Review: Collapse

Watched the documentary feature Collapse last night. The film is directed by Chris Smith who is most famous for making my all time favorite documentary American Movie. If you are a filmmaker, or a lover of films American Movie is a must watch, and one of the funniest films I've ever seen. Anyways...Collapse, check out the trailer to get an idea of what's happening.



As seen in the trailer the entire film is an interview in a dark basement with one man with sprinkled archival footage. That man is Michael Ruppert and unlike American Movie, Collapse is not a comedy, unless you have a very deep dark sense of humor. Some may find this movie incredibly boring or annoyingly one sided, but I'm just me and I found it quite reaffirming.

I've thought about the end of modern civilization for a long time in my short life. I can remember at a very early age putting two and two together in the facts of the gigantic rise in human population and our earths dwindling resources and that something radical is going to happen in the near future. This film outlines all of that clearly through Mr. Ruppert's insights. The major thing what the film doesn't do is back up most of his claims through evidence. While most of it is pretty common sense there was definitely room for supporting some of his statements. Mr. Ruppert says everything with such confidence and matter of fact speaking that most of the time you don't even notice or care that his statements aren't being backed up. I'll admit for my case it was more a matter of preaching to the choir, so I'd be interested to see what other people thought.

How the film is shot really enforces the subject matter. It's stark, dark, and ominous. Like a man hiding in a bomb shelter the interview has no sunlight or any other objects in the room. He is alone with only the directors voice off screen moving him along at some points. The slow dolly moves really draws you in as well.



Collapse has a double meaning in this film. As it's really more of a character study in the collapse of this chain smoking lonely man and his obsessive passion. By the end of the film you feel very sorry for him. Here's a guy who all he has is his dog and thoughts of doom. That's enough to drive anyone mad.

Overall it's a very interesting watch and I recommend it to everyone.

Official Website


I think it is important to note a major metaphor used in the film. It centers on the sinking of the Titanic. (the sinking of civilization...whoah) There are three kinds of people on the ship:

1: The deer in the headlights people who are running around freaked out confused and looking for direction.
2: The people who acknowledge the problem and try to find a solution.
3: The people who think the ship is unsinkable and go back to the bar.

What kind of person are you?


Do you're own research and make your own conclusions.

Review: Splice

Went out to The Grove and saw the new film Splice the other night. The film is directed by Vincenzo Natali. No that's not a bad guy from a James Bond movie, its a director from Detroit Michigan who made the 1997 film Cube (I haven't seen it yet but heard its pretty cool). Splice stars one of my favorite actors Adrien Brody who I'm wicked pumped to see next month in Nimrod Antal's Predators and Sarah Polley who was in one of the best horror remakes of all time, Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead.



The film centers on married couple of Brody and Polly who are bio chemists working. As the title infers, they are working on splicing, gene splicing. They create a hybrid creature that ages fast and of course shit hits the fan. It's kinda like Species but without the whole extra terrestrial element.

This was a pretty damn entertaining flick. Great performances from the two leads, good use of a mixture of practical and computer effects, well shot, and it went places I was not expecting at all. Really amazing scenes and sequences that just plain worked incredibly well. The tone of the film was also well laid out, it was serious but still left room for obvious comedy for the ridiculousness of what was happening. What made Splice so cool was that it is essentially a monster movie but risen to a much higher level by running themes of parenthood, child raising, plus a whole slew of ethical concerns mixed in.

Unlike most Hollywood films this is a very intimate story with only five speaking roles. Again this really raises the "monster movie" level of the film as it is a straight up character piece between the husband and wife and how they separately deal with raising their "child", the hybrid named Dren. The evolution of Dren is also really well done on an effects level and emotional level. Effects wise there are no flourishes as everything is used to continue the story and sell the character of Dren. You totally believe that this hybrid is a living breathing creature that totally existed unlike obvious CG characters plaguing our screens. On an emotional level there is a great change from creature to character as Dren having us connect with her plight.

Not to say there are no flaws of the film as there some of the dialog was a little weak. This was apparent especially in how Sarah Polley's character was written. Some of the things she said were to unrealistic and matter of fact, I understand why they did it to move the story along and keep it brief, but a couple lines just didn't work at all, but again, that's just me nitpicking. There character of the lab boss was pretty one dimensional which was annoying. Adding some depth to his character would have rounded out the cast a lot better. I also think the end could have taken the concept a little farther than it ended up doing.



