The holiday season is unique because no other time of the year has inspired the setting for so many movies.  Many of them are of course beloved classics, whether it be Frank Capra’s immortal It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the classic Miracle on 34th Street (1948), or even a more recent classic like A Christmas Story (1983).  And while most of these movies view the holiday with great reverence, there are also many Christmas movies that skewer the season’s traditions and still become classics, like 1987’s Scrooged or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989).  The reason why the Christmas season has such a strong cinematic history is because no other holiday touches so many lives every year, especially given the more secularized multicultural festivities that have arisen in the holiday through the years.  Though still a distinctively Christian holiday, Christmas has become something bigger, affecting people of all religions and nationalities with charity, community and goodwill becoming the underlying meaning behind the festivities.  Most great Christmas movies reflect this and many of them have found great new ways of telling these same lessons to us year after year.  But, the Christmas season is also a colossal revenue maker for both Hollywood and the retail market, and sometimes those important meanings can be lost in favor of more superficial messages, aimed more at exploiting the holiday spirit rather than renewing it.  That’s why you see so many Christmas movies that end up being more bad than good, because they care only about the bottom end, and not about the deeper, more complex meanings.  And one movie this year managed to miss the mark so completely that it’s earned the distinction of being one of the worst movies of all time.

This movie in question comes from none other than former sitcom star turned fundamentalist Christian, Kirk Cameron.  His new film Saving Christmas examines what Cameron and the filmmakers believe is a “War on Christmas,” which is the common complaint you hear this time of year when holiday traditions are banned in the name of equality and tolerance.  And yeah, sometimes local governments can annoyingly overreach when they remove even the most harmless of Christmas symbols from public view, but Kirk Cameron believes that there is this vast conspiracy to suppress Christianity in America by secularizing the Christmas holiday.  That’s the fundamental thesis behind his new movie Saving Christmas, which bears the tagline, “Putting Christ Back in Christmas.”  Now, let me be clear, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making a movie about Christmas that focuses on it’s religious roots.  Hollywood has done that for many years with movies like The Bishop’s Wife (1947).  Hell, you could even consider The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005) a positive Christian-themed holiday movie.  But, there’s something horribly wrong and downright dangerous with what Kirk Cameron’s movie tries to say.  In Saving Christmas, Cameron’s character confronts a religious skeptic who rightly states that many of the traditions we now associate with Christmas have been assembled together from cultures from around the world, helping to make the holiday more secular and more inclusive.  Cameron disputes this in the movie, creating all these convoluted reasons as to why modern Christmas symbols are Christian in nature, disregarding all other cultural traditions.  Cameron’s film tries to present it’s case as a positive affirmation of faith, but it instead turns into a narrow-minded proclamation of religious exceptional-ism, as if he believes that Christmas should be exclusively Christian.

It’s not surprising that this movie has been panned across the board by critics, and I don’t blame them.  I grew up celebrating Christmas both in secular and religious ways and I gained very deep understandings of how both traditions have defined the holiday season, as well as being able to differentiate the two even from a young age.  Kirk Cameron’s movie removes that differentiation in a way that unfortunately minimizes the significance of both.  Case in point, his argument in the movie as to why Christmas trees are Christian and not a tradition usurped by the Church in it’s early years in order to appeal to Pagan followers (as History clearly states), is because Christ died on a cross, which is made of wood and therefore it is a tree.  And by his logic, that is why we have a tree in our homes during Christmas.  It’s convoluted and has no scriptural basis at all, and yet Kirk Cameron states this as being a fundamental truth behind the Holiday.  I stress this again, I have no problem with Christmas movies that have a religious point-of-view.   But at the very least, have a message that makes sense.  This is the fundamental problem behind Cameron’s movie.  His Christian world view is so narrow that it’s about starting at an end point and working backwards, disregarding any evidence that may override his claims.  For him, Christian traditions trump Christian teachings, and there’s no part of scripture that he can’t rework towards his own ends.  In Saving Christmas, it’s less about learning the lessons that Christ taught us about charity and goodwill towards others, and more about finding Biblical justification for shallow and gluttonous celebrations during the holiday season.

I may be coming off a little cranky and harsh towards Kirk Cameron and his movie, but it’s only because I view his film as something that’s deeply insulting as both a fan of the Holiday season, as well as a fan of cinema.  Not only does Saving Christmas have a rotten message at it’s core, it’s also a poorly made movie as well.  I don’t know much about filmmaker Darren Doane’s career as a director, other than what I’ve read on IMDb.  He’s certainly become a go to guy for Kirk Cameron, as he’s directed the actor’s last few movies, but I’m not sure where he stands on the film’s message overall.  He may have some directorial talent, but none of that shows up here.  The movie seems to have been assembled together with little thought for set dressing, cinematography, or even script writing.  It’s as if the concept behind the project dictated everything else, and the production was quickly slapped together in order to get this thing in theaters by the Christmas season.  Don’t go into this movie expecting to see character development or a deeply involved plot.  In  fact, don’t go into it at all.  Doane probably tried the best he could to make everything coherent, but I’m sure everything was overshadowed by Kirk Cameron’s choices as Producer.  I put more of the blame on him, seeing as he wants us the audience to know that this is his project through and through, given that the full title is Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas.  But, if you’re setting yourself up for all the attention, you’re also inviting yourself into all the criticisms as well, and Cameron’s film is certainly seeing a lot of that right now.

