Change Your Image
sanjdale
Reviews
Middle Men (2009)
Pornography corrupts and making money from pornography corrupts absolutely!
Review may contain spoilers
Well after watching the other 2 commentaries on the informational age we live in today (The Social Network and The Pirates of Silicon Valley) I thought i would delve into the murkier world of internet pornography and what really made it explode across the medium in the early 1990s... internet billing.
I was slightly disappointed but comparing it to the above mentioned movies i was possibly expecting too much. I don't know how much of this story is true I tried to find about some information on the history of internet billing(accepting credit cards) and couldn't find anything but how it is portrayed does ring true. First you have 2 very dysfunctional drug addled characters(one a genius ex rocket scientist IQ of 181) who have the GREAT idea and start by scanning some pornographic magazines onto a website and writing a programme to accept credit card payments online. They want content so approach a gangster Russian strip club owner and it explodes into something massive. The main character then comes along and tries to organise the business professionally moves away from producing their own content but working with ruthless gangsters and 2 extremely amoral and idiotic partners causes a lot of problems.
Suffice to says it is a mess and a very interesting story to see how extricates himself from these people and the business and problems such as his partners unwittingly setting up child pornography sites. There is also one hilarious sub-plot involving the FBI wanting them to produce "porn" that terrorists like so they can track them more efficiently :)).
Apparently the story is loosely based on the experiences of the creators experience in the internet during the 1990s, now if even a small part of this story is true you can understand that why it would have made a fictionalised account.
For me it was very interesting movie not brilliantly executed. I have given it 6/10 rating. But as a social commentary on our times i think its useful tool to explore how our culture has been shaped by technology and also to remember the dark side of the beginnings of ecommerce.
The Social Network (2010)
The World We Live In!
This review may contain spoilers
I have to say that i rate this movie was one of the best movies i have seen in years. As a reflection of the times we live in i would say 2 movies are right up there the first the Pirates of Silicon Valley and the other being The Social Network.
We live in times that we do not fully understand and this movie for me provides a balanced and non-judgemental commentary of how we got here. We live in a time where we share more about ourselves than at any other time in our lives. Never before have we provided so much personal information to so many and how we react to social situations has changed dramatically as a result of phenomena such as Facebook. Let me give you an example, in the past you met a girl(or guy) you started dating, you had your first kiss, then more you gradually started introducing them to your life, your friends then your siblings and if it got very serious your parents. Now we have Facebook, they send you a friend request full of the full flush of a blossoming romance you accept and give them unrestricted access to your facebook page and them to you.... now that could get messy very quickly and forces along the pace of what people of my generation think of as a natural pace. You add them on a restricted profile limiting them access to your friends and your wall? How will that effect the relationship. I do not personally believe we have had sufficient time to think about these issues in any great deal and it will take a lot of time to get used to.
Anyway back to the movie! None of the above is discussed or touched upon on The Social Network I just felt it was something this movie should be making us think about! Much like Silicon Valley you get a focus on the individuals involved, the rivalries, their personal inadequacies, and how the end product evolved. The main focus of The Social Network is the focus on the litigation that was settled by the founder as Facebook got more popular. I came to facebook quite late so didn't really know much about how it started so i found this a very useful movie to watch. Also the story was engaging as the characters had a lot of depth. Especially Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of the founder. The movie did seem to hinge on one central theme, the creator of this biggest social network has real problems when it comes to founding close personal relationships with others. I do not know how true this is but it was portrayed in a very good way, no over dramatisations and no downplaying of the main events.
Anyway finally I would like to strongly recommend this movie to anyone thinking of watching it, i thoroughly enjoyed it as a piece of entertainment and it has also given me much food for thought on how we live today.
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Is this a zombie movie????
I am a big big fan of the zombie movie genre and have very much enjoyed the resident evil movies in the past, but this one was not at all enjoyable and i was quite bored by the end.
Firstly there is none of the desperation and clinging to survival you will find in the zombie movie genre and that includes previous Resident Evil movies. There should be a battle against the despair of a world falling apart and the clinging to hope. I didn't see any of this in this movie.
I don't want to say too much about what actually happens in the movie as I'm sure there are plenty out there that want to see the movie despite negative reviews like mine but.... WHERE ARE THE ZOMBIES???? There is soooo little action with the zombies it doesn't feel like a zombie movie when it should.
Finally i want to talk about the 3D effects i saw in the cinema, outside of an IMAX theatre this was the first time i have seen a "3D" movie. I was very disappointed i cannot believe that this was shot with 3D cameras it just didn't feel right at all, i have a feeling that it was shot on 2D and then re-engineered into 3D. i found the 3d effects very off-putting and didn't really see how they added to the movie and it a lot of ways they distracted me from the movie as i was internally groaning at the effects instead of watching the "action movie"(lets not call this a zombie movie every again).
Having said that the opening shot was awesome, it really builds the suspense and the music and visual effects had me gasping for breath, but it was all downhill after that.
I am really disappointed.
The Expendables (2010)
What did he say?
You know when I decided to see this I wanted mindless action and to see how all these old timers cut it in an action Movie still... OK for the second part they cut it quite well, their age didn't really show apart from one ridiculous scene where Sly Stallone tries to run after a plane taking off! His running looked laboured and it didn't look like he would in anyway catch the plane but he did and it looked awful... the rest wasn't so bad most of the action they were involved in was in cars etc so they didn't have to labour too hard.
now for the mindless action... I couldn't understand the dialogue... Sly Stallone being the worst offender... He can barely string a sentence together in his prime and in this Movie he is totally unintelligible... with all this CGI they could make his speech clearer i think, or at least give him subtitles.. it totally ruined what should have been a mindless movie for me as i had to concentrate too hard on what he was saying to sit back and be mindless...
Inception (2010)
Already A Classic
Simply a brilliant movie, very thought provoking, and the ending will leave the hair on the back of your hand standing on end.
For about a week after seeing it at the cinema i couldn't stop thinking about it.
DiCaprio is simply brilliant and the support cast are amazing. I cannot remember the guys name of the top of my head but the young kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun was amazing...
He always looked like such a wimpy kid but there is a fight scene where he really kicks ass and its so believable!
However, Di Caprio is the one that blows me away, i used to really hate all the hype surrounding his movies and hated his acting, however that changed after i saw the Aviator and his acting is just getting better and better, in 50 years times he will be remembered as one of the truly great Hollywood actors up there with the Brandos of this world.