Fan Fiction and Harry Potter
An article from Time about fan fiction and Harry Potter. How very appropriate because Harry Potter has one of the largest, if not the largest, fan base that I have seen online. I used to be involved in the fan fiction world myself, mostly as a reader, and I still peak back at it sometimes.
I think the article does a good job with giving a good overview of the fan fiction world, but I wanted to add a few things:
-One very positive thing about fan fiction is that it helps a lot of people write. A lot of times, it's about the community of writers and readers that you encounter. You have these characters that everyone knows and so you already have an audience (encouragement for writing and good for feedback) and also, characters you can flesh out and explore. Writing about characters that exist is much less daunting than characters you create on your own.
-What about the fictional books that are based on famous novels? E.g. I have seen quite a few books out there that do an alternative take on Jane Eyre and lots of sequels to Pride and Prejudice.
In honor of the last Harry Potter movie coming out (sniffle sniffle), I wanted to share a link to one of my favorite Harry Potter fanfics out there: Summer Holidays by Penknife. A lot of people, myself included, were really frustrated with the epilogue in the last Harry Potter book after a decent ending in the last chapter. While it was nice to see Harry happily settled down, their children have ridiculous names and the epilogue, as a whole, just seemed tacked on and *too happy*.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
The Others, Adaptation, and Se7en
The Others
The Others is about Grace (Nicole Kidman, who is really great in this movie) and her two light sensitive children who live in an old, Gothic mansion- made scarier as it is constantly shrouded in darkness as a result of the children's condition. When intruders start appearing in the house, Grace isn't quite sure what she should do.
I caught the last half an hour or so of this movie a very long time ago and have wanted to see the whole movie for a long time since. I loved the ending but hate the way DVDs advertise it- come on- spoilers much? The Others has a lot of truly eerie moments: the pictures of the dead, when Grace and her children finally learn the truth about the servants in their house, and the final sequence when your mind is literally blown away but you're also terrified by what's going on. It's a decent movie, not really worth watching more than a few times. I do applaud the movie for really creating a creepy, eerie atmosphere; it's so refreshing to see an actual horror movie based on genuine chills as opposed to another gory horror movie.
Adaptation
Adaptation follows tormented, self-loathing Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) who is struggling with his adaptation of Susan Orlean (Meryl Strep)'s book The Orchid Thief.
I really wanted to like this movie. I really did, b/c I've liked many of Charlie Kaufman's other stuff. I loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- one of my favorite movies EVER, and really enjoyed Being John Malkovich - it's so out there but it's so much fun, but I just could not get into Adaptation. I tolerated it up until they end up in Florida and people are trying to kill each other. It's too much, too regular action movie for it to be believable in the realm of the Adaptation world. Adaptation does contain some great quotes though and it has one of the best perspectives on love I've heard in a very long time.
Speaking of Adaptation, one helpful screen writing tip that Adaptation offered was that endings really matter. Even if you have a mediocre movie, if the ending is solid, then you have a good movie. This really applies to Se7en, which I finally saw recently.
Se7en
Se7en is follows two police officers, world-weary Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and hot-heated rookie Mills ( Brad Pitt) as they try to figure out who has been committing all of these horrific crimes that follow the Seven Deadly Sins. Even though I already roughly knew what happens, I was still very curious to see the movie. Up until the last act, it was an okay film- mainly memorable for how gory and unique the murders are and a fine performance from Freeman. The cat and mouse game between the detectives and the killer was intriguing, but certainly not the best that I've seen. It was a bit frustrating to watch how rushed and excitable Mills was-makes him seem more naive than he should be and also, later on, how far behind the detectives really were. Like Somerset says cynically, their job isn't to solve murders, it's to track down what happens and organize them into neat little piles.
And then it got to the last 30 minutes of the movie, and I was absolutely blown away. It's amazing how that final car ride changes everything, how the tension just keeps rising and rising as they get closer and closer to their destination. And that's why Se7en's so memorable and talked about years after it's been in theaters.
Se7en is a great film but definitely not for people who scare easily.
Films Currently in Theaters
I also recently wrote reviews for Horrible Bosses (good movie! Lots of fun) and Cars 2 (not so great...oh Pixar, you've let me down!).
