how long did 'inception' feel? oh "about 50 years" long.

the other night, due to my sweet new 'scene' card, i got to see a movie for free. movies in the theatre are a pretty big rip off, and most movies in the theatre suck right now anyway, so i probably wouldn't have gone had it not been for the free ride.

but the free movie was available so we thought we'd go see Inception. i mean, it didn't look great but how bad could it really be? certainly it couldn't be as bad as Hot Tub Time Machine? Or Grown Ups(two of, truly, the worst movies i have ever seen)?

it stars leonardo dicaprio and the guy from 28 days later! ellen page! it's an action movie with an indie star twist! it's directed by christopher nolan(who i suspect owes most of his success to his more literary brother), but i could overlook that. it was supposed to be sci-fi, i like sci-fi. and you can't really go wrong with action, right?

wrong. wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

we found inception so intolerable that we walked out of the movie at the two hour mark, forgetting to take the peanut m&m's with us.

a plot so banal that they needed to use the characters to actually tell the audience what was going on(ex-po-sition), to make it seem more complicated than it was, a scary similarity to the tensions in shutter island(dead wife, guilt, dealing with the trauma in one's subconscious) , no real sci-fi component, a complete lack of character development, boring effects, and two hours of mind numbing NOTHING made inception one of the worst movies i've seen all year.

for real, i didn't even walk out of the re-make of friday the 13th.

so, i don't know, where should i start?

let's start at ellen page. unlike most people, i don't love ellen page. her semi-lesbian-but straight girl thing does nothing for me because i'm not a closeted 15 year old girl(or just a regular 15 year old girl, since being bisexual is now totally cool).

i feel like ellen page's cool, 'kind of feminist' thing is used in films to sneak actual conservative ideas into the movie without people really noticing, and i don't like that. for example: juno. the girl juno is smart and has biting wit! she wears pants under her skirts! she likes MUSIC.

but really, juno the movie just used a cool smart girl to mask what the movie was all about--being pro-life.

did anyone else feel a strange shiver when juno decides to reject abortion because the crazy anti-abortion protester tells her that her baby has fingernails? something not based in fact, at all? something used by anti-abortionists to scare women and girls in real life by forcing them to think of that shit growing in their uterus as a person, a real live grown baby?

OR the movie whip it. whip it really pissed me off. mainly because it used all these tough, cool chicks to sell a movie that sucked. that really, really sucked. the only ellen page movie i really liked was hard candy, for the obvious reasons.

so, ellen page is annoying. also she looks the same in every single movie. i'm pretty sure they used her juno wardrobe in inception. does she have something in her contract stating that she can only wear dark reds and burnt oranges? that she has to wear a triangle scarf in every scene? and that her hair can never change?

so ellen page didn't fit into inception, at all. she doesn't translate into the action genre--which is what inception was. it wasn't sci-fi. it was action/thriller.

for a movie to really be sci-fi it has to do what regular movies don't --satisfy your inner geek. your inner geek is sitting on the edge of it's seat, clapping it's hands at the end of a good sci-fi. your inner geek is stimulated and thinking, and making connections with the rest of the sci-fi world.

during inception my inner geek was pushing its glasses up its nose, frowning at the screen, arms crossed yelling "where is the science!!! where is the philosophy!!!" my inner geek, spoiled once by the matrix, was mad at me for taking it to inception.

so on to the the matrix comparison.

half the people who have seen inception say that they didn't hear it was like the matrix and so they didn't expect anything of the movie. the other half say they heard it was the 'new' matrix, and had some expectations.

i am of the latter group, and so i was a bit dubious about the movie to begin with. i love the matrix. i love the matrix so much that i took a class on it once. a CLASS.

the matrix was a rare film in that it satisfied pretty much everyone's geek. the matrix drew on so much philosophy and science that it kept you thinking throughout the entire movie and beyond. hyperreality, simulacra, simulation, humanism, post humanism, anti-capitalism, revolution. baudrillard, derrida, marx, jameson, gibson . all of the ideas could be traced right back to their real world origin which made the matrix more than just a summer blockbuster. the matrix had solid footing in the culture that it was representing. the same can't be said about inception.

