Spy Hard, Scary Movie (partially), Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet The Spartans, Vampires Suck, and the upcoming The Starving Games and The Biggest Movie Ever Made 3D. None of them are good. The best among them is generally considered to be Scary Movie, which was composed of three screenplays mashed together. Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg have yet to create a movie that rates higher than "bearable if you're doing something else while it's on". Why is that? Well, obviously, because they suck, but let's look a little harder at why they suck.
The movies are allegedly parodies. Let's start there. The first problem is that most of the time it's pretty obvious Seltzer and Friedberg have not actually seen the movies they are attempting to parody and instead think that just having seen the trailers they are qualified to mock them. As a result, their parody is shallow and witless and usually involves jokes of which everyone else has already thought, if there are any jokes at all and they are not just recreating a scene from the trailer with their own actors. Occasionally, they just steal jokes from other comedies and think that counts as doing a parody of said comedy. But I digress. To do a parody, you have to actually be familiar with the subject at hand. My policy on parodies is that they should be funny to anyone, but get funnier the more familiar you are with what's being parodied, something that simply cannot be true when the writers have not actually seen the movie or, quite often, not even looked up its summary on Wikipeda or IMDB.
Now, a quick side-rant before I continue. Most subcultures have a sense of humor about themselves. That is, the D&D players, the metalheads, the goths, the science fiction nerds--they are all aware that what they're doing is at least a little bit ridiculous. They take it seriously, just not 100%, and the people who do take it completely seriously are the ones that no one likes. Despite the stereotypes of these groups being composed of the rabidly antisocial and humorless, most of them are perfectly nice people who happen to share an affinity for a certain game or genre or style and the culture surrounding it. Back to the subject at hand:
As Mel Brooks said, "You have to love the things you parody." When a parody is made with love, it will itself be beloved. Many great parodies, such as Galaxy Quest, Metalocalypse, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and many episodes of Community are beloved by members of the culture they mock because of their affectionate touch. In fact, in many cases, they even work as part of the genre itself (Dethklok's albums have sold quite well; Batman: The Brave and the Bold has some genuinely touching moments; Galaxy Quest won a Hugo Award.)
On the other hand, more direct or Juvenalian parodies such as Shrek (yes, it's a kids' movie, but hear me out) are made with a great amount of bile and hatred for their subject of parody (in Shrek's case, for squeaky-clean Disney values), but these can still work, if not quite as well.
The Seltzerberg movies, however, do not do any of that. They are not motivated by feelings towards a particular film or genre, be it love or hate. They are motivated by a desire to make money. You'll recall in my Hot Chelle Rae rant I said "they don't want to make music, they just want to be musicians"; here, Seltzer and Friedberg do not want to make comedy, they just want to be comedians. The result is a creatively sterile and utterly ineffectual non-parody of nothing in particular.
Of course, some parodies work even despite this. Airplane! derives surprisingly few jokes from its genre of choice, aside from the overall story. Instead, Airplane! makes use of a premise the writers found to be naturally ridiculous and instead of a parody, most of the jokes can be though of as using the premise as a vehicle for the Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker style of comedy, and it worked. However, Seltzerberg fails at this because they do not write jokes. They write references. Airplane! uses plenty of references, but it always makes sure the reference doubles as a non-reference joke, even if it simply means ending the scene by having someone run into a control tower. Seltzerberg movies reference pop culture trends and quote famous movies without thought of context or humor, thinking that just by pointing at something else they are being intelligent.
Now, why the Seltzerberg movies continue to exist is the subject for a rant for another time, but I always find (and hope that others who read this agree) that one of the best ways to learn how to do something better is by watching someone else fail and learning from their mistakes. If nothing else, Seltzer and Friedberg have succeeded in providing a number of excellent non-examples of how to do a parody.
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sex and Profanity in Comedy
I don't have a problem with it, strictly speaking. Jokes on the subject have the possibility to be hilarious. There are comedians who use it very cleverly and effectively.
I do, however, had a problem with the fact that comedians have for some reason taken this fact and drawn the conclusion that "sex/profanity = funny, no exceptions". Now, technically I have this problem with just about everything, as anyone in the voting section of Memebase can tell you that just because a joke contains some potentially funny element it is automatically funny. Sex and profanity just happen to be the most prevalent.
Presented for your consideration, Pauly Shore:
I do, however, had a problem with the fact that comedians have for some reason taken this fact and drawn the conclusion that "sex/profanity = funny, no exceptions". Now, technically I have this problem with just about everything, as anyone in the voting section of Memebase can tell you that just because a joke contains some potentially funny element it is automatically funny. Sex and profanity just happen to be the most prevalent.
Presented for your consideration, Pauly Shore:
The man is not funny. Just simply... not funny. There is no funny there. If funny were to be measured by scientific instruments a recording of his shows would be a flat line at zero. However, because he throws in a brigade F-bombs he gets a few laughs. Hollow, soul-crushing pity laughs. This is cheap, lazy comedy at its worst. Comedy is defined by cleverness and lateral thinking, and this man has neither. If someone wrote a computer algorithm to make jokes in the 1980s, using a computer of the era, it would come up with precisely this kind of recycled, flat-soda commentary unfounded in reality, but perhaps with an "insert name here" where he says "Hillary Clinton" where you could instead say, oh, Geraldine Ferraro. He does not deserve to have a career as a comedian; if I ran a comedy I would not allow him to perform if he paid me. Profanity is his crutch, and the fact that it can be used as such is why I am speaking out against it now.
On the other hand, George Carlin:
He doesn't use dirty language or strong ideas because he can't get laughs otherwise, he does it because it's the right thing to do for his set. Because of the way he uses it, with obvious practice and forethought, he maximizes the effect of what would already be an poignant and hilarious piece of rhetoric.
The same problem has to do with sex, which again can be an delightful fountain of amazing jokes but can just as easily become a millstone around the neck of a viewer or listener. Remember, about 60% of any William Shakespeare play is two male protagonists talking about each other's penes (which is the correct plural of "penis", by the way). Think I'm kidding? Go re-read Romeo and Juliet. Still, he's hailed as a master of the craft of writing because they were subtle, thought-out, and creative.
Another problem: oftentimes a movie will insert some cussing or a boob shot in order to avoid getting a G or PG movie and being labelled by the public as "for kids". I would like to remind you that just because something is not good for kids does not make it good for adults. Comedy does not work by the process of elimination.
