Central Village

Harry Potter

On Friday, I watched Harry Potter 1. Saturday, 2. On Monday, I watched part of 3, but passed out halfway through, so i had to watch half of 3 and all of 4 last night, all of course leading up to the midnight release of 5. It's been a good run. I've gotten involved in the story and have a general familiarity of the characters and all that. (No, I haven't read the books and yes, I'm starting 6 now and will read 7 when it comes out.) But watching them all in order like this was a fun way to learn quick. I liked following the progression of the beginning stories, which stand up on their own (albeit relatively shallowly,) to the third, which is a beautiful departure that really takes a step outside the Voldemort story for the most part, then back to 4, which starts off center but really picks up the pace at the end, leading right into 5, which is pretty heavy all the way through.

Even taking itself out of its cult series, Order of the Phoenix was a good enough movie as it is. When you've got nearly 10 hours of character development preceding it, however, it only helps matters, and that's impossible to take out. But while the continuing story is great and getting better, the highlight for me was Dolores Umbridge, who was just about the most effective villain I could imagine. She was the perfect representative of every subtle political undertone brought up throughout the movie. Passive aggressive and self righteous evil with a pink coat and a smile. The absolute worst. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about her.

Anyway, my analysis of the story and placing it within the worlds the books created is worthless since I'm a noob in all his stuff. The best I can offer is that It's a good enough movie standing on it's own. Removed from any context or expectation, it was nothing if not thoroughly enjoyable.

Superbad is Good

I went to a screening last night with medium expectations and left really happy. This is a great summer movie. Just perfect.

Remember American Pie? Well this is like American Pie, except replace the big gross out gags and obvious humor with subtle, awkward Roganesque dialog.

Interestingly, I thought the only parts that dragged were the scenes with Rogan himself playing the zany cop with Bill Hader. Not that they didn't have their moments, but you get the gag early on and they kind of just level out and drive it into the ground. At times it almost seemed like they were improvising their scenes. And not in a good, Curb your Enthusiasm way, but in a way where you sit there thinking "Wait a minute, are those guys just making this up as they go along?" But honestly, they're still pretty funny. Just not up to the standards the rest of the movie set.

Michael Cera may play the same character over and over for the rest of his life, and I'll be fine with that cause he got this role out of the way early on. He was great. Jonah Hill was even better. They nailed just about every scene. You care about these guys by the end. You root for them.

This movie left me with a better feeling in my gut than I've had walking out of any movie in a really long time. If you remember liking American Pie 8 years ago (even if you can't imagine why, today), and think Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin are pretty much the two funniest movies of the last few years, you'll LOVE this. If either of those two things are true, you should really really like it. It's the best of both worlds. I give it my highest summer movie recommendation.

Shawn of the Dead is not that funny

Don't get me wrong, it was a good movie. A very good movie, in fact. But it was not a straight spoof of the zombie genre. Thats what I expected. Especially since it was touted all weekend by one as being the 'funniest movie ever.' Sorta scared the piss out of me, actually.

It had funny moments. I did genuinely laugh out loud a few times, but the moments of actual terror (I yelped at least once) outweighed the cheery bits. Especially while being holed up in a dark house in the middle of nowhere in a torrential downpour. Not to mention the emotionally taxing parts that were just straight ROUGH. Not even a hint of humor, at times. Me gods, there was some serious shit going down here. Not what I expected in the slightest.

Lift your heavy eyelids

I went to see the Coachella Movie last night with a couple of friends. It was pretty good, tho not perfect. The second half was far better than the first. Biggest gripe...the volume levels were too low! It wasn't in surround-sound and the immersion factor simply wasn't there. It's really hard to get into some of the more booming bands because of this.

Surprise surprise, the highlight was The Arcade Fire's performance of Rebellion (Lies). It was the greatest show I had ever seen them do, and was really excited to be able to experience part of it again. Somewhere out there the whole set is on tape. It should really be released on it's own. Other highlights were Bjork and Bright Eyes, particularly because the quiet songs worked better with the low theater volume. But there were a number of stunning performances, really, and only a few stinkers (The Zero-7 finale didn't fit and Oasis kind of bored me...tho Noel's backstage commentary was pretty priceless). All in all it was very well done, tho not without its faults.

I'm sure it's not a coincidence that Presale tickets go on sale today for the 2006 festival. The movie had an infomercial feel to it. Did a good job of selling the fest to people who have never been. Tickets can be bought here at 1:00pm NY time. The Password is seven. They've also stated the official lineup will finally be announced next week.

Kong-a-long

Let me say right out that this movie needed to be three hours long. It was a grandiose epic on an unparalleled scale. Anything shorter would have felt lackluster...I honestly believe this. I just wish those three hours were a little better distributed.

