DVD review: the losers

A group of soldier is betrayed and left for dead, now they are out for revenge.

Yes this movie feature a group of soldier on the loose, no this is not the A team movie, this is the other one and even if the team behind “The losers” insist that this is an entirely different affair I can’t help but muse that somebody, somewhere, thought that the A team movie would be an huge success and that therefore a redacted version could sneak in some free cash. Sadly for them out of the “summer of ragtag group of mercenaries’ blockbusters” this one felt short and was almost bombed at the box office.

This is honestly a shame, this movie is certainly not really that good but is certainly miles ahead of the expendable, at least it got a plot, a very obvious and banal one, but a plot nonetheless.

The secret weapon of this movie is the cast; they got a bunch of actors on the crisp of superstardom, so they weren’t that expensive, with spades of charisma and something to prove. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana, this is a very good line up.

Sadly all this acting power is squandered in an unbelievably silly plot. This movie got “Eco friendly” nukes, for the terrorist who doesn’t wants to pollute the planet, I’m not joking, check it out if you want. It’s not unwatchable, not at all, it actually held easily our attention for the whole running time, but it did it just barely. There were nice ideas every now and then, like an awesome fight between Zoe Saldana and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, but they were too few in a sea of banality recycled from countless other movies.

The direction and the overall manufacture of the movie are also really subpar. The explosions look fake, like those from 80s movies, and the action fails the deliver the initial promise. It’s a glorified tv movie but maybe in ten years it will be ailed as this generation “commando”.

Honetly I don’t think so.

TV review: Fringe season 3

The Fringe team battles the menace from the alternate reality.

In retrospect is not rocket science but after the dismal failure that has been Lost ending, Fringe philosophy is noteworthy. On one side they slowly advance the various character arcs while on the other side they feed us the “Monster of the week”. Every couple of episodes they reveal a little bit more of the back-story of the world. It all works like a well oiled machine.

The main theme is the alternate reality which becomes so much of a focus that we have many episodes entirely settled there with alternate version of the entire main cast. This trick rejuvenates a serial that in the second season was becoming too formulaic. Of course it also means that it’s a little bit less newbie friendly but it’s still a far far cry from the byzantine non sense of lost. Speaking of that I can report that, standing the ending of season three; We are steadily getting answers to our questions, those answers makes sense, new question are arising from the show in a steady but not overwhelming number, those questions are interesting, the overall world building is top notch, we want to know about these places.

As far as characters go this is the season where Anna Torv proved to everybody that she is a great actress and that actually is Olivia, her role in the serial, that it’s a bit boring. Not only she managed to develop a believable Alt Olivia, she even had a couple of episodes of fun playing Leonard Nimoy in her body, don’t ask you don’t want to be spoiled.

John Noble of course still plays the archetypical mad scientist Walter Bishop to a pitch perfect level. In the more dramatic episodes he can get a bit annoying with his grief but in the end he’s wonderfully “out there”.

Mid season there is a moment of slow down with sup par writing and a couple of aborted plots, clearly filler material. If only they axed some episodes we would have ended with a masterpiece, as it is it’s just good fun.

Cinema Review: Puss in boots

Puss in Boots, the one from “Shrek” on his own solo adventure.

Puss in Boots is certainly the breakthrough character from the “Shrek” franchise. Everybody loves Puss in Boots, I love him too, so isn’t a surprise that they developed a spin off for him after realizing that Shrek story really ended with the first movie, is more a question of “It’s incredible they took so long”.

This movie clearly proves that Puss in Boots, in this strange Mexican incarnation brought by an independent Antonio Banderas decision, works as a main lead. Not every sidekick manages the jump but he’s clearly able to hold an entire movie, even saddled with a not very good plot (more on this later) on his feline shoulders. Maybe the trick is that, citing Antonio Banderas, “He thinks he’s six foot tall”, which means that Puss in Boots manages to be the comic sidekick and the epic lead all in one furry persona.

With the plot sadly they resorted to standard Hollywood fare so we get the obligatory origin story, a very banal one to boot, the obligatory personal problem to overcome and the obligatory love story. Regarding the last the movie introduces us to Kitty Softpaws who is practically a version of Puss in Boots with added tits but with virtual no characterization, no back story and a fairly annoying attitude. Apparently in “Shrek” world there are normal cats and crazy talking acrobatic cats that walk around in boots, I wonder if they are two distinct races….

The new setting is basically Zorro’s Mexico, with added fairy tales characters wandering around. It got his charms visually and stylistically but in the end it’s all missing it’s spark, it’s nice to look at but compared to some recent masterpieces like “Arthur Christmas” it simply comes short.

With all his short comings “Puss in boots” in the end is still fairly entertaining. There are some decent laughs while the plot comes along at a nice pace, all probably due to the charisma of his feline protagonist. There’s something to be said for a movie that is simply enjoyable, it’s just that from “Puss in Boots” we were expecting much more.

Book review: Triumph of the sun

Against the backdrop of the siege of Khartoum two men battle for their lives and their love.

This is one of the best Wilbur Smith novels. Of course it’s still Wilbur Smith so his heroes are all incredibly handsome and successful his heroines irresistibly drawn to them and so on. If this kind of stuff irks you then you should move away because these things are part of the genre.

For the people willing to overlook the usual stereotypes, or maybe willing to enjoy them, “Triumph of the sun” is a riveting, dramatic story. It starts slowly, Smith takes the first hundred pages just to present all the characters, but then the tension really builds up.

One aspect where Smith is underrated is how well researched his books are, this one is an interesting account of the Mahdi rebellion and the siege of Khartoum. Maybe this spoils it somewhat for us history nerds who already knew how the siege of Khartoum ended but nonetheless it provides an amazing immersion into the period.

Another noteworthy thing is how Smith, often accused of being racist for his depiction of black people manages to paint here some Arab villain who are somewhat really sympathetic but still worthy antagonists. Actually nobody is a saint in this novel, even some of the so called heroes engage in somewhat despicable actions.

At his heart, as are the rule of the genre, of course there is the love story with the two main protagonists, each representing one of his most famous series, the Ballantynes and the Courteneys, both going for the same woman. Midway through the siege ends in an unexpected way and, as is Smith custom, the plot transforms with different settings and a broader scope. This is really one of those novels where everything could, and eventually will, happen.

Recommended for lovers of exotic adventure.

