Wow, it's been awhile since I blogged. We actually went to see Man of Steel early last week while we were out of town, and it was the first time I've ever been to a drive-in theater. The experience was awesome. The movie was .... not.
First, the good side:
-- Amy Adams made a decent Lois Lane. Smart-alecky, adventurous, principled journalist.
-- Laurence Fishburn would have made a great Perry White... If he'd had more than five minutes of screen time.
-- They didn't force Superman into stupid glasses and pretend like nobody could tell who that was.
-- That was the most convincing Jor-El I've ever seen (Russell Crowe's character); perhaps because it's the most OF Jor-El I've ever seen.
-- The character of Zod made sense. Disgruntled general trying to change the system.
Less than good side:
They forgot to develop any of the other characters. I know nothing about this Clark Kent aside from he's passive-aggressive and likes to run around shirtless. Seriously, Henry Cavill, I know you trained hard to get the physique for the part, but I didn't need to see the abs in excruciating detail... repeatedly. Couldn't you and the writers have trained for, I don't know, character and plot development instead? I know Star Trek (2009) was good, but it wasn't good for the three-pronged ships, the improbable usage of black holes as a weapon, and a villain in unlikely armor trying to get revenge.
Friday, June 28, 2013
That Movie that was Called World War Z
So I went to see the latest zombie flick that happens to share the title with the international bestseller by Max Brooks. Seriously, as a zombie action movie, it was pretty good ... in that it's on TV on a Saturday afternoon kind of way. As a movie that I will ever pay money for again? Not so much.
I'm being a little unfair. I've recently listened to the audiobook for World War Z, which has really good voice acting for a compelling narrative of episodes from all over the world describing first the zombie outbreak and initial denials ("Zombies? No way."), survival stories, the establishment of safe zones, and humanity getting back on its feet and fighting back against the zombie horde. The movie that shares the same name is the story of Brad Pitt as former UN journalist faced with the zombie outbreak, flying all over the world searching for a cure for the virus.
My problems with World War Z:
1. Fast zombies. In the book, Brooks goes into great detail to describe the brainless, shuffling, moaning, hungry, indefatigable, unfazed zombie horde. No leadership. No hierarchy. Everybody's equally dull and hungry. In the movie, zombies can not only run, they apparently have grown thicker skulls that can bash in car windows in ways that Chuck Norris could never dream. Seriously, movie makers? That should have splattered their own brains long before they could have ever bashed through a car windshield -- effectively, zombie suicide.
2. No one can use their telephones or email. Why on earth is Brad Pitt wasting jet fuel going to talk to people in Korea, Israel, and the UK who clearly have both generators and telecommunications access? How would zombies interrupt satellite communications? This is what was the strong point of the book; it looked at how people would actually react: using military-grade weapons designed to wound and not necessarily kill humans, locking zombie-infected family members in apartments rather than killing them, raiding camping stores for supplies, gathering information online, etc.
3. There was a deus ex machina. Fast zombies with a 12-second incubation period require it. The movie did set it up, beginning with the opening credits, to be fair. But this was somehow less compelling than the survival stories of people who feared infection by a virus with a two-day incubation period. That incubation period allowed the virus to become a pandemic. Of course, what am I complaining about? What could be better than a zombie? More zombies!
Granted, no fabulous book is ever going to be a perfect movie, even if a perfect movie were possible. But, seriously, it was like the script writers read the first fifty pages and said, "I know how THIS is going to end." Right. And I bet you're still under the impression that Dr. Horrible ended well, too. And Elizabeth Bennett totally found true love with Colonel Wickham. :-|
Ways that World War Z would have made a viable movie:
1. Select a few stories and have the journalist interview them and have them shown as a series of flashbacks. Brad Pitt could be the journalist still, or if that's not enough action for the big name, then you could save your casting budget to fill in the gobs of bit parts that would entail.
2. If you can't handle actually demonstrating that you have read the book, then just stick to one story in the book. Then, you keep Brad Pitt as action star, you have fewer roles to cast, and your movie deserves the same title as the book.
Or you could have just called it One More Zombie Movie, Folks. 'Cause that's what it was. An enjoyable one to be sure with terrifying moans that they got right, but fast zombies? Really?
I'm being a little unfair. I've recently listened to the audiobook for World War Z, which has really good voice acting for a compelling narrative of episodes from all over the world describing first the zombie outbreak and initial denials ("Zombies? No way."), survival stories, the establishment of safe zones, and humanity getting back on its feet and fighting back against the zombie horde. The movie that shares the same name is the story of Brad Pitt as former UN journalist faced with the zombie outbreak, flying all over the world searching for a cure for the virus.
My problems with World War Z:
1. Fast zombies. In the book, Brooks goes into great detail to describe the brainless, shuffling, moaning, hungry, indefatigable, unfazed zombie horde. No leadership. No hierarchy. Everybody's equally dull and hungry. In the movie, zombies can not only run, they apparently have grown thicker skulls that can bash in car windows in ways that Chuck Norris could never dream. Seriously, movie makers? That should have splattered their own brains long before they could have ever bashed through a car windshield -- effectively, zombie suicide.
