Holy cow, Kirk's daddy is going to be Thor in Marvel's 2011 adaptation of the comic! They've cast Loki as well, but he's not listed on Imdb yet.
Imdb.Com's Thor Page
Marvel's Announcement of Loki's Actor
What's next? Confirmation that Samuel L. Jackson will in fact be Nick Fury? (Who seems to be white again in the comics...except in Ultimates, where he's still black...jeez, I can't keep up with this guy's racial changes...)
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Wolverine: Origins
I'm rather disappointed with the new Wolverine movie.
I haven't heard what other people have said about the film (other than the group I went to the release with, but we were all pretty much on the same page) so maybe someone out there had a slightly more positive experience...but I don't see how. I don't think there was a single aspect of the storyline that caught me off guard or made me think. Oh no- my friends and I were crowing about "ooh, that's *spoiler's* dad! I betcha it is!", "oh, that guy is so going to die" and "she's really a traitor! Five bucks says she turns on him!" and in every single case, we turned out to be right (sadly) except for the time I said "oh, the elevator is going to be empty when it arrives on the floor" and Deadpool (err...just Wade, actually. They weren't calling him Deadpool yet, I think) was still in plain view when the elevator landed. That may have been the only surprise in the entire movie- and I haven't even read the Origins comics, so it's not like I was cheating! (That also means I don't know how close the movie followed the comics, or indeed if they follow them at all, so don't take this review of the movie as a commentary on the comics.)
As if the transparent plot wasn't insult enough, the special effects wound up leaving the same acidic aftertaste in my mouth as the cheap-as-fuck special effects employed by none other than the SciFi (SyFy now) channel. Granted, they weren't as God-fucking-awful as the SciFi/SyFy effects are, but they were way below par for a movie with the kind of history and fanbase (and one would think with the funding!) usually associated with the X-Men movie franchise. Granted, this is a prequel, and we all know how much those suck, but I still find it difficult to believe no one somewhere along the line of production said to his friend "hmm...do Wolverine's claws look a bit... I don't know, flat? Unfinished, maybe?" because the first thing I thought when Wolvie unsheathed his newly-minted adamantium claws was "those look totally fucking fake", especially in the farmhouse bathroom scene where Wolvie examines his funky snow-white claws in excruciating detail. (Also- am I the only person who asked "when and how the hell did we wind up in Smallville?" when Wolvie showed up at that farmhouse? Seriously- what the fuck?) The explotions and most of the fighting was so-so in quality, pretty much what you'd expect in any typical action flick, though I really dug the one awesome scene torward the end when Sabertooth and Wolvie teamed up against a teleporting Deadpool (for reasons that I'm choosing now to spoil).
Gambit. Oh, for the love of God, why? I spent way too freaking long to see my dear Remy in a movie for THAT to be all I get. Weak accent, not a word of French, very little screen presence and 90% of his fighting techniques were annoying rather than awesome. And, to add insult to injury, he had normal eyes. That's right, not the infamous red-on-black- he had normal eyes. They glowed a wee bit when he used his powers (and only when he used his powers during a closeup), but generally he had normal pupils, normal irises, the whole works. I am PISSED. First they screw up Rogue, now they've gone off and screwed up Gambit, too.
Cheap cheap cheap fucking cheap.
On the plus side, I loved Ryan Renolds as Wade (for the all of five minutes he was actually on the screen), and Liev Schreiber's performance as Sabertooth was excellent- much, much better than the stuntman they had play his part in the X-Men films. And what's more is I've heard there's an extra scene at the end were Deadpool shows up, breaks the forth wall (his trademark in the comics) and shushes the audience, after his *spoilers!* decapitation in the film. Healing powers for the win! The scene I saw at the end of the credits in the particular theater I attended just showed Wolvie drinking at a Japanese bar and being mopey. *end of spoilers*
I haven't heard what other people have said about the film (other than the group I went to the release with, but we were all pretty much on the same page) so maybe someone out there had a slightly more positive experience...but I don't see how. I don't think there was a single aspect of the storyline that caught me off guard or made me think. Oh no- my friends and I were crowing about "ooh, that's *spoiler's* dad! I betcha it is!", "oh, that guy is so going to die" and "she's really a traitor! Five bucks says she turns on him!" and in every single case, we turned out to be right (sadly) except for the time I said "oh, the elevator is going to be empty when it arrives on the floor" and Deadpool (err...just Wade, actually. They weren't calling him Deadpool yet, I think) was still in plain view when the elevator landed. That may have been the only surprise in the entire movie- and I haven't even read the Origins comics, so it's not like I was cheating! (That also means I don't know how close the movie followed the comics, or indeed if they follow them at all, so don't take this review of the movie as a commentary on the comics.)
