The Motion Writer

Everything about movies & TV I want to post. Reviews, News, Commentary, etc. follow the full blog @ http://themotionwriter.com/

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Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a quiet carnival performer who, while returning to Schenectady after a year away, learns he has a son and decides he must provide for him. Quickly, he turns to robbing banks,...

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Review: This Is The End

This really feels like a huge reunion for everyone who'€™s ever appeared in an Apatow production. The main cast, as well as the many cameo appearances are made up of every recurring star from films s...

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Stoker by Sam’s Myth

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Another review! 

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new reveiw on the blog

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Two new posts!

I just posted two new reviews

Zero Dark Thirty: http://goo.gl/d8Ffw

Django Unchained: http://goo.gl/sS1bi

[unflinchingly]

Breaking Bad credits, Mad Men-style. [source]

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this is silly, i love it

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Enter the Void Opening Title Sequence.  I watch this weekly.

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A Title sequence for the ages.

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The Hunger Games: Aims High

I haven’t read the book series or heard of it beforehand, but the trailers intrigued me. So I went into it with an open mind hoping for a somewhat deeper blockbuster type movie.  While I feel it is a bit smarter than the action films that we’ve had in recent years (if this can be considered one), it is ultimately a film that fails its lofty aspirations.

            In my opinion, what truly undoes the film is it PG-13 rating. In avoiding the truly ugly bloodshed of the games, it loses the power to let the audience feel just how vile the games and the government who thought it up is. Compounding this issue is the use jittery, shaky camera during the fighting. While I understand this technique is often used to cause the viewer to feel the intensity and frantic nature of the action, there is a threshold. When it gets to the point where you're unable to make out the action or even something as simple as which way the characters are moving, it is distracting and disconnecting the viewer even further from the action. This style can work in certain films, but here I feel it just clashes with the overall intent of the film.

            Also, something that really bothered me was how they just completely gloss over the fact that Peeta was willingly leading a group of tributes straight to Katniss. It makes no sense that neither of the two characters would even make reference to it and that it would have no effect on the relationship between them.

            I was a bit perplexed at the portrayal of the majority of the other tributes. I cannot fault the writers for not including characterization of 23 inconsequential characters. However, the choice to make them all callous, violent, and cruel was an odd choice to make. What makes all these other kids so terrible? (Excluding Rue) Why are the people from District 12 the only characters with sympathetic traits? It struck me as just false or incongruous with the themes the material is going for. Maybe it's because I am such a fan of moral ambiguity in stories, but I think it would have helped if there is any scene in the film where attribute felt guilty for killing another. Katniss would have felt much more nuanced and human as a character if she did at least one act that wasn’t completely heroic or moral, even if it was a small thing.

            These two last things may be more my preference then strictly criticism. I think that Katniss made it out of the games unrealistically uninjured. I would have liked to have seen her bit more battered. It would have felt more as though she survived through a two-week long battle to the death. It would have looked closer to the degree of grueling and harrowing that they were aiming for.

[maudit]

Interviewer: Ingmar, what was your intention with your latest film, Persona? Bergman: If I’ve really manged to make a film that has sparked a debate, it would be very tactless of me to barge in on that debate and talk about what I really meant by the film. It would be tactless towards the audience, because I’m sure they all have their own interpretations, and tactless towards those commenting on it in the media, who might feel hurt if they found they misinterpreted the film. Therefore I prefer not to say anything at all. I played my part in this debate when I made the film.

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The Walking Dead: WHY DID YOU DO THIS!?!

SpOilErZss!!?!  maybe.

Basically, they killed off the best character.  While they did it well, what now? theres no more conflict within the group anymore. I have a feeling Carl will begin to develop into this type of character. If they go that direction, I'm all for it. A kid growing up in this environment is really something unique Walking Dead brings to the genre and making the kid become the loose canon of the group would be super dark.   Also it'd probably be really challenging for Rick, "My son is becoming a psychopath, whudda I do?"  which would real interesting.

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[illbehappywhenimdead-deactivate]

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Art, it's kinda like that sometimes.

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Another Earth

Another Earth is a micro-budget, indie film, that by no means, feels cheap or amateur. In the film, literally another earth appears in the sky. Rather than falling into madness the people of Earth (and, presumably of Earth 2) is confronted with philosophical and existential questions. When radio contact is first made, the astronomers is met with a familiar voice, her own. We ascertain that this world is a mirror to our own. This is merely the setting of the film, not the main plot thread, it is concurrent with the main character's plot. 

We meet our 17-year-old, protagonist, Rhoda, celebrating her acceptance into MIT. On her way home, there is a broadcast about the mirror planet that has just come into view, a blue spot in the sky. As Rhoda leans out her car window to get a better look, she crashes into a car occupied by a family of 3. The son and mother are killed while the father survives. The film jumps to four years later when Rhoda is finished serving out a sentence. The Earth is still in the sky, but much closer. 

A big theme of the film is introspection, so Earth 2 kind of serves as a metaphor for Rhoda's internal conflict. Looking at Earth 2 is to look on ourselves. A philosopher/scientist, obviously inspired by a certain famous popularizer of science, on television, puts forth the theory that as soon as we became aware of Earth 2, and vice-versa, our synchronicity was broken. She hopes things turned out differently for the other Rhoda, that she went to college hadn't had that accident, so it also ment to work as a motivating factor for her actions. A Richard Branson-type character holds a contest to find passengers for a mission to Earth 2, Rhoda, of course, enters. 

She eventually befriends the widower, John, on a false pretense (His brother took care of all the legal proceedings, so John doesn't know what she did). This part of the film gets quite predictable and the eventual romantic relationship falls flat in my opinion. It feels forced and doesn't really heighten the emotional stakes in any way. 

In my opinion the other Earth acting as a motivating force doesn't work. How could the same object that, in a way caused the accident that "ruined her life" be the same object that Rhoda looks to for motivation later? It just didn't work for me

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The Real Blog

Im starting a full blog soon. It will be all original content and it'll be fun maybe.  I'm hoping for it to be a conversation, so if anyone is out there reading dont be afraid to contribute. The first video post should be coming very soon. 

[motionwriter-blog]

A Critique of Joss Whedon As A Writer (*Minus Buffy & Angel)

im not necessarily a vehement detractor nor am i huge whedon fan. i always seem to find myself in this strange middle ground all alone. i only recently gained respect for him while watching firefly, prior to that i was probably more likely to say he was a hack who relied on great writing teams. ive changed my mind, but i feel all his shows have been hit and miss. when they they hit they ARE great television, but  when they miss boy are they unbearably boring.  

he is a cleaver writer: thematically, structurally, and in characterization. however i feel he can get hung up on his own wit, trying to portray every small thing in an offbeat original way, rather than just telling it in a conventional way that would work better and move the story along to his genuinely original devices.

also i feel that hes never introduced a character well. he loves all of his characters and portrays them remarkably well theres no question about that, but i dont think he effectively establishes them for the viewer. i never truly know the character until about halfway into the 1st season. of couse you cant know every facet of a character right away, but in the pilots i never get a feel for the character's central motivation or demeanor, it has to be gleaned from numerous episodes. i think he knows his characters so well that he wants to jump right into writing in that characters voice and forgets to establish the basics.  

in my opinion he is far to confident in his abilities and glosses over parts of his stories that he should be thinking much harder about, this goes for a lot of screenwriters as well, including myself.  i dont mean to say he is pompous or conceited, but that he maybe gets carried away in his immense talents that he forgets to go back and really really ponder what it is hes trying to do and if it works.

in short, i think he is very talented, but not without a few flaws.