3D......"Da Detrimental Dimension"

There are indications that Hollywood's rush to extract extra cash from cinemagoers in return for an extra visual dimension might be doomed to follow previous 3D initiatives into the cutting room bin.

The release of Avatar last December - the James Cameron epic which grossed $2.7bn - had movie execs licking their lips at the prospect of taking punters for an extra fiver if they could just persuade them to don a pair of 3D specs.

The tridemensional landrush soon delivered dedicated 3D pics such as Alice In Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek Forever After. However, as the Avatar effect began to fade, audiences appeared to be abandoning the novelty.

I tried to come up with a number of reasons why 3D sucks:

1. IT’S THE WASTE OF A DIMENSION. When you look at a 2-D movie, it’s already in 3-D as far as your mind is concerned. When you see Lawrence of Arabia growing from a speck as he rides toward you across the desert, are you thinking, “Look how slowly he grows against the horizon”? Our minds use the principle of perspective to provide the third dimension. Adding one artificially can make the illusion less convincing.

2. IT CAN BE A DISTRACTION. Some 3-D consists of only separating the visual planes, so that some objects float above others, but everything is still in 2-D. We notice this. We shouldn’t. In 2-D, directors have often used a difference in focus to call attention to the foreground or the background. In 3-D the technology itself seems to suggest that the whole depth of field be in sharp focus. I don’t believe this is necessary, and it deprives directors of a tool to guide our focus.

3.THEATERS SLAP ON A SURCHARGE OF $5 TO $7.50 FOR 3-D. Yet when you see a 2-D film in a 3-D-ready theater, the 3-D projectors are also outfitted for 2-D films: it uses the same projector but doesn’t charge extra. Are surcharges here to stay, or will they be dropped after the projectors are paid off? What do you think? I think 3-D is a form of extortion for parents whose children are tutored by advertising and product placement to “want” 3-D.

4. I CANNOT IMAGINE A SERIOUS DRAMA, SUCH AS UP IN THE AIR OR THE HURT LOCKER, IN 3-D. Neither can directors. Having shot Dial M for Murder in 3-D, Alfred Hitchcock was so displeased by the result that he released it in 2-D at its New York opening. The medium seems suited for children’s films, animation, and films such as James Cameron’s Avatar, which are largely made on computers. Cameron’s film is, of course, the elephant in the room: a splendid film, great-looking on a traditional IMAX screen, which is how I saw it, and the highest-grossing film in history. It’s used as the poster child for 3-D, but might it have done as well in 2-D (not taking the surcharge into account)? The second-highest all-time grosser is Cameron’s Titanic, which of course was in 2-D. Still, Avatar used 3-D very effectively. I loved it. Cameron is a technical genius who planned his film for 3-D from the ground up and spent $250 million getting it right. He is a master of cinematography and editing. Other directors are forced to use 3-D by marketing executives. The elephant in that room is the desire to add a surcharge.


Looking at this year's Box office charts,I have noted that most of the movies which held the number one spot are in 3D.The likes of Alice in Wonderland,Despicable Me,Toy Story 3 and Clash of the Titans have all had the luxury of caressing that number one spot.This trend makes the movie directors/producers think that they can get away with any crap that they come up with.

Some of this year's 3D movies will make you want to shoot yourself in the head.


JACKASS -The very notion of Jackass in 3-D may induce a wave of hysterical blindness, to avoid seeing Steve-O’s you-know-what in that way.The previous Jackass movies made me want to puke my guts out.Now I don't know what this one will do to me.

STEP UP 3D - This is surely a completely rubbish film from start to finish.I don't know who'll want to watch a bunch of 'street dancing wannabes' flaunting in 3D.First the movie (if you can call it that),has no story at all,it's basically an excuse to start dancing.

CLASH OF THE TITANS - the movie was not filmed in 3-D and is only being shown in 3-D in order to charge you an extra $5 a ticket. I saw it in 2-D, and let me tell you, it looked terrific.” And it did. The “3-D” was hastily added in postproduction to ride on the coattails of Avatar. The fake-3-D Titans even got bad reviews from 3-D cheerleaders.




HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS:PART 1 - I don't even know where to start here.This will leave J.K Rowling speechless (and not in a good 'euphoric' kind of way).Releasing Harry Potter in 3D will only contribute and further worsen the notion that Daniel Radcliffe is too old now and not cute anymore(not that he used to be cute anyway).I can not wait to see the reaction of the 'teenage girls' after they see Dani's aging face.

Those movies represent a '3D Debacle'.I don't know what's next in the 3D business.Perhaps the adult film industry may want to start their own trend of '3D Pornography',that should be refreshing (no pun intended).

