a quick rundown of the stuff I've seen recently...
from Netflix...
Amelie. Wonderful. It reminded my why I liked all my friends from the art department at Montevallo so much. An encouragement to find pure delight in all that ordinary life has to offer. Technically, extremely well done (sorry for that bit of obvious info). People have told me that they think this was the first film to experiment with color grading the way that this film did, but I disagree... every French film I've seen has been treated similarly... City of Lost Children, which came much earlier looked very similar, Delicatessen... also looked similar. That said, Im not trying to take anything away from the look of Amelie, it looked wonderful, there are just a lot of other films that also look like this that came out before it. All in all A+, and if anyone has a friend that reminds them of Amelie (the character, not the movie itself) feel free to introduce me to her.
Coheed and Cambria: The Last Supper: Live from the Hammerstein Ballroom. So good you'll probably crap on yourself. (that is if you are a Coheed fan... if not then you probably will find it annoying or boring)
Rushmore. Wes Anderson's second movie (I think). You know, I want to like Anderson's stuff a whole lot, but I just don't. I love the Life Aquatic, and the Royal Tennanbaums was ok (a controversial statement I know), I thought Bottle Rocket was incredibly boring, and Rushmore had some ok parts, but I won't be upset if I never see it again. Maybe his stuff will grow on me but for now, I'm just not too impressed.
Borat. Funny in some parts, but overall I was disappointed. The Ali G. show; much funnier.
The Departed. Loved it... and I did see it before all the Oscar buzz. The music was cool... I actually went out and bought some Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphy's after watching it. It had an interesting story, great acting, unconventional editing (that won an Oscar... and yes, I thought the editing was unconventional before it won), and was just plain cool. I can't help but equate any organized crime flick set in Boston with the Boondock Saints, which I think is probably more original than the Departed also, so though I loved it, it felt a little like eating week old leftovers, but the good kind of leftovers... say dressing from Thanksgiving, that you enjoy eating because it is just inherently good, but the taste of it only reminds you how much better was last Thursday. The Departed... great. The Boondock Saints... awesome.
The Science of Sleep... got it the week it came out on DVD and loved it all over again. I wrote about it earlier so check that out for more detailed info.... or just watch it for yourself.
Thank You for Smoking. It was funny, that's about all I remember.
In the theater...
The Number 23. I love seeing Jim Carrey not making an idiot of himself (though I love that too). The story wasn't quite what I thought it would be. From the previews it seemed like it would be some linear progression of Carrey's character moving from fun loving family man to murderer. What actually happened was much more interesting than that. I don't know how to explain the plot without being a spoiler, so I just won't try, and I don't like recapping movies on here anyway. It was an interesting story, and Jim Carrey was fantastic. I also liked the opening titles a lot... I generally do though. Opening Titles are probably the most design intensive part of any movie; worthy of people's attention.
300. I didn't think I would like it, but I did, but I didn't love it. I heard that it was going to be a lot like Sin City, which I also didn't like, because people said that it was directed by the same guy.... which is misleading. Robert Rodriguez co-directed Sin City with Frank Miller, the artist/writer/creator of the graphic novel (adult comic book) Sin City. Im not sure how it all panned out with Sin City, but I seem to remember Miller being involved to preserve the comic book like look for the movie, and the actual direction being done by Rodriguez. So all that to say, I know that Rodriguez had no part in 300 so to say that it was from the same director kind of is misleading... but 300, I found out right before going to see it, is also based off of an adult comic book, by Miller, and I suspect he had a similar role in the making of this film, to preserve the look, not so much actually direct the actors. But I do think that in both movies, shot composition and all that junk was based very heavily on the layout of frames from the graphic novels. Comic Books are fairly interesting because they walk through very complex scenes one frame at a time. Its got to be difficult to capture the entire emotion of a scene in one frame.
Anyway... I was surprised by the fact that there was actually some plot to the movie. I thought it was going to be all visual effects and nothing else. I'm not a huge fan of stories that tell me that I'm only a man if I'm willing to kill everyone around me for not agreeing with my ideas. Im not sure I can fit this one into that category or not. They sure killed a lot of folk, thats all I know.
