mrwhippy

When life gets you down....

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:42:32 GMT

When life gets you down you can feel sorry and wish you could take it all back, or you can get up and dust off and forge ahead. Do anything but stand where you are and you'll never be sure where you'll end up.

It's 3:45 in the morning and it's been one of those weeks.

Super Columbine Massacre RPG

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:50:53 GMT

If you are a serious gamer... you've played this game. Not HEARD about it... actually PLAYED it.

I remember seeing movies that were reprehensible in their content, but what they did was create an open dialogue after being viewed for better or worse about the topics and situations depicted within it.

Welcome to America ladies and gentlemen, you do NOT have the right to not be offended. I'm not a huge fan of the game itself, but I AM a huge fan of what the game itself has done. The creator himself has recently created a documentary (albeit biased towards himself) and if nothing else it is a fascinating series of interviews with forward thinking game developers and designers speaking about the potential for artistic and societal commentary within game design.

I highly recommend playing the game itself and to try and see it not as a "game" but as societal commentary. It is an interesting amalgamation of documentary film and game. But this isn't like most games. Even games that are pushing the metaphoric envelope like "flOw" in a way don't push down hard on the buttons of controversy the way this does.

I felt, in a way, like I was watching a Passolini film. It is filled with horror and is disgusting in its depiction but the game accuses the viewers of complicity in what is happening in it simply by viewing/playing it. This is a game that has a philosophical gravitas to it.

I challenge everyone reading this to play the game and start a discussion about it. Watch the documentary film, "Playing Columbine" and hear what the forefront of the gaming community experts are saying about the future of the industry.

For now,
that's all!

The Nature of the Show...

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:16:09 GMT

I'm a party time Battlestar Galactica watcher. This post contains spoilers.

I while ago my friend Stefan said that when they finally got to earth it would be pulverized by nuclear war and the Cylons would attack. Well, so far he's right! They got to earth and it had been devestated by Nuclear war.

In all honesty my patience for the show ran VERY thin during the 3rd season. I'm a person that likes film. Even if that film is 6 hours long. Aside from trilogy films telling one comprehensive story I don't like television series because I always feel like the writers are trying to pad out an easily short story into years and years of needlessly involved story telling. I'm sure the main reason is that it pads their wallets and the wallets of the executives.

But in all honesty I really REALLY hope that this is the end of the show. Not that the show is bad because it is compelling enough to watch, but because I'm truly sick of the dangling carrots. We're only half way through the 4th season and APPARENTLY we're on earth now. We've still got more to go.

Ugh... is all I have to say. I want to see how it all ends but I'm pretty done with the constant dangling carrot.

For now,
that's all.

"This city deserves a better class of criminal..."

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:52:11 GMT

I don't get to watch movies that much anymore. As any hard working parent will tell you, once you have a child you are pretty relegated to watching repeat viewings of kids movies and TV shows, but once in a while you MAKE the time to see something. I saw Iron Man and was impressed and entertained. I saw The Incredible Hulk and it reinforced my belief that you can't make that story into a crowd pleasing movie.

Last night I saw "The Dark Knight".

I got to see an advanced screening at the Maryland Science Center's IMAX theater, but more on that in a minute.

TDK is probably the movie to beat this summer/fall. It is its predecessor's equal in every respect and in some ways outshines it. While capitalizing on a more action oriented script, the action itself is mostly efficient without being flashy and more gut wrenching for maximum impact rather than showmanship. To say that Nolan's films are some of the best production-wise would be an understatement. The man and his crew know their craft inside and out, awake or asleep. I got go on and on about it but I'll stick to the actors and get back to the ONLY production quip I've got.

Bale's take on the Bruce Wayne/Batman character is truly the definitive take. While I'm still slightly partial to Michael Keaton's more brooding, sadder looking Wayne, it is Bale's physicality that inhabits the character of Batman and as Goyer and Nolan have envisioned Wayne's Bat persona as the over-riding personality, it puts the depressive state of Bruce Wayne on the backburner, so to speak. Simply put, Bale is the best fit for the character.

If Bale's take on Batman is note perfect then the late Heath Ledger's take on the Joker is probably this year's Daniel Day-Lewis type of Oscar nod. Ledger has made statements regarding his use of A Clockwork Orange for much of his inspiration for his character and it shows. The Joker is presented without any background making him a scarier villain and while there are many "jokes" to be had from him, they are all visited with the same type of anarchic viewpoint making them not "funny" but nerve-wracking. Ledger's performance is the best of his career and possibly the best supporting actor performance of this year.

Aaron Eckhart makes in interesting Harvey Dent. We all know who he ends up being, but as the story progresses there is a sense of greek tragedy about watching the man and you end up understanding his character's transformation. In essence, TDK is another origin story... about Two Face instead of Batman. It shows a character's arc from white knight to frustrated person. Eckhart is such a likeable looking actor that his transformation is almost sad instead of dramatic. Again, Goyer and Nolan have an interesting take on their characters.

Which brings me to my ONLY quip about this movie. You would NEVER hear me say the following words generally, but...

It was wrong to shoot only SOME of this movie in IMAX.

That's right! I said it!

WRONG!

There are six major action sequences in this film and while the IMAX photography comes off with a stellar presentation, the sudden and jarring decrease in aspect ratio from a six story picture to a two story picture gets the brain into a funky place. It's not that the production is bad at all. I was just surprised when the film starts off with a great bank heist shot in IMAX and then suddenly reverts to a regular film aspect ratio. It took me a second to adjust.

Yeah... that's my ONLY quip. This is the film of the summer/fall season!!!

For now,
That's all!!!

30 Days of Night

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:02:08 GMT

I wish that I had seen this one in the theater. Not because it is well filmed with impeccable production design and execution but because it's a damn good horror film!

Barrow, Alaska is the "northernmost town in the United States". For one month of the year it has no sunlight. At one point, one of the vampires says, "We should have come here years ago!" He's right. What a great feeding ground! I never read the graphic novel that the film is based on and I will definitely be giving it a look. What a great premise for a vampire story. I'm amazed nobody thought of this one years ago. It seems like the poles of the earth would be good migration grounds for vampires.

Speaking of migration, that brings me to the vampires themselves. You know those gothic creatures that wear corsettes and walk around like they might fall out of the clothes that they are sewn into? Well those aren't anywhere in this movie. In fact, the vampires in this movie look like ghoulish monsters spending most of their time covered in gore like a pack of animals eating away at the carcass of a fallen animal. That's what they all reminded me of and I have to say, it was rather refreshing to see NO sex appeal from the vampire whatsoever. In fact, that's something that isn't even remotely a part of this film. Usually in a monster movie there's a hint of sexual subtext but this movie is too smart by half for it.

But lets talk about the cleverness of this film. Horror films are generally littered with characters that do dumb things and get killed. This film sidesteps all of that. The characters are always trying to figure out what the smartest thing to do is and to do it with as little commotion as possible so as not to attract attention. Take, for instance the scene where they hear the anguished cries of someone out on the street. Everyone rushes to look at the person in distress only to realize that she is setup as bait. In any other horror movie there would be a rescue scene for the hapless victim, but not in this one. The vampires in this movie work with the ruthless skill of a lion hunting a gazelle. They all gang up on a victim and take them down. There is always something alluring about being a vampire, but in this film they are seen as ravenous beasts with little to no humanity left in them. No philosophizing. Just hunger and thirst.

