"eye-scorching screen candy"

Glenn Gaslin described the movie as an "eye-scorching screen candy, a
gorgeous effects driven fantasy flick" in E! online. the movie in questions is Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Mirrormask. he is absolutely right.
i've been waiting to get my hands on the DVD since i knew of the movie going into production. since it's one of those small company, low budget films without any famous stars, i was sure that it will never reach malaysian cinemas, and i was right.
well, not even that, none of the DVD shops that i asked at, since september last year, even heard about the film. so when i bumped into this in a DVD shop earlier in the evening, i just bought it and hurry home. :)
so. it really is eye candy right from the DVD menu to the ending credits.
as what i've mentioned in a previous post here, the movie is really filled with tons and tons of weirdly creative and brilliant ideas, both in the storyline and the audio visual presentation of it. if i'd not known beforehand that this movie was done on a very limited budget, i wouldn't have believed that this film actually only had a budget of four million dollars. just as a comparison, the first lord of the rings movie had a budget of 137 million. the acclaimed fantasy film labyrinth, from the same company as mirrormask, had 40 million.
seeing dave mckean's designs brought to live is a shocking experience. i'm talking about designs with similar color schemes and psychotic feeling as those from sandman comic covers. cats with human faces, fishes that swims through the air, orbiting giants... mixing that, with all the crazily original ideas from neil gaiman - flying books, a dumb sphinx, monkey-birds with beaks that keep falling off, shadows that turn into eyeballs with spidery legs... this is fantasy film at a whole new level. (which also kinda make me wonder what kind of movies will the sandman series make)
it's too bad that this film did not reach cinemas here.

mirrormask@sony pictures
traliers@apple

more pictures, which doesn't really reflect how marvellous things actually look in the movie:

mirrormask

it always amazes me how many different ideas that neil gaiman can come up with in each of his new stories. dave mckean's creativity and ingenuity with his illustrations always leaves me speechless. i've been totally marvelled by their works since sandman, and yet again their latest collaboration took my breathe away before i even manage to see the movie.

early in the sandman series, richard madoc, a novelist, exchanges a trichinobezoar for a the muse, calliope. "I need her. If I didn't have her, I wouldn't be able to write. I wouldn't have ideas." says richard madoc when morpheus the dream king arrives to free the enslaved muse.

sometimes, i wonder if neil gaiman has a few muses of his own locked up in his attic. :)
i read through the first 100+ pages of the script and there are already so many unheard-of ideas - sphinxes love eating books, books will float back to the library if you don't want them anymore and the flutter around like butterflies too, people wear masks and believe that you can't express any emotion without masks - my brain will probably fry itself if i were to try coming up with stuff like these.

photos from the set n the movie shows a very strong feel of dave mckean. it's like seeing his illustrations coming to live on screen. ok, i'm just guessing on that but i'll bet the movie will feel exactly like that to anyone who's familiar with dave mckean's style in art. the panning of the camera on certain scenes looks really impressive from the script.

the story is a twist of alice in wonderland, making it much darker (when comparing with the comtemporary children's version), more witty humor n a totally brand new neil gaiman fairy tale, riding dave mckean's design n directing.

like i said before i even read the book, a collaboration of my fav artist n fav author, moved to the big screen, what more can i ask for?

PS: that's death from sandman on the side. she's got nothing to do with the movie, i just like the pic. :P

before or after?

remember this joke from the negotiator?
a marine and an army guy went to the loo together. the marine finished his business and walked away without washing his hands. the army guy made fun of him by saying that in the army, they were taught to was their hands after going to the loo. the marine retorted with, "in the marines, we are taught not to pee on our hands".

well, the thing is, we're all taught to wash our hands after going to the washroom. the reason being that our hands are probably dirty after, and we shouldn't be spreading the germs and bacteria everywhere, worse of all keeping them on our hands and possibly handling food later.
(why anyone wouldn't wash their hands first before handling food is totally beyond me.)

my question is, why only after?

it's general knowledge that our fingers and nails collect the most bacteria. we handle food, we type on our keyboard (which probably hasn't been thoroughly cleaned since the day we bought it), we scratch our itches and probably the worse of all, we handle money. money is said to be among the dirtiest thing that we handle a lot on a daily basis.

so, imagine you touching your privates when you go to the toilet. wouldn't you be directly spreading said germs and bacteria directly to your 'valuables'?

then there are those guys who like to flush the urinal as soon as they stand in front of it, so that they can flush it again when they're done. (what's the deal with that anyway?) i guarantee you, the last guy that did that probably didn't wash his hands before doing his business either. so you're like sticking his germs on your finger, then sticking your finger to you family jewels. (hhmmm... can i make it any grosser?)

then there those who wash their hands afterwards, but never wipe their hands dry. it's common sense that wet/damp hands spread more germs. (don't believe me? check out the links at the end of this entry) why wash your hands when you're gonna be doing more damage than not washing them?

i'm not a hygiene freak. it's just that it's pretty weird to not wash one's hands only after but not before, seeing that our hands are already gathering germs all day long.

link1 link2 link3

the end of an era?

