CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised. From pencils…
…to pixels.
More to come; I'm working on a couple of projects with the little fellas...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Not a great deal to say about this movie, I'm afraid. That's not to play it down, but it knows its strengths, and follows the formula to an admirable degree...
The Plot: CIA. Explosions. Intrigue. Twists… look, here's the trailer. That pretty much says it all.
The Good:Safe House never tries to be something it's not. The trailer suggests a self-contained action-thriller, with tension, explosions and CIA-related levels of twist, and that's exactly what's delivered. At no point did I expect anything more than what was on offer, and at no point was I disappointed or surprised. The casting is solid enough (if slightly unimaginitive), and the script is lean and nicely trimmed given the characters and situations. Denzel Washington is clearly having a lot of fun, being given the best character. You know Tobin Frost isn't as bad as everyone's making out, but at the same time you're never under the illusion that he isn't the murderer they say he is. Ryan Reynolds puts in a respectable turn as Matt Weston, the conflicted, everyman hero. Brendan Gleeson and Vera Farmiga's performances are a little more phoned-in, but still passable given the limitations of their respective parts.
The Bad: Hand-held cameras. Not the shaky-cam levels of Cloverfield, but during the closeup shootout scenes, on an 80ft wide screen, it's a little hard to follow the action as closely as you'd like. In that respect, watching it on the TV will be a lot easier.
The Ugly: Nothing to report.
Worth £8+? If you're a fan or Washington or Reynolds, probably. For everyone else, it's a solid couple of hours entertainment in front of the telly, be it on DVD or Sky. It's very good, but it's not quite great.
^^ A strong four, but a four nonetheless. I'd probably rate it higher on DVD, if that makes any sense.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Yeah five times. Don't act so surprised, princess... Besides, there are some big movies coming out this year, and I don't want them to take the repeat-viewing crown from SW, now do I?
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Cineworld have decided, that I can see this now, a mere seven weeks after its original UK release date. Obviously, they had Goon, The Darkest Hour and Ghost Rider 2 to show me first, so that's entirely understandable.
Anyway. The Artist has finally arrived, so Mrs Blackout and myself duly went to see what all the damned fuss is about…
The Plot: It's 1927 and George Valentin, silent matinee heartthrob, finds himself being left behind in Hollywood's transition to talking pictures. As his life falls apart around him he watches the meteoric rise of Peppy Miller, a star he unwittingly helped create, with a mixture of wonder and envy...
The Good: Oh, it's beautifully made. Much has already been written (and better) about the homages to the past fused with the knowingness of the present, but it really has to be seen to be believed. Hazanavicius has captured the essence of silent cinema perfectly. You're not bombarded with speech-boards, which really puts the onus on the performers to communicate with their performances. For the most part, the sound-design is purely the soundtrack, but the dream sequence is rather nicely done and caught me unawares. It's one of those films whose final scene finds you grinning from ear to ear. A rarity in this day and age, and worthy of your time and appreciation.
The Bad: …the second act drags a bit. Not for nothing, but you could quite easily trim about 15 minutes out of there. I don't mind that the film is 100 minutes long, but there's probably only about 80 minutes story, tops. I like that it's a film of antique sensibility yet with modern length, but the format's old fashioned to the point that the story doesn't take that long to tell. It never becomes unbearable, but I found myself willing the story forward probably more than I should.
The Ugly: Not the fault of the filmmakers, but I saw this in analogue projection. Slightly out of focus, possibly with one colour-damaged reel analogue. I'm not going to get all Kermode and lament the absence of a trained projectionist, I'd just rather all the screens showed digital presentations. At least for new releases, anyway. The first act of the film had a distinctly blue tone to the black and white, but when George wakes up in bed after his nightmare the film suddenly snapped into sepia tones. Like noticeably snapped. This may have been deliberate, but I haven't seen anyone else mentioning it. About twenty minutes after that, and the left half of the screen was in sepia, blending into blue-toned mono on the right. This lasted for the rest of the film. I'm not opposed to the idea of showing an old-fashioned film on actual celluloid, but do it properly, eh? If it's deliberate, it seems an unusual choice, but they're not always the sharpest tacks down at my local, so my money's on a set of duff prints. If you know any more about this, leave me a comment, hmm?
