Adaptation/Memento

Adaptation


8.9

Within this millenieum, there are a few breakthrough directors coming up to make a movement within the film industry. Those people also directed music videos of breakthrough bands like U2, The White Stripes and The Beastie Boys. They were Michel Gondry, Wes Anderson and so many more.

But in this movie Adaptation, it is directed by Spike Jonze, written by a guy named Charlie Kaufman* and his twin brother Donald (however he isn't real, starring Nicholas Cage as... Charlie Kaufman and his brother.

Adaptation is a black comedy, the story about Charlie Kaufman. After the critical and financial success of Being John Malcovich, Kaufman is assigned to write an adapted screenplay from a real life book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep). However he has trouble writing the script since the book has no plot and that he wanted to focus on the concept of the book which is... Yep you guessed it... flowers. His twin brother Donald (the fictional writer of movie hence played by Cage himself) comes along and stay in his house wanting to be a screenwriter like his brother.

Meanwhile, the novelist Susan Orlean comess along to the film and looks at how her book's about to be created, and her relationship of a gentle orchid hunter John Laroche which turns into a romance.

Adaptation has a weird feel on its body. Spike Jonze has this gift into his film with making each scene almost multi layered, it's very hard to comprehend and stars real actors playing real people covering the events happened to them but then neatly contradicts these events of the plot of the film. Kaufman* With a lot on its hand (the script) it curiously explores and contradicts the events of these characters and how challenged they are to finding out what they are. It goes into scenes wildly unpredictable and goes blackly funny like Kaufman unintendingly entering into his own screenplay. The dialogue is almost breathtaking and will either want to love and hate these people at the same time.

The casting is almost flawless. Nichoas Cage is in the best performance of his career (currently he ended up into unrelentless filming) playing Charlie Kaufman and portraying him as a depressed, self loathing, lack of courage label of pessimism. His voice over goes into the mind of Kaufman starting with a monologue and then a scene with him at a dinner table sweating. Cage also execute being the twin Donald as well, with his lines being said distinctively and hilarilously. So you might feel for Charlie some hatred while you will feel likeable to Donald.

Meryl Streep is a delight as Susan Orlean earning her 13th nomination of an Oscar, while Chris Cooper deservedly wins his Oscar as John Laroche being both funny and yet emotionally fractured at the same time.

The title Adaptation means to turn one material into another material. Another meaning is when animals or living species turn into another species with new features. The movie has several meanings and questions we wanted to know and explain what they mean. With many themes being interpreted, it's wildly enjoyable and amazing and with get you close to the edge with this one.

Memento


8.1

Another movie similar to Adaptation is Memento. Like Adaptation, this movie is filled with many layers, it bend your mind almost completely. The difference is (and there are many differences here) that it's Adaptation is a black comedy, Memento is more of a film noir.

Directed by Christopher Nolan, Memento goes in a rewind order where as the ending is the beginning, the beginning is the ending. It starts with an amnesiac named Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) killing a man named Teddy (Joe Pantaloliano). His motive for this killing is that Teddy is John Gammell, the person he wants to kill in revenge for his rape and murder of his wife. Shelby used to be a psychiatist treating a patient named Sammy Davis who has anterograde amnesia, the kind of memory loss where you quickly lost track of recent events, but now he had that condition himself. He's now investigating that murder. Turns out to Shelby and to us that Teddy's not the only person in the game. It also involves a bartender named Natalie (Carrie Anne Moss) who tricks him into thinking that she was helping him with the investigation.

This is Christopher Nolan's magnus opus and I'm not just saying that because the critics said it. It was based on a short story by his younger brother Jonathon and seems immensively trippy and atmospheric. And there are many themes of poignancy, grief, perception, revenge and memory. Even so Nolan's structure of the movie is incredible as the story goes backward to how and why one event suppose to happen. It happens to challenge the audience into what is going on.

The visual of the film is excellent. Each scene starts with black and white and after goes to color. Memento then, by ten minutes, transcends into a film noir with its characterization of the genre with elements like manipulation and identity which leads to a mystery at the same time.