Saving Christmas has become a landmark film in the last few weeks, not because of it’s box office success (which has been modest surprisingly, because of the help of church-based audiences), but due to how universally panned it has become.  Critical reception has been rough on this movie, with a dismal 0% on Rottentomatoes.com.  And just last week, it earned the #1 spot on IMDb’s notorious Bottom 100.  That means that it’s not just the worst movie of this year, it’s the worst movie EVER.  Yes, worse than such cinematic gems like Birdemic (2010), From Justin to Kelly (2003), or even Baby Geniuses 2 (2004).  But, I’ll give movies like Birdemic this; they’re actually hilarious to watch because of how bad they are.  Saving Christmas is just infuriating.  So, I can honestly say that no better movie is deserving of this dishonor than Saving Christmas.  Unfortunately, Kirk Cameron’s movie is not without company as far as Christmas movies go.  Christmas movies have become so abundant over the years, and very few of them are ever any good.  Saving Christmas, in it’s short time in theaters, has managed to surpass them all on IMDb’s list, so that tells you something more about it right there.  Even many Christian-centric film critics are distancing themselves from the movie, seeing as how strong the critical backlash to it’s messages have become.  But, even as repulsive as Saving Christmas is compared to all the rest, there are still a great many hate-able Christmas movies out there, and it shows that even secular based holiday fare can be rotten.

What ultimately makes a bad Christmas movie is a complete lack of understanding about the holiday spirit and more of an emphasis on the shallower aspects of the season, like focusing on the decorations or the presents.  That, or taking a traditional symbol of the season and just exploiting it for cheap gags or a convoluted message.  I can’t tell you how many different movies have centered around Santa Claus and his antics at the North Pole, and how very few of them actually present him as a genuine character, instead of making him more than an icon.  There’s also the dreaded Christmas themed comedies, which in recent years have more or less have just been trying to copy Christmas Vacation‘s formula and failing badly.  Christmas Vacation hilariously lampooned traditional family Christmas festivities, but did it with the underlying appreciation of the season and the unity of family, as oddball as they may be.  Other like-minded movies, like Deck the Halls (2006) and Christmas with the Kranks (2004) missed the mark completely by presenting no underlying message, and instead just came off as crude, mean-spirited, and superficial. Of course, one of the big problems with these bad Christmas films is that they always stress the commercial over the inspirational.  Just look at movies like the Schwarzenegger dud Jingle all the Way (1996) or the made-for-TV The Christmas Shoes (2002),  both which stress the importance of finding the right gift over anything else.  The Christmas Shoes in particular shares the same awful message with Saving Christmas, stating that commercialism is a Christian value.  Overall, there are many ways to make a horrible Christmas movie, and it ultimately comes from a lack of a moral and compassionate center.

This is especially terrible when the good message is right there in front of the filmmakers, and they refuse to actually use it.  Case in point, the truly awful remake of Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), directed by Ron Howard.  The original book was a perfect expression of the Christmas Spirit, stating the need to look beyond the presents and the decorations, and instead celebrating the values of community, and the welcoming-in of outsiders.  Animator Chuck Jones brilliantly brought this story to life in his 1966 animated adaptation, which added even more depth to the character of the Grinch (voiced by Boris Karloff) by showing how the Christmas spirit changed even his cold heart, making it grow three sizes on that day.  It’s a beloved story and an equally loved animated short, both becoming standards of the season.  Ron Howard’s remake, however, strips that away by instead putting more emphasis on style over substance.  The movie adaptation devolves into merely a showcase for the art department as well for actor Jim Carrey’s comedic style (which is done under some admittedly impressive prosthetic makeup).  But the message of Dr. Suess’ story is lost midst all the Hollywood splendor.  What’s left is a movie that ultimately just rehashes all the negative aspects of the holiday, rather than stressing the good.  And most offensively, it tries to relay an anti-commercial message while at the same time trying to develop a brand for itself in a very hypocritical way.  It just shows that even a very secular take on the Christmas season can be shallow and rotten, especially when it departs from a well-laid foundation before it.

So, unfortunately like every other genre, Christmas movies have their own fair share of terrible entries.  Also unfortunate is the fact that Hollywood seems so keen on making even more holiday “classics” every year without ever attempting to actually make them good.  The Christmas season has it’s own attractive power, and Hollywood seems more content to exploit rather than renew the holiday spirit with anything new or original.  Kirk Cameron seems to believe that his film is reclaiming a part of the holiday spirit, but I think his movie only adds to the problem.  Christmas movies at their best touch the lives of people from all walks of life, filling them with universal feelings of hope and joy.  Kirk Cameron only wants to reclaim the holiday for Christianity and ignore the multi-cultural contributions that have made the holiday so special to our modern society.  What I find so peculiar about Cameron’s movie is how poorly it even sticks to it’s own principles.  We see Kirk Cameron blast attempts to take the holiday season out of the public square, and yet by arguing that everything about the holiday should have a religious basis (even the things that don’t), he is actually trying to take the holiday away from even more people.  Whether he likes it or not, Christmas is multi-cultural and a secular holiday in today’s culture, celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike in all parts of the world.  And I think that a Holiday that links everyone together in a positive way like this is something worth celebrating.  Cameron thinks he’s being uplifting by championing the “Christ” in Christmas, but he instead is choosing to be greedy about the holiday, which is decidedly un-Christian.  And that’s why his new movie is not the present you should be opening up this Christmas season.

