Brandon’s movie memory

Just spectacular… I loved every moment of it. The politics/message are a little heavy, but it was nervy to put such anti-consumerist, green, call-to-action messages into a non-talking robot-love movie in the first place (and to declare in interviews, as Stanton has, there there are no political messages in the film!), so I’m going to forgive. Twenty years ago, Pixar would’ve been shot down as commies for making this movie (and Mike Judge would’ve been quietly executed for Idiocracy). Hopefully I’m going to see this again soon, so no need to go into plot summary.

I caught the bunch of 2001: A Space Odyssey references (evil autopilot is very HAL, some of the same music is used) but I also found myself thinking of Children of Men. Future Earth is void of new life, new life is then discovered in the belly of a female-ish character, everyone freaks out and gets excited but a bunch of sinister characters want to manipulate the situation. It all checks out. Movie is also getting compared to Alien (sigourney weaver’s voice is the “mother” ship) and Silent Running (another post-earth outer-space plant-tending movie), but not Sunshine.

Peter Gabriel, who has a history of song contributions to films about sentient critters (Gremlins, Babe 2) scores the closing credits with an obvious-sounding number about being down in the ground.

Fred “Wha’happen” Willard plays a president stand-in, the CEO of Buy ‘n’ Large. He’s not even animated - just videos of Fred Willard. If he’s the first live actor in a Pixar animation, they picked the right actor.

The opening short was Presto by first-time writer/director but long-time Pixar animator/artist Doug Sweetland. Very good, funny, fast-paced comic short about a magician and his magic hats and rebellious hungry rabbit. More of that Looney Tunes gag-based anything-goes character humor than the usual style of Pixar short (think Geri’s Game, Boundin’).

Maaaan, what part of “from the writer/director of Dog Soldiers and The Descent” made me want to watch this, even for free? At least it was a midnight screening so I didn’t waste too much precious time on it, but the thought that I could’ve spent even half of that time playing Wii instead shall always haunt me.

People whose work I will avoid from now on:
- Marshall, of course
- actor David O’Hara (The Departed, upcoming Wanted)
- producer Steven Paul (Ghost Rider, The Uninvited, Castlevania)
- producer Benedict Carver (Bratz, Tekken, Castlevania)
- cinematographer Sam McCurdy (Hills Have Eyes II, Bob Hoskins pic Outlaw)
- editor Andrew MacRitchie (recent James Bond films, Sahara, Victims, Solomon Kane)
- production company Rogue Pictures (Seed of Chucky, Balls of Fury, Hack/Slash, The Strangers, Castlevania)

In other words, don’t see Castlevania!

Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell paychecked it on this one - guess I don’t blame them. Anyway, this is a rip-off of 28 Weeks Later in which the girl from Resident Evil wanders into a post-apocalyptic Irish Yojimbo war between some non-magical Lord of the Rings castoffs (led by McDowell) and some Mad Max wannabes (led by two stuntmen-turned-actors). This leads to a buncha ineptly-shot action scenes, but don’t think this is an action movie - most of the runtime is dedicated to boring wordy exposition which wasn’t even appreciated by the couple sitting next to me who loved the movie. There’s an A.I. flesh fair, and some token cannibalism, and lots of unexplained futurey stuff and plot holes galore. Marshall also loves to show us pointless gruesome gory details including a cow, a rabbit, and more than a few people exploding or getting eaten or shot or run over. An ugly, stupid, trashy movie.

Made me more upset/queasy than any episode since “Cigarette Burns”, and includes possibly the worst stabbing scene I’ve ever watched. No sense of humor here, it’s a dark, pure horror, sort of unexpected from the usually jolly Joe Dante. Definitely the most successful movie from this season so far (still got 5 episodes to go), more so than the relatively lighthearted “Right To Die”.

Elliott Gould (of American History X and the Oceans movies) and Jason Priestly 90210 are scientists called in by the military to explain/study a spreading phenomenon of mass murders by men against women, seemingly tied to a hormonal virus similar to that manufactured to exterminate the screwfly. The disease spreads, seen through the eyes of Priestly’s wife Anne, until she’s one of the only surviving women, catching a glimpse in northern Canada of the “angels” that started it all.