The Others is about Grace (Nicole Kidman, who is really great in this movie) and her two light sensitive children who live in an old, Gothic mansion- made scarier as it is constantly shrouded in darkness as a result of the children's condition. When intruders start appearing in the house, Grace isn't quite sure what she should do.
I caught the last half an hour or so of this movie a very long time ago and have wanted to see the whole movie for a long time since. I loved the ending but hate the way DVDs advertise it- come on- spoilers much? The Others has a lot of truly eerie moments: the pictures of the dead, when Grace and her children finally learn the truth about the servants in their house, and the final sequence when your mind is literally blown away but you're also terrified by what's going on. It's a decent movie, not really worth watching more than a few times. I do applaud the movie for really creating a creepy, eerie atmosphere; it's so refreshing to see an actual horror movie based on genuine chills as opposed to another gory horror movie.
Adaptation
Adaptation follows tormented, self-loathing Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) who is struggling with his adaptation of Susan Orlean (Meryl Strep)'s book The Orchid Thief.
I really wanted to like this movie. I really did, b/c I've liked many of Charlie Kaufman's other stuff. I loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- one of my favorite movies EVER, and really enjoyed Being John Malkovich - it's so out there but it's so much fun, but I just could not get into Adaptation. I tolerated it up until they end up in Florida and people are trying to kill each other. It's too much, too regular action movie for it to be believable in the realm of the Adaptation world. Adaptation does contain some great quotes though and it has one of the best perspectives on love I've heard in a very long time.
Charlie Kaufman: How come you looked so happy?
Donald Kaufman: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.
Charlie Kaufman: But she thought you were pathetic.
Donald Kaufman: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago.
Speaking of Adaptation, one helpful screen writing tip that Adaptation offered was that endings really matter. Even if you have a mediocre movie, if the ending is solid, then you have a good movie. This really applies to Se7en, which I finally saw recently.
Se7en
Se7en is follows two police officers, world-weary Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and hot-heated rookie Mills ( Brad Pitt) as they try to figure out who has been committing all of these horrific crimes that follow the Seven Deadly Sins. Even though I already roughly knew what happens, I was still very curious to see the movie. Up until the last act, it was an okay film- mainly memorable for how gory and unique the murders are and a fine performance from Freeman. The cat and mouse game between the detectives and the killer was intriguing, but certainly not the best that I've seen. It was a bit frustrating to watch how rushed and excitable Mills was-makes him seem more naive than he should be and also, later on, how far behind the detectives really were. Like Somerset says cynically, their job isn't to solve murders, it's to track down what happens and organize them into neat little piles.
And then it got to the last 30 minutes of the movie, and I was absolutely blown away. It's amazing how that final car ride changes everything, how the tension just keeps rising and rising as they get closer and closer to their destination. And that's why Se7en's so memorable and talked about years after it's been in theaters.
Se7en is a great film but definitely not for people who scare easily.
Films Currently in Theaters
I also recently wrote reviews for Horrible Bosses (good movie! Lots of fun) and Cars 2 (not so great...oh Pixar, you've let me down!).
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Kubrick and Nolan
Two posts in two days? I guess I'm on a roll. (more accurately, I'm on a short break).
Insomnia
Today I watched Christopher Nolan's Insomnia and now, I can proudly say that I have seen all of his movies. It's interesting seeing brief glimpses of his future filmmaking style, like the brief flashes of memories in Insomnia, which are later abundantly used in Inception and Batman Begins. Insomnia is a solid movie, a crime drama that takes place in a small, isolated town in Alaska. Al Pacino plays Detective Dormer who goes to Alaska during the summer, so it's light outside all the time, to solve the murder of a 17-year old girl. Supporting cast features Robin Williams and Hillary Swank. Insomnia is like a long episode of old school Law and Order with Detective Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), and starts getting interesting when you find out what the movie really is about. Insomnia asks interesting questions about morality; does the end really justify the means? And while it does twist the question around a bit, in a lot of ways, the ending took the easy way out. It's certainly a solid movie with some genuinely suspenseful moments such as Dormer's interrogation of the dead girl's best friend and it's fascinating to see common Nolan motifs lightly touched upon in this movie that are more heavily explored in his later films, but I wouldn't say it's particularly memorable.
