Theory Of Everything

I don’t know if you noticed but last review was difficult to me, difficult because I didn’t know how to start, what to talk about it and how to end it. The reason is that I didn’t had any passion about that movie, there was nothing there to make me care, to love it or hate it, nothing to defend or attack, something that I wanted to say about that movie, and I think that is the best reason why that should not be nominated for best film. Because it had nothing for me to get winded up, all my review was going to be was “It’s an OK movie” and that is not worthy of the best movie of the year.

Now let’s see if the last one has something that generates some spark on the old noodle pot.

The theory of everything

The life of Stephen Hawking through the eyes of his wife. I think that was the selling line of the book and the movie. Is a good idea because besides of the sickness that afflicts Stephen he had no bigger problems in it. Was like “I invented a science that will change the world of Physics” the answer was “OK, here is your Nobel”

We see the life of Hawking, his children and how he got through every problem with the help of his wife and other people.

The acting is good and you see the expression of human drama on the characters also as the struggle in life to overcome all the world trials. Wow, I had a regression to film school where I used to justify even the more mindless youtube video, and man I am good to make sound cerebral almost everything. But yes the acting is good and the story is appealing so you are there for a good time.

But nominate Eddie Redmayne for best actor? The guy acts for like 20 minutes and then is the chair and the computer doing all the job, because the guy can’t move. I admit that he gets a pretty good hit with the ground in one moment, and as I said last year “someone capable to take a hit like that deserves an award” but last year Lupita Nyong'o was around for two thirds of the movie, here he was just sitting rolling around, in that case I should got an award years ago.

But I know that he is going to get the Oscar because like Tropic Thunder teach us “you never go full retard” and well there should put a new award call “the not going full retard” there Theory of Everything and Still Alice could fight the award.

And then again I fall on the same point. I don’t get that much passion and heart from this movie, just a good movie that I’ll remember as the life of Stephen Hawking. But is like a Time Life movie, not that great and good for a Saturday afternoon, after lunch, that you feel too full to even play videogames and want to watch a good movie but not very complicated, demanding or immersive, just somebody’s life. And you don’t give an Oscar to a Time Life movie of the week, you just don’t.

So if you want to see this movie go watch it, but is not “you most watch this movie” because is kind of mild and bland, but worth watching it when is on TV or Netflix.

Happy Valentine's Day!

And here we are another Valentine without a Valentine, well I don’t know if we are but I am and that is the thing that matters because I’m the one writing this thing :P

Is going to be short because I’m not going to rant about the day or if is or not a date created to spend money.

I think is a good day that tells you make it special, and if you forget anniversaries and birthdays as me well there is always Feb 14 that everything and everywhere is hammering you with it.

I make cards and images for the girls I like those days, from web comics to wall papers with my limited photoshop abilities some times are good some others not so much, but intention si what it couts.

This year I made this Magic The Gathering Card.

But because I don’t have some special girl, I made it with a combo to make an example of how it is like to be me.

I think is funny :P

Happy Valentine’s Day Everybody!

The Imitation Game

Here we have a very important part of the World War, is not a great battle or a new super weapon, is the oldest and more useful weapon of all, Intelligence. To know what your enemy is going to do, so you can act accordingly.

During World War 2 the Nazi army had the “Enigma Machine” a machine that created a new code each day so it was thought to be unbreakable. This movie is about the team how broke the code of this machine with a machine bigger and more expensive, the way everything is made :P so basically they created a computer in the 40s to break the code, to make the oldest decrypt program a brute force one (but to be fair is the one most people use to the date)

The main character of the story is the creator of this machine, Allan Turing in a deformed way because everybody who worked with him describe him as he was charismatic, charming, funny and very social person. But here our writer decided to take what his teachers told him the first day in script class and make him a social awkward, and a recluse person who doesn’t know or want to talk or work with others, so we could have a “fish out of the water” experience, but beside of that we have a good story.

