The Movie: Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters, directed by Bill Couturie
Recommendation: Me
Reason: A documentary about what makes movies great, and what makes them bad! Finally, some insight!
I'm developing some really awesome hindsight here. It's like...I didn't need to see this movie. Like I already knew most of the 'amazing revelations' about the creative process. Maybe it's just my work as an admittedly unsuccessful writer, maybe it's my developing love of film. Maybe it's just that a lot of what the interviewed artists talked about was common sense. Yes, in fact, you do need a good script, a good director and some good actors to make a successful movie. However, the people in the film seem to have confused 'good' with 'famous'. They kept pushing out Nia Vardalos and John Singleton as though the pair of them were idiot savants when their first films were as good as they were. As though Vardalos wasn't a good writer, and Singleton wasn't a good director.
For a documentary that claimed it was going to address what makes movies flop, they didn't discuss a lot of flops. They talked a lot about some really great movies, and how those films were almost never made because of strange concepts or off-the-wall casting, but aside from some good natured ribbing about Howard the Duck and Morgan Freeman's soundbite about Bonfire of the Vanities, there wasn't a lot more ammo fired at the movies that sounded great on paper, but blew it at the box office. They didn't talk to the Coen brothers, so obviously they couldn't discuss The Ladykillers. Nobody asked Tarantino what he thought, so he couldn't really address the success of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill versus the relative failure of Jackie Brown. No Robert Rodriguez, who could have offered an interesting perspective on filmmaking for children versus filmmaking for adults. I could go on about the silliness of leaving off M. Night Shyamalan (to examine how ego annihilates otherwise potentially good filmd) or Baz Luhrmann (though they did at least address the unlikely success of Moulin Rouge).
If you're new to the film industry and want to hear a few tidbits about box office unpredictability and some anecdotes about Jaws (because they talk about Jaws a LOT), then sure, watch this. If you're not new or you don't have your ears plugged and your eyes closed, find something else. If anyone has any suggestions along that vein, I'm all ears.
-46/365 down, 319/365 to go
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
It's like The Craft, only with boys
The Movie: The Covenant, directed by Renny Harlin
Reccomendation: Broomie
Reason: See the review title.
Picture this. It's 1998. They're making The Craft 2. They cast Joshua Jackson, Shane West, Devon Sawa and Seth Green as boy witches. As a villian, they've chosen...I dunno, Barry Watson. They rip the plot from The Craft, but make it with boys this time. Things explode. Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell make a cameo appearance, possibly playing wise mentors or older sisters to the young warlocks. A good time is had by all. That's the movie I was imagining in my head when I first heard word of The Covenant. That is not the movie I saw tonight.
There are a lot of things wrong with The Covenant. The leads are uncharismatic and cannot act. The lead girl was a shining example of how to take the audience entirely out of the movie with a poor performance. None of the characters were distinct enough to care about-even the villain managed to be both unsympathetic and completely moronic. The plot was muddled and pointless. The camera work was distracting and the special effects were awful. While I was imagining Joshua Jackson snarling the lead's lines, putting up his dukes and maybe throwing around some fireballs, the lead was actually whipping around bad liquid effects. Also, the whole 'jumping off a really high thing and landing in a crouch, then walking off like a total badass' was badass when Kate Beckinsdale did it in Underworld, in 2003. It is no longer badass, even when you do it three times in one movie.
As you can tell, I didn't like the flick. It was pretty subpar, so I'll stick with my imagined movie full of 90's Teenbeat coverboys who could actually occasionally act, instead of 2000's crop of whiny emoboys. And I would've totally cast Claire Danes as the lead girl. That's just how I roll.
-8/365 down, 357/365 to go
Reccomendation: Broomie
Reason: See the review title.
Picture this. It's 1998. They're making The Craft 2. They cast Joshua Jackson, Shane West, Devon Sawa and Seth Green as boy witches. As a villian, they've chosen...I dunno, Barry Watson. They rip the plot from The Craft, but make it with boys this time. Things explode. Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell make a cameo appearance, possibly playing wise mentors or older sisters to the young warlocks. A good time is had by all. That's the movie I was imagining in my head when I first heard word of The Covenant. That is not the movie I saw tonight.
There are a lot of things wrong with The Covenant. The leads are uncharismatic and cannot act. The lead girl was a shining example of how to take the audience entirely out of the movie with a poor performance. None of the characters were distinct enough to care about-even the villain managed to be both unsympathetic and completely moronic. The plot was muddled and pointless. The camera work was distracting and the special effects were awful. While I was imagining Joshua Jackson snarling the lead's lines, putting up his dukes and maybe throwing around some fireballs, the lead was actually whipping around bad liquid effects. Also, the whole 'jumping off a really high thing and landing in a crouch, then walking off like a total badass' was badass when Kate Beckinsdale did it in Underworld, in 2003. It is no longer badass, even when you do it three times in one movie.
