Batman: The Dark Knight is the best darn movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. Top notch acting, direction, action, gadgetry, effects, storyline, everything just works!
And as expected, in Batman movies that have The Joker in them, the overshadowing of Batman’s character is almost inevitable. Christian Bale does manage to hold his own, but Heath Ledger’s Joker is the performance of a lifetime, sadlyalso his last.
Update: I just noticed that The Dark Knight has managed to top the IMDB Top 250 movies of all time, beating even The Shawshank Redemption. And it’s been what …. 3 weeks since it released? Amazing!
Alive “I want to feel passion, I want to feel pain. I want to weep at the
sound of your name. Come make me laugh, come make me cry… just make
me feel alive.”
Should Spider-man 3 have been called Mary Jane Watson 1, instead? I think so. It quickly became the epitome of everything that should not be done in a super hero movie. And it’s a long, long movie that spreads out the (few) action scenes in between long, drawn out emotional sequences that pretty much have no place in a super-hero movie. Really.
Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man Spiderman bawls and cries his heart out, throughout the movie. I mean, c’mon! Spidey is a super-hero, not someone who keeps sniffling throughout the length of the movie. Tobey sucks as Spider-man, sucks even more as Venom, sucks worse when he bawls in the over-melodramatic emotional scenes in the movie, and worse of all goes running to Harry Osborn for help in the over-contrived climax, who (surprisingly!) true-to-character refuses him outright and then rescues him in the end, of course - what more could go wrong, in this movie?
Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson
Mary Jane Watson got way too much screen time. Kirsten Dunst is a total misfit for the role of MJ, I felt this in the first movie, the second only strengthened this belief, but Spiderman-3 left me feeling that the movie was mistitled! Kirsten is a walking talking contradiction: throughout the first movie she was her usual bubbly, freckled self, throughout the second she was mopey and kept bringing the pace of the movie down. In the third part of the series, Kirsten has outdone herself, at times drawing a collective yawn from the whole watching crowd, while the movie insists on revolving around her and what she feels.
The thing about MJ is that she’s everything that Kirsten is not and cannot portray - the original Mary Jane character is a feisty red-head with green eyes, and has a temper that has Spider-man constantly heckled. Kirsten is mopey, keeps her feelings to herself and looks nothing like MJ is supposed to.
The Super-Villains
The super villains in this third part of the series are a worse let down (hard as that may be) to both the previous movies’ villains. Venom’s screen time is paltry, all gone in favor of the long drawn out romantic and over-emotional scenes, and the interlude in between, when Peter Parker uses the symbiote’s agility, while not in costume. None of the evilness that is the Venom character really came out in the movie, probably because the movie hardly gives any time to Venom, and rather concentrates on MJ and Spiderman.
Sandman is a confused (but well-fitting, surprisingly) character who keeps tilting between being a good guy, then a not-so good guy, then a bad guy when he teams up with Venom, of all the things possible, in an attempt to defeat Spider-man. In the end, in a weird turn-around that looks wholly unplanned and last minute, Sandman actually apologizes to Spider-man for murdering his uncle, Ben Parker, that too, by mistake!
Miscellania
MJ sings an entire song in the movie, and then promptly gets fired from her theater job for having an awful voice. Good for her!
The wicked Peter Parker (under influence of the symbiote) is actually not that bad as a character, the dance sequence in the bar that MJ takes up a job, later is nice.
J Jonah Jameson has some genuinely funny moments.
Spider-man finally throws the web bullets that were present in all the Spider-man games that came out.
The sequence in which Flint Marko is transformed to Sandman was well done, but ended up feeling contrived like the rest of the movie.
The New Goblin character (Harry Osborn) dies, courtesy Venom.
Sandman befriends Spider-man and goes away weeping, while Spider-man keeps up his usual sniffling bit.
Spider-man exploits Venom’s weakness to sound waves to kill it using one of the New Goblin’s bombs.
