Friday, March 30, 2007
TV Update
I’ve posted a new movie review for the 300 below in case you haven’t checked in a while and don’t scroll down.
Here’s a quick note about some new TV shows
I’m now Tivo’ing a couple new TV shows. One is Raines starring the very talented Jeff Goldblum in a surprising move from Movies to TV. He plays a detective that sees his cases’ victims as hallucinations and solves his cases by getting to know them and watching his hallucinations change. Basically it is your standard cop/mystery show with the hallucinations as the only differentiating angle. Goldblum is very good. Like James Woods in Shark, it is amazing how a single actor can so dramatically affect how good the show is. That said, I don’t think Goldblum is enough. The show is just the same old mystery show we’ve all seen a thousand times or more. The only part of the show that stands out is the 3 minutes of dialogue per episode where Goldblum is humorously insulting to a fellow officer. That’s not enough. I’m giving it one more episode to change my mind and then it’s getting the axe.
The other show is the USA or is it FX…not sure…show (if I had wifi here where I’m typing I would look it up, but oh well) titled “The Riches.” Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver play modern American Gypsies that steal the identities and lives of a wealthy family and try to pull off faking their way through these other people’s lives. It is pretty raw with some shocking violence and drug use, but it is also very smart and so far quite entertaining. The stars are great, the plots are real and engaging. So far I like it. It’s tough to watch sometimes, but worth it so far.
Oh wait, there’s another one I almost forgot. I’m also watching “The Black Donnelly’s” which I think is on NBC. It’s about 4 Irish brothers in….Boston…I think or is it NY? I can’t remember. Anyway, they are a poor family trying to maneuver through the mob and the neighborhood. It is really good. The main brothers is the perfect combo of sweet and duty-bound, cold strength. He’s clearly ripping off Michael Corleone, but that’s forgivable. This show appears to be a keeper so, of course, it will not be renewed for next year.
Here’s a quick note about some new TV shows
I’m now Tivo’ing a couple new TV shows. One is Raines starring the very talented Jeff Goldblum in a surprising move from Movies to TV. He plays a detective that sees his cases’ victims as hallucinations and solves his cases by getting to know them and watching his hallucinations change. Basically it is your standard cop/mystery show with the hallucinations as the only differentiating angle. Goldblum is very good. Like James Woods in Shark, it is amazing how a single actor can so dramatically affect how good the show is. That said, I don’t think Goldblum is enough. The show is just the same old mystery show we’ve all seen a thousand times or more. The only part of the show that stands out is the 3 minutes of dialogue per episode where Goldblum is humorously insulting to a fellow officer. That’s not enough. I’m giving it one more episode to change my mind and then it’s getting the axe.
The other show is the USA or is it FX…not sure…show (if I had wifi here where I’m typing I would look it up, but oh well) titled “The Riches.” Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver play modern American Gypsies that steal the identities and lives of a wealthy family and try to pull off faking their way through these other people’s lives. It is pretty raw with some shocking violence and drug use, but it is also very smart and so far quite entertaining. The stars are great, the plots are real and engaging. So far I like it. It’s tough to watch sometimes, but worth it so far.
Oh wait, there’s another one I almost forgot. I’m also watching “The Black Donnelly’s” which I think is on NBC. It’s about 4 Irish brothers in….Boston…I think or is it NY? I can’t remember. Anyway, they are a poor family trying to maneuver through the mob and the neighborhood. It is really good. The main brothers is the perfect combo of sweet and duty-bound, cold strength. He’s clearly ripping off Michael Corleone, but that’s forgivable. This show appears to be a keeper so, of course, it will not be renewed for next year.
The 300 as told by a 13 year old
Wow it has been along time since I posted here. What’s up with that? Another dry run like that and I may have to fire myself. So now that I’m finally posting, I’ll try to get down as much as possible.
I have to start with a review of the movie I saw last night, “The 300”. I’m going to abandon my current movie review form and just hit the points that jumped out at me after seeing the movie.
The movie is about a single battle where “history” tells us 300 Spartans stood against the Persian army in a move that went a long ways toward unifying Greece and holding off the Persians.
First, I think your expectations are always important when you go in to see a movie. Your expectations and your mood (also affected by things like who you are watching with, whether you found parking near the theater, what you ate for dinner, whether you got fresh popcorn, whether you are just a grumpy person in general and many other factors) is like a surface ready to be painted. Sometimes you go into a movie as a blank canvas stretched and ready to absorb the paint with any direction a possibility. Sometimes you go in as a greasy old piece of furniture picked up at a flea market that “will look great with just a little paint” only to discover that the surface seems completely resistant to holding any kind of paint whatsoever. Your mood can make you hate or like the same movie and expectations are a big part of that.