As if the transparent plot wasn't insult enough, the special effects wound up leaving the same acidic aftertaste in my mouth as the cheap-as-fuck special effects employed by none other than the SciFi (SyFy now) channel. Granted, they weren't as God-fucking-awful as the SciFi/SyFy effects are, but they were way below par for a movie with the kind of history and fanbase (and one would think with the funding!) usually associated with the X-Men movie franchise. Granted, this is a prequel, and we all know how much those suck, but I still find it difficult to believe no one somewhere along the line of production said to his friend "hmm...do Wolverine's claws look a bit... I don't know, flat? Unfinished, maybe?" because the first thing I thought when Wolvie unsheathed his newly-minted adamantium claws was "those look totally fucking fake", especially in the farmhouse bathroom scene where Wolvie examines his funky snow-white claws in excruciating detail. (Also- am I the only person who asked "when and how the hell did we wind up in Smallville?" when Wolvie showed up at that farmhouse? Seriously- what the fuck?) The explotions and most of the fighting was so-so in quality, pretty much what you'd expect in any typical action flick, though I really dug the one awesome scene torward the end when Sabertooth and Wolvie teamed up against a teleporting Deadpool (for reasons that I'm choosing now to spoil).
Gambit. Oh, for the love of God, why? I spent way too freaking long to see my dear Remy in a movie for THAT to be all I get. Weak accent, not a word of French, very little screen presence and 90% of his fighting techniques were annoying rather than awesome. And, to add insult to injury, he had normal eyes. That's right, not the infamous red-on-black- he had normal eyes. They glowed a wee bit when he used his powers (and only when he used his powers during a closeup), but generally he had normal pupils, normal irises, the whole works. I am PISSED. First they screw up Rogue, now they've gone off and screwed up Gambit, too.
Cheap cheap cheap fucking cheap.
On the plus side, I loved Ryan Renolds as Wade (for the all of five minutes he was actually on the screen), and Liev Schreiber's performance as Sabertooth was excellent- much, much better than the stuntman they had play his part in the X-Men films. And what's more is I've heard there's an extra scene at the end were Deadpool shows up, breaks the forth wall (his trademark in the comics) and shushes the audience, after his *spoilers!* decapitation in the film. Healing powers for the win! The scene I saw at the end of the credits in the particular theater I attended just showed Wolvie drinking at a Japanese bar and being mopey. *end of spoilers*
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Search for Meaning in "American Beauty"
Throughout the film “American Beauty”, the audience watches as the characters argue, fight, cry, and seduce their way through life, seeking to understand what it all means and why sometimes life has to be so difficult. As friends, lovers, and family members, they use one another as scapegoats and as modes of escape to avoid dealing with life- or, perhaps, to deal with life in the only way they know how. Most of the characters are self-obsessed, materialistic, and insecure to the point of neurosis and are completely unable to connect with other people, or really even themselves.
