The Omen (2006)

Leave a reply

Here’s what I dislike about movies like The Seventh Sign, about the biblical end of days and whatnot: the plot always seems to revolve around finding a way to prevent the apocalypse and the final confrontation between good and evil, just as though that is somehow not God’s plan to divvy us up once and for all. So you’re left with a choice between the bad guys winning (which tends to be unsatisfying if the good guys are at all sympathetic, but at least it rips away the sham that we have free will in a Christian God-created world) or with the good guys winning, breaking with prophetic inevitability and making the whole thing feel like one in an infinite number of meaningless hands of divine Texas Hold ‘Em. (Ye gods, the spam hits I’m about to start getting.)

Did I go see the remake of The Omen last night? However did you guess? It essentially compared with the original, to my eyes, and was therefore quite good. Playing Damien’s adoptive father (and quite complicit in the deception that allowed our budding Antichrist access to his future power), Liev Schreiber was a particularly bright spot in the acting lineup despite being unsympathetic for the majority of the film. Or maybe he was only serviceable, and I have a thing for brooding as character trait. In any case, the kid was reasonably creepy/intense, there was a fair amount of good disturbing imagery and a lot of excellent mood-setting propwork, though bits of that were hampered by Final Destinationish death scenes. (Not that there’s anything wrong with them, they just sort of didn’t fit the mood of the film once the comparison was in my head. Apparently, evil deaths work in mysterious and unlikely ways.) As far as the cheap jump-in-your-seat thrills? Well, there were several, and they were cheap, sure… but at the same time, there’s something supremely satisfying about sitting in a theater full of people who have just been moved to scream from surprise. (Heck, they even got me to twitch reasonably well, at one point.)

And I haven’t even mentioned the awesomeness of Nanny Evil.

Half-Life 2: Episode One

Leave a reply

After all the time I spent in the aftermath of Half-Life 2, playing old versions of Half-Life and third-party mods and really enjoying the story, the mystery, and the gameplay all three (and including a replay of Half-Life 2 itself last month), finally some new stuff has appeared. Thusly did I dive into the descriptively named Episode One fairly late on launch day because of some weirdness with when they wanted to release the game to the public. So, whatev.

I wish I could say that was my biggest problem with the game, that delay. But it was not. My biggest problem was more of those damn sparkling pixels that so vexed me in Doom 3 (though white instead of red, this time, with occasional greens and yellows). I am left wondering if my computer is just badly misconfigured in some way or if ATI is an artifact of the past, as useful as so many potsherds brought as souvenirs to a Babylonian archaeology expedition. The sad part is, I only switched away from nVidia because of how they’d seemed to be behind for a few years and because Half-Life 2 was being designed with ATI specifically in mind. Also: I don’t remember this happening on my original play of HL2, yet I’m pretty sure it was present on the replay. Mysterious.

But still, that one really was my biggest problem with the game. All the actual play and storyline and mysteries? Cake. (I don’t really care for cake; it’s just an expression of approval in the generic sense. If I’d put ice cream or pie there, nobody would have known what I meant, is all.) After an intervention both surprising and foreboding, the game picks up almost immediately where the original left off, both in time and as a result necessarily in play style. The Combine has been shut down and crippled, but they’ll be back, and in the meantime City 17 is a deathtrap. Your two directives: escape to fight the battle another day, and also repopulate the world. From some of the looks Alyx was throwing Gordon’s way, I think that one might move to the top of the list before long, if only they can survive the… well, but that would be telling. Episode Two is supposed to be out toward year’s end, as I understand. I believe I am prepared for that occurrence.

Freedom and Necessity

1 Reply

I think I may be getting bad at this. At least, lately I’ve been at a loss for descriptive words. In this case, my lack is for how to describe Freedom and Necessity, other than to say I liked it. I did, unquestionably, despite being of an insufficiently philosophic mind (or at the least insufficiently grounded in the basics of philosophic thought) to understand all of the historical nuances of the debates around Hegelian logic. …see, and this is exactly what I mean. Although Brust is very good at writing books that make me feel inadequate to fully appreciate them, that’s no excuse for me to make them sound like dry treatises with dense and well-disguised themes when I could as easily and far more approvingly describe them as rousing tales of adventure and skullduggery. So, y’know, bad. At this. (Also, I’m disregarding Emma Bull’s contribution to my enjoyment, but that is only because I’ve read nothing else by her and as a result can’t really put together in my head what that contribution was.)