I had seen tons of previews for The 300. They have been pushing that movie at us for months and it is so distinctive in its look that it catches your eye and makes you watch. And I read many reviews, including a great one in the NY Times that is worth reading if you are so inclined. In fact it is worth reading even if you are not so inclined. You should really be inclined.
Anyway, I knew what this movie was going to be. I checked out the graphic novel. I’ve seen other Frank Miller films. I’ve seen enough movies to recognize from the previews what kind of movie it was, so I knew what it would be. I knew the plot would be very thin, the dialogue would be forced and over dramatic and, if everything went well, it would be visually dazzling and provide some great, memorable battle scenes. This is, afterall, an adult comic book come to life in vivid CGI. If you go into a movie like this expecting brilliant writing and a compelling story with ups and downs and plot twists, then you are going to be sorely disappointed and, frankly, it will be your own fault for not going in with reasonable expectations. If you don’t like movies with little to no plot or character development, no commentaries on relationships or modern existential angst, then please do not see this movie.
If, however, you like a good visual show, and long for Mountain Dew to start adding straight testosterone to a new drink offering, then you may want to check this movie out.
As it turns out, this movie was not written and directed by a 13 year old Spartan boy who lived at the time the movie was set. But if it had been there wouldn’t be a single change. This movie was not smart. It was not clever. The dialogue was so bad and such a watered down version of already marginal writing from movies like Gladiator and Braveheart that it was almost hard to listen to sometimes. But that wasn’t my entire point in saying it could have been written by a 13 year old Spartan boy.
The movie wasn’t so much a historical rendering of a real battle, but a melodramatic, over-blown, mythic account of an important moment for Greece and Greek people. This was presented as a Spartan myth. The point was not historical accuracy and I don’t believe the point could have been telling a good story. It was as if the point was to demonstrate and glorify the important values of ancient Sparta. I mean, I’m guessing an ancient Spartan would have loved this movie. It romanticized strength, duty, loyalty, honor, bravery and success in battle and nothing else. If you’ve studied much world history, you know that is what Sparta was really about. This movie did not try to depict Sparta as it actually was, but rather how they would have liked to see themselves.
Of course, that all makes me wonder who the target audience of this film is since, as far as I know, there are no living ancient Spartans. But there are men. And a majority of men and a handful of women have the Spartan gene. There is something inherent in many, if not most men, that will connect to this movie. It is an important part of my “cave man” theory that explains most human behavior (at least in my own mind), but I’ll have to leave that for another post, or book or something. Basically, there is something in us that once allowed us to be great warriors that yearns to prove ourselves physically and against a foe. This is still in us and the more our society pushes that impulse to the margin, the more we enjoy football and movies like this so that we can live vicariously for a moment through our heroes and try to convince ourselves that we could still be brave warriors ourselves if we were called to be.
Given that internal drive, this movie works on a certain level. It taps into that as directly as any movie I have ever seen. This is a masculine, manly movie in the extreme. Not saying women won’t enjoy it, just that it is about manliness and nothing else.
I very much enjoyed the stunning visuals from this movie. Movies that are heavy on the visuals have come to be called “eye candy” and this is like a Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory for the eye. It is beautiful and disturbing. It forces you to look, sometimes against your will. It is hypnotic. The greeks look like statues come to life. The villains have beautiful robes and capes and masks and weapons, the action moves at different speeds, the shots are never the expected, never the things you’ve seen before. It is impressive. Elephants fall off cliffs, thousands of arrow’s blacken the sky, ships are broken in a furious ocean and it all looks amazing.
Back to the 13 year old for a minute, all the bad-guys (the army of king Xerxes and Xerxes himself) were all way over-done. They weren’t real, they were what a 13 year old Spartan would imagine them being if his father had survived the battle and came back to describe it. It wasn’t literal, but an imagining of what would have been feared by a Greek facing the unknown armies of the unknown world. That’s fine and all and made for some interesting things to see, but nothing about it is real. For example, there is one scene where the king of Sparta had to scale a treacherous cliff up to consult some creepy priests and a dancing girl. He is in tremendous shape and barely makes the climb. After that you see a hugely overweight Persian guy on the same hill. How did he get up there? How do they bring the young dancing girls up there? It makes no sense. But if you’re 13, you just don’t think of stuff like that. Of course, the writer/director isn’t 13 and neither are most of the people seeing this movie, but let’s just move past that. The point is that if imagination over reality is fine with you, then great. If you need to see something real to enjoy it, take a pass on this one.
So, here are the other things I liked:
The guy who played Leonitis. Captured it perfectly.
The scene where they kick the Persian messengers into that big well/hole/whatever it was.
The queen. She was strong without being obnoxious. She was loyal and fierce in defense of her family and country and had the right look as well.
