Last movie seen — Page 31

It Might Get Loud-actually entertaining and not so heavy handed like I thought it was going to be. The film is essentially White, Edge, and Page for 90 min. It made me wish for the millionth time that I could play guitar. And I could listen to the Edge for hours.

The Pawnbroker-great early Lumet film and very very bleak. Was surprised that I didn't like it as much as I thought it would and felt it was a bit of a letdown. Then again, I can't get it out of my mind. ;)

You Only Live Twice-childhood classic, and still just absolutely over the top. The new Lowry transfer does drain the life out though. The color is almost bleached out.

After it being recommended to me, I decided to give Brain Dead a try. Didn't find it funny in the slightest. Felt like it relied mostly on being shocking and not much else.

The Evil Dead trilogy on the other hand (especially Evil Dead 2), are still some of my favorite movies.

As for Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, yeah, I felt Diary was extremely weak, but watched it alongside a ton of other zombie flicks, and actually felt it was on par. Not exactly a sub-genre that aims for excellence. However, I liked Land of the Dead, and felt it ranked very high among the best modern zombie films.

Book of Eli. Not particularly good. Looks and feels lifeless-this is due to a dull script and the Red camera. Comes across as a bad Mad Max/western hybrid with religious overtones. Final twist is really too much and the ending is pure Fahrenheit 451.

A friend of mine and I saw Soul Kitchen, a German comedy about... well, a guy who owns a restaurant.  It was quite good.  Quite funny.  Definitely a raunchy comedy but it had a bit of brains behind it.

And then last night, we rented Me and Orson Welles, and all I have to say is... how the hell did this get by my radar?!  This was awesome!!!  Apparently it was a critical and film festival darling, but it had a hard time drumming up distribution?  I mean, I figured the whole Zac Efron thing would secure it a decent release.  Anyway, it's about a young actor (Efron) who, through wonderful serendipity, secures a small part in Welles's production of Julius Caeasar at the Mercury.  Christian McKay does a brilliant job as Orson Welles, and I walked away from that film feeling extremely disgusted with Welles for being an unmitigated asshole, but... at the same time it's hard not to like the guy or at least respect him for being just all kinds of awesome and charismatic in spite of himself.   Highly recommended.

Prince of Persia: I liked this well enough.  It seemed really popular to dump on it 6 months ago, but maybe it's been long enough that people can just enjoy it now.  It doesn't follow the plot of the game(s) very closely, but as a big fan of the games, I was still pretty happy with it.  I don't think the game plot would adapt very well to a full length feature.  Not that there's anything wrong with it- it's a very good setup for a game.

I found the backhanded compliment "It's pretty good! For being based on a video game, that is. <knowing smirk>."  And, "Well, it's the best video game based movie ever, but that's not saying much. </superiority>"  I thought it was decent enough, videogame adaptation or no.  My wife enjoyed it two for what it's worth.

BD from RedBox for $1.50.  Might pick up the BD for $10-$15 in a couple months.

Well, there are 8 games. 

No, that's ridiculous.

Apology accepted, Captain Frinka.

We watched the new Clash of the Titans last night.  (Don't blame me!  Redbox keeps sending me these 'free rental' coupons.  Which, if you're wondering, get you $1 off of a $1.50 BD rental).  I enjoyed the three major action pieces (Scorpions, Medusa, and the Kraken) on their own, but I have to say I thought the movie overall was a real stinker. 

I'm frequently amazed after sitting through a full length feature to think- This movie wasn't worth 2 hours of my time, but a handful of people spent 2+ years of their lives to make it.  I didn't find anything very compelling in Clash of the Titans, so I'm a little baffled that everyone that read the script decided it was a 'go' movie.

I was disappointed in the underuse of the Pantheon of Gods.  Zeus has lots of screentime, but very little character depth of any kind.  Hades gets screentime, but beyond 'wanting to stick it to Zeus' he's also very boring.  Apollo, Athena, etc.. are on screen for a few seconds total, and usually out of focus.

