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Review - Underworld: Evolution

This might be surprising, but I saw Underworld: Evolution on opening day. Ostensibly I wanted to ogle Kate Beckinsale, but in truth, I have to admit that I actually was pleasantly surprised by the first movie and had been looking forward to the sequel for some time.

I didn’t see it when it was in the theatres, instead only catching it on the TiVo — yes, for the sole purpose of ogling Kate Beckinsale. I hadn’t heard very many good things about it, so instead of sitting down to watch it from start to finish, I just caught it in bits and pieces at a time when I had a spare moment. To my surprise, I found myself swept up in it. The action wasn’t all that impressive, especially in a post-Matrix action-film landscape. Indeed, several key fight scenes were over just when you thought they were going to begin. But the plot, while not exactly Hitchcockian, was far more interesting and unpredictable than in your run-of-the-mill action flick. It featured several scenes that I thought I had pegged but ended up going in a different direction than I had expected. And it was all backed with a rich mythology that felt like it had depth well beyond what we were shown. I was looking forward to seeing this history fleshed out in the sequels.

So it is to my great disappointment to have to say that the sequel is pretty much the converse of the first one. Good action scenes, but an absolute joke of a plot.

A journalism fling?

Update 12/1/05 Forgot to credit Gene Healy for a link. Whoops!

Last week, I saw Good Night, and Good Luck at one of the South Bay Movie Fiends gatherings that I organize. This film, along with the previous movie we saw, Capote, got me thinking about my future.

This requires some explanation.

Some of you know that I’ve long been contemplating a change in career. I’ve already talked through this at length on my LiveJournal (note that this entry is only visible to friends), so let me just rehash it briefly.

Serenity

Well, this is just a rough sketch, but for those of you who recognize it (and no, it’s still not the Flying Spaghetti Monster), you should know what the rest of this post is going to say. Yes, this is the ship, Serenity, from the short-lived Joss Whedon show, Firefly. The movie Serenity, which is a continuation of the story, will be opening on September 30th.

What’s it about? Well, via Dan Drezner, M.E. Russell at The Weekly Standard said it best: “Think of it as Star Wars, if Han Solo were the main character, and he still shot Greedo first.” Yeah, that’s Captain Malcolm Reynolds all right (you’ll see what I mean if you watch the two-hour pilot episode). Actually, it isn’t really like Star Wars in that you don’t have a lot of spaceship combat, but don’t worry, there’s still plenty of action and special effects. Yeah, the show doesn’t really look at all like my rough pencil sketch — maybe I’ll turn it into a painting someday. And yes, I also drew this (no, I didn’t trace it) in Corel Painter 8, which I blogged about earlier. As always, click on the image for a larger view.

But anyway, enough about my stupid drawing. What I really want to talk about is Firefly. Since it’s too late to alert you to the Sci-Fi channel’s rebroadcast of the show, I very highly recommend checking it out on the four-disc DVD set, because you need to see it from the beginning, and in order. Yeah, the main reason the show got canceled so early is that Fox, in its infinite wisdom, aired the pilot last and showed the rest of them out of order and often preempted it for baseball. Yeah, maybe that would be fine for some shows that don’t have an ensemble cast to introduce or multi-episode story arcs, but can you imagine a show like Lost or 24 or The Sopranos gaining an audience if subjected to conditions like that?

My Top Ten Films of 2004

Well, I know the Oscars are long over and 2005 is already more than a quarter over, but here’s my belated top ten list of the best films I saw in 2004 (I have no idea how some bloggers do weekly features, since I have trouble with just a yearly one!). This wasn’t one of my heavier movie-watching years due to my night classes, so I’m not separating out “Films That Everyone and Their Grandma Has Already Seen,” like I did last year. So this will be a true top ten list, just of a smaller field than usual.

