Jaye's Musings

Especially having DVDs sent rather than Watch Instantly?

I'm having a problem with them sending me DVDs in order from my queue. This has happened about three times now (first time I thought it might just be a glitch, second time was right around the Holidays so I was too busy to do much about it).

( The Problem...which is also a rant )

ETA: Okay, a FB friend found a number for me (apparently, I had to log all the way out and still go a couple of clicks to find their 'homepage', and it's there....obviously because no already signed-up customer could ever need to contact them), so I shall be calling later.

ETA2: *sigh* And that number was the British number for Netflix (as friend is in Britain). Although it did clue me in that I had to switch Tunnel Bear to the US proxy...and finally found their number. And will (again) call later (yes, they're available 24/7 but I'm on my way out).

I've just got done watching this, and I'm not yet sure how I feel about it.

Yes, it is a very powerful film, its brutality and starkness very hard to stomach but very realistic. The performances are all strong, with Michael Fassbender's exceptionally intense as Bobby Sands. The cinematography is just gorgeous with such understated attention to detail that is in stark contrast at times to the violence.

Yet, even bearing this all in mind, I'm not sure yet if I particularly liked it. For certain, it has something to do with my own feelings about the IRA, having grown up during the periods of their 'mainland campaigns' so there is very little sympathy in me for them (likewise, my feelings for Unionist paramilitaries who were no better). I also remember hearing about the hunger strikes of the Maze prisoners on the news, with daily updates on the condition of Sands.

And that, I think is part of my problem with the film. While the scenes of Sannds' strike are very realistic and unforgiving in a man's suffering as his body wastes away, there was no outside context given the massive amount of media attention this received at the time, and that left me feeling very detached from it.

That said technically the film was outstanding, as I've said. It starts slowly, following the start of a new day with one of the prison guards. Certain things aren't explain, and the film takes its time in revealing these small details, which add to its depth. It then switches to the arrival of a new Provo prisoner, and his introduction is harsh with the "blankets and no wash" protest. It's not until more than thirty minutes into the film that Sands is introduced and it is a brutal one as he is dragged from his cell, beaten bloody and forcibly washed and sheared.

With no sign that their protest will ever get the British government (under Margaret Thatcher) to recognize them as political prisoners, there is the most compelling, stunning scene in the film. It is 22 minutes long with 17 of those with a fixed camera and Sands and a priest talking. In a time of close up and constantly shifting camera angles, it is an amazing piece that is very theatrical. Not only is it visually stunning, but the dialogue is exceptionally clever with the first part the two men are verbally sizing each other up and dancing around the real subject with small talk.

Then it's the hunger strike, and this is where I was thrown out of the story, as I had no sympathy for Sands' condition, but lots for Fassy's, who had lost a great amount of weight for the scenes, and he was terribly emaciated. In the earlier scenes, he was very nicely buff.

An excellently made film with tremendous acting (plus full frontals are never a bad thing!), and artistic, but it still didn't fully engage me.

The DVD extras has a wonderful interview with Fassy...which is almost worth the price of the DVD alone!

Well, I have to call the property management company as last night...in the middle of dinner the power went from both the oven and microwave. It's not the circuit breaker, and I can't reach behind the oven...so they can deal with it. It's what we pay rent for, right?

Also youngest goes back to school on Wednesday *pauses a moment for cheering* so I have to go into town with him and try and find him some new shoes. Also going to take him to a movie (probably District 9) as a pre-back to school treat. Must decide whether will also treat eldest and his girlfriend. Hmmmm.

I watched the Russian (Kazahk, I believe) movie "Mongol". Seeing as I have a Genghis pup, I thought it might be interesting, and while I'm not fully versed yet on his history (pup is solely based on a novel characterization), this was so inaccurate to make movies like "Troy" and "King Arthur" etc. seem like documentaries! I was WTFing through most of it...and this film was Oscar nominated!

( Finally, a photo a friend took of our 'nearby' wildfire )

So for the good. I went and had a good work out this morning. 35 minute walk with a little bit of running mixed in (Go me!) and then weights. After coming back home for shower, I then went and saw Star Trek for a second time, by myself. It was the earliest showing, nice and quiet I thought to myself. There were maybe twenty people there, so why did one couple choose to sit right behind me, when their entire row was free? Not just that, but god knows what they were doing with their popcorn supersize bucket, bowling with it from the sound of it. Then there was the couple with their elderly parent(?) who settled in a couple of rows in front...fine. But then not more than ten minutes into the movie, they decide to move back two rows to mine and just a few seats down, and then the old biddy was asking for a running commentary throughout. It wasn't as if their original row was worse than mine, probably better. Well, at least no one's phone went off, so I should be thankful for small mercies.

