Disjointed Digression

This weekend my parents came to visit. We had a good time. Since my father is a motorcycle nut, he wanted to go see The World’s Fastest Indian. Of course the movie was not playing in Beaumont yet, but was playing here in Austin.
The World’s Fastest Indian is the story of Burt Munro of Invergargill New Zeland and his first trip to the Bonneville salt flats in Utah. Burt took his modified 1920 Indian motorcycle to Bonneville, to try to break the speed record. Oh yeah, Burt was in his early 60′s when he went to break the record.
Going into the movie, I didn’t know anything about Burt Munro, or his trip to Bonneville on his heavily modified 1920 Indian motorcycle.
I don’t want to give away much about the movie. What I will say is that this movie is a very good movie. The story is great, and well acted. This was a movie that I would not have picked to go see, but I am very glad I went to see it! I highly recommend catching it when you can.

Dead Man
Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch, this is the story of meek account who becomes an outlaw overnight in the old west. Johnny Depp plays the accountant. There are small parts played by John Hurt, Robert Mitchum, Gabriel Byrne, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, Billy Bob Thronton and Crispin Glover. All in Black and White.
I’ve only seen one other movie by Jarmusch and that was Ghost Dog a good movie, but not great imo. Dead Man is an odd film. The story is pretty straight forward, but the telling seems a bit convoluted. Depp turns in a mediocre performance, as does most of the cast. The only exceptions would be John Hurt and Michael Wincott, both of them are very in character and are believable. Even though 121 minutes does not seem long, the film drags on in places. There are spurts of action in among the lulls of odd dialog between Depp’s character and a Native American character called “Nobody”. A few gruesome laughs are thrown in for good measure. I think I wanted to like the film, but in the end I just can’t say that I do. Unless you are a huge Jim Jarmusch fan, or really like Johnny Depp, I’d say it’s best to forget it.

Serenity
I became a fan of Firefly a few months ago. So on Sunday I went to see Serenity. If you have never seen the show, you can go see the movie and enjoy it. In my opinion, you will enjoy it more if you have not seen the show. When you see the movie, you’ll laugh, you’ll hurl, you’ll cry. It’s a good movie. I think I went into it expecting a bit too much. Because the TV show had high production values and each episode was like watching a movie, the experience I got from seeing Serenity was that it was like a 2 hour episode of the show. That is not bad. I don’t want to spoil the movie, but I will say that there were a few things that I didn’t agree with and that made me upset. Other than those things, it was a good movie. I recommend it, even if you have not seen Firefly

The Warriors
On Monday night I watched this classic film. It might be a cult classic even. I’m not sure what classifies a movie as a cult classic. But I digress… The Warriors if you are unfamiliar with it, as I was, is the story of a New York gang called the Warriors and their trek from a botched truce meeting in the Bronx to Coney Island with all the other New York gangs out to get them. The movie came out in 1979, and even though it shows its age (there is a scene where some couples get on the subway looking like they just came from the Disco) it’s a good story and fine film. The Warriors doesn’t have a lot if any big names, the only person I recognized was the actor who played T-Bird in The Crow. It’s a movie that is action oriented. There is not much in the way of social commentary or anything like that. Knowing that was how the film was going to be, I enjoyed it. There are some good fight sequences. I recommend it as a rental.

Gunner Palace
From gunnerpalace.com the internet home for the movie:
“GUNNER PALACE reveals the complex realities of the situation in Iraq not seen on the nightly news. Told first-hand by our troops, ‘Gunner Palace’ presents a thought provoking portrait of a dangerous and chaotic war that is personal, highly emotional, sometimes disturbing, surprisingly amusing … and thoroughly fascinating.”
Honestly I watched this movie, not expecting anything. What Gunner Palace shows is the daily life of an Army unit that was trained literally to blow stuff up (it’s an artillery unit hence the name “The Gunners”) working as police/peacekeepers. The daily life consists of watching out for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) while on patrol, acting as police, and at night listening to the motars fall short of the palace they are staying in. A palace that once belonged to Uday Hussein, but now is bombed out and a headquarters.
The movie is pretty good in making you see how tough these soldiers have it, and their occasional R&R (sometimes in the palace pool). It made me glad I’m not there.
If you are looking for a movie that shows you firefights with people dying, there is none of that in this film. To be honest the raids the soldiers went on reminded me more of Cops than anything else. Most times the intelligence they were given was wrong and they came up empty handed. Mostly this movie is about the soldiers, how they survive in Iraq, and what they think about. There are numerous segments where the filmmaker asks the soldiers questions, and they give honest answers. This film is not a flag waving exercise, but at the same time, none of the soldiers out right say they don’t like the government (of course, I would never bad mouth employers on the clock and on camera either.) There are some humorous scenes, a lot of tense scenes and a few that bring it home that some of these soldiers did not make it home alive.

Overall I think it’s a good look into the lives of soldiers in Baghdad. It’s good not great, but I recommend it!

