A month ago I got invited to a blogger/twitter screening of (500) Days of Summer, and I was gutted to discover it was on the same day as our Mozilla GeekDinner. Luckily for me though that wasn’t the only screening, and last Monday I was able to head down to Fox’s Soho screening room to finally see this movie.

(500) Days of Summer is about the relationship between Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel), a girl who doesn’t believe in love, and Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a guy, who strongly believes in true love and The One.

“This is not a love story. This is a story about love” That’s the tag line of this movie, and it’s exactly what this film is about. It’s about 500 days of Summer’s and Tom’s relationship, including all the ups and downs. It’s one of the sweetest and most beautiful movies I’ve seen this year, and I know it will be one of my rainy day comfort movies for many years to come.

The writer of this movie deserves an Oscar, cause the way this was put together is remarkable. Instead of following a linear story line, the movie is presented in a non-chronological format, jumping back and forth between different points of the relationship. Each scene starts off with a {}, showing which of the 500 days it is. It’s a refreshing way of putting things in perspective; you don’t remember everything in a linear fashion, and sometimes initially you might only remember the good stuff.

There’s also a lot more quirky storytelling elements/cinematography in (500) Days of Summer, which I adored. I’m not really sure how to describe some of my favourite scenes here without giving too much away. To not spoil too much, one example is of an early scene where the narrator (oh, yeah, there’s also a narrator, it gives the movie almost a fairytale-like edge to it) tells you what type of girl Summer is, and it’s done in this black-and-white fifties education video style. There are more of these special type of sequences, which are just so amazing and give the movie a unique twist.

Both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are fantastic in these roles. Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings a great range of emotions to this role and you can help but empathize with him. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing much more of him in the future. Zooey Deschanel is adorable as Summer. I’ve always liked her, but I’ve never really liked any of the stuff she was in, until now. It’s great to see her in a role as wonderful as this.

One more thing I have to mention about this movie is the style. The music, the clothes, the hairstyles, I loved it all. While it may not be everybody’s cup of tea, I was so jealous of Summer’s look. Some of the (vintage?) dresses she wore were just gorgeous, and I love the bows and hairbands she had in her hair throughout the movie.

(500) Days of Summer is a great romantic comedy, but not in the traditional sense. As the tag line says, this is a story about love, not a love story. And yet, it is one of the best cinematic romances I’ve seen in a long time. This movie is quirky and cute, and one I’d definitely recommend to everyone.

(500) Days of Summer – Release Date: 2 September 2009 (UK)

This review has two parts. First my normal review without any spoilers. Then, after a warning, my thoughts about this movie with spoilers.

I remember seeing the trailer for Passengers a long time ago, and thinking “huh, Anne Hathaway in a creepy thriller. Seems interesting.” And then I never heard anything about it.

Passengers is about Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway), a grief counselor working with the five sole survivors of a plane crash. Despite her better judgment, she develops a relationship with Eric (Patrick Wilson), the most mysterious of the survivors. But then, one by one, the survivors begin to disappear mysteriously, and Claire uncovers what might be a conspiracy…

There’s a reason I didn’t hear anything about this movie. The first two-thirds of the movie are boooring. The underlying plot is kind of intriguing, but everything else about the first hour is just bad. Everything unfolds way too slow, and there’s never any real tension or suspense. For a movie that’s being marketed as a thriller, Passengers doesn’t thrill at all. You never have the feeling that Claire is actually concerned that her patients are disappearing; she’s off fooling around with one of them. The threat of why they’re vanishing never feels real, and the conspiracy angle seems cliched.

But then that last half an hour happens (it could also be only the last quarter of an hour; I didn’t keep track when the ‘interesting’ part started). It’s not enough to save the movie, but I was semi-pleasantly surprised by it.

Another problem with this movie is the marketing. I’ve put the poster after the spoiler warning, cause anybody with a brain could figure it out just by seeing that poster. The DVD cover and tagline is even worse; don’t they want people to watch their movies?

