Friday, July 28, 2006

Regeneration of Hope in Summer Movies

During the beginning of the summer, I was in a bit of a movie watching slump. I felt like I wasn't interested in them anymore. When you review movies for a while, they all begin to run together and the one that you are watching seems much like the one you saw before. So I watched a few movies in the theater, but after being burned by three movies in a row, I was distraught again with summertime movies.

My solution came when I recently started to watch again. I began with a free ticket, provided by my parents, to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I don't want to say that I was burned again, but the similarities to Empire Strikes Back and the movie itself makes me think that this was only a commercial venture. I must say that I didn't expect much from that movie, so I wasn't disappointed but I wasn't pleased.

Looming fear about the state of the summer movie hovered over me, I then decided to make the jump and venture out to AMC 24 to see An Inconvenient Truth. My faith was restored in what can be released in the summer months. Not only must you see this film for the sure reasons on what is happening to the world in terms of global warming, but it is a well crafted and interesting story to be told. It journeys into Gore's journey with this issue. He had been an advocate and fighter for this cause since his college days. It is well worth the ticket fee to view this one.

After the high of that film, I was beginning to browse around the internet on movie websites and related articles, when out popped the first 24 minutes of A Scanner Darkly. I have heard a lot about this film from months before, so to say the least I was excited to see this. I decided to load the video up and watch this extended preview. I was blown away, it is sci-fi movie about a future drug epidemic. The thing that got me were the visuals. The whole picture was rotoscoped, meaning that the whole film was drawn over and cell shaded. It is a completely different style that I think will become more popular with the success of this film.

I then forced myself to get over my doubts of seeing M. Night Shymalan's new film, and just see it. I can't say that there has been a bad movie that he has made, and he also pour a lot into his films. They are simple in the way that you move through them, it is like the camera lens is actually the eyes of a child. Everything in the world is seen through either black or white, I think that is the most refreshing thing about his movies. I have to say that I was fascinated with The Lady In the Water. It was a nice change to the regular stuff in the theaters. It was an imaginary world like Narnia or Wizard of Oz with its own rules and regulations, evils and goods.

Tonight provides me with a new challenge. I am only 41 minutes into watching Vertigo, but I am thinking about seeing Miami Vice. So I must choose between the master of suspense and the new Mann gritty action movie. I think that I will put it off for another night or day. Miami Vice is a film that I have been excited to see for quite sometime. If I haven't shared with you how much I was impressed with his last project, Collateral, then you should be warned. That movie was the rebirth of the neo-noir film genre. Now he has reloaded his arsenal and is aiming it at Miami. Although I never saw Miami Vice nor wish to, I still think that this film looking and feels like Collateral.

That brings me to the latest obsessions in the DVD realm. I recently watched Garden State and felt like I truly saw it for the first time, but there has been two movies that I have become obsessed with and watched multiple times in a few days span, one being The Big Chill. It is a great story about friends coming together after one of them committed suicide. The acting is good, the words are even better, and it is bested by the soundtrack that revived Mo-Town.

The next obsession is a movie with the subject of obsession: Vertigo. I can't seem to describe the greatness of this film. It is haunting in every sense of the word. A man is obsessed with the beautiful woman that is believed to be possessed with the spirit of her suicidal grandmother. It seems crazy, but slowly you begin to see it too. After the beginning of the third act, you feel like Jimmy Stewart. You realize his thoughts, his feelings, and much like Jimmy you become obsessed and rationalize his crazy ideas of re-creating Madeleine. It is worth a couple viewings to appreciate the majestically dark story arc.

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EDIT

I must retract all good things said about Miami Vice. It was a disappointment, frankly I expected more out of Mann. Collateral was great. Interesting plot, characters, flowed well, and it was filmed in a new and unique way (i e mixing of DV and film visuals). Miami Vice involved a hack of an actor, Colin Farrell, and a plot that was harder to follow than a crack whore looking for her next fix. Collateral had substance and interesting characters, this was shit. I really expected a better performance out of Jamie Foxx too, but I guess you can't be "on" all of the time. If you want to contain all of your sanity, stay away. STAY AWAY!

2 Comments:

Blogger Logan Anderson said...

Unfortunately, I have been working to much this summer to see any movies in the theater, but I have been re-watching several older movies with much delight. I will have to check out that Vertigo movie sometime soon.

7/29/2006 3:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Although there are many things that I could probably comment on, there is only one that stands out as truly necessary: Exactly how many crack whores looking for their next fix have you pursued through the mean streets of Iowa's towns, and is this number high enough to justify such a sweeping generalization?

8/02/2006 8:46 PM  

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