helu0302

Wow... The movie Saw.

I just read some reviews on it. And the ROger Ebert, Roeper review to be the worst. Iv'e never heard such a poor review from either of them beofre. THey showed no understanding of the film. This single review makes me want to completely disavow all of their reviews from now on. It's that poor and misunderstanding. Iv'e never put too much faith on reviews anyway, yet, Iv'e enjoye reading them. THese 2 give me no reason why I should not like this film. At least Ebert doesn't pretend like the film is bad because he says so. HE simlply states he doesn't like it. Unlike the pretensious prick roeper. This review made me really dislike him. Congrats Roeper. Your an ass.

Anyway. The film is brilliant. I have yet to meet someone who likes this movie, yet they are all snobs. Most of them like mabye 1 out of 10 films they see. I like 7-8 out of 10. I like movies. Some people are simply stubborn, making up flaws where they don;'t exist, because they refuse to change their mind. Some simply don't like things for strange reasons that can't be comprehended. Ok whatever. Their opinion. Others are film snobs. The worst kind of people next to those who made the Pacifier gain over 100 Million dollars.

The film is great. (SPOILERS) Roeper calls it a glorified snuff film... funny, copnsidering we see mabeye 2 people die in the whole thing. The rest happens off screen or before the time.

It's true that the film does not have the best acting (though it's not nearly as terrible as some would have you beleive.) And the dialogue is not that great, though the script is very clever.

The filming is great. James Wan, the director has great style,(which people who know me know is important) I am very much looking forward to his next film. The film looks great.

The story, is very clever. The killer, is clever. I don't want to give too much away though.

No one reads this journal anyway, but still a warning. Most people arpparently will not like this film. I don't know why. It's the best "slasher film" in a long time. While not as good a serial killer ifml, as say, SEVEN. Nothing is. So don't go comparing it (damn Roeper.)

I'm not paid to write reviews. I'm not a very good writer. I have poor grammer, and write fast because, I'm not getting paid for this. I'm not as articulated as Roeper is. But I don't have a stick up my ass, so I call it even.

Saw isn't a great film in many ways. But it is a brilliant film in many ways. If you don't understand what I mean, then you have different taste in film, and might not like it.

Ebert says the film deceies the audience or something. He's wrong. This isn't Hight Tension, or Unusual Suspects lying like he seems to be saying. He is way off. I mean way way off.

I don't write reviews to make a qouta. I don't have to write intellegently or like and dislike a certain number of films. I don't try to speak about a film, and say what it isn't, but then I'm not paid do any of this. I write these reviews to vent. I don't spend time editing it. I don't back space if I mispell something.

Many people who would love this film are going to be turned off becuase of reviews like Roepers. And when this happens they are not doing their jobs. If you want to know whether you will like a film or not. Listen to some one who likes it. Their opinions will matter more, and help you mopre decide whether you will like it. A negative opinion will never give you the truth. Which is why you will most likely never see me write a review for a film I genuinley dislike. It isn't helpful. To anyone. I think a lot of reviews could learn from this.

Style over substance. A lot of critis complain about this in a lot of movies. I hate this. I hate when people say that. Me? I prefer style. Without style a movie can be as deep as it wants, but it will have a hard time keeping my interest. Don't get me wrong. I love substance, but I love style even more.

One of my favorite movies ever, "Electric Dragon, 80,000 volts" is pretty much pure style. A lot of people made the above complaint about this movie. Well screw them. Cinema is a visual and audio medium first and foremost. Story is really important, but still secondary. Story is most important in literature. I like my movies to have stories, but I want them to look good first and foremost. FOr instance.... I hate most Kevin Costner films. Whether he directs or not, his films tend to be the most basic, boring looking films around.

those who say style can't carry a film alone are wrong and should stick to books.



Ok then... One rant over. New one. I saw Mr. and Mrs Smith as well as War of the Worlds the other day.

Mr. and Mrs SMith
(Minor spoilers)

It was dissapointing. It's biggest flaw being a complete lack of imagination. Other than the ANglina vs Brad fights, they only fought large amounts of faceless goons. Quite lame. In this kind of film, I h ope to see some other cool assasin being sent to take them out. The best scenes in the Bourne films are when Jason fights other professionals. I enjoyed the huge final battle with tons of goons in the movie, but then the film ended and I ws sitting there all WTF. Really weak ending. Where were all the other skilled assasins? If they were the only 2 then why would the agencies want to kill them. And what happened to the boss? Was he one of the faceless goons and we didn't know it. Really weak.

The film had lots of sub plots, but wrapped up none of them. NONE of them. It just forgot them and left them. I don't need sub plots in the film, but if you are gonna have them, then at least see them through. SO lame.

(SPOILERS)

Seriously... The friends? Gone, dropped. Were they in on the plot? What exactly did Vince Vaughns CLock thing say to him, to have him make that face? Who killed the Barracuda? Why exactly did the bosses want them dead? WE only saw one of the bosses and who was he?

(Spoilers end)

A lot of scenes were obviously cut. Just watching the trialers shows that much. This film is bassically a shado of what it could of and should have been. I enjoyed myself, but was really, really dissapointed.

War of the Worlds

Dissapointed again. The last 3 films I saw all dissapointed me. What's up?

