Movies I've Recently Seen
Jun. 1st, 2008 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gategrrlThe first movie I'll talk about is Dark City. Does anyone remember that one?
Rufus Sewell starred, along with William Hurt and Jennifer Donnelly, in one of her first adult break-through roles after Labyrinth. A mysterious alien collective has stolen not only thousands of humans, but they've also stolen their memories and lives while trying to figure out what makes humans tick, where their soul is. The production design is fantastic as is the visualization of a city actually *changing* before your eyes. There is no light, it's always nighttime.
The main character wakes up naked in a tub, a wound on his forehead and a mysterious syringe in pieces on the floor. In the bedroom is a dead woman with swirls cut into her skin.
The rest of the film moves between Sewell's character, Murdoch, and Hurt's cop character and Murdoch's wife. They are ALL playing the roles assigned to them by the aliens AND a human turn-coat played by Kiefer Sutherland (who narrates the opening of the film). Sutherland's Renfield character, straight out of a Dracula novel, tries his best to help Murdoch reach his potential as the only human who can take on the aliens on their own turf.
As fantastic as I think the movie is, it does fail the women characters. They are there only as serial killer fodder, or as a love interest. No where do you see a woman speaking to another woman, and never about anything but the male characters, in particular Murdoch. There are no female aliens present: they are represented as white faced, pale bald males - including one or two children to add to the overall creepiness they're supposed to encapsule. (because everyone knows children can do creepy like nothing else)
The second movie I've seen recently is Beowulf. The Guy rented it out on cable. Boy, is it gory. Grendel is disgusting and pathetic at the same time. And seeing him rip the humans apart...ugh. I had to skip out of the room when Grendel starts pounding on the Hall's reinforced wooden while Beowulf and his crew await in the Hall, oblivious to what the monster *really* is and how vicious he is. Nothing like finding out for yourself?
I thought it was interesting, the cycle Gaiman and his cowriter set up: every time there's a ruler on the throne, the demoness seduces him, giving him a golden horn, which symbolizes an agreement between her and the King. When the King gives up the horn, he essentially gives up his life. Beowulf, in the end, turns out to be a genuine Hero, finally realizing that being a Hero means sacrificing your All for the people you love, for your subjects and kingdom. He might have been something of a brave shyster in the beginning, but still, didn't realize what he was in for when he slept with the demon.
The ending was a big Whoa, with the audience (me) left wondering, is Beowulf's friend, now the designated King, going to waste Beowulf's sacrifice to end the cycle? Or not?
The animation itself - CGI mo-cap, with the faces based on the actors who voiced the characters - is just short of being creepy. Only a few scenes have subtlety of expression in the characters' faces. The backgrounds are amazing, I admit that I wondered why the heck Zemeckis chose to film this in CGI, since the characters were so lifelike...but i guess the offness, the slight not-reality plays into the legendary aspect.
So, I recommend Beowolf but if you're squeamish, bring a blindfold with you when you see it!
I suppose I'll put the one for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull behind a cut, so, here goes:
Rufus Sewell starred, along with William Hurt and Jennifer Donnelly, in one of her first adult break-through roles after Labyrinth. A mysterious alien collective has stolen not only thousands of humans, but they've also stolen their memories and lives while trying to figure out what makes humans tick, where their soul is. The production design is fantastic as is the visualization of a city actually *changing* before your eyes. There is no light, it's always nighttime.
The main character wakes up naked in a tub, a wound on his forehead and a mysterious syringe in pieces on the floor. In the bedroom is a dead woman with swirls cut into her skin.
The rest of the film moves between Sewell's character, Murdoch, and Hurt's cop character and Murdoch's wife. They are ALL playing the roles assigned to them by the aliens AND a human turn-coat played by Kiefer Sutherland (who narrates the opening of the film). Sutherland's Renfield character, straight out of a Dracula novel, tries his best to help Murdoch reach his potential as the only human who can take on the aliens on their own turf.
As fantastic as I think the movie is, it does fail the women characters. They are there only as serial killer fodder, or as a love interest. No where do you see a woman speaking to another woman, and never about anything but the male characters, in particular Murdoch. There are no female aliens present: they are represented as white faced, pale bald males - including one or two children to add to the overall creepiness they're supposed to encapsule. (because everyone knows children can do creepy like nothing else)
The second movie I've seen recently is Beowulf. The Guy rented it out on cable. Boy, is it gory. Grendel is disgusting and pathetic at the same time. And seeing him rip the humans apart...ugh. I had to skip out of the room when Grendel starts pounding on the Hall's reinforced wooden while Beowulf and his crew await in the Hall, oblivious to what the monster *really* is and how vicious he is. Nothing like finding out for yourself?
I thought it was interesting, the cycle Gaiman and his cowriter set up: every time there's a ruler on the throne, the demoness seduces him, giving him a golden horn, which symbolizes an agreement between her and the King. When the King gives up the horn, he essentially gives up his life. Beowulf, in the end, turns out to be a genuine Hero, finally realizing that being a Hero means sacrificing your All for the people you love, for your subjects and kingdom. He might have been something of a brave shyster in the beginning, but still, didn't realize what he was in for when he slept with the demon.
