Archive for the ‘ Films ’ Category
(via yahighway.)
I'm so excited about the movie coming out - not only is the book a personal favourite, but EMMA WATSON. I love everything she's in... by which I mean, 'man isn't Harry Potter the best?' (It is the best.) 
“You might want to look away now, we’re about to critically examine a children’s Christmas television special.”
Just finished watching the Doctor Who, and I have some strong opinions on it already. Oh dear.
They are:
a) The Doctor trying to ‘take care’ of things was adorable.
b) Bill Bailey and his crew needed much more screentime. Great actors, funny dialogue, and wasted potential.
c) The attempt to tackle sexism made me seriously hate the writer (who I just found out was Stephen Moffat. Oh, Moffat, why do you have to disappoint me?).
The story began with a woman who can’t drive, and continued to crash every vehicle she came across in the episode. Then in the middle, the story decided to make it very clear that the alien race view females as ‘strong’ and males as ‘weak’ – a cute little cultural twist that I liked, and it worked well with the story. These aliens made a big deal out of how much of a strong person the car-crashing woman was, and everyone present generally nodded and agreed ‘oh yes, the strongest woman ever because she is a mum and that is wonderful’. Shortly afterwards, this ‘strong’ woman started gushing about how she met her husband: he followed her home every day from work, even though she didn’t seem romantically interested in him, and eventually she gave in and married him.
So this strong, admirable woman was blackmailed into a relationship? What.
If you’re going to write a story about how strong women are, it helps if you put a strong woman in it. Just an idea.
(EDIT: ’even though she didn’t seem romantically interested in him’ originally read as ‘even though she didn’t care for him’, this was reworded for clarity.)
Lots of things keeping me busy at work these last few weeks, and writing was going well until I overcomplicated it for myself. So I took some time off and distracted myself with movies. Here’s a few things that I’ve been killing time with:
Casshern
This is based on an an anime, and it has a nice visual style to it – as clearly seen in the trailers. But from the very firs scene, with it’s clunky, exposition-heavy dialogue (“As you know…”). It just gets weirder from there – scenes about genetic mutations, clones, abandoned robot factories in the snowy wilderness, a garden, a dead guy, and politics are all mashed up against each other in a vague attempt to make sense. It’s hilarious in the right mood, though – watch it with friends, especially if they’re drunk friends.
(Note: that the absolute lack of sense might have been due to the cut of it I watched. I have no idea which one it was, but it might have been the US cut which is known for it’s inaccurate dialogue and cut scenes.)
| Overall |   |
|---|---|
| It's pretty, but it made it no sense. | |
Perfect Blue
After the stupidly confusing Casshern, I moved onto the amazingly confusing Perfect Blue, dubbed in English. It’s about a Japanese pop star who tries to move into acting, taking roles out of desperation and having a mental breakdown in the process. Which doesn’t help if you’ve got fans obsessively stalking you and raging about your new career, and a murderer who conveniently keeps killing people who’ve wronged you.
Gorgeous (but gory) animation and a hundred and one plot twists keep this quirky animated horror-suspense movie going, alongside a creepy soundtrack and good quality voice acting.
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Aaargh, my mind. | |
Eclipse
I know. I’m a bad person. I should be ashamed.
“Eclipse” is the third movie in the Twilight vampire series aimed at teenage girls. It’s not to everyone’s cup of tea, but the special effects are good, the soundtrack is decent pop-rock, and you can turn it into a good drinking game by having a shot every-time someone does something emotionally manipulative.
I can’t stand Bella’s character or acting, but she almost redeemed herself with a conversation with her awkward single parent dad Charlie half-way through. Being honest, Charlie may be the only character in this series I actually like. Go Charlie! 
There’s also Jasper, who’s a stereotypically Texan vampire and lightens up the movie a lot.
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| The special effects are good, but the ending is weak, Bella's actor is bland and the climatic fight scene just didn't have enough impact. | |
Napoleon Dynamite
I guess this was a good movie? The actors playing Napoleon and Pedro were great, but it only got a few giggles. This is my fault, though – I’m not much of a fan of anything other than improv.
No review for this one, because my funnybone’s broken.
Persepolis
Such a bittersweet movie – it’s all about a girl just trying to be a smart girl in modern Iran, getting into rock music and dressing up in a culture where even wearing your veil too high will allow men to accuse you of being a slut. It’s easy to forget that Iranian kids and teens are just like any other culture’s kids – but for them, having an opinion can be a death-risk.
The soundtrack is fantastic – Iron Maiden, some instrumental work, and my favorite ’Survivor’ cover in all of history. It’s animated mostly greyscale with some colour, and the dialogue is in subtitled French.
