Singular View

Oblivion : Hautingly beautiful world in need of a logical script

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:08:00 +0000

Is it the journey or the destination that’s important? Case in point, Oblivion, a movie so derivative of almost every major Sci-fi movie trope from the past half century, it borders on plagiarism. And yet for its 2 hour run time I was fully swept up in the world that’s presented to me, thanks in no small part to the glorious visuals abundant in the movie.

The synopsis from Rottentomatoes:

‘Tom Cruise stars in Oblivion, an original and groundbreaking cinematic event from the visionary director of TRON: Legacy and producers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind. 2077: Jack Harper (Cruise) serves as a security repairmen stationed on an evacuated Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying alien threat who still scavenges what's left of our planet, Jack's mission is almost complete. In a matter of two weeks, he will join the remaining survivors on a lunar colony far from the war-torn world he has long called home. Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, Jack's soaring existence is brought crashing down after he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Drawn to Jack through a connection that transcends logic, her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he thought he knew. With a reality that is shattered as he discovers shocking truths that connect him to Earth of the past, Jack will be pushed to a heroism he didn't know he contained within. The fate of humanity now rests solely in the hands of a man who believed our world was soon to be lost forever.’

First up, the Bad. Similar to the first Matrix, Oblivion throws every great concept from other better sci-fi source, be it movies or publication, into the blender and presents it in a slick new packaging. Unlike The Matrix though it lacks a singular unique element that would have made it all palpable. Where the Wachowskis created bullet time to be THE defining visual element of their movie, there’s nothing of similar caliber here. Some of the action set pieces were a bit bland and seems cut directly from some generic video game.

It doesn’t help as well when you have a script with logic gaps as large as the craters on the moon. Many aspects of the plot just isn’t logical and you wonder how did it get approved in the first place. I guarantee you that if you just spend 5 minutes after movie thinking about it and every aspect of the story just falls apart.

That is fortunately the end of the Bad. A movie of this sort lives and dies by the world it creates, its ability to convince you of its relevance and plausibility will go a long way to determine the level of investment of the audience. On this level there is nothing to worry about in Oblivion, as the world lives and breathes, everything about seems entirely possible. The images in Oblivion are sumptuous, from the designs of the vehicles to the wrecked moon hanging in the atmosphere, and despite some missteps on the whole it’s a beautiful haunting world. Director Joseph Kosincki had shown his visual flair in his debut movie, the otherwise tiresome but visually scintillating Tron : Legacy, but his world building skill here surpasses that of his earlier effort. There’s a lot more to be said about the beauty of Oblivion given its scope and scale.

All the pretty pictures wouldn’t mean shit if you didn’t populate it with interesting actors and its here that the movie has its strongest point. Tom Cruise is at his leading man’s best which is critical because he’s in 90% of the movie, most of the time alone. He’s extremely at ease with the role and he brings through all the uneasiness, confusion and happiness of Jack Harper effortlessly. Sometimes I do wonder if we take his skill for granted, dismissed so long because it happens to have a pretty face and some undoubtedly weird characteristics.

This could also be a breakout performance from Andrea Riceborough , as Jack’s companion and colleague, Victoria, her nuance and subtle performance ranges from cold to genuine concern. The other actors in the movie are given short shift when it comes to character development, the worst being Morgan Freeman.

Oblivion will never be a true sci-fi classic in the vein of Blade Runner or 2001, simply because it doesn’t provoke any in-depth thought or discussion about its world and its implications. What it is though is a fun and engaging amalgamation of better sci-fi ideas repackaged in a slick shiny veneer that will engage for its full run time, just not a second more.

A Welcome Return

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:51:00 +0000

Just trying to ease myself back into blogging shape. Wanted to share with you guys a trailer which caught my eye recently.

Snow White and the Huntsman is another retelling of the tale made famous by Disney. However judging from whats on the trailer this looks to be much darker and edgier than what has come before, so lets keep our fingers crossed. Lots of interesting imagery in this first trailer. The biggest issue I have here is, the film is asking us to believe that Kristen Stewart is hotter than Charlize Theron....Honestly??

GI Joe : The Rise of Another Lame Franchise

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:16:00 +0000

In our younger days often we hear our parents telling us to be ambitious, shoot for the sky they said, even if you missed you still land on the clouds was the reasoning. Alas though like reality when you try to fly, and if you fail, you’ll end up hurtling to earth in a burning ball of wreckage which ends up leaving an unsightly stain behind. That though is often omitted for the benefits of our delicate young minds I guess. What does that have to do with this blog I hear you ask, well the answer is in two words, Stephen Sommers. A director so apparent in his need for recreating his childish fantasies that if given any form of encouragement will definitely try to do it all in one film. Ambition in Hollywood is often a surefire way to derision and failure as demonstrated to stunning consequences like this years’ Transformers and Terminator sequels.

GI JOE is an elite multi national anti-crime/terrorist organization headed by the stout General Hawk. They are called into battle when the latest in cutting edge warfare, the nano-tech based missiles, is attacked en-route to its first delivery by forces that seem to have even more advanced weaponry. Two of the accompanying guards, Duke and Ripcord, manages to fend off the attackers and Duke also recognizes one of the attackers to be his ex fiancé now going under the guise of The Baroness. Because of their outstanding performance the 2 men are recruited into the outfit where they will serve with the existing members Scarlett, Heavy Duty and Snake Eyes. It soon becomes clear that the weapons manufacturer, James McCullen is behind an attempt to steal the missiles to both create an international crisis as well as settle a century long family blood feud.

When I first heard they were doing a GI Joe movie I snickered but held out hope they could make it relevant and when I heard they had gotten Sommers involved, expectations immediately nose dived. This was after all the man who gave us Van Helsing, a film which could have been so cool but ended up being so utterly bad that I though there would be no return for him. Sommers biggest crime is always his inherent need to cram as much elements into a film as humanly possible and his total lack of follow through on any of them as can be seen if you compared the first Mummy and its sequel. Without a strong and frugal producer’s hand behind him his films tend to be just a skipping through of one idea after another. Also reality and often even gravity is not adhered to when he writes his scripts with his protagonists often escaping peril through impossible maneuvers.

In his latest he is again guilty of the all of the above but he has managed to craft a stupid but fun, with the former edging out the later slightly, action film that while not memorable is still entertaining enough to edge out some of this summer’s more anticipated action fare. Its fun but in a very retarded sort of manner and its most enjoyable when no one’s talking or whenever Siena Miller’s breast makes an appearance, I kid you not when it say they truly steal every scene in the movie and they look much better when compared to Megan Fox’s slow motion running in Transformers 2. It was also good to see Joseph Gordon Levitt making the best out of a crap role by truly hamming it up. The action sequences are well staged with the Paris chase a highlight and also the Storm Shadow/Snake Eyes duel was handled well even through it was derivate of The Phantom Menace’s ending with a reversed role for Ray Parks.

Now for the Bad and where else to begin but from the acting department, so step right up 90% of the actors involved. Watching Channing Tatum brings to mind the other great thespian, CasperVan Diem, an actor who could convey all his emotions through a simple furrow of his brow, which is fortunate considering that’s the only action he knows how to do properly. I understand that this is an ensemble cast but couldn’t they have found a more engaging lead actor because there isn’t an aorta of charm and charisma in him which could have make such a huge difference to the film. A brief cameo by Brendan Fraser was much better the his performance for the rest of the film which boggles the mind as to why Brendan wasn’t offered the role in the first place. Dennis Quaid phoned this one in and cashed another pay check, the always mute Ray Parks is adequate as the mute Snake Eyes, Rachel Nichols brings some charm to the good girls but not much, Marlan Wayans is his usual unbearable self and Jonathan Pryce is criminally underused. The script is just full of lazy plot holes and convenient resolutions, oh! Deadly nano tech missiles are headed for Washington you say, no worries there just so happen to be a super sonic jet fighter parked nearby with no form of security around.

My advice to you, watch the movie if you have 2 hours to spare or if you have an great love for original cartoons but bear in mind that like all our childhood favorites its never as good as we remembered them to be. Watch it to see the stunning Siena Miller in what should be her breakthrough Hollywood role and for the crazy action sequences and you will have a guaranteed good time. As of the time I’m writing this the movie has already opened to great commercial success so brace yourself for the bigger, better, dumber and all around more ‘ambitious’ sequels coming your way soon.

Watchmen - Perhaps Alan Moore Was Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:22:00 +0000

For every comic fan there is only one bible. One book that demands to be read. A rite of passage to undertake to enter geekdom. A book that condenses the entire history of the Superhero myth and then deconstructs it. From the innocence of the Golden Age to the wonders that was the Silver Age and finally the anti heroes of the Modern Age. There is simply no two ways about it, if you are a comic fan this is The movie that you have been waiting for, in equal parts excitement and dread. Alan Moore famously said the book was unfilmable, and duely had his name removed from the film, and he would have been right had it not been for a very courageous young director who obviously understands the importance of the property to millions of rabbid fans.

It is the year 1985 and Richard Nixon is still in the White House and America has won the Vietnam War thanks to the help of Dr Manhattan, a god like super hero that can rearrange matter and time. In the back drop Russia is still in the cold war with the US but is incapable of any real threats as long Dr Manhattan acts as the counter balance. All super heroes have been banned and outlawed due to public outcry and most are living a bored life of retirement. All that however changes when it one of them is murdered and it seems that there is a conspiracy to kill other retired heroes as well.

The only active vigilante left Rorschach, who borders on being a psychopath himself, decides to investigate the brutal murder of The Comedian, a former Watchman who became a black ops member for the government, and the deeper he goes the more dangerous it becomes. He enlists the helps of his former teammates, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, as it becomes clear that there is something far more sinister at work that may involve Dr Manhattan. As old friends and even old adversaries become drawn together, they are forced to face painful memories as well as harsh realities and by the end may only god save the planet from nuclear annihilation.

This is clearly a movie made for the fans because in some instances the scenes are a direct replica of the comic panels and except for some minor deviation the bulk of the book is almost slavishly replicated on screen. For those who saw 300 you would know what I’m talking about. First off making a movie that a features multiple naked blue men could not have been an easy sell to the studios, and for that we really have to give a big thank you to Zack Snyder for having the guts to go through with it. Clearly without the success that he got from 300 he wouldn’t have had the clout to push this through as complete as it was. I still think he overdoes it a bit with the slow mo’s but on the whole he has done an incredible job of telling a story that took an entire text book to write into a 3 hour movie that not only not bores but often times leaving you in heightened expectation of what’s to come.

Watchmen, the book, took and unknown group of superheroes that was modeled on existing popular ones and progresses to strip away the layers painful one at a time and therefore it is not an easy read and it certainly isn’t an action story, even though it contains many action scenes. To understand watchmen you need to put yourself back into the 80’s- the cold war was still on, crime rate in America was at an all time high, the US was still dealing with the aftermath of their failure in Vietnam and the threat of Nuclear Holocaust was always hanging around- the US was basically still coming to terms about their own vulnerability and much of their uncertainty certainly reflected in their comics. People began to question everything when before everything was simple and clear cut. Superman was the good guy who fought the good fight but in this new age people was more interested in what he had to hide in his closet. How could a god really understand humans? In 12 issues Alan Moore managed to not only deconstruct many of the prevailing stereotypes of the superhero myth but also lay the foundation for what was to come for the future so there can be no mistaking the importance of the only graphic novel to be featured in Times 100 greatest work of fiction in the last century.

Watchmen, the movie, have managed to carry many of these themes intact over to the big screen and it is a credit to both the writers and the directors that for the most part the movie works extremely well. Even more impressive was some of the performances and top of the list would be Jackie Earle Haley whose portrayal was the personification of Rorschach. Watching him was exactly like what you had in mind when reading him, from his movements to his speech to his mannerism, every little detail was perfect. Evrytime he wasn’t on screen I was just waiting for him to show up. Rorschach was a character who only see things in black and white, hence the mask, and his deep distaste for humankind makes his actions all the more compelling. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was also fantastic as the utterly despicable Comedian, here was someone who had behaved like an utter brute simply because he could and who ultimately became a pawn in a far bigger game. I found it refreshing that they have found a cast of relative unknowns because they bring a lot less attachment to the characters but I was quite partial to the idea of Tom Cruise for Ozymandias, one egomaniac playing another.

