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[edisonia]

The Green Lantern - Rahman's Review

No. 

This movie was terrible. An insult to the comics, the characters and to cinema goers everywhere.

Steihl and Day have pointed out why this movie was bad, and I agree, so I can't just repeat what they said and bore you.

Avoid at all costs. 

[edisonia]

Batman Special - Rahman's Reviews.

Ok, so we're a little late and lazy with reviews lately. We apologise!

This week was a Batman special; more specifically, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Batman Begins (2005) / The Dark Knight (2008)

When it was announced that Christopher Nolan was directing a reboot of the Batman franchise, there were mixed views on whether or not he could deliver, considering he had never done a movie of this high calibre, especially with a franchise that is loved (well, not after Joel Schumacher put nips on Batman). But it was still a franchise with a long history; and considering this was an origin story with a director known for his slightly unorthodox story telling, it was a huge gamble for Nolan and Warner Bros. Especially since rumours had it that Nolan wanted to shoot Inception back in 2005, but WB told him to wait it out and do the Batman movies first; which allowed Nolan to work on the script more.

What's interesting is that Darren Aronofsky was attached before Nolan, and he had a script by Frank Miller based on the Batman: Year One graphic novel; that would have been pretty interesting to see.

What makes Nolan's Batman universe so different from all the others is that it's grounded so much on reality. The batsuit, cape and his tools are all based on actual military equipment, the villians use the means that can be actually used in the real to cause havok, and Wayne's training is also based on real martial arts training techniques. All of this comes together great as a whole. Adding to the realism; the Batmobile was an actual car! They built it from the ground up, being able to hit 60mp/h in 6 seconds and hitting a top speed of 106mp/h; which is what they did in the car chase around Chicago when filming; it was all real which makes the action scenes stand-out. However, because it was done all on camera (well, mostly), it gives way to some of that clunky-ness that could have been avoided with CGI; however, either way it's a double edged sword, but it worked out in the end.

Firstly, I want to get the negative out of the way. In my opinion, Nolan is the best director out there today, his movies have always delivered and he is always thinking outside of the box; thematically, practically and mentally. However, that being said, Begins is his weakest movie. Mainly due to studio intervention (understandable since it's a reboot of a big franchise that belongs to the studio, Warner Bros.) and also due to Goyer's script; the main problem is that compared to The Dark Knight they feel like two different universes, which I'll get into later. And also due to the fact that the action scenes are a little clunky; seeing as they are Nolan's first attempt at big action scenes.

The story for Begins is basically how Bruce Wayne, psychologically scarred by the murder of his parents, tries to overcome his anger, grief and fears. He creates the persona of the Batman to influence good throughout Gotham. As the story progresses, the cult that taught him what he knows; the League of Shadows comes to destroy Gotham and only Batman stands in their way. It's a simple story, with great set pieces, characters and an awesome performance by Bale as Bruce Wayne and as Batman. Michael Caine as Alfred is genius, Cillian Murphy plays the Scarecrow with perfection and Liam Neeson...is well, awesome as Ghul. Oh and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox was perfect. The entire cast is basically perfection with the exception of Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. I never did like the actress or the character, but she is needed in the bigger picture of the narrative, especially in Knight. 

It's a great start to the Nolan universe and just a stepping stone to what would become a masterpiece in today's cinema; The Dark Knight

What Nolan started with Begins, he manages to take to a whole new level with The Dark Knight. As a director he manages to soar bringing together all the best elements of Begins, taking out the worst and just perfecting it all around.

The star of the show, hands down goes to Heath Ledger for his portrayal of the Joker bringing together part Malcolm McDowell, part Alex De Large and part Little Caesar; Ledger gives us one of the greatest on-screen performances of all time. I just loved what Ledger managed to with the character, erasing all memory of the piss poor attempt by Jack Nicholson in Burton's Batman. The character of the Joker was inspired by The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke and The Man Who Laughs that are great graphic novels, especially Killing Joke which is probably one of the best graphics novels ever.

