Archive for the 'film' Category

scott pilgrim vs the world brief thoughts

submitted by andrew kim published on August 19, 2010 in film, review and video games Tags: , , , , .

what’s with all this comic shit lately! time to vary up the content with… another comic book movie. with various video game elements, comic book feel, with everything from pop culture, music, and even vegan diets clashed together, kind of like marvel vs capcom or something. be prepared to watch all the random shit you watch on youtube and compile it into an epic 2 hours poking fun, or perhaps an homage, to everything from bollywood, record deals, emo’s, immature love, and just a glimpse at our world if we could actually do the things we imagined.

scott pilgrim is a 22 year old bassist living a normal life who is dating a chinese school girl, normal so far no? he eventually starts chasing after ramona flowers, who is way too cool for him. ultimately, if they are going to date, scott must defeat her seven evil exes to stay with her. pretty simple video game plot, go through the bosses and defeat them. the characters are all individually rich and colorful while the pace of the movie stays focused.

in a movie where you have people conjuring demons and movie stars and pro skateboarders and whatever the hell else that might happen; it’s hard to introduce characters and quickly kill them off, and still make you feel anything about the character themselves. edgar wright does a great job introducing the characters in the short time they have dueling scott and as they progress, they grow more mature and stronger like the relationship between scott and ramona.

the editing used in shaun of the dead and hot fuzz is back better than ever in the first 20 minutes while scott’s mind is dazed over ramona and fits the comic mood perfectly. the treatment of type along the movie is well done and just like a video game, everything seems to level up. characters, scott’s band, relationships, and even the ex battles. each fight is better than the last and has to be fought differently learning new things or perhaps even wanting to give up. i love the fact that having these skills to suddenly take massive amounts of damage and land 64 hit combos in the air… is normal. it’s like people in canada are born with these powers and they just know how to do all this crazy shit, but you don’t really recognize that power until an evil ex tries to fight you. i’d say it would reach out far beyond the comic book and video game crowd, although it might be appreciated more. if your looking for a fun metaphorical love story, this is how it’s done.


obviously this isn’t your normal action comedy love story thingy…

inception

submitted by andrew kim published on July 19, 2010 in film and review Tags: , , , .

it’s been awhile since i’ve walked out of a movie theater knowing that the film has become one of my favorite movies. there’s none of that “watch it for what it is” nonsense here, inception is a complete acid trip that you can make sense of in the end when you are out of your time loop. the concept of the matrix has been one of my favorite ideas of all time, but with no disrespect at all, inception has bitch slapped the wachowski brothers. with all the remakes and sequels lately, christopher nolan brings a truly original script to the screen and mind fucks us all for 148 minutes.

first off, i have read that christopher nolan has been conceptualizing inception for the last ten years or so; this should tell you this is no half assed screenplay. this is one of those films that i saw a trailer for nearly a year ago and refused to look further into, not because it looked bad, but because i refused to have any notion of what i was getting into. the story and characters are well developed and the effects aren’t what drive the movie, the emotions of the characters do. unlike shutter island, the concept of reality is pretty straightforward to determine and even though you know what is going on, you don’t feel it.

if you haven’t already seen the $150 million dollars worth of marketing for the film, inception is about a simple idea that can be extracted through a dream. this simple idea makes the movie as complex as the human mind. the storytelling is superb, well shot, and loses you in a dream. many aspects of dreaming are carried over well into the film and although nothing that complex can be completely accurate, it is enough to make you lost track of time.

enough with the basic mumbo jumbo that all sounds the same and down to what i really feel. the movie is bad ass and the amount of detail in the story and on screen was excellent. the characters were well casted and i was quite surprised to see ellen page in such a major motion picture. it is hard to explain the story and the emotions to someone who hasn’t already experience inception but the feel closely resembles a black hole. the closer you get the more time seems to slow down to someone who is watching from afar. this is established in the introduction of the movie and i feel the film has used this idea to drive the storytelling and cinematography.


the gravity shifting scene itself is worth the watch

they say that a person may have multiple dreams throughout the night and they only dream for a fraction of the time spent sleeping. inception goes in depth with this fact and unleashes the creativity and full potential of the mind under a dream state. this is my only issue with the movie where a dream world that becomes unstable would bring forth infinite possibilities of ridiculous madness, yet it seems very logical and structured. this small little thought of mine quickly vanishes as you are trapped in a time loop watching every detail on screen pulling you into the story. the characters have to dive into multiple layers of dreams and the smallest details put me in awe. every time you start feeling lost nolan reminds you what is going on while referring back to the initial dream stage the character is in. confused? inception is a stabilized mind fuck that will make you feel all sorts of feelings and will definitely make you walk out of theater questioning your full potential in life at the least.

the movie intrigues me because christopher nolan wrote the script and has been messing with it for the last ten years. it has been revised and tossed around in his head and further edited for six months before the final shooting. inception is the raw idea shot to life by nolan from a simple idea in nolan’s head. one of the concepts for inception is that a simple idea is all it takes for the mind to grasp and develop into something more. in a dream state the mind will access more of its potential and five minutes asleep will amount to an hour within a dream. your mind alone starts thinking of the possibilities and runs along with the film letting the story sink in. all the concepts of time, dreams, paradox, limbo, totems, and even mazes start sinking in and you let yourself go into the masterpiece nolan has created.

