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Cinema: A couple very brief reviews
Mon, 24 Sep 2007

As the baby rounds past the 6mo mark we're slowly growing accustomed to our new form of what normal is. There have been some 'deer-in-the-headlights' moments when the theatres show movies we wish to see and likely won't for quite some time, but all in all I'm pretty happy with how things have shaken out. I even made a point of sitting down with my laptop to catch a couple of films. That was something.

I meant to post longer reviews after I'd seen the films, but alas time has been fleeting. At least I got to see some :)

300

Well, sometimes all of us just have to enjoy movies about big sweaty gladiators. As a kid, I was veritably steeped in Spartan city-state lore so I was even vaguely aware of the recorded history about the battle depicted in this film. But really I just wanted to see it because Frank Miller (of graphic novel fame, such as Sin City which you may have also seen a movie translation of) wrote it. (I'd like to insert a snide comment about Robert Jordans death too, but mother said I should speak positive words of other people.) Anyway, its all CG action, has great beards, shows some excellent shields mashing excellent opponent faces. Its a story of 300 (and some) versus an army 20 times that size.. but they're Spartan, and they kick ass. Its like Die Hard with spears. Awesome. (Again I meant to have some sweeping tear-inducing epic of review, but in the end, sleep dep leads to this mess :)

Hot Fuzz

Just awesome. This comes from the folks who created Shaun of the Dead so it had to be just excellent, and it is. See it now! Essentially three movements in this film -- first, the story of a sueprcop in London who makes his compatriots look bad so is shipped to a quiet little village. The dialog is snappy and with some plays-on-a-theme it works out very nicely to show the copper going stircrazy, seeing crime in every facet of every day life. The second movement is really where he does find crime in every corner of the place, and mayhem breaks out. Lastly, the final movement is where they start pwning old lady faces. You just can't get enough of two fisted pistol shootouts with old ladies, right? Again, the sleep dep changes whats in my mind to what comes out of my fingers but suffice to say - the film is quirky and subtle with fun dialog, and leads through, just as Shaun did, amusing unusual circumstances. With violence and laughs. I love these guys.

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Cinema: _The Goonies_ - its full of awesome
Sat, 17 Feb 2007

Sorry, been an entire month since last I wrote; its been busy, I tell you.

Our little one is due in about 5 days (though rarely do they arrive on the due date itself I'm told.) I expect some day the child will look up with big eyes and ask 'What was it like when you were growing up, old man?' I know now a reply that can come easily: 'There was pirate booty, mutants, mafiaso and video games'. When the child shakes his head with disgust, I'll point them to The Goonies as proof invariable.

After a long day of chores, we crawled to the couch to check pay-per-view. It was easy to pass up such instant classics as Little Man (the Custer's Revenge of movies, a Yars Revenge it is not!), but when we stumbled over Goonies it was nearly a must watch -- I'd never seen it. The Gremlins, sure, but not The Goonies. Yes - its true - I missed a movie that was made into a video game. I know, I know my friends, it happens.

I am trying not to say 'they don't make them like that anymore', but lets tick off the proverbial fingers shall we: Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, E.T. Should you challenge this assertion, I will insert sed fingers to ears - lalalalalalanotlistening!

Let me be blunt -- some great movies were made back in the day; they had a certain ingrediant thats been lacking ever since. Yes my dear friends, The Goonies was full of teh eighties.

Watch it. Good times. Not tossing bread crumbs to the gease in the park good times, but water slides good times.

Aside: I'll see if I can find a moment to pick up this new PC game - Supreme Commander - the sequal to Total Annihilation. Like I'll have time :P

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Cinema: Casino Royale With (not much) Cheese
Mon, 20 Nov 2006

We just got back from the latest Bond film and let me cut to the chase -- fantastic. Excellent. Fun. Not Jackie Chan fun, but classy. Sure, the new lead is blonde but I'm not one for details .. this was in the classic action spy form though a little less playboy than with former greats like Connery and Moore but also tougher. Noir even. I'm sure the ladies will be pleased too, since this isn't some pretty boy actor - this guy with hard blue eyes was chiseled, I'm told.

Personally I found the last few Bonds a bore (and passed the last one altogether.. a wise decision I'm told.) No shade against Pierce Brosnan but the writing wasn't there, instead relying on gadgets and Hollywood-sized explosions instead of intrigue, characters or class. Goldeneye was fun, but I still missed the by-gone adventures where an entire 30 minutes wasn't devoted to driving a car with a cellphone.. bleh. We've missed supervillains and even superhenchmen -- who can forget Jaws or Dr. No? Or competing Russian agents? Can you remember what License to Kill was even about?

