DVD Extras Review:

Usually the best part of DVD extras are the commentaries. That definitely is not the case here. There is only one commentary and that’s by the director. There are two main problems with it: Jon Amiel, the director, is British. While that isn’t a problem in and of itself, unless your French, he does have a very monotone voice and tends to, how to say this without sounding too harsh, he sounds as boring as an afternoon tea with the queen. Now, aside from the director’s commentary the “making of” extra is worth watching if you’re into that sort of thing.

To be fair, many commentaries given by just one person tend to be rather boring. So lets not be too hard on the old chap. I love The Core ($11.99 at Amazon.com) even though it’s just good SciFi flick. The best reason to love this movie is that it makes heroes out of everyday scientists. Okay, these are like super-scientists but still. I love seeing geeks as heroes and it’s something that kids need to see. Yes, science is cool.

As a SciFi movie The Core is very watchable. Forget the fact that it’s off the scale unrealistic. They’re making a movie about going to the core of the earth, what’d you expect. Disliking this movie based on the plot’s implausibility would be like saying Star Trek is stupid because every scientist knows that you can’t travel faster than light. To which I would quote one of the characters from The Core, “Yes, but what if you could.”

The Core doesn’t take itself to seriously either which is important for a movie like this. They’re reference to “unobtainium” is great. (As far as I know unobtainium comes from a review that panned the movie Armageddon in which the reviewer said that the shuttles must have been made out of it in order to bounce off asteroids.)

Aside from the geek-hero this movie offers first rate acting. Tchéky Karyo, Aaron Eckhart, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo and Hilary Swank among others are superb actors. This movie has a female hot-shot pilot, a genius African American, who invents the probe all by himself in the desert, and a French man who is the nuclear bombs specialist - okay, that’s the most unrealistic part of the movie. This movie isn’t about high drama but it has its moments.

The Core also has the obligatory distruction of a prime city. In this case it’s Rome. It’s about time because Paris got obliterated in Armageddon, London gets it’s fair share of abuse and the only good thing to come from 911 is that New York City can be spared from cinematic destruction for at least a few more years. Think about it: the Big Apple got munched on by Godzilla, terrorized in The Siege, laser blasted in Independence Day, smacked around in Armageddon, and sunk in Deep Impact.

The FX are okay. I like the design of the ship and aside from that they just had a bunch of scenes full of magma. (Hey, it’s not lava. Lava is magma that has reached the earth’s surface. It’s the same as the asteroid/meteorite confusion.)
If you have kids make them watch this movie. We need all the positive portrayals of scientists we can get.

The Core was also partly responsible for a geologist proposing a real probe being sent into Earth’s mantle. You can read about it at Wired Online and at Cal Tech’s website.

I’ve always loved the move Sneakers. Not just because it appeals to the geek in me but because it is a finely crafted film.

Listening to the Writers/Director voice over on the DVD brings home the craft of what it’s like to write a fine piece of film. Not only does it help you appreciate this movie more but other well-made films.

Movie Synopsis: Lets keep this simple. It’s about a group of men who get paid to break into secured systems in order to test a companies security. Their leader, played by Robert Redford, has a past that they are not aware of. Two men hire/blackmail Redford’s character into doing a job for them. The job is fairly simple, it’s to recover a little black box from a professor of mathematics. It’s at this point that everything goes to hell for our main characters. To say any more would give away too much of a wonderful story.

Even though this movie is now over 12 years old it still remains timely. Credit that to the writers who had the foresight to see the role information would play in our society with the emergence of the Internet in our everyday lives and the birth of the World Wide Web.

Just a few years after this movie came out we had movies like Hackers and The Net that are in the same genre as Sneakers. It’s amazing to think back and see that this movie, which came out before the common person had ever heard of email, web pages, or the Internet, is one of the better Technology Fiction movies of our time.

The voice over given by the writer/directer Phil Alden Robinson and writer Lawrence Lasker is enlightening. Not just for the occasional bit of trivia - like that the scene in the beginning of the movie where Martin Bryce is standing in a snowy courtyard is the town square courtyard from Back to the Future - but also for the insight into what it’s like to write a screenplay. They bring up many instances of having additional scenes in the screenplay that were unneccesary or how many of the scenes play a dual or even triple role. I even learned a new screen writing term: Laying Pipe; adding something innocuous to a scene that is later shown to be instrumental in a later scene.

Note: the writer Lawrence Lasker also wrote the script for War Games which they talk about a few times during the VO.

The music score for the movie is from James Horner who also did Braveheart and Titanic. It would be redundant to mention that it is first rate.