Festivities of the Thanksgiving weekend usually start off with a hearty dinner with family followed by socializing at either the movie theaters, or getting oneself damn near killed at the local shopping mall for Black Friday deals.  But, there’s also a long standing tradition that continues to be strong over the extended holiday weekend, and that’s the special holiday sports match-ups.  While no means crucial games in the long run, certain professional teams schedule these games for the sole purpose of exposure.  While most TV shows go on hiatus for the Thanksgiving weekend, sports programming fills that void with their special broadcasts and are able to be watched by not just their faithful fans, but also by anyone tuning in with the rest of their family.  Whatever is planned in everyone’s own Thanksgiving celebration, it’s highly likely that a good many households in America have managed to makes sports entertainment at least some part of the holiday.  And if it’s not a live event that becomes a part of the season, audiences can still get their sports fix from the world of cinema as well.  Indeed, Sports movies have become a beloved genre of film on it’s own, and many of them are released and/or watched more often this time of year than any other.  But, sports movies are in fact surprisingly varied the more you look at them as a whole, and have become beloved entertainment no matter the time of year.

Sports themes and subjects can be found in a whole variety of genre pictures.  It’s a sub-genre that isn’t as restrictively defined as others and you can easily lump a film from a whole bunch of different genres that would fit within this category.  There are sports movies that  can fall under the banner of historical films, or counter-cultural films, or even romantic comedy.  Hell, there are even sci-fi movies themed around sports.  It’s such a loose definition that some even wonder if the Sports flick should even be considered a genre at all, due to this broadness.  There is one thing for sure, however, and that there are some movies that can be described as nothing other than a sports flick, and that’s because they follow the sports movie “formula.”  That formula often involves a band of underdogs coming together, united by a common goal, and overcoming the odds in order to achieve greatness.  Sometimes, this formula is even whittled down to achievements by one gifted athlete who’s the hero of the story.  And while many sports movies do attempt to stand out from the rest, few actually do stray from the formula.  But, with a formula as common as this one, it also leads to a lot more repetitiveness.  One of the things that does plague the Sports movie genre a lot is the lack of genre-defining standouts, instead letting the formula itself be the most recognizable factor.  There are some all-time classics in the genre, but there are a lot more imitators that don’t quite rise up to the challenge and instead bleed into the background while trying to play it safe.  This is what often separates the good from the bad in the Sports genre, and given how the scales have tilted more in the favor of the negative mostly, it only makes the good ones stand out more.

First of all, let’s look at what makes a good Sports movie work.  Just like any other genre of film, it ultimately comes down to the strength of the characters and the story.  If those elements aren’t there, then the formula won’t work, and all you will be left with is a story that’s just going through the paces.  This unfortunately happens to many Sports movies, many of which don’t put the focus into the right  places.  A common problem is that many sports movies put the mechanics of the sport first, and then consider the story second, thinking that audiences won’t notice and get swept up in the in-game action.  This has been true with running through the paces movies like The Replacements (2000) or The Sixth Man (1997).  It won’t matter how gimmicky you make the situation; unless audiences care about the characters and what’s going on, it won’t matter how well the sports action is shot.  Formula is a crutch for some inexperienced filmmakers and it’s often why many of them turn to sports movies as a way to make their films look more impressive than they really are.  Sports events are filled with a lot of pageantry and drama, but that doesn’t always translate into a good story.

Human drama and competitive drama are two different things, and if you can manage to make both work together effectively at the same time, then you’ve achieved something.  Unfortunately for most sports movies, there is always that disconnect.  Even attempts to make compelling human drama can go haywire if it feels insincere.  Let’s compare this in two movies about high school football; Varsity Blues (1999) and Friday Night Lights (2004).  Varsity Blues is the lesser of the two because of the in-authenticity of it’s emotions.  It’s heavy-handed in it’s human drama and flashy in it’s depiction of it’s on-field action.  Friday Night Lights on the other hand treats it’s subject with a lot more restraint.  It still has the human drama throughout, but it’s better integrated with the action on the field, making both feel just as integral to the overall story.  It’s that balance that ultimately makes the sports movie formula work.  Had Varsity Blues not tried too hard to make their story emotional, then it might have felt more authentic.  Instead, the movie appealed more to the teenage soap opera crowd (which makes sense considering who made up the movie’s cast) and felt less like a film about the heart and soul of Football, which Friday Night Lights captures much more perfectly.  In that film, you get a better sense of how the different characters lives are intertwined and motivated by the sports they play, and how much winning means to them.  You see this in their struggles at home, sometimes showing kids dealing with abuse, and also in how the head coach (played by Billy Bob Thornton) can unite a team around all this turmoil and make his players believe they are winners.  That helps us the audience feel more involved once the players take the field and snap the ball.  It’s that balance between story and action that ultimately helps to make the good sports movie stand out.

