Archives for the Month of March 2007 on media addict
Children of Men
I saw Children of Men last night and I have to say I was impressed. Other reviews have compared this movie to Bladerunner, and I very much agree with that assessment. Both movies start slowly and are somewhat confusing for the first 30 minutes. But the plot gradually builds and evolves and the last third of both films is incredible. Children of Men is one of the most visually striking movies I have ever seen. The director, Alfonso Cuaron, makes use of extremely long takes and a minimum of cuts. This has the effect of presenting a truly "living world" where the camera can follow characters through street after street during a major gun fight with no interruption. Combined with incredible production design, this visual style is something to behold and much like Bladerunner it almost overshadows the plot, which is somewhat thin. Any narrative shortcomings can be forgiven in my opinion by the movie being presented as a "slice of time" where we are dropped into a story in progress and only witness a small section of the overall plot. Some movies work better with more exposition but in this case it would have only slowed the beginning down even more. The acting also helps greatly to fill in the gaps (Michael Caine is fantastic), providing a lot of character to an otherwise stoic background. I think this is one of those films where multiple viewings will only increase my appreciation for it. 4.5/5
Unknown, Blood Diamond
I watched a couple of movies last night that came via Netflix.
Unknown is a very simple, concise thriller revolving around 5 men who wake up in a building in the middle of nowhere and don't remember who they are or how they got there. It's a very interesting premise, but the movie can't quite stretch it into a truly engaging 90 minute experience. Usually I like a thriller that restricts the action to a small area, forcing the characters to deal with simpler more visceral problems as opposed to grand conspiracies. In this case they did not restrict the environment enough; providing a side plot involving the police searching for some kidnapped men (2 of the aforementioned amnesia victims). Plot twists involving the men gradually remembering recent events aren't paced very well and are far too convenient for the situations in which they occur to fully pull you in to the storyline. That said, it is well acted and entertaining enough to hold it together for a fairly watchable experience. 3/5
Blood Diamond received much praise and awards considerations, but I found it to be highly overrated. There is nothing that sticks out in Blood Diamond as being the one aspect that didn't work and brought the movie down. It just never made me care all that much about the characters. There are some fantastic action sequences and some moving moments, but everything is just too slick for its own good. The acting is good, although I think Di Caprio should have been nominated for The Departed instead of Blood Diamond, but that's another discussion. Perhaps my biggest problems with the movie was it used a few too many common cliches, such as the protege being double crossed by his former mentor, along with plenty of melodrama (director Edward Zwick's forte). 3/5
HD DVD vs Blu-ray
Into the ever compelling format war of HD DVD and Blu-ray, I throw my hat.
I just read a very interesting article about the production costs of both formats. My previous understanding was that the HD DVD format was cheaper to manufacture due to its inherent similarities to the DVD format. This allowed for simpler manufacturing versus Blu-ray which requires a very different process from DVD. This is due mainly to the data carrying layer of Blu-ray being closer to the surface of the disc, requiring different coatings than either HD DVD or DVD. According to this article, however, this is not the case. The article concludes that "...we can see that Blu-ray media replication does not cost significantly more than HD DVD. In fact, we found that Blu-ray is actually cheaper per GB in many situations!"
In my opinion this is the straw that broke the camel's back. To see what I mean, let me weigh the attributes of each format.
