Click on the link below to get to the master list of movies. As the list gets displaced by every new post, it's going to get harder and harder to find, so I've provided this "sticky post" to make it easy to find a movie.
Saturday, September 26, 2020
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Private Practice 1x01
When I heard about Private Practice, I didn't take it as good news. I thought it was going to be really disappointing and that I wouldn't watch after the second episode. I was hearing mixed reviews all over the place -- "critics" were panning it, while regular viewers thought it was quite all right.I'm a regular viewer :) and while this faux-pilot (you can't call it a pilot after that horrible double-episode in season three Grey's) wasn't spectacular, it was decent enough to make a name for itself. Sure, they subversively tried to suck us in with a certain, um, scene during the hook, and sure, there's a lot of work to be done to make it really good like it should be, but I'm not complaining. The hook itself was incredibly long (ten minutes) before the title picture showed on screen; in that respect, it is very Grey's Anatomy.
That's about where the similarities end, with the exception of Addison, of course. Can I just re-affirm my complete and utter adoration for Kate Walsh here? *re-affirms complete and utter adoration for Kate Walsh* Thanks. What can I say. She was just... Addison. And a girl couldn't ask for more. Addison = awesome. She got some pretty sweet one-liners in there, too, which was nice.
I'm still not so keen on Sam (Taye Diggs) and Naomi (Audra McDonald), but Paul Adelstein and Amy Brenneman have excellent chemistry as Cooper and Violet respectively. There's one scene in particular during this episode that was a highlight for me, but I won't expand on it because I don't want to spoiler folks.
I liked it. It exceeded my expectations (sure, they weren't very high in the first place, but if I'd had any expectations, it would've surpassed them), and judging by the 14.24 million people who tuned in to watch it, plenty others were happy with it, too. It's not Grey's, but Private Practice is its own show, so if people want a carbon copy of the mothership -- they should just go watch that each week, instead of endlessly comparing the two. That's how spin-offs fail, and I never thought I'd say this, but I don't want PP to fail.
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Friday, September 28, 2007
Starky
What a treat! I went down to check out JB Hi-Fi today and found Starky's self-titled second album in the "From 99cents" bin for a mere $2.99!The song that introduced me to this Australian band (who sadly parted ways earlier this year) was, of course, "Hey Bang Bang." I remember I searched all over the place trying to find the single, and now their CD's just fallen into my lap :D
When you listen to Starky, you'll probably think back to another Aussie band, End of Fashion. So, I guess if you wanted to look for similarities, you'd most likely find them between these two bands. End of Fashion's songs all veered towards the, "Hm, this all sounds quite alike," side of the spectrum, though, and Starky don't do that :) Actually, now that I listen to it more and more, I can't help but think of Rock Kills Kid, although RKK are more alternative and a bit less poppy than Starky are. It's a very nice, punchy album on the whole; something you could put in the car and listen to during a road trip.
So to celebrate this happy day, I've posted, below, three of the best songs from the album (or what I reckon are the three best songs, anyway). It's all such pop-rocky/jangly goodness that it was a bit hard to choose, but in the end I managed to prevail!
Me Michelle -- I read a music blog (I can't remember which) once in which the author noted that he could usually accurately predict the tone of the rest of the album, just by listening to the opening track. Good opening track, good album to follow. That's the same with Starky -- Me Michelle sets the pace for a catchy, poppy, easy-listening (in the pop-rock sense) LP. It's got this synthy feel to it (I'm a big fan of synth-pop); a dancing track! I dunno. I'm not the best at picking out elements of a song and stuff like that; I just listen to it and if I like it, I go, "Hey this is cool, I like it!" and, well, I like this one.
We Generate Friction -- This is one of my favourites; it's just one of the many examples on this album of how the drums are a dominant force in Starky, and not just the necessary add-on! The drumming on this album (by Saul Foster), and especially this track, is a real treat, because it's always very prominent and it's not "just another backbone" instrument that's a support system of the band's music, but it's right up there working with the guitars and vocals -- challenging for the spotlight, almost. And it works. I daresay that the guitar is secondary, for this track.
She Got Ambition -- Again, the drums sold me on this track. A very strong, solid, marching beat, and coupled with the guitar it all makes for a very groovy (and also jangly, which should be a genre of its own) tune that will get your foot tapping, perhaps in or out of time to the music, but tapping nonetheless.
