Sometimes you don't just see a movie. You experience it.
The Exorcist. I'm not really much of a horror guy. I'd read some, watched some, mainly because of my early GF. I get to the Twin Cities years ago, meet a guy who's a real aficionado - seen 'em all, knows the limited-appeal vs. the mass appeal, etc.
He finds out that I've never seen The Exorcist.
He doesn't spew, doesn't pontificate, doesn't wax horrifical-like. Simply says I must see it. He find one or two others in our group who haven't seen it either.
Gathers us, and a bunch of others, at his house. He & his wife get things set up so we have plenty of comfy chairs. He explains that he's going to turn all the lights off, and would appreciate it if no one talked or even, if possible, broke for a smoke except when he would pause it, once.
He got us settled in front of his big-screen, then he hit Play.
And that movie proceeded to scare the crap out of me. It was wonderful.
I've watched a lot of movies. A lot. With a lot of different types of people. And I have to say that my 2 horror movie friends (yes, I've known two, and probably seen movies you haven't, through them and others) have been the best at knowing their movie audience, and best at setting a proper movie mood.
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Star Wars III: "How did we let this happen? We're smarter than this."
Wow, been a long time since I started to rock 'n roll this Star Wars Blu-ray release, huh?
EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH
Original Thoughts:
This one I was waiting eagerly for. Watched the trailers on YouTube. Talked about its potential with friends. Bought tickets ahead of time for opening night for me and my date (yes, date).
I honestly figured that, with as many separate plot lines and situations that Lucas HAD to resolve, I'd be happy with "good enough". The trailers I saw looked good - not a lot of info, but enough to whet the appetite, and I was honestly looking forward to it.
Things I liked:
1) Space battle opener. This was a feast for the eyes, and a true testament to space opera everywhere. Just imagine what someone could do with the Lensman series!
2) The bubble-opera scene. Maybe George had a weird day. Maybe Hayden and Ian took their "work past the director" pills that morning. Whatever happened, this scene, where Palpatine subtly begins to reel Anakin in, is very well done, in my opinion.
3) The effects. Yes, I know that calling out the FX in a Star Wars movie seems silly, but really, I'm not kidding. There are things going on that are simply amazing, and 90% of them aren't really there (at least in scale - there was a lot more model work in the prequels than is commonly understood).
4) The finish line. He did it. He managed to wrap up all of the main, and most of the secondary, plot lines he had created heretofore, in a relatively coherent and entertaining package. That couldn't have been easy.
5) Rebel Blockade Runner in the house! Woo hoo! One of the best-loved, most-desired, and least-served spaceship designs in all of the Star Wars modeling community, and there it is up on the big screen again in all its 11-engined glory.
Things I liked less:
1) Part of the opening crawl:
"There are heroes on both sides." Really? Well, maybe, except that the Republic's heroes have names like "Skywalker" and "Ki-adi Mundi" and "Commander Cody", and the guys flying the separatists' banners all have speeder licenses issued to "Darth Tyrannous", "General Grievous", and "Major BabyCrusher". No doubt there was a Corporal "Atilla von Cribdeath" waiting for his turn at the Separatist hero machine. (Thanks to the late author Brain Daley for that last name.)
"Heroes on both sides" reeks of moral relativism. Moral relativism perturbs me.
2) Ensmallening of the Star Wars universe. It's not bad enough that Darth Vader built C-3PO? Now Yoda has to be best buddies with Chewbacca? Yuck. Next you'll tell me that the Emperor's face wasn't ruined slowly by years of messing with Black Magic, i.e. the Dark Side of the Force, which would be consistent with the morals of all those classic fairy tales that George Lucas professes to want to emulate; but instead that it was melted by 20 seconds of force lightning as part of one fight. But he would never do that.
3) Palpatine's lightsaber. Phantom Menace's Darth Maul showed us the double saber-staff, Attack of the Clones' Count Dooku wielded a one-handed "fencer saber" - so clearly one of the differences between the Sith and the Jedi (blue or green single-blades, anyone? Everyone?) is that the Sith are much less conservative as regards their weapons and fighting styles. Giving in more to their passions, their individuality comes through in their weapons. Intentional or not, I like it. It fits.