So I realize my point hasn't exactly been clear. What it comes down to is this: I am neither explicitly for nor against dirty jokes. However, make sure that they are good jokes and not just dirty. Here's an exercise: if you can prove to me you can be consistently funny without foul subject material, I will be okay with you being as filthy as you want to be.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Disney Complaints
Aladdin: Aladdin wishes to become a prince. The genie gives him a hundred camels and a hundred servants loaded with gold. First of all, that's not technically granting his wish. That's making him nobility, not royalty. But the bigger problem is... from where did those hundred servants come? There are two possibilities. Firstly, that Genie, when it was requested of him, indentured a hundred random people. No regard for their previous life, no concern for the fact that they were now demoted to nothing but carrying one guy's gold. That's pretty screwed up. The second and even more troubling possibility is that the Genie created these people out of thin air. What kind of existence would that be? Would they be human, and if so what does that say about the nature of humanity? If the wish were to be undone, what would happen to them? Would they vanish into thin air, effectively mass murder, or would they be released into a world where they have no home and no origin?
Beauty and the Beast: A similar problem: there are way too many servants in that castle. The curse lasted ten years (until the Prince's twenty-first birthday), and there were at least, I'm going to say, 200 dishes, feather dusters, etc. in the "Be Our Guest" musical number. So that means an eleven-year-old was in charge of 200 people. That's not responsible. On top of that, the Beast seems to be the most unhappy with the transformation. Excuse me, but you got off pretty easily, sir.
"Don't look at me, I'm a monster!"
"Suck it up, a-hole, I'm a candle!"
The Little Mermaid: The heartwarming story of a girl who wants something, gets it via the easiest route despite being warned about the risks involved, foists responsibility for those risks onto the person, her father, who warned her about them, and ends up getting everything she wanted without growing or developing.
Snow White: Why aren't all fourteen-year-olds married to date-raping near-strangers?
Mulan: At the end, Mulan turns down the position in the Emperor's court to live a domestic life. In the sequel, she teaches young girls martial arts. Fair enough. Mulan was based on an existing Chinese myth, and that's what happened in said myth. Except no, not fair enough. This is Disney. The original version matters about as much to them as the physics of combustibility matter to Michael Bay. If Ariel is allowed to live, Claude Frollo is allowed to be a judge instead of a priest, and Pocahontas is... well, everything about Pocahontas, then you can make some slight adjustments to the Mulan myth to give her a more proactive ending.
Cinderella: Technically, my complaint is about Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Terra insisted "You have to work hard to achieve your goals." After visiting Castle of Dreams, he says "Maybe sometimes it's enough just to dream." That's right, Cinderella is so passive she actually gets someone to backtrack morally.
Tarzan and Brother Bear: Why, Phil Collins, why?
The Disney Corporation: Unlike many adults, I do not believe Disney is an evil corporation. The thing is they market themselves as the moral pillar of all humanity, but they are still a corporation, and they do what corporations do; their job is to make money. This discrepancy is what people tend to interpret as "evil".
I do, however, strongly disapprove of the copyright laws they have pushed through, such that a copyright now lasts for seventy years after the death of the creator. There's no need for that. Copyrights were intended to protect the creator from theft for a limited amount of time. I won't much care if people are taking money from me after I'm dead and unable to, say, use said money, much less seventy years afterward. I would like it if something that was released during my childhood would be in the public domain during my lifetime, rather than fifty years after I die (that's being optimistic, I don't take good care of myself). It would also be slightly more palatable if Disney didn't get every single movie it makes from the public domain it seems to be trying so hard to kill. E.g. Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, the music from Fantasia, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, Oliver Twist, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hamlet, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Treasure Island, Chicken Little, The Princess and the Frog, Rapunzel, Winnie the Pooh. Fun fact: if the copyright laws now in place were around during the publication of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, or Tarzan, Disney would not legally have been allowed to create films based on them because of the laws they themselves recently passed. That's my beef with them.
Beauty and the Beast: A similar problem: there are way too many servants in that castle. The curse lasted ten years (until the Prince's twenty-first birthday), and there were at least, I'm going to say, 200 dishes, feather dusters, etc. in the "Be Our Guest" musical number. So that means an eleven-year-old was in charge of 200 people. That's not responsible. On top of that, the Beast seems to be the most unhappy with the transformation. Excuse me, but you got off pretty easily, sir.
"Don't look at me, I'm a monster!"
"Suck it up, a-hole, I'm a candle!"
The Little Mermaid: The heartwarming story of a girl who wants something, gets it via the easiest route despite being warned about the risks involved, foists responsibility for those risks onto the person, her father, who warned her about them, and ends up getting everything she wanted without growing or developing.
Snow White: Why aren't all fourteen-year-olds married to date-raping near-strangers?
Mulan: At the end, Mulan turns down the position in the Emperor's court to live a domestic life. In the sequel, she teaches young girls martial arts. Fair enough. Mulan was based on an existing Chinese myth, and that's what happened in said myth. Except no, not fair enough. This is Disney. The original version matters about as much to them as the physics of combustibility matter to Michael Bay. If Ariel is allowed to live, Claude Frollo is allowed to be a judge instead of a priest, and Pocahontas is... well, everything about Pocahontas, then you can make some slight adjustments to the Mulan myth to give her a more proactive ending.
Cinderella: Technically, my complaint is about Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Terra insisted "You have to work hard to achieve your goals." After visiting Castle of Dreams, he says "Maybe sometimes it's enough just to dream." That's right, Cinderella is so passive she actually gets someone to backtrack morally.
Tarzan and Brother Bear: Why, Phil Collins, why?
The Disney Corporation: Unlike many adults, I do not believe Disney is an evil corporation. The thing is they market themselves as the moral pillar of all humanity, but they are still a corporation, and they do what corporations do; their job is to make money. This discrepancy is what people tend to interpret as "evil".
