The Lost Boys: The Tribe

The Lost Boys: The Tribe is the hotly debated sequel to an eighties classic. This flick was directed by P.J. Pesce from a script by Hans Rodionoff. Both men have previous experience with vampire stories: Pesce directed the third film in the From Dusk Til Dawn franchise and Rodionoff wrote a movie called Sucker. Don't worry, I didn't see the others either. The flick stars some unknowns and one piece of stunt casting in the form of Kiefer Sutherland's half-brother Angus. But, really...if you're going to watch the flick, you're most likely watching it to see Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog. That's why I agreed to watch it with my mom. Too bad he's not in it more, the movie might have been more interesting.

 

I need to go to bed soon as I have to work day shift and, like a vampire, day time isn't my happy time, so I'll try to make this short and sweet. This film is about the offspring of Michael Emerson and Starr (Jason Patric and Jamie Gertz from the original film, no they didn't come back) moving to a small coastal California town called Luna Bay (the one in the first film was Santa Cruz) because their maternal aunt (she'd have to be maternal as Michael and Sam didn't have a sister in the original) invited them to live on her property...for $600 a month. Generous. The sister instantly falls in love with the hip and only slightly pale Shane who was something of a hero to her brother when he dreamt of becoming a professional surfer. Then, she drinks his blood under the assumption that it's wine (uh, yeah...we've all tasted and smelled blood before...she should have known better, but then so should have Michael) and it's up to her brother to save her.

 

Personally, I would have thought that Michael and Starr would tell their kids all about vampires. Instead, they're pretty much blind to the darker side of California living and have to turn to reclusive, battle weary vampire hunter / surfboard shaper (convenient) Edgar Frog, whose brother Alan is mentioned only in vague passing as a casualty of the war on the undead.

 

Like nearly all sequels to movies that are twenty years old, this is more like a remake with jokes and asides thrown in for the fans. The image of a fatter version of Tim Cappello, the saxaphone player from the beach in the first one, was funny and cute, but distracting. Wanting to watch the Goonies? Also distracting. Stuff like this kept happening for the first twenty to forty minutes, referencing itself as though it were going out of style. Oh, wait...

 

Around the forty five minute mark, the movie started to get a little interesting, but the damage had been done. Also, there were way too many plot conveniences in the film, making everything feel very contrived. Edgar Frog living in the same random town as the Emerson kids, doing the thing that the Emerson boy wants a job doing, showing up at random times without invitation but to conveniently save someone's skin. Too much. In the first film, it was luck; in this film, it's convenient...

 

Angus Sutherland lacks the charisma of his brother and if there's one thing a vampire really needs to have in order to offset the coppery smell of blood and death on its undead body, it's likeability. Neither he, nor his character Shane, are particularly likeable in this flick. In point of fact, I didn't really find anyone in the film likeable...except for Edgar Frog, but I loved him in the original film.

 

If this movie had been about the Frog Brothers, I think I would have liked it more. And if Corey Haim can stay straight, remember his lines, and not piss off the Warners heads any more than he already has, I'd really like to see the movie they set up at the end of the flick and the story leading up to it, which I believe was covered in the comic book series The Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs, but I don't know for sure on that one.

 

Finally, I didn't dig the redesign of the vampire make-up. It was fine the way it was. The decapitated head of Tom Savini was well done, too. That's not much of a spoiler, by the way. That's in the first five minutes of the flick.

 

Overall: this movie is weak and lacks the originality of the first film. Better writing, better casting, and leaving the make-up design alone would have been welcome, but it's not that bad for a direct-to-video flick.

Dreams, of the closed-eye variety.

I had a strange dream last night. I dreamt of an old friend, someone whom I haven't spoken to, or seen, in at least twelve years. It started in an amusement park, a really wacky fun one (I dream about amusement parks a lot, actually...) The next thing I remember is that I'm sitting in the passenger seat of a car next to my friend. I can feel the turmoil rolling off of him. We talk, but not of anything specific, then I woke up.

