I’ve Had 2 ½ Hours of Sleep.

And that’s not all! I saw Harry Potter 7, Part 1, of 2, at midnight in an Imax.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. School happened. I’ve done two film projects since last time. The lesson? Directing is stressful. I much prefer editing. Probably because I’m OCD and editing lets you be as freakin’ OCD as you want. (There is no such thing as overediting. Riiiight.) And my Internet was still having issues, though today we were told it was fixed for good. Until it breaks again, of course.

Also…I have seen…movies. LIKE:

• Red – nice little comic bit on old CIA retirees being chased by a new, younger squad of CIA employees. I was delightfully surprised at Brian Cox’s appearance and character, and seem to only remember there being a BA scene of Bruce Willis exiting a moving car and one John Malkovitch being obsessed with a pink pig. Kind of off the wall humor, which probably was a factor in why it didn’t pull in a ginormous amount of money. It wasn’t spectacular persay, but I still enjoyed it.
• Megamind – the recent animated flick by Dreamworks. Once again, not the greatest thing in existence, but I still laughed my tail off and enjoyed it. Megamind is a humorous, adorable character. Metroman I found questionable, I thought the plot might have been a bit difficult for really little kids to follow, and for some reason I vaguely remember thinking it would make a good live action movie. If the villain didn’t have a bulbous blue head, of course.
• …and that’s probably it, really.
• OH NO WAIT. Green Lantern trailer. – my reaction? Disappointment. This article goes on about how it looks as though the movie will be breaking the trend of superhero movies employing a sense of “realism.” Eh. Fantastic Four was a bit of stretch in my opinion, but I can still stomach it without flinching too terribly. This? I’d be concerned people won’t buy it. I’m thinking it might get slammed by critics for not having that realism audiences are used to. I personally feel let down because the posters look so damn serious and stoic. (It’s almost like Green Lantern observed The Dark Knight and ran in the opposite direction.) We will see this summer how it will fare, but based on that single trailer, I no longer am so excited to see it.

Yes I did reread and finish Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and do intend to have a discussion on the book and movie. Soon. I swear. Before my opinions leak out my ears due to my brain being overstuffed with stuff for finals.

Now, for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows P1… I will say upfront I intend to see this more than once. From the first viewing last night, I was not impressed. But then again, I was initially not pleased with the Half Blood Prince movie either, but it has since become practically my favorite of the bunch. My main complaint with this movie is that they had so much time by splitting the book in two and yet they still make everything extremely fast paced and stretch out silly or unimportant moments (when compared to the book and the overall story). I need to see it again in a not Imax theater to properly judge the visual elements, as we were so close I had to crane my neck a bit up to see the whole screen and it looked as though all the characters were leaning away from me they were so huge.

In short, I am still being forced to wait for the second half, which I knew would be the better of the two. I knew, and some how I tricked myself into thinking this movie would be fantastically the best thing to grace the earth ever.

I gotta quit getting excited for movies.

Hopefully over November and December there will be more posts, although I cannot say that they will come on any sort of schedule. Happy Friday, and go see the Deathly Hallows!

Books and Book-films

Though other writers would have you think otherwise, there are a number of instances in which I will argue that the book behind a movie is better than said film.

Other individuals would have you believe that mere print can’t invoke all of the emotions that seeing a moment played out on a screen would. I’ve never really cried at a Harry Potter movie. I was shedding tears so much through the last quarter of Deathly Hallows the book that my mother told me to go upstairs and finish if I was going to cry because she didn't want me giving the story away. I would argue the reasoning stands better with feelings of anger. I read up to the death of Sirius Black in Order of the Phoenix and nearly threw the book across the room. I didn’t finish the book until nearly two months later because I didn’t want to come to terms that my (at the time) favorite character of the series had died. Upon watching Order of the Phoenix the movie, I began to harbor an intense hate for the face of the woman who played Bellatrix, and to this day I still dislike watching Helena Bonham Carter, although I realize she is a wonderful actress.

I was startled to read an article in my research on the decline of print media that stated books were unsatisfying to readers, because no matter how much you loved an author, you’d never be able to express it unless you met said author. I immediately thought of J.K. Rowling and how beloved an author she is, and I’d argue that sharing your love of an author with another is almost as good as telling the person themselves. Of course one author of a fantastic series can’t talk to all her fans. But sharing the love with others and having others read what you find, that’s an incredible feeling in and of itself. The way I think about it is almost spiritual, strangely enough: it’s okay if I don’t get to tell J.K. Rowling that I love her work because so many other fans already have. So many people appreciate her that I’m sure somehow she knows there are X amount of people out there that love her work even if she’s not met them. I recently read a quote somewhere, I think from Rowling’s interview with Oprah where someone came up to the author and said, “You are my childhood,” and she found it to be the most endearing thing. If I’d thought of it and I’d had the opportunity to meet her, I’d have said the same thing.

Then there’s just the fact that a film of a book will never equate to:

One—the experience of reading the book and the joy that one gets out of that (of course you would have to enjoy reading for this to apply to you, but given I do, it counts). Reading a novel lets you delve into a world both alike and unlike your own and lets you experience it as you so choose. If you imagine a character looks one way, your friend’s imagination very well might come up with another picture. Books, though creative themselves, allow the imagination to run wild.

