Category — movies

I got a new TV a while back (finally, most of you say) and I added a PS3 to the lineup too to have a blu ray player as well. I switched my Netflix queue over to blu ray and got some flix in.

One of the first ones I watched was It Might Get Loud, a documentary about three guitar players- Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White.

Part of the movie made me mad that I don’t practice my guitar for three hours every day. Part of the movie made me wonder if this documentary came out of another project because parts of it seemed disjointed. When bits of Jimmy’s history and later The Edge’s, you really appreciate the times and adventures they went through. But for me, Jack White seemed out of place at times. Mostly because he’s so now (and I maybe unfairly discount growing up a poor white kid in Detroit post-White Flight  to the suburbs).

I’m not knocking the guy as a musician, but as a subject next to the other two he seemed out of place in the way that he hasn’t done as much as the other two. He does have the same love of music history and making music though. Maybe it’s because I can only think of about 10 songs he’s written where as the word “catalog” comes up when I think of The Edge and “encyclopedia” of what Page has played/written/been a part of.

I did see some interesting comments on line that differ from what I think- other people think The Edge is out of place in the three because he spends a lot of time in the movie talking about his effects set up. I get that, but think JW’s the one out of place. Maybe he comes off as too cocky and that’s what the turnoff is for me (I am after all a h8r as we’ve all decided). But I think it’s mostly cockiness and a lack of gravitas when he speaks.

Has anyone else seen this flick? What’d you think?

I do love the blu-ray though.

I saw Ebert tweet this link last night about how they filmed that sequence in the soccer stadium in El Secreto de sus Ojos. Pretty interesting. The link has the full scene- so technically I should say “spoiler alert” but I doubt a lot of you will be bothered by it.

CG Society – El Secreto de sus Ojos

image from cg society site

I went to see The Secret in their Eyes last week. I really enjoyed it and recommend it. Just a warning though- it’s in Spanish and it’s subtitled- I know a lot of you don’t like that ;)

It stars Ricardo Darin who you’ll recognized from El Aura and Nueve Reinas. It’s about a prosecutor who’s retiring and he’s trying to write a semi-autobiographical novel about a case he and his office didn’t close out well 25 years ago. The movie flips back and forth from the past to present and how that case affected the main characters lives back then and to the present day.

Go check it out if it’s in your city.

As an aside, it’s odd that the two last movies that I’ve seen involve rape, crime, and abuse themes and examinations of lives in the past. An odd trend.

I saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on Saturday. I’m not sure I liked the movie that much. I was entertained, but I’m not sure most of you would be.

My basic take is that I thought it was a great adaptation of the book, but that as a stand-alone movie it wouldn’t be that engaging. Yes, I guess this would be a review summed up as “the book’s better” but I don’t want to be that dismissive.

The writers did a good job paring down the story to the core and I didn’t even notice the length of the film (I didn’t look at my watch once- and it’s a long movie). Pared down it’s a good & creepy mystery/thriller, but I felt that the pared-down version robbed some of the characters of their gravitas- especially the main bad guy, and one of the protaganists.  Perhaps this was because I don’t speak Swedish though and needed to rely on the subtitles and missed some subtleties of the acting? I’m not sure.

So would I recommend the movie to you? Nope- not unless you’ve read the book and are curious about how the hell they whittled that tome down and still had something entertaining/interesting: The photo archives scenes, the old murders, and unfortunately, the sexual assaults. (btw, They even took some bits from the 2nd book)

Oh, and even thought I don’t think the book was “all that” – I did think it was entertaining and engaged me more than other popular fiction has  lately.

One other thing – the main actress did a good job in the movie as her character’s pretty hard to make sympathetic in a visual medium. But . . . they could have been portrayed more “weird” to be closer to the source material. I’m not convinced this role is an award-winner for her even though she’s getting very popular now.

CoCo said not to be cynical, but it’s kind of hard for me. I’m working on it though. I’m also trying not to be jaded. It’s hard to do CoCo.

I keep starting a bunch of drafts for posts but wind up deleting them because I come off as c&j. (I also come across as a dick, but that’s okay, everyone knows I’m a dick).

But when I look around the blogosphere, it seems that cynicism is in no short supply.

I’ll give you a mellow example of my own take in how I can easily be led down the dark path of snark.

I finally got around to watching District 9. It passed my 3DMT™ because I thought it was entertaining even the story wasn’t that original and a bit ham-fisted in shoving stuff down our throats.

It almost didn’t pass because my first reaction was to rip the movie apart. I think I wanted to tear it down because I had read some articles about how the movie was made, or rather, how it became to be a full feature. And I was a bit jaded about it being nominated for an Oscar.

Supposedly it was a spec film for the director to show off some ideas to Peter Jackson for a Halo movie. Those plans were scratched, but they realized that for just a bit more budget they could put out a full movie with the material they had- or by adding just a bit more.

But here’s the thing-

1) I’m not sure if that info is even true, but it’s what I remembered and

2) two movie blog posts that ‘reported’ that trivia seemed to lead you to infer that it was a lesser quality film because of that history- if the posts hadn’t been written that way, how would I have reacted?

I skipped out seeing District 9 in the cineplex because of that inference. Looking back I realize now I would have had a good time. It was on my to-do list for the holidays (along w/ Avatar, which I still haven’t seen)

I would have had a good time, but I would still rip on the film – in a good-natured way though. (Seriously- why was Christopher the only alien who was smart? Why did his kid have big old sad dog eyes? To make him more available emotionally?)

But go rent the film, it’s pretty good. It’s not Oscar worthy at all, but it’s still fun.

Liked District 9 but want to watch something else? Go rent the original Alien Nation with James Caan and Mandy Patinkin (not the TV show).

While you’re doing that, I’m going to try to read fewer movie blogs.

-Oh, and re: item 2 above–

And does it matter? It’s kind of cool that a dude had a project about to be shelved but had it get a second life. Hey, at least he’s creating content.

Another movie clip, from 1983 – the part they almost always cut out whenever this flick is on TV. I never knew the blonde was 30 Rock’s Jane Krakowski.

And a jealous nerd. I wish I could make cool movie props.

I was performing “DVR maintenance” yesterday and watched the first episode of The LL Cool J and Robin Show NCIS: Los Angeles and there was a part where the woman from The Incredibles Oscar-winner Linda Hunt scans Chris O’Donnell’s character’s eyes with a handheld scanner.

I’m pretty sure that’s the same scanner Adam Savage built for Bicentennial Man (LINK TO PIC). What do you think?

It’s nerdy that I knew about that prop being on his site… and nerdier that I got my own screenshots of NCIS: LA… but that’s a whole ‘nuther story about Maltese Falcons that I don’t want to get into right now.

The cool thing about Savage’s prop is that he built it from a Dunhill lighter and added lights nstuff. I wish I knew how to do that (and had a machine shop).

Inglorious Basterds passed my 3DMT ™. I really liked the film a lot.

A friend had been in town recently and I was saying that I was apprehensive about seeing the movie because I didn’t like Death Proof and was worried about Basterds being good. Plus, based on the little I knew about the plot, I thought it’d be kind of an icky “Jew Fantasy Porn”. But I had nothing to worry about.

I’ll start with some negative comments first- IB is not a straight up war “team” movie like Guns of Navaronne, Force 10 from Navaronne, The Dirty Dozen or The Big Red One, or even The Great Escape- so if you’re expecting that (and some ads and interviews lead you to believe this), you may be disappointed.

If you’re expecting Jew Fantasy Porn- American Jews getting together and beating the shit out of Nazis, like I was, you won’t get that either. There is a that but it’s a bit… just a set-up for me (btw, I don’t think that Eli Roth is that good, he just fits the bill physically, he had no depth and I think his character is what the kids will remember from this- also was it him or Omar Doom as a d-bag in that bar scene in DP that made you wonder how people got cast?).

What you will get with Inglorious Basterds is a movie that has smart, solid dialogue that actually works with the movie (screw you Death Proof) and smart chapters that are wide open to interpretation.

Yes, there are chapters like in Kill Bill, but they break the film out into almost separate mini-films. The first ‘chapter’ alone should win awards for Christoph Walz (the bad guy, really really bad guy) and Denis Menochet.

That first chapter sets up the evilness of the main Nazi and a French farmer. It’s strong enough that I know I’ll buy the DVD when it comes out to watch it over again.

You get a lot of FILM for this movie – a fairy tale with all of the requisite pieces: once upon a time… a scary bear … bad things going on in the dark forest  ..  a nod to the new wave and love of French Cinema… and just a love of old movies as well.

I’m still chewing on the Shoshana ‘chapter’ in my head though. I think there are a lot of references that went over my head, but is worth a second look for me.

Go see the movie. And leave me comments if you have seen it.

via the BBC:
the community of Esperanto speakers prepares to mark the 150th anniversary of its author’s birth
(story)

Is it time to celebrate the anniversary with another showing of Incubus?

It’s kind of odd how my mind works sometimes… I was watching a movie recently that starred Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson (The White Countess) and I thought – that’s odd, did I put this in my queue when the sad news of Richardson’s accident came up? I had to think about it for a while and realized the movie that I had just sent back to Netflix had similar themes… or settings rather.

I had watched The Painted Veil (w/ Edward Norton,  Naomi Watts & Liev Schreiber) just the week before- so months back, I must have had 1930s China on my mind and put both in my queue. I just wish I remembered what I had been reading back then that triggered the rentals. That’s the downside of having a netflix queue that’s so long.

I’ll save the reviews for later- but let’s just say both movies are good, but very different. I liked the cinematography in The Painted Veil  more- but then again, it’s hard to film that locale and wind up with a bad shot. But I liked the story and acting of The White Countess more (even though some montages bugged the crap out of me)…

But that’s not my point today… I wanted to talk about Ralph Fiennes’ tuxedo jackets in the movie- yeah, nerdy I know. But check them out though- I took some screencaps.

I want to get jackets like these made and wear them to Angie & Mike’s wedding or some other event… (they’re *just* a bit  classier than my standard guayaveras no?)

Ralph Fiennes’ character owns a swanky nightclub in Shanghai and if he’s not wearing the standard black dinner jacket, he has on this green plaid number:

And then later in the movie when he’s entertaining Red Chinese, Japanese Navy, and European Ex-pats he has on this fancy chinese-brocade(?)/embroidered jacket:

(check out the back too)

I want one of those just to wear to Cory’s or Marc & Jen’s for bbqs and cigars! Granted, I’m not sure I can pull off that look as smoothly as the suave Fiennes, but I’ll try…

Of course in the movie, the jackets and Ralph are all upstaged whenever Natasha’s on screen

Maybe this will be my “adam savage dodo bird/maltese falcon” project.