Cinequest Shorts Program 4: Animated World

If you’re in the San Jose area, hopefully you already realize that the Cinequest 15 Film Festival has started. I blogged a bit about it last year. As she did last year, Ealasaid has kindly devoted a humongous chunk of her time to create a time/location grid of the show times, which is always useful, and has her movie reviews up at her Cineblog

Anyway, I just watched Shorts Program 4: Animated World, and wow, that was an excellent collection of animated shorts. This was the first time I’ve watched the animated shorts (last year I just watched Mindbenders), so I can’t say how it compares with past years’ collections, but all I can say is that every single one of these was a gem. It plays again this Monday, March 7th, at Camera 12 at 7PM, and I highly recommend it.

Here’s a rundown of some of my reactions (and this time, I did not drag the wife along, as she had meetings all day). In my opinion, these were the best three:

Review: Closer

Okay, I watched Closer for the same reason I watched Garden State, namely to drool over the hotness that is Natalie Portman. In that respect, Garden State was more enjoyable because it was easy to pretend to be Zach Braff’s character and enjoy watching Natalie fall for you. In this film, everybody is really nasty to each other, so it wasn’t as satisfying on that level. But she still has plenty of screen time, and as a bonus, her character is a stripper! Unfortunately, you don’t really get to see her naked. But hey, just the idea is still pretty damn cool.

Of course, as a film, Closer is much harder to judge, as it’s pretty different from most other films. It revolves around two couples whose lives intertwine in complex and nasty ways. Jude Law plays Dan, a writer of obituaries who hooks up with Alice (Natalie Portman) in a typical “meet cute” fashion. But the rest of the film is far from typical, and I do have to give director, Mike Nichols (Angels in America, The Graduate, and Primary Colors, among many others), and writer, Patrick Marber, some credit for taking chances. For one, there are essentially only four characters, and none of them are particularly sympathetic, except perhaps Alice (although I might be a bit biased there). Secondly, it abruptly shifts in time from scene to scene, which is jarring. For example, when we next see them, Dan has written a novel about Alice and is having his book jacket photograph taken by Anna (Julia Roberts), to whom he is instantly attracted to.

Andy's Response to My Movie Ratings

My cousin Andy e-mails me his own ratings of the movies on my ranked list, and they provide an interesting contrast with mine. These are listed in the order I presented, with his rating next to the film name. Films that I rated that he hadn’t seen are omitted. He also has a movie list up at Amazon, which has a few films not on this list.

Master List of My Movie Ratings

Okay, I lied about that last post being the last blog post until next Saturday. I don’t actually fly out until tonight, but because of my class Wednesday night and having to pack last night, I didn’t think I’d get one up before I left. But then I heard from Elke about how Rich Thomas showed everybody his top 100 movies from around 1998 at the last meetup (Update 10/5/04: Rich now has an updated list).

Since I’m both a movie-buff and an obsessive type, I actually have a list of my movie ratings on my Palm ready to copy and paste (indeed, it’s so long that I have to split it between two memos). I’ve long thought about creating a dynamic web page of the list which you can sort by rating or alphabetically and search, but that would take an inordinate amount of time.

It’s already one of those things that I can spend oodles of time sorting and adjusting if I’m not careful, so I don’t mess with it very often. So this list is probably not even close to being up-to-date with my current views, and also doesn’t yet contain all the films I’ve seen. Also note that many of these films I’ve only seen once, and a lot of those I didn’t rate until long after the fact.

So it’s pretty rough (and I may modify this a lot later), but it might help give you some points of reference when I review a film. So here’s my list. The ones that I’ve reviewed will have links to the review (Update 10/5/04: my cousin Andy went through the whole list and provided his own ratings of them).

Review: The Brown Bunny

Well, I went into The Brown Bunny having absolutely no idea about the controversy at Cannes or the very public feud between writer/director Vincent Gallo and Roger Ebert (which I’ll talk about later). Instead, the only reason I watched this movie was because the wife heard there was an explicit scene of Chloe Sevigny performing oral sex, and who am I to say no to that? Seriously! My wife prides herself as being a pro-porn feminist.

Unfortunately, porn would have been much more entertaining. This was almost a complete waste of our time. I even flipped out my new Palm handheld half-way through the film to read a book, occasionally looking up from time to time to see if we’d gotten to the sex scene (and if you’re really set on seeing that scene, go ahead and grab dinner during the first hour or so, and you should be back in plenty of time to see it).