whether or not it's fair to compare any movie to the matrix, in this case the matrix comparison is important in highlighting the thing i disliked most of all about inception: it is a total slave to capitalism, in every way shape and form.

even in most mainstream movies there is a suspicion or a distaste for the corporate. corporations are usually run by the most corrupt and are usually brought down in the most spectacular ways. honestly, i don't even really remember the last time i saw a movie that didn't question how the corporation functioned in its plot.

the group of extractors works for corporations, and while they might explain in one line that this isn't always what extractors did, otherwise there are no moral qualms about being beholden to corporate power.

look at the ellen page character. what is her motivation for giving up her mind to corporate espionage? to ruining someone's life? well a) they don't motivate her in any way nor do they reveal her motivation to the audience in any way, and b) we're not meant to question doing things for the corporation any more.

in the matrix, "our use of the new technologies is not the indoctrination necessary to creating the consumers of late capitalism, whose consumption of commodified information fuels the global economy. rather, our utilization of the technologies is our pathway to freedom."

in inception, there is no liberation or freedom--there isn't even really a struggle for it. there is only self-interest and the feeling that the only way of getting anything done anymore is through the corporation. this is how life is now, even in "sci-fi."

in the new york times review, A.O Scott wrote that while "there is a lot to see in inception, there is nothing that counts as genuine vision. Mr. Nolan's idea of the mind is too literal, too logical, too rule-bound to allow the full measure of madness."

Scott also comments on how the majority of debate about the greatness vs no greatness of inception happened before the movie even screened.

ultimately, this is the problem with inception and movies in general right now.
based on hype people fork out lots of money to sit in a theatre with the expectation that what they're seeing has some kind of value. unfortunately, because people have to justify spending their money and time on a film i think we become more and more likely to try to find things that we liked about it even if there was nothing worth our time or money.

david edelstein wrote that "the movie is a metaphor for the power of delusional hype—a metaphor for itself" and i think he's right. if we really think about it, what is left in the mainstream film industry but hype?

the whole point of seeing movies is to talk about them. who liked what, why they liked it, why they hated it. if you aren't arguing about a movie after you see it then maybe it wasn't worth seeing. so at least inception gave me something to talk about the past few days and i at least didn't have to pay to see it. but at the same time, should big directors like nolan be able to hype their movies up, release utter garbage, and get by on the merits of debate??

all i know is that peanut M&Ms are my favorite movie treat, and when i left inception at the two hour mark there was at least half a bag of those delicious little things left... and that's enough reason for me to shake my fist at the film.

Sex and the City 2 :: Film :: VUE Weekly

this is pretty much the best sex and the city 2 review ever:

Sex and the City 2 :: Film :: VUE Weekly

"Once upon a time, a young gay man encountered a critically-acclaimed HBO series, only to ask the question 12 years later, "Do all women turn into thoughtless, self-serving bitches once they reach the top of the New York social ladder?"

I began to wonder about this after one of my favourite shows of my early 20s went to hell in a hand basket after following the mad popularity of its sixth and final season with a feature film, going from a weekly trailblazing dose of cultural references and unconventional romance to a lacklustre Vogue fashion spread drunk off its ass on pink martinis. Going over and over in my head for months where things went wrong, I decided to do what half of the other gay men on earth had already penned in on their calendars—see the disastrous sequel for myself on opening weekend, and just maybe, if I downed two pints at the bar next to the theatre before going in, it might not be as bad as all of the other reviews told me it would be.

Meeting Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha at the fabulous Theatre One, right next door to where a bulked-up Jake Gyllenhaal doffed his shirt for a Disney epic, I was carried off to a number of exotic locales: a perfectly legal gay wedding in Connecticut, a luxurious first class trip to Abu Dhabi and of course, that cozy little brownstone apartment with the closet that never seems to run out of space. Everybody who was anybody was there, from Liza to Miley to Penelope to Aidan, the guy that half of Carrie Bradshaw's fans wish and whine she would have ended up with.

