Two thumbs... (the critic's lounge)

[Calavera Diablos]

UNDERWORLD

The new Vampire Vs. Werewolf/Matrix wannabe movie. I was actually very excited about going to see this movie since the creator of the Noir-esque thriller "Dark City" had worked on this stylish peice. Oh the agony...

In this movie, the Werewolves (called Lichen in the movie, where did that come from? What does fungus have to do with wolves? I'm guessing because they used to be slaves, so it was a cruel name given to their species by Vampires.) and the Vampires have been at war for the past couple thousand centuries. The Vampys have managed to nearly hunt the Wolves down to extinction after the killing of their esteemed leader, Lucian (or did they?). The Elder vampires are in "Hibernation", one of which, Vincent, has left the ever angry Craven (Christian Bale from "American Psycho") in charge of his coven. Craven lusts after our protaganist, sassy, 2-dimensional, kick-ass Vampire babe Selene (look out, she has a tragic past *gasp*). You find out that our Lycanthropic friends are after a certain Human for his blood, and you know that ain't good.

This movie gets points for great special effects, stunning Werewolf transformation scenes, and a charming, very "Dark City" like mood/setting/costumes. However, this doesn't save the movie from being an utter dissapointment.

First of all, the dialouge is horrible. It could have been much worse and more contrived than it already was, but there was frankly too much yelling and scenes where the characters would talk, but not get anywhere. The dialouge was used mainly as mindless filler where there wasn't any killing or shooting going on.
The action scenes weren't that great. They were average, they could have been alot better. Thanks to the Matrix, most awe-inspiring moves have become old hat. I give the directors Kudos for that little shooting out the floor scene. You think they would have involved more swordplay when one of the combatants uses a sword, but no. We get a sloppy slug-fest. The whip usage was very nice, albeit short and ruined by badly edited cutaways during the fight.

Portrayal of Vampires- A bit contrived. They looked more like a bunch of Goths, which I tend to agree with since I can see Vampires as egotistical, apathetic socialites. However, the director decided to give them blue eyes, which I didn't understand at all. It didn't look that impressive and usually you expect Vampys to have red eyes once they get pissed off. It was different, but it didn't exactly get any points for stunning originality. They didn't move at super-human speeds, or at least not much. This is a good thing and a bad thing. It makes the movie seem less dependant on special effects, but it also tends to bore the audience when Immortals move at mere Mortal paces most of the time in fight scenes. I think they depended way too much on guns (which gets boring FAST unless you spice the fight scenes up), but the different shells (UV and Silver Nitrate) were brilliant additions.

Werewolves- Once again, great transformation scenes. Bad part- When did the Hunters become a sad, sewer version of Fight Club? Wolves are a tightly knit community and their hunts are organized. Teamwork is essential. In this movie, they tended to lean more on the animalistic side of the Weres, which made them seem like a group of (all male, didn't see a female werewolf in sight) testosterone filled, snarling lunkheads. They even had to throw in some Nazi-esque doctor guy to make it seem like they could even pull the blood research off! Feh.

**BIG SPOILER**





The True Immortal- Urgh... You were expecting something really cool and intimidating after a nifty transformation scene like that, what do we get? A slimmer, blue version of the Hulk. *sigh*





**END of BIG SPOILER**



Overall, "Underworld" did have some good points, but they don't really distract you from how truly boring and badly written this movie is. I'd recommend a rental before going to see it in the theatre, but if you're bored, I guess it'll do to cure that weekend lethargy. Just don't expect anything mind blowing.

[KoNeko]

Right, so LXG (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) finally came out here. It was supposed to come out in August but didn't because they didn't think people would like it...

Anyway, it's not as bad as people perceive it to be. Really. I was really curious as to how they would put the story together, especially because I had read the books that the characters came from. One thing I really enjoyed in the film was the use of camera work, not because it was anything particularly special, but the angles they used for certain shots (like the one when Quartermain shoots that bomber guy in Africa at the beginning) and how when they play the record on the phonograph, instead of just having us see the (outraged) expressions on the LXG members' faces, they do this cool old-fashioned sepia tone of the people actually speaking on the record, as if they were having a conversation (I can't say who it is, because it's a spoiler. : which was pretty original and different, I thought. The special effects (e.g. Mina when she does thatbat thing for the first time and sticks on the wall) were also pretty nifty.

