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Archive for Movie Review

Gods of Egypt

Mar02

Gods-of-Egypt-Fiery-PosterTitle: Gods of Egypt

Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Gerard Butler, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush, Alex Proyas (Director)

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: March 1, 2016

Summary: Deities & Demigods

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Sure Gods of Egypt was panned and is tanking at the box office, but it’s a big budget fantasy movie with (vaguely) Egyptian deities and Jaime Lannister — how could I not go see that? I’m glad I did too, because this is one of those films, like Jupiter Ascending, that I enjoyed in the theatre, but would have bored me at home.

Looks dumb, huh?

But if you totally suspend disbelief. Ignore the voice over. Abandon hope of character development. Forget the incoherent mythology. And turn a blind eye to Egyptian religion cribbed solely from Dungeons and Dragons: Deities & Demigods.

If you can do all that, and just view it as a “Egyptian inspired fantasy”, it’s actually a fun romp. The film is gorgeous in a CGI kind of way. I mean, this movie may have the MOST CGI of any live action movie yet made. Ever. They must have built more real sets for a Star Wars prequel! And the character writing is simplistic. But the actors actually do a good job with it. Particularly Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the two mortals Brenton Thwaites and Courtney Eaton, Chadwick Boseman, and the ever enjoyable Geoffrey Rush. And there are some funny lines. No one takes themselves very seriously, director on down. Gerard Butler’s Set is a little annoying, but not nearly as bad as the recent General Zod (barf!).

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But the GOE plot is easy to follow. Nonsense, in its way, but straightforward without a lot of mumbo jumbo. It’s an old score quest / adventure plot in that way. None of the battles last that long, which is great, although there are a lot of them. But they are each different. And there are many cool sets (ahem, CGI modeled sets). We have palaces, temples, secret tombs, the afterlife (loved Anubis), gods that are twice the height of people, and my personal favorite: Ra’s “boat of a million years.”

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The film is ridiculously anachronistic, with modernistic jokes and like the recent Hercules movies (set in 1200 BC) where they ride horses with saddles, stirrups, and all that — none of which was invented until much later. Here, besides the gods and magic (fine), you have giant pedestrian freeways, stone traps made of rock with the properties of aluminum, sandals with buckles and all sorts of things that certainly didn’t exist even in New Kingdom Egypt, not to mention “pre-historic” Egypt when the gods reigned — but I didn’t think about it — again, Egyptian inspired fantasy world.

QWCkx

Some of the magic and general religious-magic was kinda cool. Like the way Anubis emerges and descends into a swirl of dust. The production did a tiny itty bit of research before throwing almost all of it out. When Horus sends Zaya’s soul to the afterlife he says something to the effect of “may the earth doors of Aker open to you, may the sky doors of Geb open to you” which is standard Egyptian magio-religious rhetoric out of the Book of the Dead.

Sigh. Too bad they’d never use this kind of giant CGI budget to an actual real plot set in a recreated real ancient world.

Find more movie reviews here.

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Almost looks like Beastmaster or something!

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Alex Proyas, Ancient Egyptian deities, Brenton Thwaites, Chadwick Boseman, Fantasy, Geoffrey Rush, Gerard Butler, Gods of Egypt, Horus, Movie Review, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Jupiter Ascending – All in the Script

Feb11

Jupiter_Ascending-267973304-large-2Title: Jupiter Ascending

Cast: Mila Kunis (Actor), Channing Tatum (Actor), Sean Bean (Actor) The Wachowskis (Writer/Directors)

Genre: Science Fiction / Space Opera

Watched: January 10, 2015

Summary: Awesome but flawed

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While original film works of Science Fiction are not as rare as original High Fantasy, they are still rare indeed. So even after critics panned Jupiter Ascending, I saw it anyway. I’m glad I did, and so should you. First of all, you have to support any filmmaker or studio willing to talk bold risks on new IP. Unless you’re looking forward to Transformers 19, the seventh Spiderman reboot, and Stratego: Aliens vs. Napoleon.

Let’s first discuss the good things. Bear in mind that Jupiter is a SciFi fairytale. It’s not “hard SciFi” at all, but more derived from a sort of amalgam of classic Space Opera, Star Wars, and geek chic. The same stew out of which Avatar and many big budget video games are born, it’s no coincidence that it’s the brainchild of the same creative team as the Matrix.

Jupiter is stunning to look at even by 2015 standards. The vistas are wide, the camera angles bold, the set, creature, ship, and costume design artful and detailed. The film takes good advantage of 3D and its soundscape. Michael Giacchino’s sound track is fabulous. Space Opera classic really. The “feel” of the film, which includes the look, the sound, and the “mythology” is worth the price of admission alone to anyone serious about Speculative Fiction.

Look at the scope!

Look at the visual scope! The detail too is gorgeous.

The acting is solid. Probably even good if you consider some of the writing problems. Kunis is excellent, even if her dialog is at times awful (and sometimes good). Tatum is fine but a little stiff. Sean Bean is… well Boromir and Ned Stark. Many of the side actors are very good. All three Abrasax siblings are excellent. Balem (Eddie Redmayne) borders on the comically melodramatic, but delivers quite a riveting performance (which might have been even better without the forte part of his whole piano/forte routine). Even his sycophant Chicanery Night (love those names) is fabulous.

The action sequences are extended and highly creative. Yeah, they’re a little too long and like all big epics today, the film would have been better served spending more time on character — but the choreography is amazing. These are 3D to the max. I don’t just mean the 3D glasses type of 3D but that the action takes place in three dimensional space in a highly innovative way.

The visuals are amazing, as are little tech details all through the film

The visuals are amazing, as are little tech details all through the film

I loved the mythology. This isn’t hard SciFi, so it’s not “plausible” in any way, shape, or form. We have FTL, warp gates, mass defying transformations, tractor beams, crazy mixtures of nanotech and steampunk. Still, it has a great feel. There is real scope here, a sense of the (space) operatic. The visuals support this with giant vistas of docking ships and planets overgrown with city and surrounded by artificial habitat rings. To the untutored kids those must just look cool. As a reader of decades of SciFi, it’s homage to Asimov, Clarke and Niven. There is an overriding moral theme, not perfectly executed, but one that puts the human race in full jeopardy. Slightly evocative of the Matrix (go figure) this time humans are slated as commodities ground up for rejuv juice (and more) instead of turned into batteries. This version made more sense than in the Matrix. Ultimately the premise is a bit less “new” than the Matrix, more traditional Space Opera, but the sad thing is that despite the incredible number of loosely SciFi films out there, ones that rival the scope of good SciFi novels are exceedingly rare.

The tech wizardry built into the civilization is amazing too. The production team sure hasn’t lost its knack for that. Things like the device that “phases out a circle of solid matter” (who knows what you call that?) or all the little artifacts, huds, and controls are awesome geek stuff.

Now on to the problems.

Mostly, it comes down to script flaws, and they aren’t even in big concept, but in execution. First of all, we have a fish out of water female protagonist experiencing this bigger world. Great! But the script botches it in several ways. 1) We get reveals into the world behind the curtain (the magic world) before she does. Big no no. We should have seen it all from her eyes. 2) Her dialog is mediocre with a mix of great lines and stinkers. (3) While her basic character is good, her arc minimalist, and her decisions poor. She falls for Titus’ BS? Almost falls for Balem’s after that? Come on. She’s also fairly passive / damsel in distress with Caine doing all the heavy lifting (literally and figuratively). He should have done that at the beginning, been her guide, but then she needed to come into her own. There isn’t even a good touch of death or mentor figure (ala Morpheus). The first Matrix follows proper heroic arcing. Jupiter evokes classic style movie, it should have kept the protagonist’s story spine closer to home. She is mostly buffeted by events, and only at the end makes a rather weak Act 2/3 transitional choice. The final ending choice is also lame. Returning to scrubbing toilets is failing to make a proper synthesis of the A and B stories (thesis and antithesis).

