The Ekpyrotic Universe

Seeing the movie again tonight (if I get on line soon enough) and this time in IMAX!
I'm also hoping to see it with head58 once it opens in theaters and aliwings is away. And then maybe another time after that.

I really don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say that I thought the movie was pitch-perfect. The actors all capture the essence of the characters without trying to imitate the original actors. The sets are beautiful, with one exception. The story was quite good and they had a plausible explanation for why everything is different.

I'd love to see more movies in this universe. I'd love even more to see a new TV series come of it with these same actors.

There is a comic company called IDW that has been putting out various Star Trek mini-series for a few yaers now and I've been buying them all. They just finished a mini-series that was billed as a prequel of the movie and I didn't believe it. I couldn't see how it would tie in and thought it was just an attempt by an obscure little comic company to get some publicity.

Then I saw the movie. In the first few moments of the movie I saw how it tied in and thought "OH!". As a result, I knew a ton of backstory which gets decently explained in the movie, but not with the detail I know. And that too was fun.

EDIT: Oh, and at the end of the screening I got to meet with the person responsible for setting up the screenings and give her my impressions of the movie and apparently, it is all going into her report back to the studio!

Now I can't watch Jim Carrey movies any more

I'd never been a huge fan, but thought he was occasionally good. Maybe if there's anything I really feel I need to see I can bittorrent it or something. I'll have to figure out how to do that, but I'm sure I have plenty of knowledgeable friends who can show me.

I like listening to the movie reviewer on NPR. I believe his name is Bob Mondello. I like him, not because of anything he says about movies or because he likes or hates what I like or hate, but because of who I think he sounds like.

I think he sounds like Mr. Peabody from the old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon



This is not a slight, I think the qualities of his voice and the cadance in which he speaks are great for disseminating information and are fun to boot!

Normally he is delivering a review with no interaction, today I heard him being interviewed about the Oscars and was struck by another vocal similarity, he sounded quite a bit like telepresence! The strangest thing about this is that I don't think telepresence and Mr. Peabody sound anything alike.

Earlier this year, I purchased the 9 disc set of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. I grew up watching these movies whenever they were on TV and enjoy them greatly. They were made in the 1930s and there are quite a number of moments that are simply wrong to the modern movie viewer. Ginger Rogers played a very independent (for the time) woman in most of the movies and yet there are still quite a few moments where her behavior is jarring. Several of the earliest movies in the series have a stereotypical "dumb Italian" character that should remind any modern movie-watcher just how broad racism was as recently as 50 years ago.

emilytheslayer and I were watching Swing Time (1936) the other day and there's another relic of a bygone era that gave me pause. This movie contains Fred Astaire's only blackface number. To his credit, he didn't do a traditional blackface, he simply darkened his entire face with makeup, it wasn't a caricature like in minstrel shows or on Al Jolson. And the dance routine was intended as a tribute to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, considered by many to be the greatest dancer of the era. However, the props in the early part of the number are... unfortunate. And while the dance routine itself was great, it is also uncomfortable for a modern viewer much of the time.

I'm never quite sure how to feel when watching things like this. While the movies themselves are still quite entertaining and funny, they also can serve to show modern viewers just how much things have changed in a very short time.

I have now seen this movie. I went with emilytheslayer, mebib and ryan4d2.

Ephemeral bits first: I haven't been to the movies in quite awhile, apparently. I was somewhat surprised to see 2 tickets cost $19.50. I was expecting $16 or $17. We also had a medium popcorn and 2 medium soaps, I mean sodas and that came to another $16.

There was a trailer for Get Smart playing in the lobby and I must say it looks like they've done a good job.

At least 90% of the ads shown before the movie (and I still hate that they show ads) were for Lexus. I can avoid buying one of those no problem. However, considering the cost of the movie, maybe only Lexus buyers can afford to go regularly these days.

Now for the good bit. There may be things included that might be considered spoilers, but I don't think they really are.

The movie ROCKED! The fight scenes were amazing, the script was funny, the scenery and cinematography was gorgeous! Jackie Chan is so graceful and funny, what's not to like. Jet Li was surprisingly funny and the two of them had a real chemistry. Their "we meet, fight and team-up" sequence was phenomenal. A tension remains between the two characters that doesn't often in this kind of storyline, but should. The white kid who brings the staff was mocked, abused, made fun of and while he does his part, he doesn't become amazing. I liked that.

The movie follows the established pattern for this kind of movie, but that shouldn't be a surprise. It manages to surpass its genre while still being an homage to old movies of its genre.

I'd see it again and again, it was better than Cats. And I'm not just saying that, it is true!