Author: Joel M.

Sparks

So, The Passion of the Christ actually made a grand total of $125.8 million in its first 5 days since opening on Wednesday, edging out LOTR:ROTK and SW:TPM becoming officially the hugest Wednesday opening film of all time.

So, I thought for long and hard about whether or not to subject The Passion to my little film grading system, since it means a great deal more to me than just being a good movie. However, to some degree any movie that truely moves me will have a coloration to it forever imbued in my skull, enscribed on my heart, and even a flicker of jeweled fire in my soul. Therefore I will certainlly subject it to the limited reaches of my simple grading system. Here then are is my (rather predictable) score for the Passion along with two other movies I recently viewed.

The Passion of the Christ:

lead acting: 10/10

supporting acting: 10/10

story: 10/10

directing: 10/10

production design/value: 10/10

overall score: 10

Monster

lead acting: 9/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 6/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 7/10

overall score: 7.3

Fist of Legend

lead acting: 10/10

supporting acting: 6/10

story: 7/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 6/10

overall score: 7.2

So I got my hair cut today. I look like Jim Carrey according to a great number of people. No, I don’t look like Tony Clifton, I look more like Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber:

My Prognostication Grade

Well, as you all may know, I made some predictions about a month ago about the Oscars and who I thought would win. Here is a recap to see just how well I did 🙂

(my predictions are in italics while the winners are in bold, so one I got right would be bold and italic)

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Johnny Depp – PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

Ben Kingsley – HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG

Jude Law – COLD MOUNTAIN

Bill Murray – LOST IN TRANSLATION

Sean Penn – MYSTIC RIVER

Check.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Alec Baldwin – THE COOLER

Benicio Del Toro – 21 GRAMS

Djimon Hounsou – IN AMERICA

Tim Robbins – MYSTIC RIVER

Ken Watanabe – THE LAST SAMURAI

Miss.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Keisha Castle-Hughes -WHALE RIDER

Diane Keaton – SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE

Samantha Morton – IN AMERICA

Charlize Theron – MONSTER

Naomi Watts – 21 GRAMS

Miss.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Shohreh Aghdashloo – HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG

Patricia Clarkson – PIECES OF APRIL

Marcia Gay Harden – MYSTIC RIVER

Holly Hunter – THIRTEEN

Ren?e Zellweger – COLD MOUNTAIN

I knew it.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

BROTHER BEAR

FINDING NEMO

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE

Duh.

ART DIRECTION

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

THE LAST SAMURAI

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

SEABISCUIT

Check.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

CITY OF GOD

COLD MOUNTAIN

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

SEABISCUIT

Darn.

COSTUME DESIGN

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

THE LAST SAMURAI

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

SEABISCUIT

Check.

DIRECTING

CITY OF GOD

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

LOST IN TRANSLATION

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

MYSTIC RIVER

Woot.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

BALSEROS

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS

THE FOG OF WAR

MY ARCHITECT

THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND

Stupid political undertow…

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

ASYLUM

CHERNOBYL HEART

FERRY TALES

Lucky guess.

FILM EDITING

CITY OF GOD

COLD MOUNTAIN

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

SEABISCUIT

Yup.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS

EVIL

THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI

TWIN SISTERS

?ELARY

Increasingly I want to see this movie.

MAKEUP

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

Gotta love them orcs!

MUSIC (SCORE)

BIG FISH

COLD MOUNTAIN

FINDING NEMO

HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

Truthfully I was surprised at this one.

MUSIC (SONG)

“Into the West” – THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

“A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” – A MIGHTY WIND

“Scarlet Tide” – COLD MOUNTAIN

“The Triplets of Belleville” – THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE

“You Will Be My Ain True Love” – COLD MOUNTAIN

“A Kiss At the End of the Rainbow” was amazing… still: I predicted the winner!

BEST PICTURE

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

LOST IN TRANSLATION

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

MYSTIC RIVER

SEABISCUIT

If anybody picked another film other than this one… duh.

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

BOUNDIN’

DESTINO

GONE NUTTY

HARVIE KRUMPET

NIBBLES

(Sheep just aren’t that cool) Miss.

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)

DIE ROTE JACKE (The Red Jacket)

MOST (The Bridge)

SQUASH

(A) TORZIJA ([A] Torsion)

TWO SOLDIERS

Who cares… nobody ever sees these films anyhow. (I made no prediction… Miss)

SOUND

THE LAST SAMURAI

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

SEABISCUIT

Ahhh…

SOUND EDITING

FINDING NEMO

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

Check.

VISUAL EFFECTS

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

Check.

