Category: Movies

Distinct Voices in Film

Posted on

My last post about Vicky Christina Barcelona created some conversation about writer/directors who have distinct voices in film. My friend Sari came up with the Sorkin analogy to Woody Allen and it got me thinking about who else there is. Here’s what i came up with:

Quentin, Robert Altman, and Kevin Smith
  • Robert Altman. Talk about a distinct tone. Overlapping conversation everywhere. Sometimes it’s awesome (Mash, The Player, Gosford Park), sometimes it just sucks (Dr. T and the Women) and sometimes it doesn’t one way or another and it just is (Nashville).
  • Kevin Smith. His movies all have the fast talking, pop culture, sexual references. Mallrats and Clerks could have been the same movie. It’s fitting that his last movie was just a continuation of his first (Clerks and Clerks 2) because they are all basically the same. That said, Chasing Amy wasn’t fairly normal.
  • Quentin Tarantino. He’s the most like Woody Allen to me because he likes to have people talk like him in his movies. He also likes to have people talk like a total badass (Samuel in Pulp Fiction and Uma in Kill Bill) which i completely appreciate. I do love how he uses dialogue instead of action in his movies. I mean Kill Bill’s final scene – a samarui movie – was not a long sword fight but rather a convesation between Uma and Bill. Only Quentin could pull that off. Very cool
  • Who am i missing?

Now whether it’s a good thing to be able to identify a writer by watching a film is another whole post. Sometimes i love it (Tarantino) but sometimes i wish they would just write a story without needing to feed their ego.

Vicky Christina Barcelona Thoughts

Posted on

Saw Vicky Christina Barcelona this week and thought it was great. There are certain things i love about Woody Allen movies (and certain things i hate). In general, the movie was a lot like one big dream sequence. The main character (Javier B.) walks and talks the way you only wish people would speak. What occurs is what you’d always want movies to happen and what you see is what you’d want to see. The movie was just pleasing on every level. It’s both surprising and satisfying. In short, a fun summer flick. Some more thoughts….

  • I love the way the characters talk. Many of the conversations are real conversations. Each character has tendencies that are real and recognizable. Scarlett J’s character has nervous little responses that sometime don’t make any sense and Vicky’s responses are always extremly honest.
  • I love the scenery. The background of the city makes the foreground even better. The characters are ridiculously attractive (especially Penelope Cruz – smoking!) and the Barca lifestyle of walking around in a gorgeous city, drinking wine and listening to Spanish music makes it even better.
  • Penelope Cruz is f’ing amazing. She was a godess in Vanilla Sky and she’s even better here. Sultry, destructive, passionate. Her precense brought the film to another level
  • (Spoiler Alert) There’s not a happy ending. I’ve said before that my favorite genre is film Noir and that’s because i like it when things don’t work out. I like it when all plans are ruined and the hero doesn’t get what he wants. Maybe because i think that’s just life. Maybe it’s becuase there are too many movies tha that have happy endings and i like the surprise. Or maybe i’m a machocist. Who knows. But there was not happiness at the end here. At the end of the movie the characters are older, wiser and have had a great summer but this is not a rom-com and i was very appreciative.
  • One thing i don’t like is when characters in the film starts complaining they sound like Woody Allen. i’m happy he’s not in the movie but when character neurosis come out, the language is his. They talk like him. It’s the same with Sorkin shows but still, i notice and i don’t like it.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tropic Thunder is a Three Amigos Remake?

Posted on

The first time i heard about the upcoming movie Tropic Thunder i immediately thought it was a Three Amigos’s remake.  I mean, a group of actors going on what they believe is a shoot only it isn’t a shoot, it’s actually real.  It’s the exact same.  Anyone else with me?

Iron Man's Not So Happy Ending

Posted on

(if you haven’t seen the film, this could ruin it for you)

I saw Iron Man again last night and came away with some new thoughts:

The ending SUCKS. Ok, maybe “sucks” is a bit strong, but it is not up to the standard of the rest of the movie. Let’s look at it: Here’s a movie where the main character is one of the smartest people on the planet (or ever) and is so smart that he’s been able to develop a suit based on an energy source that nobody else can get working – not even the best scientists. So now there’s another bad-version of Iron Man in a bigger suit who apparently can do all the same things that the good one can. How does this epic battle end up? How does this super-genius who throughout the movie was able to be clever and outsmart the villian? It ends with two Iron Men who can’t get hurt punching each other in the face and slamming each other into walls. Sometimes this apparently hurts. Other times, they get right up. Nobody knows why. Then to kill the bad guy, Iron Man tells Pepper to blow up the building and just hope he survives. Now that’s a good idea.

