señor taco’s travels

After not seeing any movies for a while (no particular reason, mostly
friends had already seen everything I was interested in seeing) I got
around to seeing two movies this last week.

The first was the fantastic Lost In Translation. I don’t know what
to say about this if you haven’t seen it. In fact I don’t really want to
say much because that could be ruining parts of it. I will just say that
Bill Murray gives a fantastic performance, he definitely deserves accolades
and nominations for this (unlike the zilch that he got for his performance
in Rushmore). Scarlet Johansen was much better here than in
Ghost World (I just thought her acting was flat in GW, but
that could have been her character). The direction was right on and the
settings were great in evoking the feeling of alienation one would expect
from being in Japan and not knowing the language or customs. If you like
touching movies and like Bill Murray at all the I suggest you go see
Lost In Translation.

The second movie I saw was Kill Bill, Vol. 1. In his other movies I
would say I was so-so on Tarantino’s other films. Reservoir Dogs
has been my favorite of his thus far. Pulp Fiction was well written
and I enjoyed it, but Jackie Brown while written and shot well, just
didn’t do anything for me. The first thing people say about Kill
Bill is that it’s very bloody or gory. Well, they’re right. At some
points it is a bit comical with the blood spraying around and limbs flying,
but it’s all very well done. I’m actually looking forward to the second
half of the movie so I can see how it all ends. Some of my favorite parts
of Kill Bill are the allusions to cult classic movies and directors.
Following the boots walking on a hardwood floor like Sergio Leone. The
fights that are reminiscent of Chang Cheh and Bruce Lee movies. All well
done and very fitting. Anyway, if you can put up with the blood (which
apparently some people in the theater couldn’t) then Kill Bill might
be okay for you to go see, but it’s really hard to tell because some people
just aren’t going to like the style of the movie at all. For those that
are wondering, there is one fight sequence that is converted to black and
white. Apparently that was to keep the film from getting an NC-17 rating
in the good ole U.S. of A. I expect it will be available in full bloody
color on the DVD, but only time will tell.

I went with Andre last night and saw Whale Rider in Berkeley. What a great film. The story was amazing and the movie was so well shot that you didn’t really think about it being a movie. There were a few places where the story and direction seemed a little heavy handed, but other than that I have no issues with it.

All the actors did a great job with their performances. The girl (Keisha Castle-Hughes) did an absolutely fabulous job, especially showing the agony of having to deliver a speech about her grandfather and he wasn’t there to hear it. The blending of traditional Maori practices and the modern world was great to watch. Seeing the Maori celebration at the end of the movie was awesome and inspiring, and again, it was well shot.

(pictured is the marquee at the theater, we couldn’t decide if we should see Bad Whale or Boys Rider :)

So, I got a call from my friend Doug yesterday. Pixar was having a screening of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and he wanted to know if I would like to see it. Of course, since I liked the other two I wanted to see this one. If it’s for free that’s even better. So, I left work early, got over to Pixar, and got into the theater (great theater that it is). Before the movie started John Lasseter introduced Robert Rodriguez (yeah, he was there to watch it with us!). He gave a little run down, explained the 3-D glasses stuff and then kicked off the movie.

We watched a digital projection of the film and it was very nice. I like the fact that Rodriguez used HD cameras. The plates were clean and still very film like, but being all digital makes for a cleaner process throughout. At the end of the show Mr. Rodriguez gave a little talk about making the film and showed us the first cut of his “10 Minute Film School” for Spy Kids 3-D. He mentioned that they had a very small green screen stage, but you would never have guessed it from the movie (which takes place largely in a video game). His inventive use of camera and green screen really made it so you didn’t pay attention to the effects, you watched the movie. He also said that being able to work with digital technology really helped. Rodriguez works out of his home and, when not shooting, would work on a night schedule so he could get more work done and still have time with his kids during the day. Simply Amazing.

Rodriguez decided to use the anaglyph format (where you have two images that are contrasting colors and the glasses used to view them have filters of left eye red and right eye blue) rather than the more modern polarized filters. His reasoning was that (a) you can get into more theaters because standard projectors can still show the film and (b) as long as you plan for it you can get good colors in the 3-D sections, and darn it if he wasn’t right. I was actually expecting things to be tinted a bit, but they weren’t at all. In fact, Rodriguez did a great job of making a 3-D film that works great, doesn’t hurt the eyes or brain, and is fun. The only odd thing was after the movie was over I had been wearing the glasses long enough that when I closed my right eye I saw out of my left eye with a little blue tint and when I closed my left eye I saw a little red tint from the right eye. It was strange.

Overall I liked the movie a lot. Yes, there was some cheese, but the movie made fun of it appropriately and Robert Rodriguez has done a great job of making a series of family friendly films on his own terms. He did say that this is the last of the Spy Kids films, but he’ll be around for a long time to make quality films. I just have to say that Rober Rodriguez is one person to learn lessons on how to be your own boss from (and I idolize him in that way). If you get a chance you should read Rodriguez’s book “Rebel Without A Crew,” which talks about the making of El Mariachi for a scant $7,000 and he being the entire crew. I read it about two years ago and loved it (of course I don’t have it any longer because I gave it to a friend and told him to pass it on when he was done).

On Friday night a bunch of friends and I met up at the Metreon in San Francisco to see Hulk. Now, I’m going to preface this by saying I had no expectations of the movie. I loved the TV show as a kid. I love the character of the Hulk and I’m glad to see a movie made on it.

I liked it. Some in our group hated it, but that’s fine, they’re more than welcome to do that. I thought the editing, pacing, transitions and storytelling were all exactly what was needed to transform a comic book into a feature film. It didn’t try to be more than it’s roots and I think it did a very good job of sticking to them. Ang Lee was very innovative in his use of comic book style transitions, it almost made me feel like I was reading a comic book. Some of the effects were off, but for the most part they really helped tell the story and fit just fine (it was also nice to see some friends names in the ILM section of the credits).

Overall the movie satisfied me and I’ll definitely own it on DVD when it comes out. I liked the cameo from Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno. The acting, while not stellar, was just fine for a comic adaptation. If you’re expecting a movie like Spiderman you’ve got the wrong film, Hulk is much darker. I will say that of this summers comic adaptations so far I still like X-Men 2 better, but Hulk is definitely up there.