I don’t know if it quite captured the perplexity of Wonderland.
This being the case, then there were some great conversations that he had with himself. Like when he and Alex were consoling Natalie after she had been dumped in a text message. Natalie enumerated each item on her long list of all of the qualities that her dream man would have, and Alex followed up with her list: a nondescript gentleman who had no particular features besides having a good family and a nice smile. She said that at her age, that’s what really mattered. Natalie expressed her disapproval, and Alex replied with “Don’t worry, by the time someone is right for you, it won’t feel like settling… And the only person left to judge you will be the twenty four year old girl with a target on your back.”
These words made the conversations between Natalie, Ryan, and Alex throughout the rest of the movie very telling.
In a cardboard-cutout picture-taking session by the dock with Ryan, Natalie refers to Alex as “the only person to have survived his gauntlet and come out smiling”. And then after Ryan discovers Alex’ “real life”, she asks him what he wanted.
What did Ryan want, or even think he wanted? He loved his life. He was married to his job. And there’s irony in the fact that the only person who could make him believe that he wanted a normal domesticated life was someone just like himself: someone whose heart was elsewhere.
Insightful movie. Depressing, but insightful. I loved it.
I feel I should preface each of my movie comments with a note that it will be just that – a comment – and not a review. My aim is to remember what I think of the dozens of movies that I watch.
Anyway, I enjoyed watching this movie. There’s really only one thing [sadly] that I’d want to remember about it years from now: Holmes’ plans of attack. He provided an explanation for each hit, block, and even cited the recovery period. It prevented each fight scene from becoming a mess of action that was difficult to follow.
Nothing still quite comes close to Pandora. I still remember the day I tried to login, and all I got was a message saying that it was no longer available to non-U.S. residents. Anyway, there have been others, such as Grooveshark, but none of them are able to recommend artists and songs based on more than just genre. Pandora looked at vocal styles, lyrical content, instrumentation… Every recommendation was surprisingly good. (The key word here is “surprising”.)
Anyway, Youtube has just launched “Disco”. It doesn’t quite list all of musical elements of each song the way Pandora did, but it does let you do things that others didn’t:
1. Watch the music videos.
2. Replay any song any number of times, as desired.
For these two reasons alone, so far, it wins.
To quote myself, as I am wont to do, stories can be epic or empty depending on how they are told. So, as much I wanted to start this post with the following question, I couldn’t because I already knew my answer:
I don’t know what made this movie so bad: the incompetency that led to the failed coup or the movie itself.
I am presuming, of course, that the events *could* have been painted in a different light. I’m not saying I’m blind to the message that they were trying to send (i.e. that there was integrity in the effort). I just think that the poor decisions leading to the failure of the plan could have been made to feel less reflective of their folly. I feel like the movie made the conspirators look like idiots trying to execute a plan that was way over their heads. Was that necessary? I don’t think so.
I still remember first hearing Wavin’ Flag on CHUM FM last fall, falling in love with it as it played, and dying to hear the artist’s name at the end so I could look him up. It was certainly not a voice I had ever heard before. I guess they announced it before the song and I missed it because I distinctly remember having to go to CHUM FM’s website to get the song info.
Anyway, much reading and listening later, I now dub him as one of my favourites. Rolling Stone describes him as someone who thinks like Bob Marley, flows like Eminem and mixes African music with conscious hip-hop, unabashed pop and even metal.
The insight into the culture that he grew up in, the catchy hooks, and his vocal style – for me – are what sets him apart from the rest.
Current favourite songs off his Troubadour include:
and
Please join me in praising him.
Michael Cera steps outside the box with alter ego Francois Dillinger, whose blue eyes, scruffy face, and stylish apparel make him actually seem like a different person.
Dialog-wise, this movie was filled with tons of little gems. But what else can be expected of a movie that gives 16-year-olds the ability to articulate like an English major in his/her senior year? It was reminiscent of Dawson’s Creek, but so much better because their aim was to be funny, and not serious.
I think what I liked best about this movie was its commentary on the portrayal of love in the movies. Michael Cera had a line in the beginning that went something like In the movies, the nice guys get the girl, but in real life it’s usually the prick. I felt like this was to foreshadow the end that I didn’t expect: that the girl of his dreams would still want him after all of his deviousness and scheming. Sadly, this is a more accurate depiction of real life women and their emotions than what I expected. i.e. that she’d stand up for herself and ‘what’s right’, and vow to never speak to him again. Sigh.
As put by Ebert, “at the end [he] throws in several WTF! Moments, which are a bonus. They make everything in the entire movie impossible and incomprehensible — but, hey, WTF.” Was it pro-Christianity? pro-atheism? pro-faith-based religions? None of the above? Was Eli’s trek “miraculous”? Was it just luck? These are the fun questions you ask when you walk away from this movie. In spite of Carnegie’s dialog and the final scene with all of the sacred religious texts, I say it was pro-Christianity (and not even just pro-faith-based-religions, in general), but what do I know?
“Eli has been walking west across the devastated landscape of America for 30 years, on his way to the sea. I haven’t walked it myself, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take that long.”
This was lost on me, but apparently noticeable to many others.
“a catastrophe has wiped out most of the Earth’s population and left ruin and desolation behind, the remaining humans are victimized by roaming motorcycle gangs of hijackers and thieves.”
I appreciated that they didn’t actually elaborate on the destruction caused by the catastrophe (which was referred to as “The Flash”). They left it to the audience’s imagination to explain the inconsistencies in the post-”Flash” world.
My thoughts:
1. I want the soundtrack. It was awesome.
2. A lot of Solara’s dialog and action was unnecessary and took away from the film. At the end, when she said that she was headed home, I turned and looked at my date and said “I give her a day.”
3. I’ve never seen Denzel be so bad-ass. I loved it.
4. So much was cliche, but humourous because of it.
5. When the Alcatraz printing press started pushing out copies of The King James’ Bible, all I could think about were Dawkins’ Memes, the analogy to a virus that was almost extinct, and how close they were to a world without it. (So close, so close.)