Beauty & The Beast 3D
Alan's Totally Biased Mini-Movie Reviews
I just don't have time to write full reviews anymore but I'll try to jab down a few lines about the movies that I see at the theatre.
2012 Movies
Everyone has seen this movie so I don't need to tell you it's a good Disney film. What really surprised me was the 3D was awesome! I've seen other films, like The Clash of the Titans remake, where the 3D effect was added after the movie was complete and it's always been mediocre to disappointing. This detail of this 3D was VERY impressive. The layering especially. Anyway, I liked it and I've seen this movie 100's of times, but this time was almost like seeing it again for the first time.
2011 Movies
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
+
Disclaimer: I was a fan of this book series and the original movie Millennium Trilogy before I saw this film and already decided many months before seeing it that it would be my favorite movie of the year.
That being said, this movie was awesome. I can't wait to see it again, and again. I love this series. I LOVE Lisabeth and the girl who played her (Rooney Mara) in this version was even better than the original. I also loved Daniel Craig (James Bond) as Mikael Blomkvist. This movie version was more in depth than the edited version I saw of the original film (since then they have released and extended version of the original 3 films, but I haven't seen them yet.) It was everything I hoped it would be. Completely met my high expectations.
I saw this movie over Christmas. I don't really remember it well. I liked it, but obviously I didn't love it. The effects were fun but for some reason I can't recall anything about it.
Alvin & The Chipmunks: Chip Wrecked
It's a Chipmunks movie. It was funny. The kids liked it.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
This movie is just one long crazy over the top action sequence. I mean that in a good way. It was super exciting and fun. Shaun of the Dead was really funny in it as the tech guy on the team. This is a fun summer movie that for some reason is playing at Christmas, so don't expect great drama or rich story or anything. But if you like explosions.... Ghost Protocol!
Sherlock
Holmes: A Game of Shadows
I really liked Game of Shadows. I actually liked it even more than the first film. Professor Moriarty made for a much cooler villain. I also liked all the slow-mo fighting (like in the first film) and the slow-mo gun fight in the forest. All very cool and very fun.
I am making an exception to review this movie. Usually I only review movies I see in the theater. Unfortunately, even though I would have been there opening day, this movie never opened in my area. So why the special consideration? Because Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil is one of the funniest best movies I've seen in years! I got the DVD this week and watched it twice the day I got it! It's super super funny. I'm bringing a copy to Michigan for Christmas and there WILL be a required screening. The story is familiar, "Deliverance" meets "Wrong Turn" meets "Evil Dead" etc. But this time we see it from the hillbilly point of view and they're not at all evil just confused about what is going on. You get the idea. Now you need to literally stop what you're doing and go buy/rent/download and watch this movie immediately (Unless you are a Rowland or Fisher, you wait till I get there at Christmas). I am confident that this movie will be my number 2 pick of the year (right behind The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.) It was way, way more enjoyable than most of the movies I saw this year.
The Muppet movie was really funny. Even more so than I expected. Since most all of the guest stars and adult humor was directed at my demographic it was a very good holiday movie to see over the Thanksgiving weekend with the kids. The song "Man or Muppet" was super funny.
Hugo is a beautiful 3-D family movie with a neat story directed by the great Martin Scorsese that will bore a child to death. I would NOT recommend it for children.
This "300" ish movie is a fun action movie that is beautifully filmed. The fight sequences, especially between the Gods and the Titans are amazing. The story is interesting enough. I really liked this movie. It will probably be amazing on Blu ray.
I was both super disappointed and sort of entertained by this movie. I liked it. It was as fun as the other 2, but....But...BUT... If you saw the previews for this movie, you were wildly misinformed. And I mean this literally, Probably 2/3 of the scenes in the trailer, WERE NOT IN THIS FILM! And that was disappointing. Remember the little girl jumping from the loft bedroom down to the main floor of the house? It's not in the movie. The scenes with the mother filming the girls in the mirror? It's not in the movie. The scene where the little girl throws the water and it hits something invisible? It's not in the movie. And so on and so on.
Sasha was dying to see this movie. It was a fun, nice, funny, family film. There is a neat part at the end where you see all the original footage from the actual saving of the dolphin and rehab. It's cool to see the dolphin when it was younger and what the real people looked like. The guy who was played by Harry Connick Jr. must have totally bribed the casting director. :)
This was a great epidemic movie. It's like a zombie movie where the zombies all die soon after they are infected. The scary part of this movie is the collapse of society and the fact, that I now believe to be true, that our government and the authorities we assume will protect us are completely unprepared. After 9/11, Katrina, the tsunami and earthquakes in the last few years, I've never been more certain that we are literally living each day as if it's our last. Nobody is prepared for anything and we're all doomed.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
I've never been a huge fan of Planet of the Apes. It just never appealed to me. Of course I saw all the movies and the TV series when I was a kid. So even though this movie got great reviews and the guys at my comic store told me it was awesome, my expectations were kind of low going in. So I'm happy to say that I LOVED this movie. It was way, WAY better than I ever could have hoped. It had a great story and it really did a fantastic job of explaining the whole origin of The Planet of the Apes. You find out how and why they got so smart, what happened to the humans. You see the Mars mission that leaves Earth and then get lost. It was fantastic! Plus you really feel for the characters and get really excited when the apes start to break free. Definitely go see it. It's probably the last of the great summer movies of 2011.
I was really excited to see this movie. And I enjoyed it but not as much as I hoped I would. I'm not sure why. Maybe too much cowboys and not enough aliens?
Captain America: The First Avenger
I really liked Captain America. I thought it was a great origin story. I especially liked that it took place in the past (during WW II, one of my favorite movie and documentary subjects) and that it included more of that historical revisionism that I spoke about in the Transformers and X-Men: First Class reviews below. Great action sequences.
Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Spoilers, Be Warned: OK, Pot Heads, or whatever you call yourselves, don't be mad. I was disappointed in the final Harry Potter movie. In the weeks leading up to this final movie I watched all the pervious 7 films back to back. So I was all caught up and ready for the big finale. But there was no big finale. Remember the end of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy? It went on and on and on. You had invested about 12-13 hours in these characters so the movie had like 7 endings where you found out everything about all the characters and had closure and resolutions. Potter had none of this! It ended abruptly, had a brief flash forward that told little, then just ended. I felt robbed. I just spent about 20 hours watching these movies and I have no idea what happens to any of the characters who survived the final battle between good and evil. Also I though Voldemort was defeated too easily and Snape's death happened so fast and for no reason. (This was especially disturbing since we find him to have been the central hero of the entire series) I have since found out that everything in the film is pretty much what happens in the book. So I guess I can't blame the film makers but I was still not pleased with the end of the Harry Potter Series.
Transformers:
Dark of the Moon
+
I love the Transformers movies. Even without Megan Fox, this was an awesome movie and it was the 2nd movie this year that I took Sasha with me when I went to see it, so that was fun too. It had a good story that included the Transformers being responsible for the moon landings and Chernobyl. So that was cool. I'm enjoying all the historical revisionism in Sci-Fi and other movies lately.
Cars 2
+
Cars 2 was probably the funniest movie I saw this year so far. I loved the spy stuff. I loved that at the beginning of the movie Finn is being taken to a secret location in the middle of the ocean by Sig Hansen in The Northwestern from Deadliest Catch. There were so many fun things packed in this movie I can't wait to see it again to catch all the stuff I'm sure I missed.
I'm not sure why the reviewers decided to crap all over this movie after they heaped such praise on Thor. I loved it. It's basically the reverse story of Thor. Instead of a God (Thor) who falls to Earth and becomes a hero, Green Lantern is about a guy who gets pulled off Earth to another planet to become a God-like super hero. The effects were great, the origin story was covered, what more do you need?
Super 8
+
This movie was amazing! Easily my favorite movie of the year so far. It's the ET for the new millennium. I would not recommend it for little kids, for a PG-13 movie it does have some scary parts. The story is fantastic and the special effects are outstanding. The train crash is terrifying and the alien is really scary. The kids in the movie all do a great job. make sure you stay through the end credits to watch the zombie movie that the kids are making throughout the film. I LOVED this movie. I almost never go see movies a second time anymore but if someone asked me to go, I would go watch this movie again today!
This was the first "Daddy movie" that I took Sasha to. So now I have a movie buddy for my stupid super hero movies! Not that X-Men: First Class was stupid, it was actually really really cool. I hope they continue with these actors in the roles. James McAvoy is great as Professor. X. There's a running joke through the whole movie about how protective he is of his hair. That was fun. And Michael Fassbender from Inglourious Basterds is absolutely outstanding as Magneto. The cameo by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is super funny too. Not that the movie is a comedy. It's a really neat retelling of the Cuban missile crisis - The story we didn't learn about in history. So anyway this is a great reboot for X-Men. I can't wait to see the next one.
I loved the first King Fu Panda. I often suggest it for the kids to watch just because I secretly want to watch it myself. This movie is really funny. It doesn't have that same kick (ha-ha) as the first but it's a serviceable second and it ends with a peek at the 3rd, so we know that Po and The Furious Five have at least one more adventure.
