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Posted on November 11th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Entertainment, Movies.
Set your fanboy to kill… here is JJ Abrams version of the beloved USS Enterprise NCC-1701!
Now, I have already seen a bunch of whining and gnashing of teeth, but some people just need to get over it. This is like BSG, a re-imagined (althought much more closely than Galactica) version of the original series. I loved the original, and still watch it, but come on… did you people expect things to be as they were?
The bridge… with Kirk, Spock, Sulu, and McCoy… “I like it a lot.”
I am finally starting to have hope for the franchise!
Posted on August 5th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Entertainment, Movies.
Sunshine is a scifi flick that centers around an expedition (Icarus II) which is sent to our dying sun to restart it. This is the second attempt that’s being made the first Icarus having disappeared. The movie is beautifully shot and the cast is first rate. The idea that mankind faced with extinction would be so bold as to embark on such a grandiose mission is at the heart of the story. The sun and the enormity of it as compared to the frailty and smallness of human beings is overwhelming to some of the crew and there is a fair attempt made to explore character issues surrounding that. I think the movie would have been better had they maintained that focus but they add an adventure element to the last third of the movie that is a little disappointing. Still, the film is amazing from a visual standpoint and the deeper meanings explored offer food for thought. It’s an engaging ride… and if you can put yourself into the shoes of the characters for even just a portion of the story it becomes all the more powerful. It’s unfortunate that this movie bombed at the box office, it deserved better than it got and should not have been released as a summer blockbuster. It’s not that kind of a film. If you haven’t seen this movie give it a go and rent it. If you have Bluray all the better, I bet it looks awesome on the format. Here is the main “theme” with clips from ‘Sunshine’:
‘The Fountain’ explores some of the themes that are contained in ‘Sunshine’ and is also shot beautifully. The movie is very deep and a lot of people do not get its meaning. At the center of it all is the story of a couple that are in love but the wife is dying. The husband is a scientist that is looking for a cure to her illness and a way to overcome death in general. There are three distinct story lines interwoven throughout the film. If you don’t understand from the start that this movie is an exploration into love vs. death you won’t “get it”. The three story lines (at least for me) deal with the ways that humanity has sought to overcome mortality. The conquistador deals with the mystical and religious elements, the modern day Tommy deals with the scientific and medical ways we’ve tried to overcome death and then we go to the future where enlightenment and acceptance open the doors to the true meaning of life and death, and how love is central to both. Unfortunately, we as a species are only to the point in our evolution where we look to science for the answers. The movie offers us the hope that we’ll someday come to a point where we understand and accept the natural order of things. This isn’t a popcorn flick. If you’re not ready to think then do yourself a favor and avoid this movie like the plague. If you can embrace the existential then this is a must see. The imagery throughout is stunning and I cannot wait until we have our projector so I can watch this sucker on a big screen. The visuals are just stunning. Jackman and Weisz are both excellent in their roles. You can catch this thing on HBO every couple of months and it’s worth a look.
Both of these movies are of the love em or hate em variety. I happen to love em.
Posted on July 31st, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Entertainment, Movies.
Yeah I know, it was a pretty strange movie and most people don’t get the attraction but when I was a kid there were two movies that inspired computer geeks everywhere. One was Wargames and the other was Tron. Now comes this leaked footage of the long awaited Tron sequel TR2N from ComicCon. Notice, Jeff Bridges is back… also notice how damn cool the effects look! Hang in with the video, it clears up pretty nicely at about 39 seconds in. This is obviously footage from some geek’s handheld. Speaking of geeks, listen to the shouts of glee when it hits all of these nerds that this is TRON! I can’t laugh too hard… I was cheering at home!
Enjoy!
Posted on July 19th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Entertainment, Movies.
I couldn’t resist, I was going to hold out for Imax but the hype was just too great and I didn’t want to be spoiled as to plot details… so I had to see “The Dark Knight” this afternoon. Is it the greatest superhero movie ever made? Yes. Why? In a word, consequences. Sure there have been other superhero movies that have made attempts at the whole consequences thing, but none have ever dared to tread this deep. I know it sounds absurd considering we’re talking about a movie based on a comic book but the prices paid by the “heros” (not just Batman, but his less showy sidekicks like Gordon and Dent as well) are absolute. Their pursuit of justice at any cost bites back at them and exacts its toll.