There is also plenty of gore to be found in this movie. The screen is sprayed with blood, the streets literally run red with it, and there are a series of overhead shots as if taken from a helicopter surveying the onslaught of carnage befalling the town that clearly spell out just how helpless the victims are. The film is also somber. For all of its violence and terror, there is a quiet funeral-like procession to the film. The entire film feels almost like it was made by exhausted people. Vampires are dispensed with using strong chops of the axe and generally there would be something thrilling in all of it, but the camera lingers on the person doing the axe chopping just a little too long and the scene turns from adrenalin pumping to downright exhausting. We feel how tired everyone is throughout this film. The film also has its share of surprise moments where something jumps out at you and for once, I have to agree with how it's done. The vampires are never really shown long enough to give you a real sense of their menace so they only quickly emerge from the shadows to eat and then retreat back. The camera keeps them hidden in shadow or moving with a lugubrious sense of boredom. Take Danny Huston's performance as the lead vampire, for instance. He imbues the head vampire with a sense of been-there-done-that to everything. He looks like he has all the time in the world to complete his feeding and is only frustrated by the inventive sheriff of the town that keeps somehow making his life difficult.

Is it the best vampire film ever made? That depends... are you looking for a sexy monster to fantasize about or are you looking for monsters? This film has monsters. Bloody monsters that want to cover themselves in more blood.

And did I mention the blood? Oh there's gore as well!

For now,
that's all!

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:43:06 GMT

I wanted to talk a bit about this film. It is not included in my top 10 list of films for the year. In all honesty I didn't really know HOW to include it. If you have seen this film and taken in its dreamlike storytelling then that statement probably makes a sort of sense. It is about as conventional as a Terrence Malick film. It is told not so much in the order of history as much as the order of the human mind dreams at night. Scenes are pulled together and connected by an almost hypnotic series of vistas and montages shot through a semi-distorted lens keeping everything but the center out of focus. But I'm getting bogged down by details and it's no wonder. The film does its utmost to excruciatingly detail every shot of its 160 minute running time. What is one of the most interesting things about the film is that its literary storytelling process is at times frustrating and fascinating.

Fascinating is the right word for this film. It is endlessly fascinating, in fact. Each shot is so carefully composed that there is never a time when you're not receiving something interesting. But a LOT of interesting can bog things down and that seems to happen during the middle part of the film. It's not that the middle part of the film is bad, or boring, but it's not nearly as fascinating as the first and last hour of the film.

I recommend the film the way I would recommend checking out a curio stand. Each individual piece is fascinating to look at but they don't seem to have much to do with each other. That's the way this film feels. The production is first rate. The photography is often so stunning you don't pay attention to what is actually being said. The sound design is evenly balanced. The attention to set detail is so intricate that even the background objects beg to be studied. It's a perfectly executed production.

Brad Pitt personifies James with a naturalness that doesn't seem acted as much as possessed. His James looks at the world through weary eyes and his body looks as though it could use a good meal and about a year of solid deep sleep. In a way Pitt plays the character so "down" that almost anyone else on screen looks and feels happier and more at peace. He is a ruthless killer in some scenes in the film which embody the killer of Jesse James, but they're not nearly as interesting as his more introspective scenes. The killings that James does in the film feel as tired as he looks.

Casey Affleck is the real standout in the film. This isn't because he overshadows Pitt but because his awkwardness as Robert Ford is such a massive dichotomy to Pitt's downplayed character that we can't help but be enraptured by the performance. His nervousness is almost tangible and his pathetic, almost terrified doe eyed looks are so natural that, like Pitt, they seem more possessed than rehearsed. This is one of the year's greatest performances.

I highly recommend this film. It deserves to be seen more for the experience of the film than the entertainment of it. One word of warning though...

After the film is over, remember this. The original cut of the film was reportedly MORE dreamlike and over 3 hours in length. The theatrical version was meant to be more in the style of a traditional western. Bear that in mind because the film is STILL hypnotic. I would be interested in seeing a director's cut of this film.

For now,
that's all!

Your top ten films of 2007

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:32:57 GMT

Okay here we go in order from most best to greatest:

10. Charlie Wilson's War
Mike Nichols brilliant film about Congressman Wilson's covert aide drops to Afghan rebels is made immensely watchable thanks to Hanks' as-always great acting, Hoffmann's over-the-top scene stealing and a particularly great Ned Beatty performance as well as Sorkin's watered down, but still biting script.

9. American Gangster
Ridley Scott's spectacular chronicle of Frank Lucas' drug business during the 1970s would make a more interesting business study than a gangster film. Scott keeps the film gripping while not giving us a lot of action and Russel Crowe gives, perhaps, the most understated performance of his career. Washington chews his scenes up with his usual gusto but gives a layered performance recalling his great character performances.

8. The Great Debaters
Denzel Washington's gripping and touching film about the African American debate team from Wiley College taking on the Harvard Debate team is filled with great acting and a moving story. Told against the backdrop of the 1935 America but not preaching about the injustices of racism directly, Washington's film manages to bring the horror of a racist America to the audience by giving it heroes who persist against all odds to live their dream despite the harrowing cost.

7. Eastern Promises
David Cronenberg follows up last year's "A History of Violence" with a film that is one of the more fascinating character studies in recent memory. Viggo Mortensen gives a knockout of a performance alongside Vincent Cassal who should have been nominated for his understated but emotional rollercoaster of a role. Naomi Watts tries to look for the family of an orphaned baby which leads to the Russian Mafia underworld. Cronenberg keeps the tension simmering in this even handed, sometimes cold but always watchable thriller.

6. Atonement
Joe Wright continues to amaze with what could be described as a novelization to film that most didn't think was possible. Based on the Ian McEwan novel it tells the story of lovers separated by a third party's misunderstanding of something she thinks has happened causing tragic consequences. Well acted and directed as well as moving, Atonement keeps an artistic tone while giving us a spectacular production containing one of the most amazing uninterrupted shots in recent film history.

5. No Country for Old Men
The Coen brothers create their most masterful film yet. With scene stealing left to Javier Bardem as a cold blooded killer, Josh Brolin gives us an astoundingly understated performance. Tommy Lee Jones, as always chews up the scenery, but does so in a mournful way in this production. His closing monologue is filled with so much tearless sadness that even when the credits abruptly hit us, we feel like there could be more. This is the best film the Coen brothers have ever made.

4. Juno
One of the greatest comedies to wear its heart proudly on its sleeve, Jason Reitman shows he has clearly not fallen far from the tree. In perhaps the funniest film of the year Ellen Page plays Juno MacGaff who becomes pregnant and with the help of her friend tries to find parents to give the unborn child to. MacGaff's comedic timing is perfect and with performers like J.K. Simmons in the background it's not hard to laugh at this offbeat comedy.

