Everest

I spent a long time thinking on how to write this review. And waiting for my laptop to start working again. The movie is based on a true story, and as such, the story won't exactly be the prime example of a perfect three-act arc. 

The film retells the story of a mountaneering group whom have hired Rob Hall to take them to the top of Mt. Everest. The beginnig goes well, a few dangerous moments. But have you ever seen a movie based on a succefful event? Titanic didnt get made because everyone survived now did it? I wont go over the plot or characters too much, rather, I'll tell you about the experience. And boy is it one! The close-up shots of the mountain look so real that I'm starting to think if they actually climbed on to the top of the mountain, even the snow looks so real!! (I'm from Finland, I know how snow works) The over-head- and wide-shots look rather fake though, it might have been the 3D but I just wasn't convinced by the swoopy- musicy- establishing shots of the mountain. 

While its not the next Titanic, in terms of "based on a true-story"-type films, its perfectly good to see if you're a fan of climbing, mountains or a set-piece- enthusiast.

The tag-line is false though, Mt. Everest isnt even the most dangerous mountain.

The Martian

There were three movies opening in Finland yesterday. Unfriended, a movie thats been out elsewhere for 6 months, Pan, a movie thats the namesake af a cooking appliance, and this one. The choise was obvious; Go to the space movie directed by Ridley Scott and starring the man who's costantly being saved from places after being sent to that place by the U.S., exept this time he isnt a total dick about it. Yes this is another Matt Damon movie. And he rocks it, surviving on Mars like a real Botnist should. 

The movie was a great expirence and all the different aspects worked together, seeing such a well-made movie about space. The setting is this: a research group is researching Mars when a Martian storm hits and they need to evacuate, Matt Damons character Mark Watney however gets knocked out and left behind. But he lived! wouldve been a short movie if he didnt. If you know anything about space, you know that its pretty deadly, so, Mark needs to survive until he can be retrieved. And thats how the movie plays out. Matt Damon on mars, making Vlogs and poop-jokes, while the people on earth try to come up with a plan to save him. It's a pretty good plot. The characters are realistic, have good chemistry and are well-acted. 

This being Ridley "I made the best horror-movie ever" Scott, space is of course, beautiful. Clearly a lot of sets, props and real locations were used to make Mars and the base believable places. The weightlessness looks extremly convincing and the make-up department clearly worked really hard on this one, you'll see when you watch the movie yourself. There was aparently a Nasa-space advisor on set and it shows, everything makes sence, everythings scientifically accuarte and the slightest details are all real space-things, like the way one would use the bathroom on Mars. And while I think the movie maybe would have been better as a Moon or Alien sort of film in wich the isolation really shows, it was darn good anyway.

All in all I'd say that this is the best movie of this year in wich Kate Mara leaves someone behind on a strange planet. And judging by Ridley Scotts movies, its certainly better than Prometheus.

And its allways nice to see Jeff Daniel do something good for a change.

Sean Bean didnt die though. And they chose Starman instead of Space Oddity. (if you dont understand, you are too young for this blog)

Is motion capture really the future of CGI?

When Andy Serkis first appeared as Gollum in The Two Towers, the whole world was stunned at how greatly he nailed the role, and more importantly perhaps, how good the corrupted little smeagol looked. That started the slowly-growing trend of mo-cap, while it had existed since the early nineties, it was only now that film-makers saw to what ends it could be utilized to. After the success of the Lord of the Rings, motion capture has been utilized in video-games and movies alike. 

Before mo-cap, CGI would have painstaicingly hand-made, one polygon at the time, and while movies like Terminator 2 and Tron made huge leaps in the craft, it was Jurassic Park that made living, breathing CG-creatures a reality, emplying a sort of mo-cap device called a dinosaur input device:

The device would bring together stop-motion and computer graphics, with the animator animating the dinosaur on the screen by moving the device in the desired motions. This ensured the working-style was familiar to the animator, and prevented un-natural movement of the animation, something that plagues CG-fests to this day. But things have only moved forward since the earliest days of coputer animation in star wars. 

But is motion capture the way to go? Smaug was nearly perfect in the Hobbit, Avatar broke every box-office record in thee world, and The adventures of Tintin: the secret of the Unicorn was a movie that happened that one time. (also King Kong used mo-cap, remember how it was over 3 and a half hours long? good times) Ever since Gollum, things have only gotten even better, directors only needed the technology to be perfected by someone. Now that more and more characters have gotten mo-capped, movies have gotten more immersive and actors have been able to give better performances now that they have something to interact with, rather than standing in an empty room, talkong into a microphone about things they couldnt see or touch. So maybe motion capture is the way to go, even with the problems it causes, like the animation being inconsistent when switching between captured and hand-animated footage.

The Angry Birds Movie and why you shouldnt go watch it

click here for the Trailer

I didn't even put a picture here, thats how little respect I have for the francise at this point, not only have they made about 92 vertually identical games, but also invaded every part of our lives, I bet that I could live the rest of my life using only Angry Birds tie-in products without that much of a difference. By going to watch this movie, you engourage them further, finance their next varioation of the game and worst of all, most likely torture yourself by seeing this likely horrible movie. I have to watch it because you people wont leave me alone if I judge the movie by the trailer and then dont even see it. This is the internet after all.

Also whats with the character-desings? The cartoon shorts atleast look like the game.

But until the movie comes out, we wait, concerened for our well-being.

The Worlds End: The cornetto trilogy retrospective finale and summary

Warning! contains mature language, spoilers and Gifs. Read at own risk.