This film also had one of the biggest "wtf" moments I have ever seen in a wide release film. (Lars Von Trier's Antichrist wins for all films) I really don't want to spoil what it is, so I won't even say. All I'll say is that I'm really glad that what happened, happened. It had great reactions from the rest of the crowd and it was equally as fun just seeing how other people reacted. I also really appreciate it in that it dared to do something different which is not done enough these days in main stream cinema.

Overall I really enjoyed Splice and would recommend it to anyone who likes Science Fiction and Horror films.

Review: Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is the newest Video Game to Movie adaptation in theaters brought to you by the Mouse House and Mr. Jerry Explosion Meister Bruckheimer. The film is helmed by British director Mike Newell who is famous for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Mona Lisa Smile and Four Weddings and A Funeral.

Like the video game the film is set amongst the height of the beautiful and vibrant Persian Empire. The story follows Donnie Darko as he is framed for his fathers murder and goes on a journey to prove his innocence all the while discovering the secrets of the Dagger and Sands of Time. Swords, ostriches, white chicks, Gandhi and lots of sand ensue.

First of all I was a big fan of the Prince of Persia video games. I remember playing the original 2D computer game when I was a kid at my friends house. It was sick as hell, you were just this little dude trapped in a dungeon and you had to jump over spikes and watch out for booby traps and sometimes clash swords with other dudes. It rocked. When I heard they were updating the game for the Play Station I was psyched. And when I finally played it, it was incredible. It had not only amazing art direction but revolutionary one of a kind combat and platforming action that raised the bar for all other action plat-formers to come. And by far the best aspect of the whole game was, IT WAS FUN, as a video game should be. The two sequels of that game were equally as entertaining. Thus even since the original 2D game I've yearned for a Prince of Persia film, and now it exists....



I really wish I could have loved this film. It had so much potential to be mad awesome. It's like the kid with the really cool parents but he's just kinda lame. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the movie, it kept my interest for most of the time but never rose to a level of "wow" or "that....was....awesome" that i was expecting. Sure my expectations may be a little higher than most but with a few easy changes this film would have been much better.

Change 1- My biggest gripe about the entire film was the Parkour scenes. Again like the video game I love Parkour and when its used well in films, such as Casino Royale and the French films District B13 and Yamakasi, but here it's completely ruined by the editing much like the Italian rooftop chase in Quantum of Solace. They even had the founder of parkour David Belle as the coordinator for these sequences, and they totally fuck it all up with quick cut editing and stupid jittery time remapping. Seriously, you have amazing stunt people and Jake who has been training for these sequences...let them do what they do, AND SHOW IT! STOP CUTTING! It ruins the spectacle of these great stunts because the audience looses their sense of space and direction within the frame. This just pissed me off, because again I was looking forward to sweet Parkour stunts on a grand scale but senselessly it was all destroyed by retarded editing. If you haven't seen District B-13 go check it out ASAP and see the master David Belle in action.

Change 1.5- With the extreme architecture set up for the cities they visited in the film the Parkour action scenes also could have been much more varied and interesting. Just look at all the different levels, spires, windows and everything in the city behind Jake!

Tons of possibilities to use the environment and location to do crazy Parkour stunts. But why can't they, oh yeah, because it's all fake in a damn computer. YET! 200million dollar budget they could have made some better stuff then running on top of adobe huts and markets. C'mon. Granted the first scene when Dastan climbed up the castle wall using a tree log then arrows was interesting, the rest of the film did not reach that level of creativity in the action. Which again is a major shame based on the extreme potential for what the game set up.

Change 2- The writing hurt the believability of Prince Dastan. I really do like Jake Gyllenhaal and think he's one of the best young actors around. He does a fair job in the film but the entire time I never believed him to be Prince Dastan, he was always just a buff Jake jumping around fighting people. I don't think this is the fault of Jake as an actor but simply the writing of the Character of Dastan was not very compelling in the first place. Jake just doesn't have much to work with.