Carolyn Burnham is one of the neediest, most insecure characters in the movie. She spends most of the film trying and failing to find some source of reassurance to offset the isolation she feels. She chants mantras to herself, promising that she will do one thing or she will not do another, though she can’t fool even herself into thinking she has a chance of following through and finding happiness. The only character Carolyn connects with for even a little while is the arrogant Buddy Kane, who winds up abandoning her when her husband discovers their affair. Kane is far more concerned about his professional appearance than his romantic entanglements, and he selfishly leaves Carolyn behind to deal with the mess their affair has created. On the other hand, Lester Burnham, Carolyn’s husband, is not terribly upset about his wife sleeping with another man. He has felt isolated from his unfeeling wife for quite some time, and in fact finds it liberating that Carolyn is no longer trying to bend him to her idea of what a proper family is. He takes his new freedom from his wife’s control and runs with it. He starts smoking pot, working out, and quits his white-collar job to flip burgers, all in order to relive the happiest time of his life- his teens. He then takes the hunt for his lost happiness and youth a step further and seduces (and allows himself to be seduced by) his daughter’s best friend, a terribly insecure ‘beauty’ named Angela. Angela, meanwhile, is using both Lester and his daughter Jane to fuel her own search for herself. She puts up a front of confidence and success, when really she’s a scared little girl who is desperate for a way to feel special and loved. Angela feeds off of Lester’s sexual attention and off of Jane’s ‘plainness’ in order to separate herself from the ‘ordinary’ people she sees every day. The arrival of Jane’s new boyfriend, Ricky, makes this increasingly difficult for her. He calls her out on her behavior, declaring that Angela was never actually Jane’s friend but was really using her to increase her own confidence. Ricky also sees through Angela’s pretentious disguise and says to her face he finds her boring and plain. Ricky is himself an odd character. He toys with the emotions of other characters on several occasions, from egging his father on into two unnecessary physical confrontations to exposing Angela’s cruel method of finding self-assurance. On the other hand, he seems to be the only relatively happy character in the movie. His obsession with filming ordinary and sometimes gruesome things stems not just from a morbid sense of curiosity, but also from a deep-seated appreciation of the beauty that exists in the everyday world. He alone has a sense of self-confidence, and doesn’t feel ‘exposed’ or ‘naked’- even when Jane is filming him when he is very much physically naked.
Ricky is, sadly, the only character in the movie with a perception of his own self-worth. The other characters spend the entire movie flitting from one argument to another as they try desperately to find their calling, their soul mate, or their place in the crazy world they live in. Like families and neighbors often do, these characters have formed tight relationships- or perhaps just loose ones- which enable them to find new ways of learning about themselves and each other in meaningful ways. Even the missteps and missed opportunities offer lessons in how human beings interact with one another and how those interactions change the way people see each other and themselves.
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I wrote this one for a sociology class (Marriage and Family Relationships). Again, I had a two page limit, which I went over by just a tiny bit, once I put in the heading and everything. I'd never seen the movie before, and I've got to say- it's delightfully screwy.
Carolyn Burnham is one of the neediest, most insecure characters in the movie. She spends most of the film trying and failing to find some source of reassurance to offset the isolation she feels. She chants mantras to herself, promising that she will do one thing or she will not do another, though she can’t fool even herself into thinking she has a chance of following through and finding happiness. The only character Carolyn connects with for even a little while is the arrogant Buddy Kane, who winds up abandoning her when her husband discovers their affair. Kane is far more concerned about his professional appearance than his romantic entanglements, and he selfishly leaves Carolyn behind to deal with the mess their affair has created. On the other hand, Lester Burnham, Carolyn’s husband, is not terribly upset about his wife sleeping with another man. He has felt isolated from his unfeeling wife for quite some time, and in fact finds it liberating that Carolyn is no longer trying to bend him to her idea of what a proper family is. He takes his new freedom from his wife’s control and runs with it. He starts smoking pot, working out, and quits his white-collar job to flip burgers, all in order to relive the happiest time of his life- his teens. He then takes the hunt for his lost happiness and youth a step further and seduces (and allows himself to be seduced by) his daughter’s best friend, a terribly insecure ‘beauty’ named Angela. Angela, meanwhile, is using both Lester and his daughter Jane to fuel her own search for herself. She puts up a front of confidence and success, when really she’s a scared little girl who is desperate for a way to feel special and loved. Angela feeds off of Lester’s sexual attention and off of Jane’s ‘plainness’ in order to separate herself from the ‘ordinary’ people she sees every day. The arrival of Jane’s new boyfriend, Ricky, makes this increasingly difficult for her. He calls her out on her behavior, declaring that Angela was never actually Jane’s friend but was really using her to increase her own confidence. Ricky also sees through Angela’s pretentious disguise and says to her face he finds her boring and plain. Ricky is himself an odd character. He toys with the emotions of other characters on several occasions, from egging his father on into two unnecessary physical confrontations to exposing Angela’s cruel method of finding self-assurance. On the other hand, he seems to be the only relatively happy character in the movie. His obsession with filming ordinary and sometimes gruesome things stems not just from a morbid sense of curiosity, but also from a deep-seated appreciation of the beauty that exists in the everyday world. He alone has a sense of self-confidence, and doesn’t feel ‘exposed’ or ‘naked’- even when Jane is filming him when he is very much physically naked.
