Warm Fuzz

Firstly, I have to express my disgust with the management at Hoyts new cinemas in Sylvia Park. Turned up just before movie start on Tuesday only to find Hot Fuzz was sold out. "Fair enough", I thought, "it's cheap night, it's nearly start time and it's a popular movie". Turned up Wednesday night at least 15 minutes beforehand only to be told the same thing. Turns out they'd scheduled it in a 36 seat cinema, surely one of their smallest. While walking away I spoke to a small group who were also turned away because of this utter stupidity in scheduling a popular movie. Their next screening of it was 9:45 on a school night. And they don't take phone bookings.

After rearranging my plans for the second night in a row, I finally saw Hot Fuzz at 9pm in Wairau Park - only because I had a free ticket. There would have been less than twenty in the 100+ seat auditorium at Wairau Park.

Anyway, the film: Now I am questioning my own sense of humour. I found it amusing, but not a constant barrel of laughs. I thought Shaun of the Dead was much better. Other friends have found it hilarious. I kept waiting for it to get better, to get funnier. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I know I have a pretty high standard when it comes to humour. So I will put it down to my present low mood.



Blue Oyster Cult Don't Fear The Reaper

Avatar Movie Filming in New Zealand

Let's hope it's as good as the hype suggests it will be. The key thing will be a good story and direction, which is where King Kong fell down. I've generally liked James Cameron's stuff.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1501119/story.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10418452

listening to the bustling sounds of my workplace

The Best Films of 2006 - Porn, Zombies and War

I was thunking about all the good movies I've seen this year, so, in no particular order, here's my top 13 for 2006:

As It Is In Heaven
A romantic, uplifting, redemptive film from Sweden. I especially related to the theme of being burned out and losing your creativity, as that's what happened to me over two and a half years ago. And the idea of finding your own voice... magical and healing.

Lord of War
Lord of War deserves an oscar. Why it came and went so quickly with barely a mention belongs in the realm of conspiracy theory, in spite of having Nicolas Cage starring. Perhaps one of the big film studios is financed by an arms company. If the world is anything like this film, we live in scary, scary times.

Brick
Man. What an amazingly good film. If you're a fan of 40's film noir, detective thrillers, murder mysteries or California youth culture see this. Great acting, great story, great filming, satisfying ending. The only imperfection I spotted was it's filmed on video instead of 35mm, hence grainy on the big screen. But that's being really picky.

Paradise Now
A movie about two Palestinian Arabs preparing for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. This is not a documentary and the film is sympathetic to their cause without promoting suicide bombing as the only answer. Very thought provoking, highly recommended for all to see no matter what political or religious persuasion you are, in a world where political fundamentalism has made it's mark.

Solaris
Solaris came out a few years ago, but is the best Sci-Fi film I've seen in ages. A psychological thriller investigating the nature of love, the alien and of humanity. A major reason I like this is for the soundtrack. It's beautiful, and the space photography is beautiful, evoking scenes from 2001.

Together
A Swedish comedy-drama about a commune trying to relate and keep it together. Especially relevant as I live in a tiny intentional community, so perhaps I found it funnier than others would. You'll only find this one in Videon, but it's worth hunting out.

American Hardcore
Documentary shown in the Film Festival featuring members of Blag Flag, Cro-Mags, Minor Threat, Bad Brains and many more. What was most poignant was the perspectives of various bands on the end of the 80's US hardcore movement. As one member says, 'punk is dead, hardcore is dead. The bands of today are a shallow copy of something that is no longer around.'

Princess
A violent Norwgian cartoon looking at the effect of the porn industry on one man, his sister and her child. Sobering, tragic and hopeful all at the same time.

Cabin Fever
Ah, yes. My obligatory zombie movie. Well, not exactly a zombie movie, more a moral warning about being nice people. Good gory effects, believeable story, obnoxious characters you WANT to see die, and an environmental subtext.

Akira
I saw it at the Bridgeway years ago when it first came out and watched it again not long ago with Felyne. Perhaps the first, and arguably still the best of the Anime movies. It has a story you can understand, characters you can empathise with, and the animation still stacks up. Plus lots of weirdness and ultraviolence.

