Mo' movies, mo' posting

It's kind of sad that the only real posting inspiration I get is short film reviews. Oh well. Maybe next time I'll change it up with a linkspam.

The latest two are 9 and (500) Days of Summer. Behind the (woohoo!) spoiler cut...



9 - I've been anticipating this movie for most of the year. I saw the original short at SIGGRAPH '05 and actually remembered it out of the many short films in the animation festival thingy, so once I confirmed that this year's film was indeed an expansion of that short, I became both excited and wary. The short was powerful in part because of its brevity, and its silence. But it followed me in my nerd travels this year, with panels at both WonderCon and StarFest, the latter of which actually featured Shane Acker, the creator. The clips they showed were exciting, and that last time I actually got up the guts to get in line and ask if he felt anything was lost by the expansion. I forget the answer's specifics, but I did leave with confidence that all would be well, which increased as time to release drew short.


I saw it on the first weekend out, and while it was good, I should've recalled my initial trepidation to lower my expectations. It's definitely worth seeing on the big screen, but it wasn't entirely successful as an expansion of a brilliant short. The plot was a little thin and stretched. Some character points bothered me for most of the film, though they made sense by the end. Still, the world-building, unique visuals, and interesting direction were as wonderful as anticipated, and I can chalk the rest up to trying to stretch a complete work into something with length and dialogue. I'll look forward to Shane Acker's next project.


(500) Days of Summer - This one came highly recommended through work, mostly, otherwise I probably wouldn't have given it much though. I liked it very much, for the most part. My main quibble is the hodgepodge of stylistic conceits, some of which worked, some of which were too infrequent and haphazard to really work. Only so much quirk needed in one film, really, and both main characters had enough of it. It's a good one for JGL fans, though. His preteen sister was my favorite. I wish we got more of this type of movie from the girl's perspective.