I'll continue in the same "short style" as the last two times, at least for two reasons: primo - I still have problems with my right hand, secundo - I don't really have a subject = "The Hobbit" confirmed my expectancies of a bloated story thrown away on Christmas time to get $, not that there aren't also some good parts ...
But not sufficient enough unfortunately. It's imposible to compare "The Hobbit" with something from the LotR trilogy. I've read "The Hobbit" when I was 13-14 years old. And from that age it looked to me like a children's book by definition. I've started "Lord of the Rings" when I was around 18 and until I finished it the movies were released. Even if it doesn't lose completely the "for kids" tag (I still cannot get out of my mind the Tom Bombadil episode - thank God left outside in the movies), the subject is uncomparable much more dense. I won't start making parallels and building alegories here, since there are already enough on the net. Getting back to "The Hobbit" we have a small tale where Bilbo Baggins (the uncle of the much more known Frodo) leaves together with a group of gnomes in a dragon slaying quest. The reason: long ago, the dragon found a place to live exactly in the midle of the piles of gold gathered by the gnomes. The story has two parts, the way I see it, which are connected somehow to the original title: "There and Back Again" = translated freely: what happens before and after the dragon. In total is quite short as length (the number of pages doesn't even reach the one in "The Two Towers" - the shortest volume in the ring trilogy). Somehow though, the cinematic version seems to be lengthened enough to spane over three movies ...
From which in the first we don't get up to the dragon yet. And to fill the space we have at least 30-40 minutes (exclusively = nothing more) of crossed swords, orc and goblin screams, and other violent effects generated by the Middle-Earth inter-racial conflicts. A good part is that the story was a bit extended (well, three parts needed this), I don't know if using original Tolkien material or not, but I'm afraid that not sufficient enough anyway to think on getting on par with LotR (also for the next part not only this one). To stick to what's good in the movie, getting over the superficial, the predictable and the cliche in the script, what we have is quite ok for this genre. At least considering that in the fantasy area it's rare when I get to see something decent.
Since one of my hands is not currently fully functional, I hope it will be forgiven if I'll shorten today's entry as much as the former one. As an extra argument, the difference from last time is that "Life of Pi" is actually a good movie, but with a relatively simple story that maybe shouldn't be spoiled in detail (despite the fact that the movie probably needs more views to catch every bit of it).
In brief, Pi is the son of zoo owner from India, who decided to emigrate in Canada along his whole family .. and also with the animals as "start-up funds" (higher price on the American continent). As it can be seen in the trailer, the trip is not the most pleasant journey, Pi ending up stranded in the middle of the ocean. As I was saying, I'll stop with the story details at this point.
Tehnically, the production is superb. Especially in the visual register. Actually, I think that's the first movie on which I can actually speak about well-done cinematography in 3D (to be read: not CGI labeled as cinematography). Another nice surprise was the directing style. I've been used with too slow movies from Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"). We don't have something extremely fast-paced here, but in any case it does not have unnecessary lengths that can be felt.
Maybe, there is more to be said about "Life of Pi" as story and/or script analysis. But I'm afraid that anything said might become too subjective to be relevant. I could enumerate for instance a list of "maybe's" :) : maybe .. sometimes in life you should give a choice to pick a story or the truth ; maybe .. you should accept more "definitions" of life than only one, or build one from many ; maybe .. you should fight even with yourself for your hopes, and not just wait them to die last ( because that's guaranteed to happen anyway by default ;) )
I'm tired enough to start unwrapping (extremely uncoherent) thoughts about a movie. So, I've decided for a short and "fast-writable" subject: "Lockout".
The story is something quite close to Carpenter's "Escape from N.Y." or "Escape from L.A.". A guy (Guy Pearce) named Snow (I wonder if there is an intention for a similarity with Snake played by Kurt Russell in the above "Escapes"), gets sort of framed for the failure of a mission. The context is not very clear but what's essential is that the mission was coordinated by the U.S. secret services. The result of all this = he gets sent to the highest security prison on the planet. Or more exactly on the orbit (the action takes place in space). The problem = at the same time the daughter of the U.S. president visits that location, and the convicts take over the facility. The consequence = Snow gets an option to escape the jail if he manages to do this along the mentioned girl. The offer is accepted, especially since the answer to his trouble is held by another convict he could look for in the process. So, that's the subject of the movie .. or the intro ;) to be exact.
The movie is part of the bunch of "Luc Besson presents ..." - to be read: produced by the guy's studio - Europa (like "Taken", "Taxi", "Transporter", etc). Although in general you don't see too much spent in these productions, the result is still decent in terms of an action movie. In this case though, we clearly have a B-series movie. You can spot this from the first scenes where you have some pretty lame FX. The movie isn't a really bad one, but you have to remember the range where it fits when you watch it. The script is quite predictable and a bit stupid unfortunately, so the range is somewhere close to action movies to see before going to sleep (= B series, light, 0 level of mind provoking). There is though a sort of good part in the script, which starts with what you can see below and continues with other lines of the main character that try to sound witty. Sometimes they succeed. But in the rest of times ...
I'm not in a very good writing mood. But I promised last time that I'll return with a good movie. And since there are already around three weeks since I've seen "Moonrise Kingdom", maybe it's the case to make an entry about it until my memory loses it completely.
The movie is a comedy. A pretty particular one as style. I guess it's something specific for Wes Anderson (the director) although I've only seen "Fantastic Mr. Fox" as another title on which he worked on. Actually .. if I remember well I've also seen "The Life Aquatic", but it was too long ago to remember more than it didn't impress me at all. Coming back to the current movie, and leaving the style analysis for later, the subject is set somewhere on a 3-digits number population island, close to the NE U.S. coast, and the time is somewhere in the '60s. As main characters we have two children, a boy and a girl around 12 years old. He is an orphan sent by the foster family in scouts camp (where his colleagues do not accept him very well), she is a bit out of her age's normality (sufficiently to be "cast out" of the "normality" of her family). What results from all this context is a sort of infantile "love story" manifested through a run of the two kids "far from the surrounding mean world". Where "far" = in the island woods, in a moment when a hurricane is coming and it's about to sweep everything in its pathway. All this situation alarms the parents of the girl (Bill Murray & Frances McDormand), the local sheriff (Bruce Willis) and the scout camp's chief master scout (Edward Norton). I'll leave the viewer to discover what happens next + the rest of the details and I'll get back to the style ..
If you've seen "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" and you liked it, you'll probably like also "Moonrise Kingdom". In my opinion is a bit lower as level. But is the same combination of dry but styled context and situation humor, which is somehow also warm - at least if you're watching the whole ensemble. It is something totally different from a normal comedy (like "Ted" or "Horrible Bosses" which come into my mind now, and on which I laughed sufficiently enough, but also which are in a completely different subgenre). In a way Wes Anderson looks to me quite close to Alexander Payne ("Sideways", "The Descendants") but with less drama. And also maybe a bit .. weird in some parts. For instance, in the current case, there are a couple of scenes which may seem taken a bit too far given the exact precised young age of the characters. This may have been avoided (and result in something as good as a final product and a larger appreciation from the public, especially if you give a look at the IMDb boards ..). But, if you have some brain to get, eyes to see and ears to hear the rest of the 95% of the film .. you realize that the small pieces don't matter that much ...
