Year: 2011

Rango

Just return from the cinema where watched “Rango“, a cartoon that I’ve been waiting for a bit after seeing the trailer.  I have to say that trailers for this animation are slightly better than the final result, but not by too much.  It is a rather brave take on westerns with way more blackness and drama than most other kid’s animations allow.

It was a bit slow at places, and for Maxim’s taste there was a bit too much talk, but the story was good, the characters were interesting, and the whole feel to it was … unfamiliar.  If it was a movie, it would probably be one of many.  But being an animation, it stand on its own.

Music deserves a special attention.  There was as much of it as you could squeeze into a film without making it into a musicale.  It helped with atmosphere, entertainment, and more.  It changed from Mexican el mariachi to classical orchestra and back.  It faded from background to foreground and back.  And it was by my movie measures exceptional.

Overall, I’d rate the animation as 4 out of 5.  Recommended for adults and for older kids mostly, but anyone would probably enjoy it.

P.S.: If you are watching it in K-Cineplex Limassol, make sure to pick up your portion of nachos with cheese sauce at the cafeteria, which are a special served for this movie only.  Helps with the whole Mexican atmosphere, and they are indeed yummy.

Despicable Me

The other day I got my hands on a copy of “Despicable Me“.  Maxim watched all of it and somewhat enjoyed it.  For me though it was a disappointment.  One of the biggest setbacks were the characters.  I think that characters are one of the main things that separate animations from movies.  Movies are more or less forced to cast actors.  And the best actors are only a few.  So movies have to rely a lot more on the acting talent in order to create unique characters.  In animations, the characters are drawn.  And while that is not an easy job either, I think it is much easier to draw a new character than to create one in the actor.  In this animation, all characters were carbon copies of characters from other cartoons.  And that alone is enough for me to disregard this cartoon.

On top of that, the story was anything but engaging and original.  And to add insult to injury, I personally thought that the voice of Steve Carrell didn’t match Gru’s character.  Every time Gru spoke, I had a feeling that there was someone else in the scene, someone who was actually speaking, someone that I could not see.

As a result of all that, I got bored and disgusted by the animation and left the room about 20 minutes into the story.  And that is, I assure you, not something that I do very often.  Hence, my overall rating is 1 out of 5.  There are so many beautiful animations out there, and this one is not one of them.

Earthquake and tsunami in Japan

We’ve all heard the words “earthquake” and “tsunami” before.  We are all aware that these phenomena are not a stranger to Japan.  We all secretly hope that Japanese know how to handle such events.  And they in fact do a really good job.  But what happened today was different.  It was on the Grand Scale.  According to this Wikipedia page, today’s earthquake measured 8.9 on Richter scale, which earns it a 7th place in the list of largest earthquakes worldwide.

Such powers of nature are difficult, almost impossible to imagine.  And of course the effects of these are profound – people dead and hurt, houses and other properties destroyed, lives dramatically changed, and so on and so forth.  All that will not go away tomorrow.  On the contrary, this will from now on be a part of Japanese history.  And world history.   Since it will affect more than just Japan (look at what happened to financial markets today, for example), and it will take more than just Japan to recover from this event.

Gladly, the world is full of kind and considerate people.  Several donation efforts started already.  Humanitarian organizations jumped in.  And the recovery works have already begun.  Needless to say it will take time.  A long time…