Ricky is, sadly, the only character in the movie with a perception of his own self-worth. The other characters spend the entire movie flitting from one argument to another as they try desperately to find their calling, their soul mate, or their place in the crazy world they live in. Like families and neighbors often do, these characters have formed tight relationships- or perhaps just loose ones- which enable them to find new ways of learning about themselves and each other in meaningful ways. Even the missteps and missed opportunities offer lessons in how human beings interact with one another and how those interactions change the way people see each other and themselves.
-----------
I wrote this one for a sociology class (Marriage and Family Relationships). Again, I had a two page limit, which I went over by just a tiny bit, once I put in the heading and everything. I'd never seen the movie before, and I've got to say- it's delightfully screwy.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Japanese Cinema and America
Japanese cinema has invaded the Western hemisphere, and most Americans don’t even realize it. Every year it seems there are more Americanized remakes of Japanese horror or science-fiction films, and not long ago samurai movies were a popular source of material for Western flicks. More anime and manga titles are translated and distributed every day, and the rising popularity of these mediums attest to the appetite Western audiences have for Japanese creations. That said, many Americans don’t even realize that what they see on the screen is Japanese in origin. When asked to name a Japanese movie, most Americans would answer Godzilla, but would be unable to name more than two or three movies out of the dozens in the franchise.
How could Japanese cinema permeate Western markets without Westerners being aware of it? To start with, many films brought over to the United States are remade to give them a more ‘American’ flavor, and since the majority of Americans aren’t aware of the Japanese film industry in the first place, these remakes fly under their radars as new movies by new directors. With the release of The Ring, this disregard for the original Japanese films began to dissipate. The American version was so popular and so incorporated into mainstream American cinema that the audiences began to wonder about what Ringu, the original, must be like. Though the popularity of the sub-titled Japanese film never quite rivaled its English-language remake in the States, Americans came away from both movies with a new awareness of the presence and quality of Japanese films (Mes, 261).
The most recognizable film product to emerge from Japan is, of course, Godzilla. Toho Studios, the same company that released such estimable titles as Seven Samurai and Spirited Away, found a cash cow in the King of Monsters. Godzilla has starred in nearly thirty films, including one released in America (Schilling, 20). Despite this proliferation of titles and Godzilla’s worldwide recognition as a huge Japanese success as well as his status as a popular character in Western pop culture, relatively few Godzilla titles have been translated into English or subtitled for release in America, and the American film based on the King of Monsters faced ridicule and critical reviews from the start. In fact, the entire franchise has become so well-known and been spoofed so often in Western culture that the films have unfortunately lost face. Few cinematic scholars will approach seriously the subject of the world’s most famous kaiju eiga (giant monster film) due to the stigma of pop culture (Mes, 309).
New movies with Japanese origins are released in the United States every year, from old classics like Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Rashomon to newer releases such as Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django and Hayao Miyazaki’s interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle, and even more movies are remade for mass release in American theaters, including titles like Dark Water and One Missed Call. Japanese movies abound in modern American culture, indicating that there is something about these films that speaks to a part of American audiences that is otherwise ignored by Western filmmakers.
Works Cited
Mes, Tom. The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2005.
Schilling, Mark. Contemporary Japanese Film. New York: Weatherhill, 1999.
This was a small (2 page, double spaced) essay for an anthropology class. Not my favorite thing I ever wrote, but it was pretty fun to look into the history of Japanese film. I just wish I'd had more room to play with it!
How could Japanese cinema permeate Western markets without Westerners being aware of it? To start with, many films brought over to the United States are remade to give them a more ‘American’ flavor, and since the majority of Americans aren’t aware of the Japanese film industry in the first place, these remakes fly under their radars as new movies by new directors. With the release of The Ring, this disregard for the original Japanese films began to dissipate. The American version was so popular and so incorporated into mainstream American cinema that the audiences began to wonder about what Ringu, the original, must be like. Though the popularity of the sub-titled Japanese film never quite rivaled its English-language remake in the States, Americans came away from both movies with a new awareness of the presence and quality of Japanese films (Mes, 261).
