Check out this recently released exclusive interview with Zack Snyder on his upcoming Watchmen adaptation. It’ll be the first R-Rated superhero movie — which I’m very happy to hear, as I think the story/characters would lose depth if they’d have to sugarcoat it. He also mentions that there’s a role for Gerard “Gerry” Butler in it (he played Leonidas in 300).

Warning: the interview contains a very, very short description of a scene in the comic. Most probably won’t consider it warn-worthy, but I never want to hear even the slightest detail regarding interesting movies, so I felt compelled to warn. Just in case there actually are people like me out there (hello?).

Glancing over the frontpage I suddenly noticed similarities between images of two posts — and simply couldn’t resist combining them. I’m still chuckling even as I post this.

If you’re reading this at a later time, compare the 300 post with the death by robot post and then come back to this one.

I generally don’t read comics — but a few months back I was so intrigued by what I’d heard of Watchmen that I broke my rhythm. When I finished it, I was really relieved. What a great graphical novel. Not many “comic books” that get listed on the Times 100 Top Novels list (none except Watchmen). And that’s the novel list, mind you, not graphical, but best novels. Quite a feat.

I’ve been enthusiastically following any news on Zack Snyder’s upcoming adaptation of Watchmen, and I’ve noticed that recently we’re getting increased reports of the progress. Especially in the casting department. Some claim Tom Cruise will star, other’s say he won’t but that Gerard Butler will. In any case, Znyder is determined to do the movie right, as he’s mentioned on multiple occasions in interviews.

I saw Snyder’s 300 yesterday, which, if you live to work and isolate yourself from the world (like me), is based on Frank Miller’s graphical novel of the same title. I liked it. Sure, it’s a macho movie: muscles, wars, blood … and torn muscles. But Miller’s razor sharp dialogue shines through and really gives it a unique atmosphere when combined with his artistic style, which Snyder followed closely (many similarities with Sin City). All in all, with a few minor exceptions, Snyder did a great job with 300. It looks fantastic and, even though I haven’t read Miller’s 300, I would guess he pulled it off nicely. If you liked Sin City, you’ll probably enjoy 300. For those that want to read up on the actual battle that 300 is (loosely) based on, check out the Battle of Thermopylae on Wikipedia.

This all bodes well for Watchmen, it’ll be exciting to follow casting news.

Of all the directors that have walked the Earth, Stanley Kubrick is the one whose movies have had the most impact on me. Kubrick did movies which challanged your intellect, where each and every detail was worked to perfection. Even to this day I’ve yet to see movies with special effects that rival 2001 (which was done in 1968!), and 2001 is the only movie I’ve seen that felt like a completely different movie when I saw it a second time… and the third. There’s only a handful of directors I feel have made movies that are truly genius, and of those — Kubrick is the one that scores high in all aspects.

How many of today’s directors would retain the creative control and have the will to ban their own movie because it resulted in a few outbursts of copycat violence? That’s exactly what Kubrick did with A Clockwork Orange in the UK. After a few incidences of young adolescents imitating the violent lifestyle of Alex and his droogs, Kubrick banned distribution of the movie. Maintaining control of so many aspect of his film that he controlled it is a feat in itself.

I dug up a goldpiece of an interview with him from the book “Kubrick” by Michael Ciment (they are available online on The Kubrick Site), where he discusses A Clockwork Orange. Here’s a question and answer that I found particularly fantastic and eccho my oppinions:

Q:In your films the State is worse than the criminals but the scientists are worse than the State.

Kubrick: I wouldn’t put it that way. Modern science seems to be very dangerous because it has given us the power to destroy ourselves before we know how to handle it. On the other hand, it is foolish to blame science for its discoveries, and in any case, we cannot control science. Who would do it, anyway? Politicians are certainly not qualified to make the necessary technical decisions. Prior to the first atomic bomb tests at Los Alamos, a small group of physicists working on the project argued against the test because they thought there was a possibility that the detonation of the bomb might cause a chain reaction which would destroy the entire planet. But the majority of the physicists disagreed with them and recommended that the test be carried out. The decision to ignore this dire warning and proceed with the test was made by political and military minds who could certainly not understand the physics involved in either side of the argument. One would have thought that if even a minority of the physicians thought the test might destroy the Earth no sane men would decide to carry it out. The fact that the Earth is still here doesn’t alter the mind-boggling decision which was made at that time.

Incredibly well put. Kubrick is missed as a contributor to thinking world. And his work forever inspiring.

Every now and then all humans get the craving for randomness. But randomness is hard to come by. Here’s a book to fulfill all your random needs. A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates!

A friend and colleague of mine, Freysteinn (yes, that’s another unpronounceable Icelandic name) pointed it out to me today. It’s a book filled with sequences of random digits. Just like the title says. Page after page of random numbers. Haha. I’m seriously considering ordering it — it’s so cool. Take a look inside the book. One of the comments left a reviewer is so hilarious that I feel compelled to post it. It’s by a Mr. Jamie R. Wilson:

A truly amazing genre-breaking work of art unlike any that has ever
been or ever will. I was captivated from the moment I opened the cover until the extremely suspenseful moment I turned the last page. Withthat said, I was a little disappointed that 71602 was knocked off by 92937 just as the plot was unfolding, but the arrival of 96240 really got my blood pumping and I just couldn’t put the book down from that moment on.

