Christmas is coming ( and so is Avatar…)

If you’d ask me to describe the last few weeks in movies, my one word would probably be Frustranxious. Not the least due to the fact that this week James Cameron’s AVATAR was screened to the select few, including some of the press that I frequently read. It looks like the film is actually going to deliver, unlike recent films such as Wolverine Origins and Terminator Salvation. As you know, I really can’t wait to see Avatar, so the combination of knowing that others have already seen it and the prospect of seeing it later this month, makes me feel frustrated and anxious all nat the same time.

Not to worry though, there have been more than enough cool movies to get me through the last couple of weeks. Traditionally, the Halloween and Thanksgiving season is an odd box for me, because I don’t enjoy the horror films that usually get screened during Halloween. But then again, around Thanksgiving some early Oscar contenders start showing up.  The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up in the Air fall under that category this year. Although therein once again lies the frustrating part, as those films rarely get screened in their original versions here in Germany. My hope is to catch up on most of them once I get back to Utrecht.

At the moment my only real opportunity to watch newly released films occurs when I go on my bi-weekly trip to France to visit my girlfriend. She lives in Strasbourg, which coincidentally houses the largest cinema in Europe. She (girlfriend) prefers supporting the smaller venues, but it’s still a great theater to have in town. Although I’m currently pissed off at them for showing Zombieland exclusively in French. What the hell is a zombie in French btw?

It was during one of said trips that we got the chance to sit down and watch Twilight: New Moon and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Both very entertaining flicks, albeit in different ways. Honestly I don’t really feel like commenting on the whole twilight thing anymore, as I feel that everything has already been said during the last couple of weeks. To be honest, I’m sort of Twi-tired by now. Plus, considering that the next film is only some 6 months away, I’m saving my breath. Though if you want to read my review of the first twilight movie (which I kinda enjoyed) then click right here on this link.

Dr. Parnassus was a movie I had on my to-see list, so I was glad when I finally got the opportunity to watch Heath Ledger’s official last performance. (Though he will obviously be remembered for another great role.) It’s a wacky and zany film, sorta reminiscent of the older Terry Pratchett novels. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but then again it’s a bit unbalanced and loosely paced. Ironically Terry Gilliam’s stagy way of directing, works during all the dream sequences, but falls flat during some of the more emotional scenes. When I first left the theater I felt amazed by all the cool stuff I had just seen on screen, but by now I’m already starting to doubt how good the movie really is. I think I might want to revisit it just to get a closer look at all the wacky stuff that’s going on in that film. But if you have the chance to go and see it, be sure to check it out, because it’s easily one of the most bizarre films released this year.

What else have I been watching? Lots really and definitely too much to go into detail here. So let me give you guys a short list. (Note though that this isn’t exclusively stuff I watched this week.)

Here we go: Apocalypse Now (Only until the surfing scene), The Simpsons (Check out the series), Princess Mononoke, Oldboy (watched half with the girlfriend), Língua, vidas em português, Ed Wood, The Return of the King (back in theatres!), The International (it sucked), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Check out my review), etc.. That’s all I can remember right now.

So that’s it for me this week. I just bought tickets to go home for Christmas, which means that I’m leaving fo r Holland next Friday. Expect to hear for from me though, once I get there. Once I get there I should also have the opportunity to meet up with some of you guys. So get in touch if you feel like having a good time.

So long!
Julian

The Simpsons Revisited.

First of all. Let me admit that I am an absolute Simpsons N00b. Everybody has one of those things they should have seen but never got around to watching it. For me one of those is the Simpsons. I still enjoy he hell out of South Park, Family Guy and likewise cartoon shows on tv. However the Simpsons is really the one that made them all happen. That’s why I’m sitting down now to go back to Season 1 and watch all the episodes from back to back. My goal is to do a little write-up for every one of them so that you guys can enjoy this journey with me if you feel so inclined. So let’s get started!

Episode 1: Simpsons Roasting on an open fire.

The episode that started it all!