3. 3:10 to Yuma
Mangold's remake of the original western fleshes out the characters, the violence, but most importantly the messages that were only touched upon in the original. Christian Bale and Russel Crowe headline in a film that is perhaps one of the most engaging of the year. Shot with an eye for detail, it is more fascinating in its paced out scenes of dialogue as Bale and Crowe begin to understand where each other is coming from.

2. There Will be Blood
If anyone ever tells you that American Cinema is dead then you can kindly hand them this film. P.T. Anderson's take on Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" is about as American as... well... the oil industry. Daniel Day-Lewis gives the best performance of not just this past year but of recent memory as Daniel Plainview. A great cast and location shooting along with a perfectly timed editing process and an unforgettable script make this one of the great American films alongside Citizen Kane.

1. Zodiac
David Fincher redefines the police procedural film by making a movie that IS a procedural film. Taking place during the Zodiac killings beginning in the late 1950's, this film chronicles the frustrating process of putting together a case with evidence that is mostly circumstantial with witnesses who can't remember what their attacker looks like. Over its 2.5 hour running time we are never aware of the length of this. Fincher keeps us interested simply by showing the painstaking process of investigating a case and as the it gets colder and colder, less and less attention is paid to it. Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey, jr turn in the films great performances. Eschewing his usual sense of cinematic flare, Fincher delivers a film that you will be talking about long after the credits have rolled. It is even laced with dry police humor.

So that's it everyone. That's the top 10. I have to say that it was a BIG FIGHT between "There Will be Blood" and "Zodiac" but I felt that while TWBB is the more timeless of the two, "Zodiac" was this years best and most engaging film.

Post YOUR top ten!

For now,
that's all!

There will be blood... and ACTING! THANKYOU!!!!!

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:07:37 GMT

P.T. Anderson's latest film, "There Will be Blood" is the kind of great cinema that keeps your faith in film affirmed. It's brilliant without congratulating the viewer on being smart and well read, it's gripping without smashing you over the head with the hammer of irony and symbolism, and it's funny without letting you laugh out of hilarity. Anderson has taken Upton Sinclaire's novel Oil! and turned it into this amazing film.

There are very few times in my life when I walk out of a movie theater and feel the need to tell everyone to go see a movie, but I did with this one and I'm telling you all right now... go see this movie.

Now, technically this movie is brilliant! The photography is amazing, the sound design is top notch, the costumes and makeup and everything about the production is simply first rate.

But here's the interesting thing... this movie could ONLY work with the actors that appear in it. I'll get to Lewis in a second.

Paul Dano has one of those faces that looks like he may not have much going on at first in his mind, but then you realize that he's gone a few minutes without blinking and his eyes have that feverish look. Yeah... there's something going on there. Dano is the PERFECT actor in his role. He's overbearing and slimy while at the same time generating an outward warmth that never lets your decide if he's crazy or nice. Of course, that all makes sense at the end of the film.

Ciarin Hinds as usual presents his solid acting in a laid back fashion that is somehow menacing and commanding all at the same time but still vulnerable.

... and then we have Daniel Day-Lewis. Here is an actor so intense and so terrifying in this role that he almost makes Ben Kingsley's character in Sexy Beast seem like a family man. Watching Plainview's descent into what seems like madness but is really just an absolute hatred for... well... just about everything on the planet including himself is fascinating for the first 3/4s of the film where the progression seems to go from a low to a high boil... but then the movie jumps forward in time to a much later date at which point the high boil has basically overflowed and the entire pan has burned from the inside out. There is something so abruptly insane about the final scene that it almost doesn't seem to fit. It's as if there was some crucial scene that was cut out of the film. That's not to say that the ending doesn't work which it very much does, but you have to sort of imagine a massive leap in craziness to really get the impact of the final scene. Lewis gives a performance nothing short of absolutely stunning. His Milkshake monologue at the end of the film is so incredible that I could not possible imagine ANY other actor giving it at all.

"There Will be Blood" may not win best picture this year and I'm not sure that it deserves it but if Lewis doesn't win the oscar... well... there's something wrong in this world.

For Now,
that's all!

I am "NOT" Legend...

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:32:33 GMT

I'm still trying to figure out why it is that nobody can turn Matheson's seminal horror novel into a film. The book literally reads LIKE a film. The scene descriptions read like something out of a movie script and the setting isn't the vast sweeping panorama of a city but of a small suburban house barricaded against everything outside of it.

Matheson's book is a movie accounting executive's dream come true. They wouldn't have to spend oodles of money on it, could through big name stars into it, make it a regular drama... oh wait... I think I got it now.

If there's really any reason to see this movie, well... two reasons... it's Will Smith and the destroyed New York which is presented to us in such a way that we could see it that way after 100 years... minus the fact that somehow everything still works in the city.

Will Smith does some of his best work here. The movie isn't that dialogue heavy but instead Smith resorts here to the kind of great physical acting that is the mark of a good leading man. His deterioration while punctuated by him speaking to his dog is more an evolving sense of his physical tiredness.

Smith really shines in this role and he would've been good in it no matter what the setting, whether it be a faithful adaptation of Matheson's novel or... well, this film.

But then there's the rest of this movie. Technically it strikes ALMOST all of the right chords... except for one: CGI.

The CGI in this movie is so painful to watch that you never EVER get the sense of fear you need of the surrounding area because the vampires are obviously fake, even the dogs are fake, and the deer hunt is PAINFULLY fake. Why Smith sees the need to go flying down the streets hunting deer is beyond me. Do what most hunters do. Find a good spot, sit, wait, shoot the first deer that stops long enough to take the shot. The last 4th of this movie is hollywood regular action and although the ending isn't a total cop-out in terms of its faithfulness to the book, it still leaves you with a good feeling... not the sense of sad poignancy the book had.

The material is good if you're not familiar with Matheson's novel. However, if you are a fan of his book then this movie is no more accurate to it than the rest of the movies that have been made from it.

It doesn't make sense for such a simple story to be turned into something so much more. Stick to the source material and you've got a great drama... but not much is going to explode. THe point where this movie turns into an action film is so tangible that you can feel the hands of Hollywood execs around the reigns.

For now,
that's all!

The Mist...

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:58:41 GMT

I'm going to save the praise for the end of this review because I want to get to the big part everyone always wants to talk about... THE ENDING!

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS AHOY!

Remember the end of The Shawshank Redemption? They meet on the beach and there's that sense of hope in the air that something good is finally going to happen for these two guys that have been through hell and back and finally learned to keep hope in their hearts otherwise they die?

Great! Keep that memory going... then imagine that suddenly the cops show up and shoot them down on the beach in a hail of bullets.

...

Kinda makes the rest of the movie pointless, huh? Like... wow... I thought that the theme was "hope" but I guess we were wrong about that. I guess the point is that there is no point in "hope" because eventually the cops will show up and kill you.

Now imagine that you've survived being cooped up inside a supermarket being attacked by nasty creatures... OH! And there's monsters outside the supermarket as well and they're trying to get in and kill you. Yeah... but you've got HOPE to keep you going. Lots and lots of HOPE for yourself and your little boy who you love more than life and would do anything for... including fight evil monsters inside and outside the supermarket in order to keep him alive.