"I grew up watching Jackie Chan movies."
To a certain extent, I did. The first one was Drunnken Master, 醉拳, on TV when I was just into primary school. I loved it so much that when it showed again, my dad recorded it onto a VHS tape so I can watch it again and again. And I did.
Then came some of his earlier works, like 蛇形刁手 and those in the 80s, the early Police Story series, and he recorded those too.

At the time, Chinese KungFu movies revolved around big names like Bruce Lee, Jackie, Samo, Yuen Piao and others of Jackie's class. Well, mostly, the famous ones were by Bruce Lee, which were all serious and portrayed him as the undying hero. Jackie was totally different. Simple day-to-day objects used as weapons or obstacles to stop the enemies, funny moves, the agility of a monkey, new and amazing stunts etc... He was cool, and I watched every one of his movies, owned quite a few on VCDs too.

Well, things started to turn bad when he focused on making Hollywood movies. Rumble in the Bronx wasn't that good, A Nice Guy had a downright cheesy ending... Come to think of it, the only good thing he did in Hollywood is the first Rush Hour. Or maybe that's because of Chris Tucker. :)

The last 2 movies, Around the World in 80 Days, and Hong Kong-based New Police Story, are total disasters. The first was just a big lame joke with a lot of stars showing up in short cameo roles. The latter mixed in new blood from the Hong Kong film industry, had all of them acting so fakely westernized or trying to talk like blacks, and then the story had to put in supposedly romantic/touching stuff to make a decent action flick into a cheesy half-breed of an action film, chick flick and inspirational bullshit.

Some say that Jackie has done all the crazy stunts he could after all these years, and his advancing age if a factor forbidding him in trying out dangerous new stunts. One other thing that comes to mind is that with CG as it is nowadays, so much can be done with a computer, it's pretty dammned hard for most audience to differentiate what is real and what is not, on screen. Jackie's stunts have been touted as defying human abilities, but CG can do much better. Plus, after watching clips of extreme martial arts, Jackie Chan is not that awesome anymore. :P

Is it really the end for Jackie Chan?

rants on a few bad ones

Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
Seriously, this is worse than the first. The first one was at least a lil scary, and the plot twists, although too transparent, made things a lil more interesting. The sequel is basically just a linear story with no guess work needed.
There was nothing scary about it. As with the first one, the zombies could've looked more like zombies. Some of them moved pretty fast this time though.
Again, Mila showed her tits. And again, Mila's a great fighter who doesn't really look like she knows how to fight. And yet again, they left the ending open for another sequel.
All in all, it's one of those linear, good for fun, one time only action films. Unless you're a Mila fan.
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The House of Flying Daggers 十面埋伏
Against my better judgement, I disbelieved the bad reviews online and from the newspaper and bought the DVD. It's a beautiful movie, seriously. But sadly, that's all it is.
The story is so like Infernal Affairs 无间道 at a certain level. The cop sent undercover to the bad guys and the cop that's undercover for the bad guys. Nothing truely exciting or unexpected.
All the fight scenes that involves Zhang ZiYi are so freaking fake. Especially when she and Takeshi were running through the bamboo forest with pursuers. I still could not fathom how the pursuers managed to cut and throw so many bamboo sticks in such a short time while jumping from tree to tree, but had to take more than five minutes to do the same thing when they are standing still and both the fugitives are trapped and couldn't move.
And then there's the thing about Zhang kept NOT dying. Even when she had a dagger stuck to her heart, and was half-buried by a snowstorm, she could get back up, pull the dagger out from her heart and throw it with precision that you wouldn't believe.
Not to mention her clothes gets taken off almost every 20 minutes, but it has never gone below her waist and all the audience could see were her shoulders and back. It get really tiring. It's like the whole film was made to promote her.
So, basically, the only things worth watching this movie for are the interior design and decorations, some of the hair-dressing and costumes, plus loads and loads of forest and mountain scenery.
Oh yeah, the ending theme is actually an English song. (I was like WTF?! when I finished the movie.)
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Faffner in the Azure - Dead Agressor
Anime. Evangelion clone with bad design, same old stupid story. I suprised myself by making it through two episodes. I deleted all eleven right after that.
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Ladykillers
I can possibly categorize this as a comedy, drama or what, but I'm going with the comedy idea. It's funny sometimes, but mostly I find it idiotic. Tom Hanks portrayal of the well-learned professor type, as with the portrayal of all the other characters by the rest of the cast, went a bit too much overboard to keep things funny.
I cannot imaging how much rubbish the people of Mississippi produce. There were so many garbage ships passing along the Mississippi river at all times of the day that it was just plain convenient for murderers to dump bodies into them from the bridge.
It's a movie to watch when you really got nothing better to do and just wanna relax a lil.

inspirational

According to Nash (played by Russell Crowe) in A Beautiful Mind, Adam Smith is wrong. The concept of "the best results comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself" is, according to Nash, incomplete. The best results is only achieved when everyone in the group does what's best for himself AND the group. And then, he illustrates this with the example of how everyone can get laid. Basically, the most intereting thing in the movie.