2. No one can use their telephones or email. Why on earth is Brad Pitt wasting jet fuel going to talk to people in Korea, Israel, and the UK who clearly have both generators and telecommunications access? How would zombies interrupt satellite communications? This is what was the strong point of the book; it looked at how people would actually react: using military-grade weapons designed to wound and not necessarily kill humans, locking zombie-infected family members in apartments rather than killing them, raiding camping stores for supplies, gathering information online, etc.
3. There was a deus ex machina. Fast zombies with a 12-second incubation period require it. The movie did set it up, beginning with the opening credits, to be fair. But this was somehow less compelling than the survival stories of people who feared infection by a virus with a two-day incubation period. That incubation period allowed the virus to become a pandemic. Of course, what am I complaining about? What could be better than a zombie? More zombies!
Granted, no fabulous book is ever going to be a perfect movie, even if a perfect movie were possible. But, seriously, it was like the script writers read the first fifty pages and said, "I know how THIS is going to end." Right. And I bet you're still under the impression that Dr. Horrible ended well, too. And Elizabeth Bennett totally found true love with Colonel Wickham. :-|
Ways that World War Z would have made a viable movie:
1. Select a few stories and have the journalist interview them and have them shown as a series of flashbacks. Brad Pitt could be the journalist still, or if that's not enough action for the big name, then you could save your casting budget to fill in the gobs of bit parts that would entail.
2. If you can't handle actually demonstrating that you have read the book, then just stick to one story in the book. Then, you keep Brad Pitt as action star, you have fewer roles to cast, and your movie deserves the same title as the book.
Or you could have just called it One More Zombie Movie, Folks. 'Cause that's what it was. An enjoyable one to be sure with terrifying moans that they got right, but fast zombies? Really?
Friday, June 7, 2013
Now You See Me: A Thieving Spectacle (minor spoilers)
We went to see Now You See Me this afternoon. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco (what is with Franco men starring in movies as magicians this year?!) as magicians who use their act to rob a bank, an insurance man (played by Michael Cain), and a vault, Now You See Me is a move strong on spectacle: the visuals are fabulous -- ranging from the stage performances of the magicians to the intense action sequences in Las Vegas, New York, and New Orleans. Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent star as an FBI agent and an Interpol officer, respectively, who are trying to figure out how to connect the magicians with the robberies -- because that's the problem with a magic act, you see, it's hard to pin down the modus operandi.
The movie's cast is strong: The magicians are believable, particularly Woody Harrelson as a "mentalist" whose "targeted guessing" reminded me of Shawn Spencer from the TV crime dramedy Psych (which happens to be one of my favorite TV shows). Have you ever noticed how when two actors appear in multiple movies together they play the same roles over and over? Well, these guys managed to avoid it this time. It was nice to see Eisenberg and Harrelson in a movie together where neither of them fired a shotgun or hunted for Twinkies (Zombieland, for those not in the know, and definitely not one of my favorite movies ever). Mark Ruffalo plays the typical hardworking cop-detective-FBI-agent, and he plays it well, overall.
The movie's strong point, however, is its tightly woven, face-paced plot that keeps you guessing on where the next part in the elaborate magicians' show/plan/heist. Of course, much of this you can glean from the trailer. Contrary to the trailer, however, the movie does not center around the Robin Hood, 99% rhetoric that is so appealing nowadays.
And yet. And yet, at the end of the movie, I left the movie feeling robbed. The dramatic plot twist at the end of the movie felt fake, the semi-romantic relationships fell flat (as a pancake under an anvil), and the writers should, quite honestly, have rethought the ending. For a movie about people who create elaborate plans months and years in advance, the writers didn't plan very well for the ending. Allow me to explain: if your dramatic plot twist relies on a "whodunit"-style setup, you can't change things totally out of the blue. You have to drop clues so that the audience can keep guessing or at the end look back and realize what you could have seen all along, but you got distracted by other plot elements. I believe the magician term is "misdirection." Which the movie talks about and demonstrates quite thoroughly. It's just writers either A) wrote themselves into a corner, or B) didn't plan far enough ahead to drop the appropriate clues, or C) had to rewrite the ending at the last minute for some reason or other. Incidentally, the writers could have taken a page from the writers of Psych, although they actually do go a bit overboard at times with singling out clues along the way.
So that's that: the magicians who stole millions stole the show and the writers failed to deliver a satisfactory ending -- which is quite frustrating because up to that point the numerous plotlines held together quite nicely.
And heart. It was missing heart.
In the end: would I buy it? Nah. I might rent it just so I can see if I missed the clues that make the big reveal make sense. Is it pretty on the big screen? Definitely. Like I said, the movie is all about spectacle.
One last thing: Dave Franco made a better magician than James Franco, IMHO. But that's highly influenced by the writing, too.