And while I'm on: The dog's not all that, really. A cute, talented dog for sure, but very much an accessory to the story rather than a driving force. I only mention this because everyone else seems to think Uggie's performance is outstanding. Oh, and doesn't Jean Dujardin look a bit like Bradley Cooper? Part of me was expecting it to be an uncredited performance, but he kept his shirt on for the film, so it can't have been him...
Worth £8+? Absolutely. You won't lose too much by watching it at home, but it really is made for the cinema. If you haven't caught The Artist yet, and it's still on at your local, you could do a lot worse than treating yourself to this (no, seriously. You could do a lot worse. Ghost Rider 2's probably still on, for a start).
Ignore the hype (including mine), and just enjoy it for what it is: a great old-fashioned movie.
Okay, it's not life changing, but it's definitely a standout film in this day and age. If you don't enjoy this on some level, you probably have no soul.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
As a ghost story, The Woman in Black is a bloody solid hour and a half of entertainment. As a horror film, it's held back by the fact that it's a Cert 12A, and that it falls into a very familiar trap in no time at all...
Sub GhostStoryIn2012MustHaveHorrorElements()
Dim Mins as Time For Mins = 0 to 95 Mins = Mins + 5
Activate full colour palette Init Plot Exposition Activate desaturated colour palette Init Quiet Init Quiet Init Quiet Init "LOUD NOISE" and "FACE CLOSE-UP" Next Mins
Init Credits End Sub
The Plot: Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is a young London-based solictor sent to Yorkshire to deal with the estate of a deceased client who has left no relatives. When he arrives in the small coastal village of Crythin Gifford, the superstitious locals are on full alert, and a series of untimely deaths do nothing to lighten their mood. Kipps skepticism and nerve are both put to the test as he determines to unravel the mystery of The Woman In Black...
The The Good: What I said back at the start; It's a good ghost story. Formulaic? Sure. But it's a Hammer production of a 1983 novel which is an Edwardian (ish) ghost story, so there's not exactly a lot of new ground to cover. The plot unfolds at a leisurely pace (for the most part), with the major exposition points teased out nicely. The sets and costumes all appear to be in good order (to my untrained eye), although there's a surprising range of accents to be found in such an isolated village.
The Bad: I can't deny that there is suspense in this film, and that there are jumps. But that's largely because the audience is beaten so solidly over the head with them. If no-one's speaking and the music stops, it's like a red flag goes up telegraphing the imminent jump. The best shots are the ones where the ghost(s) are standing innocuously in the background as the camera sweeps past, unseen by the characters on-screen. There are a few of those shots, but not enough to build the suspense that way. This film would be so much better if it had stuck to creepy until the finalé, because that's when it's interesting. That said, the toys in the nursery are a bit overkill. We know they're sinister, Daniel, you don't have to set them all off at once...
The Ugly: On a personal note, I could have done without the final scene (not what happens at the end, just literally the final scene). It seemed a little saccharine for my taste and robbed the film of an end in keeping with the story. It didn't ruin the film for me, I just don't get why it's there.
Worth a punt? For me? Yes. I like the traditional structure and feel of it, which is sorely lacking from most contemporary horror. I'd have preferred more of a focus on 'the victims', but the movie would be outside of its 12A bracket then. Not that that should matter when you're trying to market this type of thing.
It's good, but there are seeds of greatness in there...
It's a 12A. Take your kid, it'll freak them the fuck out and set the bar at a decent level for ghost stories! ;)
Quick question for those who've seen it: The train at the end... there's only one line running through the village, so why does the next train arrive so quickly after the first? Just a thought.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
I expect you think it's all done digitally over here at Blackout Towers. Afraid not; these little guys start their lives as pencil sketches.
Oh, and I suppose I'd better rate the film... *shrugs*
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
I've done it again, haven't I? I've gone to see a sequel film without having first watched its predecessor. Sometimes that means that you won't get a proper grip of what's going on in the film, and sometimes it means that you've essentially missed out on a 90 minute warning not to bother seeing any future instalments.
The opening of GR:SoV has Nic Cage giving a voiceover to an animated sequence which explains why his head goes on fire when there are naughty people around. Given that that's pretty much all you need to know, I don't think I missed out on too much by not seeing Ghost Rider. Which pretty much leaves the second option in the last paragraph as the winner.
