The ape blows or I clam.
A quick run-through of the stuff I've watched of late, before we get back to autobiography on this site.
Luc Besson directs a movie about a small-time criminal being saved by a mysterious girl... you're thinking 'Leon', but actually it's Angel-A (***1/4), in which Jamel Debouzze is the crook with mounting debts and Rie Rasmussen the titular AngelA, an Amazonian in a short skirt who claims to be his guardian angel. It's slow and lacking in action, but it's also kind of sweet, as both peel away each other's emotional shell to find the beauty inside.
Brick (***1/2) is one of those barely-populated, near-silent indie films that seem to be in fashion recently (see also: Hard Candy, The Machinist). In this one, Joseph Gordon-Levitt tries to find out the story behind his ex-girlfriend's murder and gets drawn into a world of heroin dealing and violence. Lukas Haas, who's been compared to me looks-wise but actually resembles badger_man more in this movie, plays the drug kingpin at the heart of the mystery. Dense and subtle to the point of transparency, Brick creates its own world where adults are interfering at best and the teenagers speak in a barely-intelligible dialect. It's good, although I feel I'd appreciate it more second time around, where the audience in my front room wasn't larger than the cast.
I've gone on about The Number 23 (***3/4) before. It's not quite as visually stunning on the small screen, and some of the plotholes/miscasting is more apparent (are we supposed to believe 15-year-old Logan Lerman as a 12-year-old called, of all things, ROBIN SPARROW?), but I still think it's a better movie than a lot of people- including nearly all of the critics- give it credit for, and I still want to read the mysterious book that the movie rotates around.
There's a good story to be written about the BDSM subculture. But if it exists, I've not come across it yet (even the seminal 'Venus In Furs' by Sacher-Masoch, from whose name the word 'masochism' is derived, is whiny). And it certainly isn't Stuart Urban's Preaching To The Perverted (*), which can't work out whether it's a serious look at the scene or a Carry On movie. While it avoids potential cliche pitfalls, the attempts at characterisation are so non-sequitir they're irrelevant and it's so in thrall to BDSM that you wonder whether Urban met star Guinevere Taylor and cobbled a movie together around her rather than the other way around. A wasted opportunity.
Also in thrall to stylistic movements is Frank Miller's Sin City (***), a movie so hip it actually has Quentin Tarantino directing a segment. It's really the baby of writer/director/producer/soundtracker/visual effects man/cameraman Robert Rodriguez*, whose choppy editing and energy are evident here. Auteurism and post-production superiority aside, the movie is certainly fun, mostly when Mickey Rourke is onscreen, and it's easy to see why cow-lipped Jessica Alba became a star from it. But (unsurprisingly for a QT-related project) it's depressingly amoral- you're siding with serial killers and vigilantes- and some of the episodes are flimsy (Josh Hartnett's character particularly) or badly-acted (Clive Owen is atrocious). Still, as Miller adaptations go, it knocks '300' into a cocked hat.
*- I actually had to edit this entry to add all of Rodriguez's credits in. You can imagine him going "Fucking hell, can't you shoot straight? Pass that camera over!" with a bass in one hand and the other hand mainpulating the image on Dream or something.
In month-old wrestling news, WWE Presents The Great American Bash was enjoyable- the first WWE-produced GAB you can say THAT about. That said, it hardly lingers in the memory and I don't think there was anything major to report. In matches: MVP defeated Matt Hardy in a fair match; Hornswoggle defeated some Cruiserweights and Loserweights to become the Cruiserweight Champion in a decent spotfest with a ridiculous ending (the 3'6" Hornswoggle should never be a champion); Carlito beat Sandman in a crap Singapore Pole On A Cane Match; Candice Michelle pinned Melina in a decent, if heatless, match; Umaga bested Jeff Hardy in an exciting match; John Morrison [the former Johnny Nitro] pinned CM Punk in a good, if personality-free, match; Randy Orton beat Dusty Rhodes in a simple match; The Great Khali bested Kane and Batista in a match nowhere near as atrocious as it sounds; and John Cena pinned Bobby Lashley in the match of the night and Lashley's best match to date.