 

I don't often have dreams about my friends, new or old. I also don't often have dreams that I remember, but when I do they tend to be of famous people. Keep in mind that I work at a movie theatre and and am surrounded by giant versions of famous faces for seven to ten hours a day, five days a week. Plus, I love movies.

 

From past experience, I know that if I dream of a friend, I should check with them to make sure they're okay. It might be something relatively insignificant or something monumentally huge and I check with them not so much because I might be able to help, but because they may need someone to talk to who is outside of the situation that's bothering them. The dreams rarely give me an indication of what's wrong, just that something is. And this doesn't happen all of the time. Things could be happening to any one of my friends and I won't have a dream about them. I suppose that I have dreams about them when they need me around? I don't know, man, I just do the dreaming.

 

When I was a kid, inbetween bouts of severe night terrors, I had dreams about the future. Insignificant stuff, too, like a certain type of calculator or a certain phrase, but what I saw in my dream came true or really happened, even a couple of years later. I have a pretty good memory, as some of my friends can attest. Those dreams, and the night terrors, stopped when I hit puberty and that might be when my dreams about friends started.

 

Do you know how hard it is to say to a friend, "Hey, I had a dream about you last night. You okay?" I usually get a sideways narrowed-eye look with a raised eyebrow and a guarded "Yeah...?" Which, being me, I'm kind of used to since I get that quite often, but still. There's only one person I can go to when I dream about her and when I say, "Hey. Had a dream. What's happening?" she won't be weirded out...or if she is, she doesn't tell me.

 

Unfortunately, this particular dream is going to have to go without resolution. Not the first time that's happened. I don't know how to contact the friend I dreamt about and even if I did, well...there are times where even I am bound by social constraints. Meaning, I wouldn't know what to say.

 

When is a dream just a dream? For me, I guess it's when there are celebrities, or zombies (I'm not picky), present...people I don't know, like when I dream of an amusement park.

 

Oh, I should probably stop and say,"No, I'm not psychic." So, no, I'm not psychic. If I were psychic, let's face it...I'd have won the lottery years ago. It's not that I don't believe in the possibility of psychic phenomena, it's that I'm too cynical to believe that a proposed psychic isn't getting some kind of help, especially in the digital age where crystals are often to be found in computers as well as a proper New Age arsenal. That's just me, I guess.

Arte-Y-Pico Award meme

The ever-so-kind Marvin the Martian has awarded me an Arte-Y-Pico award! Only four other people can say that...well, those that Marvin tagged as well. With the power that accompanies such an award, however, comes great responsibility. Taking out the garbage is but one example. And I must tag five people to do the same whilst telling of five unspectacular things about myself. I'm not sure the folks I would award it to would do the same, plus I'll have to use LJ and these friends have flocked journals, but they're awesome and I love them...

 

First, FIVE UNSPECTACULAR THINGS ABOUT MYSELF. Really not hard.

 

1. My mom and I just finished watching the sixth disc in season five of CSI: Vegas and I still can't pick my favourite character.

2. Contrary to Stephen King's advice, and much like the previously mentioned Marvin, I write more than I read. And I write a lot. That said, when I feel like I've run out of words to use I'll read voraciously, but it's still uneven.

3. I like the word "epithelial." I may like it more than the word "noodle."

4. I like quoting M*A*S*H when I have an opportunity to do so, but it rarely happens since I haven't officially been a surgeon in at least 29 years.

5. I love the Japanese language and hope to learn to speak it someday.

 

Now, I pass along the award to:

Hanncoll

Evy

londonbeauty001

notatracer

thebitingfaery

 

and Honourable Mention goes to:

kuh

because it turns out that five is too few...

 

The RULES as posted by Marvin:

1. Link the person(s) who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 5 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 5 bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know they've been tagged.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

I'm not sure full disclosure is necessary, but here it goes: I am an X-Phile. I've been a fan of the show since I first saw "Ice" way back in the day. I love David Duchovny, I love Gillian Anderson, and I love the show. To me, The X-Files episodes breakdown like this: 50% of the show was about Aliens, 49% of the show was about Monsters, and 1% was Everything Else That Doesn't Quite Fit Into Either Category In a Satisfactory Way.