*If anyone from Starky/Starky management wants me to take the tracks down, please email me immediately at rocnmuzic at gmail dot com.
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Thursday, September 27, 2007
Review: District B-13
My sister found out about the movie when watching a trailer on one of the TVs in Dick Smith. It looked cool and we came across the concept of parkour while watching Casino Royale (and were jaw-drop&stunned by it; well I was anyway). The type of "action" in District B-13 is pretty much 90% parkour and since the founder of parkour, David Belle, is in this movie, we were like, "Awesome, sweet as, let's watch it!"
The movie is set in 2010, in Paris where the most criminal and unruly parts of the city are walled off (literally walled off) from the rest of the city. David Belle's character, Leito, lives in district B-13, and he tries to thwart the bad guy (a sleazy thin bully called Taha) but ends up in prison for his efforts. Fast forward to six months later and a champion cop, Damien, has to get into B-13 to defuse a neutron bomb that Taha's goons stole from the French government. Leito is the only guy who knows his way around well enough, so Damien has to get Leito to team up with him and win over the bad guys.
Compared to the cinematic blockbusters we're so used to these days, I found District B-13 really refreshing at just over an hour. Being used to those aforementioned cinematic blockbusters, I also thought it was incredibly short. I was like, "Where's the action?" but there was action -- it just didn't take two-and-a-half hours to execute.
But the action was cool. It's very relaxed, even though it's an action movie. Well, I was relaxed anyway. The parkour scenes were awesome (there's one shot where Leito runs through the hallway and leaps up and literally slides through a narrow opening at the TOP of the door to get through it), and since the actor who plays Damien (Cyril Raffaelli; he did the stunt co-ordination on Transporter 2 amongst other things) is a stuntman and acrobat, the fight scenes are great and both Raffaelli and Belle have this fluidity to them that is really fascinating to watch.
Did I mention the movie's French? Well, I have now -- the dialogue is in French (mm French sexy language) which made it hard for me to follow sometimes because I strayed from the captions. They don't talk much while the parkour scenes are up, though, which is good, because who wants to read words when you can watch people dance-run on TV?
The soundtrack on this thing reminded me of how greatly I think of French hip-hop. Before I'd only been listening to MC Solaar (who is awesome), but the music that played while the end credits rolled was really good as well. The French language gives everything such a nice, smooth, feel...
Overall it was a nice 85 minutes on a Tuesday night. I'd give it 7.6/10, especially if you're interested in French movies and engaging action sequences. The plot isn't too bad either; I actually thought the plot was resolved far too quickly and I was caught a bit off-guard at how suddenly Leito pieced everything together to reveal at the end, but I like to go along for the ride and not think too much about things and if you don't do that then you'll be sweet as. After all, District B-13 isn't a "thinking" film. You want that, go watch a David Lynch flick.
The movie is set in 2010, in Paris where the most criminal and unruly parts of the city are walled off (literally walled off) from the rest of the city. David Belle's character, Leito, lives in district B-13, and he tries to thwart the bad guy (a sleazy thin bully called Taha) but ends up in prison for his efforts. Fast forward to six months later and a champion cop, Damien, has to get into B-13 to defuse a neutron bomb that Taha's goons stole from the French government. Leito is the only guy who knows his way around well enough, so Damien has to get Leito to team up with him and win over the bad guys.
Compared to the cinematic blockbusters we're so used to these days, I found District B-13 really refreshing at just over an hour. Being used to those aforementioned cinematic blockbusters, I also thought it was incredibly short. I was like, "Where's the action?" but there was action -- it just didn't take two-and-a-half hours to execute.
But the action was cool. It's very relaxed, even though it's an action movie. Well, I was relaxed anyway. The parkour scenes were awesome (there's one shot where Leito runs through the hallway and leaps up and literally slides through a narrow opening at the TOP of the door to get through it), and since the actor who plays Damien (Cyril Raffaelli; he did the stunt co-ordination on Transporter 2 amongst other things) is a stuntman and acrobat, the fight scenes are great and both Raffaelli and Belle have this fluidity to them that is really fascinating to watch.
