On Vacation

Just a qick update to let any readers know that I will be on vacation from July 4th to July 21st. In the meantime feel free to read older posts and make comments. Happy 4th of July everyone.

Wall-E A+

Last Sunday I saw Wall-E and I doubt that I will see a better film this year. I'm trying to think of my favorite films from last year and as far as I can recall it tops every one of them. I must say I was fairly well shocked at my reaction to this film. I thought the trailers looked fun, but I really didn't think I would really connect with it. When I think of Pixar the company behind probably 90% of the greatest animation in the last decade or more, I wonder why I thought Wall E would some how fall below the others. Maybe it's because it's about robots, maybe I was expecting a manipulating romance about characters I wouldn't care about if they weren't contriving reasons for me to care. Whatever my reasons I suspect that that theory of lowered expectations would have come into play, would have that is if the film needed them, but it doesn't. I'm not going to spoiler the movie for those who haven't seen it. I also don't want to overpraise it, though again I doubt the film could fall victim to that phenomenon either.

There are so many levels on which Wall-E succeeds. Visually it is as astonishing as anything animation I have ever seen. there is a scene in which Wall-E is crushed by an entire Grocery store's worth of shopping carts within the scene focus shits the camera jostles and there is something so real about it that it was amazing to me not that they could compose and exicute such a shot but that they thought to, that they realized this shot filmed as it is.... but wait it isn't filmed is it it's all designed in a computer, but it feels like it's filmed. Take Toy Story for example, that has some really great animation in it but it always looks like a cartoon. This film begins to look like a cartoon only after they arrive on a ship in space that contains the human race or what it has become. In other words they wait until we have completely bought into the reality of this world before they remind us it's a cartoon, but that doesn't break the magic it amplify's the wonder at what they have done.

Character wise I need to be careful because this could easily lead to spoilers. I'll say that not since E.T. has something so asthetically uncute been so endearing. The heart of this character and his personality shine through this robot exterior and this animated robot who resembles a human less than any other robot I can think of comes off as one of the most fully realized characters I've seen this year. In fact Wall-E is one of the most human characters in film history.

Speaking of humans, again while trying to avoid spoilerville, the humans in this film mirror our deapest laws and show us what could easily happen to us as a species. But, the film also shows what is greatest about the human spirit. This is a film that isn't content to give us one lesson to take away like most animated films do this is a film bursting with ideas and themes. It is not only a great animated film but a great science Fiction film as well, for it does what alll great science fiction does it uses the distance of time and space to address the world in which we live now.


I don't want to over inflate everyone's expectations, but I laughed, I cried, it was a part of me. A+

The best so far!!

It seems like a good time to recap the best films of 2008 so far. We are half way through the year and the thing that strikes me is that it has been a very good year for blockbuster films. Usually the big summer films with the explosions and larger than life charaters are good for one thing and that is mindless entertainment. this year the big summer blockbusters seem to be a notch or two above any other year. I suspect this is due to the influnce of a few films in recent years, those that were critical as well as commercial sucesses, those that were good even while blowing things up. What are these films that began to attract talent to the franchises? For it is the talent of the creative teams that is raising the bar. for some reason big stars and good directors are getting into the block buster business and from what they are turning out it wasn't just for the payday. The Bourne Franchise and the Spider-man films are what led the charge. Those were hit's as well as critically well received, perhaps it even goes back to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, when a blockbuster fantasy film cleaned up at the Oscars as well as the box office. Also look at Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, Daniel Craig as James Bond, and Christian Bale as Batman. These are great actors taking leads in franchise, blockbuster films. In the last few decades you had your great actors and you had your action stars, we kept them in seperate drawers and they rarely ever got to the same table. But now we have great actors taking on the roles of action stars. But the interesting thing is they are not just taking the roles they are altering them into more than just action stars they are turning them into action characters. Now this year we have Robert Downey Jr. as Ironman, Edward Norton as the Hulk, Harrison Ford as .... OK well somethings never change, and that's ....OK, cause Harrison Ford is active enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it people like him. So before I go any farther down this road and before we cast our eyes forward to the rest of 2008 and the Dark Knight, and Quantum of Solace, let's look at the first 6 months and I'll tell you what I think the 5...well 6 best films have been so far.

1. Wall E
2. Iron Man / The Incredible Hulk ( I know kind of a cheat)
3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
4. Kung Fu Panda
5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

My prediction is that by the end of 2008 Wall E will still be #1 a short review will appear at this blog in the next two days.

Top 10 novel adaptations

In honor of Emma, in no particular order and off the top of my head. Two qualifiers I have to have read the book, and no author's can appear twice on the list.

1. The Harry Potter films (kinda cheating I know but deal with it)
2. Hamlet (1996)
3. Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Ditto)
4. The Haunting
5. Stand By Me
6. Bridget Jones Diary
7. The Hitchickers' Guide to the Galaxy ( I hear your booing and don't care)
8. About a Boy so so tied with High Fidelity
9. To Kill a Mockingbird
10. Casino Royale

Please send comments with your own top 5's!!!

Quick Screening updates and a word (not one of the seven) on George Carlin

George Carlin passed away on Sunday. Carlin was a groundbreaking and envelope pushing comedian and actor. Some highlights from his career on DVD include his hosting of the first ever episode of Saturday Night Live, more recently a nice turn in Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl.