If you catch this movie on TV, I’d say give it a go. You might turn it off halfway though, cause there’s not a lot going for it. If you’re able to watch beyond that (kudos to you!), I’m curious to hear what you thought about it. Don’t get this on DVD; it’s completely not worth it.

s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
Argh! Here be spoilers

So if you’ve come this far, you’ve already seen the movie or you want to be spoilt. The big twist of the movie is that Claire is actually one of the passengers from the plane crash and that she’s dead and in some kind of in-between limbo world. Everybody she comes across in the movie is dead; either they’re one of the other plane crashees or they are ‘sent’ to help them deal with death.

The idea is pretty cool, even though it’s just a rehash of The Sixth Sense. And it could have worked, if it had been one of those ‘figure it out’ movies. But there just wasn’t enough clues in the first part of Passengers for this. The twist comes completely unexpected (although I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have; because it was so boring, so I was reading blog posts at the same time) and then it goes all gooey “we’re dead, but we’re in love”. Add to that a tedious first part, and I wonder how many people were actually able to watch the entire movie without turning it off halfway.

By the way: I hadn’t seen that poster before the movie. I’m wondering if I would have been able to guess the twist, cause it seems pretty obvious with that poster!

I first heard about Moon back in January, when the first reviews of Sundance came online. Everybody was gushing about it, and I’ve been looking forward to it since. Then in April I featured a trailer for Moon here on my blog; and I was even more intrigued. I finally got to see it last week and I was right to be so interested in this movie. This is one of the best sci-fi movies of this year (maybe even THE best) and it’s great to hear it’s getting a wider release here in the UK.

Moon takes place sometime in the near future, where scientists have discovered an alternative energy resource harvested from the Moon. Astronaut Sam Bell is an employee for Lunar Industries stationed on a lunar base to extract this resource and send it back to Earth. He is almost at the end of his three year contract, having spent the past three years without human contact, and only his robot Gerty as a companion.

I won’t say more than that, cause it’s mainly the story of this movie that’s interesting. I heard a couple of weeks back that the trailer “only shows scenes from the first 15 minutes of the movie”. That’s not entirely true; I think it’s more like 20-25 minutes. Still the trailer doesn’t spoil it at all, and that’s what I love about Moon. What might have been the end/climax of most movies is here only the beginning.

Moon is very much an intelligent sci-fi story about the moral consequences and dilemmas of a “What If” situation. It moves pretty slow, and harks back to those sci-fi movies of old, like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Outland. Everything unfolds slowly, moving at its own leisurely pace. For some, this might feel a bit tedious, but I think it added to the charm of the movie.

The visuals are pretty stunning and it feels as if it’s shot on a much larger budget than is actually the case. The outside moon landscape scenes were mainly shot with miniatures and it’s refreshing to see that again instead of CGI. Except for one scene at the end, I thought it all looked fantastic. I also should mention the music; the score from Clint Mansell adds very much to the effect of the overall movie with some hauntingly beautiful tunes.

Sam Rockwell’s acting is the highlight of this movie. He carries Moon on his shoulders and without his strong performance the entire movie would come crumbling down. I can’t go that much into depth without giving too much away, but believe me when I say his performance is extra special.

Moon is one of the most interesting movies this year so far and I think it could be the best sci-fi movie of the year (although we’ll have to wait for 9 and District 9 first before I can claim that). It’s got a great, intelligent story and goes beyond your standard space plot. Highly recommended!

Moon – Out now in cinemas

It’s been ages ago since I actually saw this movie, but it’s one of those rare movies that deserves a bit more exposure than it has so far received.

The Fall is set in Los Angeles in 1915 and revolves around Alexandria, a five-year-old girl, who wanders around a hospital after breaking her arm. There she meets Roy, a Hollywood stunt man who is paralyzed after an ill-fated attempt at impressing a woman. Roy tries to convince Alexandria to bring morphine pills to him, by spinning her a wondrous tale of bandits, princesses and far away kingdoms.

The main reason you should watch this movie is for its visuals. The Fall is gorgeous, and I wish it had gotten a wider release in the cinemas; this is a movie I would have looooved to see on a huge screen. Director Tarsem Singh made this movie during the course of four years, visiting and shooting in over 20 countries to create this beautiful spectacle. This movie contains some of the most stunning cinematography I’ve ever seen, and it’s truly something you must watch at least once.