I do, however, strongly disapprove of the copyright laws they have pushed through, such that a copyright now lasts for seventy years after the death of the creator. There's no need for that. Copyrights were intended to protect the creator from theft for a limited amount of time. I won't much care if people are taking money from me after I'm dead and unable to, say, use said money, much less seventy years afterward. I would like it if something that was released during my childhood would be in the public domain during my lifetime, rather than fifty years after I die (that's being optimistic, I don't take good care of myself). It would also be slightly more palatable if Disney didn't get every single movie it makes from the public domain it seems to be trying so hard to kill. E.g. Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, the music from Fantasia, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, Oliver Twist, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hamlet, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Treasure Island, Chicken Little, The Princess and the Frog, Rapunzel, Winnie the Pooh. Fun fact: if the copyright laws now in place were around during the publication of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, or Tarzan, Disney would not legally have been allowed to create films based on them because of the laws they themselves recently passed. That's my beef with them.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Top Ten: Favorite Movies
Well, it's Friday, and if you're me or if you hacked my account, you know that means it's time for a Top Ten list!
Today, I'll be rattling off my top ten favorite movies of all time. To make it a little more interesting, I've decided to only use one film per director maximum. Yes, that means I'll be excluding some of my favorites. Remember, this is a personal list. If you have different opinions, give us your own top ten in the comments.
Number Ten: Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder
Film Noir is kind of a mixed bag for me personally. I like a lot of the concepts, but I have trouble when it comes to actually sitting down and enjoying the movie. Sunset Boulevard is the exception, in a big way. It's not dark for the sake of dark, it's dark because the story is deeply rooted in complex and troubling topics such as sanity vs. insanity and the pain of time, and it explores them well.
What really makes this movie great, compared to other comparable movies, is the characters. You'll remember from one of my earlier rants the problems I have with female characters and romance in most media, particularly older American films. Not here. Every character's goals, motivations, and personality and made perfectly clear and remains consistent throughout the film's entirety.
Something I really, really like is that point where there are no "well what if"s, because the background is so thoroughly explained that the film or television series portrays the most logical course of events for the setup. I got one of those in Puella Magi Madoka Magica; I got one here.
It's subtle, it's brilliant, it even has a few funny moments. If this were an objective list instead of a subjective one, Sunset Boulevard would be much higher up. I put it at number ten mostly because it's sort of outside my normal preference of genre.
Number Nine: Grave of the Fireflies
Isao Takahata
One of my pet peeves when it comes to anime isn't really with anime, it's sort of the idea that it's inherently better (or for that matter, that it's fundamentally different) because it's from Japan. While they do have a few key cultural differences, I really prefer to judge them on the same scale as American media. Anyway, I digress.
Grave of the Fireflies is probably the saddest movie I've ever seen. It's like they took that banned Jerry Lewis Movie The Day The Clown Cried, recast it with Littlefoot's mom, Simba's dad, and Fry's dog, and screened it for a theater full of orphans with cancer. Oh yeah, and it's based on the director's true story.
(This of course makes it slightly hilarious that it ran in a double feature with My Neighbor Totoro, a kid's movie. I would absolutely love to see those kids' reactions.)
And again, it's sad for all the right reasons. The characters are so deep and well-detailed that you have trouble actually "blaming" the antagonist (whose only crime was expecting the protagonist to contribute) any more or less than the protagonist (whose faults are the result of childhood immaturity in a harsh environment more than hubris).
I can't really say a lot without ruining the movie. One thing I'd like to point out, though, is the subtle tricks and foreshadowing that you don't even notice the first few times watching. It's definitely one to review.
Number Eight: Up
Pete Docter
One of the most common misconceptions in media is that things made for children are inherently inferior. Though there are shows like Invader Zim and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with peripheral audiences, it's pretty rare that something dubbed a "kid's movie" gets any serious respect, which is a shame because a lot of it is genuinely well-constructed stuff.
Up is one of those few that's just so amazing that people have trouble dismissing it. It has perhaps the most heartbreaking story ever told in ten minutes or less... and then the rest of the movie happens with the same momentum. Pixar is famous for not doing anything halfway, and it's hard to list just one of their movies. Roger Ebert called Toy Story "the greatest trilogy of all time". But I'm confident it's Up that best shows off everything they do right.
The animation is spectacular. At a few points I found myself utterly forgetting what I was seeing wasn't real. The story and dialogue, not to mention the voice acting, were designed perfectly to garner the perfect emotions at the perfect times.
Again, this is a little low on the list, and while I'm saying the other films are better, it's hard to say this one is worse, even though, y'know, that's the implication. It's pretty hard to criticize it.
Number Seven: Citizen Kane
Orson Welles
"To Build A Fire" is frequently hailed as "the perfect short story". The trouble is, while it does pretty well exemplify everything a short story should be, I personally don't find it that interesting. I don't dislike it, per se, but there are a lot of short stories I like more.
Citizen Kane, often called "the perfect movie", is not like that. For me, at least. I genuinely enjoyed every minute of this film. There's of course the story (deep, well-crafted, and clever, enough to impress you even when you know the ending), but what really makes this movie for me is the technical aspects. The directing and cinematography did things that filmmakers today still rarely attempt.
Again, I'm forced to put this movie lower than it would be on an objective list (where it would be number one) because it's sort of outside my preferences. It earns its spot by being just so technically amazing that I can't help but love it.
Number Six: Airplane!
David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker
Another common misconception (and one that's built into many institutions, including the Academy Awards) is that comedy is somehow "less" than serious drama. While I'll elaborate more on that in a future rant, the point is that comedy is just as difficult to make, if not more so, than serious drama, and it is no less art.
This being why Airplane! is so often underappreciated. No, it's not some complex satire (though it is a parody of a particular genre); no, it's not some subtle deconstruction. It's just funny. Really, really funny. So funny that I defy you to watch it and not laugh at least once. I forget whom, but one critic of the film raved, "If you don't like a joke, don't worry; another one will be along in a couple of seconds". With considerably more hits than misses, at that.
The film follows the plot of the earlier movie Zero Hour! (so closely, in fact, that the directors bought the rights to that movie just to be safe) and mocks the "airplane disaster" movie genre fad of the time. Some younger readers may wonder, "What? I've never seen any of those movies!" That's because Airplane! so thoroughly spoofed them that after that, people just stopped making them and watching them. That's thorough.
It's a work of cinematic art, and nothing less. And yes, the exclamation point is part of the title.
Number Five: Edward Scissorhands
Tim Burton
Say what you will about Tim Burton, but you have got to give him Edward Scissorhands. His love of grim, German Expressionist designs with high key lighting gives the perfect atmosphere of the stranger in a strange land. Vincent Price was magnificent as the inventor. Tim Burton fills his shots with subtle but meaningful props and backgrounds that bring even more depth to the characters.