The Palpatine/Sidious character was built up as clearly more of a thinker than a fighter, a talker and a persuader and a liar rather than an ass-beater. Palpatine is overall a wielder of raw dark side power, not physical tools. This power seemed to mainly manifest as an overall cloud of foreboding and confusion pervading all of the Jedi (all across the galaxy!), and in that context, the complete eschewing of traditional fighting styles and weapons would have been perfectly in character.
When confronting first Mace Windu and then Yoda, it would have been far more interesting and proper, I think, to have the Emperor's sole weapon be his force lightning - for close-in work show him focusing it into an energy blade of sorts and let him duel with saber-wielders, even. It would help avoid the repetitiveness of the lightsaber fights in the 3rd act of the movie, would have looked better (sorry Ian and Sam Jackson - you're just not the kind of movie swordsmen that MacGregor and Christensen are), and would have been more appropriate, I think. Plus, I could believe him force-blasting 3 bad-ass Jedi swordsmen in 5 seconds as opposed to cutting them down with a blade like they'd never even seen a saber before.
4) Space and time. This deserves a longer post - I think I'll break it out into its own in a bit, but suffice it to say that, for heroic drama to work, there needs to be tension - a chance for failure of a choice. For that possibility of failure to be made real, there has to be a challenge of some sort - usually overwhelming odds or a ticking clock, and sometimes both. Another way to achieve or increase tension is inflicting sense of isolation on the character, in time or in space or in both. In the prequels especially, there is no such isolation - you want to go from the heart of the galactic capitol to the edges of civilization, you can be there before the next commercial. Yawn. And a bit jarring for space opera.
Warning: EXTREME NICHE GEEKERY AHEAD.
5) Rebel Blockade Runner in the house, but they based the CG model on the stupid and inaccurate West End Games line drawings instead of the original studio model. Which us geeks have been drooling over since the summer of 1977. Dickmove, George. But a special "geek you" to the CGI artists/modelers who made sure they included a couple Panther tank rear decks in around the docking bay. Nice touch, there.
EXTREME NICHE GEEKERY OVER.
6) To steal a line from the Rifftrax, "What? From Jedi Knight to child murderer without even a stop at kiting checks?" Let's face it - moving the story along at the speed of a charging rhino means we're going to be feeling a little rushed, but really.
Blu-Ray Hubbub
Once again I am hard-pressed to claim to spot anything that is different in the BluRay version. It's pretty and it sounds great, and the special features are nice. After 3 prequels, it's still hard to believe they never had to make a suit of Clone Trooper armor - they were, each and every pixel-jack of them, CGI creations.
Overall
I like it. Sure, I have criticisms and sure I think it could've been better/different/more like what I wanted, but really, there's 3 more movies of material in there at minimum to do it "right". Heck, the Clone Wars series (which is totally awesome, by the way and should be seen if you haven't yet) showed that you could do 6 seasons of stories and still not be technically done.
When you're done with The Clone Wars you can totally buy the fact that Anakin Skywalker could flip burgers for the Dark Side. No problem. And you'll care. After an hour of this movie? Mmmmm, not so much, in my opinion. And since it's the whole point of the storyline, it's a big problem. It's not enough to kill the whole movie for me - the Ben/Anakin duel, the other things I mentioned in the list of likes above, and the fact that Lucas managed to tie it up at all carry a a lot of weight with me - but I understand that it does ruin the movie for a lot of people.
Placement in my list? Solid 3rd. Better than Attack of the Clones but not my Top Two, neither of which will surprise anyone, I'm sure.
My rating of its place in the pack, best-to-worst:
1 - XXXX
2 - XXXX
3 - Revenge of the Sith
4 - Attack of the Clones
5 - The Phantom Menace
6 - XXXX
Next up, for the non-geeks: A New Hope (i.e. Ep IV i.e. Star Wars.)
EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH
Original Thoughts:
This one I was waiting eagerly for. Watched the trailers on YouTube. Talked about its potential with friends. Bought tickets ahead of time for opening night for me and my date (yes, date).
I honestly figured that, with as many separate plot lines and situations that Lucas HAD to resolve, I'd be happy with "good enough". The trailers I saw looked good - not a lot of info, but enough to whet the appetite, and I was honestly looking forward to it.
Things I liked:
1) Space battle opener. This was a feast for the eyes, and a true testament to space opera everywhere. Just imagine what someone could do with the Lensman series!
2) The bubble-opera scene. Maybe George had a weird day. Maybe Hayden and Ian took their "work past the director" pills that morning. Whatever happened, this scene, where Palpatine subtly begins to reel Anakin in, is very well done, in my opinion.
3) The effects. Yes, I know that calling out the FX in a Star Wars movie seems silly, but really, I'm not kidding. There are things going on that are simply amazing, and 90% of them aren't really there (at least in scale - there was a lot more model work in the prequels than is commonly understood).
4) The finish line. He did it. He managed to wrap up all of the main, and most of the secondary, plot lines he had created heretofore, in a relatively coherent and entertaining package. That couldn't have been easy.
5) Rebel Blockade Runner in the house! Woo hoo! One of the best-loved, most-desired, and least-served spaceship designs in all of the Star Wars modeling community, and there it is up on the big screen again in all its 11-engined glory.
Things I liked less:
1) Part of the opening crawl:
"War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere."
"There are heroes on both sides." Really? Well, maybe, except that the Republic's heroes have names like "Skywalker" and "Ki-adi Mundi" and "Commander Cody", and the guys flying the separatists' banners all have speeder licenses issued to "Darth Tyrannous", "General Grievous", and "Major BabyCrusher". No doubt there was a Corporal "Atilla von Cribdeath" waiting for his turn at the Separatist hero machine. (Thanks to the late author Brain Daley for that last name.)
"Heroes on both sides" reeks of moral relativism. Moral relativism perturbs me.
2) Ensmallening of the Star Wars universe. It's not bad enough that Darth Vader built C-3PO? Now Yoda has to be best buddies with Chewbacca? Yuck. Next you'll tell me that the Emperor's face wasn't ruined slowly by years of messing with Black Magic, i.e. the Dark Side of the Force, which would be consistent with the morals of all those classic fairy tales that George Lucas professes to want to emulate; but instead that it was melted by 20 seconds of force lightning as part of one fight. But he would never do that.
3) Palpatine's lightsaber. Phantom Menace's Darth Maul showed us the double saber-staff, Attack of the Clones' Count Dooku wielded a one-handed "fencer saber" - so clearly one of the differences between the Sith and the Jedi (blue or green single-blades, anyone? Everyone?) is that the Sith are much less conservative as regards their weapons and fighting styles. Giving in more to their passions, their individuality comes through in their weapons. Intentional or not, I like it. It fits.
The Palpatine/Sidious character was built up as clearly more of a thinker than a fighter, a talker and a persuader and a liar rather than an ass-beater. Palpatine is overall a wielder of raw dark side power, not physical tools. This power seemed to mainly manifest as an overall cloud of foreboding and confusion pervading all of the Jedi (all across the galaxy!), and in that context, the complete eschewing of traditional fighting styles and weapons would have been perfectly in character.
When confronting first Mace Windu and then Yoda, it would have been far more interesting and proper, I think, to have the Emperor's sole weapon be his force lightning - for close-in work show him focusing it into an energy blade of sorts and let him duel with saber-wielders, even. It would help avoid the repetitiveness of the lightsaber fights in the 3rd act of the movie, would have looked better (sorry Ian and Sam Jackson - you're just not the kind of movie swordsmen that MacGregor and Christensen are), and would have been more appropriate, I think. Plus, I could believe him force-blasting 3 bad-ass Jedi swordsmen in 5 seconds as opposed to cutting them down with a blade like they'd never even seen a saber before.
