1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four)

The Tonnina is offering one more Dystopian Review!  This is actually a review of both the movie and the book, 1984.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Year: 1984

Country: UK

Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian

Director: Michael Radford

Stars: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack

1984
Year: 1949
Country: UK
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian, Political Fiction
Author: George Orwell
Characters: Winston Smith, Julia, Big Brother, O'Brien, Goldstein



The movie follows the book quite well, it skips around and leaves out a few not so critical parts in the story, but that's okay.  It tells the important parts of this crazy love tale/political oppression story.
The story is set in 1984, in Oceania, a country run by a totalitarian government.  Apparently Oceania used to be the Americas, Austraila, Southern Africa, and the UK, and the main character, Winston Smith (Played by John hurt in the film) even recalls Old London at some points in the story.  Oceania is always at war with either Eastasia or Eurasia.  Always at war with one and always an ally with the other.  It's a flip flop, back and forth war and Oceania seems to be stuck in the middle of it.  Ingsoc is the political ideology of the government here in Oceania.  There are telescreens in every home, shop, and work place.  These Telesceens allow Big Brother of Ignsoc (English Socialism in Newspeak) to be ever vigilant and watch his people working, living, and hating Goldstein the traitor.  You must love Big Brother and hate Goldstein.  Goldstein wanted to break up the totalitarian government, and had many people working for him to do so.  It didn't work out though and now the whole country is against Goldstein; He is a traitor.

It's a map! Yay! Now we can see the countries...

Winston's job is quite simple, he is a writer.  He writes what Big Brother tells him to and he fixes mistakes.  Even mistakes that were made years ago.  One example the book and movie both use is that Big Brother said there was to be no reduction in chocolate rations for the year of 1984.  Well, they needed to reduce it.  To make it sound pleasant, Winston re-writes the news story as the chocolate rations were at 20 grams and now they are going up to 25 when in reality they were at 30 grams and are now going down to 25.  This doctoring of documents is also used to keep the names of unpersons, those who've been arrested and disposed of, out of the news.  We only want current living people to be in the news, books, and stories.
Speaking of news, books and stories, have you heard of the new 10th edition of Newspeak?  It's this thick, but the 11th edition will be thinner.  More words are being destroyed each day!  Why do you need so many words to describe when something is bad when you can just say it's ungood?

Oh, it appears the 11th edition is out!

Alright so back to the review.  I read part one of the book and the very first few pages of part two.  I didn't finish it in time to review just the book for Dystopian month, but I really wanted to so I watched the film.  The book goes into so much greater detail than the movie, but then, that's what books are supposed to do.  The movie can actually show you what's happening.
Here's a quick break down of how the story is played out: Winston is wanting to know about the world before the war started.  He barely remembers it since he was very young when the war started.  He knows he can get arrested for this, it's called Thoughtcrime and he will be taken away.  He's sure of it.  Winston has this diary that he got from an antiques shop and he writes in it, a lot.  He figures he'll die because he's written down his thoughts and they will say he's committed thoughtcrime.  He wanders back to the shop and buys a glass paperweight that has a piece of coral in it... then he learns of a room the shopkeep has upstairs.  Winston toys with the idea of living there for a moment but thinks he better not.  He sees this brown haired girl as he is trying to get home and Winston recognizes her as a woman he works with.  Winston bumps into this woman the next day at work, she passes him a note claiming she loves him.  He's taken aback because he thought she was working for the thought police.  Julia, played by Suzanna Hamilton, is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex league.  She wears their red sash over her blue cover-alls.  Winston has a dream (in the book) about seeing her naked, he believes she's never been with a man because she's a part of the JASL.  They eventually get together in the antique shop room for let.  There's no telescreen in there so they can talk about anything they wish and do whatever they wish.  Of course Winston and Julia have relations and talk about the oppression.  Eventually they are caught and then there are torture scenes and boy does it get creepy!  In the end, Winston submits to Big Brother and is let go, but only after he confesses to his crimes, even crimes he didn't commit.  At the very end, Julia and Winston meet again and try to apologize but they realized that when you are tortured, all you care about is your life.  You couldn't care less about the other person so long as you get to live.  Which is sad, because when they were hiding out in the room to let, Winston expressed his fear of "them" having control over your emotions.

True Love? Yeah, until Big Brother starts torturing you.