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Sweet, sad and honest. | |
I admit it. I love Scott Pilgrim. He’s cute, funny, and geeky – but he’s got his heart set on pink-haired, rollerblading Amazon delivery-girl Ramona Flowers and even her seven evil ex-boyfriends aren’t going to stop him getting his girl. So my chances are pretty slim, but at least I have an awesome comic to help the pain to fade.
Scott Pilgrim is the story of a 23-year-old guy trying to find a job and a girlfriend, and deal with all the challenges that involves – including realising your cute high school girlfriend might not be the best match but the new girl you’ve got your eye on is carrying a lot of baggage, and your ex-girlfriend might just be back in town and you’re maybe-just-not-quite over her yet.
That, and there’s video game references galore, a terrible rock band, battles with less terrible rock bands, ninjas, subspace, Canadian temperature changes and gay roommates to deal with along the way.
It’s not perfect – the dialogue’s a bit clunky to start out with and the style sometimes sways a bit too far towards the manga style instead of O’Malley’s own style, subspace is only vaguely explained and certain plot points – particularly towards the end – are arguably not quite what we’d have hoped for.
It’s a quirky, ‘indie’ sort of comic book with simple but simple but expressive style and characters are linked together in a way that gives them depth while keeping them interesting and relevant to the story.
Here’s an animated short showing one of the scenes in the style of the comic:
The short was made to promote their newly released live action “Scott Pilgrim VS. the World Movie” movie, starring Michael Cera (who’s a bit boring sometimes) and a bunch of other dolled-up teenagers looking troubled but beautiful… but it’s true to the comic and I have no doubt it’s going to be awesome purely because of that. The movie covers all 6 volumes of the comic.
Here’s the trailer, but more importantly, the official site has previews for all of the comics.
Oh, and did I mention it’s directed by the man behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz? Edgar Wright is awesome, guys. AWESOME. And us Brits love him.
It’s just out in UK cinemas, and I’ll be headed to see it this weekend!
To top it all of, there’s an 8-bit style XBLA/PSN game based on the comic’s style.
…And all my geeky boxes have been ticked.
Played the video game last night and it’s lots of fun if you like side-scrollers, especially if you’ve got someone in the house to play Co-Op with. (The story’s really vague if you haven’t read the comic, but that doesn’t affect gameplay.) I’m looking forward to unlocking the zombie survival mode!
Seriously, though – if you’re into comics, support the creator and give them a read, and/or go see the movie as it’s struggling in the US box office, and it’s time for the Brits to show it some love.
Time for another one of those posts where I go over everything that’s been sucking up my time.
I haven’t had much time to listen to music because I’ve managed to lose my beloved headphones (Sennheiser CX-300s) and I’m far too stubborn to buy new ones. I’ll find them! Somewhere. Been going over some “Rise Against” tracks though, I’d forgotten that I liked them.
As for movies, I watched Breakfast At Tiffany’s. It’s a simple enough story, but it’s an endearing 60s movies. True to the novella with a few exceptions, most noticeably the end. However, it feels over-hyped, and in this day and age the ‘yellowface’ make-up used to make the Caucasian actor playing Mr. Yunioshi look Japanese is irritating at best.
Also, this month I managed to not only play a video game, but complete it! I usually get frustrated or distracted before the end of anything. That game was Portal, which I already knew and loved but hadn’t actually gotten round to finishing yet. I did, using the free copy from Steam’s giveaway a month or so ago. It was brilliant! There’s also a lot of suspense in it which had me on edge towards the end because I’m a scaredy cat.
As for books, I’m just finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. 
It’s very slow to start, but after the first 100 pages or so it gets interesting. But very… well, explicit is the only word. There were a few scenes with the female main character Salander that made me uncomfortable. Violence towards woman is a huge theme, so be warned. There’s also a lot of paragraphs spent on the protagonist getting with every woman he meets, but that’s just a bit boring.
Aside from that though, it was a decent read. A few nice twists to the story, and while I wasn’t much bothered about all the information on industrial reporting some of the sections describing Sweden’s legal guardianship system were food for thought. I won’t be rushing out to buy the other books in the trilogy. 2/5 - an okay book, but there’s a lot of little nickpicks about characterization and plot that don’t feel quite satisfying. Not to mention the need for a bit tighter editing, especially at the beginning. Not my kind of book, really.
I’ve finally started piecing together my highlights of 2009. I’ll be splitting this up into at least 2 blog posts – this one includes best album, movie and book. The next post will include best game, live event, TV Show and webcomic.
Obviously this isn’t an expert link – it’s restricted to only what I’ve seen, heard, read or played and to my own personal tastes. Your milage is going to vary, so leave a comment with your own “Best Of”s, suggestions for what I’ve missed out on, or a link to your own blog posts about it. You no longer have to be a registered site member to comment which should make things easier.
