Ooh!

I wish that I had a computer geek in my life to whom I could gift these. Alas, all I've got around here are fantasy/sci-fi/music geeks. Woe is me!

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

I include this picture because this is the way I would MUCH have preferred that Nicolas Cage look in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Since when do a (to quote the movie) "300 year old rawhide coat" and hair made out of straw translate into an ultra powerful sorcerer? I'm sorry, Nic, but no matter how much you spin, that hair will NOT turn into gold. I DON'T CARE WHAT THE MICE TOLD YOU.

So unfunny fairy tale tangent aside, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was average. It had some sweet romantic moments, some really delightful Alfred Molina scenes (all of his scenes, actually- his acting is really quite delicious- he did the best he could with a ridiculous script), some scenes of trademark Cageian insanity (which are also guiltily delightful), and lost of unnecessarily silly action sequences and occultism. Magic is awesome, but when the final spell of ultimate evil requires the wicked witch to writhe around on the ground like a...well you don't want to know like what...then it's just too much. I could definitely have gone without the hair swinging.

Final verdict- silly effects+gaudy jewelery+randomly kind of hot Jay Baruchel= C+

Well Played, AF.

So apparently no one likes the current DC mayor, Adrian Fenty. Whatever, I don't know anything about him. This I WILL say for him though, he has got to be the hottest mayor DC has ever had. And for that I say: good job good sir.

Predators

Ok so maybe thats not the real poster, but you get the point. On Saturday I went to see "Predators" with Nicole, fellow librarian. It was...pretty much exactly what I expected, which wasn't much. Imagine, for a second, that the same team that made the original movie set out to do...everything they had already done, in exactly the same style, with a new cast (except for the monsters, of course) and better special effects, and you'll have quite a good idea of what this was like. Bright spots: Adrien Brody and...I hesitate to add him to this list, because he only makes it by sheer force of insanity, but Laurence Fishburne. Also the Yakuza gangster whose name I do not know, but whose scenes were wonderfully referential to older Tokyo gangster films like...well, "Tokyo Gangster" (Kristin, please tell me you remember that). Laurence did the best he could with the material he had, which amounted to not very well with not very much, but it turned out to be one of the more entertaining sections of the entire film. All of that being said, the writing was astonishingly bad, and the violence was over-wrought. It had some really great "ARE THEY SERIOUS?!?!?!?!" moments, but not much else worth going for. Maybe I should start grading movies. I give this one a solid C-.

This definitely had some entertaining previews though. Look up "Machete". I promise you will not be sorry you did.

Fail

So I'm confused by this. I was looking for a definition of ectomorph, and the Merriam-Webster site came up as one of the results. "Well, that's a well-known name in the field of dictionaries" I thought to myself, and clicked. But there is a problem. Could someone PLEASE tell me where the definition is on this page (and no, it wasn't in the scrolldown, i promise)?

Inception

Why does A.O. Scott always end up reviewing the movies that I am most anticipating? Where are you Manohla?!?!?

Whatever. It's still a well-written review, though a bit disappointing:

"Admirers of Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” and Stanley Kubrick’s “2001” will find themselves in good company, though “Inception” does not come close to matching the impact of those durable cult objects. It trades in crafty puzzles rather than profound mysteries, and gestures in the direction of mighty philosophical questions that Mr. Nolan is finally too tactful, too timid or perhaps just too busy to engage."

Ouch. Not what I wes expecting.

Read the rest here.

Movies!

I haven't posted about movies in a long time and Andrea blogged a rant today about chick flicks and it got me all fired up, so I guess I'm in the mood now.



First up is a real gem- a French movie called "Barbe Bleue" or, in English, "Blue Beard". It's based on a classic fairy tale by Charles Perrault (ever heard of...oh, Cinderella? That's because of him), a 17th century writer and collector of folk stories. If you've read a lot of the Grimm Brothers o Hans Christian Andersen, you know that some fairy tales can get a little out of control, and Blue Beard is no different (seriously- what in the world is this about?). So anyways, in this movie (one of a large number of versions), two young girls in the 50s are narrating. The younger sister forcefully reads the older the story because the younger is fascinated by it. The elder is terrified. The story itself is about two sisters whose father dies, for which happening they are kicked out of their convent/school. Back home, they talk about their neighbor, old Blubeard, who has been married several times, though his wives have all mysteriously disappeared. The younger is obsessed with his wealth and the idea of escaping to his world of wealth and luxury, and accepts his proposal of marriage. Long story short, he leaves one day, giving her all the keys to the palace, telling her to visit every room and explore the whole property, but not to use the small golden key. So what does she do? Of course she figures out which door it opens and goes inside. There, she finds the bodies of his dead wives (though some versions of the story have them alive still, but tortured and imprisoned and nearly dead). She freaks out, leaves the room, and relocks the door. HOWEVER, instead of staying away for months as he promised, he comes back the next day. Of course she is still out of her mind, he notices, and $#!% happens.

