The Theory of Everything (2014) review

Out of all of the famous scientists that have ever lived, from Albert Einstein to Kip Thorne (who just had a movie based around his scientific observations come out in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’) Stephen Hawking is no doubt one of the first that comes to mind. After all, he was one of the two leading minds, along with Roger Penrose, on ‘gravitational singularity theorems’, predicted the concept of black hole radiation, and perhaps most importantly explored the union of the ‘theory of relativity’ and ‘quantum mechanics’. But at the same time, Hawking’s own life is quite fascinating given the fact that in his 20’s he was diagnosed with a motor neuron disease connected to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease as well as being the main cause for awareness behind all of those Ice Bucket Challenges you no doubt saw a lot of this past summer) and that story is the focus of ‘The Theory of Everything’. More specifically, this film is based on the book ‘Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen’ by his first wife Jane Wilde as the film not only focuses on his life, but their relationship and how she stood by him as this disease slowly took over his life. And with some terrific and truly Oscar-worthy performances from leads Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, ‘The Theory of Everything’ is a well-directed and moving biopic on the lives of both one of the most famous men in the entire world and the woman who was always there for him in times of crisis.

The film begins in 1962 as Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) begins his tenure as a graduate student at Cambridge studying cosmology where he quickly makes quite the impression with his teachers, specifically physicist Dennis Sciama (David Thewlis). While at a college party, he meets Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), an arts major, and soon after they fall in love. But both of their lives take a serious detour one day after Stephen, who begins to show signs of clumsiness, ends up taking a nasty fall at school. At the hospital, he learns that he has a motor neuron disease similar to ALS which affect his muscles, resulting in them slowly degrading away. Because there is nothing that the doctors can do about it, it is projected that he only has two years to live. However, Jane promises to help him get through it driven by their love for each other and they end up getting married. With her love and support, Stephen fights to overcome his disability as he also continues to make quite the impression amongst his fellow physicists in the field of cosmology even as the disease slowly but surely eats away at him to the point where, after a near-death experience with pneumonia, he ends up losing his voice due to a tracheotomy resulting in him having to use a computerized voice to speak.

So I’ll admit that while I am familiar with Stephen Hawking, I admittedly didn’t know that much about him (nor do I know anything about any of the science in most of his work but don’t worry that science isn’t the main focus of this film) before seeing this. Having now seen this film, I can say that his story was a truly intriguing tale. I mean, this was a man who was given only two years to live and yet he managed to fight on even though it ended up resulting in him losing many things, namely the abilities to walk and talk. But of course, there’s more to this story. It’s also a tale of romance from the perspective of both Stephen and his wife Jane and we really see her spirit and determination supporting Stephen through the toughest moments of his life. But even then she does have her limits as I’m sure many will probably have in situations like this. The film does a great job at balancing their roles in the overall story meaning that while this is technically about Stephen Hawking’s life, Jane is as big a part of the story as he is. From an emotional standpoint, you do find yourselves very much invested in their relationship and sympathize with them when they both hit their own low points. All in all, this is a very well-polished film. The direction from James Marsh is solid as is the cinematography by Benoit Delhomme and the score by Johann Johannsson, resulting in a very nice-looking film backed up by a nice musical score.

But the key to this film is the performances from its two leads and I can safely say that after seeing this film that Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones are no doubt going to be front-runners for Best Actor and Best Actress at this year’s Oscars. Redmayne disappears into the role of Hawking perfectly and handles the transformation that Hawking went through incredibly well. Equally excellent here is Jones as Jane who does a phenomenal job at conveying both Jane’s strength and emotions in the key moments of the film. And as I noted earlier, because the film makes sure to balance out these two roles in the story, there’s never a time where one of them tries to outshine the other; they work off each other and are both superb. Of course, chemistry is key to making a film romance work and that is very much the case here. The two have excellent chemistry which really makes the relationship between Stephen and Jane feel very much genuine. The film does have a solid supporting cast as well, including Charlie Cox (AKA the new Daredevil for you Marvel fans) as Jonathan Jones, a musician who befriends Stephen and Jane, the latter of whom ended up marrying him after divorcing Stephen in 1995 (and no I don’t really consider that a spoiler given that this is a true story), and David Thewlis as Stephen’s physics professor at Cambridge but at the end of the day this film belongs to Redmayne and Jones.

‘The Theory of Everything’ is definitely one of the best films of this year as it offers a sometimes sad but also extremely uplifting look at how Stephen Hawking managed to overcome the disease that was predicted to take his life in just two years with the love of support of his wife Jane. It’s a well-crafted film that benefits greatly from its direction, writing, cinematography, and its score. And even if you don’t really understand a lot of the science that is talked about in this film… don’t worry you’re not alone and even then, that’s not actually the main focus of the film. Instead it’s about the relationship between Stephen and Jane. And at the end of the day, the best elements of this film are the Oscar-worthy performances from Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones in the lead roles of Stephen and Jane, respectively. Their chemistry is superb and both do a fantastic job at portraying these two and the struggles that they both overcame in dealing with Stephen’s ALS. It’s been said that this year’s Oscars are going to be pretty packed in regards to the acting categories but I do hope that both Redmayne and Jones earn Oscar nominations for their work here. In fact, I’d say it would be a genuine travesty if they didn’t get nominated because these are easily two of the best performances I’ve seen this year.

Rating: 4.5/5

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014) review

When the Young Adult Book to Film Genre needed a new frontrunner to lead the pack after the ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’ franchises came to a close, ‘The Hunger Games’ stepped in and has been both a commercial and critical success, thanks of course to great writing, great directing, and great acting from all involved. While I do understand the problems that some people have with the first film in regards to the cinematography and editing during the actual Hunger Games, I still stand by that film as being a well-made adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ best-selling novels. But like many people, I do agree that ‘Catching Fire’ was a superior film, expanding on the whole universe of Panem and moving away from those aforementioned ‘issues’ from the first film. So now ‘Catching Fire’ director Francis Lawrence (no relation to star Jennifer Lawrence) is back to direct the final film in the series, ‘Mockingjay’… except it isn’t the final film… not yet. Instead, Lionsgate decided to go the route that Warner Bros. did with ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ and split the final book of the ‘Hunger Games’ series into two separate films. This has certainly attracted a lot of controversy considering that the length of the book doesn’t really justify the need for two films. However, I do feel that ‘Mockingjay Part 1’, even though it is technically the ‘set-up’ for ‘Part 2’ next year, is just as good as the two films that came before it.

