Doubt Boxing Actors

Very well-tailored melodrama. Very masterly relying on its great actors. Mister Philip Seymour Hoffman and Miss Meryl Streep in the leads do promise and deliver acting prowess, in something of a boxing match opposing two wonderful geniuses. But then, right in between the blows, you realize the thing that holds it all together for the jaded bastard you are (:P) is an Amy Adams perhaps underrated, very nuanced in her sensibility, and the perfect closing shot with that ever so touching swap between mentor and mentee.

Not much else to say though; must be 'cause I am a jaded bastard... I used to get shivers and goosebumps and all while watching such flicks. Now, I just go "oh, that's harsh". And then I wonder: "is it me, or is it the picture that's just not that touching?!?". Oh well...

~4.1.

Changeling - Eastwood's Feel-Good Movie?!?

A powerful story. Very powerful. With that affective 'true story' mention in the opening credits that always makes it all more human. Too human, perhaps, for the audience not to care, not to get trapped in the identification process. And yet it still feels just a tad like the cinematic, artistic exercise that it it. A bit cold. A little like Button for that matter. But Clint's a master now, and it works: a well-told story about a simple woman taking on the corrupt LAPD of the late '20s, despite and because of all its implied horrors endured and conquered by that woman, is definitely something to feel good about; maybe the coldness is just mine, me being a jaded bastard and all ;-).

~4.0.

The Punisher: Warzone

Correct. Divertissant. Mais peut-être simplement parce que je viens tout juste de me taper 2 arcs du "Punisseur" par Garth Ennis et Steve Dillon :). Ou parce que j'ai adoré Titus Pullo dans Rome :P! Reste que ça fait le travail... contrairement à l'autre version que j'ai vue, celle avec Tom Jane, dont je ne me souviens pratiquement pas, pour être parfaitement honnête :).

~5.0.

Numérique et en ligne, dites-vous ?!?!

Encore une fois, la vie et son sens de l'ironie... À moins que ce ne soit qu'une question de timing... Qu'importe, 2 petits comics numériques pas mal intéressants; drôles, simples mais entamant une réflexion passionnante sur les nouvelles formes possibles pour les comics offertes par cette fameuse 'aire numérique'. Guess I'll take a peek at this McCloud's take on it all (here).




about DIGITAL COMICS by ~Balak01 on deviantART


Part 2 (with a hilarious parody of a famous flick :P)


ABOUt about DIGITAL COMICS by ~Balak01 on deviantART

That's Fscking Great Work!!!

Saw this on Warren's site, so I'll simply link his post.
And to beef up their counters: Purchase Brothers.

And I definitely agree with Warren: if this is anywhere close to the truth, and I'm pretty sure it is, this is exactly what I've been babbling about to whoever would listen for the past, omfg, 10 years: the film industry's future bottleneck will mostly be distribution (read: making money), production itself being "democratized" by all those neat computerized gadgets (c'mon, take the bait... lol)... Ok, ok, I might not have been the steady babbler, but hey, I don't speak of cinematic technological ontologies and their impact on the narrative paradigm of fiction film (just shoot me, someone, please, shoot!) that constantly nor often... Well, not anymore anyway... And anyway, the simple point is: movies, like so many other things, might be tremendously modified by what I'll lazily call the "digital era". Shit, who can tell me with a straight face they are NOT yet modified by the "digital era"? Raise your hand if you watched a movie made prior to 2000 in the last, o say, six months? How'd it feel? Half-kidding, but still, half-kidding... And look, the industry has fallen again in the "we-need-to-invent-some-unique-thingy-to-save-our-faltering-business": 3D's back baby!! Funny how 3D happens to be the cornerstone of computer video games, and, well, personal home computers nowadays even...

Et je me suis (déjà) égaré... So much can be said on this, really... And I have managed to be somewhat all over the place :P!

The Day The Earth Stood Still

I guess I didn't hate it. Perhaps part of it is because I am such a sucker for sci-fi thingies... Still, I have the feeling this story could have been, could be so much more. Et ce même si (et peut-être même surtout parce que) j'adore le non-verbal et le non-dit, le pouvoir de suggestion de l'art en général, de tout art du cadre en particulier, et du cinéma en l'occurrence... Malgré cela et tout le reste, je maintiens une fascinante idée de voir cette histoire dans les mains d'un Dan Simmons... Oh wait, it's already been there :P... Check it out if you like sci-fi and haven't read it yet (I sooooo wish I were you, o hypothetical reader who could cherish this masterpiece for the very first time - damn, just thinking about it, I consider re-reading it again :D!!!). You owe it to yourself and the genre we so dearly and geekishly love. Seriously ;-).

Tout de même, je vais probablement regarder l'original, et essayer de l 'apprécier (a certain comics shopkeeper might want my head if I don't :P), mais la trame narrative prise par The Day The Earth Stood Still me semble, at the end of the day, un tantinet surannée... ?!

~4.5.

Madagascar 2

lol, i guess... Pretty much "nuff said"... lol. Pretty funny catapult launch; those penguins are just hilarious :D.

~5.0.