The weakness of The Fall though lies in its plot. While the premise of a story world within a story sounds great, its execution here isn’t that tidy. I was expecting much more of a fantastical complex story, maybe a touch of romance, a story that matches the beauty of its visuals. It’s still an okay movie, but it would have been so much more memorable and perfect if the tone of the story matched up with this gorgeous fantasy world.

Lee Pace, who shot this before starring in Pushing Daisies, is terrific as his scheming bedridden character. Even though he’s manipulating this sweet 5 year old girl, you can emphasize with him and understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. This was Catinca Untaru’s (the five-year-old Alexandria) first movie, and the director and crew conspired in a lot of the scenes to get a realistic performance from her; most of her reactions and lines are completely spontaneous. A lot of other people loved her “refreshingness”, but to be very honest I found her a bit annoying.

The Fall is a beautiful movie that deserves to be watched on a screen as large as possible. Even though the story isn’t completely up to scratch, the gorgeous visuals are well worth sitting down for an hour of two.

The Fall is available for £4.98 on Amazon.co.uk and for $19.99 on Amazon.com.

Years ago back when I was in high school there was this book that my sister had to read for school (in Dutch, might I add) and she hated it. Because of that I automatically assumed it sucked and refused to read it. Not long after that it became a world wide hit, yet I remained saying it was an awful book (while never having read a word of it). Until I saw the movie and decided to give it a go anyway. Well, that book was the first Harry Potter (to be very fair I have actually read the Dutch translation now and compared to the original, it does really really suck).

I kind of had the same reaction to Twilight from Stephanie Meyers. I had read a bit of it, a couple of chapters, but my opinion was mainly formed by the many book review blogs out there. In my eyes, it seemed like a weak hyped-up rip-off from many other great vampire books. Now I haven’t read the book yet, but after seeing the movie I might actually give it a go (ah, history repeats itself).

Twilight is about Bella Swan, a teenager that moves to the small gloomy town of Forks to live with her father. As she starts her junior year in high school she becomes fascinated by Edward Cullen, a mysterious and captivating student. Bella soon discovers that Edward is hiding a secret, after he impossibly saves her life from a van with his super-human strength and speed. She is determined to unravel his secret, but the truth is more terrifying than she realizes. Edward is a vampire. Any normal person would just keep away from him, but Edward and Bella fall passionately in love with each other. And so begins the forbidden relationship between a human and a vampire.

Is Twilight a great movie? No. Not by far. It seems much more like a made-for-TV film or a regular TV show. The special effects are horrendously bad, the acting is bland, the editing seems choppy at times and the pacing is pretty slow. And yet, it’s turned out better than I expected. True, my expectations were very very low, but there’s something about this movie that makes me like it. It’s one of those guilty-pleasures type of movies, that I know will end up on the list of movies I can watch when I’m sick to my stomach lying on the couch from fever or flu.

Story-wise it isn’t original at all. Girl falls in love with a good vampire boy. Vampire boy is tempted by her blood and refuses to see her. Bad vampire boy finds out about girl and hunts her down. Good vampire boy saves her and realizes he cant live without her. Been there, done that. If the book is anything like the movie, I still remain convinced that there are way better vampire stories out there, with much more complex and interesting mythologies.

If you want a cheesy easy romantic flick for a summer afternoon, try Twilight. I liked it much more than I expected, and I’m even considering seeing it’s sequel New Moon in the cinema (not completely sure yet, depends if anyone else is interested in coming along).

Twilight is out now on DVD.

I’m a bit late with posting my review on Tranformers 2, but seeing how opinions on this sequel are so diverse, I thought I’d add my thoughts to the big melting pot that is the blogosphere. As a small side note first though: I booked my tickets a month in advance on the BFI IMAX site; the film was only being released in IMAX a full week after normal cinemas received it, but I thought it would be worth it to wait for the IMAX. Imagine my surprise when I later found out that somehow they had managed to get the movie earlier anyway, on the same date as normal cinemas. I’m just a bit pissed off that they failed to inform people about it. It would have been great to hear about it, and maybe re-allocate my tickets or something like that.