At the end of ‘Catching Fire’, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), winner of the 74^th Hunger Games and participant in the following year’s event AKA the ‘Quarter Quell’, escaped from the Hunger Games arena after she destroyed it and was brought to District 13, the district of Panem that was thought to have been destroyed 75 years ago during the original rebellion amongst its districts against the Capitol. However, at the same time, Katniss’ fellow Hunger Games champion and love interest Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) ended up getting taken by the Capitol and their home, District 12, was destroyed. Now in District 13 under the leadership of President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), Katniss finds herself pressured into being the ‘face’ of the districts’ rebellion: the ‘Mockingjay’. She is at first hesitant to do so but finds new purpose when she learns that Peeta is still alive, albeit now under the control of President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and the Capitol. This inspires Katniss to spread her wings and become the Mockingjay as she now finds herself at the frontlines (in both a figurative and somewhat literal sense) along with her allies, including her best friend Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth), and her mentors Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) and Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) as she looks to save Peeta before he ends up getting killed by the Capitol.

‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1’ is a very different beast compared to its predecessors. This time, there aren’t any ‘Hunger Games’ and instead it’s more about the political side of the rebellion and how each side is trying to use propaganda to sway public opinion. And while this film technically is more focused on that than the action, it still results in a very compelling film. But of course, the big question still remains; was the decision to split this final book into two films a good idea? Well, so far that has attracted quite a mixed reaction from a lot of people but personally I felt that it did actually work from a story perspective. I’ve noted before that the reason behind this was so that the filmmakers could expand on the book whereas Collins was forced to condense a lot of stuff to meet publisher demands and because of this, it does actually feel justified. Never at any time during the course of this film did I feel that it felt ‘padded’ to stretch things out for two movies. This movie does have a proper beginning and end with a clear objective; rescue Peeta from the Capitol. Because of this, I was never bored and the film did on a pretty neat but also very tense cliffhanger to lead into ‘Part 2’, where I’m guessing most of the action from the book will occur.

Once again this film, like its immediate predecessor, benefits from great direction from Francis Lawrence, who handles the transition to a more politically driven storyline (compared to the last two films) quite well and does a great job at showcasing the large scale of this rebellion. And that’s backed up by the great cast, headlined once again by Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. In the last two films, Katniss was a character who was basically dragged into these events, sort of against her own will but now she’s much more proactive this time as we truly see her become the face of the revolution. Josh Hutcherson also stands out here as well as the transformation that Peeta goes through in this movie is truly fascinating. One of the advantages that the films have over the books is that because it isn’t in the same first-person narrative from Katniss’ perspective, this allows for the other characters to stand out more than they did in the books, resulting in members of the cast like Liam Hemsworth and Elizabeth Banks (the latter of whom brings such much-needed levity to this rather bleak setting as Effie) getting more to do and with equally great turns from other members of the cast including Jeffrey Wright as tech wiz Beetee, newcomer Julianne Moore as President Coin, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as rebel leader Plutarch Heavensbee, the whole cast is superb from top to bottom. But something that I forgot to mention the last time is that not only are the protagonists great but also the villain as well. Donald Sutherland has been great in these movies as President Snow. They REALLY make you hate this guy; cold, evil, and emotionless but yet he still manages to be calm and collected during all of this.

Now I’m not saying that I’m 100% supportive of the decision to split ‘Mockingjay’ into two films and ‘Part 1’ will never escape the fact that it’s basically a ‘set up’ for the finale in ‘Part 2’. But you know what? The same can be said for ‘Deathly Hallows Part 1’, and this is very much the Hunger Games’ version of that movie as both films are very similar in regards to their structure and execution. Yes, there’s not really that much action in this compared to the first two films… but hey, so was ‘Deathly Hallows Part 1’. In other words, this film still manages to be incredibly compelling thanks of course to the great direction from Francis Lawrence, the great writing that gives us great characters, and of course the great cast portraying these characters. I went into this unsure about the whole ‘2-parter’ thing but ultimately I came out pretty satisfied as I felt that the film did end on a solid note with an incredibly suspense cliffhanger. Now of course I say this knowing that this is only ‘Part 1’ of the story. We still got one more film to go in this series but you know that I will be there November 2015 to see this great series officially come to an end with ‘Mockingjay Part 2’ and I’ll also be keen to see if that film can also feel as ‘complete’ as a film like ‘Part 1’ was… as the first half of a two-part story of course.

Rating: 5/5!

Pokemon: Season 2: Strange Moments

This past summer, I did two posts on the first season of the ‘Pokemon’ anime; ‘Pokemon: Indigo League’. The first was a regular review but for the second post, I decided to do something a little different. So I made a list of all the strange moments that I came across while watching the show. ‘Pokemon’ is already a fairly weird show, but then you come across all sorts of weird moments while watching it from strange continuity errors to acts of pure stupidity committed by the characters. Due to the positive response I’ve seen from that first ‘Strange Moments’ post (it being one of my most viewed posts on this site), I decided to do a sequel post for season 2 of the show, titled ‘Adventures on the Orange Islands’. In this season, Ash Ketchum, after competing in the Pokemon League, heads to the titular Orange Islands in order to pick up a mysterious Poke Ball for Professor Oak but then heads off to compete in the Orange League joined by Misty and their new friend Tracey (after Brock decides to stay behind). Thankfully, this season was much shorter than the first one, with just 36 episodes total compared to the 82 (!) episode first season. However I ended finding almost just as many strange moments in this must shorter season than I did with the much longer first season. It just goes to show you that this show can be really, really stupid at times, even though it will no doubt invoke a lot of nostalgic memories for those who were watching it when it first premiered. So now without further ado, let’s delve into the strangest moments of Season 2 of the Pokemon anime.

