Tim Burton Biography: From His Early Years to His Early Career as a Filmmaker
Timothy William Burton, better known as Tim Burton, is an American filmmaker distinctive for his dark, strange, and visionary style.
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Tim Burton Biography: From His Early Career to His Rise to Hollywood Fame as an A-list Director
Aside from his filmmaking credits, he wrote and illustrated the poetry book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories in 1997. He also published the compilation of his drawings entitled The Art of Tim Burton in 2009.
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Now, Inception is more than just a leap of faith for filmmaker Christopher Nolan.
With its elements about powerful ideas, dreaming in a dream, and dreaming inside other people’s dreams, Inception is one entertainingly hard-core, multi-layered mindbender. This motion picture masterpiece is one of the strongest science-fiction concepts to come in a long time. Nolan and his production team construct a breathtakingly audacious blockbuster narrative while not leaving the intelligent and more demanding film lovers behind.
Inception is nothing less than astounding. It dreams big, dreams deep, and creates challenging dreams to engage the wide-eyed dreamy viewers. In doing so, the film’s own thin line separating dream space and reality innovatively creates such a well-mounted story. It carefully blends the conscious and subconscious in various levels. It balances philosophical ideas and narrative tension within a labyrinthine plot that engages in various forms, degrees and intensities.
Whether for its visceral popcorn thrills, elegantly laid out action sequences, boldness and restraint, this ambitious film knows how to manipulate its thematic fetishes and its complicated narrative structure.
Like its own theme, Inception taps into the subconscious of each viewer in its relatively comprehensible way. Orchestrated by a crafting hand of a director who knows what he wants and how to make things happen, even the most obscure details get digested as the film cinematically sells its conceptual and emotional investments. It’s bold, intense, exhilarating, engaging, and impressive. It is complex yet coherent. It’s something that can benefit repeated viewings and feed the viewer with something new or different each time. Preposterous, yet ingeniously done, it offers such an entertaining ride. It serves as a popcorn flick, too!
While it is ambiguous enough to lead to conflicting opinions, the main purpose of the film is to engage the intellect about its theme and concept, not just merely figuring out which one is real, which one is a dream. While additional viewings are needed to personally provide a more solid analysis and opinion about the film’s ending, it seems more like the filmmaker crafts this opus in a way that there is no concrete interpretation to dictate to each and everyone that something is or is not.
The various elements, symbolisms, characterizations, and dialogues are carefully planted in a way that they work together to let the audience go beyond the need to figure out a twist or find out the “truth” behind the main story. Like how actual dreams are, Inception is open to different interpretations. And it does so without making specific aspects of it bug its quality down. It works in higher levels of film viewing that it touches something beyond a film viewer’s surface thinking, quite different from how s/he would typically treat other movies. And this is what makes Inception seem quite different from the usual. It is endlessly elliptical and it works in many facets. It allows its tagline “Your mind is the scene of the crime” validate itself; while its grand provisions for a visual feast keep up with the more palpable sense of its thrilling ride.
Inception isn’t perfect. Yet, its weak points are unquestionably shadowed by its brilliant and meandering machinations. The film splurges and invests in its concept, story, script, visuals, sound, emotions, and intellect, in accordance to how the film language can intangibly bring out all its cinematic ideas and values across.
Like Leonardo diCaprio’s character Cobb, Nolan is a meticulously skilled extractor and an architect of deep and provoking thoughts. He is a sly narrative tactician who juggles at big ideas and make people think about his idea. He takes the audience to a pleasurable trip through varying mental labyrinths filled with elegant dreamscapes and genuine human drama. It has a sort of paradoxical architecture of its own as Nolan offers a clockwork-precise showmanship in every scene. By the film’s ending, he impressively allows the characters to wake up from their dreams to figure out what’s real. Yet, whether for his film’s characters or for his film audience, things doesn’t really end there…
Inception is a rare movie project that can be enjoyed on a superficial and/or progressively deeper level of viewing. It uncannily fascinates the audience as the story moves further into the challenging layers of the subconscious mind. It is a work of a visionary. For all its high production values and budget requirements, this is the kind of film that the big movie studios should support more often.