The casting is great. Carrie Anne Moss and Joe Pantaloliano were from the Matrix and it was like Nolan was a fan of that movie and thought "Oh yeah i can have that cast'. Even so they are outstanding in this film and no doubt about that. But Guy Pearce is sublime as the heart of the film. He plays a tragic character who is mentally fractured with this untreatable condition and his narration in many scenes are really creepy by the ears of it.

However Memento is not that perfect. Nolan has directed a really great structure for the movie but at the end of each chapter, it becomes really repetitve.

It's official. Christopher Nolan's is one of 21st Century's visionary directors

Blade Runner (The Director's Cut)

10.0


When I seen Inception, I was thinking about other great movies that would challenge me and my mind. So I was thinking movies like 2001: A Space Oddysey, Memento, The Matrix and Donnie Darko. The two of the latter are very good and became my favourite. But this movie had taken my mind in hand, had a lot of intepretations and ideas that were actually thoughtful into the future and it was an absolute classic. And that was Blade Runner.
Blade Runner is considered one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time, featured Harrison Ford who worked with George Lucas in many great blockbusters such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Now he appears in a cult classic that was released in many versions and it is as great as it get.

It starts off with a prologue where in 2019,  Los Angeles (I'm not quite sure if it's actually Los Angeles because of its Japanese themes) looked really big filled with global corporations having the power to do everything and runned the city. One of the corporations, the Tyrell Corporation designed robots called Replicants who are awfully the same as humans yet they lack emotion. The Replicants are sent as slavery for Off World Colonies. When a conflict happens, the Replicants are outlawed on Earth and will be executed or retired if they cross the Earth.

Rick Deckard is a former blade runner, responsible for retiring the Replicants. But his boss assign him to the same mission because five replicants came back including Roy Batty the leader of the Replicants, Pris and Zhora, two pleasure models, Leon Kowalski who killed a doctor when he was being tested, and Rachael, Tyrell's assistant who becomes Deckard's love interest. The Replicants are making themselves more superior as the humans, emotionally in which they have lacked.

When a movie has a lot of ideas and interpretations, movie critics would wanted to see a movie and be challenged by that movie. This was why many of them especially the public loved 2001: A Space Oddysey, The Matrix and Inception. But this kind of challenge reminds me of a South Park episode "The Tale Of Scrottie McBoogerballs" where readers intepret many ideas of a bookthat make total non sense. This is how I feel towards critics when they review movies, but they're actually right. 

Blade Runner is almost awesome. IT is directed by Ridley Scott, some of Hollywood's superior directors and it's beautifully directed. Although set in the future and giving us a glimpse of future technology it doesn't follow the ordinary conventions of the science fiction like weapons that shoot out laser or flying vehicles. I think it's like A Clockwork Orange which also does the same time. 

Thanks to the charismatic performances of every actor especially Harrison Ford, the characters are absolutely vivid. With Rugter Hauer nailing as Roy Batty who is emotionally powered as the leader of the Replicants, Sean Young as the emotionally scorned replicant Rachael as well as M. Emnett Walsh who retains his typecast in film noir. It has ideas that many people would want to intepret and scenes and characters that are almost mysterious like the scene with the unicorn or the blade runner played by Edward James Olmos who makes origami that sends a message to Deckard. 

For instance, Blade Runner was set in an environment that is so pessimistic to the viewer because of the industries being set in there and the corporations running Los Angeles with clues of product placement bringing us lessons that globalisation is bad.  What does the eye mean at the beginning? Does Tyrell is a symbol of corrupt power? Does Batty represents people being alienated for wanting to be humans. And why does he wanted to be human? But as the movie progresses, Ford gives us an idea of fear? Fear of killing a person you're supposed to kill when you are passionate towards her.  

The cinematography is so dark and gritty as well as the music that is very seductive gives us an idea that the movie not only shows that it's science fiction, it reminds us that it is a modern film noir which is also why it is slow paced.