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

AMERICAN SPLENDOR

CITY OF GOD

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

MYSTIC RIVER

SEABISCUIT

American Splendor had its only nomination here, and along with City of God was good competition. There’s no contesting with the will of Sauron, though. Check.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS

DIRTY PRETTY THINGS

FINDING NEMO

IN AMERICA

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Thus the Coppolas become the second three-generation-oscar-winning film dynasty after the Hustons. Blah.

Total Nominations: 24

Total I correctly predicted: 17

Total I wrongly predicted: 7

% correct: 71%

My 2003 grade: C

Blah, I got a C this year… next year I will hone my skills more and follow the hype more closely. But I must admit that I payed such close attention this year that I really began to feel ill about the whole Award culture. Well, until my next post… adios!

Good Things Come In Groups of THREE

Well… it’s over.

The 76th Annual Academy Awards have officially wrapped and it is a clean sweep:

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) took ALL 11 of its nominations home. That makes it the 3rd film in history to win 11 awards, tying up with Titanic (1997) and Ben Hur (1959) for the most Oscar wins of any one movie. It also became the first film since The Last Emperor to win all of its nominations straight up.

My ‘Thank You’ to the Academy is simply for the fact that they chose at last to honor the Trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien, and perhaps most importantly, the genre of Fantasy with a Best Picture Award.

In other fascinating movie news: The Passion of the Christ raked in $23.6 million in its first day, and nearly $3 million in special pre-screenings on Monday and Tuesday were added to that to bring it up to $26.6 million. That is the new benchmark for February, the best opening day for a non-weekend, non-holiday week and the 3rd highest Wednesday opening ever along with being the 9th highest opening day ever. The film was predicted by box office analysts to gain about $110 million for it’s 5 day run, but early estimates put it at $117.5 million. Thus, The Passion ended up with something around $76 million for its opening weekend. At this rate it is slated to become Mel Gibson’s highest grossing film ever. The last movie he was in you may remember was Signs, which ended up grosssing a total of $228 million in its entire run.

Arbitrary monetary numbers, awards, pitiful little people doling out little honorary trophies to each other – it has been a good day for the movies.

After

Well, I’ve seen The Movie now… and I can certifiably say that I was moved and provoked and pushed in ways by this picture that cannot match many events of my life in recent memory. It hasn’t even computed all the way yet, and I realize that I need to see it again, but I don’t know how soon that will be.

I had the curious fortune of seeing two films distributed by Newmarket Films in the same day, and both on very different ends of the content spectrum. The fist one, Monster, starring Charlize Theron in her Oscar-nominated role as a hooker/lesbian/serial killer, the the second the aforementioned Passion of the Christ, starring Jim Caviezel in a absolutely gut-wrenching role. He did Christ, and he did Christ with reverence, with compassion, with awe, with love, with agony and suffering of his own in the filming. He dislocated his shoulder, was struck by lightning twice, and endured 12-hour-long makeup sessions for this film. The Passion is fully about the indeifinable suffering of Jesus and secondly about the unwavering passion of the film makers involved with the picture. Whereas Monster is about the tragedy of human life and our fallen nature, Passion is about the tragedy of human life and our fallen nature, completely erased and along with all things “made new” by Christ’s sacrifice. Charlize Theron’s character, Aileen, narrates portions of her story, a slow descent into madness and delusion fueled by a misguided and inflamed desire to grab hold of something-anything that can be construed as love (even if it is with Christina Ricci’s character Selby) and do anything and everything, regardless of morality or reality or truth, to hold onto that ‘love’. Christ gave His love freely to us, even when we turned it on him and cried out for his death. Our hands nailed Him to the cross, and His blood is on us, forever… thank God that is a good thing. At one point in Monster, Aileen sits down to explain to Selby just why she has begun to lure men off the highway to kill them and take their money and cars. She explains that people are by nature sick and depraved, and that no matter what they do they can’t take away her stab at happiness. “I’m square with the Lord” she says, “People are always talking about ‘thou shalt not kill’…” and she goes on to attempt to justify her killings “You don’t know my life Selby”. Aileen descends so far into her killing spree madness that it becomes a second nature to her. Her rants are challenged consistently onward in the film, a man picks her up off the highway and offers to get her a room somewhere, help her out in some way, and he doesn’t want anything in return. He is a good man, another face of evil to Aileen. He is innocent, and she cannot handle the thought of having no real justification for her lifestyle, and she kills him. Christ is the most innocent of all men… he was God incarnate. He suffers the ultimate and dies in a cruel way… but the manner in which he dies is unlike any other deah in recorded human history. He rises again. Nobody that Aileen kills ever comes back from the grave. But Selby’s adoptive older friend who is a Christian attempts to convince her to cut ties with Aileen “People make choices, and they have to deal with the consequences of those choices…”, “No”, Selby contends, “This is who I am, not a choice I make” but it is a choice. And Aileen’s chances for true redemption are there… hard to see, but they’re there. But she is clinging to a love that is not real, an unrequited obsession. Monster is based on a true story and ends with Aileen’s execution, she was the most notorious female serial killer in America. The Passion ends with Christ’s giving up of his spirit at the place of the skull, Golgotha. Aileen goes out on a bitter note, scoffing at any and all notions of true happiness or love… she is shattered and unrepentant. Too bad. Because in a graveyard of thieves, on a dry and dusty summit outside of Jerusalem, the son of man gave up his spirit and spoke “Father Father, why have you forsaken me?”… Three days later the stone rolled away, the linens lay there alone, and the body was gone. We all make choices, and Jesus is there offering us the only choice we’ll ever really need to make.

