I watched The Guard starring Brendon Gleeson and Don Cheadle.
I enjoyed it a lot. Set in Father Ted country, it's full of black Irish comedy but also thought-provoking and tragic. It's a twisted buddy-cop story with murder, drug running, police corruption and much besides.
From a conventional point of view, the main character is not to be admired: he drinks and takes drugs even while on duty, hires prostitutes and makes racist (though tongue-in-cheek) slurs. However he's obviously the hero and the more we learn about him, the more we grow to like and respect him.
The villains are both nasty and funny in a Tarantino kind of way. The acting is uniformly excellent.
I may be mis-recalling, but the movie certainly made it seem as if all of the locks, everywhere in the facility, opened when they shut down the power. Nedry shut down/opened specific locks to make his escape, but when they shut down the main power to reboot the system, all the locks opened, which was why they had to get the power back online and reboot the system -- so that they could get the locks working again.
(That was actually a plot point, as even Nedry knew better than to disable the Raptor containment.)
I've worked in the natural gas industry for quite a while. And, despite experience saying it shouldn't be this way, safety devices are often poorly designed or installed incorrectly. I've seen gas plants where the entire scheme was backwards, valves that should have air pressure to stay open were set up to require air pressure to keep them closed, and vice versa. That isn't as bad in a gas plant as it is in processes that involve natural gas liquids such as propane and ethane, where the system isolating itself and not venting could cause an explosion as the thermal expansion builds up pressure.
__________________
Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
I am not an Evil Dead fanatic. I can in no way be accused of having some nostalgic notion of purity with regards to the franchise. I say this because my very first exposure was from the third movie, Army of Darkness. I enjoyed the heck out of that movie. Funny aside is I tricked a nice church lady friend that it was a safe movie to show at a good youth group hangout time, which included her very young child. I felt terrible when she was aghast at skeletons rising from their graves, but I still enjoyed the heck out of that movie.
In fact, I experienced the whole darn franchise in near perfect reverse order. First was Army of Darkness, some years later was Evil Dead 2 and confession bort time, I saw the very first one only a few days ago. I totally understand how it was such a cult hit. It was different and relentless and madcap.
I was pretty excited as rumors and trailers were released. Especially noteworthy were the praises coming from both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell (both producers on this project).
But. And there are no spoilers here.
It was...
... alright.
The parts that worked really worked. The blood and frights and gore were great. Perhaps not note perfect like you remember, but still pretty good. The old weapons were there and there were some new ones, all put to pretty fun use.
The parts that didn't work dragged everything down just long enough to dampen everything that was working so well. The setup for the movie was fine in the beginning but also because that was the setup there's a stretch in the third act that was just, you know, wrong. In depth story doesn't really belong here. Something that made the original work, in my adult perception, was the madness that the characters were experiencing (even those not possessed by Deadites), was carried so well by the madness that was Raimi's filming style.
It's worth seeing just so you can be your own judge but in my opinion it's not worth it for a big screen.
I thought about seeing that one this weekend, instead of Jurassic Park. I ultimately thought it could wait.
The thing is, there has already been an excellent re-make of Evil Dead; it's called Evil Dead II. Seriously, from what I can recall (it has been a few years since I last saw it, admittedly) Evil Dead II isn't a sequel to Evil Dead; it's a re-make with a higher budget.
And who could pull off Ash other than Bruce Campbell? Or does the re-make feature new characters?
__________________
“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
I'm familiar with Argento's other works, so I knew what to expect. Argento doesn't always make movies that make sense, like a fever-dream, so I just turn off that part of my brain.
I, too was horrified by the destruction of library property. There isn't a copier in 1980s Italy?
