Category: Reviews

Grown Ups 2: The Art of Space

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Grown Ups 2 (2013)
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Written by Fred Wolf & Adam Sandler & Tim Herlihy
101 min.

In 2010, Adam Sandler and his band of merry men released Grown Ups, a film that I felt, at the time, wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination. I couldn’t understand why they chose the jokes they did, why they acted as if their actions had no real consequence from one scene to the next, and why the characters, when they weren’t at their absolute broadest, began to meld into one another to form just one character. I chalked it up to a case of bad movie syndrome.

Catching up with it on television, coming into the film at various points, it slowly began appealing to me. And then one day, while splitting my time between watching it with the sound down and reading, I realized why. The film is like a silent comedy, not like those told through space like in Buster Keaton pictures, or through pathos and character like Charlie Chaplin, but those told through time, like that of the great Mack Sennett and his band of merry men (namely the Keystone Cops). If you watch Grown Ups with the sound turned off while reading a book of jokes, it amounts to the same thing as with sound, except you can always refresh the jokes.

Its sequel, the imaginatively titled Grown Ups 2, is without a doubt obsessed with the idea of space (progressing from Sennett to Keaton). For instance, the film opens with a moose running amuck in Sandler’s mansion, which seems to happen only to give us a remarkable (for this day in age) view of the layout of the Sandler’s home and personal space.
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An Interview with James Merendino, Writer/Director of SLC Punk (But First, A Review Of The Film)

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SLC Punk (1998)
Written & Directed by James Merendino
97 min.

I could never identify the groups in my high school.  We certainly had some jocks, potheads, and even a few hanger-on goths.  But punks, I don’t know.  We had a kid with a mohawk; he was a fucking asshole.  And we had a bunch of kids who loved punk music—a lot of them had safety pins in their clothes and dyed hair, but they seemed to really like some band called AFI, which I always thought was the American Film Institute.  By the time I was in high school, punk music had completely soaked into the mainstream and everybody had heard of Pennywise and Bad Religion.  It was in vogue to go see Henry Rollins do his spoken word shows in Ann Arbor, and if you were really cool, you already liked Bad Brains and Minor Threat.

I didn’t care about any of that stuff and I was tired of every local band sounding like Green Day.  I was like the James Duval character in SLC Punk—the social diplomat.  I could be friends with anybody.  I was too busy getting into movies and figuring out my own depression to bother committing to some specific clique.  Plus, the fashion of punk seemed so childish to me.  It’s music; I don’t wear it, I listen to it.  But that being said, we didn’t have nazis or rednecks either.  Well, everywhere has rednecks, but our punks didn’t beat them with bats.  Our punks were nice kids (except for that mohawked loser) and they got good grades and loved their parents.  They went to Michigan State University and were proud to do so.
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Netflix Excludes The Blind. Why?

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When I was a little kid, I had an excessive vocabulary. I knew what the word ‘superficial’ meant, and also even bigger words, like ‘garrulous’. But even with these words and countless others in my head, there was one that wasn’t—and that word was Accessibility.

Back when I was seven, many things were accessible, and if they weren’t, my grandmother would help make them so. Not being able to see, my primary way of learning was through reading, touching objects, and listening to explanations. Of course, all my other remaining senses came into play, but hearing and touch were, and are, my primary link to the world not constructed by books.

Even though I had never heard the word Accessibility, I was an early adopter of its concept. One day, my grandmother took me to a museum that was new in town. It was different than the ones we frequented, and I was very eager to feel exotic artifacts under my fingertips, and experience paintings through verbal descriptions given to me via headset. I eagerly speedwalked with my grandmother into the museum, my stomach full with butterflies over the soon-to-be.

When the tour started, I could sense the body heat of a dozen people beside me. I waited for my grandmother to take me to the artifact so I could explore it. She didn’t. I began to tune into the many exclamations beside me describing how wonderful the artifact was. Why was it so wonderful? I wanted to know too! I wanted to feel it and see what people were talking about. I soon began to cry, and people’s feet shuffled as they turned and stared at me. With steely resolve, my grandmother picked me up and pushed her way to the front of the crowd with my white cane dangling in my grip. When she reached the front, she ducked under the rope and placed my hand on the elegant statue carved with dynamic symbols. People started complaining that a sign said ‘Don’t Touch’. Soon, a stern sounding man cleared his throat next to me.

“Miss? I’m the manager here.” I felt the air whoosh as my grandmother whipped around. With slicing syllables, she told the manager, ”If you tell my blind grandson to take his hands off this statue, I will take every ‘Don’t Touch’ sign down and burn them all. I will then tell the police what I did and sue you for lack of accessibility.”