Transformers 2 reunites us with Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), who are preparing themselves for a long distance relationship as Sam is moving away to college. But of course they get caught up again into the war between the Decepticons and the Autobots, as Sam gets affected by the final sliver of the AllSpark.

Transformers is a big stupid summer action movie franchise, and you shouldn’t be expecting anything more than that. Transformers 2 continues on with more gigantic robots, bigger explosions and  more battles between gigantic robots. It’s far from being a “great” movie, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. It’s a typical Michael Bay movie, and sometimes that’s exactly the type of mindless entertainment we need.

The CGI is gorgeous, and unlike the prequel we get to see a bit more zoomed-out shots of the robot battles. We also get to see some new types of robots, including a robot jaguar, a set of female motorcycles, a mini radio-controlled monster truck and a duo of “gangsta” Chevrolets (there has been a lot of debate about this characters online. My thoughts: it’s a Michael Bay movie, do we really have to overanalyze everything?). The sequences are superb, although with so many different robots on screen it sometimes difficult to follow who is who (also I was never that much of a Transformers fan growing up, so I don’t recognize many of the minor characters or which side they’re on).

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is a fun summer action movie, full of robot battles and explosions. If you liked any previous Michael Bay movies, go ahead and see this one; there’s no doubt you’ll like it. If you hated the previous Transformers, there’s no chance in hell you’ll like this one.

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is out now in cinemas.

I adore the first two Terminator movies. I was born in the year the first one came out and was only 7 when the second one came out, but I do feel as if I’ve grown up with these stories. These are the movies that made me think and dream about time travel and timelines, and I still enjoy theorizing about these type of plots. I was really looking forward to this latest installment of the Terminator series, and while it’s not everything I hoped it would be, it’s still a great action flick.

Terminator Salvation focuses on Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a man who wakes up in 2018 with no recollection of how he got there. Judgment Day has come and passed, and the human survivors are struggling in their war against the machines. John Connor (Christian Bale) is part of the resistance and knows he has to find his “father” Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), still a civilian trying to survive.

The main problem with Terminator Salvation is that this isn’t the movie every Terminator fan has been waiting for. Anybody who has seen the other movies wants to see one thing: the final battle between the machines and the resistance. What happens after they’ve sent back Kyle Reese and the terminators? Does John Connor and the resistance finally win the war? When does everything finally come full circle? This isn’t that movie. This movie is but a chapter in the whole saga, where Kyle Reese and John Connor meet. And that would have been fine, if they were the main two characters. If this movie was truly about the birth of their friendship. But it isn’t. Instead Terminator Salvation revolves around Marcus Wright, a new mysterious character, whose story line you see coming from a mile away. 

It kind of works. I mean I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I came out of the theatre thinking it was awesome. But reflecting on it, I just think it could have been better. I mean, you’ve got these characters that the fans love and whose stories they want to hear, but instead we get a movie about this Marcus Wright. I don’t see why they needed this new character; why couldn’t they have focused more on Kyle Reese and John Connor? Or Connor and his wife? Or the rise of Connor in the resistance? It just didn’t feel necessary to have this movie revolving around this character whose story we’re not really interested in.

Sam Worthington is okay as Marcus Wright, and by the end of the movie you are rooting for him. There’s nothing wrong with his acting (although at times his Australian accent slips through), it’s just you’re not as invested in his character as some of the others. Christian Bale is a bit of a disappointment as John Connor. When I heard he was cast, it just seemed perfect; who else could play the fierce, yet tortured resistance leader? And yet, it didn’t really work. There’s just something in him that doesn’t make you truly believe that this is a continuation of the same John Connor, although that may be due more to the way his character was written than Bale’s performance. The highlight of this movie for me had to be Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. After seeing him in Star Trek as Chekov, I didn’t think he could pull this character off (he just looks too baby faced there and not at all like Reese). But you get the feeling he must have watched and studied Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese in The Terminator for hours, cause he’s spot on with his performance. 

The other characters don’t add much to the movie. Bryce Dallas Howard is fine as Kate Connor, but she doesn’t get that much to work with. She has this whole back story and history with John Connor and she’s pregnant with his child, but all she gets to do is stand on the sidelines and be a sounding board to his worries. Moon Bloodgood is introduced as a love interest for Marcus Wright, but it feels rushed and very unbelievable. 

