<p>Copyright 1993-2022, <a href="/">Tim Skirvin</a></p>
http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/killfileikiwiki2023-11-26T04:52:58Z300: Rise of an Empirehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/300-rise-of-an-empire/2017-02-23T16:31:56Z2014-03-09T14:45:55Z
<h2><em>300: Rise of an Empire</em>: 4 out of 10</h2>
<p>This just isn't as compelling as the source material.</p>
<p>It is generally silly to dwell on a-historical depictions of history and
historical characters in Hollywood films, especially one adapting an
unreleased graphic novel. But <em>300: Rise of an Empire</em> is a special case,
dealing as it does with events and characters described by Herodotus, the
Greek 'Father of History'. Where the original <em>300</em> took a single event
from his Histories - the Battle of Thermopylae - and adapted it into a
recognizable and broad-strokes-accurate story, this sequel chooses to
adapt the Persian Wars as a whole. And just as in the original <em>300</em>,
there is a lot to admire when the "true" history of Herodotus shines
through. Unfortunately, this sequel falls short both in accuracy and
artistic value, usually at the expense of the narrative.</p>
<p>Let's start with the opening voice-over, where Lena Headey, as Queen Gorgo
of the Spartans, prophesies that Athens will only be saved by wooden
ships. This actually refers to a prophecy of the Oracle at Delphi, which
foretold that Athens would be saved by its "wooden walls". The people of
Athens originally interpreted this literally, and wanted to expand their
walls to defend against the upcoming attack; but Themistocles, an Athenian
politician and general, encouraged his people to interpret the prophecy as
a metaphor for the Athenian fleet.</p>
<p>The movie's presentation of this prophecy may have the virtue of being
short and sweet, but it kills the story-telling potential of introducing
Themistocles - who turns out to be the protagonist of the story. We don't
hear about his vision for the Athenian navy, or how he had convinced the
Athenians to build their ships over the last decade. Instead, we are
told that he was the Tortured Hero of Marathon ten years before, when he
shot King Darius of Persia (note: this didn't happen). Rather than being
shown a compelling and flawed Athenian historical figure, Themistocles is
turned into a brooding and lifeless Action Hero fighting for democracy and
justice.</p>
<p>Artemisia fares better than Themistocles, but only because her character
was <em>so</em> ahistorical as to make the whole exercise of comparing to
history worthless. The historical Artemisia was the Queen of Caria, a
Greek colony that was under the control of the Persian empire. She was
in fact a naval commander under Xerxes, notable because of her gender
(women really didn't exist in these circles in the 5th century BC) and
because she did stand out at the naval battle at Salamis. Conversely,
Artemisia-the-movie-character (Eva Green) was quite effective in her role
- colorful, bigger than life, and above all memorable - but she wasn't
actually shown as particularly competent in her role as naval commander.
Indeed, the only skills that she showed were a) cutting and stabbing
anybody around her and b) hating Greeks (and, well, everybody else).</p>
<p>The battles themselves - well, at least most of the battles depicted
actually did occur. The depiction of Greek naval warfare was fairly
accurate: triremes would ram and sink each other, and if that failed the
ships would simply be platforms for hand-to-hand combat. Some of the
tactics in the battle of Artemeisium were even fairly accurate. But the
battle of Salamis was shown as a typical Hollywood battle - the plucky
good guys up against unstoppable odds, holding out bravely against the
final onslaught, until unexpected reinforcements arrive to turn the battle
in their favor. This is especially frustrating when the actual point of
the battle was that strategic and tactical planning can turn the tide
against superior numbers - the point, in fact, of the original <em>300</em>!</p>
<p>And the Spartans - well, let's just say that their depiction in the
original <em>300</em> was more complete than this.</p>
<p>For all of that, <em>300 2</em> (<em>302</em>?) still delivers on what was expected:
stylized action and gore, excellent storyboards and well-done
cinematography, a scenery-chewing actor (well, actress - Eva Green did by
far the best job in this movie), and a strong dose of shallow jingoism.
