Showing posts with label Movie Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movie Reviews. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Saving Private Ryan 15 year anniversary guest post

Saving Private Ryan Historical Accuracy

Fifteen years ago, on July 24th, 1998, one of the most realistic portrayals of World War II ever put to film was released. Saving Private Ryan caused more than a stir when it premiered - in fact, the film was so realistic that it caused a spike of PTSD cases reported by real life D-Day and WWII Veterans. Many counselors began to advise veterans who were “more psychologically vulnerable” to avoid the trip to the theaters.

The film, which starred the phenomenal actors Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns and, of course, Tom Hanks, as well as household names like Matt Damon and Vin Diesel in minor roles, was too much of an unwanted trip down memory lane for many who had experienced war first-hand. For those not involved in the war, however, Saving Private Ryan provided the first cinematic experience that was anywhere near close to the true horrors of war. Let’s look at the two main reasons the film was so successful, and accurate, in portraying the grisly reality of World War II: the opening battle scene, and the considerable efforts that went into it from behind the camera.

The Opening Scene

    The first 27 minutes of the film were dedicated solely to the depiction of the Omaha Beach assault, which took place on D-Day June 6, 1944. The scene, which was shot on Ballinesker Beach in Ireland, was realistic and intense enough to be named the “best battle scene of all time” by Empire magazine and ranked number one on TV Guide’s list of the 50 greatest movie moments.

So how was it accomplished? The scene cost a whopping $12 million to create, and involved around 1,500 extras, many of whom were members of the Irish Reserve Defence Forces. To play the German soldiers, members of local reenactment groups (for example, the Second Battle Group) were cast. Along with these extras, approximately twenty to thirty actual amputees stepped up to more realistically portray American soldiers that had been maimed during the landing. Tom Sanders, the production designer, transformed the beach by building the defensive Belgian gates and even tracking down any remaining World War II-era landing crafts, called Higgins boats. Perhaps most importantly, Spielberg chose not to storyboard the sequence. He wanted purely spontaneous reactions and for “the action to inspire me as to where to put the camera.”

    The scene, and the rest of the film as well, stayed true to the weapons that would have been used during World War II. For example, the M1 Carbine was used by Allied forces and in the film Sergeant Mike Horvath, Private Toynbe and most of the paratroopers use them. On the other side, the film’s German forces used the the MG 42, or “Maschinengewehr” in German, which is a 7.92 universal machine gun that was developed in Nazi Germany and entered service in 1942.

    Spielberg also used techniques such as having hand-held cameras follow the men, placing the audience squarely in the shoes of the men receiving fire. He peeled the protective coating off the camera lenses used, making the colors more closely resemble the cameras used in the ‘40s, and even ensured that the men acted with complete faithfulness to the historical events, right down to the portraying the sea-sickness experienced by many of the soldiers as the landing crafts moved toward the French shoreline.

The Men Behind the Camera


    There’s no denying that Tom Hanks is an outstanding actor, with a resume that includes Forrest Gump (1994), Catch Me If You Can (2002) and The Terminal (2004), just to name a few films, and the supporting cast in Saving Private Ryan is no different. It was director Steven Spielberg, however, who brought on an already demonstrated interest and experience with World War II themes. Spielberg had already previously directed 1941 (1979), Empire of the Sun (1987), Schindler’s List (1993) and the Indiana Jones series, all of which deal with World War II either directly or indirectly.

Aside from the breathtaking opening scene, Spielberg also received high praise for the unique “knife fight” scene between Private Stanley Mellish (Adam Goldberg) and an unnamed German soldier. Mellish is killed with his own knife, pushed slowly, excruciatingly into his chest by the German soldier who whispers (translated to English), “Give up, you don’t stand a chance! Let’s end this here; it will be easier for you like this!” We are forced to watch as Mellish shakes and takes his final breaths before the German leaves the room. The scene was wonderfully directed, Spielberg seems to have caught the slowness of death, as well as the physical exertion necessary to take the life of another human being. There is no simple “bang, you’re dead!” in Saving Private Ryan, only gruesome, agonizing departures.

    Another man due some credit for his behind the scenes work is Tom Struthers, in charge of choreography. His skill was so exceptional, in fact, that he has since been recruited to work on the films Inception (2010), D-Day (2013), and The Dark Knight Trilogy (2012). Struther’s stunt strategy is one based off of authentic fighting styles. “I had to make sure the actors were trained to fight like soldiers, not superheroes,” said Struthers when discussing his newest project, D-Day. We’re pretty sure he used a similar tactic on Saving Private Ryan.

Before even reaching Struthers, the cast of Saving Private Ryan were trained by former U.S. Marine Corps Captain Dale Dye, who made the actors eat rations and crawl and sleep in the mud and dirt. During training, Dye put the actors through actual camp, calling them only by their character names and drilling into them the basics of soldiering, which included persevering when you have absolutely no desire to do so. When asked about the experience, Hanks later said, “I think he was trying to instill in us the idea that when you think you can’t go any farther, you can. You just have to decide to do it, which is exactly the situation in which many of the men involved in the Normandy invasion found themselves.”

Saving Private Ryan is still one of the most visceral representations of the horrors of World War II ever made, and fifteen years after its release, the hand-held, first person combat camera introduced in this film has become the standard way to depict combat in movies. Between the weapons, extras, its historical accuracy, and the film’s unique emotional resonance, it will likely continue setting the standard for war movies for another fifteen years, and beyond.
....

About the Author:

Spencer Blohm is a television and movie blogger for Direct4TV.com, where he covers everything from profiles of actors and directors to reviews of new releases and retrospectives on forgotten classics. He spends his free time reading, and watching films and documentaries about whatever historical events happen to capture his attention at that moment. He lives and works in Chicago, with his cat, Rupert.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Vikings season 1 review

Vikings is a great show from History Channel of all places, it's only 9 episodes and I would say that the budget is somewhere in the medium range so it's not spectacular in scope but it does however not spare any expense on actually getting costumes, locations and sets properly built and filmed. It has good actors, realistic special effects, real blood effects (no shitty CGI blood which I hate), and a fairly interesting plot, which I think will get more solid over the coming seasons.

At the core the show is about Ragnar Lothbrok a Viking warrior with great ambition who ends up discovering a way to navigate the sea between Scandinavia and the British islands and open up its the kingdoms to Viking raids. His rise in popularity and opportunistic insubordination sets him on  a collision course with the Earl Haraldson which serves as the main intrigue for the most of season 1.

Other characters in the show worth mentioning is Ragnar's wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha (who can kick ass with the same skill and ferocity as the men), Floki a quirky and pious Viking shipwright, Ragnars jealous and tormented brother Rollo and the English priest Athelstan who is captured by Ragnar during the first into the kingdom of Northumbria.

The plot while interesting may be a bit predictable when it comes to some major events and character development but it is still quite solid. And even if the show isn't 100% historically accurate I think it still gives a decent view of viking culture.

The show is just 9 episodes long, but they pack quite a lot of content, character development, pretty awesome action sequences and great locations. It's a show well worth watching, and one that made me think about picking up a SAGA warband of Vikings haha.
8.5/10





Sunday, April 14, 2013

Oblivion review (spoiler free)

Went and saw Oblivion this Friday, a decision which came out of nowhere as my dad asked if I wanted to go and see it 40 minutes prior to the show. I had read almost nothing about the movie, I knew it was Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman, Sci-Fi and that the aesthetics looked like some kind of Steve Jobs inspired design.

The movie is quite alright but it's hard to talk about it and the plot in detail because it is very easy to spoil and once you see it - you will immediately think of another recent Sci-Fi movie which included a lot of the story elements of Oblivion (and did a better job with them).

