Office Space is a 1999 film but Mike Judge, genius (IMO) creator of King Of The Hill and Beavis and Butthead. Starring Ron Livingston, it tells the story of Peter Gibbons, who after a botched hypnotherapy session takes a new lease of life and starts to act calm about the job that previously angered him. He plots to rob the company with the help of software developers, Sam and Mike.
The story is based on a Mike Judge short 'Milton', who is a support character, a 'squirrely gent who mumbles alot' and gets shat on by the boss. The boss, Lumbergh, is perfectly portrayed by Gary Cole, and is the most annoying character ever (apart from Jar Jar Binks).
It's a really funny film. If you've ever worked in an office, or just had a really annoying boss, then you'll laugh loads at this film. If you like Mike Judge's knack to create awkwardness then you'll like this film.
I'm not saying this film has it's flaws. Jennifer Aniston's character punctuates one point about Peter's new confidence, but other than that she is pretty pointless. It also has a slow ending, but it's still funny in parts.
I'd reccomend it if you haven't seen it, and like Mike Judge, or like South Park. Or white men obsessed with black culture.
Paul McGuigan made Gangster No 1. I haven't seen it but I've heard good things. Wicker Park, I saw and enjoyed. Acid House freaked me out as a 12 year old and I have seen a few times since and I like it.
Lucky Number Slevin was slated by Empire. They asked 'Do we need another Revolver?'. WHAT THE FUCK? And no, I don't just love it because it has bookies in it.
Luck Number Slevin is fucking mint. I loved it in a clever-movie-for-teens kinda way. It's awesome. Revolver went TOO FAR with the depth, so deep it couldn't explain itself. Lucky Number Slevin has questions and answers throughout. Ben Kingsley vs Morgan Freeman would be a fight worth watching. Gandhi vs God.
LNS is well shot. It has that slick, fast-paced Soderbergh's Oceans editing, mashed up with Hitchcock's roving-eye. It fits the story well. Everyone is following everyone, and everyone is making snappy comments. Like George Clooney and Brad Pitt making Rear Window.
I'm not going to rant on about it, because it's a good couple of years old now, and most people should have seen it. I remember seeing the trailer and thinking 'Bruce Willis? Josh Hartnett? SIN CITY 2!?' and it being this. I didn't see it for this reason. It wasn't Sin City 2. I saw it later on rental and it's mint. I'm Shuffling all over Kansas City. Also, Lucy Lui...amazing. Hot, funny, and knows her movies. I want to marry her character.
Watch it. Really do. It's got eye candy for the Ladies who get lost in the Bond talk, and the half-gays out there like me. It's got enough blood to keep Guy Ritchie fans watching, and enough Morgan Freeman to keep the 'good fulm club' happy. And it's got a twist, that you slightly expect, but it goes much further than you expect. It's a banger.
For Your Consideration is ANOTHER one of those Christopher Guest films, but this one isn't about music. And it's just as good as the other ones.
Since Best In Show in 2000, Guest has released Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration. Neither are as good as Best In Show. I actually prefer Best In Show to Spinal Tap, I think it has less drivel in between the comedy. I haven't seen Waiting For Guffman but I'm blatantly going to buy it tomorrow. Along with The Princess Bride (he was in it.)
For Your Consideration is a drift away from his famed 'mockumentaries' but it still has the same improvisation and cast as many of the others. It was co-written with Jim's Dad, I mean Eugene Levy. It focusses on the set of Home For Purim, a jewish film tackling lesbianism and death, which recieves Oscar buzz for the acting performances. The title itself comes from the header used in articles by movie and entertainment magazines in which they write about a film they feel should be considered by Academy Award panels.
The film is good and funny and improvised, and has a lot of the cast reprising similar roles to the ones they always play. Parker Posey is neurotic, Jennifer Coolidge is thick, Eugene Levy is a fool. It adds nothing to this series of films, but also takes nothing away. It does add Ricky Gervais playing Ricky Gervais, I suppose. Mr 'I won't do Hollywood...unless it's for Christopher Guest, but now I'm in loads.'
Anyway, I haven't got much to say about it. If you like Christopher Guest, add another notch to the funny post. If you don't, you'll probably wonder what the fuck Kevin McAllister's Mom and Jim's Dad are doing.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Will Smith is an amazing actor. He really is.
I Am Legend is the third film adaptation of I Am Legend, Matheson's awesome and claustrophobic novel about the last known survivor of a viral pandemic. In the past, Robert Neville has been played by Charlton 'I love guns' Heston. Will Smith is better. I love the Hestonator, but he manages to completely withdraw any emotion from the role of Neville, and inserts communist propaganda and vampire hatred into it. Will Smith, on the other hand, keeps the role rather intense.
The film is good for an hour. It's not quite the car chases and vampire-type creature fight onslaught I expected, it focusses a lot more on Will Smith's struggle to avoid insanity with the help of his dog, Samantha. Sadly, the third act is appalling. Apparently the DVD alternate ending is favoured by critics, which makes you wonder why the studio didn't have it as the ending. Not Hollywood enough, possibly? It was more similar to the ending in the book, in that the 'infected' one is actually Neville himself, and his immunity makes him stand out more than the monsters that regular humans have become. But then again, Neville does really need to die, which happens in Hollywood but not in DVD-land. But since this ending didn't happen, with love and humanity conquering their hatred, as opposed to hand grenades, I got incredibly bored.
The one massive flaw with the film is editing. Did they watch it before it was released? There is one scene on the pier when Will Smith is attacking some monsters and it shows the same shot twice, once out of chronological sense and once at the correct time. RIDICULOUS! Also, they really didn't try hard enough with continuity errors, when Neville and his dog are running after a deer, the distance between them alters from shot to shot, to a ridiculous degree.
There is also a Batman vs Superman poster WITH A RELEASE DATE, they shouldn't have done that without a decent reason, or proof that such a movie is happening.
Anyway, dink ending, decent enough film. I prefer The Omega Man, despite it's emotion-sapping lead. It's just got more shooting and motorbikes in, and a little more blaxploitation.
A terrible film is a terrible film, but terrible horror is the worst, possibly on par with terrible comedy.
Today I watched Stay Alive, a film from 2006 starring Peter Petrelli, I mean Milo Ventimiglia (I'm not going to google him to get the correct spelling, you know who I mean, he's shagging the cheerleader). I say it stars him, he's top billing, but only in the film for the first 5 minutes to be sharp killed off. A possible homage to Drew Barrymore's top billing on Scream? No, probably not. His character is also called Loomis, probably more of an homage to Scream again, rather than Psycho, where Scream stole the name from.