Pirates of the Caribbean:
On Stranger Tides
Meh. I guess it's worth watching if you've watched all the others so far, but I honestly forgot everything about it already.
Thor was awesome! Maybe I'm just geeked because there hasn't been a good super hero movie in a while. That will probably change since there's like 10 more coming out over the next few months. The neat thing about this movie was it seemed more mythic and grand. I would probably credit Shakespearean director Kenneth Branagh with that. The story has a real comic book feel in it's scope. Also The Destroyer, an enchanted suit of armor forged by Odin, looks perfect and makes one of the scariest sounds I've ever heard in a movie. It's actually like a "new sound" which is what makes it so memorable. Anyway, if you haven't seen it check it out.
I expected Hanna to be a little more like Kick-Ass by way of Jason Bourne. And I suppose it was, but it was more of a weak PG-13 version of both. That was unfortunate. I really wanted to love it. It was OK, but not as exciting or violent as I wanted it to be. Sort of the same problem I had with Sucker Punch. I really need to see an R rated movie, ASAP.
I can't believe this is happening. I really really really wanted to love Sucker Punch. God I wanted to love it. I liked it for sure, but even though it had all the elements of a perfect Alan movie, it fell short somehow. And as I’ve had a few hours of sleep and can think about it, I think the problem was that it wasn’t long enough. It needed more. This was an original story from director Zach Snyder (who Is currently one of my favorite directors.) His slavish adaptations of graphic novels (Watchmen written by Alan Moore and 300 written by Frank Miller, both masters) gave him not just the perfectly realized story but the actual storyboards for those films. He might have benefited here if Sucker Punch was first a graphic novel as well. I’m not saying the story was bad (you know how I hate that kind of review) but I felt like there should have been more transitional scenes. Maybe a DVD director’s cut will add back an hour more movie that the studio perhaps made him cut to bring the movie in under 2 hours.
The girls were all super sexy-perfect, but I did have a problem with the main villain. He was just too little (literally) and not menacing enough. He has a scene near the end where he comes close, but had he maintained that level of intensity throughout, it might have given more urgency to the girls struggle.
Anyway, is it worth seeing? Definitely, of course. Visually it’s stunning. And for those of you (reviewers) who have a problem with movies being “too much like watching someone else play a video game”? - Man, are you going to hate this film. It’s so much like watching a video game your hands might actually involuntarily lurch forward at certain moments to grasp for the controller. Anyway, Sucker Punch, I like-liked it, but I'm not "in love" with it.
PS: Later in the day I realized what was missing from Sucker Punch. An R Rating. All of the Zach Snyder movies that I've seen and loved have been rated Hard R. I said above that the movie seemed "edited for length", that may be so, but it was also dulled down in content to get the PG-13 rating. This may increase box office, but it diminished appeal.
Paul
Paul was not the next great movie of 2011. It was really good though. Super funny. There were so many awesome Sci-Fi references in it. It was really geared toward the uber geek Comic-con crowd. It even starts at Comic-con! The casting was great. I wish there was a movie with Shaun and Ed in it every year. They're a great comedy team. My only problem was that I didn't really like Seth Rogen as the voice of the alien, Paul. His voice has become cliché, if that's possible. Maybe I'm just sick of hearing it. I don't know. It was funny in the first 100 movies he was in last year but now I'm losing interest. More inspired voice casting would have been someone like David Duchovny. Anyway, Paul is definitely worth watching. Waiting for Netflix will probably be alright though.
Battle:
Los Angeles
+
Battle: Los Angeles - Average Score on Metacritic = 37/100.
New York Daily News: "This one isn't original, or even bearable." Score 0/100
Roger Ebert: "Battle: Los Angeles" is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid." Score 12/100
Village Voice: "Not a single arresting image is found amid the sci-fi rubble" Score 20/100
Alan Wiseman: "Battle: Los Angeles is exactly what it was meant to be. Nothing more, nothing less. It is 112, almost perfect, minutes of nearly non-stop alien vs. human urban combat. It is the first movie in months, MONTHS, that has been worth my attention. I LOVE IT UNCONDITIONALLY. Score100/100
Allow me to use some
of the bad things I read about it to illustrate why it was so great.
"It's like watching someone else play a video game." said more than
one reviewer. True: It is EXACTLY like watching the best Alien Vs.
Military video game ever made, played by the best person who ever played the
game. Why is this a bad thing? Video games these days are amazing,
and I'm amazingly terrible at playing them. The only way I will ever get
to see this movie/game is if someone plays it for me, and that seems a perfect
fit for how lazy and unskilled at video games I am. Also, isn't watching
someone who is awesome play a game that you love just called "watching
sports"? So what's the difference?
"Battle: Los Angeles is just a hybrid of Black Hawk Down and War of the
Worlds." said the Chicago Tribune. Are you kidding me? If I see
a movie poster that uses that as it's tagline, I drop whatever I'm doing at that
moment and go see that amazing movie immediately! So what you're basically
saying Chicago Tribune is it's like two awesome movies for the price of one?
It's twice as cool? It's two times as exciting? What's your point?
"It has no ending! There's no character development! There's no
story!" paraphrased from various reviews. The movie is called
"Battle: Los Angeles". It was not called "The Epic and
Complete Account of the Alien Invasion of Earth and Everything that had Anything
to Do With It". What you see in the movie is the Battle for Los
Angeles. If you need more, then this isn't the movie you want to see.
I think I made my point here. I can keep raging and defending what was
basically the first GREAT movie of 2011, or I can stop and move on to what I
hope will be the next great movie of 2011.
The
Green Hornet
I forgot to write a review for this, my first movie of 2011. I remember it was fun and I liked it, but I didn't love it and now only 2 months later I can literally remember nothing about it.
2010 Movies
Wow! Was this a cool movie. VERY Aronofsky. Remember Requiem for a Dream? Queen Amadala and The That 70's Show girl did great jobs. This movie might give you nightmares. But they would be good nightmares!
Besides the fun of watching the girl in the poster above for 2 hours (Thirteen from House), Tron is basically a 3-D Motion Ride. It looks awesome and it's really fun. If it wasn't so expensive I would ride again!
When I heard about this movie I joked it was going to be an hour and 45 minutes of a guy screaming "Help!" and then 5 minutes more screaming while he cuts off his own arm. The funny thing is that pretty much is the whole movie! But it's amazingly engaging. I remember seeing this story on the news, so the end was no big surprise, but it is a great film that tells the story in a very entertaining way. And if James Franco isn't nominated for an Oscar it will be a crime.
All the critics and the rest of the population of the planet got it wrong again with this one, Skyline was awesome! A cool Alien Invasion movie! Hells Yes! Sure it was a mash up of a bunch of other movies (The Matrix, Independence Day, The Mist, War of the Worlds, District 9, Cloverfield, etc.) but if you look at the list they stole from you pretty much see most of my favorite movies of the last 15 years. So lets see, they took ideas from all my favorite movies and combined them all into one kick-ass movie - Does Alan approve? Bigtime! It was like watching a custom movie that was specifically made for a target audience of me!
In keeping with it's tradition of releasing 2 movies with the same theme in the same year (Armageddon/Deep Impact, Dantes Peak/Volcano, Tombstone/ Wyatt Earp, Capote/Infamous, Braveheart/Rob Roy, Valmont/Dangerous Liaisons, etc), a few months after the super funny "Villain becomes Hero" movie Despicable Me (See Below) we get the not quite as funny Will Ferrell version with Megamind. I thought this film was funny (calm down Rowland Family) but I liked DM better. I'm sure my lifelong distaste for Will Ferrell had something to do with my not liking the movie as much.
The Social Network is the story of the creation of Facebook. I'm basically writing that for my Mom & Dad in case they read this. It was a very interesting and rapid fire talky movie. I really liked it. Will it win Best Picture, maybe, but I hope not. It definitely should win Best Screenplay and it's probably the weakest year in the history of movies, so that will help it's chances for Best Picture. My pic for Best Picture is Inception.
OK, I'll try to be more calm in my review of this since I seemed to have led everybody astray with my glowing reviews of the first Paranormal Activity movie. The cool thing about this one is that it's a prequel that includes all the stuff from the first movie and actually explains a lot about why what happened in that film happened. It's got a bit more spooky stuff and the infant baby and dog are cool victims for the demon.
Wow! I really really liked this movie. First off Hit Girl from Kick Ass is the little girl vampire. The violence is rated R. The story is a sweet pre-teen love story. NOT a crappy boring Twilight-type vampire love movie. This was a great film and pretty topical with the bullying story-line. I highly recommend it.
I was crazy excited about Resident Evil 4. I LOVE the Resident Evil movies and this was gonna be in 3-D! The first 3-D Zombie movie! But... I didn't really like it. Not as much action as I had hoped. Nowhere near enough zombies. And now that there's an endless supply of Alices (see end of Res Evil 3) there's no real concern for her dying. I guess I still liked it, but didn't love it like the last few.
I was super excited when I heard they were making this after seeing what I thought was a fake preview in Grindhouse. I LOVED Machete. It was basically Grindhouse Part 3. It had cool stars, over the top violence and lusciously unnecessary nudity. I wish Robert Rodriguez would make all my movies. He's one of those can-do-no-wrong directors.