The scenario was that there was this stunning blonde, with a few brunettes, just entered a bar/student lounge where Nash and his fellow students were, and everyone wanted the blonde.

So Nash came up with the following, which is entirely true in real life:
"If we all go for the blonde, we'll be in each other's way, and none of us will get her. So we turn to her friends, but they'll all give us the cold shoulder because no one wants to be second choice...". And he concludes that, for all of them to get laid, none of them should go for the blonde.

That, basically, sums up a lot of the success techniques of the first move in picking up women (or girls, if you'd prefer), in a bar/club. Always go for the second best, unless the best has an eye for you and only you. :)

OK, back to the movie. I actually find it kinda inspiring, the way that Nash dealt with his schizophrenia without taking medication. He probably wouldn't have done it without the support from his wife and friends though. It's basically your typically inspirational success story with a twist. The twist being success not in achieving something widely recognised or would revolutionalize something, Nash did that when he was much younger. The success here is overcoming personal difficulties in the face of overwhelming despair.

One other thing that had me thinking about this movie, and all biographical movies in general, is how true or how romanticised the story on screen is, compared to what really happened. I usually think of this point since I'd read Neil Gaiman's Reboot a few years ago.

Reboot is a short story included in Neil Gaiman's short story collection, Smoke and Mirrors. It's about a drug that cures cancer, but has certain non-lethal nor destructive side effects. One of these side effects, changing one's gender overnight, led the drug, Reboot, to be a hit. The story told of the inventor of the drug's real life and his counter part in a biographical movie of him. Two totally different versions of the "same" person, with the movie romanticised to suit the market.

Somehow, this takes the fun out of most "real-life" adapted, inpirational movies.

i, robot

I've staved off watching I, Robot for months. When I finally saw a friend of mine with a DVD copy, I just thought I'd give it a try, even though everything I heard about it sucks. :) First off, let's just say that, when you buy a pirated DVD, make sure it's not recorded directly from the cinema. It's irritating, although funny, to see people moving around when you're watching a DVD.

On to the movie. It does suck.

Barely 10 minutes into the movie, and I've already been bombarded by ad after ad of brand names. JVC, Converse, Audi... and the list goes on. "Vintage 2004" my ass. I gotta hand it to the director though. It's the most time-saving commercial effort. Every 10 to 15 minutes, you'll see at least 2 big brand names displayed on screen. Kinda reminds me of watching local Malaysian TV with over 15 minutes of ad breaks in a 1-hour show. I wonder if Will Smith showing his ass twice is supposed to be an advertisment too.

Eyecandy-wise, there wasn't really much to go "ohh-ahh" about. Nothing to watch -- from realistic expressions on robot faces to the car chases, explosions, the robot attack finale -- that hasn't been done before. The car chase scene with the robots were kinda disappointing. With the number of robots attacking a single car, it's just not logical that they didn't succeed in killing Will Smith right there.

Besides the 3 laws, the movie title, and names like Alfred Lanning, there was basically nothing in the movie that actually reminds one of any of Isaac Asimov's novels. It's like a total new story, tailor-made for Will Smith to show off as the hero -- which wasn't very impressive either way -- and to cram in advertisement after advertisement to make a helluva lot of money.

All in all, I think just wasted 2 hours watching the show last night.

jackass

The movie, actually. I know it's old and I've seen the video clips lying around on the net. Most of them are actually more towards stupid/disgusting/offensive/disturbed than being funny, but somehow I was laughing through the whole 70+ minutes of the movie. Well, most of it. I was pretty grossed out when the fella actually ate and ice cone that he just peed on. The part where this dude deliberately papercut the webbings on his hands and feet (what are those called anyway?) was just plain stupid.

Come to think of it, this movie (if one can really call it that) is an honest approach to being funny (or a choice of stupid/disgusting/offensive/disturbed) than most stupid comedies out there. For instance, Stephen Chow films. Downright silly, but all the while pretending that the movies actually have a deeper meaning. I still can't understand why the hell Shaolin Soccer got awards.

When I used to watch his films, I usually forget about the whole things right after the show's over. Seriously, there's no meaning to it. Exactly like Jackass. Which is the reason why these idiots doing things that normal people wouldn't do, and having fun doing them, is honestly funnier than Stephen Chow.

I kinda think that most of the stunts (read:stupid things) they do are what most people, at least American teenagers, would've thought of doing. Eg: riding a golf cart like a bumper car; put an alligator in the kitchen to scare the shit outta the parents, etc. Thing is, these jackasses dared to do it. I wonder what kinda trouble they got themselves into filming this. Especially the dancing-in-a-thong-in-the-streets-of-Tokyo part. Or the shit-in-a-furniture-store stunt.

All-in-all, the movie was funny.