So I just watched the
Manchurian Candidate
remake.
How did they take an exciting thriller and make it so damn
boring
?
I feel like it was ineptly made, or I just hated all the directorial choices. Like the fact that half the shots were the character
right in the middle of the frame, facing the camera.
Often talking to the camera in the process of addressing a character. There were a couple times where it seemed intentional, for effect, but it happened so many times for no apparent reason that it felt like Demme had never made a movie before or something. Plus, the constant fade-outs were weird. It's like the movie had zero momentum. It was sort of a mess. I don't get it. I remember being really impressed with how good the original was.
Some alternative marketing for 300. I cracked up at the visual the creator chose for the first chorus.
Pena, for LONE STAR if nothing else (and there is more)
God do I love that movie! Now that I've actually been to that part of Texas, I should probably see it again.
Finally saw PAN'S LABYRINTH and I loved, Loved, LOVED it. Put me squarely in the camp that feels that
everything that Ofelia saw really happened and the ending is a happy one. Even if there weren't two things I'd consider tells, I'd feel that way - it certainly seems more unambiguously a happy ending than CHILDREN OF MEN. But both her brief escape from Vidal in the labyrinth via the walls (though you could make a case that he was lagging due to the drugged drink), and, more tellingly, how else could she get out of her locked room in the first place. This is similar to THE SHINING (Kubrick version) in that almost everything COULD just be Jack going crazy and taking his family with him, except for who let him out of the storage locker. And even the chalk is almost a tell - where did she get the chalk if the faun didn't give it to her?
Anyway, loved it.
Saw Blades of Glory last night. I wasn't expecting much, so I wasn't disappointed. It's no Dodgeball, but it's passable. Will Ferrell and Will Arnett are both hysterical (even if Will Arnett isn't given nearly enough to do, he is the only one of the cast who can actually skate). Jon Heder continues to baffle me -- why do people think he's funny, again? Amy Poehler (no, I don't know how her name is really spelled) is also good but underused, ditto Jenna Fischer.
The plot is beyond sloppy and inane -- if you were really really drunk and The Cutting Edge was on TV, and then you wrote a parody version in your sleep, it would come out something like this.
(I actually had a much better time at it than I'm making it sound, but I wouldn't recommend anyone actually PAY to see it. Wait for the DVD, or see something good and then sneak in.)
Dnevnoi Dozor opens June 1st.
I just saw
Ein Kleid aus Warschau
(A Dress From Warsaw), the new Esther Dischereit film. It was pretty good, though it felt somewhat underdeveloped.
I just got back from seeing Paprika, which was a very strange movie.
If you've seen Kon's other work (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress), the imagery here will be very familiar, but it's been distilled down into its purest and trippiest form, and stripped of all but the barest outlines of a movie. (Like, there's a police investigation at the heart of it, but it becomes clear pretty early on that the stolen device is merely flobotanum, and the scifi details of how it works and why it's dangerous may be safely ignored.)
Still, highly recommend for anyone who's liked Kon's other work. Some of the images here are breathtakingly gorgeous, and some are utterly creepy in a very anime kind of way (read: young women and tentacles). Sometimes both in the same frame!
Dnevnoi Dozor opens June 1st.
Shit, dude. That looks fifteen times cooler than
Night Watch,
the "Chalk of Fate" notwithstanding.
