Too sleepy to say anything other than The Illusionist was beautiful and clever.
1. Brick
2. Inside Man
3. Day Watch
4. Night Watch
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. The Chronicles of Riddick
7. The Illusionist
8. Lady in the Water
9. Superman Returns
10. A Scanner Darkly
Last night I went to see “An Inconvenient Truth” with some friends. We were about 10 minutes into it when the movie stopped, alarms went off and lights started to flash. We scurried outside, back into the rain. It had been raining for quite some time. I’ve lived here for around 8 years and I have never seen it rain so much. We huddled under the awning with the other theater goers, wondering what was happening. Some fire trucks had blocked off Central and 1st. TV news crews buzzed around.
John went to investigate. “Guys, you have *got* to come check this out!” We followed him out to the intersection. At first I didn’t know what I was looking for. My eyes tracked down from the train on the bridge down to Central, which seemed oddly level. Then I realized that there used to be a dip in the road where Central went under the bridge. That part of the street was completely under water. The tip of a truck’s roof could be seen poking above the water line. The firemen broke out a raft to paddle down Central River to investigate. Albuquerque isn’t set up to handle this much rainfall and the storm drains were erupting.
We got a refund and went to grab something to eat. The streets were flooded everywhere I drove and emergency vehicles splashed red and white light across the drowned landscape. It continued to rain most of the night.
My back yard is overgrown with plants. The entire city is becoming greener and the sky is often saturated with clouds. Eventually I’ll get to finish watching “An Inconvenient Truth,” but Al Gore is already preaching to the converted.
I’m fairly unobjective when it comes to M. Night’s films. I love the layers of his films, the meta elements, the unconventional approach and often disregard of movie-making conventions.
I have only seen negative reviews of this movie. I wonder what has happened in those reviewers’ lives to prevent them from feeling joy from this film. Or was it his blatant on-screen chastisement of movie critics for missing the point of stories as a primal part of being human which our society has forgotten?
M. Night is a genius. If you’ve never tried to write a story, there’s parts of this film you just won’t get. If you are quick to critique the final act, you didn’t listen to the narrator at the beginning.
I don’t care what anyone else says. This film was beautiful and my heart exploded with joy.
Drey’s Top 10 Movies seen in 2006
1. Brick
2. Inside Man
3. Day Watch
4. Night Watch
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. The Chronicles of Riddick
7. Lady in the Water
8. Superman Returns
9. A Scanner Darkly
10. Cars
Scanner Darkly is my favorite Philip K. Dick book and consequently I had very high hopes for this movie. It is the best adaptation of a PKD book thusfar, sticking very close to the source material, unlike Blade Runner and Total Recall. But the majority of my favorite scenes were absent from the film. Strangely, many of the scenes in the book which are mentioned in passing are explored in greater detail while the more fleshed out scenes were completely ignored. The scene with Freck and the being from between dimensions is the only scene in the film that is exactly like the book, word for word.
The most important part of Bob Arctor’s character development was rushed and requires you to have read the book to really understand what happened. The ending comes too quickly so it lacks dramatic punch.
Overall, it captures the ideas and the essence of the book: layers of drug-induced paranoia and psychosis, drug addled conversations, and inevitable despair. I was happy to see they retained Dick’s cautionary epilogue and the list of his friends lost to drugs. Robert Downey Jr. shines as Barris and Keanu Reeves is the old school Keanu, darker, free of the demands of having to be a blockbuster movie star.
Drey’s Top 10 Movies seen in 2006
1. Brick
2. Inside Man
3. Day Watch
4. Night Watch
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. The Chronicles of Riddick
7. Superman Returns
8. Scanner Darkly
9. Cars
10. Mission Impossible 3
The more times I see The Chronicles of Riddick, the more I appreciate it. The story is imaginative and quickly establishes its unique mythology. The visual design is incredible, sort of what Star Wars might have looked like had Weta done the sets. Ordinarily, Vin Diesel is decent, but here he completely embodies Riddick in the way that Jackman embodies Wolverine. I don;t know if there are plans to continue the series, but that last scene just kills me and I demand to know what happens after.