Though before I get to the strange moments from this season, I just want to quickly delve into three aspects of the show in general first because I’m not really planning on doing another one of these.

ASH’S AGE

The ‘Pokemon’ anime has been on for a very long time, with over 850 episodes released since 1997 along with multiple movies and TV specials… and yet throughout it all Ash is still somehow just 10 years old. He’s surely been out on his Pokemon journeys for more than a year now and each episode seemingly takes place over the course of one day (or sometimes longer like a week)… so why the hell is he still 10 years old? There has been some speculation about this whole scenario with one common theory being that Ash actually ended up in a coma after he and Pikachu ended up in that incident with the flock of Spearow in the pilot episode, with those behind this theory stating that this resulted in the show becoming much more different than what it was originally. Now, Ash was able to live out his fantasies of being a Pokemon trainer and ‘escape reality’. And this also ‘explains’ some of the oddities of the universe, like how there are multiple Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys, how Pokemon trainers can start as young as 10 years old and of course why Ash is still frigging 10 years old after 18 seasons of the anime. I know this all sounds incredibly grim but I must say I kind of believe it considering that Ash should seriously be older than 10 now given that’s he’s been through at least six regions of the Pokemon universe, something that clearly must have taken a few years to complete. Well in the end that’s just one of the many oddities that have defined this show since the beginning.

CHARIZARD’S DISOBEDIENCE

A common running gag in the early seasons of Pokemon began when Ash’s Charmander evolved into Charmeleon and then Charizard soon after. However while Charmander was very obedient towards Ash, it wasn’t so compliant once it evolved, resulting in one of my favorite images of this show where it, as Charizard, just lies down to rest clearly not giving a single f*** about anything Ash tells it to do. This is very much in line with an aspect of the games in that some Pokemon may not listen to their trainers if they lack the proper experience, primarily through the number of badges that they have (for example, winning the Cascade Badge in Kanto will result in all Pokemon that are up to Level 30 obeying you). Now this primarily occurs with Pokemon that were acquired through trades (which does makes sense considering that you’d probably not encounter a Level 40 Pokemon at the beginning of the game) and because I never really did a lot of trading whenever I was playing the games, I never personally experienced this that much.

However the anime hasn’t really been as clear in showing how this whole concept works. In the episode ‘The Problem with Paras’ from the first season, one of the characters note that obedience is based on whether or not the Pokemon respects their trainer. So you’d think that this can be earned through winning badges, right? Well, by the way it was done in the anime that really wasn’t the case. Charizard continues to disobey Ash up until the episode ‘Charizard Chills’ from this season when Ash spends many hours trying to warm Charizard up after it had gotten frozen in a battle. By that point, Ash had already beat all of the Gym Leaders in Kanto, finished in the Top 16 of the Indigo League, and had already won against three of the Gym Leaders in the Orange Islands. And in the games all Pokemon will obey the trainer after they acquire all eight badges within a certain region. It made me wonder how experienced Ash really was if Charizard continued to disobey him even after he had clearly gained quite a lot of experience over the course of his journey… but then again, there’s the whole thing about him still being 10 years old so hell, that might be the reason for all of this.

WILL TEAM ROCKET EVER WIN?

We all know how the Team Rocket trio of Jessie, James, and Meowth continually try to capture Pikachu (or sometimes another special Pokemon that appears in certain episodes) and are always foiled by Ash and his friends, ‘blasting off’ after every loss (‘Team Rocket’s Blasting Off Again!’). But you know something? As I was watching through this second season, I found myself actually starting to sympathize with these guys. I mean I know they’re the bad guys and what they’re doing, stealing Pokemon for criminal purposes, is morally ‘wrong’. But in all seriousness, tell me I’m not the only one who actually wants to see them succeed for once. I don’t care if they win in one episode but then that victory ends the following episode. I just want to see them win just once, not just because the whole concept of them always losing has become incredibly clichéd and tiresome but they’re actually now my favorite characters in the entire show. That and as this season went on, I continuously found myself getting much more irritated by Ash and his friends primarily due to all of the stupid things they did (many of which you’ll no doubt see in just a few moments). And unfortunately, our favorite Team Rocket trio has still been unable to capture any Pokemon since they first appeared in Episode 2 of the first season of this series, which is now in its 18^th frigging season. Sigh… well, ultimately this is just one of the major examples of how the show can be incredibly routine and banal at times which can sort of be expected given that it’s been on for so long and will probably continue to run as long as there are new Pokemon games.

So now it’s time for the main event as I go through the weirdest moments that I noticed while watching Season 2 of the Pokemon anime.

POOR TEAM ROCKET DISGUISES- MULTIPLE EPISODES

Last time, I pointed out the numerous times that Ash and his friends were fooled by Team Rocket whenever they were in disguises. Now some of you will note that they’re always fooled by Team Rocket’s disguises but I mainly focused on the occasions where they were fooled by some incredibly poor disguises that should’ve clearly made it obvious that it was Team Rocket. Seriously, sometimes they didn’t even change their rather distinctive hairstyles. Thankfully this didn’t happen as much this season so I’ll just start things off by getting this bit out of the way. This happened four times this season, three of which were back-to-back occurring in the first three episodes of the season. In ‘Pallet Party Panic’ they disguise themselves as food salesman (shown above in the same image I used in the previous ‘Strange Moments’ post) and then they pretend to be blimp workers in both ‘A Scare in the Air’ and ‘Pokeball Peril’ (I’ll get more into that bit of repetition in a little bit). Finally, they disguise themselves as a married couple in the episode ‘Wherefore Art Thou, Pokemon?’, an episode that, for the record, revolved around a ‘romance’ between a Male and Female Nidoran. Once again, it really makes you wonder how stupid Ash and his friends are if they continue to fall for Team Rocket’s tricks whenever they’re wearing incredibly poor disguises.

