Immortals, Not As Terrible As Expected

It's kind of assumed that I'll hate every movie I see; that's just the way I roll. I'm not ashamed to admit that. I'm also prone to talking shit about every movie trailer that I watch - and man do I watch a lot of them (got to keep up on things that will potentially annoy me, right?)

Not surprisingly, I've been talking shit about "Immortals" for... what? A few months now? "Sure," I said, "It's going to look fucking great. The visuals will be stunning. And the story will be crap. And there's no reason to go see it in the theatre because there you'll have to listen to the bullshit dialog..."

You know where this is going, right? One of those big, painful confessions I sometimes have to make: I didn't hate this movie and it wasn't terrible.

... fuuuuuck.

Okay - here's the breakdown.
I keep writing about "battle movies" needing to be epic... well... this one was pretty epic. Finally, a smart use of CGI. Finally, swords and slaying and blood and mutilation and men fighting dirty; a terrific "raw-ness" permeated the fights. I like to see guys kicking the crap out of each other... that's kind of what war looks like, right?

I went into this one thinking I'd just be getting a rehash of "300" - not a terrible thing but sort of a waste of my time. It's fairly ridiculous the way that movies cycle around: someone releases something highly stylized and then BAM! We get a flood of movies that all look exactly the same. "Immortals" actually managed to look more like (director) Tarsem Singh's other films than like "300". Which is interesting in the case of a movie as purely "masculine" as this. (I mean, does his work not just scream Bollywood?!)

The story? Managed to be true enough to not make me gag. Managed to be "different enough" to make things interesting. I felt somewhat like I was watching "Titus": a liberal use actual text plus... creative imagination? And while it makes movie watching tolerable for us snooty, educated film-snobs - it unfortunately creates a weird type of fictional fiction that the masses will now believe to be historically accurate. Score another one for Hollywood wrecking history... or something like that.

I was actually surprised by how many "known" actors populated this movie. I had thought it was sort of, "off-season" and would be boasting (mostly) unknown actors. Not the case. Not the case at all.

Related note: is Mickey Rourke not just everywhere right now? He seems to have cornered the market on playing the villain. And I'm not saying he's not born to do it, because he really, truly is; the man sounds like he's been chewing glass since birth - he's built like a tank - and he's got this great combo pack of vacant stare and murderous sneer. Love it.

And John Hurt, nearly painfully famous. In the least offensive way possible I write this next thought: it's nice to see aging actors getting good roles in films (as opposed to being left behind to die in obscurity.)

Alright - getting late now and I should wrap this up. Final thought? Got a few hours and a few bucks and want to be entertained? Go ahead and see "Immortals", I won't judge you for it.

..

You can watch the trailer here:

Rebuttal: 17 Disturbing Horror Movies You Will Never Watch Again

When I'm not watching movies, I'm reading about movies. I stumble across all kinds of articles, blog posts, book excerpts, etc. in my quest to absorb as much movie knowledge as possible. Now, I'm snotty and loud-mouthed and opinionated but I'd never begrudge another human their opinion. Seriously. You're absolutely welcome to have any opinion about any thing you want. However, I must warn you, if I think your opinion is stupid, I'm absolutely going to say so. I've recently stumbled on an article completely brimming with so many idiotic opinions that I'm actually compelled to craft a response. Here's the gist of the original article: there are some horror movies out there that are so disturbing , you'll only ever want to watch them once. I've have taken her original list and refuted her claims without pulling her entire article over. You can read the original article here . Let's start at the beginning, with her opening statement

Escape From Tomorrow

I love creative people who are willing to take risks with their art. I appreciate the refusal to do things by the rules. I'm also terribly impatient with mediocrity. Enter Escape From Tomorrow . Created by a team of rogue filmmakers, the movie was shot in the video mode of high-end still cameras. Actors shared scripts and shooting locations across their smartphones. Shot on location at Disney World, the parks were completely unaware this was all going on right under their mouse ears. I wanted to love Escape From Tomorrow. More than that, I wanted to be completely taken with its ingenuity and creativity and - oh yes - its originality. And there is really a simple brilliance to their covert plan; all families are roaming around the parks, taking videos and chatting on their phones. Just blend the fuck in, act like you belong, and you won't get caught. Too bad the movie can be summed up as: ambitious but Rubbish. As you can imagine (or possibly know), there was a ton of con

What Is Genre And Why Should I Care?

There are terms that always seem to come up when talking about films: director, actor, plot, theme, score, etc. These terms are all self-explanatory; no one ever asks, ‘what’s a director?’ However, there are other terms that are equally common but less clear: genre, sub-genre, auteur, oeuvre, etc. These terms are more abstract then ‘director’ or ‘actor.’ It is entirely likely that someone will ask, ‘what is genre, anyway?’ This question specifically is what I will be answering with this paper. The answer to the question ‘what is genre,’ is multi-layered: genre is a means of classification. Genre is a means of communication. Genre is a means of understanding films. Genre is a means of relating to films. To one person all movies rated “PG” are a genre – possibly one also known as “children’s movies” – while to another all movies with similar topics treated in similar ways are a genre: i.e. movies dealing with frontier life depicted in a nostalgic manner are a genre often kn

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