If there is a Sports genre that has had a better track record than the rest, it is the Sports biopic.  Athletes are often the great legendary heroes of our modern age, and what better way to celebrate their accomplishments than with a film based on their life.  While these movies also fall into formula many times, they can still manage to overcome them if the true-to-life story is compelling enough.  And the history of Sports is not short of interesting subjects.  But, again, it’s all in how you go about depicting these people and what they’ve done that makes the movies work.  Case in point, a good sports movie would be the 1994 biopic Cobb, which featured Tommy Lee Jones as the notoriously brutish, and psychotic baseball player Ty Cobb.  That movie is fascinating to watch because it shows the life and career of a very flawed man whose actions feel so out of line by today’s standards that it helps us to learn more about how the sport of Baseball has evolved.  Contrast this with 1948’s The Babe Ruth Story, which white-washed the true story of a very flawed person who ended up becoming one of the world’s greatest athlete, and it inadvertently makes his life story feel dull in the process.  The more fascinating the individual, the more introspective the movie must be, and even if it’s showing the less flattering elements of a person’s life, all the better because it at least humanizes the person and makes them feel more relatable.  Sometimes using creative license even helps.  The recent Jackie Robinson flick 42 plays around with the events of the groundbreaking baseball player’s life, like the extent of the relationship he had with the team’s owner, as well as making up whole chapters of his life and career.  But, after seeing the final result, that matters very little, because what 42 gets right is the sense of Jackie Robinson the character, and the struggle with which he had to overcome.  Creative license may be a cheat, but it’s a cheat that can deliver a better impact.

This is a formula that has been very true not just for biopics, but for depictions of great sports events as well.  Sometimes, the best thing that a sports movie can do is to shed light on a great moment that happened in any particular sport, and how that left an impact on history.  These kinds of movies usually fall under the banner of the underdog story.  One of the best examples of this would be the 1986 Basketball film, Hoosiers.  Hoosiers is interesting because it doesn’t depict the story of some great professional team, or even one of the most earth-shattering upsets in sports history either.  It instead focuses on a more universal story of a small Indiana town whose High School team beat the big city school and won the state championship out of nowhere.  Doesn’t sound all that unusual, right?  Well, when you see the movie, you find that it is less about the game itself and more about the people who made it happen, which includes a coach with a shady past (a brilliant Gene Hackman), his troublesome alcoholic assistant (Dennis Hopper), and a group of working class kids who’ve been told they’ll never amount to anything.  The movie makes the final game feel much more important because of all the negative factors that have worked against these characters and it stresses how they’ve persevered against it.  It makes us root for the underdog probably better than any other sports movie ever, and it’s all because it plays upon our desires to see winners deserve their victory and challenge the established order of things.  Other underdog Sports movies do a good job of playing up the underdog formula, like Rudy (1993) and Miracle (2004), but few have made something so small feel so grandiose as Hoosiers did.

True stories seem to be the bulk of what we would describe as a sports movie, but like I stated before, sports work their way into all kinds of genres, some better than others.  Really, even at a young age, we are shown sports as an everyday element of our lives.  There are tons of family films geared to younger audiences that have a sports theme to them; although, for every charming Little Giants (1994) and Rookie of the Year (1993) that we get so often, there are about a dozen or so stupid Air Bud (1997) movies.  A great example from my childhood would be the brilliant The Sandlot (1993), which centered around baseball, but proved to be about so much more.  Sports comedies are also a noteworthy sub-genre.  Some take the sport they depict seriously, like Bull Durham (1988) and Major League (1989), becoming comedic purely through the eccentric personalities of their players.  And then there are the sports movies that savagely ridicule their selective sports, and yet still manage to be beloved by the sports’ same die hard fans.  Caddyshack (1980) mocks every conceivable convention of the sport of Golf, and yet I bet you won’t find a movie that is more commonly quoted on a golf course than it. Formula can also work as a negative sometimes with these kinds of films, which is double troublesome when the formulas of two different genres are in play.  This is particularly true with romantic movies centered around sports.  In my opinion, I see making a sports movie with a romantic plot as being the same kind of pandering towards a male demographic as shoehorning a love story into an action movie panders to a female demographic.  It feels inauthentic and cheap both ways.  This has often led to awful hybrids like Fever Pitch (2005) and Summer Catch (2001).  Though female athletes aren’t without their own classic sports film.  A League of their Own (1992) managed to appeal to audiences of all genders and did so by following all the same rules that make up any good sports movie.  Not to mention, it’s a movie geared towards woman that also features one of the greatest and oft quoted tough guy lines ever in a sports: “THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL.”

So, why do some sports movies have such a lasting resonance while others don’t?  I think it’s because of the fact that you’re trying to work two forms of entertainment together and make them feel like they’re the same thing.  We watch both to feel entertained, but experiencing the ups and downs of a movie is quite different than those of a live sporting event.  Drama in sports comes from a lot of factors.  It’s sometimes not what’s going on the field that matters to us, but rather the implications that the game means in the larger picture that we find so intriguing.  The lives of the athletes outside the sport and the baggage they carry with them can often impact our outlook on the game.  Sometimes it’s our hometown pride, or our wanting to see the smaller team undo the lofty expectations of the bigger team, in order to shake things up and make them more interesting that we enjoy.  In any case, these are things that are hard to translate into film.  Usually the success of a sports movie rests on the effectiveness of capturing that aura around the big games.  That, or they effectively use sports as backdrop for the interesting character dramas.  Overall, there are many films that fall short, but it only highlights the ones that are destined to become classics.  Though not particularly bound to the Thanksgiving season, these movies nevertheless have a customary presence around this time of year, especially when they play such a memorable role in the way it makes you value the role of sports in the larger cultural narrative.  They even serve as good counter-programming when the live games themselves become boring.  The Sports movie genre may seem formulaic to many, and continues to follow stringent genre rules more than some, but it’s also one of the most varied, and engaging of all cinematic genres.  And when done right, it can even make a happy ending feel all the more worth it.  And that’s certainly worth cheering for.