TV review: The thick of it season 1

The inner workings of the fictional ministry of social affairs.

After watching “in the loop” I went back and recovered the original series that sparked the movie.

As a first impression I must say that the camera is really awkward, they are clearly aiming for that fake documentary feeling that it’s all the rage lately but honestly the camera jerks around Blair Witch style and so it can be really uncomfortable for some viewers.

Also the production values are really low, it’s clear that they were still testing the waters and that the BBC didn’t invest too much money in it.

Luckily they got the wonderfully foul mouthed Malcolm Tucker from the beginning and so we really didn’t care about that stuff. Up the certain extent it flows even better than the movie because the tone is all even, there is no style clash between the UK part and the USA part. Moreover this kind of stuff works better in 30 minutes episodes, the plot is still not really that important and so when is taken in such small bits is more like a starting point from where all the various characters can go on a tangent.

In the end I can’t help but wonder if our government really works this way….

DVD review: Dear John

A soldier enlisted abroad falls in love with a young girl at home.

This is not really my genre of movies but I was curious about this one. To scathing reviews it managed to dethrone “Avatar” from the box office top while collecting more than 100 millions along the way.

This is certainly not a very good movie, the plot starts in a fairly linear and relatable way but it quickly degrades in a hopeless mess, the pacing is glacial while the characters are living clichés.

Yet this movie faced the issue of the Iraq war with much more box office success than legions of critically acclaimed efforts. Probably the general public doesn’t really want to hear that war is a bad thing, most likely they already know that and generally speaking the war in Iraq is a really depressing affair, nothing that inspire “Epic war film”. So when “Dear John” quietly shoves everything under the carpet because John can’t tell us what he’s doing for security reasons the public is left with the sad and stony eyes of John Tyree (Channing Tatum) where they can project they feelings and their insecurities. This clearly struck a chord somewhere, apparently we don’t want to see what they are doing in the desert, we just want to cuddle them when they come back.

Now this is actually a good thing, every movie should be judged on his own terms so even if I find John Tyree a terrible and boring character the silent but strong type is a mainstay of romantic movies so disapproving of him is like banning elves from fantasy. The reason this is still very bad is that Channing Tatum is one of those pouty “I got only one facial expression” guys, he really lacks the intensity that a role that is required by the role.

Also the ritual “Now a bunch of complications separates the star crossed lovers” is plotted and handed very badly. The characters don’t react in a believable way and it’s all so confused.

Amanda Seyfried of course was born for roles like this but while she manages to sail through the first part practically on the strength of her indubitable charm alone not even her smile manages to salvage the ending, she is good but not even an Oscar winner could do that.

For all the mess that is the plot the direction is by a spotless Lasse Hallstrom who manages trough sheer cinematographic experience to craft a watchable movie, albeit with a lot of help from Seyfried.

In the end if you like romantic movies go for it, maybe you’ll even love it.

DVD review: Cemetery Junction

The coming of age story of three boys.

At least I have to admit that this movie has a highly topical subject. The transition to the work force and what it means for the dreams and aspirations is not a very popular subject. Obviously this is caused by his own very nature, if you think about it this is very depressing stuff, in the 80s young boys faced the prospect of joining a daily grind with the real possibility of never getting to a nice financial situation (which by the way is still better than what we are facing now which is the prospect of joining the masses of unemployed with the real possibility of not ever getting to the daily grind part).

Ricky Gervais, the creator of “the office” for the uninitiated, approached the subject as a comedy and even managed to squeeze a laugh or two out of it. The problem, as always with these dramas – comedies, is that there is an incredibly fine line between the two, so when he manages to stick to it Gervais obtain riveting stuff but often he gets a clash of tones where the dramatic part is set aside.

Probably I’m getting cynical but I can’t really sympathize with what the protagonists do on their work place, if I must take it seriously I would have them fired because “it’s you workplace and you don’t act like a moron on your workplace!”.

Also the whole dichotomy “daily dream crushing grind” versus “going away” that permeates the movie is too simplicistic. I understand that this is symbolic of taking our chances and trying to better ourselves but I can’t help but snicker when they declare that “They are going away, don’t know where”, you know that you have to pay your rent also abroad? It’s not like they give away free stuff in Paris.

On the other side the adult population of Cemetery Junction is depicted in a much more interesting way, their casual racism, their understanding of the world and their quiet strength beneath the anonymous façade is pitch perfect. In retrospect I would have much preferred a movie about them.

CInema review: Hugo

Paris 1930, a young orphan embarks on a mysterious quest.

In the last few years it looked like Scorsese was suffering from the “Important auteur” syndrome. Regarded by many as the best filmmaker in the world his movies became longer and longer with very confuse plotting and lethargic pacing. I don’t know if he realized this but first he directed last year the excellent “Shutter Island” and this year finally he returned to the top form of his beginnings.

“Hugo” is a magical story. I don’t want to spoiler the plot and the various revelations, suffice to say that this is an extended homage to the cinema beginnings. An homage that manages to capture the magic of those pioneeristic works without being pedantic. See it’s often very difficult to quote an earlier work without sounding like a textbook or, even worse, without making it an inside joke for those “smart” fans. In a stroke of genius Scorsese makes his protagonist actually go to the cinema and see a bunch of those earlier works before redoing them for the modern audience so that everybody is up to date on what’s going on.

In a fascinating move Scorsese decided also to do a movie about cinema beginning using the most advanced technologies at his disposal. So this movie is in 3D, native 3D not awful conversion job, and it’s probably the best 3D ever. Scorsese uses it in a marvelous way; James Cameron itself said that its way better than what we did on “Avatar”.

This is a dramatic fable with an original plot that will capture you from the beginning till the very end. The movie eschews those boring Hollywood formulas to give us a letter of love to the power and the magic of storytelling.

Highly recommended.

Dvd review: The fighter

The true story of boxer Micky Ward.

I used to loathe Mark Wahlberg, I really couldn’t see what his director saw in him, he was the blandest white male American actor possible, he was incredibly boring. Then I saw him in a comic role, in “The other guys”, and I saw good comic timing, nice pacing and a willingness to go where many other actors didn’t dare.

