At first I wasn’t even gonna see 127 HOURS, ’cause what’s the point of doing another one if Nolte and Murphy don’t come back? Those movies were all about the chemistry of those two guys. It doesn’t make alot of sense to replace them with a different character. But it was a bold move to not make it a buddy movie, or a cop movie, and base it on a true story about a guy who went hiking and got his arm stuck under a rock. Alot of people will say that’s just a rehash of parts 1 and 2, but I would argue that there are subtle differences.
Posts Tagged ‘Danny Boyle’
127 Hours
Monday, March 7th, 2011
Sunshine
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007With the release of this movie I’d say there’s now officially a subgenre of sci-fi movies about the angst of long distance space travel. Two of my favorite movies ever – 2001 and ALIEN – are in this category. There’s also DARK STAR, a predecessor to ALIEN and an inspiration to this movie (one of the characters is even named Pinback after Dan O’Bannon’s character in that movie). I also liked the remake of SOLARIS, but I still gotta see the original one. Rounding out the category now there’s Danny Boyle’s SUNSHINE.
This one takes place sometime in the future, but probaly not too long in the future. The main difference between then and now: the sun is dying. Pretty shitty. Humanity came up with a plan where they sent a spaceship called The Icarus which would set off a bomb that would reignite the sun. But that ship was a bunch of slackers or something so nobody heard from them again. This is the story of the Icarus II, where they decided to use up Earth’s resources to make the last possible bomb that they could use to try to relight that bitch.
This is not the usual action type of sci-fi. No robots or lasers. The characters are not super heroes, they’re astronauts. They’re a crew of experts. They’re hoping to not only save humanity but to make it back safely, but they know that’s not guaranteed. (If it was their ship would be called The Guy Who Was Like Icarus Except His Wings Didn’t Melt So He Made It Back Safely.)
For most of the movie the drama comes from the tough decisions they have to make. For example they discover the location of the Icarus I and although they all agree that reigniting the sun is more important than saving any possible surviving crew members, a convincing argument is made for why it might be smart to go check out the ship. So they have to follow protocol and a decision has to be made but not everyone agrees. So not only do you have to worry about whether it was the right decision, but about whether the tension between the people who disagree will cause new problems that will lead to other tough decisions. (more…)
The Beach
Saturday, January 1st, 2005This is a movie that looked pretty promising, but shit if I even liked it at all. It is hard to come out with a Fight Club type of picture in the same year that Fight Club came out and not end up looking like a bunch of garbage. But that is what these folks did.
Yes, this is the Fight Club type of movie. You know, the type of movie that is released by Fox, based on a popular novel, crammed full of first person narration criticizing the culture. These type of movies have really beautiful widescreen photographical techniques as well as little showoffy computer camera gimmicks and wall to wall techno music. They are generally about a character who is fed the fuck up with American consumerism and superficiality who wants to leave it all behind and push himself to the limit and seek out danger and blah blah blah. Then they get involved in a secret counterculture which at first is fun and utopian and represents everything they want out of life. But there is always a hint of danger and then one of the colorful supporting characters gets some kind of injury – usually a gunshot blast to the head or shark bite – but the counterculture handles the situation in a heartless bastard of a manner which signals the turning point when you start to realize WELL FER CRYIN OUT LOUD, the counterculture is just as fulla shit as the culture itself. At this point in these type of movies the character either goes crazy or finds out he’s been crazy all along, and then they start having delusions about the founder of the secret counterculture, who is some kind of intensely charismatic wacko, who starts to take on sort of superhuman powers, and blah blah blah. You know the type of movie I’m talking about.