OAK CONFUSES A WOMAN’S GENDER- PALLET PARTY PANIC

This season officially begins with Ash returning home after competing in the Pokemon League where he comes home to find a big party is being held in his honor. After the party, and the usual bit of stopping Team Rocket from stealing Pikachu, Ash, Brock, and Misty are summoned by Professor Oak who asks them to do something for him; travel to Valencia Island in the Orange Archipelago to pick up a mysterious Poke Ball (referred to as the ‘GS Ball’) from his colleague Professor Ivy. However, Oak actually refers to her as a man the first time he mentions her. Not only that but just a few seconds later, Misty properly refers to her correct gender. Given the fact that these two Professors live in different locations, that’s probably the reason why Oak forgot about Ivy’s gender. But then there’s also the fact that in the Pokemon games that allowed players to choose to be either a boy or girl trainer, Oak famously asks the question ‘Are you a Boy or Girl?... that and he also forgets the name of his grandson Gary in the games where he’s the main rival. So figuratively speaking, our favorite Pokemon professor might have a memory problem… along with being unable to distinguish males from females.

IMPROPER CARE OF YOUR POKEMON- A SCARE IN THE AIR

There’s been some controversy surrounding the whole concept of Pokemon being ‘forced’ to fight for their owners against their fellow Pokemon. Heck, the main villains of ‘Pokemon Black and White’, Team Plasma, are focused on ‘liberating’ Pokemon from humans; seriously, that’s their villainous plan. I’m not going to say anything more about this scenario but I do want to point out one rather disturbing instance in the anime where Ash, a genuinely nice/caring trainer, was arguably ‘abusing’ his Pokemon. In the episode ‘Scare in the Air’, Ash and his friends start prepping for their journey to Valencia Island and he and Pikachu pick up some supplies from a grocery store. But after they come out, we see poor Pikachu struggling to hold onto the bags that he’s carrying as we even hear him squeal in pain as he lifts the bags… and for the entire duration of this scene, Ash doesn’t even notice any of this and just talks with Misty and Brock, ignoring his pal Pikachu like a total a-hole. Seriously, Ash, you need to learn to take better care of your Pokemon… otherwise I’m going to start to question who the real villains of this show are.

ASH AND MISTY FALL FOR THE SAME TEAM ROCKET TRICK TWICE- A SCARE IN THE AIR, POKEBALL PERIL

'A Scare in the Air'

'Pokeball Peril'

Remember earlier when I said that Team Rocket twice tricked Ash and friends by disguising themselves as blimp workers? That’s because Ash and co. fell for the same damn trick in the span of just two episodes. First, in the episode ‘A Scare in the Air’, they decide to take a blimp (or a Zeppelin to be more specific) to Valencia Island to save time after winning free tickets. But as it turns out, Team Rocket ends up getting assigned to operate one of the organization’s blimps, the same one that Ash, Brock, and Misty just so happen to be taking to Valencia. The usual hi-jinx ensues and the blimp ends up crash-landing on Valencia. So then after they acquire the GS Ball from Professor Ivy, and Brock decides to stay with Ivy so that he can become a better breeder, Ash and Misty head back to Pallet Town. How so? By blimp again, even though the first time ended as a total disaster (Misty even acknowledges this). But they do it again and once again are tricked by Team Rocket, hi-jinx ensues (again), and the blimp crash-lands (again). Now I can get over the fact that Ash and Misty were fooled by Team Rocket given that they always get tricked by them. But what I can’t get over is their stupidity in deciding to travel by blimp again even after their disastrous first trip. Not only that, but just one episode after the first blimp episode, which ends in near-identical results. Oi!

UNNECESSARY USE OF THE POKEDEX- MANY, MANY EPISODES

Last season, the one recurring plot-point that annoyed me the most was whenever Ash and friends were fooled by Team Rocket whenever they were wearing lousy disguises. But this season something else really started to piss me off and that was whenever Ash uses the Pokedex to identity a Pokemon. Now of course this is a common reoccurrence in the anime as the Pokedex is used whenever Ash came across a new Pokemon but this season the Pokedex was used for identification purposes way too much as Ash sometimes used it on a Pokemon that he either A.) already identified via Dex or B.) already came across in a previously episode. You want to know how many times this happened this season? 14 times!!! I’m not joking; there were 14 instances where Ash identified a Pokemon that he already came across in an earlier episode; Drowzee (‘Pikachu Re-Volts’), Snorlax (‘Snack Attack’), Gastly and Haunter (‘A Shipful of Shivers’), Farfetch’d (‘A Way Off Day Off), Magnemite and Magneton (‘Git Along, Little Pokemon’), Wartortle (‘The Pokemon Water War’), Gloom (‘Pokemon Food Fight’), Tentacruel (‘Viva Las Lapras’), and Voltorb, Electrode, Diglett, and Dugtrio (‘The Underground Round Up’). This has to be some of the poorest continuity that I’ve ever seen in any show. You’d think that Ash would recognize all of these Pokemon given the fact that he’s seen them all before but NOPE!

NOT REALIZING WHAT HAPPENED- IN THE PINK

A new running gag that started up this season was that Ash, Misty, and Tracey continuously failed to realize that Togepi had gained a new power, ‘Metronome’, which it acquired in the episode ‘Pikachu Re-Volts’ from a Drowzee. The gang constantly denies this by saying that ‘Togepi is too young to have learned any moves’, even though sometimes it’s so frigging obvious that Togepi was the one who used that move. The most frustrating instance of this occurred in the episode ‘In the Pink’ where Ash and friends arrive at Pinkan Island, where all of the Pokemon there are Pink due to the fruit that grows there (hence the title of the episode, ‘In the Pink’). Ash, in his usual stupidity, ends up angering a Rhyhorn that begins to charge at them. Togepi ends up saving the day by using Metronome to teleport them away as they then wonder what just happened, not believing Togepi did it even though it was the only one of their Pokemon that was out at the time other than Pikachu, who clearly couldn’t have used that attack. So in other words, they should’ve clearly realized that it was Togepi… but they don’t. Idiots!