The movie is good, it's older, but it's good.  It's actually not as boring as I thought it might be.  It has great cinematography and stayed very true to the important parts of the book.  The book is a wonderfully wordy read.  I've been at it for over a month and still haven't finished it, it's rather long, but part of that is my fault.  I should read more often than I do.  I will warn that there is full frontal female nudity and torture in the movie, so if you aren't comfortable with that, you might want to stick to the book... I've not read that far into it, so the book may be just as bad.
There are a few things I had problems with in the movie.  They call everyone Brother or Sister in the movie, but in the book they are to call everyone Comrade.  I like the Comrade better.  I also thought Winston looked to old in the movie.  John Hurt looks an awful lot like David Bowie. In my head he looked younger, but that could just be how I'm interpreting him... I also thought Julia would have longer hair.  But again, that's just my imagination.

So check out either the movie or the book or be like me and check them both out; I enjoyed them both!!  I got my book at Hastings and watched the film on Netflix!

OH and PS,

Dark Shadows

The Tonnina here to sort of review Dark Shadows...

I say sort of because, well... I'm just going to do a pros and cons list of the movie... So SPOILERS!!! Obviously I'm going to talk about the film so if you haven't seen it, don't read this, unless you want to spoil the flick.  I'm going to start with what I had to say on Trailer Park about this movie...
     "I'm pretty sure just about everyone in Trailer Park says that this movie is a groaner... they may not want to acknowledge it's existence, but it does exist.  I never watched the TV show but I do fancy Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.  I'm also a fan of Chloe Moretz (she was Hit Girl)  I may not see this movie in theaters because I might be the only one in my house who wants to see it, but that's what netflix is for right?!  I will say that I'm not really a fan of this particular trailer for it though... It makes the movie seem so dull and lifeless... Or maybe that's just a tiny bit of Josh rubbing off on me!"

Well I saw it in theaters with my Ma and sister and my old co-worker... I wasn't even planning on seeing it, my Ma was just like "let's go!" so we went and now here's my list...

She's a very pretty kid... She's going places!

Pros

• Chloe Moretz and Johnny Depp.  I like both of these actors... I really REALLY enjoyed Chloe as Hit Girl and had high hopes she would be just as awesome in this movie... She plays Carolyn the 15 year old daughter of Elizabeth.  I really REALLY liked her performance... until... well we will get to that in the cons.  Johnny was great.  My husband thought, "This is just Capt Jack as a vampire" but honestly, it's not even close to Capt Jack... it's more like Edward Scissorhands meets Victor Van Dort from Corpse Bride.  He's a gentleman... most of the time.  It's enjoyable to see his character learn to "live" in the 70's a whole 200 years after he was buried.  I liked  what Johnny Depp's character, Barnabas does in the movie... for the most part.
• It has a handful of laughs.  Most of the funnies from this flick are the words that come out of Barnabas' mouth... like "Birthing Hips"; when he learns Carolyn is 15, he states "And without a husband!  Put those birthing hips to good use or your uterus is going to shrivel up and die!"  Pretty cute and worth a ha-ha.  Most of the film, however isn't that funny.
• Helena Bonham Carter.  In most of her roles she's a crazy person... in this film, she's really great... I think that her character was my absolute favorite.  The Doctor had no flaws in character (well almost no flaws, I mean she did try to become a vampire by taking Barnabas' blood... and in the end it worked!) She was witty, funny, and REAL.  I liked her a lot.  It's a shame she had to die!!

I also liked the Doctor's outfits... She was really great!

Pretty short Pros list...
Cons.

• Carolyn is a fucking werewolf.  EXCUSE ME?!  I'm so mad about this I could spit.  In the 1960's tv show Carolyn is actually Barnabas' spy and never EVER a werewolf.  I mean she's not even a Collins' in the old tv show!  Now I've never seen the show(s) but a little bit of research can go a long LONG way.  Wanna know my main issue with this? It's fucking Twilight ripoffs... Carolyn NEVER had to be a werewolf.  She could have just been a normal rebellious 15 year old.  It wasn't necessary for the plot.  Hell it happens at the end of the damn movie!  It's not worth it.  This was just Tim Burton trying his damnedest to get on the Twilight train of teenagers.  NOT WORTH IT TIMMY!

Open wide!!