Within its own requirements, it's not a <em>terrible</em> movie. I'm just not
sure that I can recommend seeing it.</p>
<p>Rating: 4 (out of 10)</p>
<p>A few other points:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>There was a lot of flesh on display, as was probably the point of this
exercise. The Athenians were fairly interchangeable as Big Buff Guys
With Beards, and oh there sure were a lot of them! As for the female
characters, only one that I can recall - Lena Headey - was not topless
at some point during the movie. I'm not sure if this is all overall a
plus or a minus, but it seems worthy of note.</p></li>
<li><p>What was the 'rising empire' in the title, anyway? Persia? They only
showed it clashing. Athens? Historically that may be reasonable, but
no focus was offered here. Greece as a whole? Maybe that's what they
were aiming at, but, again, they missed.</p></li>
<li><p>I find it frustrating when movies claim to be adaptations of other
media, and that other media doesn't even exist yet. I find it
especially frustrating in this case, because I'd like to see this art!
Frank Miller is an exceptional artist, even if his work has become
especially crazy-in-a-bad-way over the last few years; and given that
the true draw of this movie and the original <em>300</em> was the beauty of the
comic book art used as story boards, it's a shame to not have that comic
book art to which to compare.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Trailer Thoughts:</p>
<p>This movie definitely announced the beginning of the Summer Movie Season
with its premiere trailers for <em>Transformers 4</em> (5/10 - meh, I'll see the
movie but the trailer wasn't great) and <em>Godzilla</em> (9/10 - now, <em>that</em>
is a trailer). Interestingly, much of the focus was on horror movies -
<em>Oculus</em> (6/10 - effective, but far from my style), <em>Deliver Us From Evil</em>
(3/10 - drek, with an evil Angry Bird) - which seemed an odd choice for
connecting to a standard action movie, but I guess that they don't have
that many chances to advertise in front of R-rated movies nowadays.</p>
<p>The weirdest trailer was the red band trailer for Arnold Schwarzanegger's
<em>Sabotage</em>, which focused on the joy of being a red-band trailer rather
than being an actual preview for the movie. There were breasts, several
exploding heads, and an absurd amount of cursing for a 90 second trailer,
and there was no emphasis on story, characters, or plot. Meh. (4/10)</p>
<p>Finally, there was a trailer for <em>X-Men: Days of Future Past</em>. I don't
think this trailer is standing up to repeat viewing that well, but I'm
still excited to see the movie, so I guess it's working okay. (6/10)</p>
(500) Days of Summerhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/500-days-of-summer/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2009-08-10T04:46:27Z
<h2><em>(500) Days of Summer</em>: ** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I didn't like it.</p>
<p>I don't really know what to say about <em>(500) Days of Summer</em> besides that. It
was interesting, well-acted, pretty real. It stars Zooey Deschanel, an actress
that I adore. The material was, for the most part, under-stated yet fairly
profound. And if you're into this kind of arty romantic-comedy movie, yeah,
you probably want to see it.</p>
<p>But... well, while I don't want to dwell on it too much, suffice it to say that
while I found that the movie hit a bit close to home. This gave me motivation
to explore my perspective towards the characters. From that perspective, I
could see them as clever but shallow, and a few things that happened to them
as either trite or subtly <em>wrong</em>. In short, while I respected the movie's
strengths, those same strengths ended up making me dislike the movie more than
I liked it.</p>
<p>I still recommend it; I just can't score it like I recommend it.</p>
<p>** 1/4</p>
9http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/9/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2009-09-10T05:05:01Z
<h2><em>9</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Aah, hologram movies! On the one hand, they are pretty and shiny and
high-tech; on the other, they are shallow and do not hold up to the slightest
scrutiny. Sometimes, they work out well - <em>The Nightmare Before Christmas</em>
comes to mind, as does <em>The Dark Crystal</em> - and other times you end up with a
pile of beautiful but meaningless much, such as <em>Corpse Bride</em>, or <em>The Phantom
Menace</em>. But even if their track record is poor, movies like these are fun to
go to - either to report back as to the glory, or to warn away those that are
likewise sucked in by the Pretty Colors.</p>
<p>Of course, "pretty" is a relative thing when it comes to a movie like <em>9</em> (not
to be confused with <em>Nine</em>, coming out later this year for maximum confusion).