There've been a lot of comparisons b/n Nolan and Kubrick, mainly b/c Nolan hasn't really made a bad film. I had trouble getting into Following, but liked its intensity and really loved the first 20 minutes of it. I love Inception and the Batman films. I found Memento really fascinating and the jury's still out for The Prestige, but I definitely do want to see it again. I think that Kubrick is really in a class of his own, but it's nice seeing a director out there who makes good action movies and makes fun, intelligent blockbusters.
Lyndon Barry
On Kubrick, I have seen most of his films and am just *blown* away by how each of his films are in a different genre and how he nailed each and every one of them. Eyes Wide Shut loses steam towards the end, but it's still filled with so many absolutely fascinating, memorable, cinematic sequences. On that note, I also watched Lyndon Barry recently. While I didn't like it as much as I liked The Shinning, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or A Clockwork Orange, it's a decent film, howbeit quite slow. The DVD summary wasn't lying when is said that Lyndon Barry was like a slow-moving painting. Lyndon Barry does have one of my favorite dueling scenes ever. The incredibly tense scene is here, and it is imho, the best scene in the whole movie:
I am fascinated by how much work went into the filming of the movie. Some of the candlelight scenes in the movie were really *only* lighted by candles. I didn't care much for the omniscient narrator, though I did like the necessary humor he added to the earlier half of the movie. The movie picked up steam and started going somewhere after Barry meets Lady Lyndon, but ultimately, it was hard to really like or root for any of the characters. Barry, while an interesting antihero, is really not a good person nor a particularly bright one. Lady Lyndon is silent and placid and her son, who should by all means get loads of sympathy given his situation but is weak and whiney. Overall, Barry Lyndon is for the hard core Kubrick fans; it has a few really fantastic scenes but is generally a very very slow movie.
Insomnia
Today I watched Christopher Nolan's Insomnia and now, I can proudly say that I have seen all of his movies. It's interesting seeing brief glimpses of his future filmmaking style, like the brief flashes of memories in Insomnia, which are later abundantly used in Inception and Batman Begins. Insomnia is a solid movie, a crime drama that takes place in a small, isolated town in Alaska. Al Pacino plays Detective Dormer who goes to Alaska during the summer, so it's light outside all the time, to solve the murder of a 17-year old girl. Supporting cast features Robin Williams and Hillary Swank. Insomnia is like a long episode of old school Law and Order with Detective Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), and starts getting interesting when you find out what the movie really is about. Insomnia asks interesting questions about morality; does the end really justify the means? And while it does twist the question around a bit, in a lot of ways, the ending took the easy way out. It's certainly a solid movie with some genuinely suspenseful moments such as Dormer's interrogation of the dead girl's best friend and it's fascinating to see common Nolan motifs lightly touched upon in this movie that are more heavily explored in his later films, but I wouldn't say it's particularly memorable.
There've been a lot of comparisons b/n Nolan and Kubrick, mainly b/c Nolan hasn't really made a bad film. I had trouble getting into Following, but liked its intensity and really loved the first 20 minutes of it. I love Inception and the Batman films. I found Memento really fascinating and the jury's still out for The Prestige, but I definitely do want to see it again. I think that Kubrick is really in a class of his own, but it's nice seeing a director out there who makes good action movies and makes fun, intelligent blockbusters.
