more tweaks in the coming weeks. It's been a long time since I have regularly updated this thing, but I'm hoping that will change soon. I'm beginning my doctoral studies at Georgia State University this week in Moving Image Studies. My area of focus is in Chinese and Hong Kong film. My hope is that I will use this space as an outlet for my studies as well as a means to keep myself writing regularly. We'll see how this goes.

Thank you all for your support and enthusiasm in reading my blog and wanting its return. I hope you enjoy where this blog takes me. I'm certainly anxious to see where it goes.




...Wing Chun, Ip Man

Jon & Kate Plus Backbiting

Man. It's been a long time since I've updated this thing. Well, I'll get right to it...

NOTE: For the abridged version of this entry, please scroll down.

A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine asked me the following question:

"How do you feel about the current situation with one of your favorite TV shows Jon & Kate [Plus 8], plus the intense media scrutiny that followed all of the dramatic events?"

So I answered his question with quite a lengthy reply that I decided I would use as the basis for this post...which will be longer. The topic is one which I have considered on several occasions to write about in my blog. It's something I feel pretty strongly about. I suppose I just needed a push. So thank you, dear friend of mine. I'm not keeping his identity a secret for any reason. It was Louis. Louis O'Neal.

Several years ago, I came to the sudden and now seemingly obvious realization that the tabloids, celebrity gossip, and talking about celebrities' personal lives and attitudes with my friends is considered backbiting. Before I go any further, I should perhaps elaborate a bit on my own personal understanding of backbiting, a topic which I find to be infinitely fascinating.

In the Bahá’í Writings, there are an incredible number of quotations on the subject of backbiting. I would like to share a handful of them to help frame my discussion of media scrutiny.

Abdu'l-Bahá states:

“The worst human quality and the most great sin is backbiting, more especially when it emanates from the tongues of the believers of God.”
(Quoted in Star of West, Vol. IV. p. 192)

The worst human quality! Most great sin! That’s crazy!

Bahá'u'lláh goes on to say:

“Backbiting quencheth the light of the heart, and extinguisheth the life of the soul.”
(Bahá’u’lláh: The Kitáb-i-Íqán, p. 193)

“O Son of Being! How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me.”

Extinguishes the life of the soul?! Accursed of God?! That’s intense! And you may be thinking to yourself, “I’m ok, I don’t backbite.” But if you are a passive listener to other people’s backbiting, you are also doing yourself a disservice. Abdu'l-Bahá expands on how the hearer is affected:

“If any individual should speak ill of one who is absent, it is incumbent on his hearers, in a spiritual and friendly manner, to stop him, and say in effect: would this detraction serve any useful purpose? Would it…be of any possible benefit to any soul? No, never! On the contrary, it would make the dust to settle so thickly on the heart that the ears would hear no more, and the eyes would no longer behold the light of truth.”
(Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 230)

Wow.

So those are just a few examples of how seriously I take backbiting. So as I was saying, one day I realized that celebrities were people too. They have souls just like the rest of us. They are also innately spiritual beings, just like the rest of humanity. I wouldn’t like to talk crap about a friend, or judge the decision of a friend’s friend that I never even met, so why would I want to discuss the private lives of a celebrity? Once I truly took this to heart, it became a lot harder for me make any kind of serious or extreme commentary about a celebrity. It created a certain amount of moderation in the way I spoke about movies and actors and actresses and the like.

I’ll give an example. After the original The Fast and the Furious came out to much success, there was obviously talk of a sequel being made. By this time, Vin Diesel had made several other films and gained quite a reputation. I read somewhere that he was asking for $30 million to sign on for it, and that’s why he was not in the sequel. I believed it, and even changed my view about Vin Diesel, who I had liked up to that point. However, now he was too cocky and greedy and I didn’t like that. What a terrible thing to think about a person after reading just a few sentences about them. Didn’t even bother looking for the source or anything. Just believed it. Fail.

Now I stay away from celebrity news of all sorts. I still read about films and film development news, but I try to stay away from the articles that have to do with their personal lives or what store someone was seen shopping at, or who made out with who, or who beat up who. It doesn’t matter. Additionally, don’t actors’ acting just seem better when you DON’T know much about their personal lives? I don’t think that it’s just a coincidence that some of my favorite actors also tend to keep their private lives private. Robert DeNiro, Kevin Spacey, Christian Bale, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, and Johnny Depp, just to name a few.