A few suggestions for good romantic SciFi/Fantasy movies, including classics like The Princess Bride, plus a few you might not have considered. I thought I’d throw this together for those SF geeks and geek-lovers out there, those who want to watch a good Science Fiction or Fantasy movie with your clone, robot, replicant, elf, hobbit, alien hottie, human, etc. on Valentine’s Day:

Blade Runner
This movie has to go near the top of the list for anything related to SciFi movies. It’s not just one of the best SciFi movies ever it’s also a very romantic movie. It’s two people looking for answers and finding each other. Oh, did I say “people”? I’m not sure, are replicants people? Does replicant love count? These are the questions Philip K. Dick would be thinking about. And after the movie you could tell your partner, “I’d love you even if you were a replicant.”

GATTACA
In a perfect world two imperfect people find each other. A beautifully filmed movie. They did everything just right. It’s a shame it doesn’t get more credit.

Bicentennial Man
Wow, what a happy sad movie. I cried SO hard at the end. And that doesn’t happen often. I can only think of one other movie that is as happy/sad at the end and that’s the Color Purple.

Fifth Element
Man, was that a whopper of a kiss at the end of the movie or what?

Star Man
Ah, an oldy but a goody. Starman’s speech to the scientist at near the end of the movie is some of the most poignant words ever in a SciFi film. And of course there’s the gift that he gives Karen Allen at the end. (Note to men: if your partner wants to have children and you don’t then do NOT watch this film with her or you’ll be sorry.)

The Matrix
You know, this really doesn’t count because you kinda have to watch all three movies in a row to see the depth of romance between Neo and Trinity. But think about it, Neo dies at the end of The Matrix and Trinity brings him back. Then the roles are reversed at the end of Reloaded and of course Neo sacrifices all of humanity for the chance to save her. Then they both die at the end of Revolutions. If you get a chance to listen to the philosopher’s commentaries on the box set they talk about Neo and Trinity being one soul. Of course Trinity doesn’t get the credit but Neo could never have achieved what he did without his love for Trinity.

Superman
The first Superman movie still stands out as one of the best comic adaptations ever. And talk about romance, Superman reverses the Earth’s spin just to save his love, L.L.

Lord of the Rings/Return of the King
I know what you’re thinking, “Dude, there are only three women with any significant role in the whole series - Arwen, Galadriel, and Eowyn.” But, at the end of the movie we have Aragorn and Arwen hooking up. (Did you notice that Elrond/Hugo Weaving was crying in the background?) Eowyn and Faramir are together and of course Sam and Rosie Cotton are married and have children. And you know, I’ve always wondered about the friendship that Gimli and Legolas formed.

The Princess Bride
This might be the best of the list, at least as a Valentien’s Day movie. Because you know, “Nothing is better than true love, except maybe a MLT sandwich - you know: Mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich; when the mutton is real fresh. Ummm, I just love those.”

I love British films. Films like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sliding Doors, Notting Hill, Love Actually. I could go on but it would be easier to just go to list all the films that Hugh Grant has been in. Now I can add another movie to my list of favorite British flicks: Shaun of the Dead.

Shaun of the Dead is fantastic comedy and social commentary. I especially like the beginning part where everyone seems like they are zombies but they’re really just plain British folks going about their boring, daily lives. The middle part of the movie is loads of fun. Most zombie movies have some super hero guy/gal who kicks some zombie ass. Not this film. We get an average bloke with a cricket bat. And as with all zombie films we get to wonder which main character gets munched next. The denouement is good fun to.

Basically Shaun of the Dead is good fun from beginning to end.

Few people outside of Brittan will recognize any of the cast and crew but they did the British TV-series “Spaced”. Come to think of it “Spaced” only ran for 2 years in Brittan so there may not be many people in Brittan who recognize the cast/crew. Nevertheless Shaun of the Dead has a TV quality cinematography to it. Not that it’s bad or anything. This isn’t a film that is based on cool filming or special effects. Although the Fx are better than those in Phantom Menace. (Note: there are no Fx in Shaun of the Dead.)

The film is simply about a guy who hasn’t gotten anywhere with his life, who has a mundane job, and a predictable social life. Basically your typical British bloke. And just when he decides to suss out his life all zombie breaks loose.

Perfect (pur’ fikt)
1. Complete of its nature or kind.
2. Being without defect or blemish: a perfect specimen.
3. Thoroughly skilled or talented in a certain field or area; proficient.
4. Completely suited for a particular purpose or situation: She was the perfect actress for the part.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow may not be the best movie ever; I wouldn’t even say that it’s my favorite SciFi film. However, I do think it was perfect. It’s perfect because after re watching it and listening to the commentaries I just can’t imagine that it could have been any better.

It’s impossible to review Sky Captain and not talk about the beautiful visuals and the style of which the film was shot. The work they did is just incredible. I’m not going to name names here - Phantom Menace - but there have been many recent SciFi films that have over used CGI. Often it’s like watching a cartoon and a film spliced together and the effect just comes off as amateurish. Sky Captain brings the best of CGI and cinematography together seamlessly, and, dare I say, perfectly.

