Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Sunshine
SunshineMost people scoff when I say I liked Steven Soderberg’s Solaris, but there was something instinctively powerful about its story and its slow grace. Keeping in mind that I haven’t seen the original (and continue to search for it), the subtle opera called out to some higher sense than that of typical science fiction– cough cough Armageddon. What I enjoyed most about Solaris was the threat was our own weaknesses and inability to cope with the potency of our emotions, rather than say, a giant hurtling asteroid.
Well, Sunshine tries for the same austerity of say Solaris or 2001, but ultimately fails. Visually, it’s a stunner – there’s a fascinating slow boil that rises up from the dark and light interplay of the ship as it hurtles toward the sun. Directory Danny Boyle, continually presents shots of the ship’s bright orange shield, followed by the immense shade of the ship hiding behind it. As fascinated as the characters are in the brightness and immensity of the sun, Boyle also keeps us focused its devastating power and beauty.
The plot revolves around a group of astronauts, physicists and scientists aboard the fatefully titled Icarus II, which of course not only invokes the old greek tragedy but implies that there was an Icarus I. As the group moves toward the sun, tensions flare, mishaps occur and the crew is put under great stress to solve them. For the first hour, the film chugs with clockwork perfection – the focus on the drama inside and outside the ship is tight. The dialogue and scientific focus of the plot adds a great depth of believability and lets us invest in these characters.
While there are certainly some familiar touchstones of other science fiction movies, Boyle adds just enough visual flash and drama to keep it interesting. Unfortunately, this balance is upset about midway through the movie, when characters begin to act against type, clichés rear their ugly head and believability is sacrificed for cheap thrills. After probably the best scene in the movie, where all the characters watch Mercury drift across an ocean of fire, things go down hill. The crew find out that the Icarus I is floating somewhere near the surface of the Sun and they go to investigate – cliché alert. Of course, something goes wrong and crew start dying – double cliché alert. Unfortunately, this is the high point of the low points – the plot gets more muddled, as does the special effects, strangely enough. The end turns into a mish-mash of pseudo-everything that darkens all of the promise from the first half.
Too bad – it’s especially disappointing when all of the mystery and tension are released in such a confusing, yet conventional way. Watch Sunshine to understand what it could have been, not for what it is.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Summer Movie Roundup
Summer Movie Round-up:
I see a lot of movies. Well, I think I see a lot of movies – compared with most people.
You know that movie quiz that’s always floating around facebook – I think I’m somewhere in the 250’s out of around 300ish movies. I probably like movies more than I admit to myself. I’m the kind of person who, when watching Grind House and hearing about that movie’s influences, goes in search of the movies that inspired it. Right after Grind House, I quickly went looking for Last House on the Left and Vanishing Point. When I was younger, I used to wander around the video store picking up classic movies and old oscar-nominated movies just so I could watch them. Does this make me some kind of expert? No. Does this make me obsessive? Kinda.
Jackie and I always feel strange when people tell us they only see a couple of movies in a theatre a year. We probably see that many in the span of a week, or at least, a couple weeks.
With that in mind, here’s what we’ve seen since Jackie’s been back for the last two weeks.
License to Wed
This movie got drubbed by the critics, and while I can understand why they might dislike it, it’s not nearly as bad as they made it seem. It’s a typical rom-com, but certainly not any worse than most typical rom-com’s. There were some decent laughs, the characters were decently acted, with maybe the small exception being Robin Williams taking it a little too far and coming off creepy instead of the desired well-meaning. Otherwise, it was a pleasant summer movie – not deep by any means – but light and reasonably funny.
Transformers
Like the above movie, this movie is basically the same thing. A high concept movie that is incredibly light on substance. This should come as no surprise – it’s a movie about talking, transforming robots based on an old Hasbro cartoon and toy line. The action was okay, although occasionally too jumpy to the point of not being able to understand what was happening. The dialogue was occasionally self-referentially hilarious and occasionally groan-inducing cheesy. Another light summer movie where you can leave your brain at home.
Pirates of the Caribbean
It’s a long movie and it’s a convoluted movie and it’s the prototypical summer spectacle movie. The story wrapped up decently, the action and stunts were fantastic. The special effects were eye-popping. I can’t say that I felt truly satisfied by the conclusion, but I wasn’t disappointed either. Adding Chow Yun Fat was also a bonus, scoring brownie points with me – although I was a little sad inside that he didn’t have a toothpick in his mouth and two guns at any point – but perhaps that’s just me not letting go of my many-year obsession with Hard Boiled.