I think it's interesting to compare this movie to its namesake, and understand how they're both a product of their times.  Some spoilers to follow, but really, it's not good enough to worry about spoiling:

The romance: 1981 had a pretty traditional love story between Andromeda and Perseus.  She was a princess, she was in distress, and the hero got to rescue her and therefore woo her.  The new movie still has a princess named Andromeda in it, but Perseus really couldn't care less.  In fact, Perseus can't be bothered to care much about anything in the movie, it seems, except getting revenge on Hades for flippantly sinking his adopted family's fishing boat and doing it on his own mortal terms and ignoring Zeus's attempts to help him out.  Along the way, there is some vague sexual tension between Perseus and some cursed Gemma Arterton (whom I couldn't recognize here from watching Prince of Persia two days prior.  I guess one of the movies had her in good make-up?) character who has been watching over Perseus since he was a baby (sounds 'hot', amiright?).  The movie ends telling us they live happily ever after together, which had me wondering when I was told that either of them were really interested in that.  I guess I missed an alternate ending where Andromeda and Perseus end up together, but they don't even really interact in the movie... so that doesn't seem that it would work.  At any rate (I'm rambling) it's odd that Andromeda is still in the movie when her role as the romantic interest has been supplanted by Arterton's character.  I suppose that our modern sensibilities require that the female lead do something other than wait back at the castle and worry, knit, and maybe make cookies.  So Arterton gets to go on the adventure, and Andromeda gets to be put into peril.  Perseus is indifferent in any case.  Boy, do I love post modernism!

Additionaly, this movie has an odd religious message, when compared to the original.  The reason the gods of Olympus are upset in the first place in this movie is that man is turning away from their religion and deciding to "do it myself!"  The people portrayed to be anti-religion are practical and heroic.  The people who are pro-religion are fearful idiots at their best, and dangerous crazy cult members who sacrifice virgin princesses and burn their own skin in futility at their worst.  So I took a kind of "Rah rah atheism!" message from that.  Which is odd, since the movie spends a great deal of time reminding us that Zeus and Hades are, in fact, real gods who do respond to things like worship and prayer.  I just think it's an odd time to make a "god does not exist" statement... in a movie showcasing how powerful the gods are.  And that Perseus is able to succeed where everyone else fails... because he's half god.  It reminded me of The Golden Compass books/movie.  "God does not exist!  I will prove it to you by showing Him to you, showing you that He isn't as good as everyone says He is, and then we'll KILL him!  Take THAT! the God in whom I do not believe!"  At any rate, this is a very fitting story for a movie made in today's religious belief climate, I guess.  It would have never flown in 1981.

In conclusion, I found it to be an odd (and bad, as long as we're assigning adjectives) film that didn't seem to know what to do with itself, except for showing Greeks (with British accents, and all other trappings of movie historical types) fight giant Greek inspired monsters.  That part was just fine... I just wish that there would have been some more substance to it.  Not a whole lot, just something that made the waiting between action scenes worthwhile.

But Mads Mikkelsen (not to be confused with Michael Madsen) was excellent.

I don't know: Pullman seems to think so:

Philip Pullman:

My books are about killing God!

 

"I suppose technically, you'd have to put me down as an agnostic. But if there is a God, and He is as the Christians describe Him, then He deserves to be put down and rebelled against".

Pullman has said in interviews and appearances that this argument can extend to all religions.

I guess it's hard for me to separate Pullman's statements on the matter from the material in the book itself.  I believe him when he says what his intentions were.  Perhaps if I had read the books prior to hearing what he said they were about I would feel differently.

Similarly, I thought the DaVinci code was a decent romp when I first read it.  Then I heard/saw Dan Brown out there trying to convince people it was all true.  That ruined his books for me.

Yeah, the books don't say there is no God, just that the angel currently claiming to be God is lying.  He was the first angel created, so when all the other angels came into being just after him, he kicked back and said, "See what a good job I did, guys?"

But that angel is the God of all of the religions in the book, right?  The gap is pretty narrow between that and Pullman preaching that the God that all reallife religions and religious people worship (like myself, for example) is not actually a God, but a charlatan who deserves to be put down and overthrown.  And I know a lot of people who love the books cherish that element of it.

It's sort of like me saying that I made up this story about these two friends on a Star Wars message board (not this one, it's fictional) named Bingowings and ChainsawAsh (not you two, these are just characters in my story) and they are the ugliest fellows you ever saw.  You might feel a little offended at that, no matter how many times I assured you it was all a little fiction I came up with, right?

But like I said, perhaps I would see it differently had I read the books without the influence of Pullman's extratextual commentary.