Movie Comment: The Matrix Revolutions — Spoiler-free.

As any crowd of self-respecting geeks would do, me and my teammates booked our Matrix Revolutions tickets a few days ago. The skinny: I really liked it. It’s visually stunning. The plot moves sluggishly at times but makes many interesting points. Keanu still has the acting skills of a wooden board but that’s ok: he’s just a conduit for the story. The Neo-Trinity dialogs are throwaway romantic crap, but that has been true since the first movie and its infamous “Sleeping Beauty Kiss”. Hardly a show stopper.

Since most people want to see Revolutions after all the questions Reloaded left up in the air, I won’t post any spoilers. Suffice it to say that not all questions are answered, and the explanations aren’t likely to be what you expected. The movie was a lot of fun, though. It kept me on the edge of my seat. Particularly the parts about Zion’s resistance against the machines. Much better than Reloaded, not as good as the first Matrix.

Now, over the course of the next few days you’ll be hearing a lot of crap about this movie spouted by so-called “movie critics”. Bear in mind that this is a group composed mainly of guys who manage to quote Kant before saying “Good Morning”. These are the same people who lambasted Boondock Saints and Equilibrium, two amazingly fun movies. It would seem that having enough cultural baggage to spot the previous explorations of a subject and snobbishly point them out is what makes a person a movie critic these days. They’re like the overly eager nerd who sits in the front row and keeps answering all the questions just to remind the rest of us how smart he is (of course, many of us were that kid at some point or another, but if we’re lucky, we’ve outgrown that).

Movies should be fun. They should be judged based on themselves and the experience they provide. If a movie fails to entertain then it’s crap. Rehashing ideas previously presented by Kurt Vonnegut, Orson Welles or Aldous Huxley is not grounds for dismissal. Neither is using visual styles similar to other director’s. The day reading books and watching movies makes me bitter and sour and keeps me from enjoying other movies will be the day I stop reading or watching movies.

Sometimes a potato is just a potato. Some other times, there is no potato.

— sergio at 04:01 PM  

Movie Review: Tomb Raider 2.

I don’t usually review movies this bad because I figure everyone can realize that they suck after taking so much as a cursory glance at the Movie Poster, let alone the trailer. There are so many things wrong with this movie it’s hard to focus on particular ones, but I do have some personal favorites in the contest for the all-time most ridiculous piece of crap scene in a movie award.

First off: What’s with the Goddamned Shark??. Here we have Lara (Collagen-lips Angelina Jolie) doing her kicking ass act in a temple buried underwater, when she’s suddenly left without means of transportation back to the surface, so what she does (obviously) is cut her own arm to attract a shark with the blood, and when said half-ton animal is about to strike and presumably, eat her… SHE HITS HIM. Yep. In the nose. Very hard. Hard enough, apparently, to force the animal to make an incredibly cartoony and stupid face and let her hop on board, grabbing his dorsal fin and taking a ride to the surface.

…

For simplicity’s sake, let’s overlook the whole bubbles in the blood effect, which was blatantly ignored. There’s something about the very basic slugging-a-Shark-in-the-face action that makes me feel all squirmy and at a loss. Am I supposed to think Lara’s cool? Or maybe I’m supposed to enjoy the non-stop action rollercoaster ride?. I cowered in my seat at the stench of the poorly directed piece of shit, is what I did!. I can’t help but think this stuff came straight from the ass of a very sick marketroid at Paramount. Either that or the producer was on crack.

This scene would not be nearly as insulting hadn’t I seen the same kind of resource used masterfully by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon in their 12-issue miniseries that jumpstarted The Punisher Title again. Here’s the very witty piece of Comic that I’m talking about:

Click on image to see what this is about.

SEE THAT, LARA? THAT’s how you slug a giant beast in the head!. Pfft. Don’t watch Tomb Raider 2. If you hated the first one, you’ll hate this one even more. If you loved the first one well… What medication are you on? I could use some of that.

— sergio at 05:04 PM  

Movie Review: Titus

every single time I see a movie that is based off a Shakespeare play, I think to myself “Myself: wouldn’t it be cool to be reading this?”. Every-single-time, except, that is, when I saw Hamlet. That time, I kept thinking “Myself, wasn’t this cool back when you read it?”.

