Category Archives: Movies/TV

Mirror Mirror

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I saw Mirror Mirror… you all know the story of Snow White.

The good; Lily Collins is pretty?  I honestly don’t know.

The bad; everything else.  All of it?  I mean, it’s Tarsem Singh, who did a great job on The Fall.  So I don’t know what went wrong here.  The movie was slow, with a run time of 106 minutes, it felt like a three hour tour.  I was adjusting and squirming in my seat, I wanted the movie to end.  It was slow for no reason at all.

Overall, skip it.  I can’t find any reason to watch this movie.  It ends with a celebratory Bollywood dance number, but it didn’t earn it.  Two Snow White live action movies, and nary a good one to be found… booo Hollywood, booo…

Snow White and the Huntsman

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So I saw Snow White and The Huntsman after much anticipation. I would like to correct myself and say that I endured Snow White and the Huntsman. We all know about this fairy tale right? Snow White, Evil Queen, Apple, castles, a Prince, a Huntsman… and so forth.

The good; the look, I highly enjoy the look. It’s grimy and gritty, makes it believable. It also reminds me of movies that I grew up on, there was a sense of imagination and risk that’s almost gone these days. Here’s some of the movies that come to mind; The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, Willow, Princess Mononoke…
There’s a scene in the forest where the Spirit greets Snow White, it’s almost right out of ​Princess Mononoke, ​the plants have eyes, there are little spirits flying around –


Charlize Theron makes a great villain. The Dwarfs were great too, who knew the names that would fill out their group? Also, the technology that made them short, amazing.
They had some wonderful wide shots, loved it. A portion of these shots was also to showcase the beautiful locations or sets.

The bad; ohhhhh where to begin. I don’t say this much, especially about bad movies, but I want more story! The film relies too much on the assumption that everyone knows the details of the tale, so there are a lot, A LOT, of things implied and not explained, we need more exposition of why things are happening.
The fight scenes, urghhh, more close ups, why?

Overall, skip this one.  Mirror Mirror might be the better movie, I guess I’ll have to see, it was supposed to be the other way around 🙁

 

The Avengers

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Like most anyone out there, I saw The Avengers this weekend. It’s about the superheroes in the previous Marvel movies coming together to save the world… go see this movie.

The good; go see this movie.

Overall, it’s unlike any of the previous Marvel movies, it’s not overly sad or angsty, there’s a LOT of humor in it, exactly like a comic book.  Oh and go see this movie.

And stay all the way through the credits, as you should always do.

 

There’s nothing else in this review, go to where tickets are bought and sold for seats in a large dark room and feast on The Avengers!

Amazon Invites Writers and Creators To Pitch Their Shows

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With video services like Hulu and Netflix now offering exclusive shows of their own, it’s no surprise that Amazon is also giving content makers a chance to bring their show to the masses via the web. All the specifics, including financial compensation rates, are outlined on Amazon.

Amazon’s approach appears to be open to anyone, which could make reviewing entries a mixed bag. As far as length goes, Amazon is only looking for 11 or 22 minute pilots that are “smart and character-driven”. Is it possible to develop characters in such a short time? The requirements also note either a comedy series or children series.

As far as hints as to what Amazon is looking for when it comes to comedy, the shows Archer and Curb Your Enthusiasm are cited as examples and says the show must fall “within the normal television standards for content and language”.

Whatever series is selected will surely contrast Netflix’s first original series, Lilyhammer, which doesn’t hold back any punches when it comes to vulgar language suited for mature audiences only.

We should continue to expect Amazon to expand its video service offerings, especially since they recently gained more viewers in the living room now that Playstation 3 owners can watch

Source: Amazon

The Raid: Redemption

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I just saw ​The Raid: Redemption.  Why did we wait this long to see it??
It takes place in a slum of Indonesia, in this particular apartment building lives the mob boss, and all the tenants are under his rule/employ.  A SWAT team goes in to take out this boss, little did they know that they’ve entered a hornet’s nest.