What can be said is that the movie is about Tom Cruise being some kind of engineer on earth. 60 something years have passed since a great war with an alien race called the "Scavengers" which blew up the moon, and then attacked earth. Tsunamis, earthquakes and nuclear weapons combined completely destroyed the planet but in the end the humans won. With the Earth uninhabitable the survivors have been transferring to a colony on the moon Titan near Saturn. What Tom Cruise is doing is keeping maintenance on large machines that drain the oceans of water and transform it into energy which is needed on the Titan colony.

The work is supervised from a space station in low orbit called the "Tet" and when the movie begins the work on Earth is almost done, and the remaining humans are ready to follow the rest to Titan. However being tasked with repair of defensive drones and running maintenance of things on Earth the character "Jack" (played by Cruise) still has a busy time working and fighting small skirmishes with roaming "Scavenger" remnants that were left stranded after the war ended.

The movie looks fantastic, the special effects are also extremely well done. And the slow pace of the first half of the movie is probably the most enjoyable. This is the part where the weird atmosphere and hints of a mystery are planted. The second half of the movie delves deeper in that mystery but the quality is mixed. On the one hand I could not think of any obvious plotholes, on the other some things were wrapped up rather late. And the plot itself feels as if it borrows heavily from another movie - which I can't name since that would spoil a lot of the plot (you can if you want ask about it in the comments).
If I had not seen that other movie, my opinion about Oblivion would probably be much higher and I would find it even more interesting.

As it stands now it is a competent Sci-Fi movie that doesn't screw up, but neither does it offer something awesome and fresh enough ideas in enough quantities to make it a great movie. It does include at least two scenes that made me roll my eyes, one features Tom Cruise at a location that ruins the immersion of the movie, the other is a pretty dumb bathing scene that doesn't make much practical or common sense. But other than that it is an alright and solid movie.

7/10

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Ripper Street (season 1) short review

How I found out about this series is a bit weird. West Wind's Andy Cooper had sculpted 3 miniatures for Empire of the Dead: Requiem and called them "The Hell division". I had no clue about that until another participant of the Kickstarter campaign asked who they were and got the answer they were the main characters in a show called Ripper Street.

Sounded interesting enough, so I watched the entire first season (which was just 8 episodes long) and have to say that it's a pretty good show. Ripper Street is set in the late 19th century, a few months after the Jack the Ripper murders have ceased. It centers around 2 Policemen and 1 former Pinkerton agent that work with solving crimes and mysteries in Whitechapel Police precinct  also known as the H division.

In terms of grit, dirty locations, brutality and even intro theme it feels like a distant cousin of the show Deadwood - though without all the colorful cursing. It does include some gruesome murders and the occasional on screen naked breast (although nudity isn't as frequent and pointless as in Boardwalk Empire).

The cast is great, one of them - Jerome Flynn - you may recognize from Game of Thrones where he plays "Bronn" (and we also get a guest appearance by Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont) in one episode. It does center upon the trio of lawmen who have a good personal chemistry with each other on the screen. There are a couple of side characters that are also worth mentioning, like the smug reporter always trying to get a "Ripper angle" on murder cases, the occasional appearance by chief inspector Frank Abberline who is quite obsessed by the Ripper and a the cathouse madam.

Each 60 minute episode is a "case of the week", a format which I prefer when it comes to shows like these. So the main characters have to solve a murder mystery or something else in a self contained storyline, although the shadow of Jack the Ripper seems to loom over London  and often enough people believe that the Ripper has returned which makes it interesting when the main characters have to work against those presumptions and finding out the truth about their cases.

In any case, the show is a great looking and well acted crime drama which I can recommend to anyone liking crime drama series or just a pretty and well acted period piece. The score would be higher if all of the episodes were as good as the first and last one, but the short season included a few weak episodes which dragged and occasionaly the part of solving the mystery feels rushed.

If you are painting miniatures for a game set during this period, then the show offers a great deal of inspiration so it may be worth checking out just because of that.

7.5/10

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Django Unchained review

Saw this in the theater this weekend, and loved it. This is easily Quentin Tarantino's best movie in at least 10 years. Tarantino's movies have gradually been degenerating into scenes of "cool talk" that was fun back in the Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction days but since then have become tedious and pointless.

Django on the other hand is not only Tarantino's best work since Pulp Fiction, this is also a really damn good and well made movie. And most important it feels like real movie and not just like some "homage" or cool idea stretched into 2 hours of nonsense.
The story is quite simple but feels better thought out and makes a lot more sense than any of his recent movies. The villains are great in this one with Leo DiCaprio's "Calvin Candie" - an insane southern gentleman slave owner fascinated with France but knowing neither the French language or anything about its culture (lol) and Samuel L Jackson as an old slave who runs things at the Candie household. Both give a superb performance.
 
Then we have the two heroes, with Jamie Foxx's "Django" as the slave rescued by Christoph Waltz's "dr. King Schultz" bounty hunter - they have good character chemistry. Schultz talks funny, is polite in a dangerous way and shows Django what a bounty hunter does for a living. The interactions between these two and the reactions from people who see this unusual pairing - not least with the many hilarious scenes when Django is riding a horse which for some reason is the most shocking and amazing thing to a lot of people they meet.

There isn't a single scene with gimmicky "cool" dialogue just for the sake of talking, on the few occasions when characters talk in a clever fashion it is always leading up to something and thus feels like a natural part of the plot. What I feel to be different in this movie compared to the other recent Tarantino movies is that for one; the approach is less "B movie with a big budget" and it takes itself more seriously. The violence has been made a lot more realistic and gritty (even if it still is a bit OOT in some places). But the movie doesn't feel the need to be forcefully cool, it is in fact laugh out loud funny especially during the first 1/4th of the movie with a lot of humor being tied to situations with Waltz's wonderful acting performance as dr King Schultz.

I was actually worried that the movie would collapse under its own weight and not be able to maintain the same high quality to the end. It does grow more serious when the main plot kicks in and keeps a more somber tone from that point and until the end.


The only bad things that come to mind are that it starts to feel a bit long towards the end, I think it missed its own natural ending 15-20 minutes prior to the real ending. It could have been edited down a bit to make a better final product. There was also a scene that felt kinda lame at the very end, most likely because everything else had been so damn good. Still, this movie is really good - Christoph Waltz is fantastic as always, Leo DiCaprio is great and Jamie Foxx gives a solid performance and Samuel L Jackson gives a very different acting performance. I highly recommend it.

8.5/10





Monday, January 28, 2013

Zero Dark Thirty review

Zero Dark Thirty is the new Kathryn Bigelow movie (Near Dark, K-19 Widowmaker, Hurt Locker) about the 10 year long hunt for Osama bin Laden conducted by the CIA which eventually leads up to him being tracked down and killed.

As a movie I have to say that it has more story and is overall better than Hurt Locker which I thought was interesting but ultimately didn't really say anything. Zero Dark Thirty follows a more traditional structure, we are introduced to a female CIA agent, Maya, who arrives at a "Black site" where the CIA is beating the crap out of prisoners in an attempt to extract information. The first half hour is really brutal and honest about the methods used by the intelligence officers, complete with waterboarding, humiliation and other and torture.

Obviously an intelligent person Maya is also portrayed as a cold calculating person, her only interest at the end of the day is finding and bagging bin Laden. Finding information gets a bit harder after the torture methods are removed from the CIA repertoire, but it is also at this point when the movie gets more interesting and becomes a real thriller with the CIA chase of bin Laden's courier whom Maya thinks is the only one who has contact with the terrorist leader. Finding the courier equals finding bin Laden.

