The post linked from Twitter also mentioned that it’s produced by Bryan Singer (to which I said “Who?”) who produced and directed The Usual Suspects (to which I said “Holy shxt!”). The Usual Suspects was my favorite movie for at least 4 years, and even now, the only movies I can think of that I like more are all Christopher Nolan’s. Anyway, Singer also wrote and produced X-Men: First Class (which I will watch as soon as they get it on Netflix), wrote, produced, and directed Superman Returns (overrated but good), and wrote, produced, and directed X2 (awesome).
The fact that H+ is a web series gives me hope that unlike TV shows with streaming episodes, they’ll actually leave the entire series up so that people can start watching it any time and go all the way up to the current episode.
It doesn’t hurt that they have Caitriona Balfe (once again, “Who?”) playing someone in the show ’cause…
It doesn’t look like there’s a release date yet (and they could have picked a more Googleable name, particularly for a web-only show), but I Liked them on Facebook, so hopefully that’ll let me know when it starts. Also of note, the Facebook page calls it H+: The Digital Series so as to distinguish it from a “web series” and to try to avoid the stigma that comes with being labeled as such. That said, the preview above does make it look like a much higher quality production than your typical web series, and I would say it looks like it has better production values than most regular broadcast/cable/satellite-delivered TV shows, as well as many big budget movies.
So, I sell DVDs on Amazon after I watch them (unless I think I’m going to want to watch them again, but even then sometimes I sell them anyway since I’m paying for Netflix every month). I got Agent 5: A Night in the Last Life Of for Christmas (I think because it was recommended on Netflix and then taken off).
After watching it, I put it up on Amazon. It took a while but if finally sold. Why is this important? Well, it’s not so much important as interesting, because the buyer just happened to have the same name as the director. And lives in LA (where all movies are made). So, the conclusion I draw is that the buyer and the director are one and the same.
Then, the question becomes, why? Did The Director not keep a copy of the movie for himself? (Perhaps not a final release version?) This seems highly unlikely, though not impossible. Perhaps he wanted to buy a copy for a friend and decided that it was somehow better to buy a used copy than whatever he would have to pay to have a new one put into circulation. Or, my most unlikely but favorite theory, Mr. Desotell is trying to turn his work into a collectible item by buying up all the copies in existence and destroying them. He is driving up the value of his work by increasing it’s rarity. Perhaps Matthew Desotell has a Google Alert set up with his name or that of his film in it and will be informed of this post and leave his comments. Or if his plot is as devious as I imagine, then he will not.
(Please note this is a red band trailer and should only be viewed by people who are allowed to view that sort of thing)
While it may seem simplistic or thick-headed to say “This preview looks awesome” when compared to the (perhaps) more high-brow Swedish version (I don’t know if it’s necessarily more high-brow since the book was not compelling enough to make me want to see the movie). But when I watch the preview I realize how much I could have liked The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo if it had filtered some of the historical back story while simultaneously sharpening the action and tension. Perhaps there is something to be said for drawing things out – I’m sure some people would refer to it as ‘pacing’ – and I probably don’t read enough mysteries to have a great feel for how long they take to build the requisite amount of tension. But, I usually grade a book in a series on whether or not it makes me want to read the next one in the series, and I wanted nothing to do with the other two books in the Millenium series after finishing The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. When the movie comes out (after building hype for another 7 months), I will judge it by the same criteria and see if I want to see the next movie. If it lives up to the promise of the trailer, I think I will.
Time Travel + Chicago + Jake Gyllenhaal. It makes me feel pretty good that somehow a movie that involved these three things is being promoted as heavily as it is because I would have thought that combining those three things would narrow the target audience size down to 1. Moi.
I mean, let’s just do a quick (abbreviated) recap of Jake G:
Prince of Persia – Awesome except for the fact that it was a Disney movie (bonus points for time travel, of course)
Zodiac (loved him in it)
Brokeback Mountain (haven’t seen, but I guess it won some awards or something)
The Good Girl (in which he legitimized Jennifer Aniston)
Donnie Darko
Yeah, there were other movies… but the four of those that aren’t based on video games make for a pretty good filmography by themselves.
Time Travel movies I liked:
Back to the Future (all of them; classic)
Time After Time (not bad, really)
Terminator (again, all of them, even the bad ones, and the canceled TV series which was awesome)
The Butterfly Effect (Ashton is dreamy, but also, it was kind of good)
The Jacket (wicked awesome)
12 Monkeys (one of the best evar)
Timecrimes (AWEsome)
Primer (modern classic)
Groundhog Day (if it counts)
Deja Vu (underrated if you ask me)
Others that weren’t that great, but still good cause of the time travel part:
Timeline
Flight of the Navigator (when I was young)
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Timecop
Throw in TV shows:
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (mentioned above)
LOST
Journeyman (another show canceled just when it was getting good)
Flash Forward (dealt with time travel themes)
Daybreak (fits in the Groundhog Day bucket)
Quantum Leap
Phil of the Future (sorry, I liked it)
Tru Calling (not great, but good enough)
Heroes (which I stopped watching, but I am considering going back to finish since I made it half way through season three; I was almost there)
That’s kind of a lot of good stuff there. Hopefully I won’t get too hung up on the fact that the Source Code is evidently a computer program that allows you take someone’s body for the last 8 minutes of their life… over and over… So, it’s like the Matrix, but for time? As someone who writes code for a living, the movie is just unfortunately titled. But at least it provides for a fun Twitter Meme that probably won’t catch on. And having a bit of Michelle Monaghan can’t hurt.
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Fanatical Pupil.
In the near future, a government intelligence agent uses her position within The Agency to search for her brother while also fighting an organization whose technology is years ahead of anyone else on Earth.
