So, Shark Attack 3: Megaladon
I threw it in my queue purely because of that scene that's up on YouTube, the one that they showed on Jonathan Ross that time and John Barrowman was straight up that he did it for the paycheck.
Real-time thoughts under the cut.
Right off the bat, they show the "salty seas captain" sub commander with a cigar in his mouth. Aren't there OSHA guidelines against that sort of thing?
Ooh, the first instance of poorly done ADR at 7:00 in. This is going to be fabulous.
9:00 I see how they stayed within budget here: lots of old stock footage. And not even good stuff either.
11:02 John goes diving for lobsters (instead of patrolling the coast like a good employee-naughty, naughty!) and instead of a net full of lobsters named Lunch and Dinner he comes back with a shark's tooth. It's like Jack and the Beanstalk but with less beans and more dangerous killer sharks!
14:00 The night watchman is a leacherous old man! No cliche unturned.
14:51 Stupid female lead! The first rule of computer safety is to not open e-mail attachments from people you don't know; do you WANT to get a computer virus?!
17:11 Next on the menu: sexy nude swimmers. Thanks, gratuitous nudity.
21:35 Blonde female lead has all the on-screen presence of the prop dead shark on the beach.
24:00 Super high-tech computer room straight out of 1987! AHAHAHHHAAAA, "Code monkeys". Even if it had no relation to the JoCo song, it still made me smile.
27:03 I'm watching this and thinking that rereading amand_r's TW/Jaws fic was infinitely more entertaining. I must soldier on.
28:10 First penis joke!
29:45 The music, it's like the "Jaws" theme but different enough to legally not be infringing.
33:34 Shoulda listened to the dog, random dude who is now chum. Now who is going to throw him the doggie frisbee??
35:30 News flash! People lie. Also: the sky is blue and the earth revolves around the sun.
38:15 I have to hand it to the "writers", they do know how to explain the existence of a prehistoric killer shark in short order. Less than 3 sentences of dialog.
41:39 John Barrowman is a good looking man, no doubt, but he suffered greatly from the Dippity Do abuse so common to dudes of the late '90s/early '00s.
44:25 Barrowman gives it a good go, but no one, absolutely no one, can give a "shee-iiit!" like Clay Davis on "The Wire".
47:17 Heehee. Victim #8 or 15 or whatever dies because blonde female lead (BFL) has butter fingers/sweaty palms. *sad trombone music*
52:47 All the main cast is now on the boat headed toward open waters, their date with Danger looms.
54:31 I love in these movies that there's always some kind of stupid-ass sinister business reason why the killer sharks/bears/yetis star attacking people. Here, it's Apex Communications (or something, I didn't pay enough attention nor care to rewind) laying down cheap fiber optic cables that attract the killer shark because of the seeping electrical energy into the ocean or whatever. I suppose a few dead naked swimmers is a small price to pay for transoceanic fiber optic cables that will provide me with high-speed Internet access to all the German leather fetish porn I could ever want.
1:01:39 It is amazing, and by that I mean baffling, that there is absolutely no accurate size reference for this megaladon. In one scene it is small enough to fit mostly inside the galley of a boat, but in the very next scene it swallows a dude in a speedboat in a single chomping gulp.
1:06:05 Ooooh, okay. So the one was a "baby" killer shark but the other one was it's mother. And now Mommy is Pissed. Off. It's a quest for justice now! Angry killer-shark justice.
1:08:01 Teehee, the "grizzled knowledgeable old man" token character said "abso-fucking-lutely!"
1:09:44 The Line!!!! The whole reason probably anyone knows about this movie. Took them long enough. And then the next scene is pretty much poorly shot softcore porn with a distinct lack of John Barrowman eating anyone's pussy.
1:11:15 A boat full of rich fat cats makes for good shark bait.
1:13:55 Barrowman made more sexual noises maneuvering the explosives into position than he did during the previous sex scene. He has more chemistry with the joystick in the sub--insert joystick joke here--than with his female co-star.
1:20:14 The movie is plodding toward the action climax because everyone and their brother is lobbing explosives at the shark and the wised old man character is suiting up for a suicide mission to save everyone.