 

There were one or two interesting episodes in the mostly Mulderless Season Nine, but that's my least favourite season. Without Mulder, Scully isn't complete and while I tuned in every week for the stories, it was Duchovny and Anderson who really made the show. Their combined chemistry was, simply put, magic. Anyone else in those roles and the show would have been cancelled quickly. The addition of Robert Patrick, Annabeth Gish, and Cary Elwes illustrates my point. Three new characters, three new actors, could not add up to one Fox Mulder or one David Duchovny.

 

Okay, onto the review:

 

I think I should start off by saying that you don't need to have seen the entire show to know what's going on, but it might be helpful to have seen a couple of episodes. Chris Carter is adept at giving everyone exactly the information they need with minimal exposition, but some might be lost as far as the Mulder/Scully Relationship, or MSR, is concerned.

 

The X-Files: I Want to Believe was directed by Chris Carter from a script he wrote with longtime X-Files producer / writer Frank Spotnitz. Scully, now a full time doctor, is approached by FBI agent Mosley Drummy (Xhibit), at the behest of Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet), to ask a reclusive Mulder for his help in finding an agent who's gone missing. What makes this case an X-File is that Father Joe (Billy Connelly) has a mysterious psychic connection to the kidnapped agent and how he, through accident or design, shapes Mulder and Scully's actions through the course of this investigation. I'm afraid to go into further details because I don't want to spoil the movie.

 

This film fits into that previously mentioned 1% and I think that may tick off the fans. "Squeeze" this ain't. And I think that how successful Chris Carter was in diverting the attention of the fans will tick them off, too. I'll admit that I was expecting / hoping for one thing and this movie went in a completely different direction. Once I accepted that and saw this movie for what it was, I enjoyed it immensely. This is definitely an X-File, but not one as good as some of the episodes.

 

Putting fandom aside for a moment, I really did like this movie. While Chris Carter had Frank Spotnitz on this one with him, and it's certainly one of his better stories, he's a better producer and director than writer. This film is certainly more original than most of the horror / sci-fi out there right now and as a filmmaker and as a general lover of movies, I'm grateful.

 

A note for the shippers (like myself): this is flick is fantastic and you should stay for the little scene at the end of the credits. Chris Carter said in an interview in Fangoria (issue 275, the one with Alexandre Aja's Mirrors on the cover) that this was going to be a relationship movie and he wasn't lying, for once!

 

The score was fantastic, bringing back series and Fight the Future composer Mark Snow. Not much more than that needs to be said.

 

Chris Carter knows that CGI is better suited to augmenting a physical effect than to replacing them. What few CGI effects there are are (mostly) well done and well composited and the physical effects were just as good as anything we've seen on the show.

 

Duchovny and Anderson easily slipped back into their roles and their on-screen relationship is still just as magical as it always was. Xhibit wasn't given much to do and Amanda Peet was...good enough. I was afraid that putting Billy Connelly in the movie would be a bad idea, but it turned out to be a good one. Plus, I've always loved his accent. Even when he plays a zombie and his only dialogue is "ahrughehuahghaahhh!" he sounds Scottish!

 

Overall, from a fan's point of view: OMIGODYAYMOARPLZKTNX! *explodes* And from a me point of view: good flick, not as good as some of the episodes, but a damn fine installment in the history of the franchise. I hope it does well enough for a third because this one was very original unlike most of the movies being shoved on us these days and we need more original, thought-provoking work in all genres.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe midnight showings tonight!

Just a reminder to people, since 20th Century Fox apparently doesn't want to promote this, theatres around the country will be playing special midnight showings of the new X-Files movie tonight!

 

Some theatres, like mine, have mini-posters with the teaser poster image available for free!

 

Call your local theatre to make sure they're showing it at midnight and come out to see it!!

The Dark Knight

This review is a few days post-release because I only saw it today. Trust me, if you were me and had the same experiences I did during the first few days of release, you wouldn't have wanted to bother either. I dreamt of work because of this movie...