It kills me that people keep trying to do these stupid, lameass adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Whether it be Julie Taymor/Anthony Hopkins’ Titus, Almereyda/Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet, Whatsisname/Dicaprio’s Romeo + Juliet, or hell, even Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books (The Tempest), Shakespeare adaptations STINK!. There are several things wrong with them in general, and with Titus in particular. Let us begin with the general stuff:

Shakespeare was a good writer. Hell, you can practically distill Human Emotions from his plays. Therein lies the first problem: Shakespeare’s plays are nothing but elongated, overdramatized explorations of Human Emotion. Not prime movie material, if you ask me. But then, nobody asked me, or there wouldn’t be so many damn awful movies based on the things, right? Let’s take a look at the usual turns of events on Shakespeare’s plays, shall we? Well, there’s usually a lot of different characters who engage in despicable acts regardless of whether they are the good guys or the bad guys. These two definitions are always clearly marked. There’s romance, sex, jealousy, betrayal, revenge and usually a great deal of horrid mutilation of body parts. Sounds like every movie producer’s wet dream right? Hell yes!. And therein lies the problem: I think movie producers are making their decisions to adapt Shakespeare’s plays after reading the fucking blurb on the jacket of the books.

If they took a closer look at the plots (which would involve actually opening the book), they’d realize right away that there are many problematic elements movie-wise: The overly complicated plans either side makes are just ludicrous and hang on impossible assumptions (but later they work out almost exactly as the planner intended, because, apparently, the planee’s are just plain idiots). There’s also the matter of the poetic dismemberment: As cool as it sounds having someone lose their hands and get them replaced with tree branches, those things just don’t translate well to the screen. The action ends up looking corny and weird. Then there’s the matter of the insanity: Shakespeare wasn’t just a playwright. The man was a poet (a good one, at that). His trademarked insanity is taking me over dialogs read extremely well, but I strongly believe delivering Hamlet’s To be or not to Be… dialog with a straight face is one of the greatest accomplishments any movie actor can have. Too bad I’m not buying.

There is a simple truth that every movie producer that embarks in one of these ventures ignores: Shakespeare wrote for Theater. The mannerisms, the eloquence, the whole shebang is very well suited for grandiose live acting in huge stages. These are Farces, not fucking Action/Drama blockbusters for crying outloud! Case in point: Titus, from the Titus Andronicus play. This movie tells the story of a Roman General that comes back victorious from the war, makes an ill choice when presented with the chance to decide who will be the next emperor, and from then on embarks his whole family in a tale which includes the aforementioned sex, rape, mutilation, betrayal, revenge and even some cannibalism thrown in for good measure. As usual, the dialog is kept the same as in the original play, and, also as usual, the time period/wardrobe/props are given the proverbial finger. Anthony Hopkins delivers a great performance as Titus which, although having its moments, ultimately falls short of making an impression due mostly to the points I mentioned before. Rome is moved to present day, with motorbikes and cars replacing horses and chariots. The photography is good, although I found the cutscenes that represented ignominy and insanity overly pretentious and somewhat annoying. What I felt when the movie ended is that I should now go read Titus Andronicus and enjoy that movie in my head since it will definitely be much better than this one.

— sergio at 12:22 AM  

Me and some friends at work are starting to make a point of getting together to watch movies on Thursdays. Movie Thursdays is what we call them. We’re so clever.

Donnie Darko is a weird flick, make no mistake. Here we have this fucked up kid who happens to be a paranoid schizophrenic whose room gets squashed by a falling airplane turbine while he’s outside listening to an evil giant rabbit who’s predicting the end of the world. And that’s where it starts.

This movie could very easily fall into being a big budget episode of The Twilight Zone were it not for the little things. The nicely balanced camera panning/corny 80’s soundtrack sequences that are not done anymore just when you expect them again, the weird spiral paint on the jet turbine, the big, loud, desperate FUCK by Drew Barrymore and the little details that don’t quite fit and leave you wondering. These small things add to the whole experience. The One-Eyed Evil Giant Rabbit helps too. Overall, this is a nice, slightly upsetting movie.

Also, In case you were wondering (and I know you were):

Congratulations, you are Donnie Darko. You’re not afraid to speak what’s on your mind and tell people what you’re really thinking. You think about sex a lot and sometimes you wake up with your hands down your pants.

Which Donnie Darko character are you? by Shay

— sergio at 11:57 PM  

Movie Review: Adaptation

All kinds of art establish a relationship between artist and spectator. It is this connection that helps you, the observer, gain some insight into the artist’s mindset and proposition. Sometimes the message is buried under layers and layers of conceptualization. Some other times, the message is blunt and to the point.

Adaptation, the new offering by the same genial duo that gave us Being John Malkovich, is not so much a movie as it is a dialog between the Screenplay writer, Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage, finally putting that sad puppy dog face to good use), and you, the member of the audience.

The movie begins as Charlie is struggling with his laziness and general depressive mindset due to his incapability to produce a decent Script Adaptation of The Orchid Thief, a book about a “quixotic, charismatic schemer” (John Laroche, played brilliantly by Chris Cooper) and apparently charming musings on flowers and the obsession of men with them.

