Icons, Movie Reviews, and Other Stuff
Feb. 18th, 2007 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkingsoupA few more, including my very first GIF, because I'm utterly
I really shoulda been doing work, but this is really too much fun.
New D. Gray-Man chapter up as well, XOMG, I love Crowley.
So! Date with Pat on Friday, sorta. We saw Donnie Darko and talked for awhile afterward. Got to know him better and all that good stuff. On Saturday we met in the dining hall and he offered to take me to Wegman's, but then I called Julie and I guess the rest of them were already down there and heading back up. So Pat hung out the rest of the day, met my friends, and fun was had by all. Went to see The Prestige last night too.
I like where it's going with me and Pat. Don't know if I want a relationship-relationship with him yet, but...*shrug*. We'll see, I guess. ^.^
Finished the third season of The OC. Fuck, man.
And I pretty much did nothing today. So, onto movie reviews.
Donnie Darko
Let me start off by saying, this isn't a movie you can watch once. Or if you do watch it once, you have to then go digging around online for movie info in order to completely understand it. And even then, you don't completely understand it.
This is one of those movies that people either love or hate. I can't say I fit on either end of the spectrum. It was good, but the movie is really schizophrenic. There's a fine line between leaving things to the imagination, and creating disconnect between almost every scene in the movie. You have to know what to leave out, and I think they left out too much.
The premise is, Donnie Darko is a relatively average high schooler with a very dysfunctional family and "emotional problems." He starts sleepwalking and seeing a demonic bunny rabbit called Frank who asks him to do things. Frank tells him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds, and pretty much Donnie is the only one who can save the world. Then an engine from an airplane falls through his roof at night during one of these sleepwalking things, right into his room, and after that everything kind of spirals downward. His mental state starts to crumble as the movie progresses, and you learn more about Donnie and Frank and what the connection between them is. When Donnie receives a book about time travel, things start to totally unravel.
In many ways, the disconnectedness of the movie works, since the movie pretty much traces Donnie's breakdown--it's one of those movies where you're asking yourself the whole time whether he's crazy or not. It's kind of...like a sci-fi version of Catcher in the Rye, I suppose. With demonic bunny rabbits.
The characters are well done. You get a real sense of Donnie and his family members, as well as some of his friends. You also get kind of a holistic view--of Donnie, his family, Frank, and everything from kind of a world point of view, them as part of a whole, sort of, though maybe that's just me. There's a definite sense that things are going on in the places the camera isn't pointed.
And Frank is creepy.
But like I said, it's still really disconnected. If they had included bits from the Philosophy of Time Travel book, it would have made a lot more sense. Apparently the Director's Cut does so, which makes me want to see it. I liked it, but...I dunno. It's really hard to follow. Really scattered.
Though the way they shoot Frank is absolutely wonderful.
Score: 6 out of 10
Man, I want to write. I have to write a piece for Women and Writing, and I'm going to do Gecko again--but I just really, really want to get back to Mot, or get started on North. I'm this close to starting North, but one of my characters isn't exactly being forthcoming with her backstory. And there are a few more kinks to work out. I just wish things were going smoother with North. I don't know why I'm so reluctant to really start it. I've really just gotta bite the bullet and do it. I dunno. I guess I just want to have everything worked out before I start, so this doesn't explode like Mot has.
The Prestige
Very interesting chronology in this movie. It jumps around a lot, though it's pretty easy to follow.
Pretty much, you have two magicians, Bolton and Angier. I think those are their names. Bolton is on trial for Angier's murder when Bolton supposedly made a trick go horribly wrong. The movie then focuses on the past between the two men, particularly their rivalry. They become obsessed with one-upping each other and exacting vengeance, an obsession that carries through right to the end. The title of the movie refers to the third part of a magician's trick, pretty much the final part where you "return" something that has been disappeared. Angier's sole obsession is finding out how a particular trick of Bolton's, called "the transported man" works. The movie takes a hell of a lot of twists and turns, and there's a major twist at the end. Though if you watch closely enough, you can see it coming, just like with any magician's trick.
This movie is similar to Closer in that the main characters are completely awful people. The difference is that you can actually understand the two men in The Prestige. Angier has a reason to start hating Bolton, and Bolton has a reason to further the obsession. You don't particularly like either of them, which is a bit of a problem because the structure of the movie is that of a "man against man" thing, where you're technically supposed to root for one or the other. It does kind of work, because it gets to a point where you don't care who wins, you just want to see how it ends. Rather like Death Note, I suppose. In any case, the characters, though terrible people, are incredibly well done. You get a sense for their passions, their hatred, their obsessions, and all that--just through facial expressions and body language. You can tell the actors--Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, Wolverine and Batman respectively--got really into their roles.
The movie is also shot really beautifully. It's supposed to take place in the 1800's, and it's done really well. There are times when the British accents are so thick you can't really tell what people are saying. But oh well. The camera work is superb.
They also included Nikola Tesla, which is pretty brilliant.
I liked this movie for its really hateable characters and zillions of twists. Plus it gives you a look into the darker side of being a magician--which actually really is that dark, or at least it was.
And I can't compare this to The Illusionist, since I haven't seen it yet.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Ugh. Better start getting to work.