Last night, we watched Spalding Gray's And Everything is Going Fine, which is a posthumous sort of biography cadged together from monologues and interview clips of him talking about his life in roughly chronological order. It's pretty good if you like Spalding Gray. Lots of stuff about mental illness and suicide and things, obviously, but also he apparently had a lot of passionate feelings about outlines. It is pretty depressing, of course, because the denouement, which isn't in the movie, is that he did end up killing himself in 2004. Even if you do like Spalding Gray, I'd say probably don't watch it if you have intrusive thoughts or anything like that.
And then I rewatched Vernon, Florida, which everybody needs to watch. It's pretty short, made up of leftover footage from when Errol Morris was going to make a movie about the town focusing on the rampant insurance scams where residents would get death and dismemberment insurance and then 'accidentally' lose limbs in hunting accidents. But he said he got a bunch of death threats, so that movie (Nub City) never got released. It's pretty impressive how he still managed to pull together a really good hour of footage that has nothing to do with the original focus of the movie, but Errol Morris is just that good. Also, I don't know if it was just that I'd seen it on bad VHS copies before, or if it was remastered or something, but the film quality was much better than I'd seen it before. Everybody should go look at it while it's on Netflix.
I don't really know that it's acquired. When Bottle Rocket first came out, I went to see it probably five times. I think you just either like his movies or you don't. (I just checked, and that's on Netflix streaming right now, if anyone wants to watch it.)
And just to reiterate the Spalding Grey movie really was depressing. You can see him decline pretty vividly in the interviews. I was really hesitant to recommend it because it could affect a lot of people pretty badly, I think, even though it is well done.
Never fear, I have a good grip on myself right now, and thankfully have been without intrusive thoughts for over six months now.
I watch a lot of depressing stuff when I am not watching ponies. I feel like it is important to recognize others' pain, even honor that pain. In a strange way it is a reminder we are very much alive. Reminds me of the battle I am winning.
Speaking of depressing good movies, if you haven't seen Melancholia, you totally should. On Netflix now.
Lars von Trier is one of my favorite directors right now, as much as I have some issues with him. My favorite is probably Antichrist, but I don't know anyone I could recommend that to in good faith.
I really prefer depressing movies (and other media) too. Feel good type stuff always just makes me feel icky.
Antichrist has been in my queue forever. Movies like that I am not sure I will watch again, so I often will wait for Contra to see them. But he can be a big baby and want to watch something dumb instead, even though he always loves my weird artsy films and they make him hella inspired and stuff for like a week or two after.
I should make him watch it this week, because I am not as nice as you.
Oh, I love me some happy bubblegum shit too. Especially sappy kids movies where all the problems get neatly tied up in a bow at the end. Seriously, those are more likely to make me cry than the depressing stuff.
Yeah, I heard about that but forgot. Maybe I should watch it solo now that you mention it. He gets really disturbed by that stuff. The Last House on the Left left him super aggro and stuttering with rage. Took him days to recover. I imagine that is mild by comparison.
He loved the crap out of Melancholia though. Even so far as to watch it again without me when I was out one evening.
I watched several movies on Netflix over this weekend and tried to watch a couple more that were unwatchable. On the good list:
I had always heard of Oscar-nominated Sometimes a Great Notion, but never saw until yesterday. It was directed by and starred Paul Newman, with Richard Jaekel and Michael Sarrazin as sons of an independent non-union logger in Oregon, Harry Stamper, played by Henry Fonda. Lee Remick played Paul Newman's wife. It was a bit slow moving at first, almost painfully so. Some really big trees were felled, some union people were mad at them, someone died, someone else died too, the end. It was good, but not great, not nearly as great as the 100% Tomatometer rating would indicate. I would give it an 81.67% rating.
The Hi-Lo Country, starring Woody Harrelson, Billy Crudup, Patricia Arquette, and Penelope Cruz. Oh, and Sam Elliott as a cattle baron stirring shit up. The two cowboys were in love with the same married woman. Another woman was in love with one of them, but he not with her. Someone died, someone left town, the end. I really liked this movie, thought it was much better than the 56% Tomatometer rating. I give it an 87.51% rating.