I am so glad that Amazon.com is offering the "Search Inside This Book" option for this book so that it can be enjoyed by countless other avid readers who otherwise may not have come across it. I wait, impatiently, for the audio CD version of this fine book.

Randomness is an interesting subject, as we can’t be entirely sure whether there is such a thing as true randomness. I think the closest we’ve come to exploring it is in quantum mechanics, Wikipedia has an example:

An example of such an experiment is placing a single unstable atom in a controlled environment; it cannot be predicted how long it will take
for the atom to decay; only the probability of decay within a given time can be calculated.

I have a very hard time envisioning how a non-deterministic phenomena works — obviously, as that would mean no causation, no chain of events to trace and thereby make sense of. It would also seem strange that everything but the lowest level components of our Universe are not random — and by strange I mean inconsistent. I remain indecisive until further notice on the issue. Fascinating concept nonetheless.

Just finished watching The Andromeda Strain (1971). Incredible movie. Or maybe it’s just that Hollywood hadn’t gone as far astray back then as it was when they made Jurassic Park (both are written by Michael Crichton). Although, I must say they did a pretty good job with Sphere.

I just found out that they’re doing a remake of Westworld (announced) while browsing the IMDB pages for Chricton. Ugh. And the forum dwellers are posting topics like “Kiefer Sutherland for gunslinger” and “Schwarzenegger …”. Yeesh — Buff humanoids with distorted accents — do they never come up with new ideas for movies with robots? If someone out there reading this has contacts — tell them I have a brainful of fresh ideas.

But of course, they’re only making what we are willing to pay for. And unfortunately, if we were to stop paying to see buff-terminator-like-movies, the studio executives would probably be going “Hey, hey Meyer. That SciFi movie just flopped. I guess people don’t like science fiction any more — let’s just do another Rocky movie” — and we’d be all out of scifi. Movie trends are like green goo that grow with every amount of energy (our money) we give them, slowly mutating from killer-innovation-brilliance to just impotent green goo of crystalized repetetition — oh wait — they’re the Andromeda Strain.

To sum up; Andromeda Strain The Movie: Good — Present Day Hollywood: The Andromeda Strain itself, Bad.

I just finished watching Garden State.

But first a little metadata. I generally divide movies into these two categories: entertaining- and good. I try to refrain from further categorization, or giving stars, mice, apples, thumbs up, or any other icon which monotonizes the cinematographical landscape and eventually rates only the mood of the superficial critic that gives them.

Good movies are movies that actually make me think, feel something new, understand something in a different way, have been exceptionally well executed, inspire me or otherwise have some kind of impact on my life. Examples: 2001, Mulholland Drive, Legally Blonde.

Entertaining movies are something that … entertain, steal my time, keep me temporarily happy but in the long run are just filler material for me to stare at, while in zombie mode after many consecutive days of pondering the nature of existence. Examples: Die Hard, Doom

Now. With that out of the way, back to Garden State.

THE ACTUAL REVIEW

Garden State is a humorous movie with gentle, serious undertones. Let me begin again in a less commercialized manner. In a world of exceeding information about how we live, how we should live, and how the analyzation of ourselves as human beings is vital for keeping sane in an analytical society — Garden State is about the process of rediscovering what we’ve always been but have generally ignored (some would say “discovering your true self”, but that would be a cliché and definitely bring about some unwanted preconceived ideas).

The movie’s protagonist is abrubtly reintroduced to his childhood environment, after many years of absence, where he’s reuinited with what’s left of his family and friends (and strangers). Remniscent of movies such as The Royal Tenenbaums (albeit not as elegant), the characters are believable while walking the line. In contrast to the comedy show Scrubs, Zach Braff does great job as the main character. I always enjoy it when actors of comedy take on a serious role; or in this case a relatively serious role. Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example.

Zach Braff wrote and directed Garden State as well, and did a damn good job. This is a writer/director you should keep your eye on.

I really enjoyed the camerawork and editing. Fading-from-dark scene cuts had me excited over what, who and where the next scene was. They managed to happily surprise me quite a few times as well. That’s another great aspect to this movie: the multitude of different and quite contrasting settings in which the scenes take place give the whole movie a sense of an adventure — or a much greater sense of depth. I’m tempted to compare it with watching The Goonies in my younger years.

In retrospect — casual conversations of the characters were are times nothing to remember. I draw this conclusion from the fact that I can’t remember many of them. However, I do remember many conversations from keypoints of the movie which were very good and, at times, borderline inspiring.

IN SUMMARY

Overall, the movie gleems of hope and happiness and incited in me a feeling of wanting to go find adventure in the mundane of my existence. I recommend seeing this movie, if only to see a dog scratch his balls with his paw.

Oddly enough, after my whole lecture about Good and Entertaining movies — I’m not going to categorize Garden State. That’s my privilege as an independant film critic. But hey, at least my categorization method gives you something to think about.