"Battleship" Trailer Commentary

Director Peter Berg sits down with IGN to provide audio commentary on his latest movie "Battleship".



I don't know what to think about this movie. On one hand, my inner nerd and love of sci-fi results in excitement. On the other hand, it's a movie based on the board game Battleship... It's obvious they're attempting to bank off the popularity of the Transformers movies. And you know what? It'll probably work.

The one thing I learned from this commentary that I really enjoyed was the fact that the aliens aren't here to simply destroy and kill everything, despite what the trailer suggests. They've actually come here in response to an invitation from us, but one of the ships malfunctions and crashes to Earth. As a result of the crash, they lost their ability to communicate with their home planet and must use our satellites to call for help, which may have dire consequences for the people of Earth.

I've always hated the fact that these amazingly intelligent beings who have mastered interstellar space travel come to Earth and...blow up everything. Does it make for an exciting Hollywood movie? Sure. But pardon me for wanting aliens that are more interesting and, dare I say, complex. So, I'm happy to hear that they're not solely here to destroy us.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Teaser Trailer

So, the teaser trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Moon was just released. Check it out here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/transformersdarkofthemoon/

Wait, what? A trailer for a Michael Bay film without slow motion or big explosions?

The tone and feel was what I liked most about the trailer. It inspires a sense of wonder, achievement, and discovery - as opposed to mindless destruction. Seems like Spielberg stepped back in for this one. Also, I really liked how the wrecked ship is littered with dead Transformers. Some of them blend in so much that you're not sure if it's a part of the ship or part of a Transformer. Neat.

Compared to the second film, I've been hearing from the filmmakers and cast members for a while now how much better this one's going to be. Yes, of course they're going to say that. And yes, almost anything would be better than the second film. But how often do you hear filmmakers and actors openly admit how horrible their previous work was? Almost never.

I think 3D is overrated. However, Michael Bay was quoted saying that shooting in 3D has forced him to cut back on his quick cuts and shaky camerawork. So, ironically, I'm sort of happy he was forced to shoot in 3D.

One thing I hope to see more of in this film is the humor from the first one. The quick, witty dialogue, and funny situations (such as when the Autobots had to hide from Sam's parents). The humor in the second was was dumb and forced. Especially with the Twins.

Reactions to the trailer seem quite positive, which surprised me. This is supposedly the final entry to the franchise - at least with Michael Bay and the cast. I wouldn't be surprised if the studio goes ahead and continues with a new director and actors.

So, the subtlety of the trailer, the fact that everyone openly admits how much the second film sucked, and the fact that 3D is forcing Michael Bay to calm it down are reasons I believe this will be a film on par with the first one.

Thoughts on SALT Trailer 2

Just watched the new trailer for Angelina Jolie's new movie SALT. Check it out here.

Meh.

It looks OK. Solid production values for sure. But the action looks pretty standard. Haven't we seen this story before numerous times? The Bourne series? Fugitive? I'm having a hard time seeing what separates this movie from the others. (What separated Avatar from all the other "stranger in a strange land" movies is, well... look at it!)

Angelina Jolie probably never has to work again. I doubt she's doing this for the money. So there must've been something this intelligent actress saw in the script that compelled her to do it. Perhaps we'll find out.

Whoa

Whoa.

My last post was July 8th, 2008. It was regarding my excitement seeing GORT in the trailer for the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". A movie I was almost alone in looking forward to. Although disappointing, it wasn't without its merits (of which I will maybe talk about in a future blog post).

Anyways. Not that I have any readers, but I would like to express my torment in my futile attempts (up until now) to access this once-lost blog.

In a nutshell, I got lazy only after 4 or so blog posts. Time passed, and I sort of forgot about it. One day I must've felt the urge to write about a film and remembered about this blog. Excited, I headed over to blogger.com and tried signing in with what I thought was my log in information. I failed. I failed over, and over, and over again trying to figure out what account I used.

Silly me, I thought I used a yahoo account. And every time I tried logging in with it, blogger kept telling me I had to use a google account. I kept trying to have it send me emails for a password reset, but it kept saying it would send it to my gmail account. I was CONVINCED I used my yahoo account BEFORE blogger required gmail accounts.

So, months, and months, passed. I tried over and over again. Looked at the help articles and forums to no avail.

Then, just today, at 4:23 PM, I decided to try one more time before creating a new blog with a new account. And then it hit me. I remembered that I DID use a gmail account that closely resembled the name of this blog. Lo and behold, this account did exist and it worked.

