Spanks - 4
Director - Alex Proyas
Writers - Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden, Stiles White, Stuart Hazeldine, Ryne Douglas Pearson, Alex Proyas & Richard Kelly
Starring - Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne, D.G. Maloney & Lara Robinson
Release Date - 20 March 09
MPAA Rating - PG-13
Knowing is a disaster movie with a twist. It isn't straight forward like Armageddon and The Day After Tomorrow. It actually makes you think about what might happen next and it wasn't easily predictable like most. Some previous trailers for the film made it look like the normal disaster film, which I think turned off the people I saw it with. The film has a lot of mystery along with it, "The Whisperer People" are one example.
The plot follows John and Caleb Koestler. Caleb gets a page of numbers when his schools time capsule is opened. His astrophysicist father figures out the numbers are the date of disasters over the past 50 years and how many lives were lost. The numbers list three events that have not yet occurred.
The plane crash scene was shot beautifully and in one continuous take. It gave me the feeling like I was there with Nicolas Cage. The subway scene was done even better. It is one of the most realistic disaster scenes ever shot. Proyas held nothing back developing the scene.
The people I saw it will did not like the ending. I thought the ending worked very well and can't see an other way it could have ended. This again could have been because of the way the film was marketed early on.
If you go see Knowing, do so with an open mind and expect it to be different. If you don't, you will walk out feeling like my friends did and hate it.
23 March 2009
09 March 2009
Watchmen
Spanks - 5
Director - Zack Snyder
Writers - David Hayter & Alex Tse
Starring - Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan & Patrick Wilson
Release Date - 6 March 09
MPAA Rating - R
The long awaited film adaptation of of the "unfilmable" Watchmen is out and it was done brilliantly. Based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel that Time named as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time. The story is set in an alternate 1985 at the height of the cold war and Richard Nixon is still the president. Masked heroes have existed since the 1940's , until it became illegal in the 1970's. The film starts with the murder of Edward Blake. Rorschach, a vigilante who doesn't care its illegal, finds out Blake was an ex masked hero that now works for the government who called himself The Comedian. Rorschach believes someone is picking off masked heroes and sets out to warn the other retired masked heroes.
The film is left mostly unchanged from the graphic novel, which is great because endings and settings are almost always changed when adapting a book and its always for the worst. It is being reported that he changed the ending, but the only thing changed was the MacGuffin that makes the ending work. Zac Snyder left out some of the smaller sub plots but filmed them all for DVD (the film would have been over three and a half hours long) but without them the story is complete.
If you read the graphic novel first you will see Easter eggs in a lot of scenes that viewers who didn't read will not notice. This to me shows how much Snyder cared for the source material and didn't just make the movie for the paycheck.
The film is not your normal superhero movie. If you go expecting Spiderman or Superman you are going to hate it. Go in with an open mind and you will enjoy it.
Director - Zack Snyder
Writers - David Hayter & Alex Tse
Starring - Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan & Patrick Wilson
Release Date - 6 March 09
MPAA Rating - R
The long awaited film adaptation of of the "unfilmable" Watchmen is out and it was done brilliantly. Based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel that Time named as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time. The story is set in an alternate 1985 at the height of the cold war and Richard Nixon is still the president. Masked heroes have existed since the 1940's , until it became illegal in the 1970's. The film starts with the murder of Edward Blake. Rorschach, a vigilante who doesn't care its illegal, finds out Blake was an ex masked hero that now works for the government who called himself The Comedian. Rorschach believes someone is picking off masked heroes and sets out to warn the other retired masked heroes.
The film is left mostly unchanged from the graphic novel, which is great because endings and settings are almost always changed when adapting a book and its always for the worst. It is being reported that he changed the ending, but the only thing changed was the MacGuffin that makes the ending work. Zac Snyder left out some of the smaller sub plots but filmed them all for DVD (the film would have been over three and a half hours long) but without them the story is complete.
If you read the graphic novel first you will see Easter eggs in a lot of scenes that viewers who didn't read will not notice. This to me shows how much Snyder cared for the source material and didn't just make the movie for the paycheck.
The film is not your normal superhero movie. If you go expecting Spiderman or Superman you are going to hate it. Go in with an open mind and you will enjoy it.
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