7 posts tagged “geeked”

I'm kind of lazy. I'm working on so muc at once, that my pet project (this) gets neglected, since it's only a pet, and shits in a box and licks itself clean, I think it doesn't ever really need me, but it does. Movie things.

The aforementioned Kick-Ass, based on the comic series, picks up more cast, as, according to Cinematical:

[...] they've cast the lead: it'll be 18 year-old Aaron Johnson, whom you may remember as little Ed Norton in The Illusionist. Joining him will be Nicolas Cage and TV vet Lyndsy Fonseca. Fonseca will play the love interest, while Cage will play the father of Elizabeth Rappe's future daughter, "a vicious, foul-mouthed 11-year-old who chops down criminals with a katana." Apparently he's trained her to do that as part of his quest to take down a druglord.

I've seen Matthew Vaughn's (the director's) Layer Cake, and it wasn't bad--it was stylish, and I hope he can make a half-decent superhero movie that isn't living in the Dark Knight's shadow. This is a pretty low-profile character, so he should be aight.Next!

Another movie that I have on notice (I'll drizzle in info on some more of them as time goes on) is Inglorious Bastards. In the last few weeks, casting rumors have had actors coming and going--at one point Simon Pegg, soon to be of Star Trek fame, was attached, but he's apparently out. Here's what IMDB is offically saying the cast looks like, as of today:

Cast

	Brad Pitt	...	Aldo Raine
	Mike Myers	...	General Ed Fenech
	Eli Roth	...	Sgt. Donnie Donowitz
	B.J. Novak	...	PFC Utivich
	Samm Levine
	Nastassja Kinski	...	Bridget Von Hammersmark (rumored)

Gotta love that 'rumored'. Why even include it? Also, the character names don't matter as much as the fact that someone is agreeing to be a part of it, which is the good news.

Finally--Harry Potter has been moved back to too far to be worried about right now, but here's a link to some pictures from the film/set, like it helps or something.

Oooh..

Shit yeah!...These eleven months are fuckin flying by, bro!

Lastly (more definite than 'finally'), people have seen Guy Ritchie's Rocknrolla, and they don't hate it, so that's a positive.

Hard Candy basically sucked anyway, amiright?

[IMDB/CINEMATICAL/Mugglenet/AICN]

I'm one of those people who likes Star Trek, only notable because I'm the only one of my friends who does, and I'm looking forward to the new one, out on May the 9th of 2009. I like the aspect of an immersive world that it offers--it feels lived in (though I never got into the old show, I liked the old movies, and most other shows, except whatever came after Voyager, including most episodes of Voyager).  Trekmovie.com has new posters and crap for the new JJ Abrams movie [via Cinematical].

McCoy and Chekov...whatever that means.

I bought a jump rope today. I bought it on a whim yesterday at work, actually, but it showed up today, meaning the next day, which is remarkable.

See you in Beijing!

What I did was, I saw a midnight screening of the Dark Knight in Elizabeth, NJ. People who don't live in the ghetto and never will, sometimes refer to Elizabeth as the ghetto, and, while I get the reference, it's sort of a misnomer. When you live in the part of Jersey I do, you're pretty much outnumbered by "ghetto" areas anyway, so, my point is, the theater there is pretty good, but I had to argue to get that to be the first choice. The last movie I saw there was Iron Man, and the crowd was respectful except for one little kid. This time, the crowd was pretty much great.

Bonnie refused to remove her glasses, despite the film being in 2-D

Anyway, the audience ate the shit up, cheered, laughed, applauded when the movie closed the phrase 'The Dark Knight' appeared just before that of director Chris Nolan. What made this an exhilerating movie experience (like being at a baseball game) was the fact that the movie actually delivered. So here's the review part of this review:

For the life of him, Batman can NOT remember where he fucking parked

The movie starts off with the famous bank heist that people got to see for the IMAX presentation of I Am Legend. We meet the Joker here, and he delivers a line that was probably awesome in the script, but that didn't quite prove Heath Ledger's place as the character, or the character's place as his legacy. But this will change. What happens in the Dark Knight, is Heath Ledger acts circles around anybody he shares the screen with. Christian Bale proves why he's the character of Batman again, with his gravelly costumed delivery, and his faux-screw up act as Bruce Wayne. Maggie G does okay as Rachel Dawes, but she doesn't do anything that Katie Holmes couldn't have, except maybe a couple line deliveries that are pretty much her own, and the fact that she doesn't bring with her a billion years of press baggage. Aaron Eckhart...I feel was better in Thank You for Smoking, as he's got good comedic timing. Here he does well, as Harvey Dent, who is the legal version of Batman: he's got the punks scared of jail time instead of merely being pummeled and delivered to the precinct. His character's journey pretty much embodies the themes of the movie: what it means to be a hero, what it takes to never go back on you duty, having code and following it, being the type of person people can beleive in. The character of Harvey Dent is well conceived here, and Eckhart doesn't fuck it up, so that means he did a good job.

Plus, TwoFace is pretty badass no matter what (not you, Tommy Lee)

But what my mind keeps going to is Heath Ledger. People were talking this shit up, and I was expecting one thing, but I got something else entirely. The person I saw the movie with said, "That's exactly what the Joker's supposed to be. A badass." I had to agree. The crowd I saw the movie with ate it all up--the one-liners, the murders, the sight gags. I'm sure everybody's saying this (I haven't read any reviews yet, but can't wait to), but seeing what Ledger does here makes his death even more tragic. Had he lived, people would be kissing his ass right now. Brokeback Mountain made people pay attention, but this movie would have made him STAR, with capital everything. My favorite Joker bits was his tenure in the police station, and his confrontation with a hospital-ridden Harvey Dent in the third act of the film. It's just fucking great stuff, and only he could have done this, among the cast, because everybody else is more or less playing someone sane (though, one could argue, almost no one is) and the Joker is friggin INsane, and so he has free reign.