Like many movies mentioned, if you feel so deep about it and wonder what it is all about, then you should see it at least two times. Blade Runner is something I want to see again and again to give us really deep meanings to nature as it is today.

Like 1984, Blade Runner prove itself as one of the greatest science fiction material of all time. 

Hot Fuzz/Kick Ass reviews

Hot Fuzz

7.7

With the release of The Other Guys about two neglected cops getting a chance of car chases and high ass kicking justice, Hot Fuzz is the British version of this. Well, possibly.

Directed by Edgar Wright who also directed Shaun Of The Dead and the seemingly enjoyable Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Wright teams up with Simon Pegg the second time after Shaun Of The Dead. If you like Shaun Of The Dead, Simon Pegg, or basic cop movies, you'll like this film. But if you only seen Simon Pegg for the first or second time running, you would be confused with this movie

Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a serious Spock-like speaking high ranked police officer from London. He's being moved to Sandford by the Metro because he has too much priority in which creates a bad image for the Metropolitan Police. Sandford is a countryside town where... the crime rate is so low, the police in the town are morons and Sandford is runned by the elderly in a group called the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance or NWA. Angel's teamed up with Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) the son of the Sandford police chief. So when a series of murders that are made into 'accidents' commited, Angel and Danny set to investigate.

I've only seen Simon Pegg in movies twice. One in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People where he gets jiggy with Megan Fox, the other was in Star Trek where he played Scotty. So I might be confused if this was a funny movie at all. But his performance as PC Angels is the heart of the movie and that's what makes that funny. Watching Pegg with Frost (who's a constant collaboration with the guy) makes both the odd couple and a bromance because Angels is a monotone person while Frost playing Danny is an oafish character.

More importantly each actor have something to do in this movie. The highlights of the cast includes Jim Broadbent who plays Constable Butterman, Timothy Dalton as the suspicious supermarket manager and Anne Reid as the town's florist.

Hot Fuzz is a pop culture sandwich. There are many references of famous cop movies such as Bad Boys II and Point Blank, references to Shaun Of The Dead and so far it's a mash up of the buddy cop, action comedy genres. That's the main point of hilarity where much of the dialogue and the action scenes get really clever and interesting.

Unfortunately Hot Fuzz is not perfect. It is so fast paced and although I don't mind movies speeding up its pace, you couldn't get to catch up into the main plot of the story. Plus there are so much loose editing that is so messed up. Even if the whole cast is great, some of them are not quite developed as i would wanted. So in this case, I find these characters immently boring. Also the soundtracks sometimes feel annoying.

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are like Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe together. The difference is that they're funny, love to mash some genres and have British accents plus its Abbott and Costello updated. In the end, Hot Fuzz is silly yet intelligently awesome!

Kick Ass

8.6

Another filmmaker here is Matthew Vaughn. He produced and directed some of Britain's crime movies such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Layer Cake and Snatch which is not for the kids. Also a movie directed, written and produced by him as well as kids-free is Kick Ass.

This picture on the left appeared in many news articles about the fact that Chloe Moretz who plays Hit Girl who swears in many levels, and killing people. Many conservatives such as family associations and film critics accused the film of glorifying violence responsible by children. Well I would tell these people to have their ass kicked. So far, I've seen it twice and it's good.

In this movie, Dave (Aaron Johnson) is a underrated high school student who is a comic book nerd as well. He'd wondered why there are no superheroes in real life and his buddies answered 'they'd be dead in a day'. So Dave experiments and dons a wetsuit and wrestling mask along with pipes as weapons to see if being a super works. However his friends were right as he is stabbed in the chest along with being hit by a car. But when he does it a second time, he later became an Internet phenomenon after warding off a gang from beating up a man. He finds out there are other supers as well and they are experts. A daddy-daughter duo Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) whose superpowers are automatic weapons and knifes. So when Frank D'Amico finds out, he hires his son Chris (Christopher Mintz Plasse) as another Super named Red Mist to chase after them and let him bash the supers up.