Talking about eyes and ears, let me close with the cinematography + the soundtrack. You have an opening scene that tells you clearly that what follows is not average stuff. And I actually can say that's the best technically worked movie that I've seen this year. It doesn't make sense to describe in words how the visual frames are composed. If you have some leaning at least towards photography, than what's being served to you visually really deserves to keep your eyes wide open. Is not about the effects, nor the location setting. Is just a demonstration of how nice a movie taking place in a normal setting can be done. The cinematographer (Robert Yeoman) is totally unknown for me, but I have to remember him for the future. The soundtrack managed to change my opinion on Alexandre Desplat as an overrated composer. I'll resume only at saying that it's probably his best soundtrack I've heard up to this moment, and I'll pass to clips that should be more eloquent than my blah-blah.
I'll start the second part of the preview entry with "Oz: The Great and Powerful", scheduled for release next March. It's a prequel to the classic story, and despite looking like a Tim Burton movie from what you can see in the trailer, it isn't one (fortunately, if we look at "Alice" as an example, a pretty uninspired choice mentioned as reference by the producers). The directing belongs to Sam Raimi (the "Spiderman" trilogy, the "Evil Dead" trilogy, etc), thing that gives some hopes.
I liked the first "G.I. Joe" despite the reviews at the time. At least it had a story slightly more complex than the usual superhero movie (in the end it's not a superhero movie .. but you could still apply the comparison). The sequel, delayed by one year, seems though to be a potential disaster if we take a look at the director's CV ... "Step Up 2", "Step Up 3D", "League of Extraordinary Dancers" ... I'd better stop here, although there's more ... But we have Bruce Willis. And Adrianne Palicki in the red dress ;)
I'm closing March with "The Host". The only reason for adding this title to the list is the directing by Andrew Niccol who pleasantly surprised me not that long ago with "In Time" (although "Gattaca", considered a classic, for me was just plain boring). It probably matter more though that the movie is adapted from another "successful" novel by Stephenie Meyer ("Twilight" in case it doesn't ring a bell, and it's enough said).
There aren't many trailers released for the next April. So I'll come with an anti-recommendation ("backed-up" anyway further below also by the trailer - rated R). I was mentioning somewhere before "Evil Dead" by Sam Raimi. For who likes horrors is impossible not to know about it. Well, the remake is going to be released next year ... What's new in it ? No Ash, apparently. Again, who knows what I'm talking about, I guess agrees with me that "Evil Dead" without Bruce Campbell as Ash is hard to conceive .. but without Ash as main character is already a blasphemy. Even worse is that Bruce Campbell promoted this, being also a producer ($, $ .. and again $). The only thing left to hope for, is that what you can see below is 0 compared to the final version - in terms of subject, feeling, etc. Unfortunately the only horror I know that managed to change the impression of the trailer in the last years was "The Cabin in the Woods". And I don't know why but my feeling is this one does not intend at all to do something similar.
Unfortunately we don't have yet a trailer for the following "Star Trek" which is top of the list from what I expect to come out next year, so I'll wrap up more quickly the today preview with "Iron Man 3". Release date in May. I assume that's known (at least by who looks from time to time at my posts), what opinion I have on super-hero movies. It doesn't differ in this particular case. It looks like "yet another one" following the classic story. However, again for the today entry, I have to refer to directing, which is different from the first two parts. This time is by a screenwriter - Shane Black (who of course is also the author of the script). Maybe the name doesn't say much, so I should give some reference - "Lethal Weapon" entire series, "The Long Kiss Goodnight", "The Last Boy Scout", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Last Action Hero". If it's not clear yet, check the titles on IMDb ;)
Somehow I've managed again to sync the lack of watched movies with the end of the Fall = just perfect for the usual entry in this time of year. So, let's get straight to the point with some December releases.
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is the prequel to "The Lord of the Rings". Directed also by Peter Jackson, having the same production team, the same screenwriters .. should sound promising, right ? Well, not for me, simply because "The Hobbit" is a children's book, relatively short, infinitely less complex than "Lord of the Rings" ... but this alone still wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that this was supposed to be the first part of two. I think this was already exaggerated as length, but now it looks even worse, they want another trilogy ! For a book which if I remember well is shorter than any of the three in LotR. "The Fellowship of the Ring" is for me somewhere up high in the top of all movies ever watched (partially subjective) and one of the best adaptations for the screen from a book (yes, even better than "Return of the King" which is excessively lengthened in the end). Unfortunately I can't see how "The Hobbit" in three parts could get at least up the level of "The Two Towers" which is a book a bit harder to adapt considering the action threads, and still the result was decent. Conclusion: I'm afraid that everything is about $ .. and since more movies mean more $ .....
Since we're close to the adapting topic, another title with a box-office potential for the end of the year is "Jack Reacher". Here I can't say much because I have no idea what is in the book which seems to be actually a series of crime novels having the above mentioned as main character. The part that might deserve some attention is the director and screenwriter of the movie: Cristopher McQuarrie who after the success with "The Usual Suspects" from long ago was also involved in "Valkyrie" or "The Tourist" more recently. Well .. none shined, but anyway both were above the usual mindless Hollywoodish action.
For the end of December we have the final production made by Tarantino. Maybe I'm a bit too skeptic today but for some reason Jamie Foxx doesn't look very convincing as lead character in the trailer of "Django Unchained". We'll see ...
Since it's been a while from my last reference to a real horror, I'll stop to "Mama" for the beginning of January 2013. I think the trailer says enough. And for who tastes the genre, it seems that somewhere online there's also a short movie on which this one is based upon ;)
I didn't see yet the second part of "Expendables", but from what I've heard it shows that Schwarzenegger took a long break from acting (not that we're speaking of Oscar material anyway). Despite all these "The Last Stand" for me looks more fun than Tarantino's production from above (maybe I'm subjective, and I still have my childhood marked by "Terminator 2", "Total Recall", "Predator" and others :) ). To top this the direction belongs to a Korean - Jee-woon Kim - from whose movies I didn't see any, but I have four or five on my "to watch list" (all having a rating bigger than 7 on IMDb).
Sometime long long ago we had a Lee Marvin pissed off by being betrayed and left in a pool of blood by his partners in crime. More recently, but still more than 10 years ago, Mel Gibson was getting the same treatment in the remake. Both of their names were Porter (as a side note somewhere meanwhile Chow-Yun Fat was getting into the same troubles in a Hong Kong made production). Well, it seems that the character's name is actually "Parker" and I found out that he's also the lead in a book, or again more exactly a series of crime novels - more or less good. Even if the story somehow is able to catch your attention (like a sort of condensed and energized Monte Cristo) I still think I'll prefer the Gibson's Porter version to a "yet another Jason Statham movie" coming out at the end of January.
In February we have a sort of mix between a light horror, comedy and romance - "Warm Bodies". As a reference, the movie has the same director as "50/50". And even given that I'm not really into the last two of the above, I don't know why but from all the premieres in this entry it seems this one is the most promising :)
After Schwarzenegger, we have an entry with Stallone (and the third "action hero" comes immediately below). Actually the reason why I'm bringing into discussion "Bullet to the Head" is that it's the first movie directed by Walter Hill since 2002 (in case it sounds a bit cryptic make a name check on IMDb). Unfortunately, what's below doesn't seem that promising ...
