Rubber Chicken’s Dojo

Director: Matthew Vaughn
Cast: Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, Chloë Moretz and Nicolas Cage (and the hawt Lyndsy Fonseca)

this movie has caused quite a controversy on its release as 11 year-old chloe moretz’s character, hit girl, is full of cursing and violence. upon seeing the movie, i tend to see nothing wrong. the swearing is sparse at best and the violence, while full on, doesn’t detract form the film.

the movie follows the basic plot of average teen, dave lizewski, played by johnson. living on a diet of comic books and teen angst, sick of being bullied and picked on, dave decides to become a vigilante, kick ass. with no skills but plenty of gumption, kick ass gets beat up pretty well.  from smartcine.com:

His life is forever changed as he inspires a subculture of copy cats, meets up with a pair of crazed vigilantes — including an 11-year-old sword-wielding dynamo, Hit Girl (Chloë Moretz) and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) — and forges a friendship with another fledgling superhero, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). But thanks to the scheming of a local mob boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong), that new alliance will be put to the test.

the action in this one is slick, graphic and excellent. director vaughan has the help of john romita jr, artist for the kick ass comic book series. romita has provided some artwork and snappy dialogue which keeps the frenetic pace going well. it’s well worth a look. i’d probably see it again, if only for fonseca.

with spectacular special effects and craptacular acting, clash of the titans is a movie of annoying contrasts. with a cast that includes decent actors like liam neeson (zeus), ralph fiennes (hades), peter postlethwaite (spyros, persues’ dad) and hans matheson (also the villain from sherlock holmes and the tudors television series), you would expect the acting to be at least above average. but then they add sam worthington as the main character, perseus. as some have said, worthington went to the russell crowe school of acting, meaning in action scenes, he’s quite decent. in everything else, it’s shite.

the scene that sticks in my mind is the scene where he’s in prison, standing in the corner, when io comes to visit him. oh gawd, it makes me cringe just thinking about it.

overall, i don’t really know what to make of it. the action is good. the acting is not. gemma arteton is gorgeous as io. more leg would be good though. i’d wait for the dvd…

note to self: don’t be late to the movie. you end up sitting down the front and having a headache and bloodshot eyes for the rest of the day.

note to self: don’t go to see a movie in ipswich. not only do you have to shell out $25 for a ticket and refreshments, but the yobbos that constantly talk will just annoy the piss out of you.

the movies itself was not so flash either. a bunch of no names in the lead roles and some cameos that looked like they must be strapped for cash.  having said that, maybe i’m just lashing out because i couldn’t see properly.

witty dialogue, fast-paced action and rachel mcadams make sherlock holmes worth going and taking a look at. director guy ritchie sets a cracking pace straight off the bat, giving an excellent insight into how holmes (robert downey jr) thinks. seeing how he is going to execute his fighting and then seeing it at full speed was pretty neato.

downey jr does a decent holmes while jude law plays sidekick, watson. he does a pretty good straight-man role. thhot.ey seemed to pay well off each other. mcadams plays token love interest but is still hot.

19th century london looks good, with some nice cgi. i could go on about costumes but i’m not gay. farting dog jokes are appreciated though. nice.

let’s be honest, this is more for entertainment, not cultural significance. it wasn’t really worth $20 plus popcorn but that doesn’t mean it was a terrible movie. just not the best one i’ve seen lately.

the lovely bones has been panned by just about every critic that has seen it. they call it “sappy garbage”, “unemotional” and “a terrible adaptation”. but rather make that comparison, which i’m loathe to do on most book to movie adaptations, i am going to concentrate on the movie itself.

the thing that puzzles me about the lovely bones is that it feels disjointed to me.

sure, susie (ably played by the impossibly-named saoirse ronan) gets murdered. sure, she goes to heaven, limbo, the in-between where everything seems perfect. but the trailer suggested that she helps her family directly find her murderer. the film is almost totally the opposite. she has no contact with them at all. susie seems to be able to see he family, but it is not reciprocated.

the scenes involving susie do not really have any way of advancing the narrative. i honestly think that the movie would still work just as well without the scenes of susie after she dies. susie’s scenes, while visually stunning and poignant, feel disjointed and unrelated.

the acting, in their singular performances, was very good. (marky) mark wahlberg was good as the dad, while rachel weisz does a great job of the mother failing to cope not only with her daughters death, but her husbands inability to let it go and grieve with her.  susan sarandon plays the chain smoking, scotch inhaling grandmother that acts as glue to keep the family together. the aforementioned ronan does a remarkable job as susie. stanley tucci does a great job as susie’s killer, george harvey. as an ensemble, the characters don’t seem to interact as much as i thought they could. improvements? can’t think of any off the top of my head.

is it a good film? yeah. should i have just waited for it to come out on dvd? probably.

we went on two adventures last night. one was around brisbane looking for a cinema that was not fully booked out. the other was via james cameron and his cinematic imagination. both trips were worthwhile.

after driving to southbank only to find out that the session was sold out (thankfully we avoided the $15 parking fee), we drove all the way over to sunnybank and the amc cinemas.

james cameron’s avatar is certainly a visual feast. this is certainly a delectable palette for the eyes. set on the fictional world of pandora, we find paraplegic soldier, jake sully (sam worthington) fly in to replace his scientist brother who has died. jake has been chosen because he was a twin and it’s his dna that is matched to do the work his brother was trained to do.

the work he was to do was ‘drive’ a clone of one of pandora’s indigenous inhabitants. after a nice montage, jake learns all the skills necessary to make him a native.

he’s also there because earth’s humans have invaded pandora in search of precious metals. they explain that earth has been devastated and comparisons are made with pandora’s pristine forest environment. the movie is basically an allegory for human and capitalist greed. no surprise that the humans and company are american, then.