Caine too doesn’t have enough character. He needed some kind of edge or complexity. Their romance is far too perfunctory. Sure, he’s a hunk and rescues her. Sure she’s a gorgeous Ukrainian princess. But they just fall for each other completely without much real interaction.

These are symptoms of the broader writing problem. There are so many elements jammed in here: complex world, action, romance, villains, more action, moral theme, a touch of humor, and even more action, that none of them get proper time for development. It’s not even that long a film, around two hours, and it moves at a breakneck pace, packing in the scenes and settings. But there’s too much action and far, far too little character development. Even cheeky Guardians of the Galaxy with its ridiculous wooden villain has more development — and certainly more chemistry going on between the team. I think it’s a rare case where the film would have been better being longer. An extra 30-40 minutes all focused on character (and a lot of structural rewrites) would have gone a long way.

Sigh. I still really really enjoyed this film. More than Guardians actually. I loved the whole atmosphere. And I don’t really understand why the critics maligned it so — or maybe they just don’t understand the grand sense of wonder that is at the core of the genre. Clearly the Wachowskis do, so flaws and all I bless them for it. But as usual, it could have been so much more. Didn’t some producer ask where the arc is?

Find more movie reviews here.

Jupiter-Ascending

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Channing Tatum, Douglas Booth, Eddie Redmayne, Jupiter Ascending, Jupiter Ascending Critique, Jupiter Ascending Review, Mila Kunis, Movie Review, Science Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Script Structure, Sean Bean, The Wachowskis

Guardians of the Galaxy

Aug08

Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-poster-21Title: Guardians of the Galaxy

Cast: Chris Pratt (Actor), Zoe Saldana (Actor), James Gunn (Director)

Genre: Science Fiction

Watched:  August 7, 2013

Summary: Basically good fun

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Months ago, when I saw the trailer for this film, I said to myself, “that will either be really cool or totally suck.” Fairly amazingly, it’s basically the former. I’m not even exactly sure why this is a good film. It certainly isn’t a great one. I mean by comic-book film standards, it’s better than 95% and perhaps at about the same level as Hellboy (which was another surprise hit — and similarly from a comic I’d never heard of). Although the tone is absolutely nothing like Guillermo del Toro creepy “masterpiece.”

Fundamentally, Guardians is like an amped up, light-hearted, post-modern version of a standalone Han Solo novel. This is a crazy elaborate galactic civilization that is well… completely and totally improbable. It makes Star Wars look realistic. But the tone is so whimsical that we know from the first instant (hell, from the poster), that Guardians doesn’t take itself seriously. Woe if it did. This is a comic (and I mean both Marvel comic and funny comic) action film. But the characters are fun, the action intense, the world building lighthearted but detailed, and the whole romp pure escapism.

There is some attempt to give the main characters a bit of depth and a dash of pathos. For the most part, it works (at the level necessary).  Hell, even Groot has more depth than the likes of Thor. The villains are not as successful. I’m never a big fan of the whole multiple big boss villain scenario, but Marvel loves it (see Avengers). Thanos probably shouldn’t exist and  Ronan is laughably… comic. He just stands around between whoop-ass. Who, or what is he? Why does he wear black glitter? And how the hell did he get any followers?

There is also a bizarre who’s who of cameos or at least peculiar and for the most part comic casting: Benicio Del Toro’s oddball “Collector”? John C Reilly as a space cop? When you see John C Reilly, it’s hard to take anything too seriously.

But the dialog is snappy and fun, and the main actors pretty on point. Personally I liked the CGI guys best. Rocket (the Raccoon) is hilarious.

It’s not even worth nitpicking all the little plot holes. And, yeah, all the main characters (good or bad) are a little too good at what they do and the bulk of people (like the Nova “Empire” kinda lame). But the film is just good popcorn munching fun. So if you like galactic romps, this sure beats watching a battered video of Ice Pirates at 4am.

For more Film reviews, click here.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Benicio Del Toro, Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ice Pirates, James Gunn, John C Reilly, Marvel, Marvel Comics, Movie Review, Zoe Saldana

Dragon in the Hole

Dec16

MV5BMzU0NDY0NDEzNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTIxNDU1MDE@._V1_SX640_SY720_Title: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Director/Stars: Martin Freeman (Actor), Peter Jackson (Director)

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: December 15, 2013

Summary: More is more!

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First some technical bits: Again I saw The Hobbit in HFR 3D (at the Arclight). Last year, I found this new flickerless tech fascinating, hyper realistic, and more than a little disquieting. This year, either I’ve gotten used to it (thanks to my 120hz TV) or Peter Jackson and crew really worked the solve the problems. I’m pretty sure it’s the later. Sure, the film was crystal clear, and sure, you could still count every pore on the actor’s faces, but it no longer looked as crazy fake. I suspect they added a lot of motion blur. I bet it cost a lot of money.

I’ve also gotten used to the 3D, although there were some technical glitches with my Dolby glasses. They only work well in the center, and I had to keep my eyes in the middle of the large screen to keep the whole frame in 3D. Plus, every time I tilted my head slightly to the side it began to degrade. I found this considerably more distracting than the HFR. The 3D is still a bit dim. Popping them off (and the projection actually looked ok — however 2D — to the naked eye) and I could appreciate the brightness.

But how was the film? Again, it’s interesting to see how Peter Jackson (and his 3 other co-writers, including Del Toro) have taken a 275 page novel and expanded it into roughly 8 hours. Smaug is a long movie, 160 minutes, and it takes its time to luxuriate with the material. This is more than just the middle section of the fairly self contained novel, but has swelled to become part Hollywood blockbuster, part piece of the Tolkien Universe. This world is rich enough, so they drew on earlier (later?) films and copious extra Tolkien material to plump it up. Frankly, it works.

The film luxuriates in the bits and pieces of this world: Bilbo on top of the Mirkwood surrounded by butterflies, Warg riding orcs on top of mist covered peaks, the dark dank stone of the crypts of the nine, an elf king’s crown, a giant dragon curled beneath a sea of gold.

Straight from the cover of The Dungeon Master's Guide

Straight from the cover of The Dungeon Master’s Guide

For me this transcends the deviances from the book. Gandalf chanting in Dol Guldur belongs, and Lost‘s Kate is surprisingly good as an elf captain. If the tone has shifted, becoming more Peter Jackson and less Tolkien, well then at least it’s consistent with the other films. Smaug is considerably darker, faster paced, and overall better than the previous installment.

The pacing is pretty relentless, with just brief little spells of calm. It’s a quest story. The dwarves are chased, captured, chased, captured, chased, captured, and fight a dragon. The action sequences are breathless with that Jackson signature camp (shades of Dead Alive). Dwarves in barrels plummet down a river while elves dance on their heads shooting at orcs. In other hands, it might be cheese, but again, it works. Then Bilbo’s cat and mouse game with Smaug. Then dwarves fighting him with their furnaces. I’m just such a geek.

Love it.

Read my review of last year’s Unexpected Journey.