The movie's cast is strong: The magicians are believable, particularly Woody Harrelson as a "mentalist" whose "targeted guessing" reminded me of Shawn Spencer from the TV crime dramedy Psych (which happens to be one of my favorite TV shows). Have you ever noticed how when two actors appear in multiple movies together they play the same roles over and over? Well, these guys managed to avoid it this time. It was nice to see Eisenberg and Harrelson in a movie together where neither of them fired a shotgun or hunted for Twinkies (Zombieland, for those not in the know, and definitely not one of my favorite movies ever). Mark Ruffalo plays the typical hardworking cop-detective-FBI-agent, and he plays it well, overall.
The movie's strong point, however, is its tightly woven, face-paced plot that keeps you guessing on where the next part in the elaborate magicians' show/plan/heist. Of course, much of this you can glean from the trailer. Contrary to the trailer, however, the movie does not center around the Robin Hood, 99% rhetoric that is so appealing nowadays.
And yet. And yet, at the end of the movie, I left the movie feeling robbed. The dramatic plot twist at the end of the movie felt fake, the semi-romantic relationships fell flat (as a pancake under an anvil), and the writers should, quite honestly, have rethought the ending. For a movie about people who create elaborate plans months and years in advance, the writers didn't plan very well for the ending. Allow me to explain: if your dramatic plot twist relies on a "whodunit"-style setup, you can't change things totally out of the blue. You have to drop clues so that the audience can keep guessing or at the end look back and realize what you could have seen all along, but you got distracted by other plot elements. I believe the magician term is "misdirection." Which the movie talks about and demonstrates quite thoroughly. It's just writers either A) wrote themselves into a corner, or B) didn't plan far enough ahead to drop the appropriate clues, or C) had to rewrite the ending at the last minute for some reason or other. Incidentally, the writers could have taken a page from the writers of Psych, although they actually do go a bit overboard at times with singling out clues along the way.
So that's that: the magicians who stole millions stole the show and the writers failed to deliver a satisfactory ending -- which is quite frustrating because up to that point the numerous plotlines held together quite nicely.
And heart. It was missing heart.
In the end: would I buy it? Nah. I might rent it just so I can see if I missed the clues that make the big reveal make sense. Is it pretty on the big screen? Definitely. Like I said, the movie is all about spectacle.
One last thing: Dave Franco made a better magician than James Franco, IMHO. But that's highly influenced by the writing, too.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Return to Blogging with a Double Feature
Okay, so it wasn't a true double feature: we didn't really go see two movies, one after another. We went to see The Great Gatsby on Friday night and finished off our book of discounted movie tickets this evening with Iron Man 3. We went from classic literature to comic book series, from adulterers to Avenger.
Enough with the comparisons. Short version: I'd recommend them both, and here's why.
The Great Gatsby was Baz Lurhman's glitzy take on the book that generations of high school students across America have read. It is the tale of Gatsby's love for Daisy, a woman married to the wealthy bigot Tom. Gatsby, since his brief acquaintance with Daisy during WWI (he was an officer on leave, she was a society girl), has made his fortune in unsavory business dealings. His weekly parties are glittery, gaudy, glamorous shindigs that no one is invited to and hundreds of people attend. Eventually, Gatsby meets back up with Daisy not through the parties (as he had planned) but through his neighbor Nick Carraway, the narrator of the book/movie and Daisy's cousin.
The problem with having taught a unit on the Jazz Age multiple times and having seen the Robert Redford movie several times is that I was constantly picking out anachronisms. It really messed with my willing suspension of disbelief. But that's not the point here. Once I got about 45 minutes into the movie, I was fully absorbed enough in the plot to ignore blatant anachronisms.
The music was interesting -- (kudos to Jay Z) many of the pieces would start out sounding like from the 1920s, but would morph into something more modern because, let's face it, there aren't that many pieces from the 20s that audiences today would enjoy. As the music played during Gatsby's parties, the dances that people were doing would also start out looking like something from the 20s -- stills from the movie would look a lot like illustrations of flappers' dancing from the period -- but looked very modern. A nice contrast occurs when Nick and Daisy do the Charleston in Gatsby's house, which really showed the difference between the modernized dances and the more traditional dance.
The visuals from the movie were quite good, although the CGI felt fake at times, particularly when transitioning from live actors to panning across the landscape. Maybe it was because I went to a 2D showing? Given the bright colors and surreal scenes at Myrtle's apartment (Myrtle is Tom's mistress, and Tom is Daisy's husband, for those not in the know), maybe the 3D would've been worth it.
