La Pantera Rosa

So, I saw the Pink Panther on Monday of last week. All-in-all, a good film. Even better company.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the movie, I mean, it's got quite the pedegree to live up to, ya know? But also, as I was asking Brittany afterwards: did I really want to see an exact clone of the original movies? Not only would that be an almost impossible task to do, I just don't know if I would want them to succede at it, the originals being such classics. If anyone could reproduce a classic like the P.P. movies at will, what would be the point of them being classics in the first place?

I was happy that Steve Martin played the part of Clouseau. I felt that if there was only one guy who could pull of this movie, it was him. I hasn't too happy about Beyonce, since she was obviously only added for sex appeal (and I personally don't find not wearing clothes to be all that "sexy," not to mention the fact that she's not nearly as pretty as everyone seems to think she is. Oh well, to quote/paraphrase Ringworld "the minority is always insane.") And there were two scenes which I felt were waaay too suggestive for a PG-rated movie. The originals were never that suggestive. They had a couple suggestive parts, but not THAT suggestive.

Anyway... moving on...

I wanted to review the movie in a context that didn't pit it against the originals, and I finally realized that that would be impossible, so I will try and be as unbiased as I can be, but I will, of necessity, have to compare it to the originals.

The movie runs at a much faster, (more modern,) pace. Sometimes that was just fine, but at others it made the movie feel too rushed. Not so much that it was a major distraction, but it was a distraction. They also threw in a lot more action, ("a lot" being relative, considering that the originals contained zero to none... discounting the Cato fight scenes, which were arguably the best parts of the original movies,) which was a mixed blessing.

I was sorry to see that Cato was not included in the movie, but he wasn't in the opriginals either until the third movie. (I think it was the third movie, at least.) I was also kinda surprized that Clouseau's assistant wasn't Hercule. Not that he was in very many of the originals, but you'd think that they'd go for whatever ties they could get.

The opening credits were nice... I guess. They had a few good moments, but, really, they needed a lot more work. They seemed choppy. The originals were always fluid and almost told a story by themselves. This new opening was just a bunch of random scenes.

But my biggest beef with this re-make is the fact that Clouseau actually solved the mystery all by himself. In the originals, one of the parts that made the Pink Panther movies what they were was the fact that it was this entirely imcompetent detective (after the first movie, at least,) who manages to solve the mystery in spite of his detective skills. It's as though his poor detective skills which always led him in the wrong direction managed to, paradoxically, be exactly what he needed to solve the case. But in this new one, even though he was mostly incompetent, he was still able to use his brain and real detective skills to solve the case on his own. That's not how it is. I may or may not have wanted a clone of the originals, but if there is one thing they shouldn't have changed, it was that.

That being said, I must repeat that I did enjoy the movie. It was consistantly funny, as is to be expected of Steve Martin. (Steve Martin did an excellent job.) There were more than a few parts that had me laughing hard enough to miss hearing a few lines and even the "groaner" jokes weren't all that bad.
The movie did, more or less, what I expected of it: It made me laugh. Was it a good movie? Yes. Is it a true or a worthy successor to the originals? Well... That's quite a different question. I would say... somewhat. I don't think that it's nearly as good as the originals, but, having said that, I do think that it could stand amongst the originals with it's head held up high. (After all, it was a lot better than "Son of the Pink Panther." Make of that what you will.)

Me duele la cabeza.

Well, at least my head was hurting. I took a long nap, and now I can't sleep. So, I'll do something I've kinda been meaning to do for a while: Put up my top 10 favorite movies!

Now, I have a lot of favorite movies, but this really took some thinking on my part, and I also had to move some around, becuase I've always said that X movie is in Xth place, but I decided that I had to be sincere with myself and give movies their rightful ranking, and nostolgia couldn't count as a major factor. A minor factor, yes, but not a major one. Also, since I'm compiling this list from memory and I can't remember every movie I've ever seen, I reserve the right to change this list without notice. So, without further adieu...



10. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
This is one of the greatest comedies of all time. It isn't so much of a belly "ha ha" laugh, but it is very consistent in it's pacing. It has various different types of humor, a classic all-star cast, and lots of interesting cameos. Again, I have to mention the pacing. It starts off ever so slowly and keeps picking up speed, all the way to the climax, yet never feels rushed. And when it finally slows down at the end, it doesn't feel like it was artificiallly brought to a stop. I personally am not gifted enough to fully expound upon the genious of this movie.

9. The collected works of the Marx Brothers.
Okay, so these aren't a single movie, but you have to admit that the Marx Brothers are easily one of the greatest, (if not the greatest,) comedy teams of all history. They've got puns, they've got wacky situations, they've got insult humor, they've even got musical interludes, for crying out loud! How can you not like them?

8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
If you've seen this movie, you know why it's here. I you havn't seen it (shame on you!) I can't explain it to you, because if I did, I would end up quoting half of the movie.

7. Gattaca
I'm not really sure what to say about this movie. I really like this movie, but I can't quite put my finger on why. I mean, it has one of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard; great acting; great directing; great emotional impact; and lots more. But... I dunno. There are other movies with the same, but I'm not sure why Gattaca stands out so much to me. It just does.

6. Life is Beautiful
So is this movie. It's another great movie that has it all: Comedy, drama, romance and a bitter-sweet ending. Not to mention beautiful music.

5. Casablanca
What can I say? This is a true classic. And I think I've said it before in this blog, I'm normally the kind of guy who is rather wary of movies and books that get called "classics." But this movie is VERY deserving of the title. It's got humor, suspense, action, romance, and more. And it wraps it all in a great story that's told very well. After I finally saw it, I no longer wondered why people thought it was so great. I wondered why the heck it took me so long to get around to watching it.

4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Beautiful film. Just beautiful. Great fighting that isn't gratuitous; wonderful acting; beautiful music... It's just hard to praise this movie enough.

3. The Fugitive
For me, one of the most important aspects of a great movie is the ability to watch it again without being bored the second time. "The Fugitive" easily takes number three on my list because no matter how many times I watch this movie, it's just as good as the first time. I have never tired of this movie. When I first saw the sequel, "U.S. Marshals" I actually thought it was a better movie. The I watched it again and was bored. By that time I had already seen "The Fugitive" at least ten times and was still loving it each time. I could go on for all the reasons why, but for me, the fact that I don't get tired of the movie says it all.

2. The Incredibles
Let me say this right now: Brad Bird is a freeking genious. When I first saw "The Incredibles" and the credits started rolling, I wanted to shout, it was so good. I settled for clapping my hands for longer than anyone else, but I really wanted to shout: "THAT WAS FREEKIN' AWESOME! WOOOOO!" (Or something to that effect, at least.) Even more than Casablanca this movie had it all: Non-gratuitous fight scenes; humor; family values; suspense; emotional impact; twists and surprises; flawless voice acting; beautiful animation; great charicature... the list could go on and seem endless. Like I said with "Crouching Tiger": It's just plain hard, if not impossible, to praise this movie enough.

1. UHF
Greatest freeking movie in all of existance.
Okay, I'll be honest: This movie beats out "The Incredibles" because of the nostolgia factor. I mean: It's by "Wierd Al" for cryin' out loud. I mean, it really is the funniest movie ever made, but on it's own that's not enough to put it at number 1. For that you need the fact that this is "Wierd Al's" movie.


Well, there you go. Feel free to post (intelligent) comments as to what you think.

Que soy muy flojo, ¿Vale?

Unfortunately, I don't really have a whole lot to write about. Life, The Universe and Everything, a speculative fiction-based symposium is coming up in a few weeks. I am the head of the games track, so it's getting a little bit hectic for me. Heh, it not nearly as bad as it could be though. Games track is actually apretty small job comparitively. Oh well.

Let's see, what's new? What's new? I'm finally getting caught up with my classes. I was taking 17 credits but that was just too much, so I dropped a class and am only taking 14 right now. I should have been caught up by now, but I'm very lazy. *sigh* Oh well, recognizing you've got a problem is the first step to recovery, no?