The story is perhaps the epitome of "it's better than it sounds": A guy with sharp blades for hands moves into the suburbs, cuts hedges and hair. But trust me, it's better than it sounds.
What makes this movie magnificent is two things: the first and most important is the character of Edward. Here's something: he only says 169 words in the entire film. Did you even notice that? That's how effectively those words were chosen to portray him. A lot of directors seriously screw up the "quiet guy" archetype. Not Burton, not here. Johnny Depp gives a brilliant performance as someone who's confused, scared, and just wants to feel safe.
The second thing is the ending, which I'm not giving away. Watch the movie.
Number Four: The Graduate
Mike Nichols
One of the handful of exceptions to the "comedies get no respect" rule, The Graduate is a dry, witty tragicomedy following Benjamin Braddock as he tries and fails to find his place in life. With iconic characters and dialogue ("Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me!") and an uproariously funny ending, The Graduate has struggled to earn its place of honor.
The mise-en-scene and cinematography are excellent, despite the fact that they were largely handled by newbies to the scene. Like e.e. cummings with poetry, they break the rules in all the right ways (zooming instead of tracking; the rule of thirds).
It's hard to put one's finger on exactly what makes this movie so great, though. It's the sort of thing you have to see.
Number Three: A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick
Kubrick is a director known for taking a lot of risks and winning. Picking his "best" movie is really a matter of personal preference, so I'd like to make a shout-out to something in one of his other films before proceeding.
HAL 9000, from 2001: A Space Odyssey. With his creepy monotone voice and cold robotic logic, plus the fact that he can do literally just about anything he wants to kill you, make him perhaps the most terrifying villain ever brought to screen. You can't even put a face to him, he's just a red dot and a space station. His polite manner of speaking just serves to make him creepier. I scoffed at The Exorcist, but "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" still throws me for a loop.
Anyway, A Clockwork Orange. This time we get the twist of seeing the villain as our protagonist (it's not unique or novel, but it's still rare enough to become a delicacy of cinema). The film explores themes of human agency in a chilling narrative that makes it a real moral question, not just a straightforward "this is wrong, don't do it" sort of way. I say that despite hating the word "chilling" (again, a rant for another time). The book did that; the movie adds to it by the controversial technique of not cutting anything. We see every violent horrible thing Alex DeLarge does in detail. By making him so thoroughly evil we're forced to seriously consider the moral prospects the film provides.
Everything that makes this movie comes down to that singular goal: make the audience say "I don't know". The soundtrack, the dialogue, the staging, the editing--it's all designed towards that one end, and boy does it work.
It earns its place because I love dystopian settings. It's a quirk of mine. And you'll certainly see that in...
Number Two: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Hayao Miyazaki
This was a really, really tough decision to make, since there's no Hayao Miyazaki film I don't love. It was really a tough decision, one on which I'm still not 100% positive, so I'd be remiss if I didn't at least point out its competition.
Kiki's Delivery Service: While the slice-of-life genre is pretty prevalent in television, it's pretty rare in film. And for good reason, since the format and timing is extremely hard to get down. Kiki's Delivery Service, though, shows that it is not impossible, and that it can be done very well. There's no antagonist and the story is pretty loosely defined, yet it still pulls it all together for a thrilling climax in the face of everything you learn in film school. Since this is Hayao Miyazaki, the characters are lovable and the animation and art is breathtaking.
Spirited Away: His most famous and awarded film, for good reason, but it never really clicked for me. I loved it, of course, I just never loved it-loved it. The art is probably the best it's been in any Ghibli film, at least any Ghibli film I've seen (which is most of them, though I've heard Goro Miyazaki's films are very impressive in this respect). Again, it's hard to say it did anything wrong, it just wasn't my favorite.
Princess Mononoke: Okay, this was the big one. It really came down to Nausicaa or Mononoke, and there are still some things in Mononoke that I prefer to Nausicaa. The art is nothing short of gorgeous, the message is subtle but poignant, it's got some great action and world creation. It was physically painful to leave it off the list.
No film by Hayao Miyazaki would be out of place on this list (My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa, Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo). Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind wins on a few slim margins.
The first: I love the world in which it's set. I said I love dystopia, and Nausicaa includes a beautiful one. We see just enough of it to get a deep appreciation for the situation, but it keeps enough hidden to prevent it from being a true dystopia: there is still hope, no matter how lost it seems in the Sea of Decay.
Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away win for the art, but Nausicaa is no slouch. One of the things I adore about animated films is the visual freedom they express. The animation is smooth and beautiful from start to finish, and it sort of epitomizes the Ghibli style you'll see in their other movies.
It goes without saying that I love the characters. The people aren't easily divided into "active" or "passive", "good" or "evil". They fall everywhere on any spectrum, and you can even get a sense of individuality among characters that aren't even named. Nausicaa herself is developed and overall delightful to watch.
I guess the clincher would be (and call me petty if you will) the soundtrack. "Mehve To Corvette No Tatakai" is my favorite song from any Ghibli film, and the music throughout was probably the best I'd heard in Ghibli up until The Borrower Arrietty. Like I said, it was a slim victory.
Nausicaa is just the tallest head in a tall field, and I absolutely adore it.
And finally...
Number One: Brazil
Terry Gilliam
Again, this was a hard one to pick, since the director has done so many great things (all three Monty Python movies, Twelve Monkeys, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen). This boils down to one thing: dystopia.
If I may digress, let me state that this movie is criminally underappreciated. It did okay in the UK, but it flopped in the US because of poor marketing, and I've only met a handful of people who've heard of it, let alone seen it. That is an appalling shame, because it is a masterpiece.
Now, the movie itself. I love the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (yes, to be correct, you have to spell out the numbers). Terry Gilliam took heavy inspiration from Ingsoc and decided to make a dystopian movie that was absolutely side-splittingly hilarious. Another thing I love is black humor, and Brazil is replete with it.
A bored bureaucrat swats a fly, setting the story in motion as unhappy drone Sam Laury attempts to track down the woman of his dreams, literally. The story is intricate, dark, satirical, and laugh-out-loud funny.
The story is great (and I don't want to give too much away), but it's really only half of it. Terry Gilliam has a notorious but very effective style of mise-en-scene: nearly perpetual low-key lighting, extremely crowded shots full of bustling activity, and paper, lots and lots of paper. There's no shortage of visual motifs, all of which are perfectly placed between subtle and obvious.
