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November 17, 2004

Movies of Late

Well, first and best (or at least funnest by far), I finally went to see The Incredibles late last night after games and it really was incredible, despite my high expectations from all the great reviews I've been avoiding reading but got the gist of. There is really not a wrong step taken in this, not surprising from the consistently superb Pixar team combined with the amazing talent of Brad Bird, who previously did the wonderful The Iron Giant. I didn't find this story quite as emotionally powerful as tIG but the characters (incredibly faithful to superhero culture), animation and great lines make this still a great film. Edna Mode (voiced as it turns out by director Brad Bird) steals the scenes she's in with ease and every character from Dash to Elastigirl to Violet to Buddy/Syndrome is superbly realized ****1/2.

Over the weekend I saw Blind Zaitochi (subtitled Japanese Samurai movie) which was pretty good but incredibly bloody (probably over 100 deaths graphically shown) and almost all the battles (even the one invincible swordsman against 10 incompetent thugs fights) were incredibly unbalanced ***. Van Helsing, on the other hand, was absolutely horrible despite starring the very talented Hugh Jackman. I had to fast forward through significant sections it was so horrible and just in so many ways didn't make any sense *.

Finally, I saw Seven Up and 7 Plus Seven, the first two episodes in an amazing British documentary series by Michael Apted, tracing the lives of 15 or so British children starting at the age of 7 - they are now up to age 42. The insight into the children, the British class system, how people change and stay the same, are all incredible. This is just an amazing piece of work and I am going to be getting the other episodes over the next few weeks. From the first two episodes, the rural, introverted Nicholas is definitely my favorite of the children, starting with his direct but polite refusal (the only one in the age 7 episode I believe) to answer a question as too personal. He seems both the smartest of the children and the least affected by the powerful English class system, perhaps because he is a child of the country while basically all the others are more easily identified as poor vs rich. Nicholas's family almost certainly is poor but he somehow escapes this as a primary idenitification, which I think is not so uncommon among rural children. His answer to the question about racism in the age 14 episode also seemed the most positive of all the children, some of whose comments were pretty awful. I assume as the later episodes progress we will also see more of what we glimpse in the second episode of the meta-effect being filmed for this series has had on their lives. In the age 14 episode, a couple of kids refer back to their comments in the age 7 one and another mentions that the only time he has been to London is for the group meeting at the end of the first episode. I expect these effects will only get stronger and more interesting as things progress. I'll comment again once I've seen more of these but get out and rent these! To quote the Amazon user review of "Seven Up!",

The effect of the series upon the viewer is enormous, perhaps best reflecting what film can do at its most patient, at its most insightful, at its quietest.

*****

Posted by aarondf at November 17, 2004 01:06 PM

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