To complete the list, I'm closing February with the fifth episode of Bruce Willis' life as John McClane in "A Good Day to Die Hard". Somehow the impression given by the trailer is the opposite to the previous title. On the other hand the directing is also on the other side of the balance ... ("Max Payne" should be enough as reference)
Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed
This is written on the poster :) In case it wasn't visible enough. And it represents a classified ad from '97 published in a bi-monthly US magazine targeting mainly .. life on a farm, around the farm, etc. For real. Meaning that's what really happened + an P.O. Box address that I didn't reproduce. What's not that real is the part with "This is not a joke". Actually it is a joke, and you can find the complete story here: The time-travel ad . To put it short, the editor needed something to fill up the page. Of course, the conspiracy theory says that's just a late cover-up excuse :) especially given the context in which that ad cause a lot of online activity at the time and after with responses, investigations, theories, other following ads, and so on. I remember that I stumbled into this a while ago (before the author's explanation) and I lost I think something like 30 minutes surfing from link to link and getting more and more amazed up to what something like this can go (+ I caught some other publicly made "time travel" tracks, with a trust degree ranging from "hmmm..." up to "this is laaame"). I never thought though that the ad will generate also a movie script. And I have to say it now that this wasn't bad at all to happen ...
The movie is an indie with not too many actors, and surprisingly for the budget also featuring some nice effects on the ending. It starts with the idea of investigating the above ad. The inquiry is lead by a journalist, who is more interested in finding his high school girlfriend, who by chance lives in the same city with the ad author. Consequently, the job is actually done mostly by two interns, freshly college graduates - an Indian with a classic geek/nerd profile and a girl a bit too fed up with the everyday life. Actually the job is done mostly by the last of them, who seems the only one able to successfully interact with the ad author. Author, who in the movie is a measly supermarket employee, apparently having some mental issues, but possessing a big hangar, lots of spare parts and a time machine made of these + an even bigger ambition to travel into the past. Well, there is more to say from the subject but I don't want to spoil something that can be a very pleasant hour and a half in front of a screen.
Essentially the movie is a comedy, that gets also a bit into romance from a point onwards (reaching up to some scenes which were a bit too corny at least for me). And obviously we can't ignore the "SF" = the time machine. Without getting into spoilers about this, something deserves a note: if you're carefully watching the action flow you'll have a way to explain yourself the "I have only done this once before" part ;) in case you'll feel the need to. And you might feel the need to if after the ending you'll read again the ad :)
After the "heavy" entry from last time I'm getting back to the "usual light Hollywoodish" movies area with "Man on a Ledge" in a (hopefully) much shorter and concise entry, especially considering that I'm experiencing the usual lack of time for writing.
The movie is somewhere between action and a light thriller. What caught my eye was the context that looks rather original (at least I don't remember seeing anything close). More exactly, a guy, former cop, escapes the prison taking advantage of his fathers funeral, and instead running to Mexico he chooses to get out on a ledge of a hotel, somewhere at the 20+ floor, threatening he's going to jump. Of course, the reason behind the suicidal action is apparently that the guy is innocent. And as it gets obvious a bit further (unfortunately the trailer already gives a lot, so don't blame me for spoilers) his action is not that suicidal. Let's say in brief that the whole movie is a sort of cat and mouse play, with the final purpose ... Well, I think the final purpose is not given 100% clearly by the trailer ( not that you have more than two options :) ) so I'll leave it for the movie ;).
Like I was saying in the beginning the production is a light one, but it doesn't bore and fortunately it succeeds not to get too stupid (although, there are a series of scenes that in my view are less explicable that many of the "Looper" plot holes). The ending seems to break though this fragile balance, closing up in a way that makes you roll your eyes at least a bit = the classic perfectly synchronized action for everything to end well (with a real probability of 0.000...). Overall however was fun to watch, so if you're not in the mood for something very "deep" to give you food for thought after, this one is perfect before going to sleep. Although... I was left with a troubling question :| : what in the world are the old ladies from Manhattan eating that makes them able to instantly spot a guy getting off the window at 70 meters above the ground (who I actually had trouble to spot in a frame taken apparently a bit closer than that) ...
Since where I currently reside the movies are usually dubbed, if I want to see something on big screen I normally have to get on the train and travel 15-30 minutes to a nearby city that is bilingual (so we have a subtitle instead, a double one). But also since the price of the train + of the ticket it's getting a bit too high for a movie, I usually avoid doing like this, limiting myself on the Ro visits to take my dose, or at the seldom cases when the local cinemas hava a VO (original version) screening. Actually, until yesterday I only went out of the city once for this, last year for "Adjustment Bureau", and this motivated mostly by the group factor + my own fixation on P. K. Dick. Since the result was lame = the worst PKD adapted movie that I've ever seen .. and since I'm anything but in a movie seeing mood these days .. I've initially abandoned the ideas I've got when I've noticed "Looper" in English in the region cinemas schedule at the beginning of the week. So I have no idea what got into me last evening (maybe Emily Blunt, again, as subconscious reason :P). The thing is that in the end I've got alone on the train, after I rapidly Google-walked to see where is the "guilty" tempting cinema, hoping that 20 minutes are enough to find it after dawn in a 700m perimeter from the train station. I've got there (actually a bit early), I've bought the ticket, I've seen the movie. And it was worth it.
I started with a long intro hoping that I'll get an idea about how to actually write about the movie. Well, I didn't get it yet. So, I'll start with the trailer and the first three minutes. In the trailer you have something like .. in the future the time machine has been invented. The time machine is used by the mob to send people back in time and get them killed. The context sounds stupid. Why the hell bother to send somebody back to be "terminated" instead of doing that on place. And from here starts an entire series of some apparent plot holes in the movie logic (if you look on IMDb I guess more than half the threads are "plothole related"). To solve the one stated above I'll refer as I was saying to the first three minutes, which is a minor spoiler. I can't explain why is a minor one because it'll make it grow :) In the first three minutes, Joe - "a looper" - one of the assassins used by the mob in the past explains you the context in a very concise way - in the future the people are sort of tagged, making highly unrecommended to be killed there. Therefore, for a clean procedure, without traces, you use the time machine. It's so concise that is not very convincing actually. And this is one of the problems of the movie - the lack of details and in the same time probably being still too dense. For instance the three minutes above might generate a "but, but ..." but you don't get to finish it and answer your question (more details on it later) and you're already at the next one. So, if you're either sufficiently relaxed not to ask yourself anything, or you're capable to accept what's given as it's given and leave everything else for later, or you're thinking fast enough to answer everything on spot :), in any of these cases the experience you get is one which unfortunately doesn't repeat very often in what's out in cinemas today. The way the subject develops is so beautifully built that I really don't want to spoil anything, but absolutely anything from what you'll get. Let's just say that Joe's life, who meets his 30 years older self (stuff that you get from the trailer), has a very complex evolution in a very short interval. Why Joe has to meet exactly Joe, why Joe can't get rid of Joe, and other stuff related with Joe you'll get from the movie .. or you'll have to explain them by yourself :)
At the half way break (around here you have something like this which is around 5-10 minutes long .. reason why I had to run to get the comeback train), the main part, "the whole catch", or however you want to call it, it was just about to be introduced. That makes me come back to what I was saying before - in the sense that information with a high degree of novelty for the current state of the subject is introduced relatively often (that's why I'm saying that the subject is built really nice - you don't have a chance to see the ending to soon since you simply don't have "the building blocks"). But this brain bombing with new story elements gets a bit hard to digest sometimes. I'll continue on the first three minutes as example ... "but, but ..." from above = " but how the hell is different eliminating a guy by a "poof" and he's gone from a bullet in the head and after the "poof" and he's gone " (one "but" from many possible). For stuff like this you have to build your own answer by yourself, the cool part being that the movie is sufficiently vague to leave you space to do it in a more or less limited way, but you can do it = " well... the people in the future have an implant that reports the stop of the brain activity and only that (scalability issue, we don't want to overload the servers with useless periodic reports); with "poof" and he's gone, the implant is also gone and no report is generated = nobody knows that the guy was "poof"-sent back ". This was an easy one :), others are more complicated.