But don’t think that Sky Captain is just a bunch of cool visuals. The story here is fabulous. It captures the early SciFi films of the 40s and 50s. You know, those films that used to come on TV during late Sunday afternoons. These were SciFi films that threw caution, and realism, to the aether. An innocent time when things were so much more unbelievably believable and realistically impossible.

Sky Captain comes close to being a parody. The secret base is always remotely located right around the corner; robots the size of buildings can fly - much like bricks don’t; planes can fly underwater and of course they save the day at the last possible moment. However, the story is well paced. It doesn’t slow down enough for you to say to yourself, “This is ridiculous.” Instead it’s more of an homage to the early classics in much the same way as <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark</em>.

Beyond that there is the interaction of the characters. Even here they draw inspiration from the classics. Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow play off each other wonderfully. Again, it reminds me of Karen Allen and Harrison Ford in <em>Raiders</em>. Plus you have to give all of the actors kudos for acting on a mostly empty stage surrounded by blue screens.

The DVD has all the extras you would want. There’s the commentary with Writer/Director Karry Conran and the VFX Crew. I enjoyed that mainly because I like hearing of the technical details and easter eggs in the film. There’s another commentary with the producer Jon Avnet that is okay. It’s hard for one person talking to do much with a commentary.

I wish they would have had a commentary with Gwen and Jude but that probably would have been pretty boring, “Hey, remember this scene? It’s where we were standing on a big, empty sound stage surrounded by blue walls. Oh, and this scene was great. I particularly liked sitting on a box, surrounded by blue walls, while pretending to drive a car.” It probably would have been a lot like that so maybe it’s best there was no actor’s commentary.

There are a few deleted scenes, a “gag reel” that’s full of bloopers and then “The Art of World of Tomorrow” that’s definitely worth watching.

The best part of the DVD extras is the two part “Brave New World” which is a behind the scenes look at making the movie. When you see that you’ll probably want to go out and buy another copy of the DVD just to give these guys some more money. This film was a vision of one man and the hard work of hundreds. People who put up with no money but wanted to see this project through. If you’ve ever thought of putting a film together you’ll want to see this.

The BBC documentary Planet Earth is an example of how good a documentary can be. There have been hundreds, thousands, of documentaries about our planet. Think of everything National Geographic has done, PBS, Discovery Channel, et al. Planet Earth is among the very best of them.

Since this was done by the BBC I’m pretty sure that it was filmed in High Def. I’m really looking forward to buying this on HD-DVD as soon as it’s available. Of course I first need to get a HD-DVD player and all but that’s coming soon.

The narration was done by the icon David Attenborough. Need I say more?

There are a few scenes that really dropped my jaw. The film footage they have of the Great White shark hunting an otter pretty much sold me on the fact that I must own this someday. They also have the best footage of the Himalayan Snow Leopard ever caught on film. I can say this with certainty since it’s the only footage of this animal ever made.

This is one of those documentaries that is great to sit down and watch once through, maybe twice. But it’s the sort of thing that is great to have on in the background when you’re futzing about the house. Especially if you have an HDTV.

Not that I’m a big fan of Sony but you can see James Bond using a Sony Vaio a few times in the movie Casino Royale. In most movies you see the actors using an Apple Macintosh. I think that’s because it’s good product placement for Apple, whose products are distinct. You can’t help but notice the big fraking Apple logo on their laptops. Whereas most Windows laptops are too nondescript to be discerned from one another.

I really wish Dell had put an XPS in his hands but at least we can say that Bond doesn’t use no stinkin’ Mac!

I don’t want to go overboard with this and I know that OS X, or whatever they’re up to now, is a damn good operating system but there’s a stereotype that “real men don’t use Macs.” I think that’s the main reason they didn’t do a product placement for Apple. It’s just the attitude, no matter how inaccurate, that you use a Mac to look at pictures, surf the web, email, that sort of thing. You use a PC when the fate of the world is at stake.

Note: this is a spoiler free review.

When I first heard news, about a year ago, of the new Bond film I thought, “Yeah, whatever.” There hadn’t been a good Bond film in what . . . 2, 3 decades? There had been a few decent ones but nothing that really stood out. So I wasn’t exactly marking my calendar for the release date.

About a week or so ago I checked RottenTomatoes.com to see what sort of reviews it was getting. And guess what? It was rated over 90% But, there had only been a handful of reviews. So, again, I didn’t get my hopes up, but it took some effort. Then again, a few days ago I checked and it was at 96% with over a hundred reviews counted. Are you kidding me? If you had told me, hell, if you had told anyone, that a Bond film would ever get over 90% at RottenTomatoes you would have been laughed at. That’s more unbelievable than the stupefying stunts that Bond pulls off in the movies.

