Impressions on a trio of films

Alice in Wonderland (2010): do we really need movies to be in 3-D (or more)???

Though actually, I think I’d like to have seen Avatar at the cinema – maybe on the re-release later this year. Nevertheless, I’m stunned and a tad ambivalent about James Cameron’s plans to finish off his ‘trilogy’…

And it seems like The Lovely Bones marks the return of Peter Jackson to his ethereal roots…of the three, it’s the one I’m most likely to write more on, but don’t count on it ^^

p.s. Yup, I’m changing the way I write my impressions (reviews, if you wish). Haven’t quite figured out how they’re going to end up though…

Review: Ratatouille

The English Conversation Class/Circle that I help teach (or rather, moderate) recently voted to try watching a movie in English…without Japanese subtitles. Perhaps a bit of a mistake to choose Ratatouille, what with the French-accented tones that most of the characters spoke in (the rats excepted. Of course they’d sound American, huh?)

Remy is an unusual rat, one with an unusually good sense of smell. Not content with the scavenging that his family and colony members conduct (in accordance with their nature!), he regularly steals into the home over which they live to watch his favourite cooking show and experiment with all kinds of new flavours. One day, a little kitchen excursion (in which Remy learns that his favourite chef has passed away) ends with the colony being driving down through the sewers into Paris, the home of cooking and the restaurant of his favourite cook – Gustav’s. Urged on by a Gustav of his imagination, Remy saves errand boy Linguine by fixing an soup, winning acclaim from the customers that night. It so happens that Linguine cannot cook to save his life…thus presenting a chance for a rat to live his dream of becoming a cook. But with increasing complications and conflicting interests, how long can they hold up that facade?

Review: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight was quite possibly the only movie I wanted to see at the cinema last year. I saw I am Legend (which I haven’t reviewed) as well, but that was because the local book club had read the book.

As it has been with most Western movies over the past few years, I have generally gone into them without knowing much of the background at all. I never even saw any trailers for The Dark Knight, although the buzz that surrounded Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker could not have been missed even by someone living under a rock. Rarely does a film live up to the hype, but – and I think most people would agree – this one does.

Quick Impression: Marley and Me

I started writing this as a review…but really, it become more of a stream of thoughts about pets and life in general…

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The other movie I saw in Australia, when catching up with a friend. I distinctly remember it being a choice between Benjamin Button and this, if only because I read or heard somewhere that the box-office battle between two former lovers had been won by the lady… In the end, it came down to time. Weighing in at over 3 hours, Benjamin Button was something we decided we probably didn’t want to sit through. In hindsight though, given that both of us have dogs who are showing signs of old age, I wonder whether it was wise of us to see this one…

Quick Impression: Iron Man

Caught this – or rather, was made to watch it – when I stayed over at my brother’s place over New Year’s. Like 300, this is a ‘guys’ film. Unlike 300, it’s not one that I particularly want to watch again.

Why? one might ask…

Well, people like my brother love it for the “woah…cool! that’s *&&^%*& amazing” technology that Tony Stark comes up with. Not to mention the computer systems he owns. If you thought the virtual touch screens of MInority Report were cool, the voice-controlled design and implementation programs that Tony owns and uses are jaw-dropping (if you buy them). One can only imagine the programming that must have been implemented to make them work so efficiently. Sure, pretty cool.

But someone like me can only gape at visuals for so long…well, with certain exceptions. I do like Robert Downey Jr as an actor…but not when he’s a MCP (albeit one who’s learning to appreciate human emotions, slowly). It stuns me that Iron Man actually got more fan mail from the fairer sex than any other comic. And I haven’t cared about Gwyneth Paltrow for an incredibly long time.

I did like the press conference at the end – where the story is all planned, but Tony bluntly states…”The truth is…I am Iron Man”. Of course, that means we’re getting a sequel. Another comicbook superhero sequel. That I’m not going to be able to review properly either. Films like this sometimes make me want to stop this whole review thing. Or at least change it so that I can leave popcorn stuff out whilst commenting only on the stories that have interesting things to say. Will have to think about that.

Review: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Given that I’ve lived in Australia for more than half of my life, it is quite embarrassing that it was in Japan that I finally saw Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. (Even more embarrassingly, this was probably well over a year ago now, if memory serves.) Though I do have at least a couple of things to be thankful for, those being that I wasn’t plagued by the image of drag queens in The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, or L.A. Confidential.

Anyways, this is the classic Aussie road-trip movie. Well, classic, Aussie drag queen road-trip movie. It’s famous enough that any Australian would have to hide his/her face in shame if they didn’t know what it was about. Tick/Mitzi, responding to his ex-wife’s request to take perform at her Alice Springs Casino, thus granting her a holiday, convinces a fellow drag queen and a recently bereaved transvestite to join him. The three – an insecure drag queen fearing the consequences of his son finding out about his “secret, a serious, streetsmart old hand, and a head strong and annoyingly naive idiot – thus take a bus trip through the Australian desert, That’s miles and miles of empty road with desert stretching out on all sides, dotted by a few towns and mining communities. Besides the prejudice against minorities that one often finds in the country, and the occassional hazard due to long months of forced abstinence, the greatest trials they face are boredom and its consequences. How a group of drag queens deal with it is, of course, probably vastly different from what most other people would do.

Quick Reviews: Various movies

I don’t really have that much to say on these three, which is why they’re being lumped here under one entry.

Made of Honour is apparently the reverse version of My Best Friend’s Wedding (I can’t say anything simply because I haven’t seen it). I suppose it’s worth seeing if you love romantic comedies and/or Patrick Dempsey.

Crows Zero was another movie I decided to see based solely on the actors in it…well, specifically one, Oguri Shun. The characters are based on those of a manga by Takahashi Hiroshi. It was basically a "let’s see how much we crap we can beat out of the characters without killing any of them." Oops, gave that away…but seriously, what did you expect?

I finally saw Gedo Senki…and frankly, I can see why it got lukewarm reviews at best. Unlike all the Miyazaki Hayao films I love, it didn’t really have that magical feeling. It isn’t just about the story (which I felt didn’t make sense given that the main character is meant to be Ged!), but also that the visuals just weren’t as magnificent as what I’ve come to expect from Studio Ghibli. I skimmed the plot on wikipedia, and it’s been changed quite heavily too…I’ll read Earthsea one day, but I don’t think I’ll ever see this version of it ever again.

HP: OotP – the good, the bad, and the downright stupid…

Caught a late show last night – it ended at 1am – and wasn’t going to comment at first, but my hair takes an hour to dry, so…my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix lie under the cut….

Review: Pirates 3

It’s not typical of me to be doing this so soon…but I have a reason for it.

Summary: The former crew of the Black Pearl are heading to World’s End to bring back ‘witty Jack’…but first, they need a ship…and directions. And as always, Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman are bearing down on them, at the behest of Cutler Beckett and the East India Company.

Verdict: A worthwhile journey and an appropriate finish – though I still like the first one best. 7/10

Review: Spider-Man 3

Lessee…so much for the ‘maybe tomorrow’. Everyone should know what this one was about, so I’ll skip the summary (go here if you’ve been living under a rock).

Opinion in one sentence: I like the second film better. 6/10