Another movie I really want to see is Atonement. My brother just watched this and said it was an excellent movie. When I told him that I was waiting to read the book first he suggested that I not because it might ruin the movie experience. Jeeze. It’s so hard to choose.

Other book/movies I want to see:

Persepolis (already read that one so)
Love in the time of Cholera
Kite Runner
Silk
Lust, Caution

I’m sure there are more, I just can’t think of right now. But seriously. What’s the better bet? Book first or movie?

Me, Carleen and the library gang went to see The Order of the Phoenix on Friday. I should forward this review by saying that this was my favorite book of the Harry Potter series so far, so I was expecting a lot out of this one. First impression: underwhelming. This is the longest book of the series and yet the movie clocked in at a mere 2 hours 7 minutes. The two previous movies ran over 2 1/2 hours. Bad omen right off the bat. The next bad thing was not the movies fault, but the theatres - no sound for the first couple minutes of the film. I need that Harry Potter Main Theme music to really get me into the movie and without that the experience was a bit flat. On the music: could someone please get John Williams back to score these movies? The music just does nothing for me.

It was nice to see Dan and Rupert with shorter hair - I really hated their previous haircuts. But everyone is really getting comfortable with their roles, all three: Dan, Rupert and Emma were all able to step up to the plate to handle the more “adult” themes of this movie. Where was Hermione in this movie, though? I feel like we hardly got to see her at all. A couple of new faces in this movie, namely Imelda Staunton and Evanna Lynch playing Dolores Umbridge and Luna Lovegood respectively. Both wer fantastic choices for their roles, though my personal favorite new face was Evanna. She simply was Luna.

I know it sounds like a stale complaint from a ravenous fan, but there was just too much left out of this one. It was inevitable, given the length of the book, but at 2 hours, I feel like there was a bit too much *snip* *snip* in the editing room. Much like Goblet of Fire - only worse - there is very little “breathing” room. Slow down, take some time to show us the good stuff.

Pretty much the summation of my feelings toward this movie is: Not Enough.

I had to upload it in two takes because it was too long. To see the conclusion of this event at which point Liam pours both bowls on the floor and starts the ever popular bang banging game, go here. Sorry about the buzzing noise…our laptop is having some hard drive issues. Or mabe it’s the fan. Who knows.

Anyway, Justin Lin, the guy who made the third Fast and Furious movie (or is it the fourth…I’ve lost count) has decided to make a spoof based on the making of Game of Death, the last movie Bruce Lee made. Left incomplete at the time of his death, Game of Death was supposed to be his greatest work, written and directed by Bruce himself. It was unique in comparison to his other stuff in that it wasn’t just a movie about Bruce Lee kicking everybody’s ass, but a movie about WHY Bruce Lee was able to kick everybody’s ass (see philosophy of JKD). Unfortunatley, in the middle of making the film he was asked to star in Enter the Dragon, which would eventually be his claim to fame, and shortly after that he died. It was partly because of this fame that they decided to complete Game of Death using a bunch of different Lee look-a-likes, which subsequently spawned hundreds of other Bruce “Lee” movies, a period in film history now refered to as the “Bruceploitation” tradition. It’s this idea that Lin is trying spoof:

The film’s gist? A fictional, behind-the-scenes look at the auditions for Game of Death. With Finishing the Game, Lin — who self-financed the film — handles the notion of Bruceploitation the way Quentin Tarantino pays tribute to blaxploitation in his 1997 cult favorite, Jackie Brown.

Finishing the Game pokes fun at the entertainment industry’s relentless efforts to hold onto something great that, in reality, is gone forever. In a closing scene, Lin shows a casting director presenting the final candidates. There’s a white guy, a guy in a wheelchair and a guy over 6 feet tall — it’s all pretty absurd.

What’s interesting is how the making of this movie seems to be leading to the same “Bruceploitation” that Lin is making so much fun of:

Finishing the Game also leads what looks to be the next wave of Bruceploitation: A Chicago theater company is working with David Bowie and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang on a Bruce Lee musical, and director Rob Cohen has been pushing to make a movie that features the real Bruce Lee in CG. (Don’t hold your breath for this last one: The Lee family says they’ll never back it.)

Well, that’s a relief! Next thing you know we’ll have a Bruce Lee themed park complete with killer robots. Oh, wait, the Chinese are already doing that.

The amazing part of the movie was how much we cared for characters that showed up for only a short period of time in the movie. The writers built these amazingly well-rounded and believable characters and had no compunctions nor hesitation to snuff those characters out. Another thing that impresses me about 28 Weeks Later as well as 28 Days Later, was how the really crappy things that happen aren’t what the infected do to the humans, but what humans do to themselves. You gotta love a “zombie” movie that acts as a window into the human condition, huh? Romero’s another one who does this really well.

Anyway, forget Spider-Man, go see 28 Weeks Later, the helicoper scene is worth the price of admission alone.

or

History + Fiction + Art = Another graphic novel movie

Karl Urban - clothing + sword fights = good entertainment

Bare with me while I do something I don’t do much of…critique a movie.

Last Friday, Mike and I dropped Liam off at his grandparents and went to watch The 300. This is something we don’t do much of either. The 300 is the film adaption of Frank Miller’s graphic novel and is based loosely on the ancient Greek Spartan and Persian battle known as Battle of Thermopylae. Since opening Friday night, it has already been recieving a lot of criticism for its start to finish graphic battle scenes and its rather unseemly depiction of ancient Persians. The Iranians are especially pissed off about the latter (like we need another reason to piss off the Iranians right now) and Mitch sent me a rather snarky article written in the New York Times where the first sentence reads:

“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid.

The rest of the critique is not much better (however, extremely hilarious to read). Personally, I feel The 300 is probably one of the most obnoxious examples of war glorification. The plot relies heavily on one historical element, the idea that the Spartans were few but were so courageous and so well trained that they could kick anybody’s ass. Big, small, mortal, imortal, spears, swords, bows, tusks, snouts, mutants, whatever, just align yourself in phalanx formation with spears pointing north and bring it the hell on.

I suppose the whole freedom fighter, hero, historical movie thing is getting a little old. I was actually an early fan of the genre. Don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched Braveheart because I’ve lost count (please don’t ask, I’ll feel like a dork). But epic movies like this tend to effect people differently during war times. It’s difficult not to find hidden messages and allegory around every corner. In fact, what movie production in the last six years has not had some patriotic bumper sticker or anti-war comment plugged into its script. It’s tiresome trying to digest a movie experience while also trying to filter out all the bullshit. It’s not that I don’t think contemporary movies should be saying something about the times, I do, very much so. I just find a lot of the mainstream stuff to be extremely repetative.

But all that put aside, the real strength of The 300 is in its visual appeal. And no, I’m not just talking about Gerard Butler’s pecks and his hunky chipendale-like side kicks. The cinematography was very cativating and very reminiscent of graphic novel art which I’ve always liked for its visual effect. And war glorification or not, the movie is very inspiring which I think, according to the ending, may have been the point in the first place, to tell the story of how the courage of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae eventually (according to history) inspired their people to defend themselves against the Persians later. I don’t care how anti-war you are, you still walk out of the theater wanting a piece of the action.