The actors did a great job, I'd have to say. Leonardo Dicaprio made an admirable Jay Gatsby -- similar enough to Robert Redford to pay homage to the 1970s version and different enough to have taken on the role himself. The problem is that the Gatsby of the book had dark hair and blond Gatsbys always bother me. Carey Mulligan was a very good Daisy, portraying someone who wished she had the wide-eyed naivete that she pretended. Tobey Maguire was adequate as Nick Carraway -- he overdid the rusty old man voice at the beginning of his narration (from a sanitorium -- a frame story that was the innovation of the filmmakers). During much of the movie, he played Nick as a young man who has been somewhat sheltered and gets dragged into things by others. Joel Edgerton's Tom was frankly not as good as the 1974 movie, although he did look like a pig, which was amusing. He did do a better job than Bruce Dern at genuinely seeming to care about Daisy as she waivers about leaving him for Gatsby. "You mean you never loved me? Not even that day where I carried you so you wouldn't mess up your shoes?" actually had me believing that he genuinely did have a heart, even if you never could trust the jerk. Myrtle was suitably annoying. Wolfsheim was frightening. Wilson was a simpleton. As it should be, though Wilson was a bit overly stupid.
Have I mentioned that this was the one book I read in high school for school that I genuinely enjoyed? (Okay, there was Fahrenheit 451, too) So I was one of those people who was constantly comparing the book to the movie. It really worked against me because I wound up missing out on the "aha" moments that first-time viewing really requires.
There was a nice Easter egg for fans of the 1974 movie: one of the most memorable lines is where Daisy explains to Gatsby why she didn't wait for him -- "Because rich girls don't marry poor boys, Jay Gatsby!" The writers managed to include the line by having Jordan Baker's date say it at the first of Gatsby's parties that Nick attends. (Jordan Baker is Daisy's best friend and Nick's love interest in the book.)
Overall, will I buy it? Probably not. But was it worth seeing? Definitely. And the big-screen experience was worth it. The heart factor? I'm not willing to say it had enough -- for an epic love story gone Jazz Age, it fell oddly flat now and again. But it was good, and I would definitely recommend seeing if you like the story or are interested in seeing a non-action movie with lovely visuals and fun music. Just don't expect a happy ending. It is a Fitzgerald story, after all.
Now, if I haven't lost your attention totally, on to Iron Man 3, which will now get the short end of the stick because I'm tired and I have to go to work tomorrow.
Tony Stark returns, an insomniac who gets panic attacks when he thinks about the "New York thing" too much. Stark has grown up in that he can now acknowledge the role of his own actions in creating the situation that nearly lost him everything -- both his own life and Pepper Potts'. Stark is fighting his own inner demons and villains who are terrorizing U.S. targets (including Stark's own house) using super-soldiers with amazing regenerative abilities -- so long as they don't literally overheat and blow up. Some of the best moments in the movie are between Stark and a 12-year-old sidekick who helps him recover from the near-death of his suit.
Pro: Nonstop fun action sequences.
Pepper Potts could become another Avenger.
Con: It could have been improved greatly by exploring the PTSD side of things more. Nonsequitor moments in a therapist's office with ironic comments would have underscored the action and shown treatment of the psychological disorder that Stark now faces. Ultimately, Stark thinks his way out of his PTSD, his own shrapnel-approaching-the-heart problem, and Pepper Potts' being injected with the super-serum of melty-explosive doom. Not in a plot-oriented kind of way, but in a let's-wrap-things-up-with-a-big-bow way. Because Americans are just supposed to get over mental problems. Not have them treated. (Yes, there is the cute scene after the credits that seem to contradict this a bit, but one scene with that guy doesn't really count. Stark is still fixing himself through useful thoughts.
And I saw way too many women's rib cages. Good grief, for a movie set around Christmas time, you'd think they could have women fully dressed.
Overall? Worth going to the movies for. Would see again. Had a satisfactory amount of heart, though not abounding with it. Not likely to buy, though will probably rewatch before The Avengers II. Definitely best on the big screen.
Enough with the comparisons. Short version: I'd recommend them both, and here's why.
The Great Gatsby was Baz Lurhman's glitzy take on the book that generations of high school students across America have read. It is the tale of Gatsby's love for Daisy, a woman married to the wealthy bigot Tom. Gatsby, since his brief acquaintance with Daisy during WWI (he was an officer on leave, she was a society girl), has made his fortune in unsavory business dealings. His weekly parties are glittery, gaudy, glamorous shindigs that no one is invited to and hundreds of people attend. Eventually, Gatsby meets back up with Daisy not through the parties (as he had planned) but through his neighbor Nick Carraway, the narrator of the book/movie and Daisy's cousin.
The problem with having taught a unit on the Jazz Age multiple times and having seen the Robert Redford movie several times is that I was constantly picking out anachronisms. It really messed with my willing suspension of disbelief. But that's not the point here. Once I got about 45 minutes into the movie, I was fully absorbed enough in the plot to ignore blatant anachronisms.
The music was interesting -- (kudos to Jay Z) many of the pieces would start out sounding like from the 1920s, but would morph into something more modern because, let's face it, there aren't that many pieces from the 20s that audiences today would enjoy. As the music played during Gatsby's parties, the dances that people were doing would also start out looking like something from the 20s -- stills from the movie would look a lot like illustrations of flappers' dancing from the period -- but looked very modern. A nice contrast occurs when Nick and Daisy do the Charleston in Gatsby's house, which really showed the difference between the modernized dances and the more traditional dance.