The directing and the original script belong to Rian Johnson. A guy who seems quite appreciated for what he has managed to do up to now - "Brick" and "Brothers Bloom" which I didn't see but I assume were quite "indie". Because you can feel this also in "Looper", the first movie I guess made by this guy who has a substantially higher budget. But I liked that. Maybe it would have been more .. effective to have somebody like Nolan directing, or Zack Snyder thinking at "Sucker Punch", with a more Hollywoodish result. But the simplicity of "Looper" in the first part = without abusing the camera or the FX seems to make it actually more solid, or otherwise said you can't complain that the movie is in any way superficial by hiding the story behind eye-candy stuff, although .. "I'm looping" :) : maybe it would have been more effective, but ... Lots of "but" in this movie. Guess what .. all the lack of visual augmentation from the first part prepares something .. something that starts with a scene whose power is amplified at maximum exactly because up to that point you didn't have any camera effect at the same level .. a scene involving a scream and a safe (one from a locker room not one in the floor, not to confuse somebody seeing it). And after this, we seem to have a different movie visually (it doesn't exaggerate, but something changes). The sound though wasn't that impressive. It's a family work, the composer being the director's brother (if I'm not terribly wrong). It's ok, especially as originality - you get a lot of ambient sound integrated in the soundtrack, broken stuff, phone rings, etc. I would even risk predicting a nominee on sound mixing due to this. Unfortunately though you don't have a theme to stay with you .. as in "Time" by Zimmer from "Inception". Well, since I've dissected the technical part, let me end it with the make-up - and more exactly Joseph-Gordon Levitt transformed in a younger Bruce Willis. Surprisingly, although usually I'm annoyed by the visible fake in such situations, here it actually nails it (despite my deepest concern after seeing the trailer). The reason is probably that Levitt handles his role in a brilliant fashion. The make-up is just half, the other half is done through verbal cadence and even some facial ticks of Willis copied extremely well by the younger version.
To end this, "I'm looping again" to the main issue :) .. The holes in the script, "plotholes" (or "loopholes" :) to get closer to the subject) is a characteristic that I don't think it can be completely avoided by any production dealing with time travel, parallel universes or lucid dreaming. That's why probably also the number of good movies following one of this directions is not very large. And a good one I guess can be defined as either one that succeeds in closing an acceptable amount of holes, either one advancing in such manner that you don't even get to notice the holes. What "Looper" succeeds is to solve in an original, elegant and simple fashion the grandfather paradox, despite other "holes" that appear beside that, but that is one of the main problems in a subject like this. In case it's not clear what I'm talking about, it's the classic paradox in which you return in time, you kill your grandfather, therefore you cannot exist and return in time and do that. Primo, the context in "Looper" cuts this from the start = the idea about the ones sent back is to dissappear as soon as they got there ... otherwise you're messing with the time :). Secundo, when the part before doesn't end up as planned and gets to what we have in the movie .. well .. again it depends on you to put the pieces right in the puzzle, and to see that there is a sequence of "time flow" that makes sense, this of course in case what's on the screen is not convincing enough ;)
PS: And if connecting the pieces gets too complicated :) and with lots of elements of your own .. think ;) : you just got close to a "Looper 2" script
Since for some time I don't really manage to get to see something better than a certain level, I've told myself to have a look again into the East .. although even the last experience from the cinema there ("The Mission") wasn't really something to remember. I still can say that either I'm lacking the material or the choice inspiration (amplified by the rate of 1 movie/week) ... or I started being too demanding. Anyway, even if "JSA" is (for me at least) again at the limit, it's a higher limit than the last one ...
Let's start with a bit of history: JSA, or in more detail Joint Security Area, is a militarized perimeter of several square kilometers at the border between North and South Korea, established in 1953 when the truce was signed and used for negotiations, etc since then. A more "exotic" characteristic to say so, is that the respective area maintains the marked split line between North and South, which in server point is just a slab in the ground, along with the strict "do not cross" interdiction ensured by guards from both sides. For more details about the location topography I recommend a Google Search. About the current movie, the main part of the action takes place near a bridge (having the split line in the middle). One evening, both sides are put in alert due to an incident between the two guarding posts. The outcome: two deaths + one survivor heart in the shoulder in the North Korean premise and a South Korean shot in the foot who barely manages to cross the border line covered by the rain of bullets exchanged between squads summoned at the place by both sides. To solve the incident a team of two officers from NNSC (Neutral Nations Supervisory Comission) is formed, NNSC being an entity created along JSA and approved by both parties for arbitrating situations, and currently being formed from Swiss and Swedish personnel. The main investigator of the two officers is a woman of Korean descent from her father's side, born in Geneva. She receives the depositions from both sides with a silent suggestion to solve the situation fast and without complications even if the result of the inquiry won't offer any answer. The official version of the southern soldier is that he was kidnapped and he killed the two when escaping. The only survivor of the northern guarding post is that the southern enemy just came in randomly unloading his gun in everybody there. Making a reference to an Asian classic, both versions are presented in a flashback style a la "Rashomon", followed by the real version .. which of course I'll leave to be seen ...
... Not though without a (sort of ) major spoiler :P, since after all the situation becomes quite clear pretty fast, and the movie itself doesn't do too much to hide stuff from the ending. What we have here is pretty close to the story from "Joyeux Noel", or what happened during World War I at the 1914 Christmas time. No to take the spoiler too far, and risking to get a bit cryptic in the following I won't say what happened then, although is neither very hard to guess nor to find out exactly. The difference in "JSA" is that given the much smaller scale of the story, and the ending that you get at the beginning of the movie, the result is to put it in one word: tragic. Up to the point when from the moment (as said not very advanced) when everything becomes relatively clear about the story, and the movie gets a bit hard to watch. You know where it's going, and the slow way to advance to that point only amplifies the drama. What can I say is that "the end of story" is so well done that the drama is kept, but fortunately for the viewer's psychic :) it's not delivered as harsh as you might tend to expect up to that point. I guess I forgot to mention that "JSA" is among the first movies of Chan-wook Park, more known (and awarded at Cannes) for "Oldboy". And since it seems that an excellent directing compensates more an acting not so good here and there, than the reverse from last time ...
Rating: 4 out of 5
( .. but still at the bottom limit :) although this time I'm more subjective = not really in the mood for heavy dramas at the moment )
Since again the trailers from that side of the world are a disaster (and you ask yourself how come the movies there are not that appealing), I had to find a sort of alternative - in the current case a clip apparently included in the extended DVD release .. anyway much closer to "the movie feeling":
This week I have as subject again a made for TV movie, picked while looking over the long Emmy nominations due to an apparently interesting story. Maybe I should've taken a look also at the actual nominations it has (= nothing major), or at least at the number, because "Page Eight" is clearly not a masterpiece.
