Category: Reviews (Page 5 of 9)

So we saw the movie Hulk yesterday after work. (Perhaps that should be HULK? It seems to want allcaps.)

It was surprisingly good. Much has been said about the split-screen, framed shots being reminiscent of comic book layouts, which is true I guess, and helps give the impression that you are watching a comic. In a good way.

But that’s just icing. Hulk is good because it has a good story, good characters, and the visual spectacle of the Hulk himself, although extremely cool, is not the only thing to enjoy.

I’m reminded of an Altman film, “The Player”, where studio executives are touting movie scripts. “It’s an action movie. But with heart. And romance!”

Well, Hulk has all that. And really nice CGI effects. But he doesn’t get the girl.

We were going to leave work early today but – as usual – everything took longer. Or maybe not: Leaving work at 5:30 *is* early for us.

Texas Station is basically on the way home (if we choose to go that way) so stopping in for a 6:30 showing of “X2” seemed like a sensible thing to do.

Now, I enjoyed the first X-Men movie a lot. This one… well, maybe you have to be an X-Men comic fan-boy/girl to truly appreciate it, because I thought it dragged a bit and was even boring in places. Perhaps with more knowledge of the backstory or mythology, it would have been better. I still enjoyed it, but – I was expecting more.

It didn’t help that trailers for “League of Extraordinary Gentleman”, “Hulk”, and “Matrix Reloaded” were shown beforehand, because any one of the those films looked as though it would kick X2’s mutant butt.

It’s Saturday, and we’re going to get out of the house for a while.

We shopped at Target, and Ross, and bought many, many shirts to make up for my ripping tendancy.

After that we were going to find a bite to eat, but the nearby Cheesecake Factory was totally packed and very pretentious looking, so we gave it a miss and went straight to the Village Square 8 cinemas for a showing of “Bend It Like Beckham”.

SEE THIS MOVIE!

It’s cute. And fun. And although it will inevitably be compared to the Fat, Greek Wedding, it is different. Yes, there’s a clash of cultures, but that’s not all, and the characters have no embarrassment about who they are and where they come from, and it’s just great. Not predictable, and even the closing scenes were perfect and unexpected.

We finally saw the film “Daredevil” this afternoon. It was pretty good in a comic-book kind of way. My knowledge of the Daredevil character is really limited to that hints given in a completely different kind of Comic, “Electra Assassin” which focuses on the backstory of Daredevil’s sometime girlfriend, Electra. Well, Electra shows up in the movie and she’s pretty cool, although not so cool as she could have been. The good and bad news is that Daredevil did so well that they are making a sequel about Electra. If they use the “Assassin” comic as source material, it’ll be brilliant. If they don’t, it will probably be terrible.

We saw a Neville Brothers concert at the Cannery this evening. It rocked. I didn’t know the names of any of the songs – except perhaps “People Say” and “Everybody plays the fool” but I recognised most of them.

Superb musicians, the whole band. Really good guitar, hammond organ, bass, keyboards… it’s all good.

The Cannery is a new “local” casino which opened recently on Craig Road, so it really isn’t far away from us. It has a local feel, and the live venue is a kind of inside/outside deal which would have worked well but for the really cold night air coming in and freezing us. The night was Mardi Gras themed, and some of the costumed people we saw wandering about must have been rather chilly.

The night had an excellent Dollar:Entertainment ratio.

We drove down to the Regal Village Square 18 theaters, our “local” alternative/art film venue, and enjoyed a showing of “Rabbit-Proof Fence”.

This is a depressing film in a number of ways. I walked out thinking, Good Grief, the Maori tribes in New Zealand don’t really have much to complain about the way they, as aboriginal people, were treated by the government of the European settlers, not in comparison to what happened to the native Australians… but the thing is, one has to fight injustice in all its forms with the same conviction – it’s not about comparisons.

Afterwards we met up with Stan and Jeanne at a nearby Outback Steakhouse – an Australian-themed restaurant seems appropriate! Kind of. Rabbit was not on the menu.

