LiC has the need for ‘Speed’
All the cool kids are waiting for Iron Man and Dark Knight. Me? Bring on Speed.
I’m as surprised as anyone to find that I’m getting increasingly excited about Speed Racer. I know, it’s weird. Normally summer kind of bores me and I have a low threshold for corniness. Somehow though, Speed is appealing to the little kid in me.
The thing is, the Internet is already pegging it as a box office bomb. Tracking numbers that purport to predict audience interest have been rolling in and those who actually give a shit about such things are predicting that, on opening weekend, Speed Racer will have trouble beating What Happens in Vegas, the dismal looking, sink-peeing romantic comedy with Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz.
I’m not arguing whether that’s true or not, but this points up one of my big issues with all this focus on box office. The unspoken assumption about the predictions of underperformance is that somehow the movie itself is no good. It’s tainted by failure and, up until recently, no one had even seen it yet. Things like this tend to turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. All questions about whether the movie delivers what it promises will be buried in stories about how much it cost and how much it lost.
The truth is that people simply don’t seem to know what to make of Speed Racer. They’re having a hard time putting it into a conveniently sized box for easy digestion. Those who are old enough to remember the cartoon are a little too mature for what’s coming across as a goofy kids’ movie and it’s difficult to imagine kids will be interested in a PG rated movie based on something they nave no memory of.
Of course, this is exactly the kind of bankrupt thinking that often makes summer so unendurable. So much is at stake, it’s rare that a movie is allowed to take chances, instead being forced to conform to what’s expected of it and what can be predicted and measured.
Frankly, I’m not even convinced the numbers are accurate. Box office tracking frequently underestimates interest in family films and it never seems to account for the fact that little kids like to go back and see movies again over and over. Nevertheless, box office hit or miss, it’s irrelevant. The movie will stand on its own merits or it won’t. The rest is all just so much Internet static.
More interesting in my opinion is a chat between Variety’s Peter Debruge and visual effects designer John Gaeta who also did the groundbreaking work on the Wachowski’s Matrix trilogy. Says Gaeta, “We didn’t want to do another dark, dystopian movie on the furthest edge of hyperrealism. We wanted to be expressive and fun and let our hair down a little.”
With the state of the world right now, it sounds to me like they’ve shaken up a perfect summer cocktail that might be something of a throwback to a more innocent time. To that end, Gaeta talks about how they wanted to remain true to the style of the original cartoon which accomplished a lot with a pretty simple animation style, but update it to take advantage of modern budgets and technology.
As an example, instead of copying the anime technique of suggesting action by cutting between several “dynamic poses, such as a foot on the clutch, a hand on the stick and a tire spinning in place,” Gaeta created what he calls “editography” where the camera moves fluidly from one shot to another rather than editing between them.
The article goes on to talk about a number of other points of design philosophy that I’ll let you read yourself rather than paraphrase them here to within an inch of there lives.
The upshot is that maybe I’m gullible, but all signs are that Speed Racer is more than just another casual raping of my childhood. It’s a project born of enthusiasm and fondness for the way the original cartoon made some of us feel as kids. Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but trouble me no further will all this talk of box office.
I say, “Go, Speed Racer! Go!”
Filed under: Opinion
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i have no interest in speed race/ no interest in the vegas movie either.
i read it’s supposedly hard to resist the allure of a summer blockbuster. but i do it all the time….
actually craig if someone said “Go, Speed Racer! Go!” after whomever in juno said “all thundercats are go” well trying her to the hospital you’d had the movie seen of the decade…
craig..a difference bewteen and pretty much everyone else on the planet is i don’t care if the speed racer movie is a raping of my childhood..
because i don’t give a damn abiut thing from my childhood. uh why should i. i really barely remember anything (not joking) especially why i should have some loyality to some cartoon (that again i don;t even remember anything about )
yeah i watched speed racer (cartoon) and have a vague ideas what is was about. and that’s it. i have zero interet in seeing the movie.
but again i have zero interest in seeing this sort of movie if it wasn’t labelled ’speed racer’ either.
i know everyone is a movie ‘generalist’ and i guess i pretty much hate evrything….
but you know winter/summer time any movie time is pretty much pretty good for the ‘generalist’.
the joke being i don’t think i a movie ’specialist’ either. hmm…
and unless your directly tied in with the movie i’m not sure how it matters id ’speed race’ under performs/over performers or does whatever…
because ’speed racer’ succeeds box office wise or not you’re still gonna 17 movies next year ‘raping’ your child hood. your still gonna 3000 summer blockbusters etc.
it doesn’t if ’speed racer’ does $10 million or $300 million. its gonna be the same. we’ll get more of the same. la la la…la la la….
