Sunday, May 23, 2010

Shrek Forever After... the Final Chapter

It has been a while since my last movie review, hasn't it? Patrick called me up and asked if I wanted to see 'Shrek Forever After'. Knowing that the last sequel were flops, I asked how many stars it got. He told me that professional reviewers gave it 3 stars and users rated it at 4. I like to go by the user reviews, however they tend to vote either 5 stars if they like it or 1 star if they don't and that seems rather... extreme and unprofessional. Although, the fact that the average user rating was 4 stars means that it got more 5 stars than 1, so I decided to go.

Firstly, I'm confused. Is it 'Shrek Forever After' or 'Shrek the Final Chapter'? Both names appear everywhere I search.

Suffice it to say, this sequel was original but... not. It's about as original as this blog post's title. There are very obvious differences, yet it doesn't introduce many new characters and use them in creative ways. And the whole "True loves kiss" theme is getting a bit stale. It did however take all the characters they already had and recreate them using the concept of a parallel universe, which is a very good idea. And Rumplestilskin brought back childhood nightmares, oh the nostalgia!

Rumpelstiltskin was my favorite part about this movie. And the fat Puss in Boots. Btw, he's getting his own spin off movie? He's more of a comic relief than a main character, but okay!

'Shrek Forever After' is probably the most memorable of the sequels. Case study: I can only remember the first movie and I just saw this one, so it is the most memorable of the sequels. I give it a green 53 out a 100. I guess that makes me fickle.

P.S. I also saw Iron Man 2. It was really good, but I had very little to say so I didn't write a review. I give it a 76 out of 100. Just cause Robert Downing Jr. is awesome.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Pre-Production of Citizen Prophet d

My old film pal, Mr. Brayden van Rossum, is paying me a visit in June. When I say "film pal" I mean him and I made a lot of my first movies when I was 11 years old using a Hi8 camera. He also plays Cockatoo Kid in my just-for-fun super hero movies. Him and his girlfriend will be staying with me for a week, what a perfect opportunity to make a movie!

I'm heading off to University of Iowa in the fall and I don't want to go empty handed, so I decided that we will be making a serious film. As in no aliens, no super heroes, and no crummy special effects. Brayden is working on a potential movie idea of his own, and I've just finished the first draft of my short film.

It's called 'Citizen Prophet'. It is based around the old Freemason conspiracy of a 'New World Order' however that isn't mentioned in the film. It is kinda like that book series, the Shadow Children, except better.

Now that the first draft of the twenty page screenplay -yeah, it's short- is done, I'm working on casting and the final draft. Thanks to Tom Lazarus' book "Secrets of Film Writing", I've been able to format my screenplay professionally. I'll share one of my favorite passages from Tom Lazarus' book:

"Vomiting... Granted, this is more than likely a very personal issue but this is my book and I get to talk about this. If you write vomiting scenes, your script will never sell and you'll rot in Hell."

I took all his advice to heart. As a thank you to Mr. Lazarus, I'm encouraging everyone to buy this book. Anyhow, I'm no quite ready to release my screenplay for 'Citizen Prophet' to the world, but here is a passage you can enjoy.

Friday, May 14, 2010

The Equity of Man

During my junior year at Valley, our U.S. history teacher gave the class an assignment to do an "artistic" project to represent race/civil rights/racism. Of course, I did a video and the class loved it. The teacher even said "wow!" after I gave my presentation. Being the psycho that I am, as the years went by, I became more and more unhappy with this video. It was very difficult to edit because I only had a week to finish and the video involves me interacting with myself. For instance, passing a crayon or an Oreo to myself and there is an epic lightsaber scene. I decided that it needed to be re-recorded but I never got around to doing that. So, just this week, I re-edited the entire thing, took out the lightsaber scene, used some techniques I didn't think of back then, and replaced the music with some of Rob Rodger's work. Still poor quality film, but I'm a lot more happy with it now. Check it out:

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Hurt Locker, Not Bad!

Finally, my review of 'The Hurt Locker'. I just watched it a few nights ago but have been wanting to see it since the Oscars. To be honest, I was looking for reasons to hate it. It was a very unique war movie because it followed Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. My fear about war films is that it will try to take advantage of the drama of warfare. You can't make a war movie that is only dramatic because it is a war movie, and 'The Hurt Locker' didn't do that.

The plot follows Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner), who starts off a bit cocky but it grows on you. He is the leader of a bomb disposal team who encounter many intense, life threatening explosives with kill you!

There isn't much that I can say about this movie. Give it a chance. The ending was a bit of a cheesy let down, in my opinion. But it's an all around decent movie. I give it an explosive 68 out of 100.