Two—falls along the same line of thought; a director will never be able to perfectly match an author’s vision. This is especially true if the author is dead or if the story is especially fantastic and in need of CGI. Though Lord of the Rings the movie was beautiful, who can truly say if it was the late Tolkien’s real vision? And this is important because no one ever argues over the validity of a story. A million people will argue that Alice in Wonderland isn’t supposed to play out that way because it wasn’t like that in the book. If an author did the movie for their book, it’d be much less likely people would snap about whether or not things were “supposed to look that way” because the author, the person who invented the story fans cling to, made the visual for you. Though there might be the occasional argument that fans didn’t see some detail the way the author made it look, but the fault would subsequently fall on the reader/viewer for misunderstanding the text.

Three—many times a book is either too long or too short for a film adaptation, prompting cuts or additions that fans may or may not appreciate. Once again, this throws back to reason two.

Book-films are often enjoyable, even if they’re not done properly. It’s just a risky operation, increasingly so when the fan base of the story is bigger, because the filmmakers want to translate the story just right but they also want to be reasonable and cost-effective about it. I’m sure a “perfect” Lord of the Rings would have required about another two hours per film, but watching a 5-hour movie in a theater isn’t reasonable.

Then there’s the fact that some of my favorite films are based on books when I didn’t even realize they were. Bourne was originally a book series by Robert Ludlum. Yes it does make me feel a little bit like a hypocrite when I really enjoy a movie and then have no desire to read the book, but this often happens because I’m sure the book is more detail oriented and at this moment in my life I’ve not got the time for another book. (Excuses.) For cases like this, it’s more like I’m afraid the movie will let me down. I hold high expectations for an action-packed story like Bourne, but fear that the writing style may drive me away. Lord of the Rings, though a great story, the book was so heavily detail oriented that it was a struggle to get through. The story was still great, the scenes left out were wonderful as well and it made me sad that not everything made the cut. If I’ve watched a movie of a book first (especially if I’ve not realized it) it makes going to the book difficult because I’m afraid it will change my perceptions of what I thought was a great movie. (I will say my exception is with comic book-films. I happily flounce to the source material because I know it's easy to get through.)

Why do I do this? Maybe it’s because I’d like to think among all of the book-films that miss the mark, maybe that one is the one that did it. Maybe that one out performed its paper counterpart. Either way, book-films are sure to promote sales in both industries I love (which is something the book industry needs right now).

Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again, Tiger?

(Haa, clever IT joke.) In 2012, we’ll be getting a reboot of Spider-man. Marc Webb will be directing, Avi Arad will still be on board as a producer, and thus far we have Andrew Garfield (27) as the new Peter Parker and Emma Stone (nearly 22) as the new Gwen Stacy. The movie as of right now is being called a ‘reboot.’

Really? It’s a bit soon, don’t you think, Sony? Oh no wait you’re a massive money-grabbing corporation.

So lets review the previous Spider-man films that the producers are now saying they’d like to start anew.

Spider-Man

• Released May 2002, directed by Sam Raimi, Avi Arad as executive producer.
• Starred Tobey Maguire (then 26) as Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst (20) as Mary Jane Watson.
• There was this hilarious scene.
• This was Marvel’s fourth film with big studios released after the 90’s. Blade, Blade II and X-men preceded it.
• It broke all kinds of records when it opened. First to pass $100 million in a weekend, $821+ million worldwide by the time it was done in theaters.

Spider-Man 2

• Released June 2004, directed by Sam Raimi with Avi Arad as executive producer.
• Still starred Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, 29 and 22 respectively, at the time of release.
• The posters, in my opinion, got better.
• Marvel’s ninth movie (Daredevil, X2, The Hulk, and The Punisher all came out between Spider-Man 1 and 2).
• It made $783+ million worldwide, and won an Academy Award for effects.

Spider-Man 3

• Released (in the US) May 2007, directed by Sam Raimi with Avi Arad as producer, again.
• Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst still headlined, now 32 and 25 respectively. It also brought in Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacey, she 26 years old.
• There was this.
• Though the critical reception of the movie for the most part tanked, it proved to be the most successful worldwide.
• It broke money records, highest opening day, worldwide highest day-long gross, so on. Worldwide, it made $890+ million at the end of it’s run.

There’s really no question why Sony would want to continue the franchise. These things bled money, and that’s before you factor in the toy lines and such. I would just like to point out rebooting the series five years after the last movie does not qualify as a reboot. It’s essentially going down a different strain of story. The Batman films? The originals done by Tim Burton and concluding with a little humorous flick involving Schwarzenegger and Clooney versus the movies done ten years later by Christopher Nolan? That would be an instance that uses the word “reboot” properly to describe the situation. Here, the studio has said this adaptation is going to be more faithful to the comics from the 80’s-90’s. They’re redoing it because they screwed up the first three so badly they even recognized the error of their ways. As far as source material goes, I never read Spider-Man. It doesn’t concern me, although I can appreciate the director and producers trying to stay closer to that source.

Other than I think it’s incredibly too soon, I’m undecided on how I feel about this. Andrew Garfield is growing on me since I got the new Entertainment Weekly:

Sexy geeks? Always a plus. I’ve gotta see The Social Network.