This is a really good film. It's just... It's not really WAR of the Worlds... I mean, it is pretty accurate to the book, it's just. Theres not much of a WAR... It's hinted that their might be one oging on, but you never see it.

The film follows Cruise trying to simply survive and become a better father. The war is actually secondary. The film is pretty much, what ID isn't. Which is too bad. because i actually really like ID.

Anyway. Besides this, the film is pretty good. Speilberg creates a situation and sticks too it. The amount of great scnes in this film is staggering.

(Spoilers)

The first time the Tripod apearss and start vaporizing people! Amazing. So dark and unsettling, your not excpecting it. After this and the ensuing fleeing. Speilberg sticks to not showing things.

A train flies by on fire. We don't know how it started on fires. Clothes fall from the sky. We know from earlier how this happened even though we don;'t seee it. A huge battl eis taking place on the other side of a hill. We don't see the battle but we see the firey remains of our side come rolling back over. Bodies floating down a river. Why? We don't know, but the image is so startling we don't really care why.

This film. Is dark. Really, really dark. The film has a few jokes, but a lot of times ou can't hear them over people screaming.

The ending is the biggest problem. It makes some sense, and sticks to the book (though you think they could have tested or something.) Yet it feels so much like a cop out. So very anticlimatic...

(SPoiler ends)


I don know. I enjoyed the films... they were just all dissapointing. I can see the reason for the slump in box office receits. Well not really. When did the quality of films ever stop people going? I don know. If you think you will like either of these films then you probablley will. Still...

After being dissapointed 3 times in a row, i'm not really exicted for any films opening this summer. I'm more excited for what's coming next on my netflix. One of the reasons for the lame box office is said to be dvds, anbd I can beleive it for that very reason.

Still. I might go see the CHoclate factory next week. I'm not really thinkinh much of anything about it. Not really bothering to read reviews. So who knows. If it dissapoints when I have no exspectations, then this will be one of the worst summers of movies I have had in a while. Or mabye, all the great Japanese films I have been watching havbe spoiled me.

Get your stuff together Hollywood. I'm on of your biggest fans and I even I tihnk you suck.

SO, I have decided to use this journal as a way of sharing my love of movies, Tv, Comics, and Music. Ideally I will one day produce great works in each of these mediums, though for now I am focusing more on making films.

I shall also share my experience of helping film the feature film "True Love" not the gay one... www.Truelove2005.com

Fallout Boy rocks...

Anyway, first review goes to Land of the Dead... As it was the last movie I saw...

I have loved Zombie films for quite a while now. Even the terrible zombie films (of which there are many) are pretty entertaining. George A. Romero, pretty much created the genre with Night of the Living Dead. I loved all of the last 3 films made prior to Land. Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the dead, can be pretty much considered the best of the zombie genre. They are also the only zombie films I have seen that work well as real dramas with the exception of 28 days Later(which could be argued isn't a zombie film). Other Zombie films which could be considered well made are not dramas. Dawn of the Dead, the Remake, is good, but an action film. Return of the living Dead and Shawn of the Dead are comedies. But the original trilogy is pure grade A. filmmaking.

It is with this in mind that I came out of Land of the Dead, incredibley dissapointed. The film is not bad, in fact it is quite decent. It simply doesn't work anywhere near the level of the originals. It works pretty good as an action film, but not as well as the Dawn remake. There are a few fleeting moments where it inspire to be a drama, but never follows it through. This could be do it's short running legnth of only 94 minutes.

The original Dawn of the Dead, took the time to get to know the characters. There was only 4 main characters, and when any of them died, you felt it, and when they lived you were releived. The characters were well fleshed out and had great development. In Land, few of the characters even serve any sort of purpose. As much as I love Asia Argento, she serves no purpose in teh film whatsoever. She could have bneen removed and it would have had no effect. Charlies only serves the purpose of helping flesh out Riley's character. Still, him and Riley have a good thing going on in the film that works. Asia, is completely pointless. Riley is one of only 2 characters in the film fleshed out at all, and he has it very little. THe most fleshed out characters ends up being Cholo played by John Leguizamo. His character is the only one with any sort of dimensions too him.

Despite the rather poor characters, the film does have very adequite acting. The script is quite weak, but the actors raise it above what it should be. None of the actors stand out as poor. They elevate a rather sad script, which only a few actors in Star Wars could do. John Leguizamo hgad a presence that carried his character. Asia Argento, had a sad demeaner, but do to her pointless character and lack of any development at all faulters. Dennis Hopper is rather low key, and is decent, but far from his best. In the main role is Simon Baker, in one of his first leading roles. He plays the goody to shoes rather well and could do amazing things with a great script. I am looking forward to future roles by him.

The social commentary was obvious, and rather pointless, another thing that fell far short of the previous 3. That's all I'm going to say on that.

As an action movie the film is not as good as the Dawn of the Dead remake and as a drama it falls way short of the 3 previous Romero zombie films.

That being said, I enjoyed the film and will be buying it on DVD. I really do want to see a sequel, because I think Romero could elevate the film to something once again great.

I guess I would give the film a 70 out of 100. It was entertaining, and I enjoyed myself. On future veiwings, knowing what expect, I think I will enjoy it even more. Romero is a good director, but failed to make anything resembling his best.

I started a live journal! But no on e will ever probablly read it. I only really got it so I could comment on other peoples. Though I might update it once in a while. WHy do I keep typing if no one is even reading this?