The battle scenes…of course. Good stuff. A little gruesome, but so stylized it didn’t turn my stomach like Saving Private Ryan or something like that.
The scope. The scope of this movie was about one battle and one group of men from Sparta and nothing else. It didn’t make other points or try to tell the entire story of world politics of the time. And that was good.
Here are some things I didn’t like:
The narrator. Ugh. This was so bad it came close to ruining the whole movie. It told you waaaaay too much and for a movie so much about someone else’s imagination, it ironically refused to leave anything to the viewers’. Just a terribly bad cop out. I hated it. I can’t say it strongly enough. Let’s move on.
The dialogue. I wasn’t expecting much, but even with low expectations it was bad. I mean if Deadwood has taught us anything, it is that you can take a crass, primitive setting and still supply engaging and clever dialogue. The makers of this movie, do not understand this.
The political side/story – This generally made no sense, did not add anything to the movie and was at best a distraction and at worst made me want to hum and cover my ears and hide my eyes until the terribly forced and idiotic scenes were over.
The stealing – This movie stole shamefully from Lord of the Rings and Gladiator. What’s with the scenes in the wheat fields? Did they not see Gladiator? Did they think we just wouldn’t notice? Sheesh.
In the end, I enjoyed the movie, but was disappointed. Not in what it was, but because of what it could have been. It wasn’t that it failed to meet my expectations, it was that it could have been so much better with just a few changes. Some improved writing and just getting rid of the narrator would have made this movie an instant re-watchable classic along the lines of Desperado. But it didn’t get there. I had a good time watching and I think it really captured what it set out to do, but it could have been better and won’t be for everyone.
If you want to know whether you should see it and still can’t tell, here’s a few other comments. It is extremely violent and has some disturbing violent images. There is nothing at all to this movie other than the fighting. It is not like Gladiator, where there was a personal journey and some character development and political intrigue and, you know, story. It is just about the manly violence. That’s it. Really.
I have to start with a review of the movie I saw last night, “The 300”. I’m going to abandon my current movie review form and just hit the points that jumped out at me after seeing the movie.
The movie is about a single battle where “history” tells us 300 Spartans stood against the Persian army in a move that went a long ways toward unifying Greece and holding off the Persians.
First, I think your expectations are always important when you go in to see a movie. Your expectations and your mood (also affected by things like who you are watching with, whether you found parking near the theater, what you ate for dinner, whether you got fresh popcorn, whether you are just a grumpy person in general and many other factors) is like a surface ready to be painted. Sometimes you go into a movie as a blank canvas stretched and ready to absorb the paint with any direction a possibility. Sometimes you go in as a greasy old piece of furniture picked up at a flea market that “will look great with just a little paint” only to discover that the surface seems completely resistant to holding any kind of paint whatsoever. Your mood can make you hate or like the same movie and expectations are a big part of that.
I had seen tons of previews for The 300. They have been pushing that movie at us for months and it is so distinctive in its look that it catches your eye and makes you watch. And I read many reviews, including a great one in the NY Times that is worth reading if you are so inclined. In fact it is worth reading even if you are not so inclined. You should really be inclined.
Anyway, I knew what this movie was going to be. I checked out the graphic novel. I’ve seen other Frank Miller films. I’ve seen enough movies to recognize from the previews what kind of movie it was, so I knew what it would be. I knew the plot would be very thin, the dialogue would be forced and over dramatic and, if everything went well, it would be visually dazzling and provide some great, memorable battle scenes. This is, afterall, an adult comic book come to life in vivid CGI. If you go into a movie like this expecting brilliant writing and a compelling story with ups and downs and plot twists, then you are going to be sorely disappointed and, frankly, it will be your own fault for not going in with reasonable expectations. If you don’t like movies with little to no plot or character development, no commentaries on relationships or modern existential angst, then please do not see this movie.
If, however, you like a good visual show, and long for Mountain Dew to start adding straight testosterone to a new drink offering, then you may want to check this movie out.
As it turns out, this movie was not written and directed by a 13 year old Spartan boy who lived at the time the movie was set. But if it had been there wouldn’t be a single change. This movie was not smart. It was not clever. The dialogue was so bad and such a watered down version of already marginal writing from movies like Gladiator and Braveheart that it was almost hard to listen to sometimes. But that wasn’t my entire point in saying it could have been written by a 13 year old Spartan boy.
The movie wasn’t so much a historical rendering of a real battle, but a melodramatic, over-blown, mythic account of an important moment for Greece and Greek people. This was presented as a Spartan myth. The point was not historical accuracy and I don’t believe the point could have been telling a good story. It was as if the point was to demonstrate and glorify the important values of ancient Sparta. I mean, I’m guessing an ancient Spartan would have loved this movie. It romanticized strength, duty, loyalty, honor, bravery and success in battle and nothing else. If you’ve studied much world history, you know that is what Sparta was really about. This movie did not try to depict Sparta as it actually was, but rather how they would have liked to see themselves.