Bow Down to 2010's Leornado Dicaprio....Thanks to Scorcese & Nolan

2009 was a quiet year for Leornado Dicaprio.After 2008's Revolutionary Road (which I thought was a horrible attempt to reunite Kate n Leo),I thought he was going through a 'career downturn'.Little did I know of what he had in stores for 2010.He came back with a big bang.First it was SHUTTER ISLAND then INCEPTION.His movie choices were spot on this year.Working with Martin Scorcese and later on Christopher Nolan was the best decision he made.

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First let me start with Shutter Island:This is a difficult film to review. The way the film unfolds is an interesting one, but is difficult to put into words without spoiling everything from the film. It strings you along so many different paths that guessing how the film ends is nearly impossible. While watching the film, however, nothing really made sense until the last twenty minutes or so. Between Teddy's hallucinations and what's transpiring on the island, it's almost exhausting trying to grasp what's actually happening in the film and what's occurring in Teddy's head. The finale to The Departed, another Martin Scorsese/ Leonardo DiCaprio pairing, was (and still is) one of the most talked about endings when it comes to recent films. Shutter Island doesn't necessarily top The Departed, but is along the same lines. Its ending gives new meaning to at least one repeat viewing of the film.

There's no denying that I've been a fan of Martin Scorsese's films for quite some time. Films like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, and Gangs of New York are prime examples of some of the best films ever.Dicaprio's work in Shutter Island puts his acting skills on display for the world to see. His devastation towards the end of the film is not only believable, but absorbing as well.

The cinematography is on a level you'd come to expect from a Scorsese picture. The way Ward C, the ward built during the Civil War that contains the island's most dangerous prisoners, is filmed in particular may be the high point as far as cinematography is concerned. The never-ending darkness makes you think something is going to jump out at you at any moment and its metal cage-like structure that constructs the walls feels claustrophobic; like you're a prisoner yourself. That "rat in a maze" line from the trailer really fits the film well. Everything in the lighthouse with the spiral staircase is pretty amazing, as well.

An interesting note about the film is that the soundtrack is used sparingly. I didn't notice one throughout the majority of the film. It seemed to only be used during dramatic moments. There's also a gunshot towards the end of the film that is going to make you jump because it's so damn loud. Seriously. It's insane. For an R-rated Scorsese film, it seemed pretty mild in the language department. The F-word is said 422 times in Casino, 296 times in Goodfellas, and 237 times in The Departed while it's only said a handful of times in this film. Just seemed a bit odd for a Scorsese picture.

Shutter Island is pretty confusing until the finale (basically from "Why are you all wet, baby?" to the end). It's pieced together slowly and is a combination of Teddy's memories, hallucinations, and what's actually occurring in reality. The way it unfolds is kind of like trying to solve a Rubix Cube. It takes time and a little bit of effort, but is well worth it in the end. Shutter Island is a film that makes you think. Remember that going in. Teddy has quite a few lines towards the end of the film that are going to stick with me for a very long time. It's a film that will only get better with repeat viewings. When it's all said and done, it was well worth waiting an extra four months for this film.






Now on Dicaprio's second movie of the year.INCEPTION:

What is the most resilient parasite? An Idea! Yes, Nolan has created something with his unbelievably, incredibly and god- gifted mind which will blow the minds of the audience away.Usually I try to be careful with over hyping a film, or setting the expectations too high, as film geeks all are guilty for, however for Christopher Nolan's Inception, this really is not possible.


Dom Cobb(Di Caprio) is an extractor who is paid to invade the dreams of various business tycoons and steal their top secret ideas. Cobb robs forcefully the psyche with practiced skill, though he's increasingly haunted by the memory of his late wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), who has a nasty habit of showing up in his subconscious and wreaking havoc on his missions. Cobb had been involved so much in his heist work that he had lost his love!

But then, as fate had decided, a wealthy business man Saito( Ken Watanabe) hands over the responsibility of dissolving the empire of his business rival Robert Fischer Jr.(Cillian Murphy). But this time his job was not to steal the idea but to plant a new one: 'Inception'

Then what happens is the classic heist movie tradition. To carry out the the task, Cobb's 'brainiac' specialists team up again with him, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), his longtime organizer; Tom Hardy (Eames), a "forger" who can shapeshift at will; and Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a powerful sedative supplier.

There is only one word to describe the cinematography, the set designs and the special effects, and that is Exceptional! You don't just watch the scenes happening, you feel them. The movie is a real thrill ride. The action scenes are well picturised and the music by Hans Zimmer is electronically haunting. Never, in the runtime of the movie, you will get a chance to move your eyes from the screen to any other object.

