Invasion of the body snatchers

There have been many, many adaptations of the 1955 book The Body Snatchers. They range from the Excellent, the good, the average to mediocre, all the way down to the eye gouging terrible. Some of the installments in the franchise are interesting as a litmus test for what the people of the time are afraid of. The series is about Pod People taking over human bodies turning them into emotionless drones. While the people who realize what is happening try to warn everyone/fight the aliens.

If you look at the first adaptation from 1956, you see a picture of a society terrified of communism, The film was made at a time when people thought it was quite possible for your friends and family to be communist spies ready to take over the world, and so whether it was intentional or not that paranoia and fear bled over into the film. The film can also be seen as a comment on McCarthyism's attempts to homogenize the American public. The movie ended on a happy note due to pressure by the studio, but originally the film featured a much more pessimistic ending. The film as a whole was very atypical of the period and stands as a 50s classic.

Philip Kaufman directed the 1978 version. In my opinion this is the best adaptation yet made. It was released during the Vietnam War and Watergate; all the while The Cold War was making nuclear annihilation a constant threat. As such the movie is a dark deeply paranoid take on the story. When you watch it you can see this deep seething distrust of the government and organized institutions as a whole and Leonard Nimoy (SPOCK!) plays a parody of the self-help guru that had emerged in this era.

Like this except because in the film he was a pod person so emotionless, cold and stiff...You know what, exactly like this.

The 2007 version, that featured Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, was more effected by terrorism. And shared the dark paranoid vibe of Kaufman’s film. The movie ended in a bittersweet manner, with the Body Snatchers beaten, the film suggest that with all the violence, war and terrorism, we may have been better off as Pod People.

To understand why this movie has been made so many times, we have to attempt to understand why it scares us. The idea of losing that one thing that makes us people, that sets us apart from the masses our personality, scares us immensely; because in the end we are not what we look like, we are who we are.

Oh and sorry about the terrible Iron Man review.

Is Richard Kelly worth a damn post Darko?

Is Richard Kelly worth a damn post Darko?

Behold its wonder!

Donnie Darko, was directed and written by Richard Kelly, and it is perhaps the greatest film I have ever seen, it was a pitch perfect exploration of time travel and teenage angst. It has one of the greatest soundtracks of any movie and perfectly captured a period in time. It utilized fantastic casting and acting to bring an incredibly effecting movie that will leaves you in a state of shock. I have watched it around six or seven times. Now Donnie Darko was the first feature length film by Richard Kelly and it's amazingness could have been caused by one of three things.

1. Donnie Darko was a lucky break, it was simply pop science and philosophy with a healthy dollop of angst put into a blender, That against all odds paid off for an inexperienced filmmaker, a good film that won’t be repeated.
2. Donnie Darko was the first outing of a cinematic genius that will take the world by storm churning out amazing cinema and will be known far and wide as a genius.
3. Aliens (I felt I needed three to justify a list)

As much as it makes me sad to say it the answer it seems is number one. As soon as Donnie Darko rose to a cult status the studios were more than happy to bankroll whatever Richard wanted, and that’s how we wound up with Southland Tales (2007).

Kill it with fire!

The film starred Sara Michele Gellar, Justin Timberlake, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Sean William Scott, Mandy Moore and Kevin Smith (and about twenty other b celebs). In short, Southland Tales was a load of sprawling incomprehensible shit. It had the distinct feel of Richard Kelly trying to replicate his prior success with Donnie Darko by stealing (and butchering) themes from it. I actually decided to bar judgment on Richard Kelly for Southland Tales because it was his first miss step and I had a theory that it was all a big middle finger to the MTV generation, and throughout the film it had been subtly taking the piss about republican stereotypes and product placement, and that the only comprehensible moment was purposefully an (actually quite well done) scene in which Justin Timberlake lip synchs to a Killers song.

Oh how wrong I was proved to be when Richard Kelly’s follow up The Box (2009) was released into cinemas.

Not James Marsden! First Buffy now Spike, who's next Willow?

The film was an adaptation of a Richard Matheson novel that had already been done much better by The Twilight Zone. The film again was a load of drivel that was manufactured from the ground up to be ‘deep’ but pulled that off about as well as ‘Deck Dogz’.

He also wrote the tragic Domino which featured Keira Knightley trying to act tough.

Really you saw this and thought 'you know what, she would be good as a bounty hunter'.

