I need to throw up some movie reviews here sometime in the future. I'm thinking I may run through some of the Bluray flix I got for Christmas: Galaxy Quest, Rambo 1-4, Die Hard 1-4.
I'm not thinking about anything too in depth. Just something to fill out some blog posts. I'm gonna try to post something everyday, or at least average one post a day. Even if it means I have to go all Doogie Howser M.D on this blogs ass!
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Creativity...and the lack there of...
Sony announced the other day that they are haulting plans for Spiderman 4 . Instead they are planning for the dreaded "R" word for the series. REBOOT.
A reboot of the Spiderman series will allow them to start over, start clean, and more importantly -- Re-cast and save money. Guess Toby, Kirstin and Sam Rami will be cast aside for a cheaper option. Somthing that will no doubt get the publicity machine going with new toys, tie-ins, and games.
Not that reboots are bad. Actually, I really liked the Superman reboot (one of the few that did) that just picked up where Superman 2 left off. Dark Knight really got most things right with a darker Batman. So from time to time you can get away with the reboot.
Why is it that Hollywood feels the need to reboot with any major recasting? Look at the James Bond Franchise..James Bond is: Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig ... While each new actor in the series is sort of a reboot it keeps the general feel and storyline of past movies (with the exceptino of Casino Royale being more of a Reboot in the sense of the word). I think that at 22- films that idea has held up well?! Until Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace none of the other bond films were direct sequals of each other.
Which leads me to wonder why the need to rehash old movies and TV series to fill our screens. Maybe it's because we keep filling the theatres. Just look at the list of new movies in the works: The A-Team , Magnum PI, MacGyver (which I sadly can't wait for!!), plus a new Battlestar Gallactica (based on the old series, not the new one), Plus the newer TV show to movie transitions...Sex in the City, The Simpsons, Arrested Development, the rumord Sopranos movie, 24 the moive, CHiP's, a possible move version of The Shield and the list goes on and on.
Let's not forget past stinkers too: The Mod Squad, Starsky and Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice,...and those are just some of my favorites.
I will say that there is one new movie coming out that I am over the top about seeing. It's a movie that is a follow up to a 1982 Disney movie that I enjoyed as a kid. That movie is: Tron: Legacy .
The original was just that: ORIGINAL. Now, almost 30 years later we get a next chapter in the story. Both a sequel and a homage the original. Most of the original cast is back..which is a good thing. Older, wiser, and better actors too.
Now, I've railed on this before, "there are no original ideas in Hollywood". It's a land of sequels and remakes! But, every once and a while, a new movies comes along and gets things going. For me Avatar was that movie. Not so much for the story, but rather the style and images. James Cameron is constantly breaking new ground and he's done it again with this film.
According to Den of Geek: "Avatar picked up $48.5 million, bringing its total to just under $430 million in the US and $1.331 BILLION dollars internationally. For those keeping score at home, and you should, because this is getting to be historic. Avatar is the second-highest grossing movie of all time. The top film is James Cameron's Titanic."
In two movies, Titanic and Avatar, James Cameron has a world wide gross of over $3 Billion Dollars.
If you get the change hit up your local IMAX 3D theatre, pay the nearly $15 ticket price and see what a 3D movie should look like. I can truely see the tech that Cameron developed helping to push movie making forward.
Most of what Hollywood is doing right now isn't really original, but it is entertaining. Isn't that really the reason we go to the movies? Escape, fun, an outing with friends or family?
Oh well....atleast 24 is back on TV this weekend! 4 hours over Sunday and Monday..Happy Birthday to me!
A reboot of the Spiderman series will allow them to start over, start clean, and more importantly -- Re-cast and save money. Guess Toby, Kirstin and Sam Rami will be cast aside for a cheaper option. Somthing that will no doubt get the publicity machine going with new toys, tie-ins, and games.
Not that reboots are bad. Actually, I really liked the Superman reboot (one of the few that did) that just picked up where Superman 2 left off. Dark Knight really got most things right with a darker Batman. So from time to time you can get away with the reboot.
Why is it that Hollywood feels the need to reboot with any major recasting? Look at the James Bond Franchise..James Bond is: Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig ... While each new actor in the series is sort of a reboot it keeps the general feel and storyline of past movies (with the exceptino of Casino Royale being more of a Reboot in the sense of the word). I think that at 22- films that idea has held up well?! Until Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace none of the other bond films were direct sequals of each other.
Which leads me to wonder why the need to rehash old movies and TV series to fill our screens. Maybe it's because we keep filling the theatres. Just look at the list of new movies in the works: The A-Team , Magnum PI, MacGyver (which I sadly can't wait for!!), plus a new Battlestar Gallactica (based on the old series, not the new one), Plus the newer TV show to movie transitions...Sex in the City, The Simpsons, Arrested Development, the rumord Sopranos movie, 24 the moive, CHiP's, a possible move version of The Shield and the list goes on and on.