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Tagged as: Benedict Cumberbatch, Bilbo Baggins, Desolation of Smaug, Fantasy, HFR, Hobbit, Ian McKellen, Lord of the Rings, Martin Freeman, Movie Review, Peter Jackson, Smaug, The Hobbit

Hansel & Gretel – Arrrrrgg!

Aug21

locandinapg1Title: Hansel & Gretel

Cast: Jeremy Renner (Actor), Gemma Arterton (Actor), Tommy Wirkola (Director)

Genre: Fantasy / Fairy Tale / Action

Watched:  August 11, 2013

Summary: Reaches for (and finds) new lows

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OMG, someone finally ripped off Van Helsing! Actually, more like  mated it with The Man with the Iron Fists. Lest it not be clear, I loathed Van Helsing. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the worst big budget films of all time. Hansel & Gretel is actually better. Not a lot better mind you, but watchable in a sort of horrifying way.

At least it feels like a single unified “vision.” Cough cough. The film is consistent in tone. But what a strange tone! In some ways, it’s a faithful spawn of the original fairy tale (or Satan), but it steals from and mashes in every conceivable bit of jazzed up bad video game / comic sensibility and time period, over-the-top and almost post-modern humor, then goes for the utter gusto.

Some interesting (and terrifying) observations about the film: It apparently cost only $50 million to make. Actually fairly cheap given the number of sets and constant fx shots. They clearly didn’t spend the money on the stars. We all know Jeremy Renner to be under a curse that magically compels him to take every role offered. On the scary side H&G did over $200 million worldwide and a sequel is in production. Spare us now!

The witch designs are borrowed from Clive Barker's Nightbreed

The witch designs are borrowed from Clive Barker’s Nightbreed

Probably the thing that most offends me is the fundamental tonal blend. At some level, one might consider this a horror film, and there is a creepy ass story that could be made out of the original fairy tale. If you lost the we-already-know-it intro and immersed us in a dark forest period village where children were being murdered and the townsfolk turned upon themselves — that could have worked. But H&G eschews subtlety at any and all levels. The scenario makes a high level sense (i.e. you can mostly follow the “plot”), but the world building does not. Where is this? When is this? It looks like a 19th century — no maybe 17th — village. But we have half-indestructible heroes, more witches than children, machine-gun crossbows, multi-stage bullets, witches better at high-wire hand to hand combat than curses, love-struct trolls, and so much more. It’s just plain bizarre. There is even this major scene in the middle where a rape  and a fumbling love encounter are intercut. Woah! And weird.

Unlike its putrescent progenitor, Van Helsing, I think H&G actually leans on sets instead of CGI for the locations. They  filmed it in Germany. This leant (some) of the backgrounds a slightly realistic touch, if a bit Grim Brothers Kitsch. The post-300  costumes and props — not so much. Also very hit or miss is the flip dialog, mostly consisting of Gretel’s one liners and ham-handed exposition aimed at explaining what passes for plot. The witchy plan is so laughable that I wonder if the outline wasn’t done by the writer’s eight year-old son: Wait for Blood Moon, grab twelve kids (for sacrifice), plus dine on heart of Great White Whale (wait, didn’t I mean Witch?).

You might wonder why I mentioned The Man with the Iron Fists, even though it’s an entirely different action sub-genre. But both films take a similar (and oddball) approach at amping and aping the conventions of their betters. They place wire-flying blood-spurting quip-shouting action at the forefront, forgetting that this is meaningless if you don’t actually have characters you care about. Or a world that makes sense. And both films have this Tarantino inspired tone that forbades any suspension of disbelief — while failing to understand any of the stylistic talents of the master.

These witches don’t look any less fake on the big screen

Oh yes, and shall we mention that it’s pretty damn gory. Mixed in with all the camp, there are some horrific deaths here, which further lends to the incredibly odd stylistic tone. Toss into that the haphazard attempt to give both leads romantic interests. Wow, this creates some skin crawling awfulness. I didn’t know who to be me more uncomfortable for: the writers, producers, actors, characters, or just me! That intercut rape scene. Shiver. Not like it’s “the ear scene” in Reservoir Dogs or anything, but the clash of elements is so startlingly inappropriate, I don’t even know what to say.

 If this is the new normal, shoot me with a gatling crossbow now!

For more Film reviews, click here.

These tender moments are intercut with his sister's beating and near rape

These tender moments are intercut with his sister’s beating and near rape

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By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: fairy tale, Film Review, Gemma Arterton, Hansel & Gretel, Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters, Jeremy Renner, Movie Review

Snow White and the Huntsman

Jun11

Title: Snow White and the Huntsman

Cast: Kristen Stewart (Actor), Charlize Theron (Actor), Rupert Sanders (Director)

Genre: Fantasy

Watched:  June 6, 2012

Summary: Surprisingly excellent (9/10)

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I have to admit that the trailer for this film had me cautiously excited. It exhibits a certain style of fantasy storytelling that appeared cool and unique. Serious, yet referential to the source material. Visually original, but not silly. Still, I was worried. The bit about “from the producer of Alice in Wonderland” did nothing to reassure. That movie was so wretched I turned it off during the mind numbing final battle.

Oh, and despite my distaste for Twilight (I cover all four films and novels in detail) I’m actually a non-so-closeted Kristen Stewart fan. In fact, she’s the only thing that makes the sparkly vampires and talking wolves bearable. Plus, her work in the excellent and underrated Adventureland is top notch.

Snow White isn’t a perfect film, but it is a damn good one with a lot going for it. While the movie is a special effects showcase, the writing is fundamentally story and character driven. It has one of those flashback beginnings like the far inferior Dark Shadows (2012). This part of the film probably could have been cut and replaced with a few quick flashbacks, but once we’re into the present day it’s highly engaging.

The weird mythology and power of the wicked queen is complex and well developed. Visually she’s very effective even if Charlize Theron does deliver some of the cheesiest lines in the film. She looks great but her dialog is hit or miss. Some are great like the “mirror mirror” conversations. Her character is megalomaniacal to the extreme and lends toward overacting.

K. Stew employs her trademark naive and self-depreciating boldness. It works for me as it always does. Hemsworth is big, confident, and evocative of young Sean Bean in his comfortable portrayal of the Huntsman. The Queen’s brother is creepy. The dwarves surprisingly effective (who doesn’t love Ian McShane?).

This film could have easily gone bad in a number of ways. It could have been an incomprehensible and undeveloped special effects fest. We could have had a 45 minute all-CGI all-boring final battle. We don’t. We have a final battle, but it centers around Snow White and the Queen and the mutual nemesis factor. The film takes itself very seriously, yet is full of totally weird mythology. It could have descended into total camp or the incomprehensible. It doesn’t. Snow White strikes a balance between character, action, mythology and the like.

On an effects note, there is some really stunning work here. For all the over-the-top graphics, some of it is very understated. For example, the eight (soon seven) dwarves all have the faces of well known actors like Ian McShane and Bob Hoskins. I don’t know if they filmed real little people and then grafted on filmed faces or formed incredibly realistic computer models of each actor to composite in, but it looks great. Unfortunately, this does have the effect of putting short but talented actors (like the amazing Peter Dinklage) out of a job. Some of the made up sets like the fairy enchanted forest also have a fey quality, somewhat reminiscent of Pan’s Labyrinth or Hellboy II, that frankly took my breath away. Yeah, I’m a Dark Crystal kind of guy, but it’s good stuff.

Overall, it’s nice to have more well done serious fantasy. Bravo.

