BET Awards!

I'm reading all that good stuff about how all the black artists at the 2009 BET Awards paid a tribute in some form to the kind of pop - MJ...and I'm sitting here wondering why in the hell we never get to see this on the multitudes of channels DSTV has us paying for?
I mean, we get the Oscars, the Grammys...you name it. Why not BET!
Come to think of it, I've been craving to see these awards for as long as I can remember...why don't they show 'em?

There is the slim chance ofcourse that our satellite television providers did show them...and that I just am not in touch with my satellite offering? Brokensword?

I'm reading about how Jamie Foxx (the host) was doing the moon walk and thinking to me self, I NEED to see this me-self!

Terminator Salvation

I probably was not going to see this film, mainly based on what Barry Ronge and Alan Silverman said on their Sunday morning show a few weeks ago. Barry was saying that it was too loud and they both said too religious. Given their misgivings, whatever they were, I enjoyed it. Much more than I enjoyed the Transformers which they raved about. I think having heard what they had to say I was a little bit prepared for Terminator. I chose the middle seat away from the speakers and opened my mind to whatever religious suggestions there may be.

I must say, this was a cool flick. It was the escape from the MJ tragic and lamented saga I needed. Escape from delayed job offers and my four walls that I needed.

Yes it was loud. Yes it had religious undertones. But that did not spoil it for me. If anything it made the story more solid. The greatest ever told.

And Christian Bale, the Bat Man?? Even with the recorded outburst (and I am kinda thinking this was a preview to the movie? Who knows) on the set, you want to enjoy this flick, you want to see the next installment of the Terminator saga that started with our California governor, who they cleverly replicated (I am sure Arnie did not have anything to do with this movie) to fight another day. I thought (and hope a little) that it was a kind of middle finger to Arnie and his republicans to reproduce him in the movie. After all, they did not reproduce the scariest terminator, that mercury dude. He was scarier than Arnie but not scarier than a Republican led United States. Bush, Arnie, they are the ultimate antagonists.

Suspension of belief is key to enjoying these types of movies. You need to say, yes it is okay that only Arnie was up for the fight against Connor, that the fact that they were and had, manufactured a thousand other Arnies does not fit. You have to let go of the consequences of a father meeting, his yet to be conceived son, in the future. You have to wonder who the little girl is and why Kyle is tied to her. You have to wonder why there would be capital punishment in the future (or was it the past?). All this has to be sacrificed for the enjoyment of the flick and it is, utterly enjoyable.

I give it 3 spoons with much of that going toward the new Terminator, he is just gorgeous!

Oh and Christian also got to ride his bat-cycle again. That was cool this time around as well!

all the single ladies - Vodacom

I had to tell the world how much I adore this new Vodacom advert. It is truly fantabulous. A true masterpiece. Creative brilliance most especially for its simplicity!

Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen

What an obscene show of budget! Explosions and fights and explosions and CGI and explosions and for what? For What? There is just so much money oozing out of this blockbluster show-off of a movie that I am beginning to really dislike Michael Bay and his Bruckheimer and his Spielberg backing. Really now… There are, I am sure, 20 indie films that could have been made with a 10th of this $300 million budget and I am sure the indie movies would have had a far more positive, enjoyable and collective sense of ‘whatever’ (fill in to what you think is cosmically appropriate) impact. (Okay so I watched the Screening Room on CNN about struggling African film makers today as well).

Never mind that! We go to the movies to escape and for a film like Transformers 2 (the first one I thought was a bit juvenile) that escape should last the mandatory 90 minutes. Anything beyond that is just too tiring and you start wanting to escape from the escape.

And so, yes, if you’ve seen Michael Bay movies you recognize his signature shots on various movies. You see Pearl Habour, Bad Boys etc. These were huge budget films and in each one there are unique shots that, if you did not know it was a Bay movie, those shots would smack you across the face as if Mr Bay himself was doing the smacking. (I suddenly need to cleanse myself)

Whereas typical movies have that one whimsical, quirky character that provides comic relief, most characters in this movie had that role, which was a little bit lame. The John Turturro character who is looking to die for America at every opportunity but does not manage to meet this demise, the ditzy mother whose role it is to embarrass her son when ever she can and is also an under ground dagga fiend. The cowardly college room mate who has conspiracy theories only to see them realized. The two Autobots painted to parody Chris Tucker’s character in Rush Hour. Even the main character is a kind of a side kick who has a nervous condition that makes every single situation in the movie a life or death one. Pity he did not stay dead in the end.

All in all, I either was going through nicotine withdrawal or I was getting extremely impatient with this movie. I would, nonetheless, discourage people to go see it, there are far worthier films out there (worth your 2.5 hours, if you go see this one you allow Mr Bay to make yet another obscenely over budgeted blockbuster which fills plot with explosions), I am sure of it!

Transformers 2 gets 1 spoon, choo chooing towards my rectum.

If you are thinking of having a Bay festival, here is your definitive list: Bad Boys; The Rock; Armageddon; Pearl Harbor; Bad Boys II and then; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

No ‘Doubt’

Meryl Streep is master. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is her bitch. Great, great presentation in all aspects.

Not quite understanding nor comprehending this debate, but lets please have a discussion.

I tend to have a very severe and unambiguous view of what is right and what is wrong. It is wrong to have a relationship with a minor, but what is minor? It is right to speak up, expose and act against what you deem to be wrong, but is your definition of wrong, right?

The movie was dedicated to a Sister Margaret McEntee, so if this is somehow, reflecting a story that may be true, then this is not a philosophical debate, I would have to, unambiguously, support the actions of the nun. BUT, if this is hypothesis, my feelings would remain clouded, especially, given the boy’s situation at home, positive role model and all that.