Anyway, the concept is one of those in which a bunch of teenagers do something that causes them to die, like The Ring, One Missed Call or Final Destination. In this, they play a computer game called Stay Alive, after which you die in the manner you died in the game. Sound shit? It is! It pays homage to several video games, such as Project Zero (Fatal Frame in America), Silent Hill (through referencing, and a foggy-girlinfrontofthecar-crash), the Konami Code is used, and several references to Gamespot.
One character saves it, and thats is Fineus (sp?) who is an utter prick, but says 'Sup mama' to Anna from the OC. He made me laugh, and that was the only thing I enjoyed in the film. The CGI sections were looked over by the CliffyB, of Gears/Unreal and oddly enough SILENT HILL fame.
I really don't know how this film got made, Hollywood Pictures practically came out of fruition to make it, AND ITS SHIT. They had Sixth Sense, and American Werewolf in Paris (my favourite werewolf film evarrrr) under their belt, they needed no more horror.
Don't waste your time with this film, not like Lindsay Lohan's Opus, I mean I Know Who Killed Me, that is the best film ever.
This morning I watched Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and I really liked it.
I must admit that kids films very often move me. I love Elf with a passion, and there are certain kids movies that aren't even old enough to evoke memories that I thoroughly enjoy. I loved Monster House when I saw it, and there's rarely one that I don't enjoy. Stardust, if you could class it as a kids movie, was awesome. I have talked about how mint Kung Fu Panda is, and Pixar movies are on another level of enjoyment.
Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium is like Garden State for kids. It's so smiley, and lovely, and warm. It concerns Mr Magorium, Dustin Hoffman, and Molly Mahoney, Natalie Portman, and their magical toy shop. The story rotates around the store being passed on from Magorium's care into Mahoney's, but the store isn't happy about the change.
I don't understand how Zach Helm does it. After Stranger Than Fiction, an odd post-modern existential comedy, he goes on to write this fantastic childrens story, full of quirk and magic. It's full of little connections between the spoken and the seen, with dialogue based in simple riddle and rhyme. I sure hope he never makes a bad film.
The casting is rather good too. Dustin Hoffman is always good, without a doubt. Natalie Portman is fantastic at adapting from role to role, from comedy to drama, to kids movie. Jason Bateman plays Henry Weston, an accountant who fails to believe in the magic of the store, and he's good, I liked him in Juno and he's a really good well rounded character in this. First prize goes to Zach Mills, who plays 9-year-old Eric, and he's fantastic. I don't understand how he isn't 'that kid', you know, the one who is really good in one film then is in EVERYTHING. Like Jonathon Lipnicki, and Mara Wilson. I guess he got stumped by Freddie Highmore.
The story, I guess, is your typical kids movie story. It's about realisation of what you are, and what you can be, with hints of coming-of-age and struggling for acceptance. From Eric's struggle to make friends, and Molly's writers block, to Henry's lack of make-believe skills, it's got some nice little advances throughout. There is one scene in which Eric and Henry communicate by writing on pads through a window which is just marvellous. There is also a little section of Molly and Magorium having fun in several places around the town that is so pleasant, and rather hilarious. I shall never forgive Natalie Portman's terrible, out of time dancing though.
If you have an hour and twenty minutes on a Sunday, or you babysit children and need something to do, watch Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium. It's really nice, and enjoyable, and Dustin Hoffman is marvellous.
PS Did I forget to mention that KERMIT THE FROG is in it!?
Have you ever seen Deuce Bigalo:Male Jigalo?
It's funny.
Big Stan isn't. But I honestly don't think it's trying to be. I haven't seen any trailers and I'm assuming it's going to bomb in the box office, but it doesn't feel like a comedy. Would you call Mean Machine a comedy? Probably. This has less jokes than Mean Machine.
Rob Schneider calls this his anti-man-rape film. And that's all it is. It's a constant reminder that you will get raped in prison, and one man's attempt to stop that. That premise sounds funny, but trust me, it's not put across in a funny way. I laughed a few times, but I can laugh in Schindler's List, ADD makes everything funny.
David Carradine has only taken a role in this to show off his Kung Fu past, much like Kill Bill. I don't think he's got anything apart from that, because he sure can't act. It's also got that old man that swears in. You know the one, from Wedding Crashers. He used to be in Sabrina as well. And Magnolia.
I've also come to the conclusion that while they may be incredibly racist, Nazi tattoo's are actually cool as fuck to look at. I'm not a nazi, but they chose some nice images for their terrible clan.
Don't waste your time on Big Stan. Unless you love Rob Schneider, and I don't think anyone does.
James Bond has been renewed and I hadn't seen it yet. I couldn't imagine not seeing Batman Begins but the Batman movies were hardly an institution. Bond, on the other hand, was a 20-strong series of albeit non-continuous but canonical films that are pretty damn popular. The actor has always changed, hence the lack of continuity, as has the time and setting, and the bugger doesn't seem to age. But never mind, I don't understand what caused the revamp. Oh yeah, JASON BOURNE.
Casino Royale 2006 is the third adaptation of the first Fleming novel. It was done just after it was written, satired in the 60s and then now created properly the studio that satired it in the first place. We have Daniel Craig in the role of Jamesy B, and he's pretty good. Connery is, and always will be, James Bond, no matter what people say. I honestly don't thing Craig's big ears and Gordon Ramsay expressions are handsome enough to warrant women swooning over him and he doesn't look at all British. I know it's breaking the mould for Bond, but I quite happened to like the old mould. No matter how misogynistic and indulgent it was. Well, I'm lying, I was never arsed in the first place and I never will be. James Bond, in my eyes, will always be for Mastermind contestants and racists. (I'm biased as the only people I know who like James Bond happen to have been on Mastermind, and be incredibly racist)
Die Another Day was labelled Buy Another Day due to ridiculous product placement, but this film is no different. I spotted Sony Vaoi (sp?), Sony Erricson, Rolex...no...Omega (2for1 in that scene, kids) and many more. Also, it may be all modern with it's parkour and DBWhatevers but I really can't see the difference between this and GoldenEye's bungee jumping and Z3? Why the new timeline for Bond? And continuity over films? The last time that happened, George Lazenby was Bond and he was shit, and they sharp got Connery back in the Bond boots.