1:22:56 Yes, there's a giant killer shark with a taste for humans, so let's all jump in the water! And get into flimsy inflatable life rafts, because then we will all be safe.
1:24:20 I think they blew through their entire budget with two of the most spectacularly shitty CGI-ed shots of the shark eating first, a single dude, and then a raft full of people. It was a major letdown. Like the rest of this. And my whole life.
1:27:50 "Torpedoes away, motherfucker!!!" The second "best" line from the movie. Also uttered by the esteemed Mr. John Barrowman.
1:30:12 He lived! And they all lived happily ever after...or did they?!
So I rented this because I love me some John Barrowman and the clips on YouTube were hilariously bad, plus they brought it up on Jonathan Ross and whatnot. And all I can say it that was an hour and a half of my life I will never get back. Ever.
Also at LJ.
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, December 4, 2009
Movie Review: The Fantastic Mr. Fox
So yes, it's been months since I've done a proper post. Stuff has been going on--and not--and I just haven't had the need or wherewithal to do one. Still haven't found another job since leaving DAAV and started watching Star Trek: TNG through Netflix. That that however you will. I saw "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" yesterday because I needed a pick-me-up. And boy did it work. Such an awesome film!
It's a stop-motion animated movie, so it has that inherent 50s/60s kitschy vibe going for it, which is great since it's a Wes Anderson film and all of his stuff has that kind of vibe in some way or other. The premise, if you don't know what it is, is that Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney, used to steal chickens for a living but gave it up when he started a family with his wife, voiced by Meryl Streep. Of course, after a few years he gets the itch again and gets his friends to help him pull of "one last big score", as you do in these things.
Of all the Wes Anderson movies I've seen, this is by far my favorite because all of the things that can kind of grate in one of his live-action movies--meticulously designed set piece upon meticulously designed set piece, populating the cast with quirky and kooky character types just bouncing off each other, a certain out-of-time 60s kitsch by way of current pop culture--works very well here. As I said earlier, just the fact that it's stop-motion animation makes it okay to indulge in all those fab mid-century modern furnishings and fashions because it feels like it fits in this setting. And themes typical of Anderson films--sons seeking approval from their detached fathers in this one especially--feel fresh and new here because they are being explored by foxes and badgers and other woodland creatures instead of the same old humans.
I saw some reviews on blogs complain that George Clooney doesn't do any kind of character at all but rather a more devilish version of himself. I don't know if that's true, and I don't care because I could listen to him read the TV listings and think it was the best, most nuanced reading or the TV listings ever. The crime caper aspect of this feels like "Ocean's Eleven" all over the place, but I loved it and it was kind of unavoidable with George Clooney voicing your main character. The supporting cast is populated with a bevy of Wes Anderson players, including Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Wally Wolodarsky, and Eric Chase Anderson. Anderson himself pops up as Weasel, the realtor who sells the Fox family their prime new house. And in another film I might have complained about seeing the same people in yet another Wes Anderson venture treading the same water. "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", however, makes it all feel genuine and fresh and just plain entertaining.
Also at LJ.
It's a stop-motion animated movie, so it has that inherent 50s/60s kitschy vibe going for it, which is great since it's a Wes Anderson film and all of his stuff has that kind of vibe in some way or other. The premise, if you don't know what it is, is that Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney, used to steal chickens for a living but gave it up when he started a family with his wife, voiced by Meryl Streep. Of course, after a few years he gets the itch again and gets his friends to help him pull of "one last big score", as you do in these things.
Of all the Wes Anderson movies I've seen, this is by far my favorite because all of the things that can kind of grate in one of his live-action movies--meticulously designed set piece upon meticulously designed set piece, populating the cast with quirky and kooky character types just bouncing off each other, a certain out-of-time 60s kitsch by way of current pop culture--works very well here. As I said earlier, just the fact that it's stop-motion animation makes it okay to indulge in all those fab mid-century modern furnishings and fashions because it feels like it fits in this setting. And themes typical of Anderson films--sons seeking approval from their detached fathers in this one especially--feel fresh and new here because they are being explored by foxes and badgers and other woodland creatures instead of the same old humans.
