Watching the New World was a bit like watching a ballet. Everything is said in gestures and movement. The words spoken in the dialogue and voice-overs evoke the feelings that these things embody. It’s not a movie for everyone. You have to be patient while watching. You have to watch and listen.
In one of the final scenes, Pocahontas meets John Smith after they have been apart for years. During her separation from John Smith, she has wed John Rolfe and has had a child with him. She meets John Smith to resolve her feelings for him. There are no tears or confessions of undying love. They simply walk together. She asks him if he found his Indies. He replies, “I think I sailed past them.� The camera cuts to a shot of her as she smiles gently, bows her head to him, turns around and walks away. Had this been any other movie, there would have been tears and lofty words exchanged. But not so here. The words are not important.
Two other points of interest: one about the music, and another about Pocahontas’ name. If you listen to the score and the sound design, you will notice that the movie begins and ends with sounds from the forest. Instead of fading the movie in and out with a score, those sounds are used. When there is a score to be heard, it seems unfinished. The music builds and then repeats. It will swell for a moment and then you expect it to finish, but instead it just ends. It has no resolution. An interesting choice that serves to remind us – as that final shot of the trees stretching into the sky does – that perhaps there is always that potential for more. I also found it interesting that the name Pocahontas is never used in the movie. She is never called by that name or referred to by it. She is only called Rebecca after she is baptized. I thought it was an interesting choice. Is that name so burdened by meaning that it can’t be use? Or is it because of some other reason?
Finally, since I can’t write a movie blog without making a comment that is completely beside the point…who would you chose: Colin Farrell or Christian Bale? I obviously didn’t know the story very well and was surprised when she married John Rolfe, who Christian Bale played. I was surprised again when she was faced in the end with the choice of John Rolfe or John Smith. Would that be a hard decision in real life? Imagine, you’re married to Christian Bale. The two of you have a son. Colin Farrell, your former love, comes to pay you a visit. Do you run off with him or stick with your husband? How is it even fair that you have to choose between the two?
Do you want to know my answer? I would choose the man I was married to and who I had a family with and not the one who ran off on me when things became too complicated. And I wouldn’t make this decision just because it is the right thing to do. I would do it because love is a far more complicated thing than just desire. It is trust and companionship. Ugh, I’m starting to make myself sick! What I would really be thinking is that I’d really like to sleep with Colin Farrell but I’ll take Christian Bale instead.
Anyway, ladies – or men – write in your decision on the Colin Farrell or Christian Bale choice and why you would make it.
If I were to try to categorize Brotherhood of the Wolf, I would call it a French kung-fu, monster movie. This may seem like a rather unusual categorization, but there really is no other way to describe it. The story takes place in 18th century France, before the French Revolution. The Gevaudin region in France is besieged by a beast that kills women and children. Chevalier de Fronsac and his Native American friend Mani travel to the region to uncover the truth about the beast.
It is a stylish movie. One of the more interesting cinematic tricks employed is the use of slow motion and freeze frames. These are used during the action sequences and during the scenes when the beast attacks. The freeze frames are used to focus in on an expression on a face in order to convey a particular emotion, which is of course almost always one of fear. The slow motion and freeze frames used during the fight scenes add drama as well as impact to some of the blows that are landed. But what I love best about this movie is how well the mixture of genres works. And the story is really quite interesting.
One thing to note about the DVD, the English dubbed version matches the English subtitles in the French version almost exactly. This isn’t often the case. Try watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with English subtitles while it’s dubbed. The two do not match and will sometimes give you completely different story information.
By the way, this movie is rated R and is not recommended for the kiddies. Or for people who are a bit squeamish about blood. There isn’t a lot of blood, but there is enough.
Underworld Evolution has more blood, more gore, more dismemberings, more violence, more hideously ugly monsters, more, more, more than the first movie. Some may read that and think, "Well, that doesn't seem like a good movie if it's just a bunch of gore and violence." If you're thinking that, then this movie isn't for you. There is one sex scene. It's not a very good one and seems to be all about Kate Beckinsdale's stomach. Now that you know that it's in there, does that help any?
The one mistake that the director makes in this movie - other than killing off the only good looking man in the movie during the first act - is that he tells what is going to happen in the plot before it actually happens. For example, Selene is battling William, the first Lycan. She throws exploding projectiles at him and misses. They stick to the ceiling of the cave that they are in. The projectiles explode and leave a large gaping hole. There is a high angle shot that shows a helicopter, the hole, and the cave below. The helicopter, with Michael in it, circles above the hole. If you were wondering how Michael was going to get into the cave and help Selene, well, there it is. He's going to jump down that hole. After he comes back from the dead of course. A few scenes later, sure enough, he jumps down the whole to enter the fray. That one shot is a tell. Because most of the ending was so predictable, it was not very scary. But it was rather fun to watch, if you could pickup on the tells that the director was using. In some ways, this movie reminded me of From Dusk 'Til Dawn. Although with that movie, you know that they weren't trying to be too serious about the gore and violence.