So, I grabbed this book because of how Steven Brust is one of my buy on sight authors, these days. He is right to be, because of how everything I’ve read of his has a great authorial voice, humor that makes me laugh out loud[1], and plots that, though sometimes dense, always seem to hinge on exciting matters of life and death (and on occasion far more grave) that are guaranteed suck me in. As you might expect, this was just such a book.

Set in 1849-1850 England, this epistolary novel follows the loves and politics of a family that has just been struck by tragedy in the form of drowned James Cobham. Except that, two months later, he sends a letter to his cousin Richard informing that he is alive and without memory of his recent past. From there, the story quickly branches out to the addressing of that conundrum and a number of other family mysteries, the struggle between the proletariat and its oppressive masters, affairs of state, a magical conspiracy, blossoming love, and of course murder most foul. Allowing one of the characters eidetic memory combined with a penchant for writing letters long enough dam the Thames was perhaps overly transparent of the authors, but the unique and entertaining voices of all four main characters (one of whom cannot end a sentence to save her life) more than made up for that lone violation of my suspension of disbelief.

[1] I’ll admit here that I might seem to some people to laugh easily; to those people I would say that in fact I have a highly refined sense of humor, but choose to surround myself with people and things that activate it. So there.

The Da Vinci Code

1 Reply

The short answer is: someone made a near enough to duplicate as makes no difference film version of the Da Vinci Code novel. As a result, there is nearly nothing new to say from what I said a year ago.

Slightly longer answer: good realization of the sets and props described in the novel, with film improving the prose at most every step. Possibly better explanations of things, certainly not in a way that made me think any of the characters were stupider than they ought to be, much unlike the book. I can’t recall the book’s dialogue well enough to compare that bit. Somewhat actiony, extremely sacreligious if you are a lot of people, approximately as much information density as a 30 minute Discovery special on the topic. As movies go, it was really quite good. Also, Sir Ian was cool, like always. And the bad guy reveal was not nearly so clumsy as I thought it was in the book, or else maybe I was able to see the foreshadowing better. But I doubt it; I think the foreshadowing was actually presented better, instead. Advantage: Ron Howard!

The Poseidon Adventure

I thought I ought to ground myself in history, so thanks to my good friends at Netflix, I snagged The Poseidon Adventure no more than a week after its remake’s release date, to watch prior to catching said remake. (Because I am nothing if not timely. Also: product endorsements deserve to be rewarded with free stuff. Just saying, good friends at Netflix.) The seventies were a different time is what I have learned. Sure, blah blah blah special effects cakes, but that’s not the thing. The thing is the acting. With the exception of Ernest Borgnine (who was frankly superb) and Roddy McDowall, every single male in the cast acted via angry loud voice. It was just bizarre to watch, especially in Gene Hackman, who I have certainly seen perform well enough in other (notably later) roles. Meanwhile, the women were mostly called upon to scream a lot. This is somewhat less surprising on the whole, but still pretty sad. As the main exception here was Ernest Borgnine’s wife, I am forced to assume that it was talent by osmosis.

As for the plot? Well, you know, boat flips over, people try to survive in upside-down boat. Is there more that you need to know? I will say that the set design did an almost non-existent job of conveying upside-downness, which robbed the movie of a good third of its purported impact. I expect that the remake will handle that part, at least. And maybe less shouting. But mostly better special effects traded in for someone not as good as Borgnine. Probably this is a bad thing; it certainly would be if the original had been a tour de force, but since it was not, I’ll take what I can get.

X-Men: The Last Stand

3 Replies

So a few years ago, they made an X-Men movie. Despite having played an X-Men video game for the NES in the 80s, I really knew nothing about them except that Nightcrawler was fun to play in that game and Wolverine was supposed to be pretty cool. Comics and me have never really gotten along to the extent that I would expect them to, considering how much I enjoy the movies and games and other trappings of the comic book industry, not to mention how much I enjoy, y’know, books and television. So, there I am, with no expectations. And the movie met or exceeded them. It was fine for what it was, but nothing crazy exciting or groundbreaking. Then they made another one, and man, it was really good. Meaningful character interactions, tough choices with tough consequences, that storytelling meme where the guy that you used to dislike turns out to be really stand-up and helpful when compared against the new opponent that hates all of the characters equally, so the established people have to put aside their petty squabbles and face the new thing together. That’s an idea that has rarely failed to wow me.