In a movie like this there are bound to be some missteps and I think the biggest one here is actually the inclusion of Nixon and his subplot because every time they appear on screen it sort of took me out of the moment. In addition I think his makeup is one of the worst I have seen in a blockbuster. A big thing about the movie was the soundtrack and on the whole the songs selected were complimentary there were a few that were quite jarring. On the acting front I think Malin Ackerman suffered the most with her stilted delivery and wooden expression despite having some of the most screen time and also what should have been the emotional core of the movie. Other than her good looks I couldn’t understand the reason why the guys where all after her.

Like I said before this is a movie made for the fans and this is indeed a double edged sword. My gut feeling is that this movie would have gone over the head of your average moviegoer. Sure The Dark Knight was a serious comic movie that was embraced by the audience but that movie was a self contained story while this one is an entirely different beast altogether. Watchman works on many levels but those levels would likely not be apparent to someone expecting an Iron Man experience and without a background in rudimentary fandom I doubt they will be able to get a complete experience from one sitting. While I haven’t watched it a second time I am utterly convinced that the movie will offer up much more at the second time of asking. Watchmen is certainly a qualified success filled many stunning images and for many of us fans we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and for those coming in unawares there is a lot be enjoyed here and also take comfort in the fact that if you don’t get it all the first time you will the second time or better yet, get the book.

Into The Wild - Understanding A Choice

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:48:00 +0000

Who among us have never dreamed of letting it all go at one point or the other? Just dropping every single possession we have and leave for the wide open road. Irresponsible? Yes. Cowardice? Perhaps. When life becomes unbearable, be it from jadedness or just a deep distaste of everyday life, isn’t it better to just run away? Whatever the answer may be most of us will ultimately grit our teeth and carry on while perhaps a few special, or foolish, souls will take the leap and see what is behind the magic mirror. Whether this is the right or wrong thing to do depends on your perspective but what is for sure its going to be one hell of an adventure. Into The Wild is the story of one such person and his journey to attain ultimate freedom, from society and everything that it entails.

Christopher McCandless is a top student and athlete from Emory University who donated his life savings to charity and just disappeared from the lifes of his family to experience life away everything materialistic. A product of a financially successful but unloving family, he grew up to love the simple things in life and reject the sort of materialistic pursuit that consumed his parents. His philosophy was that a person could be happy even without any human relationship and any material wealth. Despite rejecting society he would attract people to him by his simple honesty and they would come to make a big part of his travels. On his travels he finally settle on a destination, a place where he would find the solitude that he craves and also the ability to live off the earth, Alaska.

First off this is not Forrest Gump and there is no happy ending waiting and the fact that this is based on a true story gives it a much needed dramatic pull and also the fact that there has been much discussion about the actions of McCandless makes it interesting to see which side of the argument the movie would fall on. Many have accused him of being stupid and more have come to admire his courage but ultimately I find it fitting that the film holds a balanced view in that for long periods of his travels he did find the peace he so wanted. I find it extremely disturbing that so many have rushed to pass judgment on his actions, I would think that it is enough that he did what he needed to do and he was at peace with the outcome. How many of us can truly say the same?

I think first off Emile Hirsch has done an incredible job in depicting first the rage and finally the peace of McCandless. Many of the scenes involved no dialogue and feelings had to be conveyed by body language alone and it says a lot about him that even in these scenes you are compelled to follow his every movement. He has given the character a very relatable persona and you can’t help but feel for the character and his pain and his all encompassing need to be away from the people closest to him including his sympathetic sister. In fact the film has managed to illicit many good performances from its cast even one unexpectedly from Vince Vaughn, who plays slightly against character. I especially like Catherine Keener as the damaged Jan and her affection for Christopher really shone through and how he became the son that she lost. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as the fighting and always materialistic parent are not given much screen time but they do the best with what they have. Hal Holbrook is also very good as the grandfatherly Ron who tries his best to dissuade McCandless from going to Alaska.

Sean Penn has really impressed me with his handling of the material despite occasionally veering into character worshipping. This is not an easy story to tell honestly because much of the time is the character alone with his thoughts and the challenge is to make that engaging and he does pull it off more often than not. When a life is lost we often grapple with the whys and hows and when it is as controversial as this the debate becomes more heated but I do find the whole process extremely tedious and irrelevant because this was a choice made sanely and maturely so why should we try to second guess the reasons. Into The Wild is a good movie with an interesting story to tell and I sincerely recommend it to everyone but do not expect to be entertained.

Valkyrie - Competent but lacking

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:06:00 +0000

If ever there was an opponent to the age old saying of there’s no such thing as bad publicity it would have to be Valkyrie. Plagued early on by refusal from the German government to grant shooting permits to debate about the correct accent to use and also rumors that the whole thing was just an excuse for Tom Cruise to lobby for Scientology to be recognized in Germany, it is indeed a wonder that we finally have the finished product. All these issues have indeed combined to take away a lot of the thunder from the film itself which is a pity because Cruise is back to his best as a charismatic leading man.

Valkyrie is a film a group of German military officers who dared to stage a coup in WW2 against Adolph Hitler. Their plan was to assassinate Hitler and take over the government quickly through Hitler’s own contingency plan were he to be assassinated, codenamed Valkyrie. They would lay the blame on the SS and with the help of the reserve army would install a new leader which would negotiate a peace treaty to end WW2. Point man on this would be General Von Stauffenberg, a dedicated family man who is disgusted with the war and also the grisly acts committed by the Nazi regime, and he would be assisted by a cadre of senior military leaders. Von Stauffenberg witnessed first hand the cost of war where in Africa he lost his an eye and a hand to allied bombing raids and he is determined that his beloved Germany would not suffer such a fate.

Like I said earlier Cruise is back to his best and when he is this good you just can’t take your eyes away from him. Forget all the couch hopping and Scientology crap and at the very core of it you have a damn good actor who is always engaging and here he is just simply blinding. I know that there isn’t a lot of love these days for Cruise with all his erratic behaviors and such but I seriously think that we have yet to see the best of Tom Cruise. He losing his box office appeal may indeed be the best thing to happen for him because now he is free to explore edgier material like this and hopefully there will be more to come from Tom Cruise the actor rather than the movie star.

This is also a return to form of sorts for Bryan Singer who got so much flake for the underwhelming Superman Returns and he has once again demonstrated he is best when dealing with suspenseful thrillers. Singer is a good director, of that there can be no doubt, but it is odd that somehow in his recent movies there is a distinct lack passion unlike say in movies like the first two Spiderman films where you could practically see the love Sam Raimi had for the character in every frame. Here he does invest in the characters and their ultimate fate but it still feels a bit cold, which is something he is going to have to work on in the future.

It’s always quite dangerous to base a movie on a real event because it tends to take away most of the suspense and anticipation especially if it is a well documented one like the one here and that is the principal problem I had with the film. While it was sporadically thrilling on the whole it felt more like a history lesson and less of the tragedy that it was. The one thing you can’t fault about the movie though is the extremely impressive supporting cast consisting of a veritable who’s who of European film talent. Tom Wilkinson stood out the most as the boorish Gen. Fromm, Bill Nighly as the sympathetic Gen. Olbricht and Terence Stamp as Ludwig Beck. It was slightly disappointing to see Carice von Houten to be so underused who was so great in another WW2 movie, The Black Book, and also it was odd that Kenneth Branagh would disappear so soon into the movie.

Valkyrie will not be a contender for the Oscars but that doesn’t mean it is entirely without merit because the events depicted here was an important act in history and it deserved to be told. It is also a showcase of how good Cruise is as a leading man and the range that he possesses. The film is extremely historically correct with some slight embellishment for dramatic purposes but overall Christopher McQuarrie has scripted an engaging if somewhat pedestrian movie about one of the biggest What if? events of our time.

The Spirit - Farcical

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:54:00 +0000

Let me just preface this review by saying upfront that the nearest I got to reading The Spirit comic was looking at the cover of the collection in Borders bookstores. I had never read it but have heard many good things about it but it was never high on my shopping list but I did remember the titular hero wearing a blue suit which meant they have changed it for the movie. I knew that the creator, Will Eisner, was a legend in the industry so I was pretty sure the source material must have at least been quite good and so I deduce that after watching the movie the blue suit was not the only thing Frank Miller changed for the movie. Quite frankly there really isn’t anything remotely even good about the movie aside from the eye candy.

Denny Colt is a rookie cop killed in the line of duty who has mysteriously returned to land of the living and in doing so have gained immortality and have taken up the duty to safeguard his beloved city. Meanwhile his nemesis, The Octopus, is busily tracking down an unknown item that will turn him into a god and together with his sidekick, Silken Floss, they attempt to get it back from the beautiful thief that is Sand Saref. Sand also has a history that is tied to the city as well as to Denny who is also trying to track down the said item with the help of Commissioner Dolan and another idealistic officer, Morgenstern.

The very first thing that will occur to you is that the movie looks awfully like Sin City and that’s because the director here Frank Miller also co-directed that movie but more importantly created the said look through his award winning graphic novel. I find it very odd that while he demanded such literal translation for his work he has decided to completely ditch the original look of The Spirit. But that in it self is not the problem with the movie because design and cinematography is about the only good thing in the film. It is basically an extension of what we got in Sin City with a bit more color added in to the palette. Even in this department there are some missteps like the underwater scene with Eva Mendes which just looked odd but given how the movie turned out I’m willing to let it slide.

The worst aspect of the film has to be the ridiculous plot and the horrendous dialog because I sincerely think that never has they been so much rubbish been spew on screen. The laughable dialog is just so cringe inducing that you will yearn for nails on a chalkboard and if that isn’t bad enough the sheer amount of it really pushes it into the fiasco territory. Seriously I have never heard such stupid dialog being uttered and this coming from a huge fan of b movies and connoisseur of camp. Compliments to the actors for managing to get through it somehow with a straight face albeit not with their reputation intact because I seriously think that some of the people involved in this movie might get some serious blowback namely one Mr Frank Miller.

I happily lay all the blame for this fiasco, not to mention my wasted ticket money, squarely on his door steps because as the scriptwriter/director he can hardly blame others for the direction that the movie took. Whereas the whole stylized black and white look worked for Sin City because of the hard boiled story, here it just looks jarring given how campy the script was shooting for. As a scriptwriter you must allow for the actors to work their magic in conveying the message with their actions and not have them describe every action down to every detail. This is clearly the mark of an inexperienced writer and also director because despite having such a huge cast they aren’t really given much to do except posturing and uttering these stupid lines. Even though the source material was a comic it doesn’t mean that all the characters have to be cardboard characters who all conform to some sort of stereotype and if the Dark Knight and Spiderman has taught us anything, comics provide some of the best source for serious exploration of personalities.

I really feel sad for some of actors involved especially Gabriel Macht because this was supposed to be his big break and while I’m not familiar with his work he did show enough quality here to suggest he deserves better. His Denny Colt always seems to have a grin and a charm about him that almost made him believable with the keyword being almost. Coming out worst of all has to be Samuel L Jackson who seemed to have completely lost the plot and overacted to a degree not seen since John Travolta in Battlefield Earth. Eva Mendes at least have something to do other than showing her big ass, which she does constantly, but the same can’t be said for the rest of ladies involved. Jaime King was ridiculous as Lorelei, the angel of death, with most of her scenes consisting of close ups. Paz Vega was ridiculous as the ridiculously named Plaster of Paris, an ‘expert’ who spoke French with a Spanish accent. Scarlet Johansson just seemed bored and it really did looked like she knew the movie was going to bomb big timed.

If anything for me this movie is a justification for me and my believe that Frank Miller is completely over the hill and while I think Sin City and 300, the comics, was good I do think he is extremely over rated. His ego seemed to have grown exponentially when Sin City was released and this will hopefully serve as a timely reminder for him not to buy into his own hype. As it is The Spirit is a joke and a fiasco of the higher order which in one stroke may have ended the Hollywood career of Frank Miller, perhaps deservedly so.

