Paris Hilton recently traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she has been reported as saying:
"I LOVE Africa in general, South Africa and West Africa. They are both great countries"I don't think any futher commentary is necessary.
The Washington Psychotronic Film Society, as the website states, is:
"...dedicated to the the appreciation and defense of: Independent, cutting-edge, student, experimental, anime, off-beat, underground, obscure, super-8, low-budget, classic, forgotten, must-see, and just about anything on film."
Shia LaBeouf appears to have skipped out on attemding court for an unlawful smoking charge in the Socialist State of California. Woops!
Frankly I don't care - I just liked the idea that I could write that headline.
Bench warrant issued for Shia LaBeouf
Sunshine, a Fox Searchlight Pictures film, has the misfortune of being buried in a release schedule that caused a large number of people to miss it when it was initially released.
I missed it, but I'm glad I finally saw it. Not only is the story compelling, but the film's visuals are simply amazing.
What boggles my mind is not the number of people that say disparaging things about the film, but the sheer commitment I've read from some people to trashing the film.
First off, this film wasn't trying to be "high art" nor was it trying to be a cookie cutter brainless crappy Michael Bay action film. It's just a movie, plain and simple. The plot of the film - that the Sun is "dying" - which turns out to be a theoretical possibility (see Q-Ball) - is about all that's really needed.
Films have become either completely devoid of plot or character development (see Michael Bay's films for evidence of this), but is given the lame excuse that it should be "forgiven" because it's "supposed to be a brainless action film." The other extreme are films bogged down with so much so-called "development" - even if it isn't actually beneficial (see Pirates of the Caribbean's sequels for examples of this).
This leads the rest of the films to people assuming that all films aside from "brainless action films" should be filled with a whole lot of character and "plot" development (or background in this case) or else it's automatically bad. On the other hand, people who hear about how "good" a particular film is may actually categorize a good film as "brainless" if the story/plot/characters don't measure up to their high expectations.
So let me say again. The plot and characters are as developed in Sunshine as they are required to be. It's insulting and annoying to read so many people who just don't get that simple thing.
The story is simply about a crew on a mission and the unexpected problems that could potentially happen along the mission. What a shock, real problems that can randomly occur on a mission? Jeez. My job never ever has any problems with it that are either beyond my control or completely unrelated to any action that I may have taken - unfortunately still causing some issue that I'll need to fix. That's life - and Sunshine captures that perfectly.
People have become so used to characters being infallible, that no movie character can ever make a mistake and that a problem must always be attributed to a problem beyond their control, or else the movie poorly written and directed. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic and speaks volumes of the level of detail that people bother to even notice when watching a movie.
However, realizing that this review quickly went off on a completely separate tangent and quickly wanting to get back to the film itself, this was a breathtaking movie - and probably the best space-centric science fiction films to come out in the last decade.
John Adams:
Tonight was the first part of the "John Adams" miniseries, I unfortunately did not catch the entire thing during it's first run tonight - but thanks to HBO's constant re-running of programs, I won't have any problem catching it the second time around.
A huge star-studded cast including Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, David Morse, Sarah Polley, Tom Wilkinson, Rufus Sewell, Zeljko Ivanek, and many many more.
Miniseries like this (and Rome and Band of Brothers) makes me really upset that I don't personally get HBO - meaning that I have to take a trip to my parent's house to bum off their HBO service just for this sort of thing.
Jericho:
Jericho's second to last episode of the season (or series). I don't suggest watching this if you haven't caught up to this - but I do suggest checking out the first season on DVD.
Torchwood:
The season's better than ever. And due to the story only having a marginally annoying "lovey-dovey" story subplot, this is starting to give Doctor Who a run for it's money.
Battlestar Galactica:
Nope, not this week. So soon...
Can this actually be good?
The trailer looks amazing. Ford hasn't looked this good in a long time.
However, Shia LaBeouf (or as my roommate and I affectionately called him in what I can probably initially ascribe to as a drunken stupor: Shia Beef) is in the film, and personally that bring me to the point where I'm not so hot on the film. I just feel that as an actor he's about 10 years too young to be even half as arrogant as he comes off being in the interviews I've seen him in. It could have been worse though - it could have been Justin Long instead.
I suppose as long as Spielberg doesn't have the bad guys using walkie talkies instead of guns - it'll probably be at least be as good as Temple of Doom.
I'll keep my eyes open.
Flash Gordon, based on the comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond, first published in 1934.
The film is oozing with camp, stylized as if it was created in the 1930s. Some may find this absolutely insulting - a film that hearkens back to old-fashioned prejudice and racism. Most everyone on Mongo, especially Emperor Ming and those who support him, are stereotypical 1930s Asians - at least visually. The "good guys" are almost entirely Anglo-Saxons. Then again, most people don't look into things with the intention to find racism - and it would be quite silly to think anything of the events in this film - there's no "deep" meaning behind this. Perhaps in the 1930s - taking it from a xenophobic and isolationist America it would be - but this was done purely to bring the visuals of the original to the film. I've read other reviews where people feel this ruins the film.
Personally the biggest downside to this film is it's "faithfulness" to the story itself.
Far too much goes on in this film - with not enough development to the characters, locations, or overall plot to the film. While most films would find this to be an extreme problem, fatal to most, this film somehow pulls it off. The people who did make this film realized that the material was goofy and clichéd and used this to their advantage. Aside from the impending destruction of Earth, the film isn't played straight, and I don't believe there was any intention to do so either. It's part of the fun of it.
The "special effects" are utterly ridiculous. But then again this was 1980 and "modern" effects were still in early stages of development.
"Flash, aaaaaahhhh!"
The film stars Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Topol, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton and Ornella Muti.
***/*****
Slashform.net has announced that Sony will release "big" news about the Ghostbusters franchise at Comic-Con 2008. The convention program features an interesting tease that features the classic Ghostbusters logo and "something exciting is coming to the neighborhood!"
Lets hope it's not another "Extreme Ghostbusters" version of the Ghostbusters franchise.
Then again it may just be a video game.