 

For the record, though I don't really need to go into all of this, The Dark Knight is the second in Christopher Nolan's successful rebooting of the Batman movies, giving them a sense of reality versus Tim Burton's hypercartoonish, but oh so much fun, version. Starring as the Dark Knight is Christian Bale and as his arch-nemesis, the Joker, is the late Heath Ledger.

 

In this film, we are starting to see the effect Batman has on Gotham. He's giving the citizenry strength to stand up for what's right instead of cowering in fear of the bad guys who plague them, inspiring men like District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman) to fighting the good fight. He's also forcing the hand of the bad guys; they accept, albeit reluctantly, the help of a vicious psychotic with no known past in order to quash the hopes of the people. Meanwhile, all the Joker wants is chaos and chaos is exactly what he serves up.

 

I'm no fangirl. I haven't read any Batman comics EVER. I like the two Burton movies beause they're fun and I like what Nolan is doing with the series because he doesn't treat the story as a joke even though, c'mon...a dude dresses up like a bat in order to fight a criminals, including one who paints his face like a clown? Eh, what?

 

The film was excellent across the board, especially with the extremely welcome addition of Maggie Gyllenhaal taking over for Katie Holmes as assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes, but it's killer at nearly three hours long (including trailers), especially if you bought the 54 ounce Bladderbuster at the concession stand. Wrapping up the Scarecrow storyline was nice, and it was great to see Cillian Murphy even if was for only two seconds, but that sequence was around twenty minutes long and seemed to be there only to set up that Bruce Wayne wanted some changes made to the suit to give him more flexibility and speed. Unnecessary. I don't mind long movies, but after a while it felt like the infinite non-ending ending of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (a great flick, but I think it's still going...)

 

Also, Bruce Wayne playing CSI was a bit much. It was distracting and even a tad frustrating. The Joker seemed to be very experienced at what he was doing, thinking thirteen steps ahead of everyone else. If he'd been that active in Gotham, they would've already had a rap sheet on him, including fingerprints and DNA. Unnecessary. Batman doesn't need to play detective so much...he's got Lucius Fox and Alfred (and, eventually, Barbara Gordon...at least in the books, he does.)

 

Other than those quibbles, I really liked the film. Everything else about it was fantastic: the score, the music, the performances, all really top notch work.

 

This is the film the fans have been salivating for ever since the end credits rolled on Batman Begins. When Heath Ledger was announced as the Joker, and various photos were leaked, I was, personally, very sceptical. I'm happy to report that I was wrong. Ledger's Joker was amazing and I only heard Jack Nicholson in his voice two, maybe three, times. It's definitely Oscar-nomination worthy, but I would have to see the other performances that are in the running before I would say that he should get the award post-humously. And, I'd need to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus because, you never know...maybe that film will top his performance in The Dark Knight. Unlikely (his Joker is magnificent), but possible.

 

Not only do I highly recommend seeing this, I highly recommend seeing it in the theatres.

Prank: Yet another thing I'm insanely excited about...

I swear, if I didn't love writing and directing so much I would go into publicity for all the things I've hyped up and geeked out about, but this one is absolutely HUGE to me on many, many levels. On the other hand, I'm a little too opinionated to be a proper publicist...or critic, for that matter. Too picky.

 

I've already blabbered on about my love for actress Heather Langenkamp and I've already talked about how excited I am that she's directing one third of a horror anthology with Danielle Fisher and Ellie Cornell (both of Halloweens 4 and 5) taking on the other two parts. The film is called Prank and they've got an official site and a trailer for Fisher's section of the film, called "Madison."

 

The trailer for "Madison" looks really good (alright, I'll say it...the lead's hair reminds me of Ann-Margaret.) Fisher seems to have picked up a thing or two from Rob Zombie when she worked with him on Halloween. While his revisionist take on the flick wasn't very good (first half was great, second half was terrible and parts simply didn't make any sense), he's a good director and not a bad person to learn from. While I have a pretty good idea of what the denouement will be, I'm intrigued and I look forward to seeing it in the anthology.