At its heart, The Brown Bunny is one of those slow, pretentious films that cares more about how it looks than what it says. It reminded me of the worst-ever film I ever saw at Cinequest, Ripples (Sazanami), which consisted of static wide shots showing a character, in a painfully tedious manner, making their way from one side of the screen to the other. Well this film’s pretty much the same thing, as it’s about Gallo driving cross-country in his van, so you’re subjected to long, monotonous shots of the back of his head and a dirty windshield as he drives on the freeway. Sheesh, it doesn’t take a 90-minute film to show that a road trip is long, lonely, and boring. We already know that. And realize, I am not easily bored. I am one of the most easily amused people you’ll ever meet. And I’ve liked other films that moved slowly, like Lost in Translation and The Station Agent. But those were character-driven films which had… well… interesting characters.

Review: I, Robot

Well, I saw I, Robot last week, and not really by choice, but due to a group outing. I wasn’t too impressed, although it did have a few pleasant surprises.

For the most part, the film is pretty much what I expected. Standard summer action flick stuff with stock elements, predictable plot twists, gaping plot holes, and the “bad guys” making ridiculously stupid mistakes. If you like action movies, you can probably look past all of that. But this wasn’t really my cup of tea.

And yes, I have read Isaac Asimov’s original short story collection that this film is (very!) loosely based on, but I think I was able to keep that from coloring my enjoyment, since it was pretty dang obvious just from the previews that the movie would bear very little resemblance to that work. And obviously, this was partly by necessity, as it was a collection of stories, not one unified work, and most of them were basically logic puzzles revolving around figuring out how and why a robot did something that seemingly conflicted with the three laws of robotics. Not exactly cinematic material.

Review: Saved!

In case it wasn’t obvious, Saved! is a film that makes fun of fundamentalist Christians. Of course, being an agnostic who thought the previews of this film were hilarious, I was very much the target audience of this movie. So I really wanted to like this film, but while it was enjoyable and funny, the film has a lot of serious flaws.

Jena Malone (Donnie Darko) plays Mary, a girl at a very Christian high school who learns that her boyfriend, Dean, is gay. Convinced by a vision that Jesus wants her to save Dean from the fires of hell, Mary reluctantly sacrifices her virginity in a desperate attempt to convert him back to heterosexuality — and gets pregnant for all her efforts.

Hilary Faye (played by pop songstress Mandy Moore) is the school’s lead Heather, the most popular and powerful student who flaunts her devoutness and lectures those who she sees as straying from the path. Of course, her religious devotion is little more than a shell, and it is her blatant hypocrisy that is the source of much of the film’s humor (for example, the scene featured in the previews where she yells, “I am filled with God’s love,” as she hurls a Bible at Mary).

While many of the film’s funniest moments come at Hilary Faye’s expense, it made me somewhat uneasy, as I thought the humor was somewhat mean-spirited. It’s one thing to poke light fun like at a celebrity roast. It’s quite another thing to make someone the target of your derision, portraying them as something to be made fun of and ridiculed. It’s not exactly an effective way to change anybody’s mind, which this film clearly wants to do.

To be sure, the film doesn’t make fun of Christianity itself, as it portrays the pastor in a surprisingly positive light (especially when compared to Hilary Faye). No, he’s no saint, but that’s part of the whole point of the film, which I’ll get to later. But they could have easily demonized the man by, say, making him a child molester (like Donnie Darko did with Patrick Swayze’s character, Jim Cunningham). What it really targets is the holier-than-thou attitude and the hypocrisy of hate and intolerance coming from those who profess to follow in the footsteps of someone who preached love and forgiveness.

Rewatched Matrix Reloaded

I finally rewatched a few key scenes of The Matrix Reloaded when it aired on HBO, and thus I am finally providing, as promised a looong time ago, an update to my analysis of The Matrix Revolutions.

Incidentally, that post has become, by far, the single most frequently viewed post of this blog — every single damn month.

So I guess someone out there must like it or something.

