I went to see Avatar last night in 3D and I can tell you that you must go and see it !
Avatar is an amazing film but this is mainly because it is filmed in 3D and this brings to life the whole film. I think I sat through the whole film with my mouth open and totally immersed in another world. This film is all about escapism to another world at its very best. There are many times in the movie that you feel that you are there amongst the actors in the same room.
Whilst the story line is excellent and probably tells a moral story as well the main winner is the 3D technology which surely will herald the start of 3D in most films. Avatar is the perfect movie for 3D as it is filmed in CGI on a fictitious planet called Pandora. The main character is given a new body, an avatar, in which to live his life in the midst of the planets population. These creatures are amazing and they live in a huge jungle full of amazing creatures and floating mountains.
If a movie wins 8 Oscars then it is reasonable to assume that it’s going to be worth watching, so I went to see Slumdog Millionaire on Friday evening. What a brilliant film it is too. I really enjoyed it and it kept me riveted throughout.
The film is about a young boy and his brother who grow up in the terrible slums of Mumbai. Their mother is killed so the two brothers have to fend for themselves and they beg steal and borrow to survive. The two brothers end up taking different paths. One is a gangster and the other somehow ends up being quite intelligent and sensible and finds himself on the Indian version of Who wants to be a millionaire. He manages to get all the questions correct but ends up being interrogated by the police as they think he must have cheated.
The movie then goes back to periods in the boys life and the story explains how he knows all the answers. For example, one of the questions is “Whose face is shown on the back of a $100 US bank note. The reason he knows is because he was given one whilst he was conning tourists at the Taj Mahal !
The movie carries on like this and it is a fascinating insight into how people from the Mumbai slums live. The film is entertaining and fascinating at the same time. The film also has love interest as the two brothers fight over the slum girl, Latika, who grows up with the brothers but gets separated from them before meeting up again.
All the characters play good parts and the music is good, but not quite as good as I expected, but overall the film is excellent and I would give it five stars. It is one of the few films that I have been to where the audience stayed seated for the credits at the end.
I recently saw a trailer for the the new Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie. You have probably seen either the trailer or maybe even the movie itself. There seems to be a bit of controversy about whether Tom Cruise, who plays the Nazi conspiring to assassinate Hitler during the Second World War, should play the part using a German accent or not. In the actual movie Tom Cruise does not talk in a German accent, he speaks with his normal American accent. Well, sorry, but to me that is wrong and because of that I will not go and see the movie. In my opinion a German Nazi should be played by an actor who speaks with a German accent at least and probably should be played by a German speaking person and, therefore, with English subtitles.
Imagine if the war film Pearl Harbour had English speaking Japanese fighter pilots. It would not seem right would it ? Well, the same principal applies with all similar films. I would rather not have an A list actor like Tom Cruise playing such parts. I would rather have an unknown actor who could speak German.
I recently watched a great movie called Apocolypto, directed by Mel Gibson. Apocolypto is the mythic story of a tribe of Indians who have been conquered by another tribe and taken to an ancient Mayan kingdom to be sacrificed by the kingdom’s rulers to appease the gods who are currently “punishing” the Mayan people through sickness, pestilence, drought and a myriad of other issues in what is to become the waning days of their mighty empire. The point is though is that this film uses local actors who do not speak English. The film is sub-titled and in my opinion this makes the movie far more authentic and actually pretty scary in parts as well.
I am a big fan of war movies and all the best ones have had German speaking actors if they have been about World War 2. Can you imagine John Wayne playing a German. He was far too macho for that !
Christmas used to be the time when you could watch a good blockbuster movie. Those days are now gone unless you have subscription movie channels. So this year I decided to buy some movies on DVD to watch, and they turned out to be really good movies that I can recommend that you watch too.
1. Batman – The Dark Knight – This is a brilliant film but the story line could have been better in my opinion. I rate the film as brilliant because of the performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Great special effects. The Dark Knight and Batman Begins mark the time when the Batman movie franchise moved from being kids films into the adult world.
2. Mama Mia – This is the film version of the hit Westend show and it is fantastic. Great music and a great cast of actors including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters and Colin Firth along with many others. Mama Mia was filmed on the Greek islands of Skopolos and Skiathos and the scenery is truly breathtaking. Great music makes this film one of the films of 2008 and is what we all need to cheer us all up in times of gloom. I think I will watch this film every day – it’s that good !
3. No Country For Old Men – this film was a 4 times academy award winner and for good reason. It stars Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem plays the excellent “bad guy”. Josh Brolin stumbles across $2M in drugs money and is then persued by Bardem who plays a ruthless killer. It is tense stuff, but I was a bit confused by the ending, which let the film down a little. Highly recommended though.