After some thought and consideration I have decided that there are going to be a few changes coming to my blog. When I started this I was primarily focusing on new or newish movies. Things either in theaters or films which had recently come out to DVD. While I enjoyed this and intend to still write reviews of new movies as I go along, I feel the need to branch out a little in order to keep up my number of posts. Between there just only being a limited number of new movies at any given time, and my own limitations in time due to school, I realized that it is more realistic for me to just review whatever it is I have time to watch.
That being said, I feel I should mention that this will at times make the movies reviewed seem somewhat random. They may be old, they may be new. They might be things I haven't seen before or things I've watched a million times. I am also hoping to start doing some television show reviews, because now that I am back in school I tend to find TV shows fit into my schedule better than movies. So, I've been making the transition from renting, buying, or streaming movies, to watching TV shows instead. As with the movies some of them might be newer shows, since there are always new things I want to check out this time of year, and some of them will probably be a bit older, things I find to rent or buy or stream online.
I hope that everyone will enjoy these changes as it should actually increase the amount of content I am able to post and will allow me to put stuff up on a more regular basis. I felt it was more important to be providing somewhat regular posts to my readers than to be sticking to stuff that's just the latest and the greatest. Thanks for the continued reading and support.
- Lynx
Friday, September 20, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
World War Z
I know, I was supposed to blog about this movie while it was still in theaters, but my life has been a little overly busy of late. So I thought I would write about it now that it's finally out on DVD.
As someone who has been slowly making my way through the novel World War Z by Max Brooks, for some time now I must say I wasn't sure how I felt about it when I heard they were going to make a movie based on it. While I really enjoy what I've read of the book so far, it didn't strike me as something that would translate well into a movie.
To give a brief idea of why this is to those who haven't read the book and or seen the movie I need to explain a few things about it. First off the book takes the stance that it is a nonfiction, oral history of the zombie war (fascinating to write nonfiction about something fiction I think). The main character, or narrator of the book, really isn't in the story that much. Rather it is his collection of interviews from other people as he works to try and find the source of the 'zombie' creating disease. The narrator admits in the opening that his purpose for writing the book is because he couldn't include the 'human' element in the report he wrote up for his employer, the United Nations.
Now on to the movie version of World War Z which goes at things from a different angle. In the movie we have a character, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) who is a former U.N. employee who is focusing on being a family man now. When the 'zombie' outbreak finally arrives in his part of the world he goes on the run with his family. After making it to relative safety he learns that he is expected to resume his former job and investigate what is causing this outbreak and where it originated.
There are certain changes which I understand being made between the two of course. For instance a movie that was just a series of interviews about past events probably wouldn't be all that interesting. Therefor I understand why it makes more sense to actually follow Gerry around as he is collecting the information, rather than getting it from him later second hand. Also without making the movie in a mockumentary style it would be difficult to capture the 'real' tone that the book takes on and again I'm unsure how that would have worked out as well.
After watching the movie, I think I would have to say that I still stand by my opinion that it wasn't a book that should have been made into a movie. Now that isn't to say that I didn't like the movie, because I thought it was pretty good for a zombie movie. It didn't have the usual feeling of if you've seen one you've seen them all to me. It just didn't feel like it really carried the same weight as the book. The book goes so much more in depth into the process of finding the source of the problem and traveling around that in comparison the movie just doesn't stand up. It also doesn't provide the opportunity to hear from as many people about how this has impacted their area of the world. The other thing I felt watching the movie, was that while I'm not sure it needed to be longer, I needed to feel that there was a little more passage of time throughout it because it actually seemed a bit rushed and it seemed like things came to a conclusion too quickly.
Personally while I would say that both the book and the movie World War Z can be fully enjoyed, it might be better off to view them kind of as two separate stories, because that's really how they seemed to me. So I wouldn't say that people should avoid the movie, just don't expect it to be too much like the book if you've read it. If you haven't read the book I recommend you do, but not necessarily before watching the movie because there are some drastic differences between the two.
- Lynx
As someone who has been slowly making my way through the novel World War Z by Max Brooks, for some time now I must say I wasn't sure how I felt about it when I heard they were going to make a movie based on it. While I really enjoy what I've read of the book so far, it didn't strike me as something that would translate well into a movie.
To give a brief idea of why this is to those who haven't read the book and or seen the movie I need to explain a few things about it. First off the book takes the stance that it is a nonfiction, oral history of the zombie war (fascinating to write nonfiction about something fiction I think). The main character, or narrator of the book, really isn't in the story that much. Rather it is his collection of interviews from other people as he works to try and find the source of the 'zombie' creating disease. The narrator admits in the opening that his purpose for writing the book is because he couldn't include the 'human' element in the report he wrote up for his employer, the United Nations.
Now on to the movie version of World War Z which goes at things from a different angle. In the movie we have a character, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) who is a former U.N. employee who is focusing on being a family man now. When the 'zombie' outbreak finally arrives in his part of the world he goes on the run with his family. After making it to relative safety he learns that he is expected to resume his former job and investigate what is causing this outbreak and where it originated.
There are certain changes which I understand being made between the two of course. For instance a movie that was just a series of interviews about past events probably wouldn't be all that interesting. Therefor I understand why it makes more sense to actually follow Gerry around as he is collecting the information, rather than getting it from him later second hand. Also without making the movie in a mockumentary style it would be difficult to capture the 'real' tone that the book takes on and again I'm unsure how that would have worked out as well.
After watching the movie, I think I would have to say that I still stand by my opinion that it wasn't a book that should have been made into a movie. Now that isn't to say that I didn't like the movie, because I thought it was pretty good for a zombie movie. It didn't have the usual feeling of if you've seen one you've seen them all to me. It just didn't feel like it really carried the same weight as the book. The book goes so much more in depth into the process of finding the source of the problem and traveling around that in comparison the movie just doesn't stand up. It also doesn't provide the opportunity to hear from as many people about how this has impacted their area of the world. The other thing I felt watching the movie, was that while I'm not sure it needed to be longer, I needed to feel that there was a little more passage of time throughout it because it actually seemed a bit rushed and it seemed like things came to a conclusion too quickly.
Personally while I would say that both the book and the movie World War Z can be fully enjoyed, it might be better off to view them kind of as two separate stories, because that's really how they seemed to me. So I wouldn't say that people should avoid the movie, just don't expect it to be too much like the book if you've read it. If you haven't read the book I recommend you do, but not necessarily before watching the movie because there are some drastic differences between the two.
- Lynx
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