Movies: Across the Universe and Ghost Rider
Mom went and got 6 movies from the library yesterday (The other 4 were something called Movie Geek, Miami Vice, CSA, and something about a restaurant, it was an older movie). We watched two of them yesterday. If past experience is a good gauge of what we'll do this time, the other 4 will sit around until they're a couple of weeks past due and then we'll take them back without having ever watched them.
Oh, and if you're reading this, Heather, Mom talked the library into ordering the DVDs for MI-5. Because apparently they have a huge budget for new material every year, but they only order things that are either off of some list of books that libraries should buy that someone puts out, or that are requested. Nobody ever requests things, so in the last six months, Mom has requested 20 things or something ridiculous like that and they've agreed to buy them all.
General impressions were that Across the Universe is beautiful, really well-written, and reasonably well-acted and still probably not something I'll watch again. Ghost Rider was mediocre in pretty much every since of the word. The material didn't give Nick Cage much to work with, and his own tendency to melodrama in his acting made it even worse. Also, not something I'm likely to watch again. More on both, below.
Across the Universe
I loved the look of the film, and how it evolves. The first part seems pretty normal, but as we get deeper into the movie it starts to look like some acid-induced fantasy. The music is brilliant, and not just because it's the Beatles. The songs are just really well done. I got to see Bono with a funny mustache and the most bizarre accent ever. The boys, Max & Jude, were both pretty. I like Jude's art. The clothes/hair/make-up looked right for the times without looking like they stole things from my mother's old closet. It was all just really really beautifully done.
I thought the writing was superb. Even when they're not actually singing songs, we're getting references to them with Sexy Sadie and girls coming in through the bathroom window and the such. The songs were meshed really well into the dialogue of the piece, so that it didn't feel like we were taking a musical interlude and would be back in the story shortly. The best example of that for me was when Jude went to the office where Lucy volunteered and sang Revolution, but there were plenty of other similar moments.
I even thought the acting was reasonably good. A little over the top sometimes especially on the part of the secondary characters (Sadie and Jo-Jo spring to mind), but not bad. I believed in these characters. And it's not a small portion of my enjoyment that there was an enormous amount of subtext. Does it actually surprise anyone that I believe ever so much more in the Max/Jude ship than I do in the Jude/Lucy ship?
But even with all of that, I don't think I'll watch it a second time. I don't have a good explanation for that, but where usually I'm pleased as punch to watch something over and over and over again, this doesn't hold that same allure for me. Weird, I know.
Ghost Rider
My major issue with this is that it felt too comic-bookish. One of the great achievements of recent (used very loosely) superhero movies is their general lack of a comic-book feel. The new Batman movies are the best example to me. Don't get me wrong, I loved the original Michael Keaton Batman and even have a soft spot for Val Kilmer and George Clooney as Batman, but they always felt like comic books, and I've been spoiled by Batman Begins, and to a lesser extent the X-Men and Spiderman movies. Sure there are wildly improbable things going on, the occasional really bad style choice (like Wolverine's hair which is a bit over the top), outlandish costumes, and bizarre villains, but they also all feel like real people with real lives. Their dialogue doesn't sound like it might have been written by the same guy who wrote the comic book (not that comic book authors aren't talented, some are extraordinarily talented, but it is a different skill set). They spoke like real people.
Everything and everyone in Ghost Rider felt like a comic book. I was disappointed, because I've always loved the mythos behind the book. Here is someone who gives up his soul trying to do something good. He's not trying to become the richest guy on the block, or have political power, or get revenge on someone. He's just a genuinely good guy who makes a pretty bad choice. And sure it's vigilante justice and all that, but he subverts the role of the Ghost Rider (as others have before him) to do a positive good. I would have liked to have seen that explored with the kind of depth and sensitivity that the loss of Bruce Wayne's parents was dealt with in Batman begins. Instead, I got long passages that felt like they were lifted directly from an old comic, delivered in cheesy monologues. I know that he had to be CGI, because you can't really set a skeleton on fire and expected it to perform, but this was bad CGI. I got villains who were barely even caricatures, and who were far too weak to ever pose any real threat.