July 24th, 2010 Posted by Rianne | Epic/Adventure, Film Review, Films, Films I Like, Flicks, Hollywood Films, Love Story, Melodrama, Sci Fi/Cyberspace, Surreal, Suspense/Thriller | no commentsBehind-the-scene of Inception: Movie Locations
Inception hinges on the premise that it is possible to share dreams and that they have been designed to look and feel completely real while you’re in them. In such subconscious state, a person’s deepest and most valuable secrets are there for the taking.
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Like the first two films, Toy Story 3 simply captures you with emotional magic in film form. Entertaining, well-crafted, and emotional, this third film of the historical animated film franchise is powered by fun, fueled by intellect, and driven by heart. It is a fitting finale for a Pixar animated trilogy perfected in tone, delivery, timing, humor, and drama. Its charm goes to infinity and beyond.
Toy Story 3 Photo Slideshow courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
List of the New Toy Story Characters Featured in Toy Story 3
List of the Toy Story Classic Characters Appearing in Toy Story 3
This film can bring you back the old memories of your toys and literally wonder where they are now. Whether tears come out from your spectator eyes or not, its ending offers an undoubtedly heart-wrenching moment that grabs the child in you. And this can simply be described as “cinematic magic.” By taking a bunch of animated toys teaching people about the mystery of human lives and struggling through it, Toy Story 3 becomes a sentimental journey with a heartfelt mix of sugar and spice. Every scene is delightfully engaging and there is so much to be absorbed without straining its theme and story. The gags are all set in the right places until the film wraps up with an enchanting finale.
The well-embraced Pixar tradition of a short film preceding the main feature attraction is nothing but clever and enchanting. Day and Night directed by Teddy Newton, also the voice behind the toy character Chatter Telephone, is a masterpiece on its own and it perfectly complements Toy Story 3.
This third motion picture from the franchise comes full circle. It’s a rare sequel that clearly endures the test of time. Like its theme and story, it mixes joy and sweet sadness for the complicated choices about staying in the comfort zone and embracing change. It emphasizes the relationship between toys and a child’s imagination. It’s about the inevitable moments of having to leave some things behind. It’s about the feeling of abandonment that comes with age and passage of time. And it’s about accepting how changes in life can sometimes be harsh and unfavorable.
Toy Story 3 has a basic plot and a simple, straightforward story orientation. What makes it stand out from the rest? The filmmakers know what they want, they know what they’re doing, and they know how to do things with utmost sincerity. It has such a simple formula, yet the delicate combination of the various aspects of film production goes beyond being objective and quantitative. The challenge in reaching such level of cinematic marvel requires careful choices and bull’s-eye decisions for the script, choice of shots, animation requirements, audio requirements, and voice performances. It’s a candid story that delves about living life, feeling outdated, getting misunderstood, and facing things beyond your control. It answers the question about what happens when “playtime” is over in a figurative and emotional way that is surprising, self-realizing, and considerably hurting while still being gently comforting.
While it celebrates consumerism with its many brands and product placements, the genius in Pixar impressively manages to keep the film’s innocent pleasures of imagination. Toy Story 3 succeeds beyond its glossy and gleaming pixels both in 2D and 3D. It has a valuable script with animated characters as real as a child’s sense of wonder. It balances rollicking adventure, wrenching pathos, and brilliant humor in an exceptional package. Exuding with enough emotional resonance, it creatively ties up the first two films at a very suitable time: without having to rush things as how the mainstream filmmaking bible dictates it (think of how studios rush sequels for the sake of commercialism). It took years and years until the new technology now enables 3D films and how this era showcases a new age of toys to add up to the Toy Story collection. Even the actual voice behind the little Andy character of the past now renders his voice as a grown up young adult himself.