The visuals from the movie were quite good, although the CGI felt fake at times, particularly when transitioning from live actors to panning across the landscape. Maybe it was because I went to a 2D showing? Given the bright colors and surreal scenes at Myrtle's apartment (Myrtle is Tom's mistress, and Tom is Daisy's husband, for those not in the know), maybe the 3D would've been worth it.
The actors did a great job, I'd have to say. Leonardo Dicaprio made an admirable Jay Gatsby -- similar enough to Robert Redford to pay homage to the 1970s version and different enough to have taken on the role himself. The problem is that the Gatsby of the book had dark hair and blond Gatsbys always bother me. Carey Mulligan was a very good Daisy, portraying someone who wished she had the wide-eyed naivete that she pretended. Tobey Maguire was adequate as Nick Carraway -- he overdid the rusty old man voice at the beginning of his narration (from a sanitorium -- a frame story that was the innovation of the filmmakers). During much of the movie, he played Nick as a young man who has been somewhat sheltered and gets dragged into things by others. Joel Edgerton's Tom was frankly not as good as the 1974 movie, although he did look like a pig, which was amusing. He did do a better job than Bruce Dern at genuinely seeming to care about Daisy as she waivers about leaving him for Gatsby. "You mean you never loved me? Not even that day where I carried you so you wouldn't mess up your shoes?" actually had me believing that he genuinely did have a heart, even if you never could trust the jerk. Myrtle was suitably annoying. Wolfsheim was frightening. Wilson was a simpleton. As it should be, though Wilson was a bit overly stupid.
Have I mentioned that this was the one book I read in high school for school that I genuinely enjoyed? (Okay, there was Fahrenheit 451, too) So I was one of those people who was constantly comparing the book to the movie. It really worked against me because I wound up missing out on the "aha" moments that first-time viewing really requires.
There was a nice Easter egg for fans of the 1974 movie: one of the most memorable lines is where Daisy explains to Gatsby why she didn't wait for him -- "Because rich girls don't marry poor boys, Jay Gatsby!" The writers managed to include the line by having Jordan Baker's date say it at the first of Gatsby's parties that Nick attends. (Jordan Baker is Daisy's best friend and Nick's love interest in the book.)
Overall, will I buy it? Probably not. But was it worth seeing? Definitely. And the big-screen experience was worth it. The heart factor? I'm not willing to say it had enough -- for an epic love story gone Jazz Age, it fell oddly flat now and again. But it was good, and I would definitely recommend seeing if you like the story or are interested in seeing a non-action movie with lovely visuals and fun music. Just don't expect a happy ending. It is a Fitzgerald story, after all.
Now, if I haven't lost your attention totally, on to Iron Man 3, which will now get the short end of the stick because I'm tired and I have to go to work tomorrow.
Tony Stark returns, an insomniac who gets panic attacks when he thinks about the "New York thing" too much. Stark has grown up in that he can now acknowledge the role of his own actions in creating the situation that nearly lost him everything -- both his own life and Pepper Potts'. Stark is fighting his own inner demons and villains who are terrorizing U.S. targets (including Stark's own house) using super-soldiers with amazing regenerative abilities -- so long as they don't literally overheat and blow up. Some of the best moments in the movie are between Stark and a 12-year-old sidekick who helps him recover from the near-death of his suit.
Pro: Nonstop fun action sequences.
Pepper Potts could become another Avenger.
Con: It could have been improved greatly by exploring the PTSD side of things more. Nonsequitor moments in a therapist's office with ironic comments would have underscored the action and shown treatment of the psychological disorder that Stark now faces. Ultimately, Stark thinks his way out of his PTSD, his own shrapnel-approaching-the-heart problem, and Pepper Potts' being injected with the super-serum of melty-explosive doom. Not in a plot-oriented kind of way, but in a let's-wrap-things-up-with-a-big-bow way. Because Americans are just supposed to get over mental problems. Not have them treated. (Yes, there is the cute scene after the credits that seem to contradict this a bit, but one scene with that guy doesn't really count. Stark is still fixing himself through useful thoughts.
And I saw way too many women's rib cages. Good grief, for a movie set around Christmas time, you'd think they could have women fully dressed.
Overall? Worth going to the movies for. Would see again. Had a satisfactory amount of heart, though not abounding with it. Not likely to buy, though will probably rewatch before The Avengers II. Definitely best on the big screen.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
It's that time of the semester...
It's that time of the semester when my life goes haywire with all the work I need to be doing and am either doing or assiduously avoiding. So in my down time I keep trying to come up with a satisfactory way to review The Host, which has been out for nearly a month now, but this is the danger of trying to review a movie based on a book you enjoyed: you can't help but criticize casting choices and edits of significant moments in the book. The trouble with adapting The Host for the big screen is that so much of the book constitutes an inner dialog between the main characters, who happen to be a young woman and the alien that has possession of her body.