Seventeen years have passed since then, and I have heard and witnessed countless instances in which companies and people just don’t exert any will to include the blind and the visually impaired whatsoever, unless forced by law. The Americans with Disabilities Act was a huge breakthrough for our inclusion, but it didn’t merge us with the sighted world. People didn’t want to include us, so often we had to go to special groups, events, and even jobs for the blind. We also had to fight for education as well. Entertainment was, and still is an issue accompanying all the other accessibility barriers.

It took a law in 2010 to make Audio Description available on television. Before the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, we couldn’t watch movies, TV shows, or any visual media with audio description as frequently as today. Audio Description is as important to us as closed captioning is for the Deaf. It opens up a whole new mode of entertainment that we’ve never been able to experience before.

However, there are still a lot of companies that don’t want to offer it, and are not forced to by law. Many of these companies reside in the internet realm, a place the law hasn’t even scratched yet. Audio Description is available on TV, and more DVDs, and even more movie theaters. The law applies to the top 25 TV networks now but will increase. But even with all this inclusion, no Video on Demand service, such as Netflix and Hulu, has Audio Description.

I’ve wondered why Netflix won’t provide Audio Description, or even accessible interfaces so that our adaptive software can interact with their website and web player fully. I’ve examined this through all different angles, even finding out for myself the cost of describers, and other production costs. It’s not all about cost however. The BBC has shown that cost doesn’t matter when it comes to Accessibility, offering an Audio Description On Demand service through the BBC iPlayer.

It wouldn’t be hard at all to include Audio Description on Netflix. Two methods could be done to achieve this. Closed Audio Description, where the viewers would need to select a language track, requiring less bandwidth and less server space on Netflix’s part. There would definitely be downsides to this as well, such as that Audio Description wouldn’t be able to be available on every Netflix compatible device, such as the Nintendo Wii, as the Wii even has a hard time with closed captions.

Another way is to have a separate blind version of the same movie or TV show, like iTunes has it. But this will require that the film or TV show be uploaded twice. From a technical point of view, this would be the easier thing to do, but who knows, the servers might possibly buckle.

For years, the blind community has asked and even begged Netflix to make their site and service accessible, with accessible web design and Audio Description, but Netflix have said “No” repeatedly, and eventually the blindness advocacy groups just give up.

I refuse to give up though. Which is why I started the Accessible Netflix Project.

Our aim is for Netflix to:

Provide a Screen Reader-friendly experience to all Netflix functions on the PC and mobile devices, compatible with all Screen Readers.

Provide an easily navigable interface for the mobility impaired using adaptive technology.

Provide easy access to Audio-Described content for the blind and visually impaired on streaming services as well as DVD selections.

Regardless if it’s inconvenient or costly, Netflix should provide Accessibility solutions. Many blind people pay for a service they can barely use, whether they are a novice or advanced Screen Reader user.

It has been a long eight months since I began the project. So far, they have told us “No”, directly, seven times and counting.

Determined to have the freedom to enjoy Audio Description on my only window to the film and TV world, due to limited cash availability, I decided to ask them why they said no. The first time, they said that “we don’t have control over the content that makes the Audio Description, so we’re not the people who you should be contacting.” So, I started contacting studios for the next three months, often going through back door connections to get to producers, and explaining the situation. Seth MacFarlane, the producer of Family Guy, a show that has Audio Description on TV, was one of these connections. I wanted to make it as cheap as possible for Netflix, so I asked these producers if they would simply give the Audio Descriptions to Netflix at no charge. Many, including Seth, agreed to this.

I replied to Netflix with the fantastic news, and this was their response:

Hi Robert,

Thank you for being a Netflix fan and for being so passionate about making Netflix more accessible. At this point we have no immediate plans to add Audio Descriptions to our service. We continuously evaluate this and we will let you know if there’s a change, but don’t expect it to come in the near future.

I don’t understand why they’d say no. Even after contacting 56 different people in the company, they all said the same—don’t expect it anytime soon, even with the studio support.

It deeply disappoints and frustrates me that access to a service that’s so accessible to my wallet is impossible for me to use independently, simply because I require adaptive technology. I can’t even manage the site independently, no matter how many advanced keystrokes I learn or new Screen Reader tricks. Blind and visually impaired people shouldn’t be banished to outside sources to get described content. We are millions and millions strong, and our revenue would help grow Netflix. And, small aside, they’d surely be given many awards.

The ADA was meant to include and not divide. Blind people should have reasons to spend their income. We should be able to laugh with glee with our family, enjoying an Audio-Described comedy. We should be able to proudly call ourselves a Netflix customer. I will do whatever I can to ensure everybody gets past the unnecessary velvet rope and is able touch an accessible Video on Demand service. I don’t understand why Netflix doesn’t want to give us that inclusion, and I possibly never will, but I do understand one thing for certain—it should happen.