Then you finally get out of there in the "HOPE" that you're going to make it to a safer place filled with saner people and fewer nasty monsters. Then your car runs out of gas... you've got five people in the car including yourself and ONE gun between the five of you. There are monsters outside the car somewhere, although you can't see them so what to do? Well... you shoot your child and the rest of everyone in the car and get out to await being killed because it was foolish of you to HOPE in the first place and then what happens? Rod Serling's sense of evil shows up in the form of the US Military and they're clearing away the mist and killing the monsters. Now don't you feel stupid for killing everyone you tried to protect?

Wow... I sure would. I'd probably have the same reaction that the lead guy in the movie does. But then... I probably would've gone out on me feet along with the rest them instead of capping them to prevent them from their horrible fate which, as fate would have it, probably never would happen thanks to the US military.

So there... now you know the end of this film that was GREAT until it gave itself a lobotomy and forgot what its ENTIRE POINT WAS.

But the rest of the movie is a taut, well paced, horror film filled with gooey sticky moments and evil christians hellbent on killing anyone that's not one. Over the top acting adds to the sense of camp in the film and it works.

Too bad about that ending though...

For now,
that's all!

McClane is a superhero while David figures out how he was Bourne and Mal get served some pie....

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:12:12 GMT

Brief movie update...

Live Free or Die Hard is the best bad tongue-in-cheek action movie in a long while. Abandoning believeability and going for sheer hilarity and fun, this movie is exactly the reason that popcorn and soda exist on this planet. Everything about the movie is over the top and for some reason, because the film relishes in that, so do we. Yes, it's terrible... but it's MY kind of terrible.

The Bourne Ultimatum is the exact opposite of LFoDH... it's VERY VERY SERIOUS. VERY VERY VEEEERY SERIOUS! Greengrass knows how to execute a streamlined action film and keep the tension and suspense so high that we're constantly engaged in this efficient piece of cinema. In fact, the film is SO efficient at times that even though you see the mystery of Bourne's identity unfolding before you with ruthless speed, you're nevertheless tense all the way through it. It is as if Greengrass catches the audience on the crest of tension and then drops us down into the tube of adrenaline as it were to rush us straight to the end without throwing a single obstacle in our way. It's a great movie and probably one of the best action films to come along in a long time.

Waitress, on the other hand, is something you don't expect. The saddening death of Adrienne Shelley is a note that rings through this film. Not only was her film very heartfelt and deeply human, but it contains notes of depth that a film like this should not have in it. On the surface of this film is a normal chick flick and that's what we think we're watching... for a while. But the movie suddenly dredges up an undercurrent that is so unsettling at times that you're not quite sure what direction the movie is going to take. Now had this movie's trailer had the tagline... "from the mind of Tim Burton..." everything would make sense about this movie, but it is so awkward that it's impossible not to like it. It's bittersweet but funny, disturbing but heartening...

It's kind of like those pies she keeps imagining. We lost an interesting creative voice when Shelley died.

For now,
that's all!

Sunshine...

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:23:39 GMT

SPOILERS

Just saw Danny Boyle's new film, "Sunshine."

Here's the problem with this film in a nutshell : The main problem of getting to the sun and making sure that they can keep the ship running long enough to get there just wasn't thrilling enough. So instead of that they of course do the following : Detour to abandoned first attempt ship sitting in space, enounter mechanical failures doing so, take onboard extra psychotic passenger, passenger tries to kill everyone. It becomes a standard monster movies essentially.

I was very disappointed, mostly because in order for the things to happen in the film the way they do everyone has to suddenly forget that they're smart people. There are two good movies in here and either would be great on their own terms, but mixed together like they are is a disaster of a film. The science of actually making it to the sun in a spacecraft is already so daunting that overcoming the actual physics of doing it would have made an incredibly thrilling movie all by itself and for a while that's what this film is.

We all know that movies that take place in a confined space with at least one nutty person can be thrilling and for a while that's what this movie is, but it keeps trying to convince us that it's really about getting to the sun to reignite it and that this is what the crew has to go through to do it.

My main problem is that once you overload the tension of a film it no longer becomes tense at all. My favorite moment in the film comes when one of the crew members has the nutty guy in a corner, stabs him and when he screams in pain they run away. Isn't that the point where you stay to finish the job knowing that they will try to kill you given the chance?

But I digress...

Technically the film is great, the acting is great, but the suspension of disbelief factor becomes so great as to not let us really believe what we are seeing after a while.

For now,
that's all

The Fountain...

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:39:17 GMT

If there was a movie out last year that had more people polarized on it than Darren Aronovsky's "The Fountain" I want to know what it was.

Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz star in Aronovsky and co-author Ari Handel's visually stunning and metaphorically layered melodrama/Zen/New Age/Indian/etc., take on the nature of love, loss, acceptance, denial, and rebirth.

All of this takes place in three different times with the same two cast members as the star crossed lovers. I won't really delve into the plot that much because the film is so amorphous in terms of its storytelling that it is really more of an emotional experience presented to the viewer through the use of superior technical quality.

Aronovsky's films have been compared, quite often, with the late Stanley Kubrick. Of course, many other young and talented visually oriented directors have been as well but I have to say that the only similarity that I can draw between the two is that they both have styles and a flow to them that is specific ONLY to them. Aronovsky seems to be fascinated with the idea or execution of what I would refer to as "visual symmetry." It's a concept by which the editing takes on a very specific, almost musical rhythm creating a flowing movement. If you think of the scenes of the movie as bars of music and the shots within those scenes as individual measures then you may start to get a feel for the orientation involved. It's as if we're actually counting out beats of measures but in the visual, not aural sense.

One of the things that makes Aronovsky's films so interesting is that you can almost always say that you have never seen a movie like them before unless you're referring to his other films. He has such an innate sense of presentation that you are left with the feeling that you haven't been entertained so much as you've had a discussion and heard his viewpoint.

The director's craft is at its most visually stunning in this film mostly because he eschews the typical CGI overkill and instead uses closeup photography of chemical reactions to create an organic feel to the visual composition of the film. This gives us a very languid sense of things which is fitting since the movie potrays the polar opposites of the fluidity of time and also the rushing sense of the inevitable.

It is hard for me, as a reviewer, to give the film any kind of rating or even endorsement. It is deeply hypnotic in its rhythmic movements, emotional on a spiritual level, mesmerizing on a visual level, but at the same time distant from the audience. It's like listening to a philospher who decides to make some ideas clear or tantalizing to his listeners while holding some ideas to himself. Basically, there are some scenes that resonate perfectly, even if they're not fully explained, and then other scenes that feel like they're part of another idea that we're never let in on. But that doesn't make them less interesting to experience.

Chances are you haven't seen a movie like this and it is another good sign that there are still young directors out there willing to put forth challenging and often times densely layered ideas into the cinematic stream.