Did I mention the movie's French? Well, I have now -- the dialogue is in French (mm French sexy language) which made it hard for me to follow sometimes because I strayed from the captions. They don't talk much while the parkour scenes are up, though, which is good, because who wants to read words when you can watch people dance-run on TV?
The soundtrack on this thing reminded me of how greatly I think of French hip-hop. Before I'd only been listening to MC Solaar (who is awesome), but the music that played while the end credits rolled was really good as well. The French language gives everything such a nice, smooth, feel...
Overall it was a nice 85 minutes on a Tuesday night. I'd give it 7.6/10, especially if you're interested in French movies and engaging action sequences. The plot isn't too bad either; I actually thought the plot was resolved far too quickly and I was caught a bit off-guard at how suddenly Leito pieced everything together to reveal at the end, but I like to go along for the ride and not think too much about things and if you don't do that then you'll be sweet as. After all, District B-13 isn't a "thinking" film. You want that, go watch a David Lynch flick.
---------
Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
My history with Harry Potter is, I would say, pretty much non-existent. When the sixth book first came out, I made a bet with a friend that I could read it in two days. To do so, however, I had to read all the books that came before it so that I wouldn't be completely lost when I raced through Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I borrowed the books from another friend who was a fan (and maybe the library as well; I don't really remember) and I pretty much raced through those as well. I enjoyed them while I was reading them but afterwards it all kind of faded away and now I won't be able to tell you a single thing about what happens in them.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Well, the craze sure is present -- sessions were selling out rapidly and there was a line into Cinema One that almost extended to the start of the foyer. I think the fact that someone spewed up in the previous session and so there was a delay in getting the doors open might have played a part in that, but yeah. Everyone was anticipating this film quite a bit, but there was definitely some trepidation as to whether or not it would justify the book.
Books-to-movies are generally not excellent. In the books, JK Rowling has all the time in the world to set up a great, fast-paced, action packed book that will thrill her readers. In this movie, David Yates had 138 minutes to get in the main action from the book, set up the scene, resolve it and basically squash a fairly epic 870 pages (US version) into a film reel that won't bore the kiddies and adults alike.
You don't have to have read the books to know that there was a lot missing from the novel version (good thing they said "Based on the novel by JK Rowling" in the credits), but having a solid knowledge of the events in the book will help you enjoy this film so much more. I was a bit bored at the beginning and started tossing popcorn about partway through, and the segment of the film that actually stirred me was ten minutes from the end (the climax/denouement of the movie where Lucius Malfoy, Harry, Sirius Black, Dumbledore and eventually Voldemort himself have a considerable wand-tussle). The best bit of the movie was the lighting effects.
But I'm probably one of the most tepid Harry Potter observers you will find. I read the books to complete a bet (which I eventually lost because I couldn't be stuffed reading The Half Blood Prince); I watched the movies to get an idea of what all the hype was about (not that I remember any of them). Throughout the movie I could hear Matt grumbling about the missing parts, how the representation in the book wasn't translated properly on screen, and after the movie I asked Mena for her opinion, which was pretty much the same.
Having said that, though, I'll return to the fact that David Yates had such limited time with HP&tOotP. If you're a die-hard fan then you would probably want to watch it anyway because it's HP related; if you're a casual fan, you might find it striking your fancy but overall I would say... 7.5/10 and you might want to get it out on DVD or something instead of paying for a ticket -- people who don't know what happens in the book will have a hard time; people who know what happens in the book already know what happens in the movie, so.
Oh and Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge was a real highlight for me. Total win.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Well, the craze sure is present -- sessions were selling out rapidly and there was a line into Cinema One that almost extended to the start of the foyer. I think the fact that someone spewed up in the previous session and so there was a delay in getting the doors open might have played a part in that, but yeah. Everyone was anticipating this film quite a bit, but there was definitely some trepidation as to whether or not it would justify the book.
Books-to-movies are generally not excellent. In the books, JK Rowling has all the time in the world to set up a great, fast-paced, action packed book that will thrill her readers. In this movie, David Yates had 138 minutes to get in the main action from the book, set up the scene, resolve it and basically squash a fairly epic 870 pages (US version) into a film reel that won't bore the kiddies and adults alike.