 

As a woman who writes, directs, and is a fan of horror and sees few women in the genre to look up to, be it as actors or their characters or as behind-the-scenes crew, this is a phenomenal thing. While they didn't write the scripts they're directing, it's still huge. I'll admit that it's been years since I last saw Fisher and Cornell's Halloween movies, but Heather Langenkamp has had a huge impact on my life through Nancy Thompson and the A Nightmare on Elm Street films...

 

It's ridiculous how excited I am for this flick. It's true that if Heather Langenkamp* weren't involved in it, I wouldn't be as excited or even make an attempt to follow the production, but it's still something amazing to look forward to in a decade of studios playing it safe by revamping old or foreign horror flicks, forgetting what made them successful in the first place, or putting out films so bad and/or so stupid as to insult the viewer and effectively destroy the genre**.

 

* I simply can't refer to her by last name only...it's too weird. And referring to her as Heather has always been strange outside of conversations between myself and friends.

** Eli Roth, I'm lookin' at you...please don't screw up Cell.

"It's curtains for you. Lacey, gently wafting curtains..."

I should know better than to forget the awesomeness that is Joss Whedon. Well, it's not so much that I forget, it's that he's continually getting shafted by the Man without even so much as a thank you dinner. I don't see his work around so much outside of comic books, which are generally not a preferred medium of mine unless they're in limited run and are horror.

 

Anyway, he's being kind enough to shower his fans and the internet with some lovin' in the form of an Epic Superhero Musical! called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Act One of Three is up as of yesterday, Act Two of Three will be up tomorrow, and Act Three of Three will be up on Saturday. And it's available at iTunes...but watch 'em while the watchin's good because they'll be gone in a New York Minute (a.k.a. July 20), off to that wonderful land called Dee Vee Dee.

 

So, stop reading this and go watch it! Revel in the silliness! Bathe in the awesomeness! Let the lightly scented magnificence gently lift you onto a fluffy white cloud of ecstasy!

 

Or something to that effect.

The Fall, Get Smart, Wanted, Wall-E, Hancock, Journey 3D

The Fall, a remake of the 1981 film Yo Ho Ho, was directed by Tarsem (The Cell) from a script he wrote with Dan Gilroy and
Nico Soultanakis. It's about a 1920's stunt rider who is left paralyzed after a fall. During his stay in a California hospital, he's befriended by a young Immigrant girl to whom he tells a story. To say too much more than that would possibly ruin what is a tragic, beautiful, and strangely innocent film which also feels, toward the end, like a tribute to all silent film stunties. But don't let the stunt talk fool you. This movie is so much more than that.

 

Tarsem's stunning visuals are on full display here in spite of apparently not using computers to augment them. The score was perfect and the little girl, Catinca Untaru, was heartbreakingly fantastic. I really only have two complaints: it was a little hard to understand Untaru sometimes as her accent's thick in places and Justine Waddell isn't very good. Though she's not in very many scenes, it's kind of offputting when she is. I don't remember her being this bad in Dracula 2000, but in this and Thr3e, she was just terrible. Thr3e wasn't a good film anyway so I forgave her.

 

Anyway, it's a beautiful film and I highly recommend it, if for nothing else than the visuals alone.

 

Get Smart is an updated feature version of the 60s television show of the same name which came from the minds of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. It was directed by Peter Segal from a script by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember. It's about Maxwell Smart, a tech with American spy agency CONTROL who wants to be an agent, like number 23. When their headquarters is attacked and the identities of nearly all of CONTROL's agents are compromised by their arch-rivals, KAOS, only Max and the newly-renovated Agent 99 can get in there and defeat them.

 

It's been a looooong time since I saw an episode of Get Smart...since the days of Nick at Nite showing older teevee shows and not Roseanne or The Fresh Prince. While a lot of the humour in the script was of today's type of over-the-top, obvious comedy, there were a few signs of Brooks and Henry in there. The direction was capable and Steve Carell only channelled the late Don Adams once, seeming instead to make Maxwell Smart his own character. Anne Hathaway was pretty good as 99. I still would have cast someone else, but that's just me.

 

Overall, it was cute and it did make me laugh so that has to count for something, I guess.

