not for your consideration
03.05.06 • comment • trackback
With the Oscars just hours away, I thought I’d resist the urge to prophecy the results of an awards show and instead tell you about two newer movies I saw this weekend.
Ultraviolet
I don’t know what they were thinking, and for that matter, I don’t know what I was thinking in paying to see this piece of technicolor garbage. Sometimes, I reasoned, you just need to see a thoroughly bad movie. Wow, does Ultraviolet deliver on that one. I expected a paper thin, nonsensical plot. I expected big explosions and small brains. I expected terrible acting. However, I also expected that the action sequences at least be worth the price of admission. Instead, Ultraviolet masks its half-baked efforts with blurred, overprocessed digital film and Milla Jovovich’s abs. Rent it and take a drink every time her clothing changes color for no reason.
Night Watch
Thank God I saw this one second. Night Watch is apparently the highest grossing film in Russian history, easily outstripping American mainstays like Spiderman and Lord of the Rings. Fox Searchlight incorrectly markets this movie as a horror feature. True, it has a handful of gross out/shocker moments, but it’s more occult sci-fi/fantasy than anything else, a smartly done mystical battle between the soldiers of good and evil living in modern Moscow. Picture if Constantine and The Matrix had a baby. A great baby. This is part one of a three part trilogy, and frankly I can’t wait to see the rest of it. Night Watch also has what may be the coolest subtitles in film history (the graphic designer in me was overjoyed). Maybe I’ve seen too much Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, but I can’t understand why reviews have been so mixed. I hope this sees wider release.