TL;DR: go see Much Ado About Nothing. Really. Just do it. Great movie.
Joss Whedon - who created enough of the modern American TV canon that I am starting to think of him as the Shakespeare of my generation, though I am certain he would disagree with that characterization - has done it again.
This time he's created a movie from a play by the original Shakespeare, and he's done it very well. He cast a bunch of people you will recognize if you know his work, and they clearly have a great time.
Put simply, Much Ado About Nothing is great. Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof have great chemistry as Beatrice and Benedick, and their acting is superb.
So, honestly, just go see it. You'll have a great time.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
On Memory
Way back in 1979 - when I were a lad, as a friend of mine would say - the movie Alien came out. I'm not sure if I saw it in the theaters during its first run or sometime later, but I definitely saw it in a theater before I went to college.
Over the years since, my memory of that experience has become somewhat interesting to examine. I recall the interior of the spaceship as being incredibly realistic and scary, and it seems there were miles of corridor full of venting steam, all dark and full of hiding places. I see the egg/face hugger scene in flashes, so it seems truly terrifying, even now. I know I spent a lot of the time studying the tops of my shoes during the movie because I was too scared to watch it closely. And, of course - being a teenage boy at the time - I remember Sigourney Weaver getting into the space suit at the end. (If you need an explanation of that, well, you must not be - or ever have been - a teenage boy. Or you didn't see the movie.)
I've avoided several opportunities to see the movie again, including at least one in college. Possibly as a result, time has made Alien into something larger than life, something so scary and so real that seeing it again was not something I wanted to do. But finally, just the other night, I broke down and watched it again.
For reasons that are amusing but too complicated to go into here - except to say "well, I guess Alien is a period costume drama... of a sort" - I now own the DVDs for all four movies in the Alien series. So I watched the theatrical release of Alien again, just to see how it compared with my memory.
And I can now confirm that my memory is really bad.
Yes, the movie is good, but it's not nearly as terrifying as I remember it. The sets are nicely made, and the entire thing is well filmed, but a bit less dry ice and steam would have been better. The infamous scene in the dining room on the ship - you know the one, if you've seen the movie - is still striking and memorable, but the creature itself almost struck me a laughable this time around. The larger version of the xenomorph is still well done, particularly for the time the film was made, but I simply didn't think it that scary.
But it turns out my memory of Sigourney Weaver getting into the space suit at the end was just about perfect. Go figure.
Memory is a very odd thing, when it works.
Over the years since, my memory of that experience has become somewhat interesting to examine. I recall the interior of the spaceship as being incredibly realistic and scary, and it seems there were miles of corridor full of venting steam, all dark and full of hiding places. I see the egg/face hugger scene in flashes, so it seems truly terrifying, even now. I know I spent a lot of the time studying the tops of my shoes during the movie because I was too scared to watch it closely. And, of course - being a teenage boy at the time - I remember Sigourney Weaver getting into the space suit at the end. (If you need an explanation of that, well, you must not be - or ever have been - a teenage boy. Or you didn't see the movie.)
I've avoided several opportunities to see the movie again, including at least one in college. Possibly as a result, time has made Alien into something larger than life, something so scary and so real that seeing it again was not something I wanted to do. But finally, just the other night, I broke down and watched it again.
For reasons that are amusing but too complicated to go into here - except to say "well, I guess Alien is a period costume drama... of a sort" - I now own the DVDs for all four movies in the Alien series. So I watched the theatrical release of Alien again, just to see how it compared with my memory.
And I can now confirm that my memory is really bad.
Yes, the movie is good, but it's not nearly as terrifying as I remember it. The sets are nicely made, and the entire thing is well filmed, but a bit less dry ice and steam would have been better. The infamous scene in the dining room on the ship - you know the one, if you've seen the movie - is still striking and memorable, but the creature itself almost struck me a laughable this time around. The larger version of the xenomorph is still well done, particularly for the time the film was made, but I simply didn't think it that scary.
But it turns out my memory of Sigourney Weaver getting into the space suit at the end was just about perfect. Go figure.
Memory is a very odd thing, when it works.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Just saw Avatar
Went out last night and watched Avatar. Some thoughts, but no spoilers...
First, we saw it in 3D, and while it was nice, I'm not sure it needs the 3D treatment. In fact, at a few points I found the glasses somewhat bothersome as they induced a bit of haze. (Yes, they were clean. I checked.) In any case, they didn't play with the 3D all that much in Avatar. They used it, but didn't bang it over your head that much.
What? A special effects movie that doesn't concentrate only on the effects? Well, not that particular special effect anyway.
It was pretty. The cinematography (well... animation, I guess) was quite nice.
The story was, as my wife said, "well worn". I'd call it predictable. In fact, just a few days ago I wrote a review of The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, which gives her take on the same kind of situation. My copy of that book has a 1972 copyright, and the first blurb on the first page says "it tells an old story in a new way". I guess Avatar tells essentially the same old story in a somewhat new way.