Lyndon Barry
On Kubrick, I have seen most of his films and am just *blown* away by how each of his films are in a different genre and how he nailed each and every one of them. Eyes Wide Shut loses steam towards the end, but it's still filled with so many absolutely fascinating, memorable, cinematic sequences. On that note, I also watched Lyndon Barry recently. While I didn't like it as much as I liked The Shinning, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or A Clockwork Orange, it's a decent film, howbeit quite slow. The DVD summary wasn't lying when is said that Lyndon Barry was like a slow-moving painting. Lyndon Barry does have one of my favorite dueling scenes ever. The incredibly tense scene is here, and it is imho, the best scene in the whole movie:
I am fascinated by how much work went into the filming of the movie. Some of the candlelight scenes in the movie were really *only* lighted by candles. I didn't care much for the omniscient narrator, though I did like the necessary humor he added to the earlier half of the movie. The movie picked up steam and started going somewhere after Barry meets Lady Lyndon, but ultimately, it was hard to really like or root for any of the characters. Barry, while an interesting antihero, is really not a good person nor a particularly bright one. Lady Lyndon is silent and placid and her son, who should by all means get loads of sympathy given his situation but is weak and whiney. Overall, Barry Lyndon is for the hard core Kubrick fans; it has a few really fantastic scenes but is generally a very very slow movie.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
True Grit and Bridesmaids
True Grit
I finally saw True Grit and was pleasantly surprised by how much of an old school adventure story it was. True Grit follows 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) as she seeks to bring her father's murderer, Chaney, to justice. She hires US Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track him down, and they are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon with a mustache!), who is also after Chaney.
From the action-packed, rather-dark trailer, I was expecting True Grit to be more like Unforgiven, but the movie that True Grit reminds me of the most is actually Miyazaki's beautiful Porco Rosso- both feature young girls who experience the adventure of a life time with fascinating characters (Rooster and Porco). I haven't always liked Westerns, but one thing that made me really start to enjoy Westerns is that they slow things down (long horseback rides) so that characters have to interact with each other. I like that the characters, despite their faults, are all decent people and that the main trio, Mattie, Rooster, and LaBouef genuinely see each other for who they are and truly respect each other in the end. From the trailers, I thought Damon looked very silly with his Western get-up, but he's fine in the movie and disappears into LaBouef. Bridges is decent, though he is oftentimes hard to understand (subtitles definitely needed). At the heart of the movie, though, is Steinfeld, who rightfully won an Academy Award nomination for her actin. She anchors the movie and portrays Mattie as one of the strongest, most sensible female characters I've seen in a long time.
True Grit is less tense than I expected it to be. It's a notch above the usual adventure movie, and I was especially surprised by how moved I was by the ending. Definitely worth watching as an old school, slower paced Western.
Bridesmaids
I'm a bit late on reviewing this one, but Bridesmaids is one of the best "raunchy" comedies I've seen in a while. It's refreshing to see a female-centric comedy that is not so much focused on romance but rather friendships. In some ways it is the female version of "The Hangover" movies, but it's so much more.
Annie (Kristen Wiig)'s life is falling apart: she lost her dream business, has a super douchey f- buddy (Jon Hamm), and the only good thing going on in her life is her relationship with her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Lillian makes Annie her maid of honor, but soon, Lillian's new friend, Helen (Rose Byrne) starts taking over her role as Lillian's best friend.
The performances are what really make the movie. I haven't been a big fan of Wiig on SNL; many of her characters are outrageous and obnoxious. Kristen Wiig is fantastic as Annie, though. She's down down to earth and believable as a woman who is really hurting herself with her low self-esteem. The supporting cast is fantastic, as well. I especially liked Melissa McCarthy's insanely confident Megan, Wendi McLendon-Covey's weary mother of three Rita, and Chris O'Dowd as a cop and Annie's love interest. Jon Hamm is also hilarious in the few scenes that he's in. He IS Don Draper, of course, but it's always nice to see him branch out and do comedy.
LaBoeuf: You give out very little sugar with your pronouncements. While I sat there watchin' I gave some thought to stealin' a kiss... though you are very young, and sick... and unattractive to boot. But now I have a mind to give you five or six good licks with my belt. Mattie Ross: One would be just as unpleasant as the other.
I finally saw True Grit and was pleasantly surprised by how much of an old school adventure story it was. True Grit follows 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) as she seeks to bring her father's murderer, Chaney, to justice. She hires US Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track him down, and they are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon with a mustache!), who is also after Chaney.