An Inconvenient Truth
I was already a convert, but now I'm a follower of the gospel according to Gore. A little too US-American in places, particularly the hype at the end. But that's the audience he's trying to reach - the US, so in context it makes sense.

Thankyou For Smoking
The funniest movie of the year is not a hollywood canned laughter flick featuring Chevy Chase or the Winan brothers. No surprise there. TFS features moral ambiguity as comedy, is well acted and scripted. A wry laugh for hypocrites, and fans of hypocrisy, like myself.




listening to the Solaris soundtrack, in my head

Brick

Skived off work early this afternoon and went to the Rialto to see Brick http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/brick?q=brick, as it's in its last days. Man. What an amazingly good film. If you're a fan of 40's film noir, detective thrillers, murder mysteries or California youth culture see this. Great acting, great story, great filming, satisfying ending. The only imperfection I spotted was it's filmed on video instead of 35mm, hence grainy on the big screen. But that's being really picky.

5 stars out of 5 *****

Will be watching for that writer/director again.

listening to ?? | Fingerpaint (Maslow remix)

V for Vendetta

Watched it last night on DVD with a few flatties/community peeps. Surprisingly good, quite inspiring in many ways. I was expecting it to be a shlock superhero type movie. Some very interesting concepts about revenge versus love, whether it's possible that doing evil can lead to good, overcoming fear and so forth.

Off to play badminton.


listening to the birds chirping on a sunny sunday morning.

Salad Fingers

[This post was inspired by another blog which shall remain nameless as she's already had FAR too much free publicity from me ;-) But i will put you in my links soon. Kick me until it happens.]

A few months ago i bumped into Salad Fingers which is some of the creepiest sh*it ever encased in flash. Twisted minds will love it. Plus, the soundtrack is by Boards of Canada. (What is this saying about me?)

http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=3gNktI3AF4Q

If you enjoy this, there are links to episodes 2-5 on the same page. If you don't enjoy it, don't say you haven't been warned.


listening to Afro Celt Sound System : Nu Cead Againn Dul Abhaile

Syriana Movie

Oh yeah, I saw Syriana one night in Palmerston North. It was that or "The Hostel" but i decided not to see that on my own in case it really is as scary/yukky as it appears.

Anyway, Syriana was not that great, a bit disappointing. It had a lot of potential, but was basically just confusing. I reached the end going "I'm sure there was a profound point in there, but I lost it just trying to follow the different storylines." Something about big business and goverment and control of oil being bad.

I've started my writing on reducing plastic use. It will appear in this blog in the next few weeks probably. Send any interesting facts you come across on plastic, or plastic packaging to me.

Too Much Movie Man

I guess from the last two posts you could say I see a lot of movies. On Friday night, I saw Walk The Line, about the early years of Johnny Cash and June Carter.

It appealed to the romantic in me, but I like its realism: it shows the flaws, that all was not perfect in their getting together, and in themselves as people. I love the way he proposed to her, saying he had hurt her so much, and promised not to do it again. I hope to have that kind of marriage one day. Not a perfect movie, but very interesting to a semi wannabe fan like me. There is a fantastic article in Rolling Stone a while back about Johnny Cash and his relationship with Rick Rubin. Very inspiring, spiritually. After a quick search I don't think it's online.

Record company exec: "Mr Cash, your fans are all good christian folks, they don't want to hear you entertaining murderers and rapists in prison."
John Cash: "Well they ain't christian then."

Very impressed that both Phoenix and Witherspoon sang all the vocals themselves, they did a good job.

listening to earlier tonight i had ABBA's "Gimme A Man After Midnight" on my brain. What's with that?

Syriana, Oil and Truth

I want to see the movie Syriana. I've just seen Jarhead tonight, which shows scenes of US soldiers wandering around in burning oilfields in the first Gulf war, reminding me a lot of a very slow arty film by some German guy (help me out here Duncan) about the capping of those wells. Jarhead also shows young US guys getting drunk, being jerks, and being shouted at by mentally disturbed "officers". JHead's an ok movie, I feel strangely ambivalent about it. Which i suppose is one of the themes of the movie; "War is dull, and I didn't get to kill anyone."

