Friday, September 6, 2024
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Friday, August 16, 2024
Deadpool & Wolverine
This is a great movie, but unlike most great action movies, there are zero slow and boring parts. The plot was quick-paced all along, and every bit of time was filled with some sort of action, plot advancement, or witty banter, or all three at once.
The witty dialogues and monologues were packed with more meta-humor on Deadpool's part than a Mel Brooks film, similarly to the first two Deadpool movies only ramped up a notch. Besides merely referencing aspects of the movie production itself or making teasing meta-level observations of transpiring events, some of the meta-humor in the film was meta in the sense of being meta-level teasing of certain characters' actions, words, intentions, choices, character, etc., which satisfyingly serves to provide instant karmic enlightenment by the given character regarding their own follies, rather than the tropes of those follies remaining on a comparatively boring, unevaluated level like with most movies. Or at least we can imagine it did that; they didn't outwardly express the emotional and mental impact of the teasings much.
The general dialogue of the movie was thick with frequent rapid-fire creative banter, primarily by Deadpool but not exclusively, which made the movie very entertaining. If there was any flaw with the creative banter, it was that it was rather hard to imagine Deadpool likely having the wit to come up with it all so quickly on such a regular basis, thus making it seem a little unreal and perhaps serving to take the viewer out of the movie.
You'd think something like that taking the viewer out of the movie would be the least concern with all the fourth-wall breaking going on, but the fourth-wall breaking really blends in with the movie well. It doesn't seem to detract from the immersion at all.
One great thing about this movie is that it borrowed fun elements from various other movies, or at least two: there was a Furiosa: Mad Max Saga-esque world in the movie, and a bad lady had stolen Dr. Strange's Sling Ring and then made use of it in the movie. The plot line also includes the story element of the multiverse with the Time Variance Authority from previous Marvel movies. I particularly enjoyed seeing the alternate Deadpool from some parallel universe who was also played by Ryan Reynolds, who had a positive, puppy-like persona.
Some aspects of this movie's plot were satisfyingly and unexpectedly deep, and while Ryan Reynolds' acting could be considered flawless, what really impressed me about this movie was Hugh Jackman's acting. I thought while watching the movie that he should get a freakin' Oscar for it. This movie really brings out his acting skills more than any previous Marvel movie.
Regarding the quick plot development mentioned above, the one drawback to this was that, while the reason for the resurrection of Wolverine was introduced early on and expeditiously, it seemed to be rather shallow and contrived: it seemed to involve the luck and convenience of a deus ex machina.
Overall, this movie was very fun and satisfying. One thing that made it fun was its levity—which, by the way, included playing upbeat songs like Madonna's 'Like a Prayer,' and a particularly rich remix of it, during massive fight scenes. And speaking of the music, its end-credits song 'LFG (Theme from "Deadpool & Wolverine") by Rob Simonsen was so good that I fired up Shazam to find out what song it was and saved the name of it in my phone for downloading later. And I'm very picky when it comes to music.
I suggest you don't stop watching the credits there, though; sit it out till the end. There's an end-credits scene, and it's actually the funniest part of the movie, at least as far as I and a few of the other audience members were concerned.
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Inside Out and Inside Out 2
Inside Out and Inside Out 2, as successful as those movies were/are, I think are still terribly underrated with respect to their instructional/mentoring value for pre-teens and teenagers.
They each pack within an hour or two what you'd probably need a few lifetimes to figure out otherwise. And if you ever did figure it all out yourself, by the time you did, you would be old enough that your mind/intelligence would be too "crystallized" to change in light of it, and most of the opportunities to do things better would have already passed.
Inside Out and Inside Out 2 are both ingenious in the way they use physical mechanisms and narratives in the fabricated "inner world" to represent actual (meaning "actual" within the movie) mental/emotional mechanisms and narratives in the subject, and the lessons are more or less universal in nature. It's full of apt metaphor after apt metaphor, some of them obvious, some of them subtle enough that you might not consciously get them—at least not without thinking for a bit.
(I suspect that, even if you don't "get" some of the metaphors on a conscious level, they may still ultimately sink in in the way that matters, much like how the symbolism of a dream has a positive/healing/normalizing impact on your subconscious mind whether you consciously understand it or not. Not all subtle metaphors in the world of fiction have this quality, of course, but the metaphors in question are directly about the workings of emotions and the mind.)