Enough rambling, I liked Casino Royale. It's a good film. I just prefer the Bourne movies when it comes to snappy action, and I prefer the old Bonds for snappy and sexist dialogue. (I just think of that 'You've had your six' bit from Dr. No. Amazing)
Taken is not at ALL how I expected it to be. From the television trailers, I saw a thriller about an old man going after his kidnapped daughter. From the cinema trailer, I saw a little bit more action than I expected. From the film itself, I saw a brutal and non-stop action film.
The first half an hour introduces you to Liam Neeson's character, Bryan, who is an ex-CIA 'preventer'. Basically he was a security guard, who prevents disasters and gang wars etc. He is highly skilled in martial arts and torture tactics, but a very paranoid man. He fears his daughter doesn't love him as much as she loves her step father. When she goes travelling to Europe, she is kidnapped and Bryan swears he will go after the kidnappers. Using his CIA connections, he tracks down the gang that did it and travels to Paris. There begins the brutality.
Thinking back I really should have expected the action. Liam Neeson has done some banging action in his time, namely Batman Begins. The film is also written and produced by Luc Besson, who has stepped away from intriguing character pieces and into the shameless action genre about 10 years ago.
But the AMOUNT of action is phenomenal. It's also backed by a really gruesome and intriguing story about human trafficking in Eastern Europe. If you don't watch Channel 4 documentaries you won't know much about this, and it's a disturbing realilty that this happens. Bryan is an intelligent man who knows precisely how to crack the system of both the gangs and the police, with whom he has connections. Some of his actions are ruthless, torturous and not would you'd expect from Kinsey. He's like Jason Bourne's dad.
If you enjoy The Transporter movies for shameless action, and like the Bourne movies for his spy-wizardry, then this film is right up your street. There are enough explosions to keep a simple man happy, but also enough drama and cleverness to rope in your seasoned cinema goer.
ps Holly Valance is in it. Excuse enough for any man.
Today I watched 3 hours of comedy movies. One and a half movies.
The half of Forgetting Sarah Marshall made me laugh a lot more than the 2 hours of Pineapple Express.
It'd be easy to slate Pineapple Express, but it's not THAT bad. The one thing that struck me straight away was just how badly acted it is. It's like one of those movies off Zone Horror called 'Telephone of the Dead Zombie Eaters 174' or any dodgy comedy. Previously, in Judd Apatow's career, he's produced fresh and rather hilarious comedies, with a selection of actors that always impress. With the exception of Saul, it was pretty badly acted.
Pineapple Express has Seth Rogan in, and pretty much only because he wrote it. The guy who plays Saul, I didn't recognise, only to find out it's that guy who plays Harry Osborn from Spiderman, James Franco! There are a surprising lack of the expected cameos from Jonah Hill and Steve Carell etc. A lack that stems to absolutely none. There is the inclusion of Harvey Pekar (who isn't actually Harvey Pekar, it's Jack Kehler so this point is irrelevant) and that doctor from Knocked Up, it's the height of barrel scraping when it comes to their friends.
It's really really long, and there are characters who could be completely removed and it wouldn't change the film at all. His girlfriend is pointless, apart from the part where he insults her for liking Godspeed You! Black Emperor, but it was a very geeky thing to laugh at. There are also sections that could be remarkably shorter, and plot points that are included that are pretty pointless. Mostly involving the girlfriend.
It is a funny film, but it's as funny as Superbad or Knocked Up, therefore not constantly funny. Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Don't Mess With The Zohan both had me laughing ALOT more than the three Seth Rogan/Jonah Hill movies. Not since 40 Year Old Virgin have I constantly laughed in a Seth Rogan film, although most of that is the supporting cast, and Steve Carrell and his bags of sand. I'd even say it's on the same level of comedy as Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanemo Bay, which isn't amazing but makes you laugh enough to it be called a comedy.
The film also relies on a lot of MacGuffins (I love that word). Seth Rogan originally flips out because he ASSUMES that the bad guys might trace his roach, and James Franco smashes his phones because he ASSUMES they could triangulate their positions. I know a lot of it relies on the paranoia one suffers whilst high, but it kinda goes a little too far. It also relies on the comedy/action thing too much as if it is something original, lots of explosions and stuff, but 'Hello! Hot Fuzz!'. This film is VERY Edgar Wright. Explosions, homages to action films and snazzy-but-jokey editing in certain sequences.
If you like the Jew Tang Clan movies, most importantly Superbad (ie the not very funny one) then you'll like this. Also if you're stoned, you'll like this. Seth Rogan even states 'Weed makes shit movies better'. I'm not saying this is a shit movie, but it's not the best. I'd recommend Zohan or Forgetting Sarah Marshall over this anyday. And I'm hoping that Tropic Thunder will be much better than this.
Anyway, to mention Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I didn't watch it all but I have seen it before at the cinema. It's fucking hilarious. And everyone should see it. I'm really excited for the Muppet Movie from these guys.
Blade 2 is better than the first one. Fact.
Blade 2 is a seminal, life changing film. Fiction.
Blade 2 is another one off the 'good movie' branch, it's entertaining and fun. There's not much to say about it that isn't the same as the first one, other than it takes the things it does in the first one, such as awesome fights and deaths but does them a little bit more frequently. There's less talking and exposition in this one, and when there is talking it's swiftly interrupted with fighting.
There are 'funnier' characters in this film. I use inverted commas because they still aren't that funny, just a bit quirkier. It's a lot more hollywood than the first outing. The inclusion of Ron Perlman is ALWAYS good, because that guy is funny. Funny looking and acting. There is one thing that got me, and that is DANNY JOHN JULES. When did Katt from Red Dwarf hit the acting so hard? I remember him in Lock Stock or Snatch (I can't remember which one he's in) but I didn't realise he'd actually got anywhere with it.
It's a Guillermo film but there's not that much in it that pins it to him. There aren't too many wierd creatures, and there's 25 minutes before there's a cog and it's not on screen for that long at all.
Anyway, watch this, and you don't really need to have seen the first one because there are plenty flashbacks.
Roger Deakins is a little bit of a god. In 2007, he used his well-honed cinematography skills to craft the films 'No Country for Old Men', 'In The Valley of Elah', and 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'. He recieved Oscar nods for the premier and the latter, and a BAFTA for 'No Country'. You'd expect he also shot 'There Will Be Blood' as it is, cinematographically a similar film. The sepia tone and sweeping prairie landscapes blended with dark and cold portraits.
I have just watched 'The Assassination of Jesse James...' and what an odd film it is. I feel this, on top of 'There Will Be Blood' and 'No Country' have brought us possibly the best year in cinema history since 1977. All three films are amazingly different, yet all so similar.