For more Film reviews, click here.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Fantasy, Ian McShane, Kristen Stewart, Movie Review, Movies, Queen, Snow White, Snow White and the Huntsman

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Jan14

Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Director/Stars: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara and Christopher Plummer, David Fincher (Director)

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Watched: January 9, 2012

Summary: Very stylish dark thriller

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TGWTDT is a peculiar literary and cinematic phenomenon. Wildly successful, it’s not your typical story or route to success. It also proves that some people, at least, still have an attention span.

Broadly, this is a serial killer mystery blended with a taunt character driven thriller. The story itself has an odd structure. For those of you that don’t know, we have an old Swedish billionaire who hires a brilliant investigative journalist to investigate the forty year-old unsolved murder of his niece. This is wound together with the life of a hacker/investigator (the titular girl) who investigates first the journalist and then the murders. But oddly, they don’t even meet for half of the film. The first half is driven by the journalist’s investigation and by dark character study of Lisbeth (the girl).

Be warned, this film contains crime scenes, grisly crime photos, crazy homicidal dudes in their dungeons, and a very harrowing rape sequence which is all too graphic. Director David Fincher lends his natural taste and talent for the creepy to the material with great success. No surprise, he directed my all time most disturbing film, Seven. This TGWTDT is much more stylish than the Swedish versions (and that was good too). Plus this style doesn’t trivialize the material at all, but only serves to heighten the emotional impact. The story is somewhat streamlined from the earlier film and the book, but also without significant sacrifice.

Daniel Craig is highly competent in the role and the excellent supporting cast makes fine work of the host of swedish creeps (and occasional decent human being). But it’s Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth that absolutely steals the show. Of course this character is probably to a good degree responsible for the success of the franchise, but Mara does her justice. Her Lisbeth is detached, yet sexy and vulnerable, but also kick ass physically and intellectually. She’s a very complex character and both her striking visual presence and subtle performance are riveting. I particularly liked her sexual relationship with Craig. Here’s a man who clearly is used to being a man, and then she reverses the whole deal on him. He likes her, but doesn’t really know what to make of the whole thing.

But for us, that’s great movie making. Just be warned, this is not a film for the squeamish.

For more Film reviews, click here.

Or read about my current project, The Darkening Dream.

Related posts:

  1. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  2. Book Review: The Windup Girl
  3. Book Review: Girl Walking Backwards
  4. Food as Art: Pearl Dragon
  5. Truly Deeply Sick and Twisted
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Christopher Plummer, Daniel Craig, David Fincher, Dragon Tattoo, Film Review, Girl With Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, Movie Review, Rooney Mara, Sweden, Swedish

Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Nov19

Title: Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Director/Stars: Kristen Stewart (Actor), Robert Pattinson (Actor), David Slade (Director)

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: June 2010 & Nov 16, 2011

Summary: Livarot

_

Eclipse is clearly the lame duck of the three pre-Breaking-Dawn Twilight films. It’s so cheesy that it makes the original and New Moon seem high art. First of all, the A-story is about as weighty as a sesame seed. We’ve got this entirely lame plot where ginger-haired hipster Victoria is still after Bella because of the ridiculous happenings of the first film. In order to thwart the plot crushing clairvoyance of Alice she has to act indirectly, raising an army of “Newborn” vampires to come after Bella and the Cullens. In this featherweight version of the vampire legend, new vampires are not just crazy (that’s fairly typical) but are extra strong. Well, at least we are told this. What we are shown (in the “final battle”) is that the Newborns die easily without causing the good guys to even break a sweat — only a few ribs. I find this incredibly lame. In my fictional universe, vampires grow in strength with the years, but at the same time very old vampires are extremely rare — and extraordinarily twisted, powerful, and dead. Did I mention they only come out at night and like to decorate their enemy’s houses with body parts?

Actress Kristen Stewart, actor Taylor Lautner ...

But none of Eclipse‘s A-story really matters. It’s the B-story (romance) that holds the focus. This episode is all (I mean all) about the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob. Which is about as cheesy as Fourme d’Ambert, but again does have a certain charm, and more than a little humor. The “plot” forces ever more competition between our studs, leading to post-modern lines like “I’m Switzerland” or “does he own a shirt?” This trend climaxes (or doesn’t) in the amusing talkfest inside the tent at the end of the movie. Jacob has been hanging outside (shirtless of course) in a blizzard, but he ducks in to check on freezing Bella. Poor Edward just isn’t much help — no heartbeat = no bodyheat. “You’ll warm up faster if you take off your clothes,” Jacob advises when he crawls in the sleeping bag, right in front of his rival.

I must also mention that every time the A-story cuts in my skin crawls. The flashback with the Native Americans and the “cold ones” (vampires) was particularly seizure inducing. The little flash overs to Victoria and the Volturi “plotting” are perfunctory and really make no sense given the essentially first-person nature of the narrative. The plot (cough cough) is really driven (and hampered) by Alice’s corny power. This happens in the entire series. Since she can see the future, most decisions consist of her instantly knowing someone is going to show up or something is going to happen. Then they hop to it. Occasionally, like in New Moon, this screws something up briefly. Truth is, this is an amazingly lazy device on the part of Stephanie Meyer. It’s like a continuous deus ex machina. It even traps the author in Eclipse so she has to invent a whole reason Victoria can sneak up on them via her leaving it as a “last minute decision.” This is totally bogus. If she decided to leave it to the end to decide, she’s decided and Alice would know. BS alert!

But I’m not done. Continuing my theory that the series is teenage girl wish fulfillment we have this big B-story thread where Edward wants to get married but Bella resists. I’m pretty sure this is just to create further reason for him to actually do what she (and by proxy her teen audience) wants him to do: propose. Then there is his insistence on celibacy. But others have certainly gone into the whole vampire = the dangers of sex or whatever is going on here.

I’m not sure if I loathe the movie or actually enjoyed it as an odd sociological study (owing to it being so popular) or liked it because Kristen Stewart is hot. It was definitely not because of Edward’s eyebrows or Jacob’s six-pack.

Read my Twilight review or New Moon or Breaking Dawn, part 1 or part 2.
For more Film reviews, click here.
Or read about my own paranormal novels.

Related posts:

  1. Twilight Saga: New Moon
  2. Book and Movie Review: Twilight
  3. Movie Review: Adventureland
  4. The Sure Thing
  5. Back to the Future
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Bella, Bella Swan, Edward, Film Review, Jacob Black, Kristen Stewart, Movie Review, Robert Pattinson, Stephenie Meyer, Taylor Lautner, Twilight, Twilight Saga, Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Twilight Saga: New Moon

The Eagle

Jul17

Title: The Eagle

Director/Stars: Channing Tatum (Actor), Jamie Bell (Actor)

Genre: Period Adventure

Year: 2011

Watched: July 7, 2011

Summary: Decent.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

It’s interesting that in the last year or so there have been two movies about the Roman legion “lost” in North Britain during the Hadrianic period. The other is Centurion which I review here. It just goes to prove that Hollywood loves to copy. Two volcano movies? Two Wyatt Earp films? Two Lambada films?

And, to boot, it’s unlikely the legion was actually “lost” (as in militarily). More likely it was just disbanded and the sketchy historical record makes it seem to have disappeared.

In any case, The Eagle is less stylized, and perhaps less anachronistic in terms of it’s action and look than Centurion. However, it doesn’t work as well. Centurion is a very fine chase movie, with almost no character development. The Eagle tries for the latter, with mixed success. The first half works best. Our hero, Centurion Marcus, is posted (on request) to a fort in Britain, proves himself and is injured, then gets shipped out to his uncle’s villa to recover. I liked this opening section, and the film is very well researched from a visual standpoint. The scenery and costumes are great. They didn’t, however, get as much right involving the way in which the Roman army is organized. They insisted on using modern terms like “duty roster” and “honorable discharge.” Roman soliders (of this period) weren’t enlisted out of civilian life. They were either senatorial/imperial appointees (mostly officers) or serving a fixed (20+ year) service.