One of my biggest issues with movies in general is the pacing. The scenes and plot points get too clumped together and I lose the flow. I don't need to spend 45 minutes on one scene if you're gonna skim through 3 others that could have been equally important. While I was moved and impressed by Kong in a number of ways, if was frustrating how disconnected the acts were. They could have taken out an hour of the current movie, add some more (relevant...sorry black guy and kid...didn't need that) character development, maybe a good 20-30 minutes between skull Island and opening night and a little bit more NY rampage time. Something to make the movie flow a little bit better.

That being said, what was presented was spectacular. The Skull Island scenes are as intense as anything I've ever seen and the final Empire State Building stage will go down as one of the most breathtaking movie moments ever. The level of detail they put into 1930's Manhattan from that vantage point was unbelievable. I could probably see my apartment if I looked carefully enough. Jack Black and Naomi Watts were very good, but the guy who played the movie star was the best. And Kong is brilliant. Maybe not today, but soon they're gonna have to figure out how to give CGI creations Academy Awards.

Heart on a Stick has his take on the movie as well...

Be careful what you put them through...

I saw Munich on Christmas with my parents. It was very good, but not without its faults. Our biggest point of confusion was why Eric Bana was so worked up about the Munich Olympics incident...I kept on waiting to find out that his father (who they referenced as an Israeli hero several times) was involved or killed or something, but it was never really made clear. Obviously it was a horrible event, but they made it out like he took it worse than most and that it was the only thing that kept him going on his mission. Didn't seem to add up.

There was one part that was laughably bad. I couldn't take seriously the violent lovemaking session where it flashed between the Munich Airport shootout and Bana's sweaty frame. Such an important moment in the backstory should have been handled more carefully. Everything else was done in typical excellent Spielberg fashion, but that scene was just too over the top.

The tough thing about a movie like this is that the expectations are so high to begin with, that it is nearly impossible to live up to. Anything Spielberg does is going to be put against stuff like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, and that's just an impossible standard to live up to. I liked the main story just fine...The characters were all excellent and the pacing was spot on. The whole pro/anti-Israel thing didn't bother/affect me as much as some critics. I don't think it was overly sympathetic to either side. It was really just a good spy movie, put in the context of a very serious historical event. If you haven't seen it yet, it's probably best viewed that way.

Karen and Brooklyn Vegan saw it this weekend and share their brief opinions as well.

Bro'in Out with Michael Showalter

I went to the UCB theater last night because I was told Michael Showalter was gonna be doing something there.  I had no idea what it was, but I had no other plans for the evening and I like the guy, so I went to check it out.

The show is called Bro'in Out, and it's an improv bit that plays out like a talk show.  It was great.  Very natural and quite funny.  Showalter was perfect in addressing some of the harsher criticisms of his show Stella (We're just nice guys trying to make you laugh!  How can you be so mean to us??), and also talked for a bit about his upcoming movie, The Baxter.  Good stuff.  The Apiary has the definitive recap of the night, so check that out.

The musical guest was Cracked Out (Introduced as two white rappers raised by retards). As they came on, I rolled my eyes at the played out 'over the top white-boy gangstas' shtick, but once the duo started up, they absolutely killed.  I was nearly in tears when they broke into the chorus of 4 Non-Blondes' What's Going On.  They'll be at Mercury Lounge on Aug. 11th with MC Chris (oops) if you're interested in checking them out.  Highly recommended.

9 Songs = 69 minutes I'll never have back

So I went to go see the Productshop-hyped 9 songs at the Angelica last night.  What a dumb fucking movie.  By far the longest hour I've ever sat through.  I checked my phone to see what time it was, like, 5 times throughout the movie?  every 13 minutes or so, on average.  Unacceptable.

It was just so boring.  I didn't care about the characters. I didn't even really like the concert footage they shot.  And I didn't get the Arctic thing at all.  It was certainly explicit, and the music was good, but that wasn't even remotely enough to keep me entertained. 

Even if the point was to have a vague relationship where the only the sex and music mattered, it still didn't work.  I suppose one could pretend that they somehow connect with the characters, but there just wasn't anything there to relate to.  You don't know anything about these people, except they like to go see music that was popular a year or two ago and they have lots of sex.  And the guy somehow ended up working in the Arctic once the relationship was over.  But you don't know or care why they are together, what they are like, what they do for a living, or what they are interested in.  You are told they like good music because they listen to it and go to shows, but that felt completely tacked on and almost beside the point.  They are the most empty, boring and unimaginative characters I have ever seen in a movie, and every aspect of their personalities you find out about seemed completely disconnected from the rest of their lives.

Jeez...I could go on forever about what was wrong with this movie, but what's the point.  It's just a poorly told, slapped together excuse for the director to film graphic sex and gigs he liked.  Do not waste your time.