http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2515034
the gunman is sean penn's entry into the whole assassin-on-international-stage genre. i liked the grittiness and his essential humanity, but i think he played up the concussion thing too much. it seemed to serve no purpose other than to give the bad guys an advantage to key moments. i would have been happier if they had just made him an agent instead of a superagent with an obscure disability. or hell, just make him a superagent, those are fun to watch, too. superagents are allowed get old, you know. they get the job done more with thinking ahead and knowing what tricks to play than by having perfect aim and incredible physiques. it is fine, that is still entertaining. i would also have been happy if he had essentially revisited the photographer character from walter mitty and just given him a gun. i mention it because i felt like they were halfway there already. what was sean penn doing while walter mitty was chasing him around, anyway? probably shooting thugs.
the gunman gets two red flags.
2015-11-09
find me guilty
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419749
when a film is based on real life, that does not mean they are telling you a true story. it just means that something that happened in real life inspired somebody to write a screenplay, which was later edited and rewritten and interpreted into a movie that may or may not bear resemblance to the thing that really happened. find me guilty has a twist on the based-on-real-life thing in that it makes the claim that most of the courtroom dialogue is taken directly from the trial this movie was based on. however, if you pay attention to which dialogue they are showing you, it is pretty clear that very little of it is the stuff that would have been entered into the court record. opening and closing statements, sidebars, stuff in the judge's chambers, lunch conversations, running into the prosecutor in the hall, chatting before things get started for the day--all of that is off the record. so really, when they tell you that it was based on real life, they are telling you that they fabricated the story out of whole cloth. i find this annoying, and i would really like it if everybody would stop putting those "based on a true story" notices at the beginning of their movies, at least when the only point is to add some fake gravitas to the proceedings.
so there is that. otherwise, i loved that vin diesel was the guy. they did a great job of making him not look like a towering man-mountain, and he did a fabulous job of looking like the little boot-licking schmuck that the part called for.
find me guilty gets two sidebars and a your-honour-able mention for casting vin diesel as the schmuck.
when a film is based on real life, that does not mean they are telling you a true story. it just means that something that happened in real life inspired somebody to write a screenplay, which was later edited and rewritten and interpreted into a movie that may or may not bear resemblance to the thing that really happened. find me guilty has a twist on the based-on-real-life thing in that it makes the claim that most of the courtroom dialogue is taken directly from the trial this movie was based on. however, if you pay attention to which dialogue they are showing you, it is pretty clear that very little of it is the stuff that would have been entered into the court record. opening and closing statements, sidebars, stuff in the judge's chambers, lunch conversations, running into the prosecutor in the hall, chatting before things get started for the day--all of that is off the record. so really, when they tell you that it was based on real life, they are telling you that they fabricated the story out of whole cloth. i find this annoying, and i would really like it if everybody would stop putting those "based on a true story" notices at the beginning of their movies, at least when the only point is to add some fake gravitas to the proceedings.
so there is that. otherwise, i loved that vin diesel was the guy. they did a great job of making him not look like a towering man-mountain, and he did a fabulous job of looking like the little boot-licking schmuck that the part called for.
find me guilty gets two sidebars and a your-honour-able mention for casting vin diesel as the schmuck.
2015-10-31
skin trade
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1641841
skin trade is a huge pile of shit. just in case you get curious about what might be in the pile and be tempted to watch it, let me tell you what is in the pile. we have ron perlman playing a serbian mobster. or russian? no idea, and believe me when i tell you it does not matter. we have dolph lundgren, trying to make a comeback, and more or less performing at the same level he did when he was making 80s movies, which was just a notch above "turd sandwich". we have michael jai white, playing a completely predictable good-guy-gone-ambiguously-bad, which is essentially the role he always plays. let me tell you, that dude needs to make more stuff like blood and bone and less stuff where he "acts." and finally, there is tony jaa, who cannot seem to find a good role to play post-protector. i has a sad. so really the only good thing about skin trade was the skin, and it is hard to feel good about it when the skin in question has been kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped thousands of miles from its home.
skin trade gets one gratuitous south park reference.
skin trade is a huge pile of shit. just in case you get curious about what might be in the pile and be tempted to watch it, let me tell you what is in the pile. we have ron perlman playing a serbian mobster. or russian? no idea, and believe me when i tell you it does not matter. we have dolph lundgren, trying to make a comeback, and more or less performing at the same level he did when he was making 80s movies, which was just a notch above "turd sandwich". we have michael jai white, playing a completely predictable good-guy-gone-ambiguously-bad, which is essentially the role he always plays. let me tell you, that dude needs to make more stuff like blood and bone and less stuff where he "acts." and finally, there is tony jaa, who cannot seem to find a good role to play post-protector. i has a sad. so really the only good thing about skin trade was the skin, and it is hard to feel good about it when the skin in question has been kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped thousands of miles from its home.
skin trade gets one gratuitous south park reference.
