Apologies for the lack of a movie review but I'm in the middle of moving interstate and naturally the house hunting and job search takes up all my time. Once I find a place to live it will be business as usual (intermittent, biased and badly written reviews).
Quick review: Avatar 3D
More of a wildlife documentary from the future than anything else. The CGI visuals easily surpass anything I've seen before and as a spectacle it reigns supreme over it's 3 hour running time. The last 40 minutes is all things blowing up and people being killed, easily enough for action fiends, but expect a lot of guff before hand. Unobtainium anyone? Bottom line - Avatar wants to wow your eyes and triumphs, I was entertained for the whole 3 hours (not something I could say for the 3 hour snooze-a-thons that were LOTR), but I don't think I'd watch it again. 7.5/10
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Raptor Runs with the Wild Things
I admit that that it was more nostalgia more than anything else having read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak's in my kiddy years that I wanted to watch the movie of the same name. I didn’t know what to expect as the book itself was very simple and director and screen play writer Spike Jones would have to do some padding to create, well a complete story. I have to say he did a pretty good job of doing so and bringing to the screen an endearing story about growing up and the relationships involved.
In a suburban home Max played by a likeable Max Records (what the?) is feeling left out. His sister is more interested with her friends and his single mum is snowed under with work and trying to make nice with her boyfriend. On the other side, Max is a little shit. Yes he is a spoilt brat and yes you probably want to slap him one for his selfish little antics, just like 90% of kids of around that age (8 or 9 maybe). He then throws a hissy fit and runs off into the nearby creak where he finds a boat that takes him to an island. There he meets the various Wild Things like Carol voiced by James Gandolfini, from the Sopranos fame, who takes a liking to him since he is feeling deserted by KW who he has a child like infatuation/friendship with. There’s also the practical Ira, the bitchy Judith, happy go lucky Douglas and the picked and ignored on Alexander. By lying to the child like Wild Things Max is declared their king and will make them all happy. At first things go well but soon Maxes lies begin to unravel as the Wild Things begin to vie for his attention. Jealousies rise and feeling are hurt and Max comes to terms with the fact that he isn’t a king but just a boy who wants to be with his family.
I really liked the feel of this movie. It was filmed with a granny 60/70s dream like quality with some great scenes drenched in dust filtered sunlight which looks fantastic and other framed so beautifully you’d thing they were a canvas come to life. Adding to this is the music score. Put together by Karen Orzolek from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Carter Burwell the music is so sickingly cheery and joyful with Karen and a choir of kids singing you can’t help but like it. The stand out for me was All is Love which had a big part in setting the tone for me in the movie.
The Wild things were masterworks of puppetry and CGI. I was really hard pressed to see where the facial CGI ended and the puppetry began. This is one spot where I could say the FX didn’t take you out of the movie but formed a solid basis for the characters to work from. When a Wild Thing was sad you believed they were sad or happy. This was especially prevalent in the expressive Carol who was one of the moving forces in the story line. Having said that, if you took all the puppetry and CGI away it would still be would a good character based story, although hiding a kid in your mouth wouldn’t quite make sense.
There were points in the film were I was kind of expecting more but couldn’t quite figure what I wanted. If it was more from Max or something deeper in the Wild Things I couldn’t tell you. In the end I walked away satisfied and yes with that little nostalgic smile on my face. I give this one an 8/10. For all with a childs heart and a wild spirit I say to you Awrooooooooooo!!
Oh, you scratched the tree! And what!? You broke that other one. Why would you do that?
In a suburban home Max played by a likeable Max Records (what the?) is feeling left out. His sister is more interested with her friends and his single mum is snowed under with work and trying to make nice with her boyfriend. On the other side, Max is a little shit. Yes he is a spoilt brat and yes you probably want to slap him one for his selfish little antics, just like 90% of kids of around that age (8 or 9 maybe). He then throws a hissy fit and runs off into the nearby creak where he finds a boat that takes him to an island. There he meets the various Wild Things like Carol voiced by James Gandolfini, from the Sopranos fame, who takes a liking to him since he is feeling deserted by KW who he has a child like infatuation/friendship with. There’s also the practical Ira, the bitchy Judith, happy go lucky Douglas and the picked and ignored on Alexander. By lying to the child like Wild Things Max is declared their king and will make them all happy. At first things go well but soon Maxes lies begin to unravel as the Wild Things begin to vie for his attention. Jealousies rise and feeling are hurt and Max comes to terms with the fact that he isn’t a king but just a boy who wants to be with his family.
I really liked the feel of this movie. It was filmed with a granny 60/70s dream like quality with some great scenes drenched in dust filtered sunlight which looks fantastic and other framed so beautifully you’d thing they were a canvas come to life. Adding to this is the music score. Put together by Karen Orzolek from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Carter Burwell the music is so sickingly cheery and joyful with Karen and a choir of kids singing you can’t help but like it. The stand out for me was All is Love which had a big part in setting the tone for me in the movie.
I'm assuming that if he's wearing his wolf outfit he's going to be shitting in the woods
The Wild things were masterworks of puppetry and CGI. I was really hard pressed to see where the facial CGI ended and the puppetry began. This is one spot where I could say the FX didn’t take you out of the movie but formed a solid basis for the characters to work from. When a Wild Thing was sad you believed they were sad or happy. This was especially prevalent in the expressive Carol who was one of the moving forces in the story line. Having said that, if you took all the puppetry and CGI away it would still be would a good character based story, although hiding a kid in your mouth wouldn’t quite make sense.
