Category: review

Sorta Review: Surveillance (movie) & Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (game)

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It’s hard to review a movie made for incomprehensible reasons. It’s like wanting to review food from a restaurant, but you’re not sure if they wanted to make an italian dish, or some sushi. They probably just failed. but since it isn’t clear what they wanted to do, it’s hard to say how they fucked up.

Surveillance is Jennifer Lynch’s second film. I watched it because I want to (unfairly) compare her to her father. See if anything rubbed off. And yet, whenever I saw anything that resembled a lynch moment, i found myself cringing. (like: a slow shimmering push-in on a police station with a bricked up window, covered by a droning industrial noise).

Uh. i don’t really have the patience to try and review this movie properly. … why am i writing this? Continue reading “Sorta Review: Surveillance (movie) & Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (game)” →

Psychological Archetypey typey

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watching “joseph Campbell Mythos 1” a series of lectures, that will supposedly present the entirety of his unique perspective (on the unities through all cultures, outside of time, instead of the usual focus on differences at certain times). Blah blah, you have to seek it. I can’t summarize. a summary would be “mythologies serve us in 4 ways: mystical, cosmological, socialogical and pedagogical. it’s so boiled down it’s useless. blah blah. look it up if you’re interested.

The video so far has me thinking of a few things that i wanted to jot down. (and where better than this creative pursuits journal?) Continue reading “Psychological Archetypey typey” →

in the rhyme of sickness

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been pretty damned sick for several days now. i seem to have covered the entire spectrum of sick activities and unhappinesses. do we all go through this? why does it seem like “i can’t think straight for all the dizziness and congestion” is just a stage before “its in my chest now, so I’m tired and my throat hurts.” with possible side roads through vomit and bowels and such. i’m frustrated by the lack of anything new. and the time wasted.

thursday was spent out of my mind, festering and aching in a ball. Friday was clear headed but 8 kinds of gross, with elements of extreme nausea. today seems to backslide to congestion town and dizziness. hmm. the feeling of backwards progress is the worst part.
so blah blah. i bought some junk food and mailed a letter, and blah blah, it seemed to break the endless cycle of “drink water, nap, wake up 20 minutes later desperate for the bathroom – repeat”. yay. i don’t know why i’m still babbling about this.

too personal!

i just finished watching TheMatrixReloaded, while chowing some Wendy’s. This is the first time i’ve watched the flic with the “critics who hate it” commentary track. it was kind of fascinating. to see how they were oh-so-wrong, but also sometimes very right. and that’s what i wanted to rant about, before it slipped my sickened mind. Continue reading “in the rhyme of sickness” →

al.mo.mind

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just watched “the mindscape of alan moore” with my parents.
my dad seemed to snooze in and out, and my mom seemed to get notably antsy (but paid close attention).

I greatly enjoyed it. It’s kind of embarassing. it’s still very powerful.

It’s another one of these “idea polemics”. a seemingly random rambling rant from an important smart person, laced with pretentious imagery and excessively dramatic editing (as if the filmmaker wants you to stop every 5 minutes and “PONDER THAT SHIT, PEASANT! OOOOOOH!!!!”). Continue reading “al.mo.mind” →

review: Kick Ass – a comic book you should go buy right now

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Hey there fellow crits,

I just read through the first few issues of “Kick Ass” and was totally blown away. I cannot recommend this comic book highly enough. go buy it right now.

– Written by Mark Millar, who is supposedly well known (meh?). I don’t know the guy’s work, but the dialogue, situations, humor, and pacing all remind me heavily of the old Preacher comics (which is high praise). It’s like something garth ennis would write if he could drop the scotchirish obsession, and focus in on modern teen drama. The first issue perfectly sets up the dream (for a modern person, based in our reality, to decide to put on a costume and try to fight crime. Just because it sounds bad ass). In the first couple pages it shows you why you wouldn’t want to do this with two loveably gross examples, then it settles back into establishing the character. It’s possible i’m too easy, and these examples are a little too pop culture (the “that’s not me” trick seems a lot like something out of Powers. The “this is me. suffering… but i’m getting ahead of myself” trick feels like KissKissBangBang, or FightClub.). mayyyybe. But even if the snooty connoisueueueurr wants to call the writer out on these story telling tricks, they efficiently serve to ground the comic in a certain style. that i happen to adore.
I’m digging the writing mostly because: having read 4 issues, it occurs to me that i’ve really just spent a lot of time watching a kid have some teen problems. But i didn’t notice this while reading. nor was i bored. because the ultraviolence that punctuated each issue was so plausible. And i didn’t have to read a lot of text to feel like i’d spent a lot of time with the characters. And because it felt like a great indie movie, except with characters who really stood out from the cliches i’m used to.