As you can tell, I didn't like the flick. It was pretty subpar, so I'll stick with my imagined movie full of 90's Teenbeat coverboys who could actually occasionally act, instead of 2000's crop of whiny emoboys. And I would've totally cast Claire Danes as the lead girl. That's just how I roll.
-8/365 down, 357/365 to go
Monday, January 8, 2007
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the rain
Movie: Blood Creature, aka Terror is a Man, aka Creature from Blood Island, aka Island of Terror, aka The Gory Creatures, directed by Gerardo de Leon
Reccomendation: Dee
Reason: "Hahahahahahahaha!" -direct quote.
Sometimes I'm glad I've seen certain bad movies. I'm gleeful that I've seen Forrest Gump recently-it won't be part of this experiment, as I finally saw the entire movie last year. I'm even happier tonight to report that in 1997 I was a rather huge fan of Val Kilmer and Fairuza Balk. In my youthful innocence, I subjected myself to The Island of Dr. Moreau. Blood Creature is The Island of Dr. Moreau's hideous Girl Friday. From the horrible editing to the hideous pacing, Blood Creature was hilariously awful.
Special mention needs to be given to the individual responsible for the foley on this picture. I have never before (and never again hope to) heard the ocean represented by what sounded like a soup bowl of water, and the evocative use of potato chips instead of leaves managed to block out almost every other sound in several scenes. Even the rain proved deafening-in some movies this can be beneficial. In Blood Creature, it definitely wasn't.
The message of the movie is the same as that of Dr. Moreau-do not mess in the affairs of human-animal hybrids, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. At least that's what I think it was-the editing was so choppy and rough that it was hard to understand what was happening from scene to scene. Not that it really mattered, of course. It was funny either way. Though we were going to make an attempt at the second movie on the disc, after Blood Creature, we've decided not to risk our sanity further. Werewolf in the Girls Dormitory, you'll have to wait for another day.
-4/365 down, 361/365 to go
Reccomendation: Dee
Reason: "Hahahahahahahaha!" -direct quote.
Sometimes I'm glad I've seen certain bad movies. I'm gleeful that I've seen Forrest Gump recently-it won't be part of this experiment, as I finally saw the entire movie last year. I'm even happier tonight to report that in 1997 I was a rather huge fan of Val Kilmer and Fairuza Balk. In my youthful innocence, I subjected myself to The Island of Dr. Moreau. Blood Creature is The Island of Dr. Moreau's hideous Girl Friday. From the horrible editing to the hideous pacing, Blood Creature was hilariously awful.
Special mention needs to be given to the individual responsible for the foley on this picture. I have never before (and never again hope to) heard the ocean represented by what sounded like a soup bowl of water, and the evocative use of potato chips instead of leaves managed to block out almost every other sound in several scenes. Even the rain proved deafening-in some movies this can be beneficial. In Blood Creature, it definitely wasn't.
The message of the movie is the same as that of Dr. Moreau-do not mess in the affairs of human-animal hybrids, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. At least that's what I think it was-the editing was so choppy and rough that it was hard to understand what was happening from scene to scene. Not that it really mattered, of course. It was funny either way. Though we were going to make an attempt at the second movie on the disc, after Blood Creature, we've decided not to risk our sanity further. Werewolf in the Girls Dormitory, you'll have to wait for another day.
-4/365 down, 361/365 to go
Saturday, January 6, 2007
My Immortals
The movie: The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky
Reccomendation: Me.
Reason: I like Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman quite a bit, both as actors and as pretty faces. I am also a fan of science fiction.
I left The Fountain twenty minutes ago and I'm still not quite certain what to say about it. It was not a movie to be watched with the brain turned off-I found it quite profound in both the statements it made about immortality and the quest for such, and the delicate nature of life and death. I've already decided to see it again, and I'm positive it will hold up on the second time around. The movie centers around three plots that run parallel to one another, taking place in different times and different places, with the same goals and even the same relationships flowing throughout. It's hard to say more about The Fountain than that, however, without meandering off into ramblings.
A huge part of the stroke of genius this movie is stems from the visual poetry created by the effects and the camerawork. The rich landscapes the movie settles its characters into magnify the emotional resonance of each scene. Again, it's difficult to capture in words an experience that was so wonderfully visual. The look of the movie was designed to provoke thought, to stimulate the viewer into further contemplation of the message.
As I had hoped, Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman really delivered in this movie. I'm a fan of each actor for different reasons, but I felt that both truly disappeared into their characters. I never believed I'd be able to say that about Hugh Jackman in particular, but he was more than up to the challenge of the roles he was called on to play in this piece. He managed some unexpected subtlety, and I'm looking forward to more such work in the future from him. Rachel Weisz was her usual shining best, gorgeous to look at and expert in her portrayals. I think I could gush about her forever, and I probably will. The second movie of 2007 was truly a phenomenal experience.
-2/365 done, 363/365 to go
Reccomendation: Me.
Reason: I like Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman quite a bit, both as actors and as pretty faces. I am also a fan of science fiction.