The Assassination is an awkard and slow film to watch. Despite the subject of the film being embedded in the title of the film itself, you constantly feel on edge, and that death is around every corner. The on screen displays of both heroism and cowardice are so phenomenally portrayed that you never feel safe around the characters. It is beautifully shot, due to Deakins amazing eye for landscapes and locations. There are moments of almost still photography, close-ups of the environment, that evoke such vastness and loneliness that are key to the film.
I was shocked to hear that Shia LeBouef was also considered for the role of Robert Ford, because this film stands on Casey Affleck's shoulders. He is a fantastic actor, and this year I've seen him give outstanding performances is both this, and Gone Baby Gone. His acting in The Assassination is nothing short of incredible, and one of the best displays of such astounding acting I've ever seen. His on screen portrayal of a young man who's idol falls from grace in his eyes is enough to bring tears to yours. There is also Paul Schneider, who I'd seen before in Lars and The Real Girl but never since or before. He plays Dick Liddle, another one of the James Gang, and every scene he is in is well acted, well rounded and gives you the feeling you're expecting.
Brad Pitt does deserve some credit too. His Jesse James is not the hero you'd expect, as you're often seeing him through Robert Ford's eyes, so his moves seem pathetic and not as impressive as hoped for. He seems more like an outlaw as seen in The Big Silence, with touches of The Searchers. His emotions are cast through every scene. When Jesse's angry, you feel scared yourself as to what he might do. Even in scenes between Jesse and Robert, when you know neither of them die, you feel like one of them is ready to snap up and shoot the other in the head.
I'll try and wrap it up. I really thought I wasn't going to like this movie, much like I did with No Country and There Will Be Blood, it's partner pieces in such incredible ways. A triple bill of those films would be like sex on a spoon. It is difficult to watch due to the tension, but it drags you through like Marty Mcfly from a horse, and the outcome is tremendous, complete with Casey Affleck drunkenly insulting Nick Cave, always a treat.
One thing I could say is that the film is too long. Although, I am not surprised to hear that this is the edited version, from a 4 hour cut that was originally intended for release. In one sense, I feel the end could be wrapped up sooner, but then in retrospect it wouldn't have enough of an impact. I can think back of moments that could be removed but then think how they aid and enhance later sequences in the film. And to cut any of the landscape shots would be like cutting comedy from Airplane.
This film is a phenomenal display of all things cinema. It's beautiful, well acted and emotional. Well done 2007, you did the film world proud.
50 minutes in and Alien Autopsy is one of the freshest and most original comedies I've ever seen. Declan Donnely is a natural comedian. He's got the face, the voice and the actions of a great comedian. Ant, not so good, but that's why he's the tight-arsed serious one in the film. The support cast includes Omid Djalili and Jimmy Carr, both in good and funny roles.
The story is about a faked alien autopsy from Roswell made by Ant and Dec (Forget the character names, they play Ant and Dec) after a geniune copy of the Roswell autopsy is damaged in transit. Naturally, it being British, it contains a gangster character who happens to be Eastern European who threatens the main characters, but they overcome him.
There is a problem with the film in its use of swearing. This could easily have appealed to the whole family, there are gory scenes that could have been cut but are also set up as completely fake so it looks no worse than cutting into fresh meat. It's brand of comedy is very British in that there are moments of slapstick but also idiotic and simple characters. The title of this post itself is a line spoken when Nana is haggling with an Argentian over the phone, and it had me in stitches.
It is not a buddy comedy as you'd expect from Ant and Dec but it is a film of a group of friends overcoming adversity, and it is warm and funny. My favourite thing about the film has to be the use of 'spanner' as an insult.
It's just finished and it's damn good. It's only rated at about 4.5 out of 10 on imdb, and I'm not sure why. I really enjoyed it. It moves forward in section after section and flows well, the story unfolds but it could really have been longer. There are 'twists' that are tossed and turned in about 2 minutes, and are pretty obvious, but I feel if they were drawn out as big story points then it would have been appalling, but it's short and snappy feel keeps it easy to follow and easy to laugh at.
I was blissfully unaware this was an actual true story, and that Ray Santilli is a real person (That's Dec's character) who claims he really did have the genuine footage but then faked it when it was destroyed. He still also claims there is a bit of restored footage but it has never been seen. I wanna see it, me like.
I can't think of a time when a man ripping out another man's throat and then using it as a weapon on a third man wouldn't be cool as fuck. Nor a vampire's head explanding to ten times it's original size, going orange, then blowing up.
Blade is a really entertaining film. It is just under 2 hours long, and manages to keep its pace throughout. I'm not particularly a fan of 'fight scenes', in that style of 'insert industrial music, lots of spinning and kicking' sense but Blade has added little gestures and actions to the fight scenes enough to make me feel like a 10 year old watching wrestling. It's completely real, feasible and awesome.
The story, as I gather most people will know, is about Blade, a half-vampire 'daywalker' who is a vampire slayer. He is trying to bring down an evil rich boy who wants to resurrect La Magra, the vampire blood god. Nothing original, in fact it's story is almost identical to most films about demons, when you need the blood of someone to be spilled somewhere to make someone else into something else.
It is also relatively poorly acted, I don't rate Wesley Snipes as an actor, mainly because I've neveer seen him do anything other than Blade and Bad (which I never knew was directed by Scorcese). Nor do I rate Kris Kristoffereson, because everytime I see him I get excited because I think it's Jeff Bridges, and it isn't. Also, Stephen Dorff? He's in more music videos with his top off than anyone I've ever seen. But other than that it's a good film, it's not jam-packed with witty dialogue like some of the comic book movies try and boast, it's a hearty and shameless action movie.
But despite the criticisms, it is a good and enjoyable film. As I said, it doesn't lose it's pace. There are slower moments in the film but mostly they are giving backstory to the characters, which you can't complain about in a trilogy, you need to learn something about the protagonists at some point. There are action sequences a-plenty, a body count of 88 and lots of exploding vampires.
Watch it if you have a couple of hours to kill, and if you watch it I'm sure you'll want to watch Blade 2, as I'm going to tomorrow. I'm, in fact, a little excited to see how Blade's story progresses. And it's Guillermo. Love love love.
Last night I watched a film widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, and I have one statement to make. It was one of the worst films ever made. I feel I could sit and write a five thousand word essay picking every little fault in that film.
BTW IT'S CALLED 'I KNOW WHO KILLED ME'
I totally didn't write that in :D
On the IMDb board it has sparked an on-going argument about 'what it means' and 'what the director wanted to say' which is so strange considering how terrible this film is.