The movie is a British production, taking place during one week from the life of a high-ranking employee of MI5 (= the UK internal security service). The guy receives a file to analyze from the service director, who is also his best friend. The file seems to have a compromising information somewhere at the bottom of page eight (that's where the title comes from). Information which involves Downing Street 10 (= the prime minister) and which is "leaked" in the inner circle of MI5 and a few other high-ranking officials. What follows is essentially a sort of political thriller in which some people want this circle to stay closed, and others (who in the end are reduced to the first character) are more inclined for the opposite. It may seem that I already gave a big spoiler but there is more to be seen (I actually didn't even spoil the beginning of the movie). Unfortunately we have again a director who probably wanted more than he can actually managed to do. And if the directing is after all so & so, I found the screenwriting (by the same guy) awful. Maybe it's only me, I don't know what to say ... But the typical British atmosphere seems to be pushed a bit too much to the extreme and ends up looking fake. So, to be more clear, the first part of the movie is a chain of dry sarcasm and want-to-seem-witty lines (maybe if this style wouldn't be overused they could actually be considered witty). The second part is another chain of dry melancholy and ... again want-to-seem-witty lines (although in a more moderate quantity). To draw the line, I have never heard anybody talking naturally in the way the movie characters do (not at that frequency of using the bunch of figures of speech you can hear combined with the British imperturbable calmness).
The subject, even if it has some potential and looks actually catchy at some point is solved in a rather simplistic manner in the end. I guess the best part in the movie is the cast. Unfortunately, all the weight given in a positive way by the presence of Bill Nighy as lead character, accompanied by Michael Gambon and others, is practically canceled by the dialogues lack of credibility. Well, again, maybe it's just me and the density of "out of normal" dialogue is not that high = case in which you might have a movie that you might like ...
Last year at this time I was writing about "Tin Man", a SyFy mini-series that was quite promising and offered a bit too less, despite a pretty nice story adaptation of the Frank Baum classic. This weekend I had the "inspiration" to choose the next "masterpiece" by the same director, Nick Willing, another rehash for SyFy Channel, of another classic story - "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Caroll. The good part is that this time Alice of Wonderland (Caterina Scorsone) doesn't rely exclusively on the blue eyes for the role, and she actually tries to act, unlike Dorothy of Oz (Zooey Deschanel). Further than this, let's see ...
As in the case of "Tin Man" we practically have a sequel to the story, with a mature main character, who follows pretty much the same steps: she lands in the parallel story universe, finds the destination in a desolate state under a tyrannical leadership, the tyrannical leadership ("The Queen of Hearts" in this case) finds out about the "intruder", all this is followed by the run + the detailed story (something happening while running) + the final in which the throne of the story world is taken by a less evil ruler. I didn't give any spoiler, trust me (= if you were imagining something else you should definitely look for another movie). Leaving the joke apart, the detailed context is actually quite original & sufficiently interesting to deserve the time. We have all the insertions of classic characters adapted to a sort of semi-industrialized Wonderland. Add to this a bit of romance, some soap-opera, and even an attempt of an "epic fight". I won't say anything more clear than this because it is the only part that makes the movie to deserve watching. Overall I would say that the atmosphere has something from Terry Gilliam keeping the proportions (I don't know why it made me think at a mix between "Brazil" and "Brothers Grimm"). Unfortunately, the director here is not Terry Gilliam ...
There are some good scenes, but there are also a lot of examples that besides looking like "very made for TV" are obviously mediocre. You have the impression sometimes that you're watching a sort of low budget indie made by a couple of fresh cinema graduates = no polishing, only one take as good as it gets and that's all. If we consider the effects we have the same issue as in "Tin Man" = they're not looking like 2009, fortunately they're not many either. I don't know, maybe I'm too demanding for a TV production. For sure, if I spend some time looking for some long-length fantasy series I will probably find something to be worse than what we've seen here (for instance I remember "Camelot" right now which was lame as production level). On the other hand I don't have to look too far to find something clearly above this level = also at SyFy we had "The Lost Room" & "5ive Days to Midnight". Even if these didn't seem to be exactly for big screen they were certainly on a different class than what we have here. I still have to give this "Alice" credit though, comparing it with the abomination produced by Tim Burton. What we have here, as it is, is definitely more recommendable to watch compared to the chaotic disaster in that movie.
Finally, as a personal wish I have to say that I yearn for a SciFi miniseries by SyFy (not a fantasy one, since from what I see they can't really handle well the production level on these), but unfortunately it seems that "Alice" was followed by .. "Neverland" directed by the same Nick Willing ... So, maybe when the "the classic stories" will end ...
Rating: 3 out of 5 (mostly for the story, too bad for the final result)
Better than the trailer ( especially since I wasn't very positive :) ):
"Safe House" is a sort of rehashed Bourne. That actually comes as a first recommendation: if you didn't like the last Bourne, probably watching "Safe House" is not the best choice, if you did like it you might give it a try but don't expect anything to top it.
The movie starts well, which attenuates a bit from the stupidity of the "Safe House - No One is Safe" tagline. However, considering you've seen this on the poster, it might be still better not to expect too much. The premise of the story though is rather original. Somewhere in South Africa, in a CIA safe house, we have an inexperienced agent (Ryan Reynolds) as the "host", or better said location administrator. Being bored to death and hoping for a promotion, in the spirit of the saying "be careful what you wish for", the guy gets one day the visit of an operative crew escorting a "guest". Which guest (Denzel Washington) is a former agent, went rogue for the last 10 years, and who apparently surrendered to the U.S. Consulate. I won't spoil all the beginning. To put it shortly, he seems to be followed by a whole bunch of very aggressive people who want something from him. In the end the movie is sort of like a continuous run .. a la Bourne .. but this comparison can stop somewhere at two thirds, if not before ...
The movie maintains a rhythm and an event flow built to be sufficiently "catchy" in the first part, but in the end ... 1. Light spoiler that grows up as you watch the movie: for a rather long period you don't really get to know who is the actual "bad guy", aspect that's supported by the standard technique of "subtle" suggestions .. so "subtle" that becomes clear what "surprise" will you get at the end. 2. The movie has a sort of impulse for cliche, but it manages to keep it contained for a while .. but not until the end, therefore making the final besides extremely predictable also quite boring. 3. The violence seemed to me a bit too exaggerated, although I normally don't have any issue with such things, and it's again especially towards the end of the movie .. to be honest I wonder if the director didn't take a holiday for a while making only sort of 1/2 of its job. To give also some good feedback I have to admit that the actors are up to their name indeed. Another thing to mention are some nice exterior shots giving you the feeling that South Africa is indeed the location where the action takes place. More than this .. it's ok as an average thriller to see before getting to bed when you don't have other better options .. it's a pity considering the beginning which was promising ...
This entry should have been dedicated to "Chronicle", another movie chosen on the "under 90 minutes" criteria considering my current time limits. The reason to "pollute" my blog with "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" :) is that I'm not really in the mood to talk about "Chronicle". The reasons are many, starting from the lack of time for a detailed enough entry up to my deranged subconscious which by some weird connections made the story in that movie hard to watch, so what about writing more on it afterwards ? Therefore I'll leave "Chronicle" for another time and I'll turn to probably the weirdest title this year fortunately seen not that long ago, and still fresh in my mind.
Given the combination of terms in the movie subject, I started (like probably many others) with the premise of some stupid action getting into a dumb unwanted comedy at some points and ending up as superficial as "Wanted" .. another production of the same director (Timur Bekmambetov). I suppose that if you don't know anything about the movie, or even better .. if you know only half the title and you enter the cinema having a shock when you find out the other half, you might end up building exactly the impression described above about it. Ironically, I guess the movie is saved exactly by the fact that you cannot take seriously the subject before it starts knowing already the main idea. And the way the story unveils is like slapping you in the first phase exactly for this, in the sense .. ok ... wait a minute ... this doesn't look that dumb as I thought it would be ... More exactly, we have him, Abraham Lincoln, as a child losing his mother after a first encounter with a human blood sucker. The little Abe, not realizing yet who he's up against, builds a vengeance inner desire until he grows older enough to be able to confront the murderer. Surprise though .. the guy doesn't want to die from a normal bullet. Well .. further we have much more of the story to come :) I will only say that as I was suggesting above the movie will most likely seem less dumb than you were expecting, exactly due to the way the action builds in the first part. Actually, in the first half or even a bit more you could replace the name of the main character with any other. The role of "American President" enters the scene quite late and it's introduced completely separated from the story involving the long teeth specimens. Yes, the end mixes them up with the American Civil war and the personal life of the guy on the 5 dollar bill ... but this comes already at a moment in time when you might be able to accept also such nonsense as a story :) exactly due to the way it was built up to that point.