But yeah. It was a pretty good movie overall, and if you need some other convincing, the cast is "yummy" (as per Erok :.

[Calavera Diablos]

Just a little sidenote, "The League" is taken from a famous comic book, which is of course based on famous characters from books and legends.

Stuart Townshend is YUMMY as Dorian Grey.

Ko- What did you think of the special effects for Hyde?
I was initially afraid that "The League" would depend too heavily on them and that the movie would look too fake and flashy, but I liked it.

[KoNeko]

Yeah, I thought Hyde would be done in a similar way to the whole Hulk thing, so I was happy to see those flashy (not flashy in the same sense as what you said ) bits when he'd sort of be Jekyll, then flash and be a bit Hyde-ish, and flash a bit more... The jerkiness of how they did it sort of made it more convincing that the transformation was difficult and painful.

Oh, and I liked how Jekyll would see Hyde in reflections and shadows and stuff, and the other way around.

Yeah. Dorian Gray. ;D
(Only, I believe in the book he dies a different way? Like, the painting doesn't kill him because over the years he sees it age and get more hideous... I can't remember how he actually dies though.)

[KoNeko]

Alright, I saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 last night and I'll do the full discussion of it in the actual thread for it, but that will ultimately contain spoilers so this is the nice, clean non-spoiler review.

Basically, this film is the new Tarantino flick, if you didn't know that already. Uma (The Bride- I love how they bleep out her name, so you never know it) is after, well, Bill, and his gang of assassins. It's only vol. 1 (the film was split into two, because it was too long for one) so they only got through the first two kills really. But yeah, some may say that it's ultra-violent, but I didn't think it was unnecessarily violent. And there were very small subtleties that referred to Bruce Lee. Quite a few actually. The set was awesome too, some of the top-down camera shots were really effective.

[En]

Doesn't the original Dorian Grey die by trying to destroy the portrait? He looks at it all the time in the book, I remember that, because I distinctly remember him noticing that the portrait had a sneer after he dumped (what was her name, Sylvia?) the actress. I need to reread that anyway; Lord Henry was so hilariously Slythy.

I also really liked the mirror stuff with Jekyll and Hyde. Too many people forget that there really were two complete personalities (each with good and bad attributes) warring over the body, and that was a nice way of showing it.

Totally off-topic: can I just throw in here how exhausted I get trying to talk to people who have really cynical opinions about all art? They just drain me. I'm like, don't you like anything?

[Natz]

I just saw the league of extrodinary gentlemen last night and it went on a bit too long.

Apart from that i liked the jekel and hyde bit when they were talking to each other. The jerkiness was a good effect in the transformation. I also liked it when mina turned into all those bats.

The only thing that puzzled me a bit is that why didn't he die before if the portrait was going to kill him because he looked at it earlier on in the film.

[KoNeko]

*thinks* Natz, when did he look at the portrait the first time? I know there was one bit when he was looking at it, but it did have a cloth over it or something...

[KoNeko]

Intolerable Cruelty

(Warning: Rants ahead)

This is probably one of the worst movies I've seen all year. It might have been because I saw it at 12:00am, or because it was just... drivel. The little to no storyline was basically supported by the fact that good looking actors were in it.

Alright, basically the plot is something like this: Miles (George Clooney) is a cynnical divorce attorney and Catherine Zeta-Jones' character (I forgot her name- it wasn't that important anyway) is a golddigging philanderer-type who marries rich men, then divorces them for half of their property. The premise is a thin disguise over the gratuitous shots of CZJ's uh, chestal area () and some of the cheesiest concepts you could come across in a cheesy romantic comedy. (I mean, tearing up a prenup and eating it with BBQ sauce? Alright, Billy Bob is cool, but his doing that was like... :

I'd respect the film if I had evidence that they were doing a parody on crappy romantic comedies. Blurgh. Oh, and the other thing was the fact that whoever wrote the script clearly had limited legal knowledge (read: no concept of law institute ethics, blatant conflicts of interest from all parties concerned, multiple (wrong) use of the word "Forensic", terrible court etiquette) but that might just be me being a legal monkey.

But to be honest- I admit that there was about 2% wit in this film. I did laugh, but that was only at the bits that were so bad (like the asthmatic asssassin who mistook his gun for his asthma pump and blew himself away).