 

Wanted was directed by Timur Bekmambetov from a script by Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, and Chris Morgan. It's based on a graphic novel by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones. The film is about a beaten down young man who learns that his father didn't run away, but was a hard core badass assassin killed a month and a half before the film itself takes place and it's up to him to avenge his death and not die from overexposure to Angelina Jolie.

 

I love Bekmambetov for Nochnoy and Dnevnoy Dozor. I haven't seen Gladiatrix, and don't plan to. I love his style, I love his direction. It's simply too bad that the "plot" of this film was so lacking that in between the exquisite action scenes, I was bored to tears.

 

I wanted to smack the everliving daylights out of James McAvoy and did find some pleasure in the Repairman scenes. He was so unbelieveably annoying and I did not once believe Wesley had learned anything of value beyond the power behind a gun, but most of that is a writing issue. Yeah, his job sucked, blah, stand up and change it, yadda. So many other movies have said all of that and more, which isn't so bad, but those movies were ten million times better.

 

Angelina Jolie wasn't given much to do outside of be hot and be a badass whilst being hot. She poured her heart into it, though, ya gotta give her credit for that. Morgan Freeman was awesome. Can't say more than that.

 

Overall, I was unimpressed with everything except how pretty it was; however, pretty is nothing without some true depth, which I felt this film lacked.

 

Wall-E is another masterpiece from those geniuses at Pixar about a lonely robot, the girlbot he falls in love with, and his pursuit of her. Sounds so simple, but it's really not.

 

I compare Wall-E to The Incredibles as far as Pixar flicks go. No, it's not as good as The Incredibles...that's definitely my favourite of all of Pixar's flicks thus far, but The Incredibles felt like it was an adult film that kids could watch, whereas Finding Nemo (my Pixar two or three) was a kids flick that adults could watch.

 

Not only was the story beautiful and the film funny, but the animation was amazing. One week, I'll see something like Kung Fu Panda and really enjoy it and love how expressive the characters' faces are, and think "Wow...they're really good!" Then Pixar comes along, as Pixar does, and blows everything Dreamworks or anyone else does right out of the water. Wall-E, the robot, wouldn't be half as expressive as he is now if he were done by another studio. Wall-E, the movie, wouldn't be half as good at another studio period.

 

I highly, highly recommend it. I also highly, highly recommend seeing it in a digital house, if at all possible. Beautiful.

 

Hancock was directed by Peter Berg from a script that was written by, among others, Vince Gilligan from The X-Files staff. The movie is about a foul tempered superhero who is taught by a human how to be super. There's a lot more to the story that was short-shrifted in this well-paced, but unimpressive film. I'd like to see the original cut of the film, before the comment cards and greedy studio heads got involved. It's especially disappointing because Vince Gilligan wrote some of my favourite X-Files episodes, like "Pusher," "Bad Blood," and "X-Cops."

 

The cinematography -- I guess "hand held" is Peter Berg's signature style now -- was uneven with the rest of the film. The first third or so was great, then it really lost steam and seemed to forget what it was there to do.

 

The performances from all involved were good, so at least that's something positive. As far as recommending it, I'd wait for DVD.

 

On a side note, Hancock doesn't give me hope for Berg's version of Dune, another one of my favourite movies and books. He seemed to capitulate mighty quickly to studio heads who wanted changes to what really could have been a fantastic take on the superhero mythos. Dune is complicated and complex (and my favourite of all of Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles.) Somehow, David Lynch managed to pack as much complexity as he could into the two hour flick. The Sci-Fi mini-series remake couldn't match half that, even while including such pivotal character building scenes as Paul's fight with Jamis.

 

I hope I'm wrong and that Peter Berg delivers a Dune that, for me, surpasses Lynch's version. Unfortunately, with digital effects making people kind of lazy, I don't think I will be wrong...

 

Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D was the first feature film as director for visual effects man Eric Brevig, who'd previously directed some episodes of Xena, apparently. There were four writers on this film (two of them had the same name according to the IMDb)...that's three too many, in my opinion.

