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April 02, 2008
Media Glutton, April 2 2008
Here's my latest Media Glutton from AllVoices.com:
So I've been reading a lot this past week, mostly for my MFA program and thus nothing you would call new or even terribly recent stuff. Great stuff, but nothing you haven't heard about a bunch of other places before. I'm more interested here in highlighting new and/or relatively unknown content, although I might write up the book I'm reading (and enjoying) now once I'm finished later this week.
But I did get to see The Mist on DVD, written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on Stephen King's novella. I'd listened to a really great audio version of this story many, many years ago, but all I remembered was people trapped in a grocery store by some creepy mist with crazy monsters in it. As it turns out, that's about all there is to remember, but it's also enough. This is a really solid, fun, survivor/horror movie, with some cool monsters, some unusual and interesting character arcs, and an ending that some people probably hate but I really love (although you couldn't call it the feel good hit of the summer by any means). The special effects are OK. Apparently the Blu-Ray disk has a black and white version on it, which I think might actually be pretty cool. I don't know that I've ever seen black and white CGI monsters before, but maybe that would make them look a little more realistic. If you like monster movies, check this one out.
I also saw this announcement about doing a big budget movie version Huxley's Brave New World. I'm pretty excited about this one. It's great to see Ridley Scott doing sci-fi again of course, and I like the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio's behind it as well (read the article linked to to see why). I know a lot of people are anti-DiCaprio, but they're just being weird and reactionary, probably a hangover from the horrifying Titanic-phenom days last decades. The fact is, he gives good to great performances in good to great movies again and again, and usually takes on pretty interesting roles. I loved him in The Aviator for instance, and Blood Diamond is a really solid, entertaining-yet-thought-provoking flick.
Posted by rdakan at April 2, 2008 01:21 PM