Wow. That sounded weird.
Allow me to summarize: The Host is the story of a love quadrangle. Aliens have taken over the earth, and they have ended war, famine, epidemics, crime, pollution, and bigotry. In taking over the earth, the aliens (called "souls") have taken over human bodies. They are a parasitic species that requires a host in order to live.
Let me take this moment to say that Stephenie Meyer must have read or watched or otherwise been inspired by K. A. Applegate's Animorphs. Just saying.
In The Host, an alien takes over the body of a woman who has been on the run from the souls for the past several years. She (Melanie), unlike most humans, stuck around to argue with the alien who took over her body. Melanie fiercely protects her memories of her boyfriend and her younger brother, but eventually Wanderer (the soul) finds out. Melanie's intense love for her brother and boyfriend eventually color Wanderer's views to the point that Wanderer begins to sympathize with humans, going so far as to cooperate with Melanie to locate her brother (Jamie) and boyfriend (Jared).
Apparently, humans have much stronger emotions and physical drives than most of the other sentient species in the universe. So THAT'S why Riker hit on every female-esque person he met in Next Gen. Long-term mystery solved, right? :-)
Upon finding Jamie and Jared in a small community of renegade humans, Wanderer faces discrimination and attempts on her life as she learns how to live with humans and falls in love with one of the humans; however, Melanie is still very present in Wanderer's mind, still very much in love with Jared, and Melanie's feelings and body chemistry very much affect Wanderer, causing her to half-fall in love with Jared, too, while building a relationship with Ian (one of the renegade humans). If that weren't enough drama, there is an alien (the Seeker) who is pursuing Wanderer/Melanie, and hiding out in a mountainous desert isn't exactly easy.
Overall, the movie stayed true to the plot of the book, though the tunnels were too well-lit, the principle characters were oddly-cast (Jared and Ian too lanky, Jamie too young, Melanie too pale, and the Seeker too blond to match their character descriptions), and the screenwriters felt it was more plausible to have Wanderer drive all the way across Texas from southern Louisiana (because of course Melanie has a fake southern accent to differentiate her from Wanderer) rather than from southern California to wind up in the desert of either New Mexico or Arizona. The minor characters (Jeb and Maggie in particular) did an excellent job.
That being said, the movie did have heart. In that emo sort of way of one of the more believable alien love-triangles I've seen. I'll plan on buying it on DVD.
Oh, and the special effects do not necessitate going to the theaters for this one. It'll be just as good on DVD.
Wow. That sounded weird.
Allow me to summarize: The Host is the story of a love quadrangle. Aliens have taken over the earth, and they have ended war, famine, epidemics, crime, pollution, and bigotry. In taking over the earth, the aliens (called "souls") have taken over human bodies. They are a parasitic species that requires a host in order to live.
Let me take this moment to say that Stephenie Meyer must have read or watched or otherwise been inspired by K. A. Applegate's Animorphs. Just saying.
In The Host, an alien takes over the body of a woman who has been on the run from the souls for the past several years. She (Melanie), unlike most humans, stuck around to argue with the alien who took over her body. Melanie fiercely protects her memories of her boyfriend and her younger brother, but eventually Wanderer (the soul) finds out. Melanie's intense love for her brother and boyfriend eventually color Wanderer's views to the point that Wanderer begins to sympathize with humans, going so far as to cooperate with Melanie to locate her brother (Jamie) and boyfriend (Jared).
Apparently, humans have much stronger emotions and physical drives than most of the other sentient species in the universe. So THAT'S why Riker hit on every female-esque person he met in Next Gen. Long-term mystery solved, right? :-)
Upon finding Jamie and Jared in a small community of renegade humans, Wanderer faces discrimination and attempts on her life as she learns how to live with humans and falls in love with one of the humans; however, Melanie is still very present in Wanderer's mind, still very much in love with Jared, and Melanie's feelings and body chemistry very much affect Wanderer, causing her to half-fall in love with Jared, too, while building a relationship with Ian (one of the renegade humans). If that weren't enough drama, there is an alien (the Seeker) who is pursuing Wanderer/Melanie, and hiding out in a mountainous desert isn't exactly easy.
Overall, the movie stayed true to the plot of the book, though the tunnels were too well-lit, the principle characters were oddly-cast (Jared and Ian too lanky, Jamie too young, Melanie too pale, and the Seeker too blond to match their character descriptions), and the screenwriters felt it was more plausible to have Wanderer drive all the way across Texas from southern Louisiana (because of course Melanie has a fake southern accent to differentiate her from Wanderer) rather than from southern California to wind up in the desert of either New Mexico or Arizona. The minor characters (Jeb and Maggie in particular) did an excellent job.
That being said, the movie did have heart. In that emo sort of way of one of the more believable alien love-triangles I've seen. I'll plan on buying it on DVD.