4) Space and time. This deserves a longer post - I think I'll break it out into its own in a bit, but suffice it to say that, for heroic drama to work, there needs to be tension - a chance for failure of a choice. For that possibility of failure to be made real, there has to be a challenge of some sort - usually overwhelming odds or a ticking clock, and sometimes both. Another way to achieve or increase tension is inflicting sense of isolation on the character, in time or in space or in both. In the prequels especially, there is no such isolation - you want to go from the heart of the galactic capitol to the edges of civilization, you can be there before the next commercial. Yawn. And a bit jarring for space opera.
Warning: EXTREME NICHE GEEKERY AHEAD.
5) Rebel Blockade Runner in the house, but they based the CG model on the stupid and inaccurate West End Games line drawings instead of the original studio model. Which us geeks have been drooling over since the summer of 1977. Dickmove, George. But a special "geek you" to the CGI artists/modelers who made sure they included a couple Panther tank rear decks in around the docking bay. Nice touch, there.
EXTREME NICHE GEEKERY OVER.
6) To steal a line from the Rifftrax, "What? From Jedi Knight to child murderer without even a stop at kiting checks?" Let's face it - moving the story along at the speed of a charging rhino means we're going to be feeling a little rushed, but really.
Blu-Ray Hubbub
Once again I am hard-pressed to claim to spot anything that is different in the BluRay version. It's pretty and it sounds great, and the special features are nice. After 3 prequels, it's still hard to believe they never had to make a suit of Clone Trooper armor - they were, each and every pixel-jack of them, CGI creations.
Overall
I like it. Sure, I have criticisms and sure I think it could've been better/different/more like what I wanted, but really, there's 3 more movies of material in there at minimum to do it "right". Heck, the Clone Wars series (which is totally awesome, by the way and should be seen if you haven't yet) showed that you could do 6 seasons of stories and still not be technically done.
When you're done with The Clone Wars you can totally buy the fact that Anakin Skywalker could flip burgers for the Dark Side. No problem. And you'll care. After an hour of this movie? Mmmmm, not so much, in my opinion. And since it's the whole point of the storyline, it's a big problem. It's not enough to kill the whole movie for me - the Ben/Anakin duel, the other things I mentioned in the list of likes above, and the fact that Lucas managed to tie it up at all carry a a lot of weight with me - but I understand that it does ruin the movie for a lot of people.
Placement in my list? Solid 3rd. Better than Attack of the Clones but not my Top Two, neither of which will surprise anyone, I'm sure.
My rating of its place in the pack, best-to-worst:
1 - XXXX
2 - XXXX
3 - Revenge of the Sith
4 - Attack of the Clones
5 - The Phantom Menace
6 - XXXX
Next up, for the non-geeks: A New Hope (i.e. Ep IV i.e. Star Wars.)
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
"China is here, mister Burton."
"'China is here'? I don't even know what the hell that means. All I know is, this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of goddamned alley with his buddies flyin' around on wires, cuttin' everybody to pieces, and he just stands there waitin' for me to drive my truck straight through him? With light comin' out of his mouth?!?"
Dig it:
And, really apropos of nothing, if you like Westerns, and like Tarantino's stuff at least a little, and like things that get a little... weird, check out The Good, the Bad, and the Weird.
Great soundtrack, too.
Dig it:
And, really apropos of nothing, if you like Westerns, and like Tarantino's stuff at least a little, and like things that get a little... weird, check out The Good, the Bad, and the Weird.
Great soundtrack, too.
Monday, June 2, 2014
The First Rule of... Oh, Whatever
So I'm watching Fight Club for the 3rd or 4th time last weekend and it hit me: the batshit craziest guy in the movie isn't the Ed Norton character.
It's the guy who, upon seeing Ed Norton's character beating himself up in the parking lot, asked to be next.
It's the guy who, upon seeing Ed Norton's character beating himself up in the parking lot, asked to be next.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
"I Expect I'll Have It Sorted Out by Morning"
One of my favorite sleeper movies is The Ghost and the Darkness. Not a big movie, just a movie about a story. Much/most of it happens to be mostly true, even. And a great soundtrack.
