Thank you

I will be continuing with my blog even though i have now reached the 15 mark. It might be updated as much but i will be posting whenever I find something important enough to talk about.

Character Actors

Not Normal

Sometimes there is such a thing as going to far. There are actors known as character actors and actors known as chameleons. Most actors are character actors who are, more often than not, type written for roles. Some examples of this are Samuel L. Jackson who makes every character he plays a B.A.M.F. Even in Black Snake Moan when he plays a crazy old man trying to teach Brittney Murphy how not to be a whore by chaining her up in his house he still comes off as badass. Michael Cera will forever be an awkward teen well into his forties.

            On the other hand there are actors known for getting well into their roles. Actors who can play characters that differ greatly are true actors. One of the greats was Heath Ledger; he played roles ranging from a knight it the medieval times to a gay cowboy. His role as the Batman villain The Joker earned him an Oscar, after his untimely death he still starred in a movie. Well for the first part at least then his character was replaced by a series of A list actors.

            Christian Bale took the idea of being diverse to an extreme. For the movie the Batman movies he trained everyday to get jacked up, then lost a scary amount of weight for his role in The Machinist. He gained the weight and muscle again then lost the weight again for The Fighter, his latest movie. I can only imagine what he did to get into the mindset for the batman movies, probably ran around the set in his pajamas punching stagehands.

Christmas movies

Christmas movies are incredible films, for the most part. Up until about the early 2000’s Christmas movies were actually about Christmas. Christmas Vacation will forever hold a spot in my heart as my favourite Christmas movie, not only because the cast and story are great but also because everything that has come out lately isn’t good. 

           

            Recently, most of the Christmas movies that have been released are just romantic comedies set at Christmas time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Rom-Com Christmas movies but is targeted towards a very specific group leaving every one else out in the cold. Back in the day Christmas movies were about Santa or elves or reindeer usually having some message about family. Nowadays they are about couples getting into antics around the holidays.  

            Although there is always a silver lining, most actors who do Christmas movies only do traditional story movies not the Rom-Coms of late.

Music to Film

Making the switch between music to film is something that a lot of singers have tried. I watched a trailer for a movie today called 13, it seems like a fairly decent thriller with respectable actors like Jason Stathom and Mickey Rourke and then came the sub title “Curtis 50 Cent Jackson” and my whole perspective on the film changed for about three seconds, and from the short time he is in the trailer he seems pretty good.

            There are only a few singers that have made this change gracefully. Beyonce made a pretty smooth transition from singing to acting although she usually only takes on projects that require a singer anyway. Another example of smooth transitions is Frank Sinatra, forever my hero, was in a number of movies but most notably the original Oceans 11.

Not everyone can make the change as easily as others. Most notably Mariah Carey, her performance won her a nomination for a Razzie, basically the same thing as an oscar just reverse.

Directors

Recently I watched the movie Signs. A movie directed by none other than M. Night Shyamalan. It got me thinking about directing but mostly the directors themselves, which drove me to right this blog. Most famous directors are famous because they found their niche in movie making and stick with it consequently making good movies.

A good movie can be made no matter what the concept is. M. Night Shyamalan used to be excellent at taking strange concepts and making great movies out of them. If you look at some of his past films this is incredibly apparent but around Lady in the Water everything went down hill. Enough with him though Christopher Nolan is similar to M. Night Shyamalan in the respects that a crazy concept into a good movie. Inception makes little sense on paper and even less on screen but it was an incredible movie. This man took the batman franchise and made one of the most profitable movies in history.

I have a great respect for James Cameron everything the man touches turns to money like a modern day King Midas; this is a man responsible for the Titanic the Terminator series and Avatar. This man can do no wrong as of late. Avatar two and three are already in production and by the time the series is finished it will probably have more money then most third world countries.     

Trailer Round up

This week, I will be taking a look at a few recent movie trailers that have been important enough to catch my attention and blog about.

First up we have Rare Exports, a movie based on the notion that Santa Clause was actually frozen inside a mountain and after being defrosted turns out to be a bloodthirsty mad man. That’s right you read that correctly a whole movie based on a murderous Santa Clause. After many minutes of research I deducted that this movie is based on a few short films from Finland. I have watched both of the short films and let me tell you; the shorts are as bat shit bonkers as the concept itself.

Red Riding Hood is a movie that I have very mixed emotions about. First off it looks like a very “Twilighty” version of a beloved children’s tale. It is very loosely based on the original story, I am very certain the only similarity between the original and this movie is the red hood and the wolf, that isn’t actually a wolf but a werewolf (hence the Twilight reference). By the same respects they could have called it Looney Toons if they gave Amanda Seyfried bunny ears and replaced the wolf with a hunter.

Lastly we have the Green Hornet, a movie about a rich guy with a sidekick that goes out fighting crime. Now I know what you’re thinking, Ben you charismatic devil you, this sounds a lot like Batman. I wont disagree with you but I will say the differences are a plenty. The two most prominent differences are that this is a comedy and robin could speak English. I’m not ragging on his sidekick, he is a very good actor and trained fighter, all I’m say is you can tell he doesn’t know what the words mean he is just saying them.

Music in Movies

As a lover of music, a movie having a good soundtrack is important to me. There are three routes a film can take when it comes to its music. They can have an original score made for the film, use pre existing music or a combination of the two. The Dark night had an all-original score made for the film and it won Academy Awards for the effort. I have seen a behind the scenes look at the making of the music for the film and the amount of work that went into it is astounding syncing certain parts of the song with parts of the movie and even creating low melodies that you might not even notice the first time watching it.

Quentin Tarentino is known for his selection of music in his films, turning previously unknown songs and turning them into instant classics just because they were the movies theme song. The song Little Green Bag from Reservoir Dogs was previously unknown to me before the film, but now it holds a spot on the most played section on my iPod.

Unfortunately the Twilight movies are worth noting because they are known for their use of the day’s hits and songs made specifically for the movies by hit artists like Metric.