I saw some reviews on blogs complain that George Clooney doesn't do any kind of character at all but rather a more devilish version of himself. I don't know if that's true, and I don't care because I could listen to him read the TV listings and think it was the best, most nuanced reading or the TV listings ever. The crime caper aspect of this feels like "Ocean's Eleven" all over the place, but I loved it and it was kind of unavoidable with George Clooney voicing your main character. The supporting cast is populated with a bevy of Wes Anderson players, including Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Wally Wolodarsky, and Eric Chase Anderson. Anderson himself pops up as Weasel, the realtor who sells the Fox family their prime new house. And in another film I might have complained about seeing the same people in yet another Wes Anderson venture treading the same water. "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", however, makes it all feel genuine and fresh and just plain entertaining.
Also at LJ.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
"Do you want me to let him collect me?"
Wee-view: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The quote above is from the movie, and only slightly less creepy when heard in context...
I know there was much fan whine-age when it came about that Michael Gambon had never read any of the HP books, but I never cared about that because he did a great job as Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and a spectacular job in this latest movie. Even knowing exactly what was going to happen, I was still a teary mess the whole last act of the movie--from he and Harry setting off for the cave to get the horcrux Voldemort hid there to Harry sitting over his lifeless body after it was all over. Meep.
I don't think that taking Felix Felicis is supposed to make you act borderline comically drunk/high, but watching Daniel Radcliffe miming Aragogg's poisonous pincers was LOLZ to the max. It was nice to see him play something beyond emo/flummoxed.
Jim Broadbent was a great choice as Prof. Slguhorn, even though they forwent to walrus mustache.
And Luna was full of AWESOME as usual.
Many hardcore book fans complain about the massive changes between the source material and final product, but I really don't give a crap anymore. They keep all the important stuff, because lord knows if they kept everything it would be as long as Lawrence of Arabia (which I totes love and own, but it is L-O-N-G.) Treating it as a separate entity greatly increases my enjoyment of the film. And they kept in the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes scene!
PoA is still my fave of the movies so far, though, and not just because of this.
Also at LJ.
The quote above is from the movie, and only slightly less creepy when heard in context...
I know there was much fan whine-age when it came about that Michael Gambon had never read any of the HP books, but I never cared about that because he did a great job as Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and a spectacular job in this latest movie. Even knowing exactly what was going to happen, I was still a teary mess the whole last act of the movie--from he and Harry setting off for the cave to get the horcrux Voldemort hid there to Harry sitting over his lifeless body after it was all over. Meep.
I don't think that taking Felix Felicis is supposed to make you act borderline comically drunk/high, but watching Daniel Radcliffe miming Aragogg's poisonous pincers was LOLZ to the max. It was nice to see him play something beyond emo/flummoxed.
Jim Broadbent was a great choice as Prof. Slguhorn, even though they forwent to walrus mustache.
And Luna was full of AWESOME as usual.
Many hardcore book fans complain about the massive changes between the source material and final product, but I really don't give a crap anymore. They keep all the important stuff, because lord knows if they kept everything it would be as long as Lawrence of Arabia (which I totes love and own, but it is L-O-N-G.) Treating it as a separate entity greatly increases my enjoyment of the film. And they kept in the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes scene!
PoA is still my fave of the movies so far, though, and not just because of this.
Also at LJ.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Because the best thing about being underemployed right now is going to the movies on a Friday morn..
...I saw Watchmen today, all by myself. Literally. I was the only person in a 300+ seat theatre. My spoilerific thoughts coming up afer I guess Adrian Vedit's computer password.
The best thing about it, and conversely the worst thing, is that it changes/exorcises some key plot points from the graphic novel. They wisely changed the part of the ending where Veidt's evil plan to unite people in fear--and therefore avert WWIII between the USSR and USA--was unleashing an alien on NYC and killing millions of people. In the movie, they altered the means from alien to framing Dr. Manhattan, which was a wise move in my opinion because I found the alien reveal to be somewhat cheesy and having Veidt frame Dr. Manhattan has more emotional resonance and less giant alien-brain-mutant-tentacle-thing. So props for that.
