Yeoh Siew Hoon visits the third dimension and realises the story still matters.
UP and away. Photo courtesy of Disney-Pixar's “Up” official website
I am still seeing stars and dreaming of Paradise Falls from the night before.
Watching the new Disney movie, UP, is an adventure in itself but watching it in 3D filled me with such wonder that it made me wonder if the magic’s returned to Disney and the movies.
The first time I watched UP was in normal digital format. The story was so simple and beautiful and the animation out of this world that I felt I had to see it in 3D to see how much better it could get.
3D this time round is way cooler than it was. Remember those awful plastic glasses which never quite sat right on your face? Well, now you get cool aviator-looking sunglasses and they sit pretty ok on your face, even if you are a bespectacled person like I am.
Left: The writer with her 3D glasses
And it truly immerses you and your fellow theatre-goers so that you feel you are taking a journey together. Somehow, the laughter seemed louder and I could hear the collective gasps and oohs and aahs in the cinema.
It made me think, perhaps this is how audiences felt when they saw animated films for the first time – that sense of wonder of “how do they make that mouse run?”
As a film buff, it’s wonderful to see how movies have evolved, in the technological sense, that is.
Take “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra” (pictured below). Watching that is like watching a video game – which is the intention of course. The real-life actors are made to look like video game or Anime characters and they do nothing but run, jump, shoot, kill, fly ¬– anything but act.
Photo courtesy of www.gijoemovie.com
The special effects is overwhelming, completely over-the-top. You don’t have time to catch your breath because it’s non-stop action from the word “Joe”.
But while UP manages to blend technology with story, GI Joe doesn’t give two hoots about the story – he just wants to save the world and the girl.
Then there’s the other end of the spectrum – the movie that just relies on story, a good script and great acting.
And that’s “The Boat That Rocked”, which I caught on Singapore Airlines – watch trailer here. It’s directed by British director Richard Curtis whose movie and television credits include Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, Blackadder and Mr Bean so you know it’s going to be different, quirky and fun.
The plot is simple – it revolves around a pirate radio station in the middle of the North Sea that's populated by an eclectic crew of rock and roll DJs and which faces closure by the government.
But the magic is in the story-telling and the stellar acting. Bill Nighy as the owner of the radio station oozes cool, Kenneth Branagh as the minister who wants to shut them down spits brimstone and fire and Philip Seymour Hoffman is rebel incarnate as “The Count” makes every word count.
There’s no special effects in this movie, just great actors telling a good story.
Which just goes to show, nothing beats a good story but heck, if you can blend it with great technology, like UP did, then it can make you see stars and dream of Paradise Falls.