Change 3- The whole white washing issue is major in the film. I really didn't mind it so much for Jake's part but for Princess Tamina played by Gemma Arterton it really bugged me. Jake could possibly pass as Persian if you squinted your eyes, this girl just looks so out of place it is ridiculous, even with the huge amount of fake bronzer put on her for some scenes. There are plenty of gorgeous Persian and Middle Eastern girls they could have chosen that would have made the film much more authentic. Yes I understand this is a fantasy film, but c'mon, give a young Middle Eastern girl a shot at the big time, not some whispy voiced English chick who likes old dudes (she just got married in RL to some 37 year old italian guy, she's 24, c'mon i'm 23 and never got a chance :/ ) LAME LAME LAME The other main actor who looked totally out of place was Jakes brother Tus played by English dude Richard Coyle. Even though Jake was suppose to be the adopted one this guy looked it more. Again, seriously, this is Prince of Persia, not Braveheart, go back home and eat your fish and chips. It's actually pretty sad we are still at this point in mainstream cinema that ethnic characters are still given to white folks. It's 2010. Get with the program. -She doesn't fool Bond-


Change 4- The "mystery" surrounding who was the real killer of Dastans father was stupid. Plain stupid. We all knew it was his uncle Gandhi from the trailers, and even the posters give it away in his ominous stare. Make him the clear and present antagonist the entire film so we don't have to have this "invasion based on information about harboring weapons of mass destruction". Yeah that allegory was also stupid. The more I think about this movie the more I don't like it.

Alright, as for the things it did well. There were some really great shots and cinematography of the desert and mountainous areas. The costumes for the most part were good. The music wasn't actually as grand as it should have been I felt. The visual effects of the cities were really well done as was the effects of the use of the Sands of Time.

Overall, it held my attention for a couple hours, but don't go into it with any hopes. Really don't take my harsh words to much to heart since my expectations were so high. If you're down for a classic adventure with a lot of flaws and have an extra ten bucks lying around go, kick back, relax, eat some Sour Patch kids and turn your brain off.

I actually would like to see a sequel to this film in hopes that they would make those necessary changes in crafting a far better film. We shall see....

The Last Actor Title Screen

Been mad busy finishing the movie.

Will be screening this Sunday at 4pm in Building 76 Auditorium on RIT Campus.

Further screenings I'll keep ya's updated.

Rock and Roll.


Dan

The Last Actor: End Credits

Been trying to figure out how to do the end credits for my movie. One idea is to just do the classic freeze frame of the main actors of the movie with their name next to it, but leading up to the final frame there would be other quick frames of similar composition but different facial expressions. Kind of like a short looping gif before the final image.




thoughts?

Helicopter!

The US Marines were here on campus today giving helicopter rides to anyone that could do 15 pull ups. Easy. So I popped my helicopter cherry. It was really awesome. Felt like I was going somewhere really important and official when i was walking up to it with the beating blades and grass blowing around like crazy.

The Last Actor: Last Day of Pickups

Shot three different locations and set ups for the intro sequence for The Last Actor: Episode I: The First Act today.

This was the first time in the films making that everything went exactly according to plan. It felt mad good. Got some really awesome footage.

Matt, Ben, Jim, and John:

Review: Green Zone

I watched the new Paul Greengrass film Green Zone at the dollar theatre this week. Again he collaborates with Matt Damon as the lead. The film follows Damon as a US Soldier who is the head of a team who's mission is to find WMD's in post-invasion Baghdad 2003. Hmmmmm I wonder what happens?



If you've been alive this decade you know exactly what happens. They don't find any WMD's. Thus the film then focuses more on the (excuse my language but this is really the only suitable way to describe it) CLUSTER-FUCK of the whole situation. Delving into the struggle between US officials trying to cover their ass while the CIA tries to find out the real truth, with you're American Joe american soldier stuck in between just following orders. Now you may say to yourself, "Wow Dan, that really sounds like an interesting and compelling film". Well, I must say to you, no, no sir or madam, it play's out in the most contrived and boring fashion I think could be put to celluloid.