The animation style of this movie is gritty and realistic, and the sets
displayed are post-apocalyptic. Dirt and debris is everywhere, and there is a
decidedly steampunk vibe to all of the proceedings. Even the characters are
simply stitched together. But for me, just seeing the dust hanging in the air
through the animation added a lot to the spectacle for me, as the grime and
destruction reminded me of the kinds of video games that I play for fun.</p>
<p>And speaking of video games - yeah, it felt like one. That's not altogether
a bad thing, though. The action scenes are well done, in a very Final
Fantasy-esque manner; all the characters seem to take logical and consistent
actions in every battle, and the environment is used to great effect. The
creatures were varied, spectacular, and somehow logical. Nothing was really
<em>wasted</em>, in exactly the way that no good video game background is just
ignored. All in all, I could see this making a nice game... if you could get
over losing your characters on a regular basis. That really was a fair bit of
death!</p>
<p>Past the spectacle, though, there's not a whole lot to say about the movie.
The characters are more developed than just their names (1 through 9), but
only barely. The background story is bleak and impressively depressing (and
perhaps even thought-out!), but has few connections to the actual storyline.
The villain was clear enough and acted in a generally logical manner, but its
reason for being was not at all obvious. The eventual resolution came mostly
out of nowhere. And while the ending was clear, the <em>reason</em> for the ending
wasn't very logical - or even connected to the rest of the movie!</p>
<p>Still, on balance I'm happy I saw the movie. I wonder if I'll enjoy it more
down the line, when the plot becomes merely a memory and a piece of the overall
animation. For now, I can't really say that it's any better than a middling
movie.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
The A-Teamhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/a-team/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2010-06-14T04:39:04Z
<h2><em>The A-Team</em>: *<em>* (out of 4) / *</em> (out of 4)</h2>
<p>"A is for Action! A is for Adventure! A is for Mr. T!" - Nick at Nite</p>
<p>The movie version of <em>The A-Team</em> is, more-or-less, my introduction to
the series. I have never seen an episode of the television show. As
a kid, there was a good reason for this: Mom didn't want me to watch
violent television shows, and I had other shows upon which to spend my
listening-to-Mom capital (read: Transformers). But even after the show moved
from prime-time/Saturday-morning fare into 1980s-retro-kitsch, I never sat down
and saw any of it. I picked up its cultural cues, and I enjoyed the Nick at
Nite commercials, but other than that... well, let's just say that I was a
little bit saddened to find out that Mr. T's character had a name besides "Mr.
T".</p>
<p>So yeah, I'm a little bit of an A-Team Newb; but I still went into the movie
feeling like a bit of a fan. And, within this odd position, I was not
disappointed.</p>
<p>Oh, sure, there was plenty in this movie to dislike, starting with the
"pre-origin story" that was too long and included way too much exposition,
and ending up with the silly ending where (spoilers?) the writers suddenly
remembered that the A-Team is supposed to be "on the run" and not working
directly with the US Government. The plot was over-complicated and foolish,
the character motivations were sketchy at best, and the plot holes... oh, the
plot holes! If ever there was a movie that wouldn't stand up to close
scrutiny, this is it.</p>
<p>But for all of that, I only really grimaced a few times; the rest of the time I
was grinning in some kind of maniacal glee. The explosions were so ludicrous
and fun! The characters were so cheerfully over-the-top, reproducing the
original heroes with incredible gusto while offering villains that were just
<em>strange</em> in their villainy. The action set pieces were corny and felt like
something that would have been done back in the 80s TV show (though perhaps
they wouldn't have looked as good). And the catch-phrases, no matter how
cheesy or clearly choreographed, were still fun. So, rather than enumerating
the movie's flaws, my instincts are to defend the movie.</p>
<p>Oh, and it wasn't in 3-D. That's a plus. (Though the 3-D gag was pretty fun.)</p>
<p>This was a fun movie, but stupid. If you go in looking for a PG-13 version of
a big, dumb-fun action movie, you'll probably be happy. But don't look too
closely at the plot, characters, or anything else unless you want to ruin the
fun.</p>
<p>*<em>* / *</em></p>
<p>Side-note 1: the multi-rank system measures, in this case, "how much I liked
it" versus "is this a good movie?". Usually I can get by with just one number,
but that doesn't always work with movies like this. I may have come out of the
movie with a huge grin, but that doesn't mean the movie is actually <em>good</em>.</p>
<p>Side-note 2: that scene with the tank and the parachutes? That's going to
make an awesome Mythbusters episode.</p>
Adventurelandhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/adventureland/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2009-04-07T05:05:48Z
<h2><em>Adventureland</em> : ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Aah, the coming-of-age movie! They can be fun (<em>Breakfast Club</em>, <em>Superbad</em>),
or they can be stupid (<em>American Pie 2</em> and <em>3</em>). But what they're generally
about is the transition from high school (childhood) to college (adulthood).