The character of Rachel Dawes returns being played a droopy looking Maggie Gylennhal, again an actress playing a character I disliked; so I was glad when finally died- allowing Wayne as a character being pushed further down the psychological rabbit hole in his face-off against the Joker. Aaron Eckhart pulls off Harvey Dent/Two-Face brilliantly, mirroring Bale's Dark Knight. However, I do think Two-Face was very short lived in the movie, but it wasn't handled as bad as say, Venom, from Spider-Man 3. Nolan manages to juggle all the villains and characters in a great way that doesn't feel like there's too much being pushed at the audience on the screen.

The running time of 2 hours 30 mins doesn't manage to feel too long; and it never drags. The Heat inspired story (with many scenes mirroring that movie; especially the opening, and the interrogation scene). Also, as I stated earlier, in Knight, it feels like we're in a different city to Begins, mainly due to the fact that the first movie was very grounded on the fact that we're in Gotham, that the streets are filled with criminals, and there were a lot of scenes of the three islands as well as on the streets, especially in the narrows. In Knight, we're not given any of that, Nolan decides to concentrate more on the characters, rather than the city itself; only giving us a one-off shot of the Wayne Tower, now all decked in black; I think this is because Nolan wanted to seperate away from Begins, knowing what went wrong, and wanted to leave his own mark on the franchise, rather than have that comic book feeling that Goyer implemented in his script. Knight feels more like an epic heist movie, rather than just another comic book movie, which is why it works so damn well. I feel as if we're going to the same feeling with The Dark Knight Rises, but only time will tell.

What Nolan does with the Batman universe is an amazing feat in cinema, and only keeps us at the edges of our seats for The Dark Knight Rises. 

This has been a long essay on the two movies, I guess I can't really keep going on how much I love them, and express that love; my only real conclusion at the end of all this is: go and watch these if you haven't, if you have; watch them again and you'll find something new that you'll love about them. I guarantee it.

[edisonia]

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop - Rahman's Review

Conan O'Brien is a role model of mine. He's a hero and when I found out that a documentary was made about the aftermath of the Tonight Show debacle, I was immedietly interested.

For those who don't know, back in 2005, Jay Leno announced his retirement from The Tonight Show and had also announced his replacement, the then Late Night host Conan O'Brien. The Tonight Show was an institution that O'Brien had waited his entire career for; 16 years at the Late Night show after David Letterman left NBC (after Leno was announced as the host for the Tonight Show and not Letterman).

Now, once O'Brien started his show, Leno had nothing to do; most people would take the millions of dollars they've made and retire, but he wanted to keep going, and NBC wanted to keep him for the ratings. So they had the idea of giving Leno his own prime time show at 10pm, which is then followed by the news and then O'Brien's Tonight Show. This plan failed. Leno had shit ratings, and in turn, O'Brien's ratings weren't great. Therefore, NBC had another plan. Put Leno in at 11:35, and push O'Brien back to 12:05 - not wanting to get rid of Leno, for God know's what reason. O'Brien, not being want to be pushed around protested, saying he doesn't want to be first host to bring in the Tonight Show into tomorrow. So NBC decided to give O'Brien the boot and give Leno the Tonight Show back. All of this could have been avoided if Leno just stepped aside and let O'Brien do his thing. But no, he stayed in the lobby after his retirement as if to say "if you need me, I'll be here".

So O'Brien left with a sum of money, split between himself and his crew and humbly left, in the most classy way possible. He was prohibited from appearing on radio and television for 6 months as part of his agreement to leave NBC. This then spawned his nationwide tour.

This documentary is about the creative vision and planning that went into the show. It shows what Conan is really like behind the scenes, between the shows, with the audience, his fans, his co-workers. Sometimes it's the funniest thing you'll see, and other times it seems like O'Brien is the biggest douche on Earth. Especially during the scenes with Jack McBrayer when he comes to visit; O'Brien is known to mimic his country accent and mock him, but he does it so much you can see how pissed off McBrayer gets at O'Brien.