ASH FORGETS WHAT A BOMB IS- SHELL SHOCK

In another act of stupidity, in one episode Ash and the gang are trapped within a cave of Kabuto fossils by Team Rocket, who toss down a bomb. It gets tossed around for a few seconds until Ash catches it and then he stands there like a total dumbass looking at it until he finally realizes that it’s going to explode and he tosses it away. At least this allows me to use this next joke…

…Heh Heh, that never gets old!!

ANOTHER INSTANCE OF FLIPPING THE BIRD (LITERALLY THIS TIME) - BYE BYE PSYDUCK

Oh boy…

Seriously, will animators ever learn to be careful when drawing characters with only three fingers? Because when they point, they do so with their middle fingers resulting in awkward images like this involving a Golduck.

FAILING TO CATCH SNORLAX PART DEUX- SNACK ATTACK

In the episode ‘Snack Attack’, Ash and friends come to a group of islands that contain groves of ripe Grapefruits. But then trouble ensues when they discover that a Snorlax is on the island and is eating all of the Grapefruits, resulting in the gang trying to stop it before it eats the whole supply. They try multiple ideas to try and stop Snorlax but all of their plans end up failing… which wouldn’t be that big of a problem with me had a similar situation not occurred in a previous episode of the series, ‘Wake Up Snorlax!’ which also revolved around the gang having to deal with a Snorlax causing problems. In that episode, it was blocking a river to a village and it was defeated by waking it up with a Poke Flute. And while technically the situation in ‘Snack Attack’ is different as the Snorlax is already awake in this episodes, Ash and Misty still should’ve remembered what had happened the last time they dealt with a Snorlax… or at least figure out the solution that ends up working first; using Jigglypuff to make it fall asleep. But they don’t and the Snorlax ends up eating most of the Grapefruits on these islands. Way to go, idiots!

ABOUT VENONAT- TRACEY GETS BUGGED

Misty hates bug Pokemon, so you can guess she wasn’t too pleased when the gang arrives on Murcott Island, an island full of bug-type Pokemon. But she still ends up going with Ash and Tracey and after Tracey brings out his Venonat, Misty remarks that ‘At least it isn’t a Bug Type!’… Yeah, about that…

…There’s no way else to put it. Misty was straight-up…

BEST DAMN HAIR GROWTH EVER- A WAY OFF DAY OFF

In the previous episode ‘Tracey Gets Bugged’, Team Rocket tried to steal a group of Scyther, with Jessie particularly obsessed with capturing them after one of them had cut off a good chunk of her hair. Of course this plan fails and all three of them lose most of their hair before they’re defeated. But then, in the next episode ‘A Way Off Day Off’, they’re shown with all of their hair again. It’s not indicated that they’re wearing wigs so clearly their hair must have grown back, which then begs the question… how much time has passed since the last episode? Because I know for a fact that hair doesn’t grow back in just one day. It takes some time for that to happen but according to this episode it hasn’t been too long since the last episode, meaning that Team Rocket have had the best damn hair re-growth out of anyone I’ve ever seen, real or animated.

NETFLIX FORGETS SOMETHING + A TOTAL LIE- THE MANDARIN ISLAND MISS MATCH

Okay this isn’t actually something about the show itself, this is in regards to a rather interesting thing that happened to me when I was watching this season. As I noted before, the first season of Pokemon was added to Netflix some time ago but instead of just putting it all into one season, they split it up into two ‘seasons’ and also included some, but not all of, the episodes from Season 2, meaning that I had to go to YouTube to watch the remaining episodes of season 2. But after watching ‘A Way Off Day Off’, I proceeded to start the next episode which started off with the narrator stating that Ash had just come from a victory over a Trainer named Prima. At first I thought to myself ‘Who the hell is Prima?’ but then I realized the problem; I had skipped over an episode, ‘The Mandarin Island Miss Match’, in which Ash has a battle with one of the members of the Kanto Elite Four, Prima (those who’ve played the Kanto Pokemon games will recognize her as Lorelei). This episode isn’t featured on Netflix, which I’m guessing is because Prima owns a Jynx, which as I mentioned before attracted a lot of controversy over its design. The episode ‘Stage Fight’ is also not available on Netflix, probably for the same reason. Also, the narrator claims that Ash defeated Prima in a Pokemon battle which, for the record, is a total lie.

AS PRETTY AS A TENTACRUEL- CHARIZARD CHILLS

This episode begins when Ash and friends are almost run over by a boat owned by a boy named Tad, who comments that Misty is ‘pretty’ but when angry, she looks like a Tentacruel. But then Misty starts to gush over how she wishes she could be ‘that pretty’… and for the record, she’s referring to the Tentacruel, a Pokemon that for the record is viewed as ‘ugly’ by a lot of people. Misty even references this at one point. Well, Misty, all I can say to this whole thing about you wanting to be as pretty as a Tentacruel is… Eww!!!

POKE BALL DURABILITY- POKEMON FOOD FIGHT

In this episode, Ash gets into a battle with a kid named Gulzar who wears plants on his head (just go with it, folks) and during that battle, Ash sends out Snorlax (the same one from ‘Snack Attack’). But during this process, Snorlax’s Poke Ball ends up getting broken, resulting in Ash and friends having to transport the incredibly heavy Pokemon to a Pokemon Center that is over a nearby mountain. As you may have guessed, hi-jinx ensues but I have a question. How exactly can a Poke Ball get broken? I mean from the looks of it, they seem to be pretty durable so that they wouldn’t break that easily. And yet in this episode, Snorlax’s Poke Ball is damaged just by having it fall onto a rock. At this point in time, we don’t really have a firm grasp on what these Poke Balls are made out of but this episode seriously makes me question whoever made the decision to make the Poke Balls out of… whatever the hell they’re made out of if they can be broken that easily. Oh yeah, there’s also this hilarious image of Snorlax eating the flowers off of Gulzar’s head.