In this way, <em>Adventureland</em> is something different - it's about the transition
from college to adulthood, whether that means grad school, working life, or
just dancing your life away.</p>
<p>Oddly, it all seemed like high school again anyway. The main characters throw
house parties when their parents aren't home, get horrible summer jobs for
spare cash, borrow the car when possible, worry about their virginities, and
otherwise act like it's just another school summer. Even the drinking looks
like high school drinking, except that they don't appear to need fake IDs to
get into the bars.</p>
<p>But I suspect that was the point. Coming-of-age is coming-of-age; the only
difference is that some people talk about their comparative literature classes,
while others keep gossiping and dancing, and everybody involved is still
beholden to their parents until they choose not to be anymore.</p>
<p>...clearly I'm over-analyzing. Well, to keep it to the standard review bits:
the actors were good, I liked the relative subtlety about the time period, the
standard romantic comedy parts were relatively muted, and only the ending was
really annoying. The movie got bonus points for using real video game noises,
and lost them for not prominently showing them. And the trailer had nothing to
do with the movie, which was nice.</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
Alice in Wonderland (2010)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/alice-in-wonderland-2010/2017-02-23T16:32:04Z2010-03-07T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Alice in Wonderland</em> (2010): * 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Over the last year, Hollywood has learned a big lesson: stereoscopic 3-D movies
can sell a <em>lot</em> of tickets. Just about every animated movie worth its salt
came out in 3-D last year; and what live action movies could be converted,
<em>were</em> converted. This was made painfully obvious by the $2.5B that Avatar has
made so far, a figure that can in no small part be attributed to its seamless
use of 3-D to actually improve the movie, instead of just to look new and
shiny. Now that this has become obvious, the onslaught has begun; movies will
be in 3-D, <em>especially</em> those aimed at children.</p>
<p>Sadly, I don't believe that much of Hollywood has a clue of how to use 3-D
appropriately yet.</p>
<p>The new <em>Alice in Wonderland</em> movie is a good example, in that it doesn't even
seem to try to do anything interesting <em>or</em> good with its 3-D. Sure, you get
the occasional fall down a deep hole ("look at the things flying past me!"),
and some action scenes that try to show a separate foreground and background;
but most of the time the 3-D just makes the scenes feel cluttered. Its use in
the 19th century England scenes was just downright distracting. And given that
this is was created by a "visually novel" director like Tim Burton... well, I
worry for the next few years, when less skilled directors take over.</p>
<p>(But ah, you say, isn't the problem that the movies are being directed for both
3-D and 2-D? Well, perhaps; but is that likely to change? Until we have
ubiquitous 3-D displays in our homes, the studios will insist that their movies
will display well in some form of home release; and so we're stuck with this
problem. Really, though, I expect that this is a problem that will take a new
generation of directors to work through. 3-D is going to be as hard to grok as
color was last century.)</p>
<p>I suppose that the movie was still pretty, in its own way. The particular
style of prettiness was a fairly typical but low-key version of Tim Burton's
normal work - that is to say, colorful and twisted with a touch of dark humor,
and (lately) based on an older work with its own distinctive style (in this
case, the 1951 animated version). But looking back, even though I didn't
like the England scenes that much, I still think they looked better and more
interesting than the rest of the movie. Should that not bother me? Well,
frankly, it didn't bother me as much as the rest of the movie...</p>
<p>In character, this new version of <em>Alice</em> most resembles <em>Return to Oz</em> with
a touch of Kingdom Hearts tossed in. The movie was not a re-telling of the
original Lewis Carroll stories; instead, it's treated as a sequel, with Alice
now a late teenager. This would be fine if there was a purpose and a theme
to it all (see also: American McGee's video game version), but instead we
just went on a journey through all the things that Alice saw the last time
she visited as a child, except this time everybody was sad instead of mad.