From the action-packed, rather-dark trailer, I was expecting True Grit to be more like Unforgiven, but the movie that True Grit reminds me of the most is actually Miyazaki's beautiful Porco Rosso- both feature young girls who experience the adventure of a life time with fascinating characters (Rooster and Porco). I haven't always liked Westerns, but one thing that made me really start to enjoy Westerns is that they slow things down (long horseback rides) so that characters have to interact with each other. I like that the characters, despite their faults, are all decent people and that the main trio, Mattie, Rooster, and LaBouef genuinely see each other for who they are and truly respect each other in the end. From the trailers, I thought Damon looked very silly with his Western get-up, but he's fine in the movie and disappears into LaBouef. Bridges is decent, though he is oftentimes hard to understand (subtitles definitely needed). At the heart of the movie, though, is Steinfeld, who rightfully won an Academy Award nomination for her actin. She anchors the movie and portrays Mattie as one of the strongest, most sensible female characters I've seen in a long time.
True Grit is less tense than I expected it to be. It's a notch above the usual adventure movie, and I was especially surprised by how moved I was by the ending. Definitely worth watching as an old school, slower paced Western.
Bridesmaids
I'm a bit late on reviewing this one, but Bridesmaids is one of the best "raunchy" comedies I've seen in a while. It's refreshing to see a female-centric comedy that is not so much focused on romance but rather friendships. In some ways it is the female version of "The Hangover" movies, but it's so much more.
Annie (Kristen Wiig)'s life is falling apart: she lost her dream business, has a super douchey f- buddy (Jon Hamm), and the only good thing going on in her life is her relationship with her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Lillian makes Annie her maid of honor, but soon, Lillian's new friend, Helen (Rose Byrne) starts taking over her role as Lillian's best friend.
The performances are what really make the movie. I haven't been a big fan of Wiig on SNL; many of her characters are outrageous and obnoxious. Kristen Wiig is fantastic as Annie, though. She's down down to earth and believable as a woman who is really hurting herself with her low self-esteem. The supporting cast is fantastic, as well. I especially liked Melissa McCarthy's insanely confident Megan, Wendi McLendon-Covey's weary mother of three Rita, and Chris O'Dowd as a cop and Annie's love interest. Jon Hamm is also hilarious in the few scenes that he's in. He IS Don Draper, of course, but it's always nice to see him branch out and do comedy.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Battle LA, Full Metal Jacket, and The American
Even though it's the slow movie season (not yet summer and post-Oscar season), I've managed to see quite a few movies in the past month. Also I haven't updated in a while so be prepared- there'll be a lot.
Battle: Los Angeles
I saw this movie today. When I first heard about this movie, at the very best, I expected it to be along the veins of District 9 (gritty, more "realistic" look) and at the very worst, I expected it to take itself seriously enough that it falls just short of the being campy and the sort of movie "that's so bad it's good." A recent movie that falls into this terrible category is I Am Number Four, which I reviewed recently.
I wasn't expecting much from Battle: LA since it got PANNED by reviews- rotten tomatoes gave it a dismal rating of ~30 %. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by Battle: LA. It's actually a pretty good solid movie. It's entertaining, captures your attention, and is action packed. Usually, I'm all for character development, but as it stands, in this movie, I really would have preferred less since everything back story related was terribly cliche and even maudlin at times. At times, the movie's almost a Marine's commercial.
It was very refreshing to see a smart alien species attacking earth. I'm probably one of the few people who actually *liked* War of the Worlds, but I was very disappointed by the very anti-climatic ending. We should believe that invading aliens who were smart enough to get to earth but not smart enough to do their research on earth died naturally form disease? Oh well.
The Campy quote of the movie:
Full Metal Jacket
I started on a Kubrick movie watch ~2 years ago when we got one of his box sets. I've worked my way through it, leaving Full Metal Jacket for the end b/c war films aren't really films I go out of my way to see unless they're really good.
In a lot of ways, Full Metal Jacket is a lot like Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo in the sense that the first half is flawless. And while the second half of both movies are still very good, it doens't quite get back to how good the movies were during that first half. In the first half of Full Metal Jacket, we see a group of new Marines go through bootcamp- essentially the drill instructor Hartman (R. Lee Ermey who is really fantastic) yelling commands at them non stop. What really works well here is the environment- it's so insular and so closed off from the world that you can understand how the mantras, the patriotic songs, the insults can and do become the whole world to many of the soldiers like Gomer Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio). In the second half, the soldiers ship off to Vietnam and encounter combat, and while it's still a very intense movie, it seems to have lost some of that earlier claustrophobic intense boot camp energy. It's a fine film overall. Features a badass younger Adam Baldwin (but seriously, he still looks exactly the same), fine performances all around, and of course, an incongruous, fascinating song mash up (Mickey Mouse against a warzone backdrop.)