And now, the trilogy has been completed. X3 is kind of a weird movie to me. I mean, not the plot. The plot was fine, with its paired external struggles of mutants against government and mutants against mutants and internal struggles between certain sets of key characters, its allegorical hearkening back to the original film, and its pyrotechnics and combat by virtue of leaping through a lot of air at your opponents. So, that was all fine. (Okay, I’m lying about the leaping through the air thing. It didn’t take very many such leaps to start looking really dumb. But, whatever.)

No, X3 is weird to me in that it has so many successes and so many failures. On the one hand, you’ve got the subtle brilliance in the contrasting character development between Magneto and Wolverine, even including an ironic mention of it in conversation between them. But on the other, you’ve got reference to the comicbook love triangle between Rogue, Iceman and Kitty Pryde that goes absolutely nowhere despite ample screen time to make some kind of point. Mix that in with a choppy editing job early on, and I’m forced to conclude that although the spectacle of it was almost total greatness and although the story from all three movies was wrapped up cleanly by the conclusion of this one, it nevertheless falls well below the bar set by X2. Still, though, far better than the original. After all, unlike that (and unlike a lot of first entry comicbook movies, really), it had a plot with deeper complexity than good guys versus bad guys.

A Storm of Swords

2 Replies

And so, my third and final reread of the recent era, A Storm of Swords. As previously, I read this over a little too broad of a time- and bookspan to really dig deep into it, but over a lesser span than before, so I’ll see what I can do.

Certainly, as the name implies, it was a bloodier and more dire book than its predecessors. The scattered hints of doom have coalesced into a thing that, though still rarely seen, is now believably dire enough to plunge the entire world into shadow; if only there were enough people who knew it was coming to stop with all the other stuff and, y’know, fix it. For the most part, though, it felt like a plot-driven book with just a few good character studies again. I don’t mind that, really, as I am really enjoying the chock-full-of-politicky-goodness plot. But it’s light on theme, and the book reviewer in me has little to catch hold of. As it is, though, the people to watch for are Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, and Stannis Baratheon, and in that order. There’s a lot going on there. I could name plenty of other people I liked, but for character growth, there’s your fun. (Prediction: the next one is going to be Sansa’s book.)

I have a feeling that my review of my first time reading of A Feast for Crows is going to suffer from this timespan thing. Hrmm. I might have to cheat and read ahead as I go, much as I hate the idea of it. Unclear. Maybe I’ll take notes? Hard, when I always wait for a whole picture to start coalescing my thoughts. Problematic, this.

Dune

A thing that qualifies as unlikely: I’ve never read Dune before. Unlikely, yes, but all true. I expect I would have gotten around to it, but was reminded prematurely by this girl who inspired me to pick it up because it’s one of her favorites. In a more optimal world, having read it would in some way that I’m failing to imagine inspire her to become suddenly interested in me as date material. Because of a defect in my brain that allows me to conceive of that kind of world, I now have read the book, and therefore, I will talk about it.

In a trend that fits more well with the actual world, I’m left a little bit mystified by the whole experience. I pretty well understand what happened, and now want to go back and watch the movie and see if it makes more sense. Except for the part where I don’t actually understand what happened at all. The discrete events made perfect sense, yes, but I’m really unclear on what it means to have gotten to the end of the story. It feels like there’s this symbolism rumbling around below the surface that transforms it from entertaining sci-fi vengeance war into shining, brilliant example of the genre, and I’m just not seeing it. (Spoilers for a forty-year old book below the cut. Panic!)
Continue reading →

Mission: Impossible III

2 Replies

Here are the problems with the summer movie season.

1) It starts too early. First weekend in May? Inevitably, by mid-July all of the exciting movies are over, and you’re left watching previews for a voodoo horror flick for 3 straight months because it’s the only thing the movie studios think anyone will actually bother to see, and by the time it finally comes around, all you can do is thank God that the previews aren’t on anymore, all desire to actually look into the movie having been leeched away by repeat after repeat of that stupid, terrible, no-good preview.