Nochnoy dozor
aka Night Watch

I’d seen the trailer for Night Watch a while back and was wondering when it was going to come out. When I first watched the trailer, I didn’t know it was a Russian film. Not that I have any problem with that, I just overlooked the fact. Also I can’t seem to find out when it is supposed to come out to theaters here in the US. Neither the Apple trailer site here, nor the official site seem to have an actual release date. That’s quite annoying! Through the wonders of the web, (read as Ebay) I got my hands on this movie. It has been out in Russia since last year. The DVD I got is the movie in Russian with English subtitles.
I told you that story to tell you this one…
Let me say this first, I liked this movie. But it is one of those movies where the trailer seems to promise more than the film actually delivers. It looks like they took a page right out of Hollywood’s book on that score. Night Watch is a story of good versus evil, where two factions the Light Watch and the Night Watch keep a balance between the two. The forces of evil are represented by mainly witches and vampires, the forces of good have good wizards and shapeshifters. On both sides these paranormal humans are referred to as Others. A la Underworld and Blade these Others walk among the rest of humanity and no one notices. The story is centered around Anton who “works” for the Night Watch (those of the Light side that keep the dark in check). I don’t want to give away too much of the story. The story is good, a little confusing in parts, but good nonetheless.
To be honest, when I found out it was Russian, I thought that the quality might be a little less than what Hollywood churns out. Thankfully I was wrong on that part. Night Watch has the quality of any movie coming out of Hollywood, actually better than some of those. The special effects are done very well and are reminiscent of The Matrix and The Ring. Now that I think about it, it seems like this might be the horror/fantasy equivalent of The Matrix. Night Watch is supposed to be the first part in a trilogy, I just hope the next two movies are as good as this one and don’t follow The Matrix down the bad sequel path.
When it comes out near you, I’d recommend Night Watch, but maybe as a matinee.

As one of the reviews on Rottentomatoes.com said
“You could do a whole lot worse if you’re looking through generic science fiction or disaster movies, but Steven Spielberg’s standards are usually much higher than this.”
– Brian Webster, APOLLO GUIDE

I agree War of the Worlds is a good sci-fi, FX laden summer blockbuster, but it falls short of what I’ve come to expect from Spielberg. Of course you have to take into account that the movie tried to stay true to the novel that was written in 1898. It even went so far as to include the intro from the novel in the beginning of the film. Of course the movie updated the story to the 21st century, and did it fairly well. I don’t remember the novel very well, but I’m fairly sure that the movie was close to it. As close as an updated story can be I guess. The bad thing is that what I remember about the novel is that when I finished reading it I thought “Oh, that’s it then? That was…not so good.” When I left the movie I felt the same way. The acting was… moderately ok. But then people are not going to see this movie expecting to see an oscar worthy performance from actors, people will expect to see special effects that are oscar worthy. In this sense, the movie does not disappoint. The special effects made the movie for me. I really enjoyed it the explosions, the Tripods, the aliens, the battles. I wanted to like it more than I did, but as the Rolling Stones say “You can’t always get what you want…” If you are up for a summer blockbuster that will require you not only to suspend you disbelief but to leave your disbelief at home then catch War of the Worlds. One of the good things is that I saw this movie as a matinee, which I recommend if you are to go see it. The other good thing was that I got to see a trailer for King Kong! I didn’t know that Jack Black was going to be in this movie, or that there is a scene (in the trailer) that is almost right out of a Liberty Meadows comic!

I finally got around to seeing Batman Begins this past Friday. From the commercials I know that the villains would be the Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul. I know something about the Batman comic books, but I don’t profess to be an aficionado. I do have a vague memory of reading Batman Year One which has a similar story to the movie. The story is of how/why Bruce Wayne becomes Batman.
As for the movie itself…
It is the best Batman movie ever. The cinematography was very good. The acting was good for the most part. The effects were good and the story was good. The casting was good for the most part.
The casting
Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman was much better than Clooney or Keaton or Kilmer.
Michael Caine as Alfred was a good choice, but I think an unknown could have been better.
Liam Neeson was a good choice, but the role reminded me of his role The Phantom Menace.
Gary Oldman was Sgt. Gordon. They had him looking the part and he played it very well.
Cillian Murphy (of 28 Days Later fame) played Dr Crane and played him very well.
Katie Holmes as the love interest. Katie is cute and all, but any of the popular young actresses could have played this part.
The acting was well done on all counts, except for the love interest. Katie Holmes did an alright job, but that part could have been played by any actress.
Like I mentioned about the story reminded me of Year One. I really liked the story, it showed how Bruce Wayne was not just a billionaire playboy but is a man who makes mistakes, has feelings, in short they make him fairly well rounded. Of course it is based on the comic so there is the fantastical aspect of it.
The special effects were very good. The Equipment that Batman uses is based on mostly feasible military equipment.
I really enjoyed the movie. It blows away all the other Batman movies. The other movies, seemed to try to keep some of the camp of the 60s TV show in them, this movie did not. This movie went after the “grim and gritty” version of Batman that Frank Miller made popular in Batman Year One.
If you see Batman Begins, don’t expect another weird romp through Gotham city that is a slightly dark funhouse mirror version of the campy 60s TV show. It does have good action, and is a fun movie. I highly recommend seeing Batman Begins! If you are looking for an action movie you won’t be disappointed. But if you are looking for someone trying to recreate the Adam West Batman, then this isn’t the movie you are wanting.

[Listening to: Eye Of The Beholder - Metallica - ...And Justice for All (06:30)]

You would think that a cast that included two Academy Award Winners as part of a really good ensemble cast would be better than average. Sadly it was not.

In which I look at my experiences with some mediocre to plain horrible films…

Well, just so you know, I have seen Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith. I haven’t said much about it. I figured most of you have seen it already and formed your own opinions.