Taking down a bunch of mob goons and a dope pushing Scarecrow is the order of business in Gotham when the movie starts and Batman and his merry band of accomplices have an easy time of it. They’re hitting the bad guys where it hurts, their wallets. Why engage in a life of crime if you’re not even going to get to enjoy the spoils? Eventhough the prosecution of the lead man of the crime syndicate goes south, it still seems like things are actually heading in a positive direction where it concerns Gotham. That is until the Joker shows up.
I cannot say enough good things about Ledger’s performance. The guy took the character and made it his own. The Joker is not cartoonish, he’s psychotic… but he’s anything but nuts. On the contrary he’s brilliant playing both the mob and law enforcement (Batman included) for chumps. He’s always a few steps ahead but his motives aren’t singular. He’s not just about beating you, he’s about making you give up every principle you’ve ever claimed to hold dear. To his credit, The Joker manages to bring everybody down to his level, including the noble Harvey Dent and Batman himself.
The action sequences are not overblown. For the most part you believe that a lot of the stuff happening in the movie could happen in a world only slightly darker than our own. What is it about the last two Batman movies, both have included some of the best chase scenes ever filmed. Still it’s all about the people in this movie and the scene where Batman interrogates The Joker is excellent. They are mirror images and that’s the thing that you have to understand to truly embrace the movie. The Joker is no more impressed with the mob than Batman is. He just has a different way of dealing with all of them, choosing to dismantle them from within. He’ll destroy them through the exploitation of their greed. He’s all about making losers of everybody and he manages that in the end. There are no winners when this thing ends and I think that might be the one thing that distinguishes this superhero movie from all of the others. There is no happy ending. In fact, like “No Country For Old Men” there really isn’t an ending at all. Heroes are made villains… and we’re left to wonder, what’s next?
I cannot wait for the next one. I don’t know how they’ll manage to dig themselves out of this hole they’ve all been put into. The saddest thing though is when the credits start to roll and you realize that Ledger is gone and we’ll never see him as The Joker again. It’s a damned shame.
The direction is great, the movie crisply shot. The writing is excellent with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing eventhough you know some of the characters are doomed from the start. The soundtrack continues where “Batman Begins” left off with additional themes for The Joker and Harvey Dent. I really liked the manic menace of The Jokers theme, “Why So Serious?”. It starts the entire movie off with a bang. Watch some footage and listen to a bit of the theme here:
I’m not just recommending this movie, I am demanding that you go and see it. Yes, it’s that good.
Posted on May 20th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Entertainment, Movies.
Ah, yes… ‘Highlander’, (one of my favorites) is being redone by the folks that brought us ‘Iron Man’. Nice!
Summit Entertainment is bringing back to the big screen the 1986 sci-fi cult hit “Highlander,” with “Iron Man” co-writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway on board to pen the reimagining.
The original “Highlander” starred Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown as immortal beings battling among humans, hunting down one another and collecting more power. Lambert played Scottish swordsman Connor MacLeod, Connery an Egyptian and Clancy a barbarian known as the Kurgan. “There can be only one” was a line repeated throughout the film. The movie spawned four sequels and three television series.
Summit acquired the rights to remake the cult classic from Davis/Panzer Prods. Peter Davis, one of the original producers of the 1986 film, also will produce the new film.
I’ve always loved the Highlander mythos, so I am totally onboard with a reboot. With today’s special effects and the right script I can see this movie being a huge hit. It’s still a great little date movie to this day! I hope that they’ll use Eilean Donan Castle once again, as it holds a special fondness in my heart. You can read the entire story, here.
Posted on May 4th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Movies.
The family and I went to see ‘Iron Man’ yesterday afternoon. While I enjoyed it, I didn’t think it was deserving of the “rave” reviews. It’s a fun movie. It’s a “popcorn by the handful” kind of flick. It has all of the requisite “origin” story development required of a superhero film and the way in which they approach it is quite good. Still, I thought this movie was very hollow.
I think a lot of the issues I have with the movie surround the villains. I thought they were extremely weak. Jeff Bridges doing “The Dude” as a suit, didn’t really work for me. I thought he was one of the lamest elements of the story. The battle at the end of the film is mediocre at best. There really isn’t an emotional investment. I never buy off on the fact that these guys want to kill one another, and their hearts don’t seem to be in the game. Betrayals, the likes of which bring about the ending sequence would evoke from me a real anger. There was no anger in the finale of the film. It was smarmy one liners between punches. Where was the, “I’m going to tear your head off!” angst? Well I can tell you it wasn’t in the final moments of this movie.