Meanwhile, on the upper east side of the theatre, two hundred or so straight girls laughed, gasped and squealed through the whole ordeal, not caring this way or that if the movie lacked the smarts that went over most of their heads when they watched the show. They were just happy to have their very own film event to drag their boyfriends to, and have the chance to draw just as much attention to themselves in their H&M dresses and knock-off Chanel shoes as any hobbit or a Jedi might.

It was then that I realized, while this movie prioritized new outfits in every scene over its botched character arc and possibly racist undertones, maybe I was wrong to judge an event sequel that couldn't possibly be compared to itself as the cable series spring chicken whose relevance was timely and limited. Secretly looking forward to the opening of this shitbox as much as anybody else, I distinctly remembered that I also saw Spiceworld on its first day.

In short, everyone must go through life to learn that one valuable lesson: your most important relationship is with the summer franchise blockbuster you'd cut off your left arm to see before anyone else does. "


.

only werner herzog..

"plastic bag", by ramin bahrani.

werner herzog is the voice of a plastic bag, searching america for its maker: "i wish you had created me so i could die."



go HERE to learn more about the great pacific garbage patch.

avatar, pocahontas... same thing!

all of that time and money and brain power spent on 'avatar' just to tell an old, racist, and historically inaccurate story.

congratulations james cameron, you're the worst.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/reddit/james-camerons-pocohontas-err-avatar



to read about the actual story of pocahontas you should read this:

the true story of pocahontas: the other side of history by dr. linwood "little bear" custalow and angela l. daniel.

precious!

the actress who is starring(Gabourey Sidibe) in the new movie 'precious' was on oprah the other day and surprise, surprise the discussion turned to body image and dieting.

oprah noted on the show that the director of the movie(lee daniels) has said the actress speaks "like a white girl from the valley" and has so much confidence that she is either in "denial about her physicality or from another planet."

aside from the obvious ridiculousness of that statement, why does the conversation about this actress automatically have to turn to dieting and body image?

so she has to be in denial about her body image because she's confident??? really?? that doesn't exactly seem fair.

and, she probably isn't from another planet since there is no life on other planets.

she said that after a lifetime of body image issues and bad diets she had to: "sit down with myself and decide that i loved myself no matter what my body looked like and what other people thought about my body."

racism? and you're surprised?

everyone is up in arms over universal's decicion to remove the "black actors" from the poster and list of stars of the stupidest looking movie ever: couple's retreat

apparently the studio was advised to "simplify the poster to actors who are most recognisable in international markets" because the movie got the worst reviews ever and probably isn't going to make a lot of money on the international market.

here's my problem with everyone acting all outraged about this. in the US version of the poster, they need a HUGE red arrow to even point out the two actors. sure, the other two couples are pretty distant, but faizon love and kali hawk are significantly farther away. they kind of look like they accidentally walked through the photo shoot and are looking at the camera going "whaaaaat."

shouldn't the people who are outraged about this decision also be outraged that movies about white people have to throw in token black actors so that they can at least look politically correct and not racist?

i'm not saying it isn't bad that the production company did this, i'm just saying that it's important to not just look at the symptoms of racism. the film industry is racist. so instead of attacking an airbrush job once in awhile, why don't people do things like stop paying to see movies that stereotype and tokenize anyone who isn't a white yuppie?

yes, complain about the poster, but don't just stop there and expect that things will change.

