Tag Archives: 3D

Countdown: The Hobbit – Desolation of Smaug

10 February 2014

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From my wonderful publisher Open Books…

Just 18 days until release date of ReelRoyReviews, a book of film, music, and theatre reviews, by Roy Sexton!

“…the second installment, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (seriously? these are the best titles you can come up with, Jackson? I guess Attack of the Clones was taken), is a rip-snortin’, jolly good time.”

Learn more about REEL ROY REVIEWS, VOL 1: KEEPIN’ IT REAL by Roy Sexton at http://www.open-bks.com/library/moderns/reel-roy-reviews/about-book.html. Book can also be ordered at Amazon here.

Now THAT was fun! The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

3 January 2014

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Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Last year I just wasn’t that nuts about the first installment of Peter Jackson’s planned fim trilogy adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. You can revisit my ire here.

And I stand by these words, “If I feel the original [Lord of the Rings] trilogy – where one film = one book – seems a bit padded, you can imagine my distaste for having The Hobbit broken into a wallet-gouging three films.”

HOWEVER, the second installment – The Desolation of Smaug (seriously? these are the best titles you can come up with, Jackson? I guess Attack of the Clones was taken) – is a rip-snortin’, jolly good time.

All the ponderous and self-satisfied back story and set up has been dispensed with in the first film, so the cast and crew is free to let the Errol Flynn-esque, Saturday morning serial freak flags fly. The film is a good thirty minutes too long and suffers yet again from a terribly unsatisfying non-ending ending.

Yet, all of the players are clearly having a ball and that carries over to the audience experience. Benedict Cumberbatch (is he everywhere this year?!?) steals the show – without ever showing his face – as the voice and motion-captured physicality of the titular villain, the dragon Smaug. The very theatre rumbles with his presence, and you can’t (and dare not) look away for a moment.

The rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely amongst the manic proceedings which involve some nonsense about reclaiming a mountain and finding some shiny jewel thing. Martin Freeman comes into his own as our central protagonist Bilbo Baggins, capitalizing on comic sympathies garnered during the first outing.

Ian McKellen is fine but a bit underused in a confusing subplot that involves Orcs, a cheesy looking castle, and the film series’ Big Bad (Sauron). I greatly enjoy Richard Armitage as the brooding Thorin – just when I as an audience member feel totally exasperated by the shenanigans onscreen, he seems to be as well and grounds everything with a sneer and a sidelong glance. Heck, I even like Orlando Bloom this go-round, which is saying something as watching him is typically akin to watching paint dry for me.

New to the series, Lee Pace, Ryan Gage, and Stephen Fry are welcome additions, with Fry bringing an almost Dickensian whimsy to his role as a sleazy mayor of a floating fishing village that makes Popeye‘s Sweethaven look like Metropolis. Luke Evans also adds a fine level of swashbuckling gravitas to the key character of Bard who helps our intrepid band reach the final leg of their interminable journey.

I happened to see this one in Jackson’s much-vaunted “high frame rate 3D” which, once you get past the nauseatingly hyper-crisp visual clarity, completely immerses you in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. It’s like watching a soap opera/video game hybrid … on the sound stage where it’s being filmed with the actors spitting and sweating in your face in real time. Lovely, eh? Not sure I completely recommend it, but it’s worth experiencing … once.

In sum, the film is fun escapist fare with a shot of adrenaline that reminds us why movies can be such a joy. I have no idea what I saw, and I won’t remember 80% of the plot tomorrow … and I don’t much care.

Did you read the book first? Life of Pi

25 November 2012

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Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

It’s unusual that I don’t post a review almost immediately upon seeing a film. In part, the recent Thanksgiving holiday was the culprit for me not posting a review of the film adaptation Life of Pi sooner…but I also wasn’t sure what I thought of the movie until today. In fact, I am still not exactly sure.

I left the theatre thinking, “Well, that was ok, not great.” The next day, I hated the movie (chiefly for the sunlit depictions of animal-on-animal violence), but now I feel differently. I actually think I like the ambiguity with which the film leaves its viewers.

And, no, I did not read the book…seems to be what everyone asks me when I am ambivalent about a cinematic adaptation of some contemporary literature. [See: any reaction any friend of mine has ever had to my utter distaste for the Twilight franchise.]

Life of Pi is a beautiful film. Director Ang Lee has done a sumptuous job creating the cinematic equivalent of a lushly illustrated children’s book – though I’m not entirely certain it serves the narrative well. In 3D, the sparkling visuals literally leap from the screen, but the ViewMaster quality of such stereoptic spectacle may mislead viewers into thinking the film is a fun holiday family jaunt. It ain’t.

The movie grapples with issues of faith, humanism, animal rights, gender and class politics in an allegorical melange that at times evokes Aesop’s Fables by way of Sigmund Freud. In short, Life of Pi details the adventure of a young Indian boy trapped at sea on a lifeboat with a ravenous tiger. Hijinks ensue.

The “did they/didn’t they” questions of whether the tiger (and a few other animals) are real or imagined and whether they are actually symbolic of man’s inhumanity to man are ultimately unresolved, leaving it to viewer discretion. That is no doubt what the book’s author Yann Martel intended. However, as a cinematic exercise, the movie somehow finds itself at the difficult crossroads of simplistic AND abstruse.