Some movies are great because of their endings:

  • The Sting
  • The Sixth Sense
  • The Usual Suspects
  • Rocky

Some movies are great through and through and have endings that match their great stories:

  • The Shawshank Redemption
  • Se7en
  • Hoosiers

For a movie that is good throughout, the ending is not up to snuff for the rest of the film.

Also, i have issues with the bad Iron Man. For instance, how does bad Iron Man survive the icing? One minute he’s falling to the earth covered in ice, the next he’s recovered. How can the bad Iron Man move so well? He’s not in a suit like Robert DJ but rather he’s sitting in a seat with levers. I don’t think you could conduct hand to hand combat easily in that. Also, much of the movie showed Robert DJ practicing how to fly and move and tinkering the suit. Jeff Bridges did zero of that. He just plugged the arc reactor in and knew how to do everything immediately.

All in all, the ending let down the rest of the movie for me. It was all so buttoned-up with the exception of that duel. I’ve heard people say that Iron Man is a great movie. Not in my book.

Batman Rocks

Posted on

I went and saw Batman on Friday and loved it. First of all, let me just say that the option of choosing your seats at a movie when purchasing the tickets online is a GREAT thing. Nothing like going to a sold out show and knowing that you’re centered perfectly. Also, don’t read any more if you’re going to see the movie and don’t want a spoiler.

So, about Batman. I give it a 9 out of 10. It has some amazing parts and a few parts that could be just a little bit better. The action scenes are incredible. The Hong Kong kidnapping sequence was just a small piece of genius. The Bat Motocycle makes me want to immediately go out and ride

It’s been written everywhere that The Joker makes the movie and i completely agree. His first scene where he confronts the mob and does the magic trick or making a pencil disappear sets the tone for the entire movie. It says, “Hi i’m the joker. I’m funny, clever and i’m going to kick ass all over the place.” My man at WWTDD.com describes Heath Ledger’s performance best:

Everything Ledger did in this movie was fucking awesome. “And here we go” is not an amazing line. Picture that on the page. It’s just four little words. Ledger made it awesome. “Why so serious,” is an empty, ordinary line. Ledger made it great. This sucks. I can’t believe he’s dead. Most actors fucking suck. There’s only like 7 good ones. Now there are 6. Now pretty idiots like Channing Tatum will ruin more of my movies, reading lines like his script had the dialog written upside down and backwards. Channing, if you’re reading this, and later today you feel a pop inside your head, it’s because I just threw a rock at the back of your skull. Hey, look, over here, it’s me, Brendon, from that website. You Suck.

This movie is not as good as Batman Begins. Sequels never are. The first films build the characters and the backstory – they are more character driven. Second films usually have more villains, more blood and more action and this one is no exception, but compared to Hellboy 2, Spider-Man 2, X2, and other sequels i think it stands as the best of the bunch.

Some parts i didn’t like about the film:

  • When Harvey Dent goes to Two-Faced the CGI is too much. The entire movie has amazingly real ation sequences and a cartoonish face seems out of place
  • Batman’s voice is kind of lame. I know he has a voice changing device but still, it seemed corny
  • Harvey Dent’s rampage. I just didn’t believe it as much as The Joker’s cause. I can understand that he’s upset but pointing that anger towards Gordon or Batman seems ridiculous.
  • Maggie G. She just needed to be hotter. I mean, it’s a comic book – get some bombshell in there who can be both smart and hot. I mean they had a smokin’ hot australian computer hacker in Transformers. They can do better here.

That’s all i can think of now. What did you all like?

