Archive for the ‘Film’ Category
10 Second Reviews
I’ve been running through my DVD collection lately, watching various films that I hadn’t seen before, or haven’t watched for a very long time.
Master and Commander: Russell Crowe leads a British crew against a French privateer. Splendid, well-made film. The shipboard scenes were all the more interesting to me given my recent reading of “The Terror“. (4 out of 5 stars.)
Red Dragon: Prequel to the classic “Silence of the Lambs”. Anthony Hopkins and Edward Norton are in fine form, and Ralph Fiennes makes for a menacing and believable villain. (4 out of 5 stars.)
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation
…one of the strangest permutations of ’80s nostalgia to hit movie screensâ€â€the now-notorious Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, a 100-minute shot-for-shot amateur-video remake of the 1981 Spielberg-Lucas adventure flick, created over a span of seven years by a group of kids in small-town Reagan-era Mississippi.
A shot-by-shot comparison (real film to the remake) can be found here at Raiders.net, and you can download the trailer here. This is got to be one of the coolest things I’ve seen this month.
The Princess Bride – 20 Years Later
Photos of the actors of The Princes Bride, then and now.
(Hint: – time is rarely kind to any of us.)
Link to the IMDB entry for the film.
I Am Legend (and other stuff)
I’m all over this movie when it comes out. Now I’ve read the book by Matheson, and this film looks to be nothing like that at all, but let me do the math for you.
Post Apocalypse + Me = Automatically excited.
Just so we’ve got that straight.
Also:
Alka-Seltzer Tag. We are SO going to do this this summer.
Apple working on Adobe Flash support for iPhone – I’ll believe it when I see it.
A week with the iPhone – Mike Davidson
Keeping Cool
How weird is this? The AC decided to bite the dust both in our central air system and in my Dodge Durango. AT THE SAME TIME.
Actually, as far as the Durango is concerned, “exploded” is a more accurate term. The compressor fell apart, and the “evaporator core” is leaking. They have to yank the dashboard apart to get at it. This amounts to one very, very expensive trip to the repair shop. I’m not going to say how expensive, but if you went and bought 3 iPhones, you’d be getting close.
In a strange bit of synchronicity, The blower motor went on our ground floor air-handler. Fortunately they had that in stock and repaired it. Not as expensive a task as the Durango, but not exactly cheap either. Less than 1 iPhone.
In other news, Lauren and I went to see Ratatouille yesterday.
What a great movie! Pixar has done it again. She loved it, and as is typical of Pixar films, adults will enjoy it as well. The animation was tack-sharp, the characters were engaging and funny, and the story never dragged.
And It didn’t hurt that the plot revolved around cooking. 
We’ll be seeing this one over and over again when it hits DVD. Recommended enthusiastically.
Related: A short Youtube video detailing how the food was rendered in CG for Ratatouille.
The Lousy Luck of Tim Minear
Last year, Glenn Reynolds (of Instapundit) and his wife did a podcast interview with John Scalzi and Tim Minear.
Scalzi as you might know, is an accomplished author who has managed to leverage the “power of the internet” to drive his book sales. Tim Minear is a writer and producer who has worked on projects like Firefly, Serenity, and Wonderfalls, among others. This episode of the podcast really is an excellent listen, highly recommended for any science fiction fan.
That said, I really feel for Tim Minear. His most recent effort “Drive“, has been cancelled after only 2 aired episodes.
Minear has experience with early cancellations, as the same fate befell Wonderfalls and Firefly. I thought Drive had a lot of potential, and I was shocked to see it go so soon. Fox seems to have no clue about how to launch a series, but they seem particularly antagonistic towards Minear. With Drive, they debuted a 2 hour pilot on Sunday, and followed up with the second episode on Monday (against “Dancing with the Stars”.) Firefly was presented out of order, against the World Series, and skipped weeks early on.
When up against such odds, you might think that it’d make some sense to give a series some room to breathe…find it’s viewership and whatnot. Not Fox. If the ratings aren’t there 2 episodes in, you’re gone. When it comes to patience, Fox is like a kid with ADD. With these kinds of odds stacked against it, I don’t think Drive ever had a chance.
Here’s what some other blogs are saying about the cancellation:
Ah, “Drive”, we hardly knew ye... – Sci Fi Fodder
“Drive” cancelled: The Minear/Fillion curse strikes again – Premium Hollywood
Super Hyped ‘Drive’ Cancelled – TV Envy
Drive Cancelled – Robologicon
Fox Does it Again – Almost, Not Yet
Fox cancels Drive – TV Squad
There are dozens of similar entries out there.
What makes this particularly sad is the excitement evident in Minear’s voice as he talks about this project on the podcast. You can tell that at the time he really thought that “this is it.” He seemed to believe that he had finally found the formula for a long lasting show.
Maybe next time, Tim.
Casino Royale
Diane and I watched the dvd version of “Casino Royale” last night, the latest in a long line of Bonds and Bond films. We both liked it quite a bit.
I thought Daniel Craig was great. I guess the tougher, more serious Bond is closer to the character that Ian Fleming wrote about in his novels. For decades, the Bond franchise had become something of a parody of itself…all about gadgets, stunts, and jokes. This film is dark – and I liked it.
The pacing was a bit of a problem at the end, and Eva Green (as Vesper Lynd) was a bit bland as the female lead, but neither was a deal-breaker. Sebastien Foucan (the famous “Free-Runner” was spectacular in his brief scene. I remember him from the “Jump Britain” documentary.
Worthwhile.
Check out a grand wad of reviews of this movie here.