Anyway the Beach is not the best in this type of genre. The star is Leonardo DiCaprio who is a young boy who I believe also starred in one of Sam Raimi’s pictures if I’m not mistaken. His acting is okay but he is such a goofball that it is hard to get involved in the story. His narration is not funny like in Fight Club it is just corny. It takes itself too god damn seriously. And whenever he does something to push himself, like cliff dive, there is a long scene of him yelling and raising his fists in the air like he just won the fucking championship belt or some shit. And the music gets all triumphant like you’re supposed to go sing “For he’s a jolly good fellow” to him. Even in one of the deleted scenes on the dvd where he joins a drum circle, the little fucker can’t play the damn bongos without getting an intense crazy look on his face. I mean jesus boy why can’t you just smile. playing a drum isn’t exactly an extreme sport. (more…)
28 Days Later
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
Mr. Boyle’s low budget zombie movie was the “surprise hit” of the summer according to various shitty entertainment magazines that I keep forgetting not to read. I thought it was pretty decent but it does not add anything significant to the zombie genre. Most of this material was already covered more thoughtfully and with better visuals in Mr. Romero’s classic series of films. Kids, if you have not seen them, stop doing your fucking homework and go rent NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, DAWN OF THE DEAD and DAY OF THE DEAD, in that order. These are three great pictures that each make a statement about the time they were made in. Believe me your life will be improved by watching these movies.
28 DAYS LATER, at least on my one viewing, doesn’t seem to say much about our times. But it does repeat several ideas from Romero: a disparate group of survivors looking for a safe haven, a fun looting spree, a semi-domesticated zombie chained by the neck who later gets set loose as a weapon, a military base where the soldiers turn out to be a bunch of goons, a scene where they stop to get gas and one character wanders off and gets attacked by zombie kids and has to kill them. Yes, the zombies are faster than in Romero’s pictures, but we’ve also seen that in the great Return of the Living Dead.
I liked 28 DAYS LATER better near the end where it started to add more non-Living-Dead-retread twists. The idea of the soldiers using the continuation of the species as an excuse for rape. And of course the guy poking out eyes with his bare hands and then embracing his lover without even wiping off. Charming. I also enjoyed the loving relationship between the father and daughter. (more…)
Vern’s Amazingly Late Summer Preview
Sunday, August 31st, 2003Well friends I’m back after a few months of travelling around the world learning every martial art known to man, or maybe just not being inspired enough to write. One of the two. I would like to thank the people who wrote me nice e-mails to make sure I was okay or encourage me to Write again. Also I would like to thank the people who sent me advice about paying my mortgage, penis enlargement, the hot new mother and daughter pictures, my details and especially the wicked screensaver.
As usual, it is hard to write about politics these days because holy jesus, where do you even start? I have noticed that there were a whole lot of us who were right, and a couple people on tv who were wrong, and yet I haven’t seen anybody saying I told you so. Thanks alot assholes, for taking the fun out of “I told you so.” It sucks to be right when being right means that all those troops you supported so god damn much are left rotting in the desert with no mission, no welcome, no desire to be there, and no hope for coming home any time soon, unless they run over a bomb and lose a couple limbs. Every once in a while you see one of them on tv looking sad, and you have to imagine a little thought balloon over their head that says, “4 more years!?” Oh well, it’s a volunteer army, I guess you can’t really complain that you got shipped off to your doom by the same assholes who turned around the very next day and cut your benefits and your pay. I wonder how many of those congress bitches were still wearing their american flag pins when they signed that into law? No biggie, when we’re done arguing about gay marriage and the ten commandments maybe we’ll look into bringing them home. IF there’s time. I doubt it but maybe. Keep your pants on, troops. Go USA.
But hey, you already know how I feel about that so for now, FUCK THAT SHIT. This is a web sight about the god damn Films of Cinema, is it not? So what exactly is the deal here, Vern? The last summer movie I reviewed was THE MATRIX RELOADED and I believe that was before summer technically started. So today what I want to do for you my friends is go back and review all the big summer movies I didn’t bother to review before. So put on your shorts and get ready for a nostalgic journey WAY back to the beginning of summer. (by the way, just because every fucking day was DO THE RIGHT THING this summer doesn’t mean there’s global warming. that’s all a big coincidence.) I want you to close your eyes, well not actually close your eyes because you should be reading this, but anyway I want you to open your eyes and remember a time when all anybody was talking about was a hulk, and not just any regular hulk but an incredible hulk. I guess maybe technically speaking he is not called an incredible hulk he is just HULK, however the incredibleness of this particular hulk goes without saying. (more…)
