Friday, December 31, 2010

breathe out 2010, breath in 2011

So in honor of the end of the year I give you three top 11 lists detailing some of the events I want to make sure everyone remembers. And yes two of these lists are kind of the same.



11 biggest moments of 2010

1. Heavy Rain DLC: Canceled.

2. Conan: Fired.

3. Joss Whedon to direct The Avengers

4. Twilight’s Identity: Revealed via solicits

5. Greg Rucka leaves Batwoman L

6. Four important characters die during Siege.

7. Shadowland falls below the Daredevil bar

8. Let Me In didn’t suck

9. Indie comic movies rule critically, but fail commercially

10. Nolan proves The Dark Knight wasn’t a fluke in Inception

11. Rich George leaves IGN comics.

11 biggest disappointing movies in 2010

1. The Expendables

2. Iron Man 2

3. The Last Airbender

4. The Tourist

5. Wallstreet: Money Never Sleeps

6. Alice in Wonderland

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part one

8. The Losers

9. (reserved for Prince Of Persia)

10. Clash of the Titans

11. Knight and Day

11 Biggest surprises of 2010

1. Scott Pilgrim Vs the World

2. The A-team was…was…good!

3. Kick-Ass lived up to its name

4. Boardwalk Empire came out swinging

5. The Walking Dead

6. Chloe Moretz

7. Coen brothers strike back with True Grit

8. Toy Story 3 reminded us to trust the Pixar

9. Bruce Wayne and Steve Rogers returned and did it with grace

10. Terriers was canceled
11. Dexter season 5 was a let down

Top 11 games of 2010

1. heavy Rain
2. Red Dead Redemption
3. Fallout: New Vegas
4.SCott Pilgrim The Game
5. minecraft alpha
6.Kirby's Epic Yarn
7. Metal Gear Solid peace walker
8. God of War 3
9. Limbo
10. Prince Of Persia:The Forgotten Sands
11.Epic mickey
honorable mention: Mass Effect 2, Dead Rising 2. Undead Redemption.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Boringist list of the year - 2010 edition

A tradition I've held for many years is that the last week of the year is always the boringist, as such each day I watch at least one movie. I'm not sure on the order but I've included the list of potential films for this week. Traditionally I include 1-4 in theater films along with a handful of films on blu,
This list will be updated as I go along with links to reviews for each film.


1.The Box
2. The Town
3.Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
4.True Grit
5.Iron Man 2
6. Inglorious Basterds
7.A Serious Man
8. 30 Days of Night
9.


Silence of the Lambs

2001

The Orphanage

Tron:Legacy


Lovely Bones

Sunshine Cleaning

The Departed

Toy Story 3

Golden Compass

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Low expecatations make this an easy to digest batman parody - a review of Green Hornet

The Green Hornet is a better film than the trailers will make it seem. More than that, it is at times both clever and funny. That said it is not without flaws, and boy are they big ones. For the majority of the acting is tolerable, even Seth Rogan plays his part with a little less Seth Rogan than usual. But only a little. There are four actors(Tom Wilkensen as Seth;s father, James Franco as a brief throwaway villain, and the gentlemen who plays Kato, and Edward James Olmos) who are all way better in this movie and honestly should be off in movies more to their stature. And then there are a few random so terrible this almost ruins the movie. Cameron Diaz. She's normally terrible, she has more than once this year ruined what could have been otherwise good movies, but this..this was bad. She stuck out like a sore thumb especially since she is supposed to be treated like this great beauty when she doesn't even match the random sluts that the Green Hornet spends his time with. Now there is also one super fantastic performance in Christoph Waltz. Yes the Jew Hunter himself finds himself playing a bad guy again but this time he gets to chew the scenery. And when you let him loose, he is a beast. He puts subtlety in his insanity and it is fantastic.
The direction has it's moments of brilliance but ultimately this is no where near his previous works of Be kind Rewind and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The plot is an amusing parody of Batman and it is clear this is designed as a reaction to Batman. I really like the story elements here, but the movie, much like the Spirit, decided we wouldn't be able to take it seriously so it made itself a comedy. And because it did that, it is a lesser film. I can't really recommend this movie, but I can't Unrecomend it either...It is the kind of movie you shouldn't go out of your way to see, but don't turn down seeing it if offered. I'd give it a C.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

And the conselation prize goes to... - The Golden Globe Nods are out

And so the 2010 year, for the show in 2011 Golden Globes nods and oversights are here!My choices are bolded.