There were really only two things that kept me from getting up and abandoning this movie. The first was Donal Logue's character who was funny and kind of sweet, and the only one in the whole damned film that felt like an actual human being. Sadly, they kill him off. The other was purely shallow. Wes Bentley as the demon Blackheart was really very pretty. I could just ignore the horrendous dialogue coming out of his mouth or whoever else was speaking at the time and look at the pretty. But I won't be watching again, and I hope to hell there isn't a sequel.
On a more positive movie note, I think I'm going to take Dad to see Dark Knight as a combo birthday/late father's day present when it comes out. It's not going to be a cheap endeavor though, because it will mean buying some gas and probably a meal out. I refuse to go back to the idiot movie theatre here. It's outrageously expensive, and just not that nice. When you add on the incident with the 3-inch drop-off in the parking lot where I broke my wrist, and I am just not pleased with them. I would have felt differently about it if there had been a sidewalk to walk on, it hadn't been dark, or it had been marked in some way, or, you know if they'd admitted they screwed up and paid my medical bill. Anyway, that means going to Lawrence, and there's no way we're going to watch a movie in Lawrence and not require food either before or after. Right now, my plan is that I'll get up at some insanely early hour and ride into Lawrence with Dad when he goes to work. He can drop me at Einstein's or someplace where I'll get some breakfast and wait for the rest of the world to wake up (or at least for the stores to open). I'll hang out down town and try not to spend any money, at least until after lunch when I will probably spend way too much at either The Mad Greek, Zen Zero, or the Indian place that I love. Then I'll either go back to browsing the stores or I'll head up to campus and hang out in the library for awhile. Or possibly, I'll go to Borders and nobody will ever see me again, or I'll spend more money than I should there and then promptly cross the street and go to Java Break where I will spend even more money that I shouldn't and drink Iced Mochas until Dad gets off while either reading the books I've just bought or writing furiously in a notebook. I'm never more inspired to write than I am in a coffee shop. Then when he gets off work we'll go to the movie, then grab something cheap for dinner (because I will have already blown the food budget on my lunch, frequent coffee breaks, and the bookstores) and head home. I like this plan, because it doesn't have him driving too far out of his way, which means I should be able to avoid having to pay gas money. I don't like this plan because it will require me to get up at 5:30 or so which is typically about 3 hours after I go to bed. Of course another benefit, is that if I did end up going up to campus I could distract my sister-in-law from whatever work she's doing. That could be amusing.
Oh, and if you're reading this, Heather, Mom talked the library into ordering the DVDs for MI-5. Because apparently they have a huge budget for new material every year, but they only order things that are either off of some list of books that libraries should buy that someone puts out, or that are requested. Nobody ever requests things, so in the last six months, Mom has requested 20 things or something ridiculous like that and they've agreed to buy them all.
General impressions were that Across the Universe is beautiful, really well-written, and reasonably well-acted and still probably not something I'll watch again. Ghost Rider was mediocre in pretty much every since of the word. The material didn't give Nick Cage much to work with, and his own tendency to melodrama in his acting made it even worse. Also, not something I'm likely to watch again. More on both, below.
Across the Universe
I loved the look of the film, and how it evolves. The first part seems pretty normal, but as we get deeper into the movie it starts to look like some acid-induced fantasy. The music is brilliant, and not just because it's the Beatles. The songs are just really well done. I got to see Bono with a funny mustache and the most bizarre accent ever. The boys, Max & Jude, were both pretty. I like Jude's art. The clothes/hair/make-up looked right for the times without looking like they stole things from my mother's old closet. It was all just really really beautifully done.
I thought the writing was superb. Even when they're not actually singing songs, we're getting references to them with Sexy Sadie and girls coming in through the bathroom window and the such. The songs were meshed really well into the dialogue of the piece, so that it didn't feel like we were taking a musical interlude and would be back in the story shortly. The best example of that for me was when Jude went to the office where Lucy volunteered and sang Revolution, but there were plenty of other similar moments.
I even thought the acting was reasonably good. A little over the top sometimes especially on the part of the secondary characters (Sadie and Jo-Jo spring to mind), but not bad. I believed in these characters. And it's not a small portion of my enjoyment that there was an enormous amount of subtext. Does it actually surprise anyone that I believe ever so much more in the Max/Jude ship than I do in the Jude/Lucy ship?