2) Hollywood has learned, like an undisciplined child, that all attention is good and to be craved, regardless the actual quality of the action that garnered the attention. That is, any movie that is a sequel to a successful movie or has stars I’ve ever heard of or has explosions and car crashes, people will go see it in droves, cranking millions of dollars of profit into the studios, regardless of whether the film in question is actually good. The goal isn’t to make a lasting product, just to bring in money. Used to be, they’d make their money over time by having a film people wanted to see, instead of making it all in the first weekend. (I openly admit to being a part of the problem in this regard. But still, it would be nice to see good movies.)

3) No boobies. All of the nudity in the year comes in December when people are trying to win Oscars for Important Roles where shirts come off only because it is Relevant to the Plot, or else in February/March, aka horror movie season. (And I think we all know those pickings are getting slimmer even as they’re getting fatter.)

The good news, though, is this. Mission: Impossible III has glossed right over the failure of point #2, coming up with a sequel that’s actually worth seeing. More amazing still, it followed a pretty bad sequel, which is usually the kiss of death for an ongoing franchise. I think most of the credit for this can be laid squarely at the feet of J.J. Abrams and his skill with the Alias series. He may still be finding his sealegs in the mysterious / spooky sci-fi genre, but the boy knows how to handle spies, both (obviously) the exciting wetwork and (less commonly by far) their lives outside of those deadly mission into Prague. I mean, get this: I cared what happened to Tom Cruise’s love interest. That right there is an impossible freaking mission, let me tell you.

The only real flaw, and it’s minor, is that the villain is a bit of a hollow shell. Hoffman certainly pulls it off well, creating a sufficiently cold, unaffected, and downright dastardly bad guy that I didn’t notice that there was nothing really there until the credits were rolling. Evil and diabolical, sure, but nothing like reasonable motivations or character development. A pretty cool obstacle, and nothing more. I’d expected better after all those seasons of Alias I’ve washed down over the past year, but then again, it’s only a two hour movie. (I should also say that my ability to map out all the twists and turns an hour in advance is a flaw, but I’m enough used to that to only count it as a plus when a movie actually succeeds in tricking me, these days.)

Silent Hill

I am annoyed right now, because of how I’m thinking about this movie and I want to talk about facets of it, and instead I’m being made to feel guilty for examining those facets rather than committing to a single opinion, full stop, the end. However, guilt is for Catholics and people in jail, and terrorists who haven’t been charged with crimes of course; most importantly, not for me. So, Humbug, I say. Also, I say Silent Hill.

So there’s this game, right, and they made a movie. That nearly never ends well, and not least because they mostly only make movies based on good and popular games. (It is a source of surprise to me, how much more often popular equates with good in the video game arena than in the movie or literary arenas. I wonder if I’m wrong, really. But let’s assume not, as it makes it easier for me to continue with my thoughts, here.) So, there’s automatically farther to fall, as your built-in audience will necessarily be more judgmental than otherwise.

Silent Hill the game was creepy of atmosphere and mysterious of plot, only providing drips and drabs to explain what was really going on while keeping you on edge throughout. The movie provided both the best and the worst of that, more’s the pity. Because it tried very hard to be a good movie, and I can see the good movie lurking just beneath the surface. Nevertheless, it never really surfaced.

Silent Hill the movie is the story of a woman trying to penetrate the mystery of her adopted daughter’s nightmares and accompanying sleepwalking. So she takes the girl to the place those dreams speak of, a ghost town called Silent Hill. (I know, it was a shock to me, too, the coincidence of that name with the movie’s title. But I resuspended my disbelief and soldiered on.) Only, their arrival is marred by a car accident that knocks out the woman just long enough for her daughter to vanish. After that, all that’s left is to find her, and that means unraveling the mystery behind the town and its death.

The audio and the visuals were both brilliant, evocative, and a joy to behold. Perhaps a dread to behold would be more accurate, but I like what I like, and joy is the word for me. Also, I liked the music. The plot, however… possibly forgivable gaming tropes were overshadowed by an unforgivably dense plot, and the side story of the woman’s husband that had no right to be in the script at all. The good news is this: I don’t have to concern myself with the good movie that I kept nearly seeing, because I’ve got these games that totally make up for it.