– Drawn by the legendary John Romita Jr. Need i say more? he’s a personal hero (drew a lot of the x-men comics that hooked me hard as a kid). And it’s heart warming to see just how polished and amazing his style has become. I read some spider man comics a couple years back, thinking initially “aw shucks this guy is still working?” but was ultimately left thinking “Holy shit, this guy has become better than any other artist i’ve seen in years. wow.” and that spiderman run was mostly just people sitting around talking and having dramazzzz.

– Kick Ass is also mostly about small time reality probs in high school. drama (a four letter word for me. it sounds like the name of a drug when i read it).

But it’s paced punchy, and littered with pop culture (youtube, new york’s gay prostitutes, blah blah). And then each issue squirts in an excessive amount of blood and gore, for loveable shock value. I love how RomitaJr draws blood thick, like play-doh. I love how an eight year old girl can show up and be disturbingly dangerous (delivering some grotesque violence while calling her victims cunts).

it’s just very alive.

In many ways, it’s everything i want to be doing with storytelling. so i’m very excited.
(and terrified about all the ways i’ll need to change the direction of my own comic, and step up my game, so I won’t be seen as a bad rip off).

hmm. anywho. Apparantly it’s very indie, despite some of the big names involved. And supposedly a movie deal has been signed? fuck. (the whole thing overwhelms me with envy. It’s a triumph. right down to the excellent name).

So i hope you’ll support it, either for the “support indie” angle, or for the “get in on this hip shit before everyone else” angle.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick-Ass

Review: The Clone Wars

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I took my girlfriend to see The Clone Wars last night. It was thrilling.
A theatre half filled with aging geeks like me, amidst mewling children out to “have a good time”.

My takeaway : critics should be put to death.

The film was a ton of fun. I had a blast. When the story stopped to do something cute, or opaquely confusing, there was always astonishing eye candy to fall back on. I can’t recommend it highly enough as a triumphant continuation of the excellent Star Wars IP. Apparantly it was directed by some guy who directed some of the Airbender cartoons. I was impressed, and am now (finally) eager to watch that series. So should you be.

But really, critics should be put to death. i read all the bullshit reviews posted on aint it cool news and was overwhelmed with a blood lust. Just this messy morass of “please stop making star wars movies that aren’t offering what i want” and “This new standalone addition to the universe of star wars doesn’t measure up to the originals”. die. I can’t believe a critic would dare to mention disliking how the fox logo wasn’t used. wtf. They also attack the movie for using slang and being approachable for children. hatethemsomuch.

and the worst drivel there was (by far) some freak’s endless rant about refusing to cover star wars anymore because: lucasfilm has it in for him legally. because he stole their script for episode 2 and posted it long before they wanted anyone to ruin their multimillion dollar project. boo hoo. because he was asked not to run his review before opening day, and this agreement was enforced arbitrarily in his opinion. what an asshole. He dares to tease that he was the only fanboy critic there who had positive things to say about the clone wars, but now he won’t say it. this is the definition of modern whino-matic criticism, where some idiot puts himself ahead of his function as a critic. So many critics feel a need to sell themselves rather than dissect the art they’ve been presented with – and this guy takes it one step further by trying to hold the creators repsonsible for his lack of interest in doing his job. christ. and i’m slipping into some niche by critiquing the critics. but oh well: hell.

