My latest “Song of the Day” was chosen because this week also saw the release of one of the g ames which shall be ruling my life for the forseeable future: Dragon Age II. The song I chose is from the first game in the series, Dragon Age: Origins, and was sung in the game by one of the characters in the game once a certain relationship level has been reached between the main character and the bard who sings the song, Leliana.
The soundtrack to this game was composed by Israeli-born composer Inon Zur and his work on the score captures the fantasy-theme of the game. In the soundtrack the song is called “Lelianna’s Song” (a misprint by the soundtrack publisher) but in the game the song is properly titled, “In Uthenera” and is sung by the singer, Aubrey Ashburn. I chose this song because of all the tracks in the soundtrack this is the one that stuck with me the most.
The thing about role-playing game soundtracks, especially those set in a fantasy setting, is that the music goes a long way in creating the world of the game. The game could be great but if the music sucks it ruins much of the game’s enjoyment. Luckily, Inon Zur didn’t fail in his task thus he made Dragon Age: Origins such a joy to play despite its flaws.
“Lelianna’s Song” just sounds so ethereal. I can hear late-medieval and early-Rennaisance bard influences in the music not to mention Irish ballad in how the lyrics were sung. This song I could listen to over and over. Below, right before the lyrics is the video of the scene in the game where Leliana sings the song to the group at rest in their camp.
Lelianna’s Song
Elven:
Hahren na melana sahlin
Emma ir abelas
Souver’inan isala hamin
Vhenan him dor’felas
In Uthenera na revas
Vir sulahn’nehn
Vir dirthera
Vir samahl la numin
Vir lath sa’vunin
Translation:
Elder your time is come
Now I am filled with sorrow
Weary eyes need resting
Heart has become grey and slow
In waking sleep is freedom
We sing, rejoice
We tell the tales
We laugh and cry
We love one more day
In what could be 2011’s version of Kick-Ass, the latest film from writer-director James Gunn looks to take the superhero genre into the realm of ultraviolence and some heavy dark comedy. The film is simply titled Super and stars Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon and it’s about Wilson’s character deciding he’s had enough of being the meek and the weak. His decision to take control of his life takes him into a very dark place where superheroes are made and lots of vigilante justice served on crime everywhere.
From the look of the trailer it definitely looks like its going to go even farther than what Kick-Ass did in 2010. This film may also share something with that film in that it probably won’t make the sort of money it’s supporters and fans are hoping it’ll make.
So, I suggest people see this film as soon as it comes in their area. People need to support films like this or they should just shut up about how Hollywood has run out of ideas and only cookie-cutter flicks are being pushed on the audience year in and year out.
In 1968 there was a little caper film titled The Thomas Crown Affair starring the ever-cool Steve McQueen and a radiant Faye Dunaway. The film was considered hip, cool and sexy in its way during the late 60’s. It took 31 years, but a remake was finally made of this film but this time around starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the roles originally played by McQueen and Dunaway. With some great direction from thriller and action filmmmaker John McTiernan, 1999’s The Thomas Crown Affair ends up being the exception to the rule of remakes of older films turning out lesser than the original. This modern and updated version of The Thomas Crown Affair actually surpasses the original McQueen production. McTiernan’s film ably combines humor, thrilling action set pieces, sexy chemistry between the leads and just a beautifully shot film.
Set in New York that never looked as good as shot by McTiernan and his crew, Pierce Brosnan stars and shines as the title character Thomas Crown. Thomas Crown is a suave, roguish and successful businessman who has everything a man could ask for: money, power and any woman he desires.
What does a man like Crown would ever want in life?
The film looks at this and shows that no amount of money in the world could replace the adrenaline rush and thrill of getting acquiring it. Crown does this by staging a complex and elaborate plan to steal a Monet (San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk) from the NY Metropolitan Arts Museum and do so in the middle of the day. His plan goes off without a hitch and with none the wiser. This heist sequence was actually very fun to watch as McTiernan never lost command of the many threads being weaved to pull off Crown’s plan. McTiernan would one-up this with the climactic finish in the same museum but with a sequence I could only call as the anti-heist.
With the heist completed, the film soon introduces Crown’s foil in the form of Rene Russo as insurance investigator Catherine Banning. Ms. Russo never looked more beautiful, sensual and sexy as she did in this film. Her performance as the determined and crafty Banning more than holds up to Brosnan’s roguish and playful performance as Thomas Crown. From the moment she appears onscreen as the camera slowly pans up her silky-stocking leg and garters, Russo dominated the scene and pretty much commanded attention from everyone. This was especially true whenever she shared the screen with Denis Leary as police detective in charge of investigating the Monet heist. Leary’s always a strong performer in any film he’s in but was pretty much lost in the wake of Russo’s performance when both were on the screen.