You don't have to have read the books to know that there was a lot missing from the novel version (good thing they said "Based on the novel by JK Rowling" in the credits), but having a solid knowledge of the events in the book will help you enjoy this film so much more. I was a bit bored at the beginning and started tossing popcorn about partway through, and the segment of the film that actually stirred me was ten minutes from the end (the climax/denouement of the movie where Lucius Malfoy, Harry, Sirius Black, Dumbledore and eventually Voldemort himself have a considerable wand-tussle). The best bit of the movie was the lighting effects.
But I'm probably one of the most tepid Harry Potter observers you will find. I read the books to complete a bet (which I eventually lost because I couldn't be stuffed reading The Half Blood Prince); I watched the movies to get an idea of what all the hype was about (not that I remember any of them). Throughout the movie I could hear Matt grumbling about the missing parts, how the representation in the book wasn't translated properly on screen, and after the movie I asked Mena for her opinion, which was pretty much the same.
Having said that, though, I'll return to the fact that David Yates had such limited time with HP&tOotP. If you're a die-hard fan then you would probably want to watch it anyway because it's HP related; if you're a casual fan, you might find it striking your fancy but overall I would say... 7.5/10 and you might want to get it out on DVD or something instead of paying for a ticket -- people who don't know what happens in the book will have a hard time; people who know what happens in the book already know what happens in the movie, so.
Oh and Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge was a real highlight for me. Total win.
-------
Review: Spiderman 3
A little bit of preamble, if I may. So far I've been disappointed with sequels of sequels of comic book movies. Yeah, I'm talking about X-Men 3. I was much more of an avid reader of the X-Men comics than I ever was of Spiderman, though, so I don't have a lot of canon knowledge of the latter. However, I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it turned out to be -- it was far too long, with unnecessary bits that could've died on the editing room floor quite happily, and the only good thing that will redeem it is the special effects. But, then again, I suppose that's all that matters -- special effects, and the money it will rake in.
Having said that, in no way whatsoever will Spiderman 3 die in the box office -- I'm confident that they'll reap back all of the $258 million they spent making it, and $500 million+ on top of it probably. The trailer is captivating enough that people will flock in and be completely unaware of the 2.5 hour insipid plotline they are in for. But the effects only shine through during the fight scenes (as they would do), and since there are only two major ones in the movie, the approximate hour and 40 minutes left me dreading frames to come -- twice did I seriously contemplate walking out (I only stayed because I paid $9 for my ticket, and I'm never one to leave a movie halfway. Well, unless that movie happens to be Epic Movie). My sister fared worse than I did, but she's always been the staunch and can't-take-any-emo!type. Oh, yeah, emo. I'll get back to that... I have far more than two cents on that.
I'll start from the beginning, with the credits. Don't worry, there aren't any spoilers.
They had a montage of the actors, along with main plot snippets from the first and second movies -- to serve as pipe for this third movie, I'm guessing. Do you guys reckon that Topher Grace and Tobey Maguire look quite similar, and that James Franco (especially when he's doing the angry "YOU KILLED MY FATHER!!" thing) looks a whole lot like Chris Evans? In this one scene, JF had to stare at himself hard in the mirror, and he kept quirking his right eyebrow... it was a bit funny, and somehow I can picture Chris Evans doing that exact same thing. But anyway, back to the opening sequence. My gosh, was it long! They totally killed it with length. About 3/4 of the way through, they had a shot of the Venom symbiote crawling menacingly and foreshadowingly (symbolically?) over the web, and I thought that that was a really really cool way to open the movie...
...then the montage started again. What the hell?!
I suppose that was the first sign that Spiderman 3 was going to be far too lengthy. That's one gripe over.
So, I didn't know they were going to make Spiderman 3 into a dramedy. I know that the first two (and all other drama movies, incl. X-Men trilogy etc) had comic relief in the form of one or two snarky lines, but Spiderman 3 had what seemed like a whole 30 minutes dedicated to making the audience laugh. It became a serious dramedy at that point. I found it unnecessary and massive overkill -- if they wanted to reflect Peter Parker's change in character due to the symbiote, five minutes of succint information would've been enough. Instead, they made a mockery of his character, going as far as making him emo!