Then I saw this movie where he gave a beautiful understated performance that is also noteworthy for what it says about him as a person and as an artist with integrity. See, to put it bluntly, Micky Ward family was full of lunatics and so the most interesting roles, the role that give people Oscars, were those of his familiars. Now, abusing his lead actor status, he could have obtained a pumping up of his role with more saucy one liners and dramatic stuff, instead he left things as they are and therefore the Oscars went into his costars directions. I can say that he obtained my respect but I think that he probably preferred a golden statue for the fireplace.

This movie is really a labor of love for Wahlberg, he comes from a background similar to the titular fighter and he kept the movie afloat trough development hell using every ounce of his star power. He actually kept preparing for his role during this long period, four years, by keeping himself in the physical shape required to realistically portrait a boxer.

For all the flash that runs into the movie it’s his performance that keep it all together, he is like the straight man in a buddy comedy, the pillar that make all the other performances possible.

Christian Bale portraits Micky’s half-brother, Dicky Eglund, in another terrific performance. It’s astonishing how somebody dared to say that his prodigious weight losing is just a publicity stunt. Him losing weight is like Wahlberg gaining muscles, just another tool, albeit a very hard one, in the actor toolbox to make the performance more realistic. Dicky Eglund was a crack addict at the time and so he had to lose weight if he wanted to look the part.

Bale was pulled into the movie by Wahlberg himself, their daughters go to the same school, and apart from the weight loss he really managed a mimetic performance. He spent some time with the real Dicky Eglund and he really sounds the same, It’s astonishing and a really well deserved Oscar for supporting actor.

Melissa Leo won also the supporting actress for her portrayal of their mother. Her is a performance that it’s not easy to like, we all know too many parents who are a little bit like her, but her interaction with the rest of the cast is sparkling.

Amy Adams got another deserved nomination for best supporting actress, apparently she wants to flee that “Amy Adams” character that she’s been doing lately. She certainly got the acting chops for that and in this movie managed to move from her stereotypical image while remaining true to herself (which is something that not many actress managed to do, too many resorted to the old “lot of steaming sex” in a bid to be taken seriously).

The movie itself is very good and original. It takes a while to get into it with is large and peculiar cast but give it five minutes and you’ll be captured. The fight scenes are good and realistic, they still owe a lot to Rocky but this is not such a bad thing. The themes are interesting and nailed correctly without being to overt. Micky wants to live his life without too much interference from his family, he wants to succeed beyond his little town but at the same time he wants’ his family near him and he wants to remain in the place that he loves.

This movie deserves every accolade that it gained.

Dvd review: Hot tub time machine

A group of friend accidentally uses an hot tub time machine.

The current output of American is so dismal that when we get one that somehow works is practically worth an headline. The premise is all there, in the title, you don’t need to ask more. As a premise is actually good but we saw movies after movies squandering much better premises.

In this case they actually use it in a good way, mainly because they remembered to bring in the jokes and the funny. They don’t work every time and they certainly aren’t the best jokes that you’ll ever hear but they are funny enough and there is a good abundance of them.

As the latest tendencies dictate this is an extremely crude comedy. I love Judd Apatow movies but evidently somebody in Hollywood decided that we really can’t go on without potty humor which is really a shame. Now I can’t put a comedy over dinner if I don’t want to watch people manipulating excrements while I’m eating.

They kinda play with the titular concept but don’t except anything mind blowing; if you saw half a movie about time machines you already know the entire plot of this one. I think that also the screenwriters knew about that and actually aimed squarely for it. The whole sense of Déjà vu is evoked by the main cast who many times talk about the situation in movie terms adding a meta dimension that adds to the fun.

As usual all the main characters need to solve some personal issues but luckily this time they don’t lose too much time over it and when they delve on it they do it in a farcical way, we never stray from the comedy to put a serious hat like so many rom-coms.

In the end if you like a fun comedy and you don’t mind really gross gags this one is aimed at you.

DVD review: Triangle

A group of friends out in the sea for a day of sailing come across a mysterious boat.

The main selling point of this movie is the extremely ingenious plot; it’s brilliant, all clockwork precision and sliding mirrors.

I really can’t say anything about it; the whole fun lies in seeing what’s going on. Try not to spoil yourself about this one; this is the kind of experience that could be ruined if somebody told you about the ending beforehand.

For the rest the movie is competent, there is nice pacing and an intriguing atmosphere permeates it. I appreciated the nice transitions between quiet suburban life, day out sailing and the big boat of horror with his shocking revelations.

The characters are all stock horror movie fodder, even the protagonist is not really that developed. Actually in the end this is a fine example of B movie so we got the grandiose plot, historically B movies pioneered stuff that the mainstream didn’t dare to touch with a very long fork, but we also got the pedestrian everything else. At least here there is no illogical absurdities like “Why don’t we go into the haunted house at the top of the hill and then we split up!”, every decision is at least reasonable and the mental state of the protagonist is, in the end, understandable.

DVD review: The girl who kicked the hornets' nest

Lisbeth Salander in her final battle against a shadowy organization.

The final chapter in the Millenium series, even if I prefer calling it the “Girl who does something” series, is better than the second one but still worse than the first. See a little known fact is that the three movies that came into the world cinemas are but a smaller version of the original six part miniseries that was transmitted on Swedish TV. While the first movie didn’t suffer too much the last two feels at moments oddly disjointed and incomplete with a plethora of continuity errors that maybe are not errors at all and an uneven pacing.

Plot wise this is directly a sequel of the second one, is not really possible to enjoy it without seeing “The girl who played with fire”. Not a lot is introduced here but I consider this a wise move, the second movie introduced so much stuff that really piling more angst on Lisbeth Salander would have been silly. Instead we spent the whole movie tidying up loose threads and solving the situation brought by the previous movie.

There is more to do for the secondary characters, chiefly Michael Blomkvist, and the plot is more reasonable and relatable, still the titular heroine remain a character so difficult, so frail, that I find it difficult to relate to.

Actually looking back to the trilogy I see a story that’s been clearly stolen by a breakthrough character, the various plots that eventually led to the discovery of Sweden “dark secrets”, which apparently do exists at least according to the author, are really just foil for an heroine who practically suffered every evil that society can inflict on a woman. In the end even the author avatar, Michael Blomkvist is a middle age journalist exactly like Stieg Larsson, appears unable to not even establish a proper relationship with her.

Personally I don’t like her too much, there is a point where the piling of the angst becomes too much for me and the punk attitude that she maintain to keep people away from her actually manages to keep me away, but I understand why and how she captured the imagination of millions. A broken butterfly is a very powerful concept.

