Zack Snyder's ultimate test

Zack Snyder is a figure of some controversy among knowledgeable movie fans.

There seems to be near-universal acclaim for his debut feature, the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. But from that point onward, the opinions on him diverge sharply. Some see him as a masterful shepherd of big pictures with big ideas; others see him as a latter-day Joel Schumacher. However, even those who are in his corner seem to recognize that there's something not-quite-right, something impure about championing him as one of today's true visionaries.

So far, this has not mattered all that much, because the "big pictures" Snyder has directed have been big in scope and budget only. Movies like 300 and Watchmen are definitely "big," no question about it -- but it's largely because of how they were marketed to us. Most people were not readers of the graphic novels/comic books that inspired these movies, so our expectations of them were limited to being excited over the first trailers we saw. We had few preconceived notions of what he might ruin or might do correctly. And indeed, some of us were disappointed in 300 (me) and in Watchmen (certainly not me), but it was only because of how they were executed within themselves. It's not because Snyder "got them wrong" -- unless, of course, you were one of the limited groups of fanboys who did have a passionate love for the source material.

Then his next two films, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and Sucker Punch, were genuine flops, disliked by many if not most of the people who saw them. Sucker Punch in particular, with its problematic gender politics, contributes as much as anything to the negative opinions people have of Snyder. However, again, these were not "big movies" in the sense that they had to either live up to, or fail to live up to, our expectations. Sucker Punch, in fact, was a completely original concept -- a first for Snyder.

So this all changes today, when the latest Superman reboot comes out. Now Snyder can genuinely ruin something we all care deeply about ... or make it transcendent.

You never know which way Snyder's going to go.

The funny thing is, I'd say that I generally like (Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen) fewer of Snyder's movies than I generally dislike (300, Guardians, Sucker Punch), yet I feel like I'm one of the aforementioned Snyder apologists. I think it's that I liked what he did in those two movies so much, I tend to forget that I didn't like some of his decisions in the other movies. The good decisions outweigh the bad ones, especially in the case of Watchmen.

One thing I like about Snyder is that he makes errors of commission, not errors of omission. Anything he does that doesn't work is not for lack of trying. He puts bold ideas out there. Sometimes they don't work. In fact, sometimes they fail miserably.

Then again, you could say that Michael Bay also makes errors of commission.

But I choose to be plenty excited for Man of Steel. The only other pure superhero movie Snyder made, Watchmen, is my favorite of his movies. I do think he has the ability to take this material and make it transcendent, and the original trailers I saw for it (I've tried to avoid them more recently) only confirmed that notion for me. Plus, Michael Shannon as Zod? I'm there.

Just not this weekend. Sunday is Father's Day, but my sister is in town, and Sunday is also her birthday. I do actually think we'll see a movie that night, but I think it'll be This is the End.

Then again, perhaps I should reconsider promoting that movie more than the others that are out there ... since she arrived on Tuesday, I've shown her both Tucker & Dale vs. Evil and Galaxy Quest, and neither of them were the hits with her I was hoping they'd be.

Perhaps comedy is not the right choice for her ... though I doubt that superheroes would be either.

So I may need to seek a compromise. That's the price I pay when I share "my day" with somebody else. 

Guardian fatigue

And speaking of Rise of the Guardians (as I was yesterday), one of my first experiences with it, a few years back, was thinking the title sounded awfully similar to Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. The fact that both were animated movies aimed at children made the possibility of mixing them up even greater.

Thank goodness for Legend's hilarious subtitle, which helped keep things straight.

But it makes me wonder if they won't want to change the title Guardians of the Galaxy by the time James Gunn's movie comes out in August of 2014.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the latest in-production Marvel movie whipping geeks into orgasmic levels of excitement. It was announced at Comic-Con this summer, an adaptation of the interstellar comic books that Marvel first started publishing in 1969. It gives off an instant and probably not coincidental Avengers vibe.

But depending on how kind two years and four years of existence, respectively, are to Rise of and Legend of the Guardians, fans may be getting unfortunate vibes from those two films when Guardians of the Galaxy tries to stake its claim to tentpole status two summers from now.

And even if history is kind to them, who wants to be the third in any trend?

The problem with each of these properties is that they were all based on previously existing material, all of which used the word "Guardians" in the title. The owl books were called Guardians of Ga'Hoole, but I guess they wanted the movie's title to introduce the concept of owls to the consciousness of selective viewers. Rise of the Guardians was based on books called The Guardians of Childhood, and I guess having the word "childhood" in the title would have made that one sound too wimpy. But even if either movie had kept the series' original title, that title would have including the word "Guardians" regardless.

I can see why Guardians of the Galaxy would be loath to change its title, considering that this is the entirety of the title, and it existed as a brand nearly 35 years before Guardians of Ga'Hoole (which came into existence in 2003) and over 40 before The Guardians of Childhood (a newbie, having debuted in novel form only last year). Besides, how many adaptations of well-loved comic books have had to back off from using their original titles?

So I guess they're probably stuck with it, for better or worse.

Something that's kind of funny about this word "guardian" popping up so frequently: Isn't a "guardian" someone who's kind of lame? In fact, to a child, isn't it often seen as a synonym for "parent"? As in "No one under 13 permitted without parent or guardian." To kids, a guardian isn't necessarily someone who keeps you safe. It's someone who rules strictly and arbitrarily, and prevents you from having any fun.

I mean, the galaxy would probably have a blast with all those black holes and supernovas if it weren't for those pesky guardians.