I never really got into the first Spider-Man films because when the first one came out I was 11 and thought it was super scary. I remember seeing it at a friend’s house and then having a nightmare of the Green Goblin setting the house on fire. I don’t think I even saw 2 until the week of the 3^rd being released, because by then I was very into Marvel comics and wanted to see any and all put out. Funny how things change like that. I guess all in all, only time will tell if this proves to be a truly good idea or not.

The Internet Has Eaten My Braaain

My inability to keep a schedule with this blog frustrates me. When I was keeping a weekly post, it made me realize how quickly time was going by. I find myself in a conundrum.

Right, so once again the Internet went out, this time it died Friday night and didn’t come back until late Monday afternoon. Time and time again I was left grumbling and snarling about the shit connection in the apartment, and once again multiple people reminded me that I should have actually spoke to people who lived in my apartment before I moved in. But according to the managers, this problem didn't start happening until this year. The same managers that told me that their negotiations with the cable company shut out only Mac computers. Not sure who to trust. But the manager's nice. So it's hard to be mad to their faces. But then again it's not hard, because I'm taking an online class that is...online. And it can't be accessed when offline. Every two weeks we have about two papers and a project due in this class, that mostly take the form of webpages. It's not a big deal to me, I did the last project in maybe three hours, I'm used to coding pages, but still. The Internet we were guaranteed with rent needs to work. Especially given this is an apartment that caters to university students.

So this is nearly six days now in the past month that I've been without Internet, and on the one hand, I feel really really pathetic I can hardly make it a day without griping and getting upset that I can't get on the Internet. It's gotten to the point where I'm starting to disdainfully think a computer is worthless if it doesn't have an Internet connection (especially since I don't know where my Sims 3 disc is). I know this isn't right at all--computers have that inherent quality to compute things and they've got these nifty things that help write papers called 'word processors.' I've got photoshop and artistic ability, I could blow some time with art. But no, when the Internet dies I'm suddenly paralyzed and feel entirely cut off from the world. I'm left to check Facebook updates on my terribly slow connection on my phone (not a smart phone, so yes the connection there is bad) and run the battery down. For the past several days I've had to cart my laptop to campus and check email and do little bits of homework here and there, but when I know in the back of my mind the Internet doesn't work at home, there's such a finality to everything I do on the computer that I begin panicking that I won't get it all done between classes and then I'll be left in the dark when I go home.

It's terrible. I'm so paranoid it's just sad.

But on the other hand, knowing that I really can't go more than a day or two without Internet, I'm comfortable enough to admit this fact because I know a lot of people in my generation can't. Freaking digital age infiltration, and all. It doesn't bother me so much to say that because it's more accepted now. I've been hooked on the computer since I was a kid, and got into the Internet in my late elementary school years. I've always been a tech person.

And it just frustrates me to no end when I can't fix the problem. I think that--the fact that I had to call tech support over the weekend and they couldn't find the problem and couldn't send a technician until Monday--was comparable to twisting a knife in a wound. If I had access to the modem I could fix it. If I was at home, I could fix it, and then if I couldn't, I would be fine being mad at myself for not being knowledgeable enough about the hardware. Here? No. I'm left floundering in the darkness that is a broken Internet connection, having to wait for other people to come to the rescue when I know I'm perfectly capable.

On an unrelated note, I've started getting Nintendo Power magazines in the mail again after about a two year break. Huzzah! I'm excited and they're helping me expand my Christmas list. Also the latest Entertainment Weekly has The Social Network crew on the front, and I fully intend to see that movie soon and would be willing to do a little review. Then there's this upcoming assignment where we film students are going to be able to analyze any film we want in accordance to the Motion Picture Code developed in the '30s. I'm doing Iron Man 2 because it came in the mail last week and yes. Then I'm intending to shoot my second film project for the other film class tomorrow.

Fun times? Eh, sure. Stress? Hell yes.

So...be on the lookout for a possible post on the film shoot, and another on the wonderfulness that is Harry Potter (I've wanted to share my thoughts on it for a while, but figured I should wait until I refreshed my memory...and I started book 6 again this morning).

Happy Monday, everyone.

The Effects of Manifest Destiny

Once again, I saw Stef’s “Make It Up Monday” post and have decided to partake again. "Make It Up Monday" is an exercise in which she posts an image and readers are told to observe the image carefully and then write a caption, an explanation, or a story for it.

This was inspired by the likes of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and any and all Dracula movies set in yester-year. I’m starting to hate the teen-vampire thing, and because of the prolific-ness of vampires in young adult literature, I’ve come to really appreciate the older stuff again. And I'm really starting to think I'm just hard-wired for science fiction, seeing as both of these I've done have been of the sci-fi persuasion.

The Effects of Manifest Destiny

The four young children perched in and on top of the wagon would not realize what a hellish journey they had set out on until it was too late. Though the three boys had boisterously agreed to the adventure, the young girl, hardly capable of speech let alone coherent compliance, had simply giggled at the prospect of a cross-country, family, vampire-hunting journey.

When questioned as to why they had taken up the whirlwind of Manifest Destiny after vehemently refusing to leave the coast, each of them would sigh in response and then mutter how something had come up that required they leave home immediately. Most assumed the farm had taken a southerly turn. Few listened when they complained about vampires destroying their cattle. None believed them when they said they were going west to take out those who had preyed on their loved ones.

