Flight of the Phoenix
J will never let me live this one down. We didn’t see it at the movies because he was still too cut at Dennis Quaid for being a wuss in The Day after Tomorrow. I got it out, though, because I had always thought it looked good from the poster, and because the blurb said it was “action-packed”. Yes; well. It wasn’t toooo bad… Miranda Otto was ok, in her bit-part… ok, it was a really average movie. I would not recommend anyone to see it. However, I found out one reason why it seemed appealing and didn’t deliver; it’s a re-make. The original had Peter Finch, Richard Attenborough, James Stewart and Ernest Borgnine!!! Kat says it is fantastic, so maybe I will watch it tomake it up to mysellf… but I don’t think I will suggest it to J.
The Transporter
Watching it at the moment; stars Handsome Rob from the remake of The Italian Job. It only just manages to stay this side of Jackie Chan, but it is totally cool. It’s got the best-shot car chases since Ronin, and an awesome soundtrack too. Certainly manages to pack a lot into 80 minutes! The grease scene is brilliant. There’s a sequel just out recently – not sure if it’s out on DVD yet, hope it’s not too far away.
Films I saw in the holidays…
… which was a while ago now, but what the heck.
Batman Begins
Fantastic. So well filmed; Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were great in support, and I barely noticed Katie Holmes (‘ray). And Batman himself – well, he was brilliant. Played the dark and brooding very convincingly. I am definitely looking forward to the sequel, because this Batmas – with all new and improved gadgets – is very entertaining to watch.
War of the Worlds
Yeh. Not convinced. Thinking back on the book, I’m wondering whether it is actually the book’s fault. HG Wells did not exactly write a book that could be easily turned into a movie; I haven’t read it in years, but I think he was writing with less of an idea to character development than to exploring the concept of alien invasion and its consequences for the world. As a result, any movie (and what I’ve seen of the 50s version, while being an intersting commentary on nuclear USA, was crap) has to have some people-stuff inserted by someone else, and I just don’t think it works – not and still calling it War of the Worlds. I think Tom Cruise was actually quite weak in it, but then the character itself didn’t allow for much. There were some cool effects.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Did I see it on holidays? Don’t recall; anyway. I liked it, in defiance of all the purists I think. The fact that it was started before Adams died made me feel a bit better about it. Yes, there were bits that were totally not in the book, but anyone who thinks those books could be successfull translated to the screen and be understood by total Adams-novices, which is a large part of the world, needs their heads read. I liked most of the insertions, actually, and I thought John Malkovitch was quite funny. Truly, though, Arthur was very enteraining, but for me the entire film was owned by Zaphod. He was perfect.
There was another movie we saw in Darwin, too, but I forget what it was…
Sin City
Hmmm.
J has wanted to see this film for a long time, and I thought it looked interesting too – quite like film noir usually, and such a fantastic cast (Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Rosaria Dawson…)! I must say that I hadn’t heard very much about it before we saw it, except that it was black and white with bits of colour. I wish now that I had been a bit more prepared – well, the dude at the theatre warned me a bit, saying it was gruesome, but still. It was very good: fascinating and intertwined stories, very well done as an adaption of a graphic novel because that’s just what it looked like, and the colour was superbly done. However. Gruesome and not a little grotesque; I had not realised that it is rated MA+. I would definitely have to think before I recommended it to anyone.
The Island
Someone I know described this as The Rock (Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage) meets Minority Report, with a little bit of Matrix thrown in. Pretty much. I liked the story, and I thought it was developed well; the characters were mostly quite realistic, and the acting was great – Steve Buscemi is, as ever, very good, although I wouldn’t have recognised Sean Bean until the end if I hadn’t seen his name in the credits, since mostly he looks (unusually) very slick.
Overall, worthwhile. Some superfluous explosions and chases, and some scenes that just made me impatient because of their patent absurdity, but those were fairly minor. The ending… well, you can probably imagine. It is Hollywood, after all.
Hitchhikers’ Guide
I liked it. I don’t really mind that much that they changed the story a bit – even putting in new bits – because the story is so completely flipped out that it would be impossible to film in the first place, and then no one would go and see even if it was filmed except for the really hard-core Adams fans, and most of them would be likely to be disappointed anyway. So, my thought is, at least this way they would have got a pretty good audience of both Adams-nuts and others, which might in turn get more people reading the books, which is all good.
