Angels and Demons

I was never a fan of Dan Brown. I read the Da Vinci Code and watched the movie. The book was the only one of his that I managed and have no qualms about that. Dan created a world that I simply was not interested in and the conclusions he made I know I do not have the knowledge, (nor am I inspired to know more) to argue with the absurdity of it.

Angels and Demons is the next movie installment on this with reputable Ron Howard’s direction (fatally limited to the sequence of events of the book) and starring Tom Hanks and a bunch of Italian gorgeousness.

The movie starts off with the death of the Pope and this takes us to the workings of the Catholic Church and what actually happened in real life when the then Pope kicked the bucket. It also very nicely weaves into the story the debate on the implications of the recent experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, which took place in Switzerland a few months ago when scientists were trying to recreate the conditions just prior to the big bang.

I don’t know if these bits were actually in the book, as I said, I did not have the inclination to go into another Dan Brown universe, but it is clever that they brought it into the movie to make the debates being had more relevant to our world.

The movie is the race-against-time type movie following clues that have been there for a few centuries. The protagonist (the Illuminate) is threatening to kill cardinals that the next Pope will be chosen from. To add to that once they are all dead, the big bang experiment will be used to blow up the Vatican so that the Catholic Church is destroyed along with it. The Illuminate are a group of guys who were Catholic but also believed in science and believed that the two could coexist and did not have to be at odds. So this is all supposed to be very suspenseful and most revealing about the history and workings of the Catholic Church, much like the Da Vinci Code.

The movie is interesting and I am sure it will give a lot of comfort to the believers amongst us out there. It ends off saying that religion, the church, is not perfect as man is not perfect. I’ll buy that. And it is a good lesson to learn but why does the church not learn fast enough that there is a need for contraception and abortion. On the other hand, there is also a need for pure faith and tradition so as not to lose ourselves in modernity. What is the saying? I’d rather die for an idea I believe in than to live for an idea that will die?

Angels and Demons gets 2 spoons.

WILL I AM is in X-Men Origins :Wolverine!

That's all anybody needed to say to me to get me to watch this movie. I must be a little out of touch, I had no idea. So imagine my surprise. I almost jumped up and down. Ah Willl, sweet Will, sexy Will...

So there's been a lot of bed crits on this here movie. I didn't think it was all THAT bhard. Don't think it was a waste of me money. Would do it all over again if I was asked.

Its not the best of movies either. I don't get what the craze is with these pre-quals. I remember Hannibal Rising and what a big disaster that was. Can't say I know of any successful prequals. Brokensword?

The movie is about Wolverine's origins, and goes back to his childhood - not for long though. I found that particularly disappointing as I thought they could have better developed his story as a teenager growing up alas, the movie is about a grown up Wolverine.They don't even tell the story of how he became what he became. They ignore that. So you never get to know how the mutants became such really.

Don't want to spoil it too much for you, so this is where I will end. I loved one of the characters. that appears towards the ends. Wonder if they'll develop his story in future XMen.

Also realised that XMen is so Heroes....or the other way round.
1 and three quarter spoons

Star Trek

The cast:
James T. Kirk - Chris Pine (did not know him before this but he’ll do)
Spock - Zachary Quinto (Sila in Heroes, his wooden acting is perfect for this role)
Spock - Leonard Nimoy (Naturally!)
Nero - Eric Bana (The hulk was goooodddd)
Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy - Karl Urban (also don’t know him but he was brilliant)
Nyota - Uhura Zoe Saldana (chick in one of those teen dancing movies, she is sexy enough to live up to Uhura’s legendary sexiness)
Scotty - Simon Pegg (Genius!!!)
Hikaru Sulu - John Cho (also genius)
Pavel Chekov - Anton Yelchin (don’t remember this character well but the kid was good)
Amanda Grayson - Winona Ryder (She plays Spock’s mom, is she that old?)
Tyler Perry also has a small role in the movie!

I was always more into the Star Trek The Next Generation (TNG) rather than the original Star Trek. I suppose being born at the time that I was, it was only natural that I connected more with the series that was current at the time that I was growing up. But with this new installment, I am now able to buy into the original.

More than that though, when I compare the two, I always found that TNG always seemed to be more cerebral, more philosophical than the original which was more brawn. The villain of TNG always posed a more terrifying threat. You were not just going to get physically hurt when you took them on, there were far reaching consequences, like getting assimilated. When the enemy tells you that resistance is futile, where do you go to with that? And those episodes with Species xxx (forgot the number), resistance is futile, they could assimilate you and change the history of human kind.