The film is about Aubrey Fleming, a bright young star pianist and writer who is kidnapped after the college football game and not seen for 17 days. After the 17 days, a girl is found in a ditch and taken into hospital and it is Aubrey but she claims her name is Dakota Moss and she is the daughter of a crack addicted mother. She has all the same injuries as they expect Aubrey to have, as the killings are serial (with 1 other murder, real serial that is), its just assumed the murdered failed to kill Aubrey properly.
First, the story. It is utterly ridiculous. It feels like it was written by an intelligent 10 year old. Everything about this film is TRYING to mean something, I feel it is not accident that the intelligent girl is Fleming and the slut is Moss. (Alexander and Kate respectively?). The town it takes place in is Little Salem (Stephen King nod, much?). But it's isn't childishly thematic as the direction. It has the odd bit of narration, the odd attempt at snappy Tarantino-esque dialogue, but it has plot points that are rendered completely inept by the twist. I really really want to spoil this film, because lets be honest, no-one is EVER going to see it unless they are held down and forced to watch it until they shit themselves.
Ok, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS.
The twist of the film is that the real Aubrey died in complications after the birth but the father couldn't live with it so BOUGHT A CHILD off a crack addict down the hall. Thus Aubrey and Dakota are twins. They then develop Twin Stigmata, a rare and completely made-for-the-sake-of-the-movie condition in which a twin, no matter where they are, will suffer the same injuries as her identical twin. To much use of the word twin.
Here are some things that don't add up. DAKOTA MOSS' LEGS JUST FALL OFF. YOU'D FUCKING FREAK OUT. Sorry, but if you're a stripper/whore who's mother is a crack head, doesn't mean you have a natural ability to ignore the fact your legs and arms are falling off, AND SURVIVE IT. This happens because Aubrey is being tortured and having her arms cut off by a psycho so it's happening to Dakota out of the blue. Dakota is asked in hospital by the police who did it too her and you'd say 'THEY JUST FELL OFF, IT'S PROPER SICK' rather than trying to be witty and outsmart the police by refusing to give information.
Secondly, there is a section where Dakota actually gives over information about the killer, that he was wearing blue gloves because she'd seen him before he took her, but then he actually took Aubrey, but....THEY DON'T LIVE IN THE SAME TOWN. So while the killer is in Little Salem stalking Aubrey, he also happens to be stalking her twin half-way across the country in a strip club.
Little Lindsay Lohan is appalling in this film, she also managed to get done for DUI after is was made so can't promote it and apparently blames that on the reason it flopped. That and the fact its SHIT. There is a part at the end where 'she knows who's killed' her because she sees a piano prize in the first victims house as well as in Aubrey's thus knowing it was the piano teacher. Cos the police wouldn't have checked that out when inquiring about the victims lives. 'Oh they both play piano and have the same teacher? He lives in the creepy house on the edge of town and is a loner? We'll completely ignore that then'. When driving to the piano teachers house, Aubrey's father/buyer states 'we don't have time to tell anyone where we're going' and ends up dead. PROBLEM IS, we live in the age of MOBILE TECHNOLOGY. Dakota is sitting in the car doing nothing with her hands when she could be on a mobile informing the police!
I'll go back to flaws in a bit, but not after I slate the director.
This guy loves themes. So much that he destroyed his film with them. He has done with the colour blue what Hitler did to swastikas. Basically, due to the 'twin' nature of the film, EVERY SHOT with Aubrey in has her wearing blue, in a blue room, looking at blue things with her blue eyes, and EVERY SHOT of Dakota has her wearing red, in a red room, eating a red hotdog covered in red sauce with her red albino eyes. The childhood photos are almost identical apart from the blue and red bikinis. There is even a part in the film where a stranger on the bus sits and looks at Dakota's heavily bleeding hand and tells her to hold it higher than her heart, and then randomly appears in a vision and says 'There are two sides to everything. Love/hate etc'. He seems to have magically been transformed from a wierdo on a bus into her guardian angel. fucking stupid stupid stupid film.
There is also the theme of mirrors, again with the twin thing. There are at least 20-25 shots in the film which are shots of a person's reflection doing the talking, or people sitting staring into mirrors, in blue/red rooms.
Every theme is completely overused, like there are literally thousands of objects that are the same shade of blue, and the director must have been standing in all this seas of blue rooms and thinking 'Yeah, not too much blue at all. In fact, not enough, let's dress her in blue as well!'
My favourite theme is this. Owls! The college football team that plays on the night of Aubreys kidnapping are the owls. The first victim of the single-serial killer has a stencil of an owl on her trophy shelf. There are toy owls and even owl graffiti on the bus stop outside Dakotas strip club (which im sure the writer hadn't decided where it is yet). The reason? When the piano teacher psycho finally decides to bury Aubrey's body, THERE IS AN OWL IN THE TREE.
So fucking fantastic.
This film isn't even so bad it's good, but it is so bad it's a talking point. Like I said it has sparked so much discussion about what is going on, that the director must be thinking 'I'm a genius' (This guy has also made a documentary about Tobe Hooper's Toolbox Murders, and another dodgy slasher and that's about it). He also must be raking in the cash from rentals and £1 bargain bin purchases, because so many people seem to have seen this either to see how bad it is, or just to see Lindsay Lohan pole-dancing, as she is so unbelievably hot in this film.
I don't know if I've said enough, I feel I will come back and write more as I do quite fancy watching the film again. I can't tell you to watch it because I've ruined it for you, but what I can do is say that if it's a quid, buy it, because it's worth it.
Here's some fantastically thematic moments from the film:
Aubrey in Blue, on a blue bench holding a blue pen.
Dakota in red, in her red strip club
Note how clever that is.
I'll be back to write more, I hope.
That's all Sex and the City is. I really can't be bothered to write about it, it was pretty fucking bad. It's rare that I'm so bored by a film that I decide to do something COMPLETELY different, I can normally stick by a film but this is awful.
The structure goes:
Problem 1
Solution 1
Problem 2
Solution 2
Problem 3
Solution 3
etc
etc
etc
Correct me if I'm wrong but that is EPISODES STUCK TOGETHER. That is what this film is. It's a mini SATC season, and by mini I mean 2H45 of episodes.
I did laugh a few times, the same as I do when I'm watching the show, which I will admit I enjoy. It's funny, and the characters, as cliché as they are, have good stories and good lines. Again, I'm getting at the film for it's structure, but for any SATC fan it must have been like a visit to Mecca. The stories and resolutions it poses are satisfactory additions to the stories that are only slightly resolved in the final season of the HBO show. It is just FAR TOO LONG. They have signed up for 3 movies, and this film could have and should have been at least two of them.