The rest of the film was pretty much Crown and Banning trying to get into each others’ heads to find the one advantage that would give them an upper-hand in the “game” they’ve both decided to play. It’s hard to see who is chasing who in the film. Is Banning chasing Crown as her one and only suspect for the theft or is Crown playing her as part of a much more complicated scheme to spice his life. These questions swirl within the frame of the heist investigation and the growing relationship between the two strong-willed characters.
To say that Brosnan and Russo’s on-screen chemistry was strong would be a big understatement. The two pretty much sizzle when together. Whether it’s a playful, flirtation during a nice dinner out on the town to the two steamy dance numbers in the middle of the film. When Crown asks Banning if she wanted to dance or does she want to dance the temperature just went up by degrees. Their love scenes together shows that it could still be done with class and also have a sense of playfulness and fun. It also showed that young couples doing love scenes onscreen have nothing on the mature couple.
There’s not much else to say about McTiernan’s remake of the Thomas Crown Affair than to say that he took a good film, that showcased Steve McQueen’s coolness for everyone to see, and made a much more superior production in every sense. The direction was excellent and the cinematography was beautiful in every second shot. The cast performance was very strong with the two leads in Brosnan and Russo acting their hearts out on the screen. This film shows that remakes really are not bad ideas when put into capable hands. It would be nice to see how the sequel — tentatively titled The Topkapi Affair — to this film turns out with pretty much the same cast and crew returning. I, for one, will be there to see it when it comes out.
It’s been awhile since I’ve put a new AMV and this time I thought this latest entry is quite appropriate and one which fellow writer Lisa Marie would really enjoy.
Last week Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her powerful performance in Black Swan. This latest AMV is one which combines two things that Lisa Marie will appreciate most: ballet and French music. The video takes scenes from the magical girl anime series, Princess Tutu, which eerily looks like certain scenes from Aronofsky’s film. The music the creator, Chiikaboom, used is “Le Bien Qui Fait Mal” from the rock musical Mozart L’Opera Rock.
I haven’t really seen much of Princess Tutu and I definitely haven’t listened to much French music outside of classical. I will admit that this AMV has a certain dark appeal to it and the combination of scenes lifted from the anime and the music used makes it quite badass.
Creator: Chiikaboom
Anime: Princess Tutu
Music: “Le Bien Qui Fait Mal” from Mozart L’Opera Rock
30 Days of Night is pretty much a siege movie with heavy elements of horror and gore. Siege movies always succeed and fail depending on whether the tension and dread built up from the beginning of the film suspends the audience’s disbelief. Siege films like The Thing and Romero’s Living Dead trilogy works well because right from the get-go we see the tension build not just on the location the cast are put in but within the besieged survivors as well. Survival becomes that much more difficult due to human frailties and an inability to work together bringing the whole group down. The monsters outside are bad enough, but sometimes it’s the survivors themselves who must share the blame.
David Slade’s (director of the excellent Hard Candy) movie does a very good job of bringing the initial tension and dread the comic brought to life in its first chapter. The story takes place in Barrow, Alaska which happens to be located within the Arctic Circle. This location allows it a very peculiar yearly event of having pitch-black night which lasts for a period of an entire month. The movie begins just as the town of Barrow prepares for this month-long prolonged night. Most of the town decide to move down south for the month where the night doesn’t last as long, but enough stay in Barrow to give it a semblance of life and activity.
The build-up of the characters in 30 Days of Night marks one of the weaknesses in the film. There’s barely much characterization in distinguishing one Barrow, Alaskan from another. The lack in character development from all the characters whether human or vampire doesn’t invest the film with anyone we want to see make it out through the night and into dawn. Even Danny Huston, a very underrated and overly capable actor in past films fails to elevate his lead vampire character Marlowe beyond it’s genre trappings. Known only as The Stranger in the credits, Ben Foster’s Renfield-like character edges between caricature and genuine creepiness in his performance. Foster knows he’s in a genre movie and has fun with the character. He’s the only one to truly take on his character and roll with it.
I now get to the subject of the vampires themselves. Most vampire movies seem enamored in portraying the vampire as some sort of seductive, fashion-obsessed, or in the case of the Anne Rice-type anachronistic in their dress, with an unnatural immortality they either live as hedonistically as possible or bemoan their cursed existence. Then there’s the more recent trend that Twilight has brought into the vampire mythology and it’s not good. There’s never been a true portrayal of the vampire as a pure, hunger-driven monster with an appetite to match their status as one of folklore and legend’s top-tier boogeymen. Slade goes for speed and agility in his vampires instead of hypnotizing and mesmerizing their victims. The vampires in this movie owes much to the frenetic and over-amped infecteds of 28 Days Later.