The American
(the one with George Clooney in it)
A common critique of modern movies is that they're insanely fast and too explicit. The American has the opposite problem; the movie proceeds at a snail's pace and is extremely restrained. I think it's better though to be slow and restrained since that can come off as classy and polished. The American is about an assassin and custom-weapons manufacturer (George Clooney) who goes to a remote Italian city to manufacture a custom rifle for a fellow assassin. The first five minutes of the movie are cold, brutal, and exciting but is really misleading for the movie. The next hour and a half is essentially about George Clooney doing nothing. It picks up towards the end and last tenth of the movie is actually quite good and memorable. Why couldn't the rest of the movie be like the end? The cinematography is gorgeous in this film- it makes the whole film seem like a fancy European car commercial. If you're short on time, just watch the last fifteen minutes or so of this movie- you'll get the gist of it.
I saw the trailer for Bad Teacher before Battle: LA today. Red band version here. It looks promising. It's refreshing to see Cameron Diaz play the role of a bad girl. Or maybe I'm just a little bemused by a nerdy, shy Justin Timberlake.
Sucker Punch since the graphics just look amazing.
Battle: Los Angeles
I saw this movie today. When I first heard about this movie, at the very best, I expected it to be along the veins of District 9 (gritty, more "realistic" look) and at the very worst, I expected it to take itself seriously enough that it falls just short of the being campy and the sort of movie "that's so bad it's good." A recent movie that falls into this terrible category is I Am Number Four, which I reviewed recently.
I wasn't expecting much from Battle: LA since it got PANNED by reviews- rotten tomatoes gave it a dismal rating of ~30 %. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by Battle: LA. It's actually a pretty good solid movie. It's entertaining, captures your attention, and is action packed. Usually, I'm all for character development, but as it stands, in this movie, I really would have preferred less since everything back story related was terribly cliche and even maudlin at times. At times, the movie's almost a Marine's commercial.
It was very refreshing to see a smart alien species attacking earth. I'm probably one of the few people who actually *liked* War of the Worlds, but I was very disappointed by the very anti-climatic ending. We should believe that invading aliens who were smart enough to get to earth but not smart enough to do their research on earth died naturally form disease? Oh well.
The Campy quote of the movie:
"They're falling down like bowling pins!" Michelle Rodriguez's badass character (but when does she ever not play someone badass) as they drive over aliens with tanks.On the note of Marines, there's Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.
Full Metal Jacket
Private Joker: The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.It's always fascinating seeing great directors take on movie genres and see them do something new, say something new with the genre. There are a ton of war movies out there, and I've seen quite a few, but I don't think I've seen anything quite like Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.
I started on a Kubrick movie watch ~2 years ago when we got one of his box sets. I've worked my way through it, leaving Full Metal Jacket for the end b/c war films aren't really films I go out of my way to see unless they're really good.
In a lot of ways, Full Metal Jacket is a lot like Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo in the sense that the first half is flawless. And while the second half of both movies are still very good, it doens't quite get back to how good the movies were during that first half. In the first half of Full Metal Jacket, we see a group of new Marines go through bootcamp- essentially the drill instructor Hartman (R. Lee Ermey who is really fantastic) yelling commands at them non stop. What really works well here is the environment- it's so insular and so closed off from the world that you can understand how the mantras, the patriotic songs, the insults can and do become the whole world to many of the soldiers like Gomer Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio). In the second half, the soldiers ship off to Vietnam and encounter combat, and while it's still a very intense movie, it seems to have lost some of that earlier claustrophobic intense boot camp energy. It's a fine film overall. Features a badass younger Adam Baldwin (but seriously, he still looks exactly the same), fine performances all around, and of course, an incongruous, fascinating song mash up (Mickey Mouse against a warzone backdrop.)
