Aki's Blog

2008 film Journey to the Center of the Earth starts out – as I unfortunately already expected due to IMDb as your standard kid-and-divorced-dad-don’t-agree-yet-are-forced-to-be-together-for-a-weekend-and-suddenly-agree-after-all-and-then-they-live-happily-ever-after. 13-year-old Sean (Josh Hutscherson) is forced to live with his uncle Trevor (Brendan Fraser) for ten days, while neither likes the idea one bit. It is soon revealed that Sean’s father and Trevor’s brother, Max, had disappeared ten years earlier while on and Icelandian solo expedition on search after the center of the earth, after reading Jules Verne’s famous novel. As Trevor starts looking through Max’s old copy of the book, filled with notes, he soon realises that Max maybe weren’t that wrong about the idea of the center of the earth as he first thought, and together with Sean he travels from America to Iceland. In Iceland they seek for a volcanologist Max were in touch with before his disappearance, only to find that he died several years ago, leaving his only daughter Hannah Ásgeirsson (Anita Briem), who voluntairs to follow them as a guide. While climbing a mountain, a sudden lightning storm strikes, forcing them to seek protection in a cave. As the lightning shuts the cave entrance, they are forced to look for another way out. Though they soon realise this cave is actually a natural entrance to the center of the Earth.

The film first seemed like yet another boring filming of the classic Jules Verne novel, but I was surprised. This film is, I dare to utter, one of the best adventure films created so far in the 21th century. It wasn’t since the first times I saw classic adventure epics like The Raiders of the Lost Arc or Jurassic Park I – II (not as epic, yet great films) my heart pumped this fast. The film held me a fascinated prisoner, constantly jumping in my chair, yelling “no, don’t go that way!” “Don’t fall!” “No, run faster, the dinosaur’s after you!”

The film was originally produced as a 3D release, and this was extremely obvious even though I downloaded it. The sound effects and the filming was… fenomenal. It takes a genious to create a scene such as the one with Sean and the “floating” rocks (caused by a magnetic field). I barely moved during the entire scene, simply because it felt as if I was there.

The film also surprised me by actually semi-masking the obvious inspiration of Jules Verne, making it not a filming of the book but more of a sequel, or a film with constant reference to it. In the film, they constantly talk about the book and it also suggests that the book actually is non-fiction by seeing the corpse of the main character in the center of the earth as they reach it.

I know it’s normal for me to write such things about all films I review, but I can say that “Journey to the Center of the Earth” actually is one of the best films of 2008, as well as of the 21st century.

eight stars

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I watched Disney’s 1991 film Beauty and the Beast today, for the first time since I was little. I was in love with Belle back then, and when I watched it again I recalled all those feelings again. It’s still one of the most beautiful films ever made, except I hate the ending. That Beast receives his beauty again for having Belle’s love sends the message that shallow beauty is an excellent gift, while it actually doesn’t matter the littlest.

 In 1982, Monty Python filmed a concert performed at the Hollywood Bowl, a concert with a perfect mix of their most famous sketches as well as new material written especially for the concert.It’s  a show with some of my absolute favorite sketches, including the Lumberjack Song, the Ministry of Silly Walks and Nudge Nudge, and some great new ones as well, for example the Crunchy Frog sketch, How Sweet to Be an Idiot and Comedy Lecture.The only thing avoiding it to receive 10 stars instead of eight is the non-includance of the Dirty Fork sketch and that it’s so damn short, 01:17 h.

 ********eight stars

I have heard a lot of the original “The Twilight Zone” series, running from 1959 – 1964, and I finally downloaded it entirely (24,1 GB, gah) yesterday and watched the first episode (“Where is Everybody”), and it was great.

 The Twilight Zone was a series of  free-standing episodes of horror, fantasy and science-fiction, and lots of the episodes are afterwards copied by film directors, authors etcetera, and are referenced for example by The Simpsons (where I actually heard of the show at first).What I love about my family is how I’ve been raised with all these classic films, shows, comics, etcetera; my mother has renewed on a monthly Donald Duck comic since the late 1960’s and still renews on it (although at first it was in her father’s name while she lived there, and now it’s in her name while she lives here), and she’s learned me to love the Monty Python gang, and movies from the 1970’s and 1980’s, such as Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Back to the Future etcetera. Thus, I’m surprised my mother hasn’t even mentioned The Twilight Zone earlier. However, when I first told her that I had downloaded and watched it, her respons was that she was happy for me, since it’s among the greatest series ever, that she followed when she was younger (even though it ended a year before her birth it started airing in Sweden several years later).Anyway, a great show, recommended to EVERYONE! Watch it! 