Cinema review: Immortals

Mythical Greece: an evil king wants to free the titans and it’s up to Theseus to stop him.

Tarsem can be a frustrating director, the most important representative of the generation of special effect wunderkind who came to fame in the 90s and then transitioned to movie making, like with many of his ilk his skills as a director are still somewhat lacking.

Honestly I think that he is a real artist, he uses color and settings in a very creative and unique way. In this movie he drew inspiration from renaissance art and created what is visually speaking an amazing experience. All the designs and the costumes are interesting and original but sadly for every succefull piece, like his reinterpretation of the minotaur which is a sight to behold, there is another which is, to put it simply, ridiculous. The head gears of the gods for example are beyond camp all the way to “Lady Gaga would wear it”.

The fights scenes are well filmed and easy to follow. The gods battles are the showstopper here, they are like Matrix on steroids. Actually they are so good that the human battle look a puny and lackluster compared to them. Which leads to the other problem, Theseus, the nominal hero of the tale, does practically nothing to advance the plot and resolve the situation. I’m all for gods’ intervention in Mythical stories likes these but the human hero should do something, if not get rid of him and make the gods the protagonists.

This is actually only a facet of a bigger problem, the plot makes no sense at all, there are holes so big in it that you could fit at least a couple of pantheons and they are so glaring obvious that you can’t help noticing them while watching the movie (Those that you notice while back home and getting something from the fridge, the fridge logic of tvtropes fame, are not that important because they don’t detract from your enjoyment of the movie).

In the end the visual experience is still worth it but it doesn’t manage to convey the sense of epic that should come with a movie like this. With all his flair Tarsem is still not a very good director when it comes to pacing, composition and storytelling and so this movie is oddly devoid of the soul that could have counterbalanced the plot troubles.

In the end it’s been a nice evening and a fascinating throwback to those sword and sandals movies that were all the rage thirty years ago. Actually as a remake of Clash of the Titans this is superior to that terrible thing that we got last year, and it got good 3D to boot.

Tv review: the wire season 5

With a new focus on the media system we get to the end of the story.

This is the last season of the show and it’s kinda difficult to review it. I don’t know if it’s the best TV ever but certainly I never saw a show with better writing.

This last season manages to keep the extremely high quality established in the rest of the series while driving all the main plot lines to conclusion. It’s very good stuff under any conceivable point of view.

As a whole this serial managed to tell a bunch of very interesting stories while at the same time it painted what is the more comprehensive and realistic portrait of a city. Maybe is a bit depressing considering how virtually every character get morally compromised one way or another but it never indulges too much in it.

The closures are all rightly handled and for the first time I’m left with the impression of having just watched a 60 part movie, there is no filling, no throwaway stuff, everything flows nicely from the beginning till the very end. Sadly this is what denied “The wire” the success it deserved, as wonderful as this serial is when played on the PS3 it’s not advisable to watch it on TV, maybe after having missed a couple of episodes, the plot is so thick and complex that it can easily overwhelm.

One advice, watch it, now.

Book review: Rose Madder

An abused wife escapes a life of violence; her husband tries to track her down.

It’s simply not possible to overstate the importance of Stephen King. He single handedly revolutionized a genre and is depiction of American life earned him a place among the all time greats. There are those who would like you to believe that he lost his touch, that he should retire, but they are only little envious people who judge him not according to human standard, where even a “bad” Stephen King is a damn good book, but according to King standard, therefore one of his book is measured against one of his earliest masterpieces and if he doesn’t manage to totally reinvent a genre which he reinvented multiple times he is branded as unoriginal and derivative.

To the book in question this is one of those “bad” king’s book, so still good by anybody else standard. The main story is arguably extremely intense with a chilling depiction of the physical and psychological abuse that a wife can suffer. The first 100 pages are pitch perfect but then, as it often happens with king, he loses himself a little bit with various plotlines that are simply less interesting than the main one. The end, with the obligatory final showdown is again riveting and engaging.

Oddly King decided to spice the story up with an odd mythological counter plot. I must admit that it’s an interesting idea and that it manages to make the whole confrontation a primeval affair but I still have the impression that the book would have been much stronger just with the confrontation between the battered wife and the violent husband.

In the end this is a tad overlong book but it’s still riveting stuff, required reading for all genre fans.

Dvd review: In the loop

A group of politicians sets about starting the war in Iraq.

This movie is a spinoff of “The thick of it”, is practically the same stuff of the little known British TV serial but no previous knowledge of it is required, there is no reference to previous plotlines or stuff like that, is just a bigger, meaner version of the original.

There is a nominal plot with a lot of intrigues and betrayals about it but apart from being really complicated is also not that important because, after approximately 5 seconds you’ll be lost in the beauty of the dialogues.

Now is important to be really clear, these dialogues are some of the most vulgar stuff you’ll ever hear in your life, there is a level of dialectic violence here that is unparalleled so if you are one of those easily offended types, steer clear away of this movie.

The selling point of this movie is all here, in insults so over the top, so brilliantly constructed, that they acquire a strange kind of musicality. It’s a strange and wicked pleasure to watch those despicable individuals, led by the most despicable of them all, Malcolm (Peter Capaldi) the spin doctor of the British Prime Minister, go about the business of politics.

This is also I fear, a fairly accurate depiction of how modern politics works, exemplar is the figure of Simon Forster (Tom Hollander) who finds itself at the center of the political turmoil about the war in Iraq thanks to a series of erroneous statements.

This movie is one of the most quotable movies ever, an hilarious experience.

“Climbing the mountain of conflinct”? You sounded like a nazi Julie Andrews!

Malcolm Tucker

Tv review: true blood season 3

More kinky sex, more wacky storylines, more bizarre supernatural randomness!

When at the end of a season we wonder out loud why we did watch something it’s a clear sign that things aren’t going into the right direction.

At least this time the main villain is not kinky sex personified, actually the main villain is the only thing that has been done mainly right in the whole season. Russel Edgington is a very fun and interesting character and brings back vampirism to the center stage. There are very fun interaction between him and Eric Northman, who continue to be the show stealer.

Sadly the rest is descending into a complete mess.

