Category: Reviews

Yesterday I watched the Clint Eastwood directed film Flags of our Fathers which focuses on the story behind the famous photograph of American soldiers putting up an American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. It takes a look at what happened to the soldiers who were in the original picture and intermixes with flashbacks of the actual events at the Battle of Iwo Jima.

I enjoyed this film as it had a bit of everything in it. It wasn’t entirely based on what you see in the front lines of the war, but took a look at what happened behind the scenes. For example, the famous photo was used as propaganda to get more money coming in (via bonds) to finance the war. They brought back the soldiers who were in the picture to go on a tour to encourage citizens to buy bonds. The film focuses around this tour and the personal hell that some of the soldiers are going through. Flags of our Fathers is also based on a novel by James Bradley who talks about not knowing his father’s involvement in the war and it turns out that he is one of the soldiers in the famous photograph.

If you look at the film chronologically, it shows the Battle of Iwo Jima, then the subsequent tour of the fellows in the famous photograph, then the interviews of soldiers by James Bradley trying to find out more about his father during the war as his own father never really spoke about it.

It was a touching tale when it got to the parts where the son is piecing together what sort of man his father really was and never realized until he was on his death bed. I enjoyed the film showing the other side of war and how a single photograph became a driving force behind a funding mechanism for the war.

Recommended.

Of note is the fact that Clint Eastwood filmed a companion film called Letters from Iwo Jima which looks at the Japanese viewpoint.

Friday was a blistery snowy day so I decided to camp out at Vero’s until the rush hour traffic decided to subside. I spent a few hours going through her iTunes program and organizing her music files. She has a billion music files which aren’t tagged properly and some of them don’t even have titles! It’s quite the project. It would probably take a straight month of organizing it. In the end, I found a few gems which will find her way to the iPod.

We then had supper and went to Rogers Video where I scored Da Ali G show Season 1 for $4.50! We also bought Flags of Our Fathers and The Da Vinci Code. We had both read the book and enjoyed it and were anxious to see the film (although what the heck was Tom Hanks doing with that haircut?). Vero has spoken to her father beforehand and he said he didn’t really care for the film but he had also never read the book. Armed with this knowledge, I made it halfway through the film until I fell asleep. From what I saw, it was an alright flick. Considering I had read the book years ago, I forgot a lot of the story so I must say that the film was a little confusing. I think the beauty of a book is that if you didn’t understand what you just read, you re-read it. Not so much while watching a film (unless you want to rewind and watch again I suppose, but that kills the mood the film sets) so there were a few parts where they were rambling on about the Knights Templar and the Priory and I was saying “Whaaaa?”. I doubt the film got much better near the end so I will say that the people who read the book will think it’s a faithful adaptation but for those who haven’t read the book…meh. Did anyone else feel like they wanted Harrison Ford in the lead role instead of Tom Hanks?

iplaying: The Living – Neverending White Lights (Act II: the blood and the life eternal

If you are looking for a good thing, look no further than Paul. He always recommends some great reads to me.

His latest venture was recommending Kurt Busiek’s Astro City to me.

WARNING – These are comic books. Read no further if you have no interest in expanding your horizons to the ever cool picture and text format.

Astro City starts off looking at the superhero Samaritan who seems like a Superman-type figure, flying to trouble all over the world. In fact, that is the focus of the first issue…how he flies everywhere and helps everyone and he really has no time for himself. It takes a look at the other side of being a superhero…what’s going on in a superhero’s head when he can’t get enough sleep because there is a typhoon in Japan.

Astro City is a fictional city which has had it’s years of superheroes dating back from the 60s, much like you would think New York in the Marvel Universe is. The story is told in present day (circa ’90s when the comic came out) and it’s interesting to see the story unfold with names you don’t know and such a rich history which is alluded to. Imagine yourself starting to read Batman or Superman and realizing they may be referencing things about Metropolis or Gotham City which have happened sixty years ago!

I read the first six issues last night and they were a fresh read. Each comic focussed on an entirely different aspect of Astro City…a superhero, a super-villain, life as a citizen of Astro City…it was a good introduction to the entire universe.

Highly recommend this read.