With a title like this, how could it be anything but a masterpiece? While the gap between Shaun of the dead and Hot fuzz was only three years, the last one in the series took six years to complete, partially because all the creative input was working on something else most of the time. But somehow, against all odds, this movie got made, and it was fucking mental!!! Once again, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play the leads and Edgar Wright directed. The basic plot starts like any other movie about old frieends getting together.

Gary King assembles his old gang to attempt completing the golden mile in their old home-town. It starts off okay, the lads have some fun, drink beer and run into some old acquaintances. but in pub number four it all goes fuck-up. DO NOT READ PAST THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM

Gary, while in the bathroom gets into a fight with a young jock and ends up taking his head off, revealing that the townsfolk have been replaced by robots who aren't robots, Blanks, if you will.

and they are filled with blue stuff and have bright lights for eyes and mouths.

With this information the gang decides not to attract too much attention to themselves and try to complete the golden mile. at firs thigs go good until they run into their old school-teacher, Guy Shepard, who explains who built the robots, why they are here and why its a good thing that they are here, They dont fancy being turned into robots filled with blue stuff and decide to take drastic action.

After  realizing that the battle cant be won, they decide to make a run for it but Gary insists they finish what they started. But now he is being chased by not only the entire fucking town of robots, but also his friends, this leads to the absolutely epic finale in wich we see the absolutely terrifying ways shit can get fucked in Garys path to completion, the chase accross town culminates in the Worlds End, the twelveth and final pub. In it we see a masterfully created battle to the death between bros. and we find out why completing the golden mile is so important to Gary. But then one of my favourite scenes from anything ever happens. I wont tell you about it, because if youve seen the film you know what im talking about. In it, we see Gary come to terms with himself. BUT! the world sort of ends and Gary is left without his conclusive final pint.

The ending is bittersweet and leaves a sort of melancholy feeling in you, but we then see that Gary is still, the once and future King! 

But since this is the final post in the series, I will list some of the the connections, running gags and cameos in all three movies.

And thats the only gag  in all three movies, however, there is an arcade-machine that makes an appearance in all three, and several actors appear in all of them, Martin Freeman plays Declan in Shaun of the Dead, a a police-officer in Hot Fuzz and Oliver in this one. Bill Nighy also appears in all three and both Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchett cameo in Hot Fuzz. But why are you looking them up on the internet? go watch them you doofus, then come here and yell at me for missing something obvious.¨

Farewell, until my next post, and then my next retrospective that may or may not be about another English Comedy group and their films.

The Jungle Book and why disney needs to stop making these things

Click here to see the trailer

Yesterday we got a trailer for a live-action version of the Jungle Book, it looks cool, the cast couldn't be better, the CGI animals look great and most of the set-pieces from the original appear to return. The problem here is tone, the original was light-hearted, witty and fun family action. This one appears to be dark, realistic and brooding. Not to say that the original didnt have its fair share of nightmare fuel, but it had more than that, it had apes singing and dansing, it had Baloo!!! this one has the apes and a bear, neither of wich appear to be having that much fun, King Louie is turned into a king kong and Baloo is a generic bear, in fact all the animals lack their distinct features, the best part about Shere-Khan was his square form as the opposite to Baloos round shape.

But we havent seen it yet and  it might be good, but Disney has made live-action versions of so many classics already, with many more announced, Winnie the Pooh is for some reason among those. Now Im not saying theyre going to be bad, just that they are uninspired cashgrabs and show that disney has lost its grip on imaginative and fresh stories. Frozen was a great movie about how the first one is rarely the right guy, among other things. But what happened, we havent gotten anything original since, every movie since has been an adaptation on an old Disney classic. Pixar is doing some great stuff, why cant disney come up with new ideas? They used to be the king! 

A part of the problem might be the fact that they dont know where to go from Frozen, they believe they cant top what they did with the tale of sisterly love. But they dont have to, they could try more diverse characters, I can count on one hand the amount of non-white main-charachters, so theres one idea, or maybe try less conventional love-stories, maybe a movie about a lesbian princess and her struggles in a prejudice world for once? No progress can happen without some risk-taking. So heres to hoping that well get some originality from disney in the future!

Paul and why it is the best fan fiction ever

Thought you'd get a conclusion to the cornetto trilogy? So did everyone else in 2011!

Even though it stars both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, just like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, this is not the third installation in the Cornetto Trilogy. Rather, it is a Sci-Fi fanfic. A Fan Fiction of the generic green space-alien:

The film was first thought up on the set of Shaun of the dead, via a doodle that Simon an Nick made. From there the next 6 years they worked the idea into a film, and then made,  and finally released in 2011,  Rather than Edgar Wright Directing it, like normal, Greg Mottola took the role of director, for better or for worse. While being a fun little fish-out.of.water type movie, its also the biggest tribute to Sci-fi, with every other line being a famous quote or reference. 

In fact: a lot of the shots are copie- *ahem* tributed from other movies:

But does borrowing and merely acknowledge the existence of other movies count as tribute?

No, but Paul does much more with the material its given, it plays with the idea of an alien influencing pop-culture, explains why fictional aliens all look the same, retells classic scenes in a modern-earth scenario. Alot of Pauls humor is based on knowing what its paying homage to, like the music at the bar, or the way a phone is shot. And as the loneliest person in my town, I of course noticed every single one of them. But why is Paul the best fanfiction ever? there are two reasons: its published work of two sci-fi fans, and the only other published fanfiction ever is Fifty shades of grey.