Summer is a great time of year. School is out, so a good portion of the younger population
is left with plenty of extra time and little to fill it with. Thus, summer has become the season of
entertainment, young people filling their time with movies, new and old, books,
television, and music. I am no
exception to this, although this summer I have made an effort to fill my hours
with work as well as play, I have had the opportunity to devote quite a bit of
time to reading, and watching movies.
In light of this, I have decided to start a new section of the blog
which I am entitling Rants and Raves.
This section will contain my reviews of the books and movies which I
have seen lately. This will not be
a full literary analysis, but rather a comparatively quick opinion piece on the
best and worst of what I have read and watched lately. Warning: May Contain
Spoilers.
Brave
This particular film fits neither into the rants or raves
category, but somewhere in between.
I thoroughly enjoyed the way the film makers explored the visuals of the
world they created, fully exploiting the area of digital animation to create a
stunningly beautiful picture. For
a movie about a princess, the movie was able to do something unique by focusing
the story, instead of on a romantic relationship, on that of the mother and
daughter. This choice shows an
attempt on the part of the filmmakers to duplicate what they did in Finding
Nemo, arguably Pixar’s best film, by emphasizing growth and friendship of a
parent with their child as, through a series of trials, the two come to realize
that they had not been listening to the other, and to develop a trust and care
for the other. In Brave as
opposed to Nemo, however, the attempt to develop the mother and daughter
bond between the queen and princess Merida is seems forced onto the story as
the counter plot of the evil bear Mor’du and Merida’s destined confrontation of
this menace, as well as with the political turmoil presented in the strife
filled clans and Merida’s impending marriage. While in Finding Nemo, the parent and child where
able to come to appreciate on another through their mutual journeys to find
each other, Merida and her mother go on their journey together, a fact which
necessitates the presence of an outside struggle to keep the movie progressing
and moving forward, while at the same time diminishing the growth of their
appreciation for each other. In
short, it was as if Brave could not decide whether it wanted to be a
movie about a parent and child learning to appreciate each other, or whether it
wanted to be an epic adventure about a spirited young girl defying tradition to
make her own destiny. The film
could have been one or the other, but by trying to do both, Brave ended
up doing neither conclusively.
Vantage Point
This might be a flash back for some people, but I had never
seen the movie Vantage Point before, and I was expecting a lot more than
I got with this film. I liked the
format of the movie, presenting the same event from various people’s
perspectives and using the transitions to build the bigger picture of the
event. Unfortunately, I found the
film incomplete in its presentation of the story. I was intrigued while watching, but as soon as the movie
ended, I was disappointed; the story ends abruptly and inconclusively; the
viewer is left wondering as to the importance of some characters and the
motivations of others. Why, for
instance, is Sigorney Weaver’s character even included in the film? She provides an exterior, more
analytical view of the event at the beginning of the film, but there is no
story arc created for her character: she just shows up at the beginning, and
once again in the middle of the movie, but her character never makes a dramatic
realization as to the meaning or motives behind the event. Another part of the story development
that is left incomplete is the motivations of the characters, particularly the
terrorists. What are they trying
to accomplish with the series of bombings, shooting, and the kidnapping of the
president? They obviously have
some sort of personal motivation in their thought process, but it is never
explained, as are the relationship between the woman terrorist and the local
police officer who is originally arrested in association with the shooting. Is he a part of the plot, since he
seems to know the meeting point for the group, or is he an innocent victim of
her manipulations? The entire film
ended up being a bit of a disappointment for me by the end as I went into it
expecting a thoughtfully crafted mystery story that concealed facts only to
reveal them at the end, and instead found a story that used the artistic
technique of the film to conceal a lack of plot and development.
Hyperion
One of the greatest pleasures of summertime is reading, picking
up a new book and getting lost in the fantastic worlds that fill its
pages. Dan Simmons’ story Hyperion,
was a fantastic read that appealed both on the fantastic, but also on an
intellectual level. As a
literature student, I thoroughly enjoyed the literary references that filled
the story; from the fact that the book itself seemed modeled on Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales, with each member of the “pilgrimage” to Hyperion taking the time to
tell their stories, and the stories relating to each other and to the journey
they are all embarked upon, along with the more obvious references to John
Keats which are littered through the text. Mr. Simmons not only did his research on the literary level,
however, he also demonstrates a working knowledge of history, philosophy, and
religion, a knowledge that makes each of the individual characters come alive
in a unique and vibrant way that appeals both to the intellectual and the
emotional reader. Mr. Simmons also
does a fantastic job of drawing his diverse characters together into a story
that has elements of both an imaginative science fiction story, and those of a
great mystery story, simultaneously revealing and obscuring facts about the
situations of the characters in such a way as to keep the reader guessing up to
the very end of the book. Sometimes the language of the story was a little
dense and complicated due to the mental nature of the text, however, if the
reader is willing to submerge themselves in the language of the story for a
little while, one can quickly adapt to the complexities of language and
vocabulary that are scattered throughout.
I would highly recommend
this book to anyone who love science fiction, as well as anyone who has an
interest in complex, intellectual literature, and I look forward to reading the
sequels to Hyperion, and other stories by Mr. Simmons.
