All Consuming : qatesiurade

Consumed "Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:48:34 GMT

Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile

by Bill Willingham

WORTH IT!

Consuming "Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:00:57 GMT

Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

by Joss Whedon

A story about "The Falls"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:45:18 GMT

The Falls

by Peter Greenaway

I took this in earlier this year via Netflix and it just stayed and stayed on my mind—the music, the imagery, the ideas, the fantastic implausible strangeness coupled with a dry pseudo-documentary format. I couldn’t get it out of my mind so I finally just bought the DVD myself and now it’s on constant replay chez moi.

Peter Greenaway is often strange, focusing at times on visual impact over narrative coherence, but when he does that it’s for good and pleasing reason. This isn’t exactly what’s going on in The Falls but it’s still a very unconventional way of telling a story.

I can tell the story with no spoilers, since the story really isn’t the point. Sometime many years before the time of the film occurred a “Violent Unknown Event (VUE)” which is strongly suggested involved the incomplete metamorphosis of some 19 million people into birds. Theories as to why and how this happened abound and are explored through the medium of short biographical films about 92 VUE victims, their pasts, their presents, their immortality and occasiona deaths. Some entries are drily factual, others fanciful, some highly plausible and others unutterably bizarre, some verge on the Dada.

At nearly 3 1/2 hours this may try the patience of some, but on DVD with each film as its own chapter you can take in as much or as little as you want. Just don’t space it out too much—part of the fun is piecing it all together and catching onto the relationships among the victims.

Consuming "The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:28:46 GMT

The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece

by Edward Dolnick

Consuming "Litany of the Long Sun: Nightside the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun (Book of the Long Sun, Books 1 and 2)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:57:58 GMT

Litany of the Long Sun: Nightside the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun (Book of the Long Sun, Books 1 and 2)

by Gene Wolfe

Consuming "4400: Complete Fourth Season (4pc) (Ws Ac3 Dol)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:28:56 GMT

4400: Complete Fourth Season (4pc) (Ws Ac3 Dol)

Consumed "Marathon Man"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:05:12 GMT

Marathon Man

by John Schlesinger

WORTH IT!

Ow!!!!

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:05:00 GMT

Marathon Man

by John Schlesinger

This is another of those films that make me wish I had a little more cultural innocence. It’s now well-known that audiences famously walked out of theaters to miss a certain scene and then came back when they were sure it was over (I won’t disclose the scene to spare those who’ve not heard the story) and so I was sort of wincing in anticipation of it, bracing myself for it, through most of the movie. This kind of skewed my viewing a bit, I think, but also maybe heightened the tension, too. So the foreknowledge was both good and bad.

That said… this movie didn’t really need extra tension. It’s got plenty of its own! The last of the Nazis amuck in the diamond district of NYC. That’s all the tension you need. A dealer has an Auschwitz tattoo and recognizes the Nazi (and Olivier… has he ever been creepier?), the Nazi tapdances his way out of the conversation and the deal… a brother researching his father’s persecution by an American fascist (McCarthy) learns his brother isn’t who he thinks he is… crank, crank, crank. By the end of the film you’re spring-loaded and ready to blow like the water from the valves in the climactic scene.

This is mighty good stuff!

But I’d probably have walked out, too. OW!!!

Consumed "Equilibrium"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:20:07 GMT

Equilibrium

WORTH IT!

A story about "Equilibrium"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:20:07 GMT

Equilibrium

By the way—tell me I’m not the only person who found herself humming/singing XTC’s “I’m the Man Who Murdered Love” while watching this!

A story about "Slipstream (2007)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:11:26 GMT

Slipstream (2007)

by Anthony Hopkins

Proof that film editing must be one of the most addictive activities in the world. Not since Orson Welles’ F for Fake have I seen such creativity and attentiveness to the art. I don’t even care that the story was kind of a mess and that Hopkins maybe bit off more than he could chew—he went nuts in the film editing chair and I can dig that.