(And I'll thank you not to debate me on scale and scope when it comes to my astronomy-related claims in the previous sentence.)

Oh yeah - there's a thing called pay-per-view

As I continue homing in on 2010 movies I need to see before my January 25th deadline -- like some kind of heat-seeking missile -- I had a realization over the weekend about a whole channel open to me for acquiring titles, that I'd almost forgotten about.

You can, like, pay for them on your cable bill.

See, I'd forgotten that there was a thing called pay-per-view -- or at least, that's what we used to call it in the old days. Now it's just a part of OnDemand with payments attached, but pay-per-view is still a pretty accurate way to encapsulate what it is you're doing.

I used to entirely steer clear of watching movies in this way. I think that's because in the old days, watching a movie on pay-per-view was the equivalent of paying for a movie in a hotel. It was pretty much straight-up ten bucks to watch movies by clicking on the BUY button on your TV, so it was an indulgence that was strictly forbidden.

In more recent years, the competition for your movie rental buck has gotten a lot more fierce, so only hotels, where you're a captive audience, can still afford to charge that much. (Actually, some hotels charge like $14.99, even for non-porn -- though they offset the extra charge by offering some titles that haven't hit DVD yet.) The pay-per-view on your own TV is down to $4.99 or $5.99, sometimes even cheaper than that. Still, it's not something I do very often. My wife and I occasionally pay for movies like this, but we're talking like once a year.

But as I'm trying to wrap up my rankings for the year, and have some titles I'd still like to get in there, it's a pretty quick and easy way to start watching something immediately -- duh, that's the point -- without waiting for shipping times or even making a trip to the local Redbox.

So I waded into those waters on Friday night when it became clear that my wife was going to hit the hay early. (Do people still say "hit the hay"?) I didn't have anything lined up for the 10 p.m. viewing slot, and my choices for 2010 movies streaming on Netflix were more in the category of "chores" than "fun movies." (Not that the choice I ended up with turned out to be "fun," but more on that in a moment.)

I was surprised by the sheer quantity of movies available, but more than that, it was like a little light bulb went off in my head. It should have been obvious -- I mean, the concept of pay-per-view has existed for something like 20 years -- but apparently it wasn't. "You mean I can have this ... right now?" It was like discovering the capabilities of Netflix streaming for the first time last summer.

So I eagerly clicked through the choices and narrowed it down to four:

Devil
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

The next exciting thing I discovered was that titles whose Netflix release date had been hovering out there in the future -- like Devil and Wall Street -- could be had, today. Devil releases on Netflix tomorrow, but I knew there wasn't a great chance I'd have time to get it in the mail before next Tuesday. And Wall Street doesn't even release until next Tuesday, meaning I had resigned myself to leaving it off my rankings.

As it turns out, Wall Street was the only one I didn't end up watching over the weekend, though I ended up watching Scott Pilgrim on Saturday night on BluRay. And glad I did -- it is head and shoulders above the other two in terms of quality. As for the infamous Owls of Ga'Hoole (whose title I am always picking on), it has decent animation, but nothing special, and its story is as bland and forgettable as can be. The less said about Devil the better, except that M. Night Shyamalan's toxic influence is present even when he's not the one sitting in the director's chair. (That job went to a guy named John Erick Dowdle.) At least Owls of Ga'Hoole came in at the bargain rate of only $2.99 -- some kind of new release special. Devil was two dollars more than that, but probably two dollars shittier.

The takeaway is that maybe I should not fear pay-per-view after all. There are no hidden fees -- only the overt ones. Will my cable bill be a bit higher next month? Sure. But who can put a price on being able to watch an otherwise elusive film, without any trips to the store or prior logistics, in a short window of available time to do it?

Now to get a real benefit out of it and actually watch Wall Street as well.

Unwieldy titles duke it out

So, you thought The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader would win, hands down, for Most Unwieldy Title, Fall 2010?

Well, maybe you have not been properly aware of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole.

Yes, you read that correctly -- the word "Ga'hoole" is in the title of a movie. A movie that thinks it has a shot at hundreds of millions of dollars, at that.

I was peripherally aware of this movie, but it wasn't until I saw a trailer for it yesterday that I realized what its full title was. I believe I may have actually laughed out loud there in the theater (though the movie itself looks like it could be cool, this wussy poster notwithstanding).

The main reason I originally laughed so hard at The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was that I didn't know it was actually the title of a Chronicles of Narnia book. It's by far the most eccentric title in the series. You start with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which everybody knows. Then, Prince Caspian is fairly short, simple and easy to grasp. It's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that becomes a bit goofy. What's a Dawn Treader? Is it a boat? And where's it going? That title's got almost as much going on as The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. If they keep making Narnia movies, three of the next four are pretty easy to grasp: The Silver Chair, The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle. But if they call the fifth movie in the series The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy, I'm warning you, I'm going to laugh again.

Okay, so Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole is also based on a series of books. But they've significantly lengthened the name of the book series for the movie. The book series is called Guardians of Ga'Hoole, which still has the problematic word "Ga'Hoole," with its problematic apostrophe, in the title. But if kids recognize the movie based on that word, well, I guess I'm fine with it.

So couldn't they have called the movie either Legend of the Guardians or Guardians of Ga'Hoole? I understand that all the books in the series are not being covered here -- only the first three. But if you get to make another movie, you can figure out how to do the title for the second one at that point. So says me.

Maybe they've already decided it's a non-starter, since they're dumping it in September.