So. Morbid, right? Aside from the one terrifying scene, the dead wives, the film is pretty sedate. It's very interesting because while the little gil narrators are spectacular little actresses (it feels so natural!), the acting in the fairy tale is rather wooden, almost emotionless. I've read a number of reviews that really criticize this, but I think it's a deliberate statement by the director, not the sad result of a woeful lack of talent as some have implied. It leaves them as generic representatives of men and women, their relationships a rather bitter commentary on the sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet relationship between the two. It also preserves the feeling that this is a story we're watching, not a reality or any kind of direct representation of it.

That being said, it is wonderfully watchable and definitely worth the time. It's on watch anytime on Netflix right now if you've got some free time (and, of course, a subscription)


THE LAST AIRBENDER: Well, if you're free for a matinee and really don't care how you spend your time, go see it. Otherwise, avoid like the plague. The performances here are painfully wooden, and not on purpose like the previous film. Just painful, especially remembering Mr. Shyamalan's former talent. Sorry M. Night, you've been replaced and overwhelmed for me by the giant of J.J. Abrams.



Well, all that I really have to say about this movie is "Oh HEEEEEEY Bradley Cooper!!!". The plot and writing were completely absurd. That doesn't, however, negate the fact that this is a good movie to escape the heat on a weekend afternoon. Worth a matinee (maybe not in D.C. though, where matinees are NINE DOLLARS). Lots of explosions, one really entertaining bad guy (hey Raul!), and some really silly portrayals of military types.




I think I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that "Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year" is the second best Bollywood movie I've ever seen (after "Lagaan", which is no longer available on DVD or Netflix or anywhere really). It's kind of "The Office" meets India without the sarcasm or the great writing. Harpreet Singh reports a client at his first ever job for requesting a bribe, is told by his boss "that's how we roll", and decides to start his own competing company while still at his job and using their resources (but keeping a strict accounting of everything he uses so he can repay it someday). His boss is horrible to him, more and more coworkers join him, then the whole situation blows up and his boss forces him out of business. Heartwarming self-examination and happy resolution ensues. It's a good, simple, solid movie. AND it's under three hours! (My main complaint about the Indian film industry is that it cannot, for the life of it, produce a movie that is less than three hours long- this one actually is, but only by about twenty minutes). Anyways, if your in the mood for something a little different, give it a try. This one's also on watch anytime on Netflix right now.

I feel like four is a good place to stop for tonight. K bye!!!

Recent events

I'm continually making note in my phone of crazy things that happen each day that I can put on here, and I inevitably forget and the humor passes. Here are a few that I can remember:

1. On Monday I waited for an incredibly long time for the train because of an "incident" two stops away, and when it finally came, I got on, sat down, and saw...a woman wearing a halloween candy sack shaped like a pumpkin/cat (yes, both at the same time). It was sitting upright, well really she was holding it up with her left hand, which was also holding a tall plastic mug. She started yelling at everyone who had just gotten on the train, ranting on and on about how she couldn't get any sleep, no one would let her get 8 hours of sleep, especially not since she got out of prison. This continued (I'm sure)after I got off the train.

2. Right when I was getting in the checkout line at Tarzhaaaaay the other day, "Cry Me a River" came on. I have so many wonderful and ridiculous memories about that song. It made me so happy, that I didn't even care waiting for ten minutes while the woman in front of me rang up and entire cart-load of items and then couldn't find her credit card. I even felt sorry for her.I've totally been there. Hope she found it.

3. One of my roomates is writing a paper about Washington scandals and started asking all of us which we thought were the worst and why/why they were so interesting to us. Her friend cited the Watergate debacle, and as for why it so gripped her? "It's just, like, really fascinating to me, like, the level of technology they used. Like, we still use wire-tapping today in the government" (and then she went on about how advanced wire-tapping was back then and how crazy it was that they were using it) What? Pretty sure telephone tapping was not the main issue there. It was burglary, manipulation, and Nixon's recordings of people without their consent. Not by tapping into phone lines, but just using a tape recorder. Wire-tapping has been around almost as long as telephones themselves. And that's all I'm going to say. I really do like her.

All for now.