For some this movie will be like one long and drawn out headache, for others it will seem to imbue them with a sense of philosophical wonderment. But one thing cannot be doubted: Aronovsky is definitely his OWN director!

For now,
that's all!

Fincher and Snyder...

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 06:30:34 GMT

It's been a while since our last movie update.

I want to get "300" out of the way as fast as possible. Zack Snyder can sure bring a visual treat to the screen. I suppose it's too bad that Frank Miller can't write outside of the brain of a 13 year old because were he able to, this movie would have probably been one of the most interesting films to hit the theaters since the first "Matrix" film.

"300" is destined to be a cult favorite. It has NO underlying themes in it. It is simply a straight-forward action story in which REAL MEN tm and REAL WOMEN tm exist for two reasons. The REAL MEN tm hack up other men while spouting grand speeches and recalling the days of childhood abuse that led them to their hardened MANLY tm state and the REAL WOMEN tm who look beautiful, have sex with their REAL MEN, and get raped, and also watch their children being abused by their REAL MEN tm to harden them into the next generation of battle hungry warriors.

This makes the men Spartans and the women Spartans. Frank Miller sure can draw a beautiful collage of colors but good LORD there's just nothing behind the picture. Every bloody scene is portrayed in excruciating detail for the audience to watch. Half naked sweaty men wear armor and kill people for nearly 2 hours. That's what happens in this movie.

Am I recommending this movie? Not really. It has no soul to it, it's not moving, the actors do what they need to on screen, but the movie is about its visuals and if that's what you came to the theater to see then trust me, you won't be disappointed.

But it's not my kind of film. David Fincher's latest film "Zodiac", however, IS!

As visually oriented a director as Fincher is, this film is (sort of) a departure for him from his trademarked visual style. Like Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" this film relies mostly on exposition to carry it along. The visuals support the film nicely but the story itself is so well told that we only need the dialogue to get us from one scene to another.

Fincher shot this film using uncompressed digital video but you'd never know it. This movie looks and feels like it was shot on celluloid. It chronicles the infamous zodiac killings in the San Francisco area decades ago. The film is detached enough from any specific character so that we are mostly observers of events. The murders in this film are portrayed with a kind of matter of factness that makes them tense and horrifying. We are, in essence, watching a procedural film about the loss of self in the pursuit of something that has never, to this day, been figured out. Like last year's "The Prestige" it follows the lengths to which people will go in pursuit of their objectives.

Fincher has crafted a 2.5 hour film here but you would never know it. Every second of screen time is devoted to the gathering of information and because Fincher is the gifted director and storyteller that he is, we always feel like we're part of the investigation unit. Like all of his previous films "Zodiac" is an impressive work from a director who keeps getting better with every film.

"Zodiac" may well be the first top 10 movie I have seen in 2007!

For now,
that's all!

Life can't be all serious... for sanity's sake.

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:51:25 GMT

As a result of my son's numerous surgeries and time spent in the hospital I started doing something that I never thought I'd do. I seriously sat down to watch a TV show that spanned a few seasons. I started watching Battlestar Galactica. Not the old version, the new "reimagined" one. It started off great. It was sad, depressing, poignant... all the things that you would expect about the end of the human race. But as the series went on it was the same thing. Sad, depressing and then NOT poignant. I felt like I was watching Evangelion. It was like watching angst ridden people not do anything with their lives because they felt so angst ridden that their entire mission in life was to rationalize their angst ridden state.

In the midst of it all I'm watching my son going through surgery after surgery and painful recovery after painful recovery. TV never has had much of a hold on me. I've got mostly nothing but contempt for most of the programming on TV aside from kids educational programs and adult documentary programs. Battlestar Galactica seemed, for a while, like it was going to turn out to be a gripping drama but it just seemed to fall into a sardonic category. Instead of drama we got melodrama. It has become a glorified soap opera with great production aspects and no humor. Life simply can't be serious all the time. For the sake of your own sanity it would be impossible to keep up that level of depression without going bonkers.

I understand that's probably "metaphorically" what the second season was supposed to be but instead of the people doing something to get out of their rut they just found new ways to stay IN it. When the entire human race is on the verge of extinction I would HOPE that we'd band together and try to pat each other on the back a little more. But hey... that's just me talking. I'm a new parent and being one and watching my child go through pain every day has given me a new viewpoint on the media that I absorb.

You can have all the sardonic humor that you want but that's not humor, that's still just depression. After a while I found myself just howling at the people onscreen making the WORST decisions they could. It reminded me of the days when I would sit trying to find new ways to feel depressed about my own state of life and eventually you just have to say, "I've not time for this right now! There's work to be done!" and you get up off your ass and go explode some cylons. Now THAT'S a good episode. Aside from the mindless explosions... they need to go blow up more cylons and stop trying to find new ways to undermine each other.

Ugh...

You know, even the HBO series ROME has humor and if a show about the ROMANS can have humor then CERTAINLY a SCI-FI series like Battlestar can have it.

For now,
that's all!

"Apocalypto"

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 06:15:50 GMT

This review contains lots and lots of spoilers and is only meant for those of you who have actually SEEN the movie.

You've been warned.

There's a scene in the William Golding's novel "Lord of the Flies" where the boys are chasing down the last rebelious member and they chase him onto the beach and who do they find? Well... they find "civilization" in the form of the British Royale Navy. I'm a little confused as to why the Spaniards are even IN this film to begin with. Does it represent a transition from the Mayan culture to something else? Is it simply the Deus Ex Machina saving Jaguar's Paw from his certain death as it did so many OTHER times in the movie?

We'll come back to all that.

To be sure, Mel Gibson can certainly direct a movie. Were I forced to list a top ten list of directors working currently he would surely be on it. I'm not going to say anything about Gibson's drunken tirade because that's between himself and himself. So lets talk about the production of this film. I can sum it up easily: it's incredible. Unless someone is trying to play a trump card, I doubt we'll see a film with this kind of spectacle in it for a while. The costumes are incredible, the makeup effects people are surely a shoe-in at Oscar time and so is the cinematography. I have only one problem with the look of the film actually. This film was not shot on film. It was shot in HiDef. Video and I have a bad history. As much as you try to make it look like film, when it comes down to it... anything moving at a high rate of speed gets that video blurring effect. It's a personal taste thing and I know it. I just wanted to get that out of the way. The framing was incredible and the lighting was amazing. Really I can't fault this film on ANY of its production values. I enjoyed every single second of the production.

Now lets talk about the script. We've got a solid script here. It's a chase film from start to finish and it works. It works ALMOST perfectly EXCEPT for the extended chase at the end of the film. It's not that it's poorly written... it's that it takes SO LONG that I started to lose interest. Even a few minutes of trimming at the end would have made it more intense. Also, as though having your wife and child trapped in a deep pit that's filling with water isn't tense enough, she's also giving birth. I also thought THAT was a little over the top as well. In fact the entire ENDING was over the top. That Jaguar's Paw made it out of the city alive, killed all but two of his attackers, AND saved his wife and children is a feat all its own. So what's to make of the Spaniards showing up? Is it to timestamp the film? Is it to make a statement? Or is it just one more thing to save JP from certain death?

