There’s a certain satisfaction when I see Hollywood going to books for inspiration for studio production.  Lord of the Rings brings a certain beauty and grit to the silver screen.  The same director, Peter Jackson, did a remake of King Kong, a movie I have on DVD.  I don’t buy DVD’s on the fly, only the ones that I connect to.

His next movie to be released is Lovely Bones, based on the book of the same name by Alice Sebold.

I have the book.  After reading several chapters, I had to stop.  Not because it wasn’t good because it was.  As I read I could tell I was nearing the infamous part where the girl meets her violent death.  It’s something very difficult for me to read through.  So I stopped.

OnYahoo.comthere was a post that talked about Jackson’s production and how the reviews were not good.  The main complaint it seems was the emotion and the cruel reality of the murder was missing:

“Gone is the dismembered body part that alerts the family to Susie’s fate. Gone is her anguished mother’s adulterous affair with the detective who leads the case. Gone is all mention of what really transpired in that lonely 1970s cornfield.”

According to the article, Jackson was tyring to get a PG-13 rating.  If this is true, why?

I’m not saying kids shouldn’t see this.  They should, if they want.  But this subject matter deserves an R rating.  Again, not from a prohibition standpoint.  But from a subject matter standpoint.  I know the movie industry is a business.  It’s also an artistic medium.

Look at the Matrix movies.  All of them carries an R rating.  From a subject point of view, it’s a war.  And yes, I know Star Wars has a PG rating, but clearly that was child’s play.  Matrix and Lovely Bones are not.  There’s a certain level of grit that exists in the way those stories are told that Star Wars is missing.  A good indication are the stormtroopers in the white clad armor.

There’s little that I would prohibit a child to see or learn.  That is not my standpoint here.  But Lovely Bones the movie deserves an R rating out of respect for its art and subject.

I saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. And with the slew of good to raving reviews that are out there, I’m not going to add to it.  Now, for you Potter fans, I’m not here to say how good or bad it is.  I love stories and always ask myself why I like certain stories in comparison to why I don’t.

I liked this one, based on Harry’s sixth year at Hogwarts.

J.K. Rowling has said in many interviews that the books would get darker, and this one, with the death of a main character, is definitely dark.

One other series I’ve been obsessed with are the Matrix movies.  The first one was a sleeper hit.  Every one loved it, critics and fans.  But once the sequels hit theaters, despite its financial success, not many really liked them.

And I think I know why.

With both Potter and Matrix sequels going toward dark, why did one do and feel well, while the other just felt monotone?

Humor.

The sixth movie had enough humor to bring the laughs all the way up to the climax.  The climax was the darkest part of the whole movie, so the laughs ended.  Makes sense.

Matrix had humor and sarcasm.  There were also different types of characters. One wished they didn’t take the red pill, another would pimp out a virtual girl, then there was one guy half black, half Asian who was enthusiastic, etc.  Those characters contrasted the war that was going on.

With both the Matrix sequels, there was no humor at all, no characters with color.  That’s why to me it felt monotone.  People will say that Neo and his crew were fighting a losing war.  But Harry and crew are fighting what seems to be a losing war, too.

Laughs.

Now the question becomes why laughs are needed in a dark movie?

I was talking to a coworker who is an avid churchgoer.  We were talking about perspectives on life, and I asked him what he thought about the world.  His response was this is a fallen world.  Then I told him mine, which of course is prettyPollyanish.

He countered with, “Then why is there so much suffering in this world?”

I imagined him and his choir of religious heathens eating this fallen view of the world and answered, “Because in order to have light, you must have dark.”

I personally don’t like it but understand the philosophical side.

In story, humor is not just a good release of tension.  It also contrasts the dark, making the dark darker when the dark comes.  As the story works toward its dark climax, we feel even darker as the dark falls upon us.  Which is the exact purpose of the sixth Potter movie.

When I was doing research for my book, I’d read books on Vikings, Native American Indians and Samurais. There was also a lifetime of Chinese period soap operas lurking in my head that made its way on paper. My brother pointed out a common theme that I used without knowing it in my episodes.

Then I ventured down to individuals such as Miyamoto Musashi, Geronimo, and Ibn Fadlan.  I’ve also used Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War.  I then obsessed over movies such as Braveheart, the events at the Battle for Thermopile and the History Channel.

The Samurai culture has always interested me.  In my research there was a movie I came across called The Twilight Samurai.  I immediately fell in love with it.  So much so that I bought a copy of it.  Not download it!  Bought.  It stars Hiroyuki Sanada.  If you’ve seen Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai, then you’ve seen Sanada.  He was the one who taught Cruise’s character how to sword fight.

Twilight won a dozen Japanese awards and was nominated best foreign language film in the 2002 Academy Awards.

Despite the fact that Sanada plays a low ranking Samurai, I fell in love with the character.  The character is widowed, humble to a fault, works a low paying job, loves raising his two daughters, one of the best Samurais, cares nothing for advancement, and dreams of working on his own farm.  Empathy techniques at work?

The romance in the movie works so well, tons of chemistry, and no sex scenes.  I like sex scenes, don’t get me wrong, like in a porno.  But it seems a lot of movies use sex to get the movie goer to come–ahem–instead of using it as a tool to forward the romantic story.

Take The Matrix as an example.  Look at the special effects, which the movie required.  Most of it, if not all, wasn’t terribly advanced or over done for it’s time.  Special effects was used as a tool to forward the plot, never used to get the movie goer to come.

One thing that really caught me about Twilight is there seems to be no real antagonist.  Where’s Darth Samurai?  Then it occurred to me.  The antagonist was society.  The hero struggles with money, raising his daughters, living with his senile mother and the disrespect the other Samurai.  He’s constantly badgered to remarry, to advance, to succumb to everyday standards.

His response?

“I’m too cool for ya’ll.”

Not really.  But he does resist it all.  Then comes his childhood love.  She is the monkey wrench to his well oiled machine.  From there, the story develops well, the romance progresses with all its angst, using the sign of the times to present obstacles, and there’s enough action to help the story along.  Though the sword fighting is not central to the movie.

If you like Samurai movies, rent this.  You’ll love it.