There's nothing I don't adore about this movie. The visuals are amazing to watch, the dialogue is flawless, and every character is pleasantly unpleasant. If I had to give up every other movie in the world just to keep this one, I'd do it.
So, that's my personal top ten. Tune in next Friday for: the Top Ten Franchises for Geeks. Signing out.
Today, I'll be rattling off my top ten favorite movies of all time. To make it a little more interesting, I've decided to only use one film per director maximum. Yes, that means I'll be excluding some of my favorites. Remember, this is a personal list. If you have different opinions, give us your own top ten in the comments.
Number Ten: Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder
Film Noir is kind of a mixed bag for me personally. I like a lot of the concepts, but I have trouble when it comes to actually sitting down and enjoying the movie. Sunset Boulevard is the exception, in a big way. It's not dark for the sake of dark, it's dark because the story is deeply rooted in complex and troubling topics such as sanity vs. insanity and the pain of time, and it explores them well.
What really makes this movie great, compared to other comparable movies, is the characters. You'll remember from one of my earlier rants the problems I have with female characters and romance in most media, particularly older American films. Not here. Every character's goals, motivations, and personality and made perfectly clear and remains consistent throughout the film's entirety.
Something I really, really like is that point where there are no "well what if"s, because the background is so thoroughly explained that the film or television series portrays the most logical course of events for the setup. I got one of those in Puella Magi Madoka Magica; I got one here.
It's subtle, it's brilliant, it even has a few funny moments. If this were an objective list instead of a subjective one, Sunset Boulevard would be much higher up. I put it at number ten mostly because it's sort of outside my normal preference of genre.
Number Nine: Grave of the Fireflies
Isao Takahata
One of my pet peeves when it comes to anime isn't really with anime, it's sort of the idea that it's inherently better (or for that matter, that it's fundamentally different) because it's from Japan. While they do have a few key cultural differences, I really prefer to judge them on the same scale as American media. Anyway, I digress.
Grave of the Fireflies is probably the saddest movie I've ever seen. It's like they took that banned Jerry Lewis Movie The Day The Clown Cried, recast it with Littlefoot's mom, Simba's dad, and Fry's dog, and screened it for a theater full of orphans with cancer. Oh yeah, and it's based on the director's true story.
(This of course makes it slightly hilarious that it ran in a double feature with My Neighbor Totoro, a kid's movie. I would absolutely love to see those kids' reactions.)
And again, it's sad for all the right reasons. The characters are so deep and well-detailed that you have trouble actually "blaming" the antagonist (whose only crime was expecting the protagonist to contribute) any more or less than the protagonist (whose faults are the result of childhood immaturity in a harsh environment more than hubris).
I can't really say a lot without ruining the movie. One thing I'd like to point out, though, is the subtle tricks and foreshadowing that you don't even notice the first few times watching. It's definitely one to review.
Number Eight: Up
Pete Docter
One of the most common misconceptions in media is that things made for children are inherently inferior. Though there are shows like Invader Zim and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with peripheral audiences, it's pretty rare that something dubbed a "kid's movie" gets any serious respect, which is a shame because a lot of it is genuinely well-constructed stuff.
Up is one of those few that's just so amazing that people have trouble dismissing it. It has perhaps the most heartbreaking story ever told in ten minutes or less... and then the rest of the movie happens with the same momentum. Pixar is famous for not doing anything halfway, and it's hard to list just one of their movies. Roger Ebert called Toy Story "the greatest trilogy of all time". But I'm confident it's Up that best shows off everything they do right.
The animation is spectacular. At a few points I found myself utterly forgetting what I was seeing wasn't real. The story and dialogue, not to mention the voice acting, were designed perfectly to garner the perfect emotions at the perfect times.
Again, this is a little low on the list, and while I'm saying the other films are better, it's hard to say this one is worse, even though, y'know, that's the implication. It's pretty hard to criticize it.
Number Seven: Citizen Kane
Orson Welles
"To Build A Fire" is frequently hailed as "the perfect short story". The trouble is, while it does pretty well exemplify everything a short story should be, I personally don't find it that interesting. I don't dislike it, per se, but there are a lot of short stories I like more.
Citizen Kane, often called "the perfect movie", is not like that. For me, at least. I genuinely enjoyed every minute of this film. There's of course the story (deep, well-crafted, and clever, enough to impress you even when you know the ending), but what really makes this movie for me is the technical aspects. The directing and cinematography did things that filmmakers today still rarely attempt.
Again, I'm forced to put this movie lower than it would be on an objective list (where it would be number one) because it's sort of outside my preferences. It earns its spot by being just so technically amazing that I can't help but love it.
Number Six: Airplane!
David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker
Another common misconception (and one that's built into many institutions, including the Academy Awards) is that comedy is somehow "less" than serious drama. While I'll elaborate more on that in a future rant, the point is that comedy is just as difficult to make, if not more so, than serious drama, and it is no less art.
This being why Airplane! is so often underappreciated. No, it's not some complex satire (though it is a parody of a particular genre); no, it's not some subtle deconstruction. It's just funny. Really, really funny. So funny that I defy you to watch it and not laugh at least once. I forget whom, but one critic of the film raved, "If you don't like a joke, don't worry; another one will be along in a couple of seconds". With considerably more hits than misses, at that.
The film follows the plot of the earlier movie Zero Hour! (so closely, in fact, that the directors bought the rights to that movie just to be safe) and mocks the "airplane disaster" movie genre fad of the time. Some younger readers may wonder, "What? I've never seen any of those movies!" That's because Airplane! so thoroughly spoofed them that after that, people just stopped making them and watching them. That's thorough.
It's a work of cinematic art, and nothing less. And yes, the exclamation point is part of the title.
Number Five: Edward Scissorhands
Tim Burton
Say what you will about Tim Burton, but you have got to give him Edward Scissorhands. His love of grim, German Expressionist designs with high key lighting gives the perfect atmosphere of the stranger in a strange land. Vincent Price was magnificent as the inventor. Tim Burton fills his shots with subtle but meaningful props and backgrounds that bring even more depth to the characters.
The story is perhaps the epitome of "it's better than it sounds": A guy with sharp blades for hands moves into the suburbs, cuts hedges and hair. But trust me, it's better than it sounds.
