OG- 'Reviews' You Up

The Blue Planet - Seas of Life - Part 2, Open Ocean / The Deep, 2001



In the interest of full disclosure, this is one of my all time favorite DVDs to watch, it is my favorite documentary, the Baltimore Aquarium is one of my favorite places on the planet and I am completely consumed with a fascination strong enough to categorize as an addiction when it comes to the oceanic, especially concerning any kind of cephalopod.

The Blue Planet series, a co-production between the BBC and the Discovery Channel, took five years to make and cost over $10 million dollars to make. That is an epic dedication to capture things only a handful of people know even the smallest information about, and hell some things were even seen for the first time ever during the filming. It is the most extensive production of its kind ever attempted and probably will stay that way for years to come. It is quite litteraly peerless in respect to the detail paid, the film captured, and top notch quality of presentation. Narrarted by the wonderful David Attenborough with a score worthy of an oscar nomination, these two segments focus on just what their titles say; life in the open ocean and the creatures of the deep. It is a must see.

The entire Blue Planet series is phenomenal, but these are by far my two favorite entires. You will see things in both of these episodes that you have never seen before in your life. You will see footage that is simply awe inspiring. If you're ever feeling disillusioned or disconnected from the daunting, inhuman nature of modern life, watch this DVD. It is inspirational. It always puts me into a good mood. The opening footage of the angelic giant Manta Ray, and when I say giant I mean it, soaring through the ocean with a wingspan of 15+ feet is just an appetizer of things to come. You will see animals in this DVD that defy all logic and reasoning, but more of that to come later.

Open Ocean contains a plethora of smile inducing relationships. From the backwards looking Sun Fish's relationship with the Half-Moon fish it uses to eat off the parasites living on it, who also rests himself on the surface of the ocean so that gull's can partake in the cleaning as well. To the super-pod ( hundreds+) of Spinner Dolphins and everything in between. You'll be witness to a battle for food between dolphins, tuna and birds that is truly epic:



Yes, those are birds battling tuna underwater for control of the swirling mass of fish.

And The Deep. Holy crap. I said you will see animals that defy all logic and reasoning, this is where it is. You'll see the inspiration for the facehugger in Alien and you'll even see a fish, the Hatchet fish, that makes the Predator's stealth technology look weak. The Gulper Eel is one of my favorites they have in there just because it looks menacing as all hell:



You'll see shrimp that ejaculate exploding bio-luminescent glue onto the faces of attackers and you'll see proof that aliens do live in the deep:



What other explanation is there for a jellyfish that vibrant and that highly evolved? That's a mothership right there.

I'm not going to post a screenshot of it because I don't want to ruin the impact for when you do see it, but they even captured on film an underwater lake that was discovered off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in 1990. Yes, an underwater lake. It looks exactly like a lake should, it has a shoreline and everything, it just happens to be at the bottom of the ocean. It's astonishing.

This documentary is magnificent, even if you don't love the marine life as much as I do. It has stories of heartwarming scope. You'll see those relationships that make you smile and you'll even see life existing completely indepedent of sunlight, which 30 years ago was thought impossible. You'll get an incredibly intimate look at the bottom of the world. More people have been in space than have been where this documentary goes.

And it even has a great sense of humor! It's a must own. Amazon's marketplace has it for less than ten dollars, you're out of excuses at this point.

5 out of 5

The One Sentence Review - The Blue Planet isn't just a documentary series, it's a shimmer of a glimpse into a universe many of us are ignorant of that exists right next to us; there isn't a single reason for someone to not own this series.

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Latest Movie Review(s): Too lazy to keep this up to date. New reviews every week.

My Sassy Girl, directed by Jae-young Kwak, 2001



Normally I wouldn't have picked up this movie. Not because I don't like romantic comedies, but just because the box at Video 21 had no translation, no blurb and the cover isn't very revealing. But I finally met the guy at Video 21 responsible for their great Asian section, chatted with him for a good while about our favorites etc and then he recommended it with the precursor that it was "the best romantic comedy he has ever seen." After watching it, I have to agree 110%. This movie was wonderful in every sense of the word.

I've gathered that this is actually based off a true story, which just makes it all the better. The story follows a struggling, effeminate student, Kyun-woo, who by pure chance happens to meet a very drunk girl on the subway one day. He pulls her back from the edge as the train is pulling in, but then doesn't pursue her because "drunk girls disgust him." On the train the girl shows her sassy side, which continues to show for the rest of the movie, forcing a guy to leave his seat so an older man can have it and then proceeding to vomit all over said old man. As she's passing out she points to Kyun-woo and calls him "honey", giving everyone on the train the impression that they're together. The shy and reluctant Kyun-woo is then forced into the position where he has to take care of this drunk girl so everyone doesn't think he is a jackass and thus begins their love story.