Recently I went to see a new film called Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), directed by Mexican auteur Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (21 Grams, Babel) and starring Michael Keaton, who of course is best known for playing the role of Batman back in the 80’s.  The film was absolutely outstanding and will probably be near or at the top of my best of  the year list.  But, as I was watching the film, I was struck by not just the story, which cleverly derives from Keaton’s own career as an actor trying to move on after playing a famous superhero on film, but also by the technical wizardry involved in it’s making.  The film is low key and features very little in the way of visual effects, but what it does feature is some truly awe-inspiring camera work.  While not apparent in the trailer, what you’ll soon discover watching the movie Birdman is that it makes extensive use of the technique of long, unbroken takes.  In fact, the entire film is made up of long takes, stitched together so brilliantly that you’ll almost think that the whole thing was made in one two hour long continuous shot.  It’s a remarkable visual experience and it perfectly compliments the story being told, which centers around a group of actors led by Keaton’s Riggan Thompson as they put together a new play on Broadway.  Stage actors of course must put on a performance live without cuts or retakes, so a movie that let’s the cameras keep rolling reflects that same style in the best possible way.  It may not seem like a difficult thing, especially when applied to a modest budgeted movie like Birdman, but anyone who works in film will tell you just how extremely difficult this kind of technique is, because it’s time consuming and it requires a lot of things to go right all at once.  Still, it is a favorite technique for many filmmakers to undertake and an even better experience for audiences to enjoy.

The reason why the technique is such a difficult one to pull off is because of the amount of choreography that needs to happen.  It may look effortless on the screen, but what the audience doesn’t see is the stress that a long take puts on the crew and the cast.  Actors must hold their composure and hit their marks exactly so as to keep up with the pace of the camera movements.  If they are thrown off by anything, like an extra getting in their way, or suddenly forgetting their line or start to laugh uncontrollably, then the set-up must go back to square one to reset.  And every time the shot resets, it puts more strain on the crew who are trying their hardest to keep the shot running smoothly.  Imagine being the cameraman through all of this, as you have to carry heavy gear on your back and you’re also under the pressure of keeping everything in frame for an extended amount of time.  Because of the extensive amount of movement involved, most long takes are usually handheld.  And when the camera is being carried around the set, it puts more stress on the crew to stay hidden as the scene plays out.  Needless to say, there’s a lot that could go wrong while composing the scene.  Usually a lot of rehearsal is needed to pull these shots off, and when it works, it looks spectacular.  There are risks involved, however, such as the technique appearing pretentious if the material it is trying to present is not all that interesting.  That and a poorly choreographed and composed shot may just end up boring the audience rather than exhilarating them.  Thankfully Innaritu is a capable and experienced enough filmmaker to pull off the technique of long takes, and his work in  Birdman represents a great addition to a long tradition.

The technique of long takes extends back to the early days of cinema.  Buster Keaton would let his cameras roll for protracted amounts of time in order to get those amazing stunts of his fully covered.  Similar to what Innaritu does with his shots in Birdman, Buster Keaton would stitch together different shots in a way to give the illusion that everything was done in one take, which was used spectacularly in the dream sequence of Sherlock Jr. (1924).  Beyond the silent era, long takes became less commonplace, although film editing in that same period was more relaxed than it is today.  Today’s quick paced, music video style editing is markedly different than the style of Hollywood’s Golden Age, which is probably why long takes stand out so much today.  Back then, movies would play out a scene with stage-like steadiness, relying less on close-ups and fast-paced editing and letting the actors and dialogue guide the action instead.  But even with the more relaxed editing style of the period, there were some filmmakers who enjoyed making elaborate long take shots for their movies.  Probably the most famous example would be the opening shot of Orson Welles’ 1958 masterpiece Touch of Evil.  The movie opens on the image of a criminal carrying a makeshift bomb, and then pulls out to reveal the criminal running through a parking lot.  The camera then swoops across the rooftops and drops down onto a street full of pedestrians.  Once there, the camera then zooms in on our main characters (played by Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh) as they are walking down the street.  A moment later, the car carrying the bomb passes by them.  The two characters stop for a moment to kiss, but are interrupted by the blast of an explosion.  It’s at that point that the movie sees it’s first cut to another shot, which is remarkable considering all the activity that we saw in the previous shot.  It’s an amazing, groundbreaking shot that has continued to influence filmmakers to this day.

Long take shots matured in the decades since Welles, and were particularly popular with filmmakers from overseas.  The long take became a popular technique for the Kung Fu genre in Asian cinema.  Naturally, Kung Fu films wanted to showcase the amazing stunt work of their actors, so letting the cameras roll without cutting the action was the best way to present that.  This is true with a lot of Jackie Chan movies from the 80’s and 90’s.  By letting the action play out, Jackie Chan was better able to convince audiences that he was the real deal as the scenes progressively became more and more elaborate as they went along.  This tradition of long, unbroken takes in Kung Fu and martial arts movies continues to this day, with recent classics like Oldboy (2003) and The Raid: Redemption (2011).  One particular director who put his own noteworthy stamp on the technique at this time was Chinese director John Woo.  While more of an action film director than a martial arts director, Woo managed to be influenced by the films of this genre as he prepared some of the more elaborate scenes in his movies.  Probably his most famous long take is the amazing Hospital scene from the movie Hard Boiled (1992).  Although only 3 minutes in total length, this spectacular scene involves so many technical effects and precisely timed stunts that it is a wonder to behold as it plays out.  There’s even a moment where the film’s star Chow Yun-Fat enters an elevator and proceeds to continue his shootout on the next floor without interruption.  This was accomplished through a rapid fire redress of the same set that you don’t see on screen.  It just shows how some filmmakers have managed to push the technique farther than ever before and continue to raise the bar.

