Sunday, May 18, 2008

Love this Shot

Stanley Kubrick on set, 1968

You know, many people deride 2001 as pretentious crap. But it was so cutting edge when it came out and it still remains one of the best SF movies ever made. And also the most scientifically accurate. I remember when I saw the film as an 11 year old kid. I was already into Science Fiction even then, but it really changed my life. I had been a fan of Star Trek, but when I saw the sets in 2001 Star Trek never looked the same. It seemed cheesy, when it had once looked so futuristic.

I knew a guy who worked as a prop builder and he said the sets in 2001 were so realistic if you looked at any prop they looked real up close. Most props look fake when you look at them in real life, but Kubrick was a stickler for details and realism. 

Friday, May 16, 2008

REVIEW: Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia)

I liked this one better than the first. They didn’t have to explain things as much, so it was more of a straight story with really fantastic scenery, production values and excellent action scenes. They really did CS Lewis proud.

The basic story is humans have taken over the Narnia and driven all the talking animals and fairy creatures into hiding. A young prince is about to be murdered by his wicked Uncle, and flees, only to find that the Narnians still live. They take him in, but not before he blows the magic horn that once belonged to one of the kids in the first movie. This summons them to Narnia where they help fight the evil Uncle’s army and help Prince Caspian regain his throne. As fantasy films go this was really well paced and had the right amounts of humor. Peter (The Station Agent) Dinklage and the ubiquitous Eddy Izzard (as the voice of a mouse knight) add a lot of the humorous relief, But they do not play joke characters, but serious heroes. It’s well done.

I feel this film captured the magic of the books better than the first film.

Well done. 

Darth Vader Blues

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Wolverine and the X-Men

Marvel has a new animated X-Men movie coming out.

UPDATE: Iron Man meets Spiderman

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance

This is a great movie if you haven’t seen it. It came out in the mid-1980s and features stunning music by Phillip Glass. I have it and the sequels on DVD. basically, the film is just videos of nature vs industry. Its’ supposed to be a critique of modern life. It’s hard to take your eyes off it once you start watching.

Here’s the trailer:

Here’s the trailer for the sequel:

REVIEW: Speed Racer

I’m not surprised this movie bombed over the weekend. It suffers from too much gee whiz and not enough solid craft. It’s an endless blur of CGI and color mixed with a lot of talking heads with sporadic action. The end result is a too long, too silly story about evil corporate sponsors vs race car drivers for justice.

I think they were trying for something cutting edge, thinking kids have grown up on video games, so lets make a whole movie that looks like one.  The sad thing is, the 1960s cartoon had better animation that sections of this film. It was too gaudy and grainy in places and the colors would make a gay fashion designer wince.

The script was as cartoony as the look of the film. Over all, it screams “rental.”

I think I’ll check out Forbidden Kingdom or Red Belt next. 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Trailer

I’ve been less than satisfied with the recent Star Wars movies, but I liked the Clone Wars anime and this new movie looks kind of interesting. 

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Top Ten Jackie Chan Fights

I agree with his pick of #1. Dragons Forever has an amazing climactic fight scene. 

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Iron Man/Nick Fury

Marvel has announced two Avengers films, the first introduces Captain America, probably showing him being revived from the ice. Followed by his own movie. So this may be setting that up. 

Freenomics

The birth of a new economic system? Some are arguing that free may be the new price for many goods.

Anderson’s freeconomics thesis is that more and more goods and services are being provided for free and that those businesses that fail to follow suit are likely to go to the wall. “As much as we complain about how expensive things are getting, we’re surrounded by forces that are making them cheaper,” Anderson wrote in a recent article that will form the basis of a book called Free, to be published next year. “Forty years ago, charity was dominated by clothing drives for the poor. Now you can get a T-shirt for less than the price of a cup of coffee, thanks to China and global sourcing. So too for toys, gadgets and commodities of every sort. Even cocaine has pretty much never been cheaper (globalisation works in mysterious ways).”

But freeconomics is hardly a deluded eulogy to global capitalism. Rather, Anderson’s idea is that the internet, by reducing marginal costs, encourages businesses to make their money by offering free goods or services to an extent we have not witnessed before. And that this change in supply alters the nature of demand: free services such as Craigslist, Skype, Freeview, Wikipedia and Google have created a generation that doesn’t just resent paying, but expects stuff to be free. This is the generation that, for example, paid nothing (or next to nothing) for Radiohead’s new album and got Prince’s last CD free with the Mail on Sunday. This is the generation that doesn’t walk into HMV like losers and shell out £15 for a new album, but downloads it for free from one of the many (often legally dubious) filesharing websites.

Making things to where you name the price, or “donation” as the case may be, is a novel concept which is becoming more common. It’ll be interesting to see how far this goes.