Watched Win Win last night. Absolutely fantastic film. The plot isn't really that unique, it's a familiar story you've seen dozens of times, but it's the best execution of that story I've ever seen. Highly recommended.
Oh, I watched Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans yesterday. Easily, easily one of the best films I've ever seen. Herzog is a god.
Not to mention batshit insane and out of his mind.
I fear you gravely misunderstand his genius. He pulled a 320-ton boat over a mountain just to film it. He turned down an offer by an Amazonian chief to kill Klaus Kinski because they needed to finish shooting. He ate his shoe to keep a bet with Errol Morris, and finished an interview despite a bullet wound.
Werner Herzog is a man utterly devoted to capturing the absolute insanity and utter indifference of life, no matter what the cost.
Watched Win Win last night. Absolutely fantastic film. The plot isn't really that unique, it's a familiar story you've seen dozens of times, but it's the best execution of that story I've ever seen. Highly recommended.
"The Secret World of Arriety" is not one of Hayao Miyasaki's best film. I should have watched "The Artist" instead.
Funny, considering how well it is doing.
If you enjoyed Ponyo for what it was, then you will appreciate Arriety and enjoy it. Do not get me wrong, the movie was the beautifully animated, but the plot was pretty lackluster in my opinion.
Personally, for a movie that was not directed by Miyazaki, it is one of Ghibli's most accessible films. Yes it is not as powerful as many of his works, but it definitely easier to get into for the normal movie-goer than Ponyo was, and I know this because I saw Ponyo with several "normal" people, who were kind of thrown off by it. People are familiar with the idea of miniature people from other movies, so it's that far of a stretch. And as far as that goes, it does a damn good job showing what life is like from that perspective.
Saw the artist, a very nice movie with a simple story. The execution of the story is what makes it unique, and the dog needed to get a golden globe for best supporting actor in it as well.
My girlfriend and I, both CTVA majors, went to see "The Secret World of Arrietty" last night. We both liked it, but left the theater somewhat unsatisfied by the flick. Here is what we thought was wrong with it. 1. We couldn't figure out who the main protagonist was. Was it Sean or Arrietty? The movie starts and ends with Shawn monologue-ing, but it's ostensibly Arrietty's story. Both have very strong story arcs (Shawn: arrive at house, discovering borrowers, befriending Arrietty, helping her save her mom and hide their existence, saying goodbye. Arrietty: going on her first borrowing, being spotted by Shawn, trying to persuade him to leave them alone, becoming his friend, saving her mom and hiding their existence with his help, saying goodbye.), but neither are clearly marked as the main character.
2. The pacing: Gibli films have a pattern to them: introduce the setting/characters, introduce the conflict, and then start building up and building up until it all comes apart at the crisis. Then the crisis gets resolved and everyone (mostly) goes home happy (mostly). In fact, that is the basic formula for most story arcs. The problem is that, while the film had an incredible build-up and so many possible crises, it never had a crisis proportionate to the build-up. The crisis was solved so quickly and so trivially; it was literally, "Have someone make soup". And there was another crisis that was built up too: Shawn's heart condition. It's hammered into us time and time again, but there is never any resolution to it apart from the ending monologue. At least twice they make us think that he's not going to make it. Hell, the second time we can actually hear his heartbeat over the audio as he's running, but then... nothing. He's fine. I've never read the book, so if this is how the source material went, then so be it. But, cinematically, it just doesn't work. It's the equivalent of having a porno with a sexy woman wearing nothing but an apron only to have her do nothing but bake cookies the entire time. When the crisis is disproportionately small compared to the build-up, there is no climax (pun completely intended). In other words, the checkov's gun never goes off.
3. The villain: She just wasn't strong enough. Yes, she caused the crisis, but she was defeated so easily. Not only that but you really empathized with her by the end of the film. This isn't THAT big of an issue, but I was hoping she'd really go insane instead of just thinking that she had gone nuts.
One thing that I wonder about the film was the last song to play over the credits. This movie was dubbed over and distributed by Disney in the united states. The first song of the credits has a very obvious and poorly done crossfade to a song sung by the english voice actress for Arrietty, Bridgit Mendler. We couldn't help but wonder if there was another song in it's place that Disney swapped out with their song. And, if there was, is the song also different in the UK, where Arrietty is voiced by Olivia Colman?
All in all, We enjoyed the movie, but it was those few things that prevented it from being a great movie.