Ok, so obviously this isn't a great movie, but I'm going to have to insist that you go see it at the theater. I've seen lots of things in my life, but it wasn't until last weekend that I saw naked girls in 3-D being eaten by prehistoric fish. But now I can happily check that off my list. The movie is fun enough to be worth dragging your lazy butt to the theater, and shelling out the 10 bucks or whatever it costs. It's got a fun cameo at the beginning by Richard Dreyfus playing his character from Jaws, and it's got a handful of halfway decent actors for such an obvious B-Movie drive-in type flick. The gore is awesome too. So do you really want to miss this? It's not going to be the same on DVD. At home with no 3-D you're not gonna have as much fun.
Oh my God, this movie was so awesome! I LOVED IT! It's currently #3 of my top 3 movies of the year. Right behind Inception and Kick-Ass. It's directed by Edgar Wright (The guy who made Spaced, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead). I love everything he has done, so he's still on a roll. The only problem with the movie is that it's actually too cool. As a 39 year old, I'm not hip enough to really be a fan of Scott Pilgrim, and I never read the graphic novels, and I'm not a gamer, so there's probably a ton of cool stuff in the movie that I don't even know about. But what I saw was amazingly fun and that's all I really care about.
Watching Angelina in sexy action hero mode is worth the price of a ticket. This movie is a non-stop action sequence. Plus the old school Russian bad guys are a neato throwback. You'll see the twists coming from a mile away, but it's a fun ride.
I wasn't sure it was going to happen but it did. Kick-Ass just got bumped off the top of my list for Best Movie of the Year. And looking ahead I'm pretty sure the year will end with Inception head and shoulders above the rest. Awesome doesn't even begin to describe it. It's so cool. I saw it in IMAX and that was totally worth the extra 3 bucks. It was huge and the score was deafening. I LOVED this movie so much. The story, while borrowing heavily from older movies like Brainstorm, Dark City and Existence, still was very original and gripping. This is the must see movie of the year. I command anyone reading this to go see it immediately. Your life will literally be meaningless if you don't see this movie. It's that good.
This movie was super cool and super funny. The minions were totally the best part of the film. They need their own spin off series like the Madagascar Penguins. This film really used some of the old school elements of 3D too. Especially the stuff in the final credits where they show you just how far 3D can go. This is still in theaters, so if you have a kid who hasn't seen it yet go now. If you don't have a kid go anyway, it's hot outside and it's a fun 3D movie!
The
Karate Kid
I really liked this movie and I really liked that for some reason Sasha was super excited to see it. It followed the original story very respectfully although this new one had a slightly more serious tone. The scorpion flip kick at the end of the film had me practically standing in my chair cheering and would have destroyed the original Daniel-son's lame crane-style finale kick. It was also cool that Jaden totally reminds me of Will Smith. He even does some of the same facial expressions. It's nice to know that I'll get to keep seeing Will Smith classic or 2.0 versions for the next 70 years or so.
I'm really glad I have kids so I have an excuse to go to all the kid movies this summer. And this might be the best kid movie summer ever. After all that I read and knowing this is Pixar I was expecting nothing short of excellence and it was delivered in abundance. I was a little worried that the third installment of Toy Story couldn't possibly live up to it's 2 predecessors, but it totally did and opened the door for more if they want tom make em. I'm not really surprised how hilarious and touching the film was. All the Toy Story films have been that way for me. The song about the girl in the second Toy Story movie makes me cry every time I see it. And this new one had about 3 or 4 of those moments. If anything is wrong with the Toy Story series it's this: it makes it nearly impossible when you get home to get rid of your kids old or broken toys, makes you tip toe around the ones that are currently being played with and encourages you to get the old ones out of the drawers so they can have fun too. I feel guilty now when I secretly throw away stupid cheap Happy Meal toys. Thanks a lot Toy Story!
I really wanted to like Splice. The critics loved it. From the previews it kinda looked like a genetic remake of the movie Species that I loved like 20 years ago. But for some reason I didn't really love it. I'm not sure why.
I LOVED this movie. Now admittedly, I was a fan of the show too. I loved that as well so it was not a great leap to go see this reboot and love it all over again. It was just like an episode of the TV show but juiced up to 11 on steroids. We got to see the backstory that we only used to see in the credits and their first mission together. All the actors were perfectly cast, especially the guy in the Mr. T role. He did a great impersonation, just like the real T! The scene in the falling tank is still fresh in my memory weeks later. Great line: "What are they doing?", "I think they're trying to fly that tank!" Awesome! Go rent it as soon as it comes out.
I'm not sure how it happened but Ridley Scott and Russle Crow made a kinda boring Robin Hood movie. The problem with this movie is it was a prequel. So all the stuff you like about Robin Hood hasn't happened yet and in this movie, never will. In the last epic version of this story with Kevin Kostner, they told the prequel stuff in a 10 minute flashback then got to business. I didn't need to see a 2.5 hour version of that 10 minutes of stuff. Plus Robin Hood is supposed to be sort of lighthearted, not all angry and brooding.
This movie was OK fun. It had pretty good action and a few funny scenes but I don't really remember much about it a month after seeing it so it must not have been great.
So obviously I liked Iron Man 2. It was super fun. But I didn't Love it. I liked the first one better. Most of the reviews I've read so far have talked about how it had too much going on. Too many villains, etc... I actually thought the opposite. From what I remember there were only 2 action scenes in the whole movie. The race track and the final battle with the drones. That's it? The rest of the movie was just Tony having one personal crisis after another. And as far as the bad guys, Whiplash and Hammer were fun, but they really only posed a threat to Tony. There was no real peril for Iron man to save everybody from. Remember in the first movie when Tony got his suit working and immediately flew to the middle East and wiped out an entire gang of terrorists? That was awesome! That was super cool. Nothing like that really happened in this movie. I loved seeing Black Widow and Nick Fury and all the hints at the upcoming Avenger Series, but then what the heck happened to Rhodes? I sort of understand his motivation but it seemed out of character for him to go against Tony to the point of stealing an Iron Man suit. That seemed wrong to me for some reason. In the last movie he always seemed upset with Tony but you got the impression when the time came Rhodey would have his back. Anyway. I know I just complained for a whole paragraph, but honestly I enjoyed the film. It was an Iron Man film after all. Just not quite the one I was expecting.
Babies is a documentary that follows 4 newborns during their first 15 months. The babies live in Mongolia, San Francisco, Japan and Africa so they all have somewhat different experiences. You get to see that with no narration and little or no dialogue for about and hour and 20 minutes. It has funny parts but it's not like stupid America's Funniest Home Videos/You Tube type stuff. It's interesting to see how babies are pretty much the same everywhere for that first year, before they learn to be different. Anyway, if you have kids you will probably appreciate this film. It's fun to see something of your own kids in the kids from other countries. At one point the Mongolian kid couldn't figure out this toy and she kept throwing these little tantrums that looked exactly like what Anya does when she can't figure something out.
It's hard to talk about how much I LOVED Kick Ass without saying it was soooooo KICK ASS! Currently this is far and away my favorite movie of the year.
Here's why... I didn't really know much about it going into it. There was almost no TV ads where I live for the film and I don't think I even saw a trailer at the theater. I peeked at the review scores the night before I went and they seemed favorable so it seemed like a good bet. This was the 3rd movie I watched on Saturday after Clash and Hot Tub. So it was a super-cool surprise when the movie was awesome beyond belief!
First of all it's violent. VERY violent, like over the top Tarantino violence Kill Bill style. And you know I love that. In fact while I was watching it, I was thinking this is like a Michael Cera teen movie written by Quentin Tarantino. It's really funny but has a serious real-life kind of vibe too. It really is kind of like "what if a few normal people decided to try and be superheroes". The results can and would probably be disasterous.
I said before it's funny, and it is. Nicholas Cage is hilarious in pretty much every scene he's in. Plus his Dark Knight outfit and Adam West vocal delivery is awesome.
Next, and here's my favorite part of the movie. Nicholas Cage's daughter is Hit Girl. Hit Girl is awesome. She's the most bad ass 11 year old girl I've ever seen in a movie. Everything she does and says is so over the top shocking and violent I was practically standing in my seat cheering during every scene she's in. Especially the final battle. I can't wait for you too see that.
Also the film is very referential of comic, superhero and pop culture (Like a Tarantino movie again) and I love that.
Anyway, I thought this movie had a cool original story idea, it was very well executed and it was long enough to be both good and funny at the same time. Go see Kick Ass. Go now. NOW!
I remember really liking the original Clash of the Titans. I must have liked it even more than I imagined because even though I haven't seen it since I was a little kid, I seemed to remember pretty much everything in it when I saw it again in this well made remake. Anyway, it's a really fun movie to see, I liked all the actors and the action was fun and nearly constant. It's a great summer kick-off to Action movie season.
PS: This is a movie available in 3D but it was not filmed that way. The 3D effect was added after as an enhancement so I will say that if you have to pay extra for 3D, this movie is probably not worth it. The 3D was good but, since it wasn't planned in advance it doesn't really add anything to the viewing experience. They will probably do this next time they re-release the Star Wars films.