That's right, they made Peter Parker a wannabe emo. I'm not sure if they think that all that comprises an emo is the dark hair, because that's all they went for, but it was pretty obvious to me that they turned Tobey Maguire into an emo. Were they trying to reflect the "dark and twisty" (ten points if you can tell me where that came from) nature of emos? Were they trying to tell emos that being emo is okay, because if Spiderman's alter-ego can be emo, so can you? Tobey Maguire is far too chubby to be emo. I'm not trying to make fun of his weight OR emos, but during one scene where he was fighting with Harry, you could see his ab flab... nitpicking, I know, but surely if he spent all his time swinging tall buildings in a single squirt of webbing, he'd be pretty buff.
Last gripe -- the movie's over, they're wrapping things up and it's all happy... fade to black...
I'm waiting for the credits...
...oh, there's another scene, hold your horses, the movie's not over!
Scene out, fade to black...
I'm waiting for the credits...
...third time MUST be the charm, oh please tell me it is so, I'm starving and this movie has interested me for about 45 minutes out of 139...
Yay it's all happy again!
Fade to black...
Better not get up, there might be another scene...
...oh thank goodness, I have never been so happy to see credits rolling.
Surely when a movie has to fade to black three times, you know it's far too long. I acknowledge that they had to wrap up the loose ends, but I can think of another way that would've saved screentime AND got me out of there faster.
I'm not saying Spiderman 3 was a total waste of money -- the fight scenes were exhilarating and the effects were great. But I said that at the beginning. What disappointed me most was the fact that they (although I should be used to this by now) turned the character of Peter Parker into a joke, and the predictability of the plot. Script = banal, insipid, soporific. "PRODUCT PLACING" (I have no better term) THE AMERICAN FLAG = NOT PRICELESS (more like "oh.my.giddy.aunt. they.didn't.just.do.what.I.think.they.did."). They took their liberties in tweaking the comic to suit the movie, but that's no different to any other comic book movie -- after all, how are you going to fit all pivotal characters into three movies, when they've come from comic books written since the 1970s? The last shot at redemption for Marvel is now the F4 trilogy (I'm assuming they're going to have a third one)... otherwise they can just call themselves Disney.
In all that panning, I forgot to add that Venom lived up to expectations and was tres fantastico. I heart Venom (bring on Carnage, too!), big ups to Raimi for deciding to chuck him in.
Oh, I have more adjectives to describe the movie now!
Cheesy, corny... wait those two kind of sum it up quite well actually.
Venom -- great. I love Venom, not going to take that back. Topher Grace played him really well. But... Venom is a huge villain/kind-of-ally of Spiderman's throughout the comics! They kind of just set him up, gave his reason to be a villain, and then teamed him up with the Sandman (who had far too much screentime if they were going to have two villains) to try and kill Spiderman. It wasn't well delegated between Sandman and Venom, and I feel that even though it was good that Sam Raimi added him to the roster, they should've shifted stuff around so that it doesn't become Venom on the backburner, then some screentime as an afterthought.
Sandman -- basically just the problem of too much screentime (but that's a pretty major reason). We already know the reason why Flint Marko did what he did, yet most of his scenes were spent (I felt) cementing his motives for his crimes. We know the motive! It was obvious right from the very start, after he said THOSE LINES to his daughter (I don't want to print those lines because I don't want to spoiler anybody)... there was no need to show more of those scenes. We ARE an audience able to think and link for ourselves... at least, the majority of us are.
Some other things:
Too many rehashes of Peter being a dick. + the emo thing. Can anyone say overkill?
The truth about Harry's father. I'll just throw a key word in here: butler. You'll know what I mean when I say, "wtf... couldn't have told him sooner?? You decided to just keep that in your back pocket for the last few years?"
Okay, I'm done. I promise.
Having said that, in no way whatsoever will Spiderman 3 die in the box office -- I'm confident that they'll reap back all of the $258 million they spent making it, and $500 million+ on top of it probably. The trailer is captivating enough that people will flock in and be completely unaware of the 2.5 hour insipid plotline they are in for. But the effects only shine through during the fight scenes (as they would do), and since there are only two major ones in the movie, the approximate hour and 40 minutes left me dreading frames to come -- twice did I seriously contemplate walking out (I only stayed because I paid $9 for my ticket, and I'm never one to leave a movie halfway. Well, unless that movie happens to be Epic Movie). My sister fared worse than I did, but she's always been the staunch and can't-take-any-emo!type. Oh, yeah, emo. I'll get back to that... I have far more than two cents on that.