And anyway, the main thing was that I enjoyed ST as much this time as I did the first time. Probably the best big screen movie I've seen since '300'. And I'm not even much of a Trekkie/Trekker.

So, I get home, and the TV doesn't work. WTF? It comes on for about 3 seconds and switches off again as if it's on the sleep timer...but it's not, and I can't disable that either. Oh well, telly is about 10 years old, and the picture quality has been getting noticeably worse, so I guess it's time for a new one. Great. At least it might give me a chance to catch up on my DVD watching.

And anyone getting notifs? I haven't had any since last night...so just wondering.

I went to see this last night, mainly because I have a terrific soft spot for all things Clive Owen, and the plot was somehow familiar with a multinational bank dealing in the arms trade who's been reading Hsu's journal?.

There was one scene that was really good. The rest suffered from an attempt at far too much exposition that instead of explaining things only served to over-complicate an already complicated plot. It was as if they were trying to make a complex thriller and thought if they threw all these ideas together, they would magically get a clever plot. Instead, it was just a jumble of things that struggle to come together.

Aside from the one good scene, there was another I liked, but mostly because it was, as I saw it, a homage to "The Day of the Jackal" with the pseudo-assassin's bullet missing as his target bent out of the way, and then the police crashing through his room before he can fight back. But the best scene was the set piece of a shoot-out at the Guggenheim museum, where Owen's character and the real assassin he's trying to arrest, end up teaming up and fighting off the bad guys sent to kill the assassin before he talks. It was a very creative action scene, with tension, innocent bystanders getting in the way, and probably the most character development in the film. Brilliant! A pity the rest of the film didn't follow.

Now, don't get me wrong, action films that are one set action piece after another without thought to plot, are equally as mind-numbing, but this could have done with more, rather than getting bogged down in scene upon scene of talk. And that Guggenheim scene was so well done, that I came away thinking, why didn't they add at least one more?

The end, despite being the kind that I like with being inconclusive, just fell flat, that you end up wondering why you just spent the last two hours in the cinema. Thankfully, it was at the cheap movies! Again a good idea, poor execution. Clive Owen, was his usual sleepy-eyed, scruffy, put-upon, miserable type he often plays...and did it well, even though he looked like he was having difficulty understanding what the hell was going on as well.

The observation

I watched the mini-series "John Adams" before I got into and started RP around "Shoot 'Em UP", so how is it that when I see a clip of Paul Giamatti as John Adams now, my brain automatically thinks..."WTF is Hertz wearing a silly wig for?"

The movie review

Death Race. Okay, there was one reason and one reason alone for watching this...and that was the fact that Jason Statham and Tyrese Gibson are both in it! Andy and Marcus together! It's a brainless action/prison/car movie with only slightly more plot than the aforementioned "Shoot 'Em Up" but it's a good ride. The premise is that the U.S. economy has tanked, mass unemployment (hmmm....) and prisons are run by corporations. In order to distract the masses, a la the Roman bread and circuses, the prisons put on shows to pull in viewers and money. One such event is "Death Race" a brutal and deadly three stage car race...where convicts can win their freedom after winning five races.

Of course that is all a lie. Jensen Ames (Statham), a former racing driver, is framed for the murder of his wife so that the prison warden can boost their rating since the fans' favourite has been killed. If he takes the driver's place and win one race, he will be released. What happens next is that Ames discovers who killed his wife, screws over the warden, and teams up with rival driver, Machine Gun Joe (Gibson) to escape. A mindless hour and forty five minutes, but good, if you treat it as exactly what it says on the label.

My only real quibble with it is that nowhere near enough scenes with Jason and Tyrese together, nor enough shots with them in the same frame.

First the reviews of the three films I've seen recently.

( Valkyrie )

( Downfall )

( The Curious Case of Benjamin Button )

All I ever seem to do now is write movie reviews!...I blame Netflix. *g*

So, One More Kiss is an early film of Gerard Butler's, and he's decidedly lovely and fresh-faced in this...and really that's the only positive thing I have to say about the entire thing. The basic premise is that Sam's (Gerry's character) ex-girlfriend has returned to Scotland from the U.S. with the news that she's dying from a brain tumour. She asks him to spend time with her and do stuff (basically a Bucket List) before she shuffles off the mortal coil. The trouble is, Sam is married, and his wife (understandably) isn't thrilled by this.

It is supposed to be a story about spending what time we have left to the fullest, and not being afraid to take a chance because we might never get to do it, otherwise. Those points aren't implied by the story as they should be but blatantly stated...and they have to be because if they weren't, all you would see is a story about a miserable woman who dumped her boyfriend years ago and now suddenly turns up. She doesn't care that he's happily married, and spends the rest of her life creating a situation to split them up. On top of that she just isn't an interesting character...there is nothing appealing about her. Sam isn't much better as he drops just about everything, including his wife, to spend time with her...including standing her up at the opera. The best performance was, perhaps, the dying woman's father. He's the only one who really tries to find a cure for his daughter (but really, why bother?) and she treats him like rubbish.

