(no subject)
I stayed home sick from work tonight, because getting sick is a Christmas tradition. I always get sick on Christmas day lol. So I decided to be productive while I'm home.
Movies are probably my favorite hobby. I tend to lose interest in things really quickly. I'll be really into something from anywhere between 3 days to a month. I'll franticly try to learn everything that I can about whatever, and once my curiosity has been sated, I'll just stop caring about whatever it was that I was so interested it. I always like watching movies though. I will watch just about any movie, from any genre. I have disliked plenty of movies, but there are very very few that I have actually regretted seeing. Recommend a movie to me, and if i haven't seen it already, I will most likely watch it at some point.
I've been watching a lot of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army lately. It is currently my favorite movie of all time. I have been a fan of Mike Mignola's Hellboy comic for a while, and have semi recently become a Guilermo del Toro superfan. I like every del Toro movie that I've seen, and by now I think I've seen most of them.
Neither of the Hellboy movies are really all that true to the storyline. The first one was based off of the first Hellboy book "Seed of Destruction", but it didn't really follow it all that closely. Hellboy 2 is a completely new story Co authored by Mignola and del Toro. I like it better. Too often when people try to make a movie based on a comic book, they try to change the story up a little bit so non fans will have some idea of what's going on. Most of the time, movie makers fuck it up royally. Spiderman comes to mind immediately. I won't go into detail, but I liked Spiderman alot, the comics, the old fox cartoon show, but certainly not the movie. Sure they fucked Spiderman's origin story up, but that's not why I disliked it. The director somehow found a way to take a relatively "safe" comic movie, and make it retarded. Apparently everyone likes retarded movies though.
The reason the Hellboy movies work is because the director went and got input from the actual author of the comic series. I was watching the special features on the original Hellboy and thought it was funny just how big a Mike Mignola fanboy Guillermo del Toro is, and vice versa.
I like the stories Mignola tells. Hellboy investigates and fights things that I'm interested in. Like werewolves (hands down my favorite fictional creature), and lovecraftian monsters (deepones, tentacle beasts). In one story Hellboy fights the Baba Yaga, and ends up shooting her eye out. Many of the stories are based at least loosely on old folktales, which I like. Hellboy doesn't fly around stopping bank robbers, he does stuff that's actually interesting.
I love the way del Toro makes movies. He puts a lot of time into finding and designing sets, which seriously can make or break a movie. I didn't care for "Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow" mostly because all of the backgrounds and set pieces were digital, and unless done obscenely well, digital effects stand out way too much to be believable.
Del Toro is, like me, a big fan of practical movie effects. If the script calls for a car to be blown up and sent tumbling into the air. Del Toro rigs a car up with explosives and wires attached to a crane and physically makes the car explode and go flying through the air. The same is true for the monsters in his movies, and del Toro makes a lot of monster movies (I love monster movies, probably more so than bad action/explosion movies). Monsters, in his movies, are almost always actors in suits, or makeup. Like this guy, the troll Mr. Wink.
See over there? That's just a guy in a suit. The process of making a practical monster is becoming a lost art. Computer generated digital monsters are killing the practical monster suit. Which makes me sad, because practical monster making is finally getting really good. It's getting pretty hard to tell whether or not a creature on screen is an actor, or a digitally rendered image. I feel, that when you have practical monsters, the interaction between the monster and the other actors is so much better, and more believable. The end product of most CG monsters looks about as good to me as "Pete's Dragon", if you've ever seen that old movie. I both own, and went to see the movie "Underworld" in theaters. I don't really think it's all that good of a movie, and the story isn't that interesting, but the werewolves are practically done, and done well. I liked this aspect of the movies so much that I bought it, and still watch it from time to time.
There is a scene in Hellboy 2 where the main characters go and investigate an underground troll market. It is my favorite scene in the movie, and quite possibly my favorite movie scene ever. There is just so much to look at. There are people in monster suits everywhere, and the set design is awesome. I've rewatched that scene at least 20 times now, and every time I see something new and different.
It's really lucky for me that these two guys teamed up to make a movie, because between the two of them they bring to the table everything I like in a movie and story.
I think I've rambled on about nonsense for long enough. If you've made it this far, then do me a favor and leave me a list of your favorite movies in the comments. I'll totally look into renting them at some point.