Though there was the occasional passer-by who gave them a look… A bright-eyed look veiled in a knowing shadow. Though no words were exchanged, often they’d get a tip of the hat or a happy nod from these folk. It should come as no surprise that the vast majority of these folk were spotted more often than not bearing pitchforks and playing with fire. No one knew if the family would be successful. No one knew if they would die in their convoluted efforts.

A week into the family’s journey, no one would ever hear of them again.

Ensemble Casts, In No Way Are They Losers

This past weekend, after being advised by a fellow blogger, I rented The Losers. It was released in April 2010, and I certainly remember seeing previews last spring, but somehow I never made it around to seeing it. Imdb describes the plot as follows: “After being betrayed and left for dead, members of a CIA black ops team root out those who targeted them for assassination.” It's yet another comic book adaptation that hit theaters this year. Initially attracted by the cast, the review I read here on Blogger sparked my interest again because of the comments made on its style. While it does display some stylistic elements, I would argue it acts as a timid precursor to the likes of Scott Pilgrim and was nowhere near as stylized as earlier films like The Spirit.

So let me return to the cast. The three big names (to my knowledge) were Chris Evans, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Zoe Saldana. Morgan has been in his share of Grey’s Anatomy episodes and had the key role in Watchmen the year before. Saldana had just come off of Avatar and Star Trek. Evans had been in Fantastic Four and would be named as the future Captain America. There were other faces I recognized but didn’t know the background for as well. Point? This is the very definition of an ensemble cast. Actors who can hold their own and whose characters get a share of the screen time equal to their fellow actors.

I enjoy ensemble casts in movies because it allows audiences to look into each of the lives of the characters and safely deem any of the characters as their favorite. They also let any of the characters interact with each other, which can lead to a huge variety of comedic encounters and/or dramatic outcomes. It’s interesting to watch how one character plays off of another but could then turn around and be a completely different person with another.

In The Losers, there were several pairings that were heavily emphasized. (And on a side note, all of this is making me think about when I was a kid playing Super Smash Bros…I would play as one character and pick another, say Link and Fox, and make up some fictional back story on why they would be fighting together.) Morgan and Saldana’s characters—Clay and Aisha—were one for sure, and then there was a fantastic scene partnering Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) and Jensen (Evans). Actually, Jensen was a moderator for all of the characters and played off each of them very well, though there was a definite negative vibe between him and Aisha, and thus the two were never seen alone.

But really, if you think about it, The Losers employing an ensemble cast is really just part of a bigger picture in which I’d argue that all comic book movies employ ensemble casts to ensure the movie sells. Really, just think about it for a second!

• X-men: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, and Ian McKellen were the top billed actors. But Patrick Stewart and Famke Janssen had respectable careers before, too.
• Spider-Man: Tobey Macguire, Kirsten Dunst, and Willem Dafoe. James Franco and the gang got a fair amount of fame on top of what they had already done in Hollywood, and I’ve seen J.K. Simmons around a lot more since the trilogy.
• Batman: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger. Tim Burton (who directed the first two) gained considerable attention after the films as well.
• Hellboy: Ron Pearlman, Selma Blair, and Jeffrey Tambor.
• Watchmen: it’s difficult to pick the top three billed, as the producers wanted unknowns for their characters. But again, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley had some semblance of a career before it.

Those that only banked on one, two, three actors have tended to do more poorly at the box office or were more poorly received. Nicolas Cage seemed to be single handedly carrying Ghost Rider, though I enjoyed Sam Elliot’s performance much more than Cage’s. The film was regarded as a huge fail, save for the effects. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen rested on Sean Connery’s broad shoulders (and proved to be his final movie before retiring). It only made $68 million in the US and Canada. I’m still undecided on Daredevil, because I feel like the casting choices weren’t the best. It seemed to very well and solidified Marvel characters in Hollywood, but the reception wasn’t the most assuring. (Elektra on the other hand, was disastrous, making less than $60 million worldwide, banking on the Daredevil connection and Jennifer Garner’s attempt at a Grecian assassin.)

As much as I’d like to say, “Come on, Hollywood, take a risk…we don’t need A-list stars playing the not-to-be-taken-seriously B-movie comic characters,” I’m just going to keep my trap shut. History has proven that having the respected actors and having lots of them is the way to keep the franchises alive. Its just a sticky situation, thinking that someone out there may be able to embody the character better than say, Hugh Jackman, who will undoubtedly draw in the crowds and the money. So, for now, I’d rather the casting directors get it half-way right and the studios keep making the movies, if only for the possibility that we may realize someone may play Character X just right, than the movies not be made at all.

(It’ll only take one screw up for me to retract that entire last paragraph…one royal screw up for me to be out for someone’s blood… X3 comes to mind, but it wasn’t the actors who were primarily to blame there.)

Decorating

Seeing as I’m a fan of movies, it should come as a surprise that I often consider movie memorabilia to fall under the category of “décor” and that I often times see movie posters as art.

I moved into my first apartment back in August and still haven’t done much as far as decorating goes. The kitchen and living room area are done in red and black, and my room is white and turquoise. Thus far my room has a painting I did several years ago of a V for Vendetta poster. I’m torn between keeping things minimalistic and going all out.