The year 1989 to be precise. Coincidentally the same year I was born. I however have thus far not become either part of the pop culture canon or one of the staples of the 90s. But by now the lovable yellow family has not only become the longest running cartoon serial in the history of television, it is also quite frankly the most recognizable cartoon family ever created. With the passing of time, the show and grew a lot more polished and ever more elaborate. Now season 21 forms the latest addition to the series. For this write-up however, I want to take a step into a time machine and reconsider where it all started almost 20 years ago. I hope you’ll enjoy taking the journey with me and re-live (or experience for the first time) the foundations on which an epic tv show was created.

Plot:
In the first Christmas Special of the Simpsons, the whole family is introduced for the first time. We meet Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Also some characters that will become frequent visitors to the series are introduced, such as neighbour Flanders, bartender Moe, friend Barn and Mr. Burns.
In this episode, Christmas is a coming and Marge wants to buy presents for Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Little does she know that Homer’s Christmas bonus has been cut for the year, and to make matters worse; all their savings were spent de-lasering a tattoo from Bart’s arm.  In a futile attempt to earn some Christmas money, Homer secretly takes a job as Santa’s helper.  But once social security, employment insurance, Santa training and Christmas club membership are deducted, he is left with a measly 13 dollars. As a final resort, Homer bets all his money on a dog race and subsequently loses it all. All seems lost, until he finds the dog roaming the streets, discarded after a loss too many. Homer takes the dog home and thus: Christmas is saved!

Episode Highlights:
-Homer, Lisa and Maggie repeatedly tapping the bandage on Bart’s arm.
-Hearing and seeing Homer’s yelling, whining and finger-wiggling for the very first time
-Basically everything! It’s what started it all!

Trivia:
-    Gwen Stefani’s brother worked on the first episode, before the band No Doubt became hugely popular.
-    Initially, there was a discussion whether Homer could be shown stealing a Christmas tree. Considering the antics of later episodes, this now seems laughable.
-    The Simpsons first had financial troubles to ground them in reality, unlike any other sitcom family. (That rimes…)

Review: The Hurt Locker

Occasionally the real world provides a great hook for me to introduce my reviews. Generally this only occurs once every couple of months. Though considering the amount of movies I tend to watch, the frequency of such a coincidence is starting to rapidly increase. As is also the case with the movie The Hurt Locker, which I shall be reviewing today in the light of Obama’s decision yesterday to send in another surge of 30.000 troops to the country of Afghanistan.
But don’t worry. I won’t be using this review to get myself into anything political. I’m just plain lazy and as I have said before I’m only mauling the politics into an introductory segment to get the readers attention. Do I have your attention yet? Good.

The Hurt Locker.
That is the outlandish sounding title for Kathryn Bigalow’s new war movie, starring Jeremy Renner in the role of SSgt. William James, who from now on I will simply refer to as The Bomb Expert. Because that is exactly what he is: a soldier trained specifically to discover and dismantle any kind of explosive devices used by enemy militants during the frequent hostilities of the Afghan rebuilding process. As you can imagine, this is no job for the faint of heart.

However, it is not only the job that is grueling and demanding.  For what the viewers get to watch is equally nerve-racking. And I mean that in a good way. Already during the first 5 minutes of the film, we get to experience in slow motion that the life of a bomb expert may be thrilling, but certainly not very prosperous. A.k.a. having your skull squashed inside the helmet of a (protective) moon-suit.

Though this may seem very graphic, the true nature of the intensity comes from the many scenes in which the tension is strung incredibly high, as the bomb team find themselves getting into life-threatening situations almost on a daily basis. Soon we realize that this lifestyle leaves no one unharmed, as the bomb expert becomes increasingly reckless and challenged by the absurdity of the injustice of life and death. The audience soon realizes that this man is an adrenaline junkie.