This is a significant movie, watch it and ruminate.

Out on DVD, and it gets 4 spoons.

The Secret Life of Bees

I had my fingers on the keyboard for a while wondering what to say about this movie.
I guess it is one of those that get you all upset because you just can't understand how things could have been that way. How it could have been allowed. It just boggles my mind really.
There's a part where the old white man character says, "is she one of them dumb niggers or is she a clever nigger." When Jennifer Hudson's character answers back she gets a back slap right across her face. When she continues to defy this white man, she gets a couple of kicks and a couple of fists wacked on her face.
It is infuriating.
We've come a long way but for me that history, that it exists at all infuriates me. How could that time have existed at all?

I loved Sophie Okonedo in this. Her character is just the way I feel some times. Just so very sad and disappointed with the world that some of the things that happen, happen. So many injustices, all of it can be so overwhelming sometimes that you kind of feel like you want to leave this world. I loved her character.
I loved everybody in this movie. Alicia Keys can act, she was spectacular I thought...atleast for a musician. And Dakota Fanning is so grown in this movie.
Two and a half spoons

Nazi Movie

I am always reluctant to watch war movies especially Nazi movies. Specifically though, Nazi movies from the Nazi perspective. Somehow I am just not interested in their experience, their thought processes, the reasons why Hitler triumphed in that time. To me (and I do realise that, put in the same position I don’t know if I could pass the test but think my humanity should always be my guide) these movies want us to consider some of the other dynamics that were taking place when crimes against humanity were being committed. I don’t want to know, if knowing urges me to forgive a little. If anything I think the focus should remain on the horribleness of the era and recognise each and every situation (that would make us bigots or racist) for what it is and rage against it.

I’ve seen Valkyrie and the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and I think, it is not enough. Hitler still happened. These movies seem a little distasteful to me.

I suppose the same can be applied to the whole Rwanda tragedy. Shooting Dogs and Hotel Rwanda. There aren’t much films that focus on Rwanda and I think there still needs to be more if anything to educate. No one disputes the WW2 and the Jewish genocide that took place. Everyone knows about the concentration camps and the other atrocities that took place. Not enough stories have been told however about the atrocities that took place on our continent and that, in itself, is a continuing crime against humanity.

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas and Valkyrie are out on DVD.

Pan’s Labyrinth

I can't remember if I ever blogged about this movie. I really enjoyed it. Love fantasy types.
Wondering if Brokensword ever saw it, and what she thought of it. It's so depressing, my heart...well I really felt sorry for Ophelia/Ofelia. And for a while I thought that creature was taken her for a ride. All's well that ends well.
4 Spoons

Angels and Demons

I was never a fan of Dan Brown. I read the Da Vinci Code and watched the movie. The book was the only one of his that I managed and have no qualms about that. Dan created a world that I simply was not interested in and the conclusions he made I know I do not have the knowledge, (nor am I inspired to know more) to argue with the absurdity of it.

Angels and Demons is the next movie installment on this with reputable Ron Howard’s direction (fatally limited to the sequence of events of the book) and starring Tom Hanks and a bunch of Italian gorgeousness.

The movie starts off with the death of the Pope and this takes us to the workings of the Catholic Church and what actually happened in real life when the then Pope kicked the bucket. It also very nicely weaves into the story the debate on the implications of the recent experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, which took place in Switzerland a few months ago when scientists were trying to recreate the conditions just prior to the big bang.

I don’t know if these bits were actually in the book, as I said, I did not have the inclination to go into another Dan Brown universe, but it is clever that they brought it into the movie to make the debates being had more relevant to our world.

The movie is the race-against-time type movie following clues that have been there for a few centuries. The protagonist (the Illuminate) is threatening to kill cardinals that the next Pope will be chosen from. To add to that once they are all dead, the big bang experiment will be used to blow up the Vatican so that the Catholic Church is destroyed along with it. The Illuminate are a group of guys who were Catholic but also believed in science and believed that the two could coexist and did not have to be at odds. So this is all supposed to be very suspenseful and most revealing about the history and workings of the Catholic Church, much like the Da Vinci Code.

The movie is interesting and I am sure it will give a lot of comfort to the believers amongst us out there. It ends off saying that religion, the church, is not perfect as man is not perfect. I’ll buy that. And it is a good lesson to learn but why does the church not learn fast enough that there is a need for contraception and abortion. On the other hand, there is also a need for pure faith and tradition so as not to lose ourselves in modernity. What is the saying? I’d rather die for an idea I believe in than to live for an idea that will die?

Angels and Demons gets 2 spoons.

WILL I AM is in X-Men Origins :Wolverine!

That's all anybody needed to say to me to get me to watch this movie. I must be a little out of touch, I had no idea. So imagine my surprise. I almost jumped up and down. Ah Willl, sweet Will, sexy Will...

So there's been a lot of bed crits on this here movie. I didn't think it was all THAT bhard. Don't think it was a waste of me money. Would do it all over again if I was asked.

Its not the best of movies either. I don't get what the craze is with these pre-quals. I remember Hannibal Rising and what a big disaster that was. Can't say I know of any successful prequals. Brokensword?

The movie is about Wolverine's origins, and goes back to his childhood - not for long though. I found that particularly disappointing as I thought they could have better developed his story as a teenager growing up alas, the movie is about a grown up Wolverine.They don't even tell the story of how he became what he became. They ignore that. So you never get to know how the mutants became such really.

Don't want to spoil it too much for you, so this is where I will end. I loved one of the characters. that appears towards the ends. Wonder if they'll develop his story in future XMen.

Also realised that XMen is so Heroes....or the other way round.
1 and three quarter spoons