Domino was a fairly run of the mill retrograde junk; Keira was so woefully miss cast it almost laughable (perhaps the movie's one saving grace). If you ever watch it there is one scene in particular that is so out of place in the context and feel of the movie it completely takes you out of the moment (you will know what one). But what was plain baffling about Domino was this quote by Richard Kelly. "Domino might be one of the most subversive films released by a major studio since Fight Club". In what way is this film even slightly subversive....because it puts forward the proposition that the ludicrous story actually happened, and thus is an attempt to legitimise deceit and lying, which is already rife in any film with 'based on a true story' written on it?

It is quite clear to me that Richard Kelly indeed does fall into category number one. Every movie post Darko has been a desperate attempt to remake what made Donnie Darko great. He also lessened the impact of the original Donnie Darko with the horrible Directors Cut, and the ‘Philosophy Of Time Travel’ book. He is emulating David Lynch quite a bit, and while he did capture the feel in Donnie Darko, Southland Tales failed in an attempt to be Lynchian for the same reason Twin Peaks failed when David Lynch stopped directing in the middle of the second season. If I had the opportunity to give a bit of advice to Richard Kelly it would be this Stop trying to recreate Donnie Darko and stop trying to follow in the footsteps of David Lynch.

His completely insane footsteps

An Open Letter To Michael Bay

An open letter to Michael Bay

Because the person responsible for this deserves only contempt

Yes I know that criticizing Michael Bay is about as difficult as making fun of George Bush and no less over done. But he is really annoying me, so I felt I needed to get it out of my system, enjoy!

Dear Michael Bay

I am an avid cinema fan and I have watched you achieve some semblance of prominence in the industry. You have risen from your role as (checks Wikipedia) a goon in Miami Vice, to a director known for high budget films that are almost universally critically panned; yet inexplicably do well in the box office.

Now lets get things clear I was more than contented to sit back and watch you ignore you as you make horrible films based on toys or pubescent action filled fantasy, but then you founded a certain ‘Platinum Dunes’ production house, and began merrily producing god-awful remakes of classic horror movies. The first film produced under this rein of terror was ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, now this film was panned by almost every reviewer under the sun, but what made its existence particularly offensive was the original. You may not know this, but the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was in no uncertain terms a masterpiece.

This film created tension and foreboding using a variety of techniques; from the opening scene it revealed itself as a cut above (terrible pun) both its competitors and its progenitors in the genre, it perfectly created the essence of a nightmare.

But here comes the remake to completely miss the point, you made it just another generic slasher flick, and when I mention it the thing most people think of is simply the crappy Platinum Dunes remake, there mind does not flow to the meticulous sound design, fantastic shooting and lynchian feel.

By no means is this an isolated incident they released the Friday the 13^th, a prequel to Chainsaw Massacre and they have a nightmare On Elm Street on the way, all of which have been produced by you. I am going to be frank and I am genuinely sorry if you find this offensive, but you are probably the second worst director currently getting work in Hollywood (just behind Uwe Boll): your dialog is horrible and you seem to think explosions make up for a general lack of film quality.

Let me explain to you an analogy that I thought up, lets say explosions are salt, and the plot acting ect the very substance of what makes a movie, a movie is the…lets say chips. Salt complements the chips it gives it flavor to a point. Now if someone were to look at one of your movies with that analogy in mind one Would see this.

this is transformers 2: revenge of the character who was not mentioned in the original film once.

Some of your movies are simply a few chips under a pile of salt (The Island). But there are no chips under that pile of salt pictured, I came out of Transformers 2, thinking not that that it had plot holes, but “oh my god, Bay has done away with coherent plots all together”. You see how this is? In order for your films to have plot holes, it must first have a plot. But getting past the fact you shoot with the mentality of a twelve year old, lets look at your film ‘legacy’ you are most well known for The Transformers films (did you know that Revenge Of The Fallen has three Razzies? I assume so.) They were both not received well critically, and the latter was one of the worst films I personally have ever seen, it occurred to me that for someone who has built his career around explosions and car wrecks you aren’t very good at them. The shooting in ROTF (Revenge of The Fallen) was so bad that you couldn’t actually see what was happening most of the time.

I honestly do hope that you take my advice, though it could be said that I needn’t watch the god-awful remakes that you seem so hell bent on producing; the fact is there very presence and existence dilutes the potency of the original. think to yourself “is this really what I want people to think of me?”

