Films watched today: The Adjustment Bureau.
So I guess I should start by apologising for not writing in a while. I’ve mostly been moping in a puddle of my own misery, gawking despondently at the internet in the hopes it will finally tell me what to do with my life. I’ve spent so much time with myself that I’ve over thought too many things and sent myself into paranoid fits of terror on multiple occasions. Furthermore, I’ve run out of films that I can bear to sit through to whine about.
The trouble is finding a film that is interesting enough so that I can laugh about how stupid it is with ease. It’s got to rile me up enough to want to rant. A lot of the films I had lined up to rip into turned out to be boring, predicatble and too long, and that’s literally it. I figured a movie review of 5 words wouldn’t quite cut it. Also I felt that I didn’t need to tell you that Mean Girls 2 was appalling, its no real surprise is it?
And so with this vexation I turned to The Adjustment Bureau. I’d already tried to watch this once and given up after 23 minutes, but given my lack of other films to watch issue I figured I’d attempt to force myself upon it again. It’s based on a book by Philip K. Dick so I was vaguely attracted to it after the love story between me, The Minority Report and Minority Report.
Matt Damon is an average looking schmuck who dresses in shades of grey and lives in a grey universe. Where’s the colour goddamnit? No wonder this is dull, it’s like looking out of the window on an overcast day. Like most men, he’s after power, and thus is running for Dictator of New York. He’s a bit of a bad boy though, so things don’t go to plan, even after his 10 minute montage of efforts.
He goes to the bathroom to prepare his ‘I didn’t come first’ speech where for two minutes he’s alone, until a woman mysteriously appears out of one of the cubicles, in the men’s; after he called out “hello?” 5 times previously with no answer. Bizarre. We find out she’s crashed a wedding upstairs and is consequently hiding from security. Suspicious. I’m glad he buys it because I’ve already decided she’s an alien cyborg which means she can’t be trusted. I guess when you live in a little grey world, the excitement of a strange creature who just so happens to be female and good-looking is enough to make you be instantaneously attracted to them; thus a snogging session commences. Its cut short because one of his trusty advisors cockblocks and she scampers away.
Gutted, Matt Damon returns to grey normality. He gets on a bus to go to work and who should he see but Miss Mysterious, snoozing on a seat. He spills his coffee on her and as a reward gets her number. Pleased with himself and with a grin on his face, he heads to the office. But when he goes into the conference room his smirk is wiped due to his friend being treated like a beehive by two weirdos in biohazard suits. There’s an assortment of men in hats scattered about looking important, and all the people from Matt Damon’s world are on pause; except for Matt Damon himself, who chooses the flight adrenaline option and legs it.
It isn’t long before they catch him however, and he wakes up in a warehouse with more men in hats discussing some kind of problem. They describe themselves as “the people who make sure things happen according to plan,” who seem to be able to read his mind. They explain he’s seen into a world he wasn’t supposed to know existed. They tell him he is not to tell anyone what he has seen otherwise they’ll lobotomize his ass. He nods and I’m already counting down the minutes before he breaks this rule. As a final nail in the coffin of a weird ass shitty day he is told he is never to see Miss Mysterious again. I’m counting down the seconds before he breaks this one.
He spends the next three years, yes, three years taking the same bus, desperately hoping to see her again. And he does. Three years later. What terrifyingly dogged dedication. She isn’t too impressed about not being called, but he insists he lost her number (the men in hats disposed of it) and thus couldn’t contact her; so resorted to stalking what information he had on her instead. So that’s one rule broken. The men in hats won’t let this lie however, and do everything in their power to break them apart.
The remainder of the film is basically a cat and mouse chase involving Miss Mysterious and Matt Damon trying to be together and the men in hats trying to stop it. They throw a spanner in the works when they finally catch up to him, and Bernadette from Priscilla Queen of the Desert (LOL awesome) mentions that he could be President if he follows their orders and ditches Miss Mysterious. He makes a valiant stand, insisting that his love for her is more important. However the men in hats aren’t done fucking with him yet and go on to tell him that if he stays with her he will crush her dreams of being a famous dancer. Nice one Matt Damon. The hesitation to not walk out of her life he shows is truly painful.