What makes this movie magnificent is two things: the first and most important is the character of Edward. Here's something: he only says 169 words in the entire film. Did you even notice that? That's how effectively those words were chosen to portray him. A lot of directors seriously screw up the "quiet guy" archetype. Not Burton, not here. Johnny Depp gives a brilliant performance as someone who's confused, scared, and just wants to feel safe.
The second thing is the ending, which I'm not giving away. Watch the movie.
Number Four: The Graduate
Mike Nichols
One of the handful of exceptions to the "comedies get no respect" rule, The Graduate is a dry, witty tragicomedy following Benjamin Braddock as he tries and fails to find his place in life. With iconic characters and dialogue ("Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me!") and an uproariously funny ending, The Graduate has struggled to earn its place of honor.
The mise-en-scene and cinematography are excellent, despite the fact that they were largely handled by newbies to the scene. Like e.e. cummings with poetry, they break the rules in all the right ways (zooming instead of tracking; the rule of thirds).
It's hard to put one's finger on exactly what makes this movie so great, though. It's the sort of thing you have to see.
Number Three: A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick
Kubrick is a director known for taking a lot of risks and winning. Picking his "best" movie is really a matter of personal preference, so I'd like to make a shout-out to something in one of his other films before proceeding.
HAL 9000, from 2001: A Space Odyssey. With his creepy monotone voice and cold robotic logic, plus the fact that he can do literally just about anything he wants to kill you, make him perhaps the most terrifying villain ever brought to screen. You can't even put a face to him, he's just a red dot and a space station. His polite manner of speaking just serves to make him creepier. I scoffed at The Exorcist, but "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" still throws me for a loop.
Anyway, A Clockwork Orange. This time we get the twist of seeing the villain as our protagonist (it's not unique or novel, but it's still rare enough to become a delicacy of cinema). The film explores themes of human agency in a chilling narrative that makes it a real moral question, not just a straightforward "this is wrong, don't do it" sort of way. I say that despite hating the word "chilling" (again, a rant for another time). The book did that; the movie adds to it by the controversial technique of not cutting anything. We see every violent horrible thing Alex DeLarge does in detail. By making him so thoroughly evil we're forced to seriously consider the moral prospects the film provides.
Everything that makes this movie comes down to that singular goal: make the audience say "I don't know". The soundtrack, the dialogue, the staging, the editing--it's all designed towards that one end, and boy does it work.
It earns its place because I love dystopian settings. It's a quirk of mine. And you'll certainly see that in...
Number Two: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Hayao Miyazaki
This was a really, really tough decision to make, since there's no Hayao Miyazaki film I don't love. It was really a tough decision, one on which I'm still not 100% positive, so I'd be remiss if I didn't at least point out its competition.
Kiki's Delivery Service: While the slice-of-life genre is pretty prevalent in television, it's pretty rare in film. And for good reason, since the format and timing is extremely hard to get down. Kiki's Delivery Service, though, shows that it is not impossible, and that it can be done very well. There's no antagonist and the story is pretty loosely defined, yet it still pulls it all together for a thrilling climax in the face of everything you learn in film school. Since this is Hayao Miyazaki, the characters are lovable and the animation and art is breathtaking.
Spirited Away: His most famous and awarded film, for good reason, but it never really clicked for me. I loved it, of course, I just never loved it-loved it. The art is probably the best it's been in any Ghibli film, at least any Ghibli film I've seen (which is most of them, though I've heard Goro Miyazaki's films are very impressive in this respect). Again, it's hard to say it did anything wrong, it just wasn't my favorite.
Princess Mononoke: Okay, this was the big one. It really came down to Nausicaa or Mononoke, and there are still some things in Mononoke that I prefer to Nausicaa. The art is nothing short of gorgeous, the message is subtle but poignant, it's got some great action and world creation. It was physically painful to leave it off the list.
No film by Hayao Miyazaki would be out of place on this list (My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa, Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo). Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind wins on a few slim margins.
The first: I love the world in which it's set. I said I love dystopia, and Nausicaa includes a beautiful one. We see just enough of it to get a deep appreciation for the situation, but it keeps enough hidden to prevent it from being a true dystopia: there is still hope, no matter how lost it seems in the Sea of Decay.
Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away win for the art, but Nausicaa is no slouch. One of the things I adore about animated films is the visual freedom they express. The animation is smooth and beautiful from start to finish, and it sort of epitomizes the Ghibli style you'll see in their other movies.
It goes without saying that I love the characters. The people aren't easily divided into "active" or "passive", "good" or "evil". They fall everywhere on any spectrum, and you can even get a sense of individuality among characters that aren't even named. Nausicaa herself is developed and overall delightful to watch.
I guess the clincher would be (and call me petty if you will) the soundtrack. "Mehve To Corvette No Tatakai" is my favorite song from any Ghibli film, and the music throughout was probably the best I'd heard in Ghibli up until The Borrower Arrietty. Like I said, it was a slim victory.
Nausicaa is just the tallest head in a tall field, and I absolutely adore it.
And finally...
Number One: Brazil
Terry Gilliam
Again, this was a hard one to pick, since the director has done so many great things (all three Monty Python movies, Twelve Monkeys, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen). This boils down to one thing: dystopia.
If I may digress, let me state that this movie is criminally underappreciated. It did okay in the UK, but it flopped in the US because of poor marketing, and I've only met a handful of people who've heard of it, let alone seen it. That is an appalling shame, because it is a masterpiece.
Now, the movie itself. I love the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (yes, to be correct, you have to spell out the numbers). Terry Gilliam took heavy inspiration from Ingsoc and decided to make a dystopian movie that was absolutely side-splittingly hilarious. Another thing I love is black humor, and Brazil is replete with it.
A bored bureaucrat swats a fly, setting the story in motion as unhappy drone Sam Laury attempts to track down the woman of his dreams, literally. The story is intricate, dark, satirical, and laugh-out-loud funny.
The story is great (and I don't want to give too much away), but it's really only half of it. Terry Gilliam has a notorious but very effective style of mise-en-scene: nearly perpetual low-key lighting, extremely crowded shots full of bustling activity, and paper, lots and lots of paper. There's no shortage of visual motifs, all of which are perfectly placed between subtle and obvious.
There's nothing I don't adore about this movie. The visuals are amazing to watch, the dialogue is flawless, and every character is pleasantly unpleasant. If I had to give up every other movie in the world just to keep this one, I'd do it.