So yes, Star Trek has gone young and I think they seem to be wooing the generation I love to loath, those teenyboppers who let there be 100 scream movies, final destinations and Saws etc. But they luckily caught me in the net along with them (I think I was never young, I was born old and sometimes resent the young for some of the shenanigans they get up to that I never did).

It is a very solid cast with a semi solid story (I still don’t understand how old Spock and young Spock can meet. How can they both occupy the same time and space???). the special effects are great but it is not the focus of the movie. The set is so much brighter than the original set. I suppose the original set could not have huge amounts of light because the technology to make you buy into it being a space ship was just not there. There is far less orange in this new movie and everything and everyone is lit perfectly. I dig that.

So the movie basically tells how the relationships began and it is believable. Here is a spoiler, pointy ears is boinking the comms expert. How sexy is that? Although I did not pick up on the chemistry in the TV series, not that I watched it religiously, the link is totally justified. TNG always had inter-co-worker-relationships, why can’t the original season?

Star Trek gets 4 spoons. It loses one because of this April fool’s joke: Check it out: http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2009/4/startrekgoesgay. And I believed it, how stupid am I?

Milk

Best Actor - Sean Penn – Milk
And he was up against:
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I think possibly, the category should be split between best real life character interpretation and best interpretation of a fictional character. Because really, how can one compare the performance of Anthony Hopkins’s Nixon and Hannibal Lector? Both monsters but also, both totally different performances drawn from totally different places.

The movie was interesting, but I remain not a big fan of the real-life-true-story dramas. Name a truly great real life movie, and I will probably not have enjoyed it. There is more poetry, philosophies to live by and real life strife in stories that are just not true.

Have to give it up for James Franco who is really flexing his acting muscle. Pineapple Express was the chronic shit and now this. I look forward to seeing him again in what ever he is in. I am enjoying the choices he is making.

He’s just not that into you

I remember seeing this dude on Oprah a couple of years ago and he had some interesting insights into what men do and how women should interpret these messages.

I was therefore surprised that these insights would be turned into a movie.

It also surprised me that the movie would conclude that the insights are all .subject to exception.

The rules

• He's just not that into you if he's not asking you out
• He's just not that into you if he's not dating you
• He's just not that into you if he's having sex with someone else
• He's just not that into you if he's not calling you
• He's just not that into you if he's disappeared on you

One of the main characters gets these insights from a bar tender who turns into a love interest for her. The barman lives by these rules and eventually buckles under his own rules. The point of the movie?... Disregard everything that has been said prior and hang on to whatever misinterpreted, misplaced signal inadvertently made.

Us women are so stupid, and made even stupider by these kinds of movies.

White Wedding

It is always a good thing that among a pile of mediocrity, one finds some positive aspect to focus on. I struggle sometimes. I struggled here and failed hopelessly. It is also good that if you have nothing good to say you should just shut up. I am failing hopelessly here too.

Yes, so I went to see White wedding last night. The biggest…, well the only laugh I had was the reaction of the audience to an interracial kiss. One guy actually said Hayibo!. My friend sitting next to me said, ‘oh, that’s just wrong’. It is after all 2009 and it amazed me that an interracial kiss still brings out that cringe reflex in us.

Safe to say that the movie gave me nothing to blog home about. And why do I bother? I bother because I also believe that constructive criticism can only help. South African movies are crap. It gives me no pleasure to say this as I really really want South African movies to step it up a notch. My favourite ‘South African’ movie remains Cry the Beloved Country. It was a beautiful movie based on a beautiful book, but it too would probably not feature on my all time top 10 favourites.

I think the problem with South African movies, other than the limited imagination and wooden characters, and lack of finesse and… okay, there is a lot wrong with it but for this particular movie I think the problem was the casting. Over and over again we see the same people in South African movies. There is an inability to cast outside of what we see in the daily soaps and television shows. It seems to be a very closed industry where new faces are incredibly hard to find. The same faces are squeezed into characters that, because they can not pull them off, they make them in their own image. Does that make sense?