BEST MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network

What the hell golden globes. You were the awards I expected Buried to show up in. So Buried wins in my eyes, but otherwise it's a tie between Inception and Black Swan, both of which require another viewing on my part to decide who deserves it more here. Other films that seem to have gotten snubbed include True Grit and the Town.



BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA

Halle Berry (Frankie and Alice)
Nicole Kidman (The Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (The Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)


This wasn't really a choice for me on this list.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA

Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine)
Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter)

I don't see this changing, but I still have a couple months to see if Mark and Jesse are any good, but for now I'm on James.


BEST MOTION PICTURE - COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Alice In Wonderland
Burlesque
The Kids Are All Right
Red
The Tourist


(the following is from ain't it cool news where I pulled this list from but I completely agree, also Isn't The Tourist a drama?)
Wait, this is a joke, right? Red is good fun, but we have Alice and Burlesque nominated in this category? Really? I guess there weren't a lot of musicals this year and they had to have one in there to justify the title of the award... Burlesque, really? Looking below and seeing that they give a nom to Emma Stone, why isn't Easy A on the above list? Or Love and Other Drugs? Or Casino Jack? Bur-fucking-lesque?


BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS - MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Anne Hathaway (Love and Other Drugs)
Angelina Jolie (The Tourist)
Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right)
Emma Stone (Easy A)


If you've read my reviews this wasn't that surprising.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR - MUSICAL OR COMEDY


Johnny Depp (Alice in Wonderland)
Johnny Depp (The Tourist)
Paul Giamatti (Barney's Version)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Love and Other Drugs)

Kevin Spacey (Casino Jack)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS - DRAMA

Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Mila Kunis (Black Swan)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

A voice I trust quite a bit says I'll love Amy Adams in Fighter so when I see that film later this month we shall see if this changes.

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR - DRAMA

Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Michael Douglas (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps)
Andrew Garfield (The Social Network)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

The three choices here are films I haven't seen yet so to be decided.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Despicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Tangled
Toy Story 3



I really, Really want Tangled to just surprise everyone and win this, but it's TS3's to win all the way.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Biutiful
The Concert
The Edge
I Am Love
In A Better World


I haven't seen a film on this list, boo on me.

BEST DIRECTOR - MOTION PICTURE

Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
Christopher Nolan (Inception)
David O. Russell (The Fighter)


(again, I pulled this from AICN)
Strong competition this year. Still, Hooper over the Coens? No Boyle for 127 Hours? If any of the others win I'm happy, but I'm leaning towards Aronofsky for what he pulled off visually with Black Swan.


BEST SCREENPLAY - MOTION PICTURE

Simon Beaufoy, Danny Boyle (127 Hours)
Christopher Nolan (Inception)
Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right)
David Seidler (The King's Speech)
Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)



BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - MOTION PICTURE


Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech)
Danny Elfman (Alice In Wonderland)
A.R. Rahman (127 Hours)
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)
Hans Zimmer (Inception)





BEST ORIGINAL SONG - MOTION PICTURE


"Bound to You" - Burlesque
"Coming Home" - Country Strong
"I See The Light" - Tangled
"There's A Place For Us" - Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader






BEST TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA


Boardwalk Empire
Dexter
The Good Wife
Mad Men
The Walking Dead

Love Walking Dead and Dexter but man, Boardwalk Empire is so my bread and butter.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA

Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)
Piper Perabo (Covert Affairs)
Katey Sagal (Sons of Anarchy)
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer)


I don't watch any of those shows(I know, shame on me for not seeing Mad Men yet), but if I had to give it to any of them based on the little of each I have, I'd say Kyra most likely deserves it.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA

Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire)
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
Hugh Laurie (House)


This wasn't a choice for me.