It's the kind of love story that is obviously engineered towards the female crowd, as the love interest (whose name we never learn) never makes a single attempt to salvage love, is fiercely demanding and at often times just a bitch, while the man is left to suffer and burden the relationship on his shoulders. It isn't a sexist film, that's just the type of story it tells. We eventually sympathize for the girl and her inability to be loving towards Kyun-woo. And of course we sympathize for Kyun-woo because he is constantly being beaten by the predicaments he is put on for the girl. It's win win!

Every action in the film is heartfelt. It's motivated and brings with it vast quantities of empathy for the characters. It's chock full of failed attempts and embarassing situations. But it isn't weighed down by them as some films tend to be. As rediculous as it can turn some times, it's never absurd for the sake of being absurd. Everything has a meaning. It may be based on a real story, but there is a strong craft behind the storytelling here. It hits the highs and the lows with flawless precision and timing.

It's a gorgeous film as well. Not just because often times the scenery is gorgeous, but the camera work is fantastic. It's not nearly as intimate as something like In The Mood for Love, but somehow manages to maintain the same level of beauty and simultaneously be incredibly kinetic and energetic.

My only complaint about all 137 minutes of screen time, which goes by remarkably fast, is one minor annoyance in editing when the frame rate would be sped up for a few, small moments. It's like old episodes of Clarissa Explains it All when the family would chase each other around the couch. It isn't so much that it completely didn't belong and distracted from the film, it just seemed that there was a better alternative.

Most romantic comedies these days bank on a lot of sexual references and low-brow jabs for their humor, but My Sassy Girl is a return to form for romantic comedies of yester-year in which the humor was genuinely funny and derivative of the romantic predicaments. This alone gives it a degree of honesty absent in romantic comedies of late. This is Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sleepless in Seattle and Before Sunrise/Sunset all rolled into one. It doesn't matter if you're a guy or a girl, My Sassy Girl is a tremendeously wonderful film that shouldn't be missed out on.

A very strong 5 out of 5

The One Sentence Review - My Sassy Girl isn't just a lovely romantic comedy, it's the best romantic comedy these eyes have ever seen.

I can't find a region free copy online, but there is a VCD of it available for only 8 bucks.

Primer (directed by Shane Carruth, 2004)



I've only seen it once and if I was asked to explain every intricacy of the plot to someone I simply could not do it. I don't know what the hell happened in this movie, but I loved the hell out of it.

I never care for tag lines of movies, but this one couldn't be more appropriate: "What happens if it actually works?"

Don't ask yourself the question of the technology in the movie, ask yourself that of the movie itself. If you can figure out every detail of this movie's plot the first time around, you are a far better man (or woman) than I. I was left with only a handful of understanding, but it wasn't the type of movie that leaves you think, "well that was full of plot holes" or "that could never happen", it's the type of movie that leaves you thinking, "no clue what just happened, but I know it was freaking great!" If I sat down and meticulously looked at every detail of this movie's plot and read over the script 10 times and came to the conclusion that movie is full of **** and really does just have a plot that intentionally makes no sense, I wouldn't care, because the question you should ask yourself is "What happens if it actually works?"

This movie doesn't need to work to actually work. In fact, it banks on misunderstanding. It invests itself in confusion. But it isn't a movie that comes off making no sense, it actually makes perfect sense, it's just slightly beyond comprehension. Which is an utterly perfect reflection of the film's two main characters. They build it, they don't know what it does, why it does what it does and how to stop what it's doing - but they know that something is happening and that something is special. I'm going to watch the commentary soon as word has it that it explains everything, but resolve is something that isn't a crucial cog in the machine of cinematic acceptance.

The movie goes out of it's way to keep the reader in the dark. Most noteably is the use of sensory overload. The script doesn't want for someone to finish talking before it can explain a crucial piece of information, it'll jumble it right into the conversation. Complex dialogue that would normally be dedicated to the audience's undivided intention in any other mystery is in a constant battle with background noise. Missed what the hell the machine does because you couldn't hear the conversation over the sound of traffic? Too bad says the director. Fantastic says I.

It's a story of regular guys trying to understand beyond their means. This isn't just about reaching your goals, this is about reaching other people's goals. This isn't an inspirational story where the kid with Down's Syndrome becomes the quarterback, this is the story where the kid with Down's Syndrome invents a ray gun and shoots himself in the face with it. I LOVE IT!

But the story and director's efforts to camouflage it aren't the only things that make the movie work, because it'd fall flat if it weren't for the spot on performances that headline it. Shane Carruth (who also wrote and directed) and David Sullivan are wonderful. They're completely average in every sense of the word. They are us if we were in this movie. This movie emulates the reality of this what if question so perfectly that sometimes it's creepy.