I did really like the look of Terminator Salvation. After Judgment Day, the world is practically a bleak, deserted wasteland and visually they’ve managed to capture that. It’s gritty and barren, and exactly what you’d expect the world to look like after a nuclear winter. The action and special effects in this movie are also superb, with enough explosions and fights to do justice to the previous films. I loved the design of some of the new robots, even though some seemed a bit more advance than what you’d expect at this point in time.

Terminator Salvation is a great summer action flick. Story wise it’s not fantastic, but for most people I guess it doesn’t have to be. Unlike some, I didn’t hate this movie, and I think McG managed to deliver a fun enjoyable film. I’m just disappointed it’s not the Terminator movie I was hoping for, but if it does well at the box office, we might see one in the near future.

I had seen the trailer of Gran Torino a while back and remembered thinking “Oscar Movie. Pass.”. But then my brother went to see it and said it would be a film our entire family would enjoy. I didn’t really believe him, but it seemed like the right movie to see when my parents were in town.

Gran Torino stars Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War vet who has just lost his wife. He’s grumpy, tough, and can’t get along with his kids or his neighbours. All he cares about is his dog, Daisy, and his prized car, a 1972 Gran Torino. When his teenage Hmong neighbours, Thao and Sue, get into trouble with the local gang, Walt steps in to help them out. Before he knows it, that gets Walt deeper embroiled into the life of his neighbours.

‘Everybody’s a little bit racist sometimes, Doesn’t mean we’re all out committing hate crimes’ (from one of the songs of Avenue Q, but more about that in a later post). Gran Torino’s main character  Walt seems to fit that bill exactly; his remarks about his neighbours are cringeworthy at times, but you know that he doesn’t really mean it. I don’t think anybody but Clint Eastwood could have pulled that character off; Walt is tough and scary, not two attributes you’d associate with a 78-year old. Eastwood delivers lines that could have turned out silly, but hearing him say them you know he means it. Even that old, Eastwood is still believable as a tough no-nonsense guy.

The story takes a bit slow to unravel, but halfway through it speeds up. Don’t come into this movie expecting a lot of action; it isn’t an action movie. There are a couple of “action”-y scenes (Clint being tough), but nothing too spectacular. Gran Torino also isn’t really a drama; most of the movie is pretty upbeat and I found myself laughing during a couple of scenes. 

Gran Torino is an interesting movie, and I’m surprised it wasn’t nominated for more Oscars this year. Having seen most of the contenders, I truly think Gran Torino was better than most of those and Clint Eastwood deserved at least to be nominated for Best Actor.

I’m on “holiday” (it’s not really a holiday when you’ve got appointments with dentist, doctor, optician, etc and a whole load of other stuff to sort out) to the Netherlands this week, so I thought I’d re-blog a couple of my older blog posts. This post was written in July 2007  and was actually the first review I ever wrote (for MissGeeky and just in general). If you haven’t seen The Fountain yet, go and watch it! It remains one of my favourite movies.

A couple of weeks ago I finally saw The Fountain. It’s written and directed by Darren Aranofsky, who did Requiem for a Dream and Pi (two films on my very long “still to watch” list) and stars Hugh Jackman (X-Men, The Prestige) and Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener, The Mummy).

I’m not sure how to describe the movie without giving too much away of the plot, but I’m going to give it a try. As the title suggests, the movie’s about the Fountain of Youth, the Tree of Life, in short the quest for being able to live forever. The story spans a 1000 years merging three storylines. The first is in the present with a doctor, trying to find a cure for his dying wife. The second is in the 16th century with a conquistador who is given the mission by his queen to search for the Tree of Life. The third… well… I think you have to see the third to actually believe me, but it’s about 500 years in the future about a space traveler traveling through space (duh) in a giant bubble (not so much duh).

It somehow sounds too weird, but it actually works all great together. The movie is beautifully filmed, although some may say the special effects and lighting make it too fake. I actually thought they were used just right, giving the movie this surreal, magical feel. What I really love about The Fountain though is that it’s open to your own interpretation. I love movies which get you thinking and in this case the plot, the settings, the characters all stimulate you in constructing an explanation in which you believe in. It’s gives the same fulfillment as solving a difficult puzzle.

