28/November/2011
It began as a "today's observation." Then it grew into a blog entry. Then I realised I had enough literal and figurative bullshit here to warrant its own HTML document. Not that I'm sure it actually deserves it or not, but it's up now. Read at your own risk.
No, seriously. Unless you want to read a few dozen paragraphs each with plentiful varied synonyms for canine faecal matter, you might want to give it a miss.
The first General Writing in over a year and this is what it is. It's not exactly what I hoped for, I'll say that much. Not that it wasn't a laugh, though.
24/November/2011
It's that time of year, so you know what to expect from the blog: Blah blah cold, blah blah misery, blah blah needlessly graphic descriptions of snot and undesired bodily functions.
I watched Volere Volare (or Wanting To Fly), an Italian movie my
dad must have recorded off TV about twenty years ago.
Maurizio works in the dubbing business, dubbing silent cartoons with his own
sounds, and frequently visits hardware stores to buy new instruments for their
sound effects (his brother, meanwhile, hauls in scantily-clad
women to dub pornography). Martina is a freelance... "social worker," who
'entertains' clients in whatever they wish to do, such as a couple who roleplay
grieving each others' death; a taxi driver who revels in terrorizing customers;
and a chef who decorates her legs and buttocks like a cake.
Maurizio stumbles into Martina's life on a couple of occasions, but leaves a big impact on the people around her, leaving them more interesting in him than her. She seeks him out to make him a business partner, but complications arise when Maurizio discovers something shocking - his hands have turned into disembodied cartoons with minds of their own!
It's a pretty odd film.
It's a quirky, offbeat little film that manages to maintain a whimsical, fairy
tale vibe despite half the film being about dudes with fetishes, basically.
Heck, it's hard to even describe it honestly without it coming across as
depraved. The film's real emphasis lies on its cartoon antics, from the great
use of sound effects (Maurizio taking over his brother's job of dubbing "arty
films" is excellent), to the totally outlandish clients Martina has, to simply
how plain goofy the leading actor looks. Maurizio Nichetti is a living
cartoon! Even before he actually becomes one. (spoilers!)
There's a fair amount of blending animation with live-action, but you can't really compare it to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? because the spectrum of scope between them is just too vast (Roger Rabbit had dozens of animated characters in several shots and they were practically the co-stars, whereas Volere Volare covers up the animated stuff with a disguise of some sort frequently). That said, it's very nice and smooth animation, and it blends in very nicely with the footage - Martina walks in front of cartoon Maurizio several times and interacts with him (ie. punching him in the crotch), and it's really smooth. I'm just a sucker for technical stuff like that, see.
One thing I've been trying to figure out, though, is does the
film count as a romantic comedy? Romance is pretty much the theme of the movie,
but not a lot of romance actually goes on - Maurizio always ends up running away
when his cartoon anatomy starts acting up, and the one time Martina appears
madly in love with him is when she's drunk off her skull. I can't even remember
the how or why they end up making passionate animated love by the end of the
film.
It admittedly feels like a bit of an aimless film, though that's probably just
me and my Western sensibilities. It's a fun little flick for what it is; it's
just a pity the thing's so rare to find in English. It seems like the only way
to get the film with English subtitles is to find it on VHS, and I can't imagine
that's easy to come across.
21/November/2011
Pick up the pieces
Playing catch up. Did I ever talk about the
revamp of the
Bomberman shrine? I'm tired and have a cold and barely remember. Either way,
I've uploaded what I've finished of it, as a lot of the content has been kicking
about for a few months now. There's not much new! The revamp was mostly to ditch all that horrible Frontpage code, and so I can upload all the stuff I hadn't before, like magazine
scans and manuals and stuff. A lot of that stuff had only been posted on the
Bomberman Board, but now you can access it from the site. Whoop.
Will the shrine see much updates in the future? Aheh. The best I can say is
"I'll see what happens." You should know by now that anything I start goes
hideously unfinished.
I haven't checked the uploaded version extensively yet, but I didn't encounter
any problems viewing my offline files. If there's any cock-ups, let me know.