• The "special effects".  Okay, I'll give the ghosts to ya.  Those were pretty cool. The rats and the seagulls in the canning plant and the rat in the secret hallway? STUPID.  It looked like something out of 1991...  LAME!!!  And I don't get why you have to have blood ALL OVER Barnabas' mouth every time he bites someone.  It's not realistic... oh yeah I know vampires aren't real, but blood is and just from a tiny bite that much blood? No not happening... Also get your damn bite marks right.  Spacing people, SPACING!!!  The cuspid teeth are the ones that get long and sharp on a vampire... they are teeth numbers 6 and 11... that means there are four teeth in between them... So please don't make it look like someone got poked in the neck with a two pronged fork... Get some spacing in there!!!!

• How Adult this film was.  It was rated PG-13... But I was a little uncomfortable that my 16 year old sister was watching it with us... I mean there is Vampire on Witch sex and it is violent.  Yeah my sister knows what sex is, most teens do, but it's like borderline softcore porn... I didn't think it had to be that... *shudders* blech.  It just wasn't a good scene.  I HOPE that most parents didn't bring their 8 year olds to see this movie... the sex scenes (there's more than one!!) were intense, the blood is all over the place, the ghosts are not scary, but might plague a child who has an over active imagination.  It also has drug use in it... there's pot smoking, of course I mean this is the 1970's.  It's not essential to the story, but it's part of life back then.  I hope that the kids know that those drugs are not legal and they shouldn't use them... oh listen to me, turning into an after school special.

Above the Influence... The More you know... Just say No to drugs!

• It wasn't that funny.  It really wasn't... It was a lot of talking... Business talk and sex talk... A little bit of love talk and then like a tiny amount of funny talk.  The jokes are alright, I mentioned one up in Pros.  I feel like it could have done better in the "jokes" department... Pretty much all the funny parts are in the various trailers.  I have the feeling the hypnosis deal was supposed to be funnier than it was.  It was silly the first time Barnabas does it because he's using it on Willie Loomis the servant and Willie is smashed... DRUNK.  But that's the only reason it's funny.
• Eva Green.  UGH.  She's toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo skinny.  And I'm not just saying that cause I'm a chunky gal.  She looks like she may have blown away if the wind picked up.  She is so thin she looks sickly.  I don't like the character; I'm not supposed to, she's the villain.  I hate all of her scenes... She may be a good actress, I don't know I've only seen her act in two movies, this and the Golden Compass and I don't recall her character in that film.  I don't like her face, I don't like her body.  I think it has something to do with how much she looks like Kristin "I have no emotions" Stewart and the FACT that her lips are too wide for her face.  She's frightfully thin... We should set up a fund to feed the starving actresses...  Send her some cheeseburgers!

This photo's obviously shopped but she really is too thin.

• I hate the portrayal of witches in this film.  I wish they would have made it more clear that she was using BLACK magic and that she was using VOODOO and not just your average every day witch.  Yeah Barnabas is all "She's working for the Devil!" but most people think that all witches are working for the devil... they aren't, at least none of the witches I know aren't.  It's rude and a little religiously insensitive.
• The blood transfusion.  Now that I've taken Bio class I know that our red bone marrow produces new blood cells every day, hell yours is doing it right now!  Each red blood cell lives for about 28 to 31 days, so a month... If Barnabas completely removed his blood and replaced it with a human's blood, he'd only be human for a month before his red bone marrow would completely replace the human blood with vampire blood... Wait a tic, do vampires even have blood?
• The ending.  OH COME THE FUCK ON!  Here's another Twilight rip off.  Let's make him bite her and turn her into a vampire!!!  I can't believe this BULL SHIT!  It makes me mad, now I'm not sure if that's how the series went in the 1960's or not, but it still angers me.  I don't see what is wrong with him and "Victoria" living their lives together while he never get's old... it's sad, but at least she's not a vampire! At least it doesn't rip off a shit movie!!

How I felt typing all this out...

Well that about wraps it up... my pros and cons of this movie... Honestly I didn't really like it.  You don't have to agree with me but you can leave me comments!  Cheers!!


EDIT I'd just like to add, I HATE Twilight... I'm not sure if I made that clear or not... I don't want it to sound like I'm mad that Twilight doesn't get recognition or something... that is one awful series and I'm not saying that I'm upset Dark Shadows shares similarities; I'm upset Twilight exists and causes other films to think "We can only be successful if our movie has vampires AND werewolves in it!"

Alpha and Omega

Alpha and Omega

Year: 2010

Country: US

Genre: computer animated comedy-drama

Director: Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck

Stars: Justin Long, Hayden Panettiere, Dennis Hopper, Danny Glover, Chris Carmack, and Christina Ricci

So today at lunch time I was like "I think I'll watch something on netflix... I turn on the netflix and don't see much... it's between Rango and this Alpha and Omega movie. I remember wanting to watch A&O at some point in my life, so I figured I'll just watch it now, it's short and shouldn't take me too long.