Well actually... I think it's the latter. If Gibson was trying to make a statement then it was the wrong place to make it because it's uncertain what it actually is. The writing at the beginning talking about fear rotting you from the inside was clear enough and runs throughout the film. JP gets out of EVERY bad situation that he's in through circumstances beyond his control.

What we've got here is a solid action movie with lots of violence, fighting, gore, and just enough characters development to make us care for the people in the movie. Other than that you could probably transplant the basis in this film to just about any other movie. What sets this apart from its story is the frenetic and intense society that we're thrown into. Is this film about the destruction of the Mayan civilization? No, not really. It's a catch and release tale.

But it's a REALLY REALLY WELL MADE ONE!

For now,
that's all!

M:I 3

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 05:46:16 GMT

Mission: Impossible 3 suffers from what X-Men 1 suffered from: An incredible opening scene that sets a tone for a different movie than the one that we see.

Now, even though that scene is one that takes place later in the film, the movie might have been better without it as the opening hook for the audience. What's the problem with the scene?

Well lets think back to X-Men. The opening scene of X-Men starts us in the deep hued greys and blues of a CONCENTRATION CAMP from WWII. That's a pretty damn heavy way to start off a movie... a movie which culminates with lines like Storm's toad line. It's almost like there were two different sets of crews making two movies. Well, that's SORT OF what MI3 feels like. The action scenes carry a couple of flavors. There's the first chase scene through a building to rescue a trapped agent and it feels closeup and frenzied and then they escape by being chased through a field of whirling windmill blades. I could believe the first... not the second part of the escape.

This "Mission" feels much more down to earth for most of its running time. We're given a lot of good characters development for a film that could otherwise be a no brainer, the cat and mouse at the Vatican is a VERY nice touch to the film as is most of the dialogue which is relatively sparse, but also very pointed. These are all good things and the movie does them very VERY well. The catch and release scene on the bridge is spectacular and might just be my favorite action scene in a movie since "True Lies".

But then there's the building hopping. It felt like we had been dumped back in the second "Mission" film where logic was shunned for spectacle. In another movie I could understand it but not in this one. It created an incredibly idotic sequence that resulted in a high speed car chase that was more exciting than the building hopping. This movie wants to be close to the earth... I could feel that... but it just couldn't quite keep its feet on the ground. It has the obligatory twists and turns but they feel almost forced since the story is so straightforward that it would have been refreshing to finally have a thriller where the missions are so perilous that we don't need rogue agents, turncoats, and unspoken motivations.

In spy films, I think that we've gotten a little too into blowing things up for spectacle rather than thinking about tension. We could all take a lesson in tension from the first "Mission" film where Hunt and crew break into the CIA. I sat on the edge of my seat the entire sequence because it was so masterfully executed. It resulted in not a single explosion, gun shot, or fight and they escaped without being detected. It was what a good spy movie should be, in my opinion.

Spy movies should result in the people around the spies never knowing they were there in the first place. Ultimately what is truly sad about the film is that J.J. Abrams had the right idea with 90% of the production. It's close, gritty nature was what the franchise needed and while it mostly got it, it just couldn't help devolving into mindlessness from time to time.

But remember that last sentence. It only devolves from time to time and for most of this "mission" you won't be let down. But NEVER, NEVER, NEVER start a movie with a scene like the one this starts with and then follow it up with something that doesn't hold a candle to it in terms of mood, ESPECIALLY if that scene turns out the way that it does when the events of the film catch up with it. That was a cheap cheat and betrays the tragedy we THINK has occurred.

But all in all I could think of MUCH WORSE ways to spend a couple of hours.

For now,
that's all!

"They were the smartest guys in the room..."

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 03:11:20 GMT

Watching "Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room" is like watching a great court drama unfold... but from the viewpoint of the criminals who think they really WILL get away with it! If you want to get REALLY REALLY angry then watch this documentary. Like "The Corporation" you are left so pissed off with the corporate structure that you wonder how these people think they can get away with it and then you get even MORE upset realizing that right NOW there are people that ARE getting away with it.

Greed. Robbery. Coercion.

This documentary has it all and it would be almost unbelievable if it wasn't true. From the start this film shows that the executives involved KNEW that the entire company was basically being run so that they could make an incredible amount of money by stealing it away from their employees by making everyone believe they were profitable. It shows how many banks, traders, shareholders, linemen, and others were involved in driving the stock price up only so that they could line the pockets of the executives AGAIN. It SHOWS all of this. It lays bare the horrible price that the economy paid for it.

I won't go into all of the details of the entire destruction of the company so I'll stick to the production of the film itself.

This film flows. It flows VERY VERY well. Never will you look at your watch wondering when it will be over. The film takes exactly as much time as it needs to tell its story and never gets itself sidetracked. Alex Gibney directs and puts the film together in such a way that he doesn't stray into areas where we could be sidetracked by rumor and hearsay. He sticks to the facts but alludes to various rumors without getting them involved in the movie too deeply.

Watching this movie is like coming upon a car crash after it has occurred and then asking how it happened and getting a rewind of the events. The movie doesn't get so technical that you can't understand it, neither does it treat the viewer as an idiot and get bogged down in explaining details. It gives us a plethora of information and at the end of the film I, personally, wanted to burn down the corporate structure itself.

Of course, watching this movie and then watching, "The Corporation" might make you actually go DO it!

For now,
that's all!

"You can't walk no line..."

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 14:55:09 GMT

Although it has been out on DVD for quite a while and was one of the biggest films of this past year, like most parents with an infant I have JUST NOW gotten around to watching "Walk the Line" which, for those people with their heads stuck in the sand, is the account of Johnny Cash and June Carter's love story accompanied by their music and Cash's history leading up to his Folsom Prison concert and subsequent proposal to June.

That's the story in a nutshell. Now, to be completely honest, I've never been a country music fan. I've heard most of Cash's music but was always more taken with his folk and sometimes even self-loathing gospel music. This film doesn't really explore that area of musical inspiration, but rather dramatizes his inspirations for his early music and his battle with drugs and alcohol. Like most movies about music entertainers it follows a rather cliche arc of coming from nowhere to fame and fortune without regard for personal safety and then helped out of it by a loved one with much more common sense. In a way, it's like watching every VH-1 "behind the music" show ever made.

So what makes this film different than any other docu-drama about a musical entertainer?

Well, for one thing, it actually has a THEME to it. I've never been a fan of films that try to document a person's life because it feels like reading a textbook about the person's existence. They always seem to follow a track of important events without tying them together to create a real STORY.

This film takes an interesting look at the underlying causes of why we fall in love with the people that we do. John marries his first wife Vivian, who for all of her understanding can only put up with so much. It seems, from the start, that Viv is the wrong person for John not because of her character but because John hasn't found himself yet. June makes bad decisions with her relationships and can't keep one down and when John has finally found himself she's too afraid to marry him for fear that she's just making one more bad decision... especially after seeing how far into drugs and booze he can get.