There's a moment at the end when O'Brien remarks "I don't know what this was", and no one really knows. What went from a small idea, to a sold out nation wide tour within 5 minutes thanks to just one Tweet, O'Brien manages to create something memorable and special, and this movie is a great way to enter his own psyche and see what's behind his laughter.

The relationships between O'Brien, his assitant, Andy Richter, the writers and producers all make you wish you were a part of his team. If you're a fan or not, this documentary will make you laugh, and if you wish you were a fan, this would be a great starting point for anyone to start seeing how much of a comical genius Conan O'Brien really is.

A great experience and an amazing documentary, check it out.

[edisonia]

I Saw The Devil - Rahman's Review

I Saw The Devil, is in essence, a cat and mouse movie serial killer movie. It's about a killer who murders a daughter of a police detective very brutally, and her fiance who starts to look for him. 

What makes this movie standout is the fact that the narrative is quite different from the typical serial killer movies; it reminded me a lot of another Korean serial killer movie called Chaser, another movie you should definitely check out. What happens half way through the movie is that half way through the fiance finds the killer, and beats him constantly, before letting him back out into the world, only to catch him again, taunting him.

It's in the same style of other revenge movies such as the Vengeance trilogy, especially Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, and it's the main reason I love this movie. It's a little different, the shocking, disturbing, and manages to pull out all the punches. Jee-Woon Kim (who also directed a personal favourite of mine A Tale of Two Sisters) manages to create an atmosphere, though absurd at times...it's completely believable. And you watch this fiance go from this likeable, well mannered guy, to a crazy, revenge driven psycho. The pacing, at 2hrs 20mins(-ish), doesn't feel too long at all, it allows the film to develop nicely to a final act that is great, the characters you want dead, characters you want to root for, and characters you're not sure what they're doing.

The acting across the board is great, especially from Lee Byung-hun, who plays the fiance, Soo-hyun. He manages to portray his character in a way that makes you want him to win, but then question his ethics towards the end, especially the final scenes; before capturing the killer for the final time, leading towards his death. 

All in all, if you're into Korean cinema, serial killer movies and suspense. I highly recommend this movie. It's great, and if you have the stomach for some the scenes, you'll enjoy it, you honestly will. 

[edisonia]

Poster Thursday #2 - The Fountain

The Fountain - Dir. Darren Aronofsky 

Ok, so I was supposed to post this last week. But I didn't. My bad.

I wanted to talk about my love for this movie; and the poster campaign they used to promote the movie in different places.

The first poster is one that everyone can recognise, and it's a pretty powerful film with powerful imagery, and this poster pretty much captures the themes from the film:

It also had different variations with different fonts, but using the same image as seen here.

There was also a poster with literally nothing:

This one actually pretty interesting, but from a marketing standpoint it wouldn't have worked. But I love the fact that they printed this. It's obvious they wanted to get the sci-fi/metaphysical aspect of the film across. 

The image of the tree is important for the film here. It was used in a lot of the posters; the Christian imagery is literally just eyeing for your attention. Especially in the way the campaign manages to show the importance through Hugh Jackman; constantly looking up at it, or under its shadow. As shown here:

The posters also use the space element quite a lot, which I found interesting since when you watch the movie, space only places an importance in 1/3 of the film; as it's not entirely a sci-fi movie.

The Japanese posters are very interesting to me, since they play on the love aspect a lot more than the domestic pieces:

The inclusion of the space bubble and the stars; along with the 2 main characters taking up most of that space; it's a great poster, it plays with the colour (red/orange against the winter snow), and plays on the eternal love theme that is through and through the movie.

This poster is much more inline with the love aspect and is simple, but still effect. It's a little like a domestic poster for an epic love story, and reminds me of the recent Norwegian Wood poster, it's very similar.

The French pster is very...French. It's simple, and has the 3 main characters (yes, you heard me..3!), I didn't like this one too much. But, it's worth a look to see the difference how different regions get different posters.

What's interesting is the cover for the comic book. 

Here we have the main characters with the tree posing as a tattoo as they are floating in space. If you have seen the movie you'll know how great this cover really is. It's powerful, simple and striking at the same time.