Overall I enjoyed the film. It isn't something that changed my life, but it was fun.
First, we saw it in 3D, and while it was nice, I'm not sure it needs the 3D treatment. In fact, at a few points I found the glasses somewhat bothersome as they induced a bit of haze. (Yes, they were clean. I checked.) In any case, they didn't play with the 3D all that much in Avatar. They used it, but didn't bang it over your head that much.
What? A special effects movie that doesn't concentrate only on the effects? Well, not that particular special effect anyway.
It was pretty. The cinematography (well... animation, I guess) was quite nice.
The story was, as my wife said, "well worn". I'd call it predictable. In fact, just a few days ago I wrote a review of The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, which gives her take on the same kind of situation. My copy of that book has a 1972 copyright, and the first blurb on the first page says "it tells an old story in a new way". I guess Avatar tells essentially the same old story in a somewhat new way.
Overall I enjoyed the film. It isn't something that changed my life, but it was fun.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year!
It's January 1, and I'm feeling somewhat mellow. Well, sick actually, but as a description "mellow" will do.
Last night we didn't even manage to stay up until midnight. Instead we crashed at 11 and went right to sleep. I'm recovering from a cold and Anne's just coming down with it, so we're excused.
The one thing we did manage to do last night - that's as close to a NYE tradition as we have - is watch the Tim Burton film Mars Attacks. Anne says we started doing this many years ago when we were driving home after a holiday visit and wound up in Laramie on New Years Eve. We found Mars Attacks was on TV at the hotel and watched it. For some reason it's been what we do ever since.
Regardless of what your NYE traditions are, I wish you all the best in 2009. Thanks for reading and commenting here.
Oh, and as of yesterday I'm on Facebook too. You can find me there if you're a Facebook user. I can't promise my updates there will occur more often than they do here here, but we'll see.
Last night we didn't even manage to stay up until midnight. Instead we crashed at 11 and went right to sleep. I'm recovering from a cold and Anne's just coming down with it, so we're excused.
The one thing we did manage to do last night - that's as close to a NYE tradition as we have - is watch the Tim Burton film Mars Attacks. Anne says we started doing this many years ago when we were driving home after a holiday visit and wound up in Laramie on New Years Eve. We found Mars Attacks was on TV at the hotel and watched it. For some reason it's been what we do ever since.
Regardless of what your NYE traditions are, I wish you all the best in 2009. Thanks for reading and commenting here.
Oh, and as of yesterday I'm on Facebook too. You can find me there if you're a Facebook user. I can't promise my updates there will occur more often than they do here here, but we'll see.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Two More Movies
Last night Anne and I wound up listing the movies that we've seen in the theater so far this year. We don't do this much, not being a fan of crowds and rude theater patrons. In fact, three in a year is an abnormally large total for us. Anyway, I realized that I'd mentioned The Dark Knight in the blog already, but not the other two. For completeness then:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: This was pretty good. We enjoyed it, and put it up there close to the first Indiana Jones movie in terms of quality. Check it out. It's a fun romp, but don't ask questions about lead lined refrigerators or the like, OK?
WALL-E: Another good movie. My dad thought it was too slow, but Anne and I enjoyed it. Visually it's stunning until the humans appear, then it becomes more or less just another animated film. Check it out too, and be sure to note the references to HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Neither if these is nearly as good as The Dark Knight, but they're both good none-the-less. We'll wind up owning both on DVD. The wait for The Dark Knight on DVD will be much tougher, though.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: This was pretty good. We enjoyed it, and put it up there close to the first Indiana Jones movie in terms of quality. Check it out. It's a fun romp, but don't ask questions about lead lined refrigerators or the like, OK?
WALL-E: Another good movie. My dad thought it was too slow, but Anne and I enjoyed it. Visually it's stunning until the humans appear, then it becomes more or less just another animated film. Check it out too, and be sure to note the references to HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Neither if these is nearly as good as The Dark Knight, but they're both good none-the-less. We'll wind up owning both on DVD. The wait for The Dark Knight on DVD will be much tougher, though.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Go See "The Dark Knight"
I'll make this short & sweet: go see The Dark Knight.
This isn't your campy, 1960's Batman. This is dark, gritty, violent, and challenging. Bruce Wayne's choices are awful, and the Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger is chaotic evil incarnate. I always felt that Jack Nicholson did an OK job as the joker, but not fantastic. This Joker is really disturbing. Really.
This is far and away the best comic book film adaptation I have ever seen. It's true to what Batman was supposed to be, and yet it's updated and very real. Very in the present. It's disturbingly possible.
Go. Watch the movie. I'll bet it haunts you the way it's haunting me.
This isn't your campy, 1960's Batman. This is dark, gritty, violent, and challenging. Bruce Wayne's choices are awful, and the Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger is chaotic evil incarnate. I always felt that Jack Nicholson did an OK job as the joker, but not fantastic. This Joker is really disturbing. Really.