Multiple interrogations, some really exciting surveillance operations, use of local informers and buying information from the Saudi's at ridiculous expense ultimately leads Maya to a Pakistani location where bin Laden is believed to hide - across the street from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point LOL!

The last half an hour or so is a superbly filmed Navy S.E.A.L. operation that rivals pretty much anything like it produced to date. And once again, the movie does not shy away from showing the brutal efficiency of the house search by the strike force. The realism of the entire movie is top notch, it's very rough and raw. I don't think the movie contains any attempt at social commentary, it doesn't include an analysis of the CIA, bin Laden or the war on terror. Fortunately, imo, it also doesn't include any constipated shoehorned scenes with Obama giving the "go ahead" or anything like that either. I have seen a few comments on people wishing the movie included such crap.

The movie is simply about the hunt for bin Laden through the eyes of a single CIA agent, it shows the methods used and the trouble the CIA had to go through to find and then convince themselves to strike at the world’s most hunted man.

If I have to make a theme based opinion on Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, I would say that Argo has a better story and is overall the better movie, while Zero Dark Thirty has a more interesting subject.


8.5/10




In the competition with other Oscar nominated "best picture" category movies, I think that Argo and Zero Dark Thirty will battle it out where it really counts. Other "heavy weight movies" in the category are; Lincoln which was such a boring and pointless  movie that my mind went numb, despite the brilliant performance of Daniel Day Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones. It was a run of the mill biopic, standard format but with horrible screenplay and execution. Possibly that Daniel Day Lewis will win "best actor" for it though.

Silver Linings Playbook I thought was great, I like movies about "crazy people’s problems" (for those who liked it I also recommend "Young Adult" with Charlize Theron), but I think it has more of a chance in the "best/supporting actor/actress" category than best movie. Robert De Niro was also great as the neurotic OCD dad.

I can't believe Django Unchained is on the Best Picture list haha, I saw it in the theater this weekend and while it was a really good movie and Tarantino's best since Pulp Fiction it's still not "Oscar material".



Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Argo review

Argo is a movie about a bizarre CIA operation dealing with the extraction of US embassy personnel from Iran in the 80's. After the fall of the Shah the Iranians storm the US embassy and take the personnel hostage. A diplomatic crisis is sparked, the US are trying to get their people home while the Iranians demand that the Shah who is hiding out in the US to be is extradited as terms for the release of the hostages. Amidst the chaos 6 employees of the embassy manage to escape and hide out at the French consul’s house. Back in the US the government and CIA are trying to figure out how to resolve the main hostage situation as well as how to extract those 6 people who have slipped under the Iranian radar - but who will no doubt be in serious trouble if they should be captured and exposed as Americans.

Agent Tony Mendez comes up with "the best bad plan" the CIA have at their disposal, a covert operation disguised as a Hollywood production run by a Canadian film crew. Of course no one takes him seriously because it sounds so preposterous. In the end however, the CIA sets up a fake movie production complete with actors, screenplay, producers, an office, storyboards, press events and a bunch of other stuff so that it all appears legit. It is then up to agent Mendez  to go to Iran, rendezvous with the 6 embassy employees, brief them on their "Canadian film crew characters" and try to extract them all out of the country.

It's a really well made movie that is quite fascinating and at times humorous - but mostly exciting with tense situations. Even if you know how it ends (it's based on a real event), it is still really tense to watch the interactions between agent Mendez and the various Iranian government officials, militiamen etc. The movie also tells a short background story of why the Iranians are pissed on the US to give you a framework for the entire situation, though I don't think the movie is taking any particular side and instead focuses on the operation itself. While being based upon the actual CIA operation, some liberties have been taken to make it a bit more “Hollywood” than the actual events but that doesn’t make it any less good and to be honset the amount of "action sequences" is very minimal and not really distracting from the actual plot.

A highly recommended thriller 9/10


Sunday, January 20, 2013

Dredd 3D review

Really wanted to see this when it hit the theater's earlier last year, but here in Sweden it just came and went after a very short while so I missed it.

Anyway, I really liked this movie. It's a low budget small scale attempt compared to the Sylvester Stallone movie (which I think is plain bad and silly). This one is a lot more gritty and suitably violent. The characters are also a lot better, the story is simpler but fits the direction of the movie very well.

Judge Dredd is a badass cop in a dystopian future where the US east coast is just one giant city. He patrols the streets delivering sentencing on the spot - the movie explains that death sentences are fairly rare despite the totalitarian methods used by the judges. When the movie starts Dredd is assigned a new rookie cop, a young female with telekinetic powers allowing her to read minds. Since the police force have not used "mutants" before she is assigned to Dredd since he is the "best cop" in the force. The two of them go off to respond to a 911 call in a huge skyscraper.

Upon arrival it soon becomes apparent that the building is run by a crazy crime queen and Dredd and the rookie cop Anderson have to fight their way through the building from the bottom level to the top penthouse. People will compare it to "The Raid redemption" which takes place in a similar locale and has a similar setup - but which I think is a completely different movie with emphasis on martial arts fighting, whereas Dredd is all about the guns and explosions.

Dredd 3D has a dead simple setup and story, but it works for a couple of reasons, those being:

Dredd and the rookie cop, Anderson, have great "rookie-mentor" chemistry.

Anderson despite being a "female character" is not just depicted as a walking set of boobs, but actually contributes and helps out. She is also written to be quite likeable, and when she kicks ass she does so in a believable fashion without suddenly going out of character and being over the top "macho woman" (a caricature often portrayed by the actresses Michelle Rodriduez in crap movies).

Karl Urban, despite making me almost burst out in laughter because of his constant frown, is really good as Dredd. I think he wanted to play the role a bit like Stallone did with the frown.

The uniforms don't look like plastic shit with giant gold chains and huge shoulder pads, instead they look  like actual body armor that cops and military personal might use.

The action is aimed at a mature audience, you have some really violent scenes depicted in a realistic way. This is not a cartoony, goofy action, self conscious flick like the Expendables.

And finally, this movie has a fantastic soundtrack.

All in all a very good action movie.

7.5/10



Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Hobbit review (minor spoilers)

I didn't do much miniature/boardgaming during my blog break, but I did watch a bunch of movies and played some PC games worthy of a review. First out; my review of the Hobbit.

This is a movie I was rather reluctant to see, even when it was announced years back I just shrugged. The source material which I have not read but heard and read a lot about seemed rather unexciting to me. Then there was the whole 3D in 48FPS announcement which to me was just revolting, as if 3D wasn't bad enough, reports of effects and animations looking like computer graphics and obvious makeup made me cringe and din't increase my desire to see the movie at all. And also the fact that one story was divided into 3 damn movies when it had originally been just two felt as if Peter Jackson was milking Tolkien's books to the very last drop.

Jackson saying stuff like "Now I can include more of Middle Earth" to me was him saying "I can add a lot of stuff that has nothing to do in this movie to stretch it into 3 parts". A single book one third as thick of Lord of the Rings but split into 3 movies compared to Lord of the Rings which was 1200 something pages split into 3 movies? At least with Lord of  the Rings it made some sense as each part at least contained something of a complete story arc - and I think Jackson handled the transitions very well. The Hobbit is just a mess of content crammed into one movie.

I ended up forcing myself to watch it despite all of this, (in 2D). The short version of this review would be to say, "It’s an OK way to pass some time".

The longer version of my review follows here:

Since I didn't care for the movie going in, I read up on some reviews to see what other people thought. Generally I don't do this to avoid all kinds of spoilers but it just didn't matter to me. Many people had written that the Hobbit was too long and painfully boring during the first hour. I found the movie neither to feel too long nor boring, the first part of the  movie where they are still in the Shire I found to be the best part of the entire movie and the most enjoyable - mainly due to the focus on Martin Freeman as Bilbo. A focus that was later completely lost and forgotten for the remainder of the movie until a key scene with Gollum towards the end of the movie.