On the flip side, they still had to exorcise large-ish chunks of the graphic novel in order to not have the movie clock in at 5+ hours in length. A lot of this is at the expense of character development, specifically Silk Spectre and Rorschach. I found the truncated Rorschach backstory hurt his character because it didn't give a clear enough explanation of why he became the sort of uber-crime-and-punishment vigilante-justice-wielding borderline sociopath he became. There were only a couple of flashes to his childhood--at least they kept the part where he bites off a piece of one tormentor's face (charming)--and no mention at all of the infamous Kitty Genovese indecent in the mid-sixties that spurred him to don his Rorschach alter-ego. All that said, Jackie Earl Haley was a superb choice to play Rorschach. Even though most of the movie has his face covered in the Rorschach mask, his physicality and his raspy-gravelly voice is exactly what you'd imagine Rorschach's to be.
As for Silk Spectre, the reveal of her bio-dad (Comedian) and her acceptance of it is so slam-bang fast as to almost give me metaphorical whiplash. Her truncated backstory did nothing but hurt the character. And of all the Watchmen, she comes across as the flattest, which seems counter intuitive since she got more screen time than most. I think a lot of that had to do with Malin Ackerman herself. She just looks too young to be playing someone in her mid-thirties, and unfortunately her performance didn't do enough to overcome that. I had the same problem with Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias). He just looks too young and too--I don't know, slight?. He's a good looking man, no doubt, but the character is someone who is sort of classically handsome, a kind of all-American ex-football jock type. He has brains and brawn. Goode really only has brains working for him at the level he needs for this role. And the weird, vaguely German/English accent did nothing to help. That was probably the most distracting thing in the whole movie for me.
As for the rest of the Watchmen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan brought just the right amount of sadistic glee to the Comedian, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl proved it is possible to make a pretty man look convincingly schlubby with prostheses, and Dr. Manhattan's almost complete detachment from humanity is right in Billy Crudup's wheelhouse. And yes, you do get several shots of Dr. Manhattan's glowing blue junk. And his fine, fine derriere.
As adaptations go, this was a pretty good one. Director Zack Znyder is a professed fan, and you could tell. There were many scenes in the movie lifted directly from the pages of the novel, right down to each "a" or "the" from the original dialogue. Film is a different medium that comics. It just is. Where in the comic you can linger on a panel or page and have pages and pages of extra material not directly tied in to the action in the panels, a movie is always moving forward to the finish--and will get there in under 3 hours, preferably. As I understand it, much of the extra stuff from the comic--the comic-in-a-comic, the magazine excerpts, news clippings etc. will be included as extra features in the DVD. Which is nice, because it does a great job of putting the action in a much richer, colorful context. It's just too bad there couldn't have been more of it in the actual movie itself. But you could tell he wanted to cram in as much as possible, which resulted in some very compelling visual story telling. Perhaps the best example comes right at the beginning when we get an introduction to this parallel universe by way of a montage of significant historical events from the '40s-'70s if superheroes had been there. This was adaptation at its most effective.
I enjoy the graphic novel quite a bit--it's long and dense and begs repeat readings to peel back the payers. The same is true of the movie version. There is simply too much going on to be able to absorb it all in a single viewing. I'm just concerned people will decide it's not worth their time--it's about an AU where not-very-popular superheores are real and just as fucked up as normal people--or they'll see it and be disappointed that the ads misled them into thinking it was going to be a nonstop action-fest bloodbath. And that would be a shame. Because as comic movies go, this was definitely one of the more original and interesting takes on the genre and I would hate for this to been seen an epic fail (a steep drop-off in second weekend ticket sales will tell) and result in more dreck like fucking Spiderman 4.