Ip Man - It Really Is That Damn Good

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 06:37:00 +0000

To say that the HK movie industry is in the doldrums would only be stating the obvious and also a huge understatement. There are many causes for this and piracy being the obvious culprit but in my opinion the root cause goes much deeper than that. For many year HK movies was characterized by its crazy frenetic pace and energy where anything goes which was so perfectly captured by John Woo and Jackie Chan among others and audience just responded to its mindlessness and in turn helped to make the stars of that time gain true international recognition. However as the 80’s gave way to the 90’s so did the taste of the audience, who fed on a diet of Hollywood blockbuster, begin to demand better local fare but faced with a dwindling market and talent drain the studios responded the only way they knew how which was to produce cheap knock offs of their western counterparts. With an ever decreasing talent pool and with no improved infrastructure to cultivate new talent the outlook is looking increasingly bleak it is no wonder that most movies from the territory resemble recycled or rehashed tv dinners. All this however have nothing to do with Ip Man which is perhaps one of the best movies to come out of HK since God knows when.

Pre WW2 Fo San is a thriving metropolis famous for its martial arts clubs but its most famous exponent has decided not to have any disciples but that doesn’t stop any up and comers from coming to challenge him in the hope of making a name for himself. The doting family man constantly finds it difficult to balance the requirements of marriage and his love for the art. All this however comes to an abrupt end when the Japanese invades China and reduce the population to one of abject poverty and the only way to survive is through the most basic of manual labor. The general in charge of Fo San is interested in the art of fighting and constantly arrange for fights between the Chinese and his Japanese soldiers in return for rice. It is in one of these fights that Ip Man discovers his true calling to provide the downtrodden a hope for the future.

For those of us who have been yearning for some good actual martial arts fight scene you will not be disappointed because there is none of the wire hanging posturing crap we have been fed so much of lately. A credit to the guys behind the scene for doing a great job in making the fight look and feel every bit the way it was supposed to be. A slight disappointment was the end fight which was clearly lopsided but by then most would already have had their adrenaline fix. I was so worried going in that they would pull a Zhang Yimao on us and go all pretentious. I have always liked Donnie Yen and always felt he was underrated during the Jackie Chan/Jet Li days and this movie again proves that if given enough screen time and a relatively good script he can more than hold his own. Not since SPL have we had something like this which is pure unadulterated kick assness as its best and it makes no apologies about it.

The best thing about the movie is that for the most part it manages to stay far away from the cornier side of things that movies of these sorts invariably tend to gravitate towards. While I certainly think it is one of the better HK film this year that really isn’t saying much and Ip Man could also certainly have been helped with a better and tighter script. There are too many sub plots like Simon Yam’s that could certainly have been tighten as opposed to being felt like an after thought. After sitting though the disappointment of Flash Point and the utterly horrendous Painted Skin this is return to form for Donnie Yan and also director Wilson Yip which both manages to be a great tribute to the man behind the legend but also as a successful reminder of what HK cinema could be.

Quantum of Solace - A Flashy Disappointment

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:10:00 +0000

I think it’s fair to say that almost everyone of us were surprised with how good Casino Royale turned out given all the bad publicity that preceded it, chief among them the controversial decision to cast what some have called the ugliest Bond ever, Daniel Craig. What made Royale successful was how it managed to make Bond relevant again by reclaiming the stylishness of the franchise while imbuing him with a raw edge that often bordered on being thuggish. It introduced us to a young Bond who was just about to start his journey to become the super spy that thrilled the sixties to the eighties and Quantum of Solace is supposed to show the continued evolution of the character. Well, I’m sad to report that not only have Bond not evolved the rate of his degeneration is downright alarming.

Quantum picks up an hour after Royale ends, with Bond on the run from the henchmen of Mr White, with the said gentleman in his car boot. Bond then brings him to a safe house in Italy where M and other agents are waiting to question him about the organization that he is part of. It turns out that the organization has already infiltrated MI6 and it manages to get White out. Bond goes on the hunt and the tracks lead him to Haiti where he meets the beautiful Camille and more importantly to Dominic Greene, the head of a eco friendly conglomerate called Planet Green. It turns out Planet Green is only a front for the Quantum organization, which is made up of some of the most powerful people in the world, that is organizing the political takeover of Bolivia as part of a more insidious overall plan.

While I do admit to being happily surprised by Royale I always thought of it as an action movie first and a Bond movie second simply because it lacked the playfulness that characterized the franchise and also the focus being on hard and gritty realistic action. In Quantum that distinction is even more apparent with Bond being thrown into one elaborate action set piece, granted some are very exciting set pieces, after the other in his unrelenting mission to avenge the death of Vesper. The set pieces and in particular the opening sequence is often very good and I don’t think any action junkie will go wanting but the sheer number of them that are included makes any form of characterization or emotional development extremely difficult. I find it difficult to understand why the producers decided on such a short runtime and not allow the character to grow a bit, not to mention for the viewer to take a breather, which would have greatly enhanced the movie. The focus is to get the action looking gritty and realistic but it’s gotten to the point where it may just become a caricature of itself with some of the stunts beginning to seem extremely unbelievable. With all the grittiness the greats suits he wear seems highly out of place and they may as well just put him in jeans and t-shirts for the whole of the next movie.

I did like the fact that M was very much involved in this outing and her interactions with Bond was the only avenue for him to show any form of emotions. Judi Dench as always owns whatever role she plays and its no different here with her M being the only anchor Bond has to the rest of the world and we begin to see her becoming increasingly loyal to him. Daniel Craig gets to show off some nifty fight moves and also his increasingly buff physique but not much else which is a shame given what a promising start he had in Royale. Olga Kurylenko is fittingly sexy as the main Bond girl and she is at least given a relevant back story as opposed to being just swept along for the ride but hers’ isn’t a character that will leave a lasting impression. The one character I had fun watching was Mathieu Amalric’s Dominic Green who came across equal parts menacing, creepy and also cowardly and for some reason he reminded me of a creepy version of Jean Todt, with his odd stare and slimy smile. None of the supporting cast or returning characters are given anything to work with and they exist simply to move the plot along and if you didn't watch Royale you would not care if they lived or die.

The thing with Quantum is that it feels like a darker second act in a three part series much like how The Empire Strikes Back was and as it stands now the third act needs to tie up many loose ends to make this entry relevant. For the majority of 2 hours we see an angry Bond flying from one exotic location to another just to beat up some baddie, occasionally finding some spare time to bed the obligatory beauty, and it just seems a bit futile in the end with nothing really being resolved or advanced except for closure to Vesper’s act. Clearly the new Bond is being modeled after the Bourne series, right down to the shaky hand held camera angles, but I would hate to see it become an inferior copy of that franchise. Every chapter of the Bourne series manages to move the character further along on his quest to discover his identity and it always provided a satisfactory end until the next part but Bond here has failed in doing that. Quantum of Solace is a great action movie but by the standards of its predecessor it leaves a lot to be desired and I’m really hoping that the third act will somehow pull everything together and give us the Bond that we deserve.

Pineapple Express - The Little Film That Could

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:54:00 +0000

4 months without a post is a long time and it isn’t like I haven’t been watching stuff, in fact I’ve been watching a shit load of stuff but just never felt like writing about it because a lot of what I had to say had already been written out there. “So why now?” I hear you ask, the answer my friend is through a combination of having a good movie to recommend and also having a few days off from work. I’m not entirely convinced that Judd Apatov is deserving of the hype he’s been getting because to me a lot of his movies are essentially the same thing and personally I think a lot of it are ‘inspired’ by old Kevin Smith movies. I did not find the 40 Year Old Virgin & Knocked Up to be all that great but I did like Forgetting Sarah Marshall (mainly because of Russell Brand) and Super Bad so it was very surprising that I found Pineapple Express to be refreshingly hilarious.

Dale Denton is a slacker pothead who works as a process server which means he serves subpoena to people but all the while dreaming of becoming a radio DJ. The main reason he loves his job is because of all the free time he gets smoking pot which he gets from Saul, his drug dealer, who dreams of becoming a civil engineer and claims to only be selling drugs so that he can put his grandma in a better home. One day Saul introduces Dale to the latest crème of marijuana, The Pineapple Express, which he has the exclusive rights to sell. On a watch at his latest case, to subpoena someone named Ted Jones, Dale lights up a joint as he watches a police car pull up and a lady cop runs into Jones’s house. He watches in horror as Jones and the cop kill an Asian man and as he flees Dales drops the joint he was smoking. It turns out that Jones is the source of the pot and it doesn’t take long for Saul and Dale to realize that they are going to be in a whole world of pain very soon so they decide to make a run for it.

First off this is not a movie that seeks to reinvent the wheel but what it is is a damn good example of a comedy with heart much like what There’s Something About Mary was. At the core of it is the relationship between Saul and Dale and also to an extent Red, Saul’s middleman with Jones. Dale had always viewed Saul solely as a source but Saul felt they had a connection, not in a gay way, and as both get deeper into trouble they are surprised by the things they are willing to do for each other. Seth Rogen gives a good performance as the slacker and emotionally immature Dale who is a basically a good guy but it is James Franco who steals the show. In a role that is a radical departure from all his previous pretty boy roles Franco is damn convincing as the perpetually stoned drug dealer with a heart of gold. I had always thought of him more of a poser than an actor because he was always playing the same anguished angry at the world character epitomized by Harry Osborn in the Spiderman franchise so I’m glad to be surprised to see that there is another level to his acting ability. Rounding out the trio is Danny McBride as Red the middleman who starts off being impartial to fate of our heroic duo but comes to see what a dick he has become and seeks redemption. I think this guy is great in small roles, like his turn in Tropic Thunder, but I’m undecided if he should be given a larger role but what he does here is laugh out loud hilarious including a wacky fight scene with the guys.

The story is nothing to shout about but the witty camaraderie between the guys is funny as hell and a couple of smaller subplot also adds some depth to the movie and offers a funny distraction from the main plot like the one involving Dale’s teenage girlfriend and her family, the make-up scene is particularly good. Rosie Perez and Gary Cole are under utilized as the crooked cop and drug czar respectively but they do provide a good pay off when they buy the farm as does Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan as two bumbling hitmans. Pineapple Express is a small little movie that is both funny and crass but what sets it apart from other similar fares is the heart that it possesses as well as good performances from its cast and a great one from James Franco.

Hancock - Ugly and Unnecessary

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:09:00 +0000

I can often accurately judge the quality of a movie by the trailer itself except in the rare cases like Silent Hill, which looks so true to the game but had such a blah story, and I love it when a movie manages to surprise me. My initial reaction to the trailer for Hancock was decidedly lackluster with nothing much managing to stir any interest in me especially as it seemed that there wasn’t any interesting villain to play off from, and sad to say except for one or two laughs Hancock really is a very bland and completely derivative summer action movie that is completely lacking in any sort of heart. What we get on screen is a horribly paced and just plain ugly effort that is really a waste of everybody's time.

Hancock is an alcoholic amnesiac superhero who tries to fight the good fight but his often controversial decisions and total disregard of manners make him almost as bad as the criminals he fights in the public’s opinion. That is until he saves the life of Ray Embrey, an uncharacteristically positive PR agent, who decides to give Hancock a major PR make over. Beyond that Ray has embraced Hancock into his personal live much to the irritation of his wife but to the delight of his son. To make the world realize how much it needs Hancock, Ray convinces him to voluntarily surrender to the authorities and it is only a matter of time before crime starts to overflow and they begin calling for his release which is exactly what happens. Suddenly the world is embracing the newly PC Hancock and he is perhaps at peace with himself except for a strange attraction to Ray’s wife and her often odd behavior around him.

There are so many things wrong with the movie that it is difficult to begin but at it’s core there is an interesting idea that could have been developed especially his back story but all that is sacrificed for the sake of some uninspired and quite simply awful action sequences. I have watched almost all off Peter Berg’s movies because he always manages to land movies with some interesting angle but every time I have left thinking how much better the movie would be all the way from The Rundown to The Kingdom and its exactly the same this time around. For some reason he seems unable to decide what sort of movie he is making here because while the movie is PG13 it has some extremely dark thoughts running through it and the choice of cinematography is particularly jarring. His decision to go shaky handheld style is simply not on for a superhero action movie as it makes it extremely difficult to follow the proceedings or maybe it’s just done badly here because when you look at the Bourne series it just seems natural. For the life of me I can’t understand why Michael Mann has take Berg to be his protégé because while he isn’t untalented he seems yet to have settled on a style of his own and all I see is just a mismatch of things that have come before him.

