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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Sweeney Todd - The demon barber of Fleet street.

I watched this latest Tim Burton movie a few days after seeing his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again...
I have to say I couldn't have made a stronger contrast.
They basically show the whole range of the spectrum that Burton can do: on one hand an outstanding and intelleigent children movie that can also truly entertain adults (that's Charlie) on the other the darkest revenge movie.

Indeed, don't get fooled by the musical aspect of Sweeney Todd. Although it is a "proper" musical, meaning that at least 3/4 of the dialogs are sung, the song are never here for lifting the atmosphere...
From the 1st frames of the movie, blood rains on London and that 1st gloomy impression is not betrayed by the rest, the horror ramping up as Sweeney plots his revenge.

This is most certainly Burton's darkest movie to date. He has always had a taste for gloom, but most of the time his characters are some sort of romantic misfits. Here, Sweeney Todd is so absorbed by his vengence that he can't even see anything else, he's completely consumed by it. And along goes any kind of so said romantic characters that could be associated with him...

I didn't expect such darkness from Burton. Sure he did Mars Attacks! yet it's a funny movie. To see him come up with something like this when people had suspected him to "soften up" is a very nice surprise indeed!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Engrish.

Once in a while I have a look through my "archive" of funnies that went through my email in the past and rediscover some gems.

Anyone who has been to asian countries (especially Japan I'd say) might know that they sometimes have a "distorted" knowledge of english. In Japan one of the most common example is that they confuse "R" & "L", because they don't have those sounds in Japanese.
That often leads to funny or cryptic messages.

A website compiles them: www.engrish.com.

It's very good! :)

I have also a selection below:

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

No country for old men.

I am a great fan of Terry Pratchett and especially his Discworld novels. ANd in those, one of my favourite characters is Death. It has a kind of sympathetic feel to it. Just "something" doing its job. It has to be here, he doesn't specially enjoys it yet he takes pride in making sure it's done well.

In the Coen brother's latest, the character that will most certainly stay in everyone's mind will be that of Anton Chigurg. And that character could actually be an incarnation of Death itself. With a difference that makes him less engaging. He loves what he does.

Actually I read an interview of Javier Bardem (who plays Chigurg) somewhere and he said that he though his character was more an incarnation of violence. And it does make sense (not that I would doubt that he knows what he's talking about, after all he played the guy... ^^; ).
Violence is everywhere, unstoppable, thorough. That's what he is.

At some point in the movie people question if he's not a ghost. And you hear this stories that could be his doing but are way too old... Was he there? Or is he just doing the same old thing that other did before him?
To the point that later in the movie, you don't even see things, because you just know what happenned anyway. The same old.

You can only witness it or be a victim.
So to get all those point of views ad so we're not left with just that grim character, we also have the witness in the person of the aging sheriff (that has seen it all) and the guy that thinks he can get away with it.

As usual with the Coens (although here they were adapting a book, so they are not the only ones accountable for this), the characters are very well written and very engaging whether main or secondary. They are also played to the standard, with obviously Javier Bardem in a turn I'm not going to forget (as the "ultimate badass"), but also Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin that give him a good opposition (although they never share a scene).

One thing was that the movie is set in Texas and the characters have very strong accents, which pushed my laguage skill to the limit, so I couldn't fully enjoy the dialogs. Obviously, again as usual, they are excellent (from what I managed to understand). But this is only due to my own limitation and should be put to the cedrit of the Coen, that always scrupulously keep their universe coherent.

Along the same lines, the attention to the tinest details in the cinematography was also amazing, the way they manage to suggest things without showing it (the repertition of blood trails, the attention of Chigurg not to put blood on his shoes...).

It all adds up to make a fairly standard and unoriginal pitch still feel fresh.

It's a movie that gets your mind working after you've left the cinema, that you want to discuss... That's how good this is.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

I Am Legend

I started 2008 on a big one.
I have heard about this for nearly 2 years now.
In a nutshell: supposedly the book it's adapted from is one of the best "vampire" books of all time (I haven't red it yet). And the adaptation took years and years to be made, the original had the reputation to be the best script ever written. But no one could do it.
And then it finally resurfaced and Will Smith was attached to it, with the director of Constantine directing. That produced quite a stir, with fans fearing that Will Smith would change the main character into a wise-cracking guy.
I had to admit that when the book is supposed to be 1 guy alone going crazy, that could be a problem.
Also, doing a "Hollywood blockbuster" based on that could lead to fabricated action sequences that would spoilthe whole spirit of the novel.

So I took good care not reading the book efore seeeing the movie, to reduce the chances to be disappointed to the minimum.

Well as a movie, just on its own, I have to say it's a pretty damn good effort.
The script also alternates quite nicely drama moments and action sequences that are handled quite well, that gives a nice rythm of tension build up then release then build up... There are plenty of memorable moments and the overall tone stays quite dark.
Having completely CG vampires seem a bizarre idea, yet it didn't really bother me.
More importantly Will Smith is excellent, with a very believable turn on a man alone. I just felt it rang true. He relly carries the film.
Ultimately it's what makes the movie compelling.

Now I have to read the book, to see the (apparently numerous) differences.
Even if it's much better at least I'll have been able to enjoy the adaptation!

Terminator versus Robocop versus Predator versu Alien versus Batman... Who's missing?

A welldone rehash of the Terminator and Robocop movies that makes the 2 unstoppable machines face to face...



Made me think of the short movie Batma: Dead End that confronts Batman with other creatures. That's an actual short though and it does rock... :)



A good example where "amateur" works are better than "professionnal" stuff...

Saturday, January 12, 2008

2007 Cinema round up...

This year was fairly quiet one and because I had less time to go to the cinema I just went for biggies.
As a consequence, I saw "only" 11 movies, which kind of defeats the idea of having my yearly "top 10".
Not only that but for various reasons I think that all of them were excellent in their own right. Not much of a mind bending set, mainly only straightforward rides, but still highly enjoyable (that's what cinema is for anyway!) and not necessarily dumb.

If I still tried to order them, it would give:
1) Spider-Man 3
2) Beowulf
3) The Bourne Ultimatum
4) Transformers
5) La Science des rêves
6) Zodiac
7) 30 Days of Night
8) Hot Fuzz
9) 300
10) Shoot 'Em Up
11) Death Proof

This year holds a lot of promises, with the Coen brothers returning, as well as Tim Burton... Exciting!