I liked Jon Malkovitch is Harma Kavula. He was cool. And the guy who played Zaphod – so, so perfect.
National Treasure
We saw this on the weekend. It was about as silly as expected; attempting, in some ways, to mimic Last Crusade – but at least there, it was clear where the treasure had come from, and the clues made a modicum of movie-sense. The same cannot be said, alas, for this movie. It was entertaining, I’ll admit, and Nic Cage was not nearly so painful as he might have been; Sean Bean was a lot of fun and could have had a lot bigger part, in my mind. I might watch it again… in maybe 5 years, when I’m in the mood to be mildly amused.
Dungeons and Dragons, and Dark Crystal
With J out tonight, I’ve got a couple of flicks I want to see but J probably wouldn’t: at the moment I’m watching D&D. I’ve never played it, but I’ve wanted to see it since it came out – love those dragons (it has made me more determined to, at some stage, actually get around to writing my survey of dragons in literature, and maybe to extend it to films…). Anyway; enjoying it so far. I thought I recognised Ridley, the main character, and turns out it’s Jimmy from Lois and Clarke – I did think he was a spunk when I watched the show.
Later that same night
“So talented, eh Mr Ridley”… love a bit of movie-within-movie referencing. Speaking of which, they obviously couldn’t think of a more impressive way of doing magic swordfights than the lightsaber trick.
This was a pretty crap movie, as expected. Dagomar was probably the one redeeming character – a far more interesting villain than Profean, who was such a waste of Jeremy Irons. Thora Birch was a try-hard version of the Empress in Neverending Story; tell me, how would a teenage empress get to hearing about ideals of democracy and be convinced that they were a good idea? The dwarf was pathetic; the elf had potential, except for that breastplate, which was exactly that. And Marina… well, we won’t even mention her.
I guess I was anticipating a fairly average movie, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.
Yet later that same night
Seems to be the night for similarities to Neverending Story: the nasty chitinous beasties in Dark Crystal seem to be very similar to the equally nasty chitinous beasties in the sequel. I’m guessing that this might be the original, though, actually, because I think this is older even than the original.
I am enjoying it still – I think the last time I watched it was on the eve of my 19th birthday while I was at college. The main reason I remember that is because the next morning when I got up I discovered a remarkable portrait of Fizz-gig under my door, courtesy of Krick. I still think he is one of the cutest pets yet invented.
As the Chamberlain says, MMMmmm…
Movies of the last few weeks
Hmm, do you get the feeling I really haven’t blogged here in a while, and have a lot to say as a consequence?
I watched a little bit of Batman and Robin the other night. It just made me feel contemptuous. It didn’t even manage to be camp. Urgh.
Collateral was… well, a bit weird. A bit motion-sickness-inducing, actually, what with all the hand-held camera, let’s-make-it-feel-as-if-you’re-there action. An interesting storyline – a fascinating one in a lot of ways, actually – and Tom Cruise really was quite good; so was Jamie Foxx.
Finally saw Pitch Black, having seen The Chronicles of Riddick at the movies. To be honest, it must have been Vin himself pushing for the sequel, because the original really was nothing special except for his character, who I really quite liked. About the most interesting thing was that half the cast were Australian; probably it was filmed here. Oh, the lighting for the surface of the planet was also quite cool – might have been a result of a low budget, too, though.
Murder at 1600 was really nothing much to write about. Wesley was entertaining. I think the most interesting thing was them making him a Civil War buff, with his battle sets, and then it being incorporated into the film. That, and the fact that the next day I found out my Yr12 history teacher is also into doing those sorts of things, but possibly even more extremely.
Revisionism
We went to B’s place the other day to watch some movies, and decided on the Star Wars trilogy. J was muttering and complaining for most of the first, something about revisionism because in the remastered versions Greedo shoots first, in the Mos Eisley sequence with Han… (are we sad?). I don’t see what the problem is, but J has some very strong thoughts on the matter. I am often a fan of revisionism; it can lead to some very interesting history, and is at least convenient for pointing out that our interpretation of past events can never be static. However. I must say that there was, in fact, a piece of revisionism that really, really annoyed me. At the end of Return of the Jedi – after everything is just fine – and the ghosts turn up… they have Hayden $%@^ Christensen appearing! Not the original Darth/Anakin! Really, really upsetting.
Randomly Yours, Alex 