July 28, 2010
The boys and I are visiting my folks this week. And on our last night here Papa made me watch a movie. Now movie watching is highly problematic for a mother of young children. You stuff them into bed and then must storm into the bedroom about 6 dozen times to plop their little bodies back into bed and lecture them sternly about the consequences of escape. But after much storming they finally settled down and I was able to get into the movie, “Cinderella Man”, about a boxer in the depression era who gets a second chance to be great. It is a true story and he faces the tall and fierce Max Baer of Abbot and Costello fame (Baer played the giant in Abbot and Costello’s version of Jack and the Beanstalk) and lives to tell about it. Apparently Baer killed two men in the ring. And after the movie Papa exhorted to to keep getting up, to keep writing and keep getting better, and that he believed that I had the talent to get one of these stories published some day. I don’t know if I do, but I’ll still be writing, 6 days a week, all year long. And it sure means a lot that he thinks I do though, a whole lot.
Although, if the publishers start slaughtering folk on pay per view for bad query letters, I might have to rethink my approach. Truly, boxing is an insane form of entertainment.
June 16, 2010
When we were over at my folks for the big zoo journey I got the chance to go see a movie with my Papa. We caught an 8:30 showing of “Prince of Persia” in Federal Way and also had dessert. Yum!
Now to the movie.
I was thrilled with all of the authentic seeming architecture and armor and marvelous costumes. Ancient Assyria is my area of interest and so Persia has several hundred years of technological improvements but in the ancient world these kind of things occurred slowly and were mainly in the area of war time equipment. Different metals for their blades, different ways of using cavalry, seige technique, that sort of thing. So there were still Lion Colossi and similar guardian statues and fun dusty market places and the costuming was just a bit different but very fun to see and watch.
Now the movie is based upon a video game and is just a hair over the top. Something like “Clash of the Titans” in it’s feel but less monsters and more intrigue. Our hero leaped about the market roof to roof window to window and climbed amazing things and I loved the way they attacked the fabled city and gained entrance. Very cool. There is much slaughter. If that bothers you don’t watch. Some really funny parts involving illegal ostrich racing though.
The plot was great, the love story was great, all in all a fun flick. There was one group of pseudo-satanic, snake throwing assassins that I would have made less creepy. Too much nasty chanting and snake communing and snake tossing. And the part where a flock of vipers launched out of the desert sand like smart missiles into a group of helpless victims was less than realistic. I think one would have to be a mad scientist with a fair amount of prep time to make that actually occur. And even then your vicious vipers would probably get all mushed in the process.
So, to sum it up. Great costumes. Lots of action. Lots of Fun. But less of the snakes and creepy snake men would be preferable. A good flick for the right audience.
February 24, 2010
I love Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief. In fact, I love his entire series. So much so that I have actually purchased all of the books that are out in paperback. I never buy books. But this last week the hunky hubby and I went on a much anticipated date and decided to view the new movie based upon this beloved novel.
Now, suspension of disbelief comes easily for me. I assess the genre and remind myself what is expected of the target audience and off I go, reading or viewing with pure rapture…most of the time. The movie was terrible! I was so sad. How could they have done this to such a marvelous book. If only they had casted 12-year-olds then the dramatic reactions and awkwardness would have felt realistic. If only they hadn’t shown the gods as 20 story behemoths stomping about in the surf and rampaging. If only they had taken their dialogue from the book, it would have been snappy and hilarious instead of painfully awkward. If only they had kept just a bit of the plot out of the book. If only they had refrained from trying to squeeze the god’s into loving and involved father figures it would have been less cheesy. In the books the gods are distracted and neglectful although most of them do love their children in that philosophical kind of way common to divorced dad’s with a new trophy wife and twenty-six polished sports cars. But the movie made them all gushy and fake. Why why why?
The positives. Percy Jackson was cute, too old but cute. I liked Grover when he wasn’t being too annoying. The Medusa was interesting. I loved the camp. Made me want to go build a tree fort or practice archery. I liked the actor they picked for Poseidon.
The movie experience. The hunky hubby and I had a wonderful time laughing at the movie and slapping our foreheads in horror at the actor’s awkward attempts at greatness. We had a wonderful dinner at the Old Spaghetti factory, bought some of the Percy Jackson books at Barnes and Noble, drooled over their new e-reader the Nook, and ate chocolate and root beer while reading the aforementioned Percy Jackson books in order to cleanse our pallets from all that cheese.