I also did a little reading about Kurt Busiek and it looks like his first foray into this type of storytelling was in the Marvels mini-series which showed the Marvel universe from the standpoint of the outsiders – the reporters, the citizens….imagine yourself seeing Spider-Man swing by on your way to work! I am anxious to take a look at the Marvels mini-series.

On Saturday afternoon I returned to the homestead to find Mike frustrated/depressed about how the United States of America’s health system is laid out. He had just finished watching Michael Moore’s new documentary – Sicko. Sicko takes a look at the American health care system as it exists now and compares it to others around the world.

In a nutshell, the American health system is not a form of universal health care. Unless you have insurance, you have to pay out of pocket for your health care (from what I can tell from the facts laid out to me…haven’t done a LOT of research on this topic.). However, there are private health insurance companies all over the place so as long as you have insurance, you should be fine.

However, this is where Michael Moore’s documentary begins its story. It takes a look at how the insurance companies are really out to make a buck and not help out people in need. They interview ex-employees and show how Directors were given bonuses and promotions depending on the number of high expense surgeries they denied. They took a look at how much money these insurance companies made in a year vs. how much the hospitals make.

There are examples of horror stories about how people go bankrupt because of medical bills. It’s not their fault they are sick! I wanted to punch one guy at the beginning of the film. He was complaining to his parents that he always had to help move them (they had currently moved into their daughter’s place) and that they were an inconvenience. Why were they a bother? Because they were both sick (cancer and whatnot) and had run out of money paying for the bills and had to move in with their daughter or various others. I tend to not curse people, but I hope this son of theirs gets a flesh-eating disease or something.

The first half of the film deals with how the health care system in the United States sucks. From what I know about it, there is an advantage to having private health care systems in the fact that they can afford to have the best equipment and the shortest wait times and the best care you can ever have. IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT. There was an example of one guy who cut off the tips of his fingers on a table saw and he had the choice of reattaching the tip of his ring finger for $12,000 or the tip of his middle finger for $60,000. I had a good laugh when they told this to some Canadian and the guy did a double take at the concept of having to choose between his fingers.

There a slew of examples that paint the picture of how the system kind of sucks for the common folk. The second half of the film has Michael Moore traveling the world to see if there is anything better out there. In the United States, there has been an outcry AGAINST socialized/universal health care, where the GOVERNMENT can make a decision as to what doctor helps you or what mediocre equipment you have at your service. So he wanted to check out what was the big deal with universal health care…

He first goes to Canada (which I always love in a Michael Moore film) and finds out that it isn’t so bad after all. Chances are, the majority of my readers are Canadian so I don’t have to explain anything here.

He then goes to London, England and Paris, France. This was the most interesting part of the film for me as I had no idea some of the systems they had over there.

For example, France (and maybe England? I forget) have doctors who perform house calls. There was this amazing story of how in Paris there was a guy who had a pipe burst in his house and he called the 24-hour plumber. He then thought “If I can get a plumber at 5 in the morning, why can’t I get a doctor?”. So he began SOS Medecins which have doctors running around the city helping out people in their homes. They hop in their car, check with dispatch as to where to run off to next and continue all night long. Brilliant!

They also talked about how new mothers get a government employee to come by twice a week to help with anything they need – laundry, making meals, cleaning, etc. The government realizes that being a new mother may be a little hard.

So then Michael Moore returns to the States, has a reflective moment as to why their health system sucks and all is good in the world. Well not really, but there is this hilarious scene where he brings some needy folk to Cuba (of all places) for some medical help.

What did I think of the film?

Content: I thought the information presented was interesting. I personally enjoyed seeing how other countries health care systems were set up and the reasons for it.
Style: Oh, Michael Moore. Some people hate you, but I love his sarcasm. It’s chock full of commentary from him which is hilarious. Plus, you can’t go wrong at the end of the film when he heads to Cuba (of all places) with rescue workers from the World Trade Center bombings. LOVE IT! While some people denounce how he presents his information (hello bias!), I also feel that it’s important to make people aware of issues surrounding them and not have it hidden from their eyes. I am sure that an entire film could be made to denounce every one of his claims within the film but that isn’t the point. The point is that he gets his point home and that point is that the United States health care system could take a little work.
Emotion: While Mike was frustrated at how a country could treat their people that way (at one point he proclaimed that he would never support their economy and shop there ever again, but then retracted that thought a few hours later), I can say that I was saddened to see that the United States of America’s citizens have it bad when it comes to health care and I never thought about it much until now. I will never take our universal health care for granted again. If you see me complaining about waiting 12 months for an operation, let me watch that film again.

