Match Director's Blog
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Why The Da Vinci Code Sucked
1. Tom Hanks’s ludicrous haircut.
2. Tom Hanks and Amelie had no chemistry at ALL.
3. Tom Hanks and Amelie had no opportunity to establish any chemistry. The movie starts and immediately we’re off to the codebooks.
4. Paul Bettany is poorly cast. He flagellates himself convincingly, but he isn’t scary. A meathead should’ve played that part.
5. Alfred Molina’s costume was hilarious. Hi-larious. Nobody cared when he got shot. We were all like, ‘good, you deserve it for dressing like an asshole. (yawns) Maybe the movie will end soon.’
But the biggest problem the movie had was a little thing we like to call exposition. Once upon a time I moved to New York. Once upon a time I did some acting. Once upon a time I learned from an acting teacher (who was a boor and had no bedside manner whatsoever), three very valuable lessons. One, don’t talk on the phone onstage. The phone should not ever be allowed to be more important than the action on stage, the action that is taking place between two human beings onstage at this very moment. This is why we go to see live theatre, to see two people trying to get along and failing. Onstage. Right in front of us.
2. All you can do is go after what you want. You can’t pretend to be sad, or glad, or mad, or pretend to have a limp, or a lisp, or a Southern accent, all you can do is BE the guy (or girl). BE there. Show up for the scene.
Number 3, exposition is for assholes. You’ve all seen exposition in a bad movie or play or in the Da Vinci Code. Books can get away with it – in books sometimes you look forward to it – when Dumbledore finally explains what the fuck is going on, we welcome it. I ‘m not sure why it works in books, perhaps a topic for another essay, but it works in books.
It does not work in theatre. It does not work in film, it does not work in Da Vinci Code, The Movie.
What is exposition, exactly? Exposition is the ham-handed introduction of information into the story or situation that the audience does not give one single crap about. Example: If, in the middle of his monologue, Hamlet said, "To be, or not to be. That is the question. I like lima beans. Also, I can remember the time when my cat Mittens got stuck up a tree. Plus, I like whales."
These questions all fail the 'Who Cares?' Test. Who cares? Nobody.
Tom Hanks expositioned himself through this entire movie, and the blame for this should be laid at the feet of Akiva Goldsman.
Horrible Exposition: "So then the knights templar gathered up the jedi knights and slaughtered them, executing Executive Order 66, which the emperor had dreamed up long ago, in preparation for this very day, should it ever become necessary. Plus, I like whales."
Better: "You can’t say that with perfect certainty, Teabing, because you’re forgetting this other piece of scholarship."
See, it almost works when Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen argue out the exposition, because it gives the actors something to do besides feed us information. The great Suzanne Shepherd (Karen’s Mom in Goodfellas) once told me, 'we do not pay you to give us information. We pay you to tell us a story. We pay you to have an opinion about the things that are coming out of your mouth.' So when Tom Hanks gives us all this shit about the Knights Templar and it’s academic, and he doesn’t care, then we don’t care. I know he has to say it to advance the plot, but the man who wrote A Beautiful Mind ought to be able to figure out a better way to do this. Shame on you, Mr. Goldsman. Shame on you, Ron Howard, for letting him get away with it. Shame on you, Mr. Hanks, for letting them get away with it.
Shame on you all. These are basic lessons that I learned within a year of moving to New York. Tom effing Hanks and Ron effing Howard should have memorized this rule – it should be obvious to them. They are Masters. They are afforded the mind-numbingly awesome privilege of getting to tell stories in the grandest way humanity has ever devised. All the time, 24/7. I do it part-time. I’m a dilettante. I do it on nights and weekends, and I know better.
Disclaimer. Making movies is hard. Trashing movies is easy. Making a movie takes years of planning and financing and a dedicated team of hundreds to produce. Trashing a movie requires a pencil and a bad attitude. Everyone I wrote about here is more accomplished than me. But they should know better.
P.S. What also sucked – at the beginning, Mr. Hanks is giving a speech, and he asks for answers from the crowd: no crowd in the history of crowds has ever given answers as fast as that crowd did. Crowds take some time warming up to you, especially when they're reacting to questions posed by a known expert. Take some time, Ron Howard, establish the scene. Make it real. Real recognizes real. ¶ 11:52 PM 2 comments
2. Tom Hanks and Amelie had no chemistry at ALL.
3. Tom Hanks and Amelie had no opportunity to establish any chemistry. The movie starts and immediately we’re off to the codebooks.
4. Paul Bettany is poorly cast. He flagellates himself convincingly, but he isn’t scary. A meathead should’ve played that part.
5. Alfred Molina’s costume was hilarious. Hi-larious. Nobody cared when he got shot. We were all like, ‘good, you deserve it for dressing like an asshole. (yawns) Maybe the movie will end soon.’
But the biggest problem the movie had was a little thing we like to call exposition. Once upon a time I moved to New York. Once upon a time I did some acting. Once upon a time I learned from an acting teacher (who was a boor and had no bedside manner whatsoever), three very valuable lessons. One, don’t talk on the phone onstage. The phone should not ever be allowed to be more important than the action on stage, the action that is taking place between two human beings onstage at this very moment. This is why we go to see live theatre, to see two people trying to get along and failing. Onstage. Right in front of us.
