Logo on fire
That’s right, as I am sure any enthusiast of the 12 colonies knows, The Hunger Games is getting a Hollywood makeover and coming out in March 2012. Will it be great or will it dissapoint all the loyal fans? It is hard to know, but equally hard not to be excited. I am not thrilled by all the casting choices, I admit, but I am willing to give them a try. … Continue Reading
About 900% of this movie took place in this forest...
Let me get this out of the way: I don’t want to write a movie review on this, so I won’t. This won’t be a review in the strict sense of the word. I am not going to pick it apart, scene by scene, etc. I am just going to state a few things. I know I am late on this bandwagon–especially considering I went to a midnight showing of the movie last week–but I feel some things need to be talked about.
Since I am not in a tryptopha-induced coma (and my originally planned shopping excursion has petered out), I figured now would be a good time to talk about it. Sadly, this write-up doesn’t fulfill my normal Thursday writing schedule. Anyway, on to the movie.
The short of it is, I really enjoyed this movie. A lot. There are completely intense moments in this movie, and it’s so very dark, especially when compared to the rest of the series. It is a marked improvement from the last film in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Deathly Hallows is much more faithful to the source material–and it can be, since it’s split into two separate movies.
So here I am, still alive and producing a Top 7 for Wednesday (ok, it is one day late) no less! I blame Shaka and life for keeping me from you. Shaka, I need to pace the books you recommend, because there was a week or more that I was in a Hunger Games obsessed cacoon. Then I got the Warded Man from the library, and my sister visited…..anyways, now that I have caught up on a little sleep and before I enter another spiral, with the Gregor:the Overlander books…. A Top 7 List!
Keeping with the theme I started with my first post and one on which I hope John, Shaka, and anyone else might join, I am listing more favorite things from my childhood. ( I swear my lists will leave nostalgia land soon.) So here are some of the movies I watched over and over again as a child, and many of which I quote ad naseum to this day.
7. Puss N Boots
I watched a lot of the disney channel as a kid and they had this whole slew of fairy tale musical movies. I remember most vividly the one for Sleeping Beauty and this one; Puss in Boots. The songs still sometimes pop into my head. And I mean, come on: Christopher Walken is the singing, dancing cat, himself! I admit to buying this movie at Sam’s Club for 5 dollars, just to watch it again, when I got older. Why does nostalgia have such power over us? It definitely brought back the kid in me, anyway. … Continue Reading
So I have recently been drawn in to Steig Larson’s Millenium trilogy. Living in New York, you can’t help but see people reading it all around you on the subway. I got interested after reading a review of the first movie (The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo). I went to see the movie in an art house theatre and I was hooked. It is amazing how quickly you forget you are even reading subtitles, when the movie is good enough. This led me to begin reading the books. … Continue Reading
Coverage begins over at our sister site. Click the Picture to Beam Over.
Like Detroit Rock City meets Spaceballs
Ernie Cline just sold his novel, Ready Player One, to Random House for a few hundred thousand dollars. Cline’s claim to fame is the ultra-geeky 2008 comedy Fanboys, which found a preteen niche amid the overwhelming amount of Apatowean R-comedies that have dominated the comedic schoolyard for nearly a decade. Now, Cline seems to have successfully made the transition from screenwriter to novelist, and the publishing-houses are swooning. The premise of the book seems to be your basic YA “futuristic virtual game has real-life consequences” type plot, but fans of Fanboys are waiting to see what Cline does with the screenplay, which doesn’t seem to be far behind (movie rights are going up on Monday).
If this guy can sell his novel, so can you!
This is my second year participating the White Elephant Blogathon; my experience last year was so enjoyable (by which I mean utter dismay) that I quickly signed up for another year of service. If you’re new to this, basically we all throw movies into a hat, draw a title from said hat and write a review about it. Usually we go for some awful movies and just try to make the best of it. This year I drew Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (a la 1958 version)… all I can say is whoever threw this name into the pot has to be godless and cruel.
So if you haven’t seen this yet, a couple of days ago, this Mortal Kombat Rebirth trailer appeared on YouTube in an attempt to generate interest in a reboot of the franchise. It’s more of an eight minute scene than a trailer, and it focuses on portraying various characters (e.g. Reptile, Baraka) as brutal serial killers. What’s interesting about this trailer is that it was directed by Kevin Tancharoen, whose claim to fame is Fame (which isn’t exactly similar to Mortal Kombat).
After watching the video, I felt like it was a substandard Seven with wicked action sequences. Unfortunately, action spectacle doesn’t really do it for me like it used to, but if you hold this against something like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, you’re sure to see a vast improvement. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself, and let us here at Paper Spaceships know what you think.
I have covered the idea of the division culture in Korean film in this very column (and probably will cover again given the prevalence of it in the culture) before focusing on the economic, technological, and social divide in both Shiri and Repatriation. I’ve also explored it within the family. However, these definitions of historical and cultural division do not singularly define the idea of Korean national division. In this article I will explore the division of mind and body in Choi In-hoon’s The Square and Kim Ki-duk’s Bad Guy (Nappeun Namja, 2002) and how they relate to the historical division and economic division respectively. Choi In-hoon’s protagonist, Lee Myong-jun, is the intellect divided from the body. He attempts to fix this trauma, and cure his loneliness through doomed relationships with two women and two nations. Kim Ki-duk’s protagonist, Han-gi (Cho Jae-hyeon), is the physical divided from the intellect. He attempts to overcome this trauma through the misogynistic male fantasy of turning a woman into a prostitute. I will attempt to illuminate these sexual divisions, and how they illustrate the re-imagining of division in Korea as an exclusively masculine enterprise. I will also show how the protagonists of both The Square and Bad Guy are drawn inevitably towards death because their lack (be it corporeal or psychic) does not allow them to function in a divided society. … Continue Reading
North/South division deeply affects families as well.
If Shiri is the ultimate example of right-thinking propaganda cinema (as blockbusters are usually conservative to allow them to gain the maximum audience), Kim Dong-won’s documentary Repatriation is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Kim is essentially the father of modern Korean documentary film having been a part of the democratization movements of the 70s and 80s his humanistic style of documentary is an extension of the political beliefs and activism he practices in daily life. I plan on writing more about him and his work in this column so keep tuned. He is one of my film heroes and a genuinely pleasant man as well. This week was the 30th anniversary of the Kwangju Massacre and I felt I needed to write about something that was political and in the spirit of the Minjung movement that worked so hard for democracy in Korea. Kim Dong-won is both of those things and his Repatriation in which he spent 12 years chronicling his relationship with North Koreans trying to get back home after being released from jail is just that. … Continue Reading
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