Best Album Of 2009
Biffy Clyro’s “Only Revolutions”
I love Biffy Clyro. A lot. They’re Scottish, they’ve got strong catchy melodies and beautiful lyrics, and since they broke out in the music scene with “Puzzle” they haven’t set a foot wrong. “Only Revolutions” takes things up a notch without compromise, and without losing the style that got them where they are.
Runners Up: Muse “The Resistance”, Placebo “Battle for the Sun”. Brand New’s “Daisy” could also be worth a place here once I give it a good play-through.
Best Movie Of 2009
“Up”
There were a lot of great movies this year, but when it comes to a balance of story-line, style, characters and soundtrack “Up” has to be my choice this year. A heart-string tugging return to brilliance for Pixar.
Runners Up: “Coraline” was a brilliant comeback for traditional claymation, and though “Avatar”s story gets a lot of slack it’s beauty, special effects and skilled use of what’s normally a gimmick have made it a game-changer for movies to come. ”District 9″ was another close one.
Best Book Of 2009
This wasn’t my best year for reading. I’ve been short of time to get through my own tastes, or any of the critically acclaimed newcomers like “Wolf Hall”. Instead it’s been a stream of stories forced into following the “Twilight” formula.
Not the best quality genre to pick from, but I have to restrict my choices to what I’ve read.
“Hush, Hush”
My favourite new YA of 2009, “Hush, Hush” a smart plot backed up with solid mythology, relatable characters and absolutely brilliant dialogue with sharp innuendo throughout. When other YA books are sticking to the formula Fitzpatrick unashamedly breaks out of the mold with her strong-willed protagonist and far from perfect love interest.
No book is perfect and it does suffer a bit from sledgehammer hints (inserting the words ‘angel’ in at every opportunity while the protagonist spends far too long figuring it out) it doesn’t stop the story from being completely gripping from start to finish. I can’t wait for the sequel.
Hi again! Used-Goods is now back online after a nasty attack earlier this month that took faaar too much work to fix, as well as to get security upped again afterwards.
Website work is a hobby for me, done out of both interest in the subject and necessity – the site my last publisher set up for me was poorly done and probably expensive, and I wanted to 1-up it. So I learnt basic coding, then design, and while my sites have always had good security I’m still learning the more advanced tricks.
Nairn has been busy lately – a new Nickel & Dime store has put some life into the labouring high-street, and stirred up public and commercial spirit. The river has tried to flood us all at least once since my last post, but it’s settled down to a low flow lately.
As Doctor Who warned us last night: Water is patient. Water waits.
I’ve been reading Neuromancer, which managed to entirely confuse me as I tried to read it on and off in the quiet moments and lost my place in the plot entirely. I’m onto the climatic scenes, now, and enjoying it much more now that the plot is up in my face refusing to be ignored.
After struggling with too much writers block lately, I picked up a notebook at Nairn’s new store and have started using it to write away from the draining powers of the blank screen. It’s been working well, though finding the time to give it due attention is as difficult as ever.
Needless to say, given my lack of time this month I’m glad I didn’t enter NaNoWriMo - and a little jealous of the fantastic few who are managing to keep up with it.
Just One Drop...
Speaking of Doctor Who – ‘The Waters Of Mars’ was something else on Sunday night. The first half was very slow, and frustrating in that the Doctor did so little it felt almost like a cameo appearance.
However, it really kicked into high gear for the second half. It was smarter and darker, echoing both Stephen Moffat and Russel T Davies at their best. I admit to getting a bit teary-eyed in the more emotional moments.
The Tenth Doctor had a big character change throughout the episode – from uncharacteristically conflicted and hesitant to a confident, daredevil attitude that was definitely ‘The Timelord Victorious’. Then it switched to something much darker and far less likeable – a mood that, as much as I hated it, I hope to see continued into the Christmas special because it really summed up a lot about the Doctor’s dangerous personality without a companion to tell him when to stop.
All in all, I’m really looking forward to the Christmas special, especially now they’re bringing together my three favourite characters – the Tenth Doctor, Donna and John Simm’s Master. =D
I also finally got round to seeing the 2009 Star Trek movie. First impressions weren’t so great – all the cast have suddenly become beautifully groomed, pretty men and women. I like pretty as much as the next girl, but a pretty Spock? That’s a bit weird.
Once you get settled into that uncanny valley, though, you’re treated to a stunning display of expert cinematography, great acting, and memorable audio effects.
Not only does it have the eery silence of space, but the Vulcan mind meld has some effective dialogue distortion that adds a lot to the scene. Examples of good cinematography are everywhere as well – the film is loaded with expensive special effects.
The plot can seem a bit like well-written fanfiction – an alternative universe where a young, good-looking Captain Kirk and Spock are enemies? Really?
Yes, really – and it works.
It’s a good year for science fiction.
E.Maree
xoxo