The American
(the one with George Clooney in it)
A common critique of modern movies is that they're insanely fast and too explicit. The American has the opposite problem; the movie proceeds at a snail's pace and is extremely restrained. I think it's better though to be slow and restrained since that can come off as classy and polished. The American is about an assassin and custom-weapons manufacturer (George Clooney) who goes to a remote Italian city to manufacture a custom rifle for a fellow assassin. The first five minutes of the movie are cold, brutal, and exciting but is really misleading for the movie. The next hour and a half is essentially about George Clooney doing nothing. It picks up towards the end and last tenth of the movie is actually quite good and memorable. Why couldn't the rest of the movie be like the end? The cinematography is gorgeous in this film- it makes the whole film seem like a fancy European car commercial. If you're short on time, just watch the last fifteen minutes or so of this movie- you'll get the gist of it.
Two upcoming movies to watch out for:
I saw the trailer for Bad Teacher before Battle: LA today. Red band version here. It looks promising. It's refreshing to see Cameron Diaz play the role of a bad girl. Or maybe I'm just a little bemused by a nerdy, shy Justin Timberlake.
Sucker Punch since the graphics just look amazing.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Oscar Night!
So it's Oscar Night again, and as a big movie fan I am moderately excited. Only moderately excited b/c I've only seen a few of the nominated films. I do like this new system of 10 nominated pictures since you get a broader range of movies/a better favoring of the critically acclaimed movies of the year.
I refuse to see The Social Network, on principle, since come on, it's a movie about freaking Facebook. I do want to check out some of the others like The King's Speech and True Grit (definitely going to check them out on Netflicks when they come out)- I have a weakness for period pieces. I have however, seen Inception (AWESOME), The Kids are All Right, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, and How to Train Your Dragon. Even though Toy Story 3 is a great movie and probably will win, I actually am rooting for How to Train Your Dragon, mainly because it holds up better over multiple viewings and has one of my favorite movie scores in a long while. Do sample Forbidden Friendship, New Tail, and Where's Hiccup? The Inception soundtrack is equally fantastic. Sample Time and Dream Within a Dream - initially when I first previewed the soundtrack before the movie (I'm a big Hans Zimmer fan and was excited to hear his latest score) I found the music a bit jarring but after watching the movie, I found it to be one of the best soundtracks I've heard in long time since it just goes *so well* with the movie especially with matching the main theme to a distorted version of "La Vie en Rose". See Inception Music Comparison
I refuse to see The Social Network, on principle, since come on, it's a movie about freaking Facebook. I do want to check out some of the others like The King's Speech and True Grit (definitely going to check them out on Netflicks when they come out)- I have a weakness for period pieces. I have however, seen Inception (AWESOME), The Kids are All Right, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, and How to Train Your Dragon. Even though Toy Story 3 is a great movie and probably will win, I actually am rooting for How to Train Your Dragon, mainly because it holds up better over multiple viewings and has one of my favorite movie scores in a long while. Do sample Forbidden Friendship, New Tail, and Where's Hiccup? The Inception soundtrack is equally fantastic. Sample Time and Dream Within a Dream - initially when I first previewed the soundtrack before the movie (I'm a big Hans Zimmer fan and was excited to hear his latest score) I found the music a bit jarring but after watching the movie, I found it to be one of the best soundtracks I've heard in long time since it just goes *so well* with the movie especially with matching the main theme to a distorted version of "La Vie en Rose". See Inception Music Comparison
Monday, February 14, 2011
Batman!
I just had the pleasure of watching Batman: Under the Red Hood. It's been a while since I've watched an animated version of Batman and it made me remember my old high school days when we'd get an excellent block of superhero cartoons on Saturday nights. As a quick disclaimer, I don't claim to be an expert on comics at all- I just watched the cartoons and learned about the comics through wikipedia.