 * * * * * * *seven stars

Tom Cruise is one of the few super-famous actors who I believe actually deserve their popularity, who actually are good on stage. He and Johnny Depp are the two I can mention right up front that I feel this way about. The problem with him is how he almost only acts action films, and action is probably my least favorite genre in film. So I really love his performance in 2003’s drama-action-history film The Last Samurai.In The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise is Captain Nathan Algren, a war hero tormented of the memories of the Indian wars in which he acted, and the many innocent he has slayed. As the emperor of Japan wants to civilize his country, extincting the few samurai led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), Algren is hired to lead the country’s new troups, basically farmers who hasn’t seen a gun before. After a failed battle in which the entire Japanese army is killed, Algren is captured by Katsumoto. After living with the samurai for a while, he realises that they aren’t the enemy, they are the ones trying to capture the natural beauty of Japan and keep it. Slowly, we are to realise that the emperor isn’t a “bad guy”, but more of a weak puppet led by assistants and war generals, while the emperor himself is unsure whether to keep or destroy the samurai. Throughout the film, Katsumoto several times says that if the emperor wants him dead, he has but to ask, and he will gladly take his life. The emperor never replies.The Last Samurai is one of my absolute favorite films, a great epic story that has everything: great actors, one of the best music scores ever in film history (by Hans Zimmer), love, death, cool weapons (okay, I admit it, I love Japanese weapons, samurai and ninjas), and a grande ending fight ending with the scene when Captain Alger meets the emperor, and gives him Katsumoto’s katana, and the ending quotes always makes me thrill of epic:”Tell me how he died.”"I’ll tell you how he lived.”I never have Swedish subtitles on while watching an English film, but I couldn’t avoid seeing the Swedish title “Den Siste Samurajen” (“The Last Samurai” in singular) on the cover. What the…? Translators should try getting their facts straight. Director Edward Zwick has himself said that the title refers to the last samurai troop, and NOT Captain Nathan Algren. Get your facts straight.Again: A great film, recommended to everyone. A great epic, with perfect balance of drama, history and action.

“Ah! A bomb!”"Stop screaming! That’s exactly what the bomb wants us to do!” 

Ever since I first saw the Futurama animated TV series as they aired on Swedish TV in the first half of the 00’s, I’ve loved the shows. As Matt Groening more or less created a new genre of animated sitcoms for adults with The Simpsons, no-one believed that other shows could follow without plagiarizing, and shows like Family Guy and American Dad was the perfect example of this. But then Futurama came, from the pen of Matt Groening himself, and it managed to follow in this great genre without any trace of plagiarizing. I’ve watched each Futurama episode at least three times, and I own seasons 3-4 on DVD. And every day I have cursed Fox for shutting the show down after its fourth season. So when they decided to produce a brand new direct-to-DVD-film and released it in November 2007, there was no question whether to buy it.The main story of the film is simple, and could easily just have been a normal episode (about 23 minutes) instead of a feature film at 1:25 hours, but as the story folds out and goes back to seemingly all the previous episodes, including for example the famous pilot, the Globe Trotters episode (The Time Keeps Slipping), and the one in which Fry tries cloning his 1000 years old pet (Jurassic Bark). The Planet Express crew as well as entire Earth falls for Internet spam by nudists of a nude beach planet, and gives away all their belongings, including Bender as he while downloading porn happens to download a virus making him their eternal slave. While having to work for the nudists, they realise that Fry has a tattoe of Bender on his butt, including a code that makes it possible to travel back in time – something the nudists starts to use to steal all famous objects until they own the entire universe.Meanwhile, Leela starts seeing Carl, a handsome man who she realises is the love of her life. They are to be married, but after he leaves her by the altar (after the decapitation of Hermes), the story starts unfolding with a surprising twist and sad story when Fry travels back in time as he can’t find happiness in the future.

A really complicated story, but everything folds out perfect and most of it actually makes sense. Even though some things are quite hard to understand, and some things are quite cheap; for example Bender has to leave a place for a time, and to create this situation the writers have put in that he had to go to the bathroom. As Bender is a robot, they put in the line “damn, for the first time ever I have to go to the bathroom!”.It’s quite cool to see how Futurama always – ALWAYS – manages to create so many original jokes, smarter and bigger ones as well as the minor texts they put in the background and so on. For example, on a phonebook Bender reads in the 21th century the cover says “now with 20 % more Josés!”, and while flipping through the book there are lots of names ending with José. Such things are so simple yet wonderful for the die hard fans watching the show over and over again – such details help making Futurama one of the best shows ever.The film also included unusually many “dirty” jokes (sex, naked, etcetera), especially cheap but still great ones such as “I’ve wiped Fry’s butt clean.” / “We’ll see about that!” and “Hm, okay, you’re clean. I meant that metaphorically!”. I would presume it was easier to put in dirtier jokes in a direct-to-video than in a TV series on Fox.And as always, Futurama has a great choice of music, especially in the part when Fry goes back to the 21th century. But I really hate the music in the scenes where they try their best to say “this is a film, not a TV series”. It destroys all the feelings in the film.And cartoon characters really should stop saying “things can’t any worse now”

 ******six stars 

“One gunshot is heard across the world” 

Babel (2006) is one of those films I’ve seen a lot of advertising (posters etcetera) for yet knew nothing about. I was going to rent a film with my girlfriend, and finding nothing interesting we simply picked up “Babel” – it is after all a well-criticized film so it can’t be all bad, can it?