The attack itself and the subsequent siege worked well enough in the early going. There were some great overhead shots of the town’s people losing it’s fight during the initial feeding frenzy as the camera shoots the scene high overhead. The only thing Slade had a misstep in terms of the siege itself was after those first couple of nights. The rest of the 30 days didn’t seem to show enough desperation on the faces and bodies of the last few survivors. Really, the only way the audience even knew a couple weeks have passed were the caption telling them how many days into the month-long night has passed. I think with some better editing and a better sense of structure in the middle section of the movie to show time actually progressing the movie would’ve been better on so many levels.
All in all, 30 Days of Night was just good enough to be a fun watch. The premise itself was original and put a new spin on the vampire genre that has rarely been tapped. The performances were pretty average with no one bringing the whole film down with a misstep performance or raising the bar with a great one. The final product had a chance to be something great, but just ends up being a good and original take on the vampire story with elements of Night of the Living Dead.
This week has been quite the busy couple days over here in San Francisco. The Games Developers Conference (GDC for short) for 2011 is in town and being held over at the Moscone Convention Center. This conference is one of the biggest for industry insiders and games developers. While most of the stuff talked about in the conference are stuff that really only developers and publishers would understand and find interesting, the conference has also become a sort of launching point for announcing future titles for the different gaming platforms.
One such game which just had it’s first gameplay trailer introduced to much acclaim is the first-person shooter title from EA and DICE: Battlefield 3. This series has been one of the more popular games on the PC and has made major in-roads into console gaming. 2010’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 received universal acclaim and some had even seen it as a title that could possibly dethrone Activision’s juggernaut franchise: Call of Duty. While said dethroning didn’t happen gamers and pundits still saw the Battlefield franchise as the one to finally take on that Activision jugger and actually win. It just may take the next title, Battlefield 3, to do it.
This trailer is all gameplay and has no prerendered scenes. What people see in the trailer is exactly how the game will look (at least for the PC. Whether the 360 or the PS3 will look just as good only this summer’s E3 can answer). The game will be using DICE’s latest graphics engine, the Frostbite 2.0 which will allow for a more realistic and fluid motion for all the people in the game. This title will also be the first one to utilize Frostbite 2.0.
As much as I enjoy playing the Call of Duty titles I do see how some have started to see how stale it’s starting to get. Activision hasn’t been challenged in so long that they really haven’t improved much on how the franchise plays. Maybe EA and DICE releasing Battlefield 3 and delivering on all they’ve promised will give Activision the kick in the ass it needs to keep the Call of Duty from becoming the Guitar Hero of military first-person shooters.
Just a little under a month ago Marvel Studios released the first official picture of Steve Rogers as Captain America. Ths was just days before the first teaser trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger made its debut during the Super Bowl telecast. With talk of the first official full trailer for this film just around the bend Marvel Studios has continued to tease fans by releasing through Entertainment Weekly the first official picture of Captain’s nemesis: Johann Schmidt as the Red Skull (played by the always very good Hugo Weaving).
To say that Joe Johnstone and his crew of skilled artisans got Red Skull down correctly would be an understatement. The first time I saw the image late this morning any doubt I had about this film was just blown away. They got the look and attitude of the Red Skull down exactly as I had pictured him in my head. The make-up effects to make Hugo Weaving look like the Red Skull doesn’t look fake from that picture and seeing it in motion would only enhance it.
The film is still set for a July 22, 2011 release and the wait until then will be difficult as Marvel and Paramount continues to release more and more tidbits to whet the appetites of fans.
Also, I want that coat he’s wearing. That’s a badass attire.
When Marvel Zombies was first announced I had been away from reading the superhero titles from DC and Marvel. I’d gone fully into non-superhero titles. One such title is Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. Kirkman finally created a story which really tapped into what Romero was talking about in his Living Dead films. Kirkman’s zombie series continued where the film end credits began. To suddenly find out that Kirkman was to pen a “What If…?” style miniseries for Marvel telling the tale of what would happen if the Marvel Universe (well on of its alternates at least) and all its heroes and supervillains had suddenly all turned into flesh-eating zombies was great news indeed.