Knocked Up
The thing I liked most about Knocked Up was the fact that I could actually picture it. With most comedies, there’s an element of suspended disbelief so that the jokes can operate freely. With Knocked Up, the scenario, the characters and especially the dialogue never seemed out of place from my everyday reality. Judd Apatow has a knack of taking an ensemble cast and letting them simply follow the wireframe script in a way that comes across refreshingly real. Characters don’t seem like they’re aching to shoot out a funny line, but instead simply say them. The way the dialogue is so fully infused with pop-culture references while still retaining that sense of real people talking is exceptional for most movies.
When one of the kids in the movies says to her aunt “I googled murder” it’s both hilarious and realistic because it seems like something a kid would do if they had access to google. When Ben starts talking about how sometimes he wishes he could change his past actions, it’s all the more amusing and seemingly real when he uses Back to the Future first as a metaphor, which then devolves straight into bad movie quotes and impressions.
Knocked Up wasn’t as consistently funny as The 40-Year Old Virgin, but that’s more attributable to the fact that it’s a different animal entirely. Knocked Up is not as slick a movie and isn’t as driven to uncover the laughs. It’s more content in finding the humorous moments between all the stress, worry, pathos, melancholy and everyday fight of life.
For this, it might not be as visceral as The 40-Year Old Virgin when sitting in the theatre, but it sticks with you a lot longer afterward.
I see a lot of movies. Well, I think I see a lot of movies – compared with most people.
You know that movie quiz that’s always floating around facebook – I think I’m somewhere in the 250’s out of around 300ish movies. I probably like movies more than I admit to myself. I’m the kind of person who, when watching Grind House and hearing about that movie’s influences, goes in search of the movies that inspired it. Right after Grind House, I quickly went looking for Last House on the Left and Vanishing Point. When I was younger, I used to wander around the video store picking up classic movies and old oscar-nominated movies just so I could watch them. Does this make me some kind of expert? No. Does this make me obsessive? Kinda.
Jackie and I always feel strange when people tell us they only see a couple of movies in a theatre a year. We probably see that many in the span of a week, or at least, a couple weeks.
With that in mind, here’s what we’ve seen since Jackie’s been back for the last two weeks.
License to Wed
This movie got drubbed by the critics, and while I can understand why they might dislike it, it’s not nearly as bad as they made it seem. It’s a typical rom-com, but certainly not any worse than most typical rom-com’s. There were some decent laughs, the characters were decently acted, with maybe the small exception being Robin Williams taking it a little too far and coming off creepy instead of the desired well-meaning. Otherwise, it was a pleasant summer movie – not deep by any means – but light and reasonably funny.
Transformers
Like the above movie, this movie is basically the same thing. A high concept movie that is incredibly light on substance. This should come as no surprise – it’s a movie about talking, transforming robots based on an old Hasbro cartoon and toy line. The action was okay, although occasionally too jumpy to the point of not being able to understand what was happening. The dialogue was occasionally self-referentially hilarious and occasionally groan-inducing cheesy. Another light summer movie where you can leave your brain at home.
Pirates of the Caribbean
It’s a long movie and it’s a convoluted movie and it’s the prototypical summer spectacle movie. The story wrapped up decently, the action and stunts were fantastic. The special effects were eye-popping. I can’t say that I felt truly satisfied by the conclusion, but I wasn’t disappointed either. Adding Chow Yun Fat was also a bonus, scoring brownie points with me – although I was a little sad inside that he didn’t have a toothpick in his mouth and two guns at any point – but perhaps that’s just me not letting go of my many-year obsession with Hard Boiled.
Knocked Up
The thing I liked most about Knocked Up was the fact that I could actually picture it. With most comedies, there’s an element of suspended disbelief so that the jokes can operate freely. With Knocked Up, the scenario, the characters and especially the dialogue never seemed out of place from my everyday reality. Judd Apatow has a knack of taking an ensemble cast and letting them simply follow the wireframe script in a way that comes across refreshingly real. Characters don’t seem like they’re aching to shoot out a funny line, but instead simply say them. The way the dialogue is so fully infused with pop-culture references while still retaining that sense of real people talking is exceptional for most movies.
When one of the kids in the movies says to her aunt “I googled murder” it’s both hilarious and realistic because it seems like something a kid would do if they had access to google. When Ben starts talking about how sometimes he wishes he could change his past actions, it’s all the more amusing and seemingly real when he uses Back to the Future first as a metaphor, which then devolves straight into bad movie quotes and impressions.
Knocked Up wasn’t as consistently funny as The 40-Year Old Virgin, but that’s more attributable to the fact that it’s a different animal entirely. Knocked Up is not as slick a movie and isn’t as driven to uncover the laughs. It’s more content in finding the humorous moments between all the stress, worry, pathos, melancholy and everyday fight of life.
