Tuesday, March 24, 2009

movie/tv reviews

I'm posting a day ahead because I will be out of the office all day tomorrow, and I can' figure out how to auto post.



Couple of movie/TV show reviews:


Watchmen. **Spoiler alert** If you have not seen it, skip ahead.

The more I review it my mind, the more I didn’t like it. Overall it did do a good job of transferring the comic to the screen. But it’s the details that really get to me.

The soundtrack was amazing. Even 99 Balloons was odd but cool. However any original music was terrible and really clashed with the mood of the film.

As for characters, Rorschach was one of the greatest performances of a comic character brought to screen. The voice, the outfit, the moments were absolute magic. And then there was Silk Spectre II. Horrible. Her voice, her. The way Doc Manhattan was presented was tremendous. There is no way he could have been as dynamic as a visual 10 years ago. (And I’m not just talking about his “you know.”) I thought Ozymandius’ costume was taken from the X-Men wardrobe trailer. Didn’t really fit with the book.

Then there was the gratuitous sex scene. Really did we need that? Were they appealing to the fanboys or the customer who didn’t know anything going in? This movie was 2’40”, felt every moment of it and that was 2” they could have cut off.

Finally, the movie is too dense for a literal presentation. While there were elements of the story told and it created a sort of anti-hero moral tale, a huge theme of the book is why somewhat normal people dress up in spandex and masks. I felt they really didn’t cover this at all and they probably couldn’t and get everything else in.



Last week, I watched the Little Britain USA. Imagine Family Guy and South Park. Now both of those shows go up to a line of decency and jump over. Little Britain starts where those shows end and jumps farther. Tasteless, graphic and offensive. Genius.



Choke. I felt like Choke was some sort of Coen Bros. movie. Here are these characters, this is their world, x,y,and z happens, credits. Lord High Charlie was great, and there was a little “Of Mice and Men” dynamic between the two friends. Now would I see this as a double feature with Fight Club? Not sure. Don’t know if I’ll ever see it again although there were some very quotable lines.



Gone Baby Gone. **Spoiler alert** If you have not seen it, skip ahead.

Wow. Great film. Talk about no right answer and moral grey areas. I had this nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right and when the Detective slipped during his drunken rant about the nature of God, that solved the puzzle for me. This is a film that I could come back to and really enjoy, while trying to figure out which side of the fence I would have been on. Morgan Freeman really stole the show. You inherently trust his character and then are stunned with the plan that is set in motion. His monologue at the end sets up the moral quandary and really gets the wheels turning in your brain.



Now I have to get to the three movies on my bed stand. Besides those, I hope to talk about in the near future about the Champions League draw, MLS expansion and some music I came across.




Ta Ta.

No comments: