The House of Sand and Fog [film]

The House of Sand and Fog starrs Jennifer Connelly and Sir Ben Kingsley ("Gandhi"), primarily. I've always kind of tip-toed around Jenniffer Connelly films due to the whole stigma she carries from earlier 80's films. But she was very good in this movie. The entire cast of the five main characters are just phenominal in their acting. The cinematography alone makes it one of the top three most beautifully filmed movies I've seen lately, and the story...

The imagery, the story, the characters are all so filled and entwined in symbolism, nothing is left un-thought of but it feels so natural. Apparently they filmed the whole thing without storyboards and just went with the flow, which is amazing because you'd think just the opposite - but it does feel very natural and organic.

Without giving anything away, it is a drama that kind of rips you open, stomps on you, but doesn't come off as trite at all, definetly not a rehash of anything I've seen before. And after, you don't necessarily feel DOWN. It's definetly more... "down" than, say, Eternal Sunshine... but I felt better about life after watching this film than I did ES. Strange.

And just to give a hint of how good the cinematography was, I've never been so compelled to rip a DVD out of the player and immediately go cap it. ;) Go watch it!

The Well of Lonliness [novel]

I guess a lot of folks disregard The Well of Lonliness because it's the "stereotypical lesbian life ending in tradgedy". But I think they forget that this book was written in the 1920's and was the first of its kind. It hits home in so many ways - I kept writing down page numbers to take notes from but the entire book is just so smart. Once you get past the [older] style of writing and remember the era it reflects, and really look into the metaphors and descriptions, boiling it down this novel is saying the same thing the queer community is saying today.

I want everyone to read it to know how I felt growing up as a kid - not just what I was like, but what I thought, how I felt -- THIS is what this book gets to the heart of. Not WHY we're gay, not why it's such a difficult topic for much of society. It goes beyond the superficial and the arguments and really digs down to personal things I've never been able to put into words. And to SEE everything actually written down, and written WELL. It's stunning. If anything, I think this book is just as valuable today if not more, as I've yet to read another novel that better cuts down to how a lot of us feel deep inside.

I warn you that it isn't a happy novel. I really felt lonely and depressed after reading it (doesn't help that I am single) so be prepared.

Underworld [film]

First, I went into this film with a LOT of apprehension.
1) Sony got their asses sued by White Wolf who created the "Werewolf: the Apocalypse" and "Vampire: the Masquerade" World of Darkness, a world that was HEAVILY stolen from in the making of this film. I'm not sure what the outcome of the lawsuit was, but there were 40 some instances of legal infringement on the films part. I, being a fan of the "Werewolf..." collectable card game (CCG) "Rage", was thus wary of the film and its treatment of the subject of the vampires and werewolves.

2) I have always been a werewolf fan and have always really disliked vampires. Don't know why, it's been like that since I was a kid. It didnt' help that when I became a fan of the Werewolves from White Wolf's World of Darkness that it turns out the werewolves and vampires hate eachother. I don't know the vampire's reasons for hating werewolves, but I know the werewolves' reasons and totally agree. ;P

There ARE differences, however. In the film...
...The reason the werewolves and vampires don't get along is different.
...The historical relationship between the two is different.
...Werewolves are called "lichens" instead of "garou".
...There appear to be no active female werewolves
...one can become a werewolf simply by being bitten by one (don't know about the vampires)
...werewolves are compelled to change during a full moon
...both werewolves and vampires are such due to complex viruses.

In the World of Darkness...
...there are TONS of active female werewolves
...you are born a werewolf and cannot make a human into one
...werewolves can easily change forms at will
... memories are not transferred in a bite

Things that are the same:
• werewolves are allergic to silver
• both species regenerate
• vampires don't deal well with light
• the two species hate eachother and often war
• a werewolf doesn't know she's a werewolf until her first change, which is often painful and uncontrolled
• werewolves often won't use as much technology but do, and often are seen as brutal and primitive, something some strive to change and some revel in.

As this relates to the film
There were enough differences to delinneate the two worlds in my mind, though I cringed at a few things. These things didnt' affect the overal strength or weakness of the film, though.

I liked the world of the film. The mood was perfect - the decadence of the vampires and the slums of the werewolves. The night time of it all. The mood was consistant and believeable -- the way that the gothic punk world of "the Matrix" worked and the way the gothic world of "Van Helsing" didn't work. ;) And it wasn't a rehash of this world, either. The shots were creative and composed well. Visually, it was a treat to look at and very real.

Effects wize, the werewolves could of been better. They weren't very graceful and moved in a hulky way. There's no way they ever could of been the equals to vampires or survived this long with this many all out confrontations if they were seriously that physically impaired. Of course, I may be drawing too much from the World of Darkness on this one, where many werewolves ARE these berzerkers, but many more are graceful hunters and martial artists. *shrugs* They weren't THAT bad - the part that bothered me most about them was when they were running on the walls. If you really concentrated on them, it looked really WRONG. Even if you'd used the same animation for them on the floor it would of looked WRONG.

Characters and plot. Compared to Van Helsing, I actually CARED about the characters. I cared what happened with Michael and Selene [sp?]. I even cared about what went on with Viktor, between he and Selene. The plot was a bit TOO confusing in the beginning. Personally, I'm pretty tenacious when it comes to sticking it out to see what happens, even if I'm not sure it's going to come together well in the end in a coherent plot. So on one hand, it made a mess of the beginning and I had no clue what they were talking about, but on the other, it made it a bit more realistic in that the viewers are just thrown into the middle of this thing that's been going on forever.

Compare that to some of the other films that have been out lately - like Van Helsing or DareDevil - where there is a history to the characters. In Van Helsing makes it out to be mysterious but that we'll find out more. And we never do, and by the time we find out that we will never know, we really don't care. With DareDevil, we care, and it's very humanistic, but it's packaged *so* nicely and neatly, almost like they're brainwashing us to like this character, in a way. ;) Though, in DareDevil it works because it's a movie of a comic book and is supposed to FEEL like a comic book and suceedes well at this.
[/TANGENT]

So I liked that this is a slice of a much larger story and I like that we may be in for a sequel. Or not. It would work fine the way it is, leaving us to imagine what happens, since the beginning was so open, the ending can be that way, too. We just happened to observe that two hours of their lives or whatever.

I've lost my train of thought. Anyhow. I was pleasantly suprised by this film. I went into it thinking I'd get angry at a negative portrayal of werewolves. I went in expecting to have no compassion for any of the vampire characters. But it was a good story with interesting characters and I actually want to know what happens with them in their lives.

Van Helsing

Van Helsing could of been a really great story but the plot was kind of loose. There was nothing really driving us to care about the characters, especially the main character. I almost didn't care that they had to kill Dracula, either. Some things were too obvious, and other things were too obscure and it didn't really lead you along very well, so I felt like I was just drifting through the film in a very unattatched way. The effects were very cool for the most part - I especially enjoyed the werewolves (I'm a werewolf fan and picky and thought they did a neat job). The acting was okay - some people needed to choose an accent and KEEP it. And those female vampire sidekicks were just weird. They reminded me of the Furies from Xena or something - their clawed hands and movements were the same for every emotion.

All in all I totally didn't care about the film and having watched it, leaves me with nothing. *shrugs* I've definetly seen more entertaining films.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Let us keep in mind that this is a movie based on a video game and that thus far I can't think of a game-based movie that has been absolutely fantastic -- these movies are meant to appeal to folks who have played the games and, like games, just be something entertaining to watch with belief suspended. Movies like these aren't here to make us cry or think or inspire us, really. That said...

It was an entertaining film and I found it far more enjoyable than the second "Matrix" film, actually. "Apocalypse" feels much more like the games than its predecessor. The city, the piles of cars, the trolleys, the old church, the crawley mutant zombies... they all felt like they did in the games, as did the characters and their action-figure cool 2-dimensional personalities. So, while none of that is even thinkable as Oscar material, it's dead-on for a video game-to-screen flick.

The original film had a better air to it - more mystery, though they really could of done better by really playing up the Alice in Wonderland thing they kinda half-heartedly had going. Sorta. There was no mystery with "Apocalypse" - especially with Nemesis. First of all, Nemesis wasn't scary at all - he's heart-pounding, piss-your-pants FREAKY in the games. You DREAD meeting him in the games. Here? He's just some monster we KNOW Alice is going to whup. :\ Also, I had totally forgotten that Matt had been captured along with Alice in the end of the first movie. So they totally could of tried to fake us out and played out the true origin of Nemesis like a mystery. If it didn't fool the folks who watched the first film it at least would of fooled people who HADN'T seen the first film. Because we knew from the start, all the flashbacks became tedious and pedantic. They really could of done better.

The ending was a bit drawn out. 2 hours later, 2 days later, 3 weeks later... geez! It looks like there are plans for a third movie, so why not just have shown them crashing, shown the Umbrella soldiers hauling off with Alice's body and be done with it... leave it on an uncomfortable, unfinished note. Instead, it was like they tried cramming the first half of the third film into the last 10 minutes and I just feel like they told us too much. I can guess what the third film would be about easily.

now for the good stuff.

Alice had a much better outfit - rather, a bit more practical if still a bit stylish than practicality would have demanded in realistic circumstances. But this isn't a realistic film, so -- she did look hot in the first film but I liked the netting shirt and all the buckles and the semi-dreded hair. Jill looked like she did in the game so I guess that's her excuse for a skimpy outfit but her attitude really went with it - I hope they have more of Jill in the third film (assuming there is a third). Kinda missed that there were NO "knowing glances" and heart rending moments between Alice and anyone like there was between Alice and the mercenary woman in the first film, which really caught me off guard when I first saw it. It's not just me and wishful thinking, these woman felt something there...

I liked how Alice and the girl both had the T-virus and how that seems to of started a bond of some sort between them, the fact that they both have it and aren't zombies. Maybe they'll use that in the third film the way they used Matt (Nemesis) and Alice's mutations to pull them into an alliance at the end of this film. I like the injustice and I really hope that's the point of the third film - revenge for the injustice done to so many.

And of course, Milla is a joy to watch. Not her best performance, though. :\ I don't think she had much to work with. Alice in the first film at least had amnesia and was slowly coming out of her foggy fake 'i'm just a wife' haze and having her head of security mode kicking back in... she got to work with more emotion (as much emotion as one can have in a game film). This time, though, her character has been there, done that and is pissed off in a single minded way. Like I said, not much to work with. Ah, well.

Oh, gaping plot hole -- the zombies that come out of the graves. I think they do that in the games, but there's no logic to how that would work. This whole thing started with the shattering of the container that held the virus, which spread through the air and contaminated all the lab workers and people inside the Hive. They all turned into Zombies who can pass on the virus by biting their victims. When the first team went into the Hive to shut it down, there was no more T-virus in the air, just in the zombies. Our heroes sort of escape and the Hive is locked up. Then in "Apocalypse", scientists open the hive back up and zombies get out. If there was no more virus in the air in the FIRST film, then the T-virus could only have been spread by zombie-bite to the citizens of Raccoon City. So how did the corpses end up reanimating? And all at the same TIME, too. :P

The only other major thing that bothered me was the weird cinematography of the fight scenes. Up-close and really blurry to save bucks on actually training the actors and showing really cool REALISTIC fight moves. Even MOREso than Xena (and I love Xena...). Other than the fight scenes, most of the framing was actually not bad and they used interesting lighting (for an all-night movie) and the angles weren't static.

Ohh! I TOTALLY didn't see the reporter dying when she did - it caught me off guard the way she went in such an easy way. I thought she'd be grossed out by the kid and run, but nope, that was her demise.

That lunch lady was perfect.

[Edit:] hallalundi mentioned that there are interesting paralells between Resident Evil and Alien - between what happens to Alice and what happens to Ripley, the way they both start out just doing their jobs, are thrust into fighting terrible creatures and then BECOME the monsters themselves. Heck, there's even the two outsiders bonding - Ripley/Call and Alice/the girl.

I'm glad I went to see it in the theatre anyway, because it was fun and there's lots of things you'd only know if you played the games - and I used to watch Eric play the games and I'd play RE: Survivor, and Trey, Eric and I watched the first film on the computer together, and Eric and I have been anticipating the sequel since January... :P AND we knew what to expect ahead of time. If I'd had high expectations, I would have been disappointed, but I didn't so all was well. I just watch these films seeing all the POTENTIAL and I think that makes me kinda forgiving.

Farscape

I remember when I hadn't ever heard of "Farscape" and Trey was trying to describe it to me. Everything I pictured was SO off. And when I finally watched an episode, it was somewhere in the middle of the series, when Criton was being his snarky self - I thought he was a jerk.

But when I finally watched Season 1 in order from the beginning, I was suprised by the quality effects, the quality acting, the imaginative and explanitory plotlines, and the intriguing characters. It's such an enormous show! Even the PLOTS are enormous - the entire show is nothing but gigantic story arcs! Well, that's exaggerating a bit, but it does make it hard to just jump in and know what's going on. (Thank goodness the library has all the season on DVD).

I also love how they have one of the better answers to the alien translation problem.
And Criton's character in first Season is so clueless - this is someone from our time on earth in an alien galaxy who has no idea how things work. So he asks the questions we're dying to know. We relate to him - that could be us and through him the other alien characters become more acessable where I think they otherwise would not have been so easy to get to know, had Criton been FROM their world.

Highly creative show: creative visuals, creative characters, creative plots. Interesting and entertaining, it never gets old and it's one of the more original television series I have ever seen.

Neko Case

Neko Case... it's funny that I'm such a big fan of her music. I love her voice and her attitude. I say it's funny because I generally don't care for country music. People call Neko Case "alt-country" but really all she's doing is writing her music in the fashion of old-style country. Alongside her own original songs, she covers old classic country songs and they all go together well. So I guess maybe I might like old fashioned country. *shrugs*.

Her music has this haunting, murder-mystery twang to it. It has definite atmosphere. And her voice has POWER, even in gentle songs, this woman can belt it out. Her older albums are more honky-tonk flavored and the newer the album the less country twang, like you're peeling down to the heart of her personal style as time rolls on. If you like country, then "Furnace Room Lullabies" is a good album to start with (it's the one I started with, though I am no country fan - the album artwork is what grabbed me, heh). If you aren't so much into country, then try "Blacklisted".

The other thing I love about Neko is, like I said, her attitude. The often conservative air of a lot of country music really scares me and puts me off. So to have this gal who outrightly will tell you she loves porn, who doesn't care if she sings songs about loving women (and she's not lesbian), plays her guitar with it slung low about her waist like a rock-star, and talks about feeding extra children to the tigers to help save them (the tigers - it was a JOKE - on her latest album, "The Tigers Have Spoken")... well, somehow, folks like that seem a bit friendlier to me than flag-waving, bible-praising, Bush-loving country stars. <:) (Do NOT take offense! I mean it in a snarky, "I'm too headstrong for my own good" way <:) GO NEKO!