The basic story line, it is a road trip movie. A groom-to-be needs to get to his wedding from Jo’burg to Cape Town. He needs to make a few stops along the way and one of them is an experience that I think most of us have had. They stop in a baie Afrikaans dorp where the bar is flying the old South African flag. I had that experience once, between Cape Town and Johannesburg. The dorpie was Leeu Gamka and it was a tragically comedic experience!

So most of us will identify with the various scenarios presented in the movie but the thing is, stating the obvious does not necessarily make for poignant story telling.

Discoveries: Dr Who and its amazing spin off Torchwood

So, I’ve never really been into the British sci fi. They always have poor effects. As good as the stories can be, their translation onto the screen tends to come across as a little amateurish compared to the big budget sleeker American versions of them. But I suppose as their effects budget tends to be lacking, they have to work that much harder on the story and the characters. Look at the hilarious ‘Sean of the dead’ and ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. Okay, these two are the ones that immediately come to mind so I googled ‘British sci fi movies’ and the results produced:
Quatermass and the Pit,
Day of the Triffids,
Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun,
The Day The Earth Caught Fire.

I’ve not even heard of these titles, but I will now make a point to find them and watch them.

Back to the subject at hand, 2009 has brought for me exposure to all the BBC DSTV channels and through this, I have discovered Dr Who and now, what has become my favourite thing on TV since hhhmmmm, Heroes?

Dr Who is one of those serieses that have been on air forever. In that time there’ve been about 10 actors that have portrayed the lead character who regenerates every single time to become, The Doctor. Currently on BBC Entertainment, the Doctor is being played by David Tennant whose appearance goes against everything a leading man should be. He is thin, tall and nerdy looking. The premise of the series is really that The Doctor is a time lord, is from a planet far far away and his race was killed off by their mortal enemy the Daleks. He travels the universe in a telephone booth called the Tardis, and has human companions, currently Martha Jones. He also has another companion called Captain Jack Harkness who is a Time Agent. He, is the hook that got me into this whole thing.

Torchwood is a spin off of Dr Who, Captain Jack puts together a team in Cardiff (situated right in the middle of a time/space rift, which makes it prone to having visitors from another time and space) to battle supernaturals in the area. Captain Jack is sometimes described as an omnisexual as opposed to bisexual, basically, he will do anything.

I suppose what I love the most about this series is that it is funny, gory, sexy, clever. And although the special effects leave a lot to e desired, the story lines make up for it 10 times. Take for example this one episode titled, the CountryCide. Very suspenseful and concludes that with everything that they’ve battled in the past, humans take the cake in being the most evil species. My personal favourite so far was the episode ‘Captain Jack Harkness’, very romantic.

Torchwood’s last episode of season one aired this past Sunday and I don’t see series 2 on the schedule. Dr Who on the other hand continues and airs on Sunday nights at 7pm. Its just the thing to get you going for the week ahead!

A vampire for all seasons…

My season, my vampire, was Louis, never a part of, but always observing and envious of the world that he could never be a part of again. Interview with a Vampire, envisaged by Anna Rice, also through a few of the other tales aptly known as the vampire chronicles. And… much respect to the woman for disagreeing with the choice for Tom Cruise to play the Vampire Lestat! The role needed a much more believable omnisexual, maybe Ralph Fiennes? Maybe Daniel day Louise. Surely any of these guys would have been a little more open to some 'bromance'?

But there is a new version that is emerging, going after the feeling of teenage angst and not belonging. A little bit dangerous for the time that we are living in…

So yes, tonight, I watched Twilight and mourned my Louis and Lestat and Armand who were my ultimate dark lords and who seem to be now replaced by younger, more heterosexuals immortals that to replicate their humanity as much as possible. The guys can even come out in broad day light!?

But let’s take a step back. Yes I watched Twilight and yes it was not immediately repulsive.

The step back is to the beginning of moving pictures. When Vampires, at least in our 2009 standard were repulsive and totally unattractive! Nosforatu, who gave us that iconoclastic image of what it should be to be a vampire, unattractive, animal and totally dejected for what it is to be human.

My next memory would be Bela Lugosi who I came to know through a little film called Gods and Monsters. Those images are not real for us anymore except maybe for those film appreciation classes that you one has to through in film school.

Gary Oldman, as Dracula, DRA-CU-LA! Scary shit! But also very interesting cinematic event. This particular vamp movie will always have a special place in my movie subconscious! As scary as it was it remains one of the ultimate vampire movies because it over rides my personal proclivity to the sexual ambiguity, because that, in itself will pass and be replaced by a far sexier combination of the species.