Oh, and the special effects do not necessitate going to the theaters for this one. It'll be just as good on DVD.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Oz the Fake and Should Be Sorrowful
So, I've skipped the once a week movies for a while... to the extent that I totally missed Jack the Giant Slayer, which I had been looking forward to for quite a while. I guess that's what happens when midterms and aquariums take over your life. In any case, the last movie I went to see was Oz the Great and Powerful.
I'm not even a fan of the Wizard of Oz, and I was disappointed. The movie couldn't decide whether to take itself seriously or not. Oz was a womanizing magician, dissatisfied with his life spent in a small-time traveling circus. His character came off as flat and unchanging, which was a real problem for a movie plot that depended on the personality evolutions of Oz and the witch who became the Wicked Witch of the West. (The Witch was slightly better about showing character change.... but that's not saying much.)
Okay, so not enough depth, but it's got great music since it's the prequel to the Wizard of Oz, right? Sorry, strike two! There was one musical number but the Munchkins that Glinda cut off because she found it annoying. And the rest of the music in the movie was less than memorable, at best.
So, it won't win an Academy Award for Best Song, but it's Disney, so the visuals and CGI must be AWESOME, right? Strike three. The illuminating moment where Oz first encounters the magical, mystical, musical land of Oz fell flat because of fake-looking, overly cartoon-y scenery. At least Theodora seemed to fit in slightly better. When the movie had actual sets instead of relying on CGI, they looked pretty good. Case in point: in a trip to "Chinatown," a town made of china tea sets, the characters looked awkward and out of place (ironically, this includes the CGI monkey), but when Oz enters a tiny china abode, the set looked much better put-together. This is where Oz meets one of the major characters of the movie, which is a china doll (the China Girl -- smh) whose facial animations are actually rather good. Too bad the producers couldn't pony up for a motion-capture doll to use for filming the live actors with the China Girl because every time Oz or Glinda went to pick up the China Girl, she didn't "fit" right -- the actors had no idea how to hold their hands properly around the China Girl. Still more problematic is that the visuals were inconsistent: the overly bright cartoon-y introduction to Oz was quite a different style from the outside shots outside of Glinda's castle. If only the art director(s) could have (a) picked a style for Oz and stuck with it and (b) done as good a job with the rest of the visuals as they did with the facial animations of the China Girl and the Flying Monkey. Yes, there is a friendly flying monkey. It's the baboons you have to watch out for.
Bottom line: the flying monkey is the best part of the movie.
Hopefully, I can pick up the torch again this weekend or early next week with The Host, which is one of my favorite books to read when I'm feeling reclusive and emo.
I'm not even a fan of the Wizard of Oz, and I was disappointed. The movie couldn't decide whether to take itself seriously or not. Oz was a womanizing magician, dissatisfied with his life spent in a small-time traveling circus. His character came off as flat and unchanging, which was a real problem for a movie plot that depended on the personality evolutions of Oz and the witch who became the Wicked Witch of the West. (The Witch was slightly better about showing character change.... but that's not saying much.)
Okay, so not enough depth, but it's got great music since it's the prequel to the Wizard of Oz, right? Sorry, strike two! There was one musical number but the Munchkins that Glinda cut off because she found it annoying. And the rest of the music in the movie was less than memorable, at best.
So, it won't win an Academy Award for Best Song, but it's Disney, so the visuals and CGI must be AWESOME, right? Strike three. The illuminating moment where Oz first encounters the magical, mystical, musical land of Oz fell flat because of fake-looking, overly cartoon-y scenery. At least Theodora seemed to fit in slightly better. When the movie had actual sets instead of relying on CGI, they looked pretty good. Case in point: in a trip to "Chinatown," a town made of china tea sets, the characters looked awkward and out of place (ironically, this includes the CGI monkey), but when Oz enters a tiny china abode, the set looked much better put-together. This is where Oz meets one of the major characters of the movie, which is a china doll (the China Girl -- smh) whose facial animations are actually rather good. Too bad the producers couldn't pony up for a motion-capture doll to use for filming the live actors with the China Girl because every time Oz or Glinda went to pick up the China Girl, she didn't "fit" right -- the actors had no idea how to hold their hands properly around the China Girl. Still more problematic is that the visuals were inconsistent: the overly bright cartoon-y introduction to Oz was quite a different style from the outside shots outside of Glinda's castle. If only the art director(s) could have (a) picked a style for Oz and stuck with it and (b) done as good a job with the rest of the visuals as they did with the facial animations of the China Girl and the Flying Monkey. Yes, there is a friendly flying monkey. It's the baboons you have to watch out for.
Bottom line: the flying monkey is the best part of the movie.
