Teal & Orange Holiday Edition

Merry Holiday Festivus season boys and girls!  Today Santa's got a great present to share with you.  A brand new movie trailer just dripping with those classic holiday colors - Orange and Teal!

Can you guess what it is?  What's that you say?

 

Oh - Tron?  Well, no, that's an obvious choice - I mean it is absolutely drenched with those beautifully festive hues:

 

Just look at the amazing rainbow colors of those fireworks - I can taste every one of them: strawberry, blueberry, lime, raspberry.  It sure is remarkable how colorful the inside a computer can look!  Those Hollywood colorists sure had to get up early in the morning to dream up all of that!

I've heard folks say that this new Tron looks just like the original - that it HAD to be Orange and Teal 'cuz that's what it looked like way back when:

Hmm - but wait, what's that purple doing back there.  Here, let me waive my magic pipe, say three Ho, Ho Ho's and make it more Christmassy:

 

Ahh - now that's much better - That's how Santa remembered it.

Oh watch out for my new reindeer - they do get a tad restless when someone mentions the word "purple"!

Now wait a sec, those aren't reindeer - those look like hounds from hell from that new movie-

 

Yeah, The Tempest, that's what I wanted to show you.  A new adaptation of Shakespeare's great play.  You know...

Shakespeare... The Bard...

Ooh - now that's rather gloomy isn't it. Took the festive right out of festivus!  Let's give him a little holiday cheer shall we:

Much better!

Now let's take a look at this great new version of The Tempest:

What?... what is that?  Oh wait, that's the 1982 Paul Mazursky version - horrid, simply horrid colors with all that leafy green in there and that flesh tone looking all fleshy.  Let's update that shall we?

 

Oh... (sniff) now that's so much better (sniff) - brings me right back to my childhood - to holiday seasons past... Sorry, I'm getting too emotional here... just sit back and let the Christmas orange and teal spirit wash over you:

Ahhh - Shakespeare's work never looked better.  I couldn't have dreamed a more cheerful vision if my life depended on it.  Thank goodness these Hollywood art directors, colorists and directors continue to spread holiday cheer with their exquisite taste in color.

And damn what anyone else says. Eff those frigging other colors anyway - what did they ever do for me, eh?  I see you over there purple - yeah, and your buddy violet too - tell him and burgundy to get the frak off Santa's porch if you know what's good fer ya!  I got a sawed-off shotgun of TEAL and ORANGE with your name on it buddy!!  Awash!  Awash in ORANGE and TEAL my kingdom shall be!!  And all others shall shake in their puny pink boots!  SO SAYS SANTA!  SO SAY WE ALL!!  UNTIL THE DAY OF RECKONING WHEN THE OLD ONES WILL AWAKE FROM THEIR ORANGE AND TEAL SLUMBER BENEATH THE GIBBOUS MOON AND CTHULU SHALL SING THE SONGS OF THE COSMOS FOR THE GREAT NYAHJDGKJYEGKDYUAKS...Hdkjfhg...deakjkk...

ack...

Uh... Sorry Kids...

Santa had a bit too much egg nog there and all those beautiful colors kicked-off a sort of seizure (too much information, santa) Oh.. ok, anyway, thanks for sharing this holiday season with me and I look forward to seeing you all in 2011- forever spreading Teal and Orange goodness throughout the land.

Teal and Orange offender of the month

This month's offender for biggest misuse of teal and orange goes to that great romantic comedy that everyone no one is talking about, The Switch. I guess if you fail at making an original, funny, and memorable movie, at least you can make it look original.

Oh wait...

You guys gotta stop making this so easy for me.  I mean really.

 This one I really like - I mean since you're already wearing the teal dress, you might as well adorn it with those beautiful orange flowers.

 

 

 Again, I have nothing against tweaking a shot so the backgrounds are generally cooler and the foregrounds and actors are generally warmer - I get it, I really do.   What drives me ape$H!T is the effing teal background color.  Not blue, but practically green.

 

Hey, nice day for a muscle shirt.  I wonder what color I happen to have today...

 

 

Here we go - finally a nice shot with some natural greens and browns - even a touch of violet.  Thank you Cinematographer and Colorist. Oh wait, what the eff is that kid wearing?  Oh look, it's a two-tone puffy vest.  No, it's an effing ORANGE AND TEAL two-tone puffy vest!!!  DAMN YOU ART DIRECTOR!!! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

Please someone put me out of my misery.  I'm pretty sure when I was growing up those things were like solid navy blue or nasty grungy red.

Oh well, there's always next month...

Daybreakers - The King of Teal and Orange!

Ding! Ding! Ding!
We have a winner!!

 I just saw Daybreakers and it is by far the most extreme version of Teal and Orange ever!  It wins by way of knockout over the former title holder, Transformers 2.

Now, the interesting thing is that even though every single scene is drenched in shades of teal and orange (ok, and the occasional RED too), I can actually accept it for this movie because it makes sense within the context of the story - a world in which vampires are the norm and humans are an ever-dwindling endangered race.

(Ethan Hawke - Yawny McYawn)

As to the movie itself... well I wish they had spent as much budget on character development as they did on art direction.  The main problem is the characters, especially the lead, Ethan Hawke, are incredibly flat and boring.  You really don't care what happens to any of them - stay vampire, turn back human, die, blow up - I really couldn't be bothered.

(ok - Willem Dafoe isn't bad.  If the whole movie had a bunch of Dafoes running around, it wouldn't entirely suck)

Also, the story really isn't a horror film at all - it is more a corporate/political thriller that happens to be set in a world of vampires in business suits.

The vampire mythos is about sex, seduction and eternal life - not cornering the market on near-blood.

Yawn.

Teal and Orange - Part 2

Wow, my last post started a little wildfire... who knew?

In an effort to clarify and distill my argument down to it's purest form I will ask just one question (and I will even eliminate Transformers 2 from my debate since it's such an easy target).

Can ANYONE justify the aesthetic choice behind the color grading in this image:

Does it help to convey the key aspects of these characters, or their relationship?  Does it elucidate the major themes of the movie?  Does it support the mise en scéne of the image?

Or perhaps, since this is a comedy after all, you may say that it simply makes the scene funnier.

Really?

Does it make it funnier than say, this?

Or this?

Or this?

Or how about this?

Now you may say, "Well, that look doesn't need any justification, any more than the looks of the scenes you chose - it is just a pleasing look that makes the actors "pop" from the background."

The problem with that argument is that all these other scenes have a very naturalistic look (except Young Frankenstien of course) that does nothing to distract the viewer from the key elements of the scene - namely, the actors, the delivery of their lines, and their comic actions.  To me, the preternaturally vibrant orange and teal of the scene from Hot Tub Time Machine completely distracts me from anything else going on.

And that is simply bad filmmaking.

Teal and Orange - Hollywood, Please Stop the Madness

Those of you who watch a lot of Hollywood movies may have noticed a certain trend that has consumed the industry in the last few years.  It is one of the most insidious and heinous practices that has ever overwhelmed the industry.  Am I talking about the lack of good scripts?  Do I speak of the dependency of a few mega-blockbuster hits to save the studios each year, or of the endless sequels and television retreads?  No, I am talking about something much more dangerous, much deadlier to the health of cinema.

I speak of course, of THE COLOR GRADING VIRUS THAT IS TEAL & ORANGE!!!

This is the insidious practice of color-grading every movie with a simplified, distilled palette of teal and orange like this:

Or this:

Or this:

So how did we get here, you may ask. Well, it's a sad and sordid tale my friend, the combination of new digital technology and a good idea gone bad.