And I can tell that the fact that this is all represented as a story with emotions as characters and various mental props gives it a powerful impact and enables it to settle/osmose into the minds of young viewers without any necessary effort, unlike, say, a psychology text or even a good self-help book. Even therapy would be a lot of drudgery compared to these movies (but not to claim that these movies necessarily completely replace the utility of therapy, nor probably of a good book for that matter).
Please have your kids see Inside Out and Inside Out 2. (The protagonist is 11 in Inside Out, and 13 in Inside Out 2, to give a hint of age-appropriateness, but I think the range of applicable ages is actually very wide.) And tell all your friends about it.
The creators of these movies make me envious and make me want to do something equally good for humankind.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Bram Stokem's dracula with Gary oldman
and Mike doesn't like ebert because he thinks he's egoistic but I think he's cool.
;)
My reviews are short these days haha.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
The Thomas Crown Affair
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
First of all, Mia Wasikowska was __absolutely__beautiful__ in this movie; oh, my God, *swoon*. The things they can do with makeup are amazing -- not to say that she's ugly in real life, just.. there were some -- okay, many -- moments in this movie where I just wanted to jump out of my skin to kiss her. And for reasons I don't completely understand, one scene with her, with her particular face and her hair, wearing this really shiny metal armor, was one of the most titillating things I've seen in my life. (I'm still waiting for the DVD to come out, so that I can capture images from that scene..)
The beginning part of the movie, that is, the part before Alice goes down the rabbit hole, was elegant.. not overwhelmingly fantastic, but just generally well-done, flawless. I get the impression that Burton conveyed precisely the context and set-up he wanted to without falter: a Victorian-age scenario in which a fundamentally free-spirited young woman is totally lost within the binds of a suffocatingly strict and overbearing family and society.
To be honest, I thought that Mia's performance lacked a little bit of..spunk. Not to the degree that it stands out as awkward or ineffective, but just enough that one might think to wonder where the beef is, so to speak, despite the acting being consistently..adequate and sufficient. This goes not only for the pretext part of the film, but also for Wonderland portion. For example, when she's supposed to show that she's brave, it's believable, and yet at the same time, you wouldn't have noticed she's brave by what she does if you didn't know that she's supposed to be..
But it's not really that bad, and hardly noticeable; I just thought it was odd for a $250,000,000 movie. And on the other hand, I've noticed that these oddly mild roles seem to make it much easier to balance odd and impossible forces in a film..
The Wonderland segment of the movie lacked nothing to be desired either. The scenery, I would say, was ideal...with one exception: the lighting. Sadly, the dreary, dismal lighting in Wonderland was the one aspect of this film that's uniquely Burtonian, yet also the one thing that somewhat dragged down the entire movie. It would have been so beautiful otherwise. (I say that because I really resonated with the scenery and *not* with the lighting.)
I have to admit, I didn't have high expectations for this movie. Although I was absolutely certain that I had to see it just to find out (because I LOVE Alice in Wonderland story, and because it has Johnny Depp), the only preview of this movie I ever had was a psychedelic image of Johnny Depp that seems frightfully similar to his role in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which I have to say was an absolutely horrible movie (and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was my absolute favorite movie as a child). I wouldn't have even watched it if I'd known. In fact, I don't think ever did finish watching it.
But Johnny Depp's character in this film was pretty satisfying.. basically, because I *adore* crazy people. I mean really batsh*t insane characters. And especially cool is that he's the kind of crazy person who's clever and really has his wits about him when he needs them. But that's not to say the mad hatter is not actually crazy; believe me: he is. This is demonstrated by one really sad, funny, and endearing part of the movie near the end: when Alice tells him that this is all just a dream of hers (because she firmly believes it's so), it implies that he'll cease to exist when she wakes up...and he *believes it*. You can tell this by purely by his facial expression.