​The good; ​ wall to wall action, in the age of close up shots and shaky camera action, this Indonesian film knows how to cover an action and covers it well.  I get a sense of geography with the wider shots, I get the impact of punches and kicks from close ups, I get a sense of training and skill from the medium shots and I appreciate that I can see things without getting dizzy.
The film starts off with gun fire and as they ditch the guns for obvious reasons they have to switch to hand to hand combat, which is beautifully choreographed and executed.  The skill of all the bodies on camera is very apparent and appreciated.  Makes me think that everyone in Indonesian knows the martial art of Silat.

There’s also a lack of a love story, the film opens with Rama, played by Iko Uwais, praying before he goes to work as he then says bye to his pregnant wife.  Here we get that he’s a family man, expecting a child, and he’s Muslim, it’s a nice way to introduce this character and get the who love interest thing out of the way.  If this were an American movie there would’ve been a “hooker with a heart of gold” that’s in the apartment building and she’d want to help the Police, thank you for not having that archetype.

​The​ bad;​ ummmm, not much in this department.  The movie’s a lean one hundred minutes, it’s a meat and potatoes type of movie that showcases martial arts skills.  Oh, they use they forearms to block a lot, A LOT, of hits from enemies, and yet they’re arms remain unbruised or bloodied.  Some wounds there would’ve made it more believable, but maybe they train so their forearms are like leather??

One very bad thing… they’re remaking this in America… go watch the original and learn to read, cause this movie is subtitled.  You just might learn a new word or two, or heaven forbid, learn what some words are in another language.

Overall, ​The Raid ​does not disappoint.  It’s directed by ​Gareth Evans ​who’s Welsh, and this is his second film with Iko Uwais.  ​ Please make more like this.

Hands-on Review: Walmart/VUDU Disc-to-Digital

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I decided to try out the Walmart/VUDU Disc-to-Digital service. The experience turned out to not only be a first-time for me, but everyone involved.

I went to my local Walmart (Porter Ranch, CA) and brought 2 DVD’s: Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction. I knew Pulp Fiction was not a valid title but decided to bring it anyway just to see how well the folks at Walmart handled curve balls.

I went to the photo center and asked about the service. The associate confessed this was the first time he had been asked about the service and brought out a manual with steps to assist me. I was then given a form and after closely inspecting the instructions, I realized the form was supposed to be used by Walmart associates, not the customer.

After completing the form, I handed the associates (a team of two now) my DVD’s and they used a computer to validate my information (email/phone number). The associate noticed Goodfellas was already in a work queue (probably from my conversion movie list I setup on VUDU.com).

Once confirming Pulp Fiction was not available and quoting me $5 for Goodfellas, the process took a few clicks and the associate rang me up. Before I could escape, the associate said he needed my Goodfellas DVD and went back without notifying me why. When he returned, I opened up the DVD case to see he had stamped the discs (reads “WALMART ENTERTAINMENT”). He even stamped disc 2 although that was just extras. He noted the step was necessary because of licensing. Luckily the marking can easily be removed with a little rubbing alcohol (I’m guessing your mileage may vary depending on the image print type on your disc).

I came home and the title was added to my collection as expected. An overall easy process that will surely be quicker once the folks behind the counter get some experience.

Lockout

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While The Hunger Games plows through with a force at the box office, being the number one movie three weekends in a row, I opted out for something that was more… on the non-thinking side.  I saw Lockout this weekend.

The short of it, we’re in the future, technology is amazing and criminals are sent to a prison in space where they’re put in stasis.  There could be some effects, so the President’s daughter (Maggie Grace) has a bleeding heart for them and wants to see the effects if any.  While taking a visit to the prison the inmates break out and take over.  The government calls in Snow (Guy Pearce) to run a one man rescue operation.  Queue the whacky-ness and explosions – go!

The good; it’s Guy Pearce, haven’t seen him in a lead role in a while.  I mean, he’s in things, but briefly.  Let’s see if you’ve spotted him in these movies; The King’s Speech, The Road, Bedtime Stories and The Hurt Locker. So Lockout is a departure from his usual dramatic roles, it’s nice to see him in the wise-cracking, gun-toting anti-hero.  The opening scene with him over the credits was very amusing.

