29 May 10 Sex and the City 2: Movie Review
For my birthday last night, my friends and I went to go see Sex and the City 2. First and foremost, let’s get something clear:
The most horrifying concept that I got out of this movie was that these women are considered to be liberated. These women are not liberated–they are enslaved. I thought that a massive #firstworldproblem hashtag should be added at the end of the movie, right before the credits. The problems these women face are problems involving excessive wealth, attention-seeking emotional issues, lack of parenting education, and complete disregard and lack of sensitivity to others., not to mention alcoholism. Power corrupts, and absolute powers corrupts absolutely–and somehow, we idolize these people who are at the top of the food chain, and jetset to restrictive theocracies like Abu Dhabi and call it a grand vacation. It’s disgusting!
In the movie, Carrie et aliae face the big questions that come after the entire marriage debacle from the last movie. Carrie is having trouble getting accustomed to married life: she wants more ’sparkle’, which equates to spending money frivolously and excessively (what else is new?). Here’s the thing–people age, people die, people grow weary. If fulfillment to her means throwing random $100 bills around, then someone needs to educate her on the rewards of community service or charitable donations of time and money. When she meets up with an old flame in Abu Dhabi, she of course makes the wrong decision, without having to pay any consequence whatsoever.
The other characters follow in suite, each with a vapid series of problems that only the rich can truly relate to: Charlotte, after having desired children for years, somehow can’t seem to actually figure out parenting. When her kid ruins a pair of vintage clothing, she nearly abuses her child–and then sobs and weeps for her own failure as a mother. Who wears stuff like that around the house? You’d think that after the first day with a baby she’d have learned not to be too dressy.
Miranda faces her ‘chauvinist pig’ boss at the law firm. When she up and quits, she faces the generic problems of not having a job–but it must be nice to still be able to afford a nanny, a trip to Abu Dhabi, cocktails and expensive breakfast. True poverty would defeat her. The one storyline from the series I liked was when Samantha got cancer and had to actually face a real problem that many women go to. Sadly, in the movie, Samantha is reduced to a culturally insensitive, menopausal masturbation sleeve.
A friend described this movie as ‘fluff’, and I would agree completely. The lack of any actual drama made this movie a major bummer for me–I’m hoping that eventually this show will either just fade away, or even improve to the point of real storytelling and drama. Otherwise, this essentially becomes snarky fashion porn for women and gays. The message, while silent, is consume consume consume–unsustainable, insidious, and an utterly depressing flag that women today rally around. They used to rally around bonfires of their burning bras.
Here’s the most hopeful question this movie poses: What will they make a movie on next? There aren’t many more topics. Although, it’d be fun to see each of the four women die some truly tragic (though fitting) ending:
Samantha: Implodes in a massive detonation of cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.
Charlotte: Eaten alive by wild boars in the middle of a fancy restaurant, with a live classical band playing.
Miranda: Lobotomized and left to sit in an institution, eventually passing away, drooling.
Carrie: Kills Mr. Big and herself in a fit of jealous rage over not being able to buy shoes or something frivolous.
Grade: F
Final note: Not only is this movie dangerous to women’s own conceptions of themselves as being beautiful if and only if they have the latest in fashion and shoes, it was particularly damaging to gay subculture as well. The gay wedding at the beginning of the movie, both orgiastic and stereotypical, had me cowering in my seat the entire time. Do people actually watch this and try to emulate it, in behavior and speech? If this is what the world would be like in reality, I’d have shot myself long ago.
Tags: carrie, charlotte, film, film review, gay, marriage, miranda, movie, movie review, samantha, SATC2, sex, sex and the city 2
04 Apr 10 Movie Review: Clash of the Titans
Yes it's a 'movie', but then again so is Land Before Time 2.
Welcome, all, to another session in the torture chair at AMC Rosedale. I went with friends Kameron, Dave, and Jeremy–and while I had a good time with these guys, ugh, not another bad movie.
