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Movie Rants |
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Being a hacker by trade I hardly ever write anything in the English
language. Before I completely forget the syntax, I've decided to
try and write in it occasionally and what better to talk about than
movies. I seem to be getting along to quite a few since I recently
kicked the
idiot box
habit (sort of like the ex-junky who smokes 24 hours a day).
I'm not going to get to heavily into the details, rather I'll just offer my very subjective opinion. I won't rate the movies except to warn you off what I think is utterly worthless. Since I'm not a real movie reviewer I have the luxury of only going to movies I expect to enjoy ! |
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| Tank Girl | A fun, off the wall movie, based on the comic of the same
name. It manages to not take itself at all seriously which is rare
thing since such serious amounts of money and such serious tight-arse
business types are behind movies these days. Features an Australian
actress, Naomi Watts as Jet Girl, Malcolm McDowell, typically, as the
bad guy with the evil eye Kesslee. Lori Petti does a great Tank Girl, I
had no trouble equating her with the comic strip character, cuts of
which were cleverly and appropriately interspersed throughout the
movie. Set in post apocalyptic desert scenery, with mutant kangaroos
(Ice-T among them), feels a bit like the later (overdone) Mad Max
movies. All up - feral!
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| Queen Margot | Blood, guts, naked flesh, sweating, wheezing, scheming,
beauty, grotesque, sex, dying, dirt - pretty much sums up the feel.
Story revolves around a struggle for the French throne between
catholics and protestants factions. I enjoyed it, just glad I didn't
live back then.
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| Braveheart | I sort of got dragged along to this by my SO. I have to
admit that I enjoyed it on the whole, except for a few gratuitous "love
interest" threads to keep the unwashed masses (ie Hollywood backers)
happy no doubt. The battle scenes really brought home the reality of
man to man combat. Farmers with pitch forks and other assorted farm
implements facing a regiment of armored knights on horses charging down
on them took unbelievable courage. Historical society types who enjoy
re-enacting this sort of thing obviously had a field day as extras.
Down with the monarchy, up the republic I say.
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| All Men are Liars | Well not what you'd call epic, but enjoyable for someone who
grew up in a QLD country town. I'll see pretty much any Australian
movie. Another cross dressing movie in a country setting.
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| Angel Baby | Scooped the AFI awards, really powerful film making in the
same way that Once were Warriors was. No cynicism here, real
life drama in a the real life world - it's a hell of a lot more
uncomfortable than Hollywood fantasy splatter. Jacqueline McKenzie goes
ballistic, incredible screen presence. I think that there's a definite
ground swell occurring at the moment that will give the general public
a much better understanding of mental illness. Expect to see more of
these movies, like the crop of movies dealing with homo-sexuality in a
non sensationalist way that have popped up in the last five years.
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| The Usual Suspects | I swore I wasn't going to see any more violent, cops and
robbers type films this year. I've seen Assassin, Assassins,
Pulp Fiction blah blah blah.. (I refuse to see Seven
Deadly Sins no matter how good it is - I didn't enjoy and wasn't
interested in Silence of the Lambs). However, this one was
really enjoyable, the excellent mystery plot and ensemble acting makes
for a really solid movie.
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| Striptease | My only excuse is that we were in Nowra on a Saturday night
after a days climbing and we'd seen everything else worth seeing -
this however wasn't, even at half price. You occasionally get a hint
of decent story battling to get through, and apparently the novel it's
based on is not so bad. This movie makes you feel downright
sleazy. Don't bother with it, even on video. The things Demi will do
to prove she's still got the time and energy to spend hours a day in
the gym...
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| Shine | Based on the life of pianist David Helfgott, a young boy
with
extraordinary musical talent is pushed to mental illness by a brutal,
disturbed father. Many moving and funny moments, as we see him in
three different stages of life. The actors really stand out in this
movie, I can see a few AFI awards coming Shines way! This would have
to be the best movie I've seen this year.
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| ID4 | A ho-hum story with great effects, ie a "blockbuster". It's
entertaining and fun to watch if you happen to be a computer graphics
programmer. They
used
some of the same software that I use for visualization work (Prisms
and probably Amazon Paint). One particularly interesting sequence was
where they used procedurally generated dogfight sequences as it was
too complicated and time consuming to hand animate hundreds of
individual planes and spacecraft.
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| Of course this list is not exhaustive, I only put stuff in occasionally. | ||