Seven strangers. One man connects them. Or some stupid bullshit like that, is what the commercials said. They had a hard time explaining what the hell this movie was supposed to be about, and didn’t make me curious to find out. That is, until somebody gave away the ending. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Will Smith’
Seven Pounds
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
LikeI Am Legend
Thursday, December 20th, 2007Man, I’m a sucker for these QUIET EARTH type stories. You can’t help but think about what you would do in a situation like that, alone or with a couple other people, living in an abandoned city, everybody else either dead or disappeared. All of society’s leftover resources would be there for the plucking. Where would you take up residence? What would you drive? Would the rides at Disneyland still work? What sort of games would you play to amuse yourself? Backhoe Rampage? Skyscraper Free Throw? Condo Shitting? How would you deal with your loneliness? And would you bother to wear pants?
If there’s monsters involved, like in DAWN OF THE DEAD or any of the three movies based on Richard Matheson’s book I Am Legend, then it becomes more of a survivalist challenge, you start thinking about strategies. How to fortify your home, how to transport yourself around safely to scavenge, etc. In this case it’s vampires he’s dealing with so he can pretty much wander around and do what he wants during daylight (vampires have a sunlight related disability), but at nightfall it’s on.
To me that’s mainly what I Am Legend is about: living a life like that and the toll it takes on you mentally. To some people though the book is mainly about the ironic twist at the end that hasn’t been used in any of the movie adaptations. I’d love to see that too, if somebody could figure out how to translate the inner monologue realization from the book into movie form. But I’m not gonna get broken up about another re-interpretation of the story. I guess I’m not as much of a stickler for literal adaptations as alot of individuals. I think it’s more important for it just to be a good movie. For example, the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD doesn’t have the substance of the original, has a different approach to zombies that I don’t like as much, doesn’t even spend all that much time in the mall that’s the main setting of the original. And yet I can’t complain too much because it still works, it is an effective action-horror movie on its own terms, I enjoyed watching it. So I guess I am more interested in faithfulness to the magic of cinema than to original source material. (more…)
Vern’s Peace Initiative
Sunday, August 13th, 2006As if the whole world wasn’t going to shit already, now we got this war going on between Israel and Hezbollah in Syria. Or according to some people, between the US via Israel and Iran via Syria via Hezbollah in Lebanon or I don’t know. Whatever the fuck is going on over there, it’s not good. People are dying every day and it seems like this could be just the humble beginnings of this latest phase of the world’s biggest mess.
In the old days, like, say, seven years ago, what we would do is the President would make some phone calls, send some diplomats, try to figure out how to get those assholes over there to chill the fuck out. “Come on guys, it’s not worth it.” Like when your buddy’s had a few too many drinks and starts getting in a guy’s face in an argument over a girl or a shoe or a slice of pizza or something. You gotta give your buddy some perspective before things get ugly.
Well, Bush is too busy clearing brush or dumping out stem cells or something. You know how he is, if the world is teetering on the precipice then you bet your ass that asshole’s on vacation. I heard he’s supposed to be reading Camus’s The Stranger on his vacation, which is interesting. Future embarassing off the cuff remark: “Well it’s interesting, in existentialism it says I can kill an Arab.”
Anyway, the point is he’s not gonna do shit. Therefore, I feel it is my duty as an American to step up and set a positive example for our brothers and sisters around the world.
Now, I know you have plenty of reasons to hate each other. The other side kidnapped some of your soldiers, or arrested a whole bunch of people, or blew up your house, or hate your religion, or stole your land, etc. I’m not saying you don’t have cause to be angry. But what you gotta understand is, this shit goes back hundreds of years. So far, blowing shit up has not helped in any way. Maybe, perhaps, it is worth considering that blowing shit up only ever makes it worse, and you gotta stop. (more…)
The Pursuit of Happyness
Friday, March 17th, 2006PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS is actually a pretty good drama/shameless inspirational tale based on an actual guy who was profiled on 20/20 one time. Will Smith stars as Chris Gardner, a dude who, while completely broke, struggles through a highly competitive, unpaid stock broker trainee program. There are 20 people in the program and only one will be chosen to stay at the firm, the others are shit out of luck. I won’t give away whether he ends up getting the job at the end. Who knows? Anything could happen.
Anyway the hook is that he’s also a single father, and when I said he was completely broke I wasn’t exaggerating. He gets kicked out of his apartment, gets arrested for not paying parking tickets, gets kicked out of a hotel, and there’s not always room at the homeless shelter so he even ends up sleeping in a public bathroom at one point. So the drama comes in how this guy can find shelter for his son, wash his clothes in a sink, then get to the firm on a bus, carrying all of his belongings, and then be the best stock broker trainee in the place. At one point he’s on a break, he gets hit by a car and loses a shoe and then has to go back in and play it cool wearing only one shoe. (I had a similar incident once so it was exciting to be able to identify so closely with the adventures on screen.)
The story would be hard to take if it was completely made up, but since apparently it really happened* it makes for a thrilling story to watch him overcome the odds, and the test screening audience actually applauded his victories. Luckily he doesn’t give too many adorable up-by-the-bootstraps platitudes either. There’s a couple points where I thought it got a little corny though. I hope they cut out the part where he tells his son not to play basketball then suddenly scolds him to “Never let anyone tell you you can’t do something – not even me.” But most of it’s not that bad.
[* Yeah right, like HOSTEL really happened too, huh? I'm giving movies a benefit of the doubt here that they have not earned. But I read up on it and at least according to various media accounts, Chris Gardner did go through adventures fairly similar to what's depicted in the movie.] (more…)
I, Robot
Saturday, January 1st, 2005Actually, not bad.
This is the story of a world not too far off where everything is similar to now except that Converse All Stars are rare and robots are common. Instead of the other way around. These robots are used to walk dogs, clean the house, chop the vegetables, etc. Everybody loves them, the same way assholes today love their cell phones and their iPods. And they got these new ones coming out pretty soon, the US Robotics corporation is making a big deal about it. These ones talk more like humans and have cute little rubber noses and they are see-through like my iMac. When they talk you can see little dealies moving around inside their heads. Good job on that detail, computer animators.
Also cars don’t have wheels and ceiling fans only have one blade. Otherwise though it’s the same almost.
The story follows a cop played by Will Smith, who enjoys sweet potato pie so he’s alright in my book. At first his character traits verge on the corny. He is obsessed with things that are old, like manually operated CD players and the aforementioned Chuck Taylor approved sneakers. I guess the idea is we can relate to this guy in the future because he likes the same not futuristic stuff we like. I guess. (I didn’t really buy that they would stop making Chuck Taylors by then, though. Those things have been around forever. Where are they gonna go?)
Anyway, this guy is also real paranoid of robots. He always thinks they’re up to no good. And when the CEO of USR dies of an apparent suicide, and there is one of the newfangled robots hiding in the room where it happens, he is SURE the thing did it. (more…)
Men in Black
Saturday, January 1st, 2005Anybody seen this movie. its probaly pretty old but – I just got out so I haven’t seen that many movies, but i just saw men in black at a girl’s house and it wasn’t that bad. personally i thought it was pretty stupid but there was some funny shit at times. she liked it i think i will ask her if i see her again (probly well, wink).
a couple a comments – number one, the black guy is okay i guess, but i don’t think he would last long inside. number two, i guess it was pretty funny at times. the woman, whatserfuck, she looked pretty good.
sorry if this has already been cover – first timer here
–vern