So that’s that. I would recommend this film but if you are an avid hater of anything Michael Moore produces, then pass on it. But if you’re not, take a look at it, if not to realize that we live in a pretty swell country. However, I think I want to move to France now!

Last night I dropped by Music World before heading to Vero’s to pick up the new (old) Beatles film – Help! Before they jacked up the price. Music World takes no time with their announcement that they are shutting down; there were signs all over the place saying “STORE CLOSING!” and here’s the scoop from the Palmer:

– The Music World stores will be shutting down by the second week in January
– 20% off all white ticket items (white tickets are the ones not on sale).
– 10% off all blue/orange ticket items (which are the ones on sale).

So I saved $2 on my Beatles film which isn’t too shabby. It isn’t anything to thank the heavens for, but that’s money in my pocket.

After munching on some lovely fajitas courtesy of the lovely Vero, we settled in to watch Help! I have only heard the album/soundtrack and have never seen The Beatles in film before (other than the first 10 minutes of Yellow Submarine…but does that really count? I don’t think so!) so I was excited to see what they had to offer.

It was a hilarious tale with some spy/action/deadpan humour mixed into one! I have only seen a few films from the 60s but I love the carefree nature of them. This film is absurd! But that’s the fun of it! You can see they are having fun in this film.

Turns out that some Eastern cult is about to sacrifice a woman but discover she isn’t wearing the sacrificial ring. We find out that our favourite drummer Ringo has acquired it and so begins the hunt for the ring. There are many factions after the ring as some realize there must be some power inherent with it as it cannot easily come off of Ringo’s finger (believe me, they try!). They film is also interwoven with The Beatles performing seven tracks from their Help! Album which are a treat as they are integrated into the film (like when they are performing in Austria after escaping there to get away from their hunters).

I read on Wikipedia that they had discovered their love for marijuana during this period and had it every morning before shooting began and the director (Richard Lester) said it was impossible to get them to do much after lunch. While he said it was frustrating, everyone had a great time doing the film at the time.

I can say that I’ll watch this film again as it reminded me of the absurd films that Monty Python are famous for. Perhaps this was what the sixties were about in film-land – just having a good time with a mediocre plot.

Highly recommend for a good laugh and a piece of history.

iplaying: All Your Love – John Mayall & The BluesBreakers (Crossroads Disc 1)

Mike and I watched A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) last night after a great raclette meal over at Eric and Annie’s place.

I had picked AI up at some garage sale at work a few years back and didn’t think I had seen it. Considering Vero is scared of anything to do with robots, I had to resort to my non robot hating friends to watch this film.

The scoop is that this film was the brainchild of Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielburg for the longest time and then Kubrick passed away so Spielburg continued with the vision of the future where robots are a part of our society and one robot maker wishes to see if he can make a robot which can LOVE.

So begins the tale of David, the boy robot who comes into the life of a family who think their son will never come back from whatever ailment he is suffering from. While the robot started off as being quite creepy in the fact that it just stood and started most of the time, the owners (parents) initiated the imprinting protocol which would allow the robot to love the parents. This is when David actually becomes like a normal kid which didn’t freak me out as much.

However, it’s just not David’s day as the parents real son makes a recovery, comes back into their life and then David is jealous and ends up getting taunted into doing crazy things by the real son (like taking a lock of their mother’s hair to show how much he loves her).

In the end, the robot gets booted from the house and then the real cool part of the film happens as you enter this Blade Runner-esque world where humans and robots interact but it’s all very film noir – you have thousands of robots being thrown into trash heaps because they are obsolete, you have flesh-fairs where they destroy robots by firing them through canons or dropping acid on them and the spectators cheer.

It was all very marvelous and I love the imagery once they started looking at the universe outside of the parents home.