November 22, 2009
A good friend and I drove over the mountains, went shopping, spent over an hour loitering in a specialty tea store, and met my lovely sister and company to attend an afternoon showing of the long awaited “New Moon.” We loved it! The movie was hilarious the whole way through. Edward entered the scene walking slo-mo through the Forks High parking lot in all of his cold skinned, mussy haired, blood slurping glory. There was an abundant amount of longing glances and glitter as well as a bit of vomit and some earsplitting nightmares.
Thank goodness they didn’t lose the cheese factor in this one. We were able to spend a fair share of time giggling over Bella’s gasping and sporadic breathing whenever Edward was within 100 yards and of course her floating near dead in the waves next to a psychological imprint of Edward that kept popping up in her head.
Jacob Black did steal the show and cause a few of the more susceptible 12-year-olds to swoon when he ripped off his shirt and flexed his bi-ceps right under Bella’s nose in order to press the cottony shirt against a recent head wound she had acquired.
I loved the scene where the wolves devoured Laurant. Very cool. Oh and the wolves wrestling reminded me of my Beloved dog Shamu and so that got a thumbs up from me.
A marvelous movie experience. Vampires, wolves, swooning, head wounds, floating watery dances with imaginary boys after a recent cliff dive, it had it all. So fun.
But to really get the play by play of this…epic… piece of cinematography you must read my lovely sister’s painfully precise review. She was able to remeber every excruciating detail where as I recall a lot of laughing, popcorn nibbling, and choking on beverages. She is gifted enough to give her longing audience an exact outline of the multitude of reasons that caused our delightful movie experience.
May 31, 2009
The hunky hubby and I recently saw the new Star Trek movie. We both left the theater quite pleased. A pre-quel is always a tricky sort of thing. Will I be able to jump into the world and believe it? Can they take beloved characters that are out of date and modernize them while still retaining those aspects that made us love them in the first place?
But they did. The casting was amazing, they really did look a lot like younger versions of the 1960′s characters. Not exactly of course, but I was able to jump right in. And Kirk had that same swagger. He even copied some of William Shatner’s classic movements. The way he walked onto the bridge. The way he would turn. The young Spock was great. They even picked someone with almost exactly the same build as the old Spock. His posture, the way that his shoulders and back looked in the uniform were exactly the same. Not sure how they did that, but I watched a good deal of Star Trek when I was 12 and was madly in love with both Spock and Checkov and I swear to you that Spock’s shoulder blades were exactly the same.
They saved some of the silliness from each character. Their repeatable lines. Bones McCoy’s hatred of space flight. Checkov’s mispronunciations. And the special effects were glorious. Fun creatures trying to eat Kirk. A great bad guy. A “Space Walk” that was the epitome of understatement. I loved it. We both decided that we shall be purchasing this movie immediately upon its release. It just felt the same and yet avoided some of the geekiness from the old series. But not too much of the geekiness. If you took it all out that would be a terrible terrible mistake. I felt that they got the balance just right.
In fact that was the problem that I had with Star Trek the Next Generation. They tried to remove all of the silliness. All of the geekiness. It was all so serious all of the time, so intense that I would think: “Oh come on! We know that this isn’t real anyway. Just get over yourself and throw out one of those disembodied heads floating in space that has sworn to wreak havoc upon the known universe.” And then the problem that I had with the movies (which in general I like by the way) is that Captian Kirk was and is and always should be an Arrogant, Reckless, Womanizer, who manages to blaze through the universe on little more than bluster and an excess of testosterone. It is hard to do that in a movie where he is older and wiser and lumpier. I don’t want older wiser Kirk. I want the arrogant jerk that I loved and hated from my youth. This movie brought him back, and for that I will be forever grateful.
And they were very very tricky. Since the bad guy entered the past at the moment of Captain Kirk’s birth and altered the future, now everything is different. The old series, that happened in an unaltered future where Kirk had a father and a brother and Spock had a mother, that old reality is forever lost. But the movie that we just saw, it occurs in a changed world. Forever altered by a madman bent on revenge, the possibilities for the future… So as long as they keep the characters believably similar to the old ones, anything is possible. Even the characters have been changed by the death of various parents and worlds. Inconsistencies with the past series are no longer a problem, because the reality that we saw as re-runs when “we” were 12 has been forever changed. The future is limitless! Trekkies Unite!
To see my lovely sister’s review of this movie please click here. Just to warn you though…She’s not a Trekkie. And her post just might contain some sacralidge.
