Sunday, December 21, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
I Rage Against Star Trek Into Darkness
If you know me, I am an huge Star Trek fan, have been for as long as i can remember. I was always a fan of the Original Series (you know, Kirk and Spock) and as I got older grew into TNG and Voyager. Hell, I even like alot of stuff about Enterprise, the show everyone hates. Just take a listen to the theme song, it is not good and completely out of place within the Trek universe.
Wasn't that bad? Don't worry, the show is actually pretty good, they were just trying to reinvent Trek for the 21st century, hey speaking of reinventing Trek, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS WAS A PIECE OF CRAP!
A lot of things Into Darkness tried to do ended up not working. Khan in the movie... just wasn't Khan. He played a fine villain (I live Benedict Cumberbatch in so many ways) and they could have made it work just fine by keeping him John Harrison the whole movie. Instead they make a ham-fisted effort to connect to one of the most popular of the original movies.
Which is about what the entire film feels like: a shallow effort to capitalize on stuff that worked before, without ever realizing what made it good. Everything from Carol Marcus to Section 31. Scenes that should have been powerful felt like a joke, supposedly big reveals were telegraphed well in advance, things from earlier Trek were called in without cause.
Which seems to be another trend in the movie, ethical questions are completely ignored. Where we have the chance to question whether Kirk is persuing vengeance or justice, we don't. No one questions his decision to violate treaty and his orders, no one suggests that Kirk is too close to the problem. Scotty is the only one to object, and only to having an unkown weapon near his engines. Kirk gets a get-out-of-quandry-free card, he doesn't kill Khan because Khan saves his ass and surrenders.
It's a lazy story that avoids complexity as much as it avoids moral uncertainty. How does Khan get to the one place Kirk can't follow? Why does he go there? Why did he do anything? How did Marcus get funding for such a ridiculous expenditure? The Enterprise is their flagship, their most impressive ship. So why do they suddenly have the capacity to build something twice its size? How does Khan know so damned much about ship design 200 year after his area of expertise? How can Khan's blood magically save Kirk from death? Why doesn't Bones, who has always played Kirk's conscience, have any signigicant part in this movie? Why? Because lazy writing, that's why.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
5 Cameos from Matt Damon
Warning! This post contains potential spoilers, read at your own risk.
Matt Damon is great at playing a wide range of characters. From comedy to hard drama, Damon has got the chops.
Lets just take a moment to admire this gorgeous man
Mmm yeah, isn't that nice?
But he is not always the central character, he is lesser known for his obscure and not so obscure cameos.So without further ado, here is my list of the top Matt Damon cameos.
5. Finding Forrester
This is a little known feel good film from Sean Connery and a young Rob Brown, an actor forever to be typecast as an athlete (I guess there are worse things) and directed by Gus Van Sant.
At the end of the film, Damon makes an appearance as a lawyer representing Connery's character's estate. An odd little appearance, but coming off the heals of Good Will Hunting I would want to take it easy for a bit.
4. Che: Part 2
Suddenly, a wild Matt Damon appeared.
That was my initial reaction to his brief and mildly confusing cameo as a western priest in the Bolivian jungle in Che: Part 2.
3. Youth Without Youth
Although I admit to have never seen this film, I remember Entertainment Weekly soiling themselves over Damon's cameo in this 2007 Francis Ford Coppola bomb.
2. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
In this stupidly awesome Kevin Smith outing, Damon and Affleck play douche-bag versions of themselves on the set of the fictional Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season complete with Gus Van Sant as an unmotivated/tapped out version of himself.
Matt Damon is great at playing a wide range of characters. From comedy to hard drama, Damon has got the chops.
Lets just take a moment to admire this gorgeous man
But he is not always the central character, he is lesser known for his obscure and not so obscure cameos.So without further ado, here is my list of the top Matt Damon cameos.
5. Finding Forrester
This is a little known feel good film from Sean Connery and a young Rob Brown, an actor forever to be typecast as an athlete (I guess there are worse things) and directed by Gus Van Sant.
At the end of the film, Damon makes an appearance as a lawyer representing Connery's character's estate. An odd little appearance, but coming off the heals of Good Will Hunting I would want to take it easy for a bit.
4. Che: Part 2
Suddenly, a wild Matt Damon appeared.
That was my initial reaction to his brief and mildly confusing cameo as a western priest in the Bolivian jungle in Che: Part 2.
3. Youth Without Youth
Although I admit to have never seen this film, I remember Entertainment Weekly soiling themselves over Damon's cameo in this 2007 Francis Ford Coppola bomb.
2. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
In this stupidly awesome Kevin Smith outing, Damon and Affleck play douche-bag versions of themselves on the set of the fictional Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season complete with Gus Van Sant as an unmotivated/tapped out version of himself.
Warning! Spoilers Here!
Read at your own risk!
1. Interstellar
This one came as a pleasant surprise to me. Even though I had read on the official Wikipedia page that Damon had a cameo in the film, I completely forgot while watching the film and became absorbed into it.
Without giving too much away, Damon plays an astronaut sent on a mission through the wormhole Mcconaughey and his gang go through many years earlier and presumed dead, without giving anything big away, they find him and things are not quite what they seem.
