WAS1 Productions

Originally Written 04/19/08

also got to finally see one of the episodes of the new season of Dr. Who last night as well. “Voyage of the Damned” was a good one, but how can you go wrong with an idea of the Titanic in space?

I liked how they played with the disaster movie plot points; it reminded me of The Poseidon Adventure (the original film) in several places, in a good way. The melodrama might have been a bit overdone, but it was still good.

There was an added bonus of killer androids too, which was just icing on the cake. I loved the references to the classic Tom Baker episode “Robots of Death” they got in there.

Originally Written 04/19/08

I saw The Forbidden Kingdom last night. I was worried that it might suck, but was hopefully with it getting a good rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so we decided to check it out. The film was a treat, even though it wasn’t perfect.

It was good fun to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li together in a movie. Yes they’re showing their age a little bit, but better late than never. Both of them still have their chops too. There was a lot of good martial arts. Some of the editing was a bit choppy, but the fight choreography was impressive.

The movie had lots of nice visuals too. It’s a pastiche of a whole bunch of kung-fu movies and legends, but it’s obviously made by people who love the genre, and it’s good fun for fans. Unfortunately the movie is flawed.

The biggest problem with it is the choice of actors for the kid who played the chosen one. I can be down with using an American in the roll, but the kid they chose had no charisma or screen presence, so he ended up sucking energy from a lot of scenes. He did get better towards the end, but I would’ve definitely liked someone else.

I didn’t hate the film, and I had fun with it, but it could’ve been better. Still, for fans of the genre, who can overlook some faults, it’s worth checking out.

Originally Written 03/19/08

When we were hanging out this weekend, my friend Lonnie wanted to watch Starship Troopers, which was fine for me as it’s an entertaining flic. I love how the first half of it is like an Aaron Spelling show in space, which is some goofy, silly fun, then once they get to the action the effects and CGI and design of the bugs are most excellent. It was an enjoyable way to flit away a lazy Saturday afternoon, eating junk food and hanging out.

I was also struck by a bit of a surprise at watching the film post 9/11. There’s a good deal of unplanned parallels to things going on today, even if we aren’t fighting giant bugs. First there’s a group of young adults who join up with the military during peacetime to better their lives. A vicious surprise attack by an enemy propels everybody into war, which is greatly underestimated at first.

Also, while it was satire and exaggeration, the media propaganda hit home in a few spots, including predicting having embedded reporters with the troops on the missions. Of course it’s missing the left half of the news machine, but except for a couple of throw-away lines there is no dissent among the population. Everybody agrees this is an enemy that needs to be fought and wiped out, but then it’s a battle drama, so the writing calls for that.

Anyway, it’s not a serious political treatise, it’s just something I noticed, that watching this goofy film from 1997 reads a little different in the paranoid 2000s. Damn I miss the late 90s, when the money flowed freely and the biggest thing we had to worry about was who the president was getting oral sex from.

Originally Written 03/14/08

I just watched a wonderfully entertaining film, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. One of his co-workers recommended it; he works with a bunch of cool younger engineers at Mitre, who are all into movies and video games, etc. I wish I could find an office like that again.

Anyway, the film was a treat to watch. It’s a bit silly at times, but overall it was very well done. It has some great dark comedy and ends up being a funny and clever deconstruction of slasher films, with a few nice surprises.

The actor who plays the wanna-be serial killer is wonderfully disarming and joyfully banal at first. His mentor, a retired man of the business and his wife, a former last-girl who fell in love with him, were also amusing characters. And Robert Englund has a fun role in this too.

If you enjoy horror films and dark comedy, this is a must see.

Originally Written 03/02/08

I saw Be Kind Rewind on Friday, which was a pretty fun film. It’s an absurd comedy where Jack Black gets magnetized in a mishap while trying to sabotage a power substation and accidentally erases all the videotapes in the movie rental store Mos Def works at.

So then in order not to lose the business, the two of them start re-making the movies to pawn off on their customers, and they become local sensations because of these home-brew movies.

It was a lot of fun to see them filming the movies, partly because it brought back all of the goofiness from when I made stupid movies with my friends from college, but it was also just fun to see all the movie references.

It was a great project for Michel Gondry too, since it played off his use of weird props, odd camera angles and optical effects. It most reminds me of his earlier work with music videos, though I haven’t seen The Science of Sleep yet.

It isn’t a perfect film, it’s uneven in parts and has some flaws, but it also has some heart, as well as lots of entertaining silliness. Plus the visuals from all the movie projects were a real treat to watch.