Review: Dorian Blues

Sheesh, it’s been over a month since Cinequest, and I still haven’t reviewed Slim Susie and Dorian Blues. I know the odds are against any of you ever being able to see either film, but I still feel compelled to get the word out in the hopes that they are able to get wider distribution, because both are truly excellent films (although in very different respects). I’ll cover Dorian Blues here, since it’s the more heartfelt and moving.

On the surface, it seems like a rather routine storyline. A boy discovers that he’s gay and has to decide whether to come out of the closet, given that his father is a real die-hard conservative and his mother largely ignores him. Sounds like nothing to write home about. What makes this film truly special is how true and honest it feels. Not to mention the hilarious dialogue, especially from the title character, Dorian Lagatos, played wonderfully by Michael McMillian.

We meet Dorian in his senior year in high school, and he’s still at that very awkward stage, compounded by his discovery. That, and the fact that his younger brother, Nicky, is the star quarterback at the high school while Dorian is just a social outcast with effeminate mannerisms — the kind of kid that football players pick on. Dorian’s shy vulnerability combined with his sardonic wit comes off very endearing, so you quickly empathize with him strongly as he begins to gain some confidence in who he is.

Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film that is best experienced when you have no idea where it’s going to go, so let me just tell you straight off the bat that I’m giving it 8 out of 10 cute smiley fishies and that the film is definitely worth seeing. It’s not a Jim Carrey film. It’s Jim Carrey delivering a really good performance in possibly the most visually inventive and surrealistic romantic comedy you’ll ever see.

I know the trailers and all the promotions for the film pretty much give away the main premise, but in the off chance you’ve missed them, just go catch the film and then read my review. It’s a non-spoiler review, and the film is actually still very unpredictable and fresh if you know the premise. I just think you’ll enjoy it even more if you have no idea where the journey even starts off.

Cinequest: Awful Normal Review

I saw Awful Normal last Saturday and have been meaning to review it for a while, but had a tough time figuring out what to say. But the last showing of it at Cinequest is this evening (March 12th, 5PM at the SJSU Morris Dailey Auditorium), so I can’t procrastinate any more.

Update 5/12/04 Awful Normal will be showing in a couple of upcoming film festivals. It’ll be playing at the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival on Sunday, May 16th, 2004 at 5:15 PM in the Women’s Building 3543, 18th Street. It’s also playing at the Santa Cruz Film Festival on Saturday, May 15th at 7:00 PM at the Del Mar, 1124 Pacific Ave, and on Wednesday, May 19th at 9:00 PM at the Riverfront, 155 S. River Street. If you’re in the area, be sure to check it out!

It’s a documentary about two sisters who were sexually molested as children by a close family friend. Twenty-five years after the two families decided to keep the whole thing covered up, the two sisters and their mother work on a plan to finally confront the abuser. The statute of limitations is up, so they have no intention of punishing him, just letting him know that they remember what he did, and to maybe help give themselves a sense of closure.

Cinequest: Spectres Review

Well, the curiosity got the better of me and I saw Spectres today, and well… I didn’t particularly like this film nearly as much as Ealasaid did.

Cinequest, Mindbenders

For those of you in the Bay Area (specifically, the South Bay), you probably know that Cinequest has started again. It’s a great film festival with tons of quality independent (maverick, they like to call it) flicks to choose from. I went to a whole bunch of them last year, and my favorites included Kuutamolla (Lovers and Leavers) and Den Osynlige (The Invisible) (Tuva Novotny appears again this year in Slim Susie).

This year, Ealasaid has a Cineblog 2004 site up, and, unlike me, is a professional movie reviewer, so she got to prescreen many of the films and review them, including a review of Spectres, which features Marina Sirtis (Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Dean Haglund (the member of the Lone Gunmen from The X-Files who looked like Garth from Wayne’s World).

