I have seen 3 movies recently
Azumi: This a japanese movie about a hot chick named Azumi. She is a trained assassin in feudal Japan. She is way too cute and she kills everybody, it is great. The movie kind of slows down toward the middle when she starts regretting being an assassin but then she figures it out and goes on an all out killing spree. There is also this weird 80's guy in the film that carries around a rose all the time. He was kind of stupid but I think he was still able to achieve the desired persona. And if you have seen the japanese Shall We Dance? you may recognize Mr. Aoki in this movie. Unfortunately, he is supposed to be really tough, which is kind of hard for me buy. Anyway, I still really enjoyed because I just couldn't help but smile every time Azumi was on the screen and she was on the screen most of the movie.
Once: This movie makes me wish I could play and instrument. There is a scene where the male lead and the female lead (we never learn either of their names) play a song together and it is really great. It reminded me of the scene in School of Rock when Jack Black and the kids first start rocking together, I cried then too. Anyway, the movie had a really nice non-hollywood feel to it and the music was great.
Live Free or Die Hard: I think the Die Hard series is one of the best action franchises out there. This one suspends disbelief more than the others but it is still quite a bit of fun. Bruce Willis and Justin Long work really well together. I don't know what else to say other than I loved it.
Once: This movie makes me wish I could play and instrument. There is a scene where the male lead and the female lead (we never learn either of their names) play a song together and it is really great. It reminded me of the scene in School of Rock when Jack Black and the kids first start rocking together, I cried then too. Anyway, the movie had a really nice non-hollywood feel to it and the music was great.
Live Free or Die Hard: I think the Die Hard series is one of the best action franchises out there. This one suspends disbelief more than the others but it is still quite a bit of fun. Bruce Willis and Justin Long work really well together. I don't know what else to say other than I loved it.
posted by Anonymous at 2:23 PM
3 Comments:
I saw Die Hard this week too, along with Jed Wells. What a great time. We were hootin' and hollerin' through the whole thing. Yeah, Justin Long was great. He cracks me up. Hey, seth, do they really have airplanes like that?
Entertainment Weekly Magazine voted the original Die Hard as the best action movie of all time. I'm comfortable with that (even though I think they did it just to promote the movie). The brilliance of Die Hard was the small scope of the story (One location), the bad guy's suave charms(Alan Rickman was brilliant) and thier plan of action, which gets unfolded as we move along and the improvisation and struggle of a barefoot everyman cop. (I also think Jan de Bont's camerawork is dynamite!) I heard that John McTiernan wasn't interested in directing the film at all until he read the part in the script where John McClane declines a ride in the back of the limo and takes the front seat instead.
Flash Forward 19 years. This movie doesn't try to simulate the original but it does pay homage but It felt funny. It was as if John McClane was cryogenically frozen in 1988 and then thawed out in the present and all he knew how to do kick ass the eighties way. Even though his character was out of his element, he still manages to pull off some great improvised moments. However some scenes leave him looking pretty dumb. When the movie gives him time to stop and think, he doesn't know what to do with it. Justin Long's character steals these scenes. Long's thankless performance was well balanced between humor, saavy, and constantly having to react to the McClane way of doing things without being annoying or whiny. The part that didn't really work for me was the bad guy. Hackers that can hack anything anytime make for a dull antagonist. Hacking the gas to converge into one area is a cleaver idea but watching it happen as a result of keystrokes is not any fun.
Over all the movie was fun, and flowed well and Bruce had some great moments to soften the blow of the overdone cartoon action sequences. I really expected this movie to blow much harder than it did but I enjoyed it as an action movie, just not quite as a Die Hard movie.
I watched Azumi at work. I didn't expect to like it. But I did. It's an interesting style. It's basically a live action anime movie.
The effeminate bad guy in white who caried the rose and had the high cackly laugh was pretty sweet.
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