OK, been a week since my last update and I've seen quite a few things so just a brief word on eacc

The Lady Vanishes: This was from the Criterion disc, part of my Father's Day gift. I love this late British era Hitchcock film, along with the 39 Steps it's truly his best pre American film, full of great oddball supporting characters and a nice dose of humor and wit. Charming yet thrilling A-

The Third Man: Also Criterion disc, also part of Father's Day present. Great post WWII thriller, with Orson Welles at his Orsoniest. Glorious Black and White photography, wonderful sets and spectacular use of vienna locations. One of the gretest entrances by a character ever, about an hour into the film the man everyone is talking about finally appears. Beautifully shot and edited, both visually and audiolly climax in the sewers of Vienna. A-

Terror of the Tongs: Throwback to a Saturday afternoon in my childhood, early 60's Hammer Studio film about Red Dragon Tongs in Hong Kong, If not for the nostalgia, would probably not be worth watching. I've always remembered the Tongs torture of the main character by using a very fine needle inserted at the chest to scratch the bone of his breast plate. Tame by any days standards but atmospherically shot, that always being stronger in Hammer films than the actual story or acting. C

The Wind That Shakes the Barley: Very powerful film from last year about the start of the troubles in Ireland. Brutal, and beautiful, strong performances all around particularly from Cillian Murphy. Films makes you feel the frustration and in justice that led to the violence, so tragic and yet so inevitable from this perspective. A-

Year of the Dog: No idea what I think of this film, it wasn't boring but I'm also not sure what it was. If you love animals and are socially retarded, it may be your favorite film. C

A Room With a View: This was the next film in Ali and I's veiwing scheme, her pick, the link to Dangerous Beauty being Italy. Nice film, really funny for a period film about acting proper. Another gorgous looking film, and well acted by all, though Julian Sands is not quite up to the standards of everyone else. B+

Emma: OK I just finished the novel, Andrea at work wanted to have a book club so four of us were going to read Emma, they have set October as the date to have it read by I finished it last week. The book club if it happens will also include a screening of the film, I figure A. it will likely never happen, and B. if it does I'll watch it again I like the film. I liked it better before I read the book. As so frequently happens they have to leave so much out to fit the story to two hours that you lose a lot of what made the book so great. That said Gwenyth Paltrow was perfect casting, the scene where she is being scolded by Knightly for her cruel remarks to Miss Bate's is amazing. B

North By Northwest: We are going on a road trip begining July 4th to among other places Mount Rushmore, need I saw more to explain why we watched this? This is one of Hitchcock's most entertaining films, many are deeper and darker, but few compare for sheer excitement and delight. Cary Grant brings the perfect wit and charm to the role of a man mistaken for a spy who has to chase the vilians South by Southwest ( or was it North by.....Holy cow I just got the title!!) in order to prove his innocence. Full of Double Entredres and double crosses, so much fun!!! Brings me right back to winter night in our cul de sac playing on the snow plow piles in the front yard like they were the face of the presidents on Mount Rushmore. A+

The Onion Movie: OK this is very politically incorrect, very vulgar at times, and full of profanity, it's also very funny. I laughed out loud many many times. it's basically just a bunch of skits many masquarading as fake news stories on the Onion News Network. The less said the better from that description, you'll know if it's for you or not. B+

Dangerous Hulk and the Incredible Beauty

So that's a really lame attempt at a eat blog title where I quickly give my thoughts on two films I watched in the last couple of days. Dangerous Beauty which we watched Sunday night and the Incredible Hulk which we just got back from taking the kids too.

Dangerous Beauty as noted before is part of Ali and I's veiwing game the link between Moulin Rouge and Dangerous Beauty being Courteseans. Dangerous Beauty is a favorite film of mine, I love the romanticism of it and the grand poetic nature of the speach. It also contains two great performances those of Catherine McCormack and Rufus Sewell as the star crossed lovers kept apart by their stations in life. The speaches they both make at the end of the film are the type of unabashedly nonrealistic deeply felt declarations that I swoon for. The sort of speaches that in the wrong hands are laughable but in the right hands sore off of the screen and into your chest. McCormack in particular is fine in this moment of bold and Inquisition defying speach, but is equally impressive and effective in quieter scenes. One scene in particular has her display on her face without words various looks and feelings as her Mother describes them. This is a bold, and sensous film highly reccomended A-.

The Incredible Hulk, I've been hearing some more or less it doesn't suck but it's no Iron Man reactions to this one. Maybe that helped, because I was pleasantly surprised. I liked this quite a bit, it's better than Ang Lee's version that is for sure. Is it as good as Iron Man, not quite, but it doesn't fall too far short of it either. Liv Tyler is the weak link performance wise, but it doesn't really hinge on her and she isn't terrible. Smartly this Hulk completely ignores the first film and creates a new backstory which is given during the opening credits, the great thing about this is it's closer to the old TV series than the last movie in fact the sequence has shots and bits that are almost identicle to the series opening sequence. There are other nice homages to the series, quite obviously the studio has chosen to distance this film from the previous and try instead to associate it with the popular TV series, a wise move. The CGI work in this one is also much better, it's still CGI but it feels more real. I think this is much much closer to the film fans were expecting and wanted 5 years ago. It's a cross between the comics and the old TV Series as opposed to the comics and a Haiku.
B

Stan Winston

Special effects and Makeup master Stan Winston passed away on Sunday. Stan had a hand on numerous TV and film projects over the last three plus decades, from Roots to Edward Scissorhands to Jurassic Park to this summers Iron Man. Winning four academy awards in the process and making the movies a little more magical. One of my favorites is the not so classic Monster Squad from the late 1980's. Where he had to recreate the look of the classic Universal Studios monsters while varying them enough so as not to incur a lawsuit from Universal who had their makeup designs for the monsters copyrighted. Hollywood has lost a true artist and craftsman, the type that no computer can replace, though they have been trying for years.