The ending was a big Whoa, with the audience (me) left wondering, is Beowulf's friend, now the designated King, going to waste Beowulf's sacrifice to end the cycle? Or not?
The animation itself - CGI mo-cap, with the faces based on the actors who voiced the characters - is just short of being creepy. Only a few scenes have subtlety of expression in the characters' faces. The backgrounds are amazing, I admit that I wondered why the heck Zemeckis chose to film this in CGI, since the characters were so lifelike...but i guess the offness, the slight not-reality plays into the legendary aspect.
So, I recommend Beowolf but if you're squeamish, bring a blindfold with you when you see it!
I suppose I'll put the one for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull behind a cut, so, here goes:
Fun. Lots and lots of fun. It helped that just being in the theater and hearing the opening music made my movie-childhood come back again. Sure, a lot of the action was beyond outrageous, but c'mon. That's what Indiana Jones is all about!
I absolutely squeed when Marion Ravenwood Williams showed- up (I knew ahead of time, but that didn't matter, it was seeing an old friend back on the screen whom I hadn't seen in a looong time). She should have been in the other movies. Screw Kate Capshaw, who played one of the most annoying IJ's heroines ever.
I can't believe there are some people who prefer the second movie to THIS movie. It boggles the mind. But whatever, they can think whatever the hell they want: they're nucking futs.
There are several set-pieces for the action, including an atomic bomb test just outside fabled Area 51 (where attentive audience members can get a glimpse of the Ark of the Covenent, the main goal in the first movie). And the final set-piece is amazing. There are parallels to Raiders of the Lost Ark, wherein the chief villian actually wants knowledge beyond their capability to contain or comprehend - there's a lesson in there that Spielberg, Lucas and the other writers keep trying to put across. I guess that's par for the course for this sort of movie. The Hero and his sidekicks know when to get out when the getting starts going downhill. There is knowledge to which humans should not be privy to, at least in the Indiana Jones universe.
There was one scene in the movie that didn't exactly have a pay-off. The only thing it really did was put Indy in danger of losing his mind (by staring into the Crystal Skull), but nothing else except a "The Skull told me to" moment further on in the plot. That was one disappointment.
One thing the movie did *excellently* was to immerse Indy and the audience in the atmosphere of the late 1950s (1957 to be exact) and fill it up with what current culture considers important, or at least kitschy, about the era - Roswell, aliens, Area 51, greasers, rock'n'roll, McCarthyism and paranoia.
I loved the movie. I even saw it again with my two kids. They liked it, too!
I absolutely squeed when Marion Ravenwood Williams showed- up (I knew ahead of time, but that didn't matter, it was seeing an old friend back on the screen whom I hadn't seen in a looong time). She should have been in the other movies. Screw Kate Capshaw, who played one of the most annoying IJ's heroines ever.
I can't believe there are some people who prefer the second movie to THIS movie. It boggles the mind. But whatever, they can think whatever the hell they want: they're nucking futs.
There are several set-pieces for the action, including an atomic bomb test just outside fabled Area 51 (where attentive audience members can get a glimpse of the Ark of the Covenent, the main goal in the first movie). And the final set-piece is amazing. There are parallels to Raiders of the Lost Ark, wherein the chief villian actually wants knowledge beyond their capability to contain or comprehend - there's a lesson in there that Spielberg, Lucas and the other writers keep trying to put across. I guess that's par for the course for this sort of movie. The Hero and his sidekicks know when to get out when the getting starts going downhill. There is knowledge to which humans should not be privy to, at least in the Indiana Jones universe.
There was one scene in the movie that didn't exactly have a pay-off. The only thing it really did was put Indy in danger of losing his mind (by staring into the Crystal Skull), but nothing else except a "The Skull told me to" moment further on in the plot. That was one disappointment.
One thing the movie did *excellently* was to immerse Indy and the audience in the atmosphere of the late 1950s (1957 to be exact) and fill it up with what current culture considers important, or at least kitschy, about the era - Roswell, aliens, Area 51, greasers, rock'n'roll, McCarthyism and paranoia.
I loved the movie. I even saw it again with my two kids. They liked it, too!
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 10:14 pm (UTC)I remember Dark City. I love that movie. No, it's not really great for female characters, but it was such a good movie. Unnderrated for sure.
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Date: 2008-06-01 11:54 pm (UTC)So that's what the US was like the year I was born! I had almost as much fun checking all that out as I did watching the rest of the movie.
I could have done without the scorpions and the Big Damn Ants (or where they Damn Bib Ants)? *G* and how funny was it when the kid tossed Indy a SNAKE to pull him out of the sand hole?
A very fun hour and a half, and I'll be seeing it again becuase a couple of my friends couldn't make it when mom and I went.
Indy, you've aged beautifully.