REVIEW: Cloud Atlas

So Cloud Atlas is essentially the Wachowski "Brother's" take on The Hours. If you haven't seen The Hours, don't worry, you're probably a straight male and don't ever need to.

So incase you haven't seen it, Cloud Atlas has perhaps the one of the most heart-warming/wrenching trailers of all time, aka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s.
It's universal, it's heartwarming, and uplifting, it has everything for everyone and it plucks heartstrings with that solo piano rippling through time and our lives' importance and unimportance.

This movie is the unlosing-est smorgasbord of movie genres as any could possibly be. We have forbidden love, golden years love, gay love, love at first sight, past action, future action, Apocolyptico action, conspiracy theory, apocalyptic distopian future, slavery, blaxploitation, and yet not once in the whole movie did I see a dog. Genius actor Tom Hanks and booty call Halle Barry, I say that because directors cast her and Rihanna for the same reason.

This movie is awesome. Heads above most of the other trash you could see at your Regal Cinemas this weekend. It's funny, it's action-packed, it's heart warming and reassures you about the fears of life, death and afterlife. It's like when your stoner friends get together and start up that conversation: yeah, but if you think about how big WE are and how big the earth is, and how big the universe is, do we really matter? Does anything really matter? Well it does, and this movie shows that we matter to each other and that our actions ripple through time with a persistance that we will never fathom, so treat each other well.

 And before I go into some rants about execution and style management, I just have to say, if you're going to see something this weekend, this'll be heads above Loopers, the Guvnah in another action movie, the millionth James Bond, or Paranormal Activity, or that shitstain by the Regal pig patch Twilight: Ranking Lawns II.


SPOILERS

This movie is going to need two watches to appreciate and though I haven't read it myself, I hear the best experience is to read the book and watch the movie for it's visuals and interpretation. Aside from the action, the different stylization, the eye candy and amazing makeup work, this movie has a lot of heart cheese. I'm not great with emotional films. I will never watch Precious, I couldn't give a shit at the end of Cold Mountain or Green Mile. But in this movie I did care for the characters and some of the love scenes were worth the stakes you put into the characters, though you only got glimpses of them.

Yet some of this great emotion is sucked from your heart to your head when XXXXX and XXXXXX finally kiss and then your thrown back into 1968 and Hugo Weaving is murdering an old man. Sometimes they play out the emotion through all stories simultaneously, which works pretty well, though is a bit erksome. Sometimes they really needed to slow down and just let you be with the characters for a minute to feel for them but too often would cut to another scene for the sake of a cliff hanger. I mean I wanted to mourn Sexsmith's death, he was such a key binding character and a cool one, I mean the song of the movie was named for him.

Seeing the movie for the first time is like watching Inception backwards. There are six plots to follow, the narrator unifying them but you can't keep up because you were distracted wondering it that was Hugh Grant or Hugo Weaving behind all that makeup ? I do enjoy the theatrical aspect of this choice. In a lot of live theatre you recast one actor as different characters so that was enjoyable to watch the acting ranges of the actors.
 Perhaps this is a new form of movies that move along at supersonic rates like Gamer or Crank or Enter the Void. Keeping channel-flipping audiences entertained. I expect we will keep seeing movies that are more episodic and quick-paced than we usually have.

All in all the trailer is actually better than the movie is but maybe that's because the movie is a chore to watch and keep up with, though worth it. I recommend downloading the trailer for rewatch on Snapz and reading the book.

Exciting Upcoming Movies

Taking some time off today to talk about some exciting movie announcements, soon to theatres and far in the future.

I love asian movies, they're always pushing borders with their amount of violence, weird sex acts, visual appeal, kung-fu action, and outlandish plots. Perhaps my favorite movie of all time is Old Boy, it's sick, it's noir, it's epic as a Greek Tragedy and so well put together that I can't wrap my head around how they even began to conceptualize it. So, that being said I have some very exciting news.

1. Spike Lee is remaking Old Boy Americana style. They keep tossing around the cast, but last I heard the star is either going to be Josh Brolin or Samuel L. Jackson. I hope it's Brolin, because he seems more the type and I think Sammy J would be a very strange pick unless he were the merciless bad guy, I could see that working with the crazy factor through the roof. Fun fact: Will Smith was originally going to play the main character, I think he's a great actor, but the role is extremely visceral and requires a lot of embarrassment and raw emotion. I mean, the actor had to eat a live squid for the role, masturbate, and a wild array of other stuff they might not do in the American version. I really hope Spike Lee does a good job, like David Fincher with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and less like what Hunger Games was to Battle Royale. My concern is that there's only one writer on the bill, and it's the guy who fucking wrote Thor, which was soooooooooooooo hard to watch. But he also wrote I am Legend and Mass Effect so I'm on the fence. In the original Old Boy the authors of the manga plus three screenwriters plus the director worked on the screenplay and it shows. Sooooo.... I'm gonna go with: either complete copy paste remake with different visuals = AWESOME or American watered down snoozefest trying to ride the coattails of another great movie.

2. The director of Old Boy is coming out with a movie called Stoker. It's got that gruesome, plot-maze, and brutal emotion that I loved about Old Boy and the rest of Chan-wook Park's Revenge series. Here's the trailer, it really says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNpDG4WR_74
                 - I also very much like that the uncle just hints that there's a wider conspiracy, illuminati of murders kinda deal. I just read the Straw Men series which was absolutely impossible to put down and if this is even close to that then holy god this movie is going to be too cooler than being with obama and Jay-z in the same room.



.... well maybe

3. There's another american remake of another Korean movie, Bittersweet Life. The original is directed by Jee-woon Kim, who made I Saw the Devil and The Good, The Bad, and the Weird. He's a wild and diverse director who knows how to cast, has great ideas, and amazing visuals. I haven't seen the original Bittersweet Life, but I'm going to now. Also, guess what, curve ball, Eminem is helping produce for the American remake... weird.

Also the announcement has finally been made, Sin City 2 is finally going to begin filming in November. It's going to be based off Frank Miller's A Dame to Kill for. It has my favorite people from the original cast, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, and CLIVE OWEN! Of course it's being directed by Robert Rodriguez who makes the most innovative and exciting trends in the action film genre and I hope, hooppppppe, gets Tarentino to guest-direct again. I usually don't approve of sequels, they're basically always for money and a sore attempt at starting franchises, but this one I am super suuuuper stoked for.

My favorite actress of all time, Rosario Dawson, from Clerks 2 to Sin City to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. She's a dream boat; smart, deep, sexy, funny, geeky. So pumped for Sin City 2