This third worthy installment kicks off with a brief playful sequence of breathtaking mastery, evocative detail, wonderful camera work, all aptly resolved in a true little boy’s eyes. It impressively opens up with a scene that reminds people of what Toy Story really offered more than a decade ago. And as the fun treats of the film progresses, it carefully blends the moments of sadness and ache that come along as life shifts towards another direction. On a lighter note, there is an appreciation for Pixar’s brilliance in making a nice, long gag reel side by side its closing credits. Aside from bringing a satisfyingly intelligent but fun resolution to the movie, it offers additional time to wipe away those tears before the screening finishes.
Pixar’s now trademark of “ingenuous storytelling” serves up yet another exceptional animated treat that doesn’t surpass its predecessors, but simply continues its virtuous tradition. The studio simply knows how to tell a brilliant story in an animated movie format without resorting to brainless gimmicks and cheap sentiments. It winds up its way gently towards its serious themes without grabbing desperately on them.
With inspired homage to jailbreak movies, director Lee Unkrich presents a thoughtful story about regret for the past and fear of the future. It’s nothing but worthy to mention much of the people behind this masterwork: writers Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich; producer Darla K. Anderson and executive producer John Lasseter; music composer Randy Newman; and the very long list of animators, production artists, and film crew who made the film what it is. As a clever piece of storytelling magic, this family-friendly movie illustrates a natural progression melding with ease in many levels of thematic resplendence.
On the technical side, Toy Story 3 lives up to the expectations. The characters design and animation are spectacularly detailed and well rendered. From Barbie and Ken’s robotic moves to the almost palpable strawberry smell of Lotso as how this gets established in the film, this emotional cinematic treat employs technical wizardry in par with its storytelling. The cinematography and production design are so vivid and fitting in every sequence and scene.
The vocal performances coming from a mix of the old cast and the newcomers create such powerfully emotional characters. Whether a major or minor role, each one really brings his/her character to life. Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear lead the pack of toy characters with such brilliance. Buzz’s Spanish mode is a hysterically fun treat. Aside from these two best buddies of the franchise, the audience shall remember such iconic performances from the many human and toy characters. To mention some: John Morris as Andy; Joan Cusack as Jessie; Ned Beatty as Lotso; Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head; Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head; Jodi Benson as Barbie; Michael Keaton as Ken; Wallace Shawn as Rex; John Ratzenberger as Hamm; Timothy Dalton as Mr. Pricklepants; Jeff Pidgeon as Aliens; Blake Clark as Slinky Dog; Emily Hahn as Bonnie; Jeff Garlin as Buttercup; Bonnie Hunt as Dolly; John Cygan as Twitch; Whoopi Goldberg as Stretch; Laurie Metcalf as Andy’s Mom; Bud Luckey as Chuckles; Beatrice Miller as Molly; Javier Fernandez Pena as the Spanish Buzz; and Lori Alan as Bonnie’s Mom.
There is so much to absorb in this animated opus for a viewer of any age. Watching it over and over again further makes a strong bond between the film and its viewer. Best advice: Buy the Toy Story Blu-ray collection once it hits the market. Such a release is truly worthy of anyone’s collection. It doesn’t sell just with merely crappy marketing materials and bonus features. It’s the actual film that hits every button from laughter to tears, from adventure to realizations, from audio-visual flair to earnestness. It’s “magically deep, sweet, painful, and real.”
Like its characters, the Toy Story films are to be treasured forever.