The stark aesthetics of every setting were a great semblance of the engineer's bleached lifestyle. The blocking goes hand in hand with the audial overload by means of visual defficencies. The edits bouncing forward in not only time, but space as well wonderfully compliment the aforementioned story hiding tactis. This movie has got everything going on, but unlike other movies where the pieces just conviently fall together this is a movie where the craftsmanship that went into painstakingly detailing every frame seen, every decibel heard and every line spoken is visible to anyone who isn't legally blind.

Even if I never figure out this movie, I'll still love it. Even if I do figure out this movie only to find out it doesn't make even a shred of sense, I love it. Even if I do figure it out, it makes sense, but it's just mediocre, I'll love it. All because the question asked in the film and of the film; "What happens if it actually works?"

This is Asimov, Clarke, Sagan and Crichton all rolled into one. If you like science and you like fiction you will like this movie.

5 out of 5

The One Sentence Review - Figure it out or don't figure it out, it doesn't actually matter because Primer is a remarkably elusive film that should not escape your attention.

I'm sold. Another stellar review, bud.

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

Thanks, I tried to make it as spoiler free as possible (not that I could successfuly spoil it anyway).

Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)



There is a lot about this movie that I really, really liked and a lot about it that I just didn't care for.

The first half is absolutely great. Setting up television is treated as the bringer of the new day and the goodnight kiss was perfect. The world of the media pirate was treated just as it should have been. The scene of life in the first half of this movie is like the modern day scene of the Stile Project. Violence and eroticism are treated with little discourse, as if they're so common place that they don't even need discussing. However the casual handling of such socialy decadent material isn't a reflection of the laxing of modern man's standards, but a fetishistic portrayl of their needs. It's like smoking a cigarette. Those who are smokers don't need it pointed out with a heavy hand, but they need it in their life and the method they go about satisfying that addiction is so specific and so detailed that it could be considered a fetish.

That's how Cronenberg treats the role of media in man's life. And I loved it. But then the film starts getting weird. I like weird, to a degree. And though it wasn't actually nonsensical, it started to come off that way. The message of the film starts to become buried right as it should actually start shining outwards. It isn't that it is too weird to understand, it all makes sense, it's just that the movie takes a turn into the realm of oddity, as opposed to the first half of the film which is viewing the oddity by proxy. I liked that the film started off with the social commentary that we all have a fetish for the weird, for the violent, for the pornographic. I liked how it began to mirror its own commentary, we'd gaze at the cathode ray tube with a fixation equivalent to that of the on screen characters. However, once the character's fixation on the analog pleasure provider was removed, so was mine.

I found myself loosing interest in any resolution to the film. The film broke me away from the point it was trying to make. Which doesn't really make sense because I actually liked everything that was going on in it. I absolutely loved the visuals. I loved the makeup and 'creature' effects that were used. It subscribes to the same school of alter-reality, almost Lovecraftian, multipersonality makeup. Basically, the effects of the film are not hyper-realistic, but they're realistic enough that we accept them as being real only in this alter-reality that exists simultaneously with our reality. I love that stuff. John Carpenter used it very heavily in In The Mouth of Madness and Cronenberg does the same here.

So why did I loose interest? I'm not sure. I think it's because the movie shifts away from the self-indulgent nature that requires the viewer's participation to complete itself and starts to remove the viewer from the equation, perpetuating itself entirely within the realm of the film. The first half bleeds into the reality of this world, but the second half destroy's the reality of this world. While it works in context of the story I felt it didn't really work in actual execution, cinematically.

Either way it's a great movie about the trend of man kind to become completely addicted to the cathartic nature of media. It's good commentary on the subconscious addiction we have to our television. How they begin to boss us around when we think we're really in control (which is quite literally the first thing shown in the movie as the television commands the awakening of James Wood) But I definitely liked the first half much more than the second half.

4 out of 5

The One Sentence Review: Videodrome is a great exploration of the psyche of man consumed by media and while it doesn't fall apart in it's second half, it becomes somewhat dissatisfying.

That said, "Long live the new flesh." is a line I have engrained into my library of film quotes.

Yes but how did you like James Woods' giant, throbbing abdominal vagina?

Have you seen eXistenZ?

Haha, it wasn't as good as the enormous moving and salivating Vagina at the end of Starship Troopers. And nope, I haven't seen eXistenZ yet, but it's been on my list for a while. I actually forgot about it, but now that you've reminded me I'll have to pick it up next time.

You definitely should. In some ways it's kind of a more accessible Videodrome, which if I read you right would improve it. I love em both.

EDIT ~ (i love em both) BUT, Debbie Harry and James Woods push Videodrome up higher for me.