There’s so much forcefully stuffed into this movie, it feels like all the characters refused to commit to a part 4 and so were all stuffed together into one long, painful movie.
A Conclusion
Do you really need one? I’d say give it a pass. Die hard Spider-man fans beware! This movie can cause a temporary, alternating sensation of nausea, sleepyness, and might cause an urge to hurt someone / something in the most dedicated fan.
Fight Club, one of my favorite movies is always a good watch, even after all these times of watching it over and over again. There’s always a dialog or a particular scene that you just can’t remember seeing.
When IMDB put Fight Club in one of it’s top 10 quotes from movies I just couldn’t resist the temptation. I actually went through the whole thing, there are a few repeats, but most of the movie’s best dialogs are here.
I do wish they compiled all the “I am Jack’s…” dialogues together, though; now that would be something.
The I am Jack’s….. lines, in no particular order, of course:
I am Jack’s smirking revenge.
I am Jack’s cold sweat.
I am Jack’s raging bile duct.
I am Jack’s colon.
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
I am Jack’s wasted life.
I am Jack’s inflamed sense of rejection.
I am Jack’s broken heart.
Other favorites:
Narrator: When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep… and you’re never really awake.
Narrator: On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Tyler Durden: The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is - you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club, someone yells Stop!, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule, one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule, no shirt, no shoes. Seventh rule, fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.
All around me are familiar faces,
Worn out places,
Worn out faces, Bright and early for the daily races,
Going nowhere,
Going nowhere,
Their tears are filling up their glasses,
No expression,
No expression,
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow,
No tomorrow,
No tomorrow,
And I find it kind of funny,
I find it kind of sad,
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had,
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it hard to take,
When people run in circles,
It’s a very very,
Mad world,
Mad world,
Children waiting for the day they feel good,
Happy birthday,
Happy birthday,
And I feel the way that every child should,
Sit and listen,
Sit and listen,
Went to school and I was very nervous,
No one knew me,
No one knew me,
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson,
Look right through me,
Look right through me,
And I find it kind of funny,
I find it kind of sad,
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had,
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it hard to take,
When people run in circles,
It’s a very very,
Mad world,
Mad world,
Enlarging your world,
Mad world
– I originally found this haunting song when I saw Donnie Darko, a movie that is best left unexplained - I must recommend it be watched when you are quite sure that you want to screw up your head for a day, or two, or more.
When I first saw the movie, I didn’t quite catch on to the song, although I do remember looking for it.
Then, in a recent gameplay trailer for Gears of War, the XBox 360 game, I heard it again and did some research and voila!
It’s a sad song, very thought provoking. Makes quite a few people wanna drip a tear or two.
Originally by Tears for Fears, this rendition by Gary Jules for the movie is much slower and disturbing. Watch the video, tell me what you think.
The Spider-Man movie merchandise has really matured. Finally, after all this waiting, one of the most central villains is coming to the movie version.
Yes, Spider-Man 3 will most likely be centered around Venom, the arch-nemesis of Spider-man. Venom is the name given to Eddie Brock’s villanous merging with an alien symbiont which gives him extraordinary powers.
StarTrek.com just announced the eleventh movie in the franchise. The movie is slated for a 2008 release.
The StarTrek store also has a free set of 3 wallpapers and 3 IM avatars.
What I like about the wallpapers is that they emphasize on the nature of the colors of the StarTrek Federation uniform. One wallpaper’s blue for science and another’s got the color for StarTrek command posts.
The first wallpaper has shades of both colors and IMHO is the best.
And if I’ve not convinced you that I’m a self-confessed StarTrek fan, I don’t know what will.
I’ve always considered Kevin Smith to be one of my favorite movie directors / writers / comics artists and when I came across this public interview on YouTube, I just couldn’t resist posting it.
One word of caution, though. The video does contain what some would consider to be “foul” language (as is typical with Smith), so please put on your headphones if you’re gonna listen to this in your office cubicle or something.