Also at LJ
The best thing about it, and conversely the worst thing, is that it changes/exorcises some key plot points from the graphic novel. They wisely changed the part of the ending where Veidt's evil plan to unite people in fear--and therefore avert WWIII between the USSR and USA--was unleashing an alien on NYC and killing millions of people. In the movie, they altered the means from alien to framing Dr. Manhattan, which was a wise move in my opinion because I found the alien reveal to be somewhat cheesy and having Veidt frame Dr. Manhattan has more emotional resonance and less giant alien-brain-mutant-tentacle-thing. So props for that.
On the flip side, they still had to exorcise large-ish chunks of the graphic novel in order to not have the movie clock in at 5+ hours in length. A lot of this is at the expense of character development, specifically Silk Spectre and Rorschach. I found the truncated Rorschach backstory hurt his character because it didn't give a clear enough explanation of why he became the sort of uber-crime-and-punishment vigilante-justice-wielding borderline sociopath he became. There were only a couple of flashes to his childhood--at least they kept the part where he bites off a piece of one tormentor's face (charming)--and no mention at all of the infamous Kitty Genovese indecent in the mid-sixties that spurred him to don his Rorschach alter-ego. All that said, Jackie Earl Haley was a superb choice to play Rorschach. Even though most of the movie has his face covered in the Rorschach mask, his physicality and his raspy-gravelly voice is exactly what you'd imagine Rorschach's to be.
As for Silk Spectre, the reveal of her bio-dad (Comedian) and her acceptance of it is so slam-bang fast as to almost give me metaphorical whiplash. Her truncated backstory did nothing but hurt the character. And of all the Watchmen, she comes across as the flattest, which seems counter intuitive since she got more screen time than most. I think a lot of that had to do with Malin Ackerman herself. She just looks too young to be playing someone in her mid-thirties, and unfortunately her performance didn't do enough to overcome that. I had the same problem with Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias). He just looks too young and too--I don't know, slight?. He's a good looking man, no doubt, but the character is someone who is sort of classically handsome, a kind of all-American ex-football jock type. He has brains and brawn. Goode really only has brains working for him at the level he needs for this role. And the weird, vaguely German/English accent did nothing to help. That was probably the most distracting thing in the whole movie for me.
As for the rest of the Watchmen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan brought just the right amount of sadistic glee to the Comedian, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl proved it is possible to make a pretty man look convincingly schlubby with prostheses, and Dr. Manhattan's almost complete detachment from humanity is right in Billy Crudup's wheelhouse. And yes, you do get several shots of Dr. Manhattan's glowing blue junk. And his fine, fine derriere.
As adaptations go, this was a pretty good one. Director Zack Znyder is a professed fan, and you could tell. There were many scenes in the movie lifted directly from the pages of the novel, right down to each "a" or "the" from the original dialogue. Film is a different medium that comics. It just is. Where in the comic you can linger on a panel or page and have pages and pages of extra material not directly tied in to the action in the panels, a movie is always moving forward to the finish--and will get there in under 3 hours, preferably. As I understand it, much of the extra stuff from the comic--the comic-in-a-comic, the magazine excerpts, news clippings etc. will be included as extra features in the DVD. Which is nice, because it does a great job of putting the action in a much richer, colorful context. It's just too bad there couldn't have been more of it in the actual movie itself. But you could tell he wanted to cram in as much as possible, which resulted in some very compelling visual story telling. Perhaps the best example comes right at the beginning when we get an introduction to this parallel universe by way of a montage of significant historical events from the '40s-'70s if superheroes had been there. This was adaptation at its most effective.
I enjoy the graphic novel quite a bit--it's long and dense and begs repeat readings to peel back the payers. The same is true of the movie version. There is simply too much going on to be able to absorb it all in a single viewing. I'm just concerned people will decide it's not worth their time--it's about an AU where not-very-popular superheores are real and just as fucked up as normal people--or they'll see it and be disappointed that the ads misled them into thinking it was going to be a nonstop action-fest bloodbath. And that would be a shame. Because as comic movies go, this was definitely one of the more original and interesting takes on the genre and I would hate for this to been seen an epic fail (a steep drop-off in second weekend ticket sales will tell) and result in more dreck like fucking Spiderman 4.
Also at LJ
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