At fifteen, David Rice (played by Max Thieriot as a young boy, Hayden Christensen for the rest of the film) discovered that he could teleport. As a young adult, he has found a way to live this life, going where he wants, doing what he wants. Until he is tracked down by Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), a man who follows “jumpers” like him and kill them. Why? Religion.
David is a really annoying character – arrogant, smarmy and generally quite crap and annoying. I found I couldn’t care less about him – in fact, I was quite keen for Roland to knock him off sooner rather than later. Made it difficult to care about the film at all. Overall, this feeling didn’t change. But there is an extra in one scene who keeps looking at the camera – it’s quite weird, really – quite funny, and totally made the film for me.
Ben (Robert De Niro) is a film producer whose latest film, staring Sean Penn (playing himself) tests poorly – especially the killing of a dog at the end. He needs to fix it, which takes all kinds of maneuvering. On top of this, he is dealing with the end of his marriage with Kelly (Robin Wright), his teenage daughter Zoe (Kristen Stewart). Plus, the star of his next film, Bruce Willis (also playing himself) has grown an ugly beard and will not listen to pleas to sort himself out before shooting. Even his manager, Dick Bell (John Turturro) cannot sort it out (in-between his serious stomach issues).
It’s a film that is full of stars and Hollywood inside stuff, and I reckon that it is entirely possible that people within the industry would relate to it a lot, even if they may not like it. Me? I found it a bit interesting, and somewhat entertaining, but it didn’t totally grab me.
A free-spirited guy, Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) decides to leave his expected future and travel around America with no money, just finding his way, meeting people and having experiences. His ultimate goal? To live in the wilds of Alaska. And he does, although it ends up taking his life.
I watched this a few years ago and remember being quite annoyed at it. Cynical me thought ‘blah blah blah, idealism and blah blah’. Being played recently on SBS gave me a chance to revisit, and I hated it a lot less. I still didn’t love it; cynical me was still mocking his wide-eyed wonder at every little thing in nature. But I hated it a lot less. I’ve enjoyed the writings of John Krakauer in the past (I’d highly recommend both Into Thin Air and Beyond the Banners of Heaven), and think perhaps if I read the book on which the film was based, I might like the movie more. But perhaps not. The only thing that really surprised me was that the adventures that this based-on-a-true-story film was created around happened in 1992, not 1965.
Into the Wild was nominated for Oscars for Best Performance by an Actor in a supporting Role (Hal Holbrook) and Best Achievement in Film Editing.
Book – Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
As I mentioned previously, I had expectations from the book. I hoped it would give me some insight that would make me enjoy the film more. It didn’t, but having read the book, I realize that is a pretty silly expectation.
The book is definitely worth a read. It seems the film portrayal of Chris McCandless is pretty accurate, and I still think I wouldn’t have liked him. But the interviews Krakauer did makes it very clear that he McCandless made a real impact on people in his life.
What I liked most in the book, however, was the comparisons between McCandless and a variety of other young men who take themselves off to complete extreme challenges, often for no really strong reason. This included Krakauer himself, who as a young man climbed a rock formation in Alaska on his own, making several decisions and mistakes that could have easily have led to his death. I think McCandless and Krakauer and the other people mentioned in the book are foolish and foolhardy to attempt such things in often quite a reckless fashion, but I feel that I must give them some kind of respect also. They are very different to me in personality and that’s just fine.
Based on the book by Jack Kerouac, On the Road follows beat poet Sal Paradise as he travels across the country with his friend Dean Moriaty who leaves a string of women everywhere he goes.
It’s probably a very good film, but it just annoyed me. I’m far too much of a cynical cow to have any respect of faith for the hippies and beat poets of the past. All that ideology and blah blah. I’d love to travel across the US, but not with any of these people. Perhaps I’d have liked it more if I’d read On The Road. But perhaps less.
So, having revealed my enjoyment of Once Upon a Time and Grimm, it should come as no shock that I thoroughly enjoyed this retelling of the Snow White fairytale. I think it was marketed on the fact that it is a lot more kick-arse that the original, and it probably is. I can’t remember what happens in the story of Snow White once the prince kisses her and wakes her from her slumber.
There are a few faults. Some may say it’s PC gone mad, but I don’t understand why they didn’t use short-statured actors for the dwarves rather than using CGI to shrink down regular actors. I mean, they are great actors, Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Ray Winston. But, really? Whatever. It annoys me, that’s all. And I don’t get the appeal Kristen Stewart, although in the final scenes when she is seriously kicking butt, I thought she was not bad. But, for me, the film was totally made by Charlize Theron who plays the evil stepmother. Evil? She was magnificent. Some of this magnificence was certainly thanks to the awesome CGI effects, but I thought she was great.
Overall, the film had a bit of humour with a lot of stylized violence. That’s how I like it.
Snow White and the Huntsman was nominated for an Oscar for Visual Effects.
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