If the movie would have placed the same story in a hypothetical context (e.g.,: John Smith: Vampire Hunter where John Smith = obscure governor, senator, sheriff or I don't know what else), probably it would have greatly reduced the critics targeting the "attack" on the real history :). On the other hand the movie is based on a novel (who's author is also the screenwriter) that probably sold exactly due to the name on the cover :) And which after all (being a novel :p) has a story of more than five lines that mixes enough adventure, action, romance that depending on the mood to give good chances to be entertaining ;)
Rating: 3 out of 5 - totally objective 4 out of 5 - if you feel up to tolerate a "hardcore SF history hacking" without thinking too much about the real version .. + the 3D is nice here ;) even for me
Maybe I should've written the original title: "Cheung Fo" in order not to create any confusion with an older much more known film, but since the interest for HK movies doesn't seem to be that big around me, I've told myself that it would be more "catchy" in English :). Although, I have to admit that in this case I don't have something that I would strongly recommend. Actually, a bit off-topic, it seems that I've reached a phase again where I tend to select what I see based on length criteria (in this particular case is somewhere below 90 minutes), which is probably not very "healthy" for my blog entries. But, let's see what we have here ...
I'll start as usual with the subject. About which I'll be quite blunt in this case: it's lame. So lame, that I won't hesitate spoiling something like 90% of it in the next lines. Extra info: I think it doesn't really matter, since this movie is probably not to be seen for the subject. So .. we have a boss of a Chinese Triad, somewhere in Hong Kong who manages to survive an assassination attempt. Following, he hires a group of five trusted bodyguards, four experienced and one rookie, who manage to protect him in another two similar situations. After which, the head behind the attempts (obviously a member of the same Triad family) is identified, executed and the problem solved .. with something like 15-20 minutes before the movie ending. So, in this interval we have the second problem revealed, totally unrelated with the first part = "the rookie" had an affair with the boss's wife .. and obviously this has to be solved too. Well, I'm not gonna spoil everything, although it's not that hard to predict the "unpredictable" ending. That's all. Now let's see what's worth seeing in this movie ...
The '99 production is directed by Johnnie To. A while ago I was writing about something shot during the same year, more exactly "Running Out of Time" (or "Am Zin"). The interesting part is that the respective title from my lighting quick unreliable research did at the moment seemed to be done on the rush between the scenes for the current discussed movie. I'm not sure it's exactly like this, but in my opinion that movie is far superior to this one here, although it seems rather unpolished in comparison. It is though a totally different style. To be specific, it has a light scent of "melancholic drama" ( I can't come up with another term right now ) which in my opinion is exactly the nice part that gets to your heart in HK action movies (as long as it doesn't become too cheesy). However, Johnnie To, quite appreciated as a director there, is a bit different in this aspect from what I've seen up to the moment ("Election 1 and 2", "Vengeance" with Johnny Halliday + the rest referenced up to here). That's why I've been surprised this Spring by the other title. Anyway, here we get back to his classic style. Which is .. dry & cold (I'm not really in my best day for finding the right terms, and I also don't have time to think too much, but that's pretty much "the feeling"). It's a simplistic subject, with a simplistic dialogue, an extremely dry humor .. to check out the scene with the ball game between the five bodyguards that I've linked below instead of the trailer. The only aspect that seems somehow opposed to that is the score .. and I managed to find also a clip for this, although it's not the best quality. Is a mix of themes, repeating quite often, which seem to be taken from an '80s or early '90s platform game, as Mario or something else. Overall, this approach for the movie, the style combination more exactly if we consider also the cinematography (which I have to admit that's very nice even simple = if you're careful enough you can spot details showing the work put in it), is probably the main argument to watch what we have here. As a final idea I've had the feeling, keeping the proportions, that I see something like a Melville movie ("Le Samourai" with Alain Delon as a classic example) transposed in the Asian version. It's not only my opinion, I've heard this comparison made for To before. Unfortunately, despite the seeming general appreciation, this style which doesn't care to much about the story is not really on my taste.
Despite the fact that this was the last week of a sort of "vacation" I didn't get to see more than the "The Bourne Legacy". And since I'm busy packing my luggages, I don't have the time to get into much detail. So, let's get to the point ...
In the sequel to Bourne, which does not have anything to do with the original series of books, we have a sort of "reboot". More exactly we find that the American government has another secret program to train agents (actually .. more programs to have place also for another reboot ..). And like this we start again with Jeremy Renner instead Matt Damon, pissed off badly when the agency leadership decides to shut down the bussiness and "fire" the employees. Without other spoilers, the result is a Bond-Terminator mix :) The last part might sound a bit weird, and when you see the movie also a bit SciFi, but I really think it's the part to appreciate. And this because it makes somehow the movie to be a bit different from the previous ones.
Overall I liked it. I wasn't very sure since Tony Gilroy (the rest of Bourne, "Michael Clayton", "Devil's Advocate" .. but also "State of Play", "Proof of Life") which is also the director here and besides the usual screenwriter job, alternates sometimes from good to bad quite easily (although in my opinion he is currently one of the best thriller screenwriters). With all the similarity with the previous movies (after all it's the same series), the result is a pretty good one in its genre. And I have to admit that I'm also a bit subjective and I prefer the Bourne universe to Bond. We'll see about Skyfall ;)
I have sufficient problems on my head these days, so I've found myself thinking on what sense does it have to keep this blog running, especially since I don't know how much time will I have for movies soon. Anyway, I managed to catch the 2012 version of "Total Recall", especially since for a while the SciFi became sort of a rarity at the big screen level (I'm not counting the superhero stuff that's pretty much the same story with a different mask every time). The opinions I heard before were not very good. My opinion after .. let's say it's divided.