Really a dreadful and well-made little apocalyptic movie, a mini masterpiece up there with “Homecoming” and “Cigarette Burns”.

Loved this. The music was perfect. As things start to fall apart on the spaceship, the image gets more strange, with some almost avant-garde shots throughout the second half.

Spaceship behind giant solar shield is heading for dying sun to launch a bomb that may reignite it. On the way, they board the previous ship that was sent out on same mission, now inhabited by a dark force. Shades of “Event Horizon” follow, with a heaven thing going instead of EH’s hell thing.

Each crew member gets enough personality to be easily distinguished a half hour in (and I was hardly trying to keep up), so that instead of wasting time in the second half trying to remember who’s who, we can focus on action blasting through space. Your standard kinda “Aliens” / “The Abyss” sci-fi action structure then, but with images that do not seem to belong in a big-budget movie. The camera can’t seem to SEE the Icarus 1 captain - he’s always out of focus or hidden by sunlight, even when another character should be able to see him clearly. I just enjoyed the hell out of that idea, and probably appreciate the movie more than I should because I’ve latched onto it. But there’s no shame in loving a particularly well-made sci-fi thriller. This one will be my “War of the Worlds” or “Minority Report” for 2007.

Who were those people: Cillian Murphy is in an upcoming film noir comedy. Michelle Yeoh was in Crouching Tiger. Rose Byrne was the girl in 28 Weeks Later and Kirsten’s friend in Marie Antoinette. The tan guy was in The Fountain and Die Hard 4. The captain played the lead in Twilight Samurai and was in The Promise and Ring. Suicide guy was in Code 46 and Tristram Shandy. The replacement captain was Human Torch in Fantastic Four. The guy who doesn’t make it back from Icarus 1 played Tom Hayden in Steal This Movie. And best of all, the captain from Icarus 1 (which lost contact seven years ago) was in 1999’s “Sunshine” (just over seven years ago) starring Ralph Fiennes in the Cillian Murphy role.

First good Julianne Moore movie since 2002. Has it been that long?

Apolitical gov’t flunkie Clive Owen is recruited by ex-flame Moore to help her gang of revolutionaries deliver the only known pregnant woman to a secretive humanitarian scientist group in a devastated and infertile future. The government is against him after he’s targeted as a terrorist, the revolutionary group is against him thinking the woman is better used to serve their own cause, even the undercover prison guard acting as his inside man turns against him. Clive’s only true friend is his old pot-smoking pull-my-finger hippie friend Michael Caine with a post-gov’t-torture braindead wife living out in the country.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (Denzel’s partner in Inside Man) is the revolutionary leader after Julianne is killed, Claire-Hope Ashitey is Kee the pregnant woman, and actor/director Peter Mullan is Syd the prison guard.

The whole thing is extremely real. This future has so many intricate ties to our present, politically and socially, in little details scattered among the ruins. It’s all carefully drawn out to seem so real… then there’s the camerawork. Extremely long takes with an amazing amount of stuff going on during each one… stunts and effects and running steadicams, all shot by the guy who did The New World. As someone or other mentioned, the long shots help show you what’s at stake… no cuts to relieve the action, just follow Clive in his panic, showing us how much is at stake, how one slip will blow the whole game. So the movie sets up this real world, then plunks us in the middle of it.

And it’s grim, relentlessly hopelessly grim, dark and dreary, everyone against everyone else, no reason to keep living so they’re all out for their own self interest. It brings us down, down, down, leading up to this very hopeful “Dead Man” reminiscent ending but with a great ray of hope, and since we’re so down, that ray of hope is brighter than I can remember seeing in any movie before. It’s Eternal Sunshine + Before Sunset caliber hope. The most positive and negative movie at once… completely thrilling and gorgeous and makes me cry just thinking about it. As someone else said, it’s scary how far ahead this film is over everything else I saw this year.

A couple of weeks later, I still can’t stop thinking about this one. Saw it again with Katy in the new year. It will probably end up as my favorite movie of 2007 as well as 2006.

Not much left to say about Dr. Strangelove, since I’ve nearly memorized it by now.

Groovy font on the titles.

George C. Scott is actually better than Peter Sellers in this movie.