Hopefully, I can pick up the torch again this weekend or early next week with The Host, which is one of my favorite books to read when I'm feeling reclusive and emo.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Beautiful Dreamers... I mean, Creatures (Spoilers)
We resumed our movie-going on Valentine's Day with Beautiful Creatures, another fantasy movie based on a YA book. I went into this movie venture this year knowing that we would probably see movies that would be really stupid or disappointing or just not my thing. I was fully expecting Beautiful Creatures to be a shallow, overly angst-ridden movie with a terrible setting and horrible accents and a real disappointment. I went into the movie fully prepared to mock it the whole way through. You could say I had low expectations. I even refused to tell V what movie we were going to see before we got there.
But then I watched the movie, and I actually quite enjoyed it.
Beautiful Creatures is based on the book of the same name. Ethan is a teenager who can't wait to get out of his hometown of Gatlin, South Carolina, a Civil War-obsessed tiny town. He has been dreaming of a girl for months before she moves to town. Of course, they immediately fall for each other, despite the effort that Lena (the main girl character) puts forth to tell Ethan to leave her alone since "her people" can't mix with "his people." (Hint: his people are ordinary mortals.) It becomes an epic struggle over the balance of light and dark because she's, like, important and powerful and stuff. If this sounds pretty generic to you, that's what I was afraid of going into the movie.
When the movie started, Alden Ehrenreich (who plays Ethan) opened his mouth, and an abrasively fake southern accent came pouring out. I know that's how actors are trained with southern accents, but I halfway expected Forrest Gump to come running across the screen. (Have I mentioned that horrible fake southern accents are one of my pet peeves in movies? Not to mention that accents to change over time -- Americans sound much more generic now than they did seventy-five years ago.) Honestly, the Best Southern Accent Award should go to British actress Emma Thompson or American actress Viola Davis (who, according to IMDB, is actually from South Carolina).
In any case, the initial encounters between Ethan and Lena are somewhat predictable, despite supernatural elements involved, although Ehrenreich plays Ethan with enough charm to pull it off, and Alice Englert plays Lena as very quick-witted, which is what that character needs. It was also refreshing to see two teenaged characters who were actually pretty witty. In the end, however, it is the "adult" actors (I use quotation marks because while Alice Englert looks like she's turning nineteen, while Alden Ehrenreich looks like he's about to turn twenty-nine) who save the show. Their portrayals add enough depth to keep the background struggle between light and dark from appearing hopelessly shallow and add enough heft to the story to prevent it from falling flat. It is through their portrayals of Macon (Jeremy Irons), Serafin (Emma Thompson), and Amma (Viola Davis) that the narrative appears in three dimensions. It had heart.
Now, if they'd only portray real Christians instead of openly hypocritical cardboard cutouts, then we'd be getting somewhere. Okay, so maybe they came close with Amma.
In the end, Beautiful Creatures was good enough to see, but not good enough to buy when it comes out on DVD. I might give the book series another shot, though -- from the public library.
But then I watched the movie, and I actually quite enjoyed it.
Beautiful Creatures is based on the book of the same name. Ethan is a teenager who can't wait to get out of his hometown of Gatlin, South Carolina, a Civil War-obsessed tiny town. He has been dreaming of a girl for months before she moves to town. Of course, they immediately fall for each other, despite the effort that Lena (the main girl character) puts forth to tell Ethan to leave her alone since "her people" can't mix with "his people." (Hint: his people are ordinary mortals.) It becomes an epic struggle over the balance of light and dark because she's, like, important and powerful and stuff. If this sounds pretty generic to you, that's what I was afraid of going into the movie.
When the movie started, Alden Ehrenreich (who plays Ethan) opened his mouth, and an abrasively fake southern accent came pouring out. I know that's how actors are trained with southern accents, but I halfway expected Forrest Gump to come running across the screen. (Have I mentioned that horrible fake southern accents are one of my pet peeves in movies? Not to mention that accents to change over time -- Americans sound much more generic now than they did seventy-five years ago.) Honestly, the Best Southern Accent Award should go to British actress Emma Thompson or American actress Viola Davis (who, according to IMDB, is actually from South Carolina).
In any case, the initial encounters between Ethan and Lena are somewhat predictable, despite supernatural elements involved, although Ehrenreich plays Ethan with enough charm to pull it off, and Alice Englert plays Lena as very quick-witted, which is what that character needs. It was also refreshing to see two teenaged characters who were actually pretty witty. In the end, however, it is the "adult" actors (I use quotation marks because while Alice Englert looks like she's turning nineteen, while Alden Ehrenreich looks like he's about to turn twenty-nine) who save the show. Their portrayals add enough depth to keep the background struggle between light and dark from appearing hopelessly shallow and add enough heft to the story to prevent it from falling flat. It is through their portrayals of Macon (Jeremy Irons), Serafin (Emma Thompson), and Amma (Viola Davis) that the narrative appears in three dimensions. It had heart.
Now, if they'd only portray real Christians instead of openly hypocritical cardboard cutouts, then we'd be getting somewhere. Okay, so maybe they came close with Amma.
In the end, Beautiful Creatures was good enough to see, but not good enough to buy when it comes out on DVD. I might give the book series another shot, though -- from the public library.
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