Monday

Impressions before seeing it
Found it on TV and it sounded cool - one of those "guy wakes up and doesn't know how he got where he is" type movies, which I always find interesting. Plus it's Japanese.

How was it?
Monday started out just fine: our main character wakes up in a hotel room, confused and disoriented, and then he remembers being at a funeral where the guests are informed that the deceased's pacemaker is still on, so somebody (him) needs to cut him open and snip a wire to turn it off before the cremation makes the corpse explode. Wrong wire is cut, corpse explodes. That is a cool opening to a movie, and by that point I was ready to enjoy this mother.

Unfortunately that was about the only part I did enjoy. Throughout the rest of the movie, our hero has more flashbacks about what he's done and why he's in a hotel room, but that story was kind of bland rather than something a little more interesting like other movies in that style such as Saw or Unknown. And apart from that, a lot of the scenes seemed to drag on too long, which isn't always a problem in some movies and it wasn't a problem in the opening funeral scene of this one, but in the scenes following it there wasn't a reason for it because nothing new was happening that wasn't already happening five minutes ago when the scene started.
And finally, the ending left me unimpressed because it made the movie feel like one long public service announcement against guns and alcohol.

Recommendation
I think this movie is sort of like a Japanese Taxi Driver or Falling Down (which I still have yet to see, but I assume it's similar), but it didn't need to be. I really would not have guessed after seeing that cool opening that it would go in the direction it did, because it had greater potential than that. So, yeah, I was disappointed.

This Week in Television - July 19-23, 2010

The IT Crowd
Aaaaaand they topped last week's episode! I loved the idea of an episode about Roy and Moss playing hooky on the day that their boss finally shows them some recognition (sort of), and seeing George Lucas saddened at not meeting them. Also a nice throwback to an episode in the previous season when Moss tries to kiss Roy to get them out of trouble again. And it had been a while since we got jokes about Jen knowing nothing about computers, so that was cool to see again too. No complaints at all, this was probably one of the best IT Crowd episodes ever.

Zhou Yu's Train

Impressions before seeing it
I found this movie on TV and decided to watch it because it starred Tony Leung and Gong Li. However, I forgot that there are two Tony Leungs in Hong Kong cinema, and this dude wasn't the Tony I was thinking of from all the Wong Kar Wai films. Damn, now I'm stuck with the less cool Tony for two hours.

How was it?
Sometimes Zhou Yu's Train does feel like it's trying to be a Wong Kar Wai film, with it's unconventional romance story and occasional voiceovers, but it lacks the charm, and the proper Tony Leung (okay, I'll stop mentioning that now). But maybe it's not fair for me to compare film styles just because they're both Chinese.

What I want to say about this movie is that at first I had some trouble following what was going on (there was unexplained symbolism for the first half), then they offered an explanation and I understood what they were going for, then they offered some more explanations and I just got confused again. I don't have a problem with things being open to interpretation, but there's a difference between that and not making sense.

Recommendation
I think this movie had potential to be interesting and cute, but they tried too hard to be artistic and I didn't care much for the characters or the love triangle, which I'm not entirely sure actually existed due to the lack of clarity. I wanted to like it, and I didn't hate it, but I was underwhelmed.

Beowulf

Impressions before seeing it
I have read the original epic poem from which Beowulf is adapted, but I have to admit it was kind of boring. I remember a lot of lengthy scenes describing feasts and celebrations and ceremonies, but I guess the rest of it was alright. Anyway, I wanted to see the movie more for the animation than the adaptation.

How was it?
Well, the feast scenes still made the cut, but at least they were more interesting here. John Malkovich's character, while perhaps pointless to the overall story, acts as a near antagonist in these scenes, regularly trash-talking Beowulf and refusing to believe his heroic deeds. Anthony Hopkins also contributes some humour as a hedonistic old king. But the best parts are the violent action sequences in which Beowulf demonstrates what a beast he is: escaping a sea monster's jaws by tunneling through its eye with his sword, fighting Grendel in the nude to be "on equal footing with the monster" (even though it's about 20 feet tall), and half severing his own arm to allow himself enough reach to rip a dragon's heart from its chest. Note to self: never piss off Beowulf under any circumstances.