Lafayette, the other breakthrough character is badly shoehorned by the screenwriters into plot lines that deprive him of his more interesting feature. See while they did the right call by not killing him at the end of season one they clearly don’t know what to do with him, they can’t go to the books, where (spoiler alert) he’s been long dead, and so they put him into more serious and depressing storylines making him increasingly somber. This is an obvious mistake, we liked him because he was fun and flamboyant, we don’t want another Tara.

Speaking of which the amount of bad and crazy stuff that keeps piling on her is absurd. She was already a morose and annoying person even when she didn’t have all those reason to whine; now she is unbearable.

This is probably the main problem of this serial, beyond all the kinky sex and storylines so absurd that they leave our mouths gaping open, nobody is really likable, they are all different shades of terrible.

Pile on it a supernatural quotient that is spiraling out of control with five different types of supernatural creatures living near this tiny hamlet and you get a train wreck.

Cinema review: Contagion

A terrible new virus is spreading.

Finally an original movie that eschew the terribly boring three act structure that Hollywood seems to love so much. Steven Soderbergh is an example of the virtues and the vices of the modern American storytelling. He actively tries to remain original and explore new content and new ground with every movie that ne makes. This is certainly commendable but on the other side his “independent” output is more miss than hit, this is because that infamous structure while still boring and soul destroying is a good and easy “road map” to give a movie focus and relatability. Sailing into uncharted water is a risky business, more often than not you’ll come back with your nets empty.

Therefore I’m happy that this time he returns to form. It certainly helps that here he got a strong hook that naturally eschew a traditional storytelling. This is literally the story of an epidemic and certainly we can’t see an epidemic learning something about itself and becoming a better virus in a movie (this putting aside from a moment the concept of mutations).

Soderbergh opt for an extremely realistic setting and a large ensemble cast with multiple points of view. The beginning of the movie is very good with a perfect pacing and a scary crescendo, we watch amazed and scared the epidemic grow exponentially while the various characters do their best to stop it or simply survive. This is aided by an original soundtrack that eschews the usual orchestral stuff for a fast beating electronic score.

Sadly toward the end it loses a lot of his momentum. From a movie like this we simply expect a lot of devastation and social disorder, the couple of scenes that the movie show us look paltry and an afterthought, maybe for budget reason but it really impacts the intensity of the movie.

Also the whole experience fells disjointed, there are simply too many plot threads, too much stuff is never shown or never explained, I understand that the protagonist is the epidemic but considering that what we are watching are human being reacting to that epidemic I would have liked to understand what happened to them a little bit more.

In the end this movie is an intense original experience that will leave you worried everytime you watch somebody sneezing.

Cinema review: Arthur Christmas

Santa Claus is not a single person; in reality is a dynasty that controls an incredible organization.

This movie delivers on every level.

At his heart this is a very classic and heartwarming Christmas tale. What is noteworthy is that it managed to remain pleasurable without being too sugary which is the trap where the majority of the Christmas tales who deal specifically about Christmas fall into.

It’s also a really fun movie. All the jokes deliver and there is a great abundance of them, actually it’s hard to remember another movie in the last few months with such a great success ratio on his comedy side, maybe the writers of those terrible comedies that Hollywood churns out regularly should pay a visit to the animation department.

Lastly this is an incredibly imaginative experience. The main concept maybe it’s not entirely original but they mined it for all that its worth. The first ten minutes of the movie which explain in all the details how an organization that deliver gifts to two billions children on a single night works is pure cinema and worth by itself the admission ticket. The whole movie is full to the brim with funny citations, amazing concepts and gorgeous designs.

This is one of those rare cartoons that are good both for children and grownups. There is a whole subplot about aging and passing the torch that will probably pass over the heads of any child while connecting to the grownups in the audience.

A masterpiece in animation, a movie to see as soon as possible.

Cinema review: The adventures of Tintin

The adventures of a young reporter and his meeting with his future best friend, a drunken sea captain.

For those interested in the evolution of the cinematographic medium this is an extremely interesting affair. Steven Spielberg uses motion capture technology to adapt a classic Belgian comic.

A couple of weeks ago I realized that the concept of motion capture, while yesterday news to us movie fans, is not really that clear to everybody so maybe a little bit of explanation is in order. Basically motion capture, as perfected by James Cameron for Avatar, means that the actors practice their stuff while wearing strange full body suits. Those suits are covered in sensors and so every single movement of the actor is digitalized. James Cameron added an odd apparatus on the actors head to register all the tiny details of the expressions and so he was able to solve the famous “dead eyes” problem that plagued this type of technology. The idea behind all this stuff is the creation of a virtual “costume” that will follow every movement of the actor without being limited by anything physical.

The place where all this stuff takes place, the box, with the aid of more processing power than practically everything else on the planet, is able to do the basic rendering of this process in real time which in practice means that the director will have a good idea of how a scene is unfolding while filming it and not two weeks later while watching the animators working. Another strange detail that probably not everybody knows is that the digitization normally happens to the entire scene at once and that the director chooses the angles at a much later date while sitting alone in the cutting room. Spielberg pushed this technology a little bit toward traditional movie making with the creation of a virtual camera that he used to film the virtual movie in real time.

All interesting stuff indeed and I only skimmed the surface on what’s going on behind the scenes but let’s get to the movie.

Spielberg adapted a very classic movie and decided to be extremely faithful to the look and feeling of the original material. This makes it extremely peculiar because while the design of Tintin works perfectly as a drawn character translating him so literally to a flesh and blood one creates something extremely peculiar.

The whole movie has been created following closely the original so we have a world in primary colors, clear lines, and cartoon looking even with all the motion capture shenanigans of the world.

I believe that this has been a mistake. Movies and comics are two different medium and what works perfectly well on one doesn’t necessarily work on the other. Bryan Singer with the X-men opted out of their primary colors costumes and with good reason.

While I really wanted to enjoy it, we are talking about Spielberg here, there was another big obstacle. Tintin while virtually unknown outside to today’s audiences is such an important part of the evolution of the fantastical narratives that in reality we all know him by earth even without having read it, not even once. Spielberg himself with Indiana Jones already created Tintin the movie and he didn’t know that he existed, all the morning serials, countless movies, a very part of our culture is ingrained in those exotic adventures. This means that Tintin adventures are rife with clichés, that Tintin as a character has grown old.