I jump now to the Wes Craven’s and the Quinton Tarantino’s From Dusk till Dawn. Hilarious and horrible at the same time. Tarantino is a genius but his take on the old Vampire, the undead genre, was not that fulfilling for me. It made me laugh but not much else. I have to admit that I’ve not had the chance yet to go through the Wes Craven ones.

And then there was I am Legend. The supposed to be, ‘Thinking man’s’ ultimate vampire movie. But the thing for me is, yes, you can fathom ways that the undead can be digitally made to be scarier? But I somehow think that jump has been coming for a while and so I will not jump if I get surprised, I will know that it is coming.

Interview with the Vampire, Daniel as Lestat (but if tm cruise is reading this, he di not do a bad job) is what I am waiting for...

On Twilight… yeah okay, next…. Three spoons.

Marley and Me

Have I written the fact that I totally adore Jennifer Aniston down on this blog? Well there you have it. I didn't care much for her in the Friends series I'm afraid, it was more her real life heartbreak that made me warm up to her.
ANYWAY!
So I went to watch a movie I probably would never watch had I been the only person deciding what to watch that night. I have the misfortune of having a different taste in movies to the people I end up watching movies with. So Marley and Me it was. I prepared myself for it well enough. Knew not to expect much. Imagine my shame when an hour later there I was with tears rolling down my cheaks.

I think my weeping during movies will soon be declared a non event. I bee could die and I'd be balling my eyes out. Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie. Worse, I want a dog because of it.

I'm not a dog person. I suppose it is because we never owned one at home. My liking for the kay-nines actually began to develop a couple of months ago when I met the cleanest and calmest dog in my entire life. Mystique's her name and she's a grey hound. She's a little clumsy, but she's so cute and so easy to just love. Watching Marley and Me kind of rekindled that closet dog lover in me and now I know I must have one...they must prepare you well enough for parenthood no?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Hhhhhhmmmmmm. I am on a mission to watch most of the Oscar films; so, high expectations have been set.


The thing with hype is that you expect more than you should. A perfect story builds and gets woven in your mind and when you see what is really being offered, your mind’s knitting is always better. This is the case. This is always the case. And it is the case with Benjamin.


A man that is born old and ages in the opposite direction. This premise in itself should give loads of opportunity for fantastic philosophy and ideas. And I experimented with these ideas and wondered what fantasies the movie would take me to.


Alas, I was bogged down by stupid detail that just did not make sense to me in my own little mind.


On the movie itself I would like to say, that this was probably made for Brad Pitt. For him to make his mark before time took a toll on his fans, on his looks on his career. This is probably a career highlight for Mr Pitt as he did get THE Oscar nod. Who the hell else could play a gorgeous 20/21st century Adonis? What would stupid movies like Legends of the Fall and Meet Joe Black be without Mr Pitt?


The guy has a place in history, just like Marlon Brando and Paul Newman, he is it, and does not need to work too hard to get my own personal nod. So long as he plays pretty. So you can probably imagine that the suedo old guys he played in Babel was very confusing for me.


Back to the Benjamin Button, the short and nasty is that, I was not moved, I really, really did not like Cate Blanchette in this. That American accent that she thinks she’s got to a T is really really irritating.


That was the first barrier, the second was that, at the back of my own small mind I was, really, through out the movie, playing out scenes of when this script was pitched to the Hollywood execs. So the creatives had the idea to have a guy that ages backward, great, lovely. But no, we need to have more fillers around the story, how about a war, oh yeah, the WW2 we could reference that. And oh, how about black people, yeah we need black people. New Orleans! and we can play out a bit of the foreboding before Katrina hit, cool. Mind you we cannot have And Oh, we need a story that weaves a thread through the movie, my cousin was hit by lightning once why don’t we use that?. Cool, we can say seven times and bring that in the movie every time we think the audience is starting to get bored. Just for a wake up laugh you? And oh, lets just disregard logic as well. I mean if the guy had to start from old age, the fact that you absorb most things when you are young is totally irrelevant. The fact that one’s brain should match one’s age is stupid, we are going to say, as you get older, you get more stupid, in Benjamin, as you get older you get less interesting because we can’t really show your torso so we are going to make you dumb.!


Okay, enough, that was an irrational rant. But that was an irrational movie. It was! The fact that it got to Oscar level is just sad.


No spoons!