I tried to sleep in the film. I tried eating an extra large tub of popcorn to pass the time. It was that bad. If I could have left, I would have, but then I wouldn't have had a ride...

NOTE: these are my views only- if you loved this film, I'd really want to know what you thought.

[KoNeko]

Seabiscuit

Basically, this film follows a well-trodden "down-but-not-out" plot set in the Great Depression. It follows the story of three particular down-but-not-outers, a car salesman who loses his son in a car accident, a "crackpot" horse trainer, and a jockey who lost is family (or rather, was given up by them), was considered too tall to ride and was blind in one eye.

So... how do a bunch of guys like this end up winning a whole heap of horse races, espeically with a horse that was apparently too small for racing, and had had its spirit crushed by all its previous trainers? Well, it happened. I'm actually a bit of a sucker for these kinds of stories, but even if you aren't, it's still a pretty inspiring story.

There are awesome shots of the horse races (although I believe that they filed one race and then cut and pasted footage, because in all the races the jockeys are wearing the same silks but are just in different positions ). That aside, there are really cool shots. When the filmed it, they drove a car down the track with the camera on a big crane, so they have lots of really intense shots of being inside the pack of racehorses as they head to the final post. Only other gripe about the horseracing is that it's really apparent that Tobey Maguire is on a mechanical horse when they have the closeups of his face but otherwise, it's worth going just for the cool racing shots, even if you don't like the story (or horseracing for that matter).

Another humourous tip was the addition of William H. Macy (aka. The Shoveler from Mystery Men) as Tick Tock McGlochlin (spelling?) the race caller/radio guy. Just watching what he does with sound effects and his reporting style is hilarious.

Oh, but just watching the film made me want to go out for a gallop in a nearby field or something...

[Simply Panda]

So... I know I am a bit behind with the 28 Days Later discusion... but I must say I rather liked the movie... I think it was very artistically done, the story line was awesome and the music was wonderful. I just over all really enjoyed it. I watched it with my dad who basically dogged on how terrible the military was acting (being that he was in the military he would know) going on and on about how "that is the wrong way to turn a corner!" and what not... my dad is a pretty funny guy... lol. But yeah... besides the apparent military tactical mistakes (which I didn't notice) I thought it was great! lol.

I havn't really seen very many movies latly(broke college student, ya know?)
I did see this one movie a friend loaned me called "Better Luck Tomorrow" It's about these Asian kids who have this really stereotypical Asian life on the outside(good grades and what not) but they are really like these crime lords. Anyway... the movie is really really odd... and the ending was a bit frightening, but I enjoyed it.
Another friend loaned me Bowling for Columbine... I have to say that that movie was so excellent! Brought up a lot of good questions. Made me appreciate old G-Dubb more that I already do... lol. And although the things it discussed (gun violence and what not) was really heavy stuff... they added humor to make it a little lighter and easier to watch. I totally recommend it to anyone that hasn't seen it.

[Dora the Explorer]

I heard people talking about that on NPR...Better Luck Tomorrow. It was in a film fest somewhere. Apparently it's based on a true story.

[KoNeko]

Mystic River. Anyone seen this one? It's the new one directed by Clint Eastwood (don't worry, no cowboys in this one ) and yeah. It's quite/surprisingly good with a rather twisty "whodunnit" plot (although once the suspects got narrowed down, it became sort of apparent). Basically it's about three childhood friends who grow up in a rather dodgy area in Massachussets (spelling?) and after drifting apart, they all come together when the daughter of one of them is murdered. This is a film that explores the dynamics between old friends, new friends and family while trying to unravel the murder mystery. It's a bit of a long film I admit, and there were at least three occasions where the film could have stopped satisfactorily, but other than that, it's at least worth a look.

P.S. Also, I saw the trailer for Gothika... there's some scary stuff there!

[guinevere]

I read the book--and hated the ending, so skipped the movie. I did hear that Sean Penn was great, but Kevin Bacon was superb.

[KoNeko]

Yeah, Kevin Bacon was pretty good... Sean Penn reminded me a bit too much of Robert Di Niro for some reason though...

I actually sort of like where they ended it in the film. Enough for it to be angsty, but not spelling out the obvious. *shrug*