Thursday PM:
After work I drove out the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica to catch The Fall. How was it? It was... okay. The Fall is the sophomore effort of director Tarsem Singh (he likes to go by just Tarsem). He's known for 2000's The Cell and you may or may not remember his well known music video for R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion (one of my favorite music videos).
As far as The Fall goes, it fits pretty comfortably into the realm of just okay. Singh is a very visual director and many of his images are epic. However I found that sometimes his quotations were overbearing. Too much. There were moments that were so strongly Kubrick, Goddard, even the Lumiere Brothers, that it was actually distracting. He does definitely know how to take advantage of his locations though. There are some pretty incredible landscapes.
The story of the film is again just okay. I like the concept but I think it failed in execution. For much of the film the story felt stiff and forced. It could have been told a little tighter and the flow could have definitely been improved. I feel mostly the same about the performances. The secondary characters were all completely flat. The structure was very reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz with people of the "real" world reappearing as players in the fantasy world. Only I never really knew who any of them were. And I didn't much care.
What the movie really got right, and what saved it from failing completely, is the relationship between the convalescing Roy and the little girl Alexandria. The actress who plays Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) is ridiculously adorable. With her gapped tooth and broken arm she is all mischief and charm. And Lee Pace is really great as Roy. The two of them together had such incredible on screen chemistry. Apparently many of their scenes were improvised and the result is that while they occasionally ramble away from the main story line they lend of a feel of naturalism to this otherworldly fantasy.
In the end, it was cool to see on the big screen with its huge visual focus but this isn't ever going to be one of my favorites.
For my full review check out Epinions
Friday PM:
I actually went out on Friday night so no real movie watching went on. K and I have our Friday night ritual of pizza and beer during which there was some TV watching. But nothing remarkable.
Saturday PM:
I didn't actually watch anything on Saturday. I spent my morning at the beach and my friend's pool. Saturday night I met K and our friend out, again, at the beach for an evening of hanging out and exploring our local bars.
While I didn't watch anything, I did participate in a film related activity Saturday evening. I actually left the beach (shocking I know) and drove up to the valley (even more shocking) to attend a table read of a friend's newly completed script.
A table read in this case entailed a group of the writer's friends gathering together to participate in reading her screenplay. Everyone was assigned a role to read (with one person reading the descriptions as the narrator). It's a chance for the screenwriter to hear there work read aloud and get feedback.
My friend's screenplay is a lot of fun and the read went well. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with it.
Sunday PM:
Sunday was another day at the beach and the pool. I love summer at the beach. After beach and Target shopping and laundry it was time to relax a bit before bed. I decided to stick on the JLA movie I had in from Netflix.
Justice League: The New Frontier is an adaptation of the graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke. Set in the 1950's, the JLA must come together to fight a mysterious threat known only as "The Center".
I was a little skeptical at first but this movie is really good. It's an origin story of sorts for Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter and features most of the classic JLA heroes. I could have done with a little more development of the "Big Bad" (to steal a phrase from Buffy) but what really impressed me was the development of the characters. I really had a sense of who they all were and it was just cool to see that attention given to a few of the less popular characters.
On The Slate:
I'm not really sure what's coming up this week.
Prince Caspian - My plans to see it on Sunday fell through so I'm thinking I might try and catch it tomorrow after work instead.
Indiana Jones - I'm really kind of scared of The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull. But I'll see it. Of course I will.
And that's all I got cookin'. We'll just have to see where else this week takes me.
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