As I see it the movie is bound to run into problems for a couple of reasons.

1) It's one story split in 3, the original story as I understand it is nowhere near the epic stuff of LoTR but rather a small scale adventure. I keep seeing people mentioning "oooh that is from the appendixes", meaning, from the notes by Tolkien about his stories. The book equivalent to a directors commentary, blooper reel and extra scenes. And because of all that extra stuff the movie feels like patchwork of random scenes with a confused story going on in the background. There were so many scenes in this movie that filled absolutely no purpose other than A) show something mentioned briefly in the book B) set things up for later movies.

About "A", there is a scene with "stone giants" that lasts 5 or so minutes and adds an overkill of special effects and pointless CGI to the screen. This to me was a typical "director’s cut" scene, it had nothing to do with the story, didn't affect anything, wasn't mentioned afterwards - it just filled 5 minutes of the movie.

About "B", I'm quite fine with such things, but I expect the movie that I'm watching this year to at least be a 3 act movie and not feel like the first 10 minutes of a TV-show before the first commercial break. While pretty in parts, and for starved fans of well made Fantasy, just watching "Middle Earth" for 3 hours may be enough. Personally I think that you should be able to watch each of the movies alone if you want, you can watch each LoTR movie on its own and it’s still a good movie. The Hobbit: an unexpected journey on the other hand is 30 minutes of exposition and 2 hours and15 minutes of nonsense that you will watch in marathon when all 3 movies hit DVD and Blue-Ray. You remember the scene when the Fellowship saw the Elves walking through the forest and it was remarked that they were leaving Middle Earth? It could be perceived equally unimportant but added weight to the story about humans taking over responsibility, made Arwen's decision to remain behind a lot deeper and even tied in with the added scene not in the books with  the Elves coming to Helm's Deep with a small contingent to pay tribute to old alliances  (a scene I liked but many hated). Now, put that alongside the stone giant scene in the Hobbit and you can see it for what it is;  "shit happens on screen/we are spending our budget on CGI effects".

2) The characters are another problem. And here blame should probably be distributed evenly between the source material, the directors ambition and the writers of the movie.

A screenwriter saying goes "you can make a bad movie of a good script, but not a good movie out of a bad script". It's an adaptation, the story is what it is, but that does not mean that you could not flesh out the characters a little (or go the other way and trim the fat - yes including that morbidly obese dwarf).
Who are these people and why should we care? 13 dwarfs going to reclaim their home (but mostly the treasure). Looking at that sorry bunch of weirdo’s crashing Bilbo's apartment, half of them not even looking like dwarf's, the other half being caricatures with messed up haircuts, silly hats or trademark items such as a goddamn slingshot in a failed attempt at making them memorable (the cheap way) instead of writing them a personality. After 2 hours. 45 minutes  I remembered the names Thorin (the leader), Balin (old timer telling stories), Kili (archer that had a few lines) and Dvalin (who appears as the first dwarf  in the movie). The other 9 dwarfs? No idea what their names are, I know they rhyme in a stupid way and Gandalf recite their names like Santa Claus recites the names of his reindeers before taking off with his sledge on Christmas - but it doesn't help.

I don't think the problem  is that there are 13 dwarf characters, you can tell humans apart in real world yes? Or characters in ensamble dramas - no? I can namedrop Caparzo, Wade, sgt Horvath, Reiben, Jackson, captain Miller, Upham and Mellins from Saving Private Ryan - a movie I have not seen in 5 years. You know why? Because despite them all being "the same race" and dressed identically, they had different personalities and after 2 hours and 40 minutes you knew these guys. You knew them through their banter, having scenes with each one doing at least something of value (or being worthless - Upham) and them actually calling each other by name in pretty much every scene. "Upham fetch some ammo" - cut to Upham's face, as opposed to "raaaargh.... *hack*, *slash*, Goblins !!" - cut to shaky cam of people running around.

If Tolkien wrote crappy characters it could have been fixed rather easily without even changing the story. Anyone else notice that half of the cast disappeared every time there was a fight scene? Yeah....

3) The story, the way it is told makes little sense, and is hilarious for it. Basically Gandalf just shows up at Bilbo's place, since that is the only hobbit he knows, vandalizes Bilbo's door with magic graffiti and invites a bunch of strangers to crash his home, then tell Bilbo he should tag along on their adventure because they need a person with criminal skills. W...T....F..., watching this setup I was wondering if Bilbo was the only mentally sane character.

Curiousity drives Bilbo to join the dwarves on their adventure and off they go on a trip through the countryside which is punctuated with random events, like in a game when you use fast travel and become interrupted by highwayman between point A and point B. And just like in those situations, the characters in this movie fight for a few minutes and then move on as if nothing had happened, never to mention it again.

Throw in random stuff, like Elrond "identifying" weapons like a game master at a pen & paper RPG session. A bunch of very familiar looking scenes (walking with the gang across a mountain peak, ambush by Wargs on a rocky plateu etc.).
Have Gandalf disappear for no reason - then appear 15 minutes later (every 15 minutes) to save the gang using his arsenal of magic power never mentioned or seen in LotR.
Introducing the Radagast character with bird droppings on his face who later shows up and saves the day on a sledge pulled by rabbits (WTF?).
Two very pointless "boss fights", one against a something called the Goblin king, who rules "Goblin town" , and is himself a walking Jabba the Hut inspired caricature (complete with his own Salacious Crumb) and who has a giant ball sack for a chin.

The large monsters in this movie were also rather poorly animated, and overall I'm disappointed that Peter Jackson has grown so lazy that he uses blue-screen and CGI over people in costumes and miniatures/real sets for large parts of the movie.

When the movie finally ended, after an anticlimactic fight scene that ended abruptly, I just thought to myself.. "uh-huh....".  I can wait until they release the remaining parts on DVD in 3 years time and then perhaps it will all make better sense.  Re-watching Fellowship of the Ring is a much better choice, a movie with better story, characters and a whole different passion from the people behind it. The Hobbit feels like a confused and contrived mess most of the time. It is still far from the worst movie I have seen in a while, but it is a movie that I think could have been better given the potential of the people behind it.

6/10 (but only because of the "Misty Mountain" song by the dwarves, Martin Freeman as Bilbo, and the Gollum scene)





Wednesday, December 5, 2012

End of Watch review

End of Watch is easily one of the best movies I have seen this year. The story revolves around two young cops and their work in the seedy and crime infested districts of Los Angeles.

Right off the bat you will notice something stupid, it's filmed as a quasi-documentary. For some reason. The main characters have cameras and the bad guys have cameras - somehow the director got the idea that "documentary style camerawork is awesome", then he forgets it altogether half the time and has 3rd person point of views of the action and weird angles that make no sense within the context of the established camera rules. It also doesn't have anything to do with the plot (unless you count something towards the very end of the movie which I think could have been done as a regular flashback). This is the one of two things that annoyed me, but the movie is so good I was able to look beyond this flaw. It is also nowhere near as bad as "found footage" movies, so don't worry about that.

Now onto the good stuff. The cop characters, their dialogue and behavior feels and looks realistic. Much of the stuff they encounter is raw and gritty. This is not something that would make a good recruitment video for the LAPD, the stuff these guys have to deal with is often "finger on the trigger" situations in a hostile environment. The day to day life is extremely well presented, and the movie makes a fantastic job of setting up the two main characters and mixing their private life matters with the job situation without making it a tedious melodrama or taking away from the tension. The way these guys talk to each other is at times pure gold, and it’s both funny and feels authentic. The characters are very well portrayed, or at least the cops are. The bad guys, the Latino gang members are cartoony as hell to the point of almost being a parody.

