John Carter (of Mars)

As usual, I haven’t read the book. Or books. I suppose it’s kind of shameful given that Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series is basically the reference for all sci-fi/fantasy that came after it, and I consider myself such a fan of the stuff. I do really like Frank Frazetta’s illustrations of it but that’s not really good enough. I know so very little about the real deal; but that could be for the best, as it made the movie that much newer to me even though everything in it has been tread so repeatedly in other stories.

It’s simple enough I guess. This guy John is a badass, gets accidentally transported to Mars, meets some aliens and an attractive lady, jumps really high and beats the bad guys. As usual the jumping really high part was what appealed to me the most. I didn’t care that much about all the backstory stuff, which includes a shadowy society of immortals who think they control the universe and all that. They were a little interesting but their admitted indifference kind of made them less menacing.

The best aspect of the movie is the visuals. It’s just really well put together. The alien race, the Tharks, while sometimes looking a bit cartoony are really quite believable; perhaps a bit moreso that the blue cat people from Avatar. Some of John’s jumping action is a bit wobbly but it’s still plenty fun to watch. I saw it in 3D, and it wasn’t bad, but I think sitting near the side of the theater degraded it a bit. I was seeing double sometimes.

Next up is the acting; I can’t really find fault with the majority of the cast. There are some damn fine actors in there, including McNulty from The Wire, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony from Rome, and Willem Dafoe as one of the Tharks’ voices. They all do a great job with the dialogue they’re given. Taylor Kitsch is… not great. They could have done better. Lynn Collins as the Martian princess is a much more enjoyable casting.

The dialogue often seems a bit tired, which is to be expected given that the source material has been used so thoroughly already, but I think if the writers had taken it in a different, more pulpy direction it could have been better. I really loved the funny bits, and wish there were more of them.

Reading reviews beforehand may have colored my opinion a bit, but I think the majority is right. It’s a very fun, well-made, but hollow movie.

Rampart

Not a whole lot to say about this one. I saw it because Woody Harrelson rocks and Ebert said it was good. Sadly I was somewhat disappointed given the premise of a “bad” cop dishing out his own justice, hearkening to Bad Lieutenant (remake), which I enjoyed quite a bit. This is a bit more realistic, sad, and just a bit difficult to watch. The camera work can be pretty annoying with all the hand-cam stuff and unconventional movements/angles. Woody’s performance is on point, and he does muster up a bunch of pity for his plight, but it’s also quite apparent that what he’s doing is largely wrong, which given the seriousness of the thing didn’t make the experience all that enjoyable for me.

It’s definitely an interesting film with lots of good acting. It felt longer than it was though which is a bad sign.

Concert Review: Die Antwoord at 930 Club, 12 Feb 2012

Pitchfork’s recent review of Die Antwoord’s new second album, Ten$ion, is pretty scathing. The 4.2/10 rating is accompanied by words mostly going on about the emptiness of the lyrics and failed attempts at irony or relevance. In a purely analytical sense, I agree with pretty much everything in the piece. However, much as with the first album, I can’t help but love it. I had to see this sordid display in person.

The night began pretty lamely. I got to 930 club about an hour after opening due to metro track work and a bit of a late start, but it seems I didn’t miss anything. The opening act was some DJ who I don’t even care to look up because all he did was play samples of hip-hop and EDM songs I’d never heard. I’m just not accustomed to that and didn’t enjoy it at all. It didn’t help that he was on stage for another one and a half hours, and then Die Antwoord didn’t come on stage until 10. Of course once they finally showed up, it made the wait well worthwhile.

One of the more entertaining parts of the trio’s presentation is the visual aspect, which until now I only really knew from their videos. I love Yolandi’s freakish sex appeal and Ninja’s wiry, nerdy aggression, and the many faces of DJ Hi-Tek give the band a bit of mystery to their façade. All these elements were on intense display last night. The two front-people went through several flashy outfits throughout their set, and their movements were constantly energetic.

As for the music, it pretty much as powerful as on the albums. Although I kind of fail to see the point of including the DJ aside from maintaining the character, there were some slight differences here and there. Of course Yolandi and Ninja couldn’t replicate their vocal performances perfectly but they did with tons of vigor and the volume made up for the loss in production quality. Yolandi’s voice in particular often brought back memories of my last concert experience with Blood Ceremony’s flautist.

