By now, you’ve probably heard of a little movie called Watchmen. It’s based on an excellent graphic novel by Alan Moore, the man responsible for V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and From Hell. All of those have been turned into somewhat successful movies, but none of them (except for maybe V for Vendetta) really captured the whole look and feel of a graphic novel. Watchmen does this, and achieves this feat with style, intense action, and yes, an unnecessary amount of blue penis.
But I digress. You probably want to know some background on this wild and wacky story. The easiest way to explain it is to think about it this way: Watchmen tells the story of people in the 1980s who put on “super hero” costumes, go outside, and beat up bad guys. Eventually it comes to the conclusion that you have to be a tad bit of a psychopath to even try playing dress up/murder. None of these guys actually have any powers, save for the owner of the blue penis, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, who actually gives a soul to this blue muscly man), who has all powers. The good Dr. sees time like an ocean; he can experience the past as clearly as the present or the future. Oh, and he can manipulate all matter, i.e. make mofos explode by thinking it. Neat! Next up you’ve got your short, muscled, masked guy, who is basically insane, called Rorschach (how do you perceive him, good or bad? ooooh), played expertly by Jackie Earle Haley who was oh so great/creepy in Little Children. Rounding out the cast we have a guy who is an expert in technology named Owly Mc Owlerson, the token babe who is just trying to live up to her mom’s legacy, and The Smartest Man in the World. I didn’t make that title up, Matthew Goode is Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias, the guy who smartly commercialized his super-exploits, and his comrades for a hefty profit, making him an eccentric billionaire. Read the rest of this entry »
First of all, I had no idea until that motherfarkin’ Barbara Walters Special aired that g’d love-him-yet-hate-him Hugh Jackman was hosting. That guy is a freakin’ conundrum, isn’t he? One minute he’s cutting mofos up in the trailer to Wolverine, then, the next minute, he dances, sings, and charms his way into your heart. He was a pretty good host, I think. Charming, not on screen too much (at one point someone quipped that he was napping) and when he was there, he did a dance or some shit, which was entertaining enough, and of course he’d pull Beyoncé or someone else out of thin air to help him out. He didn’t even make a long boring monologue, just made some dumb jokes. He gets a pass; host 12 times.
My favorite addition was definitely having 5 past award recipients say something nice about the nominees, instead of just a camera cutting to them when the presenter is speaking their name. This was a nice touch, and really let you reflect on the history of the awards, and what it means to win those coveted acting awards. Read the rest of this entry »
Development in long-range travel and the growing importance of the Arctic and Antarctic regions make it necessary to understand how maps may be misleading. Experiments with a grapefruit illustrate the difficulty of presenting a true picture of the world on a flat surface and it is concluded that the globe is the most accurate way of representing the earth. – National Film Board, Canada
Darren Aronofsky new movie, The Wrestler will punch you in the throat, bodyslam you and then top-rope-flying-headbutt your ass straight into next week. This is all possible because of some truly fantastic performances by Mickey Rourke, as 80’s Wrestling Superstar Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, Marisa Tomei as Cassidy, the aging stripper/mom, and Evan Rachel Wood as Randy’s estranged daughter, Stephanie. This movie is about as realistic as movies get; the cinematography by Maryse Alberti (Taxi to the Dark Side) is top-notch, the score by frequent Aronofsky collaborator Clint Mansell is haunting and effective, and the script by former Onion writer Robert D. Siegel is punchy, unpredicatble and heartfelt.
The story is initially very basic, but there are a few good twists thrown in too. Randy works as a stock guy during the week and wrestles the independent circuit on the weekend. His matches are usually given main event status, and in the locker room he’s treated as a god. It is during those brief minutes in the ring that Randy truly feels alive. Broke, locked out of his trailer and in declining health, Randy appears close to ruin at every turn. After a particularly brutal match, curtosey of a small promotion called Combat Zone Wrestling, Randy is left shattered, unsure of his place in the world.