300 titans.

oh i see, legendary pictures is re-releasing 300 but they're calling it "clash of the titans."

time to hire someone new to make your movie trailers, legendary.

quis custodiet ipsos custodes? i did!

it's been a week since the glorious evening that i went to see the movie rendition of my favourite book/graphic novel of all time. i'm pretty critical when it comes to movies due to my short attention span and fidgeting problem, therefore i don't enjoy a lot of what i see in the theatre. this being said, my feeling is that if i can sit through a film just short of three hours without going bananas, it's probably a good indication that most people will generally find said movie a worthwhile excursion into the strangely-air-conditioned-despite-the-fact-it's-winter movie theater.
i first got the shakes for this film when i went to see dark knight and got a small taste in the form of the trailer. For anyone who had read the graphic novel and was also a massively huge smashing pumpkins fan (there's a lot of us out there, i feel) then the song being played over the epic tease ("the beginning is the end is the beginning") was probably enough to make you pee your pants with excitment. clearly, the song encapsulates the overarching theme of the story and is thus the most perfect trailer ever made. i'm a total nerd.
oh, les watchmen.
where to start? it is troubling, i think, to see someone else's vision of a book come to 'life'. i imagined lestat so differently from the vampire tom cruise made him into. and i think we were all a little surprised at how frodo and sam gamgee turned out, were we not? but...
perhaps the graphic novel-turned-movie circut is a different kettle of fish, at least in this respect. anyway, enough fluff. onto the film. CLICK TO KEEP READING >>>>>>>>>>
i have thought a lot about how the movie-making guys would include all of the side stories that make the book so complicatedly awesome. my favourite part-the parallel pirate story- was not included in the movie. i was pretty sad for this, but it's probably fair as the corpse boat might not have found it's place in this telling.
we have probably all heard by now that the ending was completely different. yes, it's true. but we have to cut some slack to our friends over there in hollywood. in order to stay true to the original ending, they would have had to include all the back story about the island where people go (never to be seen again) to create the monster which destroys new york. this would have made the film much longer, and it is arguably easier for most people to understand an ending that includes bombs. monsters confuse people.
this new ending was contexually perfect- the post 9/11, post bush, post katrina, neoliberalist comme disaster capitalist thing we got goin on. what better way to critique our society than to show major cities being taken out by nuclear explosions, only to have the destroyer capitalize on the reconstruction of the world?? When Alan Moore originally wrote this story, he was truely onto something- and the film did this justice. i felt pure, heart wrenching happiness to see this come out of a blockbuster. ironic, i know. hopefully it won't be lost on most of us.
i will say that i was unhappy about the writers of the movie allowing viedt to scapegoat dr. manhattan for the annihilation of a good chunk of human-kind. but i'm biased because i've got a soft spot for the big blue. i like 'science talk'.
my two major beefs with this movie are:
1)in the book, the watchmen were just regular people tired of corrupt cops and out-of-control crime. kinda like bruce wayne. but the film made them into super-heros. the fight scenes were undoubtably matrix-y. but then again, how do you make people see a super hero movie if it's not about super heros?? and
2)rorschach was the only character that was developed in the film. that's not fair, actually. they did spend some time on miss jupiter/laurie, which i think can only be attributed to the fact that she's the 'hot' female lead and the more sexy scenes, the more money. but that's old news. alas, this lack of character development can be explained by the time problem, once again.
in the end, a movie will never be as good as the book. but this came pretty close.

as if things aren't bad enough

pamphleteers read today that Warner Bros are in the "early stages" of a remake of the Neverending Story: "Neverending Story arrives at new beginning" (http://uk.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUKTRE51P0YR20090226).

seriously? someone point out the nearest swamp of sadness, because we're about to throw ourselves in after Artax.

when practically every single movie that comes out is a remake, something is wrong.

when not even the Neverending Story is safe, something is even more wrong. nothing could make the Neverending Story a better movie than it already is, so why ruin it?

apparently, "the new movie will put a modern spin on the material by examining the more nuanced details of the book that were glossed over in the first feature."

there is nothing more suspicious than the phrase "put a modern spin on".

what does that even mean? does that mean that the childlike empress will be wearing something sexier? that in the remake she'll have fake boobs? because in the world of remakes that's what a "modern spin" is.

and who is going to play Atreyu? surely no one but noah hathaway could pull off playing Atreyu. how many kids had their first gender ambiguous crush on Atreyu? who could fill those moccasins?!

and what about the theme song? are they going to modernize that as well??