But what really concerns me are the actual living spaces…where the walls are a flat white and have…nothing on them at all. Last year I picked up a beautiful poster from The Spirit that I intend to hang, but because of how much space is available and the location of the light switches on this one wall, I’m thinking of getting another poster to go with it to space across the wall next to the dining table.

Now, The Spirit wasn’t a particularly great movie as far as story goes, but I enjoyed the warped humor and the stylization. It did poorly for a comic book adaptation; it didn’t make money at the box office two years ago, but I still saw it the day after Christmas 2008 or some where in the vicinity there. Then we bought the DVD and I’ve probably watched it three times since it came out. (I think I just wait long enough to fool myself into thinking that it wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone says.) But forget the story—the art and the stylization was what drew me in.

Again, the living areas are done in red and black. Now I just need another poster to go with the one I’ve got. I’ve looked at the other Spirit posters (actually I’ve posted half of them here) but I’m not certain about having multiple posters for a movie I didn’t really like. Then I’m not sure if these are too busy or aren’t strong enough next to the “my city screams” image. I took a step back and googled black and white posters for an hour or two over the weekend, and the best ones I could come up with are below:

Now these three are all from movies I really like. Chicago was probably the first musical with real live people that I saw (both the movie and some months later I saw the theater performance). The music’s good and the story’s (corruption in criminal justice) great. I haven’t seen it in years because we lost the DVD, but I do remember enjoying it. Good Night and Good Luck I saw two years ago I believe, when I was trying to get into watching the award-winning movies. I’m a little fuzzy on how the story goes (it involves the government and early television broadcast medium), but I remember that the final speech by David Strathairn was incredibly powerful and moving. I intend to buy the movie as soon as I come into some extra money. Then there’s Sweeney Todd, a dark musical about a murderous barber featuring Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman—two of my favorites.

I think the Sweeney Todd image fits well as far as style goes, but I don’t like the blue in it and I’m not so certain on having a poster about a bloody musical next to the dinner table. It could unnerve guests. Chicago’s poster is a bit more yellow than The Spirit, but there’s some yellow elements in the kitchen as well. I personally like Good Night and Good Luck the best of the three movies, I think simply because of the message in it, but I don’t think the poster is stylized enough.

Anyone have any opinions on the matter? I’m happy to listen to suggestions, or other black/white/red posters I may have over looked.

Handy-Dandy Trailer

Once again, I just wanted to alert the Interwebs to the fact that I am not dead... Perhaps it's just me but this week is taking forever. I have three papers due tomorrow, only one of which I haven't completed at this point (as of yesterday morning, none of them had been started).

I kept trying to think of something that wouldn't require much brain power and also wouldn't suck...so here's a video that has come up in my film classes twice now.

Huh? Yeah. The first time we saw it it had to do with three-act structure. This semester it pertained to the literalness of film. I think it's awesome something made by a bunch of 20-somethings that was likely done for fun is showing up in my lectures and is actually relevant.
Sorry I am so lame. Life is busy and I don't have a ton of free time to write (probably has something to do with those 18 hours of classes). Happy Wednesday, regardless!

How Pirates Introduced Me to Some of My Favorite People

Let me start this off with a little music, feel free to watch or let it run in the background.

And now that my heart has swelled with love for the movies of my adolescence… Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Now, Pirates of the Caribbean, I would argue, is one of the best Disney movies. The first one. It’s a freaking classic already. The story is fantastic—a hoarde of skeletal pirates looking for the sole child whose blood will reverse their fate, while one of the crew, previously left to die on a rock, stumbles drunkenly into them in the middle of all this mess. I personally really enjoy 2 as well, and 3 has its good parts but it was horrifically confusing at the time.

When Curse of the Black Pearl came out in 2003, I was 12 and fresh off of watching Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. (Again, Lord of the Rings was one of those things that I refused to watch because I thought it was either too scary, too old-timey, or something, but then fell in love with.) For me, the preteen, the selling point of this movie was, without a freaking doubt, Orlando Bloom. Of course at the time I still preferred his long, blonde tresses to the mess of hair he sported and the silly English outfit, but still. Orlando Bloom, people. But even before Curse of the Black Pearl hit theaters, I remember very, very clearly seeing a teaser trailer for it and turning over to my friend and saying, “That looks scary.” I’d made up my mind I wasn’t going to see it, and then shoved it to the back of my mind while watching whatever movie came on.

I am so glad I changed my mind.

I went into the films with a crush on Orlando Bloom and thoroughly enjoyed the first in the summer of 2003. I came out of it just so thoroughly impressed with Captain Jack Sparrow’s character…perhaps impressed isn’t the right word…perhaps infatuated would be a better choice. (Regardless, by the time the second one came around, I was so ridiculously envious of Kiera Knightly’s role.)

Curse of the Black Pearl also marks the first time I actually saw Johnny Depp perform. I vaguely knew his name but couldn’t really put a face to it when the previews were circulating, but boy howdy did I learn who he was. Capable of playing characters on one extreme end of the spectrum to the other, I have always been impressed with Depp’s ability to take on such massive characters. And though Jack Sparrow may be a drunk, he’s still nice to look at and laugh at. With. …mostly at. It’s hard not to like Sparrow. He commands the screen and the character constantly demands attention, even in situations when it would be better for him to keep his trap shut. It's like Depp made pirates sexy. Look at who he’s surrounded by—a bunch of really not all that attractive shipmates: Barbossa, Gibbs, etc.