Thanks for reading

Sliding Doors movie review

Review.
Sliding Doors is a romantic comedy. Rom Coms are extremely formulaic so if you want yours to stand out you need a hook. The hook of Sliding doors is this. Gwenthor Paltrows character gets sacked; she attempts to catch a train. Here is where it gets interesting, the movie splits into two distinct parallel realitys in one she catches the train (and meets the charming and Irish John Lynch…and he has an Irish brogue! *swoon*) and finds her hubby John Hannah, in bed with another woman. The second universe she misses the train and ends up not catching them.
The film shows the two universes progressing in tandem, as to highlight the changes. Despite this little innovation the film is pretty stock standard romance, it is not hard to see the twists and turns coming. Gwenthor Paltrow acts horribly; she spends the film switching between two tones and moods, (neither she does well). She is overshadowed by almost every-other character in the film.
The real stand out performance is Jeanne Tripplehorn as Paltrows partners ex wife and mistress (and she has an American accent!). The direction is average; the score is poor bar an excellent choice of song for the end credits. In the end this film is a sub average version of Blind Chance a Polish film that covered a similar premise in a much better manner.

Three stars (I gave it an extra half a star because of all the Irish accents*)

*What? I like Irish accents!

Things that annoyed me aka I am a pedantic loser
Avast forward here be spoilers!



1. 3 minutes and four seconds
Paltrow: I took bottles of vodka on Friday. It was my birthday. You know that. I was having a party, and I was running late, so I borrowed some. I bought some more to replace it.

Paul: Not a lot of use to me when I have nothing to offer the executives who dropped by late Friday.

Parltrow: You could have told them you'd run out. It's popular stuff. Bullshit, bullshit. We're in P R. That's what we do, isn't it?
But you didn't do that, did you, Paul?
Paul: No.
Paltrow: So I'm out, am I? Well, this is just perfect.
Congratulations. You wanted me out for ages. Now you've done it. Very well done.
Paltrow: Theft. Pretty foolproof. OK. I'll go. I'll go.

This is an example of Gwyneth Paltrow having a conversation with no outside input, notice how not once did Paul say she was fired, she just stood there talking to herself, before storming out.




27 minutes 18 seconds.

Customer: what do you do when you’re not working in here ey?
Paltrow: well I get up at about six thirty am making and delivering sandwiches, in the West End during the day, before I come here about six a clock, and finish as midnight. After that if I have got any energy left I give my boyfriend a blowjob
Customer looks shocked

Well what is wrong here is obvious; at the start of the movie Paltrow pretty much fired herself for nothing. And here she overreacts to a mildly suggestive line, and says something shockingly inappropriate in front of a table full of people.


32 minutes

When Paltrow asks her hubby about a brandy glass, we are treated to a lesson in overacting. John Lynch goes in no uncertain terms ape shit. All the while Paltrow doesn’t look even slightly concerned that her partner just jumped to the conclusion that she was accusing him of cheating, based on her asking about a glass of brandy.

38 minutes and 50 seconds

John Hannah is reciting Monty Python verbatim at a dinner party, no explanation is given to why everyone is laughing rather than staring at him with icy hatred. I like to hypothesize that there it a dog doing something adorable behind him.

43 minutes and 53 seconds

Jeanne Tripplehorn calls Paltrow back to her building (Paltrow has been delivering Sandwiches to them), it seems that Paltrow inadvertently gave five people at the company food poisoning. When Paltrow arrives home John Lynch asks, “What’s wrong?” to which Paltrow states "I met Cruella Deville’s less kind sister”. What the shit? you are not good with this whole job thing. You poisoned five of her employee, she said she wouldn’t take things further (which would have caused your termination), she was a bit cold to you, yes, but given that you poisoned her co workers and had her stuck with their work I would say you were pretty damn lucky you entitled snob.


46 minutes and 30 seconds
John Lynch is leading everyone in what appears to be aerobics in a bar, you expect it to be explained why, but an explanation is not forth coming.


58 minutes 34 seconds.


The point when I became bored with the draw out gimmicky movie and played with a djay program, for a while




1 hour and 1 minute
The point when Tripplehorn outshone everyone by multiple magnitudes.





1 hour and 20 minutes


Really I have been fading in and out now, and my attention is going to be even more wavering as now I have entered wikipedia, and will be clicking links for hours, god forbid I get to a page on astronomy or war time history, or I will be here all night.


1 hour and 30 minutes

The movie is over, they had a chance to make a statement with the dual car crashes there, if they had killed Paltrow, it would have reinforced a theme of fate. But no there was just a mediocre end to a mediocre movie

Welcome, first posts and other formalities

Hi. welcome to my blog. I plan to use this blog for a lot of things, I will have movie and books reviews (hopefully not that terrible). I will post stories I have written and other hodgepodge details of varying import and interest.

But a little about me*, I am 15* and in year 10 in an Australian school. My interests include books, movies, bikes, socialising, history and music. I cant be bothered going into further detail, especially as it is not inevitable that people will read this, so I could actually be simply 'shouting into the void'.

So onwards into the bow I suppose!

*I am sure you don't care, but it seems a necessary formality.

*Number may change.