Since Iron Man will probably be sold out this weekend, I’ll probably be seeing that next weekend. I have absolutely no interest in Speed Racer or Vegas. Too young to remember the animated series and I’m not particularly interested by what I’ve seen. The Wachowski Bros. really seem to be floundering. Since The Matrix (which wasn’t terribly original itself), they’ve either been retreading the same ground or aping someone else’s work.
I will say this: What Happens in Vegas looks more entertaining to me than Made of Honor, which (a) sounds like a war movie, and (b) looks like My Best Friend’s Wedding with the genders reversed.
Since I first heard about this, I’ve had the same reaction from then until now. Which is that I just can’t generate any real excitement over the new Wachowski Brothers film. Rarely have two more self-immolating, almost self-parodying sequels to what was a legitimately groundbreaking genre film been made than The Matrix Reloaded: Sex, Raves and Cool Albinos! and The Matrix Revolutions: Bigger, Longer, and Vastly More Uninteresting Battle Scenes!
I know others have come up with some notable defenses of the sequels, but to me the Wachowskis have to scratch and claw to get out of the doghouse.
They’re still in much better shape than Shyamalan, however.
Making Speed Racer indicates they want to turn the page.
I’ve said this before, but I’m with you all the way on this one, Craig. I’m seeing it at tribeca film fest on saturday.
but yeah, the buzz is that it will bomb. which means the critics will pile on it whether it actually does or not. that’s the unfortunate way things work in this business sometimes. you make an escapist movie that’s not familiar or ordinary, something with its own imagination and creativity, and you get blasted for it. the summer movie season very rarely has room for interesting, ambitious work. and who knows, maybe everyone’s right. maybe it’s a disaster. I’ll wait and see.
but I hope it’s good.
I really want to see Speed Racer too.
I have a friend who worked on Speed Racer (post-production), and he enjoyed it more than he thought he was going to. That said, his take on the success of the movie was that it would have good word of mouth, but might struggle to be seen in the first place.
With Iron Man, Indy, Narnia and Speed Racer all up this month, something had to underperform, and this is the most likely candidate. I think it’s noticeable that it’s usually the second week of summer attempted blockbuster. A shame. It looks great.
I’m definitely going, but hoping it won’t just be fancy camera tricks with no substance. They were pretty innovative with The Matrix, so we’ll see. I think it will have one solid week and quickly fade since Narnia and Indy are the weeks following it, respectively.
Daniel, I’m going exactly for the fancy camera tricks. I don’t expect any substance. I have no interest in the original cartoon, no memories, no nostalgia. I just look forward to being dazzled in the IMAX.
Hmm, of course. “Substance” is the wrong word to use for such movies, and I know better. Well I just hope its worth the price of admission and doesn’t look too fakey.
I might see Speed Racer, just to see what it’s all about, but for me it qualifies as a “sneak in” option after paying for a real movie.
Alexander, your comment about the Matrix sequels being a near-parody of the originals is pretty funny. It led me to conclude that the Star Wars sequels are a parody of the original trilogy. I know there are those that love all the Matrix and Star Wars movies, but not I.
I’m basically ignoring all the other posts on this site today because you’re all discussing Iron Man in every single damn one and I’m trying to avoid having you spoil or influence anything for me.
Naughty commenters. See you all after the weekend.
Aha, yes, I do think that there is certainly some basis (or more) for the idea that the Star Wars prequels were parodies of the original trilogy. Although, in that case, it was more like Lucas was so obviously making them first and foremost for attention-deficit-suffering children and almost no one else. In the last five years there have been few moments in which I agreed more with Ebert than when he wrote in his Revenge of the Sith review that he was sick of light sabers. To me, the light saber was the Star Wars prequels distilled down to a microcosm–whereas in the original trilogy they were used fairly sparingly and typically most dramatically, in the prequels they seemed to be utilized in every scene for every possible use. I was surprised Anakin didn’t shave with one in the final flick.
lol, Alexander - Anakin was too babyfaced even in Sith. Certainly Lucas is to blame for the second trilogy’s failures, but one wonders if another actors besides Christiansen could have salvaged either of the last two. In other Star Wars news, buzz is growing about the science exhibit on its way here this summer:
http://www.smm.org/starwars/overview/
Back to Speed Racer - how will Emile Hirsch fit in this role? I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen him in Dogtown and Wild, but does this kind of action suit him?
