16th October 1984 – 31st August 2010
“Annoyed? First Class passengers on the Titanic were annoyed. What I’m feeling now goes beyond that.”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Out this Friday is Dinner for Schmucks which appears to have just about every current American comic actor in it. And yet… I can’t decide if it will be any good or not. What I do know is that Steve Carell puts on an impressive array of facial expressions. I counted 13, as you can see just under the trailer which I suggest you watch. Is this a case of a great cast in a terrible film?
As it’s a Bank Holiday I will be lazy and copy and paste directly from the wonderful Movie|Line a quote from James Cameron. Only while they seem to agree with him I find him offensive prickish.
“I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but [Piranha 3D] is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3-D horror films from the 70s and 80s, like Friday the 13th 3-D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3-D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip.”
Doesn’t re-releasing a film with a few extra minutes thrown in to make some more money cheapen the medium? How about making preachy film which rips off the plot of Pocahontas, and while nice to look at holds no real substance in dialogue or plot?
I have seen Avatar, Piranha 3D and Friday the 13th 3-D and I know which one I enjoyed the least.
Just when I get over disliking Cameron he pulls me back in!
Run Michael Cera, run! If the release of Avatar ruins Scott Pilgrim‘s box office I might cry. For more on the whole prancing Michael Cera phenomenon go to here.
Avatar (Special Edition)
So who felt that Avatar ran a bit too short and wants to see an extra nine minutes? Really? Well apparently if you wait for the new extended DVD then you’ll get sixteen minutes of extra footage! What a scam. Then you can always get the 3D DVD when it rolls along. So that’s two cinema releases and three DVD releases for just the first in a trilogy.
The Girl Who Played with Fire
A computer hacker and journalist investigate a sex trafficking ring. I’ve seen people on the underground every day reading books from this trilogy, it must be good. If only I’d seen the first!
Dog Pound (limited release)
Three young thugs arrive in a correctional facility and some presumably gritty stuff unfolds. I imagine I’d spend the whole film feeling mildly threatened.
The Last Seven (limited release)
This could maybe possibly be good. Seven people wake up in an abandoned London and find they are the last people alive. Or are they…? Well you’ll never find out as it’s only out in one cinema in London.
The Maid (limited release)
A South American dramedy about a maid trying to scare off newer younger maids in order to maintain her position in the household of the Valdes family.
Wah Do Dem (limited release)
A badly received low budget american indie film about some hipster getting lost in Jamaica.
Please, please do not go and see Avatar.
Last night I finally got to sit down in a packed cinema and feast on the visual delight that was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. In order to not be totally biased I will give a nod to the odd pacing, the lack of explanation of certain plot points and the fact that it didn’t have the full emotional weight of the comics. This sort of thing happens when you condense six books down into a single two hour film.
Those two hours were amazing though. The audience was laughing right from the Universal logo and I had a minor heart attack during the opening credits, a feeling I last had when first seeing the trailer on the big screen. Scott Pilgrim is a relentless assault on your senses and rollicks along firing out jokes, fights and sheer energy at you as the scenes flow almost too seamlessly from one to another.
Never has a film had so much though put into each individual frame and every sound you hear. For a fan of the books and a fan of seeing something different coming out of Hollywood, Scott Pilgrim is what I have been waiting for. Edgar Wright is a genius and the cast are wonderful. I was about to list the stand out actors but it came to 13 so just look and marvel at the full cast list on IMDb.
And the music!
The best review of Scott Pilgrim I can give is that at the end I was tired, a little bit sweaty and my face hurt from smiling so much.
Currently browsing the mildconcern.com weblog archives for August, 2010.