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Review in short: American Dreamz
Sat, 29 Apr 2006

Cutting straight to the goods, this film is a scorcher .. entertaining though not balls-out, disturbing yet tasteful, and great fun as they literally roast (I need extra-extra-italics!) American Idol and U.S. foreign policy. The premise is simple -- the just re-elected US president wakes up one morning and decides to read the paper (something he hasn't done in years) and is surprised to find it full of criticism and alternative viewpoints to what he's been spoonfed, which all throws him for a personal crisis. To help restore the public's faith in Presidential image the Chief of Staff signs him up as a judge for the wildly popular 'American Dreamz' (obviously a spoof on American Idol.) Now, this is not Scary Movie so there are few true 'gag' moments -- the characters are parodies of real life folks and the fun is in the plot that disembowels the hollow celebrity lifestyle and deconstructs the American Dream. Really, I found the film fairly tasteful -- no name-calling swipes at the George Bush or white-trashing the American People per se. Instead you're in a state of amazement at the sheer vacuousness of the characters and giggling all the way through at the dialog and awful thoughts the characters put forth. Sure, they have to attack the President and whatnot, but its not descending to insults.. just suggesting that everyone involved are good folks just in an organization gone wild.

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Cinema: "Now that's a campfire"
Sat, 11 Mar 2006

A penny for you if you can recall the movie featuring that line ;)

I was chatting with a fellow today and, just as it so often does, the topic of classic good-bad movies came up. (Yet another form of retro that we're all addicted to, of course.) He was asking "Where are the Die Hards, the Delta Forces, the Conans and the Dirty Harry's?" Now I suppose in this environment of post-9/11 and the US war in Iraq it is unfashionable to feature a little of the old ultra-violence, but then again.. we do have The Matrix and the influx of Asian inspired wire-fu action films (thank Crom!) -- have the action heroes simply swung from steroid-pumped uber-Americans towards the CGI-pumped under-Americans? (Toby Maguire as Spiderman -- a very fine set of films by the way.) Or maybe they're just considered homo-erotic.

We can thank the DVD gods for the deluge of retro preservation, as I do see in several online retailers that Romancing the Stone (there, no penny for you!) is still available. While not an action film, I'm incredibly impressed that Hudson Hawk is around -- a film that is utterly brilliant .. or is in my memory anyway. (I will never forget the one night where I forced my poor friends to rent and watch Clash of the Titans, as I remembered it being _so_ good, when in fact it is unfit for observation by sock-monkeys.)

With hand on the most holy book (If Chins Could Kill, naturally) I solemnly swear to watch a good old fashioned steroid film. I wonder if there are any Oscar winners in the lot, to help complete my quest to watch 10 past Oscar winning films this year. Spartacus counts? Or must I stick to the true greats - Escape from New York or Commando? Oh, oh, maybe Big Trouble in Little China.. does that count? Certainly Leonard Part 6 is out..

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Cinema: Shaun of the Dead
Sat, 31 Dec 2005

Well, just having watched the film I don't know what to say. So I'll say this: Holy crap! Its funny, well written and witty and well .. a movie about a pubbie UK loser getting dumped by his girl and then fighting off zombies to save his mum can't be bad, right?

Theres some great moments when they just start figuring out theres zombies in the world and they start throwing household rubbish at one to get rid of him; after running out of that, they fetch more dangerous items than beer cans and out comes the cricket bat -- serious stuff. Can't forget them tossing record albums either.. but being careful not to toss out the classics, just the Dire Straights and Sade.

Great freaking film.

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Cinema: A quick review of Serenity
Mon, 17 Oct 2005

Two words - "Space" "Pirates". I bet you're smiling already! Serenity is good - real good. (Oh, and Ice Pirates was good too, last I saw it 20 years ago :)

See, I don't know about you, but when those two words are put together, I'm pretty much good to go. Sure, the movie isn't really about space pirates per se, but a group of fellows forced into being bandits to put food on the table in a dirty future universe, but its close enough for me, bringing back those childhood dreams of interstellar conflict and ship to ship combat. <Smiling again!>

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Oh, Mr. Gilliam, you've done it again! (Re: The Brothers Grimm)
Sun, 18 Sep 2005

After just coming in the door from seeing this film, I'd have to say that its pretty much the same as all his other films... which is to say, utterly breath-taking, vibrant and alive, capturing the mind with daring story-telling bravado, wit and charm that just pulls you in. Remember, Terry Gilliam is the lad who directed and wrote Time Bandits (an absolute must see) and Brazil (an absolute must see). Fpr that matter, Baron Munchausen I don't recall so much, except it wasn't too bad while The Fisher King was amazing stuff .. its been years, but it somehow feels akin to The Brothers Grimm somehow.. in the directing style and progress perhaps. (Though Grimm has a distinct lack of naked furry Robin Williams..) Twelve Monkeys is not to be forgotten (these are all must sees for the silver screen fan!) Well now, its time for me to make a big DVD order from Amazon..

