Posts Tagged ‘Ethan Hawke’

Daybreakers

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

tn_daybreakersMan, DAYBREAKERS was not what I expected. I heard some good things (all of it from commenters here) and I had high hopes for a dumb-but-fun B movie. But I’d also seen pictures of Willem Dafoe with a crossbow so I thought maybe it had a pretty cool concept of a world populated by civilized vampires, but that it would then go into a familiar vampire hunting drill that hopefully wouldn’t pale too bad in comparison to BLADE and VAMPIRES.

But it’s not that type of movie at all. The crossbow is strictly for self defense. I was even wrong about who the main character in the movie would be. (more…)

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Posted in Horror, Reviews | 84 Comments »

Brooklyn’s Finest

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

tn_brooklynsfinestBROOKLYN’S FINEST is a good not great cops and crooks movie from the director of REPLACEMENT KILLERS, Antoine Fuqua. I think it’s better than I’d heard, and I’ll tell you why, but obviously the most significant thing about it is that it has returned one of America’s greatest resources, Wesley Snipes, to his rightful home on the big screen. You guys know I love DTV, but Wesley is too powerful for DTV. He’s not as good in those. I would’ve felt like an asshole if I missed a chance to see him projected again, so I went and saw it. And by the way, I’m the only person in Seattle who did that yesterday. It’s down to one show at one theater and I was the one guy who showed up that day. (more…)

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Posted in Crime, Reviews | 26 Comments »

Lord of War

Sunday, September 18th, 2005

Here’s a great idea for a movie: a comedy about gun running. A movie that asks what kind of a soul-less, inhuman bastard gets rich supplying weapons to warlords and “freedom fighters” they damn well know are gonna use them to massacre innocent people. A movie that is not shy about pointing out the US government’s participation in this horrible industry. But remember I said a comedy, not some depressing documentary or self righteous oscar bait picture. A dark satire with serious bite, so it gets to you, but you don’t feel like you’re drinking castor oil. It’s more like Flinstones vitamins.

Great idea, but not a great movie. And maybe I’m losing my touch, but like THE BROTHERS GRIMM, this is one where I couldn’t always put my finger on what exactly wasn’t working. It’s much more involving than BROTHERS GRIMM and doesn’t feel as muddled or sloppy. But it was another one that didn’t quite connect with me. It seemed like it should work, but it didn’t.

The main problem, and I’m at least sure of this one, is that it’s just not funny enough. There are some good lines, but most of them were in the trailer. One of them (when an ATF agent approaches Nic Cage and Cage says, “This isn’t about the alcohol and the tobacco, is it?”) isn’t even funny in context because it happens at a sad part in the story. I’ve seen some people describe it as a drama, so maybe not everybody thinks it’s supposed to be funny. But I mean come on. There is a scene where he tells the captain of a boat to go “slow… dead slow.” And then there is a shot of the captain pulling a lever to set the speed on “DEAD SLOW.” There’s not any other jokes like that but that does happen in this movie. Did HOTEL RWANDA ever have a joke like that? No. Not in the theatrical cut at least. There was the part where his wife held up the shower nozzle like it was a weapon. But still. That was a serious movie. This is not. (more…)

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Posted in Drama, Reviews | No Comments »

Tape

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

I have to admit, the digital video is starting to look more promising. For a while there I was about to declare it my arch-enemy. It never looked like a real movie. It always looked like crap. But it was winning over directors like Spike Lee, lowering their standards. Either it looked muddy and ugly (like Bamboozled) or like a TV special (like Original Kings of Comedy). Even in the best cases it just looked like cheap film stock (Chuck and Buck) and in the only case where it looked really great (Julien Donkey Boy) it was because they transferred it to film and then back to video and then back to film, or some crazy shit like that that nobody else is gonna bother to try.

I’m still skeptical but I must admit that the technology is improving, making it more acceptable. They’re even using digital video for important works like the next Soderbergh film and the third installment in the Mariachi trilogy. I saw an ad for Star Wars Part 2 and although it looked more artifial than part 1, I would never have guessed it was all shot on some super high tech rich guy camcorder.

Tape is a low-profile Richard Linklater movie coming soon to video. It was shot on digital video and it pretty much has the Chuck and Buck look, like it was shot on cheap film stock. So what is important here is not necessarily the look but that much ballyhooed democratization of digital video. You know, how it makes moviemaking more affordable, making it easier for a new guy to break into the industry, or for established filmatists to try risky or non-commercial projects.

I guess the way I look at it, digital video is just like the internet. This web sight pretty much sums up the whole issue of democratizing technology. On the one hand it’s pretty cool that a dude like me could have a world wide forum for expression like this. On the other hand, it’s pretty sad that a dude like me could have a world wide forum for expression like this. And imagine how much more of this type of crap there is to wade through! (more…)

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