Story wise it does look as if the studio have had a hand in changing some key elements because I do not think that the script as it is would have been green lighted as a summer tent pole movie. Quite simply there really isn’t much of a story with most of the interesting bits being only explanations and referenced to and the twist when it does come is hardly surprising at all. Charlize Theron must have accepted this movie simply because Smith was in it and/or the money because it is a role that is so woefully underwritten. It makes no sense to sign her and then relegating her to the sidelines for much of the movie only for her to be integral to the last act of the movie. Another thing that grated me was how bad the CG was for the movie because I haven’t seen such shoddy CG in a summer blockbuster in a long time which is extremely surprising given the budget and talent involved.

Will Smith may be the biggest star in world at the moment but if he continues on this path of selecting interesting movie ideas and then dumbing it down for the mass market his career is bound to go the way of the dodo sooner rather than later. For a star to be so bankable for his personality it is indeed odd that he has consistently managed to pick characters that are little more than cut-out paper thin characters that lack anything resembling in personality. Looking back on his recent forays, while they have been commercially extremely successful, I dare anyone to tell me that the characters he plays in I Am Legend, I Robot and Hitch are even remotely interesting and engaging and when you compare to his earlier fares like MIB and even the Bad Boys series then the comparison becomes even more jarring. Still I guess it would be impossible for the Hollywood machine to change the formula when his opening weekends often always returns the entire budget for the movie itself but it guess it doesn’t hurt to hope and pray for a miracle. The likelier scenario is that he will only begin taking risks when his commercial star starts to wane which based on the current trajectory should begin 2 pictures down the road and then perhaps we will see a return to form for the former Prince of Bel Air.

Doomsday - A Blood Drenched Homage

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:07:00 +0000

A name makes all the difference in the world, especially in Hollywood, with Doomsday as a case in point. A gory, violent throwback movie to the silliness that was the 70’s action genre was released last year to rave review but that movie was not called Doomsday instead it was called Grindhouse and it featured two of the highest profile directors in the world, Tarantino and Rodriguez. Fast forward a year and another similarly violent and silly picture was released and it was condemned as thrash and consigned to garbage heap. This is in spite of the fact that it is clearly a better made movie but it did have the handicap of having a solid director in Neil Marshall who had earlier released two gory classic in The Descent and Dog Soldiers but clearly lacking in the name game.

In the near future a violent and deadly virus is spreading in Scotland and with no cure in sight the British decides to cordoned off the entire country with a huge wall erected to keep anyone from coming out. Fast forward 30 years and the virus have found its way into the perfect melting pot that is London. It has however been discovered that there are survivors in Scotland and with them a possible cure for the virus so they decide to send a military team lead by Major Eden Sinclair over to search and obtain any survivors. Sinclair is herself an escapee from the original epidemic with her mother sacrificing herself to get her out in time before they were left to die and she has never given up hope that she will discover her origin. The only clue given to the team is that they should search for Dr Marcus Kane who was leading the research for the cure at the time of evacuation. When they do get in what they find is a world that has degenerated into a primitive and brutal culture where cannibalism and sadism goes hand in hand.

Lets just get the obvious out of the way first: this is just a balls out over the top insane movie that is just the most fun you will ever find in the cinema but yet at the same time this is loving homage to the all those that has come before. Clearly the two biggest influence on the movie are Mad Max and Escape from New York with a sprinkling of The Warriors thrown in for good measure. I am one of those who just love Snake Plisken and his world and I was horrified when they announced they were going to remake it but here is an example of how to make it right. The reference to Snake is everywhere from the opening graphics on the isolation of Scotland to the loss of eye for Eden and clearly the bad ass nature of the protagonist. I really salute Neil Marshall for having the guts to really go out and make such an un-Hollywood movie and reviving the spirit that John Carpenter championed for much of the 80’s.

The performances for the most part are only adequate and most of the characters are of the one dimensional nature except for Eden but it doesn’t really matter because the movie is clearly about her and her mission. Rhona Mitra has done a good job balancing the sexiness and toughness of the character by which I mean while she is clearly a beautiful specimen it is her toughness that comes to the fore. It is not going to be easy for anyone to step in for Snake and when it’s a woman it makes it that much more difficult but she succeeds by displaying some real gutsy moves and to be honest she really looks the part so the choreography must have been really great.

The best part of the movie is the amount of gore and deaths on screen and the blood letting literally starts from the very beginning to the very end but funnily despite the huge amount of gore I didn’t find it gratuitous. The deaths needed to happen because in this particular world it needed to happen and I for one loved every minute of it. The entire selection of deaths is quite literally a how to kill list from decapitation to suicide to being eaten alive. Whatever faults the movie may have and there are plenty, from the phoned in performance from Malcolm Macdowell to the clunky dialogue and improbable car chase, you must accept it in the spirit that the movie was meant to be taken in and that’s just to have the most exhilarating fun you can have at the movies. At this moment in time Neil Marshall is a name that can yet command instant good reviews but you can bet it will only be a matter of time before all critics bow at the altar for one of the most gifted directors of our times.

Indiana Jones IV AKA The One Where Indy Lost His Groove

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:15:00 +0000

I remember last year as I was suffering through National Treasure 2 I kept thinking what a pale imitation it was to an Indiana Jones movie but now after sitting through the latest adventure by Dr Jones I am not sure if that statement still holds true. Apart from the Star Wars movie I think no other movie left more of a mark on me as I was growing up and while the specifics were great it was the overall sense of adventure and magic that I remembered from those movies that would inspire all manners of wondrous flights of fantasy. It was without a doubt the reason I grew up loving history and everything related to mysteries of the past. Suffice to say when it comes to matters like this I went into the cinema with equal amounts of boyish anticipation and apocalyptic dread but to be honest nothing could ever have matched up to the anticipation but to fall so far is a travesty.

Indiana Jones and his partner Mac have been kidnapped by the Russians to infiltrate a US military base in Kansas to search for the remnant of a UFO crash site that may hold the key to unlocking an ancient lost power. The Russians are led by the enigmatic Dr Irina Spalko who heads a shadowy division of the KGB in discovering secrets of the paranormal. Subsequently it turns out that Mac is a traitor which puts Indy in the line of fire of the FBI which at that politically charge time was leading a witch hunt for all things related to communism. Indy is subsequently fired from his tenure and he is on his way to Europe when he is confronted by a young man who brings bad news in regards to an old acquaintance who might be in big problems. This forces Indy to break out the whip and the fedora once again which will lead him to the jungles of South America and to the fabled city of gold, El Dorado. However what will be waiting for him there will be more than earthly treasure and he must stop Irina from getting the ultimate prize of the ancient civilizations.

It must be said that while he has indeed aged Harrison Ford still makes a good Indy and the blame for the movies’ weaknesses should not be on his head. He still manages to make Indy come across as the everyday man who does extraordinary things simply because he has to do it and that was always the attraction of Indy. Here was this scholarly Professor who could alternate between outrunning a giant rolling boulder and going toe to toe with Nazi soldiers without missing a heartbeat. In many ways it gave us hope, hope that even us average Joes could be the hero and also proving that being smart doesn’t automatically make you a geek. I also quite like the character of Irina Spalko and it really seemed like Cate Blanchett was really having a good time hamming it up and perhaps beside Ford she is the only one who seems to understand the true spirit of the franchise. It is true that her character is not truly believable or relatable in a real sense but she brought a lot of flair and uniqueness to the film before her character was discarded half way through the film for the sake of CG set pieces. Sad to say in my opinion theirs is the only reputation that comes out intact, both in front and behind the cameras.

In terms of character I really hated Shia’s character and I for one really fail to see why there is such a big push for him in Hollywood. In none of the movies he has been in have I seen anything to suggest that he has what it takes to be a credible leading man and that list includes Disturbia and Transformers, both movies where the critics have raved about his performances. I really don’t buy into the character of Mutt Williams simply because he looks nothing like a tough guy/grease monkey despite his best attempts to act tough and the fact that they modeled his introduction to Marlon Brando’s The Wild One is laughable and makes him look even more foolish. He has neither the persona or the looks to stand anywhere near Marlon Brando or even Fonzie for that matter to make one believe that Mutt is anywhere near the tough guy he clearly thinks he is. Karen Allen was another that was given too little to play with even though her coming back to the franchise was one of the biggest thing and it just felt like a gimmicky thing to do. Ray Winstone seemed a good fit to be the double crossing Mac but his character just jumped in and out of the show far too often to really make an impact on the proceedings and as such it was another wasted opportunity.

The script is where I have the most problems with because in certain parts this truly felt like an Indy movie but for the majority of the screen time it felt more like Indy lite. There were scenes that reminded us why we loved the franchise so much but those are few and far between and being overshadowed by some juvenile jokes and impossible scenarios. Some of the set pieces were great to see and I especially like the opening set piece in the warehouse which was a great fit for the character but even that scene is spoiled somewhat by the ridiculous manner in which he escaped (honestly in a fridge from a mushroom cloud?) and that’s what you get with the movie, lots of good and encouraging build up being let down by lazy and just outright laughable resolutions. The whole car chase scene that was featured so prominently in the trailer was very well done until they decided to make Mutt into Tarzan which more or less ruined it for me. Even the scripting process seemed to suffer from ADD with multiple plot lines started but discarded midway through like the whole Indy being branded a communist which was never resolved. Some of the many set pieces just felt like an afterthought like the whole graveyard fight scenes which didn’t advance anything and even to a certain extent the whole quicksand scene as well.

I was extremely disappointed by the fact that so much of the movie was shot in green screen because all along in the franchise the location settings or even studio lots worked so much more effectively in bringing a real sense of danger and believability to the proceedings. And to be brutally honest some of the CG effects weren’t really that well shot as well. I know I am being a real downer in this review but to put things into perspective the movie is still good fun for a summer movie but just do not expect it to reach the heights of what has come before. A lot of that has to do with the fact that Steven Spielberg seems to have stop progressing as a director and there are hardly any real stand out moments in the movie and I think the last really good movie from him was the much underrated Minority Report. Indiana Jones has returned for one last fling and at the very least we should be happy for that but it would have been better if the whole movie didn’t feel like one long goodbye.

Speed Racer - A Contrarian View

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Tue, 13 May 2008 06:35:00 +0000

By now everyone would know that Speed Racer has crashed and burned at the box office and also the reviews have been decidedly negative but let me just say that I for one did not hate it and given the right expectations and proper perspective I think the movie is absolutely spot on. The Wachowskis have said earlier that they were aiming for a sort of “Living Cartoon” and on that basis they have hit the mark completely and that is the only way for you to approach the movie to fully enjoy the absurdities in Speed Racer. The funny thing about Speed Racer is that it is never that much about racing and more about the bonds of families in overcoming adversities.

Speed Racer is a racing fanatic born to a racing family where the dad owns a racing team in which his brother is the star driver. Speed literally only knows about racing because he can hardly concentrate on anything else and therefore idolizes his brother for the things he can do on the track. However his brother decides to join a conglomerate racing team and is turned into a hatchet man for the team and subsequently loses his live in the cutthroat world of off track racing. Speed is now the star driver but he has never forgotten his brother but history repeats itself because Royalton Industries, one of the largest companies in the world, have taken notice of his exploits and are keen to add him to their roster of trophy winning drivers. Royalton (Roger Allam) is a slimy and conniving bastard that pours on the charm when needed but is ruthless as hell when it suits him that offers Speed the ultimatum of joining him or risk losing everything. He also informs Speed that everything in the world of racing is predetermined and that is nothing any outsider can do to change the system.

Speed decides to turn the offer down and things immediately go wrong for him and his family but he is approached by Inspector Detector to assist him in discovering the fraud and manipulation being done by Royalton. Together with a mysterious racer named Racer X, who could be Speed’s long lost brother, and Taega Togokhan, they participate in the most dangerous race of them all, The Crucible, to gain entry into the season ending Grand Prix.