Today looked like Bleh. It was cold, grey, overcast, and occasionally raining. So what, you might ask? Am I complaining because Las Vegas got its one annual rainy day and I’m not happy about it?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy it’s raining. I think it would be Bleh even if it were sunny outside. For some reason, though, it was just a Bleh kind of day.

To cast off the elvish cloak of Bleh, we decided to go see _The_Two_Towers_, using our special free ticket coupon that came with the Extended DVD version of The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Regal Theaters at Texas Station were the nearest ones that would honour the coupon, and we arrived nice and early at 2:15, for a 3:30 showing. We needn’t have rushed, it seemed that although full-ish, it was not sold out and there were no queues or anything.

I feel strangely unenthusiastic about TTT. I’m not sure why. I think it is because I’ve heard and read so many superlatives used with respect to the film that to add my own seems strangely redundant. Perhaps because it wasn’t the religious experience I’d hoped. I certainly enjoyed myself, and I am looking forward to seeing it again sometime. I could perhaps wait until the Extended DVD version comes out sometimes next year, though. The Ext.DVD of Fellowship added so much to the theatrical release of the first movie that I think I can extrapolate the missing scenes from TTT, and this sense of missing out on the full story is perhaps part of the let down.

Also, I thought that Gollum was magnificent, but I felt hurt that most of the audience seemed to want to laugh at the most poignant moments…

In Pheonix, AZ, we walked up the road to the America West Arena for the Peter Gabriel Concert.

We were a little late getting in to the arena. Ducking past the merchandise stand (one of several I think) and making our way around and around the perimeter of the circular venue, we made our way down a stair and through an alleyway to finally emerge into an enormous indoor arena space, where the Blind Boys of Alabama were already kickin’ up a gospel storm. They were scattered around a large circular stage, located in the middle of arena with the audience spread around the stage 360 degrees.

So began the Phoenix date in Peter Gabriel’s “Growing Up” tour.

We had great seats. There were two opening acts: The Blind Boys of Alabama, and some singers from Tanzania.

The Blind Boys sang four songs, each taking a turn in the spotlight, backed up by their excellent (and presumably sighted) backing band.

The Arena was not completely full, but still a tremendous crowd.

After the Blind Boys left the stage, Gabriel himself came out and introduced the next warm-up act: Tanzanian singers Charles and Dr. Hukwe Zawose. Traditional dress, amazing vocals, and native instruments. Very entertaining.

Then there was quite a long pause, with Gabriel’s _Passion_ soundtrack sounding out while the stage crew set up the stage for Gabriel’s band.

After about 30 minutes Gabriel took the stage and performed “Here Comes The Flood”, accompanying himself on piano in a solo performance, with a single light (a flood light perhaps?) illuminating him from above.

Then the band joined him on stage as the show really kicked in, with “Darkness”, the first track on his new album called “Up”. It was a good thing that Lisa and I had listened to “Up” in the car on the drive to Phoenix, because it’s tricky music to appreciate on the first listen, but it grows on you. (Is this what “growing up” means?).

A word about the stage: it was circular, and above it hung a circular lighting rig. It seemed innocuous at first. Gabriel had a keyboard and laptop set up on a chrome-and-white custom table thingy on one side of the stage, and Rachel Z was similarly set up opposite him, with a couple of keyboards ( Kurzweil K2500 and Korg Triton I believe) and a large LCD monitor at her feet. Arranged around the perimeter were backup singer Melanie Gabriel, Tony Levin (bass), David Rhodes (guitar) and another guy (whose name eludes me) on supplemental instruments: flute, recorder, bagpipes, guitar, viola… whatever was needed, it seemed.

The drums appeared to be located in the center of the stage, but as the show progressed, it was evident that they were on a separate independent platform that could be moved around as necessary.  In fact, the entire stage would reconfigure itself almost on a song-by-song basis.

Familiar tracks “Red Rain” and “Secret World” were up next. During Red Rain, the outer ring of the stage rotated so that the performers were moved to different points around the stage without have to walk or move their instruments. Still didn’t have a good view of Rachel Z though. Drat.

During Secret World, the lighting rig lowered a big egg shaped thing, suspended above the center of the stage. Lighting and projection effects are thrown upon it.

