Is This Something?

An Eff It All Friday type post.

I keep hearing glowing reviews of the Bollywood (or "Tollywood," whatever that is) action movie "RRR," the latest one from The Critical Drinker.

The Corridor Crew, the digital effects guys most famous for their "robot abuse" videos, couldn't say enough about the imagination and you've-got-to-be-kidding over-the-top-ness of the special effects.

And now Pitch Meeting is talking about it.

I keep meaning to see it. It was on Netflix, not sure if it still is. There had been a full copy available on YouTube, but I think that's zapped now, or at least I can't find it.

The basic plot is that in 1920s colonial India, one man with some kind of primal superpowers is set to fight the colonial masters of the country. Meanwhile, the British have hired another man, also with primal superpowers, to hunt that man down and kill him.

Except neither man knows who the other is. Through happenstance, they meet and become great friends, neither knowing that one is hunting the other.

Until the end.

It all looks silly but people say it's a hoot and a half.

Did a writer insert a hidden code into his novel, commanding people to kill, without even being aware he was doing so?

I forgot to include this in the last "Is this something?"

The Red Letter Media guys liked it. But the sense I got is that is the movie is actually not all that funny; not that it fails at comedy, it's just that it's not really comedic, mostly. They liked the "message" of the movie, about our Current Year media environment in which one thing becomes The Current Thing and is everything, at least for 15 minutes.

I don't know, I haven't seen it. I guess I could enjoy a critique of Current Thing-ism but I was hoping for more of a comedy. Have you seen it? Is it a real comedy? Would you recommend it to a friend? Or to an enemy?

Is this something? This may be something!

If you're wondering how they can make a shlocky horror movie about Winnie the Pooh, it's because Disney's never-ending copyright on the character finally ended.

Milne's original Winnie-the-Pooh book has finally lapsed into the public domain, being one of the most culturally relevant stories to have broken free of copyright recently. Disney has retained control over the franchise for several decades, ever since adapting the original books into animated films.

While Milne's book is now public domain, specific Disney creations, such as the exact character design of Winnie, are still copyrighted.

Is the below something? It's available for rent now.

I can tell you if it's something -- I rented it. It's not something. The trailer is cut to suggest it's a fast-paced, light-toned comedy. In fact, it's quite a slow-paced, dour movie that is about social discomfort.

Almost all of the parts that you could find "funny" are in the trailer, and in the movie, they're presented more slowly and aren't funny. (Fast cutting tends to make things seem funny; slow cutting makes them seem dramatic or ponderous.)

It's not a horrible movie. It's just that the basic premise for the movie is a poor one. It's just an idea that is not very entertaining and also not very dramatic. They did what they set out to do with meh-level effectiveness; the bigger problem is that what they set out to do wasn't really worth doing at all.

"Let's do a 90 minute long episode of the British The Office, except with almost no humor and no breaks from the discomfort!"

Let's not do that, mate.

This is pretty fun. Enjoy!

posted by Ace at 05:25 PM

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