Sadly though it is the character of the bomb expert who simultaneously makes and breaks the film. He is a wonderful anti-hero who we love to hate, yet still can’t refrain from holding our breath when he cuts the final wire to a 150-kilo car bomb. But sadly, there is absolutely no character development in the film. Yes, the guy grows increasingly reckless as we see him going unprotected and laughing into situations ranging from dessert shoot-outs to walking between land-mines, but at the end of the movie I couldn’t help to think by myself that all of the scenes could theoretically have been viewed in random order, as they didn’t serve to build either a character development or a coherent plot structure.

Perhaps it was the intent of the filmmaker to demonstrate the futility of our war-efforts and the need to place grand-narratives in the daily life of a soldier? But as a film it certainly needed a bit more than just high-tension situations and the frequent and violent action-scenes.

However I do not want this review to appear solely as a critique of the film. For there are unquestionably many things to be observed which are very praiseworthy. From a technical aspect the film is a breath of fresh air, as the shoot was filmed on location (not Afghanistan) and the film subsequently feels very realistic, gritty and vibrant, unlike most Hollywood movies. To make a comparison, The Hurt Locker is a lot more realistic than say Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies. Plus, in a genre that has been suffering to produce any modern-classics, even though the conflict has been going on for 8 years now, The Hurt Locker is undoubtedly a step in the right direction and coincidentally a very fun action movie as well.

Conclusion: The eclectic mix of pulpy characters and gritty war-realism makes for one of the most fun and interesting war movies in the last couple of years. Though strongly flawed by lack of plot and subsequent character development, the film should be enjoyable to critical film viewers and the general public alike.

RATING: Full Price

Watch the Official trailer:

Three Reasons why AVATAR is going to be great!!

Hey guys,

Considering the continuous hyping of James Cameron’s soon-to-be AVATAR franchise, many people are starting to get sick of anything-bluish alien looking. Admittedly, the hype machine around the upcoming 3D feature is enormous and it seems like every day there’s some new featurette explaining to us why this is going to be the cinematic equivalent of the second coming of Christ.

When I first started writing about AVATAR on the now infamous avatar-day, I was still slightly skeptical, considering the very small amount of footage that had been released and the overall uninformed anticipation of the masses that were lucky enough to see the preview in 3D theatres. My friends and me had continuous discussions about whether it was something worth getting excited about, or just the latest marketing ploy to get our christmas-spendings.

After seeing all the recent stuff that has been coming out on the web, I think I can now say that I am convinced that this movie is at the least going to be very interesting, and here’s why.

1. Cameron has done this before.

Noticed how James Cameron keeps blabbing about how revolutionary all his new techniques are going to be and how we’ve never seen anything like it before? Honestly, if it were Zack Snyder or anybody else speaking I wouldn’t believe them for a second. But with Cameron, I’m inclined to giving him the benefit of the doubt. It’s not like he hasn’t pulled it off before. Terminator 2 is now considered revolutionary at best and a milestone in the history of special effects at least. Considering where we’re at wit cinema nowadays, Cameron seems like the perfect guy to issue in a new era, just like he did with Terminator 2, and arguably also with Titanic. (At least from a technical perspective.)

2. WETA-Workshop.

AVATAR is basically a classic science-fiction fantasy tale, set in a fantasy setting with its own very distinct ancient mythology and history. Considering that Pandora is going to be the central space of action, the amount of detail in creating not only the landscape, but also the cultural background, is going to be paramount to making it in any way convincing. So great CGI really isn’t the only thing that will make this pace come to life. Sure, realistic lighting-effects and flora and fauna add to the general stunning atmosphere of the planet, but what is really going to matter is the design of the cultural stuff. That’s the weapons and any kind of technology, art or other cultural artifacts that the Na’vi use. Once again, I’m hugely optimistic about this part. If WETA workshop and Weta Digital has come to be know for anything, then it’s the quality and passion they put into all their projects. Seeing Richard Taylor exhibiting some of the great weaponry they had made for the movie, I couldn’t help thinking about what they did for the Lord of the Rings and what kind of work and passion that required. I am extremely curious to see them do something sci-fi, now that they’ve proven their worth with great effects in King Kong, LOTR and the Narnia movies. (And that’s not even including Meet the Feebles, Xena etc.)

