Man, today's just frittering away. It's after 4pm already? Really? I must make amends! There are several stories I've let slip between my fingertips lately - a couple of which I made reference to in my post yesterday morning - that I've got to get a handle on. So this is me playing some catch-up. Here are five things I need to get out. Tread lightly, there be spoilers in these here hills.
1 - Battlestar Galactica: Razor --- So this aired on Saturday night which means I know all y'all who watch the show have devoured it by now, because we BSG fans are too fanatical a bunch to let it gather dust. I saw it a couple weeks back but did watch pieces of it again on SciFi as it aired to refresh some memories... specifically the final couple of scenes, which hold the most important information, as in the Cylon-oracle-thingy's warning that Starbuck will lead the human race to its end. I feel much the way my pal Sean did when he wrote it up - Razor felt like a decent enough episode(s) of the show but it didn't blow my mind. I too would've liked the show to give us more than a slo-mo shoulder-pat as evidence of Cain and Gina's relationship - as it stands, for a show that hasn't hesitated from bringing the sexy, this hesitance read a lil' scaredy-cat homophobic-like. I'm the last person who'd ever argue that the fact that Cain and Gina were both "evil" is homophobic - as every character on this blessed show, they're much more complicated than merely "evil" - but the reticence to some lady-on-lady action was... obvious. Other thoughts: I must get a screen-grab of that weirdly-angled shot of Jamie Bamber's uniformed behind taking up half the screen for a second, cuz goddamn; five seconds of screen-time for Laura Roslin makes this boy pout; I would worship Katee Sackhoff like a God if she asked me to. I know I've got other things to say, but yeah, mind blanking. I'm just rushing this stuff out so I say something; otherwise shiny things might distract me. Shiny!
1 - Battlestar Galactica: Razor --- So this aired on Saturday night which means I know all y'all who watch the show have devoured it by now, because we BSG fans are too fanatical a bunch to let it gather dust. I saw it a couple weeks back but did watch pieces of it again on SciFi as it aired to refresh some memories... specifically the final couple of scenes, which hold the most important information, as in the Cylon-oracle-thingy's warning that Starbuck will lead the human race to its end. I feel much the way my pal Sean did when he wrote it up - Razor felt like a decent enough episode(s) of the show but it didn't blow my mind. I too would've liked the show to give us more than a slo-mo shoulder-pat as evidence of Cain and Gina's relationship - as it stands, for a show that hasn't hesitated from bringing the sexy, this hesitance read a lil' scaredy-cat homophobic-like. I'm the last person who'd ever argue that the fact that Cain and Gina were both "evil" is homophobic - as every character on this blessed show, they're much more complicated than merely "evil" - but the reticence to some lady-on-lady action was... obvious. Other thoughts: I must get a screen-grab of that weirdly-angled shot of Jamie Bamber's uniformed behind taking up half the screen for a second, cuz goddamn; five seconds of screen-time for Laura Roslin makes this boy pout; I would worship Katee Sackhoff like a God if she asked me to. I know I've got other things to say, but yeah, mind blanking. I'm just rushing this stuff out so I say something; otherwise shiny things might distract me. Shiny!
.
2 - The Mist --- Hrm, do I have a poison touch or what? It's starting to feel like all the films I really can't get enough of are doomed. Grindhouse flopped, this flopped, half a dozen horror movies are leaping like a deranged Q-bert around the calendar thwarting my expectant eyes. Run from me in horror, producers! I doom your movies by being interested in them! Ahem. So, box-office-woes aside, I mostly dug Frank Darabont's The Mist. I have a few issues with it - namely, for a film I was wetting my bed nightly in anticipation for, I never really fell in love with it like I'd wanted to. The word the boyfriend and I kept coming back to was "solid" - it was all there, what I'd wanted, but it never truly added up to something that knocked me on my ass like I'd hoped. This sounds harsher than I mean it to - I liked the film, I did. I just didn't love it, which I could've if something - something I haven't quite put my finger on yet - had gone differently. As for the much-discussed ending - which is a big change from the story - I can't go ballistic like my pal Sean did - oh how he did - because somehow I'd seen all of the film's trailers and not once beforehand noticed that they included spoilery shots about the ending. So... that didn't ruin it for me. But my reaction still suffered from the same flatness - I liked it, in theory; I liked what Darabont chose to do and where he took the story, but it never knocked the wind out of me like it should've. I suspect my feelings about the film might be summed up by what Sean said while speaking of the ending:
Man I wanna leave it at just that, but I must add that I can't imagine this movie being nearly as much fun as it was - and it was a blast - if you see it in other than IMAX 3D. Never have I found myself so hypnotized by nose-hairs!
