Tag Archive for 'Brittany Murphy'

Spun

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 27, 2008
in Comedy, Crime, Drama and Drugs
. 0 Comments

For some reason I’m always intrigued by drug movies.  Maybe it’s because it’s something I know nothing about.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on what they were going for in Spun though.  It almost had an MTV, jazzed-up feel to it.  At times I think the film was trying to accurately portray what it’s like to be on crystal meth, but all the while being hip and cool about it.  Everything was shot with a lot of close-up lenses.  I know some would argue this really gets you in there, but I really prefer the wide-angle any day.  It gives you a feel for the scene and its surroundings.  There was also a lot of camera movement and jiggling along with some varying camera speeds with time lapse photography.  I think this is what may have confused me on the level of seriousness.

At times things were from almost a first person view.  Not like a first person video game, but from the viewpoint that you were in the group.  At other times the camera was pulled back a bit and I felt much like an outside observer.  This combined with some of the camera tricks are what made me feel like the film was “jazzed-up” to seem more hip and cool.  The main pair of cops trying to catch everyone also seemed like they might have been more at home as the two detectives from Hot Fuzz.  While most drug-centered films I’ve seen are trying to show how drugs are bad (Blow, Trainspotting, etc), this one almost made it seem maybe a little cool.  I felt the comedy aspects were counteracting the seriousness of the drugs.

One other aspect I really didn’t understand was the bleeping of some dialog and the blurring out of some nudity.  The reason this seemed weird is because they sometimes allowed you to hear the same word in an earlier scene.  Now not all nudity was blurred out, just some.  I could kind of see some consistency in the blurring, but it still didn’t make sense.  Maybe they were trying to avoid an NC-17 rating?

Even though I wasn’t completely on board with everything, this film did bring out an reaction and that is a sign of good art.  Who can say no to a movie starring Jason Schwartzman, Mickey Rourke, Brittany Murphy, John Leguizamo, Patrick Fugit, Mena Suvari, Deborah Harry?  Who’s Deborah Harry you ask?  Well you might also recognize her as the front woman for a band called Blondie.  Jason Schwartzman never ceases to amaze me and Rourke has been awesome in everything I’ve seen him in.  It was also cool watching Blondie kick the crap out of a punk in a convenient store.

I’m not really sure how to recommend this.  Some will be offended by the content and others will just get bored with the feel of it.  I’m glad I stuck through and watched it all.  Something to check out if you have Netflix.  It’s on the Watch Instantly list.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Sin City

Published
by
Chalupa
on April 2, 2005
in Action, Based on a comic, Based on a graphic novel, Crime, Drama, Graphic Violence, Multiple story line, Narrated, Neo Noir and Thriller
. 1 Comment

Sin City is a movie adaptation of the graphic novel/stories by Frank Miller. It was co-directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez with a Quentin Tarantino as a guest director. There are so many big name actors/actresses in this movie I’m not even going to try and name them all. Check out the link for yourself.

I’m most definitely not going to make a general blanket statement of telling people to go see this movie. This is definitely a comic book made into a movie - and I’m not talking about X-Men, Spiderman, Batman or The Hulk. There was some great cinematography and I loved what they did with the black and white with artistic splashes of color in all the right places.

As far as content in here that might turn people off there’s a decent amount of violence. Definitely nothing that bothered me, but I’m sure it’ll bother some. There was also a decent amount of T&A that I wasn’t necessarily expecting.

The story was great and captivating. I most definitely didn’t understand everything and will need to see it at least one more time. The timeline was also a bit confusing. Sort of like watching Pulp Fiction for the very first time. I’m going to need to talk to Lofton - I’m sure he can explain it all to me.

Overall I’m gonna have to say I liked this movie. Great acting, great directing, great story. It was intriguing as well as interesting. There’s a good chance I’ll be seeing it again with some other people and will hopefully get a better grasp on things.