So, that's my personal top ten. Tune in next Friday for: the Top Ten Franchises for Geeks. Signing out.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
The Romantic Bechdel Test
This story, one of countless "Facebook Love Stories" distributed by hormonal teenagers who apparently "crie evertim" they read the word "love" or "dead" and whose appreciation for the English language is underdeveloped to say the least, represents a fundamental flaw I see in humanity's collective culture. While this is particularly narmy (and without the dramatic reading, almost painful to read), the problem is universal.
The problem is that we, as a species, have no appreciation for subtlety when it comes to love. When we see a couple on screen, if they aren't sucking face they aren't "in love". They're "boring". The best they can hope for is to give the main characters bad advice (old people are exempt from this rule).
They aren't all bad, of course. It's much like the Bechdel Test*, though: it's less a judge of a single movie and more of movies in general. Does the movie intone that one type of love is better than another? That's the problem to which I'm referring.
[[*At least two female characters who have at least one conversation about something other than men or a man. Used as a litmus test of the feminism of movies: do they treat the females as actual characters, or just as accessories to the male lead?]]
Even worse, it seems like we're unable to have any movies without romance. Again, sometimes it's okay. Sometimes it's great. But it gets very frustrating when every single movie decides that its lead had to close a scene with a kiss. If there's both a male and a female in the main cast, then it's a forgone conclusion. The last exception, at least the last exception I can currently recall, was Blade. That came out in 1998. It's like, no, I'm trying to get into this story, but you seem to have decided that plot isn't enough.
This also has an annoying tendency to create characters with no purpose other than being romantic partners. This is why chick flicks like When Harry Met Sally do so much better than those like Kate and Leopold: not because of some magical non-chick-flickiness, it's because they're, y'know, good. These characters are absolutely frustrating for me, as a connoisseur of fiction, because they are the epitome of flat characters: they don't even have that one trait that makes a flat character, their only trait is that they exist alongside another character.
Why is this so absolutely awful? Because it means the romance won't work. The characters aren't interesting enough for me to believe that they stand a conversation together, let alone a relationship. Here's my "romantic litmus test", modeled after the Bechdel Test: the characters must have at least one good conversation on a topic other than themselves or each other that would work equally well (A) if they were romantically connected; (B) if they were not romantically connected and had no desire to be; AND (C) if they had already been married for twenty years. That's what I would consider a real conversation.
If you can't fluidly do that, then don't make them romantic leads. It would just be an awkwardly shoehorned subplot. Next time you watch a movie, see if it passes. Again, like the Bechdel test, it does not by itself mean the movie/romance is bad (my favorite movie of all time, Brazil, does not pass). Plenty of wonderful movies failed the Bechdel test, too (Twelve Angry Men, any war movie). The problem arises when you consider how rarely the test works.
It doesn't have to be a romantic movie. The original Bechdel test used Alien as its example, which was hardly a radical feminist statement. It was just a movie which happened to have well-written female characters.
Coming back to the "dramatic romance" part of the rant: that's just simply not how love works. It works because two people can tolerate to be around each other so much that they begin to want to tolerate each other. A date goes smoothly because people have common interests, not because the guy rescued the girl from the enemy ship. I long for a movie that recognizes, yeah, just because we've done something big together doesn't mean we should get married.
Oh yeah, another pet peeve: high school romances end. They end. Maybe 5% of them don't. But if your TV show or movie ends at graduation, then those romantic leads are getting married. That's always bugged me.
Personally, I want a girl who doesn't mind that I'm flipping through Wikipedia while we talk... because she's doing the same thing. Not someone who'd drag me to her friend's birthday party, someone whose friends are interesting enough I'd want to go anyway. "Our Song" would be something with an awesome guitar riff and trippy lyrics, not some sappy pop ballad. In short, the absolute opposite of nearly every rom com I've ever seen.
With the exception that I'd really like her to be hot. Signing out.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The Mary Sue
Aah, the Mary Sue. Bane of fanfiction readers everywhere, this horrible abomination against writing has managed to wriggle its way into every medium, dragging down its quality and ruining forever everything it touches.
Except, no.
The Mary Sue, despite all the hate against it, is a character archetype and, like any character archetype, can be used poorly or used well. Very well, in fact.
First, it seems like we should describe exactly what makes a Mary Sue (which I will be using to refer to both genders; in other contexts you may see male Sues called Marty Stus or Gary Stus or some other variant). This is not easy to do, since everyone has their own definition, and since it's hard to pin down exactly.
The original Mary Sue comes from A Trekkie's Tale and was actually a parody of other ridiculous self-inserts the author had seen in earlier fanfictions. Some of the defining traits is that she is overly perfect, enough that he or she overshadows all the other characters. The character does not grow or develop significantly. The rules of the universe seem to be built or bent just for them. We'll say that these are "the" Mary Sue traits, and the others are peripheral to it.
Her powers and abilities are vaguely defined so she can conjure new ones as the plot demands. These powers and abilities may or may not fit in with the context of the world, may or may not be explained, and will always be more important than anyone else's. If she dies, it's either because she was "too good for this sinful earth" or else she's coming back.
Her physical appearance is always perfect, but she'll rarely know it. She might have some deformity (wings are popular) which she thinks make her ugly until someone tells her otherwise.
Expect them to be able to do whatever they want and no one will ever call them out if (I repeat: if) they make a mistake. She'll probably have had a hard life, but it will never weigh her down. She will have sex precisely as often as she wants to. In most cases it's an insert of the author; the author's views are always exactly right in the universe in which the story takes place, and no good character will ever question them.
Sounds pretty boring, right? No wonder every Mary Sue is a detriment to anything in which she appears, right? Again, no. While this describes many unpleasant characters (Ebony Raven Dark'ness Dementia Tara Way, Bella Swan, Wesley Crusher, Jenna Silverblade, SCI Spy), it also describes a surprising number of beloved pop culture and literature icons. Don't believe me?
-Mary Poppins
-James Bond
-Gandalf (from The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit)
-Sora (from Kingdom Hearts)
-Vash the Stampede (from Trigun)
-Mary Jensen (from There's Something About Mary)
We already know James Bond will never be defeated, and he'll always pull off some daring feat in the third act that results in perfect victory after sleeping with an attractive female lead. So why do we watch movie after movie while ripping Sonichu to shreds?