I thought this movie would be great. I like all the actors in it, especially Cusack. But, it wasn't. There were about 4 jokes where I laughed out loud and the rest of the time I was just waiting for it to be over. Kind of like The Hangover.
I'm not going to say a lot about this because it's a kids movie, but I really liked it. The 3D was awesome and it's a great story with tons of fun comedy and action. Loved it!
So I was excited to see this because the visuals looked awesome and I figured Tim Burton would make the best Alice in Wonderland ever filmed. I was "kinda" right. The visuals were neat but not as blow-you-away spectacular as I was expecting. The story was dark and creepy but not as much as I had hoped. (Also, the story is not Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, but rather a new story that takes inspirations from both stories and Jabberwocky.) Pretty much all I can say is that is was worth watching but it kinda falls into the same category as Burton's remake of Willy Wonka. Good but not Great.
Spoiler Alert: I really liked this movie. It had some scares, some gross-outs and great action throughout. In the original you saw the perspective of the military, but in this remake they left that out and I think that was for the better. It makes it all the more scary that the government is just rounding everybody up, after infecting them, and killing them all off with little or no explanation what-so-ever. This, in my opinion is how all the insane Republicans and Conservatives see Socialized Health Care. What a bunch of idiots.
I could write a 100 page paper on my thoughts regarding Shutter Island. There's a lot going on in this movie and nothing is what it seems. I don't want to spoil anything so I'm not going to talk about it now. Perhaps in my 2010 Best of list, I'll add my dissertation to this review. For now let me say that this is a GREAT movie. I loved every crazy second of it. Also, as a bonus, what Scorsese has done here is give us a new Stanley Kubrick movie. Everything about this films visuals and cinematography can be traced back to Kubrick. You should definitely see this movie and if you want to talk about it after you do, write me an email or something. I figured out some of the big questions early in the film but there are a few things I still can't explain and probably never will. Awesome movie. LOVED IT!
I really liked this movie. I can't talk about it much because it has a few big twists that I don't want to spoil, but despite the controversy, I think it's a great film. Denzel is awesome and I Gary Oldman is always a terrific villain. It was also a good post apocalypse fix to hold me over until The Road comes out on DVD. I missed that one because it only played in town here for about a week over Christmas while I was away on vacation.
This movie was better than I expected. It was an interesting story, had good actors and had some kinda scary parts. It was a fun movie and a great Vampire alternative to the boring kissy yawn-fest of the Twilight Vampires. Worth watching on DVD when it comes out.
2009 Movies
This was as super fun as I expected it to be. I wish there was more origin story, since this is the first of what I assume will be at least 2 or 3 sequels. It kind of reminded me of Batman Begins, in that even though we didn't get the origin stuff, we did get introduced to Holmes and his deductive skills and we got to see him grapple with a minor villain. The next movie sets the stage for the A-List Joker level villain - Professor Moriarty. They did this neat effect a couple times where Holmes presupposes a series of events that then work out just as expected. That was fun. Jude and Robert were great too. Don't miss this one!
Avatar
(one star for each boring dimension)
So here's my review of Avatar. I saw this on opening night on the IMAX big screen in 3D. I didn't like it. I saw it again when I was up in Michigan over Christmas break and I liked it a little better. I went to go see it for a 3rd time last week (Because Holly hasn't seen it yet) and liked it less again. I don't think I'll ever love it.
Here's why. Even though the hype for this film was insane: "It will change the way movies are experienced forever", "Revolutionary", etc... I never really experienced anything new, or that exciting. In fact, this movie is just a 3D mash up of lots of things we've seen done before and sometimes, better.
Same music as King Kong (whenever something menacing is happening ie. The Destruction of HomeTree)
Same tech as Ghost in the Shell (aircopters design was exactly the same). lots of tech was lifted from this groundbreaking manga first published in 1989.
Same Mech suits we've seen many many many times for the last 30 years - District 9, The Matrix, Aliens, Mobile Suit Gundam (started in April 7, 1979 as a serial TV show), and Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 serial Starship Soldier to name a few off the top of my head.
The Story was just a mix of Dances with Wolves and The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.
Here's something that 3 months later I still bother's me: The substance that the whole movie is based on was named "unobtainium". Now I know the movie didn't invent this term, the aerospace industry apparently did in the 50's, but the sci-fi "writers" for this movie could have come up with something that sounded less stupid. If you're just gonna hang your entire film on a dim-witted term, then why not "Can'tfindium", "HardtoLocateium", "PreciousResourceium".
My final word on the movie is this: When you were watching The new Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace, did you ever say to your self "You know that Jar Jar Binks is a fascinating character. I would really like to know a lot more about him, his culture and his civilization." If you did, then Avatar is definitely the film you've been waiting for.
The best thing about this movie it that it is still somehow a Wes Anderson movie. I LOVE ALL Wes Anderson movies so I was happy that I will be able to add this to my collection and watch it along side his other masterpieces. The stop-motion animation takes a while to get used to because it's a little more low-tech and crude than anything we've seen in the last 20 years, but after about 15 minutes you don't really notice it anymore. Not really a movie for kids. I think most kids would be kind of bored.
This was a fun action movie. Rain did a great job in the lead role and the cool matrix-y fight effects were awesome. Also it's pretty brutal violence so that's neat too!
2012
+
2012 was everything I wanted it to be. The movies of Roland Emmerich are among my favorites and include my all time favorite movie ever, Independence Day (The movie that Alan's 5+1 rating was invented for). The previews for this movie pretty much tell you exactly what you're in for. Massive global destruction (Destructo-Porn as some call it) on a scale you have never seen before on film. If you want to see every city on the West Coast break into pieces and slide into the ocean... then this is the film for you. If you want to see the White House crushed by a aircraft carrier and then swamped by a 1000 foot tidal wave... then this is the film for you. If you want to see the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter collapse and roll over and crush the Pope and the masses gathered there to pray at the End of Days...then this is the film for you. I don't know why I love these types of scenes so much, but I do. I LOVE THEM! However, if you want a realistic story with characters that you care about, then for Gods sake... this is NOT the film for you!
I forgot to post a review for this movie after I saw it. It was really good though. Great revenge film (Like Taken.) Gerard Butler was awesome, and I liked seeing Jamie Fox as the victim. He's always so cocky in movies lately. The movie will probably be even better when they release it unrated on DVD. It had some scenes where you could tell they edited out some of the violence.
Paranormal Activity was super crazy scary. I don't remember the last time I was this tense in a movie (Maybe The Hurt Locker, but for different reasons). It's not a stuff jumps out at you kinda film like Japanese Horror (The Ring, The Grudge, etc.) It builds slowly and that's one of the things that's so scary about it.
The film basically involves a couple who leave a video camera on at night to document the supernatural disturbances that take place while they sleep. Then the following day they review the video and discuss and try to figure out what to do. But the disturbances are escalating.
The scenes of the couple sleeping are so scary. The first couple times get you used to it, but soon those scenes are like the first hill on a roller coaster you've never been on. As soon as you see that tape counter start to tick away in the corner of the screen, your muscles tense up and every hair on your body stands on end.
I do want to mention something I think is important. I'm not sure how well this movie will play on DVD. It might be scary to sit at home alone at night and watch it, but I went to a midnight show after a day of work in a packed theatre and that experience made it way better. The crowd was totally into it (Just like what you see in the preview). The movie has moments of total quiet where the entire audience goes quiet too so they can listen for the bumps and creaks, then everyone shrieks and screams the moment anything happens because by then you're so freaked out.
The actors and the camera work are so natural it really seems like your just watching a couple's home movie. It's like the scariest YouTube video ever made. By the way, if you worry that the film will be to "shaky" because it's shot on home video (Like Blair Witch, Cloverfield, Open Water, etc.) don't be. There are moments of shaky cam, but the guy often mounts the camera on a tripod or on the counter or a table or something so the shot is steady. You won't get sick watching this movie.
The couple kind of remind me of Jim & Pam from The Office, (but that might be because I watched The Office before I left to see the movie.)
This movie is only playing in limited release right now. I ran out to see it tonight because I wanted to catch it before it was gone. I recommend you do the same. Go see this in the theater, late at night, with a crowd, as soon as possible. Then see how well you sleep that night. I'm writing this review right now at 2am because I'm putting off going to sleep as long as I can.
Zombieland was OK. It was not as good as I was expecting. The previews and reviews had me peeing my pants with excitement for the last 2 weeks but for me, it did not live up to the hype. I LOVE zombie movies and don't get me wrong, this is one of the good ones, but it was not what I was hoping for.
Here's the good stuff - This film is not "low budget", they spent some money on it. The zombies look great and they are "sprinters", which I favor, even though zombie purists prefer the lumbering kind. The actor's were great. Woody Harrelson was awesome and really funny and the kid who acted like Michael Cera was funny too. I liked the girls as well. The well publicized cameo was fun too, but probably could have been funnier considering who it is.