GrindHouse. The most fun you can have for 3.5 hours in a theater. Planet Terror (directed by Rodriguez) was pretty stinkin' fun. Zombies that squirted ooze on people to spread their disease, lots of guns, over the top blood and guts when zombies got shot, and "missing reels" all added up to a very funny movie (if you think over the top violence and other offensive things are funny) What I didn't like about this half of GrindHouse was all the extra film grain and scratches they added in post to make it look crappy like it was shot in the 70's... I know that was the idea, but it just made me mad. It made the film look like crap, they could have left out about 75% of the dirt they added to their digital effects shots, to make it look like film. If I were directing it, I would have just shot it all on 16mm, crap film stock, and left it alone. Be a little messy in post if you want it to look like it was made 30 years ago. Don't shoot 35 or HD (not sure which they did), make it look pristine, then spend more time adding a bunch of dirt and grain back on top of it to make it look "authentic." Anyway that's my soapbox on that, but still very funny.
DeathProof... Tarantino's half of Grindhouse, was extremely boring about 90% of the time... just Tarantio showing off his skill for writing dialogue and really nothing else happening. But, the 10% where action is going on ruled. And some of the dialogue was great. Stuntman Mike was an awesome character, and his lines were awesome. But when the 4 actress girls came into play, I could have done without most of their "development." Though Zoe was a great character. Overall, I thought that this was a short film that they felt the need to stretch into an hour and a half. Honestly about 45 minutes of it would have been more than enough. I thought it was shot beautifully... Tarantino is talented, not just in writing, but a great DP. The stunt scenes were amazing, and I really think that's what Tarantio was going after. There were also some surprises as far as editing, which were hilarious. In the end people in the theater were cheering and clapping... I've never seen that happen before. So Quintin, Robert, kudos on the great idea of two films for the price of one and having the guts to make movies that are just plain fun. Oh and the fake trailers, were awesome. Long live Machete.
Amelie. Wonderful. It reminded my why I liked all my friends from the art department at Montevallo so much. An encouragement to find pure delight in all that ordinary life has to offer. Technically, extremely well done (sorry for that bit of obvious info). People have told me that they think this was the first film to experiment with color grading the way that this film did, but I disagree... every French film I've seen has been treated similarly... City of Lost Children, which came much earlier looked very similar, Delicatessen... also looked similar. That said, Im not trying to take anything away from the look of Amelie, it looked wonderful, there are just a lot of other films that also look like this that came out before it. All in all A+, and if anyone has a friend that reminds them of Amelie (the character, not the movie itself) feel free to introduce me to her.
Coheed and Cambria: The Last Supper: Live from the Hammerstein Ballroom. So good you'll probably crap on yourself. (that is if you are a Coheed fan... if not then you probably will find it annoying or boring)
Rushmore. Wes Anderson's second movie (I think). You know, I want to like Anderson's stuff a whole lot, but I just don't. I love the Life Aquatic, and the Royal Tennanbaums was ok (a controversial statement I know), I thought Bottle Rocket was incredibly boring, and Rushmore had some ok parts, but I won't be upset if I never see it again. Maybe his stuff will grow on me but for now, I'm just not too impressed.
Borat. Funny in some parts, but overall I was disappointed. The Ali G. show; much funnier.
The Departed. Loved it... and I did see it before all the Oscar buzz. The music was cool... I actually went out and bought some Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphy's after watching it. It had an interesting story, great acting, unconventional editing (that won an Oscar... and yes, I thought the editing was unconventional before it won), and was just plain cool. I can't help but equate any organized crime flick set in Boston with the Boondock Saints, which I think is probably more original than the Departed also, so though I loved it, it felt a little like eating week old leftovers, but the good kind of leftovers... say dressing from Thanksgiving, that you enjoy eating because it is just inherently good, but the taste of it only reminds you how much better was last Thursday. The Departed... great. The Boondock Saints... awesome.
The Science of Sleep... got it the week it came out on DVD and loved it all over again. I wrote about it earlier so check that out for more detailed info.... or just watch it for yourself.
Thank You for Smoking. It was funny, that's about all I remember.
In the theater...
The Number 23. I love seeing Jim Carrey not making an idiot of himself (though I love that too). The story wasn't quite what I thought it would be. From the previews it seemed like it would be some linear progression of Carrey's character moving from fun loving family man to murderer. What actually happened was much more interesting than that. I don't know how to explain the plot without being a spoiler, so I just won't try, and I don't like recapping movies on here anyway. It was an interesting story, and Jim Carrey was fantastic. I also liked the opening titles a lot... I generally do though. Opening Titles are probably the most design intensive part of any movie; worthy of people's attention.