I don't know if it has sense to tell something about the movie subject, since we're talking about a remake after something that we can call a genre classic that being the '90s version directed by Verhoeven and starring Schwarzenegger. I'm going to do something else, with the risk of losing the attention due to the writing volume, that being a resume of the P.K. Dick short-story-ului which is the base of the movie. In the story, Douglas Quail (with an "l" at the end and not a "d") is a minor clerk (not a worker building his muscles in a factory or on a construction yard) living a pretty dull life, and being married with a sort of hag as a wife named Kirsten (so not Lori and far from being so tender in the first phase as the movie version). The man decides one day to achieve his life dream, that being to travel on Mars, but since he does not have the necessary money for this tries to solve it with a visit to Rekal Incorporated, firm that handles memory implants according to the slogan "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (the title of the novel). Without more details, our man chooses a packet that will guarantee him the experience of having "lived" two weeks on the red planet as an Interplan agent (a sort of intergalactic CIA). Service payed, subject taken by the operator, execution problem .. the memory is already there, but was deleted after Mr. Quail assasinated an important person. Therefore, the client half asleep is sent home where is taken by the Interplan agents with the purpose to eliminate him from the current planet. The reasoning - you know too much and if we erase your brain again, you'll go again to Rekal to "leave" to Mars. Well, here comes "the movie" = for something like half a page in the book Doug uses his fists and runs desperately. After which he gets an idea about a compromise - and here starts the spoiler for the book :) : he will surrender in the terms of replacing his Mars memory and "tendances" by something more powerful that will erase his subconscious travel desire. Done: Rekal Inc., meanwhile recruited by the government, finds in the mind of the subject a powerful childhood fantasy in which he sees himself as the saviour of the Earth from an extraterestrial invasion. And like this, the new memory package is created with the perfect memory to eliminate his Mars travel dreams: more exactly, the invading race impressed by the innocence and compasion of the little Quail decides to embark in the flying saucers and leave as long he will be alive on the blue planet. Service payed (by the government), subject taken by the operator, execution problem .. guess what ;)
This is pretty much what I remember from what I've read not long ago, and which is the basis for the two movies. Why did I spent my time with writing so much text instead giving a summary for the 2012 version. Well, because like in the 1990 one, the movie goes way further than the short story. In the same time, compared to the '90 film we have major differences = Doug does not get to Mars, Lori = the wife becomes the principal evil character, we do not have Quato anymore, etc. And these are the main reasons (more or less conscious/obvious) for which the movie is bashed. And this is wrong ... Because after all the visual "original" diverges a lot from the written original, as it can be seen from the story above. And in this years' film we do not have a total remake after all, we have an adaptation of the remake. Which adaptation gains exactly from having an original script (and it is quite original) and for that deserves appreciation, and not the contrary, since the book was anyway already far before the movie came up. Talking about which script or story is better, I think this is subjective here. As story (and movie overall) I think I like more the one from 1990. As a script on the other hand the new one seems more close in a few points (not many) to P.K. Dick as general atmosphere (the piano scene for instance). AS general, because as I said the original novel is quite far and quite simplistic after all in the literary universe it belongs to + is filled with a fine sarcastic humor characteristic to the author that is lost almost completely in the movies. To end my plea about the wrong comparison done between the productions one should take in account also the time when these were released. We have more than 20 years as a difference. And to be more clear where I'm going with this, I always had a feeling (possibly a wrong one) that the '90s "Total Recall" got a bit influenced by the politics of the time. More exactly, I don't know why but every time I'm seeing it I'm involuntary thinking on South Africa and Apartheid. Starting with the evil leader = Kohaagen - Dutch name (that doesn't show up in the book) up to the oppresive situation against the mutant population on the Mars colony (that again has nothing to do with the book). Probably it already starts to sound weird :) so I'll stop my rambling here. Conclusine: it's a movie to be seen ;) ..
Rating: 4 out of 5
.. PS: at least for Kate Beckinsale & Jessica Biel it deserves this :D I've almost forgotten :P
I'm back. Not in a very good shape unfortunately. But sufficiently to maintain this blog on a survival line (I hope). And since I'm talking about survival + like I said last time, I come back with something that really deserves attention, despite a title, trailer and a first impression that do not suggest more than an average horror: "The Cabin in the Woods" :D .
My initial expectancies were like said before, and the movie was somewhere at the bottom of my "to see" queue. I had the luck though to stumble upon it in the closing evening of a festival where I didn't have the time to catch much else. This one however filled the space. What's it all about after all ... Well, the movie starts pretty much like a "typical teen horror where people wander in the wild & get slashed" but trust me on this .. it's much more original than whatever I've seen up 'til now in this category. I'm gonna try to limit the spoilers. We have two action plans: 1 - two guys + two girls who can be placed (well, probably) in the "hot" section + another guy who is a combination between Screech from "Saved by the Bell" (yeah I know, I'm old) and a joint loving hippie get into a summer trip somewhere to an isolated cabin ; 2 - something that looks like a secret branch of the US army with an underground HQ has the cabin under control and triggers an operation coordinated by two cynical guys targeting the "cheerful" group above. I'm gonna say just that the operation starts by attracting them in a cellar filled with objects like a sphere similar to the keys in "Hellraiser", a journal of a psycho family, etc. What's coming next you can see in the movie.
There are some aspects to point out. Firstly, "the hippie Screech" played in a brilliant manner by an unknown (at least for me) Fran Kranz, has an incredible well written part of the script. And considering that the script is generally way above than the usual horror average, the result already demands to be watched. The movie has a very good dose of black humor. So if you like the genre you should definitely not skip it. I laughed a lot, which doesn't happen very often. The idea itself is also something quite original, and even the end is a bit surprising on top of this (just a bit). I'd like to say that you also have something more deep in there, but after all the main line start-to-finish is just the fun = the perfect summer movie to see when you need something relaxing. There is blood in there (it's a horror after all), but again it's not exactly how it seems to be at the first sight. I've written already too much to give more info, but to do an overall characterization, as a feeling is a mix of light '90s horrors like "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" with a scent of "The Cube" trilogy. As a feeling .. about the rest, check it out ;)
Rating: 4 out of 5
( & remember, don't trust much the trailer :) what you need to get from there are the captions "You think you know the story ..." ;) )
... or more exactly an interruption caused by the traveling that I have scheduled in the following period :) I unfortunately I didn't manage to find out yet how to dilate the time (it's on the list, don't worry :P ); but I promise that I'll return with something that deserves watching ;) unfortunately I don't have time to write about it at this hour, but as usually, after 29 July, "I'll be back" :D ( & I'll try my best to make the waiting worth ;) .. well .. in case there will be somebody "waiting" :)) )
I'm caught again by the end of the week without many options for the blog, so I must deal with it by writing about something that's not actually very good. However, since the IMDb rating for "The Grey" seems decent (actually above what I would give) I said that maybe it fits as an option for today ...
The movie is somewhere in the survival adventure/thriller genre on a close subject line with "Jaws", "Anaconda", etc. This, if you read the synopsis. After you see it from start to finish though, it's hard to put it near the mentioned. The reasons are many and diverse ... But, let's start with the story: we have a plane transporting several workers from an oil platform in Alaska to the inner part of the continent in the middle of the winter. The plane crashes and the the result is seven survivors struggling to find somebody in order not to get frozen to death. The problem of the cold though, gets quickly secondary, after the men find themselves aggressively harassed by a wolf pack. As usual, I won't get further than the context, but anyway ... there is not much left to be told.
I didn't check but I assume that "The Grey" is rated R. Besides the fact that the movie is quite hard to watch, I guess that "restricted" fits here also more particularly to other situations in which watching the movie won't probably be a very pleasant experience: from being an animal lover (especially of dogs) up to having a flight scheduled nearly + others. Anyway, leaving this aside, I could say that the hard part of the movie is also the good part. And the one making the difference as least commercially than others - "Anaconda" again as a negative example here. And this happens due to the cinematography and especially editing that contributes to the atmosphere a lot. Unlike other titles, the movie does not follow the idea of making a score at the box-office from the abundance of bloody scenes (although the present ones get quite rough). After all this is probably the reason why it cannot be regarded as a horror (although it's not very far). But if the cinematography and editing are the good parts .. and I think I started in other direction, maybe it would be the case to come back to the original idea ...
Maybe it's me, but lately it seems I very often have the same problem .. again I think we have something that takes itself too seriously ... Leaving apart the fact that the wolf pack behavior seems a bit unrealistic, although I'm not an expert in wildlife, my major problem is with the script. After the first ten minutes you already know that what you have in front is not the usual "Piranha 3D" stuff. But after this the situation slowly changes .. You get more & more melodramatic background stories of the characters, classic crisis speeches, the usual "one by one .. who dies next" horror theme. To conclude, it slowly gets too Hollywoodish, and the bad part is that it tries to hide that .. = in the end I was left with the editing as the "something else" factor. Even the soundtrack that was nice, and a bit known, I confirmed myself after that is partially reused from "Ink". Therefore ...