hopefully anyone that reads this will have already seen the movie but for those who haven’t, this is nolan’s greatest creation to date in my opinion and can’t wait for the next creation, which will probably be batman. i am glad he has waited for experience with larger scale movies to incorporate into inception. the movie isn’t necessarily perfect in every aspect, but it is great to see a director that truly portrays that storytelling as an art is not lost into the world special effects and blowing shit up.

my apologize for the lack of summary of the actual movie and probably the constant repeating of myself. it’s late and wanted to squeeze in something about the movie. i also noticed the poster reminds me of the dark knight, i wonder if he christopher nolan had anything to do with the design of the teaser posters…

the last airbender

submitted by andrew kim published on July 11, 2010 in film and review Tags: , .

i just have to start off by saying don’t waste your money on this piece of crap they call 3D for this movie. i tend to give every film a chance and watch movies for what they are but i have never felt so ripped off in my life walking out of a movie theater. not because the movie sucked, but why the hell did i pay the extra money for that real d 3d bullshit? if the director had no intention of filming a 3d movie don’t go and spend millions of dollars marketing and editing the movie into a 3d movie. it just does not work that way unfortunately. i am currently not impressed much with 3d technology and for certain movies lately it works great such as avatar, how to train your dragon, and maybe even alice in wonderland. they all have bright colors and are filmed in such a way that objects are isolated in the center of the screen so it actually pops out at you like 3d should be like. the last airbender had sort of a gloomy saturated look most of the time and the only time i actually noticed the 3d effect was the first 2 minutes or so where i feel like they just added in to get you all excited; that and the meditation sequences which have bright flashy lights and effects to make the avatar glow (which case in point is very helpful to make it work). i honestly could have watched most of the movie without my uncomfortable 3d glasses and i wouldn’t have noticed a difference.

the last airbender is about four nations divided into four elements which consist of water, air, fire, and earth. there is an avatar that is the link between the nations and the spirit world who can control all 4 elements. the current avatar disappears and the fire nation wages war on the others starting with the air nation. they plan to conquer the world and that’s when the avatar returns to stop them with the help of a few friends. 3d obviously does not help them succeed in any way though nor does it make them look any flashier.

now that i’m done bitching about being ripped off by the 3d, the movie itself wasn’t a bad watch. i agree it was entertaining to watch but originating from a tv show on nickelodeon, thats exactly what it felt like, one of those mid episodes that summarize the first half of the series. the acting was ehhh and a few characters in particular bothered me in my opinion. the whole movie felt rushed to explain what was going on jumping from scene to scene trying to reach the climax.


this kid can whoop your ass and not even touch you

i have personally never watched the tv series myself besides a few clips of toph whooping ass recommended by my brother. i could say that i get a basic understanding of what avatar: the last airbender is about but i’m sure that plenty of facts are different and i cannot say how close the movie follows the tv show. i am certain that much of the introduction to the characters and depth of the movie is rushed through and skipped as well. for an adaptation and watching as a separate movie though, the story was great, but like i mentioned earlier, just rushed. i noticed that most of the fire nation consisted of indians, the earth nation was all asian, and the water nation was all caucasian. *shrugs*

i don’t see what all the fuss is about wasting money on cg. i thought the effects looked pretty high standard as far as cg goes and some pretty awesome fight scenes. i could just be blind to these flaws since i was too busy putting my glasses on and off trying to see what the hell the difference was on the screen. there was nothing too crazy being a pg-13 movie and the main character being more of a “monk” type figure (meaning he won’t be fucking shit up for 2 hours, but he definitely could). keeping the rating at a teen level i felt it did a much better job than prince of persia in terms of action and all that fun stuff. i am curious to see how the next movie will turn out and feel as if there could be something epic coming our way, just fix the 3d or don’t even bother.

knight and day

submitted by andrew kim published on July 7, 2010 in film and review Tags: , , , .

just got back from watching knight and day and it met my expectations for ridiculous light fun. the movie follows june havens who runs into roy miller, a mysterious killer/agent of some sort that just won’t go away. that seems to be as much as the trailers go and they obviously stick together while they run away from bad people.

knight and day is just one of those movies that are just fun. tom cruise has charisma and the character development between cruise and diaz outshine the plot in a good way. the chemistry works well between the two and keeps the movie moving forward with plenty of laughs and wtf moments.

roy miller, played by cruise, has that suave characteristic thats hard to pinpoint. he has those moments where everything just falls into place and he’s not cocky about it, nor is he surprised; sort of like when you make that bullshit shot in a game of nine ball and you walk around the table acting as if it was nothing. i also felt miller didn’t have that typical cruise attitude like mission impossible or even last samurai. june, played by diaz does a great job of expressing the “wtf-ness” of the situation the first half of the movie and creates some hilarious moments with miller because of her instability.

miller is probably the mr. nice guy of all secret agent operatives out there and pulls it off without trying. i mean, i’ve never seen someone so sincere after they shot someone. its an action-comedy so action scenes will be silly and quite ridiculous, but that’s the point. bullets will hit everything around you but your own damn body in a world like knight and day and it’s a good balance between a good time watching an action movie and a cheesy b grade flick.

another thing i liked about the movie is the pace with its fun montages and scene transitions. it also has one of those dramatic moments where you usually get annoyed with the character for being so ignorant or not sticking around long enough to find the truth… but without the annoyance. mangold, the director of the movie, balances all these elements well in my opinion and in the end we have a movie definitely worth a good watch with plenty of laughs to remember. the poster above, which has a butch and cassidy feel to me for some reason, and somehow i don’t feel those are silhouettes of cruise and diaz.