300. I didn't think I would like it, but I did, but I didn't love it. I heard that it was going to be a lot like Sin City, which I also didn't like, because people said that it was directed by the same guy.... which is misleading. Robert Rodriguez co-directed Sin City with Frank Miller, the artist/writer/creator of the graphic novel (adult comic book) Sin City. Im not sure how it all panned out with Sin City, but I seem to remember Miller being involved to preserve the comic book like look for the movie, and the actual direction being done by Rodriguez. So all that to say, I know that Rodriguez had no part in 300 so to say that it was from the same director kind of is misleading... but 300, I found out right before going to see it, is also based off of an adult comic book, by Miller, and I suspect he had a similar role in the making of this film, to preserve the look, not so much actually direct the actors. But I do think that in both movies, shot composition and all that junk was based very heavily on the layout of frames from the graphic novels. Comic Books are fairly interesting because they walk through very complex scenes one frame at a time. Its got to be difficult to capture the entire emotion of a scene in one frame.
Anyway... I was surprised by the fact that there was actually some plot to the movie. I thought it was going to be all visual effects and nothing else. I'm not a huge fan of stories that tell me that I'm only a man if I'm willing to kill everyone around me for not agreeing with my ideas. Im not sure I can fit this one into that category or not. They sure killed a lot of folk, thats all I know.
GrindHouse. The most fun you can have for 3.5 hours in a theater. Planet Terror (directed by Rodriguez) was pretty stinkin' fun. Zombies that squirted ooze on people to spread their disease, lots of guns, over the top blood and guts when zombies got shot, and "missing reels" all added up to a very funny movie (if you think over the top violence and other offensive things are funny) What I didn't like about this half of GrindHouse was all the extra film grain and scratches they added in post to make it look crappy like it was shot in the 70's... I know that was the idea, but it just made me mad. It made the film look like crap, they could have left out about 75% of the dirt they added to their digital effects shots, to make it look like film. If I were directing it, I would have just shot it all on 16mm, crap film stock, and left it alone. Be a little messy in post if you want it to look like it was made 30 years ago. Don't shoot 35 or HD (not sure which they did), make it look pristine, then spend more time adding a bunch of dirt and grain back on top of it to make it look "authentic." Anyway that's my soapbox on that, but still very funny.
DeathProof... Tarantino's half of Grindhouse, was extremely boring about 90% of the time... just Tarantio showing off his skill for writing dialogue and really nothing else happening. But, the 10% where action is going on ruled. And some of the dialogue was great. Stuntman Mike was an awesome character, and his lines were awesome. But when the 4 actress girls came into play, I could have done without most of their "development." Though Zoe was a great character. Overall, I thought that this was a short film that they felt the need to stretch into an hour and a half. Honestly about 45 minutes of it would have been more than enough. I thought it was shot beautifully... Tarantino is talented, not just in writing, but a great DP. The stunt scenes were amazing, and I really think that's what Tarantio was going after. There were also some surprises as far as editing, which were hilarious. In the end people in the theater were cheering and clapping... I've never seen that happen before. So Quintin, Robert, kudos on the great idea of two films for the price of one and having the guts to make movies that are just plain fun. Oh and the fake trailers, were awesome. Long live Machete.
LOVED Amelie - a fantastic flick. And I really enjoyed Thank You for Smoking - I am planning on reading the book at some point - I hear it's even better.
I am a Wes Anderson fan (as I think I've addressed before - Bottle Rocket was a regular in the rotation back in high school when it first came out, so I've been on board since the beginning, thanks to a friend). I saw on the NY Times website that he has two more slated to come out either late this year or early next year.
Anyway, Rushmore was the worst of his movies thus far, in my opinion. (Note that I haven't seen The Squid and the Whale yet, but I think he only produced that one, so that's a different category from these that we writes, directs, and produces, in my mind.) But I do love them all, especially Life Aquatic. Good stuff.
I haven't seen any of the other movies you listed. Our DVD players haven't been cooperating lately, so I'm falling behind...
Posted by
DS in Southside |
9:33 AM