Sorry for the delay, but I wasn't able to post my entry last week, although I had it in my head. So I'll be back with the following too soon. For the moment "Iron Sky" or adapted freely "How to launch an extraterrestrial invasion with a smartphone" is a sci-fi satire/parody, with a budget a bit bigger than the usual indie. Partially supported through crowd funding, the movie is a German-Finnish-Australian production. The subject: The return of the nazi .. from outer space .. or more exactly from the dark side of the Moon :)
I guess I've already summarized the story above, and since I'm delayed already I won't get any longer. The movie is .. to compare to something having an element in common, as credible as "Inglorious Basterds" (keeping the proportions). There are holes in the script, and other issues. But ... again, unlike for instance "Prometheus" from last week, in this case we have something not taking itself much into serious. On the good side, we have also some other stuff like the score that varies from blues pieces to an arrangement foe Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", starting with a arrangementcazul de fata avem ceva ce nu se ia prea in serios. In plus, avem cateva puncte de remarcat incepand cu partea de coloana sonora care merge de la cateva blues-uri pana la un aranjament pentru Ride of the Valkyries de Wagner, excellent synced with the movie scenes. The FX have a couple of glitches but overall are to be appreciated given the movie budget (altogether with the production design and the other related stuff). The actors, although I didn't know anybody besides Udo Kier, surprised me in a very pleasant way. And finally .. the parody scenes .. which might have been more, but what's striking is the well-known Hitler scene from "Untergang" (the clip heavily used with alternate subtitles on YouTube).
In the end I have to admit that the movie looks more like a B series one, but it's on top on its category :) It might not be much, but deserves the time, it's fun, witty, and ... subjectively speaking I've placed Julia Dietze on the list to watch for in the future ;)
There are already more than two weeks I think since I've seen the movie = immediately after I mentioned it in the summer preview entry .. as head of the list. The reason Why last week I picked another title is that I had a pretty long break since my last rated movie, and I wanted to have something deserving to be watched on my blog. The reason why I returned to "Prometheus" now is because I feel I owe getting it down from the top of the previews list (even if the list was just chronological according to the release date).
Because I might have started a bit too harsh (and I intend to end even more), "Prometheus" is not exactly a movie to be avoided. Unlike, for instance, the last blueish production signed by master Cameron here you have a script, some story, a bit of acting .. but no Sigourney Weaver (who's present in "the blue world" if the irony wasn't clear enough). It doesn't worth to get started with the subject for many reasons, from the spoilers (I'll have plety of those below) to the simple fact that I'm not in the mood. In case there is still somebody completely lost from the subject, what we have here is a prequel to the "Alien" series, and I will say that it seems to have the role of creating a spin-off. That's enough. The subject is after all one of the good points of the movie. The handling of it though ... Suficient atat.
I didn't see every Ridley Scott movie but I don't remember which one was the last that disappointed me like this one. I have to admit for instance that "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Robin Hood" were not exactly masterpieces but they were a bit above average, level that in my head was the guaranteed minimum for Scott (he's still the first in my top of directors by the way .. but I'll argue my option when I'll have something supporting this, if it doesn't change before). Again "Prometheus" is not bad. It's just .. medium quality. I don't know from where to start and where to and .. for me is somewhere at the same level with Jeunet's experiment in Alien 4 - which even if it was crazy at least it had some originality and sufficient action to be fun. I think this is the point where "Prometheus" lost - it wanted to get more philosophical than the script can handle (although the idea and the story have potential). And like this it lost the action in Alien 4, and it didn't reach to the deepness of Fincher's Alien 3 either (very underrated movie). It doesn't even worth comparing with the first two in the series. But if this would have been all, we would still have a movie "a bit above average". But no ... we have more ..
We have a ship that enters the atmosphere of an unknown planet and lands more precisely than a trained paratrooper exactly near the alien structure (yes, I know .. spoiler: there are many of those, come on, that's the justification ? .. one in every valley, huh ?). We have a Guy Pearce with a makeup almost as horrible as J. Edgar's buddy in the last Eastwood movie .. was it really a problem to set the guy's age at 60 instead trying to make him look like 100 ? (you have to see the movie to answer this, but I'm sure that I can fight back any argument with an alternative challenge me ;) if you dare). We have madame Shaw instead of Ripley who apparently wants to look more badass (spoiler again) by cutting and sewing back her own belly and after that doing olympics training in 100 meter hurdles races ... And no, there's no excuse in portraying her as in pain from time to time, neither that medicine in 100 years will be more advanced, and neither that the movie is a movie as long as it takes itself as seriously as it does. And still, maybe it would have been credible, but to end this, sorry, but Noomi Rapace is no Sigourney Weaver ;).
... or how it's written on the poster "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" as an alternate title, is the last production starring Mel Gibson in a lead role. Some time ago I was thinking that this guy, considering the bunch of problems he managed to get into, pretty much finished his career. I'm not totally sure that I wasn't right, but what can I say is that the situation seems to play well for the quality of his last movies. Unfortunately not financially speaking I'm afraid. I think that the release for the current one was delayed with something close to one year and it's also limited if I'm right = in some places didn't manage to get into cinemas and went straight to pay-per-view. But, getting back to the actual movie ...
In brief, we have something that seems to be like a sort of "Payback 2" with a scent of "Lucky Number Slevin" and mixed with some others of the genre that I can't remember now - but more gruesome and more crazy. To summarize it, the guy on the poster is a thief who manages to steal quite an amount of cash from .. let's say "somebody" so I won't spoil anything .. from San Diego, California. For the general knowledge, in case it wasn't known already, San Diego is quite close to Mexico. Where the unlucky fellow, without having too many options, and chased by the local corrupt police, decides to plunge through the frontier border. After this, he's picked up by the neighbor local police, relieved of his stolen money and thrown without many questions in a sort of ad-hoc prison. To define ad-hoc prison: a surrounded guarded perimeter, without cells but with a local economy = from sleeping places rented by the perimeter mafia up to kiosks with cigarettes and cola, and others. In this context every resident has to earn his daily living somehow. What happens further ... well .. we have action, romance, some twists .. everything wrapped up by a story that's more original than lots of productions with a quintuple budget.
I won't say more of the story. In the end, the movie is quite far fetched, but it somehow manages not to surpass the limit = in the sense that pretty much every scene like: "come on (eyeroll), why ?" (= why the heck did it happened what I just saw in the previous second) can have a quick explanation. So there is a minimum degree of credibility in there. What I found a bit bothering, and I can't explain myself why, because I consider myself as having a pretty high level of tolerance, is the fact that is rated R and the scenes in this rating are plenty. Probably I just wasn't in the mood for something in this range, but getting over it the movie really deserves watching. Gibson makes a very good role, and it makes me feel sorry again that he's not really loved by the producers after the scandals he got into (apparently the Hollywood has a very big problem with dissociating between a guy's private life and what he does on screen). To get to a conclusion, the movie could have been better, but for one hour and thirty, although I start to repeat myself, the subject is sufficiently dense not to give you time to check your watch. Even if maybe the trailer doesn't suggest that ( but only the funny part ;) ).
Rating: 4 out of 5 ( a bit at the limit though .. :) )
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