So there was Depp, and then there was this producer—Jerry Bruckheimer. Now, to be honest, I’m still a little fuzzy on what all producers do. They cover a lot in the filming process and evidently have the power to fire the director if they so choose. They are usually the ones putting their own money on the line to get the movie up and running and can choose to end it if they wish. So really, by that definition, the Pirates trilogy belongs to Bruckheimer. One thing I’ve noticed with producers is that they tend to carry a certain style or feel with them from one movie to the next, like Pirates and Prince of Persia, both are overseen by Bruckheimer and both have that action/adventure with a wily character and a damsel-thing going on. Also, both films have a vague Indiana Jones feel to them in my opinion. I love it. I’ve thought on it more and more as time’s gone on, and its almost like Bruckheimer is the new version of Spielberg or George Lucas, and I’m more than happy to watch any films with his name attached.

CASE IN POINT!

There's others I've come to love through Pirates, too, like Geoffrey Rush, who plays Barbossa. His character is just killer! I absolutely love Barbossa in At World's End, his relationship with Jack Sparrow akin to brotherhood and everything. It's always nice to see a villain go good, too. Jack Davenport (Norrington) grew on me in the last two films as well, and I enjoy watching his British comedies.

Why make such a fuss over people? Well, I am only trying to get a film degree. These are the kinds of films I want to be involved with—those adventures where things can go horribly wrong, things happen that make the audience laugh until they cry, romance is right around the corner and things have a happy (or at least acceptable) ending. Dramas are great and everything, but I enjoy telling stories and I think in this day and age escapist films are pretty important. Everyone needs something fantastic in their lives, and the movies can fill the void. I love it when I walk out of a film and feel the need to sword fight or stunt drive. It’s amazing what a good movie (and good casts and crews) can do to their audiences.

Nine Years of Neopets

If you’ve used the Internet for a significant amount of time, especially in the early 2000’s, if you have a child or a young relative, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of it. Neopets is the virtual pet site that’s been up and running since November 1999.

As of September 14^th, 2010, I’ve been on the site for nine years.

...Rachel. You’re a college student. Why on earth are you playing that game…still?

The short answer is simply that it’s addicting. Is/was. I certainly don’t play it like I used to in elementary/middle school, when I easily blow hours at a time on the site. Nowadays, I couldn’t tell you last time I spent an entire hour in one day with it.

It is a virtual pet site yes, but it’s also a game arcade and a social medium as well. The site has over 180 million accounts today. It’s coming close to having one trillion page views. It’s fantastically popular. The creators were heavily involved, they had accounts of their own and were known to interact with regular users. Many, many "plots" have been spawned since it's inception, some as hunt-and-gather type of things where clues are spread out for you to unlock some secret. Others (my favorites actually), were actual wars where you got to pick a side and fight against baddies to see whose side could get more points. But the site's gone through some massive changes in the last few years. Not all I’ve particularly agreed with or even appreciated, but the general public claims it’s been for the better overall. I don’t keep up with the politics so much anymore, now that I’m in college and I have other stuff to keep myself busy. But I was very active in the day of the sale—when Viacom bought Neopets in 2005. This led to a plethora of changes and a huge spike in users as well as an eventual site-makeover.

One of the biggest changes involved a ton of redraws of pets and the ability to 'customize' them, or dress them with clothes and...stuff. The pets pictured overhead are called "Lupes." The first pet I ever made was a blue Lupe and originally looked like the top one.

I know I’ve taken a couple hiatuses, but somehow, I’ve managed to come back, and I’ve kept the same 2-3 accounts the whole time. (Those unfamiliar with the site, the Neopets Team…the rule makers, essentially, have said that one human being is allowed to have 5 accounts to accommodate all the Neopets you make or adopt.) My first account was made September 14^th, 2001, and my second about six months later. I use the second the most.

Originally, when I was still a little kid, I played the site daily. I made and adopted pets. I opened a shop and sold spare items, I explored far and wide, I played their arcade games so much that I made enough money to buy “paintbrushes” to change the color of my Neopets. When I painted all of the pets on my first account and had 300,000 Neopoints (their currency) I thought I was hot stuff. I might have been in 6^th grade by the time this occurred.

But then...I actually learned some stuff. In the first two years for sure, I taught myself HTML on the free “pet pages” each pet came with. I made up back-stories for my pets. I joined “guilds,” which were essentially just clubs of people, and in my first few years, it was essential to me to be a part of a worthy guild and to socialize with its members. When I turned 13 I played around with their chat boards, which were really more like forums. There, I learned about role-playing for the first time.

In a way, Neopets taught me a lot. So the long answer here is that I keep coming back to the site because I have a nostalgic spot for it. It’s taught me a lot about Internet politics, about business, about how people fuction, about websites, about storytelling. It gave me so much practice in writing and drawing that I’m grateful to have found the place. It is just a game, the pets are just pixels, but when you invest so much time into it all, it becomes more than that. It may just be a website that only exists in the invisible space that is the Internet, but it’s become something of an actual place to me. Of course it’s changed and I’ve not kept up with the news or the politics of it lately, but back in the day, it was like sliced bread. Not only could you play games and be imaginative, but you could meet (presumably) real people who liked it as much as you did.