July 8th, 2010 Posted by Rianne | 3D, Animation, Children's/Family, Classic, Comedy, Epic/Adventure, Film Review, Films I Like, Flicks, Hollywood Films | no commentsHellboy 2: The Golden Army Movie Review: High Fantasy Vs. Pop Culture Kitsch
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is filled with visionary sense. It has a wide imagination and a heartfelt plea for environmental concern and cultural diversity. However, its spectacular sense of artistry could have worked much better…
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Movie Review: A Curious Narrative
Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about a man who ages backwards, this far-fetched fairy-tale about the freakish birth of an infant born as an old man captures the sadness and exhilaration of life and the melancholic ideas concerning mortality.
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The Shining Movie Review: Stanley Kubrick’s Horror Masterpiece Shines for Many Generations
The Shining is a masterpiece of modern horror. With its remarkable visual panache and a keen sense of irony, it is a rare, chilling, majestic piece of cinematic fright benefiting repeated viewings.
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Iron Man 2 Movie Review: The Iron Man Element Still Works
Clearly and wittily exuding a screwball vibe filled with action and techno treats, “Iron Man 2″ lives up to the idea of slam-bang entertainment. It is undoubtedly a solid blockbuster sequel with a few faults that people won’t mind overlooking.
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The Iron Man Element Still Works
By Rianne Hill Soriano
“Iron Man 2” keeps its visual and polished appeal. It is entertaining enough but falls a little short of delivering anything new, other than rediscovering its “new element.” Yet, it doesn’t really oblige itself to, anyway. It packs itself with a cool “Iron Man” air and it blasts things in awesome ways.
More than just being a popcorn spectacle with a typically mainstream plot, the shots are impressively well thought off, the acting performances are engaging, the sound elements and music deliver well, and the special effects are visual grabbers.
Robert Downey Jr. and the rest of the cast fill this superhero flick with solid performances fitting its action-techno-fantasy package. His style for witty dialogue with deadpan delivery continues to own and entertain the part. His portrayal of billionaire industrialist Tony Stark and his superhero alter ego Iron Man continues to be the movie’s most compelling component and the franchise’s strongest asset. People can keep such satisfied popcorn smiles while watching the movie.
“Iron Man 2” soars high amidst the heavy metal it wears. There are fewer surprises and exhilarating scenes than its smarter predecessor and there are a few moments of contrivances, but this sequel is still a thrilling and charming offer.
Other than its heavy reliance on CGI, action sets, and stunts, both its production team and cast members live up to the task of making the film a worthwhile action-packed film. It has an aptly fast-paced and glossy look that overwhelms its not so engaging plot. It remains mindlessly entertaining from the technophile’s haven scenes to the fight and chase scenes. The industrialist clunks sometimes get slightly annoying, but it remains mindlessly entertaining with all the big guns, high tech gadgets, cool cars, flashy metal suits and machinery plot.
The filmmakers seem conscious of both the advantages and disadvantages of fight scenes involving faceless actors in big titanium battle suits. The insert shots of their faces from inside their metal gears work. But interestingly, Tony Stark’s scenes are more point blank solid if compared to the showy Iron Man fight scenes. As usual, Downey’s performance as the man outside the suit works best whenever he is hanging out and having fun.
The verbose parts, mostly from the bantering moments and tireless arguments between the main tandems (Tony and Pepper; Hammer and Ivan), are fun and charming. Snappy one-liners also help the movie build up well.
More than his own charismatic personality transcending on screen, Downey’s character really blends well with his colleagues in the acting department. Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts provides wit, energy, and chemistry with the leading man as she offers a beating heart to the story without resulting to cheesiness. Scarlett Johannson as Natalie Rushman/Natasha Romanoff effectively steals the show with her fight scene. Her cyborg-ish looks also add to the film’s visual commercial flavor.
Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer and Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko are great additions to the movie. Their characters are well developed; thus, making the typical plot and characterization work to the movie’s advantage. Rockwell’s smarmy acting is effectively irritating. He really measures up to the need of the story for such a selfish corporate freak character. Rourke is awesome with his very convincing performance as a Russian techno genius with a streak of both serious and comic personalities. He promotes a wide range of emotion than makes him such a driving force on the other end of the Iron Man’s superhero spectrum.