 

Here's the lowdown: the 3D effects were excellent in spite of it all being painfully, obviously CG. The Jurassic Park T-Rex that the late Stan Winston built, and the T-Rex that was CG'd into wide shots, looked far more real than the one in this flick. Still, you'll be flinching and jumping with the best of us because the T-REX DROOL IS GOING TO FALL ON ME OMIGOD!!!  Yeah, the 3-D stuff is gimmicky...not unlike a 3-D show at an amusement park.

 

Also like at Disney or Universal, the story is pretty bad. The movie is really just a long version of one of those attractions. It's not an adaptation of the Jules Verne book, which might've been cool. Instead, it's about modern people who believe that the story Verne tells is real.

 

Brendan Fraser's performance was uneven. One minute, he's making me laugh with how badly he "held back tears" and the next, I'm thinking that his trying to break through a wall to save his nephew, and how afraid he was, was fantastic. He's good with the action stuff...not so much with the emotions.

 

Relative newcomer Anita Briem looked like she'd been acting in green-screen flicks all her life. Josh Hutcherson practically has. They both turned in good performances.

 

Overall, the only way to watch this flick is in 3-D. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

Life has been fabulously busy since getting Honourable Mention for Without/Within...

...okay, no it hasn't. Not really. Well, at least, not in the part of my
life I want to do for the rest of it, which is write and direct, but if
we're talking about my jorb at the theatre, then yes, it's been busy. But not fabulously so. To be perfectly honest, other than some stops in the land of Creativity, my life has been taken over by Gil Grissom and company. Watching CSI after work, however, does remind me of at least one reason why I don't want to kill my co-workers: I'd get caught.

Anyway, I do owe reviews and updates. Even my mom, who lives in this house with me, is chomping at the bit for my reviews. That's awfully nice of her, innit? But, before I launch into my reviews (if I can even remember what the heck I've seen), I'd like to say two things:

First of all, The X-Files: I Want to Believe comes out July 25. If you're as excited as I am for this flick, just know that there should be a special midnight showing at your local theatre. Presale tickets went live a couple of days ago at my theatre so I'd check with yours to make sure.

Secondly, I'm not a particularly social person so I don't find myself searching through the local paper websites for events I want to attend. That changed a few years ago when I managed to miss the touring production of The Producers and it was within walking distance from my house (a 45-minute walking distance, but still) and was strengthened this year when I saw Eddie Izzard live. That...was awesome...

Tonight, I learned that Carrie Fisher is on a five-city tour with her "fun woman show," Wishful Drinking. Of course, she's not listed to come to a theatre anywhere near me. In case any of you are, here's the list with dates:

Santa Fe, NM-Lensic Theatre, Jun 16-22, 2008
San Jose, CA-San Jose Repertory Theatre, Jul 23-Aug 2, 2008
Hartford, CT-Hartford Stage Company, Aug 5-17, 2008
Washington, D.C.-Arena Stage, Sep 1-28, 2008
Boston, MA-Huntington Theatre Company, Oct 10-26, 2008 (Her birthday's on
the 21st so wish her a good one!)

I would LOVE to see this. Postcards from the Edge is one of my favourite books. Ah well. At least the book version of the show apparently comes out in November.

Woo! More good news!

I received a letter today from the Indie Gathering festival peeps that Without / Within has gotten an Honourable Mention in the Shorts / Feature section! I'm not really sure what that means beyond, you know, being mentioned honourably, but it's certainly better than all of my rejections! Once it sunk in, I was all giggly and stuff.

 

Hopefully, that will make my cast feel good since I haven't been able to update them with good news about the flick since I said, "I'm done!" Regardless of the technical problems with the short, I love it to death and I love my cast and crew to death. They were all fantastic.

 

I've been in a prose phase for the past few months, and I've been in Mid-World with the Gunslingers, so I haven't written anything script-like except for one short film that I'd like to do eventually. Once I finish writing this story I'm currently working on, and The Waste Lands, I should write a script. I know, that sounds kind of flippant, but sometimes I work like that...by the good graces of my wonderful muses, of course. :D