I've heard one critic comment that the film has sacrificed much of the heart of Lewis Carrol's original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and that's definitely true. In case you don't know, the story and dialogue were completely changed. The charm and cognitive stimulation of the original book are completely lost in this film; the only things left are the characters and this concept of a heroic belief in the impossible. [SPOILER] Basically, the whole movie crescendos into a moment or two in the end in which Alice defeats an evil dragon by believing "6 impossible things before breakfast," and has come to realize that Wonderland is actually real -- that it's not just another one of her scary dreams. That's it. That's the whole point of the movie. [/SPOILER] The absurdities and twists of logic that made Carrol's original story what it is are few, far between and superficial in this movie.
I was just somewhat disappointed by the vacuous direction (read: not *directing*) of this movie. It was basically $250,000,000 and an hour and 49 minutes dedicated to showcasing (per se) the concept of "believing in the impossible." But I say "somewhat" because the moral of the story isn't everything to me: I liked Depp's character, *LOVED* Mia Wasikowska's physical appearence, admired certain aspects of the directing (/casting/writing?) skill, and enjoyed the execution of scenery. Overall, I thought this movie was well-done and better than expected. (I was actually intrigued and surprised by the quality of what I surmised was the directing, and only later found out that it was by Tim Burton.)
Note: I watched this movie in 2-D, not 3-D. None of us really wanted to deal with those retarded red and green/blue and yellow/whatever glasses, and the IMAX's showing just didn't fit into our schedule..so YMMV.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
American Psycho
For example, in the novel, the narrator occasionally breaks form and talks directly to the reader about something completely irrelevant: critiques and analyses of some of his favorite bands. (Entire chapters are devoted to this.) This technique helps to drill in to the reader the utter detachment of a character who believes and behaves as if "the inside doesn't matter"; it's all about external circumstances and his image. In the movie, on the other hand, he randomly goes into (verbatim) spiels about certain bands and their music with a kind of deranged fervor, just prior to, and climaxing in, bludgeoning someone to death. This gives the viewer a completely different impression. For me, the impression was marked mainly by my wondering what the hell would drive somebody to want to start talking excitedly and sophisticatedly on the topic of a certain artist (like Phil Collins) right before killing someone. The impression may have been different for different people, but I have almost no doubt that it didn't make the appropriate impression on anybody.
In another shining example, Bateman is made *so* perturbed by the sight of his coworkers' (arguably) superior business cards that he becomes irascible, then actually goes mad. This happens on multiple occasions, and while it's meant to signify his imbalanced priorities — or, more accurately, the dourness with which he wants first and foremost to fit in —, its characteristic disharmony with the rest of the motif leaves one feeling more as if he's somehow acquired some sort of business-card-specific psychosis, that perhaps he should just go see a psychologist/therapist about.
In another example, in the novel people consistently laugh off or otherwise fail to take seriously his recounting of the horrible things he's done, furthering the impression of his isolation, lack of ability to connect, and perhaps even his confusion over whether he did indeed do any of those things. In the movie, though, this only happens *once* (with his lawyer), which serves only to outline his unheard catharsis, and perhaps also to show, in denouement, that he never really did all those things he thought he did. In the novel this fact is left continually unclear (to help create for the reader the sense of Bateman's acute isolation), while in the movie you're somewhat duped into believing it's real until the very end.
Oh, there was also a point in the movie at which Bateman was seemingly told by an automated teller machine, "feed me a stray cat" (which he then attempted to do). It may have been funny and perhaps even developmental in the novel, but again, in the movie it was simply discordant with everything else, there having been nowhere to place it, as he had not been prone to hallucinations, and we were barely even hinted at that time that his murderous outings were merely fabrications of his mind. Also, Christian Bale himself — mainly his visage — just did not complement well the utter insanity and frustration of his played character, Patrick Bateman. And nor did I ever have any clear picture of what manner of development or real emotions were supposed to have been going on from the time in which he seemed just a little bit vain, to the time in which his behavior was totally batshit insane. Basically, nothing in this movie came together.
Finally, the really ironical thing here is that, while the movie strikes me as a badly done mishmash of tools used contextually in a novel, for the novel, by a master, the novel itself reads distinctly like a *movie script* — so much so that it's hard to convince myself that I'm reading a novel, not a screenplay, which was intended to be read. The obvious solution, it seems to me? Just make a really looong movie (I suppose it would have to be a mini-series) out of it.. ;)
**note: this is an unfinished rewiew, as i haven't actually read the novel yet. i plan to read it soon, though. :)