So there you have it, if you have any other cameos I missed, write me a comment.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Trailer Geek-Out 2014
If anyone reading this grew up in the 90's, you should be generally excited for these upcoming films. Hell, even 60's, 70's and 80's kids will be excited about these, my Dad sure is. I am the first to admit that sequels are an overused industry tactic to sell tickets, but damn these trailers really make these films look tempting. After both of these film series became lowest common denominator in the early 2000's I had hope they would retire both of these series and prevent further damage to the two things I loved most in my childhood. For reference, this was my face after watching the trailer
After the announcement of Colin Trevorrow becoming attached as director to the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park series and J.J. Abrams for Star Wars 7, I had some glimmer of hope that the next installments would be a lot better than the 2000's slump.
The Jurassic World trailer blew me away while scrolling Reddit on the toilet (admit it, you do it too) and the Episode 7 trailer after waking up with a mild post-thanksgiving hangover and jumping up and down on my bed out of pure nerd excitement (admit it, you did that too),
This has been a great year for sci-fi adventure films (Guardians of the Galaxy yo!) and I am stoked for both of these films, all we have to do is wait.
Oh, and while I was writing this, I totally forgot about this seldom talked about sequel (kind of) to another great film series that is more from my teenage years.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Mockingjay Part 1 Review
Last years addition to the Hunger Games film series, Catching Fire, was perhaps one of the strongest films of the year. Even though I surprisingly enjoyed the first film, I expected the sequel to be a weaker entry and simply be the same film as the previous one much like The Hangover 2. Again, I was pleasantly surprised with the film and began building anticipation for the final entry. After the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman and the announcement of the film being broken into into two parts, I wondered how the film would fare upon release.
the film follows the events of Catching Fire, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), Finnick (Sam Chaflin) and Beetee (Jeffery Wright) have been spirited away from the destruction of the Quarter Quell and brought to the underground military fortress of District 13 to aid in the war effort against the Capitol. Katniss is asked by Plutarch (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and resistance leader Coin (Julianne Moore) to become the symbol of the rebellion, and is conflicted between becoming a political symbol, and finding a way to rescue the captured Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).
I will start by saying this was the darkest entry into the Hunger Games series. The themes of war and the costs affiliated is a prevalent focus of the film, and I felt this was the most important aspects. Several parts of the film bared similarities to the struggle in Syria and the topic of modern revolution that were very timely. I feel it is important to show the people of my generation the real affects of war and not just the portraying it as a glorious or fun event that modern media tends to do with films and video games.
The performances were once again very good and the presence of Hoffman is a sad reminder of his death. A standout performance for me would be Elizabeth Banks as the flamboyantly theatrical Effie Trinket. In the previous films we saw her as a stooge for the government who's job was to keep up the image of glitz and glamour of the Capitol in the middle of the poverty and oppression stricken other Districts. In this film she is reduced to refugee status in the underground fortress of District 13 and for once is left without her eccentric costumes and forced to appear in public as her normal self. According to my sister, who is a reader of the book series, Effie was absent from the book and her appearance in the film was solely for the adaptation. This was an interesting choice as she is a character I've wanted to learn more about since the first film.
The only downside to this film would be the creaky and slow paced plot compared to the other films, Obviously the film is split into two parts and I imagine the second part will contain much more action and a diverse plot in the finale. I think the choice to split the film into two parts was a financial decision due to the success the Harry Potter and Twilight series had with the same tactic. After viewing the film, I can now imagine this decision as being for length reasons. My sister mentioned that Mockingjay is the longest and densest of the novels and she thought it a good choice to divide the film into two parts so as not to have a rushed story or a four hour film. Despite the dragging of the plot, I am still thrilled to see the conclusion of this series.
Mockingjay: Part 1 was released in theaters on November 21st
On a side note, here is my sister at the theater
the film follows the events of Catching Fire, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), Finnick (Sam Chaflin) and Beetee (Jeffery Wright) have been spirited away from the destruction of the Quarter Quell and brought to the underground military fortress of District 13 to aid in the war effort against the Capitol. Katniss is asked by Plutarch (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and resistance leader Coin (Julianne Moore) to become the symbol of the rebellion, and is conflicted between becoming a political symbol, and finding a way to rescue the captured Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).
I will start by saying this was the darkest entry into the Hunger Games series. The themes of war and the costs affiliated is a prevalent focus of the film, and I felt this was the most important aspects. Several parts of the film bared similarities to the struggle in Syria and the topic of modern revolution that were very timely. I feel it is important to show the people of my generation the real affects of war and not just the portraying it as a glorious or fun event that modern media tends to do with films and video games.
The performances were once again very good and the presence of Hoffman is a sad reminder of his death. A standout performance for me would be Elizabeth Banks as the flamboyantly theatrical Effie Trinket. In the previous films we saw her as a stooge for the government who's job was to keep up the image of glitz and glamour of the Capitol in the middle of the poverty and oppression stricken other Districts. In this film she is reduced to refugee status in the underground fortress of District 13 and for once is left without her eccentric costumes and forced to appear in public as her normal self. According to my sister, who is a reader of the book series, Effie was absent from the book and her appearance in the film was solely for the adaptation. This was an interesting choice as she is a character I've wanted to learn more about since the first film.
The only downside to this film would be the creaky and slow paced plot compared to the other films, Obviously the film is split into two parts and I imagine the second part will contain much more action and a diverse plot in the finale. I think the choice to split the film into two parts was a financial decision due to the success the Harry Potter and Twilight series had with the same tactic. After viewing the film, I can now imagine this decision as being for length reasons. My sister mentioned that Mockingjay is the longest and densest of the novels and she thought it a good choice to divide the film into two parts so as not to have a rushed story or a four hour film. Despite the dragging of the plot, I am still thrilled to see the conclusion of this series.
Mockingjay: Part 1 was released in theaters on November 21st
On a side note, here is my sister at the theater
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)