The biggest problem with the film is the dialog. It sounds like it's from a student film. Every character states their exact intentions, their exact feelings at the time, what they are thinking at the moment without any filter, and to top it off in the most clichéd way possible. I know we are in a military setting where most people talk pretty straight laced but this is just ridiculous. There is absolutely no subtleness in any characters lines, we know everyone's motivations from the very beginning thus drastically getting rid of any tension that could have been made later in the film. There is no mystery. It's like reading a the alphabet. Look at the Green Zone page on IMDB, under memorable quotes... there are no memorable quotes, because they are all as stale as a 4 month old turd.

The next worst if not equal worst part of the film is the characters. Matt Damon's lead role of Miller is about the most boring person you could follow. He's about as interesting as a cup of sand. His intentions are good in the film as all he wants to do is honestly find the truth behind why they aren't finding any WMD's but he's just so boring of a person that we don't even care if he succeeds or not. Every other character is a one note stereotype. We have the intrusive female news reporter, the douche bag Government Administration liaison guy who will do anything to cover up his governments mistakes, and the good guy CIA dude who wants to find out the "truth". It's really kinda painful watching these characters interact as we know exactly what they are going to say next before they even say it. None of them are compelling and only suffice in representing broad generalizations of the groups they are part of.

As I've talked about before in other reviews and my newest film, I really have a disgust for most CG. One of my biggest pet peeves in film is the use of CG Helicopters. They 99% of the time look like total crud. It really pisses me off. When you have a 100 million dollar budget, GET SOME REAL HELICOPTERS!! Seriously. It takes me out of the movie every time. I know they can be dangerous when doing dangerous things with them, but when operated by professionals they are safer than driving a car. When you are just flying them without doing any sort of stunt or maneuver there is no reason to do it in CG. Along with this film, another film of the many that unnecessarily did this was Terminator Salvation. The very last shot of that film had two CG helicopters fly into the sunset. It made me want to punch a puppy. It was so freaking stupid I wanted to stomp McG's face in with an Iron. God dammit. Stop. Do these helicopters do a loop-d-loop? No. Do they fight a big Robot? No. They just fly away from the camera towards the sunset. FTS. Anywho, back to Green Zone, there was a scene near the end where a Helicopter got shot with an RPG and crashed which didn't look too bad. But again, you can do that practically, for example Live Free or Die Hard, Rambo First Blood Part II, Rambo III, Die Hard With a Vengeance and Black Hawk Down. All the other shots with Helicopters weren't doing anything special, just regular old helicopter stuff, yet all CG. I really don't want to talk about this anymore because it's so stupid.



Another big problem I had with the film is not the fault of the filmmakers but the people in charge of marketing and cutting the trailer. So much of the trailer is footage from the climatic third act that I already knew a lot of what was going to go down before it eventually went down. Thus again deleting tension and mystery. It should be a more common practice for trailers not to show ANYTHING from the third act of a film. Too often it ruins the movie watching experience. The Dark Knight did it completely right because it showed nothing of the final 20 min of the film in the trailers. When I saw it for the first time I thought the movie was going to end at a much earlier point then which it eventually did because I had seen all the stuff in the trailers play out, so I was like, Oh ok I guess it's almost over now. Nope. It kept going and was even more captivating because i wasn't spoiled at all from any trailer footage. Bottom line is, movie trailers show off too much of films nowadays. What ever happened to the good old "Teaser", just a couple shots, sometimes no shots at all. If you know how it all plays out before you see it, well, you might as well just read the book version, and that's always boring as fudge.

I won't delve into how it is shot. Same old Greengrass shaky cam style. It works sometimes here, other times it's annoying. As usual. The night scenes look like total crap with all the grain.

Overall, this is the Iraq War film for stupid people. It's only use would be to show it to High School kids in 20 years that are too lazy to read what happened and want a simple straight forward dumb as doorbells "story" of what went down those many years ago in a sandpit on the other side of the world.

Review: Kick-Ass

Went to the matinée at the Henrietta Regal Cinema this afternoon to see Mathew Vaughn's new film "Kick-Ass". I have not read the graphic novel by Mark Millar of the same name for which this is based. I definitely want to check them out now. Like most books I'm alright with checking out the Cinematic equivalent first.(I really love this poster, one of the best I've seen in a while)



The film follows your average high school kid Dave Lizewski. Think Peter Parker but without being smart. A big fan of comic books he begins to wonder and discuss with his friends why no one ever tried to actually be a super hero in real life. (you've seen the trailer, you know the story). He does. Shit goes down. Hard core.