I really shoulda been doing work, but this is really too much fun.
New D. Gray-Man chapter up as well, XOMG, I love Crowley.
So! Date with Pat on Friday, sorta. We saw Donnie Darko and talked for awhile afterward. Got to know him better and all that good stuff. On Saturday we met in the dining hall and he offered to take me to Wegman's, but then I called Julie and I guess the rest of them were already down there and heading back up. So Pat hung out the rest of the day, met my friends, and fun was had by all. Went to see The Prestige last night too.
I like where it's going with me and Pat. Don't know if I want a relationship-relationship with him yet, but...*shrug*. We'll see, I guess. ^.^
Finished the third season of The OC. Fuck, man.
And I pretty much did nothing today. So, onto movie reviews.
Donnie Darko
Let me start off by saying, this isn't a movie you can watch once. Or if you do watch it once, you have to then go digging around online for movie info in order to completely understand it. And even then, you don't completely understand it.
This is one of those movies that people either love or hate. I can't say I fit on either end of the spectrum. It was good, but the movie is really schizophrenic. There's a fine line between leaving things to the imagination, and creating disconnect between almost every scene in the movie. You have to know what to leave out, and I think they left out too much.
The premise is, Donnie Darko is a relatively average high schooler with a very dysfunctional family and "emotional problems." He starts sleepwalking and seeing a demonic bunny rabbit called Frank who asks him to do things. Frank tells him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds, and pretty much Donnie is the only one who can save the world. Then an engine from an airplane falls through his roof at night during one of these sleepwalking things, right into his room, and after that everything kind of spirals downward. His mental state starts to crumble as the movie progresses, and you learn more about Donnie and Frank and what the connection between them is. When Donnie receives a book about time travel, things start to totally unravel.
In many ways, the disconnectedness of the movie works, since the movie pretty much traces Donnie's breakdown--it's one of those movies where you're asking yourself the whole time whether he's crazy or not. It's kind of...like a sci-fi version of Catcher in the Rye, I suppose. With demonic bunny rabbits.
The characters are well done. You get a real sense of Donnie and his family members, as well as some of his friends. You also get kind of a holistic view--of Donnie, his family, Frank, and everything from kind of a world point of view, them as part of a whole, sort of, though maybe that's just me. There's a definite sense that things are going on in the places the camera isn't pointed.
And Frank is creepy.
But like I said, it's still really disconnected. If they had included bits from the Philosophy of Time Travel book, it would have made a lot more sense. Apparently the Director's Cut does so, which makes me want to see it. I liked it, but...I dunno. It's really hard to follow. Really scattered.
Though the way they shoot Frank is absolutely wonderful.
Score: 6 out of 10
Man, I want to write. I have to write a piece for Women and Writing, and I'm going to do Gecko again--but I just really, really want to get back to Mot, or get started on North. I'm this close to starting North, but one of my characters isn't exactly being forthcoming with her backstory. And there are a few more kinks to work out. I just wish things were going smoother with North. I don't know why I'm so reluctant to really start it. I've really just gotta bite the bullet and do it. I dunno. I guess I just want to have everything worked out before I start, so this doesn't explode like Mot has.
The Prestige
Very interesting chronology in this movie. It jumps around a lot, though it's pretty easy to follow.
Pretty much, you have two magicians, Bolton and Angier. I think those are their names. Bolton is on trial for Angier's murder when Bolton supposedly made a trick go horribly wrong. The movie then focuses on the past between the two men, particularly their rivalry. They become obsessed with one-upping each other and exacting vengeance, an obsession that carries through right to the end. The title of the movie refers to the third part of a magician's trick, pretty much the final part where you "return" something that has been disappeared. Angier's sole obsession is finding out how a particular trick of Bolton's, called "the transported man" works. The movie takes a hell of a lot of twists and turns, and there's a major twist at the end. Though if you watch closely enough, you can see it coming, just like with any magician's trick.
This movie is similar to Closer in that the main characters are completely awful people. The difference is that you can actually understand the two men in The Prestige. Angier has a reason to start hating Bolton, and Bolton has a reason to further the obsession. You don't particularly like either of them, which is a bit of a problem because the structure of the movie is that of a "man against man" thing, where you're technically supposed to root for one or the other. It does kind of work, because it gets to a point where you don't care who wins, you just want to see how it ends. Rather like Death Note, I suppose. In any case, the characters, though terrible people, are incredibly well done. You get a sense for their passions, their hatred, their obsessions, and all that--just through facial expressions and body language. You can tell the actors--Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, Wolverine and Batman respectively--got really into their roles.
The movie is also shot really beautifully. It's supposed to take place in the 1800's, and it's done really well. There are times when the British accents are so thick you can't really tell what people are saying. But oh well. The camera work is superb.
They also included Nikola Tesla, which is pretty brilliant.
I liked this movie for its really hateable characters and zillions of twists. Plus it gives you a look into the darker side of being a magician--which actually really is that dark, or at least it was.
And I can't compare this to The Illusionist, since I haven't seen it yet.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Ugh. Better start getting to work.
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Date: 2007-02-19 06:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-20 04:30 am (UTC)