I just got back from seeing the new Tim Burton Film "Big Fish". I just have to say, for me... Big Fish is the best film Tim Burton has ever made.
Now I know there are those that will say, "What about Ed Wood? What about Edward Scissorhands?" While I think these film are very very good. I have always felt they were just missing one thing to truly make them great. And that thing is a moving powerful story. The problem with Scissorhands was that it was too much like a cartoon at times. Ed Wood was a showcase to show of Johnny Depp's range and give the audience some interesting scenarios... but it never really rose above that.
Tim Burton films have had a great unique look. But he had never shown that he was a great story teller. He would rely so much on his visuals and over the top characters to make up for the sometimes very weak stories. One only has to look at Planet of the Apes, Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hallow, and both of his Batman films to see that. Don't get me wrong... I pretty much enjoyed all those films (except POTA), but they were for the most part all look and no substance.
Big Fish finally delivers on the promise of Tim Burton. Great odd ball characters, beautiful cinematography, awesome production design, and most of all... great story telling.
Big Fish is for sure on my top 10 list of the year... and possibly my number one pick.
This weekend was a blast! One of my best friends (Sean) in the world flew in to town. On Friday, Sean, cleo, and myself went to Filigo's and then went to First Ave and did some dancing.
On Saturday night, Myself, Sean, and Sean's dad went to the WILD game. Sean is a hockey super freak and he had not yet had the chance to see a hockey game at the Excel. We had a blast! I always forget how kick ass it is to go to a game.
On Sunday, Sean and I went to our favorite breakfast nook, The Sunnyside Up Cafe. Then cleo and I went to a Misifts meeting and helped out with mailers and offered our help to the next Con on July. We had a blast. We both commented to each other how it feels like being home when we hang out with everybody at Misfits. Later i nthe day we watched the hopeless Vikings get beat by a crap team! And then we played Return of the King on the Xbox!
Today, Sean took off to go back to Miami. I always get a little sad when he leaves. cleo and I will have to make it down there this winter to visit him.
For a balls to the wall pure rush of imagery and action, Revolutions rocked. Sure... it's not as mind blowing as the first matrix. But it is a hundred times better than Reloaded.
It is a non stop action flick. The effects were so good it made it appear as if Reloaded was made 10 years ago.
So there is no deep meaningful dialog, so what? Didn't we get enough of that boring philosophical bullshit in Reloaded? But even as just a plain scifi action flick... this one is still smarter than most. It also brought back the feeling of "cool" that was so sorely missing from the second one.
The story is damn thin, but also sometimes damn cool. It was just enough to keep the plot moving ahead and the action to be exploding of the screen.
A lot of people have been bitching that the movie doesn't answer all the lingering questions. But what it did do was give you enough resolution so the viewer could make up their own mind. C'mon, if all the answers were given to us, it would kind of delude some of the mystique of the trilogy. I like that we were not given all the answers. Hell... if we were, what would us geeks have to debate about? :)
What the film makers should have done, is made a hybrid of both reloaded and revolutions with 2:45 running time. Because there are elements of both that are genius and surprisingly bad. And if they could have streamlined it and tightened up the complete story of both... I think fans would have their perfect sequel that they were hoping for.
but as it stands. Reloaded is boring and pretty stupid with some great actions scenes and Revolutions is one hell of an action scifi special effects extravaganza that is pretty light on story. But at least it was cool again. :)
Tonight I decided to not attend movie night. What sucks is that I realized next Wednesday is the opening of Revolutions, so I will be missing next week as well. If I would have been thinking ahead I would have gone tonight. But I have been in the midst of re-editing the Matrix Retarded, and it is taking a little longer than I thought. I want to have it finished so I show it at Omegacon. I am calling mine... Matrix Re-Edited. I love the sound of that. I cut all the boring and useless dialog from the flick. Which means I pretty much cut up the first 40 minutes of the flick.
Also... my buddy is coming over and we are going to do some hard core AE training. So all in all a total geek night! :)
Earlier today I found out that I am getting a bunch of Master and Commander and Gothika advance screening passes. I also found out that we might be getting Return of the King passes as well! Gawd.... That would be soooooooooo cool. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
On Friday my girl came over and we ordered pizza and watched an episode of Enterprise (which see liked). We then took turns playing enter the matrix on my xbox. after that we met a bunch of friends at williams bar in uptown and then went to see the midnight advance screening of alien at the uptown. That was soooooo much fun and I love the uptown theater.
Saturday night my sexy girl and my buddy bill went to see school of rock. We all loved it!!! Jack Black is awesome as hell and the kids were all well cast.
Now I am watching the damn Vikings lose. Hopefully they will comeback and stop playing like shit.
Last night for movie night at mattmn's we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. This flick looked and sounded so damn good in it's new DVD version. I would have to say that Raiders has to be the best action/adventure movie made. All the characters, the story, the music and the action all work in perfect harmony together, which is a damn rare thing for movies of this type.
I'm sitting here watching a some fear factor tonight, Then at 8 it's time for some Monday Night Football. Though this week in fantasy football sucked ass for me (because I forgot to set my line up so my QB and one WR were on a bye week), I still have a player in tonight's game. But who cares... because the Vikings FUCKING ROCK!!!! 6-0 baby!
Other than that... I had a great weekend. mattmn, cleo, and myself started writing our super secret and super cool movie. On Saturday and Sunday I hung with my girl. We had a great weekend together.
Tomorrow I am running out to get the Indy dvd box set. I also might pick up the battlestar gallactica box set as well, but we will have to see what the price of that is.
Found out yesterday that my Duran Duran live cd is shipping. YAY!!!!!!!!
This flick is soooooooooooooooo fucking sweet!!! Freddy Vs Jason is a gory love letter to the fans (and possibly non fans) of these two horror movie icons. I can't believe how much fun this movie was. Go see this film!
So tonight I went to my friend's Matt's place to watch Moonraker. That is still one of my favorite Bonds. It's just so over the top you gotta love it. All hail Bond!!!! hahahahaha.
I just got back from a meeting and it looks like we might have picked up a new client at Whoop Design and that is always good news. Now I have to finish up some rush work and then I will have a night free! It's a perfect night for biking around the lakes. :)
My room mate and I have figured out that old people have taken away at least 10 weeks of life from us. From driving far to slow, to waiting behind them in a line at a store... or god forbid that they are actually the ones working the check out line at the store. Don't get me wrong... There is a side of me that likes old people, Just as long as they are not in my way of getting shit done. Some people don't like kids... I guess I am at the opposite end of the spectrum! Okay... enough bitching... time to go to Blur!!!!! Yay!!!! Oh... I almost forgot, Timothy Dalton sucks as Bond!!!!
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