Posts tagged review
Cough Drops, Plastic Beach and The Guild. Oh my.
Jul 9th
As I sit writing this, there is a good chance I will hack up a lung only to quickly stuff it down my gullet. Some people have bad sneezes. I have bad coughs. Scratch that I have terrible coughs. They aren’t little wimpy things that could be confused as an exhale of air. They are full out, body heaving, rip up my throat kind of coughs. It is just as fun as it sounds. Unless it is a really small cold that is basically my cough default. Today I’m not even sure why I’m coughing. I have actually now come to the conclusion that my lungs hate me. You heard me right. Or read me right I suppose. For the past few weeks, I will randomly have two to three hours of coughing at least one day a week. I don’t have allergies so that’s out. I originally thought maybe keeping my window open for hours on end with a fan pumping in air may have just literally filled my lungs with pollen to the extent of needing to cough regardless of allergies. But proved that wrong today. Window hasn’t been open in more than a day… Damn my spiteful body parts.
Anyway onto slightly less painful and annoying topics, just recently Gorillaz, no relation to the site, released another music video to compliment their album Plastic Beach. Now I love Gorillaz, and from what I’ve heard I love this new album, but I have been too lazy to get up and actually go through the process of buying it. But this music video may just make me get off my lazy ass. I was amazed when I first saw this music video, not just for the video itself because Gorillaz videos are always great, but by the song. Not to sound too namby-pamby, but I love this song ALOT. I have listened to it for hours on end and I still love listening to it. So for your viewing pleasure here it is, though keep in mind the story isn’t going to make much sense unless you have seen the previous video Stylo, so if you want to totally understand it, go watch it now. We can wait.
Good right? Now I know there will be at least some of you out there who will not like this. Some of you will even be Gorillaz fans. Well, previous Gorillaz fans. While looking through comments on these videos it seems that a lot of people think Gorillaz has gotten worse. Now for those of you who don’t follow Gorillaz you can probably just skip to the next paragraph, for those of you who have, enjoy the following rant. People. You clearly you do not understand the concept of a virtual band. If you ever thought a band that interchanges members with every album was going to repackage and re-release the same sound in every album, you were mistaken. And even with that aside, Plastic Beach is a great album, at least from what I have heard. Yes it isn’t as dark, there isn’t as much bass and there isn’t as much rap. But those aren’t bad things. They are going in a new direction. And the new direction is great. If you can’t open your mind up to new music go back to your generic emo rock and stop ripping on bands with actually creativity. As John Stewart would say, Zing!
So next, The Guild. By the way these are basically mini reviews. I will probably do my full thoughts of Plastic Beach when I get it, and this is just a short thing about The Guild. So first off, if you have never played an MMO you will probably not like The Guild. And if even if you do like it, you probably won’t be able to fully understand some of lingo and jokes. As someone who had poured a lot of time into the oh so famous game World of Warcraft, I quite enjoyed the series. The classic stereotypes are taking a little far but it’s good to know that the woman who is writing the script actually plays WoW. Overall it is filled with awkward moments, and moments that will make you roll on the floor laughing, and if you are like me you won’t be able to stop watching them till you’re done. And just as a special treat here’s the first episode.
So that’s basically it for today my internet friends, and below is the usual fare. Enjoy your weekend everybody, best wishes from Frantic Gorilla!
Get Him to the Greek
Jun 9th
Now I’m not a movie critic. Great way to start a review eh? But yeah I’m not a critic, I tend to enjoy movies rather than hate them, so yeah I’m not as critical as a critic. Only movie I have really truly hated was the last Harry Potter. Terrible hashing of the book, absolutely awful. But anyway I’ve done one review on here before so, hell I thought I might as well do it again. Actually regret some things I said in my Avatar review so for anyone who read that one, liked or had problems with it, stick around till the end to see my look back at it.
So myself and a horde of teenagers went and checked out Get Him to the Greek last night. Now this isn’t an educated, swirl your martini at while having a good old time with the kids sort of movie, I’ll get that out of the way here and now. Though when the commercial advertises that it was made by the same people who made Superbad, that is a fair assumption. In comparison to Superbad, I actually found this movie considerably funnier. Superbad was a fairly good movie, who could forget McLovin’? But it was full of awkward humor. You know the humor I mean. If you don’t, go watch any Seth Rogan movie. Everyone has something they can’t stand in movies, mine is awkward humor. This movie has nearly none of it, all the laughs you are going to get are from well written lines or perverted jokes. Suffice it to say, if you don’t like dirty perverted humor, suggestive themes or any sort of nudity, this movie is not for you. In fact why are you even reading this? Anyway now that he’s out of here, the jokes in this are quite good and if you catch this with a group of friends as I did, you shall all be quoting it for a while to come.