I find myself still pondering the questions raised about faith, the divine within us all, the power of nature, and the pure equality of all living creatures. In that sense, Life of Pi works a kind of big budget, “Hollywood blockbuster as art film” wonder. Yet, I haven’t made up my mind if Ang Lee has achieved an amazing hat trick in filming the supposedly unfilmable…or if he completely missed the mark with this CGI-filled epic.

I guess I will have to get back with you on that one.

Maybe this is one of those times when I should have heeded my friends’ query: “Did you read the book first?”

Accomplished acting, even with 80% of one’s face covered: Dredd 3D

23 September 2012

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Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image source: Wikipedia]

2012 may be the year superhero movies offered a case study in accomplished acting, even with 80% of one’s face covered. It’s like someone put out a dare, and both Dark Knight Rises’ Tom Hardy as “Bane” and now Dredd 3D’s Karl Urban as “Judge Dredd” said, “I’ll see that bet, and raise you with monosyllabic dialogue and guttural intonations… I will get more across than most of your showiest, most wildly gesticulating, scenery chewing actors out there!”

I may be one of the few viewers who didn’t loathe the first cinematic interpretation of Judge Dredd in the mid-90s with Sylvester Stallone, though I will admit he did nearly ruin the good judge’s catchphrase with his “Yo, Adrian!”-esque take: “I aaaaammm da laaaaawwww.” Happily, I can report Urban, so whimsically fun as Dr. Bones McCoy in the recent Star Trek reboot, not only redeems said line (slyly and in the film’s final act no less) but turns in a great performance, saddled with a helmet that makes Ian McKellan’s “Magneto” headgear look like a Sunday bonnet.

This new iteration, less candy-coated than the first film and working effectively with a mere fraction of that movie’s bloated budget, takes full advantage of the Swiftian, dystopian dark satire of the comic book source material (2000 A.D.). In today’s troubled age  – violent outbursts in the most innocuous of locales (e.g. movie theatres, schools, shopping malls), cartoonishly extreme political infighting, grotesque urban sprawl, pharmaceutical escapism, and a society so desensitized by reality television that common decency is a long-forgotten memory – the original comic series from the 70s/80s is eerily prescient. In Judge Dredd’s world, the justice system is now a twisted reflection of the collapsed mores of society, with police/judge/jury/executioner all wrapped into one entity: a band of jack-booted, black motorcycle-riding “judges” who roam Mega City One (the remnants of a nuclear obliterated America being one large city that runs from the former New York to Boston), futilely trying to prevent an unending tide of violent crime. And this film nails the uncomfortable future shock allegory of today’s ills.

The movie is beautifully filmed in shades of gray, with effective pops of color and slow-mo during the most extreme scenes of man’s cruelty to man. I am not a 3D fan (it mostly just gives me a headache and reminds me of my old View-Master reels), but in this case it works very well, evoking the layered imagery of a comic panel. All the supporting players bring just the right amount of gravitas to their increasingly dark, absurdly surreal surrounding. 300’s Lena Headey is particularly creepy as drug lord villain “Ma-Ma,” and Juno’s Olivia Thirlby is a nice mix of sadness and pluck as Dredd’s rookie sidekick. The movie is no doubt going to be too dark (or too close to home) for most of today’s movie-goers, but its intoxicating mix of social critique, hypnotic visuals, and escapist thrills ensures it a long life as a future cult classic. Catch it soon before it slips away, only to be enjoyed on the small screen.

Fair and fizzy assessment of a coquette-in-candyland: Katy Perry’s Part of Me

7 July 2012

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Description: Film poster; Source: Amazon [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image source: Amazon]

Throw in one part Madonna’s “Truth of Dare” and one part Miley Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana: Best of Both Worlds” and one part Zooey Deschanel’s “New Girl,” add a pinch of the original “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and a smidge of Tim Burton’s unfortunate 3D fantasia “Alice in Wonderland,” stir, bake accompanied by an infectious pop soundtrack…and voila…you have Katy Perry’s new concert documentary “Part of Me.”

We all more or less already knew Katy was an intensely likable personality with a knack for marrying catchy melody and zany “coquette-in-Candyland” visuals, but we probably didn’t realize how deep-feeling she could be or how sad and challenged her life had been. Yes, the film, like “Truth or Dare” before it, is a calculated play to humanize (and expand the brand of) its central pop heroine. Unlike that film, there is an authenticity to Perry (benefiting no doubt from 20+ years of us all living out loud, online, and through the self-aware guise of reality TV) that Madonna couldn’t/can’t effect.

Your heart genuinely breaks for Perry when the de facto villain of the piece Russell Brand (standing in for Warren Beatty from the Madonna film) ends their marriage. (One of her handlers remarks at one point, “Katy keeps leaving the tour to go see him…when is he going to ever travel to her?”) You also wonder how overbearing her fundamentalist religious upbringing must have been when you meet her traveling minister mom and dad who resemble even scarier versions of Sharon Osbourne and Swifty Lazar. Finally you leave the theatre with an uplift when Katy “conquers” all to sing triumphant versions of her hits “Firework” and “California Gurls.” (Oh-kay, that last bit may be a bit overstated since she is dressed like a giant peppermint at the time.)

The film is a lot of fun, and, yes, a bit contrived…and completely unnecessary to view in up-charged 3D. (2D will do just fine, thank you very much.) All in all, though, it is a fair and fizzy assessment of a pop star on the ascent, one of the few for whom you genuinely wish a happy and successful life. Just be prepared (with earplugs) for the shrieks that may emanate from some of your fellow audience members (the 12 and under crowd) when Justin Bieber makes the requisite appearance onscreen. Ugh.