The story of the film handles the events of an American couple on vacation in Morrocco, as a gunshot hits the wife (Susan, played by Cate Blanchett) in her neck. We follow the next five days of panic, as her husband (Richard, played by Brad Pitt) tries to save her life in a small village of the Morroccan desert. There are four main families we follow, in four different parts of the world; the couples Mexican maid Amelia and their two children whom she takes care of during their vacation; the two Morroccan boys who accidentally fires at Susan (“the American tourist”) while practicing shooting in the desert; and Chieko (played by Rinko Kikuchi), a deaf Japanese girl in troubles of fitting in and desperately finding a boyfriend in a world where she can’t understand anyone’s words.The film was really interesting and thrilling through almost the entire film, except some parts that felt like nothing but pathetic fillouts. One of the most interesting parts of watching it was trying to find out how the four families were connected, and it wasn’t until the end that Chieko’s life connected to the rest through her father, a Japanese hunter. The most interesting part was clearly Chieko’s to me, as I easily could understand her; being deaf is much worse in every way than merely not knowing the language; you have no possibility to learn it, and you obviously can’t except everyone to learn sign language.Before watching the film, I had never heard of anyone on the cast except Brad Pitt (playing Richard), a way overrated actor who did a very good job in the 1995 film Se7en, but since hasn’t done anything diversing him from 99 percent of the actors of our world. With this in mind, I can easily say that Babel is one of Brad Pitt’s best performances. I also loved the performance of Rinko Kikuchi (playing Chieko), but after checking her previous roles out I can in sadness say that Babel is an exception.One of the things I’ve heard of the film on forehand was the “amazing” music, that actually – I’m sorry – sucked. Where did all the great, original film music go? Films used to be filled with great music! Just look at the 20th century up to 1980 or so. There are only a few good film composers left (who on the other hand are really great), for example Hans Zimmer and Alan Silvestri.I would call Babel a really overrated film, not deserving much of its positive critisism, but it’s still a nice film and I just couldn’t turn it off in the middle, simply because the ending was so unpredictable.

*****

five stars

I just finished watching the 2007 musical thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, based on the 1979 musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheelers, which itself is based on an 19th century story about the barber Benjamin Barker, who is falsely accused and sentenced to hard labor in Australia by a man lusting for Barker’s wife. After managing to escape fifteen years later, he returns to London under the false name Sweeney Todd and finds out that his wife killed herself after being raped, and that their child has been adopted. In order to seek revenge, he takes up his old barber shop and starts killing randomly, while looking for the man who betrayed him long ago.This is clearly my favorite Tim Burton film, and Tim Burton is one of my absolute favorite directors. It stars several great actors, especially Johnny Depp (as Sweeney Todd) and Helena Bonham Carter (as Mrs. Lovett), and it has a great story with wonderful effects, and great music. I’ve always been a great fan of musicals, even though I really haven’t seen that many. It’s more that I’ve really loved those I’ve seen, most significantly by Andrew Lloyd Webber, especially The Phantom of the Opera.Anyway, a really great film, recommended to everyone. I’ll try to find the musical to watch is too, but I seriously doubt they play it in Sweden (especially in the original language). I really need that trip to London to see some great musicals.

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eight stars 

I just watched the 2008 American horror/sci-fi film Cloverfield, and it was amazing. Really, long time since I last saw such a great film. Basically, it is about a monster attack against Manhattan, filmed with a amateur camera by a couple of friends who happened to witness the whole thing. The film includes the time from a couple hours before the attack started, until Beth and Rob, the last holders of the camera, have a bridge crashing down above them, rocks falling down and then the film stops. The greatest part of the film is probably the work around it, though; the characters have fictional MySpace pages, there are websites for fictional products that featured and so forth. Also check out the IMDb FAQ for the film (AFTER you’ve seen it!).

*******seven stars 

Horror, USA 2005When David Callaway’s wife commits suicide, he and his daughter Emily moves from town. As a result of the trauma, Emily creates the imaginary friend Charlie, who by time grows to take over Emily’s life and become more and more dangerous…Really a cool and original film. Boring in some parts, and I don’t like the last few minutes. I like the story and the actors (Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning as David and Emily), and the psycologic horror involved within it. The soundtrack could have been better.

 ******six stars