The embracing of the cheesy over-the-top quality, this movie knows what it is and goes with it, at no point did I get the feeling that it was taking itself too seriously.  And for that I applaud.  One moment in particular is a very CG chase scene, the whole sequence is overly CG and when Snow slides off his vehicle on to oncoming danger, the blending works out, I know Snow is real while the background isn’t, but considering everything else looks that way, it just felt normal.  Unlike a overly CG shot placed in to a movie to cover something up, which throws me out.

Luc Besson‘s name is attached toLockout,for that fact alone I have faith that this movie will be entertaining, at the least.  And I certainly was not disappointed.

The bad; Guy Pearce, why is he doing this movie?  Is this a stepping stone for his next bigger movie?  Did he owe someone a favor?  Or is he doing someone a favor in order to do his next movie?  Just seems very unlike him and it took me a while to accept it.

Very cliched set ups, you could see them going where they were going a mile off.  I would’ve liked a twist or a variation on a theme with these set ups, something to spice it up.

There’s one moment in the beginning where Snow is running away and sees his getaway future getaway vehicle.  But the shot and the production design had us focus on a patch job on the wall behind the vehicle, that was confusing and sorta distracting.

Another thing I have a slight problem with was the ending, they threw in too many twists here, I won’t go in to it for fear of spoilers.  But they used the Tony Scott patented editing style, but not on crack just caffeine, which at this point in the movie was ok for a moment, but not as long as they dragged out that editing style.  Then the twist where that thing they were looking for wasn’t there, but in plain sight the whole time.  A more straight forward ending would’ve been more satisfying.

Overall, I checked my brain at the door and had some high orbiting popcorn munching explosion filled goodness.  This movie was just a lot of fun, and it could possibly be improved by having a running audio commentary while watching with friends.

Walmart and VUDU Team Up to Bring Your DVD Collection to the Cloud

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Have a bunch of DVD’s you bought before the glorious HD DVD vs Blu-ray war ended? Surely, you stopped buying DVD’s once Blu-ray won, right? Either way, Walmart and VUDU are teaming up to bring your movies to the cloud for a small price: $2 for same video format streams (DVD to 480p or Blu-ray to HD) or $5 for the high definition stream of your DVD movie.

I can’t think of any arguments why you would want to convert your DVD’s to the same quality cloud version since that’s already possible to do on your own with tools like HandBrake. While VUDU has arguably the best streaming format for high definition AND surround sound home theaters, there’s no reason to watch a streaming version of a title if you already own the Blu-ray. Streaming video and audio quality pales in comparison to Blu-ray quality. The $5 fee to gain access to the high definition stream sounds like the most appealing service to me. If you’ve watched a lot of high definition content in the recent years and try to watch even a minute of those DVD’s you own, I’m sure you’ll cringe.

Naturally, since the service is new, not all studios are signed on although many of the major ones are: Paramount Home Media Distribution, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Warner Bros, and just recently, DreamWorks Animation.

The service starts today at 3,500 Walmart locations.

So is it possible to borrow a friend’s DVD and get the VUDU HD stream for $5? I hope to test out the process as soon as possible and report back!

Source: VUDU

The Hunger Games

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I saw The Hunger Games this weekend.  I did not read the book prior to seeing the film, but here’s the short of what it’s about.  Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss who’s from the mining District 12.  Ever year each district sends a boy and a girl to the Hunger Games where they battle it out and whomever is left standing at the end is the winner.

 

The good; for knowing nothing about this world, they did a great job in creating it and making it believable.  It’s a future world where a terrible war/event ravaged the people and to maintain unity/obedience among the survivors they created the hunger games, which take place every year.  And there’s this wonderful tone and atmosphere around the lottery where the kids get picked at random, almost like a draft, some foreboding spectre that hovered and consumed all those kids.  Just well executed.

