The premise of this movie sounded really cool.  On one side you have humans with powers referred to as “Others”.  These powers range from being able to see the future to shape-shifting into an animal.  On the other (that’s “other” not “Other”)  side you have vampires.  Centuries ago a truce was formed between these two groups and the “Nightwatch” and “Daywatch” were formed to police the each side’s activities to ensure the treaty wasn’t broken.  Sounds like a cool premise, right?  I thought so to.  The problem was that it just came off as goofy.

Anyone that knows me knows that I have an unhealthy appreciation for cheesy movies.  Evil Dead, Hard Boiled, Heroic Trio, Kung Fu Hustle, The Big Hit and Torque are some of my favorite goofy movies.  Nightwatch just didn’t make the cut.  I think the problem was that the level of goofiness was very uneven.  In Torque when there’s a kung fu battle with motorcycles, it’s awesome because the movie has been that way all along.  In Nightwatch when they slam on the brakes of their jet powered utility van and do a forward flip over a pedestrian it is completely out of context.

I had heard a lot of good things about the movie, so I stuck through the first hour expecting it was going to get better.  After that first hour I realized it wasn’t getting better, but I had already over halfway through so I figured I should just stick it out.  Bad decision on my part.  I appreciate that it’s really Russia’s first big “blockbuster” movie.  Kudos to them for stepping it up and trying to do something interesting.  Unfortunately it just doesn’t quite cut it.

If you find yourself thinking about renting this, think again.

While the imagery is very reminiscent of movies like Dark City, Brazil and V for Vendetta, this looks like a very interesting movie. It stars Maryanne favorites Ryan Phillipee and Eva Green (Vesper from Casino Royale) as well as some of my favorites (guns and fighting). Unfortunately it looks like we’ll have to wait a while to see it. It opens in the UK on the 20th of February with no mention of US release.

Dear Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,

I admit I was very hesitant to watch you. To be fair, given Fox’s track record, you could have turned out to be something like Terminator: 90210. I was glad to see Summer Glau getting work, but was nervous that you would have lots of little John Connor mooning over the “Gorgeous but distant” Tin-(wo)man as he teaches her how to love and what it means to be human. You started off a little slow, but when Summer-nator plowed in to the most recent Kill-John-Connor-nator with a dusty old pick-up, threw open the door and said “Come with me if you want to live”, I was hooked. Sarah Connor is played very well, as ruthless and no-nonsense as the mother of the future savior of man-kind should be, but the real star is Summer Glau.

Summer-nator does an excellent job walking the line between efficient killing machine and “trying to learn how to be human”. She is becoming an excellent actor. While she did well in Firefly, its not all that difficult to play “over the top crazy”. She is showing a lot of subtlety in her acting. The scene where she tries to mimic the “tough Latina chick” next to her was hilarious and well played.

In closing, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I am glad to see you show up and I hope you continue to be entertaining.

Your friend,
B

Last night, we finally got around to seeing “Inside Man“. From the previews, it looked like a really interesting movie based soley on the cast along. We had Clive Owens, Denzel Washington (not Morgan Freeman!), Jodie Foster (in the original draft of this post I called her “what’s her face”), Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor. I’m a big fan of clever people pulling off clever heists, so it seemed like a good bet with this cast. Then I found out it was directed by Spike Lee… Sorry, I refuse to say “it was a Spike Lee joint”. I don’t like refering to movies as “joints” because well, I think its a dumb hipster construct. Anyway, Spike Lee movies are always kind of a crap shoot. Will he use his directoral skills to make a good looking movie, or will he try and rub racism in our face throughout the whole thing? Thankfully, he gave us a good movie. Actually, I would say he gave us a great movie. The direction and cinimatography in the movie were outstanding. The characters seemed real for the most part and there were some really nicely laid out shots. There were a couple “eye roller” parts revolving around a New York cop refering to a Sikh as “an arab” and thinking the object tied around his neck was a bomb.

That actually made me start looking at the movie and trying to analyze Spike’s personal stereotypes about everyone. I came away from the movie wondering if Spike actually believes there is a high powered secret society of white people who all know each other and owe favors. I think it was a credit to the movie that I really only thought about this for a short period of time before the movie sucked me back in to the story.

The cast was excellent. Clive Owens reaffirm’s my belief that he should be the next James Bond, instead of that poncy guy they picked up out of some pub. He does an excellent job as someone who could plan and pull off a major heist.

What can you really say about the Denzel that hasn’t been said before? This man is smooth. His character is a good cop stuck in a tough situation who wants to prove himself. He plays the character well making him human and believable. That Denzel is one bad motha…SHUT YO MOUTH! I really enjoyed him in this role.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, aside from having a difficult name to spell correctly, was great in his role as Denzel’s partner. The whole movie we were thinking “this guy looks really familiar” and then Maryanne nailed it. He played the assassin in Serenity. It was really hard to tell because in this movie he was not an expressionless killer. Amazing how different a smile can make someone look.

I won’t go into the plot at all because I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say that the movie was VERY interesting. The story moved along at a good pace and really kept us engaged throughout the whole showing. All in all, I highly recommend this movie.

Clive Owen. He just exudes Bond-ness. If I had to have a second choice, I think Daniel Craig would be good as well.