Beowulf is the dog’s b*llocks

We went to see “Beowulf” a few weeks ago at the IMAX Melbourne. I have to say that it was probably the best cinematic experience I have ever had, for one simple reason, well two actually:

1. On an IMAX screen, which is huge.
2. It was in 3D.

This is the future of watching films at the cinema. All action, fantasy, sci-fi flicks should be made for the IMAX 3D screens. Gone are the days of B-grade flicks with characters holding things out towards to the screen. Ok they still do that, but the technology has moved on from that and the glasses are different. As soon as you put them on the screen appears to be right, I mean right in front of you, so close you can almost reach out and touch things.

But you would look stupid and people would laugh at you.

You f*cking nerd.

Anyways, the detail in 3D is amazing you can see facial hair, little cracks in stone; veins in the eye. The makers or artists really have put a lot of effort into the imagery and millions of dollars of course. Although the film’s gruesome scenes are pretty nasty when seen in 3D and up close, especially the head chewing scene. I’m pretty sure the girl beside me gagged at that point. Of course, since the screen is so in your face its quite difficult to look away – you have to physically look 90 degrees to the side to not see the screen.

One of the highlights of the film is hearing Ray Winstone as the voice of the Nordic hero in a true London gangster style:

“I will kill your monstah”.

The Golden Compass, not so golden

So I went to see “The Golden Compass” yesterday. I must say I was a bit disappointed.

“The Golden Compass”, or “Northern Lights” to give the novel it’s original UK title, is the adaptation of the first book of “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman. I received all three novels as a present last Christmas and managed to read the first two with the third on my task list for 2008. I loved the books and was excited to hear that they were going to make the novels into films. If you get a chance to read them then do. Like the Harry Potter books, the “His Dark Materials” trilogy is supposed to be for children, I must be missing something as they are pretty graphic, violent and very, very dark.

I won’t go into the story as I’m no storyteller, but you can read all about it at Wikipedia. But I can say it involves parallel worlds; amoured polar bears; witches; and one for the Christians here – killing God.

Anyways, as I said I found the film a little disappointing and so did most of the US as the film totally bombed at the Box Office – made for $185M, making only $25M in the first weekend. No chance then for the other novels to be adapted which is crap as they changed the ending, or dropped the ending I should say. They did film the ending but the test screening went so badly, they decided to cut the ending with plans to open the second flick – “The Subtle Knife” with those scenes. Perhaps I’ll see them on DVD.

Go see the film if you haven’t already done so, perhaps the more people see it – eventually, they may decide to adapt the books after all. If you haven’t read the book then I’m sure you’ll enjoy the film, but if you are a big fan of the books like me, then you will be disappointed. I should say that the film up until the ending was pretty good with characters and locations as I imagined, although I think they changed the order of some of the book’s sequences.