The first thing when talking about Speed Racer will have to be the visual effects because it is quite unlike anything you have ever seen with a palette of colors so rich that it would make Willy Wonka look like a funeral procession. The eye candy is a real feast for the visual and it would be a travesty to miss this work of art at the cinema but a word of caution for those who can’t stand fast moving colors on screen you might want to give this a miss because you’re liable to have an epileptic fit. It would not be a stretch to call this a living breathing cartoon world and everything is designed in that retro futuristic mold that would be familiar to anime aficionados and particularly to players of Space Channel 5. Everything in the movie was filmed on green screen like Sky Captain which offered the Wachowskis a chance to go crazy and they happily obliged by delivering one of the wildest creation this side of The Fifth Element. The races themselves were fantastic even though it didn’t offer any sense of perspective or based on any physics laws but I felt they were very well done and most importantly fun and especially the first race was a bit more poignant because of the lost brother angle. For the most part cars slip and slide and even go up the face of cliffs with no thoughts given to that little thing called gravity and that’s ok because lets remember that this is a cartoon and they can get away with things like that.

From reading the reviews some of the main complaints are about the cheesy dialogue, infantile humour involving Speed’s younger brother and lack of characterization but if you sit and think back to those Saturday morning cartoons you used to love didn’t they have all the above drawbacks. In many ways the Wachowskis really have made a live action anime, which are usually characterized by oddly timed often times childish behavior, warts and all and I guess the argument can be made that they should have polished it up for the big screen but a couple of moments aside I think generally the movie did alright. I’m not a big fan of Sprittle and his monkey but generally I didn’t find them too annoying but I really hated the ninja scene and I thought that was the one scene they could have done better or done without. The dialogue is corny but like I said if you go into the movie with the correct mindset the dialogue works very well especially the scenes with the commentators which are really reminiscent of the cartoon shows. Another point about dialogue is that some of the quieter moments especially with Susan Sarandon are quite well done and I think in anybody else’s hand the hold thing would fall flat but I think she sold it really well.

There were a lot of complaints on the performances of the actors but I think they all cave a good account of themselves especially John Goodman as the caring Pops and Christina Ricci as the loving girlfriend Trixie, it must be said that Ricci has the perfect face and eyes for an anime role and it was a shame her role was relatively small. In many ways the family dynamics are very similar to the wholesome values of those found in Archie Comics and that’s a very rare thing these days. A couple of complaint I do have is mainly about the back story which I think is slightly convoluted and may be too much for its intended age group and also about the reasoning for the continued secrecy of Racer X. I remember how excited I was when word first came out that the Wachowskis were aiming for a whole new look with Speed Racer, because everyone has seen how good The Matrix looks even though the story suffered at the end, but I was quite deflated by the trailers which looked like an advertisement for Hot Wheels which lead me to have very low expectations about the movie. And maybe to enjoy the movie you need to go in with low expectations and be prepared to be surprised by something that you have never really seen before. Speed Racer is by no means a great film but what it is is a fantastic visual feast for the senses that if you give it a chance will grow on you.

Iron Man - Summer Has Begun

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:37:00 +0000

Starting a new post has always been the most difficult part for me when it comes to blogging and it has caused countless delays of reviews that should have been up much earlier much like this one for Iron Man, which I say a week ago but couldn’t find the opening for, but I think in this case it is a good thing. If I had written this piece then I am sure it would have had sunshine coming out of its ass because the movie experience was such a high but having left it to gestate for a little while you start to think a bit more reasonably and some of the flaws are a little more apparent . Iron Man is without a doubt one of the better action movies we have had in a long time, and not just a comic related movie, but it does suffers from some scripting and story weaknesses which are plastered over by the incredible performance of the man of the hour, Robert Downey Jr.

Industrialist Tony Stark is the toast of America because he is not only a much in demand weapons manufacturer but a also a flamboyant millionaire playboy who is prone to witty one liners and showboating it in the media. Things have always come easy for Stark since he is a born genius and he also inherited the vast fortune and multibillion dollar company left behind by his dad but things for him take a turn for the worse when he is abducted after the successful of launch of his company’s new missile for the US army in Afghanistan by a mysterious new group of terrorists called the Ten Rings. Their purpose is to have him develop the Jericho missile for their own nefarious use but Stark is injured in the attack and in order to continue living he is forced to come up with the design of a miniature arc reactor. Stark fools his captors by using this reactor to power a suit of armour he has secretly built to escape. On his return to the states Stark is filled with the moral conundrum that is faced by all weapon mongers, does he continue producing weapons that causes so much suffering or does he start channeling his efforts for better use? Of course the answer is the latter and he announces to the world that Stark industries will stop producing weapons but this doesn’t sit well with his long time business partner Obadiah Stane and his board of directors.

The main success factor for the movie has to be credited to the casting decision of Robert Downey Jr because it was just pitch perfect and helped to elevate the movie to another level. His deadpan expressions are worth the price of admission by itself and his delivery of the one liners are so natural that one wonders if any of it was ever scripted. His charm is what makes Tony Stark such a memorable character and despite being a womanizer and having an ego the size of Russia you cannot bring yourself to hating the man because it shines through almost immediately that there is a good person somewhere underneath all that bravado. It was so refreshing to see so much sunshine, figuratively and literally, in an action movie because most of them today are concerned with being overly gritty and going along the tortured soul lines as we will once again see when the Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight hits cinemas next month which is fine as long as it is well done but like I say it is just refreshing to see the sun sometimes. I like the fact that there are some real world sensibilities and the world being played around in is actually something we recognize unlike say Gotham City which helps ground the whole movie.

The action set pieces are often very enjoyable because there is always an element of fun to it which helps to keep the proceedings from becoming overly serious. I think the script has done a good job in balancing the quieter character moments with the whizz bang action scenes and I think that is very commendable in a summer movie targeted at attention deficit teenagers. In fact to be totally honest the quieter scenes are often more compelling because they really help Stark shine through as a genuine do-gooder and his relationship with his long suffering loyal assistant Pepper Potts is potentially a very interesting future development. That being said I think Gwyneth Paltrow’s role is far too small and serves more than a story toll rather than as a full fledged character but on the upside she is looking much more radiant these days but I guess having a baby or two will do that to you. What we have here of her is certainly only a teaser of what’s to come but it is an interesting and much welcomed teaser.

What is abundantly clear is that director Jon Favreau has a lot of love for the property and you see that is how lovingly he handles the character and the armour. Much like what Sam Raimi did for Spiderman, Jon has made Iron Man a true hero while at the same time making him a fun and relatable character. However what is clear is that Favreau doesn’t have the cinematic flair and eye for action that Raimi has because while most of the set pieces are entertaining they lack any real punch or innovation that really sets it apart. However having said that the armour is almost a character in itself and the design of the suit is certainly very slick and smart and I think the cg for the whole movie was very slick as well and there can be no complaint on that end. I did find the last act of the movie to have moved too fast towards the final showdown and it seemed a bit out of character for Obadiah Stane to act so recklessly when there was no need to do so. Speaking of Obadiah I think it was a great look for the normally Mr Nice Guy Jeff Bridges and it shows he has the ability to play a baddie for once but I do think his character is too thin to make an effective villain but for the first go at the character I think it will do for now.

In the final analysis there is very much to like in Marvels newest franchise and whatever short comings there may be is overcome by the fun and high energy proceedingsand as the opening act to the summer season it has certainly set the bar very high for the coming months. This truly is one for the ages as the movie has enough of everything to offer to everybody and in comparison with all other superhero movies I would placed it behind only to the first 2 installments of Spiderman, who won out due to better action set pieces and more rounded villains. Iron Man will undoubtedly make a killing at the box office and deservedly so because as a whole this is one very smart outing made by a crew who have seemingly poured a huge amount of love into this wonderful package.

Before Sunrise & Before Sunset : Simply Perfect

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:42:00 +0000

I am not quite sure how to say this but during these past few weeks something truly unexpected and extremely refreshing happened to me, I have stumbled onto perhaps The greatest love story ever told on screen. Let me just say in advance that my predilection on love stories generally strays from the accepted path and when you see magazines tout their “movies to watch for Valentines” segment and other similar articles my preferences are guaranteed to be missing from the list. I really don’t have the patience to watch the main characters stumble through one impossible to believe obstacles after the other to finally come to the conclusion that they actually love each other, with the possible of Notting Hill and that’s only because of Spike, so now you know where I’m coming from therefore please accept the following review with that in mind. One thing I need to do before hand is to warn you about the spoilers because I couldn’t find a way to review the movie without revealing the ending of the first movie so stop reading if that’s going to be a problem and watch the movie first.

Jesse(Ethan Hawke) is a lonely American traveler in Europe and on his way to his last stop of Vienna to fly back he meets the beautiful Celine(Julie Delpy), a French girl returning to Paris after visiting her grandmother in Budapest. There is an immediate connection between the two and when the train arrives at Vienna Jesse proposes that they continue their conversation with an accompanying tour of the city. As he is flying out in the morning and doesn’t have the money for a hotel he proposes that they just roam the city until the morning where they’ll have to part. The ensuing hours are spent in deep conversation on every aspect of not just their lives but also their thoughts from religion to relationship, no matter how random and unconnected their thoughts may be. They agree that they shouldn’t exchange any form of contact details because usually people will only write and talk for a few times before they eventually stop. By morning both are absolutely and utterly madly in love but because of the situation they only decide to meet back at that very train station six months later and it is with that that they part.

It is 9 years later and Jesse has written a best seller about the events of that night and he is doing a book tour in Paris. At the end of the session in Paris he sees Celine waiting for him and they decide to go and have coffee to reminisce about their last meeting and it becomes clear to the audience that they never got to meet after parting on the train station. Jesse is now married with a daughter and Celine has gone on to be a crusader for both social and environmental causes and is now attached to a war photojournalist. But as the day wears on what is abundantly clear is that they are both madly in love with each other and were it not for their naivety their first meeting would have blossomed into something beautiful. 0uch like their first meeting they spend the time touring the city and sharing all manner of conversations on every conceivable topic that pops into their head. Before long it is time once again for them to decide on what course their relationship should take.

At times through the movie I am flabbergasted as to how authentic everything feels and looks because the leads have given a tremendously honest and sensitive performance that have somehow been ignored by the general public. It is for me the perfect way to fall in love. You meet an attractive person who turns out to be your soul mate who can challenge you intellectually but at the same time be comfortable enough to share all your most inspiring or ridiculous thoughts openly without fear of looking like an idiot. When all you have is one day I guess it makes everything in life that more precious and you begin to feel a heightened sense of your surroundings including the people that matters to you which makes the movie so much more powerful. When I first read the synopsis I knew it was good idea provided it was done the right way with the right people involved which is exactly what we have in these 2 movies. I read on the web that the director/writer Richard Linkletter based the story on a similar event that happened to him and it really shows through by how honest the movie is.

Of the two Jesse is clearly the more romantic one but because of what has just happened to him prior to meeting Celine he attempts to seem more cynical but his eagerness and willingness to embrace the possibility that this is the one true love of his life betrays his attempt to hide his sensitive side. Early on in the first movie he is the typical young underachiever who has just had another setback and he is looking to get out of there as quick as possible. As we get more and more into the movie you can see that he is beginning to see things differently and perhaps for once life was giving him a break but sadly he wasn’t brave enough to grab hold of it. When we see him again in the second movie it is clear that Jesse has been weighed down by life and he is living an unhappy sham of a marriage and the only thing that gives him pleasure is the memory of that night and that is why he has chosen to write the book. It was his only way to relief the memory without feeling guilty about it but also as a subconscious way to look for Celine. The way his face lights up when he sees Celine says it all about his feelings for her and the ending was never really in doubt from that moment on.

Celine on the other hand is the more idealistic of the two as seen in her devotion to her causes like feminism which she has obviously invested a lot of thoughts into and some of her ideas are quite amusing. She is a brave soul who isn’t afraid of saying what’s on her mind and also of following her heart as her little soirée into Vienna shows and in the first movie she is much younger and more naïve but also very much headstrong . In the second she is wearier of the world but still manages to maintain a strong idealist streak. I love that she is this strong and opinioned woman who is aware of her vulnerabilities which makes her so much more believable as a human being.