ALSO? Writing this entry made me realize that I need a netflix account lol. As soon as I have a little extra money again.
Movies are probably my favorite hobby. I tend to lose interest in things really quickly. I'll be really into something from anywhere between 3 days to a month. I'll franticly try to learn everything that I can about whatever, and once my curiosity has been sated, I'll just stop caring about whatever it was that I was so interested it. I always like watching movies though. I will watch just about any movie, from any genre. I have disliked plenty of movies, but there are very very few that I have actually regretted seeing. Recommend a movie to me, and if i haven't seen it already, I will most likely watch it at some point.
I've been watching a lot of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army lately. It is currently my favorite movie of all time. I have been a fan of Mike Mignola's Hellboy comic for a while, and have semi recently become a Guilermo del Toro superfan. I like every del Toro movie that I've seen, and by now I think I've seen most of them.
Neither of the Hellboy movies are really all that true to the storyline. The first one was based off of the first Hellboy book "Seed of Destruction", but it didn't really follow it all that closely. Hellboy 2 is a completely new story Co authored by Mignola and del Toro. I like it better. Too often when people try to make a movie based on a comic book, they try to change the story up a little bit so non fans will have some idea of what's going on. Most of the time, movie makers fuck it up royally. Spiderman comes to mind immediately. I won't go into detail, but I liked Spiderman alot, the comics, the old fox cartoon show, but certainly not the movie. Sure they fucked Spiderman's origin story up, but that's not why I disliked it. The director somehow found a way to take a relatively "safe" comic movie, and make it retarded. Apparently everyone likes retarded movies though.
The reason the Hellboy movies work is because the director went and got input from the actual author of the comic series. I was watching the special features on the original Hellboy and thought it was funny just how big a Mike Mignola fanboy Guillermo del Toro is, and vice versa.
I like the stories Mignola tells. Hellboy investigates and fights things that I'm interested in. Like werewolves (hands down my favorite fictional creature), and lovecraftian monsters (deepones, tentacle beasts). In one story Hellboy fights the Baba Yaga, and ends up shooting her eye out. Many of the stories are based at least loosely on old folktales, which I like. Hellboy doesn't fly around stopping bank robbers, he does stuff that's actually interesting.
I love the way del Toro makes movies. He puts a lot of time into finding and designing sets, which seriously can make or break a movie. I didn't care for "Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow" mostly because all of the backgrounds and set pieces were digital, and unless done obscenely well, digital effects stand out way too much to be believable.
Del Toro is, like me, a big fan of practical movie effects. If the script calls for a car to be blown up and sent tumbling into the air. Del Toro rigs a car up with explosives and wires attached to a crane and physically makes the car explode and go flying through the air. The same is true for the monsters in his movies, and del Toro makes a lot of monster movies (I love monster movies, probably more so than bad action/explosion movies). Monsters, in his movies, are almost always actors in suits, or makeup. Like this guy, the troll Mr. Wink.
See over there? That's just a guy in a suit. The process of making a practical monster is becoming a lost art. Computer generated digital monsters are killing the practical monster suit. Which makes me sad, because practical monster making is finally getting really good. It's getting pretty hard to tell whether or not a creature on screen is an actor, or a digitally rendered image. I feel, that when you have practical monsters, the interaction between the monster and the other actors is so much better, and more believable. The end product of most CG monsters looks about as good to me as "Pete's Dragon", if you've ever seen that old movie. I both own, and went to see the movie "Underworld" in theaters. I don't really think it's all that good of a movie, and the story isn't that interesting, but the werewolves are practically done, and done well. I liked this aspect of the movies so much that I bought it, and still watch it from time to time.
There is a scene in Hellboy 2 where the main characters go and investigate an underground troll market. It is my favorite scene in the movie, and quite possibly my favorite movie scene ever. There is just so much to look at. There are people in monster suits everywhere, and the set design is awesome. I've rewatched that scene at least 20 times now, and every time I see something new and different.
It's really lucky for me that these two guys teamed up to make a movie, because between the two of them they bring to the table everything I like in a movie and story.
I think I've rambled on about nonsense for long enough. If you've made it this far, then do me a favor and leave me a list of your favorite movies in the comments. I'll totally look into renting them at some point.
ALSO? Writing this entry made me realize that I need a netflix account lol. As soon as I have a little extra money again.