Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I was going to say, much was made of Gael Garcia Bernal learning Spanish Spanish for that latest Almodóvar movie (he is Mexican). Because if he hadn't, it would have sounded silly to the audience in Spain.
(Banderas's accent in Spanish is pure southern Spain, and his English doesn't sound Mexican-accented at all.)
But I'm not sure as how Rodriguez is making movies for a Spanish-language audience of any nationality; the Spanish in his movies always seems incidental. Also, Rodriguez always seems cheerful about the hilarious lack of logic in his movies. In
The Faculty,
the invading aliens have conveniently read several classics of SF literature and obeyed their irrational assumptions.
One of the more interesting cases of racially-blind casting is the upcoming film Alatriste with Viggo Mortensen (Danish/generic American heritage) playing a 17th-century Spanish mercenary. Even if he does speak fluent Spanish, it's Argentinian dialect, not old-world Spanish.
I'm not sure as how Rodriguez is making movies for a Spanish-language audience of any nationality
El Mariachi
was made specifically for the Spanish-speaking market.
eta: International Batman Begins poster
Huh. Lots of bats.
Why did Batman pick the bat as his theme, anyway? In the first Batman movie (not counting the '60s one) he says, "Because bats know how to survive." Um, OK. So do bears, squid, and giant turtles. Tell me there's a better explanation in the comics....
In the original 1940 Detective Comics, Bruce Wayne is pondering a disguise and is thinking, "Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible..." Then a bat flies in a window, and in a completely nonsuperstitious way, Bruce Wayne says, "It's an omen. I shall become a bat!"
OK, that actually makes sense.
Good thing it wasn't a pigeon that flew in the window....
Saw Blade III tonight. I enjoyed it. It wasn't the greatest movie ever, but having watched the first two Blade movies this afternoon before hand, it was no better or worse than they were, IMO.
As far as Hero is concerned, it was one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. However, I do think it dragged a bit in parts. There were a few too many long, lingering shots and I got really sick of the repeated close ups of sword blades dipping into water during the one fight scene.
Good thing it wasn't a pigeon that flew in the window....
Someone, I think it was Mad Magazine, did a "What if" play on that with various creatures. The last panel had a spider hanging from Bruce's window.
Saw
Ocean's 12.
I was distinctly underwhelmed. There are some plot points that I still don't understand, and some plot points that are astonishingly lame. Like, watch-from-the-hall lame. (The
Tess-as-Julia-Roberts
scheme. So. Lame. And not a bit funny or clever.) Also, Julia Roberts keeps getting uglier.
The menfolk, though -- still very pretty. (And -- Eddie Izzard! Though his role isn't worth $9.)
The not-boyfriend wants to see Blade: Trinity tomorrow, so I'm glad to hear it's no worse than the previous ones. I'm planning to just watch that Ryan guy.
So, I see the previews for Ocean's 12, and the scene where they're in the car, and I keep wondering if Julia Roberts is supposed to have a moustache? Because she really does.