I do not think that in any other movie you will get the chance to understand a character so completely because in the course of 90 minutes you get to hear them talk about almost all their thoughts, things that perhaps we wouldn’t utter in real life for fear of ridicule, and that is where the movie really shines. The movie is such a gentle and loving movie that is truly rare in the world today where even love stories often features some sort of villainy or adversaries but here it is just two people connecting on a very deep level. The incredible sadness of the first movie was just heartbreaking despite there being a silver lining and the great joy that I felt at the end of the second says it all for me and if it doesn’t do it for you I think you should immediately go find your pulse. There are many great love stories out there, Casablanca and Chasing Amy (hey it’s my blog and I get to say whatever I want) spring to mind, but I have no doubt and no reservations whatsoever to say that when they are watched as a whole these two movies is The Most Romantic Movie Ever and everyone should watch it at least once in their life time.

Street Kings - Almost Believable

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:21:00 +0000

If there are any irrefutable truths out there it would be that men as a species love to dig up dirt and the dirtier it is the better preferably on those who are supposed to be whiter than white. While we may bemoan the lack of transparency and perceived abuses in the police force in real life, in reel life however is an entirely different case. We love to see the boys in blues acting like thugs and the guys in Hollywood in turn love churning it out, to variable degrees of success it has to be added. Street Kings is latest to reach our shores and it comes with a powerful cast in tow, both in front and behind the camera, but what is it that we often hear about there being too many chefs?

Tom Ludlow is a battle hardened detective in the Special Vice Unit headed by Captain Jack Wanders and he is the sort of guy who gets things done no matter the rules or consequences involved. For years Tom has been operating as a one man hit squad who takes out the bad guys and Jack is the one who cleans it up and they both bathe in the lime light. However things begin to get dicey when Tom’s ex-partner Terrence starts talking to Capt James Bigg, the head of IA, and after Tom’s latest unsanctioned bloodbath in Korea Town the heat is beginning to get real uncomfortable. When Tom goes to confront Terrence about his backstabbing activities Terrence is gunned in an apparent store robbery by 2 black guys which leaves Tom in a very precarious position. Tom’s part in the killing is changed and the investigating detective leaves out the details as to why he was there in the first place but Tom is adamant about finding the people responsible for the killing despite numerous appeals by his captain to stay put. As he begins to dig and pound his way to the truth he starts to see things in a different manner and those he calls friends are not what they may look like. His investigations will take him from the cops to the streets and back to the cops again and there will be hell to pay and blood to be spilt long before the bloody conclusion.

Reading the synopsis of Street Kings is like reading the synopsis for a dime a dozen movies about bad cops but when it is done by the right people the results can be great like LA Confidential and Training Day but more often than not it ends up being a generic lost episode of The Shield which is where this movie ends up being. Lets begin with the pedigree that is behind the movie, you have the director David Ayer who was the writer for both LA Confidential and Training Day, the writer James Ellroy is the noted crime fiction novelist who also wrote LA Confidential and then you have the great cast which consist of Academy Award best actor Forest Whitaker, Emmy Award best actor Hugh Laurie and then there is Keanu Reeves. If that is not a list for you to sit up and take notice I don’t know what will.

The acting here is not the problem with Keanu giving a hint that perhaps just maybe he has learned how to act and he turns in a slightly above average portrayal of a man with lots of shadows but it is still stretching it slightly to believe him as the hard son of a bitch character he is supposed to be. Physically he seems to have gotten into character by being more heavy set and looking more haggard but the prettiness still shines through. I cannot help but see him as the guy who dodges bullet in long black trench coats but I would say he has given one of his most convincing performances to date. Forest Whitaker is also good as the manipulative and charismatic Capt Wanders but Hugh Laurie is wasted as his nemesis as are many other good actors because one of the main problem is that none other are allowed to shine. Most of the characters are given short shift and never allowed to be developed, everyone is who they seem to be immediately and there are no real surprises to savor.

Which leads to biggest problem with the movie and that would be the story, nothing about it screams originality and the dialogue at times was unintentionally laughable. The final speech given by Wanders was so bad I couldn’t help myself from cringing which is a huge surprise considering the talent involved. Training Day is quite honestly one of the most memorable movie in the past decade and part of the appeal was it’s dialogue which was spot on, this is a guess because I have never been to a gang neighborhood in South LA my entire life, and the street talk was so believable you could quite easily envision those characters in real life. Street Kings however cannot pass that barrier which leaves it looking like someone playing at being cops and robbers.

The mood and feel of the movie is still quite commendable with the city looking and feeling like it should but the pacing is a bit off. I think with a tighter editing and a faster paced layout the movie would have been more engaging but as it is in parts the movie does tend to slow down too much which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if those moments added more to the story which isn’t the case here. As it stands Street Kings, despite some good performance, is a missed opportunity to present a fresh take on an evergreen concept but misses the mark because it lacks the most important ingredient needed to make a gritty crime movie engaging and that is believability.

An Empress and The Warriors - Half Baked

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:37:00 +0000

As a rule of thumb I will never watch a Leon Lai movie simply because the man has never done a movie that has even been remotely credible but the line is slightly blurred when you throw in my favorite kung fu star Donnie Yen. At the moment Yen is the only one holding the fort for true kung fu action in an industry obsessed with pretty boys and girls playing at make believe and with no one on the horizon to pick up from him the future is indeed bleak for the genre that Bruce Lee built. The past few movies by Yen has been a mixed bag in terms of quality but the action had remained at a consistently brutal level so expectations for a medieval war movie starring Donnie Yen is understandably high.

The war between the kingdoms of Zhao and Yan is in full flow and the King of Yan is mortally wounded and brought back to camp. There he denotes that his adopted son and well respected general Yen to be his successor but upon his death his nephew Wu Ba, another powerful general, insist that he is the true successor. To get through the impasse Yen proposes that the princess, Kelly Chen take up the throne but she would first have to get through military training because the King had always been a male and a great warrior. Wu Ba plans his own ascension and his first step is to assassinate the Princess before she can finish the training but the princess escapes and is rescued by a hermit, Lai, who is more that he seems to be. During her recovery Lai teaches the princess the value of peace and the folly of war and in time she begins to fall for the weird medicine man. Duty however forces her to return and deal with the threat of the invading Zhao army which she manages to quell and at the same time establishing peace with them but her heart is set on returning to the forest to be with the hermit.

Let’s just go through what worked before we get to what didn’t and the first would be the costume and production values which are of the highest quality. If I’m not mistaken it’s done by the same person who did Curse of the Golden Flower which was another very well done movie cosmetically. All the armor features beautiful and intricate designs which lend a real air of majesty to the proceedings. Next would be …… err unfortunately that’s all that’s good because everything else is a mess.

The biggest disappointment for me would be the lack of any real action involving Yen and the only one on one scene he had in the movie was with Lai, who I’m pretty sure could wield a sword even if his life depended on it. The whole reason I paid to go to a cinema to watch a Donnie Yen movie is to see him lay a good smack down on the baddie and if I have that I am more than willing to forgive any plot contrivances or bad acting that are in the movie and believe me there are lots of those present in this movie. In fact I really do not see the point of him even being in this movie such is his role that any film school reject could easily have filled in. The plot of the movie is extremely simple but the execution is so badly done that you feel you are actually watching 2 movies, one a period war movie and the other being a cheesy and often cliché love story staring 2 of the blandest actors working today. Honestly the casting director should be fired immediately because whoever who thought that Kelly Chen could be an inspirational leader and fearsome warrior no less deserves to be banned from the industry immediately. Not only does she fails to come across as anything resembling a leader she also fails as being somebody in love, in fact she just fails to seem even remotely believable as a character. Do not even get me started with Leon Lai and just suffice to say the man maintains his standard, whatever they may be.

As if the acting wasn’t bad enough the script manages to bring the movie down another level with some of The most awful lines to be heard on screen. I dare anyone to not cringe in disgust when watching this pathetic attempt at a love story and nearest example I can think of are the love scenes in Star Wars Episode 2. The story is also extremely convenient because people travel on horseback through vast area of land to do absolutely nothing and also the whole hot air balloon thing is just ludicrous. The whole back story of the Moon Warriors is also pitifully funny, the story of the kingdoms uniting to destroy the greatest threat and then for the it to be treated like a long lost forgotten secret is believable except for the fact that the last surviving Moon Warrior is the same age as when they were supposed to be destroyed so how can people not have remembered the event. It really is a trying time for the Hong Kong movie industry and if these are the standards then it is only a matter of time before we witness the end of a once thriving empire.

The Mist - Widly Entertaining

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:42:00 +0000

I just love monster movies. There I have said it. Nothing makes me happier than the release of a new monster movie despite the outcome being that I almost always leave the cinema disappointed. There is something about seeing a huge monstrosity gobbling away on the often idiotic human characters that brings a smile to my face which I guess must also explain my fascination with National Geographic’s Built for the Kill series. I would go watch the worst reviewed movies just to look at the creatures, case in point 10000BC which I’m thinking of going to because of the sabretooths, but I always leave cursing the fact that there are very few movies that manages to meld great creature effects with a great story which is perplexing. Just imagine having a story that is able to crank up the tension before the payoff of the kill and also mix in a healthy dose of paranoia, wouldn’t that be great movie. Wait that’s actually Ridley Scott’s Alien but now at long last we can add Frank Darabont’s The Mist to that list.

The setup is simple enough with the residents of Brighton Maine waking up to a brutal storm. Among them are David Drayton and his family who discovers that the storm has left them with a smashed front window and a demolished boat house. He leaves for town with his young son, Billy, and also his not so friendly neighbor Brent, a hot shot lawyer from out of town, to get supplies help fix up the place. Once there the whole area is engulfed in a weird mist and people coming in from the mist are reporting people being attacked by something in the mist. The large group of people in the supermarket decides to stay in until it clears and among them are some soldiers from the nearby military base. Soon they discover that the vent for the supermarket’s generator is jammed from the outside and Norm the bagboy volunteers to go out to clear it despite the protestation from David. As soon as the shutters are opened Norm is attacked taken by some tentacles but there are some in the supermarket who doesn’t believe it lead by the arrogant Brent and they decide to leave to head to get help but are all killed immediately.

Meanwhile among the group is a religious zealot, Mrs Cormody, who believes that the events transpiring are the indications that the end of days has arrived and begins to preach the bible to the frightened crowd. Soon as their sanity and reasoning begins to frail and break she manages to convince then that she is a messenger from god and that they are to do her bidding which involves human sacrifice to please God and she has chosen Billy to be that sacrifice. At the same time we learn that the creatures could be the result of the military’s attempt at opening dimensional rifts to other universe and because of the guilt the soldiers decide to commit suicides. As the situation becomes more dire David and a small group decides to break out from the supermarket and try to get as far from the mist as possible but they not only have to worry about the monsters out ther but also Mrs Cormody and her blood thirsty horde inside.

The Mist is based on a short novella from Stephen King and it is one of the best adaptation of a horror story from King whose books have often been badly translated ie. Dreamcatcher. Not surprising considering that this is Frank Darabont’s third adaptation of a King book, the other 2 being The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, and if anything else it goes to show he has a deep understanding of the source material and how to faithfully translate the books without losing the cinematic feel needed to make it exciting. In less capable hands the movie may have just been some escapist fun and not a serious examination of fear itself and its effect on the human psyche which is exactly what happed to Alan Moore’s From Hell graphic novel which was this great study of Evil but became a second rate Jack The Ripper movie. This movie reminds me a lot about John Carpenter’s The Thing in that the tension and isolation is slowly built up and never allowed to be released with cheap scares until it reaches the breaking point and even then it continues to build even further.

Often in movies of these sort the characters are usually paper thin with the creature being the attraction but not here where every character is a fully developed human character no matter how short their screen time which is a great testament to the script writer. Thosmas Jane gives a credible performance as the hero of the movie but it is Marcia Gay Harden’s superb performance as the deranged and unhinged Mrs Cormody that really steals the show. Her monstrosity is every bit as chilling and scary as the creatures roaming the streets outside and she really brought a lot to the character and the proceedings and it is a wonder that she wasn’t at least nominated for a best supporting role when Ruby Dee could be nominated for a slap in American Gangster.