Also, some music for the game music page. A lot of it's been sitting around for months, too! You can tell which ones are leftovers from months ago by how long the song descriptions are.
12/November/2011
Get your pixels ready!
Quite proud of these. The scale gives me a headache, though - you wouldn't believe how much grief I had over the size of Splash Woman's head.
02/November/2011
I watched Predator 1 and 2 over the past couple of weeks, and last night I watched Predators. Unless I want to subject myself to the Aliens vs. Predators films (and given how I burst out laughing when my brother recapped the plot of the second one, I can't imagine I will), I've had my fix of Predator-related entertainment.
The first Predator is just plain iconic, y'know? Bunch of dudes in the jungle, originally there for some kind of actual military-related storyline but then that gets hijacked so they can all shit their pants and shoot at an invisible monster. What more can I say? Very enjoyable flick. I keep wanting to say it's what Rambo II should have been, but I'm not exactly sure what I mean by that. I'm just not a fan of Rambo II.
I'd heard iffy things about Predator 2 and wasn't too
sure if I'd bother with it, but it's also a great one, and I'd probably say a
more rewatchable film. Rather than just rehashing the plot of the first one
(which is why I don't like Rambo II - if I ever make my old movie reviews
more immediately accessible I'd link to it, the ol' review explains why!), it
takes place in a mildly sci-fi future where a city is being swamped by gang
warfare, with the police genuinely struggling to make an impact against it...
and then a Predator shows up! It then ends up hijacking the plot and all the
gang warfare stuff is ignored, but that's understandable considering the
Predator probably de-spined them all.
Letting the Predator loose in a city, especially one rife with gang warfare,
makes for a really engaging setting, and Danny Glover makes for a great
protagonist - better than Arnie, I'd dare say! (Arnold's iconic and all, but did
the guy even have any personality in the first film? He was just the dude with
the biggest arms. Danny Glover's a cowboy cop who doesn't play by the rules if
it means getting results, and he's got his own little posse of tight-knit cops,
so it's all the more distressing when they're picked off and he's the only man
left to take on the beast. While the first film slams together war films, sci-fi
and primal horror into a very nicely balanced package, the second one opts for
more sci-fi and has a few small doses of darkly humourous commentary on the
crummy sides of society. Probably not what folks look for in a Predator sequel,
but I thought this one, although not as iconic as the original, has a lot more
personality. I really enjoyed it.
Predators is back in the jungle again. Except this time
it's on a Predator's hunting reserve! Ooooh!
... it doesn't make as much difference as you'd think.
To me, that's the biggest problem about Predators. Yeah, they're on the
Predators' turf, and they're all randomly selected individuals with killing
prowess being used as game, but the basic premise still plays out identically to
the first film. Every once in a while it incorporates a new, interesting idea...
and doesn't do anything decent with it. At one point they find "the one who got
away," a guy who's survived several hunting seasons and even has access to the
Predators' technology... and then he's killed minutes later because he changes
his niche from "skilled survivalist" to "backstabbing asshole". There's a blood
war going on between two kinds of Predators, but since there's only about four
of the things in the movie we barely see it in any detail. One of the characters
teams up with a Predator in an attempt to escape from the planet, an idea that's
really pretty intriguing... and then the Predator gets killed mere minutes
later.
It also doesn't help that none of the characters are very
likeable. That is kind of the point, given they're all either soldiers, gang
members or prisoners, but they're also not very interesting either. I was sorely
waited for the oh-so-goddamned-mysterious main character to snuff it just so so
someone with a bit more intrigue could take the focus. I like Adrien Brody
(and
BRODYQUEST made me appreciate him even more), but he's kind of an
average guy. That's part of his charm and precisely why I loved him so much in
The Pianist, but having boring mysterious guy with no charisma or
intrigue as the main character didn't help the movie any.
I guess if you liked the first film this'll be a satisfactory follow-up, but I
think I'm just grouchy because I've seen excerpts of some great-looking films
like Bronson and In The Name Of The Father, and was hoping to
watch something fresh and engaging like those, only to end up watching a
lacklustre rehash. It was okay, I'll give it that, but it didn't offer
anything engaging or memorable.