Aside from the general humdrum, this isn’t a bad film. The idea of the men in hats is interesting, but I suppose we have Philip K. Dick to thank for that. What bothers me is the path the film takes. Surely it is everyone’s dream, that the reason they can’t be with the person they’re attracted to is because of someone else’s interference. It’s shallow, dull and what’s more is essentially all about Matt Damon having a dopamine party. It’s a Rom Com that’s fallen into the sci-fi section in the used DVD shop. If they’d made the film less about the couple’s never ending interest in each other, I probably would have been more engrossed. 2/5
@1 month ago with 2 notes
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Films sat through today: Beastly
So the world revolves around Kyle Klingon sorry Kingson, an arrogant, mop top scarecrow who has a foul attitude towards anything he can’t fuck. Your typical ‘attractive’ guy then. He lives a life of spoilt luxury thanks to Daddy’s paycheck but not his love seemingly - wait is this The Green Hornet again? Oh dear. He attends some kind of rich person’s school for supermodels, where he is naturally the best at everything, and loved by everyone. Everyone important anyway.
We watch as he runs for high ruler or something of the school, delivering a narcissistic speech that brings a raucous round of applause from his fellow classroom buddies. His main argument seems to be “beautiful people get it better, that’s just the way it is.” Quite. Good thing then that he’s speaking to a room full of aesthetically perfect humans. But to Kingson, they are not quite perfect enough. He goes on to describe an eyeliner wearing Olsen twin as a “ball-biting-voodoo-tatted-slut,” or at least, I think that’s what he says, as he says it so god damn fast it’s sort of hard to make out the words. Either way it’s the sort of painfully incorrect ignorance I’d expect from his character, who clearly has no concept of people besides his own reflection.
Next introduced is the leading lady, the Belle of the ball and that brown haired girl from High School Musical; chipmunkette Vanessa Hudgens. She witnesses first hand Kingson’s cruelty toward eyelinered Olsen, but does nothing. Kingson turns his attentions to her and still, she does nothing. I think she’s actually more of a prop than a person, maybe a coat stand at a push.
I’m not entirely sure where they sourced the inspiration for eyelinered Olsen. She’s supposed to be a super awesome revengeful witch, but she’s more like a well dressed emo with a really bad face tattoo. Her big black eyes and over edited white face make her look like a glaring ghost. She tries to be sexual, flouncing about Kingson who couldn’t give fuck as he’s already deemed her unworthy. It’s really a rather poor show.
So yeah, Kingson carries on being a bumbag, brown haired girl carries on being a piece of furniture, that also happens to be falling sickeningly for him; and eyelinered Olsen carries on getting riled up and ends up doing some voodoo shit on Kingson to teach him a lesson. Yeah, it’s the plot from Beauty and the Beast, if you hadn’t guessed. We all know where it’s painfully headed, but let’s see it get there, ugh.
And so, after going on what looks like a drug trip (some witch, this is just date rape) Kingson becomes Klingon. He looks in the mirror and believes it’s the worst thing ever. Oh come on, at least the Beast from Beauty and the Beast had a fair argument to his hideousness. He was an animal for christ’s sake. All this guy’s got is some metal in his face and a couple of tattoos. He’s still got his arms and legs and brain and everything. But of course, its game over for Klingon, who is so repulsed by his haggard appearance he locks himself away for months, refusing all contact.
He isn’t left alone in his torment however. Zola, a poor servant who was treated like shit in their old home is there to cater to his every need, and a blind Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) moves in as a tutor. Anyone missing Lumiere yet? I sure am. Later on our favourite brown haired hat stand makes a special appearance, also locked up with Klingon for a poorly explained reason; and Beauty and the blar blar blar boring, predictable lovestory occurs and yeah. It’s not exactly rocket science to figure out the rest of the story. Just in case you weren’t sure though, there’s actually two alternate endings; one that follows the Disney version to a T, whilst the other is the boring, sensible ‘real life’ ending you were probably imagining.