There were problems involving Kick-Ass. The fact that they were rejected by Hollywood studios for its tone and that it was made just a little profit at the box office. But Kick Ass is generally epic, thrilling, hilarious and clever that's almost a pleasure.

The problem with Kick Ass as a movie in financial terms is that it was niched for a teenage audience and  this was equal to Scott Pilgrim which was also niched and becomes a disaster. Now many references towards Generation Y and teens involves the internet such as Myspace in which Kick Ass use to set up a database and Youtube which made Kick Ass the Internet sensation. As much as this is a teen movie, you'll see much of its characters riddened with angst from situations somehow funny yet shocking.

A lot of dark humour is used, mostly violent and much of that is surprising and targeted towards drug dealers including a scene where Kick Ass kills many gangsters via jet pack and two machine guns which is immensely hilarious.

Aaron Johnson makes a lovely impact as the title character to this movie whether he's narrating in the movie which parallels the Tobey Macguire voice over in Spiderman or getting his ass kicked, he provides such joy. Nicholas Cage is great as Big Daddy and he can never be funnier. But the limelight should go to Chloe Moretz who is a revelation. Hit Girl reminds of Jodie Foster's character in Taxi Driver or Natalie Portman in The Professional where she swears and kills in the name of justice.

Imagine a movie where Tarantino violence and Coen brothers dialogue, a graphic novel, teenage films and black comedy comes together. If you can at least laugh at any scene, especially the violence, you will love it. 

Movies You Should See Before You Leave School (Part I)

With 2 weeks until the beginning of the Spring holidays and end of exams for me, there are some movies coming out. There's Buried about Ryan Reynolds in a coffin, The Town, a movie about police robberies in Boston and so much more coming soon.

But there was one thing I was disappointed with everyone at school. And that is...

NOBODY HAD SEEN INCEPTION!?!?!?!?

Seriously it's not hard to see a very good movie if you have read the reviews on the Net, newspapers whatever material there is about movies. Inception is really good and yet you're too afraid because the story's complicated and too challenging for you.

I know kids don't actually have time to watch movies but seriously. You're seeing The Expendables? It has nothing but action. You've seeing The Karate kid on the holidays? You would've seen the original Karate Kid from the 80s and it's better than that. You've seen Grown Ups? It's a movie that has jokes of waste, literally. You've seen the Twilight movies? Really? And you're seeing Tommorow When The War Began? Well, it's alright.

Ok. Sorry for being judgemental, but there were so many good movies out there from the past that you would actually watch. You might learn something there like life's tough, get a job. But maybe you might enjoy them. I don't know. IT's your opinion and your choice.

So I'm counting down the top films you should watch before you leave school. Anytime, it's either when you finish Year 12 or going to uni.

1. Sin City (9.5/10)

Before Kick Ass, before we've seen The Dark Knight, before Natalie Portman shaved her head for V for Vendetta, Frank Miller's graphic novella Sin City tuned into a movie that is so seductive, so sadistic, it's almost a teenage boy's pumping wet dream... in black and white. With Jessica Alba as a stripper, several vixen hookers with semi automatic weapons fighting for justice in a hugely corrupt city and an ensemble cast such as Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Elijah Wood that would impress, Sin City is a visceral movie any cinephile cannot miss.

2. UP (9.6/10)

Toy Story 3 may have taken the crown of Pixar's best movie so far, but Up is worth a watch. It's funny, cute, clever, smart and why would we waste our time with the oddest couple in animation? Because they have a lot of heart and soul we would totally look down to. Up is a simplistic film yet truly emotional, it's has a wild imagination that roams around releasing that inner child and giving us that uplifting and motivating one-liner "Adventure is out there!"

3. Amelie (10.0/10)

This was the first foreign movie I have seen and it is great. IT is about a young woman's journey to change everyone's lives for the better while she is trying to make her life better by making a love interest chase after her. It's instataneously clever and humourous, insanely erotic and yet at all times, it focused on not only the title character Amelie but also on everyone around her as we look in depth about each character. The music score is excellent, the cinematography's as bright as ever, Amelie bound to be your delight.