2. All you can do is go after what you want. You can’t pretend to be sad, or glad, or mad, or pretend to have a limp, or a lisp, or a Southern accent, all you can do is BE the guy (or girl). BE there. Show up for the scene.
Number 3, exposition is for assholes. You’ve all seen exposition in a bad movie or play or in the Da Vinci Code. Books can get away with it – in books sometimes you look forward to it – when Dumbledore finally explains what the fuck is going on, we welcome it. I ‘m not sure why it works in books, perhaps a topic for another essay, but it works in books.
It does not work in theatre. It does not work in film, it does not work in Da Vinci Code, The Movie.
What is exposition, exactly? Exposition is the ham-handed introduction of information into the story or situation that the audience does not give one single crap about. Example: If, in the middle of his monologue, Hamlet said, "To be, or not to be. That is the question. I like lima beans. Also, I can remember the time when my cat Mittens got stuck up a tree. Plus, I like whales."
These questions all fail the 'Who Cares?' Test. Who cares? Nobody.
Tom Hanks expositioned himself through this entire movie, and the blame for this should be laid at the feet of Akiva Goldsman.
Horrible Exposition: "So then the knights templar gathered up the jedi knights and slaughtered them, executing Executive Order 66, which the emperor had dreamed up long ago, in preparation for this very day, should it ever become necessary. Plus, I like whales."
Better: "You can’t say that with perfect certainty, Teabing, because you’re forgetting this other piece of scholarship."
See, it almost works when Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen argue out the exposition, because it gives the actors something to do besides feed us information. The great Suzanne Shepherd (Karen’s Mom in Goodfellas) once told me, 'we do not pay you to give us information. We pay you to tell us a story. We pay you to have an opinion about the things that are coming out of your mouth.' So when Tom Hanks gives us all this shit about the Knights Templar and it’s academic, and he doesn’t care, then we don’t care. I know he has to say it to advance the plot, but the man who wrote A Beautiful Mind ought to be able to figure out a better way to do this. Shame on you, Mr. Goldsman. Shame on you, Ron Howard, for letting him get away with it. Shame on you, Mr. Hanks, for letting them get away with it.
Shame on you all. These are basic lessons that I learned within a year of moving to New York. Tom effing Hanks and Ron effing Howard should have memorized this rule – it should be obvious to them. They are Masters. They are afforded the mind-numbingly awesome privilege of getting to tell stories in the grandest way humanity has ever devised. All the time, 24/7. I do it part-time. I’m a dilettante. I do it on nights and weekends, and I know better.
Disclaimer. Making movies is hard. Trashing movies is easy. Making a movie takes years of planning and financing and a dedicated team of hundreds to produce. Trashing a movie requires a pencil and a bad attitude. Everyone I wrote about here is more accomplished than me. But they should know better.
P.S. What also sucked – at the beginning, Mr. Hanks is giving a speech, and he asks for answers from the crowd: no crowd in the history of crowds has ever given answers as fast as that crowd did. Crowds take some time warming up to you, especially when they're reacting to questions posed by a known expert. Take some time, Ron Howard, establish the scene. Make it real. Real recognizes real. ¶ 11:52 PM 2 comments
Monday, November 05, 2007
Be a Movie Star!
Ever want to be that guy that walks towards the camera, confident, cocky, utterly unperturbed as a building blows up behind him?
Perhaps you’d like to be that funny, comedic, perfectly casual guy who spouts off a hilarious one-liner right before a building blows up behind him?
Perhaps you’d like to blow up a building?
Thanks to Match Productions' ‘Repeatable Explosions Technology,’ you too can go be on a 'real' studio lot, with a 'real' building and a 'real' gas-ball explosion, just like the one Bruce Willis jumped in front of in Die Hard 1 - yeah, the one where he jumped off that building named after that Japanese warrior or something, and it blew up right behind him!
We’ll send the limo to pick you up, let you camp out in a movie trailer while we do your make-up, and even have a few fans on hand to bug you for autographs before your big scene. Then the cameras roll (only the best for you, my friend – we use 70mm film to capture your great moment) you’ll blow some shit up, maybe say something witty, and then go get high on speedballs in the Viper Room! Yeah!
You get 3 days and 2 nights at the Four Seasons Hollywood, five-star accommodations all weekend long, plus liveried limousine service and Zagat-rated catering. Price: $100,000. Couples packages also available. ¶ 5:59 PM 0 comments
Perhaps you’d like to be that funny, comedic, perfectly casual guy who spouts off a hilarious one-liner right before a building blows up behind him?
Perhaps you’d like to blow up a building?
Thanks to Match Productions' ‘Repeatable Explosions Technology,’ you too can go be on a 'real' studio lot, with a 'real' building and a 'real' gas-ball explosion, just like the one Bruce Willis jumped in front of in Die Hard 1 - yeah, the one where he jumped off that building named after that Japanese warrior or something, and it blew up right behind him!
We’ll send the limo to pick you up, let you camp out in a movie trailer while we do your make-up, and even have a few fans on hand to bug you for autographs before your big scene. Then the cameras roll (only the best for you, my friend – we use 70mm film to capture your great moment) you’ll blow some shit up, maybe say something witty, and then go get high on speedballs in the Viper Room! Yeah!
You get 3 days and 2 nights at the Four Seasons Hollywood, five-star accommodations all weekend long, plus liveried limousine service and Zagat-rated catering. Price: $100,000. Couples packages also available. ¶ 5:59 PM 0 comments