So finally, I am back. I am back and I am blogging. Hopefully I'll keep it up now. And hopefully I won't forget my stupid gmail account...

GORT!

Just watched the trailer for The Day the Earth Stood Still a second time (over at Apple.com) and I'm really intrigued.  I know there's haters out there who will hate any remake.  However, I think it looks rather interesting because we see stuff actually getting destroyed - which is very different from the original (where nothing was destroyed).  And, as I predicted, Keanu Reeves is playing Klaatu just like how I imagined - and that's not a bad thing.  

But the big news is the very last shot of the trailer!  Check it out:

It's GORT!  And it looks awesome!  I'm glad they seem to be sticking mostly to the design in the original film.  This makes me very happy.

Bale Prefers Bondage Over Robin

Found this over at IGN:

Apparently, Christian Bale -- who plays the caped crusader in the franchise -- has said: "If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I'll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work."

Strong words. And I think I agree. With the Joker seeming to be more central in the next film than even Batman, flooding the screen with too many characters might cause our caped crusader to get lost in the crowd for the inevitable third film.

I'm not sure of the best way to word this, but I'll try. I always thought that once a trilogy is made, all the actors, director, et cetera should not come back for a 4th film. Example: Spider-man. Sam Raimi, Tobey, Kirstin had their trilogy. I think it would be a good idea for the next movie, or trilogy, to be done by a whole new crew. The new movies don't need to be directly related plot- and story-wise (see: The Incredible Hulk). The Hulk is proof that it could work. So, my opinion would be to start a new Spider-man trilogy and just start telling more stories (with less crying) about Peter Parker/Spider-man.

And now to my point. My point is that if they do want to bring Robin into it, do it with the next trilogy. Let Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale finish their trilogy with Two-Face, and have the next movie/trilogy introduce Robin (if they even want to) with a whole new crew.

Might I add that I feel this way perhaps because Spider-man 3 was so bad that I really wouldn't mind if they got new actors and a new director. (I like Sam Raimi, but I have this gut feeling that he purposefully didn't put much effort into the third film, as he stated way before they announced Venom would be in the film that he really didn't think Venom is an interesting character and that incorporating him wouldn't make a good film...) The Dark Knight, and the subsequent sequel, might be so good that I wouldn't want a new crew for the next hypothetical trilogy. We'll just have to wait and see.

WALL-E Review

WALL-E made me smile. WALL-E made me laugh. WALL-E almost made me tear. WALL-E also made me go "ehhh". But just a little bit.

First, let me start off by saying that everyone should see this movie. The visuals are fantastic and the animation is superb. This is Pixar we're talking about so these should come as no surprise. What's most endearing is WALL-E him(it?)self. He's adorable; a hard, resourceful worker. Innocent, yet lonely. He watches a movie where a couple holds hands, and we see that he yearns for the same thing. Sure, his cockroach friend is there, but, it's no female robot.

Of course, it's not long before his opportunity to hold someone else's hand shows up. This opportunity is EVE, a probe that comes to Earth and keeps scanning things. Oh, and she's a feisty one. Forget trying to hold her hand. WALL-E almost loses his life just trying to say hi.

A relationship eventually develops. But not before EVE finds a plant, the only plant on Earth, and gets whisked away in the spaceship she arrived in. Why this happens, we're not sure. WALL-E, in love, pursues EVE to the far reaches of outer space.

This is where the movie, for good or bad, changes direction. We find out that there's a "cruise" space ship containing the remaining humans of Earth. They're ALL fat and float around in hover chairs while looking, and only looking, at a holographic TV screen where they can be entertained or talk to their friends... who are right next to them. It's not until WALL-E accidentally breaks a girl's TV when she realizes Oh hey, we have a pool! A pool that was right in front of her... It's all good and funny, but this is also the part where I went "ehhh...".

There's pseudo-political/social critique of what can only be of Americans. All of the humans only had American accents. Sure, there were different races, but only American accents. For such a smart movie, they didn't seem to put much thought into the human aspect of the film. Just cliches that reminded me of Idiocracy (which I did not like). I get the satire, but I just felt it could've been done better.

And although the main story was between WALL-E and EVE, the end of the human story just seemed a bit too perfect-happy-ending-everything-will-be-fine kind of ending.

Otherwise, all of the other aspects were wonderful. All of the robots were great. The HAL-like computer was expected and welcomed. The love story was innocent and pure. And WALL-E was just so damn cute. I would love to see him in another movie.

I give WALL-E ***1/2 out of ****. GO SEE IT!