HD DVD:
-First to market
-More inexpensive players
-Major hardware support by Toshiba, Microsoft (XBOX 360 add-on), others
-Supported by Viacom (Paramount, Dreamworks), Universal and Time Warner (Warner Brothers, New Line) movie studios
Blu-ray
-More storage capacity (25GB vs 15GB for a single layer disc)
-Built into every PlayStation 3
-Major hardware support by Sony, Dell, HP, others
-Supported by Time Warner (Warner Brothers, New Line), Viacom (Paramount, Dreamworks), Disney (Buena Vista, Pixar), News Corp. (20th Century Fox), Sony (Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, MGM) and Lions Gate Films movie studios
This time last year it looked like Sony was shooting themselves in the foot by delaying the PS3 and with it Blu-ray and consequently allowing HD DVD a head start. This head start and any player cost advantages have essentially been nullified by the availability and solid sales of the PS3. One could argue it is to early to call this an advantage, especially since it appears the HD DVD drive add-on for the XBOX 360 is also selling well. As shown above, however, Sony holds a distinct advantage in the content war. In the end their two trump cards may be the exclusivity they hold with their own studio and with Disney. Not only will Sony hold out to the last to relinquish its own studios films to HD DVD, a huge amount of DVD sales are for family movies (Disney's bread and butter).
Meanwhile HD DVD's main advantages, player and disc cost, have not been exploited well enough. As the article mentioned above notes; Blu-ray, in practice, costs the same to manufacture as HD DVD thus eliminating one of it's inherent advantages. The player cost issue is one I personally find amazing. Toshiba's best hand to play would be to introduce the cheapest possible player (under $200 is a key price point) to take advantage of whatever momentum they may have and try to steal the market before too much Blu-ray content is released. This would then force some if not all of the Blu-ray exclusive companies to also put out HD DVD content. By not doing that, Toshiba is essentially letting Sony win by default. In time, millions of PS3s will be sold (along with other players), a huge content disparity will be evident in favor of Blu-ray and in the end it will result in the end of HD DVD. Who wants to buy a player with less movies available for it? Only Universal is exclusively HD DVD.
Having one company, Sony, controlling too much of any market is not good (look at Microsoft). I have also read that the DRM on Blu-ray is much worse than on HD DVD. My above conclusion is very disappointing to me since I feel that due to its blunders Sony doesn't deserve to win this format war. But it looks that thanks to its combination of hardware and content holdings, it will anyway.
The DRM issue with HD content, especially HDCP, I hope to discuss further in a later post.
300
I saw 300 this weekend. After the fantastic Frank Miller adaptation Sin City (by Robert Rodriguez) and Zach Snyder's previous film, a remake of Dawn of the Dead, I had high hopes. The end result, however, was disappointing.
Some aspects of the film were great; in particular the first couple battle sequences are visually stunning. Eventually the battles become repetitive and many of the best moments of the film have already been ruined by being shown in the various trailers for the movie. In addition, the side plot involving the Spartan Queen isn't that interesting. Unlike Sin City I get the impression from various shot comparisons of the graphic novel 300 to the film that while Sin City took the look of the graphic novel it is based on, 300 is almost a verbatim translation to the screen of its graphic novel. This detracts from the movie because storytelling on film is different from in a novel. Adding more cinematic elements would have greatly benefited this movie. Almost all of the film was shot on a blue-screen set and it definitely shows. For such a special effects heavy movie, many of the backgrounds were completely flat and unrealistic. The language of 300 is also fairly annoying. The over-the-top, chest-pounding nature of the dialog wears thin very quickly. Sin City also used an unconventional style, but one fitting it's noir themes. In the end 300 wasn't horrible, but it wasn't too great either. 3/5
Casino Royale
I recently rented the newest James Bond movie Casino Royale. I originally saw it in the theater when it came out, but I enjoy seeing movies at home to get a different perspective.
This movie joins the long list of those that while good, could have been so much better. After 20 Bond movies, I had hoped this new installment would be a departure from the previous movies. To some extent this is the case, Casino Royale isn't nearly as campy as the last few Bond movies, that isn't saying much but it is a step in the right direction. My true desire was for a completely straight, hard, visceral Bond in most likely a R-rated movie. Instead we get half-and-half. The beginning and very end in particular are exactly what I wanted for the whole movie. Most of the rest of the movie isn't too bad, but it's more regular Bond than I would have liked. Toward the end of the movie, however, Casino Royale loses it.