This movie is not for everyone however. It is not a late night, brainless action movie like 2012. It requires the audience to have smart brain-think. So on a scale of 1-10, Inception is about a 12. This, without question, the best movie of the year. If The Academy snubs Nolan out of this Oscar, I think I might kill someone. He should have the Best Director award in the bag. However, to truly enjoy it, you have to pay attention. It's complex, but never confusing. If you enjoy a great thriller that is anything but straightforward, this is the movie for you. And be prepared to use your mind. =]

To conclude, I would just say before your life ends, do yourself a favor by experiencing this exceptionally lucid classic created by Nolan!

Karate Kid......more like 'Karotten Kid'

This so-called Karate Kid starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan,is two hours and twenty minutes of raw sewage funneled through an old sweat sock.From the previews I knew this movie wasn't going to do justice to the original. I wasn't planning on watching it, but my best friend wanted to see it and I gave in. Bad idea. It was a waste of my money.I went in with very low expectations and, sadly, those were still too high for this movie.

I'm just 30 minutes in and the "good guy" intentionally pisses off the "bad guys"....wth?? I can't root for the "good guy" anymore and I hope he gets man-handled for the remainder of the film for acting like such an idiot.At the end,I was really pissed off for wasting 2 hours of my life which I would have spent productively watching paint dry.

The acting is very annoying. The plot is very annoying.Also the title makes no sense as the film is based on Chinese kung fu and not Karate.

The plot is derivative and insulting:Non-Asian goes to China as a fish out of water, gets bullied, but is trained by a mysterious fighting master. In a few months, the non-Asian wins against all odds against fighters that have trained longer than him and wins the affection of an Asian chick............Boo hoo!!!

Also the kids were too young. In the real Karate Kid, teenage boys beat the crap out of each other, and it was believable and bearable because teenage boys really do beat the crap out of each other like it's a hobby. Watching a handful of 70 lb. pre-teens wailing on each other is just disturbing. And, of course, they aren't allowed to bleed,since it's a PG movie, so the fights were nothing but choreographed stunts set to loud music.

I really like Jackie Chan and, I believe, he did a good job in the movie, but his overall participation did most certainly not compensate for the almost non-stop appearance of Jaden Smith who can not act.

No doubt puckering up to Will Smith's and Jada Pinkett-Smith's collective asses, the movie-makers spent way too much time trying to make sure Jaden looked cool. From his tightly-styled corn rows to his soulful mugging for the camera, Jaden did pretty much everything in this movie except for act.I don't care if he's Will Smith's son, it's not like acting is genetic. He was just trying too hard to be funny, and too hard to be serious. It didn't seem natural, like he was in the moment.

No self-respecting casting agent would have casted him if he auditioned the old-fashioned way. He's too young, too scrawny, and too inexperienced to carry such a role.What would happen if Jaden Smith was not the son of Will Smith and if he would audition for a small role in a movie as a mentally handicap toilet cleaner?I bet a gazillion dollars,he would not get that role.

It would have made more sense to cast Jaden Smith to play Chucky in a remake of Child's Play. That would result in a remake that could at least improve one thing, it would scare the hell out of you and since Child's Play is a horror movie, it would be fitting. Then again, Jaden Smith isn't scary, he is sad.

The geography was all over the place. Once the mom and the kid are in China, you have no idea where you are in relation to anywhere else. One minute, Mr. Han seems to live in the apartment building. Another time, Jaden runs a few blocks to find him. There are no specific sets to lock onto. No Mr. Miyagi garden to walk around in and enjoy. And the school experience is a random collection of buildings, times, and days.

Neither does the whole jacket-on, jacket-off training trick. In the real Karate Kid, the wax-on, wax off, paint-the-fence, side-to-side, sand-the-floor stuff is brilliant because it's excellent physical training disguised as manual labor. Having Dre throw his jacket on the ground over and over for hours and then days on , is both pointless as an action and transparent as a training gimmick.

There's a love-story shoe-horned into the plot. It doesn't work for as many reasons as the movie itself doesn't work. The girl is too good for Dre. He hasn't done anything to earn her attention. And they're both too young. There's no sexual tension,so who cares? I'll spoil the movie by telling you they kiss. eww.....gross. It felt like child molestation.

The real Karate Kid was a feast, laden with humor, drama, action, and soul. This piece of crap is an overpriced entrée with all the right ingredients but it's been put together by a lobotomized monkey.

Vampires Suck......and Werewolves Stink........

I feel violated after watching 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse'.I regret doing so,as those were the two hours of my life I can't get back.