All the events revolve more around the machine itself and the race against the clock. We see the team trying to break the code, and how the Turing’s machine is a struggle from the moment of making it, because in that time nobody thought it was possible a machine could make something that needed to be revised. Then there is the problem to keep the faith of the people because it was pricy keep that thing going. But also we have the life of Turing the way it should be presented, as part of the plot not taking over, a natural progression of events.

This movie is well acted and directed, is not that great to be called the best movie of the year but is a gush of fresh air to the World War 2 movies, because all those movies are the same, we almost never see the guys in military intelligence deciding what to do next, the classic conversations of numbers that are “Take this point will only take us 700 men” but how do they got to that decision. In this movie is a problem after the other; money, strategy, morality. Every time something is in the way of a simple solution.

This is a good movie, worth watching in the theatre or in the home. Because it doesn’t have great cinematic moments is more about the story and the characters. The moments between Keira Knightley and Benedict Cumberbatch move the personal plot and Turing’s Machine and the Enigma moves the rest.

So in short, yes go watch the movie but I think the actors don’t surpass others that I have reviewed or I’ll review next. So better luck next time.

American Sniper

Wow! Absolutely no response on the last post, that rises some theories, that everybody agrees with me but don’t want to admit it, or that I was so offensive that nobody wanted to be find close to that, anyway the time is now for another Biopic and is the other one that created some controversy:

 

American Sniper

I have heard a lot of this, lots of things about US propaganda and a rubber baby but almost none of the movie itself. That is horrible, I mean the US propaganda is in the eye of the beholder and the rubber baby is less than 2 minutes, so let’s get talking of the movie and the portrait of things and then clarify these 2 points that are the ones that get more attention.

The movie pictures the life of a US soldier from childhood, his formation and how he decides to take certain steps on his life that takes him to enlist and ending as a sniper for the US fighting brown people. So far so good, we see his life in the battlefield and then his life between tours, and you realize that his mind is more set to be in the battlefield than in a calm US town, and well is difficult to get pass that kind of tension, then he goes again in the tours and back again until he decides to retire from active duty and tries to adapt again to a more average life.

The point of seeing him on and off battles is to see that he is a warrior, and I’m not saying that in a “America Fuck Yeah!” kind of way, like they said you can take a warrior out of the battle but you can’t take the battle out of a warrior. What I’m saying is that there are people how enjoys war, enjoys battles, the conflicts, to having someone wanting to kill them but not the simple killing. There are lots of people who think they are that way and at the sight of conflict they freeze, others are normal but in combat something triggers inside of them and they turn into someone different. But them they can’t go back to how they were, and in peace time they are always restless, how they said in the movie “Paton” the lack of war is what is going to kill him.

And in this movie we see that, we are not looking at a hero or a demigod he was a sniper doing his job, some people take him for a hero because they got out alive because of him, well people call the firefighters heroes because they take people from dangerous places, so is almost the same. But in the movie we see a soldier how can’t find rest out of the conflict, how he doesn’t consider himself a hero. We see how he is totally out of the world when he is back in home but how is totally in the moment when he is in the war zone.

So yes, to me the guy was completely crazy. But I understand how he though, because that kind of people is like loaded guns ready to fire, what they just did was point him in the direction they needed him.

Now the rubber baby, as I said is a 2 minute scene and the baby is just a lump they carry, I noticed but I didn’t cared, I mean you pay attention of the movie, and what is happening, or then someone will tell me that they could not get into the movie because the killings are not real. For all I know they could have used a kilo of tortillas instead of a baby and the scene would have had the same impact.

Is it American Propaganda? Is it pro war? No, well to me it isn’t. Because it doesn’t portray the war as something glorious, more like it is, an event where you go meet friends and then you look at them get killed and scars you for life. And yes at the end there are a ton of US flags but is because that is the actual footage of his funeral. The people considered him a hero and the news make him that big. Yes he killed a lot of people but he also saved a lot, of a nonsense war that they should have never been there to start with but even so, if you are already there better make sure to help all you can to make it back.