The wife and I went with a friend last night to see the collection of short films they call Mindbenders, which are shorts that bend reality. The last time I caught it was two years ago, and more of them had a sci-fi flavor. This year the collection was more surreal. It airs again tonight (March 5th) at 11:15PM at Camera 3 in downtown San Jose (park at the garage at 3rd St. & San Carlos, which is right on top of the theatre, plus it’s free for evenings and weekends — the parking, not the theatre), so if you’re interested, here are my thoughts:

My Top Ten Films of 2003

I haven’t really followed the Oscars that closely ever since Forrest Gump beat out Shawshank Redemption, but in light of the somewhat recent nominations, here’s my list of — well, not the best films of the year, but the best films I’ve seen that you might have overlooked…

Big Fish Review

While I was in Houston, we caught Big Fish. Er… I don’t mean we went fishing and caught a big fish, I mean we saw Tim Burton’s new movie, Big Fish (fishing is a poopie sport). As you might expect, it was a cute movie with some creative imagery, with some minor flaws.

House of Sand and Fog Review

Well, I was going to write a review of Donnie Darko, which I just saw Friday night at the Camera 7 Midnight Movie Madness. But Saturday, we watched House of Sand and Fog, and since it’s a film that’s currently out, I’ll review that one first. But for those who’ve seen Donnie Darko but didn’t understand the plot, check out their interactive web site (I’d recommend using Internet Explorer — it didn’t seem to accept text input properly in Safari). The puzzles are not really that difficult, and at the end of the first level, you get a chance to finally read that Philosophy of Time book which answers a lot of questions (for those too lazy to jump through the hoops, you can also find a transcription of it here). For those who haven’t seen it, do rent it. It’s one of the most thought-provoking films I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, back to House of Sand and Fog, which is a very different animal, but is a very powerful and emotionally moving film — perhaps the best I’ve seen all year. Jennifer Connelly plays Kathy Nicolo, whose husband has left her and is now a recovering alcohollic living alone in a house she inherited from her father. She’s mistakenly evicted from her house due to a clerical error by the county — combined with the fact that, in her depression, she hasn’t been opening her mail.

Before she is able to straighten it out, the county has already sold the house to Massoud Amir Behrani, played by Ben Kingsley, who is simply a remarkable actor (if you haven’t yet seen his turn as the monstrous Don Logan in Sexy Beast, check it out!). Behrani is a retired colonel from Iran who, due to his close ties to the Shah, was forced to come to the U.S. and whose pride keeps him maintaining a lifestyle he feels his family deserves — even though it means working two menial jobs. Since the county auctions Kathy’s house well below market value, Behrani sees it as his last best opportunity for his family to reclaim the lifestyle that is slipping away from them.

The Station Agent Review

The Station Agent is a quiet, character-driven drama about a few outsiders slowly developing a relationship, so the best advice I could give as to whether or not to see the film is simply whether or not you liked Lost in Translation (it also reminded me somewhat of Ruby in Paradise). There isn’t all that much in terms of plot, so you either like these sort of films or you don’t. But it’s a shame if you don’t.

The film is about a man named Fin who struggles mightily to be taken seriously because, well… he’s a dwarf. When we’re introduced to him, we see various people reacting to him as you might expect, and his response is to completely ignore the reactions with a resigned acceptance and just deal with people as little as possible, thus living a completely solitary lifestyle.

Review: The Matrix Revolutions

Saw The Matrix Revolutions twice in the past week (although I only watched Reloaded once). I’ll start with a non-spoiler review here, and in a separate post I’ll go into a deeper analysis of what I think it all meant. Basically, it’s better than Reloaded (definitely much better paced) while not nearly as good as the first one. That’s pretty much what everybody else says. All-in-all, a pretty wild ride (albeit with several cliches and some degree of predictability). The ending, however, was initially disappointing and unsatisfying, but I got a deeper appreciation of it and the film and the trilogy upon further reflection. But let me start with the surface stuff.

Analysis of Matrix Revolutions (Spoilers!)

Warning! Spoilers for The Matrix Revolutions below! If you haven’t seen the film, I do also have a non-spoiler review, but do not continue reading this article unless you’ve already seen the film or don’t care if you have it spoiled for you!

Last chance!

Okay, you can’t say I didn’t warn you…