I have decided to write a letter to this 'frustrating Bella' (if she was for real):

Dear Bella,




If I happen to fancy you but you're openly flirting with another dude who spots some unbelievable abs, I'll leave you. Or if you're exhibiting this stubborn indecisiveness, I'll walk too, because I'll help you make up your damn mind. You're not the only tree in the forest, but unfortunately in this show, you happen to be the only sole object of desire who wears a skirt that everyone, from werewolves to vampires both nice and badass, all want a piece of. You're hot property, but still, make up your mind, will ya?




Frustratingly yours,


Djibril

I'm not sure which wiseass touted this as the movie event of this summer/year/decade, but that person ought to have his or her sanity checked. The trailers though is crafted by someone who knows just how to entice the fence sitters to the film, because that's about all the action you're going to see from Eclipse, fast forwarded, with this climatic fight given to you as a reward for your 1.5 hours worth of patience in witnessing yet another slow rehash of relationship woes from the earlier films. Even then, what was promised to be the fight of the century turned out to be pretty lob-sided, and worst, full of CG shots against actors playing characters you have no idea who they are, other than carrying out their sole purpose of chalking up the body count.

Why then did I decide to watch this since I'm not welcome nor fit into its intended demographics? Well, as any 'classic guy' would say,"my girlfriend forced me to watch it". I'm still pretty much piqued by the gazillion dollars this movie raked in from its initial screenings, and how it contains this certain mysterious X formula that have droves, yes droves, of females hitting the cinemas, packing it right up to the front and corner seats, which to me is the worst possible seat to place one's bum on in a widescreen cinema hall, for 2+ hours. Apart from Sex in the City's obvious selling point, this film with vampires and werewolves caught up in some serious love triangle seem to play pied piper to womenfolk all around the world.

The gist of the plot, if there is one, is how Bella (Kristen Stewart) has to exercise her choice between Edward (Robert Pattinson) the vampire possessing that perfect face with lamb chop sideburns and skin that glitters in the sun (and by the way,I thought vampires are supposed to burn when exposed to the sun), and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) the werewolf, who seems like the better deal when tackling laundry since he prefers to strut around shirtless to flaunt those perfect pecs and abs, so much so that Edward decided to keep his clothes on for this one, and making snide comments from the side that reeks of pettiness and envy. Each actor continues with their cardboard characters still dealing with the same old issues that if resolved nicely, wouldn't stretch so many books and films.

Yes my friends, Bella still cannot decide! And to make things worst, she's playing both sides whether intentional or not, especially Mr doggie boy there by sending out so many conflicting signals, you feel like knocking some sense into both those guys that she's not worth the trouble. And she's a Trouble Magnet (TM), with Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) assembling an army of newborn vampires you don't give two hoots for, to avenge her loss two films ago. So it's up to the Cullen family of immortal vampires to protect Bella, and forming an uneasy alliance with the howling pack to protect Forks from the Seattle invaders, or well as the animals put it, to want to get into a fight as a form of brutal exercise.

Credit can possibly go to Bella for uniting the long time foes together, and what could possibly be the only interesting plot point here, is the background stories of the wolf tribe ancestors, and some of the Cullen family members, which to me brought back memories of a more superior film about immortals duking it out, such as the Clan McCloud of Highlander. The first film focused more on the story of the vampires, the second on the wolves, and now, to bring them together in co-opetition mode. And the best scene to epitomize this will be that in a tent high up in the mountains, where a candid discussion between the boys brought out their innermost fears and desires nicely in a rare session of male bonding.

However, David Slade of Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night fame, still churned out what is possibly the worst of the series thus far, making the earlier movies look like the work of geniuses (which they are not). As mentioned, it's not as dark as it's touted to be, and the action is severely limited to the ending. Too many characters make appearances, such as Dakota Fanning, whose bit role in New Moon became yet another bit role in Eclipse, snarling through those red contact lenses and patsy white makeup. Bryce Dallas Howard takes over the Victoria role from Rachelle Lefevre because she's more famous, only to be nothing more than just another glorified supporting role frolicking in the snow with Edward, by virtue of a stunt double. D'uh.

So here's my verdict: Eclipse, like its name implies, is clueless in its darkness, and it stinks just as bad as how the characters complain about the odor from the wolves. Perhaps it's a calculated move, so that the finale, split into two halves to milk the cash cow, can more or less meet expectations since it's already driven so low by this film. Seriously David Slade, what were you thinking? Should have stuck to your guns and steered clear with a 10 foot pole and not touch this material at all. I cheered when the end credits came on, but only because I fancied the track "Heavy in Your Arms"........No Homo!!!!!!!!!