 

*SPOILER* when we get to the capital city… Capitol you can tell the difference in wealth and how displaced it is among the districts.  The color palate changes once we’re in Capitol, not just in the sky and the buildings, but in the clothes.  It worked very well for me. *END SPOILER*

 

The movie runs about two hours and twenty minutes, at no point during the movie did I feel like looking at my watch, this movie utilized its time well and I appreciate it for that.  When you’re able to engage me for that amount of time and have me solely focused on the film, that’s an achievement.

 

The bad; I hated the beginning in District 12, the movie opens with useless hand held shots.  Lock the tripod down, it’s the beginning of the film, I want to soak in the ordinary world, let me look around and see what’s going on and how it’s going on.  Why is it that they chose the documentary style??  Totally unnecessary.

 

I have this beef with most films, and how they cover action sequences… give me a medium or a wide shot.  Would it kill you do pull out just a little?  I want to see and understand how they’re fighting, if I had that I would appreciate the why of their fighting all that much more.   It seems today that all action has to be covered by someone who’s fighting there with them… I don’t want that.  Especially in the climactic moments of the fight, I want the frame to breathe.  A good example of something done well is the climax of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…,
and I’m sure there are discrepancies with the book, but I don’t know them yet… so yeah.  Those are my big two gripes.

 

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this film.  The emotional beats were placed right and they built up to them.  When characters die you feel for them, that’s good movie making and great story telling.  The film garnered $153 million opening weekend, and $20 million from midnight sales alone… if you don’t believe my opinion of the movie, take a look at the numbers.
Another thing I enjoyed about this movie is that it made me want to read the novel, anything that makes you want to read afterwards can’t be bad, those entities are few and far between these days…

 

WonderCon 2012: Interview with Alex “Ultra” Buckner (Ultra Sabers)

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One of the busiest booths at WonderCon was run by Ultra Sabers. Workers were constantly moving, showing off, and assembling light sabers. A convention with avid fans was definitely the right place to sell a lot of sabers.

I talked with Alex Buckner about how the company started and was rooted in building his kids light sabers that were more durable than the retail ones that were expensive and often broke so easily. Through growing requests from friends, Alex recognized his talent of making light sabers could be turned into a business. One of the main selling points of Ultra Sabers is the fact they are produced with cosplay choreography specifically in mind. Unlike other sabers in the market, you can strike Ultra Sabers together and not worry about lights going out.

As far as unconventional light saber blades goes, Alex noted some common requests include trident blades, curved blades, and very long blades.

If you thought they looked busy at the convention, Ultra Sabers knows how to crank out light sabers. Alex noted that a comic book store once ordered 500 blades.

Although these blades won’t actually disembowel your foes, I was curious about the steps necessary to fly with a light saber. Alex noted after proper disassembly, they can be transported and recognized as a flash light by the TSA.

The journey to a perfect light saber is never ending. When I poked Alex for what the future holds for saber wielding fans, he was tight lipped about details but hinted at advanced components for the next generation of sabers.

Check out Ultra Sabers on the web: ultrasabers.com and like them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UltraSabers

WonderCon: Interview with Katie Leigh

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Voice actors are an interesting bunch of people. Take the Simpsons. They’ve been on the air for years now. Would you recognize the voice actors if you saw them while shopping at your local supermarket? We know the voices but often overlook the faces behind them.

Katie Leigh spoke with us and gave us the low down on her accomplishments as a voice-over actor. One of her biggest achievements is being on the longest running radio show, Adventures in Odyssey as Connie Kendall. Katie also talked about the challenges of auditioning and keeping her voice in shape. She also offers advice for aspiring voice-over actors but says she doesn’t have plans to give up voice acting because she enjoys working with great people.

Check her out online at katieleigh.com

Game of Thrones: You Win or You Die

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HBO has just released a 22 minute special revisiting the stunning events of Season 1, introducing the major players and a sneak peak at Season 2.

The second season of the American fantasy TV series Game of Thrones is scheduled to begin airing in the U.S. on HBO on 1 April 2012. Like the first season, it will consist of ten episodes. It will approximately cover the subject matter of A Clash of Kings, the second book of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin, of which the series is an adaptation.

For more information visit the official site.