Kevin Smith is one of the most irreverent people in hollywood and his devil-may-care, straight up, common-man attitude is what I like about him the most.
In this interview he describes his outrageous experiences where he was hired by Warner bros. to write a movie script for Superman Lives way back in 1996 or so. He describes how the producer wanted him to write in a part for a Brainiac sidekick and also giant spiders and Superman fighting polar bears around the Fortress of Solitude! The video is quite funny, do watch it. It’s a bit longish, at 19 minutes plus, I suggest you let it buffer completely before you play.
One more thing I liked about this particular video is the way Smith brings out how a movie scriptwriter’s original draft gets distorted in the hollywood producer’s warped wants instead of sticking to the script. Sort of goes along with my short discourse on movie making in my Terminator 2 Ultimate edition post.
Recently I had the pleasure of acquiring the “Ultimate” edition of the Terminator 2 DVD. Now this is something else.
This DVD features an amount of extended footage that is really, really astonishing to see.
The total running time of the extended movie is 156 mins, that’s nearly 2 and a half hours!
There are a whole lot of bonus features in the DVD as well, including
documentaries, director commentaries, etc. But you can go and read
about them on the back of the DVD cover - I won’t stress on these at
all. Everybody else does that.
What I will stress on, in great detail in fact, is the whole lot of footage which never made it to the theatrical release.
A discourse on Movie Making First, a discourse on movie making, though. And the business. Feel free to skim through this if you’re not really interested in the background.
Most movies rarely, if ever, reflect the director’s complete original vision of the movie. Any movie gets this whole lot of impact from various other factors. Censors, for one. The censor certification that is awarded to a movie has a *huge* potential impact on the revenue generated by it.
And let’s face it, people. Movie-making and showbusiness on the whole, just like any other business *must* make money. And if the censorship body goes ahead and gives a movie like Terminator 2 a “R” rating or even the ultimate restricted one, the dreaded NC-17 rating, a huge chunk of target audience won’t get to see the movie in the movie hall, the intended place for you to watch. Yes, the kids, teenyboppers and the teenagers, *all* of whom don’t get to watch it. No matter what you do with your home system, you and your entire buying might cannot match the performance that you’ll get even in the crappiest theatre as compared to your cutesy teeny bopper home theater system. All apologies to you if you own one of these .
Alright. On with the extended scenes, already!
Some of the scenes that were removed are so essential to the main story it leaves me wondering how we ever “got” the original story at all. Anyways, here’s the list of extended footage that I found on the DVD. Your mileage may vary but if it does you’ll be seeing more, not less.
One word of caution. If you are actually going to get the DVD (I’ve listed some options at the bottom) then I suggest you skim over the spoilers and buy it straight away. The cinematic experience of seeing these for the first time, embedded right into the story of the main movie was quite overwhelming / exhilarating.
And so I must put up my standard SPOILER WARNING! ! ! ! Do NOT read beyond this point if you wish to enjoy the movie. Really.
The list #1 Sarah and Kyle dream sequence: Kyle Reese actually comes and talks to Sarah and reminds her that “The future is not set”. He goes on to tell her that her son (John) is in danger and she must protect him. Kyle disappears, Sarah runs after him only to find herself exiting the building into the familiar park fence nightmare scene.
#2 T1000 searches John Connor’s room: I’m not particularly sure of this, but I don’t really recall the liquid metal terminator searching John’s room and finding his hidden box of information and photos on his Mom.
#3 T800 brain opening sequence: When the Terminator (T800) and John rescue Sarah from the asylum they ultimately land up in a garage where they rest for the night. Before resting, in the movie, the Terminator fixes wounds on Sarah and she reciprocates. That’s where the scene ends in the theatrical release. In this version, John asks the terminator if he can “learn” new things. T800 replies by saying that he has a neural net “learning” processor, but Skynet shuts off the learning programming before sending Terminators out on the field. Then there is surreal sequence where Sarah peels off a section of the T800’s scalp, and with step-by-step instructions from the Terminator himself, proceeds to remove his CPU. What happens next is even better. But I’m not telling. Go buy the DVD.