Now, the stuff I didn't like - "The rules" idea was neat-o but there were only about 5 of them and that kinda petered out after the first 30 minutes of the film. I wanted to see more rules (in the vein of The Zombie Survival Guide). The movie started off strong, lots of zombie attacks, but the last hour of the film (except for the finale) was pretty slow. Too much down time between zombies. And finally, my biggest complaint and the reason the movie didn't live up to my expectations is the scope/scale wasn't big enough. In a film called "Zombieland" I expect to see an entire "world" of zombies. I mean millions and billions of them, literally. I want to see mass global destruction as well from the giant battle that took place at the start of the outbreak. A zombie apocalypse! If you read World War Z, you know what I want. I want to see stuff like "The Battle of Yonkers", the "Port sequence on the coast of India", etc. The final battle sequence in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King proved that anything is possible with CGI, heck even the scene in the parking lot with the exploding truck in the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake had 1000's of zombies in it. Dammit! I want to see multitudes of zombies! Give me my zombies! At the end of Zombieland when the zombies attack the amusement park in Los Angeles, there were probably about 100-150 zombies, tops. In 2008, the population of Los Angeles was 9,862,049! (I don't want people to confuse this last complaint with me saying that "the film is not realistic enough." I HATE that complaint. It's stupid. I know this is a freakin' zombie flick so I don't need realism, I just wanted a lot Lot LOT more zombies.)
They keep comparing this film to Shaun of the Dead. I understand why, because it's a zomcom, but Shaun was a million times better. Shaun of the Dead was, at ALL times, super funny and filled with zombie action. Plus major cast members were picked off along the way which makes for a more exciting story. The crew from Zombieland is, unfortunately, more fortunate.
I LOVE Michael Moore movies. As an armchair Socialist, I agree 100% with everything Michael Moore says and does. In fact in most cases I don't think he goes far enough. In my perfect world, I would be more than happy to give the government 90% or more of my income if everything I and everybody needed to survive comfortably was provided.
That said, Capitalism: A Love Story is probably one of Michael's weaker movies. The problem is Capitalism, while evil, is too broad in scope to attack in a single film. In Roger & Me the enemy was GM. In Bowling for Columbine it was Gun Control. In Sicko it was health care. These are pretty much single issue topics that I can get behind and against. GM was bad and wrong for putting profits and outsourcing ahead of the people who work for the company. America has way way way too many guns and crimes and death that results from them. And we as Americans have one of the most expensive and worst health care systems in the industrialized world. I get it. I agree. And while I also agree that Capitalism is a vile system that builds up and creates wealth for 1% of the population at the expense of the remaining 99%, and should have been abolished at the end of the last millennium, I don't think Michael did a good job of explaining why or how to do it in this film.
I don't want Soviet era communism or German Socialism like they had at the turn of the last century. Conservatives and anyone else who try to make that connection are idiots and fools. I want America, the leader of the world, to take the best parts of Socialism, and make it our own. It is an ideal system in it's purest form. Capitalism: A Love Story showed us what was wrong, I hope Michael's next film will show us the way.
Surrogates was not as good as I wanted it to be. Bruce Willis + Sci-Fi usually means movie gold, but not this time. I think the problem was that the story was kind of slow and the "smoothing effect" that they used on the surrogate robots was distractingly fake looking. Every time I see this used in a movie it fails to do what the film makers envision. Another disappointment was that the plot had a huge scope, but we only got to see a small scale slice of it. I get disappointed when a film has a global phenomena (everybody in the world is living their life through a surrogate robot) but we only get to see one or two perspectives in a few blocks of a single city.
Megan Fox's, I mean Jennifer's
Body, wasn't that good. It's like a weak horror version of
Heathers. It's basically a mediocre horror comedy with a girl so
distractingly hot that you forget that you just wasted 10 bucks and 90 minutes.
Cloudy
with a Chance of Meatballs
+
Just wanted to say, no kidding, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was the funniest movie I've seen all year. I might have liked it more than Sasha, and the 3D was the best I've ever seen.
Gamer got terrible reviews but I loved it. A warning- it is a frenzied, jump-cut edited, mishmash that very closely resembles the actual world of a first person shooter video game. If you play these or watch others play, then you will be used to the style, if you don't, the action scenes may cause nausea. The story too is weak and slapped together like an after-thought, also resembling the story lines of a first person shooter video game. But if you can and want to follow it, it's a fun new take on a movie we've all seen 100 times before. Prisoner is offered freedom if he fights to the death for the amusement of the public. The guy from 300 is the star, but my favorite character was the bad guy played by the guy who plays Dexter on Showtime. You don't need to see this at the theater, it might be more fun at home on the small screen while kicking back in your gaming chair.
The new film from the Office Space director will probably become a cult hit on DVD just like Office Space did. It's not as funny as Office Space, and Ben Affleck...
1. Should not have been cast as the friend and
2. Should not have been allowed to go with the Geico Caveman hair and beard look, it was way too distracting.
Other than Ben, it's a pretty good movie with some funny lines that will probably get better with age and repeated viewings.
Rob Zombie is a great horror director. I loved his first Halloween reboot, and if I hadn't missed the first 10 minutes of this sequel, I might have enjoyed it more. It was also my 3rd film of the day so I was a little worn out. It is fun and scary and has all the cool editing and dirty grungy scenery / people that we've come to expect from Zombie and his family of horror weirdos. I especially liked the supernatural element of having Michael's mother and younger self guide the actions of the older, gigantic monster. I'll probably enjoy this better at home the second time, maybe after a seeing the first one again to refresh my memory.
So obviously I liked the new Quentin Tarantino movie. He's never made one that I didn't love and this film is as "Tarantino'd" as all the others. Long stretches of stylized super-cool dialogue punctuated by bursts of extreme ultraviolence. I felt the time between action sequences was a little bit longer than I had anticipated but maybe that was because I watched Kill Bill again earlier in the week and that movie has a greater amount of action than typical QT films. I kinda went into this expecting 2.5 hours of Nazi's getting killed and brutalized in lusciously horrific ways (such is what you see in the movie trailer) but that actually represents a tiny fraction of the film. This is not an "Action" movie. The story and characters (as in all QT films) are the show. Probably because I'm still amped up on the mindless energy of summer popcorn flicks, I went into the theater with the wrong mindset. But after the first opening sequence (that lasts about a half hour and consists of a single conversation) I remembered what a Quentin Tarantino movie is all about and was able to enjoy and soak in the film noir/war movie/spy genre re-imagining that is Inglourious Basterds.
I had pretty high expectations for District 9. The teasers looked really cool but I had no real idea what the story was. 10 minutes into the movie all my expectations had been blown away. I LOVED every second of this movie. And it just gets better and better and better as it goes along.
It's filled with action, has a really cool, new and unique storyline. It's filmed in a part of the world (South Africa) that we almost never get to see in movies and uses all unknown actors so you can be worried for everybody.
The special effects are top notch (From the Lord of the Rings Weta team). There's an alien weapon that basically explodes anyone who gets shot with it in a giant wet burst like a bloody water balloon. It's also cool to see the way the whole film is all edited together using TV news reports and video surveillance footage.
Not giving too much away, it's also super-cool to see a flip on the alien invasion scenario. The humans are terrible and cruel and the aliens are the ones you sympathize with and root for. They were not really invading, they just kinda broke down over our planet.
Looking back over my favorite films of the year so far, District 9 has shot up the list to the number 3 spot right behind Watchmen and Star Trek.
This film is kind of a combination of Black Hawk Down and the sniper scene from Full Metal Jacket. Before going to see the movie I knew that it had a super high critics scores and having read a lot of reviews from normal people, found that military folk who actually served in Iraq and Afghanistan think it's a stupid Hollywood-ized joke. Since my least favorite critique of films is that "it was unrealistic", I'll have to side with the critics on this one. It was a exciting, edge of your seat, interesting look at one of the craziest most deadly jobs on the planet. I loved the film and recommend people rent it when it comes out on DVD. Maybe that's not how it "really" happens in Iraq, but it was fun to watch.
Harry
Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Here's the thing about the Potter films - I like them but since I never read the books, it's kind of like watching the first 7 episodes of a TV show, like lets say Lost or 24, spread out over 10 years. I usually barely know what's going on or who the characters all are. This movie was easier to follow than the last one though. I love Alan Rickman as Snape. My favorite kid at the school is Luna, she's a cool weird fun character. That's really all I have to say, I'm also kinda disappointed that the last chapter is going to be split into 2 films. That's just gonna make it even harder to follow. I'm guessing when it's all over I will be able to sit down and watch all 8 films back to back for 20 hours or so and it will all make a lot more sense to me. I hope anyway.
This movie wasn't gay enough for me. Just kidding. It was the perfect amount of gay. But it wasn't as funny as Borat. I would have liked it if Bruno did more of the "ambush the homophobes" type stuff. Like walking past an anti gay protest while strapped to another guy in bondage gear. That was awesome! Those were the best parts of the film.