The bad guys are arguably the other thing I thought was weak (beside the stupid camera gimmick). Luckily, 85% of the movie centers on the two cop main characters so it's not that big of a deal.

The movie is a slow cooker, almost half of the running time is setting up the characters and establishing the often mundane nature of the job responding to civilian requests for aid and not actually fighting crime. Though even these parts are portrayed in a very interesting manner, and roughly halfway through the actual plot kicks in with the Mexican Cartel working the LA underground (some pretty gruesome stuff follows). The action once it happens is very fast and leans more towards the realistic rather than spectacular. One thing the movie does well is setting up an ambiguous hint towards explaining the events at the end of the movie, which I think could be interpreted as incidental or on purpose depending on how much you read into some details in dialogue and parts of the plot (making it possibly darker if you let your imagination run wild).

The writer of this movie has previously written Training Day, and if you liked that movie this one is fairly close in style. Again, one of the best movies I have seen this year, and hands down one of the top 5 cop movies I have seen. Highly recommended despite the cartoony bad guys and the stupid camera gimmick.

8/10



Friday, November 16, 2012

The Campaign review

Recommended to me by a friend I watched "The Campaign" with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis the other day - and have to say it is one of the funniest if not THE funniest movie I have seen this year.

I'm not overly familiar with Galifianakis except for his part in the Hangover movies where he was just odd. In this movie his character is an extreme underdog looking like a nerd and being all soft and nice (I'm pleasantly surprised that they avoided making any gay jokes about his appearance because that would have been too easy).

Will Ferrell is a hit or miss to me, he basically plays the same moron character in every single movie. His success in movies depend on whether his character fits into the plot or whether the plot itself is strong enough to carry him. As such I found his retarded mannerisms especially funny in Step Brothers while it falls flat in many of his other movies. His "character" stereotype however works quite well in the Campaign where he plays a career politician who doesn't give a shit about anything but staying in office, wonderfully presented by a montage of clips where he visits various work environments and telling the press how the particular job is "the backbone of America" (this starts out in schools and army related locations and ends up on a fun fare, lol).

In any case, the plot is that a corporation has grown tired of the shipping cost of cheap products transported from China to the US so they figure out a way to buy up some land in a small town - and by bending the legislation making it possible to import Chinese workforce to work in America ("insourcing") for the same low salary as they had back in China. To do this the corporation need a gullible idiot in office of the local county whom they can control, and so they pick up Galifianakis character, Marty, and make him run for office against Will Ferrell "Cam Brady". Since Cam Brady is this veteran of 4 consecutive terms the evil corporation gives Marty a campaign manager wonderfully played by Dylan McDermott who comes up with many devious plans on how to ruin the public opinion of the rival candidate and by strict control also change Marty's lifestyle and appearance from this nerdy kind person to a slick politician with guns and paintings of eagles on the wall..

I won't talk too much about the plot, jokes and twists because that would naturally spoil much of the fun. But I can say that the only times I laugh out loud when I'm watching comedy by myself is when I watch It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the humor in The Campaign is pretty close in how the jokes are set up, the improbable stuff happening, the outrageous language and crazy characters.

I think the movie is a good satire of the political system, any political system really not just the American one. It does a good job without being preachy or too much on the nose.

The movie may not be for everyone, and it is at times quite vulgar (a wonderfully funny scene where Will Ferrell has to recite the Lord’s prayer by taking cues from his campaign manager is comedy gold). But many jokes are also hilarious without being anything but weird, like when Galifianakis character tells a story about his Pugs trying to get in under his sofa. I recommend it, compared to a lot of other Will Ferrel movies this one had a good enough plot and very good balance between his and Galifianakis character so that it doesn’t have to rely on stupid faces and noises that Ferrell usually ends up doing.

7.5/10


Sunday, September 16, 2012

Batman the Animated series

When I was a kid I used to watch this show, it was one of the best cartoons of its time (along with Ducktales). So now having seen the Dark Knight Rises and while I was eagerly waiting for the Game of the Year edition of Batman: Arkham City to be released for PC I remembered this show and got all seasons of Batman the animated series.

The show has a lot more in common with the Tim Burton Batman movies than the Christopher Nolan one's when it comes to how the villains are represented, especially the Joker is more of a crazed lunatic prankster that is closer to Jack Nicholson than Heath Ledger's Joker. However, for a "kids show" it was quite dark and at times way more serious than anything usually depicted cartoons - and as such shares some qualities of Nolan's Batman movies. On the other hand, one thing that was missing a bit from Nolan's interpretation was the "detective" part of Batman's character. In this show he does a lot of collecting evidence and checking his database for clues in order to defeat his foes instead of relying heavily on brute force.

It's quite amazing how well the show has aged, and how well it still holds up today when watched through adult eyes. The dark look of the city and environments looks great, and having the stories take place in a pseudo 40's  world that has weird looking cars, helicopters, weapons and such is also great since it makes it a lot more timeless.

If you liked the Joker in Arkham Asylum, you will be happy to know that Mark Hamill provided his first Joker voiceover in this series and as such makes the Joker's voice in all episodes with that cackling laugh and theatrical overtones in delivery. The show included pretty much all known Batman villains, and had lots of fantastic episodes. The first episode with the Joker can be a bit off putting, since the show starts serious and then has this one extremely silly Joker episode. Later Joker episodes are a lot more serious and malignant.

It's great to see the stories behind many of the Batman villains, and the ironic tragedy of Batman/Bruce Wayne having a part in their birth as these mad and grudge stricken persons.

I really recommend the show for fans of Batman, it's surprisingly good and only have but a very few silly episodes.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Avengers review

This was the summer blockbuster movie that I missed out on this year when it hit the cinema. Or rather I was very reluctant to go see it because it was in 3D and by the time I considered going it had been pulled from the theater's. People I knew were super excited about it, while I was on the fence considering the movies that had been released over the past few years in order to build up the knowledge about these characters.

I thought the first half of Captain America was amazing, the second half silly and plain boring to be honest. Never saw Thor because the concept wasn't interesting (and it looked goofy). I saw the first Iron Man movie and actually enjoyed it. Never saw any of the recent Hulk movies because they were torn to pieces by critics and I didn't have money to spend on trash.

So essentially I went into this movie with the knowledge of who each character was but not really having any of their "back story" movies in the back of my head. My friend Patrik said that I would hate it, because I am a film snob, that's not really true as I can enjoy stuff like The Rock, Con Air, Predators and other movies that are about the action and less about the story as well. What I can't stand are movies that fail to deliver what they promise or just end up being a half assed attempt (Battle Los Angeles), movies that are outright dumb and only after your money (Battleship) or movies that have a great premise and potential and just choose to waste it on really dated low brow political humor (Iron Sky).

So the Avengers, obviously, is more of a spectacle of costumed heroes kicking ass. It does not have Shawshank Redemption plot, the plot of this movie could probably fit on the back of a pack of matches. Doesn't mean it should suck, Rambo 4 was basically about shredding people to pieces with a .50 cal and I thought it was the best Rambo movie in the series (and action movie in a long while).

The problem with these kinds of movies in general, where you have a group of characters, is that some are very interesting and steal a lot of time, while others are dull fillers that just chime in with a clever comment every 25 minutes only to disappear into the background again. I think The Avengers, handle the ensemble thing quite well - with the exception for Jeremy Renner's character perhaps.