The creatures in the movie are some of the best cg and model work you will see in cinemas today and is a lot more inspired than the other more hyped but inferior Cloverfield. The design is in equal parts fascinating and revolting which is great for monster aficionados like me. The biggest talking point of the movie will be invariably The Ending and I don’t want to spoil it for you by analyzing it so all I will say is that it is a fitting ending that is both extremely heart breaking but also uplifting at the same time. If you still don’t get it by now The Mist is one of the best horror movies to come out in the past years and you would be doing a huge disservice to yourself by not watching.

My Blueberry Nights - Pretty but Unconvincing

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:30:00 +0000

If you look at the column to the left you would have seen that My Blueberry Nights have been one of my most anticipated movies of last year but then again any new movie by Wong Kar Wai is a treat in itself. What made it extra special was the inclusion of Norah Jones in the leading role because I’m a huge fan of her, long before the Grammy wins, and I couldn’t wait for it to come out and as one A-list star after the other begin to join the movie the anticipation begin to get out of hand. Then of course came the premier of the movie at Cannes and we started to hear the first reaction to the movie and the mixed reaction was the first sign that that this was hardly the international breakthrough for the last truly talented filmmaker from Hong Kong yet to cross over to Hollywood.

My Blueberry Nights is about a Elizabeth, a heartbroken and lost soul who befriend a diner owner, Jeremy (Jude Law), and a connection is clearly made. However in order for her to truly get over her heartbreak she decides to travel as far away from New York as possible. On her journey she would encounter many characters of different background who would teach her the true meaning of being alone. As she waitresses her way through America she begins to see herself and her life in a whole new manner. All through her journey she keeps in touch with Jeremy via post cards but never staying long enough in one place for him to find her. Meanwhile Jeremy himself is coming to terms with who is and the past that left him behind but never once does he forgets about Elizabeth.

The road movie is a favorite genre for stories about soul searching and I guess it’s because we would like to hope that the life we have at the moment is only a fraction of the life we could have. I mean who is it that can really claim to be truly happy in the grind that is our modern urban life. Do none of you feel that perhaps we would all be happier somewhere remote like perhaps the grassland of Mongolia doing some fishing or farming far away from the hustle and bustle of our concrete prison? If your answer is no then I congratulate you for either being a very good liar or a truly lucky person. The idea is perhaps when we have had some truly quite time for ourselves, we would be able to strip away all pretensions and hang ups and be able to face our true self.

Anyway back to movie and I’ll be honest here, this is one of the most disappointing cinematic experience I have ever had. I love how Wong has always been able to turn extremely mundane and ordinary events into beautiful and unattainable longings. The people and the locations are always so richly brought to life that it is impossible to find in the real world much like a first love, the idealist concept has little to do with the reality of the event itself. There are many reasons why the movie has failed and I think chief among them is the English language. Because clearly it’s not a language Wong is comfortable with and that’s why unlike in his previous works where he has been comfortable in letting the imagery do the talking but here he feels the need to insert voice-overs to clue the audience in. The wooden and clearly unnatural dialogue is extremely grating and overall where characters and dialogue has been his forte here it is his biggest enemies. I thought it was an extremely ballsy move to cast Jones in the title role given her lack of acting experience but I trusted the director given his track record but it is one gamble to many even for him because she is absolutely horrible in the movie. Don’t get me wrong I still love her no matter what but here she just doesn’t have what it takes to be the leading lady and given the plot where she is supposed to be the anchor I must say she fails miserably. She may look the part of a lost soul but her acting can only be described as wooden and she fails to truly convey the sadness and loneliness that is required.

Thankfully the acting by the supporting actors notably David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz is much better and their scenes together are the only time where we feel the true message of the movie about loneliness and despair. It is truly heartbreaking watching how tragic their story turned into and if only that had transpired throughout the movie. When long time cinematographer Christopher Doyle didn’t sign up for this project I wondered if this would ever manage to capture the richness and intensity of their past movies together but in Darius Khondji he has manage to find a capable replacement. If anything here the richness of the colors are even more profound there can be no doubting that it is a Wong Kar Wai movie and the one thing you can’t fault this movie in terms of looks because it is just beautiful to watch. Every color has an added hue and I think I have never so many shades of blue.

The thing is that if I wanted to talk about the negatives I could probably fill another two paragraphs but the honest truth is that it is too painful. The writers are attempting to show the loneliness and the isolation that can only truly be available in a metropolitan like New York but ultimately due to the miscasting and clunky dialogue they only manage to isolate the audience. The plot is a simple plot much like all other Wong Kar Wai movies but this time around he has really failed to give any of the characters a real sense of believability or charm, so critical for character driven pieces like these, and therefore what we have here is one clumsily connected movie that doesn’t have too much to say.

Jumper: Numbingly Pedestrian

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:10:00 +0000

For me teleportation would be The ideal superpower because I am quite simply one of the laziest person around and to think of all the extra hours I could save from travelling and such for just lounging around sounds like heaven. Plus factor in all the cool places I could get in to and life would be pretty sweet, am I right or am I right? If I had a space suit I could even teleport to the moon and beyond so just imagine how disappointing it is to see that possibility wasted in the latest Hollywood action dumb fest, Jumper. It gives up all these possibilities to just simply get in and out of banks and other various tourist attractions.

David Rice (Hayden Christensen) is a troubled youth whose mother abandoned him when he was five and he grew up under the care of his abusive father. He is constantly craving to run away and one day his wish comes through in the most amazing of manner. Discovering he has the power to teleport he decides to leave his broken home and also the girl of his dream, Millie (Rachel Bilson), and moves to the big city. There he learns to make money the easy way with his powers and what could be easier than to teleport into a bank vault and taking whatever you wanted without anyone knowing. Soon however his deeds comes catching up with him in the form of the enigmatic and dangerous, Roland (Samuel L Jackson), who tells him he is here to kill him because the power that he possesses should only be held by god. Soon he discovers that there are others like him and he is thought more about his powers by the loner Griffin (Jaime Bell), who isn’t really too keen to have someone tagging along but they will have to work together to handle the threat of Roland and his Paladins, a group dedicated to destroying the jumpers. Soon he will have to deal with the people who he has left behind and also those that had left him behind.

From the paragraph above it would seem that there are a lot of things happening for a 2 hour movie but the reality is that due to combination of uninspired acting and lackluster directing. For a movie that could have gone anywhere given the plot, the writers seem to have gone the most boring route possible and for a concept that could have been so much fun what we get instead is a very generic product that, except for a few action sequence, would not look out of place in the straight to video category at your local video store. Looking at the people involved I really can’t figure out why this has come to be because Doug Liman is in my opinion a very capable director who brought his independent sensibilities to the Bourne series and helped launch one of the better franchises in modern cinema. Mr & Mrs Smith may not have been a classic but at least it was fun so I can’t understand how he has turned out such a bland and uninspired action piece that doesn’t even try to be anything more which is a criminal waste given how rich the concept was.

The key reason for my dislike for the movie is Christensen, who once again gives another uninteresting and underwhelming performance; much like those that helped destroyed the Star wars Prequel, which is a wonder that he finds any work at all. I guess the guy must have one hell of an agent or I’m just not seeing what these directors are seeing but the guy is just plain dreadful as a leading man. I think the kid who played the younger version of David manages to infuse more life into the character despite only being on screen for 10 minutes. Every time I have seen Christensen on screen I have never detected even the slightest bit of charisma or spark that is greatly needed by all leading men as shown by people like Will Smith and Clint Eastwood. Even the normally dependable Jackson seems uninterested in the proceedings with a performance that seems phoned in and you really can’t blame him because the going-on’s is so trite and predictable that halfway through you just don’t really care about any of the characters anymore. The only one who seems remotely interesting is Jaime Bell’s Griffin and his training scenes with Christensen are the only ones watchable and even then only just. I have no idea why Diane Lane is in this movie because her scenes adds nothing to the movie so perhaps they are setting her up for the inevitable sequel now given the opening box office figures in the states.

The biggest let down in life comes not when something fails but when you have everything prepared and it didn’t even bothered to show up and I guess for me that just sums up Jumper. A sci-fi action love story that really quite honestly fails in all three categories and given all the ingredients that are already there, what disappoints the most is how run-of-the mill the final product turned out to be. Even the effects for the movie are bland, except for the Tokyo car scene, and if you want to see how cool teleportation can be done go back and revisit X2. The opening action sequence with Nightcrawler is without a doubt the perfect way to do teleportation. Jumper is a movie with immense potential but it is never realized due to poor casting and lazy scripting which have left us with a movie with no identity and zero talking points.

Rambo - Old School All The Way

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:55:00 +0000

Much of 80s cinema was characterized by the rampaging muscle bound and often steroid fueled action hero, taking down one tyrant or rapist (usually a combination of both) after the other all in the name of justice or vengeance, whichever one was more convenient. This trend was best exemplified by the monosyllabic duo of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a succession of testosterone driven action epics like the Rambo and Terminator series. Arguably with their increasing age and the advancement of CGI more and more action films depended less on these larger than life actors and opted for cg wizardry to make the impossible possible. And with that came the end of the era of the muscle men in cinemas. As if to drive home the point that the trend depended on those few chosen ones to thrive Stallone has opted to bring his most famed creation out for one more orgy of carnage and destruction and my god are we thankful for that.

Many years have passed since we last saw John Rambo and he is living out a life as a boatman and occasional snake catcher/fisherman on the border of Thailand and Myanmar. After years of bloodshed it is perhaps a deserved rest but as always there is no rest for the wicked and he is approached by a group of naïve Christian missionaries who are looking for a guide into Myanmar. Their objective is to deliver medicine and other aid to the Karen rebels currently fighting the oppressive and cruel Myanmar military regime. It takes the pleading of the only female missionary, who Rambo definitely has a connection with, for him to agree and he duly delivers them to the village. Of course they are soon attacked and captured which leads to their church hiring a group of mercenaries to free them. They also need Rambo’s help as a guide but of course it is Rambo the Rampager that they get.

We all know that there are terrible things in the world but unlike on the silver screen there are heroes rushing in to help the down trodden and most likely the situation continues unabated which makes the movies such a welcomed escape. When they started making the movie there was already oppression going on in Myanmar but the movie took on more of an urgency when the real life demonstration of the monks were so brutally put down by the military. I sincerely hope what we see in the movie is not a reflection of what is going on over there but really that’s not what the movie is all about. It’s about some really bad people getting their comeuppance in the grisliest of manner. The producers may try hyping up the real world reference but make no mistake this is a Rambo movie through and through and everything else is only an excuse for him to break out the bow and knife to deliver a world of pain to the bad guys. And what a glorious beat down it is!! The effects of the killing and maiming is quite honestly very well done and is mostly very believable, except for the landmine hitting the merc when earlier we see the locals being obliterated but here he is only partially injured.

This is a very old school movie from the story line all the way to the cinematography which in this case is a very good thing. I love it that there are no quick cuts or MTV style visual trickery here and what we have is long looks at the proceedings. You see everything that is going on and there will be no complains about things moving too quickly. The movie knows what it is and there are no pretensions on its part about being something else unlike most action movies today who try to mask their intention behind supposed deeper storylines. I’m not saying I want all action movies to follow this template because we should always try to improve but at this moment in time it is just a fantastic breath of fresh air in a genre that really haven’t reinvented itself for the new generation except for a few exceptions like The Matrix. When news first hit that both Rambo and Rocky was returning I was filled with dread but after the success that was Rocky Balboa I was genuinely looking forward to this and Stallone did not disappoint. While it may not be as good or personal as Rocky was it is still an entertaining little picture that is better than its immediate predecessor.

Of course it being an old school movie it shares the same short comings as well and prime among them is the corny dialogue and stilted script. The dialogue in particular is occasionally laugh-out-loud in its seriousness especially those involving the mercenaries aka cannon fodders and you can’t help but revel in its silliness. Everybody else in the movie are cardboard characters with no time or effort spent in their development at all which leads to an emotional detachment even in the face of the atrocities being committed to them. Especially prominent are the villains, the filmmakers are so dedicated to portraying them as vile animals that no form of evil is left uncommitted including forced amputation, beheading, burning babies, gang raping and the worst crime of all, being homosexuals. The dedication is such that none of their lines are even bothered to be translated except for one which is also only to cement their level of bad-assness.