Luckily Spielberg didn’t shoehorn the terrible three act structure on Tintin, we join him in the middle of his adventures with his desks full of memorabilia from his past, and he simply stumble into his latest adventure while walking into a flea market. Also his camerawork, virtual camera work this time, is still perfect.

In the end a very interesting experiment but a failed one, maybe if he didn’t try to push the envelope in so many different directions it would have been easier to relate to the movie and enjoy it. Still a Spielberg failure is head and shoulders above the rest of the pack so definitely worth checking out.

Anime review: Nazca

A group of Japanese people discover that they are the reincarnation of ancient Incas.

In theory it shouldn’t be that bad, at least there is an original concept that could provide plenty of drama when the allegiances of the past conflict with those of the present, the setting is also very original, the Inca empire is not something that we see every day. Therefore it’s noteworthy how they managed to make so many mistakes.

But first let’s talk a little about the tone. This is clearly on opera aimed to a female audience, no offence intended here, in Japan there is a clear division between stuff aimed at male and stuff aimed at females (there is also stuff for older male, older female, young boys etc.). So the actual fighting and generally the plot advancing stuff is not very abundant while we get plenty of angst, weeping lovers and that odd homosexual undertone that apparently fascinates so much Japanese girls.

The main problem is the general unlikability of practically everyone. This is a big problem because in a work like this one, where the relationships are the main focus, the characters need to be better that these thinly detailed sketches. The main bad guy wants to destroy the world for unfathomable reason, his present mind so completely obliterated by his past self that he became a caricature of a villain, even bursting up in the more stale “evil laughter” that you can imagine.

The ancient Inca society is left completely devoid of any interesting characteristic, actually is missing any defining trait at all apart from a mystical access to a mysterious super energy of dubious utility. The design of the Inca costumes is Campy in a “Oh my god what they were drinking that day!” way. I really have no idea who they thought could root for somebody dressed in s long leotard and incredibly long feathers...

I must admit that the animations are nice, detailed and high quality but this only means that I can see all the ridiculous details of the setting.

Terrible stuff indeed.

TV review: The wire season 4

With a new crime lord in town and the Election Day for the mayor of Baltimore approaching we follow the lives of a group of school kids.

I had my reservation at the end of season 3 but I must say that I was wrong, the creators of this incredible series were merely laying the groundwork for this season, in my opinion the best one and certainly one of the best things that I had the pleasure of seeing on my TV.

As is customary for the wire there is a new setting, the school system, with a bunch of new characters, a gang of school kids. This makes everything that happens on the screen so much more harrowing because beforehand even with relatively sympathetic criminals they were still people who choose the wrong side of the law, instead here we literally see the enormous pressures that drive so many kids to criminal life. Watching the fall from grace of not one but many boys who, in a different setting, would have been perfectly normal people made our viewing really intense.

A lot could be said on how there is a complex system that creates monsters and what could be done to correct it.

The creators again with the character of Bunny Colvin point the finger at the hypocrisies of the school system while proposing solutions that not everyone will like but that are anchored in real life.

As I said in the beginning I thought that the creators where unsuccessful in tackling the dark side of politics, I was really glaringly wrong. It was simply the start of a multi season arc and here we start to see that even electing the right person for the job is only the beginning.

Is difficult to say more without spoilering it, suffice to say that this season is a masterpiece on every level.

Videogame review: Limbo

A boy seeks his missing sister

As far as flavor and setting goes this game is a masterpiece. Being an indie game obviously the budget is but a fraction of what they spend on the big productions but the creator smartly, instead of trying to hide this, embraced his limitations with a wonderful low fi aesthetic.

The game is all in black and white with minimal sound effects. The graphics remind one of those old expressionist movies (like Murnau’s “Nosferatu”).

The immersion in the game is total; there are no instructions, no voice over, nothing. You are simply left there, alone in a spooky forest trying to understand what to do and where to go. The hero is a little boy and he is extremely vulnerable.

There are monsters in the forest; the spider in his simplicity is one of the most perfectly realized of videogames history. They are much scarier than your normal run of the mill monsters not only for the aesthetic but also for the game play. We can’t jump on them and bash their head because they are much stronger than us and when we get to us we die in a very gruesome and graphic way. The only way to defeat them is to outsmart them.

This is another aspect of the game where the author hit the jackpot. Even if the basic structure is that of a platformer at his earth this is a puzzle game. In every scene we are presented by a problem and often to solve it we need to be creative and manipulate the elements of the game using a non linear logic.

Alas not everything is perfect. After the first part of the game in the forest we get to different settings which, while not bad per se, are much less evocative than the forest. Also the enemies after the spider are interesting but missing that primal quality of him. The experience become a little bit stock platforming, there are switch that reverse the gravity, saws, moving platform, all stuff that we saw many many times.

The other problem is that with such an intense experience we naturally expect a nice ending to tie everything up but the game instead becomes increasingly bizarre with our hero literally causing rain and walking upside down on the top of the world. This could be redeemed by a clear and nice ending but instead we get one of those ever popular open ones. I understand that this is all supposed to be metaphorical but I can’t help but feel a bit underwhelmed. I have the distinct impression that in the end, for all his wonderful moodiness, this is still a short, I completed it in three after dinner sessions, bunch of random puzzles tied together.

In the end if you can get it, it’s very cheap and an unique experience. We should support this kind of stuff especially when it comes from an Indie developer.

Book Review: Nation

A terrible disaster brings together on a tiny island of the pacific a native boy and a British girl.

This is a story from Terry Pratchett, author of the famous, and very witty, Discworld saga and so it should be a simple fun book and while it is indeed fun and the basic structure is simple this is also a serious and dramatic story.

The novel main theme is identity as in “what makes us what we are and what happens if we carry it away?” There are no easy answers to that and I don’t think that the ending will suit everyone tastes but the core of the novel is a delicious comedy of misunderstandings.

On the other side it takes a while for the author to find his path and so the novel at the beginning doesn’t quite click. It is indeed quite difficult to find the right tone while describing the cataclysmic events that start the plot.

This is recommended reading for all the fans of the Discworld saga, the whole plot could easily be transplanted to that setting without losing a beat and while I agree with the author that the different setting makes it more poignant the tone of the novel is pure Discworld.

For everybody else expect a very unusual novel that will make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Tv review: True Blood season 2

Our heroes face an anti vampire group and a new supernatural menace.