The most recognizable film product to emerge from Japan is, of course, Godzilla. Toho Studios, the same company that released such estimable titles as Seven Samurai and Spirited Away, found a cash cow in the King of Monsters. Godzilla has starred in nearly thirty films, including one released in America (Schilling, 20). Despite this proliferation of titles and Godzilla’s worldwide recognition as a huge Japanese success as well as his status as a popular character in Western pop culture, relatively few Godzilla titles have been translated into English or subtitled for release in America, and the American film based on the King of Monsters faced ridicule and critical reviews from the start. In fact, the entire franchise has become so well-known and been spoofed so often in Western culture that the films have unfortunately lost face. Few cinematic scholars will approach seriously the subject of the world’s most famous kaiju eiga (giant monster film) due to the stigma of pop culture (Mes, 309).
New movies with Japanese origins are released in the United States every year, from old classics like Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Rashomon to newer releases such as Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django and Hayao Miyazaki’s interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle, and even more movies are remade for mass release in American theaters, including titles like Dark Water and One Missed Call. Japanese movies abound in modern American culture, indicating that there is something about these films that speaks to a part of American audiences that is otherwise ignored by Western filmmakers.
Works Cited
Mes, Tom. The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2005.
Schilling, Mark. Contemporary Japanese Film. New York: Weatherhill, 1999.
This was a small (2 page, double spaced) essay for an anthropology class. Not my favorite thing I ever wrote, but it was pretty fun to look into the history of Japanese film. I just wish I'd had more room to play with it!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Star Trek XI
Will it be good? Better than Search for Spock, Wrath of Khan, or First Contact? Will it be bad? Worse than Insurrection or Nemesis? (Good God!) More importantly, when am I going to order by Bajoran nose prosthetic so I can cosplay for the release?
And even more importantly, does anyone else see the subtext in this picture?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Millennium Actress
Millennium Actress is an animated feature film by the creator of Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon. Released in 2001, the film quickly established itself as a cult classic here in America as one of the highest quality full-length anime films ever translated- in fact, the Chicago Tribune declared it as "[a] piece of cinematic art. It's modern day Japanese animation at its best..." (and yes, I feel a bit like I'm typing an essay for a class) . Its reception in its homeland of Japan was even more supportive- it freaking TIED with Miyazaki's Spirited Away for the Grand Prize of Japan Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival.
Personally, I have to say it's one of the most amazing films I've ever seen. The story follows the life of a young actress as it simultaneously follows her last interview as an old woman, and as the plot progresses it becomes increasingly challenging to tell her life apart from her roles in the movies- every part she ever played seems to have a personal resonance with her character, and often the only way you can be sure if she's playing herself versus one of her characters is to keep track of who is in what costume!
Every character in the movie plays a 'role' in her life- even the interviewer and his cameraman show up to rescue her several times over the course of the movie. Of course, it helps that he really did save her once when he was a young man and she as a much younger woman! The border between what happened in her tumultuous life and what the women she played experienced in their lives is deliciously blurred.
Her personal story of heartache and lost love is echoed across the lives of her characters- every lovesick teenager and heartbroken geisha, every abandoned young ninja (kunoichi, for those in the know) and unsatisfied housewife has one obvious, beautiful factor in common.
Every single one of them spends her life hunting for her one, true, long lost love- and find more pleasure in the chasing of this love than they ever do in reaching it.
Her tale is sorrowful and yet also full of hope and loyalty. She falls in love with a man who is an artist and a revolutionary, only to come home one day and find out that he has been forced to flee the country to avoid capture and execution. Before he leaves, he gives her a little trinket- the key to "the most important thing". She takes the key and swears to return it to him one day, and on that day she will tell him what that most important thing is. She follows him to Manchuria, acting in more and more movies in the hope that one day, he will see her and return to her. She keeps the key for most of her life, barring a few periods when it was either lost or taken from her. Not once during the course of the movie does she say what "the most important thing" is.
The movie is visually stunning in addition to being a emotional voyage. Satoshi Kon's talent for beautiful character design and selection of background animation is evident in full force throughout the course of Millennium Actress. The animation itself is graceful and flows elegantly from scene to scene, which isn't an easy task considering how jarring some of the switches between time periods, costumes, and environments could have been, given the structure of the movie. Every scene displays a vibrant array of colors that enhance the mood of the film, either by illustrating the joy and exhilaration of the actress' first love, or by sharply countering the lovers' heart-rending separation.
I've personally recommended this movie to several people and advocate watching it to anyone who enjoys either anime or those really, really rare love stories that mean something far deeper than boy-meets-girl.
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