On the positive side, Downey Jr. is excellent as Stark and Favreau has proven that he can handle the superhero genre. The special effects were first rate and the scene in which Iron Man faces off against a couple of fighters is great. There is something about the origin editions of these superhero films that always leaves them lacking. I guess the imaginations of the writers are constrained to explaining the why and the how so there isn’t much left to do after that. In an effort to show us where things might go, there is a short scene that rolls after the credits. STICK AROUND FOR IT, IF YOU ARE A FAN… it’s worth it! If you’re not a big fan… go ahead and leave, you won’t get the significance of the final scene anyway.
All in all, an adequate flick… but I think it is undeserving of the “best superhero flick ever” title that I hear people and critics tossing around.
Posted on January 28th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Entertainment, Movies.
I know, I should probably shut up about “No Country For Old Men”, but the movie is one of the better films to come out in a long while. Last night the film won two awards at the SAG Awards, best ensemble cast and best supporting actor. Since Javier Bardem is a whole lot of the reason why this rather generic subject matter seems unique, he surely deserves the kudos. If he had not played the part of Anton Chigurh with such menace, I doubt anybody would have given the film much notice. The man is the embodiment of a shark, just detached ruthlessness.
Congrats to everyone involved with this flick and here’s to hoping it gets some Oscar recognition as well. I haven’t cared who’s won what in Hollywood for so long, that it’s nice to have a film to root for!
Posted on January 19th, 2008 by Mark.
Categories: Movies.
Welp, I just got back from seeing Cloverfield. Honestly, half the reason why I went was to see the small teaser for Star Trek XI but I’m glad I did. From beginning to end Cloverfield entertains.
The movie starts off with somebody accessing US Dept of Defense footage of the “incident”. This footage is video obtained from a handheld videocamera that was used by some of the people running around the streets of New York the night that all hell broke loose. It starts with the footage that was on the camera and was unrelated to the attack on the city. It’s a nice way to introduce the audience to the people they’ll be dragged along with for the next hour or so. We attend a party, get the backstory on an angsty romance, etc. etc. The romance plays a part in why it is that the characters do what they do.
At the party things start to happen. Power goes on and off and the ground rumbles. People decide to go to the roof to see what’s going on. This is when we find out that the city is under attack from something. Panic ensues as people scramble down the stairs and out into the street, of course the filming continues.
We follow a group of five people as they try to make their way out of Manhattan. The camera shakes, bobbles and moves all over the place. I had to look away at certain points because I was literally getting ill from it. Still, it’s great fun following these people around on their harrowing journey.
I could get into details, but I won’t. Suffice it to say, this is a monster movie. When the wife and I left the theater, she remarked that she felt as if she had just been on a theme park ride. In a nutshell that sums it all up. If you like short, fast rides with little or no explanation… this is the flick for you. You don’t get a how, a why, or even a what happened… it’s just full throttle voyeurism.
Posted on December 15th, 2007 by Mark.
Categories: Movies.
I saw “No Country For Old Men” today. I’ve been meaning to see it for a while now and just haven’t gotten around to it. Got an early start on the day and towards the middle of it, we decided to go see a flick. I’m really glad I saw this movie on the big screen. It isn’t that I’m one of these film geeks that talks about camera angles and the way shots are setup. Honestly, if I spent a lot of time in consideration of how a movie was made, I’d likely enjoy them a lot less. The characters in this movie are for the most part standard fare, everyday folk in a strange situation. Where a lot of the dialogue fails expressions speak volumes. Think “Fargo”, another film done by the Coens.