Off to see the Simpsons movie now, further ramblings later.
Luc Besson directs a movie about a small-time criminal being saved by a mysterious girl... you're thinking 'Leon', but actually it's Angel-A (***1/4), in which Jamel Debouzze is the crook with mounting debts and Rie Rasmussen the titular AngelA, an Amazonian in a short skirt who claims to be his guardian angel. It's slow and lacking in action, but it's also kind of sweet, as both peel away each other's emotional shell to find the beauty inside.
Brick (***1/2) is one of those barely-populated, near-silent indie films that seem to be in fashion recently (see also: Hard Candy, The Machinist). In this one, Joseph Gordon-Levitt tries to find out the story behind his ex-girlfriend's murder and gets drawn into a world of heroin dealing and violence. Lukas Haas, who's been compared to me looks-wise but actually resembles badger_man more in this movie, plays the drug kingpin at the heart of the mystery. Dense and subtle to the point of transparency, Brick creates its own world where adults are interfering at best and the teenagers speak in a barely-intelligible dialect. It's good, although I feel I'd appreciate it more second time around, where the audience in my front room wasn't larger than the cast.
I've gone on about The Number 23 (***3/4) before. It's not quite as visually stunning on the small screen, and some of the plotholes/miscasting is more apparent (are we supposed to believe 15-year-old Logan Lerman as a 12-year-old called, of all things, ROBIN SPARROW?), but I still think it's a better movie than a lot of people- including nearly all of the critics- give it credit for, and I still want to read the mysterious book that the movie rotates around.
There's a good story to be written about the BDSM subculture. But if it exists, I've not come across it yet (even the seminal 'Venus In Furs' by Sacher-Masoch, from whose name the word 'masochism' is derived, is whiny). And it certainly isn't Stuart Urban's Preaching To The Perverted (*), which can't work out whether it's a serious look at the scene or a Carry On movie. While it avoids potential cliche pitfalls, the attempts at characterisation are so non-sequitir they're irrelevant and it's so in thrall to BDSM that you wonder whether Urban met star Guinevere Taylor and cobbled a movie together around her rather than the other way around. A wasted opportunity.
Also in thrall to stylistic movements is Frank Miller's Sin City (***), a movie so hip it actually has Quentin Tarantino directing a segment. It's really the baby of writer/director/producer/soundtracker/visual effects man/cameraman Robert Rodriguez*, whose choppy editing and energy are evident here. Auteurism and post-production superiority aside, the movie is certainly fun, mostly when Mickey Rourke is onscreen, and it's easy to see why cow-lipped Jessica Alba became a star from it. But (unsurprisingly for a QT-related project) it's depressingly amoral- you're siding with serial killers and vigilantes- and some of the episodes are flimsy (Josh Hartnett's character particularly) or badly-acted (Clive Owen is atrocious). Still, as Miller adaptations go, it knocks '300' into a cocked hat.
*- I actually had to edit this entry to add all of Rodriguez's credits in. You can imagine him going "Fucking hell, can't you shoot straight? Pass that camera over!" with a bass in one hand and the other hand mainpulating the image on Dream or something.
In month-old wrestling news, WWE Presents The Great American Bash was enjoyable- the first WWE-produced GAB you can say THAT about. That said, it hardly lingers in the memory and I don't think there was anything major to report. In matches: MVP defeated Matt Hardy in a fair match; Hornswoggle defeated some Cruiserweights and Loserweights to become the Cruiserweight Champion in a decent spotfest with a ridiculous ending (the 3'6" Hornswoggle should never be a champion); Carlito beat Sandman in a crap Singapore Pole On A Cane Match; Candice Michelle pinned Melina in a decent, if heatless, match; Umaga bested Jeff Hardy in an exciting match; John Morrison [the former Johnny Nitro] pinned CM Punk in a good, if personality-free, match; Randy Orton beat Dusty Rhodes in a simple match; The Great Khali bested Kane and Batista in a match nowhere near as atrocious as it sounds; and John Cena pinned Bobby Lashley in the match of the night and Lashley's best match to date.
Off to see the Simpsons movie now, further ramblings later.