Though oddly enough this movie is not all jokes. One of the characters is actually rather deep. There are lots of jokes about drugs, for instance the Jeffery, but really they delve into some of the harsh realities of drugs and the troubled lives of people in Hollywood. It’s not really as deep as a drama would be, but for the type of movie that it is, it’s quite good. Unlike most comedies of this type you actually learn to care about the characters. Anyway I am rambling on here so let’s get to the verdict.
Verdict: If possible catch it at night with a big group of friends, worth the full price for the experience with your friends. If you just want to be able to say you saw it and be able to joke with your friends who have already seen it, I’d say just wait to rent it, much more fun with friends.
Lookback: So I want to take back a few things I said about Avatar. Still very enthralling and absorbing but the plot…not…very…original. It’s practically an alien Pocahontas. Still a great movie, not entirely sure whether it deserves it’s throne for highest grossing movie of all time though. If it was only on the basis of special effects hell yeah, but the story is rather unoriginal. Sorry if I sounded like a fanboy in the original review, but I was blown away by it and wasn’t thinking entirely straight. Sets a new bar in special effects, not plot.
Avatar…Guess what? The hype was right.
Dec 19th
Oh and dissenters need to calm down. Boy am I starting off controversial or what? Anyway before I elaborate on that I’d like to take you back to a breathtaking piece of cinema most people seem to have forgotten, District 9. It came from total obscurity, trailers saying nothing, no big name actors, nothing. No one had any idea what to expect. I really wish I had had the site back then so I could elaborate more, but I was absolutely blown away. It still one of my favorite movies of all time, and one of its most wonderful aspects aside from, amazing acting, spectacular special effects, and great character growth, was how immersive it was. It just totally sucked you in from beginning to end, not a moment of boredom. Which is something that Avatar excels at as well.
Unfortunately after I walked out of the theater I realized that it wasn’t the only thing it had in common with District 9. I know that neither film could have possibly stolen ideas from the other, District 9 was based in South Africa far from James Cameron and was based off Alive in Joburg, a short film made in 2005. While Avatar has been in the works for four years I believe. I just found it rather disappointing that my two favorite movies of the year had so many themes in common.
Regardless of this, Avatar was amazing. I am not going to give any spoilers because this is a movie, like District 9, where you should walk in and not know ANYTHING. I’ll point out the CG first, because it is what most people are raving about, for good reason. These 3D artists did an amazing job and deserve all the praise they have received if not more. The native people of Pandora make you feel like you just met a loosely clothed ten foot tall blue man on the street. Though that sounds incredibly unrealistic, the CG along with the brilliant 3D just transports you into their world. At certain scenes you will be in awe at the beauty of characters, environment, and all the effects in general, but eventually you just accept this beautiful world as reality.
Another aspect of the film that was just fantastic, was the acting. You can’t just have an impressive 3D and then have babbling idiots read a script, and James Cameron clearly knew this when he put together cast. Every actor does a simply fantastic job, from the humans to the natives, the acting draws you in.
Now to address some thing people are complaining about with this movie. I’ll address the two biggest I have seen which is, poor dialogue and cliches. I have to totally disagree with people’s complaints about dialogue. We as a viewing audience have been too spoiled by people on the big screen knowing exactly what to say, at every moment, regardless of what is happening. The big thing about Avatar’s dialogue, is that it’s believable. It is one of the factors that makes this movie so immersive, and I absolutely love that about this film. That is also a trait this movie shares with District 9, great believability in acting and writing. Now with the cliches, I can partially agree with that, and I noticed some of them while I was watching the film as well. But here is the distinction, in some movies cliches are obvious, in your face, or take away from the movie. The cliches here mostly lie in the overall message, which has been used before, but these days in Hollywood what hasn’t? There is one character that is slightly cliched as well, but I can forget that because I thought he was very well played out. Nearly every movie is guilty of this, why point it out in this amazing film? I have been typing here for a good few minutes and I haven’t even scratched the surface. The world Cameron and those artists create engulfs you through fantastic acting, great characterization, and of course the beautiful and detailed world in which you will live in for an two hours and forty minutes.
Verdict: Catch this on the big screen in 3D. Be prepared to be transported into a world of shock and awe, this movie is by far worth the extra time and money.
PS: If you haven’t seen it, when District 9 comes out on DVD and Blu-ray, do yourself a favor and grab yourself a copy. It’s dark, but it is absolutely wonderful and will leave you with a lot to think about.