004. The Host

This is the trailer!

  The Host is a korean monster movie that could have easily been the Godzilla of this generation if it really wanted that title.Clearly it doesn't want to, as over the course of its length, it dabbles into a little bit of comedy, and towards the second act shifts the focus from the monster to the much more down to earth "reconstruction of a broken family" theme. And that's totally fine. The Host makes this hodge-podge of genres work. In this sense, its very unconventional. It uses a funny beat to enhance one of its most dramatic moments. It skips forward in time instead of directly dealing with the aftermath of one of the sadder moments. All these things, while not very traditional, work perfectly for the Host and had me on an incredible high for most of the movie.

  Until the end of course. Without directly spoiling the ending (which I won't, no worries) its difficult to describe exactly what it was that changed how I felt about the movie, lets just saw that after being conventional for most of the movie at the very end they totally sold out and gave us the hollywood ending (not as hollywood as you might think, but given the circumstances it was the 'happiest' scenario.) In any case it's not a huge deal, I still liked the movie and I'm still dreadfully awaiting the dumbed down remake that Hollywood is probably going to throw at us eventually. (EDIT: WIKI TELLS ME THEY ARE ALREADY ON IT.)

 I'm not going to pretend the movie was exactly perfect before the ending. Several times, throughout the movie, it glosses over some of the more important explanations, letting you come to your own conclusions or leaving you completely perplexed and distracted. The premise itself is based on the supposition that Formaldehyde turned a fish into a giant ...fish I guess. I've seen the simpsons. I know how fishes mutate. Ultimately its not enough to take away from the enjoyment of the movie, but some plausible explanations could have truly added plenty to the experience.

One of the main driving forces behind the Host is the character work. Frankly, its excellent. Each member of the family is unique (almost to the point of being caricaturesque) and go through very different forms of growth throughout the movie. Hyun-Seo, one of the movies heroines, is refreshingly brave and way more "kick-ass" then Chloe Moretz ever was as Hit-Girl.

Another interesting (if not all that important) theme that's peppered throughout the movie is the anti-american sentiment. Although its not uncommon in countries all around the world (surprisingly even Canada), the predominance of american movies all around the world makes this feature kind of rare. Between the incompetent american scientist that causes the movie, to the trigger happy army/science team that fuck up more than they help to the thinly veiled, irresponsibly utilized "agent orange", clearly these Koreans are not your fans, USA-- and they are not even that kind of koreans.

Probably the main reason this movie works at all, is because we can let go of all our preconcieved "rules" that we (for the most part correctly) assume movies have to follow. Anything is fair game. The main character could die 5 minutes into it (Stop. I understand how thats illogical). For the most part this is a fun unexplored world and is probably one of the main reasons I'm a huge fan of foreign films. There is still a lot of innovation going out there.

Recommended unless you hate subtitles and asian people. This movie has both.

003. Quantum of Solace

You can watch the trailer here.

 In case you don't know, there has been a new James Bond for a while now. They got rid of Mrs. Doubtfire's Pierce Brosnan and replaced him with a much better guy named Daniel Craig. Anyway this is the second movie of the relaunched series--the first one being Casino Royale-- and it is good while remaining unable to match the quality of its predecessor.

 Now to be fair, I watched Casino Royale a couple of years ago and the constant callbacks to the plot of the previous movie were a bit jarring for me. I barely remembered Vesper, let alone whatever it was that led to her death. That turns out to be a somewhat important part of this plot. They also mentioned the americans being mad about Le Chiffre (or whatever his name is) and I have no idea what they meant. At some point Quantum of Solace does become its own movie and you can follow along easily enough with no prior knowledge but the first part could use some work. I'm looking forward to the next Bond film but I really wish they make it a bit more independent.

 This movie has Judi Dench-- who I love since watching Notes on a Scandal. She was born for this role and is in fact perfect whenever she's on screen.This woman plays M so well (and has been playing M for so long) that I often forget M has been a man in other movies. In Quantum of Solace, they give her a very maternal relationship with Bond (while retaining her edge) that works particularly well-- probably because of the chemistry between Craig and Dench.

 Now for the cons (and there are a couple). They replaced Eva Green's sexy Vesper with the inferior (still hot just inferiorly so) Olga Kurylenko. Olga also happens to be a much worse actor than Green, and there are a couple of scenes where the script really calls for some heavy emoting that just received some heavy eye rolling from me. Hopefully next time they find the right Bond Girl.

 There are a couple of over the top ridiculous moments that could be done without. The initial car chase is fantastic and already pushing several boundaries. The Bourne-esque chase on the rooftops, while not entirely original is still a treat. The fighting on the ropes conclusion of this very intense opening? That was too much for me. I can believe the 00s get trained in all sorts of thing but fighting while on a rope? C'mon.

Also the plot. And this next line is going to be a spoiler so skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie. The story revolves around the most secret of organizations simply known as the Quantum. This group is so fucking awesome that MI6 has no real knowledge of them (its implied that the CIA is also in the same boat) Cool build up right? They then decide to destroy all sense of "awesomeness" achieved in the first act by revealing that the group's plan is to sell water at a high price. A reveal met by me taking a huge swig of water and having most of it miss my mouth and just flow on my bed. Whatever. It's water. While it might make economic sense (I'm not even entirely convinced it does), one thing it definitely is not, is exciting sounding. I guess oil and diamonds are a bit of a cliché these days but there has got to be some middle ground between oil and water.

Ultimately Quantum of Solace is still a good movie and while its not as good as Casino Royale, its miles ahead of the Brosnan flicks (which I guess still have some cute corny moments but thats like saying Street Fighter is good. Its not.). Its enjoyment is probably enhanced if you remember the plot of Casino Royale when watching Quantum of Solace which I didn't.