The Plot: Johnny Blaze made a deal with the devil (and was subsequently tricked, natch) to deliver the souls of the evil to Hell. When bad people are around, he goes all on fire and skeletal. Apparently sending bad people to Hell isn't necessarily a good thing in this film, and Johnny is looking for a way to end his curse. Oh look, a child has been kidnapped by The Devil, let's get involved…
The Good: It looks like we're finally getting decently rendered 3D in live action movies. Pretty much the whole movie has a feeling of immersion, and while it adds little or nothing to the action sequences, it's good to know that it's at least being used properly. Likewise, the visual effects are pretty damned spiffy as well. Slo-mo gunfire, flipping cars, explosions and a man with his head constantly on fire are all pulled off rather well (considering the bugbears I'm about to list, anyway).
The Bad: Erm, the plot/script. Nic Cage's half-arsed delivery makes him appear embarrassed to be there, which is saying something given his mixed filmography. The scripting is as flabby and uninspired as the plot revolving around a child being the chosen one who's been abducted by the devil (not A.Demon, The.Actual.Devil) and will be sacrificed/posessed to usher in a new age of darkness.
Somehow, the makers of GR:SoV have taken a simplistic plot, explained everything (albeit badly), and yet I still sat there for huge stretches wondering exactly what the fuck was going on. The film has been produced under the Marvel Knights banner, a subset of the main studio which focuses (and I quote) "on producing darker titles". I'm not sure how dark they think they can get with a 12A certificate, but if that means a lot of the characters wearing black, a needlessly complex screenplay, and The Devil saying the film's singular fuck-word, then I guess Marvel Knights are feeling pretty chuffed around now.
The Ugly: There's a line between fantastical and nonsensical. It's not even a thin line, it's at least a couple of feet wide. GR:SoV manages to be nonsensical to the point where it becomes dull. Yes, you read that right: After an hour of watching a man with this head on fire eat the souls of bad people, I was monumentally bored and just waiting for the film to end. Given that the bad guy in this is The.Actual.Devil, none of what transpires makes any sense. Considering that even the movie pumps him up to be a deity, his 'powers' are nerfed beyond belief, and he relies on inept thugs and a newly made (an horrendously underused) Rotting Man™.
Oh, and that bit at the start where Johnny Blaze is talking to the audience? "Oh, everyone's got something to hide! You might not have murdered someone, but what about that illegal download?" Seriously. Fuck off, Marvel. If you're going to moralise about piracy, at least clumsily paste the message into something worth pirating.
Worth £10+? You know I've got that card? Because this is in 3D, there's a surcharge and I paid £1.50 to see it. I feel robbed for that, so I can barely begin to imagine how punters who've paid full price are going to feel.
I'm not an expert (as regular readers of this blog will attest), but this isn't a good film.
The visuals alone save this from being a 1/7. Everything else here is awful.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
You know how much I love this film, as I've made no secret of it. I've done a retrospective of the movie here, a review of the 3D version here, and a nitpick that covers all the released versions here.
So I've drawn you a picture.
Bit bigger? Oh, okay then.
The film?
But you knew I'd say that.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Mixed feelings about this one, as I was never that huge a fan of The Muppets as a kid. I liked them, of course, but I wasn't necessarily keen on the segments of the show featuring humans, especially if I didn't really know who the celebrities actually were. As it turns out, I've carried those reservations forward. And with good reason…
The Plot: The famous Muppet Theatre is due to be bulldozed by an evil oil baron unless brothers Walter and Gary can help Kermit the Frog to reunite the old gang, and put on a show to raise ten million dollars!
The Good: The bits with The Muppets on-screen. The gang have still got the magic, and when this film's good it's absolutely fantastic. There were one or two bits that had me literally crying with laughter ("I can't believe I was fooled by the Muppet Man!"), and most of the rest of the scenes with the furry/felt creatures had me quietly chuckling.
The Bad: Amy Adams seems to think she's there to outshine the Muppets, not complement them, and spends most of the film overacting horrendously. Similar pointers apply to Chris Cooper as Tex Richman, the archetypal baddie (although at least he has a reason for hamming it up to 11). The celeb-cameos seem a little laboured for the most part, but that's not the end of the world. In fact, only Jason Segel seems to escape unscathed as his usual affable self with an air of innocence that fits in perfectly here. The plot/script, as hackneyed as they are, worked fine for me when it was Muppets-only, but as soon as there was any human involvement really seemed to grind to a cliched halt.