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - COMEDY OR MUSICAL


30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
The Big C
Glee
Modern Family
Nurse Jackie


(aicn original comment:)
This list is nullified by the exclusion of Community. Fail.


BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES - MUSICAL OR COMEDY


Toni Collette (United States of Tara)
Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie)
Tina Fey (30 Rock)
Laura Linney (The Big C)
Lea Michele (Glee)


(ditto)
Again, exclusion of Community doesn't make a lick of sense. In absense of a superior TV comedy, I like me my Tina Fey.


BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - MUSICAL OR COMEDY


Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
Steve Carell (The Office)
Thomas Jane (Hung)
Matthew Morrison (Glee)
Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)




BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION


Carlos
The Pacific
Pillars of the Earth
Temple Grandin
You Don't Know Jack


BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Hayley Atwell (Pillars of the Earth)
Claire Danes (Temple Grandin)
Judi Dench (Return to Cranford)
Romola Garai (Emma)
Jennifer Love Hewitt (The Client List)



BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Idris Elba (Luther)
Ian McShane (Pillars of the Earth)
Al Pacino (You Don't Know Jack)
Dennis Quaid (The Special Relationship)
Edgar Ramirez (Carlos)



BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Hope Davis (The Special Relationship)
Jane Lynch (Glee)
Kelly MacDonald (Boardwalk Empire)
Julia Stiles (Dexter)
Sofia Vergara (Modern Family)


(again stealing his line)
Hey, there's Kelly MacDonald. I was wondering when she'd pop up. She's great on Boardwalk, one of my favorite performances in the series.


BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Scott Caan (Hawaii Five-O)
Chris Colfer (Glee)
Chris Noth (The Good Wife)
Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)
David Strathairn (Temple Grandin)

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Adaptation: What's the Deal?

This comes up fairly frequently so I think it needs to be clarified.
Change is good. It's strange, it's harsh, and at the time you go.."I'm not sure about this", but more often than not it is for the better. If you look at some of the most faithful adaptations, they tend to be pretty boring. Sure if the original was good they are fantastic, but they end up feeling pretty boring. And the truly amazing and most beloved adaptations (The Dark Knight, Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim), go off from their source material to create something new, exciting and fresh.
This came up for me for 4 reasons. Number one, Walking Dead just ended and I'm pissed I didn't get the awesome ending from book 1. Pissed. But at the same time, I understand their reasoning and I can see that the changes may change my favorite characters but they add sucha new dynamic that I have no idea where the story is going to go. Number two someone being pissed that C.S. Lewis' "Masterpieces" (I know there is so much wrong with that statement) being changed to be a movie. Um, Duh? It would just end up Last Airbender all over again. Lost and lonely having been stripped of all character to maintain the plot. Number 3; Black Swan. A movie about a new interpretation of Swan Lake that is not only what they are doing as a Ballet but is also reflective of the plot of the movie. And lastly the new Buffy movie's existence.
Obviously the first and foremost question is does this movie work? If it doesn't, of course you are going to blame the writer and the film makers for screwing up your book. But they aren't. Most books inherently shouldn't be film. They are books. So to become film they need to be changed. The best translation I try to offer is that it's like trying to take Lord of the Rings and adapt it into poetry(but something with hard and fast rules like Iambic Pentameter). It isn't going to work out so well. Sure, some things are very visual and translate easily. The fights in Scott Pilgrim bam, take a very visual things and give it movement. So it has to be a good script or the movie will suck. Look at last Airbender. M night didn't understand why this show was so beloved wasn't the plot(though that wasn't bad either), and instead it was about the characters. So when he striped the characters of who they are and their idiosyncrasy, it starts to fall apart. We the audience would never have minded the plot changes they had made if they just made the characters work. If the characters work, and that is what it was all about(and let's be honest, most of the time that's all any of this is ever about), then the changes don't matter. It is about the feel and the emotion of it. A friend of mine asked me after I saw Flipped, how it was. Because she had read the book she knew that it was deeply rooted in emotion and that if it wasn't true to emotion it would never work. Luckily it did, and I'm told they took material out, added material, but it was still good.
Consider this Dexter fans, in the novels Dexter is driven to kill by some dark demi-god, but just because he's fucked up. And no it isn't Harry.
Speaking of Harry, I've spoken about the changes thus far, let's talk about when you are too faithful. These are your Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows where in the event to prove to your fans that you can do it without changes results in two weaker films instead of one fantastic film. This should have been the best in the series and instead it's only half a movie. Lord of the Rings. Oh boy. it's a movie, 9 hours long, about walking. And in many ways the original animation adaptation is better(except that god awful Return of the King). It did what should have been done which was streamline it and still pay tribute to the rich deep world that was created.