Well, to be fair, Sonichu's kind of beyond saving. But let's ignore that for now.
I currently have a multi-part model that explains this. The first is the setting and storyline. If you're going to have a perfect character, then the challenges they must face must be scaled up appropriately. They must be challenged despite their seeming perfection. Vash, the superbly skilled gunman, must win without killing anyone, while coping with the pain he's inflicted in the past. Mary Poppins' perfection is actually the main point of her character, and she's used as a tool to develop the others. If the audience is more concerned about how our hero will win this time, they'll be a lot less concerned about how unrealistic it is that they've made it this far.
In How Not to Write a Novel, the authors tell prospective writers that the more improbably something is, the more important it must be to the story. If the protagonist wins the lottery, they must win it early on and the story must center on it (was there a caper involved? How will they spend the money?) Likewise, the more impossible a character, the more the challenge must be ramped up.
One of the cornerstones of the Mary Sue bashing is saying that it's just wish fulfillment for the author. This overlooks the fact that this can be a good thing--as long as it can be wish fulfillment for the reader as well. Ultimately, James Bond is built on this.
However, the third point is far more important, and it all comes down to that cardinal rule of writing: show, don't tell. SCI Spy isn't all that different from James Bond, to the point where it's fair to call him a straight rip-off. What SCI Spy does wrong, however, is that it focuses far too much on telling us why the titular character is so great, while a James Bond book or movie gives us the pleasure of watching him outsmart the bad guys and charm the ladies. Instead of having someone tell us Sora is cheerful and lovable, then making him act like a sullen jerk the entire game, we see him being cheerful and lovable.
This becomes particularly important when it comes to dialogue. Mary Sues are often built up as witty, charming, and uproariously funny. As Dorothy Parker said, "I have yet to have an author inform me that a character is charming, and then, by that character’s deeds and conversation, convince me of that fact." Again referring to James Bond, we know he's witty because we see him being witty, and we enjoy it. In fact, the problem is not the Mary Sue; no character or story works well when telling overshadows showing.
However, none of this means that your fanfiction is good. Signing out.
Except, no.
The Mary Sue, despite all the hate against it, is a character archetype and, like any character archetype, can be used poorly or used well. Very well, in fact.
First, it seems like we should describe exactly what makes a Mary Sue (which I will be using to refer to both genders; in other contexts you may see male Sues called Marty Stus or Gary Stus or some other variant). This is not easy to do, since everyone has their own definition, and since it's hard to pin down exactly.
The original Mary Sue comes from A Trekkie's Tale and was actually a parody of other ridiculous self-inserts the author had seen in earlier fanfictions. Some of the defining traits is that she is overly perfect, enough that he or she overshadows all the other characters. The character does not grow or develop significantly. The rules of the universe seem to be built or bent just for them. We'll say that these are "the" Mary Sue traits, and the others are peripheral to it.
Her powers and abilities are vaguely defined so she can conjure new ones as the plot demands. These powers and abilities may or may not fit in with the context of the world, may or may not be explained, and will always be more important than anyone else's. If she dies, it's either because she was "too good for this sinful earth" or else she's coming back.
Her physical appearance is always perfect, but she'll rarely know it. She might have some deformity (wings are popular) which she thinks make her ugly until someone tells her otherwise.
Expect them to be able to do whatever they want and no one will ever call them out if (I repeat: if) they make a mistake. She'll probably have had a hard life, but it will never weigh her down. She will have sex precisely as often as she wants to. In most cases it's an insert of the author; the author's views are always exactly right in the universe in which the story takes place, and no good character will ever question them.
Sounds pretty boring, right? No wonder every Mary Sue is a detriment to anything in which she appears, right? Again, no. While this describes many unpleasant characters (Ebony Raven Dark'ness Dementia Tara Way, Bella Swan, Wesley Crusher, Jenna Silverblade, SCI Spy), it also describes a surprising number of beloved pop culture and literature icons. Don't believe me?
-Mary Poppins
-James Bond
-Gandalf (from The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit)
-Sora (from Kingdom Hearts)
-Vash the Stampede (from Trigun)
-Mary Jensen (from There's Something About Mary)
We already know James Bond will never be defeated, and he'll always pull off some daring feat in the third act that results in perfect victory after sleeping with an attractive female lead. So why do we watch movie after movie while ripping Sonichu to shreds?
Well, to be fair, Sonichu's kind of beyond saving. But let's ignore that for now.
I currently have a multi-part model that explains this. The first is the setting and storyline. If you're going to have a perfect character, then the challenges they must face must be scaled up appropriately. They must be challenged despite their seeming perfection. Vash, the superbly skilled gunman, must win without killing anyone, while coping with the pain he's inflicted in the past. Mary Poppins' perfection is actually the main point of her character, and she's used as a tool to develop the others. If the audience is more concerned about how our hero will win this time, they'll be a lot less concerned about how unrealistic it is that they've made it this far.
In How Not to Write a Novel, the authors tell prospective writers that the more improbably something is, the more important it must be to the story. If the protagonist wins the lottery, they must win it early on and the story must center on it (was there a caper involved? How will they spend the money?) Likewise, the more impossible a character, the more the challenge must be ramped up.
One of the cornerstones of the Mary Sue bashing is saying that it's just wish fulfillment for the author. This overlooks the fact that this can be a good thing--as long as it can be wish fulfillment for the reader as well. Ultimately, James Bond is built on this.
However, the third point is far more important, and it all comes down to that cardinal rule of writing: show, don't tell. SCI Spy isn't all that different from James Bond, to the point where it's fair to call him a straight rip-off. What SCI Spy does wrong, however, is that it focuses far too much on telling us why the titular character is so great, while a James Bond book or movie gives us the pleasure of watching him outsmart the bad guys and charm the ladies. Instead of having someone tell us Sora is cheerful and lovable, then making him act like a sullen jerk the entire game, we see him being cheerful and lovable.
This becomes particularly important when it comes to dialogue. Mary Sues are often built up as witty, charming, and uproariously funny. As Dorothy Parker said, "I have yet to have an author inform me that a character is charming, and then, by that character’s deeds and conversation, convince me of that fact." Again referring to James Bond, we know he's witty because we see him being witty, and we enjoy it. In fact, the problem is not the Mary Sue; no character or story works well when telling overshadows showing.
However, none of this means that your fanfiction is good. Signing out.
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