mad max: fury road
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190
mad max is pretty much just a bunch of action that does not make a whole lot of sense. that is pretty normal for a modern film, though. the part that is driving me nuts is that i just cannot figure out the symbolism in this piece of shit. you can tell it is there--just look at the use of colours, the striking disfigurements, and the irrational behaviors--but what does it mean? what thread can we follow to piece it together?
for example, the scene with the old mothers and the new mothers has a dark bluish cast. notably, when they show the lovers, they are lit by a small lantern that changes the lighting to a thick yellowish cast before we go back to the dark blue for the part where max declares he will split from the group. this scene is followed by one where the lighting is an oversaturated yellow--max has split from the group, but then decides to rejoin them. so ok, why did the lighting change? are they reversing the usual meaning of blue and yellow in recognition of the desert-like landscape that covers much of this post-apocalyptic world? a soothing blue as a counterpoint to an oppressive yellow? but then why light the lovers in yellow? fuck if i know. maybe it was just night time.
a friend of mine told me that there was probably no symbolism. but i have to believe that somebody was trying to do *something*. otherwise, we are talking about a movie that is just a long string of things that are just stupidly wrong, such as a guy being drained of blood for twice as long as it should take to kill him while he is strapped to the front of a speeding car with no protective gear, then flopped around on the back of the car while it speeds through an impossibly localized storm system until the car crashes, and he not only survives this, but he wakes up before the other guy does and carries him and a heavy car door for a mile through the desert. then has a fight with a bunch of people who are pretty well rested and wins.
mad max: fury road gets one universal donor. if i judge it purely on its merits as an action movie, then it instead gets one guitar solo.
by the way, the part about the universal donor is surely symbolism. everywhere max goes, he has to set things aright. am i right or am i right? answer: yes.
mad max is pretty much just a bunch of action that does not make a whole lot of sense. that is pretty normal for a modern film, though. the part that is driving me nuts is that i just cannot figure out the symbolism in this piece of shit. you can tell it is there--just look at the use of colours, the striking disfigurements, and the irrational behaviors--but what does it mean? what thread can we follow to piece it together?
for example, the scene with the old mothers and the new mothers has a dark bluish cast. notably, when they show the lovers, they are lit by a small lantern that changes the lighting to a thick yellowish cast before we go back to the dark blue for the part where max declares he will split from the group. this scene is followed by one where the lighting is an oversaturated yellow--max has split from the group, but then decides to rejoin them. so ok, why did the lighting change? are they reversing the usual meaning of blue and yellow in recognition of the desert-like landscape that covers much of this post-apocalyptic world? a soothing blue as a counterpoint to an oppressive yellow? but then why light the lovers in yellow? fuck if i know. maybe it was just night time.
a friend of mine told me that there was probably no symbolism. but i have to believe that somebody was trying to do *something*. otherwise, we are talking about a movie that is just a long string of things that are just stupidly wrong, such as a guy being drained of blood for twice as long as it should take to kill him while he is strapped to the front of a speeding car with no protective gear, then flopped around on the back of the car while it speeds through an impossibly localized storm system until the car crashes, and he not only survives this, but he wakes up before the other guy does and carries him and a heavy car door for a mile through the desert. then has a fight with a bunch of people who are pretty well rested and wins.
mad max: fury road gets one universal donor. if i judge it purely on its merits as an action movie, then it instead gets one guitar solo.
by the way, the part about the universal donor is surely symbolism. everywhere max goes, he has to set things aright. am i right or am i right? answer: yes.
2015-10-12
the martian
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388
the martian was ok. they chose to tell it largely via the martian's video blog, no doubt influenced by the similar gimmick of the mission log used by the book. they made it work, mostly by supplementing the video log with normally-shot scenes, but it was pretty awkward. it did do a good job of breaking up the storytelling to let matt damon get introspective and add some humour. too much winking at the camera, but i appreciate that they gave it their best shot.
if i had to point at just one thing that i liked, it would be the technical accuracy. most movies that get technical fall down so hard that you can tell they blew it with your high school physics knowledge, but i think you would have had to had some fairly specific knowledge to see the bugs in this one. the standard is so low, you do not really have to do a good job with technical accuracy, so i really appreciated it here. i did not read the book, but my understanding is that the kudos should mostly be shoved in that direction.
the martian gets three slingshots and a velocity match. hi chewy!
the martian was ok. they chose to tell it largely via the martian's video blog, no doubt influenced by the similar gimmick of the mission log used by the book. they made it work, mostly by supplementing the video log with normally-shot scenes, but it was pretty awkward. it did do a good job of breaking up the storytelling to let matt damon get introspective and add some humour. too much winking at the camera, but i appreciate that they gave it their best shot.
if i had to point at just one thing that i liked, it would be the technical accuracy. most movies that get technical fall down so hard that you can tell they blew it with your high school physics knowledge, but i think you would have had to had some fairly specific knowledge to see the bugs in this one. the standard is so low, you do not really have to do a good job with technical accuracy, so i really appreciated it here. i did not read the book, but my understanding is that the kudos should mostly be shoved in that direction.
the martian gets three slingshots and a velocity match. hi chewy!
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