For this, it might not be as visceral as The 40-Year Old Virgin when sitting in the theatre, but it sticks with you a lot longer afterward.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Calgary Stampede - Good, Bad and the Ugly
The Good
Fireworks
In the quest to super-size everything into grand spectacle, the Stampede offers up nightly fireworks just to remind everyone that one more day of gong show is gone. While the sentiment’s cheap, the fireworks are pretty cool to watch from the safe distance of Scottman’s Hill. Aside from Global Fest, there aren’t too many opportunities to sit down with the family for a fireworks show in land-locked Calgary. It’s one of the more lasting Stampede traditions, and now, seems kind of classy in comparison to the rest of the junior-Vegas debauchery we host.
Free Food
Free food, even when it’s bad, is ultimately still good. Regardless whether those sausages have been evolving in the sun over an 8-hour span, they still taste as sweet and delicious as nectar from the gods for the sole reason that you did not pay for their botulism-fused goodness.
The Sky Carriage
The forbidden pleasure of spitting on tourists can hardly be matched in this entire world.
The Bad
The Coca Cola stage
If you are a musician or entertainer, and say you’re looking through the stable of shows your agent booked, and you see that you’re scheduled to play the Stampede Coca Cola stage, this means only one thing. It’s over. Whatever success you achieved, whatever heights you reached in the past, they are not coming back. The Coca Cola stage is the place where bands come to die. It’s a veritable garden of Tom Cochrane’s, Cheap Tricks, and unforgettably, Hinders. I can’t in recent memory, think of a band who played the Coca Cola stage and was better for it – Matthew Good fell Icarus-like after his show. Sloan never tasted the same success after the Stampede. If you see it on your schedule, just put your guitar down, put on that Arby’s smock and get that burger spatula ready. It’s the only way to save a little dignity.
Country Music
Country music was once good. There was Merl Haggard, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. Then came Billy Ray Cyrus with Achy Breaky Heart and it was bastardized forever. Let’s make one thing clear. Today’s “country music” is hardly country music. It’s generic rock music with violin. Worse still, is that country music is nearly as bad as rap music for gimmicky concepts and atrocious lyrics (uh, hello, Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy – barf!). Today’s country music is what office drones want to dance to in their one pair of embarrassing white jeans. Ever notice that cowboys on old western movies don’t wear white jeans. That’s because they would be shot. Enough said.
The Ugly
Being trapped in the Zipper with someone getting sick above you or losing your wallet on the Zipper.
Both are equally frightening. There’s nothing quite as terrifying as being stuck in the caged claustrophobia that is the Zipper, stuck facing slightly up listening to the squeaking of the badly-carnie managed ride, when all of a sudden, you hear the familiar sound of someone losing their corndog high above you. You’re stuck. There’s nowhere to go and that mesh front is hardly a defense. You shake the cracked mahogany chest pad in desperation. But it’s too late. Here it comes. No, no, noooooooooaaaaah.
The other scenario is frightening, but not as disgusting, and I actually had happen to me when I was like thirteen. When you’re thirteen, if you are a loser-kid like I was, you had a slim velcro wallet of some kind. You probably were a dumb kid, like me, and didn’t put it in your acid wash jeans and instead put it in your jacket. So the Zipper starts up and you get a swinging and whoops, there goes your wallet into the bottom of the compartment. You hope it stays there, but of course the ride starts up again and you go spinning upside down. Your wallet plummets out the loose grate and you watch it go tumbling into the crowd. Being the respectful Stampede crowd it is, your money disappears forever. Spiderman wallet, why did you forsake me?
Topless Guys and Girls
You know that sweaty shirtless guy dancing outside at concerts. He’s all drunk, swaying and yelling random crap. He pisses you off and rubs his mansweat up against you as he stumbles frantically toward the front of the stage. Well, the Stampede is where all those guys get together. It’s the shirtless douche bag convention.
Dude, I don’t need to be coated in your Ogden-flavoured manbrine. And, really, you and your beer garden breath are totally wrecking Hinder for me! You are ruining my Hinder experience.
Ladies you fare no better. If having some chain-smoking cougar flash her low-hanging milk curtains at you is a special thrill – look no further than the Stampede. If I want to see soggy flapjacks, I’ll take in a free mall breakfast.
I’m always surprised at these quality people who show up. Where do they come from? I never see them all year, until the beginning of each July. Do they all reside in some secret cave, and come July, go rolling out of it into the blazing sunlight, their fingers splayed, shading their eyes from the judgmental heavens?
Or is it some kind of Bruce Banner-like transformation, only instead of incredible superpowers, people lose half their IQ, half their walking speed and have the sudden desire to walk in a horizontal line slowly so it is impossible get around them and traverse the Stampede grounds from end-to-end in less than three days.
Why does the Stampede give regular people the excuse to be morons – do they simply think that big crowds hide stupid better? I haven’t pinpointed the exact reason, but I have my clear suspicions. It’s those damn superdogs.
