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Apparently I'm the Only One Who Enjoyed this Movie (LINK)

June 21st 2008 22:48

Constantine is a movie that a lot of people don't like. I understand the people who don't like it from the POV of having read the comic and don't like the film adaptation there of, but I thought it was a neat little movie about a girl, demons, and snarky comments.

To catch people up who haven't seen it yet: John Constantine (played by Keanu Reeves) is a chain-smoking demon hunter. Cursed with the ability to see the half human, half otherworldly that walk among us, he rids the Earth of half-demons who stray across the line. He also happens to be dying of lung cancer, which doesn't prevent him from lighting up every time the camera happens upon him. Worse, though, is that he's condemned to hell. He is solicited for help by Detective Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) who is suspicious of her twin sister's apparent suicide and believes that it might be... something in Constantine's realm of knowledge. Turns out that it is, big shock, and the plot leads from there to the climax at the end which I consider a mild twist.

I found this movie visually interesting- especially the Hell sequences- I liked Constantine as a character. It's hard to be that much of a dick and still likable, but I suppose anybody's willing to forgive someone who's dying of cancer- I like Angela as his foil, too. And I'm going to say this: I have a hard time with how underrated Keanu Reeves is as an actor. I don't think he's the BEST ACTOR EVER or anything like that, I think he acts about as well as Tom Cruise (who is way over-rated in my opinion). Yeah, Cruise isn't doing too well anymore, but that's because he's got a touch of the crazy and it shows. But for God's sake, people, Bill and Ted was over 15 years ago- let it go.

In Ebert's not very favorable review he wonders why it's so common for Catholicism to be associated with movies about Satan (in this movie the Beast is played by Peter Stormare), and I think it's because there's a lot of Catholic mysticism- holy rites and stuff- that make it better suited for movies like this.

Anyway, I don't think this is a hugely great movie, or the best one ever, but I think it's very underrated and I think you should always give movies like this at least one shot. But maybe I'm too generous.

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Heavenly Creatures - Peter Jackson (LINK)

June 14th 2008 06:45

This has been in my Netflix queue, working it's way up, and I finally got to watch it the other day. I've been looking forward to it, and I wasn't disappointed.

Kate Winslet played Juliet Hulme in her movie premier, co-starring with Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Yvonne Rieper. These two 14-year-olds met when young Juliet moved to New Zealand and started at Pauline's school. They soon discovered much in common, and started their novel. They created clay figures to match their characters, and soon begin to call each other by the names of the characters. They write each other in character. They are deep within their fantasy world, and their friendship intensifies to the point where their parents become extremely concerns.

When Juliet's health fails and she's to be sent somewhere for her health, they discovered that they would be ripped apart. In their desperation and fear, they plan to do the very worst to remain together and friends.

This movie was slow moving in a sense, it had a lazy and lethargic feel to it. You really get to know the characters, so that their act is more shocking and understandable. You get to know their fantasy world in fantastic and amusing sequences, you see how deep it has it's hold in them. It's not a fast movie, although the pace picks up in the last the 20 minutes. But you sort of live in the Indian Summer of the girls' fantasy until reality rears it's ugly head.

I really enjoyed it but this is definitely one of those movies that not everybody is going to like, it's pace is not suited for some (my boyfriend was bored) and some people won't get into the girl's relationship. Also, you'll have to keep track of names a bit, that can be a little confusing. There are definitely some lesbian tones to the piece, and if that bothers you, I'd steer clear. But the story is very good, and I recommend it.

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Combing the Oldies: Part 2 Soylent Green (LINK)

June 9th 2008 04:27

Soylent Green was a movie I'd heard about all over the place but haven't seen yet. There's a reference to it in Futurama, and you can't be on the internet without stumbling across the punchline- er- final twist in the movie. My boyfriend who's never seen the movie started yelling it when I mentioned the movie.

In case you don't know, Soylent Green is a movie set in the dystopian future of 2022 (and considering that this movie was released in 1973, that was the distant future indeed) where overcrowding and the earth heating up has created a food crisis. For the privileged few there's hot and cold running water, air conditioning, real fruit and vegetables, brandy. For everyone else you find the nearest clear spot to eat, and you have your choices between Soylent Yellow, Soylent Red, and Soylent Green (when the last is available). Soylent Green is plankton gathered from the ocean, and is by far the most popular of the three. When they run out, riots tend to occur. The late, great Charlton Heston played Detective Robert Thorn and investigates a murder that occurs to one of the rich and powerful.