Today, that bar has been raised to the point where long shot takes no longer have to be complex, they have to be spectacular.  In many ways, it has turned into the ultimate challenge for directors, and only the boldest ones out there are willing to take the plunge.  Thankfully, today the tools needed to pull off the process have become less cumbersome.  Digital cameras are much lighter than their film based fore-bearers, and are less distracting to the actors as well.  Stanley Kubrick brought the Steadicam into the film-making process, when he employed it on The Shining (1980), which made it easier to follow the action on foot without having to hide any of the wiring and heavy equipment attached to the camera.  This was used to great effect with the scenes showing young Danny Torrance riding his tricycle through the Overlook Hotel’s long hallways.  Also, digital manipulation has helped to mask some of the imperfections of lengthy one-shot takes, and even gives the audience the illusion of a long take when it really isn’t one.  Alejandro Innarritu’s friend and colleague Alfonso Cuaron has included many such long takes in his movies, and often they are so complex that there’s no way to make them workable without digital reinforcement.  This is true with scenes from some of Alfonso’s most spectacular films like the Time Turner sequence in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) or the amazing 12-minute opening shot of Gravity (2013).  Both of those moments called for digital enhancement, because there was no way they could be done in reality, and yet they still look like a seamless one-shot take.  It’s a brilliant example of how to make the technique work today with new technologies and still feel like they’re worthy of the legacy.

That’s not to say that every long take shot needs to be full of energy and movement.  Sometimes the most captivating long takes are ones that just lets the action play out in real time, helping to absorb the audience into the scene and forget that they are watching a movie.  Many indie filmmakers are particularly fond of this kind of technique.  Paul Thomas Anderson in particular has made great use of the long take in his films, which he frequently uses as a way to establish a setting or a character in the most elaborate way possible.  And for Anderson, the artistry is not in the way that the camera is moving, but what is captured in the frame that matters.  You look at the long shots from movies like Boogie Nights (1997) or Punch Drunk Love (2002) and you can see all the intricate detail that’s put into the characters actions on the screen, even sometimes when it’s something they are doing in the background.  Quentin Tarantino also lets his scenes play out as a way to build character and mood, like the spectacular long take of Leonardo DiCaprio’s dinner scene monologue in Django Unchained (2012).  But one of the most amazingly restrained examples of a long take shot that I’ve ever seen in a movie was in the film Hunger (2008), directed by Steve McQueen of 12 Years a Slave fame.  In it, there is a scene where Irish activist Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) is visited in prison by his priest (Liam Cunningham) during a hunger strike.  The two men sit down for a conversation that lasts over 10 minutes and the shot is from a wide angle, with both actors occupying either side of the frame.  Amazingly, the camera holds on this wide shot for the entire scene (all 10 minutes of it) and never cuts to a close-up.  This could have failed if the dialogue wasn’t interesting, but both actors feel so natural and the lines they deliver are so well written that the moment ends up being captivating.  It’s remarkable that an un-moving camera can have such a captivating effect, but director McQueen pulled it off.

There are many ways to make the technique of unbroken long takes work in a film, and the amazing thing is how many different ways it can work.  Pretty much, you can put the technique into any film and any scene and it would still work; it’s not about where you place it, it’s just how well you execute it.  Sometimes, when a long take becomes your signature style, it’ll end up finding it’s way into any story you wish to tell.  That has been true with British director Joe Wright, who has managed to put at least one long take into each of his movies, which range from adaptations of classic romance like Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Anna Karenina (2012) to action flicks like Hanna (2011).  Probably his most famous long take shot was in the movie Atonement (2007), which was a 6 1/2 minute trek along a war torn beach, featuring several vignettes of action played out in front of the camera as it passes by.  That spectacular shot had to involve months of planning to pull off as the action pieces needed to happen at precisely the right moment in order to make it into the shot.  Alfonso Cuaron also has made the technique part of his signature style.  His most famous example of the technique is probably the 4 minute shot inside of a moving car in the movie Children of Men  (2006), which was accomplished with a specialty rig built on the roof of the vehicle and was done with almost no digital manipulation.  Cuaron continued to build upon his already amazing camerawork in that film when he made the spectacular Gravity last year, which features some amazing shots that continue on for nearly 10 minutes in length apiece.  That spectacular camerawork earned both him and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki well deserved Oscars, showing that techniques like the long, unbroken take can help to gain a skilled filmmaker the notoriety that they deserve.