I had a blast with this movie. Without a doubt the most entertaining film I've seen this year so far. From beginning to end I was completely captivated and in the movie. Not once was there a "hmmm i should check my email" or "I wonder if it's still nice outside" or "Why's the floor so sticky?" thought moments. For a movie to have this effect deserves quite the high five to the creators. First and Foremost, I'll admit that I'm dead center within the films "Target Audience" of the american young adult dreamer who likes superhero's and has an odd yet scientifically normal amount of blood-lust. I'll be honest, I've thought about being a superhero/real-life vigilante myself and have even drawn up some costumes. You could say that it's like feeding mice cheese, or monkey's bandannas or Paris Hilton STD's. Give'em what they like. I agree with that, but I feel like this film really did a lot of things right on a level beyond that.

The film was perfectly casted across the board. Aaron Johnson did an awesome job as the lead of Dave/Kick-Ass. I connected with him within the opening credits and he was totally believable the whole time as the naive superhero wannabe. The role of Kick-Ass's love interest Katie played by Lyndsy Fonseca is a great casting choice as well. She is the perfect girl next door that you instantly fall in love with when you see her on-screen. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin) plays the kid with no friends... again. With this film it works. Sure he's being typecast, but that's the character of Red Mist. Nicholas Cage brings out an excellent Adam West impression as the revenge crazy Big Daddy. One girl killing machine Hit Girl is played by the cute as button Chloe Moretz. Again, great casting of a gifted young actress who can deliver all those lewd and crude lines with a level of sincerity and reality that doesn't feel forced or cheesy.


The World where Kick-Ass resigns is grounded in a believable and relatable reality with flares of fantasy that is well within the confines of suspension of disbelief without being too extravagant. The violence is brutally real. Without spoiling anything I'll just say some serious shit goes down to our hero Kick-Ass. Stuff that would definitely happen to someone if they did decide to be a Superhero in our modern world. Not to say that all of the violence and is realistic, but there are enough realistic consequences to enforce the sense of reality needed to make the more flourishy stuff even more exciting. One of the best aspects of the film was damn fine tension. In a lot of superhero films real tension is hard to accomplish due to the fact you know there is going to be a sequel and everything will turn out fine. (a good exception is the train sequence in Spider-Man 2). Kick-Ass is not your typical kind of super hero movie, all rules are out. Characters could die at any moment. This is legit. Another thing the film go right was it's recognition of the power of the internets. People don't read the newspaper. It's 2010. Welcome. How are you? Here's a computer machine.

If you are a teenage to twentysomething American male, or ever were one and not a stuck up butt head, go see this movie. If you're not, you'll probably find this offensive and reprehensible. That's cool. I'm just saying, I enjoyed it. So it did it's job fully.

Review: Naked Lunch

Finally watched David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch all the way through today.

The book for which it is based by William S. Burroughs is now on my next to read after I finish "Cronenberg on Cronenberg". Now I don't know much about Mr. Burroughs and his writing. Cronenberg talks a lot about him in the book, and states that he is a major influence. From this small bit of exposure of the mountain of ideas and concepts in this man's head I look forward to delving into more of it.



As for the film. Now I've watched some bizarre films in my day but this definitely ranks among the top of them. It's not just the abstract and often freakish visuals but the overall concepts and themes surging below and through the images which create the ultimate sense of bizarreness. I'll admit that I do not fully grasp everything, or even most of what was "really" going on in this film.


What made Cronenberg's film adaptation really memorable is the reality for which all these odd things occur. The film is shot and directed in a way that has a sense of reality where all of this actually did occur. You really believe, "alright, so typewriters can turn into bugs and talk out of their butt holes, i can buy that". The use of practical effects is incredibly well done with the centipede processing plant, to the Mugwumps, to the Typewriters of different kinds. The main performance by Peter "Robocop" Weller is oddly hilarious as he is so nonchalant about most of the weird stuff going on in his "hallucinations". With his performance it helps the audience just accept these things within the story and continue moving on which definitely helps the overall effect. After reading the book I'll go back and see this again.

Recommended for everyone. Especially for Mugwumps and Centipede People.