And if I do catch something, which I inevitably do, seeing as how the backbiting industry is literally EVERYWHERE, I try to keep whatever I read or saw away from what I think of the actor. So I don’t get the people who all of a sudden turned against Tom Cruise after he had a few awkward interviews and decided they didn’t like his movies either. Or just cause he’s a Scientologist. What? How does that make sense? He’s still the same awesome actor. Or that whole Christian Bale rant against the cinematographer thing. Seriously? You’ve never cursed out or yelled at anyone in your life? Then the media gets and runs with it and everyone who reads about it or sees it on TV in shows devoted to this stuff like Access Hollywood, Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, just about anything on E! or VH1 these days, and even CNN (why is it even on CNN to begin with?) forms an opinion and judgment of you. That’s just rude, dude.

Which finally brings us to Jon & Kate Plus 8. A relatively new kind of celebrity; ones from a reality show. They’re even more ordinary than the ordinary celebrities that get their faces splattered on magazines everyday. So how do I feel about that, you ask? I feel sad. The same sadness I feel when there’s news of any couple who, whether I know them or not, gets a divorce. Divorces are always sad. Especially when there are kids involved. So my thoughts, when I see their faces all over the magazines stacked at every check-out aisle in every store I go to is: “What do those 8 kids feel like right now?” How does it feel to go into a grocery store and see your mom and/or dad’s face on a magazine with words and quotations attributed to them that are probably made up, saying that they hate each other, or that their dad is having an affair? Most recently I saw “Jon’s a dirtbag” in huge letters over his picture. That’s heavy stuff. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, and most definitely not on anybody’s kids.

If you agree with what I say, here are a few things to keep in mind when reading or watching news related to celebrities:

1) All or at least part of what you are reading is false, an exaggeration, or a misinterpretation of what actually happened
2) There is absolutely no way that anyone can know exactly what happened, except for those were there when it happened, even then, you don’t know what those involved were thinking when it happened
3) There’s no reason why anyone else should want to know what happened because these are human beings we’re talking about here, involved in their human lives just like everyone else

ABRIDGED VERSION: Backbiting sucks! Celebrities have souls too!

Whew, all this talk about backbiting is getting me down, so I’ll end with a quote about how amazing it would be if we didn’t backbite:

“If, however, a person setteth about speaking well of another, opening his lips to praise another, he will touch an answering chord in his hearers and they will be stirred up by the breathings of God. Their hearts and souls will rejoice to know that, God be thanked, here is a soul in the Faith who is a focus of human perfections, a very embodiment of the bounties of the Lord, one whose tongue is eloquent, and whose face shineth, in whatever gathering he may be, one who hath victory upon his brow, and who is a being sustained by the sweet savours of God.”
(Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 230)

That’s good stuff.



…keep moving forward

The Dangers of Trailers

Hey. It’s been a while. I might be a little rusty at this writing thing, so give me a break.

NOTE: For the abridged version of this entry, please scroll down.

How many people here like to see movie previews? I remember days of old when that was one of the best parts of going to the theater, and the reason you always made sure to get there on time. But where does this fascination over watching previews come from? If I were to guess, I’d have to say that a big part of it is simply for the bragging rights. Just having the knowledge of what was shown in a preview has always been a legitimate source for a conversation. Heck, I remember being filled with pure excitement over the purchase of a new Disney animated feature on VHS, cause they always had a sneak peek at their next big cartoon. Then I’d go off and tell all my friends about it who hadn’t gotten the film yet.

But times they are a-changing. Used to be that theaters were the only place you could go to get a taste of the movies coming to a theater near you, and every now and then on the telly. Nowadays, with the ridiculous reach of the internet and all kinds of cross-media advertising and promotions, I feel that trailers have lost a lot of their importance and excitement, and unfortunately have started going the other way and become damaging.

The internet has essentially placed the world at everyone’s fingertips. Information is distributed endlessly and consumed at superhuman speeds. Instead of satiating people’s hunger and making them stop, it seems to have given them an even bigger appetite that cannot be satisfied…ever. People just want to know. They want to know more and more, and fast. Which results in a decreased level of patience. Anything that takes longer than what their bandwidth allows is an eternity. Therefore, one single trailer in the theater for a movie that will come out in a year is unacceptable. Everyone will forget.

So what’s the logical answer? Release more and more trailers. With each one that follows revealing more and more of the story. You’ll basically see the whole movie before it’s even out. Or at least the best parts. And then they show it on TV over and over and over again. And then you get these ones that are like over 3 minutes long that reveal waaaaay too much of the story. There’s no mystery anymore. Doesn’t anybody like to be surprised by what they see?

I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts on this matter. It’s something I’m kind of passionate about. I honestly don’t get it. Now it’s become a bragging right to know spoilers that others don’t know about; or even having seen the movie online somehow before it’s even released in theaters. It doesn’t make any sense. Help me understand!


ABRIDGED VERSION: Trailers suck.



...i'm sorry my sister turned your parents into pigs