But seriously, Beowulf is a hot piece of ass. Giggle-worthy was the way they exploited their hero's flesh! And thankful for it, I was! And apparently drawn into Yoda-speak by this movie, I am. Huh? What? See it.
5 - This is sorta random, or at least not really keeping in tune with the four previous entries in this here list, but to be honest I was blanking on a fifth - yet the format demands it! So this story probably everybody's read by now - not that that's ever held me back before! - but it certainly caught my eye over the weekend: I had zero-point-zero-zero interest in the haps with Terminator 4, then the news breaks that Christian Bale will be playing the older John Connor and suddenly I am 100% interested. That's how you do casting, people! Of course, Bale's involvement in anything works this sorta magic on me, so if only he were cast in everything. Right? I know. I dare to dream. Hi Christian! Call me!
.
2 - The Mist --- Hrm, do I have a poison touch or what? It's starting to feel like all the films I really can't get enough of are doomed. Grindhouse flopped, this flopped, half a dozen horror movies are leaping like a deranged Q-bert around the calendar thwarting my expectant eyes. Run from me in horror, producers! I doom your movies by being interested in them! Ahem. So, box-office-woes aside, I mostly dug Frank Darabont's The Mist. I have a few issues with it - namely, for a film I was wetting my bed nightly in anticipation for, I never really fell in love with it like I'd wanted to. The word the boyfriend and I kept coming back to was "solid" - it was all there, what I'd wanted, but it never truly added up to something that knocked me on my ass like I'd hoped. This sounds harsher than I mean it to - I liked the film, I did. I just didn't love it, which I could've if something - something I haven't quite put my finger on yet - had gone differently. As for the much-discussed ending - which is a big change from the story - I can't go ballistic like my pal Sean did - oh how he did - because somehow I'd seen all of the film's trailers and not once beforehand noticed that they included spoilery shots about the ending. So... that didn't ruin it for me. But my reaction still suffered from the same flatness - I liked it, in theory; I liked what Darabont chose to do and where he took the story, but it never knocked the wind out of me like it should've. I suspect my feelings about the film might be summed up by what Sean said while speaking of the ending:
"... we haven't really gotten to know these characters beyond their stock roles. Unlike the comparable units in the first two George Romero Dead movies, for example, none of these five has done anything surprising, nor have they grown and changed from the people we first met, really. They're just there, so this horrible ending that befalls them is just there too."
3 - Southland Tales --- Even though I hated it - and oh dear, did I hate it - I am going to see it again. So I'm saving my opinions for a second viewing. A second, what-I-fear-could- be-even-more-painful viewing. The sacrifices I make!
Man I wanna leave it at just that, but I must add that I can't imagine this movie being nearly as much fun as it was - and it was a blast - if you see it in other than IMAX 3D. Never have I found myself so hypnotized by nose-hairs!
But seriously, Beowulf is a hot piece of ass. Giggle-worthy was the way they exploited their hero's flesh! And thankful for it, I was! And apparently drawn into Yoda-speak by this movie, I am. Huh? What? See it.
5 - This is sorta random, or at least not really keeping in tune with the four previous entries in this here list, but to be honest I was blanking on a fifth - yet the format demands it! So this story probably everybody's read by now - not that that's ever held me back before! - but it certainly caught my eye over the weekend: I had zero-point-zero-zero interest in the haps with Terminator 4, then the news breaks that Christian Bale will be playing the older John Connor and suddenly I am 100% interested. That's how you do casting, people! Of course, Bale's involvement in anything works this sorta magic on me, so if only he were cast in everything. Right? I know. I dare to dream. Hi Christian! Call me!
Posts
4 comments:
I really liked The Mist, too. Didn't love, but really liked. I loved how, with the ending, the whole movie became "about" the perils of "knowing for sure"... Might be a little too many moral equivalencies for some but -- me -- I liked it.
Unrelated, but I wanna do some very dirty things to you in gratitude for that banner... [drools]
"the perils of 'knowing for sure'"
Stinky, that's a great way to put it. I was all for Darabont's choice of ending for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because I'll be goddamned if it ain't nice to have a horror flick that goes for the jugular with the end. But again, it's more "in theory" that I liked it than how it hit me, at a gut-level, while watching it.
I'm a BSG fan, and i was actually really impressed with Razor. To me, it felt more special than an episode, if not quite like a movie - the plot device of the knife, the wondering "what is the Razor in the title," the deep exploration of the question of "how do human beings react in situations where they're forced to be inhuman?" I was really disappointed (SPOILER ALERT) that her decision at the end to stay behind to detonate the nuke was framed as "she had a lot to answer for/she felt guilty," and not "THAT'S WHAT BEING A RAZOR MEANS! Means you swallow all your moral objections - everything that makes you human - and do what needs to be done!" Bit of a cop-out, y'know? If you're gonna go there... go there.
Post a Comment