Charlie’s problem, you see, is that he loves the book. He respects the material, likes the characters, the musings and is developing an unhealthy, masturbatory infatuation with the author, Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep, who appears to be under bad lighting through the whole movie, to good effect). With the intent of being true to his source material, Charlie doesn’t want to make a movie that has violence, sex, drugs or car chases. He doesn’t want the lead character to grow or learn a valuable life lesson, he just wants to transmit that broody orchid musings feeling to the viewer. This proves to be quite a difficult task, due to the fact that nothing much actually happens in the book. What he ends up doing is writing a script about himself writing the script, which is what we get to see.

Charlie must also deal with his over enthusiastic twin brother Donald, who seems to be a physical representation of all the things Kaufman loathes about himself. Donald tries his hand at “this writing thing”, goes to a Seminar and ends up writing a laughable, quite sellable script that Charlie’s agent drools all over (it involves a kidnapper, victim and policeman that are actually the same person). Their story, which begins in the Malkovich set, has a great dynamic to it and succeeds in presenting us with the struggle in Kaufman’s head to produce something that will be both entertaining and True (in the broader sense of the word).

The first part of the movie is spent showing the confrontation between Charlie and Donald, as well as the story of how Susan Orlean met Laroche and wrote The Orchid Thief. This is all very entertaining, despite the fact that there’s not much happening. It is depressive and very true to Charlie’s intent for the script. That is, until he gives up to his -evil?- brother and they decide to look for something that Charlie’s script is missing. At this point, and through the villification of all that Kaufman held dear (the flower musings, the Script and the actual author of the book herself) the drugs, violence, sex and car chases begin. The fabled Ghost Orchid Susan frets about and claims to not have seen is actually a source for a drug that seems to act as the Marijuana from hell. Susan is shagging Laroche. Charlie discovers this and she tries to kill him for it. In the chaos that ensues, Donald suffers an accident and, before dying on his brother’s arms, conveys a valuable life lesson (great credit must be given to Jonze’s directing and pacing, because although I wanted to burst out laughing on this dramatic scene, I coudn’t), helping Charlie grow as a person, sell out and finish the script.

This movie was just plain exhilarating. The story jumps all over the place and finally ditches itself and goes out in a blaze of glory. It takes the Malkovich window into the mind premise one step further, making us spectators to the movie writing process through the product of said process. All voices in the movie are Kaufman’s. All the characters are used to advance the plot, which actually appears to be that Kaufman learnt some valuable lessons and decided to finally ground his movie with a dosage of old fashioned, marketable hollywood cliches he hates. This boggles the mind and is funny as hell to watch. Jonze’s directing style suits the script perfectly and special mention must go to the use of the blue screen -Donald and charlie, both played by Cage, are together in the same shot and talking to each other in numerous shots- and the greatly executed car crashes. I was very surprised to find out that The Orchid Thief is a real book, which adds to the overall self-mocking feel of the movie. Definitely a fun watch.

— sergio at 03:44 PM  

I think I hate myself. I must be inflicting punishment upon my own person for something awful I did that I don’t remember. There’s no other rational explanation to my having gone to see both Dreamcatcher and Tears of the Sun this weekend.

To be perfectly honest, I went into Dreamcatcher for the sole purpose of watching The last flight of the Osiris (an Animatrix short that was showing before the movie), which was everything I hoped. Made by the guys at Square Pictures (the same guys who made Final Fantasy: The spirits within — which, despite what the critics said, kicked serious ass), it shows a story aboard the Osiris, a human ship similar to the Nebuchadnezzar, Morpheus’ ship. I don’t want to give away the story, but you should seriously consider watching it. The story is good (written by the Wachowski brothers), the pacing is great and the animation is top notch. It even has a kinky, sexy part that will make you laugh.

Ok. About the actual movies: Dreamcatcher is one long winded piece of dog crap that is full of people who take themselves too seriously and deliver their lines in a ridiculously dramatic fashion (I actually burst out laughing two times in some of the more “dramatic” parts of the movie — that can’t be a good thing). Four telepathically linked friends (and their other retarded but all powerful friend) confront an alien invasion by what must be the most incompetent alien race in the history of movies (they make it seem so easy to invade and yet, they’ve been trying for 25 years without so much as a goddamned occupied city to show for it). You never get into trying to make sense of the plot, because every explanation is provided by the characters themselves (and usually involves some unbelievable fact from their lives), but don’t worry: in the end, the plot doesn’t make any sense, however you look at it.