…Animation can be weird sometimes…

A LACK OF CONFIDENCE AND FORGETTING A PREVIOUS EPISODE- POKEMON DOUBLE TROUBLE

In this episode, Ash and friends arrive at Kumquat Island, where Ash faces off against Luana, the fourth Orange Island Gym Leader. But before they land, Misty and Tracey start to question whether or not Ash can beat the Gym Leader, resulting in Ash yelling at them for not having any faith in him. And you know something… he’s totally right!! I mean, all throughout these first two seasons of the show, there have been numerous instances where Ash’s companions, namely Misty, doubt his chances to win in big Pokemon battles. Seriously, what kind of friends are Misty, Brock, and Tracey if they just spend most of their time criticizing Ash who for the record has been able to do quite well for himself as a Pokemon trainer? Oh yeah, I forgot, these are the same a-holes who let him get captured by Team Rocket and didn’t do a damn thing about it in the episode ‘It’s Mr. Mime Time’. Seriously Ash if I were you, I’d consider getting some new friends. Then again, I also think it’s time for the show to switch its main protagonist but that’s a different story.

This episode also apparently forgets about what had happened just a few episodes earlier in the episode ‘Charizard Chills’, where Ash finally gains control of Charizard after it had been so disobedient towards him ever since it had evolved from being a Charmander. But in this episode, Charizard ends up being hard to work with again when Ash learns that this final Gym Battle is a Double Pokemon Battle, where Trainers use two Pokemon each at the same time (something that would later be implemented into the video games). Ash uses Charizard and Pikachu as his two Pokemon in this battle but for some reason he initially faces some problems as the two have a hard time working together. I’m kind of baffled by this because shouldn’t Charizard be over this by now? I mean, didn’t we just have an entire episode based around him finally gaining respect for Ash after he had worked all day and all night helping him? Ugh… Remember in my original review of the first season where I said that one of the biggest problems of the show is that it does a really terrible job when it comes to story and character progression? This is one of the prime examples of that problem which is why it comes off as being so repetitive at times.

Charizard: F*** you, Mickey!

NO COMMENT- THE WACKY WATCHER

…I don’t even want to know… How can a Magikarp even get into someone’s pajamas? Oh s***, now I’m thinking about it. MOVING ON!!

WHAT’S UP WITH ELECTRODE- VIVA LAS LAPRAS

Electrode is the Pokemon featured in the ‘Who’s That Pokemon’ segment of the episode ‘Viva Las Lapras’ but does Electrode look different to you? What the heck is up with that weird expression? Usually Electrode has something like an ‘evil grin’ but here that’s not the case. This is the only time I can think of where Electrode look like this. Why?

BROCK AND VALENCIA ISLAND- A TENT SITUATION

When Ash and friends first came to Valencia Island, Brock decided to stay behind and work with Professor Ivy to gain more experience as a Pokemon Breeder. But then when Ash, Misty, and Tracey finally return to Pallet Town after Ash wins the Orange League Championship, Brock’s suddenly back and whenever Professor Ivy is brought up, he gets all gloomy telling them to ‘not mention that name’, not giving a reason why. I mean, I think we all know the reason behind Brock’s return; Ivy dumped him. But why does he go into a fetal position every time her name is brought up? Dude, you’ve gotten dumped by a whole bunch of girls (that’s one of the funniest parts of the show), so why is this one such a big deal? Ah well, that’s Brock for you… just don’t mention Professor Ivy around him, okay?

Don't worry man, happens to all of us!

So that’s it folks, all of the strange moments that I came across while watching Season 2 of the Pokemon anime. Like I said earlier, I’m not planning on doing any more of these but I do want to thank everyone who made the first ‘Strange Moments’ post so popular. I have to say these have been some of my favorite posts to do on this site as they did allow me to re-watch a classic show from my childhood.

Interstellar: SPOILER Post

WARNING!!!

The following post contains spoilers for the film ‘Interstellar’. If you have not seen the film yet, avoid going any further for I will be discussing key plot-points of the film in great detail. If you don’t want to be spoiled, please refer to my spoiler-free review of the film (the link will be provided below)… and then go see the film because it’s really a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience that should not be missed.

(http://rimoviecorner.blogspot.com/2014/11/interstellar-2014-review.html)

I’ve been doing spoiler posts since 2013 but have mostly done them just for superhero films. I did do one for ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’, which focused on the big ‘villain identity’ reveal but aside from ‘Thor: The Dark World’ (because I felt that there wasn’t much to talk about with that film) and ‘Man of Steel’ (which, well, I guess you can say I just forgot to do), I’ve done spoiler posts for every major comic book film since ‘Iron Man 3’. But now having seen director Christopher Nolan’s latest film, ‘Interstellar’, I feel that it’s time for me to do another one. ‘Interstellar’ is a film that has certainly attracted a very polarizing reaction from both critics and audiences. As you remember from my review, I gave it a 5/5, meaning that I really loved the film but overall the general response that I’ve heard from people who did like it is that it was just ‘good, not great’. The big topic of debate amongst everyone is about the film’s ambitious scale and scope and whether or not it’s a little too ambitious… but I’m not really going to get into that. Instead, I’m just to going to talk about key parts of the film from the visual design to the performances from the cast to a certain cameo in the latter half of the film. Having now seen this film twice, I will note that while I don’t think it’s ‘perfect’, I still think it’s a fantastic sci-fi epic that not only features incredible visuals but also some great emotional resonance to back it all up. As I noted in my original review, even if you end up not liking the film as much as I did, I implore you all to see this film in theaters as it truly is a must-see film, regardless of what your opinion of it ends up being. So without further ado, let’s dive into Christopher Nolan’s newest sci-fi epic, ‘Interstellar’.  

THE VISUALS

Whether or not you actually liked the film, you can’t deny that the visuals are absolutely fantastic. Nolan has an eye for visuals, especially when it comes to practical visual effects as was previously exemplified in films like the ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’ and even ‘Inception’. And of course, that also applies to ‘Interstellar’ as well. Those dust storms on Earth? They actually created real dust storms that weren’t just added in later via CGI. The new planets that the crew of the Endurance travel to were all practical locations, resulting in incredibly striking visuals like a planet completely covered by water and an icy planet, which was filmed in Iceland. Then of course you have the visuals in space, especially when the characters travel through the wormhole, resulting in some of the most eye-popping visuals that I’ve ever seen in a movie. And from what I’ve heard, a lot of this was achieved by having the visual effects done beforehand and then displaying them for the actors so that they didn’t have to do anything against a green screen. Simply put, for a movie where the majority of the effects could’ve just been done with CGI, Nolan thankfully did not go that route resulting in some incredibly nice practical effects. It’ll be a legitimate travesty if this doesn’t earn this film an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects because they’re some of the best visual effects of the year.