And, for a gunny-wannabe I have to say that I don't know that much about guns, but this movie has more rifles in it then "Rifles: The Movie (About Rifles)".
I expect Tam has most of them in a glass case or something.
And, for a gunny-wannabe I have to say that I don't know that much about guns, but this movie has more rifles in it then "Rifles: The Movie (About Rifles)".
I expect Tam has most of them in a glass case or something.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Movie Review: The Ritchie Boys
Movie reviews have a long and glorious history, here at the MANP Corporate Data Cluster. Continuing this tradition, here are my comments on The Ritchie Boys.
This documentary fillum covers the wartime experiences of some European Jews who fled Hitler's Europe, ended up in the USA and joined the army to kill Nazis.
The War Department saw their value right away and sent as many of them as it could find to a training center at Camp Ritchie MD, where they learned about translation and interrogation, the Wermacht Order of Battle etc.
As you can imagine, these guys were highly motivated, but didn't fit very many tough-guy stereotypes. Their war was fought in the interrogation rooms, poring over captured documents, and talking to captured soldiers.
One memorable moment: one of the Ritchie Boys and his guard/driver are wandering lost in the forest, when a German sentry takes a shot at them. They take cover and a moment later, the guard pops up and lets loose with a full clip from his Garand.
(Those of you with M-1s of your own know how loud this can be if you're not expecting it and it happens about a foot from your ear)
So the translator shouts at him "What the hell are you doing?" and the guard replies, bewildered "Returning enemy fire!" Then the translator says "We don't shoot people in this outfit, we talk to them!" (In the film, he says he realized later how dumb this was.)
Anwyay, he starts talking to the German solider, asking him if he'd like to come have a nice hot meal and lie down for a rest in a calm, safe POW camp, and didn't that sound like a better way to spend the war than hiding in holes, hungry.
Lo and behold, the German comes up with his hands up.
If you watch this, keep your eyes open for some other great moments:
--Meeting Marlene Dietrich
--Impersonating a Russian officer to scare the bejeezus out of German captives
--Writing up fake memos that purport to document the interrogation of Hitler's latrine orderly, who bought his good treatment with exhaustive descriptions of the Fuehrer's .... equipment.
Great film. I give it 5 stars or potatoes or whatever. Its streaming on Netflix, if you are that way inclined.
This documentary fillum covers the wartime experiences of some European Jews who fled Hitler's Europe, ended up in the USA and joined the army to kill Nazis.
The War Department saw their value right away and sent as many of them as it could find to a training center at Camp Ritchie MD, where they learned about translation and interrogation, the Wermacht Order of Battle etc.
As you can imagine, these guys were highly motivated, but didn't fit very many tough-guy stereotypes. Their war was fought in the interrogation rooms, poring over captured documents, and talking to captured soldiers.
One memorable moment: one of the Ritchie Boys and his guard/driver are wandering lost in the forest, when a German sentry takes a shot at them. They take cover and a moment later, the guard pops up and lets loose with a full clip from his Garand.
(Those of you with M-1s of your own know how loud this can be if you're not expecting it and it happens about a foot from your ear)
So the translator shouts at him "What the hell are you doing?" and the guard replies, bewildered "Returning enemy fire!" Then the translator says "We don't shoot people in this outfit, we talk to them!" (In the film, he says he realized later how dumb this was.)
Anwyay, he starts talking to the German solider, asking him if he'd like to come have a nice hot meal and lie down for a rest in a calm, safe POW camp, and didn't that sound like a better way to spend the war than hiding in holes, hungry.
Lo and behold, the German comes up with his hands up.
If you watch this, keep your eyes open for some other great moments:
--Meeting Marlene Dietrich
--Impersonating a Russian officer to scare the bejeezus out of German captives
--Writing up fake memos that purport to document the interrogation of Hitler's latrine orderly, who bought his good treatment with exhaustive descriptions of the Fuehrer's .... equipment.
Great film. I give it 5 stars or potatoes or whatever. Its streaming on Netflix, if you are that way inclined.
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