Watching

GENERAL

Don’t worry, she’ll never figure it out.

After sneaking into the room, Brenda walks to the computer and hits a couple keys.  The General’s files come up.

Man, I hate hate hate it when people use computers in a movie.  Seriously, if you sit down and pay attention to how often you use the keyboard on a computer, it would probably be about 15% of the time.  Most of the stuff we do today is with the mouse.  Yet, every time, you see the wise-cracking computer expert typing away when hacking the pentagon or whatever.  Now, I’m sure cinematically the type-type-type of the keyboard brings more appeal, but it never fails to pop me out of the story and annoy me to no end.

Went to a midnight screening of the (hopefully) final Indiana Jones film last night & came out very pleased. If you can manage to view it simply expecting another chapter in the life of Indiana Jones, you will not be disappointed. All the tension, drama and comedy are all there as if the last 20 year lag never happened.

The beginning of the story takes on a nice darker tone, alluding to the new moral ambiguities of the Atomic age where the good guys & bad guys are not so clear cut. You get the feeling that the world is sort of leaving Indy behind. Also, the usual imagery of crucifixes & religious idols is replaced by mushroom clouds & space ships. We also see a clearly older Indy. Unlike Rambo, Spielberg tries to realistically portray Indy as a fairly fit older adventurer. While he does swing and fight like you would expect Indy to do, the more Keatonesque action is left to the new kid Shia LaBeouf. Unfortunately most of these musings on aging and a changing world get lost in the action of the second half of the film.

About the only major qualm with the movie would be the ridiculous amounts of CG. I feel that Spielberg has always shown an excellent sense of balance between real special effects & computer generated ones. Take Jurassic Park for example. Unfortunately this Indy seems a bit more visually Lucas than Spielberg. Much of the action seems muddled, blurry or clearly green-screened. It all has that Star Wars luster to it. Which, while still enjoyable, adds an indoor “studio” atmosphere to the entire film. All in all, if you go in expecting Indy, Indy is what you’ll get. Keep an eye out for the subtle E.T. reference in the beginning.

In anticipation of this summers new Star Trek offering by Lost creator J.J. Abrams, I’ve been going back and trying to get into this cult series. ‘Why’ you say? Clearly because I have nothing better to do than not only be a geek, but a faux-geek trying to penetrate the seedy geek underworld. The first film was just like a Dodger Dog. Long and boring. The second, while better, doesn’t do much to raise my hopes. (more…)

Some very amazing people are working on a film as we speak (I think). I’m not going to complicate matters with things like ‘details’ and ‘ideas’, but only throw in what is important. The film is called “This side of truth“, and takes place on an alternate earth where no one can lie. Now for the roll call.

Ricky Gervais - Boss from ‘The Office (UK)’ (Writer/Director/Actor)

Starring
Jennifer Garner (Juno)
Jonah Hill (Loud fat co-star of Superbad)
Christopher Guest (Everything awesome)
Tina Fey (SNL)
Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman (Arrested Development)

It can’t fail, it better not.

I’m trying not to hype movies for people because this usually causes unnaturally high expectations which come back to me as “Hey man! Children of men wasn’t THAT amazing.” Yet, I must say that I really enjoyed Into the Wild more than any movie of 2007 (and maybe 2006). (more…)

I recently found myself in a situation where this movie was presented to me. Now, rather than make a big stink and storm out, I figured I would at least watch the thing and then later rightfully complain about how horrible it was. After the first couple of minutes, I realized I was looking for something to criticize. It was really hard to stay impartial about something as heavy as the ‘Christ’ story. I decide to give it a try anyway and watch it from a clean perspective, without my own religious preconceptions. (more…)

A couple of months ago, I was at an animation thing with Mocherz and upon sitting down with some strangers began to geek out about movies and cartoons and stuff. The conversation turned onto animation and how no one has ever really made a serious adult animation. At least not in the U.S. Of course you have movies like “A scanner Darkly” which are sort of animation, but still it seems more of a movie converted to pictures. Fortunately, last night I saw such a movie, and it was called Beowulf. (more…)

Last weekend I finally managed to catch The Coen brother’s new movie No Country for Old Men. I must say that despite a couple problems near the ending, it’s an amazing film. It really pulls you into the story with everything it can, from sounds to images. (more…)

For reasons that will become obvious later, I must make this short. Last night’s film festival was a pseudo success, in that no one was able to complete 24 hours of solid movie watching. I think I learned a couple of things that will probably help in accomplishing this feat. We weren’t prepared people, we just weren’t prepared. Here’s an hourly play-by-play of the evening’s events. (more…)

Starting at 5pm on November 11 (Sunday) and ending 24 hrs later, The 1st Annual No-Work film(watching) Festival will begin. The festival is a celebration of most people getting the day off. In this case, the holiday is for Veterans, of which Lokier is one. The festival will also be introducing two new projects. First, the Youtube Playlist Marathon. We will be playing a series of Youtube videos collected by Lokier & Mocherz. Also, Nintendo speedruns will start from 10am until 12pm. Speedruns are attempts to beat a videogame as fast as possible. (more…)