There were points in the film were I was kind of expecting more but couldn’t quite figure what I wanted. If it was more from Max or something deeper in the Wild Things I couldn’t tell you. In the end I walked away satisfied and yes with that little nostalgic smile on my face. I give this one an 8/10. For all with a childs heart and a wild spirit I say to you Awrooooooooooo!!
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Raptors thrown up an Alien Uprising
Every now and then you pick a movie that you end up regretting like a cheap $5 hooker from the night before. Alien Uprising was probably that Hooker. At least it didn’t have teeth.
I sat down to watch it with some hopes of maybe a Sci-Fi channel grade movie. You know, okish but with chances of rain. The first 10mins of Alien Uprising were really good. The crew was waking up from hibernation a space ship. We find out they are marines. Ok maybe this won’t be another movie trying to be Aliens. Nope, no such luck. The marines need to go to a prison planet to quell an prisoner uprising and find out that they have been using the prisoners in alien hybridization experiments the result of which is terrorising the prison populace. “Wait, Wait, wait Raptor” I hear you say “that doesn’t sound all bad, It can be saved can’t it” Yeah sure. Throw a decent script at it and maybe at least half a mil in green backs then sure. Unfortunately it turns out that this movie is trying to be Aliens, complete with a crappy alien which is a guy in a Halloween mask as far as I can tell, marines acting all marines and a backstabbing corporation guy who yes eventually get’s killed by the hybrid.
What about the acting? Well some of the mains were passable. Rebecca Kush who played Lt. Louise Dun was reasonably good as were two of the prisoners who I can’t remember the names of (scientist guy and the African American). Unfortunately the rest of the cast sucked 5 day old ass that has been sitting in vomit basted with crap. I mean at one point we had a shuttle leaving in a desperate escape from the prison of stupid and 4/5 of the escapes were shaking with the G-forces of the escape. The 5th person, some female marine was staring blankly ahead as if she was bored or maybe was watching a day time soap. What’s more is they kept cutting back to her. Really? Why?! For god sake why? Or for example at the end were the corporate guy is about to get killed by the alien he screams out Nooooooooo. Then there is this long pause and….guess what? He does it again. Che? Why? Edit that out. You don’t need that.
Finally the CGI/FX. Boy these were woeful. At the start they show the ship approaching the planet. Not bad. Looks okaish, nothing special. Then obviously there $200 dollar shoe box budget ran out and all the ships, base and position of the cast were shown on wire frame models. This maybe was an attempt at retro cool. Well it was done badly so it failed and took you out of the movie more often than not.
My advice, if you can’t afford to do a sci-fi or even get a decent script, then don’t. It’s not brain surgery. I have seen some Starwars fan movies better than this and I’m pretty sure they don’t have a huge budget either.
So at the ass end of this review I’m giving Alien Uprising a 3/10. No boobies for me.
Beware DVDs bearing pretty cover pictures
I sat down to watch it with some hopes of maybe a Sci-Fi channel grade movie. You know, okish but with chances of rain. The first 10mins of Alien Uprising were really good. The crew was waking up from hibernation a space ship. We find out they are marines. Ok maybe this won’t be another movie trying to be Aliens. Nope, no such luck. The marines need to go to a prison planet to quell an prisoner uprising and find out that they have been using the prisoners in alien hybridization experiments the result of which is terrorising the prison populace. “Wait, Wait, wait Raptor” I hear you say “that doesn’t sound all bad, It can be saved can’t it” Yeah sure. Throw a decent script at it and maybe at least half a mil in green backs then sure. Unfortunately it turns out that this movie is trying to be Aliens, complete with a crappy alien which is a guy in a Halloween mask as far as I can tell, marines acting all marines and a backstabbing corporation guy who yes eventually get’s killed by the hybrid.
What about the acting? Well some of the mains were passable. Rebecca Kush who played Lt. Louise Dun was reasonably good as were two of the prisoners who I can’t remember the names of (scientist guy and the African American). Unfortunately the rest of the cast sucked 5 day old ass that has been sitting in vomit basted with crap. I mean at one point we had a shuttle leaving in a desperate escape from the prison of stupid and 4/5 of the escapes were shaking with the G-forces of the escape. The 5th person, some female marine was staring blankly ahead as if she was bored or maybe was watching a day time soap. What’s more is they kept cutting back to her. Really? Why?! For god sake why? Or for example at the end were the corporate guy is about to get killed by the alien he screams out Nooooooooo. Then there is this long pause and….guess what? He does it again. Che? Why? Edit that out. You don’t need that.
Finally the CGI/FX. Boy these were woeful. At the start they show the ship approaching the planet. Not bad. Looks okaish, nothing special. Then obviously there $200 dollar shoe box budget ran out and all the ships, base and position of the cast were shown on wire frame models. This maybe was an attempt at retro cool. Well it was done badly so it failed and took you out of the movie more often than not.
My advice, if you can’t afford to do a sci-fi or even get a decent script, then don’t. It’s not brain surgery. I have seen some Starwars fan movies better than this and I’m pretty sure they don’t have a huge budget either.
So at the ass end of this review I’m giving Alien Uprising a 3/10. No boobies for me.
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