So the places where these things go horribly wrong tend to be when you don't get the feel of the original right, or you get the feel right but you forget that its a movie your making, not a novel. I can't stop midway through a screening and flip backa few scenes now that I know this new info. A book and a movie are two inherently different things so changes must be made. Film is a very specific type of media. So if you take away anything, please take away the fact that they aren't the same. And a translation should never be exact.

One last note, adaptations should include change. It is giving the material to someone else to see how they do it. Its much like how in the world of Theater that your director can interpret the story and script in many different ways. He has the skeleton, and he fills in the meat and the flesh and the goey bits with actors and stages and lights and suggestive meanings. Myself and a large handful of other writers are of the mind that, "I've done this work already, let's see what this other person can do with my material". Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse. But often it is different. We don't change Peter Parker's origin, but we sometimes change Peter Parker and his life. Iron Man was born in the jungles of Vietnam, we updated him to be in the middle east. Don't assume that because it's different it'd be bad just because you love that original so much. The original isn't going any where. You still have it. It's still your baby. You can still breastfeed it 12 years later(I know, creepy ain't it?), the movie doesn't ruin it. And actually, a bad adaptation often gives your original a little more spotlight. So wait and see before you hate of something, and don't hate on it for change unless that change strips any thing that was good about it away.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The beautiful baby made of the drunken one night stand between Requiem for a Dream and Swan Lake - a review of Black Swan

A quick sum up before I possibly venture into spoilers: Great movie, one of the best of the year, but it isn't without its flaws.


spoilers
Spoilers
spoilers


This is a noir mixed with a drug trip mixed with ballet. It is the kind of movie that Bends genres while still being it's own thing. What do I mean? Well at its heart its the story of a girl who wants to be the best. Her life spirals out of control because of choices she has made that result in her doing some bad things. By the way, thats also the same vague plot as Psycho. It is, without a doubt, a noir by that sense. But for more specific plot condescension it is this:
Natalie Portman wants to be the lead in Swan Lake, but to do so she needs to be both her Dark half the Black Swan and the light half, the Swan Queen(The Queen portion being the easy part with her being this almost pure character). I say almost because she does allude to having had a life. The movie uses a bare bones version of swan Lake as its structure for her to act and as a template for the movie. Woman is turned intoa swan, in order to change back she needs to find true love. But once she does that her evil twin sweeps in a sleeps with her prince and the swan kills her self. This is the metaphorical plot of the movie. but where, what how, and who are the variables here. And in general the plot functions on two levels, it works as a cautionary tale of a girl who works too hard and pushes her self too much and is pressured to be the best and how that affects her. And as such she also develops an eating disorder which causes her perception of reality(which is our the audiences perception) to be radically affected. It is a great metaphor for how the media projects onto young women and projects what they want you to believe is the ideal and how trying to reach that ideal can harm you irreversibly. The other level it works on, and this is the part I really am displeased with is that it displays Homosexuality as being the dark part of the self and heterosexuality as the light part of the self. And defining either as either applies a value to these concepts that they shouldn't have nor need.
The directing and acting are both strong here andthe writing services both.
This movie is half noir half psychological thriller half horror movie(it does has some creepy turn your stomach moments) and half ballet. The beauty is that the director and the cast all manage to make this work and by the time you are done, you are left with a really great piece about what it is like to be a woman raised in American media perception of women. This movie is an A-. Many of you may give it an A but that part of it where it makes a judgment on sexuality sub consciously cost it some points.