Before I begin, I have a question: In general, how is it possible to throw millions of dollars into a film project (Clash of the Titans had a budget of more than $125 million) and still get a terrible movie? As a director, as a screenwriter, as actors and actresses, wouldn’t you just be embarassed? I ask myself this all the time, and there is ultimately no satisfactory answer.
Maybe the movie doesn’t need to be good, it just needs to have the typical bullshit that will enthrall an American audience: generic billing, omnipresent marketing, a (vacant and drooling) message of liberty and self-determination, and finally action scenes every 10 minutes. It’s depressing to know that this gets a return on investment in the millions of dollars in today’s world.
Anyway, Clash of the Titans opens with a promising but ultimately overly long prologue. Titans, gods, blah blah, somehow-holy-yet-over-sexed Zeus leads the Pantheon, Hades is the bad guy, he’s all in black and he’s Voldemort. Typical adoption story involving Perseus, a child’s anxiety over being the adopted one, and his utter disgust of the vast amounts of power he, as a demigod, commands. Insert revenge story, heresy, and begin the action when a couple random babes are threatened, Calibos is hideous and treacherous, Perseus is good, and here is where I vomit.
So much better. Either follow the plot closely, or do a complete consistent rewrite, not your pathetic 'vision'.
While I wasn’t bored throughout the movie, there were a couple moments where I was actually rather angry/upset. As my friend Abby put it, “When they whip out the old electronic owl for 3 seconds…that was the best part…other than that, two hours of zero-plot bullcrap.” Here’s the thing, this was a funny point, but it was also incredibly insulting and a moment where I think the real humor was lost on the filmmakers. Picking up the golden owl, the Lead actor says: “What’s this thing?” and another character says, “Leave it!”
The director is making a reference to the 1981 movie he is remaking and saying how worthless it is–did anyone else get this?–essentially saying that a classic in fantasy storytelling, one that multiple generations saw and loved, really only contributes the title to the story. How insulting–3D CGI does not a classic make. In a few years, people will barely remember this film.
Or will we? A recurring thought throughout this movie was that this is practically another franchise, another easy to fund, produce and pump out movie series that we’ll need to see two sequels to make any sense of the plot. And even then it’ll only be to serve this vain, ineffective director’s vision of Greek mythology and adventure as the vehicle for generic late-American ideals of liberty, justice, history and ethics. Blech!
And finally, to the people who constantly tell me that I should have lower expectations when I go to the movie, I say moviemakers should have higher expectations for their product. Don’t marketshare-optimize your movie to the absolute farthest you can go–if Hollywood had been doing this since the beginning, then movies like To Kill a Mockingbird or Citizen Kane or Vertigo would never have existed. Instead create a unique, powerful movie that has not only great effects, but also a great plot and message.
As we left the torturous confines of AMC Rosedale, I asked Jeremy, Kameron and Dave if they wanted to hear my opinion on a movie or just skip this part. Like the good friends they are, they listened patiently, but didn’t share my frustration. I think the difference between what a good movie is for me and for others is that I don’t only want to be entertained–I also want to be immersed. I want to see a wholly envisioned world, without the market-share soundbytes, the empty conflicts, the convoluted plots, the things that tie us to our piddly 2010 lives. I want to leave the world and enter another…and sad to say, Clash of the Titans did all but nail me to my seat in the real world.
Grade: D
Tags: bad movie, Clash of the Titans, horrible movie, movie review
13 Jan 10 Lorem Ipsum: Previews of 2010 Updates!
So, there are a couple pretty exciting updates coming your way this month on The New Mirador:
- The long-awaited short story The Traveler. It’s a short story set in the far future of man’s recurring contacts with a unique form of extraterrestrial life.
- My much-requested 20 Things I Love list. A lot of people wanted to see what I loved after the hate list. Awaiting permission from the honorific superhero of the list!
- I am finally getting some professional photos of myself taken. They’ll be posted here first!
- A grand movie review of Avatar. I’ll be seeing it in 3D…let’s see what the morally relative atheist thinks of the blockbuster.
- I also am working on two side projects. My first two clients are developing new websites. I’ll be writing and showing my methods and work here!
- Westgate Technology Group, a new tech firm supplying Minnesota and Wisconsin.