#4 Terminator training, John Connor style: John befriends the T800. We saw small parts of this in the theatrical release. All of you are now required to exclaim most emphatically, “Astalavista, Baby!” and “No Problemo!”.
What you didn’t see is small scenes (microscenes?) from the footage where there’s even more of these. John tries to teach the Terminator how to smile. That particular scene is hilarious!
#5 Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson’s explanation: Dr. Dyson is at the finishing stages of developing a prototype of the copy of the neural net processor (from the original movie). There’s a whole, long scene where his wife gets a full explanation from Dyson, telling her in detail of what his vision of the processor is, and why he’s trying to build it. This scene added a whole lot of perspective “humanness” to the Dyson character that was not present in the original release. Feels all the more endearing when Dyson, in a desperate attempt to atone for sins he’s not yet done, takes his own life in a huge C4 explosion in his Cyberdyne office.
Microscenes!
But that’s not it! I’ve only put down the long scenes that I do happen to figure out. Throughout the movie one can find these microscenes that were cropped out during final editing. Together these add up to quite a lot of footage.
This includes: Gore: All the fights in the movie are more elaborate. Take the example of when Sarah knocks out the guard with a broken off broom stick. You’ll see a spray of blood that was just not visible in the theatrical release. A must see for the hard-core / cult enthusiasts.
Snippets of extra footage in the scene where John and T are checking out weapons in Enrique’s mexican hideout.
Snippets of extra footage in Cyberdyne systems
T1000 screwing up footage: T1000’s hand gets stuck to a railing and his feet get deformed in the metal foundry in the ending climax. The “stuck” parts take on the color of railing and metal floor as well.
A lot more detailed Terminator fight scenes: All the Terminator fight scenes are much more detailed (and gory) than the theatrical release. The scene where the T1000 takes out the T800’s main power source in the climax is particularly detailed and much longer.
“I need a vacation”: Some parts are dedicated to the whole “learning” Terminator bit. The terminator (T800) tries to smile, it ultimately cracks jokes like “I need a vacation” after killing off the T1000. I think these were rightly removed, since they provide too much and too out-of-place comic relief to the whole movie.
The Alternate ending Ah yes, we come to the alternate ending, the one thing that not a lot of people know about Terminator 2. After the Terminator (T800) kills himself, there’s a whole flash-forward scene where John Connor is grown up and playing with his kid in a park (the same park?) while Sarah watches. And narrates her conclusion, in which she says that the nuclear war never happened and they lived happily ever after. Or thereabouts.
Why was this scene eliminated completely? Ever heard of this movie called Terminator 3? How would that get made then, hmmm……?
How do you get it? Hmm……. I don’t think you should hesitate. Just go for buying it straight from Amazon. They’ve got several copies at different prices, the cheapest one was only 4 dollars and change, last time I checked.
UK residents could also buy from Shop UK.
The Indians seem to pretty much be stuck with buying the VCD on ebay.in. No wonder there’s so much BitTorrent and eDonkey activity on the Internet. But I digress. The Indian option seems to pretty much still be restricted to going to the local DVD wallah and begging him to get it for them. Or the cousin/friend in the US can help. Or you can go ahead and buy from Amazon. Like the rest of the world.
Alive
Spiderman bawls and cries his heart out, throughout the movie. I mean, c’mon! Spidey is a super-hero, not someone who keeps sniffling throughout the length of the movie. Tobey sucks as Spider-man, sucks even more as Venom, sucks worse when he bawls in the over-melodramatic emotional scenes in the movie, and worse of all goes running to Harry Osborn for help in the over-contrived climax, who (surprisingly!) true-to-character refuses him outright and then rescues him in the end, of course - what more could go wrong, in this movie?
, one of my favorite movies is always a good watch, even after all these times of watching it over and over again. There’s always a dialog or a particular scene that you just can’t remember seeing.
Bright and early for the daily races,