Bangkok Dangerous

Not.That.Good. Me suis même presque endormi... Mais en y repensant aujourd'hui, je dois admettre que c'est une film que je voulais vraiment aimer... dunno how to explain... It has some stylish concerns; it takes on an interesting thematic, some very nice subplots... But all in all, it lacks what better flicks in that genre (read: Le Professionnel) had tons of; mastery and pacing... Still, almost tempted me to watch the original... Cause, yeah it is one of those "new-and-improved" 21st century remakes, ie done by the original filmmakers, with Hollywood money instead of the local pennies (think Funny Games, by Haneke... Mais à bien y songer, Vanilla Sky et The Departed tombent presque dans cette mouvance...). Here's a flick that could bave been great, but is instead barely passable.

"I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody."

~5.5.

Obamamania

Hail the Savior!!!
lol

I just like the looks of it, to be perfectly honest... Here's (one 0f) mine:


ObamiconMe
And a pretty funny fail: FAIL.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

I wish I were 15 years old again. Or better yet, around 16-17, when you're a senior, feeling the world spreading languishingly at your feet, nothing stopping you from, well, nothing really, even dreams and delusions... Anywho, that's the feeling Nick and Norah gives its audience., Well Yours Truly, at least ;-).

All in all, a decent, simple, straightforward teen flick/romantic comedy.

IMDB

~5.2.

Hummmm... Ironie, quand tu nous prend...

C'est drôle la vie parfois... Je me posais justement ce genre de questions la semaine dernière... J'ai été naguère jadis partisan et pseudo-apôtre du postmodernisme... And I just realized a couple days ago, it has been ten years since I kinda preached postmodernist babbles, and even then, it was already outdated, sorta. Sort of always been inherently outdated if you ask me, but you didn't ;-).

Anyway, sans même chercher (God bless intarwebs - ce qui joue exactement dans l'argumentaire de ces altermodernistes), je suis tombé sur une intéressante ébauche, je suppose...

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/altermodern/manifesto.shtm
http://newcurator.com/2009/02/altermodernism-a-primer/

transHUMAN or, Opening Up My Blogging Horizons

Ok, ok, I really believe it's time this blog gets a little broader. I love movies, but I also love reading and watching TV Shows and going to live shows, and so on, and I do have some things to say about those... sometimes... So here we go, this blog is now a true thoughts repository... Sort of a diary, basically...

First off the bat, Jonathan Hickman's transHUMAN.


That guy has an obvious storyteller's talent, and the greatest and simplest ideas, working its way towards complex issues, with a couple goodies for uber geeks such as yours truly. his first mini-series, The Nightly News, gave me shivers and reminded me of the impact Fight Club's premice had on me... I actually was waiting for some art work with the same order of magnitude. While closing TNN, and pondering it for days on end afterwards, I had to admit this was the work I'd been looking for, hoping for since Fight Club was released, which is to say about 10 years... Crazy.

Thereafter, of course, I became a huge fan of Hickman, but somewhat unfortunately, the guy is mostly just starting... So, once again, I had to wait. And wait I did... Until transHUMAN's trade finally hit the shelves, a week ago. Man o man, do Hickman, and his artist (JM Ringuet, great great "painter" style) deliver... It's deep while seemingly simple, it tackles one if not the issue of the 3rd millenium, it's smart and savvy and funny, and, bottom line, so well-written... Abso-fscking-lutely worth entering one of those smelly geeks den and subjects oneself to those inevitable crooked looks, and perhaps even a comments or three, to grab that book. Seriously. It's all part of the diegesis, really ;-).

'... if you're reading this, take my advice, put the comic down and step away from the shelf - because it's not everyday that you get smarter from not reading a book.'

- Dr. Anton Rebere

'Congratulations, you're forever stuck in neutral, manmeat. We'll be replacing you soon.'

Tarped... Battlestar Galactica

Sometimes, I just tarp myself into a tv show that's not that worth it. Done that with, lets see now, Dark Angel must have been the first one... Then, something like 24, post-season 1, then Stargate: Atlantis... Probably some other, unmentionable ones, such as the O.C.. Yeah. No comments please. lol.

Latest addition to this list is Battlestar Galactica, a somewhat decent Sci-Fi Channel remake of the old 70s series. As is often the case with that kinda show, the plot is ok, but pretty thin, the tentive mythos is lame, lazy and soft, much of the effects are pretty bad and the whole thing requires a hell of a lot of suspension of disbelief. But, I am what I am, a geek sooooo fond of SF it's bordering on the unhealthy. So, I have to at least take a look at those amped up tv shows. And what better moment than this television no man's land of late (all my favorites are either done or on hiatus 'til Super Bowl XLIII's history) to take quick peeks at these shows. And there I got tarped, by the smallest of things, as is often the case with me :P... It must be during the first ep, really, that we see the fame whiteboard with a single 5-digit number handwritten there: 51 thousand-and-change survivors of the human race left in the entire universe. Now, the show can be lame and utterly stupid at times (Starbuck finds a dead Cylon ship, climbs aboard by digging a hole in the hull then patching with her coat... And she reaches deep space like that?? Yeah, that makes sense for sure...), but that kinda of postulate just grabs me whole... It gets to me, and I end up identifiying... Even though the subplots sometimes have bullet holes so wide in them you could probably fit the whole solar system...

Oh, still, they do manage to satisfy this unconditional Dune fanboy to some extent: the Cylon, the Machine Enemy, having developed a 'humanoid' breeding program, use human women in the very same way the Bene Tleilax do in Dune... Oh yeah, you got that right, they have their very own equivalent of axlotl tanks :|. And we see them... Though in a very sanitized fashion if you ask me... It is still quite intuitively repulsive...

Still, now I feel tarped as I can't let go of the show without seeing it to the end... Nerf me.