Because I got my dates wrong I won’t be able to see “Skinwalkers” for another four days. “Skinwalker” is from a Navajo term referring to a witch who can transform into a wolf, and I am hoping they do it right for the big screen…but I’ll have to hold my water until Friday. Dammit all anyway.
So, hoping and praying beyond all evidence to the contrary, I went to see the Bourne Ultimatum today.
*SIGH*
Sometimes I really just ask for my eyeballs to start bleeding. The Bourne Ultimatum was bo-rrrring. Just terrible. No surprises, Jason Bourne goes hither and yon making phone calls and whopping ass…I can only assume he whoops some ass, because the cameraman was filming on a sack of marbles…AGAIN!! Damn you people, who convinced you that after the last two bad decisions to use this technique that it might actually fly this time? Was it the coffee boy? Your secretary? Whoever it was, have them dragged out behind the chemical sheds (or Robert Downey Jr’s house – Same thing really) and SHOT. Repeatedly. Don’t let this shit happen again. What is that supposed to be anyway, a fight scene occurs and the cameraman has an epileptic seizure?!? Y’know, I don’t really feel “In the mood” as good old Glenn Miller would have said. I just feel sodomized. Again.
The most interesting part of the movie was when I went to go pee & got a chance to admire my penis. Which I love, by the way. But back to my point, the last good Jason Bourne movie was “The Devil Wears Prada”, and even then the camerawork was problematic to say the least.
I can’t really comment on how the movie turned out, I left halfway through. Sorry, but I have better things to do with my day than waste it in a dark theatre reviewing a movie I’m not even getting paid to do.
So instead, let me tell you about my beach weekend and some great DVD rentals. It’s great getting away from it all from time to time, and I had a fantastic time at the beach this past weekend. But there comes a time in everyone’s life when, deprived of technology, we see just how far we have come to rely on it. There was no free (or even cheap) WiFi to be found for miles, so no matter how much I wanted to log on a just check my email real quick, that was out. I wrote a funny story I wanted to upload to my blog, no way Jose’. Wanted to browse the latest headlines with my morning cup of brain juice, but since we didn’t have a subscription to a paper I couldn’t even do it the old fashioned way.
Thank the Gods my laptop has a DVD player and I thought to rent a few flicks. A couple of days walking on the beach by day and enjoying a Chimay on the ocean view deck with dinner at night was lovely, but by day three I was gonna kill someone.
Shooter
Not a bad movie, if a bit predictable. Easy to watch, at any rate. Mark Wahlberg is a triple-crossed ex Marine Sniper with a problem: He’s just been set up as the fall guy for a failed presidential assassination. Which, if you were even halfway paying attention, you could have seen coming from a mile away. But the film pays out, and although can be unbelievably trite at times (trained government assassin firing at a solitary target can’t hit the damn thing ONCE? No wonder we’re losing in the
300
(If you're lost, I can tell you where you are right now: THIS! IS! SPARTA!)
I have already written a post about Frank Miller’s “300” (He of “
What is the damn deal with all the different “Editions” of a DVD? Lord of the Rings has three different editions. I, Robot has three. Even the utterly fecal “Alexander” has FOUR, a new one just released by Oliver Stone with a different editing. Not that it could have saved it, Jesus himself couldn’t have pulled this turkey from the oven and nothing about the film tells anything real concerning Alexander and Colin Farrell was probably the worst choice for such a role. But I mean, why not just release a regular edition (cheap, no frills) and a Special Edition (for geeks like me) and have done with that? It pisses me off knowing that I bought the two-disc collector’s edition of “300” knowing that they will come out with a five-disc “Magnum” edition in a week. ..And I’ll probably buy that too. God, I’m so weak.
Hot Fuzz
These are the same people who brought you “Shaun of the Dead” (also starring it’s two main characters) and although I loved Shaun, this movie is easily three times as funny. If you like British comedy (kind of a prereq for attaining apprentice geekship under a master nerd) check this out, it’s fast paced and funny as hell. Two British policemen in a small hamlet in the English countryside, one who takes his job far too seriously and the other has simply seen too many cop movies. Every buddy-cop-movie-shootup-cliché’ under the sun is roasted, and nothing is sacred (Gun toting priests! Old Women! Timothy Dalton! I mean, he’s actually funny!) The humor is in the same vein as Shaun of the Dead, but faster paced and more gags per scene. The Shaun team have a good formulae down, and it shows here.
The Fountain
This movie was almost good. It was "a few feet from the finish line" good. It was "great concept but we smoked too much crack cocain during filming" good.
Unfortunately, unless you watch the director’s commentary you will have no idea what the hell is going on.
The scenes jolt violently between three separate time periods spanning several hundred years apiece, and are mixmatched to give a confusing and uninteresting tale of one man’s search for everlasting life. As with “Children of Men” this was a poor movie that was very well filmed. Hugh Jackman’s character is simultaneously a Research Oncologist obsessed with beating death, a 16th century conquistador obsessed with beating death and the Catholic church, and a universe-hopping basket case with the ability to live forever and do Tai Chi, but he’s still…obsessed with beating death. This recurring Hawkeye from M.A.S.H. attitude is boring at first, and nauseating after that. Rachel Weisz plays his wife/Queen/dead chick, depending on what century it is. I really think the director started out with what was probably a good idea, unfortunately a good idea and a burlap sack in
The scenes of the spaceship (a translucent bubble in space with the tree of life and Hugh Jackman) traveling through the galaxy are breathtaking, and the entering of the nebulae was worth rewinding for me just to see the director’s vision of space phenomenon. Carl Sagan couldn’t have done it better, to be honest, and the scenes are reminiscent of his early 80’s space exploration program “Cosmos”. But the plot and storyline of the film are lost in technical jargon, abysmal script editing and predictable one-upmanship in the fight against death, ultimately saying what we already knew: Everyone dies, there are no exceptions.
The History Boys
This was by far the best and most surprising flick I have seen for months, and of all the rentals I would recommend it the most. Based on a sellout European play, the film follows a group of 8 near-genius history pupils preparing for the Oxbridge entrance examinations in the early 1980’s. Nothing about the movie feels dated though, and the delivery is intense. The History Boys are from varied backgrounds, religions, races and even sexual orientations, but band together from the start as a force against the strict, moralistically rigid school philosophy and authority. Their struggles are real and their triumphs and failures are tangible to everyone who has made straight A’s at school but still had to hold down a summer job. The movie is also just as much about the three central teachers in their lives as well, and the difference a really good teacher can make in your life.
The cast give performances with a natural ease and even arrogance that all bright children who believe they are making a difference in the world possess before the real world swallows them whole, and the ending is reminiscent of "The Dead Poet's Society" with a little "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" thrown in for those who are literate.
The play won six Tony awards, and even though it had to be whittled down to fit a motion picture format it loses nothing in the final presentation. Just like the celluloid adaptation of “Rent”, this film has power behind it and you won’t leave it dry eyed.
1 comment:
Bobbe I liked all the Bourne movies and Shooter was good...The Books are much better..start with Point of Impact and go from there. Hot Fuzz was cool...I was buzzed so it was better than average. Go see Rescue Dawn (awesome).
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