__________________
Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
I love superhero movies. I'd watch them every day and twice on Sunday. I loved Iron Man and Iron Man 2.
But this movie was pretty much 'meh'. I mean, it had good action scenes, the usual performance from RDJ, a funny twist... it even had Guy Pierce!
But it meandered to much, it whined too much, it didn't have enough of what I'd want from an Iron Man movie.
Tony Stark is Iron Man, period. Suits that fly themselves are not to my personal liking. I don't mind a little of it, but there was way too much of it in this movie. I did like seeing Pepper in the suit though, that was cool
All that said, it's still worth watching if you like superhero movies, or even just the Iron Man franchise. I did enjoy it... but I think it was just such a let down from the first two, so my expectations were too high. If you go in hoping to see something as good as #1 and #2, you're going to be disappointed imo.
I'd give it 6/10, whereas I would give IM1 and IM2 more like 8-9/10 (and Avengers 9.9/10)
I don't disagree with slim because, hey, what you think is what you think and it's pretty subjectivy anyway. Even though I think he's wrong. I reviewed my review that I posted when Iron Mans 2 came out and I think I'm wrong too.
Unlike slim, I think the weak link in this trilogy was Iron Man 2. The subplot of Fury Ex Machina bugged me. IM3 had 98% less Avengers, and with everything else going on the movie was better for it. The events of the alien invasion were mentioned briefly a few times and there were lingering effects that Tony was dealing with.
The thing is Marvel is walking a fairly delicate line. They're trying to balance between making movies for Marvel fans and for regular folk who just like action movies. Something major happens here and while it works dramatically it very likely and understandably could piss off Marvel and Iron Man fans. Myself, not having that much invested historically in either Marvel or Iron Man loved it. I think it's brilliant but I'm also hoping that it hasn't fully paid off just yet.
As slim says, there is a lot going on in this movie. I never felt like it was flagging or suffering because of it. RDJ is, well, you know. He's smart and smarmy and snarky and charming - all those things you should already know and love about how he plays Tony Stark. And let me tell you what. I would watch the shit out of a Pepper Potts movie. As much as RDJ owns Stark, Gwenyth Paltrow owns as Pepper Potts.
MAJOR ASS SPOILER.
I'M NOT KIDDING.
YOU THINK THIS IS A MOTHER BORTING GAME?
Pepper getting to wear the suit was just a little bit of a for me. Not as much of one as I was hoping for because she only wore the suit because Tony put it on her. And then when she was injected with Extremis is was just more of that same. Yeah, when she shook off the cobwebs she did good in the suit; and when she was free to act she kicked ass with Extremis going on. I'm not saying what happened is wrong or poorly done, I was expecting something more. I dunno how to say.
In my review of my review I note that I gave IM1 a 9.2 and IM2 an 8.8. IM3 keeps the average by being a great 9.0. All you nerds who thought you could escape seeing it are just postponing the invevitable. IM3 is solid and I think actually adds to the universe instead of treading water like IM2. You guys were probably going to go see it anyway regardless of what I had to say about it. But for those on the fence (if those kinds of people actually exist): It's easy. If you liked the previous Iron Mans - for whatever reason - it's more of the same. I guess the same words apply to those who didn't like the previous Iron Mans. It is more of the same.
Despite my love for everyone involved in the thing, and my interest in the subject matter, I had until today failed to see Good Night and Good Luck. I was stupid to wait.
Re: Seen Any Good Movies...?
confession bort time, I saw the very first one only a few days ago. I totally understand how it was such a cult hit. It was different and relentless and madcap.
Re: Seen Any Good Movies...?
for me. Not as much of one as I was hoping for because she only wore the suit because Tony put it on her. And then when she was injected with Extremis is was just more of that same. Yeah, when she shook off the cobwebs she did good in the suit; and when she was free to act she kicked ass with Extremis going on. I'm not saying what happened is wrong or poorly done, I was expecting something more. I dunno how to say.
Linear Mode