But I did like this early section. The battle sequences were well done. I liked the crazy druid and his chariot (still in use then by tribal groups in Britain). I liked the legionaries fighting in formation (mostly).

But after recovering, Marcus makes the ridiculous decision to go north of Hadrian’s wall (into enemy Scotland) by himself, accompanied only by a celtic slave who owes him his life. His mission, taken upon himself, is to recover the Eagle (battle standard) lost by his father a decade or so before. He has no idea where it is. Scotland is a big place, full of celts and picts. They don’t like Romans.

But he blunders right into it after riding across some gorgeous wet looking scenery. Again, landscape and costumes look amazing. The movie also doesn’t have a lot of CG, which is good. The natives feel very… well native. I was reminded visually of The New World — a movie of stunning visual lushness about the Jamestown colony. After all that we have an encounter with this seal tribe, a fictionalized Northern British coastal tribe. Their look and ceremonies are wonderfully depicted. Marcus has a bit of slave/master reversal with his friend, but eventually the two grab the eagle and make a run for it, followed by a showdown.

The finale devolved into a kind of anachronistic “all cultures are equal” kind of thinking that just did not exist in the second century. Not only didn’t it exist then, it didn’t even exist during World War I, or any time in between. This modern, intensely modern, way of thinking was formulated during the 20th century. Sure a few people may have thought this way — slightly this way — in the 18th and 19th centuries. But precious few.

Romans. No.

The Roman’s were actually very accommodating and tolerant of foreign cultures and races, radically so compared to medieval Europe, incorporating them in great numbers into their polity. But this stemmed not from any sense of cultural relativism, but from an intense pragmatism, and a world-crushing confidence in the ability of Roman society to absorb and transform.

But back to the film. Overall, I enjoyed it, but mostly from a visual and historical standpoint. The costumes, locations, and sets really are fantastic. It has a pretty ancient feel — ignoring some of the dialog. It’s not nearly as satisfying an adventure movie as Centurion. But it tried to be more. I also appreciate the extremely well done more traditional style of filmmaking. This is no 300, full of garish comic book stylization and whacky CG.

For more film reviews, click here.

By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: History, Movies
Tagged as: Channing Tatum, Eagle, Eagle of the Ninth, Film Review, Hadrian, Hadrian's Wall, History, Jamie Bell, Legio IX Hispana, Legion, Movie Review, Roman legion, roman society, The Eagle

On Stranger Tides

Jun06

Title: Pirates of the Caribbean IV: On Stranger Tides

Director/Stars: Johnny Depp (Actor), Ian McShane (Actor), Rob Marshall (Director)

Genre: Pirate Fantasy

Read: May 28, 2011

Summary: Better than 2 or 3.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

This post isn’t so much a review of the 4th Pirates installment, but an little digression on its amusing relationship to one of my favorite books. Still, I’ll mention a few things about the film:

On Stranger Tides is a major improvement over Pirates 2 and 3 (blech). It feels more like a prequel to the first film (although technically it’s a straight sequel). Gone are Orlando and Knightly, and the plot focuses mostly on Jack Sparrow and some of the other baddies like Barbarossa and the new Blackbeard (played by the always likable Ian McShane). The plot is a bit of a retrenchment, involving a hectic quest for the Fountain of Youth. It’s more contained, more classically swashbuckled, with a welcome elimination of giant krakens, the afterlife, pirate councils, and ludicrous giant whirlpool ship battles. As such, if you can ignore the gapping plot holes and the merely token setup, it’s much more satisfying and fun to watch. It rates fairly close to the original, which is actually a pretty damn good movie — albiet a guilty pleasure for sure. The CGI is also much reduced. Not that it isn’t in nearly every frame, but it’s more contained and less bombastic. Structurally the elimination of the Orlando/Knightly thing also simplifies the whole character focus.

Now, on to the reason I’m writing this post. When I first saw the preview a year or so ago I was struct by the subtitle (On Stranger Tides) and the fact that the plot involved Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth. I was instantly reminded of one of my three favorite Tim Powers novels, On Stranger Tides, about the same. Now This is a 1987 novel, and I read it in the 90s. But Powers is one of my favorite authors, and probably one of the biggest influences on my own writing (at least my first novel, The Darkening Dream). He blends history, the occult, and fantasy in an artful and seamless way. Anyone who hasn’t read him must immediately buy and read The Anubis Gates, one of my all time favorite novels. The original novel (On Stranger Tides) is a creepy and heavily researched story about Blackbeard’s maniacal search for immortality. It’s pretty brilliant and quintessential Powers. Much darker and scarier than this film.

Pirates IV is well… a Pirates of the Caribbean movie that involves Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth. That’s about as far as it goes. Unless I missed something, the only other elements borrowed from the novel are a vague mention of zombies and the fact that when we meet Blackbeard his beard has smoldering flames hidden inside. This is a well documented feature of the man, as he claimed to be a priest of the voodoo god Baron Samedi whose magical totem is smoldering flame. This famous engraving shows the details. In any case the book is really cool and much more interesting than the film.

What’s interesting here is that Disney put “suggested by the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers” in the credits and felt it needed to option the novel just to include the two basic elements of Blackbeard and the Fountain. Nothing else.

Hollywood.

Although I’m glad that Mr. Powers got at least some kind of payday as a result — he deserves it.

By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Books, Movies
Tagged as: Blackbeard, Film Review, Fountain of Youth, Ian McShane, Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp, Movie Review, On Stranger Tides, Pirates of The Caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Rob Marshall, Tim Powers

Movie Review: Thor

May15

Title: Thor

Director/Stars: Chris Hemsworth (Actor), Natalie Portman (Actor), Kenneth Branagh (Director)

Genre: Comic-book Action

Read: May 9, 2011

Summary: Weird.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Other than Marvel’s apparent desire to pull a kind of cinematic equivalent of the 1980s “Secret Wars” there really aren’t a lot of reasons why this movie needed making. It’s actually kind of bizarre, and I can’t really imagine that the Thor (as in comic) audience is immense. Although maybe I’m wrong. But I’m going to comment on it both a writer/viewer and as a historian of the mythological. Despite being a big Marvel fan in the 80s, I never read Thor itself.

It’s competently cast. Everyone plays their roles as they should, and it’s actually a kinda fun movie to watch, particularly the parts with Thor in the “real world.” This is reminiscent of the scenes in Superman 2 where General Zod kicks ass in that town after arriving on earth.

But notice I say “the parts in the real world.” Because a good percentage, at least half, of Thor takes place off in the strange CGI worlds of Asgard and Jotunheim. After a two-second intro with Natalie Portman (hot but wasted) on Earth we are instantly transported into a giant backstory tour of these bizarre places, complete with voiceover by Anthony Hopkins as “all-father Odin.” There is no attempt to fit this information naturally into the narrative, just a ginormous CGI info-dump. The whole mythology has my head spinning, and I love mythologies. It certainly borrows liberally from cookie-cutter components of Norse myth, but its more like Stan Lee learned what he needed to know from Deities and Demigods (a favorite book of mine circa 1982!). I’m still coming to terms with the weirdness of fusing Norse myth and some kind of alien outer space cosmology. I’m not even really sure which it was supposed to be. Are they aliens that mankind interpreted as gods (most probably) or actually just gods?

