Archives for posts with tag: action

Movies I’m Watching: Outlander

February 11, 09 //
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I hadn’t really heard of this film prior to dling it, and i didnt have any high expectations from it. It’s based on a fantasy novel about a future man that travels back in time to Earth circa the 8th century CE, in Norway during the time of the Vikings. So there’s many typical elements of time travel stories in it; the guy from the future somehow has to win the trust of the simple folk of an earlier age, has to fret about whether or not to go back, has to decide whether or not his emotional baggage is worth keeping or must be chucked in order to save the universe or get laid with the woman we all know he is going to get the very first moment we see them on the screen together.

It wasn’t terrible though, there wasn’t anything too cheesy. Although John Hurt is in the movie, there aren’t that many super famous people in the film, which to me is always a good thing b/c it means we don’t see the entire repertoire of media images of the actor when we see them in the role. You don’t know these actors, so, seeing them for the first time, you can almost believe that what you are seeing is something “real.”

The morwin, the creature that wreaks havoc on the Vikings, is quite creepy: it’s very Alien-esque, not as scary, but it does manage to pluck people up and away in the darkness in that same ninja way. The books form a series, so naturally one expects that if this movie is successful that there might be another in the future.

Usually these medieval costume type films make you want to retch, so cliche they are: but again, I found this film to be entertaining and fairly inoffensive. Worth a watch on a lazy Sunday, if nothing else.

Movies I’m watching: JCVD

February 4, 09 //
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I’ve been waiting for this film for a long time. It’s a film where Van Damme plays himself, or rather, a version of himself. There are plenty of things taken from his real life–his career as an action star, his marital problems, drinking, drugs, etc. However, all of this is a backdrop for a fictional story about what happens when Van Damme, out of money and needing some cash to pay for lawyers’ fees, ends up going to a bank in Brussels…and to say more would spoil it. Suffice it to say that the movie’s plot is nothing unique, but the execution is quite good. Imagine, it asks, what would happen if a well-known action movie star ended up being a action movie type situation, where his life was endangered. How would his martial arts skills, or his fame and notoriety play into this whole thing?

The film has a desaturated look, with a lot of dark blues, greens, and grays. It goes with my image of Brussells, I suppose. Van Damme is showing his years, and that’s what makes the performance that much more poignant. As other reviews and previews have alluded to, there are some postmodern, speaking to the camera asides, and for the most part, this is done without being annoying. In fact, most people believe that the one to the camera monologue that JCVD has is, in fact, the highlight of the movie. I don’t completely agree with that, but it definitely shows off something more raw and real than you are used to from someone known as the Muscles of Brussels. And i think that’s a good thing, because in my mind, fact and fiction are blurred, and I want the best for both the JCVD and the real Jean Claude Van Damme*.

*In the movie, when asking for money to be wired to him, he tells us his “real name,” not his acting name.

Movies I’ve Watched: In Bruges

July 6, 08 //
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In Bruges Movie Reviews, Pictures – Rotten Tomatoes

If you take a cursory look at what the people on Rotten Tomatoes are saying you’d find htat most people have a generally positive take on this film, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes. I don’t know if I could anymore that hasn’t already been said by people who actually get paid to write about film. Personally, I enjoyed watching Ralph Fiennes and Colin Farrell the most. Colin Farrell has a comic flair that isn’t always well exploited in the Hollywood movies he does, where he’s paid to be dark, manly, sexual, and tough. His character in Bruges is isn’t short on machismo but that’s not the main thing, by far: it’s a personal crisis he has after accidentally killing a young boy after his first hit–on a priest no less–goes somewhat awry. What I like about him, though, is how stupid and opinionated he is (especially regarding the topic of midgets, a topic that seems to really fascinate him). Ralph Fiennes was intriguing for the same reason: he got to play against type. He plays a gangster boss that’s strangely religious (if you kill a little boy by accident, you ought to commit suicide right there and then–as if the murder of innocent children was that much worse than the murder of adults) and who follows his particular code of honor and ethics to the tee. I would bet that the image of Ralph Fiennes that most of us have etched in our minds is one of the quintessential Englishman. He’s elegant, educated, diffident and reserved–and yet underneath that surface there is something very sensitive, something smoldering–and the mystery of what that is varies with each character he has, but is what makes him so compelling to watch (insofar as you might think he’s compelling to watch).