I must post more on this later, I’m late for class!

Before

I have not yet seen The Passion of the Christ, but I fully intend to see it tomorrow night at 10pm in the Woodland Small. I’m not sure how soon after viewing it that I will be able to blog about it, but I’ve read already too many reviews and message boards and heard too many stories already from people who have seen it. I’m going to put in headphones and go to bed and forget that this movie exists until I walk into the theater tomorrow night.

Goodnight… until the next post.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

So Holly, resident of Kelly’s Island, had a Grand day the

other day, getting did up about kelp, and of course that

means it’s time for ole Holly to get lichens! Just some bun

cheek. It’s Filling. I just got out of the intestine of all

sicknesses 2 months ago and have managed to grab stuff since

then (I assume because of built up feathers).

BUT I’m slurping my Tree! And I’m ugly at the prospect of

not Dying in these classes. Well, Masturbation is easier

than Real Analysis.

Tess and I are so anxious to get this grinding moss

finished. It’s taken so long, and mainly because there’s not

enough Hats to sit down and help it out. This weekend…

Shiva, Platypus, Monkey wrech, and voles are calling, all at

once. Unfortunately ring will have to come last. Unless I

try the “gastronomic” approach, which may or may not be

spongy.

I finally finished up Mike’s crayzee Mad Lib. And I managed to see a few movies in the recent days leading up to this post.

Love Actually:

lead acting: 7/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 7/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 5/10

overall score: 6.6

American Splendor:

lead acting: 9/10

supporting acting: 9/10

story: 9/10

directing: 9/10

production design/value: 9/10

overall score: 9.0

And I deem that I have witnessed enough of the dried up feel-good movie Radio to give it a rating:

Radio:

lead acting: 7/10

supporting acting: 5/10

story: 5/10

directing: 6/10

production design/value: 6/10

overall score: 5.8

Love Actually was a pretty decent film, except that there were entirely too many stories to keep track of in one movie. Some of the stories get some screen time in the first half hour, disppear for a whole hour maybe more, only to turn up for a few minutes at the end of the film. Now, I’m not knocking the film at all; after all, it did have plenty of nudity to make up for the other shortfalls it had. 🙂 Actually the nudity was rather shocking and disturbing and all in all the film was very dirty. All of the separate stories were about love of course, but not all of them had very ‘happy’ or ‘fulfilling’ endings. Which, was cool, but Tess pointed out to me that the movie could have been illustrating the types of love that there are. In any case, I want to go to the store and buy five copies of the film right now!

American Splendor was offbeat, creative, sardonic, funny, touching, smart, impeccably acted, skillfully wrought, and forged in the fires of mount doom. I enjoyed this film quite a bit. It was solid, just about everything in it was a near flawless execution, and the casting was really awesome. Paul Giamatti was sorely overlooked for his amazing performance, though it was nice to know that Hope Davis got nominated for the Golden Globe. And, if nobody yet knows, AS won the WGA award for best original screenplay.

Radio wasn’t stupid, wasn’t bad, wasn’t awful or horrible and terrible and stanky and worthless and boring and nasty. It was just plain and kind of blah, and sought to jerk your tears all of the stinking time. I didn’t have a problem with the subject matter, but it could have been done better. The story takes place and rolls on without really too much impetous, things happen without apparent reason except that you as the audience would most likely enjoy to see what happens.

what’s your battle cry? |

mewing.net | merchandise!

Later ‘yo.

BAFTA Glory

I just have to interject here once more about the continuing rampage that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is on throughout the awards circuit. It just won 5 BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards tonight. It lost out on Best Director to Master and Commander (Peter Weir), but it won the Audience Award along with Best Picture and some other minor awards. Yeah! Onward to the WGA Awards!

