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Archive for category Cinema

Ridiculous Lawsuits

Oct 13

Posted by Zero in Cinema, News, Nonsense | No Comments

Court is IN SESSION, DAMN IT

I’ve been wanting to see Drive – I’m a little afraid to watch it because it looks rather violent. Also, it has the dreaded 1.4 critical-to-popular approval ratio on Rotten Tomatoes — I can usually do okay with 1.25 and below, but 1.4 is pretty damn high for my blood.

Well, it looks like not all moviegoers are taking it’s high-falutey-ness sitting down. According to CNN, an independent viewer is suing the studio that produced the movie (and the theater she saw it at) for NOT INCLUDING ENOUGH DRIVING IN THE MOVIE. And she’s trying to turn it into a class action lawsuit.

I will presume the legal systems of Europe would never tolerate such tomfoolery — if so, Roberto Benigni would never have been able to make another movie after La vita è bella.

Would anyone like any butter flavored grease on their tort reform?

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Lesson of the Week: Sickness & Cinema

Oct 2

Posted by Zero in Bad Personal Philosophy, Cinema, Nonsense | No Comments

This summer has been a go-go-go sort of season, consumed in large part by travel (Pittsburgh to see family, Provo and Austin for business) and home improvement (new furnace and ductwork, new walls here and there, and a complete layout redesign), with a wedding and some visits to Seattle thrown in for good measure. Sadly, there was no room in the schedule for camping this year! Until last weekend, that is. I got away for one night to Deception Pass State Park, just in time for my nascent head cold to meet a convergence of rain, wind, pine needles, and tabletop gaming.

Believe me, folks — there is no better medium for germs than playing cards. I’m sure I infected everyone there.

56 hours later, I was a complete disaster, lying in a pool of my own mucous, and incapable of tasting even the sharpest cheeses. It was seriously one of the nastiest colds I’ve had in many years. I’m still coughing the last of the gunk out of my throat and lungs, and I still have fluid behind my temples and ears. Nasty.

Foolishly, I decided to kick back and watch of few of my old, favorite movies. What better way to take your mind off of a sickness, right? WRONG. I had forgotten that a bad cold poisons not only your body, but your thoughts as well — that it can make you hate something which, under ordinary circumstances, you enjoy enormously.

Die Hard (1998).  Though exceptionally well reviewed for an entry in its genre, I found McClane’s smug antisocial tendencies to be deeply irksome and the movie’s mores (probably not surprisingly) to be extremely recessive.  Oh, and it was much grosser than I remembered — the groin shooting near the middle was particularly disturbing, with the liquified legs sequence taking a close second.  More than anything else, though, McClane’s smugness just drove me nuts.  Yippi ki yay, huh?
 
The One

The One

The One (2001). I remember loving this the first time I saw it. How flat and cliched it seems now! I know there’s a fabulous action sequence in the last fifteen minutes — featuring Jet Li kicking his own butt in rather spectacular fashion — but boy oh boy, this stinker just did not hold up for me, and I didn’t even get close to that scene. In the words of Ebert: “Offers brainless high-tech action without interesting dialogue, characters, motivation or texture.” Thanks, Rog.
 

Constantine

Constantine (2005). Such a pretty movie. Such a lost opportunity. A little more character development (if any of John’s friends had been more than set pieces, it would have helped!) and a little more screen time for the female leads (Swinton and Weisz were both excellent casting choices) could have bumped this film by 15 points, easy. HOWEVER, that would have done nothing to fix the plastic, unsatisfying demons. I mean, they basically look like Gollum after a botched execution by guillotine! They simply weren’t scary; hell, Gabriel was much scarier than they were (speaking of which, I love this scene, especially from about 2:30 on).
 

Aliens

Aliens (1986). Speaking of scary females… I still remember the first time I kind of watched this back in the eighties. Actually, I mostly remember hearing it because I spent most of the movie hiding behind the sofa. Then again, I was 15. Whatevs.

My tolerance for cinematic violence has developed to a point now where… I don’t have to close my eyes anymore. And I have heard Sigourney shout, “get away from her, you bitch!” one too many times. It is still a beautiful movie but… blame the cold virus… they could safely have trimmed about 35 minutes from its runtime and lost nothing. Perhaps it’s just been too heavily borrowed from to feel “fresh” anymore.

OK, the moral of the story here is, when you are sick… DO NOT WATCH MOVIES YOU LIKE! Watch trash that you can afford to hate without having to replace your DVD collection. That is all.

Addendum

I think Constantine would have been awesome if Constantine had been played by Sigourney Weaver. Seeing her go head to head with Tilda Swinton would have been frickin’ amazing.

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Samwise is Sad

Aug 4

Posted by Zero in Cinema, Events, News, Nonsense | 1 Comment

So, the markets are a complete disaster area today — even gold is down, and marginal safe haven commodity silver (SLV) has bombed atrociously just after climbing out of the crater of a crash from two months back.  But I had to laugh when I looked at CNN and found them reusing an image which first appeared the other day:

Markets dive on economy fears

Doesn't this guy look a little familiar?

This guy looks just like someone we know well — someone we know and love from cinema! It’s…

Samwise Gamgee having a bad day

Seriously, this guy — crumpled, despairing, on the edge of tears — looks just like Sam after Gollum convinced Frodo that Sam wanted the ring for himself, up above Minas Morgul.  Samwise the Grave, trapped in a bull pit, watching money flow out of the market and into mattresses across the world.  Poor guy.

If hardship brings out the best in us (as Americans often say, although often at the wrong moments), the stock markets often bring out the worst in us: fear and greed.  This July definitely belongs to fear, almost as much as all of 2009 did.  Fear is a destructive force all it’s own.  If only these issues could be solved with a short sword and a little starlight captured in a vial of mirror water…

Fight on, Samwise!