That's where our movie really begins. And I have to say, it was an interesting suspense movie. It really held up well- everybody who's not rich and powerful is obviously filthy. Water is a precious resource too, you see, and those who don't have are forced to ration their water supplies. In fact, every resource is restricted for those who don't have. When Thorn investigates the murder of a rich man by the name of Simonson (played very briefly by Joseph Cotten) he goes around the apartment grabbing everything he can get his hands on.

And there's no disguising it, he blatantly kleptos whatever he can get his hands on, including the bar of soap in the bathroom (only he calls it a cake of soap, which made me giggle a little- inadvertently dating the movie). He stuffs everything he finds into a pillow case. He makes a reference to 'furniture' which I didn't get for a moment.

There's a girl, and apparently she comes with the apartment. She's the furniture. The little feminist who sits on my shoulder started jumping up and down with rage, and I had to put her in a cage for the rest of the movie.

He takes his stolen goods, including the brandy and the soap and some books I didn't see him nick, as well as the paper the statement from Simonson's guard was written on, home to his friend and 'book' Sol. I don't think that Thorn can actually read, but Sol is also a wealth of information aside from just interpreting the books for Thorn. Sol lived in the world before it changed (moved on, as the Gunslinger might say) and remembers it very fondly. It's obvious that this new, hot place seems alien to him. There's a deep friendship between Sol and Thorn, it's definitely a major component of the movie.

The tension builds as Thorn investigates the murder of Simonson, which appeared to be a burglary gone wrong to the untrained eye. Of course, it was actually an assassination, which Thorn cottons on to very quickly. It turns out Simonson was a big-wig for the Soylent corporation, and everything is highly fishy to Thorn.

There is a point made appallingly clear about death and murder at one point in the movie. In the course of investigating the murder of the very wealthy Simonson he comes across a corpse. You see Thorn stop, grab the arm of the dead woman. He seems to feel for a corpse, and then feels the rope tied around her wrist. He follows it to another small arm, and pulls the rope off the wrist of the child. He picks it up and carries the screaming child into the church. He doesn't call anybody, doesn't ask any questions, he just plucks up a child and hands it to one of the nuns when he gets inside. It seems to be the best he can do.

I also wondered why they didn't give the police a few luxuries- to keep them complacent. It's easier that way. And then I realized that he and Sol had their own place- when it shows him clambering over people (and doing his gallant best not to sleep on any of the sleeping and unwashed poor on the steps) on his way out you realize what a luxury that really is.

Thorn's superior tries to call him off, and although he already suspects it's big, and that confirms it for him. He doesn't find out just how big until the end, when his 'Book' Sol decides that it's too big, and he has to 'go home'. Going home is a euphemism used for euthanasia. The burden that he bore after he found out the secret combined with the burden that Sol bore as an old man in a world he didn't recognize, and he decided it was time to go.

This was a very emotional scene, Thorn caught up as Sol's death was in-progress. There was two-way glass, and a very emotional conversation. I've read that the actor who played Sol, Edward G. Robinson, died just days after production ended on the movie, and that Heston was the only one on set that knew Robinson had cancer. That scene touched me very much.

The movie really picks up momentum at the end, when Thorn follows the bodies out to a plant, where they're processed.

After a lot of fighting, Thorn makes it back to town, where he gasps out his gruesome discovery to a crowd of on-lookers and police, yelling it as he's carried away on a stretcher.

The movie, made over thirty years ago, really stands up. There's definitely some feminism issues that makes me twitch (the 'furniture' falls in love with Thorn) but they aren't the focus of the movie. The real focus is this dystopian world in which the worst seems to be happening, and I found myself drawn into it. I think that if you're a fan of Dystopian Science Fiction (though I hesitate to categorize it so) you could do worse than to see this film, regardless of how you feel about the late Heston's gun enthusiasm. There is no reliance on special effects (a few establishing shots are mattes, but that's expected) the movie derives all of it's strength from acting. It's well-done and believable, and it sucked me in. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you catch this particular oldie, it is one that isn't over-rated.