The movie didn’t do that well in the box office and I do see why. It’s different then the normal mainstream movies and for the regular movie-goer it might be a bit too slow and confusing. I’d recommend this film to anyone who wants something fresh, romantic and doesn’t get too confounded with a movie that puts your mind to work.

One of my Must-Watch summer movies of this year was Star Trek. Ever since I first heard about this “reboot” I’ve been curious to see what it would turn out to be. With J.J. Abrams and friends at the helm, I was bit dubious at first; I’m not a huge fan of Abrams, even though he’s behind some of my favourite shows. I always see him as a hyper-active kid with ADHD, jumping from one project to the other, without caring how to wrap up those projects neatly (see: Alias, Lost). With Star Trek, however, I realized that (unlike with his TV shows) that wouldn’t be too much of a problem: a Star Trek movie would be a self-contained entity and even if there were unanswered questions and cliffhangers, it could never be as “unsolvable” as Lost, right?

Star Trek is set before the original series, featuring the beginnings of Kirk, Spock, & co at the Star Fleet academy. We get to see how and why Kirk joins the academy, and how he ends up on the Enterprise. Likewise we get an interesting glimpse of Spock’s childhood and family.

Abrams delivers a great summer movie, that not only pleases fans and newcomers, but reboots the entire franchise, taking it into a fresh and exciting direction. Some might say the differences between a “remake” and a “reboot” are non-existent, but in this case I truly believe this movie is more than just a “remake”. This Star Trek manages to introduce us to the same characters we’ve seen before in a different new way, yet still stays true to the original portrayals, story lines and cannon. And, to be frank, it’s pretty amazing that they were able to pull that off.

Besides that this Star Trek is the first Trek that’s a “real” movie, delivering an actual cinematic experience. This Star Trek looks and feels like it’s worth seeing in the cinema; it’s visually stunning and it’s got that epic Star Wars-like movie feeling that all the previous Treks were missing. This isn’t just a B-movie-slightly-overbudget-extra-long-tv-episode; this is an actual Movie.

All the actors are great in their roles, some of them freakishly channeling their predecessors. Chris Pine as Kirk captures that same arrogance and charisma that Shatner had, without it going too over the top. He’s got that Han Solo/Indiana Jones vibe going on; on the one side you kind of want to slap him, on the other you can’t help but like him. Zachary Quinto was born to play Spock; he had the toughest shoes to fill (mainly cause those shoes were still half full), but he pulls it off flawlessly. His Spock is cool and logical, trying to keep his human emotions in check, but there are a couple of great moments where we get to see what’s brewing underneath. Karl Urban as Bones gets some difficult lines to deliver, which could have easily gone very cheesy, but he delivers them with pitch perfection. All the other characters have their shining moments, but I still wish we got to see more of them (especially Sulu and Chekov don’t get enough screen time). 

The plot has a couple too many coincidences for me to be completely satisfied by it (I won’t spoil anything here, but if you’ve seen it, just think about the ice planet scenes). It could all be explained away with “fate”, but that feels a bit too lazy for my tastes. For the rest, it felt very much like a first episode, introducing all the characters and setting up the unvierse. Overall though I did enjoy the story, and I can’t wait for the next ‘chapter’.

As I said before, the look and feel of Star Trek is beautiful. The costumes and set pieces are all reminiscent to the older designs, yet slightly slicker and more practical. I loved the CGI worlds of Earth and Vulcan; the architecture was just amazing. Before the screening I had seen a couple of reviews complaining about the amount of lens flares, but these didn’t really annoy me. 

Star Trek is (as I said at the start of this review) one of the MUST-SEE movies of this summer. I got to see it at the Imax, and if you get the chance to see it there, do it. The mega screen is completely worth the little extra you pay for a ticket. Also: whether you’re a die hard fan or someone who’s never seen Star Trek ever in your life, you’re sure to enjoy it (newcomers might not get all the little in-jokes, but those aren’t necessary to make sense of everything). Seeing this Star Trek has gotten me completely primed and in the mood for more. In other words: I can’t wait for a sequel!