Garth

I went to see Cloverfield after work today. The verdict: it's way more effective than a giant monster movie has any right to be. Holy shit.

I went in expecting a big dumb monster movie. I didn't expect it to actually be, you know, scary. I was in for a big surprise. That movie is intense! It's sort of like how all those kids were dropped off to see a matinee of Night of the Living Dead by their parents, thinking it was just a harmless spooky movie, only to come home shellshocked and shaken*. The premise is basically "Godzilla from the POV of the poor bastards getting stepped on", but Manhattan has never felt more like the Nostromo from Alien. As I walked home from the BART station, I still felt claustrophobic, despite being out in the open. When the huge creature is rampaging through town, tossing rubble and crushing everything in its path, being able to run is no protection—you're just as trapped as if you're hiding in a cardboard box.

Speaking of which, it really hits on all of the big fears: claustrophobia, acrophobia, arachnophobia, agoraphobia (big time! it's practically the whole movie), fear of the dark, and a touch of body horror. Large things crushing you. Small, fast things clawing and biting you. Even gephyrophobia and aviophobia get in there. If you suffer from any of these fears, you will probably end the movie in the fetal position.

A lot of critics have pointed out that the movie has a shaky camera for pretty much the entire running time. It's true, and if you find that shaky cameras in movies make you motion sick you should probably sit this one out. I found it irritating in the beginning, when it's mostly just people talking, but when the main action starts (just when the shakily filmed conversations have really worn out their welcome), you don't even notice the shakiness, and the "verité" approach just works. You feel like you're there, looking at what the cameraman is looking at, seeing only what he can see (and, more importantly, not seeing what he can't).

The dialogue was a bit whedonesque at times ("Another something. Also terrible."), but it didn't detract.

( spoilery conclusion and footnotes )

P.S. Did anybody else who watched the movie also notice that the ending theme was a total homage to the classic Godzilla score?

ABOUT FUCKING TIME

Also: it's awesome that Forrest Whittaker won. Sucks for Peter O'Toole though.

So, I saw SoaP on Friday. Capsule review:

It was awesome! Snakes everywhere!

( Slightly longer report (spoilers and pics) )

Saw Pirates on Friday. Liked it. I think you're more likely to enjoy it if you know going in that it's part one of a two-parter, and aren't expecting any sort of closure to any of the plot strands. The action sequences were so cleverly staged that it's easy to overlook how they frequently accomplish little in the way of plot. ( Read more... )

Saw Superduperman on Monday. The verdict:

Any scene with Kevin Spacey: TOTALLY AWESOME OMG
The action sequences: TOTALLY AWESOME OMG
The plot: bleh. Thin, and pretty stupid.
Brandon Routh as Superman: Did a decent job. Nothing to write home about.
Whatsherbutt as Lois Lane: Bitchy and irritating. Didn't deserve Superman or Richard.
Cyclops as Richard: Good job on a pretty good character. Richard didn't deserve to have his heart stepped on.
The kid: Annoying, but not as much as people were saying. Also, he doesn't get that much screen time.
3D effects: Kind of random. Some sequences had 3D and some didn't without much rhyme or reason. Sync was a little off but it always is.

If they make sequels, I would like to see some other Superman baddies besides Luthor get in the spotlight. Mr. Myxtlplk probably couldn't carry a whole movie, but Bizarro and Brainiac have potential. Both have possible connections to Luthor (in several of his origins, Bizarro is created by Luthor; Brainiac has teamed up on many occasions). Bizarro can be played for laughs or as a tragic figure. Brainiac is a Class A Asshole in all of his incarnations.

Saw Pixar's Cars with my folks yesterday. It was very good—a lot better than I was expecting, actually. I wasn't really looking forward to it: the trailer was pretty unimpressive, a local critic who I usually trust gave it a mediocre review, and it has Larry the goddamn Cable Guy doing the voice of one of the major characters. Seeing some of the production design work on Crazie's tour got me more interested, but still I was wary. But I had a great time. The plot is your basic "fast-paced city guy ends up stuck in a backwater and learns how to be a nicer person" formula, which I usually am not too fond of (it's part of that whole fetishization of rural America, and the accompanying demonization of urban living), but they pull it off well. And as usual with Pixar productions, the little things are half of the fun: the real-life Cadillac Ranch becomes the Cadillac Range of mountains, the various sponsor stickers on the racecars, the "pinstripe detailing", the neon sparkplug decorations on Flo's Diner. And look closely at the little blue insects. ;) Pixar's movies always have a lot of heart, as opposed to the 3DCG animated movies that other studios have been putting out, which feature an unrelenting barrage of pop-culture jokes with a shelf life measured in milliseconds but are empty at the core.

Entertainment Weekly's site has the poster for Snakes On A Plane. Inspired by some Internet fan creations, no less!

Check out the radio trailer. ;) Raptor Jesus gives it two dewclaws up!

(Yes, I realize this is retarded)

Found a couple of cool videos of crazy stunts today.

• Monkeyboy — what is the secret of your pow-errr? This is one of the best parkour vids I've seen. This guy scales abandoned apartment buildings (without using the fire escapes), does backflips from balconies, and even does the old kung fu movie trick of climbing by jumping off of walls. Walls, fences, gaps, and cars are no impediment to his acrobatic rampage. It's got a pretty sweet soundtrack too.
  
  
• The video ends with the word(s?) "DvinskClan". I looked it up, thinking it was probably the name of the group that did the video, and sure enough it seems to be some sort of parkour group in (I think) Russia. That video actually seems to be edited down from a longer video. This one has an intro section, more than one guy, and some bits with the main guy that didn't make the cut in the other video (although they explain where the dog comes from at one point). I prefer the other one—this one has a bit of filler, I like the soundtrack to the other one more (although this one has some nice French hip-hop)—but this one also has some really nice tricks that the other doesn't. Like doing a backflip off the side of a trolley from standing, and some pommel-horse-like tricks on fences and flat surfaces.
  
  
• Kung fu mayhem! This is a demo video by a martial arts stunt studio called Zero Gravity. It's like every cool bit you've ever seen in a Hong Kong actioner rolled up into a short clip reel. It includes three-way fighting, multiple opponents, nasty-looking falls on concrete, midair collisions, lightning fast flurries of strikes, and creative use of a shopping cart. It also shows some of the CGI mocap work they've done for video games and movies like Daredevil. The group's site is here.
  

I liked it, but I think Azkaban was better.

Man, Ron was kind of a dick.

Previews were cool. We got Narnia and King Kong. Both look sweet. King Kong looks badass. You do not. Fuck. With the King.