Anyway, here's a very interesting article from an (English speaking) Arab newspaper about Syriana. Wheels within wheels, the plot thickens...

I mentioned in an earlier blog somewhere that Paradise Now is an amazing must-see movie. All these movies are set in the Middle East, and some of them question the role of oil. And coincidentally I've been thinking a bit about how we use oil to make plastic, along with my growing concern about plastic pollution - our overuse of plastics. Oil will run out one day, perhaps in my lifetime. (I will leave aside the debate over exactly when. Most people think about cars, but i think the loss of plastic will be a greater difficulty given possible alternative fuels for vehicles. Expect me to rant more on this topic soon.



listening to Metamorphosis : Legacy of the Clenched Fist

The Lying, the Weak and the War drones

Now i've seen The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I expected to loathe the Pevensies as too Enid Blyton, but they weren't so bad. I don't think anyone said "beastly", at least.

I was surprised the special effects looked a bit dated in places, there was one blue screen that looked completely obvious. In their defence, they had a really difficult job. In LOTR there was a limited number of creatures to animate. Whereas In Narnia they had to create completely realistic leopards, beavers, birds, centaurs, rhinos, griffins, horses, fauns, humans, dwarves, minotaurs, cyclops, wolves, monsters, dogs, tigers, bears and many more.

They did the early scenes with Mr Tumnus well, and I thought the witch's nasty dwarf driver captured his role perfectly. Nicely vicious.

Before being too critical I think it's good to remember it's a children's movie. I kept wanting there to be more blood and darkness. Aslan was well done, but they should really have had James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) do the voice. Liam Neeson sounded too wimpy at times. (Would have loved to hear "Use the force, Edmund".) Perhaps instead of filming the others they could do the 'adult' version. My 7 year-old liked it.

Oh, and the surprise ending with Lucy and the professor a couple minutes after the credits began? Good idea, but half the cinema had left by then, there should have been more to keep us watching.

Overall, I liked it but "could try harder". Hoping they do the other films. I'm just reading the Magician's Nephew again and am reminded at how deep the books are, even for kids.

I hope there's stacks of extras on the DVD

===

Sometimes I think I'm a grumpy bugger. Perhaps I am. Misanthropy rules. ;-) Feeling more "interest" than yesterday tho' – interviewing members of the little shared community I live with about what they want out of our experiment has piqued my nullness.

listening to: Butthole Surfers : Pepper

King Kong

Went with a couple of friends last week. The Dominion Post reviewer said Peter Jackson has made a better film than the Lord of the Rings. I disagree. Kong is entertaining, but although I wasn't bored, the film doesn't sustain its over 3 hour length. They could have tightened it up by losing about 30 minutes of the prologue, and saved the rest for DVD. Amazing they filmed it all in New Zealand, the New Yawk is very New Yawk, surely they must have at least filmed the background skyline shots in NY?

As to be expected, amazing special effects. These days I'm taking it for granted, which means story has to come to the fore. I did wonder whether having Kong fight T-Rex was intended to be symbolic of this film outdoing Jurassic Park at it's own game. However, Andy Serkis'/Weta Worshops' Kong is sympathetic, truly acted rather than an FX 'monster'.

Jackson shows his horror movie background with some very gruesome moments, especially the scene with the giant insects (wetas) and leaches.

Overall it's a good film but not a great one.

listening to Altered Images: Don't Talk to me About Love

Muttellica

Watched the Some Kind of Monster documentary last night. I was expecting to be disgusted by the band based on other reviews, but mostly I felt a little sorry for them, and was struck by their ordinary-ness and humanness. Was good to see Bob Rock working with them, insights into how 'real' bands work in the studio. And guess what - it ain't rocket science. Found it kinda encouraging.

listening to snippets of Metallica tracks in my head