Constantine and dopamine
Mar. 28th, 2005 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kodalaiSo, in Phys. Psych. today (neurobio for short) we're studying reward systems and reinforcement. In addition to the good'ol fashioned reward systems for food, drink, and sex, reward systems also light up for other things. For instance, studies of heterosexual men and women showed that the dopamine-activated neural circuits kick in when they are shown a picture of an attractive member of the opposite sex, or also when they picked up a winning poker hand in a high stakes game. It was sort of enough to make me want to do a dopamine-trigger study on fangirls when confronted with pictures of their favorite characters.
This weekend was Cesar Chavez day as well as being Easter. Between the two, I went out to the movies on Saturday with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sukino to see Constantine.
Constantine is a movie that will never win any awards for acting. But that's okay, because the director managed to set the movie up in such a way as not to require acting. All that was really required of the actors was to stand in the right places at the right times and convey the proper expository information to the audience, and the story-concept and the SFX carried it the rest of the way.
But seriously, don't go see this movie for the acting. Aside from Keanu Reeve's legenday performance issues when playing outside a certain range (which he was within this time, so it was okay, not painful) the leading actress couldn't emote worth a damn. I swear her voice pitch didn't vary more than half a note through 90% of her lines, and her expression hardly registered more than slight discomfiture even in times of what was supposed to be extreme emotional duress. Maybe she was afraid of cracking her makeup. About the only decent acting in the movie was carried by the actress who played Gabriel and the actor who played John's whiny teen sidekick.
But as I said, it's okay. Because most of the roles didn't actually require any acting; most of the characters were mostly vessels for the movie's SFX. Which I thought were pretty well carried out. There were a lot of flashy sparks and flames being thrown around, but most of the effects centered around conveying this theme of beings so powerful, so extrahuman, so pussiant that their mere presence causes the earth to shake, cattle to keel over, and reality to bend around the edges. Which was pretty damn cool.
Then there was the story. Now, I'm not a big follower of Hellblazer; only enough to be moderately familiar with the premise and the main character. But I did know enough to go into the movie with a few basic rules.
1) You do not want to get involved with John Constantine's line of work.
2) No, really. No matter how cool it seems from the outside, you do not want to get involved with John Constantine's line of work, because most people who do end up dying horrifically and/or going to hell.
3) You do not want to make friends with John Constantine, because all his friends die.
4) John Constantine has acquired a personal relationship with Hell and its denizens such that if he should die, he will be screwed in more ways than the human vocabulary can articulate.
All of these rules played out in the movie pretty well, I thought. I won't even get into the disappointment of John Constantine being neither blond nor British, but if you didn't know that he was supposed to be those two, you could almost accept it. I'm not familiar with Constantine's backstory, nor even all that clear on his occupation/motivations, but the ones provided in the movie -- he was a psychic since childhood, he committed suicide and saw Hell, and thus devoted his life to attempting to win favors with God so as to make sure he wouldn't return there, a career path which rather backfired -- seemed a little too pat. Still, within the confined of a two-hour-movie mostly devoted to SFX, it worked. The depictions of Hell were almost toothy enough to make one convert, yeesh, although they took the non-denominational route by emphasizing repeatedly that if one repented for one's sins, one would be fine as long as one refrained from committing suicide.
I am also pleased that they avoided having John and the police chick hook up at the end, reference rule 3. Although it was cute when he admitted that he was doing this "almost completely not about the girl." Other slashy vibes included momentary cuteness between John and his only-one-who-could-semi-decently-act sidekick, Gabriel, who was just one big walking vibe himself, and a very disturbing sequence between John and the devil where the latter, in sequence, pins the former against the wall, licks his cheek, rips his shirt off, sticks his hands into his chest and roots around for a while. A shame this wasn't the angel-pretty Lucifer Morningstar of the Sandman-verse, though, he had extremely, extremely scary nasty old man vibes.
So, yeah. Fun stuff, not overly gory, although it had its disturbing moments (I HATE that bug demon SO MUCH. Just reading the issue he was enough to decide me that I didn't want to follow Hellblazer) and a movie worth paying matinee prices to see on big screen, provided you don't know/can forget enough about the original Hellblazer to go in a clean slate.