- Studio One Portraits, a critically-acclaimed and regional superstar portrait and photography studio.
I’m also pleased and proud to announce two new contributors to The New Mirador: a horror story writer and an emerging artist and photographer!
- JD Billo will be writing some of his new horror story content for the New Mirador. His work will be cutting-edge and excellent topics for my short-stories section.
- BridgeyAnn Artisan Studio will be posting some of her latest work, which has lately been focused on charcoal portraits of icons in the prime of their life. She has a bunch of cool new work in the wings that will be coming out in 2010, including a sensual exhibit called The Lady in Red!
Tags: artwork, Avatar, bloggery, business, contributors, drawing, Mirador, movie review, photography, science fiction, short story, website design, website development
05 Sep 09 Movie Review: Feed
Feed, a thriller foray into the feeder/gainer community, delivers on the weird.
Tonight I watched the movie Feed on Netflix, instantly over the web. I watched it alone, on my bed, in my own room–which is quite good, because I don’t feel anyone would have had the stomach or the nerve to watch this with me (particularly my weak-stomached roommate Mike). Feed is a shocker movie, intended to both disgust, horrify, educate, and thrill you. In equal measures, this movie both enthralled me, and repelled me.
The main character is Phillip, a rough-and-tumble Australian federal policeman investigating internet sex crimes. The movie starts with him in Germany, investigating the now-infamous case where a German male was fed his own penis. Entering the scene, Phillip is scarred for life upon seeing the couple engaged in their…different…sex acts. Weeks later, Phillip is back at home, continuing his work, and attempting to recover from the horrific scenes he witnessed. Phillip takes a dive into the “gainer” and “feeder” community, the world where people eat huge amounts of food for sexual pleasure. Phillip stumbles across Michael and Deidre’s site: Deidre is now 600 pounds, and Phillip discovers that Michael is allowing visitors to bet on the survival rate of Deidre. Phillip, of course, is on the case, heroic dutiful policeman hero to the rescue!
Hardly. Phillip is no hero. Phillip controls his free-spirit girlfriend, he beats her and it’s alluded to that he rapes her. He’s an alcoholic and seems to be a loose cannon on the force. In comparison, Michael is educated, intelligent, and despite his sociopathic nature seems to genuinely love and care for both his wife (a seperate woman) and Deidre, his gainer mistress. While Michael can speak, at length and eloquently, on his crimes, Phillip is often silent and lacking any justification beyond the most basic “right and wrong” concepts.
Phillip becomes immersed in his investigation, attempting to out-wit and overcome the machinations of Michael, who is both uncannily intelligent and physically, can easily overpower Phillip. Their battles are long, drawn-out, and the director seems to have deliberately inserted weird bodily fluid and “gloop-gloop-gloop” sounds wherever he could. Since the film is Australian, there’s absolutely no issue with nudity; but, arguably, the director does explore the various issues surrounding the gainer/feeder community intelligently and throws interestly twists and dialogue into the film.
The film seemed to have genuinely good moments–where things were acted well, the dialogue was golden, and the setting was engaging. But at other times, it seems like the acting is absolutely terrible, the dialogue is written by Republican speech writers, and the setting too unbelievable or too crazy to believe. Holding a woman at gunpoint in a Catholic church? Various bags of human body parts, all bagged up in a room? And the ending scene just takes the cake in terms of camp factor…but ultimately, it’s not an entirely illogical scenario.
This movie is easily one of the most bizarre, disturbing, and just plain bad movies I’ve ever seen. But at the same time, I was engaged, I watched it to the end, and genuinely found myself listening to the characters and taking their viewpoints in turn. When the movie ended, I immediately had to write this review and post it ASAP: but consider this a warning, as well. This movie is not for the faint-hearted or the weak-stomached. It will tickle parts of your brain that are not supposed to be tickled, and take you places that you cannot forget easily. Feed delivers on the weird.
Grade: ???
