Avatar review

So, I saw Avatar last night.

Now, this is a movie that people have apparently been looking forward to for a long time, one that's been hyped to the heavens as an experience that's going to "change the way we watch movies" or some other nonsense. I didn't even know it existed until last year and it wasn't on my radar as anything worth watching until I saw the trailer. And I have to admit, part of the reason I even bothered to see it is because I really liked watching Up in 3D and was anxious to go back for more. So keep in mind that this review is the opinion of a guy whose anticipation level going in was somehwere along the lines of "this looks pretty neat" as opposed to someone who's been waiting for this for 15 years.

(Spoiler free)

Paranormal Activity review

It bothers me a lot that most modern horror films don't pass my Horror Movie Quality Criteria (patent pending). The criteria are as follows:

1) The movie must contain less than one explosion
2) The movie must contain at least five seconds of frightening footage

 You'd think more horror films would be able to manage that, but apparently not. Thankfully paranormal activity, the original 2007 cut of which I got a chance to see yesterday, is both explosion free and features far more than five seconds of the good stuff.

[spoilers below! Don't read if you haven't seen it]

My Thoughts on Up

I went to see Up yesterday in that new fangled 3D I've been hearig so much about. Here are my long-winded, rambling thoughts on the movie.

(spoilers- I'm assuming you've seent the film already, if you haven't don't read this)

Let the Right One In- Movie Review

The news of a remake/ readaptation of Let The Right One In intersected neatly with my local video place getting the movie to rent on Blu Ray, so I decided to give it a whirl. There are few times when I see an adaptation of a novel and come out of it thinking the movie was better, but this might be one of them.

The script was written by the author of the original novel. When I first heard this I thought it could lead to a bloated movie that tries to include absolutely everything from the book, but thankfully that's not the case at all. Lindqvist went through his story with an critical and un-biased eye and took out the side stories that sometimes dragged the book down, making more room for the central relationship between Eli and Oskar. What we get is a streamlined, faster version of the original with a lot of the waffle cut out.

I do have some complaints I'd like to get out of the way here. Unfortunately some quality material got cut out as well, such as nearly all of Hakan's characterization and backstory. The book's Hakan was a complex character who we got to see battling against his darker impulses and struggling to keep his action rooted in good intentions, no matter how delusional the attempt was, whereas I can imagine people seeing the movie version and coming away with the impression that he's quite a fatherly figure towards Eli, in which case they're in for quite a shock if they read the book.

Eli and Oskar also lose some complexity. The actors portraying them do a fine job, but we just don't get into their heads as much as in the book. Subsequently Oskar isn't nearly as creepy at the start as he was originally, and some of the more humerous scenes between him and Eli unfortunately aren't included.

The cinematography of the film is amazing from the outset and just keeps getting better, producing some real "holy crap" moments using plain old lighting techniques and camera angles rather than specia effects (the one exception being an extremely cool sequence involving Eli's eyes)

My overall impression of the movie is that everybody involved did not set out to make a vampire movie, but a romance film that just happens to feature a vampire. This is most noticable in the (extremely good) soundtrack, which could just as easily be used in a "normal" coming-of-age drama.

Thoughts on the Let the Right One In remake

So IGN has an article up about the cast for the remake of Let The Right One In, which is surprising because I didn't even know they were doing a remake. Although I haven't seen the movie yet, I've read (and loved) the book it's based on.

The rampant pessmism and gnashing of teeth that accompanies any announcement of a big-budget remake/adaption of anything always annoys me, as there are multiple major exceptions to the attitude that Hollywood ruins everything with it's vile attempts to make money (The Ring is, in my opinion, far to superior the original Japanese Ring). So I'm going to try and treat this fairly and not jump to conclusions.

I'm not familiar with either of the actors they've chosen to portray the movie's versions of Oskar and Eli, so I can't really comment on that. What I can comment on is the names chosen for the characters: Owen and Abby. I really thought they'd just change Oskar to Oscar. Maybe it sounds too old fashioned or something?

Abby for Eli is a bit.... iffy. I always thought the name Eli has a kind of timeless quality to it- you could just as easily imagine it applied to a 12 year old girl as you could to an immortal vampire. Abby on the other hand comes across as kind of childish. I don't really get why this one needs changing anyway- Eli obviously isn't a very common girl's name in America, but it wouldn't seem that wierd or out of place, and could enhance the character's mystique.

The location for casting- New Mexico- also causes me a bit of alarm since it's a far cry from the frigid location of the book and original movie. I'm not one of these fans who insist nothing can ever be changed so I won't boycott the movie if they decide to ditch the snowy locales, but I always liked the setting of the book.

The only detail about the movie that I'm completely not liking is the title- the producers have for some reason decided to go with "Let Me In", the ininspired moniker that the book was laboured with in America. Okay, let's face it, Let The Right One In doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it sounds bad-ass. Let Me In sounds like the title to a cheesy slasher flick.

EDIT: Okay, I've done some digging around and some new details have come to light.

According to this page this movie isn't actually a remake the of the Swedish film- it's another adaptation of the book. I'm prepared to view it as such as long as it differs in some signficant way from the first movie. I'm guessing most people aren't going to realise this, however.

Also:

This isn't actually a theatrical poster, but rather a mock-up used to sell the film to studios. I guess I was way off-base about there being no snow in the movie, apparently New Mexico is just one filming location among many.

It's a pretty cool poster. I can't help but notice that "Abby" looks extremely similar to how Eli did in the Swedish version. Even her clothes are similar, which makes me somewhat suspicious of the claim that this is a readaptation, since Eli's initial clothes in the movie were different from what she was wearing in the book.