Zemanta Pixie

Bruno Movie – Cound be Better Than Borat

Posted on

I thought Borat was genius but from what i’m hearing Bruno sounds incredible.  Check out this report in The Smoking Gun:

JULY 8–Lured by $1 beer and the prospect of “hot chicks” and “hardcore fights,” thousands of Arkansans were duped last month into appearing as extras in comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest staged mayhem. Cohen and his confederates organized cage fighting programs on consecutive days in Texarkana and Fort Smith. Both cards ended with two male grapplers (one was identified as “Straight Dave” and wore camouflage) tearing each other’s clothes off and, while in underwear, kissing down their opponent’s chest. This man-on-man action triggered Fort Smith fans to throw chairs and beer at the ring, according to one cop present at the city’s Convention Center. Cohen is currently filming a follow-up, of sorts, to his smash 2006 film featuring Borat, his fictional Kazakh journalist. The new film stars another of Cohen’s creations, Bruno, a gay Austrian journalist who interviews subjects about fashion and entertainment. It is reportedly titled, “Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.” The June 5 Texarkana promotion was adverstised as “Red, White, and Blood.” The June 6 matches in Fort Smith were dubbed “Blue Collar Brawlin'” as seen in the below poster. Ads on Craigslist–like this one–noted that attendees had to be over 21 and suggested that fans arrive early “for $1 BEERS!” Cohen & Co. underwrote the cost of beer, which usually sells for $4 at the Fort Smith facility. “Blue Collar Brawlin'” drew about 1500 fans, who were greeted by signs stating that the event was being filmed. Attendees were also not allowed in with cameras or cell phones and some were asked to sign releases. The “Blue Collar Brawlin'” web site (fortsmithfight.com) was registered two weeks before the event in the name of “Peto Philer” of Algeria. The site, which remains live but has been stripped of all content, appears to be currently hosted on servers in Los Angeles.

I’ve always thought that Bruno’s stuff was a little bit funnier than Borat’s.  If you’ve never seen any of his pranks, check this out:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ilyA3s4FsHo]

Wanted with Angelina

Posted on

I saw the movie Wanted last night with my sister in the beautiful Arclight theater in Hollywood.  I was surprisingly pleased with the flick.  However, i have some problems with it

Angelina Jolie

Apparently McEvoy’s heart increases to 400 beats a minute and he gets a shot of adrenaline which allows him to view things slower and move much faster.   This is cool – and makes him and the others somewhat of a chemically superior race.  But there are problems with what i saw on the screen:

  • If you have more adrenaline, you can move faster which lets you whip a gun around, causing the bullets to bend.  Ok, i’ll buy that.  However, at the beginning and elsewhere in the film you see a bullet get shot from miles away from a guy sitting down in a chair and that bullet cruises through traffic like mouse to peanut butter.  That doesn’t make any sense
  • Even if you can slow everything down to slow-mo, how the hell do you learn how to flip a car over and shoot a guy through a sunroof and land correctly.  This isn’t about having more adrenaline – it’s just ridiculous
  • All the posters and marketing messages of the movie make you think this is an Angelina Jolie movie but it’s not.  It’s a McEvoy movie. Of course he’s nowhere near the draw of Mrs. Pitt but i do feel misled
  • If your dad abandoned you 7 days after birth would you be really excited to live in his room and want to please him after his death? I’m not sure i would.  McEvoy didn’t show any resentment at all – which seems pretty unrealistic.
  • If everything you’ve been told is a lie and then the people telling you it’s a lie turn out ot be lying.  What can you believe?  I’d feel somewhat distraught.  Where was that?  McEvoy seems to be sap in my mind. ‘

All this said, i actually really liked the movie for a few reasons.  First, it was totally unpredictable.  Sure you knew there would be some kicking of ass but you weren’t sure whose ass and how it would be kicked.  It had hints of the Matrix with the wire-fu and McEvoy being "the chosen one." It’s nowhere near as good at Matrix but it’s some good popcorn fun on a summer day.

Batman Trailer: 1989 vs. 2008

Posted on

Speaking of Batman.  I came across this video that compares the 1989 trailer to the one that was recently released.   Check out how they are EXACTLY the same.  It’s a shot for shot remake.  For instance, check out this frame at 60 seconds in…

Joker

Check out the entire video by clicking below…

Batman Video

Which will be better: Dark Knight or Pineapple Express?

Posted on

If you are with me that Batman Begins was better than Knocked Up and Superbad, do you also think that The Dark Knight will be better than Pineapple Express? If you’re not sure – watch the two trailers below and then leave a comment on what you think

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=eEbjnpKGisA]

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=AZ07JO-SaBc]