While the concept was pretty cool, I really thought the ending was cheese – ala Spielburg endings. What can I say? I can’t knock the guy. He knows that he’s making a decent flick here about the hope of robots. It was like ET but for robots. 🙂

While I was watching it I realized I had seen it before but really couldn’t remember the ending and at one point in the film, something in my memory triggered the fact that I was entering new domain in the film – as in, I had seen the film up until that point and for whatever reason had shut it off. It was strange for my brain to register the exact moment where I had last seen the film…which would have been years ago.

Verdict: It’s a decent flick, but I prefer the darker futuristic movies (gotta check out Blade Runner – The Final Cut when it comes out in December!).

iplaying: Surf City Eastern Block – The Arcade Fire (2007-11-08 Berlin, Columbiahalle)

Wow. I’d like to thank Paul for inadvertently recommending this book via The Wolfshack. I haven’t read a book which had me wanting more in awhile. Sure, I dabble in the Star Wars novels if there are new ones, but they are the same old. This was a fresh tale of thieves and their swashbuckling ways.

The story revolves around Locke Lamora, a thief in the fictional city/village/whatever you want to call it of Camorr where it plays like something out of an old role playing game like Quest For Glory – where they have thieving guilds, magicians and brute force. In Camorr, they are under the rule of Duke Nicovante and Locke Lamora and his fellows (The Gentleman Bastards as they like to call themselves) take it upon themselves to steal from the rich and elite to line their pockets with a small wealth. They start out as regular thieves but end up becoming con-artists in the process and thinking up more elaborate schemes.

Scott Lynch (from reading his bio and whatnot) is a young chap…my age or thereabouts who wrote this marvelous tale. He doesn’t shy away from admitting that he is into video games, comic books, everything that is good in the world…so the book was like a familiar friend. The sense of camaraderie between Locke Lamora and friends made you feel like you are eavesdropping on a grand adventure. I especially liked how the author intertwined flashbacks at the appropriate times.

I haven’t read many novels this past year but I would probably say this will make it as my #1 of the year. I am tempted to pick up the second one, but the series is seven books long and the second one is the only other one out there. I feel like he is pulling a Harry Potter…the first novel was a self-contained story but left us with questions at the end which will undoubtedly be answered within the series.

Californication is a new series which stars everyone’s favourite conspiracy theorist – David Duchovny! He plays Hank Moody – a writer’s block author who had a few great novels in the past, even one that got butchered into a film.

Hank lives on his own but has a daughter Becca with the love of his life Karen but Karen is marrying some other guy because Hank and Karen are no longer together (for whatever reason). The series follows Hank’s pursuits with women as well as the cure to his writer’s block.

I love David Duchovny in this show. He is so sarcastic. I love it. I also like the situations that he gets into which are rip-roaring funny. Couple this with a great theme of the love of music (where every episode title is a song name) and there is always talk of musical pop culture references – (my fave – “What you need is a guitar that is timeless, and classic, and looks like Keith Richards threw up all over it in the 70s.). The character development is amazing. I love these characters and all their idiosyncrasies.

This show does not disappoint and it’s probably one of my more favourite series since Friends and that’s saying a lot. Mike and I enjoy the show thoroughly and he said he sister watched the entire season while she was up here for the past two days and she loved it also.

My only caveat for people who are interested in checking it out is that it’s not for the faint of heart. There’s cussing, there’s nudity, there’s talk about what leads to the nudity…it’s pretty graphic. So keep that in mind. I personally am not offended with this stuff, but some people are.

Season 2 starts airing Summer 2008. Gives you plenty of time to check it out.

On Friday night, we headed over to Benoit’s place (which, coincidentally, is defined as the greatest place in the world) to watch some horror films to continue our thirst for blood and zombies.

First up was 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later which showed a desolate London, England which has fallen victim to the Rage virus – a virus which spread amongst the population and created maniacal zombies which stopped at nothing but carnage in the form of eating innocent humans. The film’s hero awakes in a hospital and tours around London to find that there is NO ONE LEFT. This haunting film follows his quest to find survivors and to escape the zombies only to find out that sometimes you don’t know what’s worse – the zombies, or the surviving humans.