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Combing for Oldies Part 1: The Crow (LINK)

June 6th 2008 21:19

Since there hasn't been much out recently, I've been searching through the backlogs and catching up on movies I've managed somehow not to see. And although it may be a technical point, The Crow is over 10 years old. Film history isn't so long that 10 years is a small amount of time, and we've made such huge leaps since then that I don't mind calling it an oldie.

I started with the Crow, the movie that launched a bajillion goths. Starring Brandon Lee as Eric Draven on a vengeful path to kill everyone who made him and his girlfriend dead as dead. Oh, and there's a young girl involved, her mom's a druggy and Draven straightens her out, and... well, honestly the anti-drug message is sort of a bludgeon instead of a finely honed tool, but this isn't really a subtle movie. He kills everyone, and the ending is pretty happy- especially considering it's a Goth movie

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REVIEW: Left in Darkness (LINK)

May 16th 2008 20:45

I recently obtained NetFlix, and the 'watch as many movies as you want online' is completely awesome to me. So I was browsing to see what I should watch, and came across this little gem with an interesting description.

Starring Monica Keena as Celia and David Anders as her mysterious guardian Donovan, this movie is about a young woman who was drugged, raped, then overdosed and died. When she dies she remains in the house where she died, and she has two hours to figure out what to do before she is completely vulnerable to angry creatures that want her soul. Two hours to find the door to heaven, as it were

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Vampires versus Zombies (I'm Rambling)

May 6th 2008 09:16

Zombies and Vampires are two sides of the same monster coin, they both are the 'undead' that consume human flesh, which kills said human.

Take the Zombie in modern cinema- zombie-ism is generally regarded as a disease. In 28 Days Later a man wakes up in a post-apocalyptic London to find that a disease has turned London's population into... something different. Combining modern fear of infectious diseases with a nearly primal fear of the walking dead, Zombie films tend to strike that chord of terror much easier than Vampire films

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Three Movies I'll Sell my Soul to See in the Theater

April 24th 2008 20:35

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been ill all week. So instead of doing real work, I want to talk about the three summer movies that have me creaming my jeans- er, metaphorically speaking...

I generally don't go see movies in the theater. Having the movie on a big screen in that sound system only really enhances the experience of some movies. Death Proof? Awesome. Keeping Mum- not really necessary. So I'm normally pretty 'meh' about seeing a movie in the theater. This summer, there are three that WILL happen

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Why I Enjoy Bad Movies

April 18th 2008 06:42

Some people, I know, go out and watch bad movies to write reviews and dis them. I am, by the way, absolutely NOT coming down on anybody for that, it's hilarious, and I enjoy it.

I actually enjoy watching most movies, no matter how bad it is- sometimes especially if it's bad. There's multiple reasons- sometimes the lines are so bad it's horribly cheesy, it's just funny. And I don't care if it's self-aware or not- deliberately bad movies are just as funny as anything that's done in a sincere manner. Some people think intention makes it funny, some think it ruins the effect, I don't care either way. The sincerity comes from the reading of dialog

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Sleuth, the Remake (LINK)

April 16th 2008 07:06

Normally remakes bring out a snarl from me. I'm grumpy about remakes. I've seen about 30 bazillion remakes. I could ramble about how there's no creativity left in Hollywood anymore, but that's an old song and I think everyone knows the lyrics.

But I saw Sleuth on the shelf (featuring Jude Law and Sir Michael Caine) and it was calling my name. I scanned the back just enough to decide that it was basically the same plot

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Films that Could Have, but Didn't

April 14th 2008 05:10

Just as a note: I've been painting the house for the last few days, and haven't been able to update as often. I know it's not really that big a deal, but I didn't vanish off the face of the planet.

I'm also going to be discussing the details of some movies: The Number 23, Dragon Wars, Secret Window, and Tamara. If you are planning on seeing any of these movies and don't want the endings ruined, go ahead and move along. The warning may seem a little silly, but I like to be as fair as possible

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June 2008

4 Posts

May 2008

2 Posts

April 2008