3. The Insane amount of detail.

As mentioned before, the designs for this movie are looking incredible. What’s more, Cameron even hired a linguist specially instructed to create an alien language that would be as realistic as they get. His name is Paul M. Frommer and he used about a dozen words already invented by Cameron to construct a thousand word fully functional language for the Na’vi. Reckon you’ve spent enough time learning Klingon? Why not give the Na’vi language a try?

Obviously this is only one small example of the crazy amount of detail that’s been put into the making of this film, but considering that this has always been Cameron’s dream project, I really couldn’t be happier. Don’t we always discuss how cool it would be if a film-maker would have all the money and potential to make a truly original and inspired movie, well that could potentially be what Cameron is going to accomplish here. Of course there is going to be loads of hype, but that’s what you have to expect considering how difficult it is to see a movie nowadays without it being either a brand name or a recognizable sequel/prequel. Let’s face it, AVATAR isn’t necessarily an easy sell, but if there’s anybody I’d bet my money on to pull it off, then it’s James Cameron.

By now some of you guys may think that this is only the money hat talking, but seriously try and consider the points I just made. Could AVATAR actually be as groundbreaking as promised? Considering how stale the movie-industry has become, it’s entirely possible that AVATAR just gets dismissed as being too expensive to be worth the effort. But who knows, change comes gradually, and this new movie could just as well be the next best thing that drags us into the new decennium. Personally I have become very interested, and hope that my expectations won’t be completely obliterated come December. Although, whatever happens, AVATAR will surely be remembered as one of the most anticipated movies of 2009.

Cheers and thanks for reading!

Julian

Why Paranormal Activity is not ‘just a movie’.

Hey guys, Julian here to fill ya in about a little movie called Paranormal Activity.

Now I’ guessing that most of you have heard at least a little something about the ongoing internet-phenomenon that is Paranormal Activity. I mean, even if you don’t enjoy wetting your pants in a stuffy theater full of screaming girlfriends and their male companions acting all tough, there is way more to this movie than first meets the eye. But before I get ahead of myself I think I should quickly give the ignorant among you the lowdown of what this movie is all about. (Hey there’s nothing wrong with being ignorant, who gives a f*ck about movies anyway!)

Paranormal Activity, which was very well catch-phrased with the slogan ‘The scariest movie you have ever seen!!’, is actually a super low-budget independent horror production. The movie is shot all with handy-cam, which might have seemed original back in the nineties but by now has become general scare-fare used by way too many films. (Rec., Quarantine, Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead etc.) My personal opinion is that this stuff could only catch on because of mass-pirating and watching movies at home, because more than ten minutes of the swooping handy cam motion on the big screen is enough to make any landlubber spill out his guts in the movie-theater. But I digress.

The movie chronicles (what an epic verb!) the story of a couple that experiences some paranormal activity in the bedroom. (No pun intended), and subseqently the boyfriend sets up a hidden camera to observe what goes on whilst they lie asleep. If you wanna know the rest of the story then go see the movie when it comes out on the 26 of November (NL), but the general outline of the plot should be clear by now.

So why am I writing about a horror movie in the first place, you may ask?

Have you ever heard the quote ‘An enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine‘?

You get what I’m going at now right?… ’cause this movie kicked the bujeezus out of SAW VI this Halloween. You heard it, Paranormal Activity kicked SAW right from the top spot of the trick-r-treating box-office season. Something many people considered impossible was done by the most unexpected of movies. Now if that isn’t a Hollywood dream story. Or to put it more delicately, David killed Goliath…but how did he do it?

The Internet!!!! (Insert dramatic drum rolls)

Paranormal Activity’s success is a classic example of the tremendous potential of both a good marketing scheme and the powers that is the Internet. Last year we saw something similar happen with The Dark Knight where mass viral advertising was used to creat Internet buzz. And we all know what happened with that movie. And now P.A. is taking the grass-root element of social networking to the next level. Basically what happened was that once the movie was finished, it got shelved for a couple of years due to the studio not wanting to go for mass distribution. Something similar happened recently to the movie Trick-Or-Treat, and that movie was also saved by such websites as Twitter and the festival-scene. So, P.A. was finally dusted off and starting playing in only a very select amount of theatres in the US. However, the movie was getting such great word of mouth that more and more people started wanting to see it.