PS I discovered while watching this movie is that impalings and spinny, choppy blade things that chop off body parts really disturb me. Out of all of the stabbings, shootings, decapitations...well, you get the idea, that is what bothered me. They should all bother me but they don't, which is disturbing in some ways. I also couldn't figure out where Selene kept getting all the clips for her gun. She'd just reach behind her and there they were. Was she just pulling them out of her ass or what? I didn't see any place in that leather suit for spare clips. Did you?
A white cop decides pull over a black couple on their way home from a party because he suspects that they were “up to something.� The wife complains about the stop being racially motivated. Because she complains, the white cop makes them both stand on the curb while he frisks them. He fondles the wife while the husband watches, powerless to stop him. A white woman grabs her white husband’s arm and pulls him away from the two black men who are approaching them on the street. The black men follow the white couple to their car and carjack them. These are just two situations in the realm of human interactions, in which people encounter each other, their differences and react based on their prejudices. Crash not only explores these interactions, it also explores how each one of us can easily do the right thing or the wrong thing at any moment. It is a movie that will make you think about racism and your own prejudices. After you watch this movie - I recommend watching it with someone so you can discuss it afterwards - watch the behind the scenes feature. Listen to what the director, screenwriter, and producer have to say about this film. Did you get it? Did you understand what they were trying to say in this film?
Crash attempts explore the subject of racism and portray it honestly. It does so by weaving together several different story lines. They are all compelling stories, but the one that I liked the best was the one that involved the locksmith. The locksmith is a Latino man. When he first appears, he is fixing the locks for the woman who was carjacked. His tattoos peek out beneath his t-shirt. The woman notices them and complains to her husband. She automatically assumes he is a gang member and wants the locks changed again before the locksmith can sell their keys to his gang member friends. When the locksmith finishes the job, he puts the keys on the counter. The keys sit there on the counter, framed in a close up. Will he sell a copy or is the woman being prejudiced? You are left to wonder. In each of the subsequent scenes that he appears, you wonder if he will sell those keys.
When I watched this movie, it reminded me of a discussion I once had with a co-worker of mine about racial stereotypes in movies. He claimed that in movies where the bad buy is black and the white guy is the hero, there are no racial stereotypes. He said that I was reading too much into it by suggesting that there are any. He went on to tell me that racism doesn’t exist as it did when I was growing up. He seemed to imply that racism didn’t exist at all and that I was holding on to ideas that were no longer relevant. He couldn’t see that the stereotypes existed in the movie, but they were there. Are you a racist if you see it? He seemed to be implying that. Racism still exists, but people pretend that it doesn’t. It is in our daily lives, in movies, television, music…it exists everywhere. The problem now is that it is more insidious. It lingers just below the surface. It exists in a gesture or a glance, in things that can be easily ignored or rationalized by most people. There may not be laws that segregate us anymore. Our thoughts and behavior do it for us.
I cried through most of Brokeback Mountain. I expected that I would. I even brought tissues. It was as beautiful and as sad as I expected it to be. What I wasn’t expecting was the general feeling of sadness that lingered for the rest of the day after I saw the movie. It’s only a movie, so why did I feel so sad? It’s most likely because Ang Lee is one hell of a director who knows how to make movies that are more than just cheap entertainment.
It’s difficult to pick one scene in this movie to exemplify how good Ang Lee is at his job. So many things worked so well in this movie. The music was simple but effective throughout. Did you notice that Ennis and Jack never talked to one another indoors? Anything they ever said to one another was said outside and was mostly said when they were together in the mountains. But one of the most powerful things that Ang Lee did in the movie was use flashbacks. There were only three that I recall. One was of Ennis’ recollecting when his father showed him the maimed and murdered body of a man who was suspected of being a homosexual. A second one was of Jack recalling a bittersweet moment between himself and Ennis up on Brokeback. And finally, it’s not a flashback per se, but a brief moment from Ennis’ inner point of view. It occurs when Ennis calls Jack’s wife to find out how he died. She is telling him how it happened and Ennis has this brief vision of Jack being beaten to death. If you ever wondered while you were watching this movie why Ennis never moved to Texas to be with Jack, that moment right there summarizes the reason.