But even with all of that, I don't think I'll watch it a second time. I don't have a good explanation for that, but where usually I'm pleased as punch to watch something over and over and over again, this doesn't hold that same allure for me. Weird, I know.
Ghost Rider
My major issue with this is that it felt too comic-bookish. One of the great achievements of recent (used very loosely) superhero movies is their general lack of a comic-book feel. The new Batman movies are the best example to me. Don't get me wrong, I loved the original Michael Keaton Batman and even have a soft spot for Val Kilmer and George Clooney as Batman, but they always felt like comic books, and I've been spoiled by Batman Begins, and to a lesser extent the X-Men and Spiderman movies. Sure there are wildly improbable things going on, the occasional really bad style choice (like Wolverine's hair which is a bit over the top), outlandish costumes, and bizarre villains, but they also all feel like real people with real lives. Their dialogue doesn't sound like it might have been written by the same guy who wrote the comic book (not that comic book authors aren't talented, some are extraordinarily talented, but it is a different skill set). They spoke like real people.
Everything and everyone in Ghost Rider felt like a comic book. I was disappointed, because I've always loved the mythos behind the book. Here is someone who gives up his soul trying to do something good. He's not trying to become the richest guy on the block, or have political power, or get revenge on someone. He's just a genuinely good guy who makes a pretty bad choice. And sure it's vigilante justice and all that, but he subverts the role of the Ghost Rider (as others have before him) to do a positive good. I would have liked to have seen that explored with the kind of depth and sensitivity that the loss of Bruce Wayne's parents was dealt with in Batman begins. Instead, I got long passages that felt like they were lifted directly from an old comic, delivered in cheesy monologues. I know that he had to be CGI, because you can't really set a skeleton on fire and expected it to perform, but this was bad CGI. I got villains who were barely even caricatures, and who were far too weak to ever pose any real threat.
There were really only two things that kept me from getting up and abandoning this movie. The first was Donal Logue's character who was funny and kind of sweet, and the only one in the whole damned film that felt like an actual human being. Sadly, they kill him off. The other was purely shallow. Wes Bentley as the demon Blackheart was really very pretty. I could just ignore the horrendous dialogue coming out of his mouth or whoever else was speaking at the time and look at the pretty. But I won't be watching again, and I hope to hell there isn't a sequel.
On a more positive movie note, I think I'm going to take Dad to see Dark Knight as a combo birthday/late father's day present when it comes out. It's not going to be a cheap endeavor though, because it will mean buying some gas and probably a meal out. I refuse to go back to the idiot movie theatre here. It's outrageously expensive, and just not that nice. When you add on the incident with the 3-inch drop-off in the parking lot where I broke my wrist, and I am just not pleased with them. I would have felt differently about it if there had been a sidewalk to walk on, it hadn't been dark, or it had been marked in some way, or, you know if they'd admitted they screwed up and paid my medical bill. Anyway, that means going to Lawrence, and there's no way we're going to watch a movie in Lawrence and not require food either before or after. Right now, my plan is that I'll get up at some insanely early hour and ride into Lawrence with Dad when he goes to work. He can drop me at Einstein's or someplace where I'll get some breakfast and wait for the rest of the world to wake up (or at least for the stores to open). I'll hang out down town and try not to spend any money, at least until after lunch when I will probably spend way too much at either The Mad Greek, Zen Zero, or the Indian place that I love. Then I'll either go back to browsing the stores or I'll head up to campus and hang out in the library for awhile. Or possibly, I'll go to Borders and nobody will ever see me again, or I'll spend more money than I should there and then promptly cross the street and go to Java Break where I will spend even more money that I shouldn't and drink Iced Mochas until Dad gets off while either reading the books I've just bought or writing furiously in a notebook. I'm never more inspired to write than I am in a coffee shop. Then when he gets off work we'll go to the movie, then grab something cheap for dinner (because I will have already blown the food budget on my lunch, frequent coffee breaks, and the bookstores) and head home. I like this plan, because it doesn't have him driving too far out of his way, which means I should be able to avoid having to pay gas money. I don't like this plan because it will require me to get up at 5:30 or so which is typically about 3 hours after I go to bed. Of course another benefit, is that if I did end up going up to campus I could distract my sister-in-law from whatever work she's doing. That could be amusing.