This is where Twitter comes in. The studio created an account stating that if enough people would demand the movie to be screened locally, the film would be brought to their town. The result; Millions of people tweeted that they supported the film; it went nationwide and subsequently stormed the box-office charts. Note that whereas most Hollywood productions start out their opening weekend in the Top 5 and then every week slowly retreat down the chart, this movie did the exact opposite, something that only happens VERY rarely.

For the industry, this is big!! If you’re a studio, then of course you want your movie to make big money. That’s why they spend millions of dollars on marketing campaigns, because if one of those big blockbusters isn’t picked up by a mass audience, the studio is gonna be in big financial trouble. The downside of the way the movie-industry works these days is that almost no risks are taken, simply because one big mistake can mean the end of a company. That’s why studios such as FOX, who have been making shitty films still get to keep their big spot, because they make movies that are going to appeal to the general audience no matter what the quality. Another great example is the SAW franchise. Wanna know why it’s really called torture porn? Probably because they’ve got a poor cow somewhere in the basement that they’re MILKING TO DEATH!

Saw costs way less than your average Blockbuster (the last one was 11 Million), but people keep flocking back to the theatres every Halloween because it’s the equivalent of Starbucks coffee, recognizable and dull.

The cool thing about Paranormal Activity is:
1: It’s showing how powerful the Internet can be if used properly.
2: It’s showing studios that audiences are willing to pay cash for original films. (And not sequels)

Sadly though, what effect this is going to have in the near future is still unclear. One the one-hand things are looking good with films such as District 9 making a ton of profit and still being awesomely impressive even though there’s next to no budget involved. On the other hand, films like James Cameron’s upcoming AVATAR 3D movie is going to be the most expensive movie ever made (500 Mill). I think an awful lot depends on how that movie is going to perform. If it makes a good profit, studios will be encouraged to continue pushing out huge hyperbolic movies. If not, well than maybe there is some hope left for smaller movies getting picked up by bigger studios.

And what is SAW doing? Well, at the moment they’re probably still licking their wounds. But this week they already confirmed that the inevitable SAW VII is in production and that the future lies in 3D. An act of desperation according to me, as 3D is only going to make the movie more expensive to produce, and frankly the cheapness was always the whole point of SAW. We’ll just have to wait and see.

As for now, I’m raising my glass to Paranormal Activity!!! Skoal!!

Julian is back!

Hey guys, long time no see. Wow it’s really been a hell of a lot of time since I last posted anything here. To be precise, I think it’s been about half a year. Not that any of you nerdy dudes shed any tears for me, but it’s still a nice feeling posting here again. I gotta admit I did miss posting here sometimes, especially when a particularly awful or wonderful film came along. It’s just not the same, spewing out your hatred of Wolverine to your girlfriend. Poor thing, she’s a real superhero for putting up with me sometimes.

But it’s not like I just left you guys for no apparent reason. Oh no, I have a bag full of varyingly legitimate excuses for having put the site on the backburner for a while. First of all the most apparent reason; I MOVED TWICE DURING HALF A YEAR!!!. When I started out writing for the three mighty F’s (Filmfreakfiles) I was living in a little student apartment in Portugal. Last February though I moved back to Holland to live with my girlfriend for a while, plus I crashed at my parents place for the better part of two months. During the beginning of my stay in the Netherlands I tried to keep up the writing for the Files, but after a while the whole thing wasn’t working anymore as the study load was getting increasingly unmanageable and my social life was starting to arise from the ashes of its long deemed dead existence in Southern Europe. So now you’re probably thinking; ‘Where the Hell did you move to now’? And I would answer ‘Well my good sirs, I have relocated to the lands of mighty forests where the beer flows freely in medieval looking pubs, accompanied by the occasional Bratwurst.’ Yes that’s right, I’m in Deutschland as of now, and having spent a nice three weeks settling in and enjoying the local culture and cuisine, I deemed it an appropriate time for my return as the lone scribbler for FilmFreakFiles.