I think they mostly stuck to songs from Ten$ion, but they did hit a bunch of the great ones from $O$ and ended the show with Beat Boy and Enter the Ninja, which were both pretty bangin’. It was about an hour all told, which was alright with me as it allowed me to catch the metro before it closed.

This was my first rave show, and my second hip-hop show, although my first was MC Lars so I don’t think it really counts. Definitely a new experience for me. I didn’t really participate much aside from a bit of head-banging (what else is a metalhead to do?), but I think I got the drift. Probably not going to attend many similar things. Unless it’s Die Antwoord again.

The Muppets / Chronicle

Thanks to my parents I grew up watching stuff like The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, so while I didn’t actually see much of the Muppet Show, I still have a pretty good nostalgia level for these characters. However, after seeing some of the later films like Muppets in Space or whatever, I think some of that wore off, and kind of preempted any interest I would have had in this one. So I didn’t see it until last night, because doing stuff with friends is fun. I got to see it at the Arlington Draft House n’ Cinema which was pretty neat. Ate some chicken.

I’ll cut to the quick. It’s a good, entertaining movie that relies very heavily on nostalgia and cameos. The whole concept of the thing is of course getting the gang back together and all that, which is fine, but it’s missing something that the first films had. There’s also the new muppet character who is having an identity crisis in tandem with his somehow human brother played by Jason Segal, but even though it starts the real main storyline it eventually seems to become unimportant.

It was definitely fun to see all the cool people in it though, and as I said, it’s entertaining. Lots of funny bits. I like Amy Adams. Chicken tastes good.

I only started hearing about Chronicle a month or so ago, I think. Kept myself from watching and trailers. Similarly to my experience with The Skin I Live In, I went into it knowing very little; all I knew was it features some kids/teens who somehow gained some sort of telekinetic powers. I’m totally down with that. I’ll try not to go too far in depth on this.

It is in fact about three high-school seniors who find something weird in a cave and then gain the power to move things with their minds, among other things. The rest of the film is an examination of how having this power affects their lives and friendships without getting into any real sort of superhero nonsense. It’s all very believable and emotionally effective. There were some bits (thankfully not too many) that resonated pretty hard with me. Some of that watery stuff came out of my eye-holes near the end.

If you liked Heroes before it sucked, enjoy Misfits, or saw something to like in Kick-Ass or Super, then you should definitely see this movie. If you’ve ever dreamed of flying, you should see this movie. If you are a human, you should probably go see it. What I’m saying here is that it’s really good.

The Grey

Here’s yet another movie that was advertised in such a way as to cheapen the content and make it more appealing to the broader audience of people who just want to see Liam Neeson punch some wolves. That said, I don’t know if it would be doing as well as it is if they’d gone the more honest route. It’s been getting great reviews from pretty much everybody though so that’s a good pull if the general public actually pays attention to that.

Even though the trailer is a lie, The Grey does employ some common horror/action movie cliches, such as plane crashes and a bunch of people getting picked off one by one; but that’s just superficial to the real soul of the film. It’s about this guy played by Liam Neeson who’s pretty much ready to give up on everything, but in the face of a force outside of his control, his human survival instinct kicks in and makes him a leader. The rest of the cast is far from the incidental cannon fodder of elimination-style horror movies too; they all seem like real people rather than one-note stereotypes, and even the ones with the most limited screen time leave a lasting impression.

Lately I’ve grown to love action movies with a lot of breathing room, e.g. Drive, and this is definitely one of those. It’s hard to run in the snow and the wolves don’t even show up that much anyway. Much of the movie is just discussion of how doomed these people are, and it’s great. The action scenes are quite good too.

It’s a very human movie. Humanistic I’d say. There’s a somewhat pronounced element of religious questioning and relying on oneself instead of a distant god, and it really works quite well without going too far for semi-religious people to accept, I think. Neeson’s descriptions of his idea of what happens when you die seem starkly poetic.