Let's not forget past stinkers too: The Mod Squad, Starsky and Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice,...and those are just some of my favorites.
I will say that there is one new movie coming out that I am over the top about seeing. It's a movie that is a follow up to a 1982 Disney movie that I enjoyed as a kid. That movie is: Tron: Legacy .
The original was just that: ORIGINAL. Now, almost 30 years later we get a next chapter in the story. Both a sequel and a homage the original. Most of the original cast is back..which is a good thing. Older, wiser, and better actors too.
Now, I've railed on this before, "there are no original ideas in Hollywood". It's a land of sequels and remakes! But, every once and a while, a new movies comes along and gets things going. For me Avatar was that movie. Not so much for the story, but rather the style and images. James Cameron is constantly breaking new ground and he's done it again with this film.
According to Den of Geek: "Avatar picked up $48.5 million, bringing its total to just under $430 million in the US and $1.331 BILLION dollars internationally. For those keeping score at home, and you should, because this is getting to be historic. Avatar is the second-highest grossing movie of all time. The top film is James Cameron's Titanic."
In two movies, Titanic and Avatar, James Cameron has a world wide gross of over $3 Billion Dollars.
If you get the change hit up your local IMAX 3D theatre, pay the nearly $15 ticket price and see what a 3D movie should look like. I can truely see the tech that Cameron developed helping to push movie making forward.
Most of what Hollywood is doing right now isn't really original, but it is entertaining. Isn't that really the reason we go to the movies? Escape, fun, an outing with friends or family?
Oh well....atleast 24 is back on TV this weekend! 4 hours over Sunday and Monday..Happy Birthday to me!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
REVIEW: Cloverfield
Cloverfield the new monster movie that took the weekend box office by storm (a reported $41 Million) is a fun movie...pay no attention to what my father thinks!I hit up the movie theatre this weekend for a long overdue movie night. Not a lot out there that I wanted to see! But, low and behold, what has a 01-18-08 release date (happy birthday to me) CLOVERFIELD.
As I said a few weeks ago, for a movie with little, or no, traditional advertising....I was looking forward to this movie. Now...if you haven't seen the movie yet you may want to stop reading now.
SPOILER ALERT!!! SORT OF!!
Let me start off by saying that I truly enjoyed this movie. But!.....I know a lot of people will not agree with me. First off the camera "work" is a little hard to watch at times.
The man on the street approach is a very convincing style choice here. I think that it even works better than it did back in 1999 with The Blair Witch Project. But, like that movie Cloverfield does have a few short comings.
With the handheld home movie look you get a lot of times that the screen is unwatchable, especially if you have motion sickness issues. But, for the most part the feel of the movie is dead on.
What I really enjoyed was the point of view take this movie gives you. In the past "monster" movies were all about a battle between the unstoppable monster and the main characters....this time you get the view of the everyman just trying to get out of the monsters way...and stay alive in the process. Because of this fact we really only get a few really good look at the main monster itself. (don't want to give away too much!) This movie does a good job of showing the chaos at ground level for the average Joe!
The cast is made of up "mostly unknown" talent. But, if you have been watching a little TV over the last year or so you will recognize a few faces: Lizzy Caplan (from "The Class"), Michael Stahl-David (Black Donnellys), and Jessica Lucas (four episodes of CSI from this year) are the most recognizable faces in the cast and they all do an outstanding job.
A major distinction between Cloverfield and Blair Witch is that Cloverfield was scripted. Some of the dialogue is hokey...but when is a movie totally believable? Some of the best line in the movie come from T.J Miller (Hud, A.K.A. the Cameraman) While you really have to be paying attention to the dialogue rather than to the action....he has some killer lines.
My only true knock on the movie itself is that it spends too much time setting up the quasi-documentary feel. We get about twenty-minutes of setup footage of the going away party before the monster attack begins, and this is 20 minutes out of the total 88 minutes of the movie. I understand the overall reason for those 20 minutes...but I also don't need to get the full run down to get "emotionally attached" to the characters. The whole set up could have been done in 10 minutes and not lost it's effect.
All in all I would say that, while it won't win any awards, it is well worth seeing. If you were not all that impressed by Blair Witch...you may want to sit this one out. The same goes for those people who suffer from motion sickness...
On a final note...stick around, not a big deal..but you may want to just for fun....also, if you are going to see the movie for the first time....or a second time for that matter! Pay attention to the Coney Island Footage near the end of the movie! If you don't have the patience, or money, to go back to the movie....check this out...it's audio from the very end of the credits. If you listen to the audio in the theatre it is supposed to sound like "help us" but if you play it backwards you get....well listen to it for yourself.
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