V for Vendetta

I watched V for Vendetta today (and yesterday, actually).  This is a brilliant movie and I highly recommend it.

The story was compelling.  The cinematography was superb.  The special effects were exceptional.  The writing was exquisite.  My only disappointment was the acting of Natalie Portman, whom I usually like.  She came off as a bit amateurish.  But the acting of Stephen Rea (Inspector Erin Finch), Stephen Fry (Gordon Deitrich), Tim Pigott-Smith (Mr. Creedy), and Hugo Weaving (V) who manages to wonderfully act the part despite being stripped of the tool of facial expressions, more than made up for Portman’s inadequacy. 

This is a movie that teases the mind, lubricates the senses, and tugs at the soul.  I highly recommend it.

A Remarkable Man

I sat down and watched A Remarkable Man the other day after the producer was kind enough to send me a copy. 

A Remarkable Man is a documentary about Ed Thompson.  It starts out with a brief look at Thompson’s childhood before passing through his younger years as a boxer of some repute. 

It gets relatively quickly to Thompson’s famous bout with the law over video poker machines.  It goes into the details of the police raid in which they confiscated the machines and every dollar in the bar (about $5,000).  Thompson’s argument was that it was unjust for the state to allow the Tribes to run these massive casinos in each of the neighboring counties but then deny a tavern a couple of simple video poker machines.  I must admit that I completely agree with him.  Also, it appears that there were some personalities that aggravated the situation. 

Eventually, they made it to trial.  As they went through the jury pool, juror after juror had to be dismissed because they knew and liked Thompson.  They ran out of jurors and had to go out on the street and impress some new ones.  I had no idea that that was how they handled things like that.  Finally, the prosecutor knocked the case down to the equivalent of a traffic fine.  Thompson refused to pay a cent, so his lawyer paid it for him and they called it a day. 

The documentary walks through Thompson’s tenure as Mayor of Tomah and, of course, his run for governor.  The coverage of the governor’s race was interesting as it showed how hard it is for a third party candidate to run for a statewide office. 

All through the documentary, there are interviews with a wide variety of people (including Tommy).  It does a good job getting people from all sides of the stories to comment.  The whole thing is well done and of good quality.

I have to admit, I put off watching this documentary because I didn’t think I’d enjoy it.  I ended up really liking it.  It sort of walks through some of the major issues in Wisconsin from the perspective of Ed Thompson.  Along the way, we meet a lot of familiar people and good Wisconsin places. 

If you are at all interested in Wisconsin politics or Wisconsin people, A Remarkable Man is well worth the 82 minutes that it takes to watch.

Aeon Flux

I just watched Aeon Flux on DVD.  I must say… it was an outstanding film.  I picked it up as just some mindless sci-fi entertainment for the day, but I was really drawn into it.  It had complexity, quality characters, emotion, thoughtfulness, and of course, lots of pure action entertainment with cool weapons and stuff.  I had been a passing fan of the cartoon years ago, but the movie far surpassed the original creation.

A Pair of War Movies

I watched Jarhead this morning.  It was okay.  Nothing special.  The anti-war stuff didn’t bother me too much, although the scene where it was raining oil was laid on a bit thick.  But, all things considered, it wasn’t too bad. 

What bothered me more than that was the utter lack of originality.  The antics in boot camp.  The boredom of waiting for the war to start.  The charred bodies.  The makeup of the outfit (a hard-charging blood-and-guts Marine ,a poor black guy, a Hispanic family man, a troubled white guy with a checkered past, a thoughtful reflective guy, a nut job hillbilly, etc.) was too Hollywood.  The themes of the movie were equally repetitive, but more poorly told than in other films.  I just felt like the director threw together his favorite scenes from much better war movies and hoped that nobody would notice. 

This movie is worth watching if you need to kill a couple of hours, but that’s all it’s good for. 

I also watched The Great Raid yesterday.  It wasn’t bad.  There were a lot of superfluous story lines and an occasionally heavy dose of artistic license, but it got the core of the story right.  They did a good job with the lead characters and such.  This movie was better than Jarhead, but not exactly an American classic.  It’s actually worth watching, even if you aren’t just trying to kill a couple of hours.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

I went to see “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” this afternoon.  I have a special place in my heart for the Narnia story, so I was a bit apprehensive about how the movie would turn out. 

Thankfully, the movie was very well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As usual, the book is better than the movie, but it almost always is.  I really try to go into movies based on books with that in mind.  Movies don’t have the advantage of detail that books have, but they can make up for it in other ways, if skillfully done.  This movie was skillfully done. 

The movie stayed almost completely true to the book.  There were a few embellishments and a few things left out, but none of it detracted from the story.  The actors who played the two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve were very good.  They made it easy to suspend reality and enter the story.  The special effects could have been a bit better, but it was a tall order to create such a fantastic world with so many creatures and with so much movement.  The slips in technology didn’t detract from the fullness of the tale. 

One of the things that I really appreciated about the movie is that it dutifully captured the pertinent details of the story.  In a story filled with fanciful creatures, talking animals, and magic, it would have been easy to skip over the small details that make the story endearing.  For instance, the feeling of wonder and excitement when the children first pushed past the coats in the wardrobe and into Narnia.  Or the sad walk that Susan and Lucy took with Aslan on the way to the stone table.  Or even the sour Nikabrik.  The movie managed to treat the marvelous scenery and creatures as what they are - the backdrop for a fantastic story. 

If you are a fan of the Narnia books, go see the movie.  If you’ve never read the books, then see the movie anyway.  It’s good in its own right.