The action is also quite good BUT, it is seriously flawed if you are after something more than just harmless explosions. With the amount of shit blowing up, and probably thousands of people getting killed, the only blood you see in this movie is when Thor gets a nosebleed after getting punched in the face in a fight with Iron Man. There is ZERO sense of danger about anything going on, the shootouts, explosions, collapsing buildings, alien invaders etc.

And here is perhaps what became the biggest and most positive surprise of the movie for me, Scarlett Johansson’s character (Black Widow) and the performance of the actress herself came off a lot better than anyone elses. And I'm not talking about "performance" in the terms of lingering camera shots of Johansson’s ass. The scenes with her and the Hulk were really the only ones that I felt that someone could get killed or felt that the scenes conveyed a sense of danger.

And I don't necessarily need people getting torn limb from limb on screen to get my fix, but there really was an amazing lack of suspense in the action scenes. Everything was so easy. No one even broke a sweat in the final fight.

The pacing of the movie is also very weird, there are some really good scenes in the beginning when they are rounding up the "gang" of heroes - once again scenes with Black Widow and the Hulk are the best. Then pretty much nothing happens for what feels an hour, and suddenly you have this big battle that lasts something like 25 minutes. The main villain, Loki, just comes off as someone else’s bitch from the start. So you can't feel threatened by him, or take him seriously, he's clearly a puppet and his master plan is really bland. There is one scene between Loki and Iron Man when they try to intimidate each other talking about who's got who in his army - just doesn't work.There is another "oh so funny" scene with Loki and the Hulk where you just realize that no one cares anymore.

A much better scene, once again involving Black Widow, is shown earlier during the movie when she talks to Loki about his plan. There at least his character feels authentic and you can buy that he is the main villain of the movie and not some henchmen that gets pushed down an elevator shaft halfway through the second act.

It's a really mixed bag, the characters that are more low key, like Black Widow and the Hulk are a lot more interesting and are given better material to work with than the poster boys of this movie - Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. If the action had been a tad more serious and shown some consequence (not going to count the red-shirt agent  getting killed and the lame "motivation" he supposedly provided) it would have been a better movie. Now it just comes off as a PG-13 kids superhero movie, that to me is neither bad enough to be crap nor good enough to be great.

With all the bits of Black Widow's back story and the way the character was presented and worked in the Avengers, I'm actually looking forward to seeing the Black Widow movie more than the Avengers 2.

7/10. It's OK, but compared to more serious superhero movies like X-men, X-men first class, The Crow, Watchmen or Nolan's Batman movies this movie is lacking concern for the main characters, sense of real danger in the action, and a good main villain.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

God Bless America (movie review)

I first heard about this movie through a "linked" trailer over on YouTube while I was searching for something completely different. I thought the trailer looked not great but promising and at least got me interested in checking out the full movie. I also really like the main actor Joel Murray as I think his face has that perfect blend of suicidal desperation and honest kindness, something the character he plays in this movie really needed.

The movie is about the main character Frank, middle aged guy who has been divorced and lost his daughter to his wife and her new husband (who actually seems like a nice guy), Frank lives in a shitty apartment with paper thin walls and has trashy neighbors screaming and making noises 24/7. He is also early in the movie informed that he may have a tumor in his brain and does not have much time left to live.

Now here's the deal, this movie aspires to be a controversial "dark comedy" and criticism about modern society, the drivel we watch on TV and the values of human life and what's important that have degenerated. In many ways I think this movie wanted to be something like "Falling Down" with Michael Douglas, middle aged guy going apeshit after a bad day sends him over the edge.

The initial problem with God Bless America is that before we have even had any glint of character development, motivation or backstory to Frank - he is fantasizing about going into the neighbor apartment and take 12 gauge shotgun revenge on the family (including their baby) in a graphic way. At this point in the movie we don't know if Frank is a retard, a good guy or anything about him - so we can only be repulsed by his train of thought. It feels like a sloppy way of introducing the protagonist.

The movie however does a good job at explaining Frank's hopeless situation which drives him into suicidal thoughts, he end up watching the TV swapping between a take on "American Idol" and "My Sweet 16" parodies which really show the bottom of the barrel in terms of humanity and television broadcasting material. Just as he is about to blow his brains out the brat in the "My Sweet 16" starts crying and cursing her father for giving her a sports car in the wrong color as a birthday gift. Frank here realizes that instead of killing himself, he is going to track down every single one of those fuckers shown on TV and kill them instead - saving America from this wave of trash culture.

What follows is something resembling a road trip where Frank goes to kill "people that deserve it" (and trust me they do). His first assassination attempt is really hilarious, you only see half of it in the trailer- the full scene is comedy gold. I wish the movie had more scenes like that. And it could have been a rather funny dark comedy - BUT - the movie throws in a teenage girl sidekick that pretty much ruins everything.

We can relate and sympathize with Frank, we know his motivation, he does a good job explaining who needs to die and why, deep down he wants to help out a guy who was ridiculed on "American Idol". The teenage girl however is such a damn airhead, keeps ranting about killing people for all kinds of random reasons that make no sense - even Frank thinks her ideas are stupid. She really doesn't add anything good to the movie or the story. I have not seen a character so pointless and annoying since Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars the Phantom Menace

This ruins the movie quite a lot, and detracts from the "seriousness" and in the end making it a poor experience to sit through. There are also other problems with the movie, it takes the predictable road of bashing the classical bad guys, religious nutcases, Republicans, Tea Party and other stuff that are easy targets and that have ALWAYS been ridiculed in media. I think it would have been interesting if the movie dared to take a hard look at the liberal bullshit that actually exists parallel to the conservative crap. If you are going to show the extremes of one side - for the sake of balance - show the extreme of the opposing side as well. It makes for a more honest and interesting movie. Instead we get this unintelligent indoctrinated Michael Moore take on reality that only stupid people can buy without reflecting upon it.

5.5/10, it could have been quite good, but the teenage sidekick and in the end lack of original ideas kill this movie.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises review (some spoilers)

So I finally saw this movie earlier this week - with very little hype or really anything invested in it. I had through a serious amount of self control made sure not to read anything prior to the release, no reviews after the US release, or after the European release. I had only seen two short trailers which really told me nothing about the quality of the movie, and to be honest didn't really pull me in.

So my expectations were low. But that is the amazing thing about Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. I did not think the first one would be any good - it was great. The second one, I cringed at Heath Ledger going to play the Joker - he was fantastic.

Now this one, I wasn't too convinced, there are other more interesting villains than Bane, and I think Catwoman is and have always been a lame character. But this movie is really really good for several reasons, and despite a few minor flaws - some of which are based upon personal preference. It starts out rather weird, and while I was watching I just thought the whole thing was extremely risky even for a "mastermind villain". In the end the whole setup of those early scenes doesn't have an equal amount of payoff, and could have been handled "less spectacular" I guess - but it did make a good setup for the villain "minions" and their mindset.

8 years had passed since the events of the second movie, and Bruce Wayne is something of a recluse cripple - no longer fighting crime, and instead being disillusioned and depressed. Naturally something occurs that more or less forces him to don the costume, despite knowing that he is out of shape. Even Alfred tells him that he is going to get his ass kicked. I really liked this aspect of the movie, Bruce Wayne had to once again find the inner strength to be Batman after all this time.

Batman goes out and gets his ass kicked, the city goes to hell, all of the characters such as Alfred and Commissioner Gordon are haunted by events of the past - the movie is really dark and grim. And usually when a movie throws in a ton of new characters it gets confusing or someone is left overshadowed with little to do - but TDKR is a perfect ensemble piece where you get really invested in everyone and everyone gets enough screen time so as when the shit hits the fan you are not sure who will survive and who's going to be killed before the end of the movie.

