Friday, November 21, 2008

This Weekend in Movies - October 21, 2008

I've seen five movies within the last two weeks (an average of one film every three days), so I'm going to take a break from the cinema this weekend, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't.

The big film film week is probably the teen vampire romance film Twilight. The critics don't seem impressed, since it currently has a 44% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I'm sure that won't stop of hordes of teenage girls from seeing it.

If cartoons are more your thing, you could see Disney's Bolt, which is favouring much better with an 84% Fresh rating.

And that's this weekend in movies.

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Indie Thoughts: Slumdog Millionaire

While it may sound cheesy using Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? as the basis for a story about finding a lost love in India, but it actually works out.

The story takes place mainly in flashbacks. as the main character, who is being interrogated by police on suspicion of cheating on the game show, relates his story about how he went from being a poor boy in the suburbs to being one question away from winning the game show.

There is also the plot about how he is using the show to try and reunite with his lost love.

Danny Boyle (probably thanks to the input from his Indian co-director Loveleen Tandan) does a good job with the Indian setting of the story and you can hardly tell that the film is by a British director and it seems more an example of an Indian film (including having a good chunk of the dialogue in Hindi and the film even has a Bollywood-esque song and dance sequence).

I can now see why the film won People's Choice at the Toronto Film Festival.

9/10

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Trailer Thoughts: Star Trek

This week, we look at the new trailer for J.J. Abram's look at the first mission for Kirk and the crew.


Star Trek

FirstShowing is calling this film a reboot (which seems to be a big buzzword these days). However, producer/director J.J. Abrams (of LOST, Mission: Impossible III, and Cloverfield fame) has been quoted saying that he is trying to have his new film adhere to the existing canon (to the point that the film will feature Leonard Nimoy as the older Spock). As such, I will just label it as the more traditional "prequel."

That does not mean that I am not going to be critical of this trailer (this will probably be my biggest critque of a trailer).

First is the opening. It's a "bait and switch" opening, where it looks like the trailer for some Fast and the Furious-type film. We then see some sort of spaceman and he asks the driver, who is a young boy, his name and the boy replies, with slight arrogance, "my name is James Tiberius Kirk."

That opening just left a bad taste in my mouth. It just didn't feel right in a trailer for a Star Trek film.

That said, after that 43 second opener, the trailer does improve in the second half when we are finally shown scenes aboard the Enterprise. I've read critiques that the crew looks too young, however I think that is the point of the film. There are also some people, who can't seems to separate Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock, from his character of Syler on the TV series Heroes.

Overall, this might have not been the best way to market the film, but I will still hold off any feeling for the film itself until I see the film next May (and hopefully there will be a better trailer before then).

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