The movie starts off with a narration by Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, in which he speaks of the horrible nature of a crime that’s been committed and how it’s a reflection of how the world has changed for the worse. This is the underlying moral of the film, an older man considering how the world has up and come apart. A drug deal goes bad in the desert. A bunch of Mexicans are catching flies in the middle of nowhere having gunned each other down.  Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) a “do nothing” is hunting antelope and manages to wound his prey but not outright kill it, so he sets off to track it. He comes across the scene of the deal gone badly, finds the drugs in one of the truck beds and smartly considers that somebody probably survived the shoot out and skipped off (on foot) with the buy money. Needless to say it doesn’t take long to find the money and the body of the one bandit that managed to get away but not far. Two million dollars in hand, Llewelyn heads back to his trailer.Â
Now I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that somebody is going to want this money back. If you’ve read a book or seen a movie that’s started this way, you already know what’s going to happen. Thankfully some originality is brought into the mix in the form of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who is hired to find the money. He’s a machine, nothing but a cold-blooded killer on a mission. I have to admit, Bardem manages to play one of the spookiest characters I’ve seen in a long time. Sure some of his dialogue is ridiculous. Sure his flipping of a coin is trite, but the man is intense. Additionally, he doesn’t use a standard type of weapon to kill; he uses a cattle gun, which ends up being a very nice touch.  I found myself thinking, I need to get me one of those.
The pursuit of the money and all of the side stories and murders in this film are actually the filler. At its heart this is a story about people. Tommy Lee Jones is excellent as the well-worn Sheriff Bell. His face is like a landscape and it helps that he seems to personify “experience”. He’s a man that’s seen enough. He decides to retire at the end of the film, but there is a great scene between the sheriff and his uncle. They discuss the death of another uncle back in 1909. Apparently Indians came and killed him at his door. The point being that the world really hasn’t changed all that much, horrible and violent acts have been committed throughout history, even their family’s history.
In the end when all is said and done, resolution really doesn’t come wrapped in a neat bow. We can only speculate about a good bit of what’s gone on. It isn’t laid out on a plate for you. Maybe that’s why I appreciated the movie so much… they didn’t chew it all up for you in order that it was easier to swallow.
I highly recommend this film but warn you in advance that there is a fair share of blood and violence.
Posted on December 7th, 2007 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, Just Dumb, Movies, News.
The Catholic League has once again come out and demanded the boycott of a film. This time it’s “The Golden Compass” that they are targeting. Why? Well, it seems that this movie has the power to suck the “faith” right out of an unwitting child’s mind. Yes, you read right. This movie, part of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman, is so anti-church that it will turn your hapless child against God!  How? Isn’t it OBVIOUS? The movie will cause your child to want to read these books and their (your children’s) very reading of the words contained therein will overturn your years of well cultivated indoctrination into the faith. Imagine that, your child unwittingly forced into believing something! Why, it’s an outrage!
The funny part is that I can see where the church might have some cause for concern. I mean, Philip Pullman is an unrepentant (pun intended) atheist that has as much as said that he hopes his books turn children against organized religion. It’s just a shame that the Catholic League chooses to deal with the matter in such a hysterical manner.  What they’ve ended up doing is making ”The Golden Compass” a news story. It’s great fun to watch idiots debate nonsense while fantastically enticing clips from the movie are played in the background. Hell, it’s even piqued my interest!
What is all of this fruitless angst? Why not simply say to your flock, “This film contains some subject matter that we find to be contrary to the teachings/philosophies of the church and if you go to see this movie, you should be prepared.” Why set off a media firestorm? Faith is attacked every day. Faith where religion is concerned is belief in the absence of definitive proof. Your children (assuming they have a brain) at some point will question the existence of God and the works of the church whether this movie was viewed or not. Should they abandon the church out of hand because a few priests are convicted of molestation? Should they abandon the church because it squirrels away priests it suspects of being molesters? Does the church not fear that its very behavior has alienated followers from the faith? I’m Catholic by birth but a Christian by choice and I do not fear those that challenge my beliefs. When they ask, “Why do you believe?” the answer is simple, “Because I choose to believe.” I owe them no explanation beyond that. Am I the most pious of fellows? Perhaps not, but like my faith it’s frankly nobody’s business but my own.
Considering what went on in Sudan with throngs of Muslims calling for a teacher’s death because she allowed her class to name a bear Muhammad, we should all just be glad that Pullman did not name one of the bears in this film Jesus. Where does the knee jerk reaction stop and the critical thought begin? The Catholic League has bought “The Golden Compass” publicity that it could never have afforded itself, and a curious public will go to see this film just to find out what all of the fuss is about. Mark my words; this movie will be a hit.
If you place religion and common sense on a scale you must be very careful, for too much of one, means not enough of the other! Â