I left The Fountain twenty minutes ago and I'm still not quite certain what to say about it. It was not a movie to be watched with the brain turned off-I found it quite profound in both the statements it made about immortality and the quest for such, and the delicate nature of life and death. I've already decided to see it again, and I'm positive it will hold up on the second time around. The movie centers around three plots that run parallel to one another, taking place in different times and different places, with the same goals and even the same relationships flowing throughout. It's hard to say more about The Fountain than that, however, without meandering off into ramblings.
A huge part of the stroke of genius this movie is stems from the visual poetry created by the effects and the camerawork. The rich landscapes the movie settles its characters into magnify the emotional resonance of each scene. Again, it's difficult to capture in words an experience that was so wonderfully visual. The look of the movie was designed to provoke thought, to stimulate the viewer into further contemplation of the message.
As I had hoped, Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman really delivered in this movie. I'm a fan of each actor for different reasons, but I felt that both truly disappeared into their characters. I never believed I'd be able to say that about Hugh Jackman in particular, but he was more than up to the challenge of the roles he was called on to play in this piece. He managed some unexpected subtlety, and I'm looking forward to more such work in the future from him. Rachel Weisz was her usual shining best, gorgeous to look at and expert in her portrayals. I think I could gush about her forever, and I probably will. The second movie of 2007 was truly a phenomenal experience.
-2/365 done, 363/365 to go
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Glitches and Ghoulies and Ghosts, Oh My!
The movie: Pulse, based on the Japanese horror movie Kairo, directed by Jim Sonzero.
Reccomendation: Me.
Reason: I have a special fondness for horror movies that are remakes of Asian horror movies. They're either awesome (The Ring) or they're terrible (Dark Water) but they never fail to be entertaining.
The first movie of the year is Pulse, though there were several attempts at other selections. However, my roommate got bored and picked it up at the video store. Bless his little heart. Pulse was an interesting case of misleading advertising. I approached the movie from the angle of 'another Asian Horror movie with freaky ghosts and technology'. That's how it was marketed, at least in all the promos I saw. Instead, it became a spectral apocalypse, brought about by the technology we rely on every day. (This is not a spoiler of any real magnitude-the apocalypse happens round about the second act.)
Kristen Bell carried the movie fairly capably. She was a little bland, but more than made up for many of the supporting cast. In particular, she played several key scenes very well, with a sort of subtle sense of realism in her portrayal. She was slightly more vulnerable than most Final Girls, a little less sure of herself. It was refreshing. Male lead Ian Somerhalder was very pretty. He played the part he was supposed to play. It wasn't a performance that will lead to any accolades, but he was solid. The supporting cast was so-so, each of them having a few brief shining moments, but overall they were forgettable.
The effects were fairly standard for a movie that follows this vein. Jittery camerawork, psuedo-electronic interference and a lot of heavy makeup made the ghosts both like and unlike anything most western audiences have seen before. I was quite intrigued by the background sound, however, and particularily impressed by the frequent subtle use of modem and computer noises instead of music. The story was interesting, taking the idea of 'ghost in the machine' and playing about with it.
Overall, due to an interesting plot, decent acting, interesting effects and a few very cool little touches, I'd definitely rewatch Pulse and I wouldn't mind having it on my shelves. File it under Spooky.
-1/365 done, 364/365 to go.
Reccomendation: Me.
Reason: I have a special fondness for horror movies that are remakes of Asian horror movies. They're either awesome (The Ring) or they're terrible (Dark Water) but they never fail to be entertaining.
The first movie of the year is Pulse, though there were several attempts at other selections. However, my roommate got bored and picked it up at the video store. Bless his little heart. Pulse was an interesting case of misleading advertising. I approached the movie from the angle of 'another Asian Horror movie with freaky ghosts and technology'. That's how it was marketed, at least in all the promos I saw. Instead, it became a spectral apocalypse, brought about by the technology we rely on every day. (This is not a spoiler of any real magnitude-the apocalypse happens round about the second act.)
Kristen Bell carried the movie fairly capably. She was a little bland, but more than made up for many of the supporting cast. In particular, she played several key scenes very well, with a sort of subtle sense of realism in her portrayal. She was slightly more vulnerable than most Final Girls, a little less sure of herself. It was refreshing. Male lead Ian Somerhalder was very pretty. He played the part he was supposed to play. It wasn't a performance that will lead to any accolades, but he was solid. The supporting cast was so-so, each of them having a few brief shining moments, but overall they were forgettable.
The effects were fairly standard for a movie that follows this vein. Jittery camerawork, psuedo-electronic interference and a lot of heavy makeup made the ghosts both like and unlike anything most western audiences have seen before. I was quite intrigued by the background sound, however, and particularily impressed by the frequent subtle use of modem and computer noises instead of music. The story was interesting, taking the idea of 'ghost in the machine' and playing about with it.
Overall, due to an interesting plot, decent acting, interesting effects and a few very cool little touches, I'd definitely rewatch Pulse and I wouldn't mind having it on my shelves. File it under Spooky.
-1/365 done, 364/365 to go.
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