Transformers:
Revenge of The Fallen +
I LOVED this movie. Granted, I liked the first one too. If you liked the first film, then this is basically the same movie turned up to 11. The last hour and 10 minutes of the show is basically just a non-stop giant robot battle. Awesome! If you were expecting anything more (like a really deep interesting story, or dramatic character development) then you're an idiot. Just sit down, grab a giant tub of popcorn and watch Megan Fox being crazy-sexy and a bunch of robots sluggin' it out for 2.5 hours. Now that's summer entertainment
I was disappointed with this movie. I can't even recommend that you should watch it on DVD. The talent involved (Harold Ramis directed, Jack Black, Michael Cera and David Cross) should have been able to come up with something better. I was expecting something on par with Mel Brook's History of the World Part 1, what I got was the most expensive Saturday Night Live skit in history.
Drag Me To Hell is a Sam Raimi movie (the guy who made the Evil Dead movies and the Spiderman movies.) This film is basically Evil Dead 4. I LOVED it! It's super scary, super funny and super exciting and entertaining from start to finish. This is not psychological thriller, it's a stuff jumps out and scares you out of your seat kind of movie. I definitely recommend going to see it at the theater soon, while there's still a crowd. It's fun to jump and scream with everybody else. If you don't catch it at the theater, this will be a good DVD to watch at home too, especially some night when you're all alone.
Honestly, did you even think for a second that I wouldn't Love this movie? I was so excited I actually dragged myself off my Flu Bed over the weekend and probably infected 500+ people just to see it. The story was cool and it was super fun to finally see a Terminator film set in the post apocalyptic Skynet future we've only seen glimpses of in the previous films and TV show. Christian Bale was awesome as John Conner. I hope he stays in the role. I was kinda disappointed that they didn't tie in the TV show at all. Since it may have been cancelled I suppose that makes sense, but it would have been neat to have one of the characters from the TV show walk by or something. My only other regret is that it was only PG-13. This could have been much more violent and R rated like the other films and that would have been just fine with me.
OK. I just got back from the midnight sneak preview of Star Trek. It was so awesome I thought I might literally explode from excitement! I had huge expectations and it surpassed even my wildest dreams. If the theater had been less packed, I would have been standing in my chair jumping up and down through the whole movie.
I consider myself a Trekker or Trekkie. I've seen all the shows, all the movies and read a bunch of the books. I'm not fanatic though. In other words, and I've said this before, I like "reboots". Especially the reboots of late. For example the last Batman movie wasn't just the best Batman movie ever, it was one of the best movies ever. So when it came time for Trek to get a do-over. I was excited by the prospect. When they cast Sylar as Spock, I was ecstatic. When I heard there were going to be some "changes" I was not alarmed and I welcomed them. I trust J.J. Abrams completely. He has never done anything I didn't LOVE. And the new Trek is just his newest triumph.
The action is off the charts exciting. The story which was tasked with re-introducing all the characters of the show, had enough of a plot to propel it past the confines of the standard 1st episode origin story. All the casting was perfect. As a fan of Heroes, it took about 30-45 minutes to get used to Sylar as Spock (I kept worrying that if he got too angry he might saw Kirk's head open.) But other than that, everyone did a great job with their roles. Chris Pine was awesome as Kirk. He had just enough of the swagger, but without making it too cartoony. Karl Urban was great as Dr. McCoy. His was probably the closest thing to imitation but it was very enjoyable. Shaun of the Dead is hilarious as Scotty, but doesn't show up until very late in the film (I almost forgot he was going to even be in the movie). And finally Eric Bana is great as the villain.
The effects and sound are off the charts cool. The scale of the bad guys ship is breathtaking. I saw it on an IMAX screen and I highly recommend you see it that way too. Everything's better in IMAX.
Anyway, I don't know what else I can say. I can't believe I'll probably have to wait at least 3 more years for the next film. But I can always go see this one again. And probably, sometime in the next few days, I will.
Funny note: Sasha calls this movie "X-Men Oranges." "Daddy, are you excited to go see X-Men Oranges?"
I knew I would like this movie before I even got the theater. I've been waiting all week to see it and it was exactly (though maybe a little less than) what I expected. We get Wolverine's origin story, but it feels like an abridged version. During the opening credits we see Wolverine and Sabertooth fighting in the Civil War, World Wars I and II and Vietnam. This was cool to see and I would have liked to have seen more of it. Like the first 1/2 of the movie could have been "The War Years." That would have been cool. Then we see him working for Stryker's Special branch, this too should have been longer. I wanted to see more scenes of the team in action, like in the African Diamond sequence. Anyway, it was fun for what it was and it was pretty much what I expected. So I was happy with it.
This movie falls into the Pineapple Express genre of comedy. It's not like a laugh a minute type film. It's got some funny moments, some serious moments and some over the top violence and male nudity. I'm not sure if I'm really a fan of this type of comedy yet. I keep going to see them and I like watching them, but they seem like the kind of films you only want and need to see once.
I'm not sure why reviews for this movie are so poor. It could be that Nic Cage has been making too many mediocre movies lately and the reviewers are punishing him? It could be that on the surface this film looks like a stupid numerology movie along the lines of The Number 23? Whatever the reason, everybody (except Roger Ebert) is wrong about this one. Knowing is a super cool film with some outstanding special effects and a decent twist at the end that hopefully you won't find out about in a spoiler before you see it. I love Alex Proyas movies (Dark City, I Robot, etc) so I am biased and if you love Alex Proyas, then the twist in this movie won't be too much of a surprise. That's the only hint I'll give. Anyway, I really liked this movie and I was happy I saw it in the theater. The big special effect scenes will be diminished no matter how big your TV is.
The remake of Last House on the Left is pretty much a waste of time. I was really disappointed with it. I'm a fan of the original. That movie was a little slow but much more raw. This remake is too clean and (I know this is horrible to say but) not violent enough. It's not that I have a problem with the new horror remakes. I liked the remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, etc. but this one didn't really improve on the concept. The good thing about the remakes is they tend to be better paced and have more aggressive editing. Unfortunately the new Last House on the Left doesn't.
Watchmen
+
It's 3:28am. I just got back from the midnight sneak preview of Watchmen. I'm so excited I can't sleep. It will probably take much of the day tomorrow to process everything I just saw. This is a superhero movie unlike anything you've ever seen before. For many that will be a bad thing. The ratings I've seen so far are wildly mixed. Scores of 100 at the top and I'm sure there will be some zeros by mid afternoon tomorrow. Obviously I'm in the 100 category (as if I would be anywhere else.) I went into this film expecting to come out a different person. It happens every so often for me. So now I'm living in the post-Watchmen era of my life. Although I'm a huge fan of comic and graphic novel inspired movies, and a fair weather fan of comics and graphic novels themselves, I've never taken the time to read Watchmen. So I went into this movie almost completely in the dark as far as story, characters, history, themes, etc. I was going to get a copy and read it before the movie, but now having seen the movie and reading some articles that say the film IS the Graphic Novel, I guess it would be redundant to read it now. And that's fine with me. I'll write a little more tomorrow. I have to get to bed now.
OK, Its the next day now. I got 4 hours of sleep last night and I'm semiconscious. I'm going to break my short review rule and write a full blown movie review here. I feel I need to defend Watchmen against the slew of bad reviews I've been reading today. I'm kinda loopy from lack of sleep, but let the madness begin!
Often when I give a great score to a poorly reviewed movie I like to say "They didn't understand it." "Peter Travers must have been off his meds today." "Most people are idiots" "America is too dumb to get it" "Reviewers are all stupid and too critical and I hate them." I still believe all of those things apply for Watchmen, but I can understand, in this instance, why people don't like this film and I will start my review with warnings where I tell you 10 reasons why you shouldn't see this film.
Including previews this film is
3 hours long. For me that's a sign of a good film that is being
allowed to show you everthing they wanted you to see. So if you can't
sit still or focus for 3 hours in a row, don't go see Watchmen.
Multiple story lines,
flashbacks, timeline fragmentation over about 100 years. Remember in Pulp
Fiction when John Travolta got killed in the bathroom and then at the
end of the film he was eating with Sam Jackson in that restaurant. If
that blew your little mind then you're too stupid to see this film. If
you can't follow a story line that unfolds in a non-linear direction don't
go see Watchmen.
Ultraviolence. This is not
Spiderman. The "bad guys" are not captured and left
in a web for the authorities. Most are dispatched in the most violent
way available at the moment. Not a fan of seeing people literally beat
to a pulp, blown up, have their head and limbs ripped, cut and bashed
off? This movie is filled with that. Don't go see Watchmen.
Full frontal male nudity. Squeamish
about that? There's lots of it. Don't go see Watchmen.
If you want to take your kids to
see the new "comic book" movie. For God's sake, don't go see
Watchmen.
Practically every character in Watchmen
is bad. There are no "good guys". There's just bad
guys, really bad guys and really really bad guys. Need a movie with
easily distinguishable Heroes and Villains? Don't go see Watchmen.
With one exception, all the
characters start the movie with their powers and for some you never really
understand what the power is or how they got it. Need Origin Stories
or explanations of how and why a superhero has a special gift or
power? You're not going to get that here. Don't go see Watchmen.