Now for my second reason, and here I get to stroke myself a bit. No worry though; I’m in a public space so no taking off of the trousers or anything like that. My second legitimate reason…is that I am currently writing for one of the biggest movie websites in the Netherlands. Yes that’s right, I write news articles for FILMTOTAAL on a weekly basis. It’s been a great experience so far as I get to busy myself with movie-related stuff, lose sleep whilst browsing for the latest scoop, and enjoy a readership of in the thousands. So far so good, the only problem being that I have to write fairly objective pieces of news coverage. That’s all fine for now, but it’s just way more fun getting to write the occasional piece of commentary and unapologetic rants. That’s why I’ve decided to pick up FilmFreakFiles again, as it gives me the opportunity to give you guys my full personal opinion without having to limit myself to any journalistic standards. So if you’re just looking for a good film-related time then you’re at the right place here. If it’s the news you want, then I’ll gladly redirect you to my articles on Filmtotaal.

So there it is; the official rebirth of FilmFreakFiles! Hope you guys like it and keep coming. I promise to update on what I’ve been watching every Monday and if something interesting pops up during the week you can be sure that I’ll have something to say about it as well. That’s it for me now. I’ll see ya next week!!!
Keep checking out the Files! ☺

Julian Medeiros

Film review

Now that the dance fade seems to be hitting these shores as well (Mtv Dance-off), we’re starting to get some of those retarded dance-movies as well. Make it Happen continues this tradition of questionable quality. For more info, read the review below.

If you’ve ever seen a dance-flick before then you probably don’t need to ask what this is about, for those of you who have avoided this genre (wisely so), here’s a quick run-down of the plot. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Lauryn, a simple young girl from the countryside who dreams of being a professional dancer. Both her parents have tragically passed away a couple of years before and her brother doesn’t like dancing at all. Nonetheless she moves to Chicago to do try-outs for the Chicago school of dance ad music. Good spirit alone obviously isn’t enough and she gets turned down after only a couple of seconds. Of course she’s heartbroken and doesn’t know what to do…until! Until she goes to a bar/club called Rubies and sees lots of lovely ladies doing erotic dances and of course she decided she wants to be a stripper/burlesque dancer as well. Now until now, the film is just plain formulaic, but with her starting to do erotic-dancing, things get really strange. How f*ucked a message is this film giving young kids!!! Oh yeah, if you can’t pursue your dreams then just go make a living from being a stripper?!! She falls in live with the most awful guy who gladly admits that he has screwed all the girls in the club. It’s all a big huge naive little girls’ fantasy that just screams abuse!! Now I can’t help it and I’m going to give away the ending, so if you don’t want to know just stop reading right now. In the last scene she just forces her way into the second round of auditions, does her sexy burlesque dance and suddenly she gets the desired dancing scholarship! WTF!!! Damn this film is just dumb..you know what? Damn this film. I’m giving it a CRAPTASTIC!!

Rating: Craptastic

Conclusion: Formulaic, boring film with a hugely twisted message.

Film Review

Doubt is really one of those films that seems to be made as Oscar-bait but somehow manages to go by virtually unnoticed. It’s not even that it’s a bad picture; it’s just not that interesting. But loyal as I am, I watch anything for you guys, so here’s a quick review for those of you still interested.

Set in 1964, Doubt centers itself on a small parish school, run ever so strictly by the eldest nun (Meryl Streep) her character is unflinchingly old-fashioned and all the children are terrified of her. But it seems that change itself is knocking at the front door as the head priest urges her to modernize and to introduce such heretical things such as ball-pens and Frosty the Snowman. Through an unfortunate string of events, Meryl Streep’s character gets convinced that the priest, played magnificently by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, is having an unwanted relationship with one of the male students. (altar boys) She is so uncompromisingly convinced that this is happening that she goes to all kinds of lengths to have him confess. He of course denies everything and a fierce battle of wills erupts between them.