I hope he does the role justice Dan, it will be curious to see if he can be “actiony.”
I have a feeling he’ll do just fine.
I think Hirsch fits the role quite nicely, at least as Speed came across in the American edits of the original cartoons.
Just saw it tonight at tribeca film fest.
Brings a new meaning to “pop art”. It’s probably the most visually spectacular/crazy/wild/deranged/over-the-top/experimental/thrilling mainstream special-effects movie I’ve seen in a while.
only thing people need to remember is that it’s a family movie. It’s sweet, it’s silly, it’s outrageous, and it’s waaaay stylized.
And the audience went nuts for it.
You’re so lucky Ari!!!
Oh man Ari. You just described exactly what I want. I hope you’re right.
Ari, I’m glad to hear all of that. Others are positive in their reporting of their experience with Speed Racer as well.
Ah, it sure would be grand if this thing not only doesn’t suck but is actually as good as people are saying now. Then I think I might start believing that anything is possible this summer.
Daniel, I think ultimately you have to lay the blame on Lucas. Christiansen is still rather untested, and he probably wasn’t the ideal choice for Anakin… But it says volumes when he was creepier, sicker, more pitiful and strangely even more menacing in two minutes of his nearly psychotic, suffering from Norma Desmond-like narcissistic self-absorption “journalist” in Shattered Glass than he was in the two Star Wars movies he starred in for Lucas. Natalie Portman, who usually doesn’t give boring performances–perhaps at times questionable but normally not boring–was so wooden in those movies I thought she had been replaced by the most convincing stop-motion CGI version of a performer in film history. Samuel L. Jackson, given a one-note character. In the prequel trilogy there were so many off-the-mark, rotten or just pedestrian performances that I found it exasperating to hear from some that it somehow wasn’t the fault of Lucas. Ewan McGregor was all right. Granted, Ian McDiarmid more or less rocked. But for the most part the acting was achingly lousy. And I just don’t agree with some who say the original trilogy had bad acting, too. It wasn’t acting on the level of Persona or The Godfather but considering the pulpy material of the universe Lucas created, it’s as strong as I think you could ask for. I’ll take Harrison Ford’s Han Solo and Alec Guinness’s Obi Wan over anything in the prequels.
Wow, that turned out to be a real rant. Sorry about that, the prequels really bug me even though they shouldn’t because I’ve never looked at any of them again. Just gotta let go…
I’m with you Alexander on the appalling sub-television standard of the direction of the prequels (I never saw the last installment). It combined with vacuous and turgid B-movie SF scripts to squeeze the life out of characters and narrative momentum. What chance did the actors have under the circumstances? It was stunning how dreadful the films were. I was never a huge fan of the originals but Lucas showed no small amount of talent in making them.
I’ll add my voice to the panning of the prequels. They were boring. Granted, I only saw Episode I in the theater. I hated the CGI characters and I just didn’t care about what happened to anyone in the movie. The casting in the first three was perfect. Like you say, it wasn’t “The Godfather” or anything, but the actors were believable and made you care about the characters at least.
Caught the other two on TV just because. I’ll take the original three any day. And not just because I was a kid when they came out. :-)
Needless to say, I adamantly agree with both of you, Sartre and Alison. The screenplays were nauseating and the actors had very little chance under those circumstances indeed.
Star Wars is an American institution, though, and I felt obligated to see them all theatrically, even if they left sour tastes in my mouth.
Revenge of the Sith has about fifteen minutes in it that are pretty good. One day I’ll probably look at that film again with those few moments in mind.
Alexander, the casual raping of one’s childhood is more than enough justification for an occasional rant.
it’s also amazing the way the critics are pounding this movie to death. Just read the New Yorker’s review. I guess Speed Racer is “pop fascism”. Silly me for loving it. ugh…..
I haven’t read a single review yet Ari, and I won’t until I see it, but I’m dying to see what all the fuss is about.
I’m not surprised critics are divided, but it sounds like some of them are totally overreacting.
Ah well…I hope you’re right and they’re wrong.
I’ll find out Thursday at midnight.
it’s definitely not for everyone. but yeah, I’d say the level of anger in some of these reviews is a bit much for a harmless kids movie. Not sure what they expected…
Do you get the feeling they just misunderstood it? It seems like people are having a hard time deciding what to make of it.