Again, even though I’m pessimistic and old-fashioned and prefer the old site with its real sidebar (and not this top bar that I still don’t like the organization on), I’m glad its still around. It’s been a pretty great nine years, and I’m perfectly content to keep coming back, even if it’s only to play the arcade games between classes.

Now wait for it...old school ad time!

An Early Look At "The Tourist"

Hmph.

Two things you should know: I dislike Angelina Jolie, not because I doubt her acting ability, not because...not really for any one particular reason, but I just don't like her. She seems snakelike. Then, there's the simple fact that I love Johnny Depp.

The trailer's not bad, however from all the hype I had been reading, I was expecting something more...serious. More dramatic and less windows-exploding-in and less of Depp acting silly. I don't know why, given his recent list of characters, but perhaps I thought the mood of Public Enemies was going to carry over into The Tourist given it has the--let me quote--"king and queen of Hollywood" in it. Let me put it this way: I like the music.

Honestly, from this alone, the movie looks like an updated version of North by Northwest (which I conveniently watched this semester for a class!). Depp's got a case of mistaken identity and has a run in with a shady femme fatale. If not that, then it reminds me of the trailers for Salt where Jolie plays some secret double agent type yet again, only this movie has a significant other for her to exchange witty banter with. (Let it be known I did not see Salt.)

I want something else from both of these actors. They're fine people, and I know they're capable of a lot! But another secret agent-esque role for Jolie? And a virtual nobody (as far as we know) character for Depp? Seriously? I want--I expect a hell of a lot more from Depp after falling in love with both Edward Scissorhands and Jack Sparrow. He makes characters his own. He needs something more than supporting male role to the suspicious female. And that's another thing, I think because of his lack of character Jolie is the one commanding this movie when recently Depp's been the name-sake heavyweight (Alice in Wonderland). Although it will be interesting to see if the power balances or shifts at all, given both Depp and Jolie have been given the title of "sex symbol."

Regardless of whatever reviews, previews or what ever else may surface between now and December 10th, I'm seeing this. It's a hobby of mine to attempt to see any and all Johnny Depp movies, and so far I've probably caught about half of them. I think I'm more excited for Rango, not only because it's animated and looks cute, if not quaint, but also for the second year in a row I'll be getting a Johnny Depp movie on my birthday!

Um, hi?

Holy crud. I just wanted to say I've not fallen off a cliff or jumped off the face of the earth or anything like that. My internet, since I returned to the apartment on Sunday, has been completely out. It just came back today about 20 minutes ago.

And here's the thing: the internet for the past two weeks has gone down nearly everyday for about 2-3 hours in the evening. But nope, mine just went kaput entirely. (But now its baaaack yaaay! It really makes me rethink and almost take back everything I said about wanting to live in the 80's. If I was born today and was somehow time-travelled back, I wouldn't make it for more than a couple days. I'm terrible.) The manager said our provider was renegotiating stuff, and when they did that it knocked a few of the Mac computers completely offline.

Greaat. I said.

So I went and bought two routers and fought with them, had a horrible day yesterday, so horrible in fact I thought it was Murphey's Law day (anything that can go wrong, will most definitely do so in epic proportions). It was just the most frustrating thing--knowing that I'm a tech-savvy person and that if I was at the house, I could have fixed this...but here I was helpless without access to the apartment's hardware. I finally called the Internet provider myself today and they said they'd send someone, when my roommate called after a measly one day of no service and they reset the modem and everything came back.

I promise a more meaningful post will come tomorrow. Until then, I have to work my tail off on dinner (fish tacos!) and writing this film paper I have due in 2 days (but couldn't even attempt because of the downed Internet).

Happy Tuesday!

An Early Look at "Buried"

What.

Really, to me, that preview is both amazing and completely ridiculous. There is 2 seconds of an image on the screen, courtesy of a lighter. The preview, really, is a complete waste of a trailer. There is no visual. This thing is essentially a radio ad. And yet as much as that bugs me, I want to see it. About 60% of that has to do with the fact I enjoy watching Ryan Reynolds. The rest has to do with me being completely baffled as to how these people are going to pull off a full-length feature of a man trapped in a coffin. There might be a couple minutes in the beginning out of the coffin to provide backstory, and perhaps he gets saved in the end and we see the light of day again. But really, this movie is going to spend all it’s time figuratively six feet under.

People taking risks like this…Buried is likely to pull in big bucks, and a lot of that is due to the spectacle of it. A lot of it will be due to the actor we’ve come to love in the past year thanks to Wolverine and a little help from Sandra Bullock in The Proposal.

It just really amazes me how things like this come to be.

I’m looking forward to it—not because it’s a “thriller” (again, how on earth do you make that happen in a movie that’s completely contained in a body-sized box?), but because I want to know how this was put together.

Three Quotes for Thurday: The Sarcastic Edition!

Here we are again on yet another lovely (if not hot and humid) Thursday. I've decided to mix it up a bit, going off of media I've seen recently and picking out my favorite sarcastic quotes to share. A bit of an expert on the subject myself, I love dry humor. I'm so damn good at it people sometimes have to ask me if I'm being serious...well, perhaps I'm good at sarcasm or they're not too bright. I have found that sarcasm is hard to communicate over the interwebs and text messages but I think these quotes are sharp enough to spell it out.