Like The Polar Express before it, Beowulf uses that incredibly detailed motion capture animation system that makes the characters look freakishly similar to the actors voicing them. Especially, in this case, Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie, but I also recognized John Malkovich and Robin Wright-Penn because of the accurate depictions in them as well, and I picked out Crispin Glover as Grendel because of the voice. Anyway, the animation is gorgeous but it's one of those cases where it almost seems pointless to choose animation over live action when both would look so similar. Not pointless to me, because I am a big fan of 3D animation, but I can understand the argument.

Recommendation
From what I remember of the poem, the movie is similar more in concept than in plot details, but it's a lot more entertaining. But being an animation fan, I would probably like Beowulf a lot less if it were live action. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is still the most realistic looking animated film ever made, but this one might be a close second.

This Week in Television - July 12-16, 2010

The IT Crowd
When I heard what this week's episode was about, I have to admit it didn't sound that great at first. However I was pleasantly surprised when it ended up being the funniest episode of the season so far. This was mostly due to Roy's story about his girlfriend's parents dying under weirdly inexplicable circumstances and his frustration at not knowing the details, at one point involving a classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind reference that worked better than it should have because it was so unexpected. It was predictable that Moss's cell phone was going to fall out of his shirt pocket, but I enjoyed his predicament inside the claw game, as well as his reactions to Roy and Jen in this episode. Jen's storyline was the weakest, as the clueless translator gag has been done before, but Douglas helped make those scenes a bit better than they could have been, and the saving grace was the moment when the "virtual marathon" woman, bumped from the spotlight by Jen, is looking around helplessly as she mimes riding a bicycle.

Inception

Impressions before seeing it
The trailers looked amazing, but were a little vague on the story, but that can be a good thing because trailers sometimes ruin the best parts.

How was it?
I want this review to be spoiler free, but for anyone who wants a clearer plot synopsis (if not, skip to the next paragraph): Inception is about a group of people who work in dreams and subconsciousness, designing and building dreamworlds so that they can lure people into them and unearth their valuable secrets hidden within, but someone comes to them with a proposal to commit inception, the process of planting an idea into one's subconscious so that they believe that idea is their own. That's the simple version, but I think it's more than the trailers tell you.

This is one of those movies that is smart enough to mess with your head. Not in a way that makes it confusing or hard to follow (unless you're not paying attention, or are an idiot), just in a way that makes you do a lot of thinking. As with Shutter Island, my mind was tossing a lot of theories out there, thinking there might be a plot twist ending, but let's just say this is not Shutter Island. The trailers might bring The Matrix to mind for some, but I would say Inception is ultimately more like eXistenZ, but you could easily draw comparisons to both.

Christopher Nolan is developing a reputation for "intelligent blockbusters", and that's exactly what this is given its amazing action sequences, special effects, and cast. There is some appropriately dreamlike imagery, mixing real world settings with surreal occurrences, just like dreams tend to do, and the editing was crucial in regards to tension due to a lot of things happening simultaneously, but it all worked perfectly. I also loved the idea of the world around your sleeping body having an effect on your dream, because dreams sometimes work that way, too.

Recommendation
I have no complaints about this movie, because it's pretty much everything a good movie should be. Unless you don't like it when movies make you think, you should find it enjoyable.

This Week in Television - July 5-9, 2010

Happy Town
Wow, I was not expecting all those reveals. Nor was I expecting them to tell us the Magic Man's identity, but seeing as how the series is over I'm glad there was at least that much closure. I'm also glad to say my predictions were wrong. Happy Town has been somewhat average up until now, but this episode had all the makings of a good finale: action and suspense, some questions answered while new ones opened up, and M.C. Gainey busting into a room with two automatic machine guns raised in the air. I may not have said this before watching this episode, but I'll miss you, Happy Town.

The IT Crowd
Well, we started the season with a sub-par episode, then moved on to an awesome one, and this week's episode I'd say is middle of the road. I'm not against ridiculing Scientology - it is the most ridiculous religion in existence - but my problem with the Spaceology storyline in this episode is just that it came much too late. People have been making fun of Scientology ever since Tom Cruise put it in the spotlight, but that was years ago and the topic has cooled off by now. However, I will say that Douglas is just the kind of self-indulgent moron who would buy into a bogus religion created by someone named Beth Gaga Shaggy (another cameo from creator/writer/director Graham Linehan), so it worked in that sense. Jen's storyline was amusing, dating the nerdiest and most boring guy in a band (he basically has just one dull facial expression), as was Roy's sexual harassment trial against the masseur who kissed him on the ass, but unlike some of the better episodes, none of the arcs tied together.