Bane as the main villain is really great, and very intimidating with his group of fanatical thugs. The way he manages to play Batman and the city is very satisfying to behold, and the character has a great screen presence about him. I had no problems with either his voice or dialect, I could hear and understand him perfectly well, and think the dialect was to make him sound smart rather than have him growl like a common "bad guy". He also has a very interesting backstory in this movie which lends a lot of weight to him as a character - both before and after one of the twists imo.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a young idealistic cop who just manages to suck you in the way you would not think was possible, for a large part of the movie he replaces Batman as the "good guy". Never thought his character would be that interesting but he was great.

Commissioner Gordon, as usual wonderfully played by Gary Oldman is at his best in this movie where he plays a really conflicted character tormented by the knowledge of past events that happened with Two-Face which led to Batmans "exile".

The only really weak link in the movie is "Catwoman", which if I recall correctly never is called Catwoman but the "cat burglar". She is more of a spy/specialist thief than a common weirdo who dresses up in a suit to steal jewelry from people.  The actress that played cat woman is imo not that good, but I also thought that she did not fully fit in with the rest of the dark and serious tone of the movie. She was used as a comic relief in many scenes, and while she had a few great scenes I think she was completely unnecessary for this movie in many ways. The only real reason I can think of having her in the movie was to give Bruce Wayne another character with an impossible "identity" situation with whom he could connect. Luckily she wasn’t obnoxious or too distracting to cripple the movie.

Now back to the movie, it starts out rather slow, and the first couple of minutes are confusing - but once it kicks in - Christopher Nolan is keeping you pumped up with fantastic action, epic events, great twists and the movie keeps you on the edge of the seat for pretty much the last 90 minutes. Much thanks to our knowledge of this being the "last" movie in the trilogy by Christopher Nolan - so anything could happen. But also by the sheer quality of storytelling and directing.

It's so damn refreshing with a trilogy of movies that are all very good , all being different, but in the end connected by a shared story arc - and that is perhaps the greatest achievement of Nolan. This self contained story told through the 3 movies is so damn well made despite each movie having minor flaws. And he manages to end the trilogy in many surprising ways, there are twists I kind of knew would show up, but there are also twists that took me completely off guard. At the end you are pretty much emotionally spent, and I was satisfied. I've read some crap about a few of the end scenes and people growling about a name dropped at the end - but I honestly don't think that it means that the character will become "that guy". Instead I think the movie intended what Batman said in many of his scenes throughout the trilogy is that "anyone could be Batman".

If I could change only one thing, it would be the final scene with Alfred, I think I would have liked it more if it just cut away after he looks into the camera.

So what the movies are really about is Batman Begins = Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, The Dark Knight = Batman at his peak, The Dark Knight Rises = Batman growing old and passing the torch.
In many ways this movie is a perfect full circle and ends where it started in Batman Begins.

Oh, and the music was superb as well, love how each of the movies had its own score and all were equally epic sounding. The chanting theme whenever Bane is on screen is probably the best piece of music in all 3 movies.
Really recommend this one if you liked the previous movies. Can't wait for this to come out on DVD so I can watch all 3 back to back.




9/10

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Carnage (movie review)

Carnage is a very minimalistic comedy starring some heavy weight actors – Cristoph Waltz, John C Reilly, Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster. The production, the way it is filmed, the heavy emphasis on dialogue and the actors alone in this confined apartment that makes up the set for this movie almost feels like a “film school project “kind of movie.

Still Carnage provides a very funny and bizarre story which begins with two boys fighting over something that we don’t know (the scene is shot from afar). One of the boys ends up hitting the other with a stick across the face. The movie then cuts to the apartment where the parents of the “victim” are writing a letter explaining what happened to the insurance company (or something like that) with the parents of the “perpetrator” standing over their shoulder and correcting the severe wording (“armed with a stick” LOL).

Apparently both pair of parents agreed to meet and talk through what had happened. This opens up for a lot of uncomfortable and forced situations where everyone is expected to appear balanced and adult and discuss the behavior of their children in a fair way – but of course end up favoring their own kid and questioning the other kid and the other parents.

The acting from the male leads is phenomenal, Christoph Waltz is such a great actor and a big favorite of mine. I am really sorry that he wasn’t “discovered” up until a couple of years ago – because he is now 55 and I don’t think that he will be able to get that many more movies done during his career as he would truly deserve. He is excellent at playing quirky characters and in Carnage he plays this big shot lawyer tied up in a pharmaceutical lawsuit constantly taking calls on his cellphone while being in this “parent meeting”. His character also doesn’t really give a shit about the whole situation, his take is that “boys will be boys” and that the parents should not meddle as they know nothing about what led to the fight.

John C Reilly plays the victim’s dad, and you can see how his wife has drilled him hard in behaving nice and he tries to smooth over the differences and the occasional anger. John C Reilly is also perfect in this role, and as the movie progresses he gets more and more fed up with his wife’s pacifist “save the world” bullshit take on the world. Reilly plays a “working man” and is a salesman who sells doorknobs and toilet flush mechanism (there is a very funny scene with him and Waltz discussing flush mechanisms).

The wife’s are not as good, and I think this has mainly to do with the writing. Jodie Foster plays the mom of the victim and is a pacifistic art connoisseur who collects art books, writes about civil war in Darfur Africa and just oozes of self righteousness. There are great dialogue scenes between her and the no BS character of Waltz. Fosters character works in a book store and you really get that the couple of the victim are “middle class” people.

Kate Winslet plays Waltz wife, and is some kind of stock broker IIRC, and she and Waltz are really the upper class citizens with “important jobs”. The dialogue the wives have to work with, and Kate Winslet’s character in particular does not flow as naturally as the dialogue of the men but still works for the most part of the movie. But I still got the impression that the female dialogue felt a lot more “written” than the natural exchange of words delivered by the male characters.

Still, it’s not that bad, and the John C Reilly/Cristoph Waltz characters more than make up for this flaw in the writing. The movie is funny, it’s not laugh out loud funny, but rather leaves you smiling throughout it because of the absurd situation, escalating hypocrisy and brutal honesty of the two parent couples. It all starts out so stiff and polite, ends with puking and drunken swearing.

The movie is also very short, running time 1 hour 20 minutes but in reality the credits take up 5 or so minutes. So it really goes by very fast. At the same time I don’t think it could have been longer as the confined space and character development really reached a natural end when the movie ended.

It’s a solid 7/10, if Cristoph Waltz is in it then it's enough for me to watch a movie. The score could have been higher if the female parts were a bit better written (less hysterical and over the top).

Monday, June 11, 2012

Snow White & the Huntsman review (spoiler free)

I can say with a straight face that I thought this movie was better than Prometheus. I am quite happy that this movie also lived up to the hype and expectations I had from first watching the rocking trailer a couple of months ago. This is a solid movie, I came out with zero disappointment or anything that I could really nitpick at. That is quite rare. Was it a perfect movie that had me run out of the cinema and high five random strangers? No, but it was still a  pretty good movie that did everything right.

While talking about the trailer, the movie suffered a bit from what Prometheus did in that the trailer revealed quite a lot of the movie. Though it did not spoil the movie to the same extent because most of us already know the story of Snow White.

The movie itself is a darker and a bit more action packed take on the Snow White fairy tale, it's not even close to the Disney version except for the rough framework and concept of Snow White and the evil queen.  It is also way better than the "Snow White a tale of terror" from the late 90's starring Sigourney Weaver as the queen, which I saw earlier during the week and which I think is the closest thing you could compare it to. Snow White & the Huntsman is not an action movie, it tells the familiar story of Snow White and adds action and battle scenes where it fits. No random sword fighting or Snow White going Joan of Arc 5 minutes into the movie which the trailer may suggest.