Marvel Zombies continues where the Ultimates Fantastic Four “Crossover” story-arc left off (story-arc where we’re introduced to the Marvel Zombies alternate universe). The Ultimates Fantastic Four has made it back safely to their Ultimates reality through the assistance of an unzombified Magneto. In the very first pages of Marvel Zombies we find Magneto on the run from those superheroes and villains turned zombies gunning for him. With these super-powered zombies having devoured the planet’s population within days they’re now set to hunting down, and at times, fighting with each other for the last few remaining people left on Earth for them to feed their hunger.
This being titled Marvel Zombies and not Magneto should give a hint as to the fate of the Master of Magnetism. No, this book deals with how the Marvel Zombies solve through their problem of not having anymore people to eat. It’s a good thing that in this reality Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer, have decided it was time to add Earth to the Devourer of Worlds’ menu. Unbeknownst to the Silver Surfer and Galactus, a planet they once thought to be teeming with life and energy to be consumned has become a death world where only the zombified Marvel heroes and villains remain.
The scenes once the Surfer and Galactus arrive were both action-packed and also full of some very dark humor. It was very difficult trying to root for anyone since in the end everyone left in the story were the “bad guys” but where the Surfer and Galactus were the serious villains in the story the Marvel Zombies themselves were funny enough in their need to take down Galactus and his Herald to feast on. The aftermath of the battle between the remaining Marvel zombies and Galactus makes for a great twist and also makes sense in a darkly humorous and wicked way.
Kirkman doesn’t dwell too much on the nature of the zombie plague’s effect on people’s humanity and feelings. He goes all-out to tell a fun, rip-roaring story. It shows in that there’s a little less depth in the book’s story than in Kirkman’s Walking Dead series, but what the story lacks in dramatic depth was made up for in some very funny and witty dialogue between the zombies themselves. The artwork by Sean Phillips (been a fan of his style since his work on Ed Brubaker’s Sleeper) complimented well with Kirkman’s zombie writing. I also like the fact that this graphic novel collected all the Marvel Zombies issue covers (both first and later reprintings) by renowned artist Arthur Suydam. His zombified alternate covers of classic Marvel issue covers was something of a great treat for comic book fans everywhere.
So, while Marvel Zombies doesn’t rise to the dramatic depths of The Walking Dead what it does do is tell a fun story of zombies versus Cosmic beings with plenty of flesheating and bloody good action. I’m glad that as great as Marvel Zombies was I’m even gladder that Marvel decided to re-visit this oft-kilter universe with some follow-up miniseries like Marvel Zombies vs The Army of Darkness and Marvel Zombies Volumes 2 thru 5.
Every year there’s always a handful of films which gets little to no love from both critics and audiences. These are titles that for one reason or another get left by the wayside. Some say these films are awful. Some say they’re weren’t in the theaters long enough for people (or even critics) to notice. Yet, these films will get it’s vocal and ardent supporters and fans who sees through all the flaws and warts and find a rough gem that really entertains. One such film for 2011 is the supernatural-action film from filmmaker Patrick Lussier simply titled, Drive Angry 3D. Yes, it’s a 3D film and not one of those post-conversion deals but shot from start to finish in 3D.
Drive Angry 3D harkens back to the good, dirty era of grindhouse films. Films with simple storylines and even simpler dialogue. They were made on the cheap (though with a budget of 35-40million this film definitely not low-budget) and cramed full of everything that could be exploited to bring in the audience: sex, violence and lots of nudity. Lussier’s film definitely has all three in abundance. With Nicolas Cage headlining a cast of veteran genre actors and a spitfire of a female sidekick, Drive Angry 3D was a grindhouse film at its very core.
The story could’ve come from any number of revenge films of the 1970’s. Cage plays John Milton (I kid you not) who escapes Hell itself to seek vengeance on the Satanic cult and their leader Jonah King (Billy Burke sporting a slithery Southern accent that’s one step over excessive but oh so fun to hear) for killing his daughter and kidnapping his baby granddaughter. A baby to be sacrificed by Jonah King and his followers to usher in an era of Hell on Earth. Just going over that brief synopsis one could just imagine this film being made in the 1970’s with country rock playing in the background.
Along the way in his quest for vengeance and redemption, Milton comes across Piper (played with crackling gusto by the lovely Amber Heard in the shortest Daisy Dukes I’ve ever seen on film) who becomes his partner in his quest through some shared encounters which shows Piper not as a damsel-in-distress but a young woman who can kick ass as much as Milton does. The fact that she didn’t appear in any form of nakedness throughout the film was a sign that she wasn’t a woman to be messed with.