There is a lot of cool looking stuff, but there is certainly no attempt to capture the nature of ancient polytheistic deity where gods ARE/EMBODY/SUBSUME multiple aspects of natural and physiological phenomenons. Not that I expected this. Still, one can always hope. There are occasionally masterpieces like Pan’s Labyrinth.

Well in any case, while the imagery is kinda like Valhalla meets Star Wars episode 3 cityscape, the whole Asgardian world just doesn’t make any sense. These like super immortal aliens lounge around with their dark age Viking stylings. And they love hand to hand combat. At least they mostly have beards (HISS directed at films about clean-shaven Ancient Greek men). The action in Asgard/Jotunheim also suffers from the way too much CGI factor, particularly the parts on Jotunheim where the five heroic actors are the only non computer elements. The giant legion of frost giants and the bigass ice-troll creature had that weightless feel. Not as bad as in a repulsive pile of excrement like Van Helsing (the film), but bad.

Still, along with the competent casting we do have competent — albiet uninspired — writing. The film, despite the INCREDIBLY weird mythology, is watchable and makes complete sense when taken at a scene by scene level. This is far far more than I can say of a turd like the aforementioned Van Helsing or various Michael Bey type movies. Maybe it stems from the odd choice of Kenneth Branagh as director (he must have needed to refresh his bank account). In Thor, the characters and their relationships are perfunctory, but they do have a kind of (cinematic) clarity. This basically made it fairly enjoyable. And to tell the truth, if they had built the whole film out of Thor on Earth, focusing on his relationship with the underused Ms. Portman, it could have been a good film.

Instead it was interesting, in a weird crazy mythological way.

If you’re curious about some real myth, check out Satyr plays!

Related posts:

  1. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  2. Movie Review: Centurion
  3. Movie Review: Adventureland
  4. Book and Movie Review: Twilight
  5. Book and Movie Review: The Road
By: agavin
Comments (18)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Anthony Hopkins, Arts, Asgard, Chris Hemsworth, Film Review, General Zod, Kenneth Branagh, Marvel Comic, Movie Review, Natalie Portman, Norse mythology, reviews, Secret Wars, Stan Lee, Thor, Thor: Son of Asgard (Thor (Graphic Novels))

Back to the Future Part III

Apr12

Title: Back to the Future Part III

Director/Stars: Michael J. Fox (Actor), Christopher Lloyd (Actor), Robert Zemeckis(Director)

Genre: Time Travel Comedy

Year: 1990

Watched: March 31, 2011

Summary: Ug. What happened?

 

The end of part II leaves us with this sweet little setup. And then Back to the Future Part III just craps all over it.

Really this is barely a time travel movie. Basically Marty just pops back to 1885 to save Doc from being shot by Biff’s great-grandfather (again played by the same actor). The DeLorean has run out of gas… in 1885, so they have to figure out how to get it up to 88 miles an hour. Answer locomotive. This is a reverse of, but nearly the same, as the gimmick from the first movie with having to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of power via lightning bolt. Oh, and Doc falls in love.

What follows is a pretty silly, downright camp, little western pastiche. And that’s about it.

As I said, there isn’t much of the time travel and paradox fun we had in the first two films. But there is more rehash of the same jokes. Michael J Fox plays another McFly family member. Although one has to wonder why his great-grandmother still looks like Lea Thompson when she married into the family in the 50s! And the Fox genes must be dominant over the Glover ones. Oh we also get the “Biff eats manure” joke again. There’s also Doc’s little romance. I know it’s supposed to be sweet, but it really wasn’t doing it for me. Nothing really did, sorry.

This is only the second time I’ve seen the film (compared to like 15 times for part I and 5+ for part II). I remember being massively disappointed in the theater in 1990 (maybe even on opening night). I don’t feel any differently 21 years later.

I hope they don’t do some awful part IV that’s on par with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Check out the Back to the Future review Part I here.

Or my review of part II here.

Related posts:

  1. Back to the Future Part II
  2. Back to the Future
  3. Better Off Dead
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Arts, Back to the Future, Back to the Future Part III, Christopher Lloyd, DeLorean, DeLorean time machine, Film, Film Review, Lea Thompson, Marty McFly, Michael J Fox, Movie, Movie Review, Robert Zemeckis, Time travel

Back to the Future Part II

Apr10

Title: Back to the Future Part 2

Director/Stars: Michael J. Fox (Actor), Christopher Lloyd (Actor), Robert Zemeckis (Director)

Genre: Time Travel Comedy

Year: 1989

Watched: March 30, 2011

Summary: Lots of time travel, and fun!

 

Following up on such a gem of a movie as 1985’s Back to the Future (my review here) must have been a daunting task. And it occasioned part II and part III being filmed together, and released only 6 months apart. As far as I know this was the first time this kind of joint production was ever done.

In any case, I always liked part II, particularly since it has the most time travel of the three, and certainly the most complex examination of the basic principle of time manipulation. It starts with a literal repeat of the last 3 minutes of BTTF (although they must have reshot some of it because they inexplicably replace Claudia Wells with Elisabeth Shue as the girlfriend — not that this lame duck role matters. They then pop into 2015, where Hilldale Ca is both the same and very different. The technological inovations proposed are pretty amusing, and most of them still haven’t happened in 2011. Again, where’s my hoverboard? But they missed a few things — like the cel phone, or the death of the fax machine.

Anyway, while avoiding paradox, and just having run with the same cast of actors playing different ages, characters, (and genders), Biff manages to steal the time machine, bring it back to 1955, and give himself a sports almanac. Then he inexplicably brings the DeLorean back to the good guys. Go figure! When they travel back to 1985 they find Biff’s nefarious influence has trashed the entire town and made a blade runner-esque hell of the place. There are some good moments here again paralleling the now standard running jokes with each character. Marty waking up to versions of his mother. The principal as bad ass with an axe to grind, etc.

Once they figure out how all this mess got rolling, back to 1955 they go to sort it out. This involves a parallel track recreation of the first movie’s main events without disturbing these. This is great fun, revisiting the “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance from a different perspective. As far as I know, this is the benchmark scene for a two-pass time travel-type scenario. The car chase at the end however, is a bit tedious. And why, may we ask, is it possible for Marty to call doc on a walkie-talkie from the back of Biff’s convertible, while Biff is about 2 feet away in the front seat? I don’t know about you, but when I’m alone in a car and someone has a conversation in the back seat, I generally notice.

The film ends with an awesome setup for the third part. I love the Western Union bit. But watching all three back to back as I did, I could have lived without ALL THREE movies replaying the footage of the Doc at the clock-tower.

These problems aside the movie is great fun. Other reviewers seem to find the time travel antics byzantine in this outing, but this is exactly what I loved about this film. At least it dares to create an alternate present, and then undo it. True there are a few moments where the cast has to answer audience questions in near straight exposition. For example, when Marty and Doc head from messed-up 1985 to 1955, but leave Jennifer (the useless Elisabeth Shue) behind, Marty has to ask why, and Doc launches into a whole explanation about how the time continuum will fix itself around them.

Again the technical transfer on the new blu-ray versions is awesome. This was always a slick film, with the future scenes in particular filled with fun effects. It holds up perfectly well. There is the occasional shot where the rotoscoping is obvious (compositing has gotten a lot better in the 22 years, Cliffhanger being, I think, the first film to use the new digital compositing). But these minor issues don’t date the film at all. Now if only they wrote a better part III.