My boys at Spill had a pretty low opinion of it too. I was really anticipating it, because the animation really looked beautiful, but I was just hearing how it was bland, had annoying animated movie cliches and how it doesn't care for it's audience.
There needs to be a revolution at the Geisel estate. Whoever's in charge there doesn't have a damn clue what an intellectual goldmine they're sitting on. They need to be replaced with someone who does.
I only went because I was invited by friends that I love hanging out with; however, they left almost as soon as the movie finished, so it was a waste of time, money, and patience. However, watching the little kids dance about the theater during the end credits almost made it worth it.
But it's got Danny DeVito playing a short grumpy character across from a young boy in a touching love story. How did they screw that up? EDIT: *reads wikipedia plot summary* Oh. So the trailer completely misrepresents the movie. Was it the heavy handed environmentalist message?
SLC Punk is a movie about people going through that second wave of realizing that everything they think is so important is bullshit (an important part of every early to mid twenties first world person's development).
Saw Chronicle the other day. I thought it was surprisingly well written with the three kids and how their friendship developed. I love that they kept the actual details of where the powers come from vague and hope they don't try to explain it in the sequel that will no doubt eventually happen. It was very reminiscent of Akira in ways, which is what drew my attention in the first place, most obviously toward the end when Andrew rampages through the city in a hospital gown. I would call it more of an homage than a ripoff though, as it definitely tries to explore its own themes for the most part. I found the way they jumped between a bunch of different cameras rather than sticking to one to be an interesting gimmick, though a lot of people seem to have been annoyed by it. Absolutely worth a watch if you haven't seen it yet.
Comments
Werner Herzog is a man utterly devoted to capturing the absolute insanity and utter indifference of life, no matter what the cost.
I should have watched "The Artist" instead.
Do not get me wrong, the movie was the beautifully animated, but the plot was pretty lackluster in my opinion.
1. We couldn't figure out who the main protagonist was. Was it Sean or Arrietty? The movie starts and ends with Shawn monologue-ing, but it's ostensibly Arrietty's story. Both have very strong story arcs (Shawn: arrive at house, discovering borrowers, befriending Arrietty, helping her save her mom and hide their existence, saying goodbye. Arrietty: going on her first borrowing, being spotted by Shawn, trying to persuade him to leave them alone, becoming his friend, saving her mom and hiding their existence with his help, saying goodbye.), but neither are clearly marked as the main character.
2. The pacing: Gibli films have a pattern to them: introduce the setting/characters, introduce the conflict, and then start building up and building up until it all comes apart at the crisis. Then the crisis gets resolved and everyone (mostly) goes home happy (mostly). In fact, that is the basic formula for most story arcs. The problem is that, while the film had an incredible build-up and so many possible crises, it never had a crisis proportionate to the build-up. The crisis was solved so quickly and so trivially; it was literally, "Have someone make soup". And there was another crisis that was built up too: Shawn's heart condition. It's hammered into us time and time again, but there is never any resolution to it apart from the ending monologue. At least twice they make us think that he's not going to make it. Hell, the second time we can actually hear his heartbeat over the audio as he's running, but then... nothing. He's fine.
I've never read the book, so if this is how the source material went, then so be it. But, cinematically, it just doesn't work. It's the equivalent of having a porno with a sexy woman wearing nothing but an apron only to have her do nothing but bake cookies the entire time. When the crisis is disproportionately small compared to the build-up, there is no climax (pun completely intended). In other words, the checkov's gun never goes off.
3. The villain: She just wasn't strong enough. Yes, she caused the crisis, but she was defeated so easily. Not only that but you really empathized with her by the end of the film. This isn't THAT big of an issue, but I was hoping she'd really go insane instead of just thinking that she had gone nuts.
One thing that I wonder about the film was the last song to play over the credits. This movie was dubbed over and distributed by Disney in the united states. The first song of the credits has a very obvious and poorly done crossfade to a song sung by the english voice actress for Arrietty, Bridgit Mendler. We couldn't help but wonder if there was another song in it's place that Disney swapped out with their song. And, if there was, is the song also different in the UK, where Arrietty is voiced by Olivia Colman?
All in all, We enjoyed the movie, but it was those few things that prevented it from being a great movie.
EDIT: *reads wikipedia plot summary*
Oh. So the trailer completely misrepresents the movie. Was it the heavy handed environmentalist message?