Are you a literary or source
material snob? "It's
not as good as the book" "They left out Tales of the
Black Freighter" Blah blah
boo freakin' hoo. This is the FILM Watchmen. If you don't
want to see the film version, Don't go see Watchmen.
(Incidentally, along with 300 and Sin City, this might be the
most faithful adaptation of source material in history.)
"There's too much
hype!" "Nothing popular is cool." "If the
corporate suits want me to see it, then I ain't going." "The
soundtrack wasn't released on SubPop" "No one will ever
understand me!" If you've said
any of these last few quotes for any reason - Don't go see Watchmen.
Mom & Dad Wiseman. You will hate this movie and when you tell me you hate it it will just make me mad. Don't go see Watchmen.
Now that we got that out of the way, let me just say - WOW! I LOVED this movie. I cannot wait to see it again and again and again. This is an epic supehero movie. The characters are all super-cool. The special effects are incredible. The action and violence comes in fast harsh bursts and is connected by interesting storylines that keep the film on course and ever driving forward.
Rorschach played by Jackie Earl Haley is awesome. Every scene he's in is riveting. Best line in the movie, when Rorschach is in prison and he attacks a guy who threatens him, he shouts to everyone "I am not locked in here with you! You are locked in here with ME!" The Comedian is also a very bad superhero. Often employed by the US government to do it's dirty work, his story is told in flashbacks. He's bad. Really bad. But he's the fun one. Ozymandias is super rich, smart, fast and strong and has built his fortune by unmasking himself and doing things like selling action figures of himself. Silk Spectre II is just a super sexy second generation ass kicking chick. That's all that needs to be said about her. Nite Owl II is kinda like Batman (Plus as a bonus, out of costume, he looks and acts like a young Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold) but he seems to have enhanced strength. Actually all the supers seem to have enhanced strength and speed but this is never explained. We do see examples in the past though where supers are gunned down, so most of them are not immortal. And that brings us to Dr. Manhattan. The only super who gets an origin story and the only one with truly super powers. He is, for all intents and purposes, a god.
In a nutshell, the whole story is that the Comedian gets murdered and Rorschach investigates his murder. There, I explained the whole film in one sentence.
Zack Snyder is the director. He made 300 and the Dawn of the Dead remake and can, in my book, do no wrong. Plus if you listen to his commentary tracks, he's like an excited kid about making movies so I know his heart is in his work. I can and do vicariously take joy in his success and exuberance.
Go see Watchmen. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but I can guarantee that you've never seen anything like it before.
I made a huge mistake with this one. It was a choice between The International and the new Friday the 13th movie. I checked the reviews and even though the critics seemed to think Friday the 13th was fun, they only gave it a collective score of 35. The reviews for The International were not much better but I've seen the ads and previews, I love Clive Owen so I figured it was a safe bet. Boy, was I wrong. This is the most boring "thriller" I've ever seen. It was like a James Bond movie with no action at all that you arrived for 20 minutes late and then left 20 minutes before it's was over. It had one super cool shoot out scene at the Guggenheim museum in New York, but that's literally the only fun or interesting thing in this whole movie. Don't even rent it, you'll regret the lost time.
This is without a doubt the best 3D movie ever made. It's a creepy and kinda scary story that's NOT really for little kids. If you have an hour, I recommend the book as well but it's not necessary to enjoy the movie. They did an outstanding job here. There was a grown man next to me in the theater who jumped and screamed twice! There were also a bunch of 3D previews for other animated movies before this one and if this is the future of film, then bring it on! P.S.- stay through the end credits for an extra cool little 3D effect.
Oh My God. I LOVED this movie so much. When I saw the commercials I knew I had to see it. I had really high expectations and they were met and exceeded. This is not a great movie. It's just a really super fun action movie. (Plus it helps if you have a daughter. It makes it more exciting.) The whole movie is just Liam Neeson killing about 60 or 70 guys on the way to finding his daughter who has been kidnapped. It was awesome!
I've seen documentaries about Harvey Milk before so his story was not unknown to me. Sean Penn does a great job as Harvey and James Franco is super as Harvey's boyfriend Scott Smith. This is a great story but really sad. I got kinda weepy at the end.
This movie was a little slower than I expected. It was fun to see the Jews fight back and kill a ton of Nazis. Plus it was apparently based on a true story so that's kinda neat.
2008 Movies
We saw this on the MLK holiday. Even though it's 2009 now, this is technically a 2008 movie, and since it will win the Best Picture of 2009, I will add it to my 2008 list. I wanted to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button more, but I am confident that this movie is going to win Best Picture so I thought I better see it first. Plus Holly really wanted to see this one. Here's Holly's review: "Slumdog Millionaire is the best movie I've seen in years and one of the best movies ever made." I disagree. The nominated films this year all seem mediocre and/or boring to me (I'm literally furious that The Dark Knight, my choice for Best Picture of the year, was not nominated.) Nonetheless, Slumdog is a good movie and worth seeing. I liked it. It's Forrest Gump meets City of God. How's that for a crazy mash up?
This was the only movie I saw over the holidays. With all the highly reviewed, Oscar nominated end of year prestige movies playing, Jeff and I decided to see the one the critics all hated the most. Written and directed for the screen by Frank Miller (Sin City) and using nearly the same special effects as Sin City made this a film I had to see (Because I love Sin City.) I was not disappointed, since I had such low expectations going into it based on the horrid reviews. I liked it. It was fun. It had cool villains (Sam Jackson & Scarlett Johansson) and Eva Mendes wearing nothing and next to nothing, what's not to like?
I saw this movie before I left for Christmas and LOVED it. I watched the original the week before this new one came out and it was fun to see what they kept and what they changed. I was surprised there was so much backlash about this film. Keanu is great as Klatu and the special effects are super cool. Plus this was the first movie I saw on the new IMAX screen at my theater so that was a big bonus too!
I'll be brief with this review because I don't want to upset my teenage niece who LOVES the book series that this movie is based on. Twilight is nothing like what is advertised in the trailers or TV ads. There is very little action, almost no vampire "stuff" going on and it's basically just an overly adorable love story. Think Lost Boys meets 90210. I probably should be embarrassed to say that I've been a fan of the Anne Rice (Interview with an Vampire) vampire books and movies but they seem, by comparison, to be high art. Holly said it best when we left the theater after Twilight: "It was like chapter one of the 'My First Little Vampire' series."
I LOVE the new Bond movies. Daniel Craig's Bond is so hardcore tough. I always loved Pierce Brosnan (I waited my whole life for him to become Bond, but Craig is a 1000 times better.) A lot of the reviews for this movie have been complaining that he's too somber and angry. I agree, but I love it. This is the first Bond sequel, in that it starts right where the last one left off, and Bond is pissed off and just kicking ass and killing his way through the whole movie. It was so awesome. Can't wait for the next one.
I was disappointed by this movie. I really like Paul Rudd and I thought the idea of a movie that makes fun of the Big Brothers program was a great idea but it was poorly executed. The movie seemed too improvised and they let some of the players like Jane Lynch ramble on way past the point of the joke not being funny anymore. And the little kid who swears all the time, that's funny for about 5 minutes and then it's just annoying.
I had low expectations for this movie. The reviews were poor and Kevin Smith films can go either way. But I loved this movie! I was laughing out loud and like crazy through the whole movie. It's VERY over the top with crude language and situations so if you're offended by anything, don't go. I especially loved the cast. Seth Rogan was awesome and perfect. I love Elizabeth Banks (have ever since she was on Scrubs) and Darryl from The Office is really funny too. Oh, and Justin Long (from the Mac & PC ads) has a hilarious cameo with Brandon Routh (the new Superman).
Here's the thing about W, if you're expecting Oliver Stone to tear apart President Bush and expose him for the fool he is, you're only going to get half of what you wanted. Bush is unbelievably stupid. Horrifyingly so. But you also see that he is very much a pawn of those around him. This is not to say that he is excused from his crimes against humanity, but we can at least better understand how and why he brought this once great country to the brink of disaster and ruin. We'll leave it to Michael Moore to one day do the film that shows us the horrible and unfortunate aftermath of the Bush presidency.
Max Payne is a fun video game based, comic looking, Constantine feeling, Sin City type rip off. This is not to say that it wasn't fun to watch, it just wasn't new in any way. We've seen all this done before and done better.
Quarantine was a huge surprise for me. I had read some reviews, or at least review blurbs, the weekend it came out and people seemed to not like it. But now I've seen it and I can say it's a super fun scary good time that will probably make it to my Top 10 list of 2008. It's got the shaky single camera caught on tape thing like Cloverfield. And the zombies (they're not really zombies, but lets just call them that since everything they do is zombi-ish) are very much like the awesome relentless sprinting crazy variety like the Dawn of the Dead remake and 28 Days Later. I loved this movie and it scared me many times while I was watching it. The scariest thing about it is it's plausibility. Forget the reviews, this one is a must see in the theater. Don't wait until the DVD comes out. It needs to be seen on the big screen.
Tropic Thunder
Tropic Thunder was super funny. There's some fake previews before the movie that are even funnier than the movie that follows but it's still a good film. Robert Downey Jr. is awesome. I can also see why the retarded people got upset and protested the film but it was still hilarious. It's also kinda violent and super rated R, so that's cool too.