I'll start from the beginning, with the credits. Don't worry, there aren't any spoilers.
They had a montage of the actors, along with main plot snippets from the first and second movies -- to serve as pipe for this third movie, I'm guessing. Do you guys reckon that Topher Grace and Tobey Maguire look quite similar, and that James Franco (especially when he's doing the angry "YOU KILLED MY FATHER!!" thing) looks a whole lot like Chris Evans? In this one scene, JF had to stare at himself hard in the mirror, and he kept quirking his right eyebrow... it was a bit funny, and somehow I can picture Chris Evans doing that exact same thing. But anyway, back to the opening sequence. My gosh, was it long! They totally killed it with length. About 3/4 of the way through, they had a shot of the Venom symbiote crawling menacingly and foreshadowingly (symbolically?) over the web, and I thought that that was a really really cool way to open the movie...
...then the montage started again. What the hell?!
I suppose that was the first sign that Spiderman 3 was going to be far too lengthy. That's one gripe over.
So, I didn't know they were going to make Spiderman 3 into a dramedy. I know that the first two (and all other drama movies, incl. X-Men trilogy etc) had comic relief in the form of one or two snarky lines, but Spiderman 3 had what seemed like a whole 30 minutes dedicated to making the audience laugh. It became a serious dramedy at that point. I found it unnecessary and massive overkill -- if they wanted to reflect Peter Parker's change in character due to the symbiote, five minutes of succint information would've been enough. Instead, they made a mockery of his character, going as far as making him emo!
That's right, they made Peter Parker a wannabe emo. I'm not sure if they think that all that comprises an emo is the dark hair, because that's all they went for, but it was pretty obvious to me that they turned Tobey Maguire into an emo. Were they trying to reflect the "dark and twisty" (ten points if you can tell me where that came from) nature of emos? Were they trying to tell emos that being emo is okay, because if Spiderman's alter-ego can be emo, so can you? Tobey Maguire is far too chubby to be emo. I'm not trying to make fun of his weight OR emos, but during one scene where he was fighting with Harry, you could see his ab flab... nitpicking, I know, but surely if he spent all his time swinging tall buildings in a single squirt of webbing, he'd be pretty buff.
Last gripe -- the movie's over, they're wrapping things up and it's all happy... fade to black...
I'm waiting for the credits...
...oh, there's another scene, hold your horses, the movie's not over!
Scene out, fade to black...
I'm waiting for the credits...
...third time MUST be the charm, oh please tell me it is so, I'm starving and this movie has interested me for about 45 minutes out of 139...
Yay it's all happy again!
Fade to black...
Better not get up, there might be another scene...
...oh thank goodness, I have never been so happy to see credits rolling.
Surely when a movie has to fade to black three times, you know it's far too long. I acknowledge that they had to wrap up the loose ends, but I can think of another way that would've saved screentime AND got me out of there faster.
I'm not saying Spiderman 3 was a total waste of money -- the fight scenes were exhilarating and the effects were great. But I said that at the beginning. What disappointed me most was the fact that they (although I should be used to this by now) turned the character of Peter Parker into a joke, and the predictability of the plot. Script = banal, insipid, soporific. "PRODUCT PLACING" (I have no better term) THE AMERICAN FLAG = NOT PRICELESS (more like "oh.my.giddy.aunt. they.didn't.just.do.what.I.think.they.did."). They took their liberties in tweaking the comic to suit the movie, but that's no different to any other comic book movie -- after all, how are you going to fit all pivotal characters into three movies, when they've come from comic books written since the 1970s? The last shot at redemption for Marvel is now the F4 trilogy (I'm assuming they're going to have a third one)... otherwise they can just call themselves Disney.
In all that panning, I forgot to add that Venom lived up to expectations and was tres fantastico. I heart Venom (bring on Carnage, too!), big ups to Raimi for deciding to chuck him in.
Oh, I have more adjectives to describe the movie now!
Cheesy, corny... wait those two kind of sum it up quite well actually.
