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If ever you want to show a character go “evil”, please, for goodness sake, don’t make him dance! (Spoilers below)
Review: Korean Monster horror movie in the vein of Shaun of the Dead.
I kept hearing about how good a monster movie this was supposed to be. Best horror movie in decades, some said. Hey, it’s playing locally, I think I’ll go check it out!
“I liked Infernal Affairs more than The Departed.”
If I was drinking something I would have splurted it out. Infernal Affairs is a very good movie, but it has a fraction of the character exploration of The Departed. Infernal Affairs is nearly pure plot with a last-second character growth spurt. But I’ve heard this from several people now, and I was having a hard time understanding this.
“Did you know it was based on the comic strip?”
“Really? I thought it was just coincidence.”
“I can’t recommend it.”
“Why?”
So the conversation with my friend went. Not content to leave well enough alone, I received Over the Hedge in the mail from Zip.ca. I thought maybe he was being over-critical, but man, is this movie ever mediocre
So Rome finally ended. Controversy and all.
I got to admit, I did like this series. Normally I get annoyed at historical inaccuracies, but Rome’s inaccuracies were blatant but trying to be authentic inaccuracies, if that makes sense.
The producers have openly admitted they weren’t trying to create a super-faithful history documentary. They were making Entertainment based upon history, like Shakespeare did numerous times. I still felt they mostly got the gist of the history while ignoring all the details (How many people care that Pompey was killed by two assassins instead of one?)
It was a fun ride through that tumultuous period from Julius Cesar to Octavian, later the Emperor Augustus. Using the everyman characters of Pullo and Veranus, the show did a good job of drawing us into the life of Ancient Rome (which was well documented by writers in Rome). Following their arc through to their conclusions was very satisfying, especially for Pullo.
Also, the portrayals of the really famous historical characters were pretty much in-line with their historical descriptions with the exception of the Roman women, of which precious little is recorded. And the main events were covered. That’s better than Braveheart. 
Mushishi is a beautifully drawn, if somewhat dry, anime with some interesting ideas. It’s being turned into a live-action movie starring Jo Odagiri. The trailer is up and it looks like they might have capture the impressionistic look of the anime:
http://www.mushishi-movie.jp/trailer/trailer.html
A fan-made music video shows the art work from the anime.
A no-brainer for me, when picking movies, is to see a Pixar movie. Sure, I don’t care for all of their movies, but I’ve yet to hate a Pixar movie (well, Monsters, Inc. came close, but then I saw Robots and changed my mind). Pixar has a track record to die for: 7 movies, 7 hits. In fact, Pixar’s track record is even more impressive: 7 projects, 7 releases. When you consider the norm: “A lot of studios talk about a 12-to-1 ratio ,” Andrew Stanton says. “They come in with 12 ideas and one of them makes it.” How does Pixar manage to make hits while everyone else flails around looking for the next TV show to turn into a movie?
Saturday was my “Bad Movie Day”. It was raining again and I decided the kill the afternoon by seeing two bad movies: TMNT and The Last Mimzy.
One of my favorite SF short stories of all time is Mimsy were the Borogroves. A totally charming story written by the husband & wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore and published in the February 1943 edition of Astounding Science Fiction (edited by the legendary John W. Campbell, Jr.). The written story was a charming and guileless adventure that would have been at home in The Twilight Zone but got turned into a a cliche-driven, over pumped shamble of a movie.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sorry, couldn’t resist. 300 was a hoot to watch, but it was interesting reading some of the historians who were upset by it’s liberties with history. The linked article ends with claiming the Greeks would find it bizarre. Bizarre? Read the rest of this entry »