Pineapple Express
Pineapple Express is like a Cheech and Chong movie directed by Quentin Tarantino. It's got cool hip dialogue and then some over the top scenes of violence. It was really funny though. I saw it at the same time as Tropic Thunder and because I saw this one first I might have liked it a little more. I'm also a little partial to the Judd Aptow movies that have saturated the theaters for the last couple years. Seth Rogen was pretty much himself, but James Franco was awesome and almost unrecognizable.
The X-Files 2: I Want to Believe
Of all the people you know, nobody loved The X-Files more than me, and that's why it literally hurts me to report that I did not like this film. So why did I give it 4 stars? Honestly I couldn't bring myself to score it lower, but I can tell you I was actually bored while I was watching this movie. I was worried when I saw the previews for the film. There was nothing in the previews that looked interesting or fun. I hoped this was because they were hiding all the cool stuff and just showing enough in the preview to remind people about how much they loved X-Files. Unfortunately they did kind of show the best parts of the film in the trailers, the rest is even less interesting. I'm so disappointed I could cry. I have to stop now. I can't believe I had to write a review like this for one of my all time favorite TV shows.
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
It took me a few viewings to like the first Hellboy. This time I knew what to expect going in and the crazy good reviews elevated my expectations. I was not disappointed. If you liked the effects and characters of Pan's Labyrinth then I guarantee you will like this film. It's a really fun movie.
The Dark Knight+
The Dark Knight. They got that right. This is the darkest, most noir, superhero film ever made. Frank Miller's (Sin City) influences are all over this one. I knew I was going to love this movie and for once, the critics are all on board as well. The scores over on Metacritic are off the charts. I can't believe how many 100's this film has received. It deserves them for sure and this is in large part thanks to Heath Ledger. Everything you've heard about his performance is true. Remember Hannibal Lechter in The Silence of the Lambs? It's that kind of "once every decade" performance. He's so awesome here words can't even describe it. Everyone in the movie is in top form. This is one of the best movies of 2008, make no mistake, you must see this film.
Hancock
Here's the thing about Hancock - It's new. It's kind of a new superhero story too. Sure there's been comics that have done the down and out, dirty and corrupted superhero, but we haven't really seen it yet in film (I'll pretend I didn't see My Super Ex Girlfriend.) So that's the fun here. It's something new and since it's not based on a comic, we don't know what to expect. After seeing the previews, I thought I knew what to expect and now that I've seen it I was even more happy with the film than I anticipated. It's funny and fun, just like a good Superhero movie should be. The reviewers are being unusually harsh on this film, but don't believe them. If you like Will Smith (like I do) and Superhero movies then you will like Hancock. It's as easy as that.
Wanted+
This movie was as awesome as I expected it to be. Angelina was screaming hot. And the kid from Last King of Scotland did a good job in the Neo role. Speaking of Neo, we can all agree that the lobby gunfight in The Matrix is one of the coolest action sequences ever filmed right? Now we can add to that list the Textile Mill gunfight sequence in Wanted. Yes... It's that good. My only problem with this movie, if you could call it a problem, is that the training portion of the film is a little too long. It would have been cooler to see him go on more assassination missions. As it is, with the long training section, it's kind of like the "Rocky" of Assassin movies.
Get
Smart
I was disappointed with this movie. It's either a bad action movie with a few good jokes or a mediocre comedy with action sequences. The actors all did fine I guess, Steve Carell did a decent Maxwell Smart impression (I was a fan of the TV show as a kid, so I might be kind of overly critical.) Maybe on a different day I would have liked it more?
The
Love Guru
Critics hated this movie. I'm not sure why. It's basically just an Austin Powers movie. I loved all 3 of the Austin Powers movies and I laughed out loud all the way through this movie. Justin Timberlake and Ben Kingsley were hilarious too. And Jessica Alba is in it! It's a really funny movie. So if you liked the Austin Powers movies then you will like the Love Guru. It's as simple as that. The reviewers are wrong about this one.
The
Incredible Hulk+
First I'll say that I'm a fan of ALL comic book movies and that I liked the first Hulk movie 5 years ago too. This one is better though. It's not a "Reboot." It starts right where the last one left off. The opening credits cover the whole "How he became the Hulk process." I love Edward Norton and he is great as Banner. This movie also has a lot more winks and nods to the TV show so that's fun. It also has a little more humor. And best of all, now that Marvel is producing the movies themselves the cross-over future is looking bright! Keep an eye open for Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and references to SHIELD.
The
Happening
If you saw the trailer for The Happening, then you saw a 3 minute version of this movie that was much better than the whole film. This is not to say it wasn't worth watching but I actually saw the trailer again about 15 minutes after the film ended (when I snuck in to see The Strangers) and I thought, Wow! I wish the movie I just watched was that good! The best thing about it is it's one step closer to a hypothetical film that Holly and I have been waiting our whole lives for. You know that first 15 minutes at the beginning of the remake of Dawn of the Dead. We want to see a whole movie that just shows the quick collapse of society. Everybody going crazy and all systems failing. Chaos. Anarchy. Weeeeeeeeeee!
The
Strangers
This was a scary fun film. It reminded me of a European horror film like Funny Games (The Austrian Version) or The Vanishing (The Dutch Version). It's not fast paced and the body count isn't high but it's a good scare and it's plausibility is the real terror. Whenever I see a house out in the country set back in the woods I always assume that the people who live there are on borrowed time.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Here's another comedy from the guys who made Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk Hard and The 40 Year Old Virgin. This was a nice funny romantic comedy. Along the same lines as Knocked Up. Ugly, weird, nerdy guy loses and then gets another super hot girl that would only be possible in a Aptow movie. It had some really funny jokes but nothing compared to the rapid fire hilarity of Walk Hard. It's a good date movie though. So if you can't get the wife or girlfriend to go see Iron Man (And you should really try for that first) then you could do worse than seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Remember Made of Honor is still in theaters too and you don't want to end up there!
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
I'm a huge fan of the Indy movies. I've seen them all many many many times. This new one was good. I liked everything about it. More CGI than ever before but that's cool with me. I don't mind. It was fun like the other three films before it. I would say it falls into the Temple of Doom category. If I was to rank them I would probably say the order is now 1-3-4-2. Don't be discouraged by this though. Go see it. It's a fun summer movie and honestly if you're a fan of the series it's not like you have a choice.
Speed Racer
I was never a fan of the Speed Racer cartoon. But I am a huge fan of the Matrix series and this is the first film those guys have done since then so despite bad reviews I decided to give the film a shot. Here's all I have to say - If you want to save 7 bucks just do this: Take some blue, red, green and yellow food coloring, put a few drops of each into the toilet, stick your head into the toilet, open your eyes and flush. Do this for 2 hours and 15 minutes and you can then say that you've seen Speed Racer.
Iron Man +
Iron Man is the first blockbuster of Summer 2008. I haven't decided yet if it is "The Best" or just "One of the Best" Superhero films EVER MADE. It was so awesome!!! DO NOT MISS this film at the theater. Even if you don't know who Iron Man is. But if you do it's even better (also if your a fan of the comic then definitely stay through the end credits for a awesome bonus scene.
Young @ Heart
My neighbor gave us free tickets to a sneak
preview of this movie. It's not the kind of film I would normally go see
but Holly said the movie review guy she listens to on the radio liked it and I
read a few good things about it in Entertainment Weekly. It was
OK. Kind of cute, kind of sad. The film is about a group of very old
people who perform somewhat contemporary rock songs. If you're a fan of
80s and 90's rock like The Talking Heads or even a sort of contemporary band
like Coldplay, and you want to hear what it sounds like being sung by a group of
80 years olds - Then this is the movie for you!
Semi Pro
Just when I started liking Will Ferrell movies (Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory) he makes another sports spoof and this one only has a few laughs in it. Time to move on Will.
Be Kind Rewind
As a former amateur filmmaker I liked this film because it reminded me of the "Titanic" video that Holly and I shot 10 years ago. If the whole film was just about 2 guys shooting super low budget remakes of famous movies, and we got to see the movies, then I probably would have liked it better. But, the film has a message and a heart and a sweet sentimentality that I found kind of boring.
Jumper
This film had cool special effects but seemed more like the pilot episode of a TV show than a feature movie. The story really got going about 2 minutes before the film ended. Will there be another episode next week?
Atonement
I don't want to sound like a idiot so I'm not going to say Atonement was a bad film but I will say this: Having not read the book, I found the shifting time periods and Rashomon-like perspectives confusing. Holly read the book so she was there to whisper in my ear what was going on when I got that confused look on my face. It's not that I can't deal with these elements in a film, Quentin Tarantino can chop a movie into pieces, throw it in the air and glue it back together and I can follow along fine. I think in this case the problem lies in the parts of the story that were not filmed, and the parts that were, did not form a cohesive whole. Plus it was a chick-flick and I thought it was kind of boring. There, I said it.
Cloverfield
+
AWESOME! BRILLIANT! THE BEST FILM OF 2008 SO FAR! OUT-FREAKING-STANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