Of course during all of this time they both recorded numerous hits and Whitherspoon and Phoenix, performing their own vocals in the film, do an INCREDIBLE job of bringing out their real-life counterpart's traits in the performances. Phoenix's performance is so spot on that when performing, although he bears little resemblance to Cash, has his mannerisms down so well that the transition from real life to screen is seemless. Whitherspoon, like Joan Allen in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" shows up almost EVERYONE in EVERY scene that she's in. It is due, in part, to the fact that we like her so much because for the most part she's not on a downspiral from her success and is, like Cash calls her, an angel for the audience. Her performances of Carter's hits are incredible and we sense her charisma oozing off the screen in counterpoint to Phoenix's passionate yet steady rhythms.

The film is also SHOT for the big screen. While the film works well on TV, seeing it on the bigscreen brings every bit of the fabulous framing to life. Consider the scene where June and John are standing on the banks of the river fishing. They're at opposite ends of the frame and on the large screen they seem like they're almost in completely separate scenes. It is, of course, a metaphor for their relationship at the time. You can feel that they'd like to meet somewhere in the center of that frame but Cash isn't there yet and June is too scared.

What a great movie! I didn't know this, but after seeing the last scene where he proposes to her onstage and she says "yes" I thought that it was SURELY a contrived scene but found out after some research that Cash DID INDEED propose to her onstage!

Mangold's "Walk the Line" is surely one of the best biopic pictures to be found out there. Its themes about life and love transcend the cliche and move us. What a great movie!

For now,
that's all!

United 93...

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 04:15:38 GMT

Marking the 5th anniversary of 9/11/01 I felt compelled to review Paul Greengrass's film, "United 93".

It almost goes without saying that the events of that day will never be forgotten by those in our generation. It also goes without saying that the fallout from that event has created a world filled with chaos. In the coming decades it will be interesting to see the various incarnations of the event in film. One thing was certain that day to me: no really good and respectful film would ever need to create or fabricate a storyline to capture the drama that unfolded. Any film that was made need only show the event as it occured for it to be effective.

Films like "Titanic" or "Pearl Harbor" seem to feel that they need to create a storyline to engage us in the drama of the catastrophe but Greengrass knows better.

"United 93" is, at its most simplistic, a recreation of the events of the day as told from the air-traffic controllers and onboard the United Airlines flight 93. The film is largely played by performers that are not instantly recognizeable and that, of course, works to the advantage of the audience so that we're not aware of the line between them and the events. Many of the roles in the film are actually played by the people there that day in the air-traffic control centers.

What makes the film to be what I would consider the best film of the year for me personally is that it shows, with no melodrama, the heroism of the passengers onboard the flight. We will never be able to know with certainty what happened on that flight and a lesser film would have made the events onboard more pronounced. "United 93" knows that it need not add anything to the event. The film ends with the passengers attempting to wrangle control from the hijackers in the cabin as the plane arches over and we see the ground rushing up to meet us and the screen goes black. We don't need to know anymore beyond that. We're all experiencing the repercussions of that day and this movie is not about that. It transports us back to that horrible day and, like the angels in "Wings of Desire", we cannot interfere with events we know will end tragically.

There are many people, I believe, that will not be able to sit through this film. My heart did not come back down to a normal rate until a good hour after I had finished the film. I was enraged, upset, moved, and ultimately exhausted. The lines in the film are spoken naturally, the phone calls from the celphones onboard the plane are taken directly from the recordings and are heartbreaking. I do not cry easily at movies and I found myself choked up as the last 20 minutes of the film take place entirely on the plane.

"United 93" is a memorial to that day. It takes us back and chronicles an event from viewpoints that few people had that day. The confusion of the air-traffic controllers trying to communicate with the hijacked flights and the realization of what was unfolding is captured and chronicled almost real-time in this 100 minute film.

I can give no higher recommendation to this piece of historical docu-drama. While I am certain that future films, such as Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" (a good movie in my opinion) will tug at the heartstrings in a deliberate fashion, Greengrass' "United 93" shows us, with cold and unflinching proficiency the horror of that day.

Dedicated to the heroes of that day, to the families that keep going, to the memories of those lost, and to those that will be lost.

We had the whole world behind us that day.

Where are we now?

For now,
that's all!

...because singers have SOOO much money!

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 05:48:00 GMT

I'm going to depart from my normal movie reviews, although I WILL be reviewing United 93 soon. I'd like to speak about Opera and where it is headed.

I began really singing over a decade ago and back then things were different. It's been only a single decade and already people have little interest anymore in real opera. Opera itself has become increasingly suppressed as a musical form of entertainment and has morphed into a regular conglomerate enterprise consisting of the worst excesses that the entertainment industry has to offer.

The philosophy is that people need to now be shocked by opera, be convinced that there's a real STORY in them, that people in them have to be industrialized and manufactured so that they all sound alike. Opera is turning more and more into musical a mixture of musical theater and B movie entertainment. Yes, there are examples the can be shown that Opera has not turned this corner, but they are now few and far between. In my years of auditioning I had never truly run across conductors who had anything in mind other than the SOUND of the singer. Now even the people conducting the shows have been marginalized by costume designers and casting directors. When music falls from the hands of the performers then it is no longer music, it is entertainment at best.

Music transcends entertainment in ways difficult to describe even in scientific terms or new age mythological vocabulary. It is visceral, moving, soothing, etc,. I could pick millions of adjectives and still none of them would be easily wrapped around music.

It wasn't always the way it is now with Opera. I listen to some of the older opera singers talk about the mid 20th century's singers. They have reached all but mythological status in the world of opera. They are spoken of in awed tones and with the deepest respect. The interesting thing is that having had lessons with some of them I am constantly surprised at their stories of the audiences coming to see some of the "greats" to see if they would drop the ball. You see, sometimes the greatest singers were only considered so because there was little access to Opera and those that DID get to see it were treated to a different performance of the same show every night, not because the production was different, but because the singers would sometimes fail onstage. But sometimes they were dead ON, and when they were on they were REALLY ON!

This type of exciting randomized performance experience is all but gone. Singers are taught to sound alike. Casting decisions are made not to show the difference in the sounds of different voices, but to make sure that the second casts, or understudies sound the SAME as the principal cast so that they can be substituted at a moment's notice and you'd never notice. They would also LOOK the same so that they can A. save on costumes, and B. Simply look the same.

The uniqueness of Opera is gone. Singers cannot randomly try things onstage during the show because modern shows are simply based on routine and an EXACT process of production which is almost film-production-like.

But it doesn't end simply in the production. In the BUSINESS world you go to school, get a degree, then pound the pavement for work. You print and send in resumes, do interviews. Other than the price of paper for printing cover letters and resumes you don't spend much getting a regular job.

Music is nothing like that. The business side of opera found yet another way to gouge the already empty pockets of musicians. Application and accompanist fees.

They finally found a way to get blood from a stone.