This weekend was Cesar Chavez day as well as being Easter. Between the two, I went out to the movies on Saturday with
sukino to see Constantine.Constantine is a movie that will never win any awards for acting. But that's okay, because the director managed to set the movie up in such a way as not to require acting. All that was really required of the actors was to stand in the right places at the right times and convey the proper expository information to the audience, and the story-concept and the SFX carried it the rest of the way.
But seriously, don't go see this movie for the acting. Aside from Keanu Reeve's legenday performance issues when playing outside a certain range (which he was within this time, so it was okay, not painful) the leading actress couldn't emote worth a damn. I swear her voice pitch didn't vary more than half a note through 90% of her lines, and her expression hardly registered more than slight discomfiture even in times of what was supposed to be extreme emotional duress. Maybe she was afraid of cracking her makeup. About the only decent acting in the movie was carried by the actress who played Gabriel and the actor who played John's whiny teen sidekick.
But as I said, it's okay. Because most of the roles didn't actually require any acting; most of the characters were mostly vessels for the movie's SFX. Which I thought were pretty well carried out. There were a lot of flashy sparks and flames being thrown around, but most of the effects centered around conveying this theme of beings so powerful, so extrahuman, so pussiant that their mere presence causes the earth to shake, cattle to keel over, and reality to bend around the edges. Which was pretty damn cool.
Then there was the story. Now, I'm not a big follower of Hellblazer; only enough to be moderately familiar with the premise and the main character. But I did know enough to go into the movie with a few basic rules.
1) You do not want to get involved with John Constantine's line of work.
2) No, really. No matter how cool it seems from the outside, you do not want to get involved with John Constantine's line of work, because most people who do end up dying horrifically and/or going to hell.
3) You do not want to make friends with John Constantine, because all his friends die.
4) John Constantine has acquired a personal relationship with Hell and its denizens such that if he should die, he will be screwed in more ways than the human vocabulary can articulate.
All of these rules played out in the movie pretty well, I thought. I won't even get into the disappointment of John Constantine being neither blond nor British, but if you didn't know that he was supposed to be those two, you could almost accept it. I'm not familiar with Constantine's backstory, nor even all that clear on his occupation/motivations, but the ones provided in the movie -- he was a psychic since childhood, he committed suicide and saw Hell, and thus devoted his life to attempting to win favors with God so as to make sure he wouldn't return there, a career path which rather backfired -- seemed a little too pat. Still, within the confined of a two-hour-movie mostly devoted to SFX, it worked. The depictions of Hell were almost toothy enough to make one convert, yeesh, although they took the non-denominational route by emphasizing repeatedly that if one repented for one's sins, one would be fine as long as one refrained from committing suicide.
I am also pleased that they avoided having John and the police chick hook up at the end, reference rule 3. Although it was cute when he admitted that he was doing this "almost completely not about the girl." Other slashy vibes included momentary cuteness between John and his only-one-who-could-semi-decently-act sidekick, Gabriel, who was just one big walking vibe himself, and a very disturbing sequence between John and the devil where the latter, in sequence, pins the former against the wall, licks his cheek, rips his shirt off, sticks his hands into his chest and roots around for a while. A shame this wasn't the angel-pretty Lucifer Morningstar of the Sandman-verse, though, he had extremely, extremely scary nasty old man vibes.
So, yeah. Fun stuff, not overly gory, although it had its disturbing moments (I HATE that bug demon SO MUCH. Just reading the issue he was enough to decide me that I didn't want to follow Hellblazer) and a movie worth paying matinee prices to see on big screen, provided you don't know/can forget enough about the original Hellblazer to go in a clean slate.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 12:53 am (UTC)B) Constantine: Not blond or British? Guess that's an oops, huh? Not that I follow Hellblazer either, but what I do follow has him showing up enough - mostly either to do with Dream's sand, or with Mad Hetty - that I care. Still, I suppose it's the attitude that matters most.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 09:13 am (UTC)I couldn't agree more. It's a nice change to see a movie that has almost no trace of romance in it.
So, did you get to see the little scene after the end of the credits?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 09:37 am (UTC)It was a nice bit of closure. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 01:08 am (UTC)I haven't seen Constantine yet (might go see it at some point) so it's good to know its sort of worth seeing. Although I'm still annoyed that he's not British, blond or Liverpudlian.
I do need to read the comic though. It looks good. Maybe when i've bought the rest of Sandman.