I've been finding in the past few months that I am a far more cynical and critical person than I ever thought I was. I'm not usually mean to people's faces, but I find myself making cynical remarks inside my head all the time. I mean, MAN... if people could read my mind, I doubt anyone would even want to know me, even if none of my remarks were ever directed at them specifically. I think that this is a recent development though. I hope so. I mean, I can't remember being so critical before, (not of other people at least,) but it could just be that I was so critical, but I'm only now just realizing it. Sure, some people need critisizm, but it should be constructive critisizm, otherwise it's just being a jerk, and I don't want to be a jerk. I know far too many of them and don't want to be associated with them.

I've always been more or less into anime. Not a ton, but I've never been adverse to it, and have seen some of the more popular stuff and the occasional obscure, late-night/budget VHS anime movie. I also had some knowledge of some of the more well-known stuff. But compared to most anime-geeks, I was essencially anime-illiterate. Since I've come here at college and joined Quark (the local campus nerd club) it's like having been on an accelerated course. I've even started buying some manga. I'm finding that it's actually a pretty good medium for storytelling. I am always surprised at how far ahead of America Japan is in so many categories. Japanese anime is just way ahead of most (read: not all) American animation, and some of the manga I've read just plain does a far better job at telling stories than most U.S. comic books. There are exceptions, of course, and not all manga/anime is good. Some of it is downright awful. Remember, I'm talking in generalities here.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Oh well... Anyway... Yeah, them Japanese is good storytellers when it comes to visual mediums. I know that anime and manga are really just niche markets still, but they are getting more mainstream, and if America wants to compete in the cartoon/animation storytelling business, we need more studios like Pixar and Kanbar (who just did a great job with Hoodwinked, I'm looking foreward to their next project); more animaters like Craig McCraken and Genndy Tartakovsky (Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and more); and more comic books like, well... Okay, so there's plenty of good comic books out there, but there's a lot more that's just either just dumb or pure garbage.
But these people and series tell stories and tell them well. They don't just have stories, which is a different thing. I mean, most of the stuff out there is fine enough. They have stories. But anymore it seems that no one pays attention to them unless you get really outlandish story arcs and every single one is a matter of saving the world. Which is okay, if done well, but it's becoming increasingly hard to do that since rescuing the world has become so cliché. I mean, we're up against stuff like Escaflowne, Cowboy Bebop and Fullmetal Alchemist. Not to mention just about anything by Studio Ghibli. Most of these aren't about saving the world. They're about people. They tell the stories of these people in an amazing and captivating way. To me, THAT is what books and movies (be it animated or live-action, printed word or sequential art) is all about: Telling a story in a way that people care about it.
Maybe it's just because I'm an idealist, but we really need to wake up as a society and start caring about the story we are trying to tell. Explosions and fight scenes are all well and good, but if they don't help the story out any, they're useless and have no purpose.
It's like with video games. Sure it's nice to have a graphics engine that so pretty no one will be able to even appreciate the fact until more powerful hardware comes out next year. But if the game is no good, what's the point? They made games back in the day with pixels for graphics that are still better than 90% of the games released today. There are games out there today, Like Urban Dead, which essentially have no graphics but are still more fun and addictive than junk like WoW. (Which I admit is addictive, but not very fun.)
Yet there are still morons out there who wont even look at a game unless it's graphics are top-notch. They award "fun points" based on the amount of heavy ordinance weapons you can hold, rather than level-design and mental challenge. Point in case: Oni. A great, if not perfect game by Bungie. Fun as heck. I was talking about it to some kids I used to baby-sit when they were younger. They wouldn't even consider playing it because "you can only carry one weapon at a time."
Well... DUH! That's part of the genious of the game: It forces you to choose your weapons wisely. Do you go with a plasma that has more ammo but does less damage, or a sniper rifle with only two shots? Do you trust your skill at hand-to-hand, or do you want to soften them up a bit before engaging? That game was the PERFECT blend of a shooter and a fighting game (No game I know of has ever come even close to doing as good a job as Oni did), but they didn't want to try it out since you could only carry one weapon at a time, [sarcasm]and how many weapons you can carry is OBVIOUSLY an indicator of how fun a game is.[/sarcasm]

Anyway... I've got homework to do. If I let myself, I'd be at this rant all day. Maybe I'll go on a bit more later.

Ci vediamo.