While it Milton and Piper going after King and his Satanic-cult inbreds wasn’t enough action for one film Lussier and screenwriter Todd Farmer (he also played the role of Piper’s philandering fiancee who gets knocked around a bit by almost everyone) decided to bring in the character of the Accountant (played with an almost childish glee by William Fichtner) who has followed Milton from Hell to bring him back and an item that was taken from Lucifer’s own stash of goodies. Watching the Accountant play someone not used to being human play-act as one definitely became some of the funnier scenes in the film. That’s also why this film was such a fun ride to sit through. Everyone in the cast seemed to be having a blast playing their characters to the hilt. Even David Morse in the role of a Webster as the aging sidekick of Milton’s before his trip to Hell looked to be into his role.
But enough of trying to explain the story and how the actors performed. Drive Angry 3D is all about action and action of every kind. This film oozed action from its very being. We had car chases with some of the most beautiful classic muscle cars in existence. We first get to witness Piper and her 1969 Dodge Charger 440 R/T then for the last third of the film twin 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454’s. This film is such a throwback to the car chase action films of the 70’s like Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. It wasn’t just car chase action to be had and experienced. This film didn’t shy away from some very violent and up-close gunfights. One particular gunfight may just go down in history as one of the best as Cage’s character (still fully dressed) shoots it out with some of King’s thugs while having sex with the local waitress, smoking a cigar and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand. Milton was one multitasking badass.
This film was all about excess and it’s why it held such an appeal to those who have seen it and have raved about it. It didn’t pay homage to grindhouse, but ended up as being one of the very films it tried and succeeded to emulate. Forget the gloss veneer of the film. A film doesn’t have to be dated and cheap-looking to be grindhouse. Both Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer wanted to make a badass film about a badass character doing badass shit and they succeeded.
Even the 3D used for this film actually worked. It helped that the crew actually used real 3D cameras to film every scene instead of doing post-conversion work of regular camera filmed scenes. Yes, there were scenes where things were made to come straight at the audience but it wasn’t so distracting as to ruin the experience. In fact, I would say that 3D added to this film’s appeal and fun. One reviewer had said that 3D should be reserved for use in films such as Drive Angry 3D. I won’t disagree.
Will this film be for everyone? I don’t think it is. Not everyone is ready for extreme excess of badassery from Cage, Heard and Fichtner.
Drive Angry 3D will be seen as a failure by those not involved in its production or by those who saw it and enjoyed it. There’s some truth in that, but I do think that this film succeeded in doing everything that was promised by its filmmakers and producers. It’s not an Oscar-baiting film or even one to be seen in the yearly film festivals and circuits. What this film has become was one hell of a ride that was all about kicking ass, taking names (screwing the local waitress while waiting for the ambush to come) and driving beautiful, fast cars. I do think that Lussier’s film looks like a cult-classic in the making as time passes and those who saw it while it was in the theaters should be proud to say that they saw it and liked it when most people couldn’t be bothered.
Now, where’s my pistol, cigar and bottle of Jack Daniels.
Our latest “Daily Grindhouse” is infamous for popularizing that subgenre of exploitation and grindhouse film involving Nazis and their atrocities during World War 2. The typical setting for these so-called “naziploitation” films always end up one of the Nazi stalags (POW camps) or even concentration camps (for the truly exploitative of the bunch). The film that truly started it all for this subgenre is none other than Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.
Grindhouse has a certain amount of individuals who’re seen as icons in the industry. Ilsa would be the film which would make a certain individual an icon within grindhouse. That individual is the Las Vegas showgirl turned exploitation actress, Dyanne Thorne. It was her performance as the SS Commandant of the setting for the film which made Ilsa such a cult classic in the eyes of grindhouse aficionados. Her statuesque and buxom figure was such a presence in the film that it was difficult to take one’s eye off of her whenever she was in it.
The film set the benchmark on the naziploitation subgenre and also the rules on how to make one. Ilsa could be seen by younger fans of film this day and age as nothing but softcore pornography. They wouldn’t be too far off with that description. This film was all about sex and violence. Thorne’s character would be the instigator for both themes and central to every scene which had them. To say that rape and torture of female prisoners (and male prisoners who fail to satisfy Ilsa) became the blueprint for naziploitation films would be an understatement.
Other films in this subgenre would take what Ilsa had created and up the ante. Adding in even more explicit violence and sex. They would begin to mash it up with other subgenres of grindhouse. This film is not for everyone and definitely not for children (and probably some adults as well), but for fans of grindhouse it’s mandatory screening.
There’s really no trailer about this flick which has been uploadedt. The grindhouse faux trailer created by Rob Zombie to be part of Grindhouse definitely was influenced by Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.
Through the Shattered Lens