In order for you to actually sing for a casting director of conductor with an opera company, you must not only fill out their exhaustive applications including recommendations, recordings, resumes... but you must ALSO PAY THEM to actually LISTEN to you. They don't guarantee that they will do that, of course. But they'll sure as hell cash your check as part of the application process. Now when I speak of these fees, I'm not speaking of 5 or 10 dollars. I'm talking about fees in excess of $30 on average. Now, if I sing for 10 companies I've spent $300 just to get them to LISTEN to me. After that I must spend money in transport to GET TO the audition, then sometimes pay an accompanist upwards of $150 to play for me at the audition. Sometimes you have to pay for parking which in the city can cost you a TON of money. In the end, if you do not get cast, or called back to spend MORE money you end up gouging out your own pocket to pay for your OWN CAREER. Why would people DO THIS to themselves, you ask? Because they want to sing and be one of the myths. They want to be bigger than life like all of their idols.

The truth is that there are more failed singers in business positions in opera now because they never made it as performers. Are they taking their anger out on the rest of the musicians, or they just bad business people, or both?

I don't have these answers. Opera will always be around, but its capacity to be truly entertaining is fading like Cleopatra's Needle in New York's Central Park. Once majestic, industry has eroded its surface so that it is a shadow of its once brilliant self.

I am going to be singing my very last performance on September 30th and October 1st as the tenor soloist in The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I could think of no better piece to go out on.

I am sick of the whole industry and I have let it drain my passion of making it into a career for me.

For now,
that's all!

Anger Rising from "The Descent"...

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 19:32:35 GMT

I guess Americans just can't handle anything depressing right now that has to do with loss. I mean, we can release movies like "The Hills Have Eyes" where girls get raped and tortured and children can be killed and as long as the MAN OF THE HOUSE kills everything in psychotic revenge it's okay.

That leads me to my complaint filled review of Neil Marshall's European Masterpiece, "The Descent" which recently saw release here in the states after 2 years. I'm angered by this not just because it took this long to get over here, but because when it finally DID get over here they chopped off the ending. Literally, the REAL ending to this movie is gone. I don't know who made that decision but I'm hoping that it wasn't the director because the ending of the European release of the film is DEVESTATING!

I won't go into a LOT of details so as to save the surprises for the audience, but there is almost NO point in the U.S. release of this film. Yes, it's a good horror film with plenty of tension and scares and jumps and good sound for all. The problem here is that the European release, in addition to the aforementioned things, is also a very emotionally devestating film due to the main characters end. If you want to see the movie without me spoiling anything then don't read the next paragraph!

-------------Spoilers-----------------

At the beginning of the film the main character loses her daughter and husband in a car accident. At the end of the film after she has condemned Juno to a horrible fate after revealing to her that she knew her husband had had an affair with her she escapes through a hole in the surface. She runs to the truck, drives away, stops at the side of the road to vomit, sits back up and there's Juno covered in blood staring at her and she screams. That's where the film ends in the U.S. version. In the ORIGINAL RELEASE after she see's Juno staring at her in the truck we cut back to her in the cave. She never made it out. She just dreamed that she did. She looks up after hearing her dead daughter's voice call to her and sees her handing her a birthday cake. THe camera pans from her daughter to her and back to the where the daughter was but is now disappeared and we realize that she is hallucinating the entire bit. She's just stuck underground with no way out and we hear the creatures closing in on her and then the screen goes black and credits roll. That's the original end of the film.

-------------Spoilers over-------------

America is famous for wanting its HAPPY endings. "Brazil" comes directly to mind. "Blade Runner" comes to mind. LOTS of films come to mind. What upsets me isn't that I think films should have happy endings all the time or that they should have depressing endings all of the time, but that studios feel that different cultures are capable of only seeing certain VERSIONS of films. Why does one films get released at a shorter or longer running time in another country? Shouldn't a film's final version be the one that EVERYONE gets to see? It's a concept that I don't fully understand. Thanks goodness for region free DVD decoders because otherwise I'd probably have to buy a PAL theater system just to watch full versions of movies next to its NTSC counterparts.

For now,
that's all!!!

Superman Returns...

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:30:55 GMT

Being the big Superman fan that I am... at least of the original two movies... I, of course, HAD to see this film.

I want to start by saying that I was disappointed. VERY disappointed.

Bryan Singer most definitely has love for this material. You can tell in every shot of the film that he invested emotion into what he was doing. In fact, there are times when it probably was downright religious making this film for him and we sense that the ENTIRE way through this film. The problem is not how well the movie was made because its production values are wonderful. For 200 million dollars, they BETTER be!

No, the problem here is that we've tread on this territory before. In fact, we've been treading on it in EVERY SUPERHERO movie made since the original Superman movie was released. That film set a blueprint. It wasn't until Noland's Batman Begins and even Shayamalan's Unbreakable that we started to see superhero movies about characters that seemed, well... like people. Routh may look a LITTLE like Christopher Reeve, but the entire time I was watching the movie I just kept thinking that Superman didn't seem much like a "MAN" at all. He seemed like... well... a teenager. Reeve could be almost stoic as Superman, both vocally and physically. Routh looks and acts like he stepped out of a modeling catalogue. He looks delicate. As Roger Ebert stated in his review, he strains when he does things. He's SUPERMAN!!! Did Christopher Reeve ever look like he was straining to do ANYthing in the original film?

Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane is another issue. She's got a don't mess with me attitude in this film, but it comes across mostly as mean. Like she doesn't much like ANYthing. Margot Kidder had almost the same attitude but she seemed vulnerable when she needed to be. Bosworth's Lane looks like she sort of takes everything in stride and isn't much surprised by ANYthing. She's got a kid and we ALL know he's Superman's kid and you'd think that they would go somewhere with that but they don't really go ANYwhere. In the original film Brando's speech to his son emparts more depth of feeling between father and son than this ENTIRE movie. Good LORD it was disappointing.

Yes, Kevin Spacey is fun to watch and he LOOKS the part, acts the part, and seems to have genuine joy in the part so he's really the only character in the film that has any chemistry with the audience. There are only a few moments in the movie where Singer's reverence really got across to me. The first was with Superman floating above the planet looking down on it, and the second was with his earth mother after he returns from his home planet. These quiet, personal moments really shine. Had the entire movie had that quiet depth, I think I would have enjoyed it more.

That said, the production design is GREAT! It LOOKS great watching the screen. There's a softness to the picture that gives it that dreamlike haze and the music is a good take on Williams' original score. I give Singer credit for the love that he no doubt feels for the original film. The downfall of this movie is that Superman Returns is SO much like the first two that at 2.5 hours, we feel like we're kicking not JUST a dead horse, but its rotted skeleton.

For now,
that's all!

1 step forward, 2 steps back...

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:00:41 GMT

The surgery went well... until today when it all went to hell, emergency surgery, suctioned out chest cavity, and another colostomy and recovery after a transfer to a different hospital. Now we're going to be in recovery in the hospital for another month... just like when he was born.

I am very unhappy.

For now,
that's all!!!

Weekend...

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:37:33 GMT

My ferret, Cameron, was put down on Saturday after suffering a terrible fight with Adrenal disease and Lymphoma. I was not there nor, was my wife, to put him down. My cousin was the one that took him. My son was in major surgery at the time and is in recovery right now.

What a weekend....

For now,
that's all!