A Good Harp, These Days, Is Hard To Find

After my review of 'The Island' last week, the time has come for a review of "The Count of Monte Cristo'. I enjoyed 'The Count'. I've only seen Jim Caviezel in two other films - 'The Thin Red Line' and 'The Passoin of the Christ', but he's got to be one of my favourite actors. He seems to be able to make each of his roles believable. Kudos must also go to Guy Pearce for his portrayal of the dastardly Mondego.

I didn't know the story behind the film, nor had I read the book by Alexandre Dumas, so I didn't know what to expect. I think this was a benefit as I didn't have a chance to form any preconceived ideas about the film.

I actually saw 'The Count of Monte Cristo' about 2 weeks ago, so I can't remember anything specific, but the acting was strong and the movie contained good amounts of intrigue, action, romance, adventure and morality, for want of a better word. I would stop short of calling it a swashbuckling epic, it's more of a subtle tale of betrayal, vengance and love. My recommendation is see it! It will be two hours well spent.

Punchi Singho, We're Gonna Miss Ya

G'day All,

When I started my blog only a week ago, it was so exciting, so new, a breath of fresh air in my dull and dreary world. I couldn't wait to post those zany pictures and get on my high horse about well I suppose you call it "cinema". A week later and I'm struggling to find the desire to post anything. Yes, I probably have plenty to write about, I have watched three films in the last 24 hours so there's some ammo there. I have also been toying with the idea of devoting whole posts to family and friends complete with unflattering photo identification. Who knows, I'm here all week.

The three aformetioned films are, in order, 'The Island', 'The Count of Monte Cristo' and 'The Virgin Suicides'. The only redeeming feature about 'The Island' as I see it is when you punch the title into google, the first result is a link to the national newpaper of Sri Lanka (todays front page informs us that Punchi Singho is no more, complete with a photo of an older, sub-continental Dr. Evil).

I don't really know where to begin. The movie opens with Ewan McGregor waking up in a pseudo-utopic world in the year 2019. His pal Scarlett Johansson lives there as well, as do myriad other healthy, white tracksuited gals and guys. They all believe that the world outside their sealed complex of a home is contaminated after some armageddon event and they while away their time keeping healthy, working and hoping to win 'the lottery', which would allow them to travel to 'the island', a place with no pollution, no longwinded sentences and no 'overuse' of 'inverted commas'.

McGregor's character gets curious about the outside world and discovers that it's not so contaminated after all and that he and his identically clad mates are actually clones of people living in the real world, who exist as nothing more than walking spare parts shops for their sponsors. McGregor and Johansson escape the complex and, with the help of a friend, they set about finding their sponsors and making the world aware of what is going. A team of bounty hunters is sent after them, led by the menacing but miscast Djimon Hounsou, who is about as convincing as one of those 'bad boy club' stickers you see on some cars nowadays. I appreciate his work in gems like 'Gladiator' and, to a lesser extent, 'The Middle Passage' (don't watch this unless you're really into the slave trade and movies with limited dialouge), but he doesn't have the charisma to convince me that he's a suave, well informed leader of a band of ruthless bearded killers. Not many people do now that I think of it.

Anyhoo, now that I've been away from the computer for about 7 hours and have lost my train of thought I should wrap this up. The climax of the film sees McGregor and Johansson return to their home to rescue all the other clones before they too are harvested for their organs. The holographic projector that gives the clones a false view of the outside world (yes I did forget to mention this before) is destroyed and the clones alight from the underground complex into the desert with bewildered looks on their faces. Sean Bean, who plays the owner of this sinister organ bank, is killed in the process, but I can't be bothered going into detail about this. Our hero and heroine share a kiss and Hounsou lopes off looking mighty pleased with himself.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. The fact that my brother enjoyed it should have sent alarm bells ringing in my head. I'm not attacking my brother's taste in films (I'll do that in another post), but we are pretty much completely different except for the whole surname thing.

'The Island' is yet another action film with ridiculous escapes and a tacked on love story that does nothing but slow down the film. I think there was supposed to be some message there about the devaluing of human life and the poblems associated with having a God complex, maybe such a thing could happen one day given the advancement of science. At least we'll have 'The Island' to teach us to be vigilant and to question just what is really going on.

Now if you excuse me, I have go and purchase a new set of Puma sneakers before I test the latest Mack truck model this afternoon.

And Another Thing....

Continuing on from my previous rant about "The Life Aquatic", what was with that topless chick? A joke that was unfunny the first time continued on, ad nauseum. Maybe it just displays the juvenile nature of the producer/director, I don't know.

One positive I also forgot to mention was the quality of the music in the film. Ask my friend and he'll rave about Seu Jorge's adaptation of David Bowie songs into Portuguese. My personal favourites however are the little bits of synth music - Ping Island and Ned's Theme Take 1. These delights can be sampled at
http://hollywoodrecords.go.com/lifeaquatic/.

For all you trivia buffs out there these nuggets of pure gold were composed by Mark Mothersbaugh, a former member of the 80's group Devo. I'm a big fan of the so called "decade of shame" so this really floated my boat. Check out Mark's story at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Mothersbaugh.

Sorry, no wacky picture today.

What's Wrong With This Pitcher?

Yeah, I appreciate the lameness of the gag, but step off, it took me ages to find a suitable image.

Anyway, last night I finally got around to watching 'The Life Aquatic'. A friend who really likes it lent it to me and I'm glad, because I'd feel ripped off if I'd payed any money for it. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. Sure, Willem Dafoe was funny as the misunderstood German who had trouble sharing his feelings, but it wore thin after a while. I enjoyed the way they filmed the characters moving inside the ship, as though it had been cut in half and Cate Blanchett just kept getting cuter as the movie went on, but this wasn't enough to make up for what I perceived to be lack of direction and coherence. Anyway, tell me what you think, I'm not going anywhere.

A New Era In Electronic Entertainment

Hey, my first post. How exciting. Here's an amusing picture to get the juices flowing....