However, when we first meet Fiennes’ character in this movie, it’s through his voice on the other side of the phone, and not his person. When I heard his voice I whispered to my girlfriend that must be Michael Caine in a cameo, because the voice was so Cockney and dirty. But of course, it was Fiennes talking, and that’s what so fun about his character–he got to be so bad, but not without sacrificing the intelligence and refinement to each character that he plays. I just don’t think he’d be able to play a completely inane, macho type gangster even if they decked him out with fake muscles. He’s just too sensitive looking.

Anyway, the film is dark comedy and has a few twists and turns, nothing special, nothing hard to follow. In terms of pacing it keeps an even keel, with plot points and jokes interspersed quite evenly, which makes it that much more enjoyable. Check it out–entertaining and funny in that inimitable British way.

Chinese in Sichuan province to boycott Kungfu Panda?

June 21, 08 //
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So, as one might expect, there are some calls from people on the web to boycott the movie Kungfu Panda, an animated film about a panda that learns kung-fu and saves the day. First off, I’m not 100 percent sure whether this is purely an expression of popular sentiment or an official pronouncement, but according to one website it said that on June 20, which was the day that Kungfu Panda premieres in China, no Sichuan province movie theaters will show the movie.

Why would Chinese people not like this movie, to the point of calling for a boycott? I suppose that every person would give you a slightly different answer, but most of them are going to tell you something along the lines that it’s “insulting” to Chinese culture and Hollywood’s slickly produced orientalism really doesn’t come across well so soon after the deadly earthquake that ravaged Sichuan, where the pandas mostly live, and where it might seem kind of wrong for Hollywood hucksters to be making some money.

I am not going to bother reading through tons and tons of angry tirades, so the above is just my conjecture of a typical Chinese viewpoint—meaning typical “against” position. One writer, for example, says that although it’s insulting to Chinese wushu that they shouldn’t get too up in arms about it. He calls it an “artistic insult” and says that perhaps they ought to just change the name of the movie to “American Kungfu Panda” and “American Hero” or something…just to make sure there’s no false advertising and people know that there’s nothing real, authentic, traditional, etc. about this movie. The captions in the pictures on this essay are funny…and also capture, in a more succinct way, what the author feels about the movie.

Another writer asks what the point of boycotting Kungfu Panda would be. The essay mentions that on the 16th there were some people that went to SARFT with a few banners to protest the movie. Some guy named Zhao Bandi, compared Hollywood to Sharon Stone, which, in my mind, would imply first and foremost that Hollywood is eminently fuckable for its age, but I don’t think that’s what he meant. No, he probably meant something a bit more sinister … this Zhao fellow was evidently appalled by the fact that Hollywood intended to make money from this movie, a point which the writer calmly replies “uh…DUH” to and points out is the way the world works, no different from when the Chinese aim to sell a computer to the Americans.

The writer then takes on Zhao’s second point, which was that Kungfu Panda “steals” a Chinese national treasure (the panda) and kung-fu and spins into an American-style coming of age story. The writer replies that since Zhao, of his own admittance, has not even watched the movie, he might as well go around and offer his services as a psychic.

The writer concludes that says that the movie does put Chinese culture in a positive light and is about goodness, truth, and justice. So what’s the point of boycotting it, he asks—and I’m inclined to agree.

I know that some people out there probably hate Jack Black, but I think he’s pretty funny…Nacho Libre, School of Rock, Be Kind, Rewind…don’t know if I’ve seen any others but they appeal to a cheesy side of me. There might be something essentially American about this kind of comedian and his brand of humor. All I can say is that, on the whole, I think he’s good for the world.

Just noticed that there are already similar posts/articles about this, one from People’s Daily and another from Variety Asia Online.

John Woo: Red Cliff must go on…

June 11, 08 //
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Cross-posted at China Film Journal

Browsing Eachnet for headlines I came across some news regarding an accidental fire on the set of John Woo’s upcoming historical action film Red Cliff.
One person died and six were injured, all in stable condition and expected to live. I just skimmed the articles but so far there’s been no thorough investigation of the matter (it only happened on June 9), but, according to John Woo, the film will still still premiere in Chengdu on July 3 and hit theaters in the rest of China on July 10, as planned. The person that died was some kind of effects technician. He was only 23 years old.

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