Fireworks
In the quest to super-size everything into grand spectacle, the Stampede offers up nightly fireworks just to remind everyone that one more day of gong show is gone. While the sentiment’s cheap, the fireworks are pretty cool to watch from the safe distance of Scottman’s Hill. Aside from Global Fest, there aren’t too many opportunities to sit down with the family for a fireworks show in land-locked Calgary. It’s one of the more lasting Stampede traditions, and now, seems kind of classy in comparison to the rest of the junior-Vegas debauchery we host.
Free Food
Free food, even when it’s bad, is ultimately still good. Regardless whether those sausages have been evolving in the sun over an 8-hour span, they still taste as sweet and delicious as nectar from the gods for the sole reason that you did not pay for their botulism-fused goodness.
The Sky Carriage
The forbidden pleasure of spitting on tourists can hardly be matched in this entire world.
The Bad
The Coca Cola stage
If you are a musician or entertainer, and say you’re looking through the stable of shows your agent booked, and you see that you’re scheduled to play the Stampede Coca Cola stage, this means only one thing. It’s over. Whatever success you achieved, whatever heights you reached in the past, they are not coming back. The Coca Cola stage is the place where bands come to die. It’s a veritable garden of Tom Cochrane’s, Cheap Tricks, and unforgettably, Hinders. I can’t in recent memory, think of a band who played the Coca Cola stage and was better for it – Matthew Good fell Icarus-like after his show. Sloan never tasted the same success after the Stampede. If you see it on your schedule, just put your guitar down, put on that Arby’s smock and get that burger spatula ready. It’s the only way to save a little dignity.
Country Music
Country music was once good. There was Merl Haggard, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. Then came Billy Ray Cyrus with Achy Breaky Heart and it was bastardized forever. Let’s make one thing clear. Today’s “country music” is hardly country music. It’s generic rock music with violin. Worse still, is that country music is nearly as bad as rap music for gimmicky concepts and atrocious lyrics (uh, hello, Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy – barf!). Today’s country music is what office drones want to dance to in their one pair of embarrassing white jeans. Ever notice that cowboys on old western movies don’t wear white jeans. That’s because they would be shot. Enough said.
The Ugly
Being trapped in the Zipper with someone getting sick above you or losing your wallet on the Zipper.
Both are equally frightening. There’s nothing quite as terrifying as being stuck in the caged claustrophobia that is the Zipper, stuck facing slightly up listening to the squeaking of the badly-carnie managed ride, when all of a sudden, you hear the familiar sound of someone losing their corndog high above you. You’re stuck. There’s nowhere to go and that mesh front is hardly a defense. You shake the cracked mahogany chest pad in desperation. But it’s too late. Here it comes. No, no, noooooooooaaaaah.
The other scenario is frightening, but not as disgusting, and I actually had happen to me when I was like thirteen. When you’re thirteen, if you are a loser-kid like I was, you had a slim velcro wallet of some kind. You probably were a dumb kid, like me, and didn’t put it in your acid wash jeans and instead put it in your jacket. So the Zipper starts up and you get a swinging and whoops, there goes your wallet into the bottom of the compartment. You hope it stays there, but of course the ride starts up again and you go spinning upside down. Your wallet plummets out the loose grate and you watch it go tumbling into the crowd. Being the respectful Stampede crowd it is, your money disappears forever. Spiderman wallet, why did you forsake me?
Topless Guys and Girls
You know that sweaty shirtless guy dancing outside at concerts. He’s all drunk, swaying and yelling random crap. He pisses you off and rubs his mansweat up against you as he stumbles frantically toward the front of the stage. Well, the Stampede is where all those guys get together. It’s the shirtless douche bag convention.
Dude, I don’t need to be coated in your Ogden-flavoured manbrine. And, really, you and your beer garden breath are totally wrecking Hinder for me! You are ruining my Hinder experience.
Ladies you fare no better. If having some chain-smoking cougar flash her low-hanging milk curtains at you is a special thrill – look no further than the Stampede. If I want to see soggy flapjacks, I’ll take in a free mall breakfast.
I’m always surprised at these quality people who show up. Where do they come from? I never see them all year, until the beginning of each July. Do they all reside in some secret cave, and come July, go rolling out of it into the blazing sunlight, their fingers splayed, shading their eyes from the judgmental heavens?
Or is it some kind of Bruce Banner-like transformation, only instead of incredible superpowers, people lose half their IQ, half their walking speed and have the sudden desire to walk in a horizontal line slowly so it is impossible get around them and traverse the Stampede grounds from end-to-end in less than three days.
Why does the Stampede give regular people the excuse to be morons – do they simply think that big crowds hide stupid better? I haven’t pinpointed the exact reason, but I have my clear suspicions. It’s those damn superdogs.
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