Thrilling Adventures in Rhyme and Space

Watched a few movies recently and I thought I’d share some mini rambles about them. Sussed out how to easily make DVD videos from any other video file with no hassle.

Knowing

Nicholas Cage in Alex Proyas’ apocalyptic thriller about message in a school time capsule predicting the end of the world. Very brutal and dark, disaster scenes pull no punches but perhaps could do with a little more work on the execution.

Inglourious Basterds

Not watched a Tarantino film since Jackie Brown but this is full of his trademarks. Memorable characters in complex scenes of tense conversation ending in extreme violence. Brad Pitt is awesome with his hammy, comedy redneck accent but the real stand out performance is Christoph Waltz as the multi-lingual Nazi Hans Landa. Well worth a watch as long as you don’t mind reading subtitles.

In Bruges

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are Irish hitmen hiding out in Bruges waiting for instructions from their gangster boss played by Ralph Fiennes. Hilarity ensues involving a cute drug dealer, her skinhead boyfriend, a midget actor and a local arms dealer. Very funny and very dark with conversations about suicide, child murder and the inevitable war between white and black dwarves. (Really!)

District 9

Woah! This film pressed so many buttons with me. It starts in the form of a documentary about aliens (as in from space) living in a slum in Johannesburg. We follow authorities as they move through the slum (the titular District 9) serving eviction notices to the alien “Prawns”. Things quickly turn nasty with biological experiments and alien weaponery. There’s a strong Half Life 2 vibe with the uncommon setting, people-like aliens and oppressive government soldiers. Not to mention the gravity gun! Produced by Peter “Lord of the Rings” Jackson and thus a lot of awesome design from Weta Workshop.

That’s it for now. Catch you later!