This is far and away the best comic book film adaptation I have ever seen. It's true to what Batman was supposed to be, and yet it's updated and very real. Very in the present. It's disturbingly possible.
Go. Watch the movie. I'll bet it haunts you the way it's haunting me.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Frau Blücher's name
On several occasions in my short life, I've wound up in discussions about the movie Young Frankenstein, and specifically why the horses whinny after hearing Frau Blücher's name. Some time back I'd been told (I think by someone studying film at a local university) that the reason is she's named after a famous German general who had killed a lot of horses during various battles. But no one I've ever talked to could confirm that, and there was at least one other theory: that the name inspired fear in the horses because it sounded like the German word for glue.
This morning I finally did some searches to see what I could figure out.
The first place I hit was snopes.com, which quickly dispatched the "Blücher is (or sounds like) the German word for glue" theory. Their claim is that it's funny because Brooks and Wilder are parodying the old style horror film in which an ominous sound - like a clap of thunder - strikes at various points. In other words, it's even more subtle than the glue reference. While I believed them about glue, I wasn't so sure about the rest of their explanation.
The next place I hit was about.com, which ageed with snopes.com about the glue reference, but added the following:
The next stop was the wikepedia entry for the movie, which said, in part:
A quick google search lead me to various places, but the most interesting - from the perspective of this quest - was answers.com. In just the first two paragraphs of their writeup on Blücher they document that he had three different horses shot out from under him, the third actually landed atop him. He wasn't found for two hours, but when he was rescued he reversed a retreat order and headed his troops off to Waterloo.
Clearly, Blücher was a determined man of action, and he was in charge of a lot of cavalry at various points in his career. In addition, he apparently had "a certain way" with horses, if getting three of them shot out from underneath his charging form is any indication.
So, while I cannot prove that General Blücher was the inspiration for the whinnying horses in Young Frankenstein, it still seems to be possible.
Alas I need to do other things now, so for the moment I'll leave it at that. Anyone with information about the German general is welcome to contact me and let me know just how far off the mark I am.
This morning I finally did some searches to see what I could figure out.
The first place I hit was snopes.com, which quickly dispatched the "Blücher is (or sounds like) the German word for glue" theory. Their claim is that it's funny because Brooks and Wilder are parodying the old style horror film in which an ominous sound - like a clap of thunder - strikes at various points. In other words, it's even more subtle than the glue reference. While I believed them about glue, I wasn't so sure about the rest of their explanation.
The next place I hit was about.com, which ageed with snopes.com about the glue reference, but added the following:
On the other hand, if you look up Blücher, some German dictionaries do list the expression "er geht ran wie Blücher" ("he doesn't loaf around/he goes at it like Blücher"), but that refers to the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819), who earned the name "Marschall Vorwärts" ("[Field] Marshal Forward") for his victories over the French at Katzbach and (with Wellington) at Waterloo (1815). In other words, Blücher (or Blucher) is just a German surname. It has no particular meaning as a normal word in German and certainly does not mean "glue"!That seemed interesting, and it lead me to the full name of the general that might be at the heart of the story I was trying to track down.
The next stop was the wikepedia entry for the movie, which said, in part:
The entry gives a link to amazon.com for that quote from Brooks. In that interview, we read:
Every time Frau Blücher's name is mentioned, horses are heard whinnying as if afraid of her name. Many viewers mistakenly believe that Blücher means "glue" in German; however, Blücher is a well-known German surname. The German term for glue is der Kleber, or tierischer Leim for animal glue. Brooks suggested in a 2000 interview that he had based the joke on the erroneous translation, which he had heard from someone else.
Other than that, the only thing I cut was another "Blucher" and another whinny. [Whenever the name of Frau Blucher, played by Cloris Leachman, is mentioned, horses whinny and thunder cracks.] I thought we had enough. Before we started shooting, someone told me "blucher" means glue, so that's why I had the horses whinny. I'm not sure if that's true.Now, far be it from me to disagree with the producer, but it still seemed possible that the name Blücher would belong to a German general who had killed a lot of horses somewhere along the line. So I continued my digging, but this time looking for the General himself, rather than searching for movie related information.
A quick google search lead me to various places, but the most interesting - from the perspective of this quest - was answers.com. In just the first two paragraphs of their writeup on Blücher they document that he had three different horses shot out from under him, the third actually landed atop him. He wasn't found for two hours, but when he was rescued he reversed a retreat order and headed his troops off to Waterloo.
Clearly, Blücher was a determined man of action, and he was in charge of a lot of cavalry at various points in his career. In addition, he apparently had "a certain way" with horses, if getting three of them shot out from underneath his charging form is any indication.
So, while I cannot prove that General Blücher was the inspiration for the whinnying horses in Young Frankenstein, it still seems to be possible.
Alas I need to do other things now, so for the moment I'll leave it at that. Anyone with information about the German general is welcome to contact me and let me know just how far off the mark I am.
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