It’s definitely not a perfect movie though. The whole thing with the wolves couldn’t really be done right without real wolves, and the animatronic/cg solution they came up with is just kind of embarrassing in parts. That said, the whole thing with people getting upset about the portrayal of the wolves as unstoppable death machines is pretty darn wrong. Neeson’s character explains several times that they are basically in the animal’s den and are therefore seen as much more of a threat than normal.

It’s good. You might not want to see it right now if you’ve got a flight coming up though.

Haywire

I think I saw the trailer for this in theaters twice, and both times my reaction was “Hm. Maybe.” It had the trappings of yet-another-action-movie but felt a little bit different; it seemed to have some of the personality of The Bourne Identity, which is something I value very highly. It turns out it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh, who most recently put out Contagion, which I didn’t like that much, but he’s also made a whole bunch of very good movies. You’ve probably seen a bunch of them. I think this is his first pure action movie, and he made a great choice for the star; former mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano.

It’s a very simple story. Mallory Kane (Gina) is a contract badass, and through an unfortunate turn of events she gets betrayed and marked for death. Her story is told partially by her to a random guy from a diner while driving his car in order to not die. That’s about it, and that’s cool. Simple stories can be great as long as they’re well executed and the rest of the film is made with attention to quality, and I think that’s been done here.

Gina is not an accomplished actress, but Soderbergh did a great job of making her look like one as well as he could. She doesn’t have a lot of lines. Her acting is largely physical, much like Ryan Gosling’s performance in Drive, except there isn’t much in the way of subtlety here. She just kicks ass all over the place. The ass-kicking is often filmed in ways your don’t often see in action films these days; wide, steady shots, few quick cuts, and lots of pretty complex fight choreography. Even the gun battles are given an almost panoramic feel. It’s just nice.

The score I’ve been told sounds a lot like Ocean’s Eleven, but of course I don’t remember that at all. I probably liked it though, because I liked it here. It’s very jazzy, at times sounding like something from a James Bond movie. I don’t remember anything particularly orchestral anywhere. Really cool atmosphere.

It certainly doesn’t hurt to have such an awesome cast too, with the meteoric Michael Fassbender, the recently-redeemed (in my eyes) Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglass, and even Channing Tatum in his first good role ever. Everyone performs admirably, and much less annoyingly than in Contagion.

Really the only bad thing I can say about this movie is that Gina’s not that great at delivering her lines convincingly 100% of the time. She’s just not really an experienced actress. Damn fun to watch though.

Concert Review: Ghost at The Rock N’ Roll Hotel, 2012-01-19

Ancient Wisdom hails from Austin, Texas, and in keeping with the rest of the night, play a pretty hard-to-pin-down sort of sludge/rock/doom. They were definitely interesting to watch as the frontman is also the drummer, but doesn’t sit on a throne; rather, he hits the bass drum with his left hand and the rest of the stuff with his right, producing a pretty slow, tribal sort of beat. As is the case with most drummer-singers his vocal stylings are a bit rough, especially since he’s opted out of the growls. They rock pretty hard though.

Blood Ceremony was a real treat. They’re not the first female-fronted metal band I’ve seen live but definitely the prettiest one. Also the most interesting due to the flute. Put that thing through a PA and it pierces your very brain in twain. They play traditional doom, very Black Sabbath influenced from what I could tell. All four of the charismatic Canadians seem to be very capable on their instruments and laid down a ton of gripping riffage. I’ll be checking them out further.

Ghost of course was the reason I bought the ticket. They were the breakout act of the year in 2011, brought to most people’s attention by the main dude behind Darkthrone. I hear them described as Mercyful Fate-like all the time but I consider their Opus Eponymous to be miles better than anything I’ve heard from them; King Diamond’s voice is something I just can’t get into. Also their songs are just devilishly catchy. Their stage presence is incredibly entertaining what with all their silly costumes and antics, and “Papa” really has a handle on interacting with the audience while maintaining the character. It’s really like watching a play with face-melting sounds coming out of it than attending a metal concert. One of the highlights of their set was their cover of Here Comes the Sun, which I expected might be an encore but ended up somewhere in the middle; the actual encore was strangely omitted.

It was a fantastic night. The venue was nice enough, a bit smaller than Black Cat or Sonar, but the stage was pretty well elevated and the sound was good for the first two bands; Ghost’s mix sounded pretty muddy for a lot of their set unfortunately.