I really wonder hoe watches this series. Clearly the producers think that the viewers are all into this “random ridiculous sex scenes put everywhere” thing because now instead of one per episode we have at least two, if not three. Even the big bad of the season get his power almost literally from kinky sex.

Maybe somebody somewhere find all this exciting but, for me, it’s still all incredibly campy even if even I must concede that they somehow corrected their aim and that there are at least a couple of nice ideas in there.

The pacing is still terrible, the first half of the season is nigh unwatchable with the main plotlines advancing at a sluggish rate. Thankfully al the buildup leads somewhere and the final showdown is actually engaging and fast paced.

I still don’t understand the role of many characters, we spent an incredible amount of time following Jason Stackhouse around and his plot goes literally nowhere.

At least they understood which are the breakout characters so we get more of the flamboyant Lafayette, even if he is much toned down, and much more of Eric Northman who is wonderfully amoral and inhuman.

 Still not recommended viewing but is getting better.

Cinema review: Real Steel

In the near future boxing robots are all the rage.

Basically this is Rocky all over again, this time with robots instead of human beings. Now I understand that the idea sound terrible but in reality is awesome. First we have to remember that it has been years since we had a full blown Rocky style boxing movie, and by the way this is at least a new film and not one of those dreadful remakes that Hollywood insist at throwing in our direction. Moreover I still remember Rocky fights were never really that realistic or we would have never got that endless jokes about rocky fighting against a Robocop or an Alien (Which are by the way the seeds from whom after a few years was born Predator).

The fights are wonderful if unoriginal. They really lifted everything from Rocky. The underdog robot is an old sparring partner model created to absorb an incredible amount of punishment, the champion robot is named Zeus, and basically everything comes straight from Stallone’s classic. I must admit that even knowing practically how everything was going due to me still remembering the original I got really excited and involved in them, they really managed to copy the primal energy that made Rocky such an entertaining experience.

On the other side where the robots are cleverly designed to create an engaging experience sadly the human side of the movie is lacking. It’s not the actors fault, Jackman is still an extremely talented actor able to really connect with the audience, Evangeline Lily is likable and managed to rekindle the spark of the first seasons of Lost while the boy actor, Dakota Goyo, gave it all in his performance, probably aided by some of the best lines in the movie.

The real problem is the Jackman character, Charlie Kenton, is simply too unlikable. I understand that this is supposed to be a father son story where the absentee father becomes a better person and reconnect with his son(Which by the way is lifted straight from another Stallone vehicle “Over the Top”) but in the first half of the movie he is simply too much of an idiot, the utter stupidity of his actions were cringe worthy and in a movie like this, where we are supposed to get behind the hero and suffer vicariously with him a so great dissonance is not a good thing.

I also smell some hasty rewrite with Evangeline Lily character, Bailey, who after a long introduction is reduced to the role of “Fiancée who watches from afar and cheers at our heroes”. This is really notable where her supposed specialty, she should be the robot expert, is taken over by an eleven years old high on too much soda intake.

In the end this is not a perfect movie but the fights, and the ending, are so good that they make it worthy a trip to the cinema.

TV review: The Wire season 3

The target of the investigations is again the Barksdale organization while the shadowy world of local politics is introduced.

Notionally this season should be about politics but I must say that here they didn’t achieve the amazing results of the first two season, we don’t really understand what it’s all about apart from a generic impression of “It’s complicated” and “They’ll try to swindle you”. The writing is still amazing of course; it just does a worse job at explaining the subject.

Spiritually this is more a sequel to the first season, we go back to drug trafficking and the Barksdale whose plotlines come to a thunderous conclusion.

Overall the show is still very realistic and maybe a bit bleak, the effort to diminish the crime and help the underclass are actively sabotaged and stopped by the higher ups in the system. Even the cop hero, McNulty, is actually a moron ready to work behind his colleagues backs to get what he wants. This is noteworthy; here we have peoples, real human beings who do things, who make mistakes, dictated not by plot necessity like in so many other shows. Their mistakes are dictated by their nature, by what they are.

This is also an extremely cinematic show, there are thousands of moments where the storytelling is so elegant, so sophisticated.

This is really must see TV, for the first time I feel like I’m watching a 60 hour long movie and not the usual stuff stitched together just to get to the end of the season.

Book review: The face

A dangerous psychopath wants to kidnap the son of a famous actor.

At first glance this should be a very interesting concept. In one side there is a classic Koontz villain while on the other there is a young boy and the chief of security who must protect him. We can envision a lot of preparation, cat and mouse action sequences and a sprinkle of “the crazy lives of very wealthy persons”.

Sadly for the author this wasn’t enough and so after not even fifty pages he starts a completely different story about ghosts and various other random things. Now this is not bad per se, often having two parallel plot lines can enrich a book and make it smarter without making it too complicated but here this trick doesn’t work.

See the ghost storyline completely eclipse the kidnapping one. Not only it takes more space, it becomes literally a deus ex machina because virtually all the important actions are made by an all powerful supernatural being.

This is a shame, the villain is stock Koontz psychopath but the author actually manages to make him interesting and so I would have liked to see him acting in a real plot instead of the obvious and bad developed one that the author created.

Koontz remains a crafty writer but this book is one of his least inspired efforts.

Videogame review: Prince of Persia Epilogue

The aftermath of prince of Persia last adventure.

The reboot of Prince of Persia was a really interesting experiment. Like many things it was derided by the “Hardcore” for being of all things, too easy. See if during one of the incredibly acrobatic set pieces that compose the game you did a mistake instead of dying horribly and starting again from the beginning of the level you were endlessly saved by your companion, princess Elika, who transported you back to the beginning of the sequence. Of course we casual breathed a sigh of relief and had much more fun this way.

I wonder if someone high up decided to listen to the haters, the game was clearly intended to have a sequel but, years later, we are still waiting and to satiate my thirst of wall running I had to download the expansion of the original game.

Story wise it happens at the end of the main game and it depicts the escape of our heroes from the resurrected god of darkness. Graphically is still gorgeous, it runs on the scimitar engine, the same of Assassin’s creed, but it use cell shading to give the world an incredible hand drawn feeling. It’s astonishing how ahead of the curve it remained after three years.

There is not a real innovation in this expansion, no new graphics or new enemies, only a new power plate for us to play with. Probably if I downloaded it right after finishing the game I would have been annoyed by this but after a couple of years going back to the familiar mechanics mixed up in those new stages has been really fun.