Recommended if you liked Casino Royale. Also recommended if you're a huge fan of water.

002. Donnie Darko

You can watch the trailer here.

  Basically everyone and their mother told me to watch this movie. Apparently for a good reason because its probably one of the most unique and interesting movies I've seen in a long time.

  Acting wise, this movie is pretty solid which is actually a bit of a surprise considering that most of the cast is young people-- a particular subset of actors that tends to always come across as wooden and phony. Jake Gyllenhaal does a good job playing the psychologically trouble titular character Donnie Darko. Gyllenhaal's real life sister plays Darko's older sister Elizabeth, while Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore, Noah Wyle and Mary McDonnell play the adults in Donnie's life. Mary McDonnell, in particular, shines as Donnie's worried mother.

  In this day and age almost every plot seems tired and cliche, or even worse is a parody of a tired and cliche plot, so its always nice to find a movie with a very original plot. Its hard to describe Donnie Darko beyond sci fi suspense drama, but it would be a disservice to not mention the fact that it tackles very heavy themes like time travel, parallel universes, predestination vs free will, individuality vs collective thought, creationism. Richard Kelly did a great job with the writing and directing of this movie and whoever designed Frank should get some sort of prize because it sets the perfect tone for this movie. Cute from a distance, deeply disturbed once you're more familiar with it.

  Darko is a fascinating movie that was destined to never become anything more than a cult classic since it refuses to underestimate its audience. At the end of the day though, Donnie Darko will have a long long life on DVD and Blu-Ray and thats really all anyone can hope in the entertainment field: longevity.

  Recommended (unless you watch movies while listening to music and talking on msn, in which case you'll probably just find the movie random as fuck and pretty nonsensical.)

001. The Runaways

Watch the trailer for this movie here.

Let me start by prefacing that I'm not a Runaways fan. It's not like I hate their music or anything but I didn't really know them at all before this movie was filmed. The first song I heard by the Runaways was Dakota Fanning's version of Cherry Bomb. I am, however, a huge fan of music and I'm aware of the influence that the Runaways and I guess to a larger extent Joan Jett had on rock and roll and the presence of female rockers in the industry, so when I added this movie to the list it was actually one I was pretty excited to watch.

Sadly, the movie sucks. While there are plenty of interesting moments during the film that deserve some attention--such as a young Joan Jett stubbornly defeating other people's expectations of her by becoming an actual rock star despite her lack of penis-- the movie, in what I can only secretly hope is an homage to Cherie Currie (the lead singer) and the band itself, catastrophically crashes and burns. The pacing is almost incomprehensible and the plot is severely lacking ... a plot I guess. For a band with such a good reputation (a little Joan Jett humour there), this movie makes it come across as nothing worth noting happened during their somewhat short history. It's actually quite sad that you can accurately summarize this movie in 6 sentences or less. I'm really in awe as to what attracted so many people to this project. Dakota Fanning walks around for most of this movie looking like a drugged doe and Alia Shawkat doesn't even have lines (granted she's the one fictional member in the movie). Kristen Stewart looks a tad more constipated than she does when playing Bella in Twilight but her acting is maybe the one slightly above average thing going on in this movie. I don't know Joan Jett but I could believe that Stewart's interpretation of her is actually spot on.

The feminist in me wanted to like this movie. I mean c'mon it starts with a single drop of menstrual blood falling on the pavement and its about women succeeding in a man's world but honestly this movie isn't worth anyone's time. The best part of the movie is the last 10 minutes or so when they play Joan Jett's songs over the final scenes (also known as that song that Britney Spears covered to you younguns)

So not recommended. Do something better with your time...like anything. Anything is a better use of your time.

This is the Beginning.

This sad little blog will chronicle the absurd and unnecessary minutia of my life as I attempt to watch 182 movies in 365 days. It sounds easy enough and I'm sure many people watch more than that every year. I however usually don't. Besides the occasional movie at good old Empire Theatre I probably watch an average of 50 movies a year. And its not just the sheer increase but also the (stupid) rules that I'm following. There has to be at least a certain amount of dramas, documentaries, animated, etc as well as a certain amount from the last 4 decades. It means I'm watching Raging Bull, Dream Girls, Taxi to the Dark Side and Confessions of a Shopaholic (early contender for new favourite movie I'm betting) possibly all in the same week. Lets hope I can keep everything scheduled and organized or else that last month or so is gonna be fucked since I will probably be either way ahead of schedule or completely behind.

I'm not entirely sure why I decided to do this. The truth is that come September between school and writing classes and this and all the other stuff, its going to be a bit hectic. My brain will be fried, my will to continue with this project might disappear and this blog will probably have no more updates. Maybe its the very fact that I probably will feel overwhelmed that attracted me to the idea. The last couple of years have been filled with a lot of unnecessary drama created by my mind during nights that I had nothing to do. I'm really not in the mood of history repeating. I'm hoping that this project (and all my other activities) will keep my mind busy and unable to self sabotage my life-- as its become an expert in doing.

In any case, regardless of if it helps or not, at the end of the day its still 182 (hopefully) good movies that I will watch and its hard to see that as anything less than positive. I'll try to review every single one of them and anything else I actually watch plus, every now and then, the post of how this project is not only not helping but actually destroying my life.

The start date of this is August 23rd aka this monday aka 4 days from now.

Apropos of nothing here is a picture of a cat that will be living with me for one more day. It's pretty sweet!

PS. I totally forgot to add that I will not be doing this alone. My friend Maria (twitter.com/tokidokilolita if you're on the twitterz like betty white) will also be fucking her free time to watch movies with me. Different movies though. Except the ones that are the same. Sadly she lacks that cute cat as well.