PERFORMANCES

Nolan has always been good when it comes to the casts of his films and this one is no exception. While the whole ensemble cast is excellent, two performances in particular really stand out amongst the rest. The first is Matthew McConaughey in the lead role of Cooper. I’ll go into a little more depth about his character and his daughter’s arc in a little bit, but simply put, McConaughey has a great screen presence here and a very likable persona. The other major standout is Jessica Chastain in the role of Cooper’s daughter Murph, and on that note, I’d also like to highlight Mackenzie Foy who plays young Murph. Both do a phenomenal job at conveying the emotional turmoil/heartbreak that the character goes through in regards to Cooper leaving her at a young age (primarily in the case of Foy) and the belief that, after learning from Professor Brand (Michael Caine, in his usual top form) that the whole Endurance mission (‘Plan A’ compared to ‘Plan B’, which would have involved establishing a new colony via frozen embryos) wasn’t going to succeed and that the likelihood of humanity ever escaping Earth was slim, that her father may have known about it (which he didn’t, for the record) and left her and her brother behind to die on Earth.

A lot of Nolan’s detractors point out that he hasn’t done so well when it comes to writing female characters save for Selina Kyle in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. I’d argue that Murph is actually one of the better female leads in a Christopher Nolan film to date along with Selina. Not only is her character pretty relatable given the circumstances of what happens to her in regards to her dad leaving her, but I also admire her dedication and commitment to trying to help figure out a way to save the human race. I can definitely see a bit of Jessica Chastain’s character Maya from ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ in Murph and while I’ll admit I wasn’t the hugest fan of that film, both this and ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ truly benefitted from Chastain’s performances. Anne Hathaway does a very good job as well as Professor Brand’s daughter Amelia, though she is kind of overshadowed by Chastain. As for rest of the cast, most of them don’t really get as much to work with as McConaughey and Chastain (save for Bill Irwin in a scene-stealing turn as one of the robots, TARS, who goes up into space with Cooper and his team), like Casey Affleck as Coop’s grown-up son Tom or Wes Bentley as Doyle, one of Cooper and Brand’s fellow astronauts. Still, it’s another great cast from top to bottom which once again highlights how Christopher Nolan is a fantastic actor-director.

EMOTIONAL DEPTH

Nolan has both huge fans and huge detractors and one of the main things that the latter group always points out when it comes to his films is that they’re more focused on the story than they are with the characters. Now I do see where they’re coming from but I’d also argue that they’re not entirely devoid of emotional depth and resonance. It’s just that, after re-watching his films, I realize that the emotional beats of his films are primarily focused around the main characters while the other supporting characters don’t get as much to work with. The main example I’d use for this would be ‘Inception’, where most of the dramatic moments in the film were based around Dom’s perspective whereas the other characters were really just there to fill out the cast. The same can kind of be said here as Cooper and Murph are the ones who get the bulk of ‘Interstellar’s more emotional moments. Still, I felt that it was done to great effect in regards to both of these characters. You really see how both are affected by Cooper’s decision to go into space; in the case of Cooper, it is how he’s forced to leave his kids behind and for Murph, it’s dealing with him leaving. The scene where Cooper tries to patch things up with Murph right before he leaves got me very emotional as we really see how pain both of them are going through on an emotional level.

However, there is one moment in particular that really stands out for me in regards to having great emotional resonance and that is the scene where Cooper and Brand return from Planet Miller to discover that 23 years have passed since they first left for the planet due to the fact that the planet is right next to a big black hole named Gargantua. Cooper goes through all of the messages sent to him by his kids, most of which are Tom telling him about everything that has happened since he’s been gone from how he got married to the death of grandpa Donald, moments that I’m pretty sure Coop wanted to be there for as shown through McConaughey’s emotional and heartbreaking reaction to all of this news. Then, he watches the first video sent to him by Murph, who’s now grown-up and who just so happens to be sending him on a message on the day of her birthday where she is now as old as he was when he first left and earlier in the scene where they were talking before he left, he told her that he might be back by this point but of course as we now know, he wasn’t able to get back in time for this. This scene once again shows the distress that Murph has gone through as a result of her dad leaving her for all of this time. Thankfully, the two do finally reunite at the end of the film, albeit when Murph is now an old woman (now played by Ellen Burstyn), and it is a very satisfying moment where father and daughter finally reunite after all these years. Say what you will about Nolan’s films lacking emotional development, but if you ask me, this film really delivers on emotional resonance in just the right way and at just the right moments in time.

THE SCORE

‘Interstellar’ serves as the fifth collaboration between Nolan and Hans Zimmer after his work on the ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’ and ‘Inception’ and as I stated in my original review, those who are worried that the score for ‘Interstellar’ will be similar to those films won’t have to worry because that is not the case here at all. I really loved Zimmer’s work on ‘Interstellar’ with some truly stand-out musical motifs throughout the film. The emotional and dramatic melodies were incredibly effective during the more emotional moments in the film along with the more tense melodies during the more intense sequences in the film. I’ve heard some people say that the score is too ‘bombastic’ (similar to what some have said with Zimmer’s other scores to Nolan films) but I’d argue that’s not actually the problem with it. Really, the downside to this brilliant score is that it results in what is unfortunately a major issue of the film, which is…

THE SOUND DESIGN

As many of you have already probably learned by now, the sound design for ‘Interstellar’ is, well, kind of piss-poor in some areas. This is primarily in regards to some of the more intense moments of the film. During these moments, the sound effects and, as noted, even the score can be overpowering to the point where you actually can’t hear any of the dialogue. And this isn’t just one single solitary instance in the film… there are at least three-four separate instances where this happens, like when the Endurance nears Gargantua or when Cooper and his kids are driving through a cornfield in pursuit of a surveillance drone. At first I thought it was just IMAX but after seeing it again in a regular theater, the same issue still occurred. Both times I saw this film, I saw it on, well, film so I’m wondering if the same issue occurs when it was projected digitally. If any of you have seen it this way, sound off in the comment section if the same problem with the sound design occurred while you were watching it. I know that Nolan and his crew were making a major effort to work on the sound design for the film but ultimately it ends up being rather problematic when it comes to some of the biggest moments in the film.