And last one I wanted to show is a poster much like Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream

Just the name, and it' works.

The Fountain is a great piece of work, and the posters even though more or less very similar, have great imagery and play on the movie very well.

I have one these posters on my wall as we speak:

This is probably mt favourite, as it tells the story in one image. And the tagline is just great. They really draw you in, and I'm saddened the movie didn't get as much attention as it should have. If you liked Black Swan, do watch this! It's probably my personal favourite by Aronofsky.

[edisonia]

Blue Valentine - Rahman's Review

Maybe I've seen too many movies, you know?

This is a film that really hit home with me, I don't know why, but it struck a chord. The story and concept is simple, it's about a contemporary American couple, and about their evolution, growing old together. The film cuts in and out of different time periods of how they met, and what they're like in contemporary times.

When it cuts in and out of the different time periods at first; it gets a little confusing, since you don't know what the hell is going on. But when you get into he groove, you'll find yourself enjoying the show. One thing I loved about this, was how the shots of the beginnings of the relationship were shot, I just fall in love with movies that follow couples walking around a city, it reminded me a lot of In Search of a Midnight Kiss. A lot of it reminds me of the French new wave cinema, especially works such as Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Cleo from 5 to 7, especially the way the characters look back on their lives and have existentialist moments with themselves and the characters around them.

I was actually surprised by Ryan Gosling's performance in the whole thing. I didn't think he had it in him to pull of something like this; but he did play the character very well, especially how you can see that his older self is a very different person to his younger self; that along the line, the happy, optomistic romantic is slowly deteriorating; being pushed to the edge. This being mirrored to the young, happy man he used to be when he meets Cindy, played by Michelle Williams, who basically stole the show for me. Her performance was great. I loved how she's a very introverted, young girl, trying her best to do well in her life, and as she meets Dean (Gosling), she opens up...dancing to his songs, playing with him, finally being happy only to to lose her way to find out she is pregnant from her ex-boyfriend.

  Even the sex scenes, which I usually find...pointless, show how the relationship has managed to change, from being enjoyed as a young couple, to being avoided later on in life. The mirroring in this movie is great, the shots are intimate, close, and the cinematography is great, Andrij Parekh done a great job with the camera work, along with Derek Cianfrance's direction, they've managed to give an audience a great journey into a couple's life. And it's something that'd hit home with anyone's who has fallen in love. 

[edisonia]

Rubber - Rahman's Review

The overarching theme to this film is that there is no reason what so ever for it's existence. Which is exactly why you should watch it. And the same reason this review is a short one.

Rubber has one of the greatest concepts I have ever witnessed on the screen, and it's about a tire that goes around killing people and becomes obsessed with a certain girl. 

Straight from the opening sequence you know you're in for something different. A police officer gets driven into the desert and comes out of a trunk of a car after knocking down a set of chairs in the middle of the road. All for no reason. He begins to talk to the audience about how movies from all ages have certain aspects for no reason at all. It's obvious that the director, Quentin Dupieux is a fan of American cinema. Films such as The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, primarily the horrors set in a desert. Fusing dark comedy with gruesome deaths, he manages to create a very humorous, tongue-in-cheek world that doesn't take itself too seriously at all.   

However, the short 1 hour 20 minute running time is a bit too long for a film of this nature. It's like a student film just done really well; and I believe that if Rubber was just about maybe...30 minutes shorter, it would have been a lot better. Because the story gets too complex for it's own good and tries to hide behind it's humour to save itself and once you get past the fact that it's a tire killing people all over a small town, there's not much going for it. The cinematography is actually extremely simple and well done, nothing too complicated on the camera (possibly due to budget restraints), Dupieux manages to do great things behind the camera. 

I would like to commend the special effects team, they've done a superb job at the death scenes. Animals and humans alike die as if they actually did have their heads blown up (I hope they didn't), and the puppeteers who managed to animate the tire effortlessly on the screen. 

I recommend this film, no reason at all.