Some of the, for want of a better term, set pieces in the film are really good, particularly Samantha's life in LA and the trip to Mexico, but other than that it just feels like a really long episode, with nothing particularly out of the ordinary happening. It really didn't need to be a movie, as I said, it could have been another, albeit shorter, season, as it is 5/6 episodes worth of screen time in length. (They're 29 minutes not 22)
The main problem I have with the film is it's commercialism. There is a section at a photo shoot which is basically a list of people who's clothes you should own. The worst section is the 'here, use my phone' section where Carrie holds up an iPhone in the style of a advert, perfectly square on with the camera and the apple logo glowing in light. I may watch again and count how often a label is mentioned, as I imagine is ridiculous.
I'm going to agree with Empires philosophy, and it is a good film, if not far too long, but 'add a star if you're a fan of the show'
Kevin Spacey, what have you done!? You haven't made a decent film since 2003, and we all miss you.
Last night I watched 21. It's a wierd one. I don't know whether to slate it for being high concept, obvious and half an hour too long; or praise it for being better than Oceans Twelve, well structured and actually quite clever. How about both?
The slating...This film is far far far far too obvious. It works like the whole 'Don't think of a black cat!' trick, then even if you're thinking about not thinking about one, you're still thinking about one. There are moments in the film where Kevin Spacey, in a dreadful role, lectures the gambling superbrains about how 'this is not gambling, it's counting cards' and 'don't let your emotions get in the way', so what do you reckon is going to happen? Let the addictions and emotions commence. All, and I mean ALL, of the characters in this film are so so so so so so so so shit. Talk about stereotyping. You have sexy clever girl who knows best. You have geek-turned-hunk who will make a mistake regarding sexy clever girl. You even have fat geppy geek who is rejected by geeky friend once he is a hunk. It's so so see through. Don't even get me started on the asian characters, because that bordered on pathetic. Lawrence Fishburne is a glimmer of hope in this film, but then you get to know him and think 'well that's shit'.
The film is also just over 2 hours, which, for a teen movie is far too long. It could easily have been around the 90 minutes mark if they'd chosen to cut out the montages. But a Vegas film without a montage is like a Bond film with no villain.
One the plus side, I quite liked the story. The geekhunk gets roped into counting cards by his college lecturer in order to save money to pay his way through harvard med school. The med school is the MacGuffin in this film, it's not particularly important but it's the reason the film exists. The vegas scenes do get too frequent, but the scenes back in MIT in which Ben (geekhunk) tries to explain to the rest of his world where he goes at weekends are quite good. The breaking point between him and his nerd friends is a good scene, and Jim Sturgess is a good actor at his young age. And the one thing this film has is a moment that you don't expect, I feel the reason it is too long is so you forget certain plot points in order for the end to have an impact.
I did like this film, I managed to watch it all without grimacing, I just feel it is a little bit pointless. 0'dI recommend people watch The Sting instead of this, but if you want to see sexy Kate Bosworth or fancy a bit of Spacey action watch this. I remain indifferent.
Movies are art. Skate movies are art for skaters. Gus Van Sant movies are art for people with a lot of time on their hands. Gus Van Sant Skate movies? Double art.
I've just finished watching Paranoid Park. It's canny good, like. It's a film about a 16 year old skater who gets caught up in a murder investigation centred around a skate park.
One thing I will say about the film, and it is that it is incredibly short. It lacks depth, on a Van Sant scale of Gerry/Last Days to Elephant/Good Will Hunting, it stands perfectly in the middle. It has the values of Elephant, the young shaggy-haired quiet boy who gets caught up in something, but the drawn-out shots and quiet soundtracking of Last Days and Gerry. The story lasts 40 minutes of the 84 minute feature, give or take 5 minutes. When the story is focussed on, it is disjointed and you sometimes get lost in chronology. It is a good story, but you can tell the novel it is screenplayed from is teenage fiction. There is off-kilter narration that cuts in and out, led by the voice of our protagonist Alex. The way he reads is the way he is supposed to have written the story down, simple and unintelligently. Verbal mistakes aren't airbrushed over as they possibly should be, they are noticably 'rugged' but don't really...I dunno...they work but don't wash with me somehow.
I did have a few problems with the film. You don't really feel that much sympathy for Alex for getting caught up in the violence, but mainly due to, again, the lack of story-telling. Van Sant focusses on making the film look more stylistically like a skate movie (There is a little section where a detective is passing a business card to Alex, and when doing so he flicks it around and it made me smile a bit). The camera often trails the characters, much like it would in a skate film, and there are obviously little vignettes of skating pressed within the film itself. The name itself, Paranoid Park, falls short due to the lack of sympathy, you don't feel that he's too uncomfortable. I don't know whether it's the acting, but I doubt it.
Things I liked about it was nearly everything but the lack of story. Gus Van Sant is one stylish motherfucker. He knows how to frame a shot, how to colour it and how to make you feel warm and cold through your screen. I shouldn't complain about lack of story because a lot of Van Sant's outings are more visual than aural. Gerry and Elephant, for example, contrasting pieces that I have very different views on, but neither tell deep stories. Good Will Hunting, on the other hand, has more story but is still more about the dialogue.
I'll stop ranting. If you're a Van Sant fan, and can cope with his slower work, then this will up the ante since Last Days. It's a better film, but will still never beat Elephant in his indie work. If you're a regular film-goer you might grow bored of the constant cuts away from dialogue, and the lack of depth.
ps I always forget My Own Private Idaho. That is a masterpiece.
My very good friend, Luke The Baron Poulson, has reminded me I should start blogging about films I watched before I started the blog. So here I go.
Part one, Tideland. This is a Terry Gilliam film that is very much overlooked, it wasn't a blockbuster like Brothers Grimm, or a cult classic like Twelve Monkeys. In fact, I hadn't heard of it until Luke told me to watch it. I was apprehensive about it, as I was told I 'may' enjoy it, and that it was similar to Pan's Labyrinth. It was a good film, and really quaint in a Gilliam fashion (We'll ignore the etymology of quaint for a second), but it died on it's arse towards the end. It suffered from 'Little Miss Sunshine' syndrome, in that it killed off the best character too early. Jeff Bridges who plays the father of our young female protagonists, takes 'vacations' with the help of his daughter, ie she helps him shoot up. The mother dies and they decide to take a trip to Bridges' mother's farm in rural America and imagination ensues.
