The love for JJ Abrams - Why..?

[fortunesfool]

The JJ Abrams love.

Please stop this madness.

Philip Seymour Hoffman refers to him as 'an artist' in this months TF. Did he see Mission Impossible 3? That movie was almost unwatchable at times it was so badly made.

I'm reading reviews of Super8 using words like 'genius' and 'visionary'. He's a self promoting TV producer and a pop culture leech whose film-making skills consist of copying what everyone else is doing and regurgitating it without any understanding of why the original was good.

If anyone can give me an example from Abrams 'canon' that might justify the term 'artist' then please feel free. Otherwise please save the hyperbole for someone who deserves it.

[Jeffbiscuits]

Fortunes, did you see there's even lens flare on the new poster for Super 8?

[fortunesfool]

Don't even start me on that crap.

He says he doesn't like shooting on digital because you don't get the wonderful lens flare effect you get with film. Then he digitally adds lens flare to every bright light on screen.

He's a bullsh*t artist.

[morris]

His eyes are exceedingly close together.

Star Trek was the most underwhelming blockbuster since Superman Returns.

[Porkchopexpress]

A lot of it comes from him essentially ticking a lot of boxes when it comes to audiences, he's the geek it's OK to like, without the off putting dorkiness of Joss Whedon, the accessibility of Spielberg and the charm of Edgar Wright.

It may be cynical, but when he picks a target audience, he caters to them quite unreservedly, I suppose that endears him to the fanboys, while his Spielberg aspirations give him broader appeal.

[fortunesfool]

Originally Posted by Porkchopexpress

A lot of it comes from him essentially ticking a lot of boxes when it comes to audiences, he's the geek it's OK to like, without the off putting dorkiness of Joss Whedon, the accessibility of Spielberg and the charm of Edgar Wright.

But, most notably, minus the talent of the above.

[Jeffbiscuits]

Originally Posted by Porkchopexpress

... he's the geek it's OK to like, without the off putting dorkiness of Joss Whedon...

I find Abrams style of geekery a bit more off putting than Whedon's. Whedon might have been in a geek clique at school but I get the feeling that Abrams sat in the library by himself during lunch hour. Do you think his specs are designed so that he sees lens flare wherever he goes?

[fortunesfool]

I'm not really sure how much of a geek Abrams actually is and how much of it is a calculated persona. Whedon wears his passions on his sleeve and Serenity is a masterpiece next to Star Trek. He can write and knows how to make a film.

Abrams movies all look like and episode of TV. Everything shot hand held, in close ups and mid shots. There's no sense of the 'cinematic'.

I don't rate him any higher than a Peter Berg, Joe Carnahan, Marcus Nispel or any other jobbing director whose movies are largely indistinguishable from the other.

I wouldn't harp on about it so much, but he's seems to be heralded as the saviour of the blockbuster.

Here's author China Mieville's take on it -

I've never met [JJ Abrams]. I am not a member of his fan club or anti-fan club. I disliked Cloverfield a very great deal. I disliked Star Trek intensely. I thought it was terrible. And I think part of my problem is that I feel like the relationship between JJ Abrams' projects and geek culture is one of relatively unloving repackaging - sort of cynical. I taste contempt in the air. Now I'm not a child - I know that all big scifi projects are suffused with the contempt of big money for its own target audience. But there's something about [JJ's projects] that makes me particularly uncomfortable. As compared to somebody like Joss Whedon, who - even when there are misfires - I feel likes me and loves me and is on some cultural level my brother and comrade. And I don't feel that way about JJ Abrams.

[Porkchopexpress]

Oh I agree Whedon is undoubtedly the richer talent and his execution of Serenity was near flawless from a film maker's perspective, it delivered on pace, story, action and spectacle.

For me Whedon seems much more suited to film making where his story telling is reined in by the time constraints on screen, which hamstrings his meandering TV output and undoubtedly buggers his attempts at shows. Bizarrely I find Spielberg's TV projects much more enjoyable and I haven't forgiven him for the bollocks ending to the otherwise decent 'War of the Worlds'.

But Whedon the man is and his lisping self deprecating attempts at humour annoy me a little, where as JJ doesn't especially which just adds to accessibility.

Whedon's output can feel exclusive as opposed to JJ's maybe is a little more inclusive? His 'Star Trek' was, in my opinion, perfectly serviceable and opened a franchise to people who maybe wouldn't have seen a Trek film.

Lowest common denominator film making and gimmicks in special effects? Maybe, but then again I quite like Michael Bay for much the same thing.

As for the lens flare thing, if you let it bother you then fine, but a lot of directors have signatures, Bay's low angle 360 pan, Edgar Wright's whip fast editing mini montages.

Don't get me wrong I'm not blindly oblivious to the man's failings as a film maker, but I don't believe he's as bad as you've madw him out to be.

[Jeffbiscuits]

Originally Posted by Porkchopexpress

As for the lens flare thing, if you let it bother you then fine, but a lot of directors have signatures, Bay's low angle 360 pan, Edgar Wright's whip fast editing mini montages.

The lens flare is the cinematic equivalent of a world famous photographer purposefully giving everyone red eye in his photographs. I don't just let it bother me though. I actively use it as a focal point for my disappointment in his directorial style.