I was a fan of Justice League (Season 1 and 2), more so the original rather than Unlimited (Season 3 and later). Justice League featured all your favorite superheroes, Superman, Batman, and Wonderwoman, as well as Hawkgirl, Green Lantern (Jon Stewart- no not the one from Comedy Central), the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter. I didn't watch Unlimited as much mainly b/c there were too many characters to keep track of and many episodes only featured a few of the main league members I was familiar with. The show was fantastic- really good storylines, animation, and a kick ass theme song- all in all, they really did a good job with making things feel epic and crafting very mature stories. Two episodes that I remember liking a lot:
A few favorite episodes:
Which is a long winded explanation for, how I've heard a little about the various Robins. Batman: Under the Red Hood is dark and has a lot of Nolan-esque elements. It pushes the envelope- implied and explicit violence, and a few elements are slightly reminiscent of Dark Knight- especially this exploration of Batman's moral code and what it really means, which is always fascinating. The Joker, while still humorous, is less the Joker from the Batman Animated Series, crazy, funny, and over-the-top, and a little more serious like Heath Ledger's Joker. The voice-acting is generally fantastic and I actually thought that Kevin Conroy (the voice actor who usually does Batman in the cartoons) was voicing Batman in this one as well, but it was actually someone else (Bruce Greenwood). I would have been happier if they hadn't featured the Black Mask as much, who wasn't all that interesting and just chewed up screen time. (One question though- maybe it's b/c I'm so used to the Nolan voices but isn't it pronounced R-ah-s instead of Raz?) Generally a good movie, although the ending left me a bit unsatisfied.
I was a fan of Justice League (Season 1 and 2), more so the original rather than Unlimited (Season 3 and later). Justice League featured all your favorite superheroes, Superman, Batman, and Wonderwoman, as well as Hawkgirl, Green Lantern (Jon Stewart- no not the one from Comedy Central), the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter. I didn't watch Unlimited as much mainly b/c there were too many characters to keep track of and many episodes only featured a few of the main league members I was familiar with. The show was fantastic- really good storylines, animation, and a kick ass theme song- all in all, they really did a good job with making things feel epic and crafting very mature stories. Two episodes that I remember liking a lot:
- Hereafter- where there's a big battle and everyone thinks that Superman has died except he's really been transported to the distant future where a super-villain, who's immortal, has destroyed the world and now regrets it. I remember one of my high school teachers gushing on about this one.
- Wildcards- Pure entertainment. The Joker has placed bombs in various casinos and is doing a reality show of sorts as the Justice League goes around to disarm the bombs.
A few favorite episodes:
- Masks/Apprentice: Season 1 developed an arc in which Robin was slowly becoming obsessed with the Titan's mysterious arch-enemy Slade. Essentially a 3-part episode that everything in season 1 was leading up to. Masks was the very first episode I watched and I remember getting hooked right then and there. Robin, in an attempt to get closer to Slade, tricks his team, and in the end, it's his effervescent, light-hearted best friend Starfire who's firm words bring him back to reality.
- How Long is Forever?: During a fight, a time-traveling villain causes Starfire to go into the future, and it's a dark, dark future w/o Starfire around.
- Nevermore: The first episode that really focuses on Raven and fleshes her out, who's quiet and sarcastic, but generally mysterious.
- Haunted: One of the darkest episodes of the Teen Titans. Robin starts seeing Slade everywhere, but no one else can.
Which is a long winded explanation for, how I've heard a little about the various Robins. Batman: Under the Red Hood is dark and has a lot of Nolan-esque elements. It pushes the envelope- implied and explicit violence, and a few elements are slightly reminiscent of Dark Knight- especially this exploration of Batman's moral code and what it really means, which is always fascinating. The Joker, while still humorous, is less the Joker from the Batman Animated Series, crazy, funny, and over-the-top, and a little more serious like Heath Ledger's Joker. The voice-acting is generally fantastic and I actually thought that Kevin Conroy (the voice actor who usually does Batman in the cartoons) was voicing Batman in this one as well, but it was actually someone else (Bruce Greenwood). I would have been happier if they hadn't featured the Black Mask as much, who wasn't all that interesting and just chewed up screen time. (One question though- maybe it's b/c I'm so used to the Nolan voices but isn't it pronounced R-ah-s instead of Raz?) Generally a good movie, although the ending left me a bit unsatisfied.
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