The Ugly: If you're going to make Life's a Happy Song the recurring theme for the movie and use it three times, go right ahead, but could you make it sound a little less reminiscent of I Wanna Grow Old With You from The Wedding Singer? The kids won't notice, but their parents will. And Tex Richman's 'rap'? Shameless. No excuse for that.
On The Plus Side: At least I won't have to watch the godawful Orange/Muppets promo before each film I see in the cinema. Four months that went on for.
Worth £8+? If you've got got kids, you'll probably be seeing it anyway. Look, it's very good. Some of the time. Well meaning, but twee beyond belief.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
"Always be polite. Until it's time not to be polite."
I get on the train at London Paddington. About 45 minutes down the line is Didcot, where I live. I get a seat to myself (by which I mean there was no-one in the seat next to mine), get out the laptop and begin to watch the final half hour of The Dark Knight, having watched it up to that point on the train into London from Ramsgate.
About ten minutes before the train leaves, a woman gets on with three children of varying ages, a pushchair and lots of bags. She and her youngest child (who, incidentally, it way too old for the pushchair) sit directly behind my seat, while the other two and their assorted luggage sprawl across the opposite side of the carriage, so that they can talk on the journey.
Well, I say talk, I mean the children will laugh, shout, yelp, shout, babble and shout the moment they park their arses. I'll be honest, that wasn't the problem. It wasn't the designated quiet carriage, and the children weren't being obnoxious or abusive. They were just loud. Fucking overbearingly loud. But hey, I've got my headphones on and Batman's knocking seven shades of shit out of the Joker; What's it to me? If the noise level is bothering any other passengers, I'm sure they'll say something.
Then it starts. The youngest child, not content with screaming across the four or five feet to his siblings decides that his conversation needs more percussion, and starts booting the chair in front of him. The one I'm sitting in. With the first couple of kicks, I figure that he's just squirming around in his seat (after all, his mouth can't keep still, why should the rest of his body follow suit?) and he'll calm down in a moment. And calm down he does. After about a minute of constant booting. I glance round but manage to make no eye-contact with any of the party.
Fuck it, he's stopped. I'll say nothing.
Then about five minutes later it starts again. A mid-paced rhythmic distraction across the lower half of my torso to accompany the background shrieks. Not constant enough to be unbearable, but certainly not infrequent enough to be accidental. The mother of the children isn't ignoring them by the way, I can hear her talking to them, but she isn't trying to get them to quieten down at all. Can I assume that she's so preoccupied by the sheer volume of her offspring that she doesn't notice her youngest child's legs beating away at the seat in front of him? Essentially, the seat in front of her?
It's not constant, it's sporadic. I'm only on the train for 45 minutes, I'll say nothing.
This continues until Reading, where a man gets on the train, asks if the seat next to me is free, then sits and gets his own laptop out. The kicking starts again. He's listening to music on his laptop, and this will bother him way more than it bothers me. He looks around at the errant child and its careless guardian. Seeing the look on his face both before and after the glance, I figure he's came to the same conclusion as me. He says nothing.
We're at Didcot now. I pack away my things and leave the train. I'm not going to say anything on the way off, there isn't time.
And that's my journey. Home 10 minutes later, done and dusted. I don't know how far The Noisy Family were travelling, and I don't know if anyone asked them to keep it down once the train left Didcot Parkway. I said nothing. I know people who would have had a word, and I know people who wouldn't. Most of the ones who'd interject would have asked calmly and politely if the kid(s) could show a little more consideration for other passengers. Most of the ones who'd leave it wouldn't want to make a scene or just wouldn't let it bother them.
I don't care about making a scene, but there are two reasons why I said nothing:
1) Although she wasn't being gobby and obnoxious, one look at the mother's mannerisms suggested that she'd be a fucking nightmare if anyone dared suggest that perhaps her parenting skills weren't all they could be. And since I'd have to spend the rest of the journey on the same train (and more than likely have to lug my two heavy bags elsewhere should the situation escalate, walking past her to do so), it wasn't worth the grief, frankly.
And, more pertinently...