Check out the Back to the Future Part I review here.

Or, coming soon, a review of part III.

For more 80s films, About Last Night, Better Off Dead, or The Sure Thing.

Related posts:

  1. Back to the Future
  2. Short Story: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
  3. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 5
  4. Truly Deeply Sick and Twisted
  5. About Last Night
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Back to the Future, Back to the Future Part II, Christopher Lloyd, Claudia Wells, Elisabeth Shue, Emmett Brown, Fiction, Film Review, Marty McFly, Michael J Fox, Movie Review, Movies, review, reviews, Robert Zemeckis, Time travel

Back to the Future

Apr07

Title: Back to the Future

Director/Stars: Michael J. Fox (Actor), Adrian Paul (Actor), Christopher Lloyd (Actor), Robert Zemeckis (Director)

Genre: Time Travel Comedy

Year: 1985

Watched: March 29, 2011

Summary: Still a jewel box of a script.

 

Because my second novel is about time travel, I’ve been trying to read and watch (or re-watch) as many time travel books and films as I can (not that I haven’t previously mined the genre). Although I’ve probably seen BTTF 15 times, it’s been a  few years, more than 10 for sure.

I bought the new blu-ray Anniversary Trilogy too. This is a NICE restoration. The film looks as good as it did when I saw it right after getting back from summer camp in 1985, maybe better. And this was a slick slick film at the time. Really, other than a bit of noticeable rotoscoping, it could be a 2011 film.

Except it’s a lot better. The script and the editing make sense!

Because this is a few years before Top Gun would precipitate the precipitous marketing-driven decline of filmmaking, BTTF is simultaneously incredibly commercial and incredibly good. This script, by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, is tight tight tight. I can only imagine how many passes it underwent because there is not one line out of place. You all know the story, but if you watch it again pay attention to how in the first 5 minutes everything you need to know is setup. Marty’s parents met in 1955 when Grandpa hit George McFly was his car (“We never did understand what he was doing on that road anyway.” Lorraine says). They go to the “Enchantment under the Sea Dance.” That same year Doc Brown got the idea for the time machine. Libyans have stolen some plutonium, it’s under Doc’s bed. In the next 5 minutes Doc teaches us everything we need to know about the time machine. Bang bang, all the ducks are lined up.

Then all this setup pays off over the next hour and a half. Every line. When we see that George McFly is in the road because he was a peeping tom and falls out of the tree, it’s oh so much funnier knowing that this is how he met his wife. And knowing that, when Marty screws up that meeting… changes are set in motion. Changes he has to fix. The parallelism between the present (1985) and past (1955) are contrived and slapstick but a joy to watch. We here about Uncle Joey in jail in the present, we get the “get used to that view” wisecrack about baby Joey behind the crib bars. We’re used to it now, we’ve seen it a lot of times, but this is a clever clever script.

And the casting couldn’t be better. For this kind of lovable goofball, Michael J. Fox is deservedly beloved. Christopher Lloyd steals the show with his over the top Doc (“Thank God I’ve still got my hair!”). Lea Thompson is a babe as Marty’s mom. Great writing great acting, what more could we want? And we have top notch production, music, and effects too. None of it looks dated on blu-ray.

Very interesting now, 25 years later, realizing that the 1985 of the story is almost as far back in time now as the 1955 was then. And 1955, that’s 56 years ago! Wow. So in a way, that adds an extra time travel jump to the whole thing. Which gets even more amusing when we pick up again with Back to the Future II and it’s 2015 setting!

LOL Where are the hoverboards?

For my review of part II, click here.

For more 80s reviews of mine, check out About Last Night, Better Off Dead, or The Sure Thing.

By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Back to the Future, Bob Gale, Christopher Lloyd, Emmett Brown, Fiction, Film Review, Lea Thompson, Michael J Fox, Movie Review, reviews, Robert Zemeckis, Time travel

The Sure Thing

Apr05

Title: The Sure Thing

Director/Stars: John Cusack (Actor), Daphne Zuniga (Actor), Rob Reiner (Director)

Genre: Teen Comedy

Year: 1985

Watched: April 4, 2011

Summary: Still holds up.

 

Continuing my 80s (and John Cusack) binge, I re-watched The Sure Thing again. 26 years really doesn’t show on this film. Sure the DVD transfer is a bit dated, and there are little 80s stylistic moments, particularly out in california, and it’s a tad goofier than movies tend to be now — but this is Rob Reiner in his good period. The same era that brought us The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, and eventually When Harry Met Sally. There are just so many good lines.

And the film is anchored by an intelligent script and two fine actors. It isn’t a plot driven movie. We know what’s going to happen from about minute 5. For those of you either two young to remember or with frontal lobotomies, this is a story about a boy crossing the country to get laid, who is forced by circumstance to spend a lot of time with a really pretty but bookish girl (those didn’t seem to exist in the 80s — except that somehow I married one 15 years later). They argue. They fall in love but don’t know it. Events proceed as expected and in the final 30 seconds they kiss.

But the writing and acting make us want to care. How often does that happen anymore on screen?

Oh, and did I mention it’s funny? Really funny.

If you crave more 80s, see my reviews on About Last Night or Better Off Dead.

Related posts:

  1. Better Off Dead
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: 80s, Daphne Zuniga, DVD, Film Review, John Cusack, Movie Review, Princess Bride, Rob Reiner, Sure Thing, The Sure Thing, This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally...

Better Off Dead

Mar31

Title: Better Off Dead

Director/Stars: John Cusack (Actor), Demian Slade (Actor), Savage Steve Holland (Director)

Genre: Teen Comedy

Year: 1985

Watched: March 28, 2011

Summary: Absurdist, but classic.

 

For some strange reason I’ve been on an 80s kick lately. High School nostalgia or something. Not only did I make a playlist of synthoid classics, but I started combing Amazon marketplace for cheap (like $2) used DVDs. Somehow I missed seeing all of Better Off Dead in the 26 years since release (only bits and pieces on cable), surprising given my nearly comprehensive knowledge of 80s films, and that I’m a fan of John Cusack — excepting the execrable 2012.

This is one whacky film. While it must have seemed absurdist even in 1985, now, with the added retro touch and hammy 80s overacting it’s really out there, bordering on Salvador Dali level surreal. But it is enjoyable. In a way it’s a parody of the then contemporary genre of 80s teen comedy, but it’s also a brother in arms. Nothing is taken too seriously and there are a many priceless moments. Like one of my college buddies favorite lines, “NT, big difference” (referring to the textual delta between “testicles” and “tentacles”), Lane’s mom’s cooking crawling across the table, or the goofy skiing-pole lightsaber duel near the end. But with a modern perspective, there’s the added benefit of the nostalgic and silly 80s hair, clothing, music, and even half forgotten facts like: Skiing was once cool! I remember it all too well, my first published video game was Ski Crazed!

When I saw Hot Tub Time Machine last year (another guilty pleasure) I was well aware of all the 80s movie spoof moments, but I hadn’t realized how much John Cusack was referencing Better Off Dead specifically. The plot is fairly meaningless, but basically as silly as the film is, at the core of most of the jokes are real embarrassing situations that plagued many teens — certainly in the 80s, and probably now.

I was also not aware until I looked it up that Curtis Armstrong, better known as Booger, was already in his 30s when playing these silly teen characters. Or that he has played 122 roles! The guy’s been busy for decades.