Indeed, if I were to point to a film technique that I enjoy the best, it would be the long, unbroken take.  There is just something purely cinematic about it.  It displays what I think is the pinnacle of cinematic artistry, because it requires so much work, patience, and skill to pull it off.  And thankfully, with film-making tools becoming much more reliable and less cumbersome than in years past, more filmmakers are gaining the confidence towards wanting to try their own take on these shots.  This technique is even making it’s way to television, as was witnessed with an amazingly well choreographed long take shot seen in an episode of HBO’s True Detective.  Hopefully, more filmmakers look at these amazing scenes in movies and become inspired to include them more often in the years ahead.  It certainly works more effectively than the fast paced editing that you see in movies nowadays.  For one thing, I was certainly glad to have witnessed a movie like Birdman which not only made use of the long take technique, but crafted the entire film around it.  Some of it was done through clever editing or unobtrusive visual manipulation, but you can tell that there were many parts of the movie that had to have been done purely without cutting the shot.  Probably the most spectacular one would be a scene where Michael Keaton’s character is accidentally locked out of the theater while still in his underwear.  In order to get back in to perform his scene on time, Keaton  runs around the building, crossing through traffic in a busy Times Square atmosphere, and reenters through the front lobby.  In all, the shot I would estimate is ten minutes long, and considering all the mayhem he and the crew would’ve had to cross in order to get that shot done right, the end result is incredibly impressive.  The whole movie is a brilliant showcase for the long take technique and I’m sure everyone who sees it will be just as engrossed as I was.  It’s amazing to think that fewer edits in a movie can make it more harrowing, but this is proof that it’s possible.

Whenever we round out our favorite comedies of all time, the film Ghostbusters (1984) is almost certainly at or near the top of that list for anyone in my generation.  Crafted from the minds of writers and co-stars Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and directed by Ivan Reitman, Ghostbusters is a classic in every way, and even 30 years after it’s initial release, it is still a strongly influential comedy.  That’s because of the fact that it takes a strong concept, that being a ragtag band of paranormal scientists forming a ghost extermination agency, and exploits that premise to it’s full potential.  That and it’s just incredibly funny.  The perfect casting is also what has made this movie so beloved.  Initially conceived as a follow-up to the popular Blues Brothers film, the movie was written to star Aykroyd and John  Belushi as a pair of titular Ghost Busters.  Unfortunately, Belushi’s untimely death forced a re-imagining of the script, which proved to be a blessing.  The team was expanded to include co-writer Ramis as the exceptionally nerdy Dr. Egon Spengler, as well as Ernie Hudson as the bewildered temp assistant Winston Zeddmore.  But, the true keystone to the whole cast proved to be the addition of Bill Murray in the role of Peter Venkman, the cocky one-liner spewing hot shot that Murray was tailor-made for.  Indeed, what most people love about this movie is just how well this cast works off each other, and just how funny they all are throughout.  Murray almost steals the movie away on his own.  But, what is interesting about the movie’s legacy after 30 years is how it modernized and redefined the way dark and scary themes can work as the basis for some hilarious comedy.

Though no one would ever define Ghostbusters as anything other than a comedy, it is interesting to note that there are moments in the movie that are downright creepy, and would feel at home in any authentic horror movie.  What’s more, nothing in the movie feels out of place.  Every scary moment works, and the hilarious comedic bits fit right alongside it, sometimes even helping to punctuate the moment.  None of the transitions in tone are jarring, and it all makes the film that more of a unique experience.  That fine line between horror and comedy can easily be mishandled if the filmmaker goes too far in either direction.  Ghostbusters is expertly crafted to the point where the movie crosses that divide effortlessly multiple times.  Case in point, the depictions of the ghosts differ primarily between the frightening and the goofy, depending on what the film requires at the moment.  The scene where the Ghost Busters encounter Slimer is more of a comical scene, so the look of Slimer the Ghost is obviously more cartoonish than scary.  However, when the movie shows the heroine Dana (Sigourney Weaver) being abducted and possessed by the demon Zuul, the creature is rightfully depicted as a terrifying monster.  Whatever the story calls for at the moment, the movie adjusts the tone and the scares accordingly, and Ghostbusters always seems to hit that tone perfectly.  It even gets a funny one-liner in every now and then during a terrifying scene, like Venkman’s quip about Zuul’s “lovely singing voice.”  But even though Ghostbusters modernized this kind of balance between the profane and the light-hearted, it was still one of many touchstones in the long history of Comedic Horror.

Mixing the two genres together actually has been around since the early days of cinema.  Even in some of the classic Monster movies of Hollywood’s Golden Age do you see some examples of adding levity to many dark films.  Universal’s classic adaptation of Mary Shelly’s Gothic novel, Frankenstein, was a notably dark movie with very few moments played for laughs.  However, when director James Whale was tasked with creating a sequel to his macabre classic, he chose to go in a very different tonal direction by injecting a lot of camp humor into the story.  The result was The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), which has gone on to become a beloved classic in it’s own right.  The movie is still frightening for the most part, with Boris Karloff still menacing as the Monster, but there are decidedly more comedic moments in this movie as well, primarily with the dimwitted townsfolk who hunt after Frankenstein.  Mel Brooks would exploit that comical tone more when he made his own homage to the Horror classic, Young Frankenstein (1974), following James Whale’s own style, but removing all subtext and adding a whole lot more silliness.  This kind of campy horror would become more prevalent during the 50’s and 60’s when the B-Movie phase began to dominate the cinemas.  Just watch the works of Ed Wood and Roger Corman and tell me that their intentions weren’t to make their audiences laugh out loud between the screams of terror.  But, despite the intentions of the filmmakers, there’s no doubt that a light sprinkling of comedy helps to make the horror feel more rewarding.  That’s something that future Horror film master Sam Raimi definitely took to heart when he created his Evil Dead series of films, which skirt the line between scary and funny quite frequently.  Even today you see many films try to make that balance work, although few have pulled it off as well.