2) If this woman hasn't taught her kids to shut the fuck up and not continually kick anything within range by this point in their lives, it's hard to believe that the reasoning, concerned parent is about to appear now. Yeah, the kids weren't being abusive per se, but that was largely because they were in a 'good' mood. I bet they're a pain in the fucking arse when they're stroppy (as is their mother), and I'm not going to be the one to test that theory. This disregard for other people and property will come back to bite her in the arse when the kids are a bit older and she can't control them when she wants to. Why the fuck should I get involved? It's not my job to raise your kids, you lazy fuck. I can put up with this inconvenience; it's temporary. However, karma has rewarded your laziness with years of inconsiderate behaviour and solid unabating noise. Good luck for the future, I'm glad you don't live in Didcot.
And in case you're thinking "Now, now: Judge not lest ye be judged!", go ahead and judge me: I'm the guy keeping to himself without bags all over the seats, trying to watch a movie in peace and inconveniencing no-one. What of it?
That's why I said nothing. The journey wasn't long enough.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
There'll probably be a few of these, seeing as how I said I'd document each visit to the cinema. I've written about how much I love The Phantom Menace here, and I've reviewed the 3D transfer here.
As much as I love TPM (and I do), and as much as I love the new digi-Yoda (and I do), I've got to vent a little on two things that LFL haven't fixed...
• Obi-Wan's hair braid in the 'another pathetic lifeform' sequence...
There are other (very brief) flip-shots in the film, but this is a fairly lengthy one. With dialogue. It's not enough that Ewan's face looks different in mirrored shots (as do most people's), but he's got a distinct fucking braid. Now I don't mind that it was there in 1999, or even so much that it made it to the DVD transfer. But every frame of this film has been optimised for HD and then for 3D, and still it's been left in. I don't want LFL to flip the entire shot, just move the braid.
It'd make sense for the blade emitter to be a hollow cylinder; they are on all other lightsabers. It just seems a bit sloppy to give Ray Park props for the wide-shots without that detail. Again, slightly sloppy in 1999/2001, but completely sloppy in 2011/2012.
Those two aren't deal-breakers, but they've been noticable since 1999. Just sayin'.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
I'm a little lost for words here, largely because I can't objectively review a film I've loved for the last thirteen years, but also because you, dear reader, have already made up your mind about going to see The Phantom Menace in the cinema.
Most people don't like The Phantom Menace. I'm not most people. I've written about why I love it here, so the rest of this post will be about the 3D conversion…
I'll be honest, I wasn't holding up much hope. The only time I'd seen the tPM3D trailer in actual 3D, it's so fast-cut that you don't really get any sense of depth, and I was worried that the conversion on the film would result in the decoupage-effect. Real-D is a system that works best for animation, not live-action (however CGI-enhanced it is), and movies that have been converted to the format from a 2D shoot are notoriously ropey.
With the best will in the world, 3D really is just a gimmick; not a reason for going to see a film in the cinema, just an enhancement. If it's done well.
In my humble and often misguided opinion, The Phantom Menace falls into that category. I liked the 3D; there's plenty of it and for the most part it works very well (although I couldn't get on with the Otoh Gunga underwater sequences). A common occurrence with conversion is that in the quieter scenes, you can lift up your glasses and the image on the screen isn't actually 'three dimensional'. tPM is constantly in 3D at some level, which I appreciate. It gives a sense of depth to all the scenes and isn't overbearing. And because the movie was made without people waving things at the screen, there's only one moment that looks deliberately 'Ooh! 3D!'
The standout sequence in the movie is the podrace. I've never been a fan of that, so anything that can make me actually enjoy it has to be good, in my book. The final saber fight looks great, but not really because of the enhancements. Most of the movie wasn't really shot to accentuate the extra dimension, so there's not a lot you can do about that.
At this point, I don't know if the 3D version will get a home release, and it's too early to tell if this experiment has been successful enough to get Attack of the Clones released at this time next year. I guess we'll see.
Ultimately, this project means that I can go to the cinema and see Star Wars again. That's all I want. I don't mind that it's in Real-D, and I wouldn't mind if it wasn't.
What can I tell you? I love Star Wars. But you knew that already.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
Click for bigger, 1076*500px, 108kb
Click for bigger, 500*667px, 66kb
Click for bigger, 500*667px, 62kb
Click for bigger, 500*667px, 72kb
Click for bigger, 500*667px, 65kb
Click for bigger, 500*667px, 69kb
…and because you've all been so good: BONUS ROUND!
Click for bigger, 500*667px, 73kb
You're very welcome.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