Alpha and Omega is every furry's wet dream.  A bucket-ton of anthropomorphic wolves sing-howling at each other and dancing... I also like how they get married and do other anthropomorphic things... NOT!  Really I should have expected this, but I'll claim didn't know any better.

Your typical Anthropomorphic Wolf art, complete with wolf wang.

The story goes like this, there are 2 types of wolves within each pack, the Alphas who hunt and are superior and strong, and the Omegas who are silly (Really, just silly; they don't give any other trait that these wolves have, just that they are jokers).  An Alpha goes to Alpha school to learn to be a sleek and strong hunter/pack leader.  The Omegas don't do much...  When a certain Alpha named Kate, voiced by Hayden Panettiere, goes off to Alpha school, she's taught how to hunt.  When she returns in the spring her Omega friend, voiced by Justin Long, is pleased to greet her and even tries to play with her, but Kate's totally Alpha now and has no time for fun and games...  Kate's dad, voiced by Danny Glover, is trying to unite their pack with the Eastern pack by marring Kate off to their Alpha, Garth, voiced by Chris Carmack.  Garth is awesome in every way an Alpha should be except he sucks at howling.

Party on, Garth!

The wolves have this creepy Howling ceremony and it gets a little... disturbing... I guess... I mean the wolves are singing with human voices and dancing on two legs... kinda weird if you ask me.  Anyway Kate finds Garth's howl to be lacking and wanders away from him.  She runs into her Omega pal, Humphrey (get it? HUMPhrey?) and they get tranq darted and shipped from Jasper Forest in Canada to Idaho (I da what?) at Sawtooth National Recreation area!  They are apparently supposed to "repopulate" and since they are an Alpha and an Omega, the two wolves say they can't.  They run into a bald golf-playing French(Canadian) Goose, voiced by Larry Miller, and his caddy duck, voiced by Eric Prince.  Kate and Humphrey need to find out where they are.  They see the birds and say "Let's ask them, and if they don't help us, we'll eat them!"  Wow.  That's a touch dark.  The birds are rightfully afraid of the wolves at first, but then agree to help them get home.

Pretty Lilly!

Meanwhile back at West Pack, it's discovered that Kate is missing... no one even mentions that Humphrey is missing, but he's an Omega, what should we care?  Winston blames Garth's dad, Tony, voiced by Dennis Hopper, and Tony blames Winston.  It's agreed that in two days if Kate is not back to marry Garth then the two packs will fight.  In the meantime Garth spends time with the West pack and Kate's Omega sister, Lilly, voiced by Christina Ricci.  What do you think happens? Garth falls in love with Lilly.  Honestly Lilly is my favorite character.  She's pretty and doesn't really do much anthropomorphic stuff like the other wolves.

And back to Kate and Humphrey, yeah they do get home, just in time for the big fight.  Right before they get home, Humphrey starts howling with Kate... I guess the secret's out.  He loves her.  She's betrothed though! Oh no! shenanigans!!  Since Kate has returned, she and Garth will marry the next morning.  They go through this weird wedding ceremony and right before Kate sniff's Garth's nose, she backs out... Seriously? I mean she didn't even think to stop the wedding sooner? Anyway, "blah, blah, blah, this is an outrage!" An Alpha and an Omega can never marry... well what they really mean is they shouldn't "repopulate"  Kinda, adult for a kids movie... so the two packs fight and a caribou stampede happens.  Winston and Tony are caught in the middle of the stampede so Humphrey and Kate must save the pack leaders... Which they do and Kate gets trampled in the process... but this is a kid's movie, no one dies.  Kate and Winston live happily ever after and Lilly and Garth live happily ever after and there's caribou for everyone.

The art is pretty, the animation studio is called Crest Animation Studio... I don't think they are like Crest the toothpaste, but still, they are lesser known than... well... Dreamworks or Pixar, but they aren't a bad studio.  They are just a small studio with 8 movies, including this one and two in the works for 2012 and 2013, including... oh dear lord... Alpha and Omega 2.... just... promise me it'll be a direct to dvd movie?  Please...  Ahem... The music is nice and fitting for the scenes... The voice acting is surprisingly good, half the time I forget I'm listening to goofy-looking Justin Long.  Perhaps he should continue a voice acting career.  If you gotta watch this movie, just try not to take it too seriously.  Which is easy to do with names like Tony, Kate, Garth, and Humphrey... Seriously? Who picked these names? They are kinda ridiculous!