The story is familiar but is still made interesting by additional plot points, a nice slew of backstory for the huntsman and the queen. Of course you know how it ends, but it is still a very interesting watch.

The environments  look damn good, everything from the castle, to the decaying landscape, foggy forests, villages that are falling apart and great landscapes - the movie features a bunch of great looking locations. You don't need 3D to appreciate how good everything looks. There are quite a few phenomenal environmental effects and locations in this movie which you can appreciate just based on the aesthetic value that they add to the movie.

As far as the acting go, Charlize Theron is great as the queen - her character is very unbalanced and borders on psychopath in some scenes when she rages. The queen is played with a cool and menacing style that Theron handles well. It also reminds you how good an actress Theron is. Over the past two weeks I've seen her in Young Adult (recommend watching this gem of a indie movie) where she was great in a comedic/depressing role, in Prometheus as a calculating and cold corporate manager and now as the crazy queen. I really liked the way the story handled the queen, she has a background, she has a logical reason for wanting to kill Snow White and she is made a fully fledged out character when you learn more about her past. It's not a 2D villain.

Cris Hemsworth as the drunken huntsmen was also good, the accent was a bit distracting but this character too had his own background and motivation. He was not only a tool and 2D character like in the Disney version.

Snow White, played by Kristen Stewart. I'm not a fan of Kristen Stewart, she has a look that annoys me in this movie she reminded me of another (older) actress whose name I have forgotten. I think that the brainddead role Stewart has been playing in the Twilight movies may have turned lots of people against her. I don't watch that tween drivel but in other movies Stewart has always come off as a rather stone faced actress. A bit like Josh Hartnett who can only do one facial expression. She does a pretty decent job in this movie, and at least tries hard enough to make herself work and become a believable character. The longer the movie went on the more I thought she fit the role. She's not very attractive, rather common looking, and the movie actually addresses this fact very early on so that the audience know the difference of beauty between her and Theron's radiating queen.  She ends up doing a good job as the title character.

And of course, the dwarves!
Oh my god, scene stealing little bastards! The movie really has a great ensemble of famous and skilled actors playing the dwarves. I loved Ian McShane as the dwarf leader haha, with his shifty and world weary look. I also loved that the dwarves were a bunch of unwashed and somewhat violent fellows. It's too bad that they aren't in the movie more. Every scene with the dwarves is great, and they are mainly used to tell the story of the world and past events as well as being (good) comic relief. There is one scene that you can see in the trailer when Snow White and the crew enter some kind of glade of "super good/kindness" with small animals all over the place, butterflies, rainbow and the elves playing. The dwarves react in a very funny way, basically going "wtf is this crap, put plugs in your ears" LOL! They also get a couple of action scenes, and really leave you wanting more when the movie is over. The dwarf effects and makeup was very well done.

And speaking of effects there were quite a lot of good stuff in this movie. My favorite effects were probably the work done on Theron to have her alter appearance throughout the movie - it was very well done with makeup and effects to make her go from looking old to going young and back to old again. There are also some nice battle scenes that add a climactic beginning and end to the movie.

Complaints? None really, the only stuff I could come up with is that the pacing was a bit brisk at times. The queen had a backstory segment that I think would have fit better at the very beginning of the movie rather than being handled in a flashback. I wanted to see more of the dwarves, of course. And it would have been nice with more awesome andrenaline pumping music like in the trailer. It also includes a couple of scenes that resemble iconic scenes from other (very famous movies), I won't mention which scenes and which movies since my friend did not think about it and it would just be distracting trying to look for those scenes. It's nothing that makes the movie any worse.

Final thoughts it's a very good movie, great locations and good acting. Well told story and interesting background to the characters such as the queen. I do recommend it. I would rate it at 8/10

In a couple of weeks I hope to watch both the new Batman movie and Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter. Oddly enough I'm starting to be more hyped for the Abe Lincoln movie than I am for Batman. Latest trailer that I saw today did not look all that exciting. Christopher Nolan has yet to make a bad or disappointing movie though, so I trust that I will be positively surprised.

Also, this movie had me create a new category, "Movie reviews", this will be the home of movies that don't belong in either the "Horror movies" or "War movies" review section as I want those two to remain themed instead of merging everything into one single general movie category.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

GTOG's Top 12 Posts of 2011

By GTOG Staff

In the spirit of the end-of-year-tradition of letting our earlier work this year do our work for us now, here are 12 of our top posts/moments, etc. from the past year.  There are a lot more than 12 here.  Basically, they're things we think you may be interested in reading again.

Thank you, everyone, for a great 2011.

12. Summing up Steigerwald-Lambert-gate

Ryan Lambert from Puck Daddy went toe-to-toe with John Steigerwald about Alex Ovechkin, women with mustaches, and some really unfunny reference to Sidney Crosby being a vampire.  We shamelessly injected ourselves as the voice of reason.

11. Steelers Lose the Super Bowl

Aaron Rodgers' epic performance, Rashard Mendenhall's devestating fumble, and why we weren't that upset.


Top 10 after the jump...

10. Sushi with Hilary Duff

The song speaks for itself.

9. The Crosby Concussion

If something about Crosby's concussion is on our Top lists for 2012, then we won't have a blog anymore. We have no desire to re-read any of these posts, and can't imagine why you would want to, but for the historical record, here is:

- Our Winter Classic recap
- Get To Our Postgame from the Hedman hit, where we wrote, "One negative from this game is only one point from Sid."
- Crosby's initial concussion diagnosis
- The Sequelae


8. The Rebecca Black podcast

About as thorough of an analysis of a bad song as you can get.  It's Friday.


7. Pushing the Capitals' buttons 

Tampa sweeps the Caps ... but the Caps win the Cup in Pittsburgh a few months later

6. Ted Leonsis' Wars on Hearing and Counting

Speaking of the Caps, Ted Leonsis took great offense when we criticized his arena scoreboard for being too loud.  What ensued was pettiness of a degree that could only be achieved by Mr. Leonsis.  For the record, it's probably still way too loud.  Unleash the fury.


A few months later, we asked whether he fudged sellout numbers for something called the Baltimore Hockey Classic.

5. Never Say Never movie review

What happens when two grown men sit alone in an abandoned movie theater watching a documentary about Justin Bieber?

4. The Pens are eliminated

After a regular season nightmare, the Pens went out with a whimper against Tampa and we had all angles covered, with instant reaction and a classic GTOPG.  With a few more days to decompress, we graded the forwards and the defense.


3. When the Walls Came Down

Nothing brings out the raw emotion at GTOG quite like the Bachelor and Bachelorette.  We were there for every contrived twist and turn, whether it was Brad declarative sentences or Ashley's insufferable insecurities.

Brad's season

- Previewing the Ladies of Brad Womack
- Artistry spoke for GTOG while Finesse was embedded with real ladies
- Brad wants so badly to be affectionate with you. Ok.
- When the show moves to some exotic location for repelling, we asked, What is the Island?
- The Women Told All, we may have been the only people listening.
- Wall-to-wall coverage of the Finale, with a preview podcast, a reaction podcast filled with some of the rawest emotion you've ever heard, and some final follow up thoughts on Chantal's heartbreak.


Ashley's season

- Recapping the second episode
- We lose our composure after we are overcome with raw emotion on this podcast
Written reaction and raw emotion that can only be summoned by one of the most shocking episodes ever
- A scrapbook chronicling JP's fairy tale and Ben's devastation
- A raw emotion podcast from the maternity ward


2. Penn State

On Penn State, Joe Paterno, and how we react to scandals


1. GTOG Nation Welcomes Artistrette

Nothing says 2011 like the arrival of the newest member of GTOG's family.


Happy New Year!