The Incredibles

Just caught part of Missions Impossible: Ghost Protocol the other day, the
beginning, and realized the same guy (Brad Bird) directed The Incredibles.
For a snarky moment, I thought, "Ah, and that was a much more realistic
film."

Seriously though, the characters in "The Incredibles" were both more
realistic and better executed.

Surrogates

An incomplete piece, but if I don't post it soon I never will.

tags: movies, technology

7 aug 10

A interesting movie. Better than I thought, this movie took a lot of care
to not be a complete piece of fluff.

Obviously it used a lot of CGI effects, but they also paid a great deal of
attention to how they set up and filmed each shot. They went to Panavision
and asked for some slant lenses, which hadn't been used since the 1960s.
Slant lenses have a different focal length across the width of the lens,
allowing the camera to keep two different points at different distances in
focus, which is how they framed many of their shots.

They explored the concept of action at a distance (occasionally a safe
distance) throughout the movie, and the advantages and disadvantages of it.
They also played with the huge social implications of these machines,
specifically the idea of deception. First in the arena of personal
appearance (to include age and gender masking), through the full spectrum to
include impersonating someone by taking over their surrogate (after
murdering them) to fatal effects.

There were a couple of ideas they didn't really play with, such as one
operator controlling many surrogates, or of computer control of surrogates,
creating in effect an autonomous robot.

(Incidentally, I think the widespread use of "surrogates" by the populace as
depicted is unlikely. There are technical reasons, but I think the biggest
is that the machines would be expensive (lots of metal, lots of moving
parts), beyond the reach of most people. They would be the mark of the rich
and powerful. Their use in combat as depicted seems quite likely.)

Splice

Seriously?

This was a crappy movie the first time I didn't watch it, when it was called Species.

The Hurt Locker

I've been trying to decide whether or not to write an entry on The Hurt Locker. I finally decided to, because of the movie Restrepo. I didn't know they were making a movie; I saw the author of the book interviewed on The Daily Show and that alone was moving. I'm planning on watching it on the 4th of July, if not sooner.

Expect another entry on Hurt Locker, like what they got right and what they got wrong.

http://www.restrepothemovie.com/

From Paris...

Okay, don't have much time for details, so let's cut to the chase.

From Paris With Love: A great example of how NOT to fight terrorism/wage COIN.

(Also, a pretty bad movie to boot...Jonathan Rhys Meyers needs to learn how to act.)

District 9

Every so often, a movie comes along that looks so cool, I wish I could watch it right then and there.

http://d-9.com/

Star Trek

I am impressed. To work, this movie needed decent writing, spot on casting, outstanding acting and finesse in assembling it all, and they had it. Simon Pegg as Scotty was a master stroke.

Valkyrie

Thumbs up.

I was in Berlin in 2007 when they were re-shooting parts of this. It does make me wonder how history would have been different had they succeeded, and is a fitting reminder thatnot all Germans were Nazis, not all members of a nation support all its actions.

Body of Lies

Eh, thumbs down. No particularly inspiring writing, and since I didn't really care that much about the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, it was kind of hard to care what happened to them.

It was interesting to see some UAV stuff (which they didn't screw up as badly as other movies). However, it was downright retarded to see them talking classified information back and forth over not just unsecured phones, but out in the open in front of their families, or on the streets of a foreign nation. I've never been a spy, so I can't tell you if that's how they do business, but I can say I'd never be allowed to do such things in the military. And we never handle classified material in a room with windows, much less the glass boxes they spent much large parts of the movie in.

Salaama Laykum

I recently saw Traitor, starring Don Cheadle , and it may be the smartest movie I've seen about the GWOT yet. Thumbs up!