In a related note, did you know how hard is to get the movie poster without the US flag? Man it was difficult :P

So in short is a good movie, if you like to get into the character’s mind by his/her actions then you’ll like to see this guy go around. There will be people that will quote the book, saying that the guy watched everything black and white, but the movie message is very grey, like every Clint Eastwood movie, that even having a dark sad ending you get something good from that, if you pay enough attention. Then is a movie that is not for all but if you liked Clint Eastwood movies then you might like this one.

Selma

And we start with the Biopics, that for me is some kind of lazy writing because you have the characters and story you just have to trim it a little to make it interesting, but at the same time if you don’t do it right you get all the hate from people who actually like that person or what that person did, so the first one will be:

I was looking forward to this movie because being somebody who didn’t grow up in the US and didn’t have Martin Luther King shoved in history class I know squat about the guy or what did he do to be so important, I knew about the march in Selma but only what I heard once on Pawn Stars so I thought it would be good to go a little deeper and see people behind it and the speeches and reactions. But oh cruel reality and lazy writers, why do you have to mess up this year? We were going great! Don’t get me wrong the movie is fine but is not at the same level of the other ones.

The movie follows the life of the Dr King during the time of the Selma problems (I’ll call it like that because is more than marches and are not riots) but is not the story of the town for which the movie is named, but as I said the life of Dr King that is almost the end of his story, and there is no footing to see what he did before. I know that all the people in the US know what he did because they students from grade school got the lesson during all “Black History Month” but in the rest of the world we need to get involved reading or watching the movies, and I never did. So the movie feels like the third act of a movie I just arrived really late.

So we watch what the Dr King is doing his team and his family but there are parts where you want to go back to the town, to see what is happening, learn about the people, the government, there is even one scene with Malcom X (character from who I know nothing, I only know he was important) and say that he is going to speak to the town but is all he appears in the movie, no more than 2 minutes, and his speech is not in the movie, just then they say he died. That felt like Poochie in the Simpsons at the end of the show. You don’t give me someone important reduced to just a couple of sentences. But of course we have a 5 minutes scene of Dr King eating dinner with his family where nobody talks, because or reasons.

The idea is there you learn what happened and why the government reacted the way they did, but you feel that the movie needs more, is called Selma so the town should have been the main story, see what happened and how everybody reacted, but is the life of Dr King during that period of time, we don’t see the end or beginning of him, we read it at the end but that’s it because it was after the time in Selma, so let’s skip that part.

The message of the film I looked at it in a modern way, with what’s happening in the US with the police killing people just because they are the wrong color, and that is not cool at all, and yes you look that there are still a lot to work on in the US, but then I look at it not so much as rights and social liberties but more as how could be applied in the modern world, internationally, beyond color or race. And applies perfect to the terrorism against the papers and media, the terrorist are the ones using violence and fear to try to make them quit like the police and the government in the movie. And then in a personal way, about all the people who attacks you for speaking your mind, not only the trolls but also the self-righteous, finger wagers, so called “defenders or free speech” that will call you a bigot just because they don’t like what they read. But that is the history not work of the movie.

This movie raised a lot of dust because they didn’t nominated the Director because it was going to be the first time the Academy awarded a black female director but being honest this movie is not one of the greats of the year. Yes last year this movie would be at the level of 12 years slave but now they left out Nightcrawler that is totally awesome. The reason that “would have been the first black female director to win” is the worst for me, I think that should not guide nobody’s decision to award something. The only to considerate should be “was the movie one of the best of the year?” sadly this wasn’t, yes the message is good and if you take it in a modern context is even better, but that is looking to into it, more that the director wanted to do.

So, should I recommend this movie? Yes, but I recommend that you first watch the movie of Martin Luther King and the one of Malcom X or read their bios, I mean get informed about them because then you would not care for what they do in in the movie, as I said we are arriving to late in the story.

So sad, is a good story but the execution has some problems, from the script. As I said I could be one of the best last year.