Only one gripe remain, like in the main storyline it’s not really about free exploration, there is only one way to go from point A to point B. The game even leaves scratch marks on the intended route (which if we stop a moment to think about it is hilarious, apparently in this lost city wall running is so common that it left scratching on the walls). This means that the whole game is mainly push the buttons in the right order to arrive to the other side. I understand why they’ve done this, is hard enough to program one spectacular acrobatic sequence, doing a couple different sequences for every single spot would have strained too much programming work power, but it left me slightly dissatisfied. When the main hero is so nimble is annoying to be so limited in our movements. 

Cinema review: the Three Musketeers

A steampunk reimagining of the classic Alexander Dumas novel.

Right now, in the darkest corner of the internet, so called “movie fans” are moaning about this one. They say that the plot is stupid, that is historically inaccurate, that it doesn’t use Dumas dialogue and a lot of very bad things. Maybe technically they are right but factually they couldn’t be more wrong.

This is a blockbuster in the purest sense of the world. It’s pure, dumb, adulterated fun.

Basically Paul Anderson, known as the mind behind the Resident Evil Franchise, took “The three Musketeers” and added cool stuff, just for the sake of it. The namesake musketeers aren’t simple swashbucklers here; they are for all intent and purpose a three, and then four, man army, the Justice League of the seventeen century. They even come with added super gadgets like underwater ninja suits.

And this is only the beginning, because the director felt the need to add Air ships. Now of course we all know that it doesn’t make any sense, even Anderson know, the point is that they are cool and they give us one of the most entertaining set piece in the last few months. Probably because he doesn’t have to pretend that this is all really dramatic and serious like in the Resident Evil franchise here the director managed to create action pieces that are fun and lively.

I saw it in 3D and I must commend it, it's the best 3D in quite a while, not that terrible post production stuff, it's the real deal and it added a lot to our experience.

Another thing noteworthy is how among all the steampunk stuff the movie is actually fairly faithful to the spirit of the original. The original ideas are all still there, the musketeers’ personalities, the basic plot, everything is still there. I prefer something like this, where they get the spirit of an age and even manage to get a surprising number of details right to the pretentious “real story” attempt when Hollywood pretend to give us the truth behind the legend.

The dialogue is silly but in a fun and lively way, all the leads certainly aren’t actor studio material but they enjoy an easy chemistry. The surprise hit is Orlando Bloom, not only he plays an improbable moustache twirling villain, he even manages to walk the fine line between farce and epic without falling to either side. I would have never thought that I would have said that but I quite enjoyed his performance.

Sp in the end if you want to have fun come and see this one and don’t underestimate the craftsmanship in doing a fun dumb movie, in a summer that gave us Green Lantern and countless other boring superheroes this must be indeed much harder than it looks.

TV review: The wire season 2

The gang of maverick detectives is back but now they are tackling a new case on the docks of Baltimore.

The show runners of this series certainly got a lot of courage. They already got a very big cast and complex plotting but instead of backpedalling they add an entirely new layer to their construction.

This layer is the dock area with his workers, led by Dockers union leader Frank Sobotka, and a scary smuggling organization. They don’t’ forget the Barskdale drug dealing organization, not at all, we continue to follow the events in the “pit”, in the local prison and everywhere they unfold.

This is brilliant stuff. They highlight the interconnections of all the various vices of a big city, how they are all complex problems that eschew simple solutions.

On the other side I’m watching this stuff all in a row; I can’t imagine how hard it can be for the average viewer who sees only one episode per week. I find it hard to keep track of two dozen main characters so it doesn’t surprise me that the wire never got better rating. This is not serial TV; this is a twelve part movie.

I still don’t k now if this is the best serial ever but certainly it got the best writing.

Videogame review: Ratcher & Clank: Quest for Booty

An anthropomorphic wombat battles undead pirates in the far future.

Ratchet & Clank descend from an illustrious tradition. There was a time where a console line up was composed primarily of game like this one, with bright primary colors, cartoony graphics, some platforming and some fighting.

Before playing this one, thank you Sony for your welcome back gift, I didn’t realize that apart from Nintendo land I can’t think of any other game that continues in this tradition. This is a shame, I can still remember countless hours playing with Mario and his ilk but evidently First Person Shooters need even more shelf space.

Moving to the game itself I must confess that it doesn’t live up to his forebears. Maybe I’m getting too old but the humor and the anthropomorphic characters are simply not engaging for me.

The graphics are certainly nice but the game play is so and so.

Mainly half of the time is devoted to puzzles and platforming sequences, nothing too hard and certainly enjoyable stuff. Our hero is literally armed with a futuristic spanner which he can use to interact with various objects in a not very intuitive way.

The other half of the time is occupied with fighting the undead pirates. I didn’t like it very much, honestly it wasn’t very entertaining, it felt like a chore that I had to go trough to progress in the game.

The game is very short, only 4 hours, and honestly not very good, I imagine that if you want this kind of stuff you need to buy a Wii.

Cinema Review: The debt

A group of mossad agent captures a Nazi war criminal in 1966 but in 1997 an unspoken truth about that episode comes back to haunt them.

The premise and the early execution of this movie are wonderful. The whole flashback sequence in Berlin is very good filmmaking, tense and gripping. The action sequences where they abduct the Nazi and try to smuggle him to Israel are very good and engaging managing to convey a sense of urgency missing from most of the big blockbusters.

This Nazi war criminal, practically Mengele in all but name, is practically a devil in human guise. His dialogue is very well written and extremely unsettling. There is a whole masterful long sequence where our heroes are increasingly psyched out just by having him around and talking to them.

Then the movie sadly fizzles out. The whole present day part is unconvincing and sub par in regard to the Berlin sequence. It just looks like they didn’t really know how to end the story in an engaging way and not even Helen Mirren is able to sell me a fight sequence between a lady in her sixties and an octogenarian, it’s just wrong.

This is a shame because even if I must admit that the ending fits thematically with the rest of the movie I left the cinema feeling like it was all a big missed occasion. The cast is very strong with a nice distinction for Jessica Chastain who is establishing herself as a lady to watch and solid turns from everybody else apart from Sam Worthington who clearly struggles to convey Vulnerable.

Anyway nice movie but nothing unmissable.