The scenes that explore the girls imagination are good, pretty enhancements of the real world, and accurate depictions of a childs wandering mind. She swims in the corn and has fashion shows in a deep wardrobe, all whilst talking to Barbie heads stuck to her fingers with obscure name.
The one thing the film lacked was not heart, nor idea, but a story. Once the characters are introduced and killed, we only meet one new person, and the weight of the film is on a young girl's shoulders and she, as cute as she is, is a weak little girl. Her friendship with her disabled neighbour is cute but is explored far too late in the film, and also in a very strange way. The 'wicked witch of the west' style character is also underused, and turns from nemesis to ally too soon.
In short, it is a good film, just not really much to keep one focussed on it once it becomes a solo piece, and it is not particularly strong when cast against Gilliam's other works.
Another film I watched recently is Wristcutters: A Love Story. I love american indies, and films of that vein. Sometimes they just hit nails on the head that I weren't even aware existed. For example, I was unaware my love life was meaningless and pathetic until I saw Garden State, and realised I lived in the wrong country thanks to Lost in Translation. Along those lines, I can say I was not thinking about committing suicide until I saw Wristcutters. The film centres around a limbo like world that is populated only by the dead who have 'offed themselves'. It is a horrible place, all grey and dismal, unkempt and mostly boring.
The protagonist, Zia, is seen killing himself in the opening sequence and we travel to this world with him. There he meets Eugene, an eastern european prick who is supposed to be Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello (complete with soundtracking). They hear that Zia's girlfriend from the real world has also killed herself so decide to go on a road trip to find her. Along the way they discover black holes in car seats, miracles, and meet Mikal, a girl who is in limbo by accident. Mikal joins them on their trip as she wants to find 'the people in charge' so she can go home.
Most of the film is set in a camp for people who can perform miracles, who include a throat singing inuit, which is run by Tom Waits. He plays Keller, a focal character from the novel on which the film is based.
Enough story, I shall say what I'm here to say. This film is lovely, just lovely. Mikal is beautiful, Eugene is annoyingly hilarious and Zia is a well-rounded human being. The story is funny, due to the nature of the world they inhabit, and the road movie feel is played off well. Keller's camp is a wonderful place, and the zany (I hate using that word but it really is apt) characters that reside there top of an already well charactered (Is that the right word?) cast. The plot doesn't twist and turn as you'd possibly expect from a film so abstract, but it has moments of laugh out loud comedy, but also pulls at your heartstrings. The inclusion towards the end of a character who believes himself to be the Messiah (basically a man who led a suicide cult, only to realise that all the people he forced to kill himself ended up in worshipping him again in limbo) is fantastic. He is another notch in the fantastic bedpost that is this film.
If you like road movies, indies and love stories, then see this film. It's awesome.com
What a film! I got this on Doovdee last night, and spread the joy around my house, and all I can say is ''So lets go". It's really fucking funny. The first hour is genius, full of a perfect blend of slapstick, punchlines and idle racism for teenagers to laugh at. It has the same feel as Team America, race arguments could be sparked if it weren't for the fact that you know the writers are having a dig at the racists, not the races. Anyone could have played the Zohan, you don't really notice that it's an Adam Sandler film because he's matured in the weakest of ways. He no longer plays a teenager in men's clothing, but instead a, can I say, intelligent Israeli terrorist who has dreams of cutting hair. Rob Schneider isn't even annoying in it! He's funny, but mainly because it's not one of his films. I was unaware that Judd Apatow had a writing credit, which probably means it was brought up a notch by him in the writing process.
Reading critical reviews on wikipedia, it got slated as only pleasing diehard Sandler fans, and 14 year old children, yet the review went on to say 'the film also has an "unusual" amount of "tantalizing comic ideas" so that "every 10 minutes or so, it makes you explode with laughter."'. Is that not a comedy film!? I challenge anyone to find a modern day comedy that doesn't have a stop-start feel, we've long moved on from the days of Airplane and Police Squad, where every frame has a gag enclosed. Most of the highest grossing comedies of the last couple of years, I feel, struggle to make you explode with laughter, but just have you giggling like the stoners who wrote them throughout. I laughed out loud on my own at this so much more than I did with Superbad, which is SO over-rated. Knocked Up is hilarious, a really funny film, but it's not exactly laugh-a-minute. It poses some rather intense questions at times, and even has that part just after the hour mark that goes serious. This film doesn't have that so to speak, as the serious part is about Zohan lacking an erection. I just feel that people are slating this film by marking it amongst the entire Sandler oeuvre, which has lacked depth in its last 3 or 4 outings. If you ignore the Happy Madison stamp, or possibly replaced it with the hands of Parker and Stone, this film would not have been slated.
Again, to defend this films slating, unless your a sophisticated person who fails to find anything funny ever, then this film will make you laugh. Frequently and loudly.
Dreamworks haven't half made some shit. As I discussed earlier with my friends, they've been a bit of a shitmachine, really. Shark's Tale, pile of bollocks. Shrek 2, unforgivable. Some people don't like Madagascar but I happen to.
Kung Fu Panda had the potential to be one of those films with lots of talented actors, but nothing else, but it wasn't. Dustin Hoffman is hilarious, and need I mention Jack Black? Mr Black rarely plays anyone but a fat guy who fails at life, but this time he's a.....fat panda who fails at life. Said panda is 'accidentally' picked to be the legendary Dragon Warrior, who has to fight some scary tiger when he comes out of his prison. It's not one of those kids films that has enough for the adult audience to keep them interested, it's just funny anyway. It doesn't have the adult undertones that some films try to add, but then fail at making a good film, this is just a good story with funny bits that everyone can enjoy. I imagine there are slapstick bits that will have kids pissing themselves, but I can admit I giggle alot at them too. It's just a good film, really nice story, really good landscapes (I know they're just cartoons), and really quite funny.
I also watched Wanted, this morning, giving it my full attention, really trying to like it, but I struggled. That whole bending bullets thing they did on the trailer was used about....twice? It's visually superb, but I expected nothing short of that from Timur Bekmambetov, the director of Night Watch and Day Watch, they're stunning films. Also, the story and twist aren't too bad either, the twist is obvious but it's done in a nice way. There was a wee bit of exposition at the start that I didn't get to see due to the writing being in Russian (Damn Region 5 DVDs), so the story couldn't have either been ruined or enhanced by that.
