Been a while, let's get right to it.
I have a bunch of half finished posts about the various movies I have seen in the past while. This post should hopefully bring all that into the fold. And then some.
Why? Why now?
Because of Where the Wild Things Are. The trailer for that movie has just been released and holy good god does it hit me in all the right places. I already love Spike Jonze. I already love Dave Eggers. I was already pumped to see this movie. Then they add Arcade Fire into the mix? Fuck me. SOLD! I'll be there day one. And probably days two and three. It looks amazing, the Wild Things look just as they should, it's all just so... wonderful. It filled me with wonder. And happiness and sadness and the strange tingly feeling in my heart and gut.
Let's go from hypothetical greatness to proven goodness.
Coraline is my favourite Henry Selick movie. Nightmare Before Christmas has too much god damn singing. And I don't remember the reasons, but I was underwhelmed by James and the Giant Peach. But Coraline is just right. Great characters, great world(s), inventive action. Hardly any god damn singing. And it's in 3-D. My right eye is slightly lazy so 3-D rarely works for me. It worked far more often than I expected in this movie. And Even if it didn't work at all, I still would gladly pay extra for the Experience because the picture was SHARP and CLEAN and the COLOURS POPPED. The best picture quality I've seen since I've been back to Canada.
But the 3-D was cool. I liked the subtle use, adding depth to the picture without calling attention to said depth. I also liked when it did call attention to itself, like the lengthening tunnel. Loved that bit.
Loved Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married. Not that her character was lovable. But Hathaway never tried to soften her, to make her lovable. Everyone stayed true to the characters they were playing. It made for some uncomfortable scenes. Balanced out by all the joyous scenes of the wedding and its preparation.
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler did much the same thing. The Ram did what the Ram did, thoughtless of the effects on those around him. I doubt there's many actors out there that could play broken down quite as well as Rourke.
And I don't know another director that would have filmed it the way Darren Aronofsky did. Randy's massive frame taking up most of the frame, just barreling through life. Unloading shit in a warehouse shot the same as a wrestling match.
A couple random Wrestler thoughts: any time a meat slicer appears onscreen, I start getting all tense. Who was topless more: Mickey Rourke or Marisa Tomei?
Now I've plum forgotten about any other films I have seen. Not nearly as many bad ones as I would like. Working on cheap movie nights sucks. I missed that new Street Fighter movie, haven't seen Taken or Push, nor any new Nic Cage movie. I miss my cheese.