For my next point, I’d like to open with a ‘Team America: World Police’ quote…

MATT DAMON!!!

As many of you already know by now, the key cameo of the film is none other than Matt Damon in the role of Dr. Mann, a renowned member of NASA who had gone up into space during the Lazarus missions where he was sent to survey one of the planets in the galaxy that he and the other astronauts came to after going through the wormhole. However, as it turns out, Mann’s planet (the ice planet I mentioned earlier), isn’t hospitable for humanity in the slightest and that he was only faking the belief that the planet could sustain life just so that he could be rescued. Contrary to some critics, I actually found this part of the film to be incredibly fascinating even though I can see where some are coming from when they say that it felt like it felt like the story was taking a detour when they got to his part. I felt that it was incredibly interesting to have a character like Mann who had become heavily affected by the fact that he was all alone in a mysterious world, so much so to the point where he didn’t even set up a time to wake himself up when he went into hyper-sleep. Before this, Mann is frequently described as being ‘one of the best’ who inspired many and when he finally appears, we see that being up in space for so long has had a very negative effect on him to the point where he attempts to sabotage everything just so that he could be rescued. Ultimately, Cooper puts it best; Mann was a ‘f***ing coward’. I did like this aspect of the film and it was also nice to see Damon in a not-so-heroic role that contrasts quite a bit with a lot of the other roles that he has played over the years.   

THE CLIMAX

So now let’s talk about the climax of the film. After Mann reveals his true colors, he tries to escape but ends up getting killed when his ship imperfectly docks with the Endurance, which also results in it sustaining major damage. Coop and Brand manage to get it under control but find themselves with very little fuel so they decide to try and slingshot the ship around the black hole Gargantua so that they can reach the third planet, Edmunds. In order to lessen the ship’s weight, both TARS and Cooper detach from Endurance and they both fall into the black hole. They end up in a mysterious dimension where Cooper finds that he’s able to view Murph’s bedroom from her childhood at various points in time. Earlier there was discussion about who may have created the wormhole, possibly fifth-dimensional beings. Once in the black hole, Cooper realizes that he is in this ‘fifth-dimension’ and that these mysterious beings are actually humans from the future that are able to ‘communicate’ with others in the past. Cooper does this with Murph, effectively becoming the ‘Ghost’ that she thought she was hearing back when she was a kid, and years later when she’s all grown up, Cooper then relays the data that TARS had collected to her through Morse code, resulting in her figuring out the solution to save humanity and get them off of the dying Earth. Before leaving this ‘tesseract’, he also serves as the ‘being’ that Brand apparently comes into contact with when the crew of the Endurance first go through the wormhole.

Of course, because I’m no film scholar, I’m not going to try and analyze this sequence too much but I will say that, like with much of the movie, I found it to be incredibly fascinating. From a visual perspective it’s brilliant (obviously) but I also found it to be a unique plot-point and like the emotional satisfaction I felt when Cooper finally reunited with Murph at the end of the film, I found it very heart-warming and emotionally satisfying when it was revealed that Cooper was Murph’s ‘ghost’ allowing him to reconnect with her after all these years after they had parted on bad terms when he first went off into space. Not only does Coop reconnect with Murph but she is also able to finally figure out the problem that she has been trying to solve for a long time and she does so while also finally coming to terms with her emotions over her father leaving her. Now with that said, I do have to partially agree with something that YouTube movie critic Chris Stuckmann noted in his ‘Revisited’ review of the film (I’ll provide the link to it below) that this scene maybe would’ve worked a little better had this reveal not be primarily conveyed through exposition by Cooper and TARS instead of imagery, allowing the audience to figure out what is happening on their own. Now for the record, I’m not too bothered by the exposition, but I definitely see where he’s coming from and that this change would’ve made the scene a little more impactful which if you ask me it still very much is regardless of this.

IMAX AND 70/35 MM

Finally, I’d like to talk about what I believe is the best way to experience this movie; in IMAX. Nolan of course got the ball rolling for feature films to utilize IMAX cameras when he shot ‘The Dark Knight’ though I unfortunately never got the chance to see either that, ‘Dark Knight Rises’, or even last year’s big sci-fi hit ‘Gravity’ in IMAX. But this time I really made an effort to see this film in IMAX and boy does it deliver. Even with the problematic sound design, the film is truly a cinematic experience on the big IMAX screens. The already mentioned outstanding visuals stand out even more on the screen and while reading into the film’s production, it’s pretty cool how Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema utilized IMAX cameras for this film, reworking them so that they can be used in a handheld manner while shooting interior scenes. Also, if you get the chance, check out the film in the 70 or 35 mm formats as opposed to the new standard of digital projectors. Watching this film, both times in the film format, gave me quite a bit of nostalgic memories because I swear I can’t even remember the last time I saw a film in theaters that wasn’t projected digitally. And while I know that some movie theaters were really against having to project it the old-fashioned way, I’d say it actually looks much better on film. I don’t care if I sound an old man for saying that… it just does. Heck, I got a kick out of seeing those old cue marks (or as ‘Fight Club’ puts it, ‘cigarette burns’) to signify to the projectionist to change reels. I know that this old-school style of film projection is unfortunately becoming a dying art so kudos to filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, and J.J. Abrams who are still all activists in regards to this format.

Chris Stuckmann’s ‘REVISITED’ review of ‘Interstellar’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Z_M0_dJhY