He tries to make a real connection with Cassidy the stripper, and they develop a strange romance; but it seems doomed from the offset, because even if they aren’t in th strip club, Cassidy thinks of him as a paying customer. Eventually, with a little help from Cassidy, Randy attempts to reconcile his relatonship with his daughter; the only picture he has of her is about 8 years old, he obviously has been estranged from her for quite some time. When they do get together, their emotional bond leaps off the screen; when they fight, you feel it all the way to your toes. This is really powefull acting here, folks. Mickey Rourke has already won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for Best Actor. Read the rest of this entry »
A couple of days ago, I randomly decided to watch the mockumentary “Confederate States of America,” which depicts how our nation would’ve been shaped if the south had won the Civil War. The documentary parts are…meh…but the fake commercials that come in between are extremely offensive, but funny in a Chappelle’s show kinda way. Whilst the credits role, we come to find out that “ZING! MOTHER FUCKERS!” the products were all actually promoted in the united states…for real. Yikes…suddenly the movie is less funny and more scary.
More fake commercials from the movie after the jump:
David Cronenberg’s 1983 sci-fi/horror film Videodrome is a strange and sometimes shocking vision about the impact of television on our psyche, the relationship between the perceived reality of television and our world of technological worship.
James Woods’ Max Renn is a sleazy TV station owner. He broadcasts porn and violence, the usual subversive stuff. Looking for new programming, he comes across a mind-alerting show called Videodrome. Videodrome is a snuff show, featuring women who are tortured and murdered; Max thinks it’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen, the future of television.
On a TV talk show, Max meets Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry of the band Blondie) a masochistic radio host who is soon in Max’s apartment, watching a tape of Videodrome. They both begin to get sucked into the tape; Nicki wants to get on the show, while Max starts hallucinating, or at least thinks he’s hallucinating. First, his television begins to talk to him. Then, his body starts to transform too. Read the rest of this entry »
I watched Elf, the Will Ferrel movie, a couple times over the holidays. I’d seen it before, but for some reason hadn’t remembered it being as good as I found it during this recent holiday season. A few things came to mind. Note in the following commentary that I’m neither religious nor especially well-read, so I apologize in advance if I sound glaringly uninformed.
Although the ending feels forced and contrived, I thought this was a very entertaining movie. Will Ferrel is a tall guy, so his Buddy the Elf is not only a giant among elves but bigger than most humans. While at first take he appears to suffer from schizophrenia, after a couple minutes it becomes clear to any sympathetic interlocutor that he’s more or less in charge of all his mental facilities, due to his force of personality and readiness to defend his position. He debates both a coworker and a boss on what it’s like in the north pole and on how natural it is to sing (especially in the north pole). Anyone with a hermeneutic of generosity for Buddy the Elf realizes that he’s not crazy, but inspired.
It occurred to me that the whole movie might be interpreted as a Christian allegory, and I wondered whether this is accidental or intentional. Replace “on the naughty list” with “going to hell at the present rate”, “belief in Santa Claus” with “belief in Christ”, and “Christmas gifts” with “divine gifts”, and the rest works itself out. Faith is discussed explicitly, and some of the main rules of religion–no salvation without faith–are affirmed. Singing isn’t something you do in the north pole, it’s something you do in church. The father, meanwhile, undergoes repentence, finding himself eventually back on Santa’s nice list. How very American: good, clean humor that’s pseudo-explicitly religious.
Another thing I picked up on, whether or not intended by the filmmakers, is that Buddy the Elf seems to be based on Dostoyevsky’s Mishkin in The Idiot. Mishkin, having spent several years in Norway with a doctor who was treating his epilepsy, goes to Russia to make contact with his remaining family. Everyone is taken by his apparent simplicity, but it becomes evident that he is capable of great depth of thought and action. Also, he gets along well with children and falls in love with a mean woman. Here the resemblance ends, as Buddy’s relationship with his family strengthens and improves throughout the film, while Mishkin’s family distanced themselves from him. Also, Buddy eventually managed to score with his girlfriend and turn her good, whereas Mishkin failed at this. Interestingly, Mishkin, according to whatever literary authorities, is Christ, so since Buddy is based on Mishkin…
Next time: commentary on the phallus represented by the whale that sees off Buddy on his journey out of the north pole.
By now, you’ve probably heard of a little movie called Watchmen. It’s based on an excellent graphic novel by Alan Moore, the man responsible for V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and From Hell. All of those have been turned into somewhat successful movies, but none of them (except for maybe V for Vendetta) really captured the whole look and feel of a graphic novel. Watchmen does this, and achieves this feat with style, intense action, and yes, an unnecessary amount of blue penis.