the cgi for the movie is top-notch. the environments are awesome and it would have been great to see them on the imax screen. the animals and flora are unique in their own ways.

the only thing that got to me was the overall premise: man falls in love with ‘video game’ female. i mean, jake never actually sees his alien love, neytiri, until right at the end. i kept thinking “fan boy” every time he ran in to his machine that hooked hi up with the clone. it was almost like an online love affair.

overall, a great story line, awesome visuals, annoying little details that got to me but maybe not to others.

oh and michelle rodriguez is hot, sigourney weaver, not anymore. even if every time i see her, i think 1) she’s the chick from ‘lost’ 2) she’s the chick that got drunk and arrested and pulled the “don’t you know who i am?” line… damn

it’s been a while since i’ve been to the movies but this one was a corker. where the wild things are is a poignant tale of a boy who goes in search of his place in his family, in his world and in himself.

the movie takes a lot of creative license when it comes to the interpretation of the book; such as why the boy, max (max records), is the way he is. he feels abandoned, neglected and left out. his older sister ignores him and would rather hang out with her friend and her divorced mother is overworked and stressed. her new boyfriend also becomes another hurdle for max to conquer if he wants any attention.

many reviews have taken two opinions; they either love the film or complain that it is too silent-heavy. they don’t seem to get it. the silence is necessary. it brings thought. it brings appraisal. it brings epiphany. just like the colours. there is no bright rainbows flying across the screen. the monsters are all shades of brown and grey. unlike some of the previews, which featured ‘the rock’ as a friggin’ tooth fairy for crying out loud.

director spike jonze said that while children may find this story appealing, it is not a children’s movie. it was not for children, nor about children. it was made by a child. the point of view is totally max’s. it is quite a character-driven film. the book itself only has about ten pages of writing. so making a two hour film out of it was quite a feat.

i personally loved this film and was realising stuff hours after it had finished. for example, that all the monsters were personifications of max’s personality. there was his main, conscious ego (carol), his negative pessimist side (judith), his weak side that symbolised his lack of voice (alexander) and even the side of max that liked to build things and do things with his hands (ira). i’d definitely go and see it again. the dvd will be a must-buy.

i thought this review by phnuggle was well done. just ignore the first paragraph. while this gallery is also great.

quentin tarantino’s take on world war two drives the plot for his latest movie, inglourious basterds. set in france, it, like most tarantino films, is more about revenge and the patience needed and glory that comes with its success. the trailer would have you believe that this is a story about brad pitt. in fact, it’s more of a story about shoshanna dreyfus (melanie laurent), a french jew, after germans kill her family in hiding, escapes a farm and when opportunity strikes, sets about her own vengence.

as always, tarantino’s script is beautifully written. it took him ten years to get it right and i think the effort has been rewarded. excellent characters, slick dialogue and tarantino’s own idiosyncrasy makes for an intriguing story. the use of french and german dialogue gives it some authenticity and the use of some of europe’s best actors, the aforementioned laurent and christoph waltz as plot fulcrum, hans landa, to name a few.

though gory and uncomfortable at times, it comes with tarantino’s territory but the action is non-stop.

holy crap, what do you say about a movie that has next to no dialogue in the first ten minutes but still has your girlfriend bawling her eyes out??

disney pixar’s latest release, up, is essentially about an old man, carl, giving up the past and moving on. he’s recently widowed from his childhood sweetheart, ellie, and still lives in the house they first met in, despite developers moving in with high rises.

the graphics for this movie are simply stunning. disney is pushing its new 3d engine, which looks to me as if it’s just wrenched up the sharpening and rendering of the graphics. they certainly look 3d, without the dicky glasses. the previews were peddling a few other disney movies with this added feature, the pick being a jim carrey movie. back to the feature.

there’s plenty here for the kids; bright characters, cute dogs and snappy one-liners. but adults, me in particular, appreciate drama and cinematography and up has it in spades. the fine montage at the start aside, there are some excellent vignettes, especially within the house as carl struggles to come to life without ellie and the house. i was particularly moved by the scene at the letterbox, which epitomises the attachment carl has with the house.

enough of the heavy stuff. doug the dog is damn funny. russell the kid is annoying and hilarious but worthy of empathy and carl is kind-hearted no matter how hard he tries not to be. a little more could have been made with the disillusion carl has with his childhood hero, but that’s so minor not many people would notice. but i think it may have added to the epiphany moment.

i haven’t laughed so hard at a movie for a long time. as usual, the short before it was great. you could tell they were using it to practice the rendering of the clouds and their movements for the main feature, but who cares?

go see it. now. go.

got an early start today and headed to see transformers: revenge of the fallen. the good thing about it is that because it is a sequel, the action starts straight away. it reminded me of spider-man 2 that way. the background work had already been done so there was definitely more action.

the movie seems to have a lot more humour in it than its predecessor. i don’t remember laughing that much in the first one. seriously, actual laugh out loud stuff too. it’s almost an action comedy…

needless to say the special effects are top-notch. not that you would have expected anything else. there some really good robot action sequences and of course, nice explosions, as only director, michael bay, can do.

there are some new characters in here: for the autobots, there is sideswipe, arcee, skids and mudflap. for the bad guys, the constructicons make an appearance before turning into devastator, ravage and my all-time fave, soundwave. he’s not the blue tape deck he used to be, but he’s still pretty neat.

human acting is adequate, running and screaming in the correct places before moving to the side so the effects could do their job. shia lebeouf was pretty good, while megan fox was just plain pretty. maybe less speaking roles for her next time. (am i the only male on earth who doesn’t think she’s gorgeous??)

the notable omission is still my main boy, hound. *sigh* one day…

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