Tim’s Movie Review Bonanaza

// Filed under: Entertainment on Thursday July 21st 2005, 8:44 pm

Sin City
Sin City can be summed up as follows: This is my new favourite movie. Of all time. Being quite the Frank Miller fanboy, although having never read the actual Sin City comics, (as that would necessitate their purchase from a comic book store, and forking out $35 each for Hellboy comics was difficult enough) I was understandably quite hyped to see this movie, which was touted as the most faithful comic book adaptation yet. And I was not disappointed. In fact I can think of nothing, not a thing which disappointed me. It was simply the most stylish, well-written and flawlessly executed piece of concentrated awesomeness I have ever had the fortune to witness.

The cinematography was beautiful. The acting, beyond compare (although Clive Owens is a bit hammy). The CGI, absolutely flawless, and breathtakingly mixed into the normal footage, especially on the car chases, amazing. And the whole thing was just so, so unbelievably stylish. That word, more than any other, captures the feel of this film. It oozes style from every frame. This movie is style. I loved it so much, I could see it again. And I’ve never said that about a movie before, but I would happily, nay eagerly, pay to see this movie again.

Batman Begins
Hands-down the best Batman film to date. Hands. Down. It was great to finally see someone taking the material seriously, instead of the ludicrously over-played neon-lights-rubber-nipples-on-the-batsuit approach taken in recent years. Finally, a Batman that is dark, gritty and painfully human. Plus the movie had Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Liam Neeson in it. In the same movie! Surely such a large concentration of awesome, venerable old actors would have torn some kind of hole in the spacetime fabrics, but no. No, instead it was just a thoroughly cool movie which I greatly enjoyed.

Fantastic Four
If anybody ever asks you to go and see Fantastic Four, you need to immediately do the following: Kick them in the face. Hard. Then, while they’re bleeding and gasping from confusion, grab everything they’ve ever owned or touched, douse it in gasoline and burn it. Wait until their friends come to investigate the fire, and quickly push them in, head first. Don’t let the screams bother you, you’re serving a higher cause now. Now you’re almost done. Ring around and find out where all the nearby cinemas are on the same continent. Grab the leg of one of the friends of our original offender, and carrying it as you would a flaming brand, run to each of these cinemas and go through the building, clubbing all the employees to death with it. Then use this flaming brand to set fire to the cinema. Then run back to the original bonfire and repeat the process with another limb, until all cinemas have been suitable cleansed. Now you are finished and can go back to enjoying your day.

See, the real problem with Fantastic Four is that to call it merely shit would be a lie. See, calling it shit would indicate it had quality, even in a negative sense. As in, this movie has the dimension of quality, unfortunately it is of bad quality. However Fantastic Four was not like that. It was like watching a blank screen for 90 minutes, except that blank screen had stuff on it. People. Something to do with superpowers or something. Anyway, the point is: Fantastic Four was a total and complete non-event. I left the movie theatre feeling as though I’d sat in a chair and been asleep for the duration, with a vague sense of unease. I went in with no expectations, and I was still disappointed. And that shouldn’t be possible.

And von Doom! What the hell was that? It was like the whole movie was building up to this final, climatic battle and then BAM. Over in less than a minute. And full of lame lines about physics lessons. Okay, the special effects were alright but good God people, that doesn’t make up for the rest of what could generously be called a film being entirely devoid of anything remotely filmy. And Stan Lee! Why must he continue with his hackneyed, overacted cameo roles, the disgusting industry-figureheading old bag? Why? Your time is dead and gone, old man! Sure, you wrote the original Fantastic Four, Spider Man, X-Men, all that gubbins, and we love you for that but your comics sucked massive donkey balls. Maybe they were good by the standards of 40 years ago, in fact I’m sure they were since that’s why you’re so successful, but just fade gracefully out of the public eye and do us all a favour.

Conclusion
See Sin City, and right now. If you don’t see it on the big screen you’ll see it later on TV or something and you’ll kick yourself. So see it now. See Batman Begins if you’re a comic book fan, as it’s quite excellent, and you’ll enjoy it even if you don’t like Batman much, it’s that well done.

Don’t see Fantastic Four or I will hunt you down and set fire to your teeth. That is all.

// 2 Comments

I Make Old Women Happy

// Filed under: Life on Friday July 08th 2005, 1:16 pm

With cariacatures, of course. Ahem.

// 5 Comments

War Of The Worlds

// Filed under: Entertainment on Friday July 01st 2005, 4:43 pm

So, I saw War Of The Worlds last night (only realising halfway through it that it was actually the opening night). And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thoroughly. I mean that in the most literal sense of the word, I enjoyed it from beginning to end. It was dark, it was subtle, it was powerful and it was evocative. All this in spite of Tom Cruise playing the main character. Genius, I know.

Anyway, back to lavishing praise on said movie. The storytelling was excellent. I was expecting it to be a slightly-better-than-usual-alien-invasion story, but in fact it took the whole “aliens-invade-Earth” schtick and spun it on its head, treating the whole exercise more as a documentary than a movie. It was refreshing to see the effect and the impact of a terrifying and implacable alien invasion on a family already fraught with emotional issues, and watch the way they handle it as best they can in a world already spiralling out of control around them.

The special effects in particular were magnificent. Technically they were flawless, but that was not the beauty of them - no, that lay in the fact that they were carefully managed so as to not overpower the movie itself, blending seamlessly into the storyline and enhancing it rather than replacing it.

There were only a few minor niggles I had - namely that a man, in fact several, were still able to operate their video cameras after an EMP blast which had disabled every other thing with an electrical circuit. Also that aliens have amazing technology which can vapourise people, level cities, etc, and yet they still rely on a glorified tentacle camera to find people in the darkness of a basement? Surely such an advanced race would have an infra-red scanner of some kind, or a heat-sensitive ocular device. I mean we have such devices, and we’re not capable of building walking tripod-death-machines or traversing the cold void of space to wage war upon another species. But obviously such devices are beyond the reach of this advanced alien race which has built walking tripod-death-machines and has traversed the cold void of space to wage war upon another species.

And also that, as to be expected, once aliens started invading in visible force, people just start running like sheep. Why does everybody run in a crisis? Why does nobody huddle in their basements, break out Monopoly and just go for it and wait for the aliens to stop with all the killing already? They all congregate towards highways and main streets and stumble along with their precious belongings, or desperately try to drive somewhere, anywhere, as long as they’re moving. Why? What purpose does it possibly serve? Gathering together only makes it easier for aliens to track, spot and slaughter you all in quick succession, or for a comet to kill more of you in a disaster movie, or for Tom Cruise to convert more of you to Scientology faster.

Speaking of which, the movie was totally devoid of thinly veiled Scientology references. I was very disappointed. I wish I could meet some Scientologists. All I have to make fun of is Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and they really do a good enough job of that on their own without me helping. Damn you ridiculous Scientology-beleiving jerks, where are you when I need you to help me form my own laughable cult bent on world domination? Nowhere, that’s where.

// 6 Comments

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