Then a new song: “Sky Blue”, during which the Blind Boys of Alabama rise up on a platform in the middle of the stage to sing the final verse a capella in their inimitable style. It seems spontaneous, but in fact it is almost exactly as presented on the album “Up”.

“Downside Up” from the London Millenium show soundtrack “OVO” was next. In a mind-blowing stage theatrical moment, the lighting rig was lowered to about 12 feet above the stage, and Peter and Melanie somehow strapped themselves to harnesses on opposite sides of the rig and commenced walking around and around the rig, upside down, while singing the song!

“Barry Williams Show” was next, from “Up”, and it’s an ok song. Gabriel has this TV camera on top of the lowered lighting rig that he used to film the audience and throws the picture up on a couple of big screens on either side of the stage.

During “More Than This”, the lighting rig is then hoisted back up into the ceiling, and the egg thing splits open to reveal an inner globe, a sphere – a seed?

“Mercy Street” is next, the first verse delivered in barbershop quartet style, with no instruments, just every member of the band in exquisite harmony. The globe thing is lit up like a moon.  Melanie sits in a boat shell which, sitting on the outer ring of the stage, rotates around the rest of the band, who have all taken a step backwards onto the inner, non-rotating part.

“Digging In the Dirt” was next, and it rocked.

Then another new song: “Growing Up”, during which the globe is lowered and an outer “skin” is removed, revealing a hollow plastic ball made of giant bubble wrap or something. It is disconnected from the suspension rig; Peter Gabriel climbs inside, and continues singing the song while running around the stage in the ball like a hamster, chasing the other members of the band around.

The Zawoses come back to join the band in performing a new as-yet-unrecorded song called “Animal Nation”.

For “Solsbury Hill”, Peter Gabriel rides a bike around the stage perimiter, in the opposite direction from that which it is turning – almost appearing to go backwards while pedalling forwards, if you can imagine that. Weird! but very effective.

“Sledgehammer” rocks, with Gabriel wearing a jacket made of lit light bulbs.

“Signal to Noise” kind of drags a bit, the band descending into the stage as the song fades.

Encores: “In Your Eyes” extended to a 10 minute jam, and then, after much clapping and yelling from the audience, Gabriel comes back to the stage with Tony Levin and performs “Father, Son” from OVO.

What a show.

We’re kind of stunned as we walk back to the hotel, and collapse in bed.

We went to a 2:00 pm showing of Equilibrium today. It was pretty good. Yeah, it is heavily influenced by The Matrix, and owes a lot to Fahrenheit 451, but I chose to think of it as a re-exploration of the same concepts rather than a rip-off. It has some plot holes, but I really enjoyed it and for a low-budget film written by the director, it deserves a decent showing at the box office. Check your brain at the door and enjoy.

I might as well reinforce the impression that all I talk about here is food, concerts, and movies…

It was with great surprise my.yahoo.com told me that the film _Equilibrium_ was playing at several nearby theaters. So, Lisa and I decided that, after her chiropractice and our subsequent monthly sushi meal at Shogun, we would drive a little further and see a 7:00pm showing at Texas Station.

When we got there, the clerk behind the counter said, “We don’t have that showing here this evening.”

Turns out it doesn’t open for another week or so. Yahoo lies!

We had a choice: drive back home, or see an alternative film. We voted and somewhat lacklusterly chose “Die Another Day”, the latest James Bond film.

All the reviews I had read about this film praised it as a “return to form” and that the only thing wrong with it was the dreadful title music – by Madonna.

Apparently they saw a different movie, because the best parts of the film in my opinion were the title song, and John Cleese’s turn as “Q”. And of course, Judi Dench is terrific in anything.

I think what got me most was that the Science (which is dodgy in *any* modern action flick) was just totally stupid. OK, I *know* James Bond is fantasy but I found I just didn’t have the energy to raise my level of disbelief high enough to truly enjoy the film. Explosions, cars, helicopters, chase sequences… Like the baby in the carry-cot several rows in front of us, I found “Yawn Another Day” overstimulating to the point of boredom.