Of course, that all makes me wonder who the target audience of this film is since, as far as I know, there are no living ancient Spartans. But there are men. And a majority of men and a handful of women have the Spartan gene. There is something inherent in many, if not most men, that will connect to this movie. It is an important part of my “cave man” theory that explains most human behavior (at least in my own mind), but I’ll have to leave that for another post, or book or something. Basically, there is something in us that once allowed us to be great warriors that yearns to prove ourselves physically and against a foe. This is still in us and the more our society pushes that impulse to the margin, the more we enjoy football and movies like this so that we can live vicariously for a moment through our heroes and try to convince ourselves that we could still be brave warriors ourselves if we were called to be.
Given that internal drive, this movie works on a certain level. It taps into that as directly as any movie I have ever seen. This is a masculine, manly movie in the extreme. Not saying women won’t enjoy it, just that it is about manliness and nothing else.
I very much enjoyed the stunning visuals from this movie. Movies that are heavy on the visuals have come to be called “eye candy” and this is like a Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory for the eye. It is beautiful and disturbing. It forces you to look, sometimes against your will. It is hypnotic. The greeks look like statues come to life. The villains have beautiful robes and capes and masks and weapons, the action moves at different speeds, the shots are never the expected, never the things you’ve seen before. It is impressive. Elephants fall off cliffs, thousands of arrow’s blacken the sky, ships are broken in a furious ocean and it all looks amazing.
Back to the 13 year old for a minute, all the bad-guys (the army of king Xerxes and Xerxes himself) were all way over-done. They weren’t real, they were what a 13 year old Spartan would imagine them being if his father had survived the battle and came back to describe it. It wasn’t literal, but an imagining of what would have been feared by a Greek facing the unknown armies of the unknown world. That’s fine and all and made for some interesting things to see, but nothing about it is real. For example, there is one scene where the king of Sparta had to scale a treacherous cliff up to consult some creepy priests and a dancing girl. He is in tremendous shape and barely makes the climb. After that you see a hugely overweight Persian guy on the same hill. How did he get up there? How do they bring the young dancing girls up there? It makes no sense. But if you’re 13, you just don’t think of stuff like that. Of course, the writer/director isn’t 13 and neither are most of the people seeing this movie, but let’s just move past that. The point is that if imagination over reality is fine with you, then great. If you need to see something real to enjoy it, take a pass on this one.
So, here are the other things I liked:
The guy who played Leonitis. Captured it perfectly.
The scene where they kick the Persian messengers into that big well/hole/whatever it was.
The queen. She was strong without being obnoxious. She was loyal and fierce in defense of her family and country and had the right look as well.
The battle scenes…of course. Good stuff. A little gruesome, but so stylized it didn’t turn my stomach like Saving Private Ryan or something like that.
The scope. The scope of this movie was about one battle and one group of men from Sparta and nothing else. It didn’t make other points or try to tell the entire story of world politics of the time. And that was good.
Here are some things I didn’t like:
The narrator. Ugh. This was so bad it came close to ruining the whole movie. It told you waaaaay too much and for a movie so much about someone else’s imagination, it ironically refused to leave anything to the viewers’. Just a terribly bad cop out. I hated it. I can’t say it strongly enough. Let’s move on.
The dialogue. I wasn’t expecting much, but even with low expectations it was bad. I mean if Deadwood has taught us anything, it is that you can take a crass, primitive setting and still supply engaging and clever dialogue. The makers of this movie, do not understand this.
The political side/story – This generally made no sense, did not add anything to the movie and was at best a distraction and at worst made me want to hum and cover my ears and hide my eyes until the terribly forced and idiotic scenes were over.
The stealing – This movie stole shamefully from Lord of the Rings and Gladiator. What’s with the scenes in the wheat fields? Did they not see Gladiator? Did they think we just wouldn’t notice? Sheesh.
In the end, I enjoyed the movie, but was disappointed. Not in what it was, but because of what it could have been. It wasn’t that it failed to meet my expectations, it was that it could have been so much better with just a few changes. Some improved writing and just getting rid of the narrator would have made this movie an instant re-watchable classic along the lines of Desperado. But it didn’t get there. I had a good time watching and I think it really captured what it set out to do, but it could have been better and won’t be for everyone.
If you want to know whether you should see it and still can’t tell, here’s a few other comments. It is extremely violent and has some disturbing violent images. There is nothing at all to this movie other than the fighting. It is not like Gladiator, where there was a personal journey and some character development and political intrigue and, you know, story. It is just about the manly violence. That’s it. Really.
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