Nik Monroe's Blog

Jul 30

[video]

Jul 29

[video]

Jul 28

Thanks to the Playstation Blog for my new desktop wallpaper! Found over at their Flickr.

Thanks to the Playstation Blog for my new desktop wallpaper!

Found over at their Flickr.

Jul 27

[video]

Jul 25

Now Watching: My Name is Bruce (2007)

Now Watching: My Name is Bruce (2007)

Jul 20

[video]

Jul 19

I finally got around to picking up Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on DVD like I’ve been meaning to for a while, it’s just one of those shows I get the urge to watch every now and again.  It amazes me that this show was cancelled, it’s better written and more poignant than nearly every television program on air today.   

I finally got around to picking up Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on DVD like I’ve been meaning to for a while, it’s just one of those shows I get the urge to watch every now and again.  It amazes me that this show was cancelled, it’s better written and more poignant than nearly every television program on air today.   

Jul 18

Now Watching: Nine (2009)

Now Watching: Nine (2009)

[video]

Jul 17

Some quick rambling thoughts on Inception Let me say this first, in my honest opinion Christopher Nolans latest film Inception is his masterpiece and it feels like all of his films have been building up until this point.  Combining a dense, well scripted narrative like Memento with the big budget, fantastically choreographed action scenes of The Dark Knight, Inception really is a tour de force from start to finish.   Make no mistake this is a big budget summer blockbuster but it has the one thing that’s been so desperately missing from most this years big budget outings, a brain.  The narrative is thick and dense and be prepared for nearly an hour of exposition before the film really gets into the swing of things.  Try not to be put off by the idea of ‘dreams within dreams’, there wasn’t one point of this of this movie where I felt confused as to what was going on it really is that fantastically put together, Nolan has been writing this script for a decade and it shows. The film looks beautiful, like all of Nolans’ films and you’ll struggle to see where the sets end and the cgi begins.  When the film does use special effects you’ll find they’re used so well you struggle to believe what you’re actually seeing on screen because it looks so real, Ariadne and Cobbs stroll through Paris is a particular highlight as is Arthurs explanation of a ‘paradox’.     All of the cast deserve recognition, I don’t think theirs a bad performance in the film.  Tom Hardy steals every scene he’s in and has surely cemented his status as one of the best character actors working in Hollywood today.  Ellen Page does a great job of stepping up into the big leagues as well especially as her character essentially serves as the audiences proxy, asking the questions we feel need to be answered. Ken Wantanbe, Cillian Murphy and Dileep Rao all perform fantastically in much larger roles than I had anticipated and whilst Leo Di Caprio is Dom Cobb and I thought he performed fantastically he’s essentially playing a saner version of his character from Shutter Island.  It’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt that really shines in this film, playing Doms straight talking right hand man Arthur, Gordon-Levitt gets nearly as much screen time as DiCaprio himself.  His character is the focus of some of the films bigger set pieces and Gordon-Levitt handles them perfectly, this will be the film that takes him from being an indie darling to a Hollywood A lister. I find it fascinating that Nolan choose two of the industries best up and coming character actors (Gordon-Levitt and Hardy) and made them the action men of the film.  In Levitts case at least I think adds more and more weight to the rumors that he’ll be appearing in the next Batman movie which I would love to see! So there you go, do yourself a favor and check the film out as soon as you can, don’t wait for this one to come out on DVD it really has to be experienced on the big screen. 

Some quick rambling thoughts on Inception

Let me say this first, in my honest opinion Christopher Nolans latest film Inception is his masterpiece and it feels like all of his films have been building up until this point.  Combining a dense, well scripted narrative like Memento with the big budget, fantastically choreographed action scenes of The Dark Knight, Inception really is a tour de force from start to finish.  

Make no mistake this is a big budget summer blockbuster but it has the one thing that’s been so desperately missing from most this years big budget outings, a brain.  The narrative is thick and dense and be prepared for nearly an hour of exposition before the film really gets into the swing of things.  Try not to be put off by the idea of ‘dreams within dreams’, there wasn’t one point of this of this movie where I felt confused as to what was going on it really is that fantastically put together, Nolan has been writing this script for a decade and it shows.

The film looks beautiful, like all of Nolans’ films and you’ll struggle to see where the sets end and the cgi begins.  When the film does use special effects you’ll find they’re used so well you struggle to believe what you’re actually seeing on screen because it looks so real, Ariadne and Cobbs stroll through Paris is a particular highlight as is Arthurs explanation of a ‘paradox’.    

All of the cast deserve recognition, I don’t think theirs a bad performance in the film.  Tom Hardy steals every scene he’s in and has surely cemented his status as one of the best character actors working in Hollywood today.  Ellen Page does a great job of stepping up into the big leagues as well especially as her character essentially serves as the audiences proxy, asking the questions we feel need to be answered. Ken Wantanbe, Cillian Murphy and Dileep Rao all perform fantastically in much larger roles than I had anticipated and whilst Leo Di Caprio is Dom Cobb and I thought he performed fantastically he’s essentially playing a saner version of his character from Shutter Island.  It’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt that really shines in this film, playing Doms straight talking right hand man Arthur, Gordon-Levitt gets nearly as much screen time as DiCaprio himself.  His character is the focus of some of the films bigger set pieces and Gordon-Levitt handles them perfectly, this will be the film that takes him from being an indie darling to a Hollywood A lister.

I find it fascinating that Nolan choose two of the industries best up and coming character actors (Gordon-Levitt and Hardy) and made them the action men of the film.  In Levitts case at least I think adds more and more weight to the rumors that he’ll be appearing in the next Batman movie which I would love to see!

So there you go, do yourself a favor and check the film out as soon as you can, don’t wait for this one to come out on DVD it really has to be experienced on the big screen.