If I’m not mistaken, then the film is an adaptation of a play that won several awards including the Pulitzer Prize for theater. Sadly though the fact that the script is a play-script doesn’t work to the films advantage at all. Several scenes seem staged and the dialogue tends to be witty but unnatural. This is underplayed however by the amazingly strong cast and the wonderful performances of both Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, both experienced actors who make this film seem a lot better than it actually is. Through them the conflict becomes believable and intricate. The ‘gimmick’ of the film is that the audience never really knows who’s right and who’s wrong. But however interesting the premise may seem, eventually it’s difficult to get wrapped into the story as one feels reluctant to sympathize with any of the characters. Not that it’s a major problem, but it’s a bit strange nonetheless. (Although the ending makes up for a lot of this)

All in all it’s not a bad film at all, but even though it’s cleverly written and well acted, it never achieves to really grip the viewer and come alive. The filming is static and so is the staginess of the confrontations. That doesn’t take away however, that this is really an actors-film and in that sense it’s really wonderful to behold. Hoffman and Streep shine and whenever they meet on screen sparks start flying. But sadly everything else is just mediocre. Not bad, but not gripping either. That’s why I really can’t give it any more than a matinee. If you like the actors then you should go and see it, otherwise just wait until it shows on TV sometimes next year.

Rating: Matinee

Conclusion: Boasts a very strong cast, but suffers from being too ’stagey’ and fails to engage.

Trailer

Remember seeing the first Terminator trailer and featurette a couple of weeks back? Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Terminator Salvation is seriously starting to look like the most bad-ass flick for this summer. Forget Transformers, this is the new shit! Check out the trailer below..oh, and don’t mind the NiN music.

Film Review

With the whole world seemingly falling into economic distress, global meltdown, (and I’m talking about the real world now) films like City of Ember (click title to view trailer) seem to have a somewhat different tone to them. And even though this film is very much so a kid’s film, the topic somehow feels more relevant than ever.
The film tells the story of the city of ember, originally created as sort of a rescuing hub for the dying human race. The films starts by showing us that the whole world’s going to hell so the people go underground and get a box with the way out that only opens two hundred years later. Of course the box gets lost, the people forget and strangely the whole underground society turns into a pseudo-communist community with Bill Murray as the big bad mayor. Even though the plot feels somewhat engaging, anybody who’s ever read any pulp-fantasy fiction will realize that the plot mechanisms of the film are super standard and not really that exciting. Plus, there are fantasy books out there that tell the story way better. (Death Gate series). But hey it’s a kiddy film, so it doesn’t matter how many plot-holes there are right, that’s probably what they thought when they were making this film. Because for a detective kind of story, everything seems uncomfortably illogical and even the final method of escaping the city is probably the most unlikely way of leaving an underground city. I won’t give it away yet, but is has something to do with falling down and appearing above. Confused yet? Well, I certainly was.
But even though there’s a lot of bad, there’s also a lot of good stuff there as well. The sets are brilliant, everything you see is really physically there, at least almost everything. City of Ember really proves that good set pieces and design win over green screen laziness every day. (Take that Lucas!) Plus, there are some really good actors here and there, especially Tim Robbins as the disillusioned rebel is really powerful in all his scenes. The child actors are more than decent as well, even though the main actor looked a bit like a girl, but that’s probably what they consider sexy nowadays huh?
All in all it’s a visually impressive, well-acted film that lacks plot-wise and really doesn’t satisfy the viewers curiosity concerning this underground world. To me it just really needed more monsters; more puzzles and then it would have been perfect. However, the lack of monsters and excitement means that younger viewers should be able to watch and enjoy the film without a problem, so if you’re under 16 you’ll probably like it more then I did. But for me, it was just a little bit too boring.

Rating: Rental

Conclusion: Visually impressive and boasts a strong cast, but lacks in excitement and action.