See Hellboy Before Reading This

Not exactly spoilers ahead.  But kinda.

Just thinking about how much I was disappointed by Hellboy II makes me feel like a traitor.  The most brutal part of my unorganized negative commentary review would be this analysis: any randomly chosen four minute segment made sense and was good; any randomly chosen eight minute one was not.

Of particular offense was the Troll Market.  The tight streets and narrow winding alleys convinced me there was a ceiling on this sound stage.  It immediately brought to mind Diagon Alley and then dismissed it as quickly.

At one point I literally thought Perlman’s head was twice as big as his body.  Seriously I had problems with the make-up!

I have no idea why they were shooting at the tooth faeries with bullets in guns when in the just the previous scene we saw Liz expertly in control of her flames.  She was on fire near a kitten without toasting it.

The hand-drawn props and scenery that Mike puts in the books just did not translate to the movie format.

Oh well.

Sorry.

Day 137: Deckard’s Stuff

The stars aligned so I watched “Blade Runner” on HD-DVD last night.  I started that at ten and ended after midnight.  These HD movies shine.  It’s like going back to the theatre to watch the thing–maybe even better.

What struck me aside from the clarity was the scale.  Everything in a shot was heaped on.  I don’t know what the budget was, but it’s as if a four year old were set in charge of making their own chocolate milk.  Just one more squeeze and I’m done–promise.  Everywhere the camera landed there was stuff: characterization stuff, tone stuff, mood stuff, genre stuff.  Everywhere: stuff.

I hope when I write that I learn to convey that even if a character doesn’t open a closet through out the entire novel that if they did stuff would tumble out. 

Day 14

It’s hard to figure out how Clive Owen got billing above Paul Giamatti in “Shoot Em Up”.  The trailer made it pretty clear to me that Paul is the main character and Clive just happens to be along because ever bad guy needs a good guy to toe up to.  I think this is really going to be the vehicle that puts that little guy in orbit.  “Sideways” could have been a fluke.  You have to get another good one under your belt before you can really be a star.

That unmemorable thing with Tom Cruise, Robert Redford, and what’s her name is just not going to go well.  What the heck is that trailer about.  It comes off like its talking about the on-going war in Iraq, but not quite.  Tom as a senator looks like an actor playing a senator.  Harrison as a senator or a cop sure.  If he wants clean cut he needed to stick to lawyers.

Rush Hour 3 sucked.  Plot holes _I_ actually saw and could not forgive.  And, was that a McGuffin?   Easily the best parts were the trademark outtakes during the credits.