"I'm an immortal sir, not a gazelle!" - Dorian Gray (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

Oh, of course you're not a quadrupedal animal, Dorian. You're funny. Geez, watching this again for the first time in half a million months made me realize how cheesy some of the dialogue truly was. But I liked the execution of this one.

"Dying people lie too. Wish they'd worked less, been nicer, opened orphanages for kittens. If you really want to do something, you do it. You don't save it for a sound bite." - House (House M.D.)

House, the terrific doctor who really never seems to have anything nice to say. Luckily for us he keeps opening his mouth and spouting off whatever it is he has to say, often times putting me in stitches (oh, ho, that's not at all a pun). I missed most of last season though...hopefully I'll find a recap here soon and can start back up again this year. But in all seriousness, this is one of those that resonates with me--if you want something, some success or positivity in life, run after it like there's no tomorrow.

"If the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." - Ian Malcom (Jurassic Park)

Not unless they're also zombies. In that case, everybody would be screwed. Also, isn't it neat to think that a decade after this movie was put out that Pirates was made into it's own trilogy too? And the pirates didn't eat anybody after all :)

Looking Through a Gilded Glass at Alan Moore

I was happily munching away at dinner my roommate made for me when we discovered there was nothing on television, seeing as I really don’t watch TV anymore outside of the primetime lineups that haven’t started again, and she couldn’t find anything in the mess of reality shows that were on. I suggested a little movie I thought she’d like, given she has a wide array of films that she enjoys, among them the X-men titles and Van Helsing.

She put in my copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, yet another one of those movies that my mother suggested, she knowing my tastes before I even did, and I outright refused to watch it when I was younger. I constantly mocked it, frequently calling it “The League of Men in Colored Undies” because I thought it was about superheroes.

I knew it was a comic book movie, but I didn’t realize until this time around that it was based off the works of—guess who—Alan Moore. This is the third film inspired by his works that I just really, really love. The other two include V for Vendetta and of course as I’ve stated before, Watchmen. I will say that Extraordinary Gents is probably the weakest and cheesiest of the three, but it’s still got a place in my heart.

Now I will tell you, of these three movies, I only own two of the books and I’ve only read one. (This has something to do with me scoffing at the previews for Watchmen where it was said that the graphic novel was one of the best and most critically hailed of all time, and I hadn’t heard a lick about it before the movie trailer. The trailer was perfectly true.) So really, since I’ve not read but Watchmen of Moore’s actual works, perhaps I have no right to make this post about him. According to Wiki (because the internet is always true), there’s been a lot of hell in Moore’s life over his comics being made into movies. He claims he was doing all he could to make his comics a unique medium, to portray so much information in the panels that it couldn’t be replicated in any other media. I agree with him to an extent. I certainly get what he’s saying by trying to cram the huge stories into 2-1/2 hour film segments. Watchmen was pushing it. But between directors changing the story, falsifying statements of Moore’s endorsements and what have you, he wants nothing to do with any movie adaptations.

So, not to disrespect the author, I won’t insinuate that he approves the movies made after his work, nor will I say that the films come from solely his ideas, though I do believe the core of each of the movies did come from Moore. Of course, you say, because they share titles and major characters and entire story lines from their comic counterparts. There’s a difference. Maybe they’re not major differences, but there are going to be differences when someone outside of the author’s personal literary sphere comes in to make their own rendition of the work. They can’t possibly know what all is going on in the author’s head, especially not in the case of Alan Moore who has really stood at arms length (if not more) from these things.

However, I still love these movies. I love the stories they’re trying to tell. I’ve said before that Watchmen is just one of my favorite stories...well, ever. It’s a recent history tale of the deconstruction of the superhero and the minimalization of the human being. V for Vendetta is the story of a hyper-survelliance, hyper-political future in England and a man’s attempt to go against the common grind. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen takes beloved characters out of classic literature and pits them against a great force of evil for the sake of humanity’s longevity—much like Watchmen or perhaps, I noticed this time, Marvel’s Avengers?

Based on the movies, Moore’s stories are, for the most part, historical fiction. Even in V for Vendetta, set in the future, there are references to November 5, 1605. The story itself is an attempt to make a huge change in society and write the history of the time. Watchmen is set through the 1940’s to the 80’s and the story is promoted as the telling of an alternate history of America. Extraordinary Gents is most definitely historical fiction, taking characters out of classics like Dracula, the Picture of Dorian Gray and so on and so forth, and writing a future for them and rewriting a history for Europe (that is set in the late 18^th to early 19^th centuries).

I really like historical fiction. It’s something I’ve grown into, but I feel like it’s almost second to my like of science fiction. Probably has to do a lot with the fact I just like history. I, though you may find it strange and repulsive, have a great deal of interest in the WWII era and the Holocaust, because I find it incredibly appalling/curious/unbelievable that people that evil truly existed in real life. It’s always fun to watch historical fiction and just think about if these people had really existed…well then perhaps the movie would have been true! For better or for worse, I suppose…

So, given I’m labeling Moore as a historical writer, I just really appreciate him. It sparks my curiosity to think about these characters existing in our world. And to the girl that though for the longest time that vampires could have existed, ghosts probably walk our halls and somewhere out in space other life exists, its just nice to know that other people enjoy this kind of stuff too. Its even more incredible the time and effort people put into historical writing, what with the research and precision of dates and all.