Reviewing in the Dark

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In a movie review, you might find fleshed out descriptions of the whizzing visuals on screen. After all, reviewers write what they see in a movie. And movies can have everything from vibrant camera work to dizzying effects to catchy credits with high-class animation. My attention, however, isn’t focused on these things, because I don’t see any of that when I sit down to watch a movie. I’m a blind film critic, and I evaluate different aspects of movies—word choice, tone of voice, dialogue, musical score, and storytelling.

To watch movies, I use a special service for the blind and visually impaired, now steadily growing in availability, called Audio Description, which describes key visual elements during the natural pauses between dialogue. Audio Description describes costumes, gestures, scene changes, and facial expressions. Personally, I pay especially careful attention to how the audio description describes a good-looking man. Being gay, my vital ear is always tuned in extra hard to a description of a hunky African American on screen who could potentially be my soul mate if I were lucky enough to actually come into contact with them. (For instance, Denzel Washington.)

Audio Description is both an art and a science. The process of describing a film is quite a long one. After the filmmaker finishes a movie, they send it off to whatever company they choose that describes movies. Trained describers watch the movie a minimum of three times before carefully compiling a script to match the pauses in dialogue. A writer writes out the descriptions, and when the script is completed, it and the movie are sent to the audio description production team where a description track is recorded. Once the process is completed, which usually takes about a week, the described film is sent back to the studio where they can distribute it to movie theaters, and later on DVD—if the studio even decides to put the Audio Description track on the DVD. Many don’t.

Because audio description is such a careful practice, there’s a lot about it to review and evaluate. How many words is the describer using? Is he using too many words when the music could’ve just as easily spoke for the actions? Does the describer have appropriate inflections? Is the vocabulary age appropriate? Are the words too simple or too complicated for the film? All of the above can really make a world of difference when a blind person is listening to a movie. If there’s a hilarious scene happening in a comedy and the audio describer keeps using complicated words to describe a simple witty action, then the Audio Description is not a good one. In this case, the description detracts the comedy effect, and it should be critically pointed out.

A lot of people don’t know about Audio Description—newspapers and magazines included. And so my pitch, resume, and writing samples have to be longer, because I have to make it very clear that I’ll be reviewing the same movie as everyone else, but I’ll be covering it from a different angle.

Once I’m on board, there are some things that are different and will always be different about how I operate. Usually, critics are anonymous. They show up at theaters unannounced, and have the ability to just pick any movie they want to see and go see it. I don’t have that luxury. I have to first make sure Audio Description is available. I could review a movie without Audio Description, but that wouldn’t be fair—I could miss what happened on screen at a very crucial point.

To find showings with Audio Description available, I turn to CaptionFish, a service that finds described and captioned feature films near your zip code. After I gather the information, including the date and exact time the described film will air, I have to call the theater to confirm that the online information is truly accurate. Once everything is cleared, I call ADA Paratransit to whisk me away on a door-to-door van ride to the movie theater (after calling in and scheduling a trip 24 hours ahead of time first). When I arrive, the manager issues me my reviewers ticket, and I head into the theater with my Audio Description FM headset on, ready to dissect the meaty goods of a feature flick.

But it’s often difficult for me to even get a reviewers ticket, if it’s a movie theater I’ve never been to before. It usually takes a host of phone calls to the manager—who then calls my editor, who then calls him back and explains my validity with the newspaper or magazine—as well as special accommodations as far as issuing reviewers tickets, since there’s no standard for Audio Description critics. This could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, so it’s a good thing I’m a patient guy.

Even though life as an Audio Description critic can be logistically frustrating—what with barrages of telephone calls from movie studios trying to confirm if I’m really a critic, and minor frustrations with ADA Paratransit arriving early or late—I enjoy using my brain to dissect the unexpected, as well as shed some light on the reality of accessibility. And it’s all worth it to be able to do what I do.

The people whom I write for appreciate my unique angle, and I enjoy bringing it to the table. Through my reviews, people get a chance to experience a movie through different eyes. The reward is not in getting to see a movie before others, but in lending my appraising ears to the medium.

I very much look forward to posting reviews here at Smug Film!

The Blue Goop That Comes Out Of A Bag Of Dead Pig Babies: Nights on Netflix, Part II

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June 29th, 2013 12:06 AM.  My girlfriend and I nestled in for a night on Netflix.  This is what happened.

It started with a really ‘clever’ and ‘quirky’ movie called Spork.  That didn’t last long.  Then we tried Kink, a Canadian TV show about an assortment of really arrogant and obnoxious S&M purveyors.  The bumpers took up more time than the fucking interviews.  Next.  Then we tried that Sushi documentary that every keeps talking about but it was boring as fuck.  Then we entered what I call ‘the blur’. This is where you turn off so many movies that are all so similar that they run together.  I can’t remember what any of them are called.

After a while, Netflix kind of beats you down and you end up sticking with the least shitty thing.  Generally, you want to pick something that’s just bad enough to be fun to make fun of, making it bearable.  Most movies are far below that, but finally, I found one.  Here’s what I wrote right after it ended:
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