Big surprise: another flawless gem from Pixar. I was joking with Dave some time ago that I’m getting tired of the perfection Pixar delivers. I’m ready for the horrible Pixar train wreck of a film.
1. There Will Be Blood
2. Ratatouille
3. Cloverfield
4. 9 Lives
5. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
6. The Big Lebowski
7. Voices of a Distant Star
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This story only supports my theory further. How uncomfortable he must be in his human clothes.
Daniel Day-Lewis has achieved a sort of mythological status, much like Bigfoot. People claim to have seen him or spoken with him outside of a movie set. But the fact is, he is a being existing outside the boundaries of our mundane world. Every few years, his tendrils of cosmic energy detect a story worthy of him and he coalesces into human form to assume the role needed. There is no acting involved. The Day-Lewis entity, for all intents and purposes, *is* that character. When filming is concluded, he retreats to his trailer. The next day the film crew will find only a crumpled pile of clothes coated in a glittering quartz-like film.
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If someone had a high-quality video camera with unlimited battery life strapped to their hand when a monster attacked New York City, the footage contained in the camera would look like Cloverfield.
1. There Will Be Blood
2. Cloverfield
3. 9 Lives
4. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
5. The Big Lebowski
6. Voices of a Distant Star
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I have yet to see a bad Miyazaki film, though Nukes claims they exist.
Miyazaki borrows heavily from his friend Jean Giraud to get Nausicaa’s visual style. It almost seems like a tribute to him.
Great voice cast on the new Disney dub. You get Patrick Stewart and Edward James Olmos!
I also recently watched Voices of a Distant Star, a short 30 minute anime that was written and animated by one guy on his computer. It is a little choppy, but still very impressive when you compare it to an anime produced by an entire studio.
1. 9 Lives
2. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
3. The Big Lebowski
4. Voices of a Distant Star
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The Coens have been on my mind since I saw No Country for Old Men. There were a bunch of clips from the Big Lebowski during the pre-show and I thought I should revisit it. I think I was a bit more into it this time around.
1. 9 Lives
2. The Big Lebowski
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As part of my SELP project, I am immersing myself in films relating to women’s issues, created by women filmmakers or having to do with single mothers. To date, I’ve watched the Vagina Monologues, Thirteen and 9 Lives.
9 Lives is a series of 9 loosely connected vignettes about various women. Each vignette is a single, uninterrupted take. Each woman in the film was complex and multi-layered and yet they were just a facet of all women, a different face for a different day.
The men in the film seemed brutish and awkward by comparison, even the most gallant failing to share a plane of equality with any of the female characters.
I was pleased to see Holly Hunter again, nuanced and wonderful. If you need to be reminded of Robin Wright Penn’s acting caliber, this is the film to check out.
The final story, a simple tale of mother and daughter, enacted by Glen Close and Dakota Fanning, cut me to the core. I thought I was observing a simple slice of life, but the reveal, accomplished with the simple rotation of the camera showed me the truth.
1. 9 Lives
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This may or may not be a short-lived experiment, but, in order to account for how I’m spending my time, I may begin to keep track of movies, books and various other entertainment.
Last week my company graciously flew my back to Albuquerque to participate in the company Christmas party. I decided to stay a whole week so I would have time to visit my friends. Continue reading →
I saw the world premiere of The Mist last night, with Frank Darabont in attendance.
I really like the original novella and the audio drama, and I was a little dubious about how they would stretch the content to fill an entire film. Well, they did it with needless exposition and wooden dialogue.
This is B movie quality, direct to DVD fare. Darabont said he had a $17 million budget, so he embraced the B movie aesthetic. While the creature designs were interesting, the actual CGI execution was poor. I never felt that afraid of the creatures.
There are a few neato moments. There is a scene near the end which is pretty much exactly what I pictured in my head when reading the story. But otherwise, I was pretty bored and annoyed with the dialogue and acting.
Darabont asked us not to spoil the ending, and of course I won’t. But I will go so far to say that it is controversial.
At long last, the new Alamo Drafthouse downtown is open! Tim League took over the old Ritz theater and completely renovated it to support the unique movie going experience that is the Alamo.
To celebrate, we got to see an advance screening of No Country for Old Men, which I will say right now is the Coen’s masterwork. And, by the way, Javier Bardem is utterly terrifying and I’d book passage to the moon if I knew his character was pursuing me.
Then Quentin Tarantino showed us some old Japanese monster movie from his collection: War of the Gargantuas. He was obviously a bit inebriated and he geeked out for quite some time before getting off the stage. He’s great.