I guess i feel I’ve already said the movie was great, and you should see it. There’s little reason to go into details, because: you should see it. The only thing that stands out in my mind as a flaw was the way the whole military campaign is impossible to follow. Without understanding the big picture, it’s frightfully difficult to gauge how important their goals are. ie, (spoiler?) they need to secure some outer rim hyperspace routes. wha? how important is this really? how are inner rim hyperspace routes being controlled exactly? I just felt this strong gut feeling that if they would show the galaxy and point to clusteres needing to get from here to there, it would make the “war” more real. It seems a common war movie need. But maybe thought that just saying “this is important” would be enough for the kids. ok. fair enough. cool with me.

As for the kiddie elements, and the cutesy slang: so be it. Annoying star wars geeks like to claim Empire was the pinnacle of the series, and then poopoo the endless supply of movies that aren’t remotely trying to be like Empire. These critics are failing you, the audience (the culture?) because they are failing to identify the author’s goals. They’re critiquing some other movie (the one in their day dreams and twisted memories) instead of paying attention to what george lucas is trying to acheive. they can’t let it go, and are this quite blind and useless.

I read an excellent ranting dissertation on this recently, which pointed out the lack of “emotion subtext” in all star wars products which followed the first two. This argument does not keep in mind that star wars is trying to offer a new generation the same popcorn thrills of old serials. The new movies take this (expertly crafted) superficial thrill to an interesting place by slipping in intellectual subtext. But the tribute to serials is the point. Listen closely, would-be critics: who among you would dare critique the old pulp serials for lacking the emotional depth of The Empire Strikes Back?  Could you really? if so: please go watch some other flicks and leave the enjoyment of these peculiar works of entertainment art to those of us to are willing to enjoy what lucas is actually striving to achieve.

Multimillionaire or not, he is still an artist. Let him do what he wants. Let the artist be.

review: Radioland Murders

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Well, it’s almost 4am. so this will be brief.

I watched the 1994 film Radioland Murders earlier tonight, and managed to enjoy it on several levels. though overall, I couldn’t recommend it to anyone genuinely hoping to enjoy the time it would take to sit and stare.

Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion” did a much better job of capturing the crazy atmosphere of a large group struggling to put on a live radio act. Ben Stiller’s “The Cable Guy” did a fine job of stealing the whole climax and updating it to relate to our more current obsession with bad television (instead of arguably-bad radio), by focusing much more on the revealed villian as a fleshed out character (so he is less preachy in the final reel). But wow, theCableGuy ripped off this movie’s ending HARD. Like shot for shot. weird (er… cool? Hip ahead of it’s time?).

LE SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW:

All in all, the idea of a phantom of the opera twist on a goofy fun radio broadcast event was pretty neat. nifty even. Too bad the jokes almost all fall flat. eek. I’m not sure if it was the actors, or the editing, or the directing. but. yikes.

I found myself thinking “this would be much better as a bugs bunny cartoon” (due to the strange brief characters and the slapstick idiocy). And then the main character popped up in a total Carmen Miranda suit. …! (With the whole fruit bowl balanced on a scantily clad tropical woman’s head). This was used to great effect in a classic bugs bunny cartoon. sooo. I’m probably not alone in wishing the movie was animated. Chalk it up to yet another filmmaking failure to emulate the elasticity of cartoonery.

Ra. And i’m too tired to dig deeper for broad movie making perspectives. and i’m not sure it deserves much more thought. The idea of the show’s best writer being the prime murder suspect, and slipping last minute script page revisions in to oust the true villian in a live performance, which leads to villian delivering the lines the writer wrote and then accidentally turning on a mic and being broadcast live as the evil character the actors were just portraying on stage- was totally delightful. And his rant on technology and patents hinted towards interesting broader commentary.

But in the end i just hated the guy playing the lead (writer), and couldn’t enjoy the movie. yeargh. I’d only recommend it for “completist” Lucas fans. Many interesting ideas, and a very sweet nod to the zany great radio show stylings of a forgotten time in entertainment. But poorly paced, full of groans, and hard to endure.

Rating: a million stars (out of infinite).

(I plan to pop out more random movie reviews like this. Try sorting by category if you’d like to just read reviews)