I also think that this movie made me feel sad because it was a terrible tragedy that Ennis and Jack couldn’t be together. They truly loved each other but society and their own fears kept them apart. How awful is that? I realize that some people have overcome that fear and have been able to love in spite of the obstacles that society has made for them. But you know that these barriers still exist for homosexuals and probably will for some time.
This movie also had some personal significance for me. I have a relative that is a lesbian. As a kid, she could never come to any of my school events because – this was the excuse that I was given by my parents – if anyone found out about it, I would be picked on or ostracized at school. It was hard for me to understand that rationale. I didn’t care if anyone knew, but obviously, the stigma of homosexuality was real and frightening to my parents. Watching this movie makes me again wonder how people can be so judgmental about such a simple thing as love. Does it really matter the gender of the person you love? I hope that some day it will not.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was fun, fun, fun. My favorite parts were when the puppet display burned. Ever been to any of the Disney theme parks? If you have you will love that scene. It was also brilliant when the puppets then reappeared in the puppet hospital and burn unit – a recent development. Johnny Depp was fantastic in this movie. After this movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Finding Neverland, I will never doubt his skill as an actor again. Actually, I couldn’t watch films that he appeared in for a long time because I saw Edward Scissorhands about 100 times while I worked in a movie theater. I have a similar issue with Julia Roberts but hopefully I won't ever get over that.
My one question about this movie is why did everything have to make sense and be explained? Did we have to know where the Oompa Loompas came from? Did we have to understand why Willy Wonka smiles the way he does and has perfect teeth? It seems rather strange to have to come up with a logical explanation for everything in the story. Isn’t it supposed to me whimsical? There’s a brief scene in the movie where Willy Wonka and the remaining children encounter a room where candy is being shot out of cannons and explodes into sparks as they are riding in the glass elevator. Mike Teavee comments that nothing makes sense in the room. Charlie retorts that candy doesn’t need to make sense. So why did everything in this movie have to make sense? I guess I don’t mind, but it would have been okay to think that Willy Wonka was just kinda weird instead of getting some psychological explanation for his quirks.
I should have read the DVD jacket for the Brothers Grimm before I watched the movie. I was expecting to see and action picture, which this movie really isn’t. Had I read the credits and who the director was. I probably would have actually understood the movie a little better. Why? About halfway through the movie, I thought to myself that this film was trying to be like the Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Duh! Of course it was. It was by the same director, Terry Gilliam. Okay, now I get it.
Even though I do get it now, it still wasn’t a very good movie. It just wasn’t right. The dialogue, the acting, everything was just a little off. For example there is this bizarre scene in which the brothers have been caught by the general. The general tries to get information from them about the nature of the disappearances in a village by threatening to kill Angelika. He has her chained inside a wash tub that is sitting below giant spinning blades. A tiny cute little kitten walks by his feet. He kicks the kitten and it gets chopped apart by the blades. Blood and flesh fly around the room. Some of it hits the general in the face. He waves off his valet who tries to wipe it off, picks the piece of flesh off his face, and eats it. He gives a small grin of satisfaction after he’s done so. It’s not funny. It’s not even gross, it’s sickening. Would I have thought it was funny if I had known Terry Gilliam was the director right from the start? I will never know. But even now knowing he is the director, I don’t like it. My son liked it though without knowing anything about the movie. Perhaps my own preconceived notions about the film got in the way of me enjoying it.
One other bad thing about this movie: Matt Damon. He is terrible. Someone please get him a contract for the next Jason Bourne movie. Please!
I have only walked out of two movies in my life. Considering the number of movies I have seen, this is a very small number. The first movie I walked out of was Ali. I didn’t leave because it was a terrible movie. I had to leave because the hand-held camera work was making my friend Cathie sick. The second movie I walked out of was this one. I walked out after about an hour. I couldn’t watch this movie. It was terrible. Peter Jackson is not a subtle film maker, but this movie was beyond reason.
What finally made my friend Cathie, our two sons and I get up and leave after enduring over an hour of this movie? It was the brontosaurus stampede through the canyon. Why was that scene even in the movie? It was ridiculous. People running in between giagantic legs, velociraptors running around, cliff sides that crumble under the stampede and only four people are killed. Four! How did anyone survive? Not only was this scene incredibly long and seemingly pointless – why have this scene unless you plan on killing off the extras - the special effects were awful. For a film that was supposed to have fabulous special effects, this scene clearly did not live up to that expectation. What amazes me is that this film still keeps popping up as one of the top films each week. How can anyone endure it? If you were able to sit through this movie, tell me how you did it and why. And if you haven't see it yet, don't bother.