4. Little Miss Sunshine (8.8/10)

Being in a family that are full of nutcases is tough, but one moment with them will make you feel better and is a lot of fun. That's the lesson learnt in Little Miss Sunshine about a struggling family taking their little daughter so she can participate in a beauty pageant. But the whole family would have to take a malfunctioning van along and many things happen. Keep in mind that each member has a problem. From suicide, drug abuse to post traumatic stress but when we go into thier journey all the way to California, we get to know them better. Until the finish of the film, Little Miss Sunshine is smart and funny in many ways.

5. Donnie Darko [Director's Cut] (9.0/10)

Two people in this school has seen this movie, possibly out of curiousity. When Donnie Darko is warned about an apocalypse by an imaginary bunny rabbit called Frank, he commits a series of crimes from his manipulation and he even gets nosey about time travel. Since this concept was so hard to tell and that it was released during 9/11, Donnie Darko was re-released with a director's cut three years later so that everybody finally knows what the hell is going on! Whether you like cult classics, Jake Gylenhal or the song "Mad World", Donnie Darko will give you a head trip.

6. Where The Wild Things Are (8.5/10)

The much-loved children's book is turned into a movie where a boy named Max dressed like a rabbit escape from his house to an island where he meet The Wild Things. When it was released, it initially polarized people because it was not appropriate for kids since many of The Wild Things are incredibly depressed. But I don't care. It gives and teaches us many lessons about neglect, isolation and also to feel free when you escape from people who won't let you be. It was one my favourite movie of 2009.

7. Juno (8.9/10)

I really loved Canadians (except for Bieber). They're really the most underrated people on this planet. Juno is actually a Canadian movie starring Canadians, directed by a Canadian but written by a stripper. Juno is about teenage tomboy (Ellen Page) pregnant by her shy fitness freak (Michael Cera). She decided to not have an abortion, but to put the baby up for adoption and she found the perfect couple who are yuppies desperate for a child. Emotionally and almost honest, Juno teaches us values on feminism, pro choice and pregnancy rights and also a lesson about teenage sex and its consequences. Ellen Page and Michael Cera are really dynamic in their roles making them two of film's current bright stars. Oh, it also made orange Tic Tacs and hamburger phones fads. As well as a popular soundtrack, controversy involving the movie glamorising teenage pregnancy and becoming the highest profitable movie of all time, Juno is jolly good.

8. The Matrix (8.2/10)

Here's an interesting fact. The matrix is also a mathematical formula. But in this case, The Matrix is actually mathematical with its concept aking itself what is The Matrix. What's the truth? And why are so many of us wearing sunglasses? So thanks to that, shot in Sydney before the city head off for the Olympics, and impressive special effects involving slow mo, this prove that computer nerds (which is the main audience) rules the cinema. So if you didn't see the matrix, get out of here and go watch it.

9. The Breakfast Club (10.0/10)

John hughes is a master of teen fillms. Some of Hugh's favourites were Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Pretty In Pink. But this is John Hughe's masterpiece that is considered a movie defining its generation. When five students went to detention on a Saturday, they don't know each other very well. There's the athlete, the brain, the princess, the criminal and the basket-case. Once the film progresses we see that they hated their parents so much that it might have resulted being in detention. The Breakfast Club nails its characters, developing at the right pace and doesn't go in between margins. This movie describes the angst of a teenager and Hughes does a great job as he understands more of the teen.

10. 500 (Days) Of Summer (8.4/10)

As romantic comedies becoming older, this movie has become bolder! 500 Days Of Summer is a rom com that isn't niched for women, but it is also for men who complains about these movies as not their thing. If 500 Days Of Summer gives us a true life lesson (true love doesn't happen the way we wanted to), has an awesome soundtrack and add charms to its central characters while giving us surprises towards the end, this 90 minute indie flick is clever in its own right.
 

How Inception Should Have Ended