Movie Ratings

Here are the current running ratings for films that I have viewed this year for the first time on either Video, DVD, or television:

Naked Lunch:

lead acting: 8/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 4/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 7/10

overall score: 6.6

Nirgendwo In Afrika (Nowhere In Africa):

lead acting: 8/10

supporting acting: 8/10

story: 7/10

directing: 8/10

production design/value: 8/10

overall score: 7.8

Brazil (Director’s Cut):

lead acting: 8/10

supporting acting: 8/10

story: 9/10

directing: 9/10

production design/value: 9/10

overall score: 8.6

Batman:

lead acting: 6/10

supporting acting: 8/10

story: 7/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 7/10

overall score: 7.0

10 Things I Hate About You:

lead acting: 7/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 6/10

directing: 6/10

production design/value: 6/10

overall score: 6.4

The Majestic:

lead acting: 6/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 5/10

directing: 6/10

production design/value: 6/10

overall score: 5.0

What Dreams May Come:

lead acting: 5/10

supporting acting: 5/10

story: 4/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 9/10

overall score: 5.0

Alien:

lead acting: 8/10

supporting acting: 8/10

story: 7/10

directing: 8/10

production design/value: 8/10

overall score: 7.8

And that is my list!

I’m engaged – Joel Larson. Good job, man… good job. I’m proud of you.

Feel what you long to

So I have had a free moment of my day and along with getting to work on some other plans that I have I also feel it is a good time to write some more blog drivel. Time has passed since I last posted here about the phenomenal Notwist concert. And I think that I am justified in saying that The Notwist are fantabulous, spifftacular, and bodacious. But that is not what this post is about. This post is about the negligence of people.

People are negligent. I am negligent. Lots of people running this planet are closet hypocrites because they have neglected something at some point in their life, or they are neglecting something, or they are currenlty laying the groundwork for a massive strategy of future negligence. I liken negligence to a sapping of the soul. Just like our energy can be sapped by the hot rays of the sun on a muggy afternoon, so can our souls be sapped dry by the dry husk of winter life that causes us to be negligent. What am I saying… that people are negligent because of the weather? Ha, that would be funny but, no. People are negligent because they are people.

At all times I am faced personally with decisions that require me to be mindful. I can’t just shrug off responsibility and go on with life without taking some stock of what choices must be made. If I spend all of my time living in a surreal perception that nothing that matters matters right now, then I am being negligent. Because, after all, nothing will get done until somebody does it. This is why people are chiefly negligent. They believe that they have time. They may not have much time in the present, but they figure “hey, in the future I will have time to do this… I will do it then” this is really a fancy way of describing procrastination. Sometimes, people realize that they need to take hold of the present and make something happen. And so they set about doing it, the problem is that many times people haven’t got the foggiest clue about what they are really doing, unless they are comfortable with doing it or have done it for a long time.

But perhaps the bright spot in this dark cave of negligent feellings is the knowledge that no matter how stagnant we can be, God is constantly moving us forward. The world intrinsically cannot deal with the fact that Jesus is the savior of all mankind. And therefore it searches for reasons to hate God and Christianity. It seizes upon many of them and we are assaulted constantly. If we are negligent and fail to offer rebuttals to the arguments, they will keep on coming. If we get a rise out of ourselves and let is take hold so that we fly off the handle, we further marginalize Christianity. The key to not allowing negligence to make us feel like pieces of crap who can’t defend our faith is to allow God to do the talking. Right now, I hope that God is doing the talking through my keystrokes, because I wouln’t put much value on the words typed here if God wasn’t in on it. In moments of apathy we seem to lose a sense of direction… we seem to lose a grip on God. We remember the wrongs men have perpetuated against us far more readily than the infinite blessings evident in our own lives… blessings that come from God. And so this is why we have find our rest in God. Resting for sometime on this planet only brings about apathy and weariness… not respite.

How long will you assaut a man?

Would all of you throw him down-

this leaning wall, this tottering fence?

They fully intend to topple him from his lofty place;

they take delight in lies.

With their mouths they bless,

but in their hearts they curse.

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;

my hope comes from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation;

he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

My salvation and my honor depend on God;

he is my mighty rock, my refuge.

Trust in him at all times, O people;

pour out your hearts to him,

for God is our refuge. – Psalm 62:3-8

And that is where I plan to hide out from the strom of barbs the world throws at me when I’m feeling at my lowest. Silly people will argue about Jesus and the technical aspects of His life and they will get angry and pised off when they see good things about Him. They will become offended at the least slightest mention of His name. But I will find rest in God alone.

As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to glaive it. – John 12:47 NKV