Why Did Roger Ebert Spoil "Super"?

SPOILER ALERT: I reveal a spoiler originally spoiled elsewhere.

For film buffs, the decision to read a spoiler can be a difficult temptation to overcome. With high ticket prices for movies, and even higher anticipation for popular movies, spoilers can provide certain audience members with the insight they need to decide whether or not they'll be catching a flick. But for most moviegoers, having a film's ending revealed unsolicited can ruin their theatre experience. Knowing this, reviewers do their best to avoid making any startling revelations.
Image by rexb via Flickr

In his review of "Super", Roger Ebert let slip the fate of the character played by Ellen Page. In the first two paragraphs. Filmmaker James Gunn immediately took to twitter, and started hashtag jokes at Ebert's expense. While a spoiler notice has since been attached to the review, I wonder - why did Ebert write the spoiler in the first place?

Personally, I disagree with his take on the movie. At the end of the review, He writes "'Super is a film ending in narrative anarchy, exercising a destructive impulse to no greater purpose than to mess with us." To me, this is a positive and is what makes the film great - it being emotionally intense and challenging (a nice way of saying that it "fucks" with you). Ebert is no stranger to emotionally challenging films, but maybe this one scene went too far in his mind. 

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Ellen Page, as an actress, is easy to fall in love with. I can't say that I've disliked any of her performances, whether they're in low budgets like "Hard Candy" or big budgets like "Inception". And, judging from his reviews, I'd say that Ebert feels the same way. I think that when He witnessed what happened to Libby (Ellen Page) in "Super", He felt offended - how could they do such a thing to such an actress? He practically expresses this with SPOILER "when Ellen Page of 'Juno' stars in a movie, we don't much expect to see her brains dripping." END SPOILER This reminds me of the dust up He had with "Kick Ass" (another "real world" super hero flick) - how could they put that little girl in such extreme action scenes?

I don't want to suggest that He always disregards an entire movie because of one scene, but I have seen this happen before. I once showed "Storytelling" to two young women, and I'm convinced that if they hadn't witnessed a large black man having forceful sex with a little white woman, they would've liked the film more. I wonder if Ebert's thoughts on "Super" might change a little if that scene were excised or re-written. Seriously, that one scene could make all the difference (kind of a compliment to the film, that one scene could make such an impression).  

Of course, Ebert's revelation didn't completely ruin the movie, nor did it ruin my opinion of him. Personally, I usually agree with him maybe 80% of the time (though I'm not sure how to accurately determine that). In this one case of disagreement, I find something to agree with - Ellen Page is wonderful, and seeing her in such a sequence is a shock.

Should critic's be so chivalrous in their reviews? Spoiling a movie in an effort to warn others? I dunno. That's a topic for a blogger more articulate and better disciplined that myself. Certainly, some audiences don't mind knowing a little extra about what they're gonna spend their money on. Just be sure to attach a notice BEFORE posting the review. Might save yourself from a nasty hashtag or two. 

Help Kickstart The Alamo Underground

Not too long ago, a friend and I drove from the northshore to catch a free movie screening at this run down, danky, humid garage - the kind that might host a kidnapping. And it was fun. 

The Alamo Underground, named for it's architectural similarity to The Alamo, was an ambitious, community driven venue for artists of all kinds. I only ever attended one event (a "Battle Royale" screening), but from what I observed, the people behind the operation were pretty serious about becoming an alternative space for creativity. I hadn't heard from the group for months, until the other day:

The Alamo Underground got it's start in 2006 (post Katrina) as an underground theater operated inside an old horse stable. It had to shut its doors in 2008. In 2010, I found the treasure and resurrected the space [with great help] for movie nights, live music, local events, and fundraisers. Movie nights were free and bands worked for tips. It was a lot of hard work, turning a swamp infested roach eaten space into an underground community, but it was done.
From August 2010 until April 2011, the Alamo greeted great New Orleans talent such as Aurora Nealand, Debauche, Tuba Skinny, Never Ever, Tom Worell, as well as visiting acts such as David Bazan and Zeina Mokaiesh.
Then the roof collapsed.

The people behind The Alamo Underground have just started a kickstarter page, and hope to re-open in November:

Now, I have the opportunity to re-open the Alamo on the up and coming Freret Street. The space is connected to La Nuit Theater- which got its start as a speakeasy theater for local comics.
New Orleans has a surge of amazing talent operating underground, in speakeasies and abandoned building. The idea is to have a collective venue for these like minded people. A bagel bar will be constructed courtesy of Sugerman's Bagel Speakeasy, and local artists will display their art for reasonable prices. Freret Street currently has little-to no live local music acts, even though the street is permitted for such use.

I haven't seen the new property, but I'm really excited about this. Aside from being a new performance space for bands like Tuba Skinny, Egg Yolk Jubilee and Arajay, we might also see unique film events, like a performance of "Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then" or Crispin Glover screening either of his "It" films. Along with Nola DriveIn, it looks like New Orleans might be seeing a slight surge in community/guerrilla film screenings.

As of this posting, $870 have been raised. Help them reach their $4,000 goal. Every little bit counts.

Appropriately Underrated: Quick "Skyline" Thoughts

When the word underrated is tossed around, it implies that something has had its quality overlooked. Sometimes, however, that somethings' quality has been underrated on purpose.

“Skyline” follows a group of characters that could've been extras in any of the “Fast and Furious” films, who wake up after a penthouse party and are forced to pretend that the city is being harvested by aliens. The rest of the movie features highlights such as Donald Faison producing a gun from nowhere, and Eric Balfour DEMANDING that the survivors go to the roof, despite the fact that the idea has been nixed several times.

When I first saw Balfour's character screaming at the sky in the trailer, I laughed myself to the conclusion that this would suck. I only ended up watching this on Netflix after I took a writing assignment for InvadeNola. And from what I understand, I am not alone in my thoughts regarding the movie.

The only two positives that I can think of are also negatives. One - Paul Walker was not in it. This is a positive for the obvious reason, and a negative because this is exactly the kind of movie that I'd expect him to be cast in(especially the first 15 minutes). Two - The special effects. The alien ships and the disaster they cause are quite impressive visually. Unfortunately, they are not used to serve the story. The whole movie comes off, to me, as an advertisement to get business for a visual effects company("look at what our computers can do!").

Indeed, this is underrated, and for good reason. But, I would still recommend this be viewed - Eric Balfour's tearful screaming will induce such wonderful laughter.