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Cinema: Reviewing 'The Island'
Tue, 16 Aug 2005

I'll summarize quickly since I know you're busy and just skimming ;) A number of things ticked me off while watching The Island, and it reminded me of numerous silver-screen classics.. but it did entertain. Although I'm a positive and happy individual (sickeningly so my wife sometimes says..), I just have to rant about this movie - because when I pay for a movie or DVD I do not want to see blatant advertising.

This last weekend was our sixth wedding anniversary (and what can I say - I'm fairly proud of that since half of the marriages out there don't make it this far. We made it, and we're going to keep making it!) and although it was a rainy weekend we decided to at least catch a movie. Some think this is a blockbuster year but so far I've found the pickings a little meagre, but this we both 'sort of' wanted to see, knowing it would be a good idea deluted into another Logan's Run - the TV series.

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Cinema: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Mon, 01 Aug 2005

Lets get right to it -- I've thought Johnny Depp was pretty versatile since way back when he was on 21 Jump Street, but that doesn't mean I'm going to like any old movie he's part of. Tim Burton is of course also a force for good (anyone who directed Edward Scissorhands, the original Batman films and Beetlejuice is worthy of recognition) but most notably we must never forget he directed Mars Attacks! ("Nice planet, we'll take it") Lastly, theres of course Danny Elfman on drums, so we've got everyone we need to make a great movie. Alas, they did not.

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Cinema: The BBS Documentary
Mon, 27 Jun 2005

He's been at this project for many years now, and finally Jason Scott (of textfiles.com fame) has finally released his BBS documentary. I remember years ago discovering textfiles.com and later submitted a few things from my BBS archives and correcting some info about BBS! Express ST, and even found the phone number of my old BBS in his files. Quite a trip down memory lane revisting so much lore from the old days.. One day his site mentioned he was about to begin on this new BBS documentary idea and I wrote to offer that if he wanted an interview I'd sign up any day (so I could brag about my Atari ST fidonet software and many BBS hacks :), but we sadly never did get together (my fault.. he popped by Toronto but I was out of city that week :( Just as well, since I was just a snot-nosed-brat in the BBS days, though I like to think I did my part for the scene. Heck, I still run a BBS, the worlds only online Atari ST BBS, so there. Anyway, with great anticipation I opened up the package I found in my mailbox this morning and I have to say -- this is cool stuff (and as you can see in the pics, it has sexy packaging.) My wife correctly points out that it sort of feels like those old physics educational videos you'd see in highschool - that makes me feel old, that this documentary is about something I was heavily into not so many years ago. Building an emulator to run my old BBS on so it can live on the net, and hacking the machine OS to support y2k etc.. that was months of work -- but I digress as this is Jasons story. Nostalgia always ropes me in..

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Cinema: Batman Begins
Sun, 19 Jun 2005

When we were but 6 or 7 my brother was into Spiderman but I always preferred The Batman for some reason - being just kids there was probably no rational reason to favour one over the other but we did it all the same. He had his Spiderman figure that could stick to the walls (with blue-tak!) while I had repeats of the man-in-tights 1960's Batman series. All was good in the world. But as I grew I always liked the Batman comics depicting a tough loner who relied on strength and intelligence rather than falling back to some gifted superpower - he was an icon for troubled youth everywhere.

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Cinema: Shaolin Soccer
Wed, 11 May 2005

Alllllllrighty-then! Soccer. Kung-fu. What can be better? The first Stephen Chow film I caught was Kung Fu Hustle a couple weeks back. The second was Shaolin Soccer just now when I should've been working away answering support email. Both of these are seriously rear-kicking martial-arts action-comedy films (though still with a certain satisfying spiritual undertone that even I can appreciate.) Compare to Ong Bak - a more traditional martial arts flick story-wise (and crazy fun action flick) for very difference experiences. All are must see entertainment for the sports fan action movie lover in all of us!

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