In the opening scene, she's still in New York and is standing on top of a skyscraper ready to jump. I couldn't help thinking she should have...it would have saved an hour and a half of my life.

I capped it (because young Gerry!), but I'm so glad I didn't buy it. He plays his role well, but it's such a poor story with poor characterization...plus a lead actress who has very little appeal, that it just flops.

I'd wanted to see this movie for a while, but I heard it was absolute rubbish, so I only got around to it through Netflix. Given the reviews, and the fact that I read the book it's based on a few years ago, I went in with lowered expectations.

And I was nicely surprised.

Okay, it has it's problems...the first, and maybe most blatant, being at the very start when it states it's 460 AD...when Romulus August[ul]us was deposed by Odacavar in 476 AD (kind of an important historical date, as it's the one accepted by scholars as the end of the Western Roman Empire). There's also the fact that the Goths attacked Rome and not Ravenna, which was Rome's capital by then. But I can at least see why that was changed as most audiences are familiar with Rome over Ravenna.

The basic story is that after Rome is sacked, Odacavar takes the young, deposed emperor Romulus hostage after killing his father (Orestes, former secretary to Attila) and his mother. He exiles the boy, and his tutor Ambrosinius (Ben Kingsley) to the island of Capri. The last of the Imperial Guard, Aurelius (Colin Firth), having been betrayed by the Senate, sets out with the remnants of his legion, and an assassin from the Eastern Empire to save rescue the boy. Of course, the assassin is in fact a beautiful, exotic woman who can kick ass. The rescue successful, and without a friend in Rome, they head to Ambrosinius' homeland, Britannia to find the last remaining legion. However, while in Capri, Romulus finds Julius Caesar's legendary sword, forged when he conquered Britain, and who ever could hold it would rule the land. On reaching Britannia, they find the land ravaged by an evil warlord, and they are also chased by Wulfila, one of Odacavar's men. With the help of the lost last legion, they defeat both enemies, and a new legend is begun....that of Arthur and Excalibur.

The action was good, and they kept as much to the book as most other book-to-movie films do, although I wish they had spent more time on the characters actual travels from Ravenna (or Rome in this case) to Capri, and from Capri to Britannia...as in the novel they are sizable chunks of the book and take them months with many dangers. Here it seems to have just taken a few days. There was really no reason for the beautiful assassin, and the love story between her and Aurelius seemed to come from nowhere, even though it was predictable. There is precious little in the way of character development on any of the characters, and so their motivations are muddled and vague. True, there was not a whole lot in the book, but they did give some more depth to Ambrosinius at least.

Given the amount of top-class British actors, including Kingsley, Firth, John Hannah, Owen Teale, the acting could have been better, but it's clear none of them were doing it with Academy Awards in mind. Yet again Kevin McKidd ("Rome"'s Vorenus) makes an appearance as Wulfila and practically chews the scenery. The actress who played the assassin, Aishwarya Rai, I'm actually hoping to see in better things, as she's in a couple of Bollywood films with Hrithik. And I couldn't shake the image of the boy being in Doctor Who, rather than as Romulus.

Yes, it has many faults (as does the book, really), but as long as you're not going into it expecting historical accuracy or great acting or writing, then it's quite enjoyable.

It was a friend's birthday Saturday, so we -- as in several of her friends -- took her bowling and then went downtown to see PS I Love You. Now, I'm the first to admit that RomCom is not my thing (in fact hubby was disgusted with me for wanting to see it...despite the obvious reason), but damn, I liked it...and not only for the obvious reason.

The opening sequence was just brilliant, and Gerry (a Scot playing Gerry an Irishman (with a dubious accent)) was just Gerry. If you've seen this man in interviews, you know that he can be a real goof...and that definitely came out in this. It was great to see him in a part where he could be pretty much himself. Hilary Swank wasn't annoying. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was lovely, with a very nice rear. Not too sure about James Marsters (more looking forward to him in Torchwood. Harry Connick Jr. was better than I thought he would be, as I'm usually just 'meh' about him. And seeing Dean Winters brought a smile to my face as I immediately thought of phantomas and franzi1981.

It was a sweet/bittersweet film. Not as Romcom as I thought it would be, which is good, and yes, I had to reach for the tissues a couple of times. But I was there for purely shallow reasons...and let me just say that Gerry was FINE! Those biceps, his 'striptease', and most of all the best thing about seeing Gerry anytime on the big screen is those eyes.

Yeah, I liked it.

Oh, and one of my friends that I went with (who is also Glaswegian) is a big GB fan...so I got to be all fangirly! The other (the birthday friend) has begun to be converted!