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Movie Night: Zombieland!

Jul 22

Posted by Zero in Cinema, Events | No Comments

Weather.com assures me that tonight is going to be a beautiful night.  And so, now the sun is setting a little earlier, it is finally time to set up the projector and the big screen out on the back deck and have a movie night.  Anyone who would care to come is welcome; bring a friend if you like, and whatever beverages you’d prefer.  An RSVP would be appreciated but if you’re playing the evening by ear and decide to show up at the last minute, that’s cool too.

What I’ll provide: lukewarm beer, hot water for tea, basic hydration, seating, and a cheery fire.  And there will of course be popcorn available in a variety of pleasing flavors and textures.

What you should bring: a sweatshirt and/or blanket that doesn’t mind being exposed to wood smoke, along with any beverages or snacks you would like.

Tonight’s movie will be Zombieland: one hour and twenty-one minutes of pure, blood-soaked silliness.

When: tonight, beginning at 9PM.  The movie will start at about 9:45 PM and run until about 11:15 PM.

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Writing Soundtracks is Hard Work

Jul 14

Posted by Zero in Cinema, Family & Friends, Music, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Bad ComposerMy friend Michael asked me to take a stab at putting together some soundtrack music for a film he is working on (in fact, he just locked the script — which deserves enormous congratulations).  Being a basically foolish person, I agreed.

Here’s what I have so far:

Far Trader – Title Theme

I have a long to-do list for it: the tempo fluctuations need to feel more natural throughout; the flute can NOT vibrato like that, it’s just NOT natural!; and the synthesizer in the middle really just sounds kind of bad. But I am rather proud of the general shape of the confoun — err — composition. Another dozen hours of work should yield something almost bearable to listen to.

Remind me not to apply for Hans Zimmer’s job when he dies — may he live forever making beautiful soundtracks.  I think that his Time theme from Inception was actually a large part of the reason why I liked the movie.

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Sucker Punch

Apr 8

Posted by Zero in Cinema, Nonsense | No Comments

Sucker Punch Poster -- In Espanol!

Sucker Punch Poster

Okay, so I promised my sister I would see this movie — and I did.  I suppose it’s possible to extract a formal “meaning” from the movie with a bit of convincing psychobabble, but I’m not really interested in doing so.  In the end, I find myself a bit pished at Zack Snyder — the same way I felt after seeing 300 the second time (Zack, if you read this…  I *love* your other movies!).  The backgrounds had a particularly soft-edged CGI plasticity, and the characters were similarly facile.   As a sequence of images, it was beautiful — breathtaking, perhaps.  But taken in its 2 hour entirety, the movie seemed empty of any real substance to me.

Consider the worlds that Baby Doll and Sweet Pea visit in this movie (ahem, spoiler alert – read no further if you want the secrets of the movie to remain their own) — they are all derivative!

  1. The asylum.  This environment and storyline itself appears to be derived from Shutter Island, including close-up views of the lobotomy tool and a concerned doctor who cannot stop the procedure.
  2. The dance hall/brothel.  Moulin Rouge?  This environment actually had the most unique aesthetic, in my opinion — it reminded me a little of Rapture City in the first Bioshock game, for some reason.  This reality gets my stamp of approval, unlike the others.
  3. Dance Sequence #1/Eastern Sanctuary. C’mon, c’mon!  How many times have we seen a mystic appear in a temple and offer cryptic advice to a warrior beginning a journey?  The mystic himself was somewhat reminiscent of David Carradine in Kung Fu.  The three giant warriors were pretty to look at — like giant, biomechanical versions of Lo Pan’s minions in Big Trouble in Little China, but the decor was lifted from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
  4. Dance Sequence #2 — No Man’s Land.  this page was lifted almost directly from the Hellboy franchise.  Steam and clockwork + evil teutonic plans.  Stepping it back to World War I and throwing in tri-planes didn’t really change the basic feel of this world.
  5. Dance Sequence #3 — Dragon’s Lair.  Let’s face it — the “creatures” were Orkish, as in Middle Earth.  The baby dragon was a direct lift from 1981′s Dragonslayer; the mama dragon was a hijackee from Reign of Fire.  There was not a single unique element or image in this world.
  6. Dance Sequence #4 — Sky Train.  The “plot” was stolen from the second episode of Firefly, the Train Job.  The robots were evidently recruited from the movie I, Robot — they had the same stiff, mass-produced quality.  This action sequence was agonizingly mechanical.  No points for this round.  And seriously: Rocket’s self sacrifice was so hackneyed it *hurt* a little bit to watch.

There is nothing wrong with borrowing, or with even the mash-up as art form — I think that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World did a pretty decent job of accomplishing exactly that.  My complaint here is not that the imagery was derivative, but that Snyder failed to forge such a wealth of borrowed material into anything internally cohesive.  If the dreamer were in fact seeking escape, why would she escape into a world of zombies, tri-planes, armed robots, and space trains on one of Saturn’s moons?  There is never any connection drawn between the terms of the dreams and the mind of the dreamer.  I would give Snyder a B+ for pure visual energy, but a D- for failing to connect any of the dots.  Therefore:

Final Grade: C-

Silver Lining!  The soundtrack is fabulous, including some really unique covers of Sweet Dreams (are made of this), Bjork’s Army of Me, and a very trippy version of White Rabbit.  Not too bad.  But, despite the fact it was used in one of the previews, Silversun Pickups’ “Panic Switch” did not make its way into the soundtrack.  =(  Check it out here.

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