Actually kind of rewarding (rated 3 stars)

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:58:13 GMT

Equilibrium

This film is the answer to the question of what kind of film would result if Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World somehow got ground up together with a martial arts flick and yeah, maybe the Matrix as seasoning and handed over to a first-class art department and a really talented casting director. I know, I know, I never asked that question either, but we don’t always, do we, ask the questions that the film industry wants to answer for us.

That said, I did get a kick out of this film, inconsistent though it is (try as I might, I don’t see how marriage and nuclear families are really possible in a population that chemically supresses emotion, for instance,letting emotion back into your life would automatically give you a passion for kitsch/antiques—or that you would instinctively know how to operate a gramophone, say). It did not keep me guessing, it did not keep me on the edgoe of my seat, it did not leave me scratching my head and pondering the brilliance and wisdom of its ideas—but it did engender in me an admiration for its style.

And this film has a lot of style. As another reviewer has remarked, it’s probably worth watching just for the gun-katas (and cheers to the team who came up with a plausible-seeming explanation for exactly how it is that the Clerics can take on a whole room full of gun-toting loons and kill them all without taking a single hit themselves), and for Christian Bale’s performance. Ever since the ordeal he undertook to make The Machinist, his face and carriage seem to have a lot more gravitas and he uses both to good effect here.

It’s also got a pretty jaw-dropping cast—Taye Diggs, Dominic Purcell, Sean Bean, Sean Pertwee, Angus McFayden, Emily Watson… these are not light-weight B-movie people really, and they took this script seriously.

Consumed "The Dark Knight"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:58:51 GMT

The Dark Knight

by Christopher Nolan

WORTH IT!

Why I recommend "The Dark Knight"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:58:51 GMT

The Dark Knight

by Christopher Nolan

I am officially jealous of anyone who hasn’t seen this yet

Consuming "The Woman in the Dunes"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:10:57 GMT

The Woman in the Dunes

by Kobo Abe

Consuming "Secret Rendezvous"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:06:26 GMT

Secret Rendezvous

by Kobo Abe

Consuming "The Face of Another"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:05:52 GMT

The Face of Another

by Kobo Abe

Consuming "The Urth of the New Sun: The sequel to 'The Book of the New Sun' (New Sun)"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:04:41 GMT

The Urth of the New Sun: The sequel to 'The Book of the New Sun' (New Sun)

by Gene Wolfe

Seven eighths of a good movie

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:59:18 GMT

Hellboy II: The Golden Army [Theatrical Release]

Like the first Hellboy flick, this is mostly a good movie but once again del Toro and company have trouble coming up with a satisfying ending (don’t worry, won’t engage in spoilage). That aside, this one is an awful lot of fun to watch—or, more appropriately, to look at.

Like Pan’s Labyrinth (which suffered from some of the same problems)the creature design is JUST AMAZING, and will reward many re-viewings with new sightings of things just beyond a scene’s ostensible focus, hidden in corners and behind other creatures. By far the best of these is a forest elemental, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Chameleon Collossus of MTG fame.

The production design is also pretty fantastic, with more great clockwork sets and Hellboy’s quarters and the BRPD in general.

And Ron Perlman could make a a commercial for asbestos insulation and I’d still watch it all the way through, every time. Ditto John Hurt, back for a cameo, and Jeffrey Tambour, who has creepy oily bootlicking behavior down to the finest of arts. But for some reason they’ve redone Abe Sapiens with different design and a different voice—no David Hyde-Pierce. I miss him.

And well, yeah, the ending is pretty lame and highly predictable, but we’ve more or less come to expect that, havenot we?

I’ll still go see it agian in the theater and buy the DVD. Like I said, it’s awfully pretty.

Consumed "Hellboy II: The Golden Army [Theatrical Release]"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:59:18 GMT

Hellboy II: The Golden Army [Theatrical Release]

WORTH IT!

A story about "Gorky Park"

nobody@allconsuming.net (qatesiurade) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:49:21 GMT

Gorky Park

by Michael Apted

It’s kind of worth taking in just to see the rube-goldberg gun in Brian Dennehy’s suitcase. The gun in “In the Line of Fire” pales in comparison.