Don Cheadle as Lt. Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine doesn’t really transcend to the investment already made by Terrence Howard’s charismatic performance for the first “Iron Man.” It’s such a disappointing change that really affects this significant part of the franchise. Personally, Howard’s Rhodey is a bull’s eye in the same way as Downey’s Stark. Unfortunately, Cheadle doesn’t live up well as a needed replacement.
Garry Shandling as Senator Stern delivers greatly as the typical politician modeling in front of the public’s eye. Leslie Bibb as the journalist Christine Everheart is a recognizable face from the first “Iron Man” and she keeps her short but significant appearance in this sequel. Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury also has a short screen time; and yet, how he handles his role quite peaks the interest for his character. Favreau again appears more than just the director as he plays the part as the funny Happy Hogan for the second time around. Stan Lee makes another fun cameo in the movie.
This movie is another treat for those who pay respect to the credits. After the long scroll filled with endless names and production credits of people who really worked hard to make this cinematic project how it is, people staying get a glimpse of what’s in store for the next “Iron Man” sequel.
Clearly and wittily exuding a screwball vibe filled with action and techno treats, “Iron Man 2” lives up to the idea of slam-bang entertainment. Indeed, this franchise isn’t rusty yet. It is undoubtedly a solid blockbuster sequel with a few faults that people don’t mind overlooking.
May 14th, 2010 Posted by Rianne | Action, Adaptation and Films with Related Inspirations from Lit, Film Review, Films, Films I Like, Flicks, Heroes/Superheroes, Hollywood Films, Love Story, Sci Fi/Cyberspace | no commentsIn Her Shoes Movie Review: More Than Just a Chick Flick
In Her Shoes actually has enough depth. This chick flick is a richly textured story about the reconnecting of two estranged sisters who have nothing in common but their shoe sizes.
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MANILA SKIES
DATE: SATURDAY, MAY 1
TIME: 7:30 PM
VENUE: DGA 2
BUY TICKETS
 |
MANILA SKIES (Himpapawid)
(Philippines, 2009) Dir./Scr.: Raymond Red
Video, 110 min., color, narrative, in Tagalog w/ E.S.
In a rural province, a poor farmer finds a bag of money and jewelry. He pays off some debt and vows to send his young son away to the city to find a better life. He commands the boy never to return home. And, in one dramatic cut, from the boy carrying woven baskets on his shoulder to the boy as a man lifting large parcels at a Manila loading dock, we begin Raymond Red’s deceptively simple and affecting parable.
Ten years after winning the first Palme D’Or awarded to a Filipino for his sublime short film ANINO, and after refining his technical chops on big budget commercials, Raymond Red returns with MANILA SKIES, an allegorical tale of the slow deterioration of a man’s spirit when faced with insurmountable adversities. It follows Raul, a soon-to-be unemployed dock worker desperately trying to land an overseas job and hoping to make enough money to return home to his ailing father. Raul’s earnest attempts become mired in Kafkaesque bureaucracy and pure rotten luck. Much of the blame however rests on his volatile and erratic behavior. He is a percolating brew of misfortune and busted idealism. His inevitable breakdown leads to his involvement with a gang of amateur thieves and eventually a collapse that brings him to carry out a far-fetched attempt at hijacking an airplane in order to get back home to his father.
It’s perhaps a modest linear plot, but in Red’s hands, MANILA SKIES reaches heights uncommon in many films. A subtle twist here and a play with expectations there, and suddenly a whole world opens up revealing a radical and dramatic film heavy with consequences and colored with nuances. Vividly shot with, funnily enough, the über-high definition RED camera, Red photographs the city in a palette of subdued browns, greens, yellows and grays. Raul merely blends in with the faded and stained walls of his apartment, the deteriorating concrete buildings, and the cluttered cityscape. Raul is an everyman, pushed to the brink. In the film, he is a vessel for the frustrations of the impoverished in the Philippines (80% of the population are poor, as a reporter claims in the film). MANILA SKIES depicts his hopes crumbling as his own morals disintegrate along with it. In a country where a majority of its population is of Raul’s circumstance, the film poses a sobering and dire calamity.