Bond and Vesper Lynd had essentially no romantic relationship during the entire card game section of the movie. In the following act suddenly they are all over each other. This is all later explained, albeit poorly, through the plot development that Vesper's boyfriend is being held hostage. What? She then makes a deal to payoff the bad guys to save her boyfriend with the poker winnings. What? Then she conveniently leaves clues to help Bond find her contact. Wait a minute...so she knows she's going to probably die...then why the charade? Why pretend you like Bond to save your boyfriend then realize you're going to die but still go through with it all? Confused? Me too. Thoroughly disappointing considering the first two thirds of the movie were very enjoyable. 3.5/5
Zodiac
I saw the movie Zodiac over the weekend and I have to say it was excellent. If you don't mind a movie taking its time and developing multiple story lines and characters, this is the movie for you. I would compare this movie to another crime thriller, The Boston Strangler. Both movies deal with many characters and take place over a fairly long span of time (although Zodiac takes this to the extreme taking place over a couple of decades). Having too many characters can weigh a movie down, and Zodiac is a bit messy in that regard. I liked how the director, David Fincher, dealt with this abundance of characters by focusing different parts of the movie on different characters. There is some overlap of the many story lines, but for the most part this technique keeps the movie plot from being too overwhelming. In fact that is one of the best aspects of the film; the film's plot is messy just like the Zodiac case, taking place over hundreds of miles in different communities, dealing with dozens of people.
If you enjoy a good thriller without too much action and don't mind not having a clear cut ending (no one has ever been convicted of the murders after all), make sure to check out Zodiac. It really is the Jack the Ripper story of the US. 4.5/5
Mii Fun, Zelda
Last weekend one of my sisters came to visit me and we spent about an hour making Miis of our whole family. For such a simple and goofy activity, it is ridiculously entertaining. It is also pretty amazing how by choosing the right eye or nose shape that one can create a surprisingly accurate representation of what a person looks like.
This week I started playing Zelda: Twilight Princess. My initial reaction was that although the graphics are very good, I immediately missed the clarity of HD. Despite that the art design of Zelda is always impeccable and this almost makes up for the lack of resolution and textures.
This aspect of the graphics is one reason why I felt the cell-shaded style of Zelda: Wind Waker worked perfectly for a lower powered system. Instead of relying on the processing power necessary to create bump mapping and more detailed textures, the game simply "draws" the textures as part of the cell shaded art. While not as graphically complex as true textures, the end result is still stunning. In TP the realistic look of the art style almost degrades the graphics quality by its aforementioned lack of high end textures. This is especially evident when playing in the "alternate universe" of the Twilight Realm. When in these areas of the game, the lighting effects are less realistic and instead everything has a sort of eerie glow (similar to the look of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time). This different lighting has the effect of softening the jagged edges of the graphics and is much more visually appealing.
The gameplay in Zelda is also awesome with good variety even in the early stages of the game that I have reached. The free aim mechanic using the Wiimote is a great improvement over the previous method which used a joystick. Swinging the sword using the Wiimote is taking some time to get used to, but I have no aversion to it.
I am still pretty early on in the game, which by all accounts is rather long, so perhaps my impressions will change as I progress.
Gears
So I beat Gears of War today. As usual, it didn't quite live up to the hype. It was still a good game, with interesting game-play mechanics, but not the "revolutionary" experience it was billed as. My biggest gripe is that from one level to another there is essentially no difference. Every level is just another arrangement of random objects to get cover behind; not exactly mind-blowing. I also didn't like how although other weapons are introduced, there is no need to move to a more powerful primary weapon beyond your standard machine gun. A little weapon variety was a great feature of the various shooters I like a lot (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Mafia). The story of Gears was also much less fleshed out than I anticipated. Story isn't exactly critical for a shooter, but it seemed like Gears storyline was almost like the 10 hour outline of a very interesting 20 hour story.
The real benefit of beating Gears is that it now frees me to play Zelda on the Wii, which I have been looking forward to for quite a while.