I think the reason why Hollywood has become accustomed to the idea of mixing Horror and Comedy together is because they have the same effect on the audience.  For the most part, these are the kinds of movies that must be seen with a crowd, because the reactions you get out of the theater during a comedy or a horror film is also part of the entertainment.  If a horror movie makes someone in the audience scream out loud, it will almost always get a laugh out of someone else and that usually is why most people love the communal experience of watching Horror movies.  It’s the same kind of reaction we get out of a comedy movie too, and indeed sometimes the most laugh out loud moments we’ve seen could have come from a movie that was trying to be scary.  Case in point, in Friday the 13th Part 8, there’s a scene where Jason faces a championship boxer whom he wears down by being  un-phased by all the blows he delivering.  When the boxer says he’s had enough, he asks Jason to “take his best shot,” which he does by knocking the boxer’s head off in one punch.  It’s a hilarious moment in a place you didn’t expect it, and yet it doesn’t suddenly make the movie into a comedy.  A recent film like Gone Girl also has a moment that goes from horrific to hilarious in the blink of an eye, showing just how much those two emotions work well together.  It doesn’t work all the time, and indeed it more or less has to do with how well the tone is managed in a movie.  For one thing, none of the films in the Scary Movie franchise are particularly scary; or for that matter funny.  But it has been a formula that has proven itself countless times mainly because these are the kinds of movies that are perfectly geared to drive up box office numbers.

The movies that we commonly associate with this formula are Dark Comedies.  They are not primarily built around Horror tropes, but nevertheless they revolve around darker themes like death and suffering, while still playing moments and situations for a laugh.  Again, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series is so outlandish, that you could argue that they were made to be comedies first and horror films second, especially with Army of Darkness (1992).  But subtler dark comedies also manage to present that fine line in interesting ways.  The Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996) is a great example of comedy and horror working together to create a truly memorable experience.  I mean, you had to have chuckled when you saw Steve Buscemi’s disembodied foot poking out of that wood chipper, just before you felt the dread of what that situation was actually meant.  Human behavior gone horribly awry is what characterizes most dark comedies, with movies like Mary Harmon’s American Psycho (2000) and Peter Berg’s Very Bad Things (1998) also showing hilariously over the top moments of horror on screen.  But, what makes these movies memorable is not by how outlandish they are, but by how effective they’re shocking moments elevate the rest of the film surrounding them.  Sometimes the best way to do that is to subvert the audience’s reactions, and make them appreciate the unexpected.  If you’re too predictable, and add humor or horror in places that didn’t need them, then you have confused and unpleasant messes like Jennifer’s Body (2009) or Death to Smoochy (2002), both of which didn’t know what the hell they wanted to be.

But, not all comedies need to be dark in order to have scary moments.  Ghostbusters never actually stops being funny throughout it’s entire run-time, and it underlines every genuine scary moment with something hilarious.  It’s something that I think Ghostbusters defined better than any movie before and since, and most Horror comedies today follow along a similar tone that the movie established; giving us genuine frights while never missing the opportunity to crack a joke.  If I could point out a movie of this current generation that has become the Ghostbusters of it’s time, it would probably be Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004), which itself is celebrating a 10th anniversary this year.  Shaun managed to do for zombie flicks what Ghostbusters did with haunted house movies, and that’s by making a acceptable entry into the genre while at the same time lampooning it at every turn.  Like Ghostbusters, Shaun is built more around the hilarious interactions of the characters, with the horror setting used mainly as the backdrop for all of their goofy antics.  Stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost clearly have an affection for zombie movies, and their inept buffoonish characters work very well in this setting, which is depicted in a very straight forward way.  But, at the same time, the movie never falls into true horror, and is laugh out loud from beginning to end.  Plus, it’s the only movie I know of with a zombie attack choreographed to the music of Queen.  Most Dark Comedies can sometimes be mistaken as quirky Dark Dramas, but there’s no mistaking movies like Ghostbusters and Shaun of the Dead for anything other than a Horror Comedy.

So, 30 years have gone by and Ghostbusters is as fresh as ever.  Very little in the movie feels stale or dated.  Even today, it is still the highest grossing film ever made by Saturday Night Live alum, and that’s quite an achievement.  Considering that the movie started out as an excuse for the two stars of the Blues Brothers to team up again, it’s amazing to see how it has evolved since then.  It spawned a less effective, but still entertaining sequel, as well as an animated series and a lucrative toy line.  I think I remember there being a glow-in-the-dark Stay Puft Marshmallow Man doll in home many years ago, showing just how wide a range of audience this movie reached over the years, even becoming a part of the lives of the youngest viewers out there.  There have been rumors of a third Ghostbusters film for years now, which I don’t think will ever see the light of day, especially now with the recent passing of co-star Harold Ramis.  To be honest, there’s not much that can be improved upon; the original is just a perfectly crafted movie and it’s hard to recapture that same kind of effectiveness.  For one thing, Ghostbusters was groundbreaking in how it took the Horror Comedy to new heights, especially in terms of the level of it’s hilarity, and also in the scale of it’s production.  It’s easy to reach the goal, but rarely can you top it’s impact.  Shaun of the Dead manages to follow in the movie’s footsteps with it’s level of effective humor, but done on a much smaller scale with a different kind of sub-genre.  For Ghostbusters, it was a product of it’s time and became a definite touchstone that would define the look and feel of both comedies and horror movies for years to come.  It’s often imitated, such as with similar toned movies like Gremlins (1985), but few have ever managed to come close to it’s ambition.  And most importantly it still remains a great cinematic experience.  Can it be scary?  Absolutely, but in a very fun way, because after all, “I ain’t afraid of no ghost.”