---------
Now that I've thought about it some more, I can't keep on editing my previous post. Hopefully this is more expanded/elaborative, and makes more cohesive sense as well.Venom -- great. I love Venom, not going to take that back. Topher Grace played him really well. But... Venom is a huge villain/kind-of-ally of Spiderman's throughout the comics! They kind of just set him up, gave his reason to be a villain, and then teamed him up with the Sandman (who had far too much screentime if they were going to have two villains) to try and kill Spiderman. It wasn't well delegated between Sandman and Venom, and I feel that even though it was good that Sam Raimi added him to the roster, they should've shifted stuff around so that it doesn't become Venom on the backburner, then some screentime as an afterthought.
Sandman -- basically just the problem of too much screentime (but that's a pretty major reason). We already know the reason why Flint Marko did what he did, yet most of his scenes were spent (I felt) cementing his motives for his crimes. We know the motive! It was obvious right from the very start, after he said THOSE LINES to his daughter (I don't want to print those lines because I don't want to spoiler anybody)... there was no need to show more of those scenes. We ARE an audience able to think and link for ourselves... at least, the majority of us are.
Some other things:
Too many rehashes of Peter being a dick. + the emo thing. Can anyone say overkill?
The truth about Harry's father. I'll just throw a key word in here: butler. You'll know what I mean when I say, "wtf... couldn't have told him sooner?? You decided to just keep that in your back pocket for the last few years?"
Okay, I'm done. I promise.
------
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Movie List
This movie list will be updated regularly with movies that I'm keen to watch, and as I cross them off the list, a link will be provided to the reviews that I write afterwards. Alongside the name, in brackets, will be the rating out of ten that I've given the film. It'll be the "master list," so to speak; all movies written about in this blog will relate back to this particular post in one way or another.
Watched (and not panned):
District B-13 (7.6/10)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (7.5/10)
Ocean's 13 (7.0/10)
Pi (8.6/10)
POTC: At World's End (7.5/10)
Stardust (9.4/10)
The Bourne Ultimatum (9.0/10)
The Invasion (7.2/10)
The Prestige (8.6/10)
Transformers (8.0/10)
Wordplay [documentary; I don't do ratings for these]
Watched (I wouldn't watch this if I were you):
Spiderman 3
Epic Movie (the farthest thing from "epic")
Blades of Glory
Hot Fuzz
No Reservations
Paris Je T'aime
Pathology
Sunshine
The Fountain
The Nines
The Quiet
The Ten
23
Because I Said So
Déjà Vu
Eagle vs. Shark
Godfather Trilogy
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Knocked Up
License to Wed
Music and Lyrics
Notes on a Scandal
Perfect Creature
Premonition
Ratatouille
The Island
The Kingdom
The Simpsons Movie
1408
Die Hard 4.0
Double Indemnity
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Stay
The Illusionist
Half Nelson
Fracture
Lars and the Real Girl
The United States of Leland
I don't even remember what these are about but they looked good at the time:
Smokin' Aces
The Good Heart
The Last Kiss
The Night Listener
The Other Side
The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Tourist
Watched (and not panned):
District B-13 (7.6/10)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (7.5/10)
Ocean's 13 (7.0/10)
Pi (8.6/10)
POTC: At World's End (7.5/10)
Stardust (9.4/10)
The Bourne Ultimatum (9.0/10)
The Invasion (7.2/10)
The Prestige (8.6/10)
Transformers (8.0/10)
Wordplay [documentary; I don't do ratings for these]
Watched (I wouldn't watch this if I were you):
Spiderman 3
Epic Movie (the farthest thing from "epic")
---------------------------------
Totally must watch, I say:Blades of Glory
Hot Fuzz
No Reservations
Paris Je T'aime
Pathology
Sunshine
The Fountain
The Nines
The Quiet
The Ten
23
Because I Said So
Déjà Vu
Eagle vs. Shark
Godfather Trilogy
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Knocked Up
License to Wed
Music and Lyrics
Notes on a Scandal
Perfect Creature
Premonition
Ratatouille
The Island
The Kingdom
The Simpsons Movie
1408
Die Hard 4.0
Double Indemnity
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Stay
The Illusionist
Half Nelson
Fracture
Lars and the Real Girl
The United States of Leland
I don't even remember what these are about but they looked good at the time:
Smokin' Aces
The Good Heart
The Last Kiss
The Night Listener
The Other Side
The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Tourist
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