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.