Scenery Chewing--The Right Way

The makeup effects were up there as well. Joker's makeup, especially in the interrogation scenes is all kinds of creepy, as well as his teeth. It's pretty much perfect within the tone of the character and the film itself. TwoFace's ultimate look is effective as well, what with (spoiler) an eye pretty much out of the socket and visible musculature. It works. I didn't quite like Harvey's suit toward the end (when did he find time to make this, and why would he?). My favorite comic villains were always Two Face and Scarecrow, and I got them both already, so no complaint. In the film's though, the Penguin was my favorite (even over Jack's take on the Joker) but I think this Joker takes the cake now, or at least rivals it, what with how much fun the actor has with the role, and what the effects people have done with the look and final product.

I don't think he'd be out of place in the Nolan franchise...

At the end of the day: It's worth the money. The film is edited as a crowd pleaser--there are no fun character asides, not really. Everything that happens is relevant to the plot, whether you notice or not, and the action is great and seems necessary to what is happening in the world they have created (I might see this in IMAX as well, since much of the action was filmed that way). The movie is pretty violent, some of it implied, some it blowing up everywhere and getting shot out of nowhere (there is a scene involving a pencil that got the crowd in the mood, making it awesome). The acting works, especially you know who, and it ends on a note that I'm sure it would have whether Mr. Ledger was alive or not--you'll see, but (spoiler) I will say that I'm glad they chose to do it this way, but it makes me long even worse for what might have been, and also afraid of what Warner Brothers might try to do, especially if this movie makes money. Four Stars.

Because I am easily influenced, and if i read a bad review, I can't always assure myself that I won't let it affect my judgment. This is why I can't read Dark Knight anythings, because I have an active imagination, and it ruins my regular life; I can't let it ruin my artistic experiential life. I used to bury myself in reviews before seeing a movie, and I called it research, and, sometimes it helped, sometimes it hindered. At this point, I don't even ask my friends what they think of movies before I see them, because I have become one with my own opinion. Previously though, I was an opinion sponge. This also effects my regular life; the last movie I saw that suffered from this, though, was Transformers.

It stinks!

What I genuinely didn't like about it was how hokey the Transformers-talking half of the movie was compared to the Transformers aren't talking half. It came across, to me, as pretty fucking stupid. The bad reviews I read were mostly inspired by lack of faithfulness to the source material, and the general vapidness of anything involving Michael Bay. The point is, why-ever anyone else was pissed at the movie, didn't really allow me to give it a chance (plus I was hungover).  So, whatever. I probably won't see Hellboy 2 until DVD, but I probably won't read a review any time soon, besides the io9 one, because I like their reviews. Think of this as a commercial for their shit. And to say, again, that I hope the Dark Knight doesn't suck.

Cindy, if you spoil the Dark Knight for me, I swear, I'll give you away

Inglorious Bastards, the new Quentin Tarantino production on which I have ruminated, has a script review that I'm not going to read, even though it's supposed to be positive. It's here.

Word

Also, a new Harry Potter movie comes out November 21st (I refer you to the picture of Clay Aiken above), and I say this without warning you that I have read the book and find the universe easier to cope with than Lord of the Rings, although that might change in the future (I realize there are a million reasons why that is an egregious statement, but I can't help what I like). Anyway, some new pictures are out via MTV. A funnier version is at I Watch Stuff, which is where I got the picture below.

Sad news as Ron Weasley's name gets called in the Watch a Will Smith Movie sweepstakes

One of the few spoiler-free images, ever.

The levels to which i am looking forward to the Dark Knight are sort of embarrassing. I don't think it's going to be the Best Movie Ever, or even the Best PG-13 Blockbuster Released in the Month of July Ever, but I've been looking forward to it since the joker card at the end of Batman Begins. I've been looking forward to it further ever since Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker. He has almost made me cry with his acting, so that makes him good (Brothers Grimm gets me every time jkjkjkjk).

Christian Bale was good in the Machinist (American Psycho was ok, the book was better) Morgan Freeman is boss hog, and Maggie G is good as well (I don't know shit about Eckhart, not from experience at least). Superhero sequels have a tendency to be pretty good, so i'm hoping.

They're as excited as I am, if not more...

It's so hard to avoid commercials, which I am wont to do, since advertising is so prone to give shit away, because they think you can't put two and two together. I saw one clip at a bar, where an ax hits a projector of some sort, and i'm all like, "great, now i know that an ax hits something!" It's like that. So for the next couple of weeks, i won't even look at pictures of batman, lest my life be ruined. Spoilers are every-fucking-where, man, even Dominos fucking pizza commercials.

I mean, i'm just looking to like it, the movie, just like the next fucker, so it can't let me down, because i don't have expectations of its quality, i just want to SEE IT. Okay, even that means there's an expectation on my part, but i tend not to read reviews for movies i plan on seeing, so when i see it, i hopefully won't know much about the consensus of its quality, so any bar set will be the one I've myself, which I can deal with. But i don't get genuinely geared up about a big budget movie, 'cept maybe once a year, (altho more than that this year) so we'll see how this ends up standing. I'm a fan of pretty much all involved, so I'm rooting for them to not waste my money.

Me and Yin-Chen are casting a Please Don't Suck spell as we speak...