If you want to see more 80s movie reviews, I also blogged yesterday on About Last Night.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Dead Beautiful
By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Arts, Better Off Dead, Better Off Dead (film), Fiction, Film, Film Review, Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack, Movie, Movie Review, review, Savage Steve Holland, Ski Crazed

About Last Night

Mar30

Title: About Last Night

Director/Stars: Rob Lowe (Actor), Demi Moore (Actor), Edward Zwick (Director)

Genre: Romantic Comedy (R!)

Year: 1986

Watched: March 27, 2011

Summary: Holds up brilliantly.

 

I’ve always loved this movie. Perhaps I’m a romantic at heart. Perhaps it’s the David Mamet dialogue, or maybe Demi’s just hot. I’ve probably seen it 5-6 times, but not in the last 20 years. Although I still have the laserdisk somewhere. In any case, it’s out on blu-ray now, so being on my 80s kick I figured I’d see how it held up.

Perfectly.

The crisp blu-ray transfer helped, taking out the sometimes distracting poor color and funny old film grain legacy of old videotape transfers. But I got to remember what I liked so much about the film. And not just Demi’s nipples. First of all, there is the fact that this is an R-rated romantic comedy. How many others even exist? It’s sexy, the dialogue is raunchy and funny. Brilliant in fact. Particularly as delivered by James Belushi‘s over the top performance as the sexist best friend, or Elizabeth Perkins going toe to toe in bitchy counterpoint (made all the more amusing by having seen her in Weeds).

The most important thing about this film is the pitch perfect ebb and flow of the relationship between the two leads. It’s not the relationship everyone might have had, but it’s an accurate one. They feel like solidly real people. So in some ways, fairly unique among Romantic Comedies, there is truth here. Not every truth, but a specific one nonetheless. The film also has the audacity to cover nearly a year, and do it well, giving the rise and fall and then maybe rise again of this couple some actual weight and believability. You feel like they’ve changed and there’s been passage of time. Far too many films in the genre feel like about three dates, where the writers, not the characters, are building the relationship.

I loved the 80s outfits too. The Reboks, the sweaters and baggy shirts tied with belts, the high hip jeans. Sure they look silly, but… It’s also interesting to note the subtle culture changes that 25 years have wrought. The guy characters are allowed to be guys (and sexist) in ways that would be avoided today. I don’t really think men have changed, but Hollywood has.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Tropic of Night
  2. Machete – The best B-movie ever?
  3. Book and Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  4. Truly Deeply Sick and Twisted
  5. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: About Last Night, David Mamet, Demi Moore, Edward Zwick, Elizabeth Perkins, Fiction, Film, Film Review, James Belushi, Movie Review, reviews, Rob Lowe, Romantic comedy film, Weeds

Machete – The best B-movie ever?

Mar02

Title: Machete

Director/Stars: Danny Trejo (Actor), Robert DeNiro, Jessica Alba, etc.  Robert Rodriguez (Director)

Genre: Exploitationist Action

Watched: February 27, 2011

Summary: Pure action and camp fun.

 

Derived from a fake preview in Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse double feature, this film is just rollicking camp fun. The premise: that ex-federale Danny Trejo (the ugliest guy to grace the silver screen since The Elephant Man) is lured into a crazy scheme by various right wing racist nut-jobs and has to kick (and get some) ass in various escapes, revenge, etc.

One of the best things is the roster of amusing casting. These aren’t just cameos either: Robert DeNiro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Linsay Lohan and more.

The plot, as such, is thin, and gratuitously cheesy. The characters however, live large, and the action is fun and inventive and sometimes delightfully nasty.

Before the opening credits, Trejo manages to use his trademark weapon to amputate at least a dozen limbs, leading him to rescue a stark naked girl whose cel phone and weapons are stored where the sun don’t shine. Before this scene ends a fat-ass Steven Seagal uses a katana to behead Trejos wife (standard revenge setup). This pretty much sets the tone for the entire film. My favorite gross-out bit is a bad guy whose intestines (still connected) are used by Machete as a rope to swing out the window and onto the floor below.

Nothing about the movie is realistic. The villains are deliciously over the top, and their crazy scheme to raise drug prices by building an electrified fence between Mexico and Texas purely amusing. People get shot in the head and live. Everything resolves in one of those typical Rodriguez giant shootouts.

What makes the film so fun — besides the crazy action — is the unadulterated camp factor of each of the characters. From Cheech’s merlot-drinking shotgun wielding priest to Robert DeNiro’s evil racist state senator (there are a few of those in real life too!).

Rodriguez just should have gone as over the top with his nudity as with his violence. Too much cutting for a work this gratuitous!

Related posts:

  1. Movie Review: Centurion
  2. Book and Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  3. Movie Review: Adventureland
  4. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  5. Book and Movie Review: The Road
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Fiction, Film, Film Review, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Machete, Michelle Rodriguez, Movie Review, reviews, Robert DeNiro, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Seagal

Truly Deeply Sick and Twisted

Feb22

Title: Human Centipede

Director/Stars: Ashley C. Williams (Actor), Dieter Laser (Actor), Tom Six (Director)

Genre: Gross-out Horror

Watched: February 17, 2011

Summary: Repulsive premise coupled with startlingly matter-of-fact delivery.

 

Just so you don’t think I always review good films, here comes a doozy. My brother knows the guy who stars as the head of the titular Human Centipede in this film, and he brought it to my attention (although he hadn’t seen the film). We looked it up and the premise was so horrifically nasty, so out-and-out repulsive and dark, that I couldn’t help but watch the film.

Now, in the interest of protecting my dear and tender readers, I’m not going to actually tell you the premise. If you are so inclined, you may watch the trailer and decide for yourself. Be warned. Let’s just say it’s terrifying, gross, and of totally dubious possibility.

But having conceived this idea, the writer/director pursues it with gusto. This is actually not a badly made film, considering it’s genre and budget. But there is no attempt to craft a clever plot or characters. It charges headlong into the ramifications of the disturbing by use of straightforward Horror tropes and coincidence, and replies on sheer dread to deliver. The villain, a twisted German surgeon which a penchant for illegal and immoral procedures, is played to hammy perfection by Dieter Laser. His emotionless delivery as to the nature of his plan is as disturbing as it’s intended to be.

For all the film’s unabashed directness. It actually isn’t that graphic, although the ramifications of the premise are rather nasty. I’m also not sure I’ve seen another movie with so much moaning/pathetic-whimpering in it, I felt compelled to keep turning down the volume. And for all it’s true horror, the deadpan delivery lends it to the almost darkly comic. NOTE: On that note, Robert Ebert (my favorite film reviewer) has an an absolutely hilarious review of it here (WARNING, he reveals the premise). There are also some odd choices, like the fact that in the second half their is almost no English dialog as the Doctor often speaks in German, the “head” babbles in subtitled Japanese, and the two female leads can only moan.

And it isn’t the best paced film (particularly the first half), so was an excellent candidate for the Playstation 3‘s most appreciated 1.5x speed viewing feature. This not only speeds up the film smoothly, but does a pretty good job of time based correction on the audio so it doesn’t sound too funny. Many slightly dull films are eminently watchable in this format. For example, silent films from the early 20th century, with their 1-2 minute title cards. It rendered the Human Centipede in an even hour which was just about perfect.

In any case, if you are a fan of Horror, or the truly deeply sick and twisted, crawl on board.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: XVI (read sexteen)
  2. Book and Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  3. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Arts, Ashley C. Williams, Black comedy, Dieter Laser, Fiction, Film, horror, Horror film, Human Centipede, Movie Review, Movies, Playstation 3, reviews, Tom Six
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