— Joel Quizon
COMMUNITY CO-PRESENTERS: FilAm ARTS, Inc.; Search to Involve Pilipino Americans, Inc.
April 29th, 2010 Posted by Rianne | Films, Films I Like, Independent Films, Melodrama, Personal/Expression, Pinoy Films | no commentsHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Movie Review: Masterful, Moody, and Magnificent
This sixth installment in the Harry Potter film franchise is of the right mix for the specific needs of the story. It is never dumb and yet it is not pretentiously profound. It is smart as it is honest. It is dark as it is funny.
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Star Trek Movie Review: A Warpspeed Wow!
Something old reboots as a glorious new.
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Batman Begins Movie Review: A Great Beginning for the Dark Knight
Batman Begins is one classic Batman.
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Movie Review: A Dark, Adolescent Potter Film
Darker, a little more mature, and a little less magical, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire deals primarily with rejection and hormones as Harry and his friends struggle through the transition from childhood to young adulthood.
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Corpse Bride Movie Review: A Charming Grave Fairy Tale
Behind its eerie theme, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is fun, genial, expressive and charming. This semi-musical stop-motion animation celluloid baby is set at death’s door and salutes the liberating power of true love and sacrifice.
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Iron Man Movie Review: The Stark of Iron Myth-making
Finding great escapist twists on an exhausted genre, Iron Man is one of a handful of exceptional superhero movies to date.
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Ocean’s Thirteen Movie Review: The Odds of Getting Guilty Pleasure
Watching the inventive and spontaneous bunch of professional men pulling off an impossible heist for the third time, Ocean’s Thirteen is a guilty pleasure to watch.
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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Movie Review
The story centers on a tightly knit group of the four girls Lena (Alexis Bledel), Bridget (Blake Lively), Carmen (America Ferrera) and Tibby (Amber Tamblyn).
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James Cameron’s Avatar Breaks DVD Records During Its Earth Day Release
The initial DVD and Blu-ray releases of James Cameron’s eco sci-fi epic Avatar further proves its high market value as fans rushed to purchase the video copies of the film during its Apr. 22, 2010 release.
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District 9 Movie Review: A Thinking Man’s Timely Sci-Fi
District 9 is a hybrid of a film, and it looks like a successful sort of anti-Hollywood venture for that. A brilliant social commentary.
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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Movie Review: A Slick and Solid Family Slapstick
This eye-popping and mouth-watering film cooks up a veritable buffet of the bland and the bizarre, the sweet and the sour, and all other tastes generously offered on screen. It serves up a riot of glee, color, and absurdity.
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Adventureland Movie Review: ‘Roller-Coastering’ Towards Adulthood
Adventureland is a sweet, insightful and heartfelt coming-of-age story with loads of sensitivity and a genuine heart.
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Avatar Movie Review: Avatar is What Jaw-Dropping 3D Can Be
As a feat of fearless imagination and audacity, Avatar is a bold eco-opus examining technological wonders and morality.
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Dawn of the Dinosaurs Movie Review: The Dino-Ice Adventure
And as an adventure-packed ride, it provides an astoundingly eye-catching animation built on the fun foundation given by the old characters. Some scenes may feel repetitive, but for the needed surface-level fluff, this kiddie flick generally works.
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The Top 5 Best 3D Movies List
In the era of IMAX and Real 3D, the worldwide resurgence of 3D films hit the theaters with what stereoscopic 3D technology can offer
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Up Movie Review: Pixar Goes Up, Up and Away
Pixar’s “Up” further strengthens its impressive track record of making noteworthy animated films.
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