I'm not a fan of Cronenberg. His films are way too...organic for me.

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

I reviewed eXistenZ in my thread if you guys are interested.

Excellent writing OG, great reviews. I still need to see Videodrome.

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Nice eXistenZ review, Sedai. I probably won't check it out for a week or so. I've got a backlog of films going on right now. I want to write some epic reviews of the original Dawn of the Dead and Starship Troopers, my two favorites films of all time. And I borrowed the Herzog Kinksi collection from a friend, so I've got those to pour through and this upcomming week is finals week and I'm trying to finish up the second draft of a script. It'll all get done after I go play a couple hours of Counter Strike.

Yeah, I saw that cut too. Thought that was about the best aspect of the film, overall . Guess there’s only so many hick-kicks-city-into-shape storylines that we can forgive eh? . The lead guy with the solid elbows (and fireproof legs) was certainly spry tho.

What? And get tobaccy juice in their ear? Lord no, it’d be unhygienic. (tho dammit, my to-watch list is far too unwieldy coz of you, you unrepentant recommender you)

Oh well hell, then you definitely need to see these guys…

http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...9/rolling.mpeg
http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...9/walking.mpeg

(info courtesy of this aritcle: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn7194)

Doesn’t even touch Blue Planet, but frickin great nonetheless.

Nice reviews on the filmic front by the way . I’m gonna have to check out a few of those (Damn it, another Pike in the Mofo seas )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Finally had time to catch up… great job OG… thanks for sharing…

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Great reveiw on Primer OG. You captured the feeling that this film leaves with the veiwer perfectly. It is such a great film and I can't wait to see how much my mom's boyfriend hates it.

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"Like all dreamers, Steven mistook disenchantment for truth."

I'm such a slacker. I'll write some more at some point, I was on a roll there for a bit...

I havn't posted a review for almost a year. If your'e a slacker, then i am disabled.

Shutter, directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, 2004



Once I actually bought it, it took me a while to get around to watching it, but it's worth the wait. I'm a huge fan of the new wave of Asian cinema, but admittedly my knowledge of the Thai scene is extremely limited so when I heard that their take on the now cliched Asian ghost story was pretty sturdy, I decided to check it out.

While I've taken in my share of the Asian ghost story, a new genre in and of itself, and while I openly gobble up entries, few are very satisfying. I find movies like The Ring or Ju-On, while they often deliver on the freakyed freak, empty because their stories are just boring and uninteresting. Shutter, not so much. It follows a photographer named Tun who starts to see apparitions in his photos, the same person over and over. The departed starts to stalk Tun and his girl, tracing over the familiar territory of the living trying to figure out what they need to do to get the dead to leave them alone, but while the ground may be familar and the scares a little cliched, it stands remarkably strong by the time the credits roll.

It takes all of the ingredients of ghost story predecessors, gathers 'em all up together and plays with that hand and actually wins. It isn't a movie that takes all the preconcieved notions about the genre and turns them on their head, but it pays them enough respect that if anything is cliched it's not bothersome. You won't crap your pants out of fear, but it'll certainly tweak your nerves throughout

The acting is actually very enjoyable and Ananda Everingham who plays Tun is a great alternative to the estrogen driven ghost stories of the past 5 years or so. The difference is incredibly subtle, but there is a sizeable difference in choosing the sex of a ghost story's protagonist. Going with a female as the lead, which is the trend these days, banks on fragility for fear. However, going with a male throws fragility out the window and you're left with more of a feeling that the character must have done something to deserve this, whereas a female leaves you thinking that she is innocent and just being tortured. This isn't an arguement about males being stronger than females, it's just the economy of character choice that I see consistent in ghost stories as of late. The film has a story and characters that you'll actually find investment in, as opposed to something like Phone or the broken narrative Ju-On series.

Shutter, while not the best bet when it comes to the tried Asian ghost story field, is certainly worth your time. I put it in a second place as my favorite in the arena, shadowed only by the highly enjoyable and scary as The Eye. It subscribes to the thought that build up scares aren't as scary as fragments of things that are just plain creepy, which I don't agree with, but it works well with what it's got going on.

4 out of 5

The One Sentence Review - Shutter walks on cliched ground, but unlike handfuls of it's predecessor's works very well and is worthy of your attention.

And people say blibbloblib is hard to say

Wick review dude, this sounds great, i hadnt heard of it. I really need to see The Eye as well.

How comes ya aint been around much of late Oggy?

Thanks. As for being gone, my girlfriend came down to my apartment in Florida for the past couple weeks, so while I still had access to my computer I was happily occupied. But now I'm back in VA and into the swing of summer working etc, so I'll have more time to be active again.