28 Weeks Later takes place 28 weeks after the original outbreak of the virus when all is seemingly well in London and the city has started to take refugees back into the city under strict US Army supervision (because the English army has been wiped out?). There are quarantine zones as they go through and clean up the mess left behind but two kids go into the quarantine zone to find their old house and get some things (clothes, etc). I don’t think I’m ruining anything concerning the film when I tell you that once again, the virus has an outbreak and zombie terror reigns but it’s coupled with the insane actions of the US Army to control the situation.

In the end, Benoit was saying he enjoyed this film more than the first. I have to say that I at least think it’s on par with the old one, but upon future viewings it may become better. It’s an excellent sequel – an original storyline about what happens after the outbreak. The zombies are my favourite variety of any series – hyper-fast, crazy in their feedings of the living, spitting blood…BEAUTIFUL!

My only gripe of the film was the fact that they used this one driving tune (In The House – In A Heartbeat by John Murphy) that appeared in 28 Days Later EVERY TIME WHEN THE ZOMBIES WERE RUNNING AROUND! While I really enjoyed this driving guitar song which raises your anticipation of chaos, I would like to think that they could have found some different music to place inside the film instead of having it happen 20 times in the movie. Come on people! There was also this one ludicrous scene where a zombie survived the napalming of the city, but that’s a minor irritant.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and I would have to say (this doesn’t come from me often), it may win the BEST MOVIE EVER award from yours truly.

Next up, we watched Hatchet. I had seen an advertisement in Vice Magazine for this film and also checked out its Wikipedia entry where it said it was an official selection for many film festivals and had sold out around the world. I guess it is a great film so I downloaded it for our viewing pleasure.

Don’t bother. This film was awful. AWFUL. It’s one of those films which are so bad, it’s good! I can see myself watching this again just to have a laugh. While I thought the death sequences were over the top, that was the only redeeming quality to this film.

Thanks to Benoit and Cinthia for hosting the event at their luxurious pad.

Bonus Review:

It wasn’t until someone mentioned Batman this morning that I remembered the greatest part of horror film night – the moment where we put in the original Batman movie with Adam West and watched the scene where he enters the ocean and exits it with a shark attached to his leg! His only way out is to club it with his bat-gloves and ask Robin to bring down the shark reppelant. Honestly, it doesn’t get any better than that people.

How can such a dark, brooding character be the victim to such an insanely funny TV show?

iplaying: Nothing Else Matters – Metallica (S&M)

Saturday had me working on finishing the last part of Midterm Madness, a proposal for a research project I’m doing for my sociology class. What’s the worst thing about essays? You need to find literature to back your stuff up. Boo! I like the format of your own website where you can spew out garbage that you think is true and people have to believe that you are well informed. Plus, they don’t ask for references.

Once I completed that, Vero and I headed over to Eric and Annie’s pad to babysit Philippe while they went out to the Sens game. Poor kid had a fever so he wasn’t doing much at all. In hindsight, babysitting a baby must be a heck of a lot easier than babysitting kids you can run around because you have to be constantly running around!

In the end, babysitting on my end wasn’t much of a success as every time I got close to him, he started crying. So Vero basically took care of him while I sat and watched Forrest Gump on TV (excellent flick! I forgot about this film.) and after we munched on some St. Hubert, we settled gave Philippe a bath, got him ready for bed and then we checked out a Harry Potter film (instead of Transformers. What the heck?! Why do you have to be scared of robots Vero, WHY?!)

I would have to say that I have seen the first Harry Potter film about…5 years ago? But it was more of a film playing in the background at Eric and Annie’s apartment so I didn’t catch most of the flick. This was the first time I really sat down and watched it.

I would have to say that the film was pretty faithful to the novel (from what I can remember!). I loved some of the choices of actors, such as Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid. He was born to play the part!

It is quite the fantastical film and I enjoyed the depictions of the various elements of the Harry Potter universe – the Quidditch matches, the owls delivering mail…it was all wonderful.

I also enjoyed the musical score created for the film. At one point I noticed that one of the parts reminded me of Empire Strikes Back and lo and behold, I found out that John Williams created the musical score for the film! Bravo!

I am looking forward to watching the rest of the films eventually. Considering the final novel is out, I think I shall re-read the novels, and intersperse the films so I can compare the two. Then I’ll be prepared to read the final Harry Potter novel (which I’ll have to find somewhere).