As far as war movies go Rambo 4 is no Apocalypse Now or even a First Blood but what it is flawed but honest attempt to revisit the spirit of original hero that could have ended up so much worse. I saw a very negative review recently in The Star and I was surprised not by its hatred of the movie but by how seriously it took it which quite honestly I think anybody with half a brain would never do. I mean come on ..Rambo and the word serious hardly seems a likely pairing. One thing I need to note is that the level of violence and gore is quite high and can be quite disconcerting so you need to know what you are getting into. In terms of sequels this edition doesn’t really goes back to its tortured roots but it is markedly better than the preposterousness that was Rambo 3 and quite honestly doesn’t advance anything in the character but seems more like a side note in the legend that is Rambo. If you enjoy it for what it is, a bloody jungle romp by one of the cinematic icons of yesteryear, chances are you would come out feeling extremely satisfied that at the very least the series have ended on a more deserving note and quite honestly you need to ask yourself, what did you really expect from it.

Dark Tower - The Gunslinger Born - Glorious

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:58:00 +0000

I find it odd that I haven’t actually been posting more reviews on comics as I read loads of them. Part of the reason may be that I haven’t found one to really talk about for some time now and it’s been such a long time since I have had the wow feeling come over me when reading a comic that is until now. The very last time was when I was reading Battle Chasers by Joe Mad and I think that’s nearly a decade ago now and everything since then has been between good and mostly serviceable but never reaching the heights of Sandman or Watchman level. Finally, I have something now to talk about because Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born is quite simply put one of the most stunning graphic novel you’ll ever lay your eyes on.

“In a world that has moved on, young Roland Deschain will one day be known as the Gunslinger-but for now, he is merely a boy on the cusp of manhood. For years, his fate has been manipulated by the sorcerer known as Marten Broadcloak, who serves the Crimson King-an immortal shape-shifter living only to destroy the legendary Dark Tower: the axis of creation upon which all worlds revolve. And for the Crimson King’s plans to succeed, Roland must be destroyed.Roland and his friends, Alain and Cuthbert, uncover a plot by the evil John Farson (also a servant of the Crimson King) to destroy the Affiliation, the network that unites the world’s baronies and maintains an uneasy peace. But Roland has another mission on his mind-winning the heart of the beautiful Susan Delgado, who he met in Hambry, and who holds a secret of unspeakable horror...

For Roland, these are only the first steps on the road to the Dark Tower, where he will learn the true nature of his quest, and, perhaps, the secrets of existence itself.” (From Marvel.com)

For the uninitiated the Dark Tower is a series of books by horror master Stephen King that introduces us to Roland Deschain, a Gunslinger which is an order of warriors much like the Knights of the Round Table. The world here is a mix of everything from a mixture of western cowboys to the magical and there are also traces of an advance society long lost to the ravages of time. The books focus on Roland’s quest to find the Dark Tower and to end the destruction that is consuming his world, Mid-world. This graphic focuses on a young Roland, from his bloody initiation through his first assignment for The Alliance, and we also learn a bit about the evil that he will have to face soon. The tragedy that will set him on his path is also revealed here and we get to see a more personal and reckless side to him that is absent from the novels.

I know that there are many out there who would dismiss comics as infantile and something only for the kids and you would be correct 90 percent of the time, heck it may even be 98 percent, but comics is like any other art form, it may be a literary genius (as shown by the Sandman series) or as low brow as most action movies. I think people like Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller have definitely drag the medium into the mainstream focus and others like Warren Ellis and Brian Azzarello have proven to be able successors and the medium have definitely been fertile ground for the gold miners that are Hollywood producers. It has gotten to the point that now you have cross over writers from tv and movies writing monthly comics like J. Michael Straczynski(creator of Babylon 5) and Kevin Smith(director of Chasing Amy and Clerks) so the there has definitely been more of an acceptance of the medium as a legitimate story telling tool.

Anyway enough about the industry and more about the book at hand. “What’s so great?” I hear you ask and the answer is quite simply everything. Unlike a normal book where everything is about the writer, for a comic to work you need both writer and artist to be at their best and also in sync with each other to create a synergistic work of art. And here we have a creative team at their best with the star being definitely Jae Lee, a super star artist in the comic world that’s has sadly been usually plagued by missed date lines and abandoned projects. He has finally gotten his act together and his talent is on full show here because some of the images that he has concocted here is just breath taking and almost every page could be a stand alone poster. He is greatly assisted in this regards by the coloring of Richard Isanove, multi award winning colorist that also participated inMarvel1602. I just cannot stop talking about the art here because it is just a wonder to behold and I urge you to go down to your local comics store immediately to have a look because I am sure you’ll be hooked from the first page.

Peter David is an industry veteran famous for his witty dialogue and deft story telling and he has crafted an engaging and quite honestly a heart breaking story about the end of innocence. What is remarkable here is that David has shown a complete trust is the artist to tell the story by having very sparse dialogue and description and allowing Jae to show you the proceedings. What we have here is a rare gem that has blended horror and action and also a tragic love story seamlessly in a beautiful package and the good news is that this is only the beginning. The world of the Gunslinger is a wondrous place of beauty and horror but a journey through Mid-world is also a journey through one of the greatest literary minds of our time and you won’t ever forget the experience.

Waitress - Humdrum

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:08:00 +0000

Sometimes it takes a lot for us to see through our own prejudices and so called common sense. The common wisdom in the entertainment circle is that Hollywood produces the rehearsed soulless and artless money grabbing movie franchises that are epitomizes by the big summer season while Sundance, or any other independent film fest for that matter, produces the true work of arts that speaks to our soul. What is common sense if not a collection of all our prejudices? Years ago it was accepted fact that the world was flat and also that the sun revolved around the earth so it goes to show how fallible common sense really is. While the statement about Hollywood is often time an accurate description it is also becoming increasingly clear that the independent movies are also running on a formula and it may not be as free and uninhibited as we are lead to believe.

Jenna (Keri Russell) is a waitress in Joe’s Diner, located in some backwater town in the good old USA, and she has just found out that she is pregnant. Normally this would be a good thing but for Jenna this is the last thing she needs. The reason for this is simply Earl, her delusional and sometimes abusive husband. The thing about Jenna is that she is a great pie maker and prone to creating absolute work of arts based on the going-on in her life and she is hoping to enter a pie contest that could win her 25 thousand dollars a way out from her life with Earl. Jenna is surrounded by her two best friends, Becky and Dawn, people who are as clueless and as desperate as herself who also works in the diner. Part of Jenna’s everyday job is to placate the bad tempered owner, Joe, who comes in everyday for a slice of her glorious pie but who always give her a tough time. Into all this comes Dr Pomatter, a nice and handsome doctor who has just moved to town and is now her gynecologist, and it is apparent from the first minute that he is smitten with her and vice versa. The unfortunate thing is of course he is married and Earl is also still around so what then does the future holds for our 2 love birds?

A movie like this is all about the characters and for the most part Waitress have a bunch of interesting characters lead by our lead Jenna. Sometimes in life you do come across people like Jenna, good people stuck in very bad situations who can’t see that they deserve much better out of life and it is this fact that will make you connect with her immediately. Becky and Dawn provide some distraction from the main storyline but I can’t help but feel that their story feels a bit forced and contrite. Earl is an odd character because while he truly loves Jenna his interpretation of love is like that of a 3 year old boy. He must have everything his way and he is deluded enough to think that Jenna feels the same way. Turning in a disappointing performance is Andy Griffith who really fails to portray the supposedly unlikable Joe who has a heart of gold. Perhaps he is too nice a person to get across how unlikable the character is supposed to be. Nathan Fillion crucially also fails to make an impact as the good Doctor and to this is the major failing for the movie.

There was the possibility early on that Waitress could elevate itself above the status of feel good movie to something of more substance but critically it fails to make us believe in the relationships that are on offer. I know they were probably trying to make Pomatter into some likable klutz ala Hugh Grant but say what you like about Grant he does have charm and often times imbues his character with more worth than they deserve. Simply because of this I fail to have a real investment in the outcome of the relationship and when the ending does come it just felt so rehearsed. I know the writer was trying to reaffirm gender strength but when she gets enough courage to kick Earl out and get a shit load of cash in return it is just basically chickening out. Wake up, good things don’t necessary happen to good people or because they do the right thing. More often than not we just have to live with the decisions we make with no compensation. It’s called life so it would have been so much better if we just left her with the knowledge that she won’t ever have to see Earl again and she has a life to look forward to with her new baby.

So coming back to what I was saying earlier about a formula, even for the supposed art house fare the movie is the quintessential formulaic feel good movie. We have all the usual ingredients needed to pull at your heart strings such as the adorable and endearing lead character, the oddball friends, the hopeless situation and of course the charming but slightly kooky knight in shinning armor. From the get go you know very well who and what you are supposed to cheer for and the bad guys are all clearly defined. That being said though while Waitress is often times slightly cheesy and predictable, on the most part it does work as a feel good movie thanks largely on the strength of the lead. The sad thing was is that it could have been something so much more rewarding.

Shoot ‘Em Up – Unworthy of this Space

noreply@blogger.com (The Lamb) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:12:00 +0000

There are many things in life that I really do not get, chief among them being how is it possible that there is an audience out there who likes watching Sumo wrestling? How is t possible that Paris Hilton is famous or why Sarah Jessica Parker is considered a style icon with a nose like that? None of these of course pales in comparison to that ultimate head scratcher which is why do studios still continue hiring Paul W Anderson, the hack that gave us Resident Evil and AvP? Why this sudden rant about all things unfathomable I hear you ask and the answer is simple because of movies like Shoot ‘Em Up which is an absolute waste of time for all those involved in making it and especially for those paying money to watch it.

The plot of the movie, if you can call it a plot at all, concerns a mysterious stranger who comes to the aid of a pregnant woman who is being chased by some thugs. During the course of the rescue the woman gives birth and is then shot in the head which leaves the stranger with a new born baby and a whole slew of gun totting thugs on his tail. The thugs by the way are lead by an ex FBI profiller who shows what can only be described as superhuman ability of reasoning and predictions. We learn that the stranger goes by the name of Smith, I think it’s supposed to be smart, and Smith has decided to enlist the aid of a prostitute, who specializes in breast and lactating fetishes, to look after the baby. They then discover that the reason for the chases leads back to the Presidential race no less and concerns the leading candidate.

At times like this I am really thankful I am not being paid to write the review because the though of having to produce a full page analyzing crap like this is enough cause drive anyone insane. Not only does it boggles the mind to think how they sold the pitch to the studios but also how did they managed to attract the talents that they did. I mean Clive Owen may not be a superstar but he at least have a reputation of being a serious actor, Paul Giamatti is an award winning actor for movies like the fantastic Sideways and Monica Belluci who have always at least tried to make interesting movies barring the Matrix trilogy. At times like this I really wished I was the fly on the wall during the meeting because I’m sure we would have learned a lot about selling or bullshitting which really isn’t that different, I should know considering the years I have spent doing it. I’m sure part of the attraction for these normally placid actors is to do something totally different but couldn’t they have found a better script or at least one that makes sense. Most of them should be able to live through the embarrassment, I would sure like to see how Bellucci explains the blowjob scene to her children, if not the stink of this turd of a movie. I guess the only good thing about the whole experience is that we got to see Belluci almost naked but to be honest it isn’t even nearly enough to salvage the time lost.

The producers will gladly tell you that this is a check your brains at the door movie that promises a thrill ride of action and sex and other such nonsense. The reality is that this is an infantile and juvenile attempt at making a movie that hopes to distract you from the lack of any coherent plot or pacing by overloading on one stupid and impossible action sequence after the other. The action is so over the top that I’m sure early in the process the filmmakers must have given up on the idea of gravity because they don’t even try to ground any of the sequences in reality. Cars can flip flop about with no ill effect on the driver or the car and a day old infant can survive through being thrown out of a car and the crème de la crème must be the mid air gunfight, if you can’t laugh at this you must not have a pulse. The nearest comparison I can think of is obviously both Transporter movies and also Crank (which all conveniently stars Jason Statham), movies that embraces the idea of over the top to the maximum. By now I guess my dislike of the movie has obviously boiled over but trust my word the film deserves every last hateful you can throw at it.

Crap! I’ve spent a whole page on it so I guess I can be paid after all.