Drey’s Top 10 Movies seen in 2006
1. Brick
2. Inside Man
3. Day Watch
4. Night Watch
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. The Chronicles of Riddick
7. Superman Returns
8. Cars
9. Mission Impossible 3
10. V for Vendetta
I saw Superman Returns Tuesday night. I expected a packed theater with a line out the door, but I guess everyone was at the Rio. Juan, Jeremy and Rob had been waiting there for three hours and they were the first in line.
I had watched the original Donner film just before heading to the theater. I hadn’t seen this extended cut (2.5 hours!) before and it had a lot of interesting additions which I guess they extracted from unused footage from filming Superman 1 and 2. Anyhow, the film was fresh in my mind, so the homage Superman Returns makes to the original was very obvious. For the most part it worked, but I thought there was a big continuity problem because of this. Superman Returns is supposed to be a sequel to Superman 2, yet a big plot element is basically identical to one in the first film. I was thinking “Wait a minute, didn’t he try this stunt before?”
Other than that, I really enjoyed the movie and found Brandon Routh convincing as both Superman and Clark Kent, though he does seem to be mimicking Reeve’s Kent rather closely. Kevin Spacey does the same thing with his Lex Luthor, following Hackman very closely. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that in recent years I have become used to Clancy Brown’s more serious portrayal on Justice League.
The effects are superb and you can see the money up there on the screen. I love how they did the opening titles just like the original films, only with astonishing outer space scenes instead of sparklers and weird glowing goo. The opening credit sequence is a film in itself, like the intro to Star Trek Voyager on acid.
Drey’s Top 10 Movies seen in 2006
1. Brick
2. Inside Man
3. Day Watch
4. Night Watch
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. Superman Returns
7. Cars
8. Mission Impossible 3
9. V for Vendetta
10. Layer Cake
Because of my fascination with lists, I’ve decided to start a little experiment. Rather than trying to enumarate my top favorite of any particular thing of all time, I will keep track of these things in real time, updating the lists as things change. This will be completely unscientific and subjective, based on mood and gut instinct.
Drey’s Top 10 Movies Seen in 2006
1. Brick
2. Inside Man
3. Day Watch
4. Night Watch
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. Cars
7. Mission Impossible 3
8. V for Vendetta
9. Layer Cake
10. Dirty Pretty Things
- Tyler Durden
And you open the door and you step inside Where inside our hearts Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light That's right, your pain The pain itself is a white ball of healing light I don't think so This is your life, good to the last drop Doesn't get any better than this This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time This isn't a seminar, this isn't a weekend retreat Where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like Only after disaster can we be resurrected It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart This is your life, this is your life, this is your life, this is your life Doesn't get any better than this This is your life, this is your life, this is your life, this is your life And it and it's ending one-minute at a time You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else We are all part of the same compost heap We are the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world You are not your bank account You are not the clothes you wear You are not the contents of your wallet You are not your bowel cancer You are not your grande latte You are not the car you drive You are not your fucking khaki's You have to give up, you have to give up You have to realize that someday you will die Until you know that, you are useless I say let me never be complete I say may I never be content I say deliver me from Swedish furniture I say deliver me from clever art I say deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth I say you have to give up I say evolve, and let the chips fall where they may This is your life, this is your life, this is your life, this is your life Doesn't get any better than this This is your life, this is your life, this is your life, this is your life And it and it's ending one minute at a time You have to give up, you have to give up Welcome to Fight Club If this is your first night, you have to fight
I simply cannot be objective about this movie. I have *always* wanted to go to Narnia and those books are forever imprinted on me. They are important and formative works for me. Even as the opening credits started, my eyes were already welling with tears. As best as I can recollect, nothing was left out. Several dramatic sequences were added, but they seemed entirely appropriate. The movie took its time to tell the story. All the perfect, holy moments were unchanged. And there were gryphons! My heart filled to the brim with joy for the entire movie. At the end I had to go to the restroom to compose myself. And then Stavros asked me what I thought of it and I just started blubbering, unable to speak. I eventually managed to say, “I can’t talk about it right now, but it was perfect.”
The movie spoke to a part of me that doesn’t often get to come out so fully and express his deep childlike wonder and innocence.
Thanks to a heads up from Stavros, I now hold a pass to the advance screening of Serenity on the 28th! Yes!