Derek Bodner’s Blog

Or, perhaps better stated, Grunge Is Not Dead.

For the record, I used that word (grunge) while grinding my teeth. I generally dislike it, and use it more to describe a time period and geographic rock movement (RE: Seattle) than I do an actual musical genre. If Alice in Chains became popular 3 years earlier before the mainstream media coined that term they would have been a metal group. If Nirvana became popular two years earlier we’d refer to them as a punk group. If Pearl Jam became popular earlier we’d be talking about their similarity with The Who and a splash of Neil Young rather than lumping them in with Nirvana. Grunge was always a media buzz-word to create hype about the Seattle movement.

(That’s not to take anything away from what grew up out of the underground Seattle scene at that time, I just don’t consider it a musical genre).

That being said, those bands comprise some of my absolute favorite, and certainly my favorite “contemporary” (can they even be called that anymore?!) music.
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1967-2009

Every three or four years Pearl Jam releases an album, an event that usually triggers a fair amount of nostalgia for me. Pearl Jam was pretty much the band that got me into music when I was an impressionable ten year old (ironically) first finding out what I liked and didn’t like. I was in the 5th grade (I believe) in 1992 when I first heard Ten and was immediately hooked. This is what music was supposed to sound like to me, and I’ve been a fan ever since. I recall buying Ten, Vs., Vitalogy and Yield when they came out (for some reason skipping No Code), taking me right through high school.
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Went to see AMC’s Best Picture Showcase, which had all 5 best picture nominees in succession. Believe it or not, I was able to sit in a movie theater for 14 hours and not go stir-crazy.

There will be spolers, so if you haven’t seen these movies and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read on. Otherwise, click Read More.
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Alright, so you may be wondering why I’m commenting on a movie released 7 months ago. It’s simple, really. I was so blown away leaving the theater that I couldn’t rationally and objectively rate the movie. The performance by Ledger and the overall character, from conception to execution, was so perfectly done that it completely overshadowed whatever shortcomings the movie may have had. Even if there were flaws, the sum of the movie added up to more than the individual parts.

So I waited. Waited until the movie came out on DVD. After watching it a few times…

I still leave at the end of the movie absolutely mesmerized.

There are going to be spoilers, so in the off-chance someone hasn’t yet seen the film, I’m going to put my thoughts in the “Read More” section. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t click below.
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(I should preface this by saying I was a huge transformers fan growing up, and fit right in the age bracket they were targeting).

I saw Transformers a little over a week ago (Sunday the 15th) with my brother. I haven’t gotten a chance to write about it because i’ve had other things on my mind, but the movie was friggin awesome. With everything that’s going on in my life right now, it was exactly what I needed. This was the type of movie that was the definition of fun. Sure, it might not have been a very intellectual movie, but I’m a firm believer not every movie has to be. There is a place for “fun” movies, and there are well done fun movies and poorly done fun movies. This was done nearly perfectly for the genre. The CGI was flawless. There might have been special effects that have been comparable in the past, but never that have fit into the movie so seamlessly. They honestly looked like they were on set. It reminds me very much of when I watched Jurassic Park for the first time in that regard. It will change all future action movies. The action was great, and it had its moments when it was funny (it was one-liner funny, not thought provoking funny, but again, there’s nothing wrong with that). The story wasn’t anything special, but it didn’t seriously detract from the action. Some people complained about the changes from the cartoon, but I honestly had no problem. Bumblebee might have been a Camaro in the movie instead of a VW Beetle (although I liked that they paid homage to the Beetle by having a yellow one in the auto lot), but they still captured the essence of the Transformers. In the end, you couldn’t help but root for Optimus Prime to win, and for Bumblebee to pull through. It was a movie about action and heroes, and it pulled it off splendidly.

Saw Spiderman 3 last week (Saturday, May 5th), with Keith and Jimmy. Overall I thought it was entertaining, but nothing epic. Good, but not great. Fun, but probably the lesser of the 3. I loved some things (how they did Venom, although I wish he had stuck around), and disliked some others (the CGI, some of the acting).

Good:
* The CGI on Sandman was amazing. Best special effects in any of the 3 movies. Especially the scene where he became The Sandman for the first time. Overall I liked Sandman (liked how in the end, he wasn’t Ben’s killer. Liked that he wasn’t a pure bad guy. Liked that Peter forgave him. Really liked the CGI in that particular scene where he became Sandman the first time)
* Liked the way they did Venom. I thought he would be a very easy character to screwup, but I think it worked. I thought the character looked phenomenal. Thought it worked with Parker ruining his career, and loved that they included the bell tower. Thought they caught the essence of Venom well.
* Thought Spiderman’s “black suit” and the struggle worked well. Overall, there’s certainly criticism that the movie was low on plot, or that there was too much going on and the characters weren’t very developed. Certainly I think this could be true for the villains, but they weren’t what this story was about. They were side attractions, and Spiderman’s struggles was the primary story. And I thought that was done well.
* Liked that in the end, Harry and Peter got back on the same side. Thought it was well done, and could have been a disaster.

Bad:
* Sandman had a lot more potential as a character. If there’s one character I thought was underdeveloped and rushed because they were trying to do too much in the film, it was him.
* Harry’s “amnesia” was very poorly done, IMO, and unnecessary.
* The CGI, particularly in the first alley-fight scene between Spiderman and Green Goblin was bad. It looked very CGI’ish and was very overdone. Overall I thought the effects were subpar for the movie (with the exception being Sandman and Venom.
* Overall I thought the acting was subpar. Tobey and Kirsten were adequate, but nothing special. Thomas Haden Church didn’t have enough to work with. And I don’t like James Franco one bit.

Overall fun, but not special. Which is a shame because it could have been, had a few kinks been worked out.