The namesake of the movie, the dreamcatcher thing, doesn’t actually play a part in the movie, which is odd, since it is plastered all over the posters, trailers and whatnot. The dialog sucks, the story has an incredible amount of stuff happening at the same time. There are many, many really dumb, on-the-spot explanations. In case I haven’t made myself clear: this movie blows goats

Tears of the Sun is not really that bad, so much as it is nothing more than a carefully presented collection of all war movie cliches to date. I don’t think they missed any one of those, other that there was no soldier planning to move to Montana and start a farming business when “this damn thing is over” and then died. I have a strong suspicion that they didn’t miss it, but that the dialog got cut somewhere between the director and the theater, though.

Bruce Willis was good but his part lacked depth, and everyone else was halfway decent, except the woman doctor (Monica Belluci) who kept acting like a raindeer in the headlights and making stupid, life-threatening decisions (couldn’t she have sent Arthur in the chopper in the first place and saved herself a world of hurt??) and somehow bossing Willis around. The only cool thing about this movie was watching the equipment the soldiers carried (do they really use those neck-tied radios? those were nifty). Other than that, bleh.

— sergio at 04:22 PM  

Saw Lucía y el Sexo (sex and Lucia) yesterday. Franco-Spanish production. It was strangely attractive. The characters kept getting naked and engaging in pseudo-hard core pornographic situations for most of the first half of the movie. The story, however, is quite engaging.

I don’t like giving away details of the plot of movies like this, so I’ll only tell you that this one tells the story of Lucía (Paz Vega), a waitress that is in love with writer Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa), and how they affect and are affected by the lives of Elena (Najwa Nimri), her daughter, the girl who takes care of said daughter, her porn-star mother, her lover and the novel that Lorenzo is writing, which brings it all together.

It is a remarkable feat that the movie carries a story worthy of a soap opera in its unbelievable twists and turns and complex turns of events, and yet somehow manages to pull it off. You care for these people and actually believe in them and in this unlikely world they live in, where everyone is troubled by more problems than they can bear, and deserves a nice deal at the end. The emotional strip tease is much deeper than the physical, slapping you with raw, in-your-face emotions, specially at the end.

This one is definitely a your-mileage-may-vary kind of movie. There were people who left the theater early, and a lot more that couldn’t decide if they hated it, loved it or wanted to get some sleep. If you feel intrigued by this writeup, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it. If you don’t, at least be assured that all women in the movie are gorgeous and you get to see them naked a lot of times.

— sergio at 12:27 PM  

Went to see s1m0ne (what the hell? is l33t sp34k now considered cool??). It’s bad. Not your run-of-the-mill bad. It stinks with that oh, this movie could have been much better stench. You know it. You got it after Episode I, Episode II and will get it after Episode III.

Anyway, this movie tried to be a lot of things and got none of them right. It got off to a nice, stupid comedy start (which isn’t wrong in my book), but then, out of the blue it decided to somehow incorporate a romantic interest for Pacino’s character (that guy was so a schizophrenic) and no, it’s not the cgi character, which would have made more sense than him trying to shag his ex. Then we’re treated to a pseudo-serious treatment on how real is not so or whatever. Trust me, everyone has stopped caring by that point. That and the incredibly unlikely dialogue the supporting cast have to deliver make this piece of crap really unbearable for the last 40 minutes.

A friend of mine (Alan) has a category for this kind of movie: Redemption movies. In which hollywood people accept that they are a bunch of self-obsessed assholes on an ego-trip and think that self-awareness somehow makes everything right. Hey, we’re stupid, but we know it! so that’s cool, right?. God. Avoid this thing like the plague.

— sergio at 12:52 PM  

I just got back from Peter’s. We watched The Exorcist (incredibly, I had managed to go for all of 25 years without seeing it). Before I get into my rant about it let me just say that I’m not one of those Ohhh.. horror movies make me laugh-kind of guys. In fact, I find that a bit silly. What’s the point of watching horror movies if you don’t get scared??? Seems to me like those guys who brag about being able to drink two gallons of beer straight without getting drunk. It’s not sex, you idiots! there’s no prize for endurance!! and you’ll just end up spending more at the bar.

Ok. Rant aside: don’t get me wrong, of course Friday the 13th part 13 and a half or whatever will have you laughing your ass off all through the murder chain. Not this one, though. This one scares. I damn near shit my pants when freak-o-girl went down the stairs backwards. Thankfully, the dvd was all scratched to hell and it kept breaking down the image and ruining the mood or I would have had a stroke. This one gets a 10 in my Make-it-go-please-O-Meter. First of my Highly recommended movies, which is my made up category for movies that I like and you’d be a fool to miss. Out now.

— sergio at 12:05 AM