Yet here I sit, having just watched the best Bond film I’ve ever seen.

Everyone knows that Bond is going to do the unbelievable at least a hand full of times in a movie. The trouble is many of the actors - all of them since Connery - didn’t sell it. Bond would come back from the brink of death leaving the audience on the brink of disbelief. I often felt that it was cute but I wasn’t buying it.

Daniel Craig sells it and the script gives him something to sell. In one of the first chase scenes we see a man make an amazing jump through a small opening in a wall of drywall. Craig bashes right through it. This Bond isn’t cute. He isn’t suave. And he doesn’t use neat gadgets to save himself. But he is believable.

Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair to judge this Bond film with the great Bond films that are over 20 years old. I think it’s better to compare it to what many think is the successor to Bond, Bourne. In that light I’d say that Casino is almost as good as the original, Bourne Identity. And it’s better than Bourne Supremacy.

Just for funzies I went to RottenTomatos.com to look for the worst movies and read the blurb reviews. Here are some of my favorites:

Alone in the Dark (2005) - Christian Slater, Tara Reid

“As video game adaptations go, even Pong: The Movie would have a lot more personality.”

How Uwe Boll manages to scrape together enough investment money to give wing to this type of overblown, amateurish gibberish is truly a mystery of the cosmos…

The three stars have seen better days, but I’d like to think they could still do something classier and more dignified than this. Like gay porn.

Saying Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV.

Alone in the Dark co-stars perpetual party-girl Tara Reid as an archeologist. That alone should give you some clue as to how bad this movie is.

If nothing else, Alone in the Dark proves that it’s possible to ‘dumb down’ a video game.

The Covenant (2006) - Steven Strait, Sebastian
This sort of thing might work as a desperation rental — like if you’ve been injected with poison and must keep watching incredibly lame movies or die …

Anyone with half a brain is not this movie’s target audience.

Movies like this are why we have eyelids.

To properly convey the jaw-dropping shoddiness of this videogame-based ‘horror’ ‘movie,’ one must approach what scientists call Absolute Stupid.

House of the Dead (2003) - Sonya Salomma, Jürgen

If you want to see what a cinematic piece of dog barf looks like, go see House of the Dead, otherwise do yourself a favour and play the video game, it’s far more entertaining.

House Of The Dead is laugh-out-loud funny. I should add, however, that it is not a comedy.

Ultraviolet (2006) - Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright

If you want to break up with your significant other, take him/her to this turd.

Anyway, we went to Ultraviolet so you won’t have to. It was awful. Next time you go, okay?

The adventures of Catwoman, Elektra, Lara Croft and Aeon Flux were positively Homeric compared to this simple-minded Hi-Def tedium…

Ultraviolet will be studied with great interest in the future - not for its quality or its artistic merit, but rather to discover how a turd like this was made.

Ultraviolet wants desperately to be a provocative, high-concept action thriller. It is apparently trying to say something about fear and terrorism, paranoia and racism. But it looks more like a shampoo commercial.

Not Even The Lovely And Seductive Milla Can Save This One. It Is Truly Excrement On Celluloid.

The bad guys stride through spotless corriders in buildings where weirdly calm disembodied female voices say things like “Switching to emergency backup lighting system.” If only I could have found the button for the emergency back-up better movie system.

Crank your brain to its lowest possible idle and you’ll still overthink Ultraviolet.

This is the first movie I ever saw that was so bad the audience was compelled to aplaud at the ending.

The concept of “infinity” is beyond the grasp of the human brain. Sure we have a word for it but that doesn’t mean that a person can truly get their mind around it. It’s the same thing with this movie. I can’t get my mind around just how bad it was. When I try to focus on it my mind just sort of slips and I go catatonic.

(no spoilers)

I’m shocked that RottenTomatoes.com has a rating of 22% for Da Vinci Code. I read the book a few months ago and loved it. I didn’t think it was great but the story was captivating and I loved the presentation of the puzzles throughout. I have a pretty solid background in mathematics, philosophy and history so you can guess that this is the sort of thing that I would love.

So what’s the grip that everyone has about the movie? It isn’t like this was a bad rendition of Shakespeare or Tolkien. This is a movie adaptation of a pretty good book but that book is light years from being considered high literature.

The acting was decent. With Tom Hanks in the lead everyone was expecting perfection but this just isn’t the role for him. I never thought he was bad, just nothing better than good.

Ian McKellen was pretty damn good. Surprised?

Acting wise the weak link was probably Audrey Tautou. Again, not that she was bad just not anything to write home about. And as a personal grip I wish Ron Howard would have focused more on getting Audrey to enunciate.

One thing that I really liked was that they played fair with the controversial issues. Every time a theory was proposed it was argued, intelligently and fairly.

Overall I would give the movie a B-. I enjoyed the movie but it isn’t anything that I’ll want to see again.