Tags: Australian, bizarre, canibalism, feed, feed review, feeder, gainer, movie review
13 Jul 09 Movie Review: Moon
Last night I went to go see Moon with the Minneapolis Movie Bears. It’s the year’s first real (read: good) science fiction movie and I’d been looking forward to it for sometime. This review is laden with spoilers, reader beware!
The movie opens on the premise that Sam Bell is based on the Moon, and is a helium-3 miner whose work has been a large part of ending the energy crisis on Earth. With fusion power in abundance back home, poverty, disease, and starvation are being eradicated. But Sam is forced to endure 3-year contracts a million miles away from home, in radio blackout, his only companion a computer called Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey). The entire experience has drastically changed himself, and the relationship to his wife and daughter back home.
OK–the first thing I thought was “Kevin Spacey is the computer? Obvious HAL 9000-esque bad guy.” But as the story progressed, Gerty was shown as more and more of the basic computer, who lacked both menace and helpfulness, or any real understanding of Sam’s predilection on the Moon. Gerty seemed to personify the dead-ends that artificial intelligence will lead to–not true companionship, but essentially an alien being in our midst.
Sam is forced to confront the mysteries of his contract and the Moon when he discovers himself, or what appears to be a clone of himself, in a wreck outside the base. Over time, little inconsistences in the story Gerty tells, as well as the posessions left all over the base, indicate that he’s merely a single clone in a long series. Exploring around the base, they discover radio jamming towers and a potentially other wrecked mining machine. The movie does a great job of keeping the suspense and the “what-will-happen-next?” feeling going, as Sam and his clone attempt to escape.
I caught up with John Alexander afterwards and he mentioned a major point: the clones are there because there is no radiation shielding on the base. Rather than pay for the shipment of tons of lead shielding, instead Sam’s company pays for the shipment of clone machinery to the Moon, where it then copies Sam’s DNA into thousands of able-bodied, knowledgable clones. At the end of the movie, where one clone dies of radiation sickness, another escapes, and another is awoken to cover their tracks, the final sounds as Sam’s escape pod plummet to Earth are the voices of radio and TV hosts, talking about the implications of Sam’s arrival. It is left to the audience member to determine what happens next, and the prices paid by all parties involved to try to make the world a better place.
Grade: B
Tags: Minneapolis Movie Bears, Moon, movie review, Sam Rockwell, Uptown Theatre
08 Mar 09 Film Review: Watchmen
Watchmen
Of all of my friends and family, I think that I am easily the most critical and the most particular in my movies. I feel that I am very demanding of the films I see. But there are movies that are demanding in return, that require exactitude on the part of the viewer that goes beyond the norm. Watchmen is one such movie. Let the review commence.
Watchmen was so many things, a genre melting-pot that included action (primarily to keep the pacing up), history (lots of 20th century songs and moments of remembrance), romance, drama, comedy, science fiction and fantasy. It really tried to be so many things, and the wonderful thing, it achieved them all. In a way it was both homage and killer of the superhero movie genre, paying respects to both the original graphic novel (which specifically seeks to deconstruct the original superhero thesis and present its gritty underbelly) and also to the silver screen (with excellent cinematography and visuals that followed the superhero/Hong Kong-style action movies norm).
An interesting point my friend made, about halfway through the movie, was that this movie is not about superheroes. Instead, the movie is about human nature and the responses people have. It explores the characters in great depth, the four men and two women, and the actual plotline only becomes significant at the end, with the characters having to make a truly terrible choice: save the world or doom it. Their instincts, which have been both explained and plumbed throughout the movie, come to bear in this final, devastating scene.
I have no criticisms of the movie. The acting was superb, the music and cinematography flawless, the effects enhancing the final delivery and story. The final ending scene, while changed from the graphic novel, was improved upon and made more consistent. It is completely perfect, a work of art and a fascinating tribute to the history and character of America. This graphic novel has been criticized as being unfilmable and unexecutable, and that any final movie version would be grasping for far too much. Watchmen is a modern-day classical meditation on the American psychology through the lens of its all-star creation, its own Hercules and Atalanta: superheroes.
Grade: A+
Tags: movie review, review, The Watchmen, Watchmen