I don’t like this film’s assumption that people who are moderately different or have body modifications are deemed ugly. They really could have tried harder to have made Klingon more beastly. Instead he looked like he’d just been to a tattoo convention. Also, it fails to really hit home that Klingon is a changed man after his experiences. I don’t really see much of a difference pre or post spell, he wants brown haired girl, and she wants him. That’s essentially the entire plot of the film. I hear it is based on a book, to which the Wikipedia page tells me is, as expected, dissimilar to the film. In the book he is supposed to turn into a raging beast as in the Disney version, however the movie decided to go with 60 pieces of prosthetics instead. Odd. Were they trying to make it more believable? Or perhaps more relatable?
Most people have said the best thing about this film is the styling. I personally think they could have tried much harder to make this more interesting. The movie itself was just too predictable and love smothered for my liking. A lot of the lines seemed over familiar, and were delivered as if the actors were bored after saying them so many times. There was no real emotion and I was fed up most of the way through. I seriously struggled to find anything to say about it at all because it was so tedious. I did rather like eyelinered Olsen’s shoes though. 1/5
@8 months ago with 1 note
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Films endured today: The Green Hornet.
What did I just subject myself to? There’s a bad taste in my mouth, have I been stung by the aforementioned hornet? Did I just take a shit on my own soul?
What even? I think I actually facepalmed. Multiple times. This was one of those films that you literally can’t take for more than 10 minutes. Regular breaks were required to make it to the end of this ramshackle movie and oh god, it was a challenge to remain conscious and concentrate throughout.
Spoilt brat Britt Reid gets mistreated by Daddy. I say mistreated, but if you ask me, that douche deserved it. Daddy spouts the line “trying doesn’t matter when you always fail,” which I personally think is a great way to kick your retarded child in the face/encourage them to be more than awesome. However, Reid jr. completely disregards Daddy’s prizewinning advice; instead turning into a vile, self centred and arrogant chauvinist who thinks living off of Daddy’s fortune is an acceptable life choice.
Then one day, after this, that and the predictable other, he rolls out of the wrong side of his king size bed; and actually manages to acknowledge and befriend a house slave, (otherwise known as Kato) because of his over the top coffee making skills. Winner. He describes his new found friend as “a human Swiss army knife,” thinking it the best compliment ever. Swiss army knife is not so sure. Reid spends the rest of the time consistently asserting his authority and interrupting Swiss army knife, who just bends over and takes it.
The best friends then find themselves on a series of misadventures, to which Reid does a lot of the failing, and Swiss army knife does most of the saving. We learn that Swiss army knife seemingly has some kind of inbuilt fallout 3 inspired V.A.T.S. system allowing him to kick some serious ass. There are some pretty impressive slow motion punches in the face and it’s the most fascinating part of the film – probably because it’s just so bizarre.
I don’t get it. I mean normally you’re supposed to feel some kind of empathy for the protagonist, but I seriously just want to end this guy’s spoon-fed life. After a painful to watch scene in which the beautiful Cameron Diaz is forced to bow down to his ego, I find myself questioning why no one has told Reid that he is so insufferable yet. He seems dumfounded when she rejects his infantile advances and chooses Swiss army knife over him. Finally, at a whopping 1 hour and 9 minutes in, Swiss army knife stands up to Reid, and only, I might add, because Reid jeopardises Swiss army knife’s chances with Diaz.
Who wrote this shit? Clearly, Reid’s character is designed to be an utter asshat – but this is the movies. He’s supposed to have some kind of revelation or mood change or something that magically turns him into a better person, and thus a likeable character. But does he? No. Even after admitting that perhaps Daddy wasn’t such a bad person after all and attempting to apologise to both Diaz and Swiss army knife, he still continues on in his own conceited quest to be the most irritating dolt ever.
Films adapted from comics (or in this case, originally a radio show then comic) either end up being alright, or a complete and utter ‘WTF, you’ve ruined my childhood’. I don’t know anything about the Green Hornet, but one glance at the Wikipedia page tells me that this film doesn’t just fall into the latter category, it takes a running leap. Incidentally, Nicholas Cage dropped out of the movie, stating he did not wish to portray a character that was “killing people willy-nilly”. I wish they’d have followed suit and dropped the entire fucking thing. 0.5/5
@10 months ago with 2 notes
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