I had one main problem with the film, and that was casting James McAvoy as Keanu Reeves-cum-Jason Statham. He can't be a insignificant weed who angrily rants in his private life about how much he hates his job and friends, nor can he be the guy who walks into a room and kills everyone. He's the sort of guy who needs to be slightly funny, slightly Hugh Ro-Grant-ic and slightly hard, if needs be. The whole film reeks of the Matrix, from the grey-scale of McAvoy's office job, to the 'you have an inert ability to be mint' information bestowed upon him by a mentor, in this case Morgan Freeman, and him rejecting said power, but then realising it'd be kinda awesome to have it. There is also no need to mention 'bullet-time' as that is used so often in action, although it is argueably just slow-mo in action movies, but this is actual bullet-time, complete with spinning cameras, tracking the bullets. I'm so not looking forward to Max Payne and the unstoppable arguments that is going to cause. The film shouldn't have been made to look like the Matrix, as the comics had already been criticised for looking like the Matrix, there should have been something new, and I think the trailer tried to make the bending bullets trick 'the thing the Matrix DIDN'T do', but fell on its arse when using it.
One final review for this evening, The Strangers. What a pointless work of cinema. If you like being shocked three times in ninety minutes, or like 40 minutes of couples arguing and proposing to each other that leads nowhere because they seem perfectly in love, then you'll like this film. I hope no-one on this earth likes either of the above things. Unless the shocks come in a film that doesn't market itself as a horror/thriller then it's fine. Also I have a point to pick with the haven of Wikipedia. How come no-one in there has noticed that this film is an absolute rip off of Ils (Them) the French/Romanian horror from 2006. If you haven't seen it, I have on DVD, or it's about £3 in HMV/Zavvi, watch it. It's canny scary. It uses SO MANY things from that film, such as bird calls as freaky noises to make lasses turn their heads and then they turn back and there's a blokey there. They also use splatting mud-bombs off the window. THAT pissed me off, because that's the sort of thing that a director would think of for scary people to do ('Let's have them throwing mud, that's really scary?'), but then it's in Ils, this film reeks of Ils, so as soon as it happened I had my hands in the air shouting 'HAWEY, MAN!'. There is one scene that is really really shocking, especially for an american horror about marriage trauma. It involves stabbing. It's quite hard to watch. But it doesn't rescue the film at all.
Don't see it, unless you have 90 minutes to sell your soul. Unless you're a lass, lasses like shit like this, but don't pay to see it, just download it.
I like puzzles. I like riddles. I'm not very good at them but I like them nonetheless. I like that mental challenge and agony you get when you can't solve a puzzle, like Lisa in 'Lisa The Simpson'. This film contains that very puzzle that stumps Lisa Simpson. In the wake of the Da Vinci Code, puzzle related who-dun-it's seem popular in trashy literature. They obviously already existed but that novel-cum-screenplay hit the big time, and became every charvas favourite book eva. This film is in a similar vein, an adaptation of a book centred around murders linked by a series of symbols, seemingly impossible to solve to the general public but palpable to the protagonists, who whilst cocky, shall be stumped.
The film itself is good. I like the story, it's also got boobs in it. To quote the film, 'Every enigma is obvious once you know the solution'. Once you get the 'who-dun-it', you say to yourself, gosh that is SO obvious, but this being a puzzle film, it goes a little deeper. There are needless romances in this film, and a character clearly adapted from the book that has little to do with the story but somehow manages to play a major role. There are hints of jealousy, vengeance and guilt, but they are never explored fully, as the film tries to steer away from a character piece and back towards a murder-mystery. It's clever in the end, it hits you and then you start to unravel that obvious answer you'd worked out earlier in the film, but it's not jaw-dropping enough to make an impact in the world of twist cinema.
There are some shockingly terrible films that have good twists, Secret Window being one of them, but this is the opposite, it's a good film with a weak twist. It's not worth buying unless you collect films about mathematical theorums, but even then they manage to get Fermat's name wrong. I'm convinced Habitacion de Fermat will be similar but better, an upcoming murder mystery film about Fermat's equation, but for now The Oxford Murders will do.
Every night I usually stick a film on to download, so that by the morning it should be ready for me to watch. I've been battered into watching The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky's sci-fi picture. Many a person has told me I'd enjoy it, and that I should watch it. I like Aronofsky's other work, Pi and Requiem For A Dream, so I gave it a shot.
This film is very wierd. Most of it centres around Tommy Creo, a modern day scientist trying out cures for a brain tumour on monkeys so that he can cure his wife. Inside of this, his wife is writing a story about Conquistadors, influenced by Mayan mythology, which parallels the 'real world' in many ways. The opening, and severel moments of the film centre around Tom, an ecospherical astronaut trying to resurrect the Tree of Life by floating towards Xibalba, a golden nebula which is the Mayan underworld.
I love mythology, I'd dedicate my life to exploring legend and lore if I had the money, and I could be arsed. The only thing I got from university was a passion for Arthurian legend and viking mythology. I've yet to explore them but I'd ideally like to do it soon, I need to get me a library card. This film uses it so well, from the Spanish exploring the new world, to find the tree of life, which could be the Tree of Life from Genesis, the Tree of Life from mayan mythology, or Yggdrasil, the tree of Life in Norse mythology. This tree is also used in the real world, with strippings of bark from a Guatemalan tree holding properties of youth and regeneration. And the future story focusses on Tom keeping this tree alive, and giving it the re-birth it cannot produce for itself.
This film is fantastic, in parts it reminds me of Boorman's Excalibur, a film which I watched at university and adored. In other parts, it's out and out 2001:A Space Odyssey. And then the rest is just a story of love, passion, and death. It's a beautiful piece of cinema, upon researching it I found out that Aronofsky's budget was cut due to an earlier and failed attempt to produce the film with Brad Pitt in Hugh Jackman's role as Tom/Tomas/Tommy. This meant he could not have as great a CGI budget, which the film definately requires, but instead he used Micro-photography to great huge space-like environments that were actually microscopic zooms of chemicals, and it works so well, as it ties into the scientific nature of Tommy's life.
I won't drag on about it. If you like 2001, you'll like this. If you're interested in mythology, you'll love this. And if you're like me, and like to drag the lake that is Wikipedia for hours on end after watching a film, even if you don't particularly like it, you'll love this.
On another note, last night I watched Swingers. I never EVER thought I'd tire of coolness being referred to as 'the money', but this film REALLY over uses it. Otherwise, it's alright, it's like Sideways for teenagers, Vince Vaughn doing what he does best, which is give people lectures in a nice way by arguing with himself really fast without taking a breath. I fell asleep before the end of the film, but if what I think is going to happen happens, it's crap, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll see what Favreau has in store for me.