All in all the movie's a little creepy... I just don't know.  It's a nice story and the art is very beautiful, but I'm just creeped out because of all the anthropomorphic wolves...  I swear I just watched a soft-core anthropomorphic wolf porno... So disturbed...

I forgot to mention how much I hate the West Pack's Female Alpha, Kate's Mom.  She's kind of strange and bitchy... She is a fan of ripping body parts off other wolves and stuffing them down their throats... I swear, she's the villain in this movie.  She's scary and off the wall crazy... Plus her hair is down right just... ugh... Oh yeah and the hair these wolves have is all part of the anthropomorphic shit, and I really think it's wrong and disturbing.

Beneath a Steel Sky

The Tonnina here!  I'm reviewing an older PC game for distopia month!

It's Foster and Joey!

Beneath a Steel Sky is a game that came out in March, 1994.  It was Developed by Revolution Software and Published by Virgin Interactive.  It's a point-and-click adventure game, my first one actually.  One of the interesting things about this specific adventure game is you can die (and die you will if you're not clever in solving the puzzles!)  The game is set in an unknown point in the future in Australia, Earth has been significantly damaged, possibly by pollution and/or nuclear fallout.  How do we know it's Australia? (There's never any date or place announced) Because the main character is named after Fosters, the beer. (I'm dead serious! Check this video of the intro out at 3:23) Oh and I guess cause he was taught to hunt kangaroos...

It's Australian for BEER!

Robert Foster and his faithful companion Joey (Kangaroo joke?) are basically kidnapped and taken by a helicopter to Union City.  The chopper crashes and Robert lives, runs away and now is a terrorist, but this title doesn't last for long.  Rob uses his quick thinking to get out of a jam and find a "shell for Joey.  Joey changes his robot shell 4 times in this game, he is entertaining, though, in all forms... Foster runs into a lot interesting characters in his short adventure to ground level.

You can see the many levels of Union City from this rather dangerous fire escape!

The game touches on a caste system.  There's levels of LINC within the city and if you screw up, you are D-LINC'd and end up at level 0.  Level 8 is the highest level mentioned as it is the level required to get to ground level.  Kind of like a reverse penthouse.  Yes, eventually you get down to ground level so you do get to level 8!  You can see how the world changes as you progress down the city. The first level you are in is industrious and ugly.  The second level is okay, less industrial but still not 100% clean.  The ground level is picturesque and beautiful but it still has it's own secrets and shadiness.  The very virtual part of the game, called LINC space, is very... Nineties to say the least... ever see the movie "The Lawnmower Man?" Me neither, but my parents had the movie and the back of the box showed scenes from a virtual reality (I think) and it kinda looked like that.  The last part of the game is all labratory-ish. 

Top level

Middle level

Ground level

LINC space

It's really a beautiful game, the art and the small bits of animation are very well done!  This game won "Best Dialog" (PC Gamer) and "Best Adventure" (Golden Joystick Awards) in 1995.  Many gamers claim this is the BEST adventure game in existence.  With a bucket ton of positive review scores (From 95% to 86%) it's no surprise why this game is so well received!

Post-Apocalyptia never looked so pretty!

This game is pretty short, I completed it in about 5 hours.  It's fun though... very challenging and actually makes you think.  You have to look really hard for many of the clues/items you are going to use.  The best part of this game is the dialog.  This game was released in a few different countries and I'm sure there's slightly different text/dialog for each countries versions.  I suggest playing the game with both text AND speaking.  It's much better that way.  Most of the voice acting is rather British sounding.  Of my count only one of the characters you encounter is actually Australian.

Some of the humor...

I won't give away the ending but I do want to let you know that the game does get a tad dark in the end.  Don't save in the last room either, the game is glitched and you will not be able to recover it.  Don't feel bad about looking things up either, the game is very good at hiding tools and materials you will need to continue on.  And there's only one point where you must combine two items to get a new tool, so I'll give you that one hint!

Warning, there's some photographic nudity... and this scene is too funny!

So check out this awesomely fun game! Where can you find it? Well, gog.com is offering it for free, that's where I downloaded my copy... It's also available on iOS in the Apple App Store (The photos with the blue icons in the corners on this review are from that 2009 version of the game!)  It's a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  It's funny, clever, and kept me thinking!  There are rumors for a sequel out there... I do hope they make the sequel because it's an amazing game!