There were no useful metaphors to growing up, no sense of exploration of a new
world, nothing clever, nothing fun. None of it seemed to be any more than your
typical "hero visits fantasy world, saves the day" plot. None of it mattered,
even to Alice.</p>
<p>There were characters; who knew that this would be a negative? Alice is
supposed to be a character reacting to absurdities; instead, she became The
Chosen One, rescuing people because that's what The Chosen One is supposed to
do. And rather than just being caricatures, the other actors are asked to
both act and actively participate in the story. There is Johnny Depp, playing
Johnny Depp with a hat; there is the Queen of Hearts that says "off with his
head" a lot because it was funny 60 years ago, who is in some kind of dynastic
struggle; there is a sister, Washed-Out Anne Hathaway; there is the Cheshire
Cat, who is now suddenly a very <em>active</em> cat; there is a Bandersnatch that,
err, I'm not really sure what was up there; and there are a lot of animals
that, to be fair, are pretty well animated. Across the board, we're supposed
to look at these others as <em>characters</em>. And I don't really think that works.</p>
<p>Things I liked: the woman that played Alice did a good job with what she was
given (even if I spent the movie thinking she was Ginny Weasley, instead of
the girl from the first season of In Treatment). The first time they used the
phrase "frabjous day". The use of a Vorpal Sword on screen, and all of the
bits from the Jabberwocky poem. The idea that women can be independent. The
obscure Dr Seuss reference.</p>
<p>Things I disliked: the rest of the actors. The second time they used the
phrase "frabjous day". The insistence of using the name 'Jabberwocky' instead
of the shorter 'jabberwock' where appropriate. The poor introduction of the
idea that women can be independent. Oh, and the plot.</p>
<p>So, yeah, on balance, it didn't come out well. I'd avoid it if I were you.
And, perhaps, join me in hoping that Hollywood doesn't learn any <em>more</em> lessons
from this movie's success.</p>
<p>* 1/2</p>
<p>As a side-node - <em>Tron: Legacy</em> looks awesome! Yeah, it'll eventually suck,
but for now I am <em>psyched</em>.</p>
Avatarhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/avatar/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2010-01-02T07:47:28Z
<h2><em>Avatar</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Aah, big-budget action/sci-fi movies! Is there anything better? One way or the
other, you get to enjoy an over-the-top action-fest with lots of eye candy and
miscellaneous silliness; and sometimes, you even end up with something worth
seeing and thinking about later. Sure, they're also generally reviewer-proof,
but isn't that part of the fun? And the most fun comes when you get to see the
movie on opening night, with as big and motivated of a crowd as you can find.
There's just something about getting home at 3am after a sci-fi blockbuster...</p>
<p>Of course, that's not quite how I saw <em>Avatar</em>. The good son and brother that
I am, I decided to hold off and see the movie with my father and brother after
Christmas. I tried to avoid the reviews, I insisted that we find an IMAX 3D
theatre to see it in, and I planned ahead enough to order tickets the night
before. But in the back of my mind, I thought about how I'd missed out on the
proper "experience" of the movie, and how I'd converted it to just (just?) a
family bonding moment. I was a little bit disappointed, but in a "I have done
my duty" kind of way. Family comes first, especially good family.</p>
<p>Shockingly, in this case the experience was just as good a week after the
movie's release.</p>
<p>Two things made the difference. First of all, the movie was <em>packed</em>.
Ordering those tickets ahead turned out to have been vital; and getting to the
theatre a half hour ahead of time was just barely enough time to get our
popcorn before the movie began, and even then we had to sit in the second row
(a <em>horrible</em> idea in an IMAX theatre). And second, the movie really was big
and shiny enough to make up for the week's delay. The movie took a decade to
make; what's an extra seven days at that point?</p>
<p>The special effects were, of course, the star of the show. Were they as good
as all that? Well, yes. Yes they were. The 3D was top-notch, adding to the
scenes in every case and never seeming gimmicky. The motion-capture characters
finally looked <em>good</em>, after years of adequate-at-best experiences with movies
like <em>Beowulf</em> or <em>The Polar Express</em>. The models were detailed, interesting
to look at, and thematic. And the effects as a whole seemed both flashy and
<em>necessary</em>, a combination that I haven't seen often in the last few years.</p>
<p>(But... revolutionary? I don't know about that. There wasn't anything
particularly <em>new</em> there; there was just years and years of <em>refinement</em>, the
sense that the technology could be used by the filmmaker for the good of the
movie. The question is not whether the effects have changed the world; it's
whether they show a world where such effects can be used to advance a story,
instead of replacing the story. I suppose that could be a revolution.)</p>
<p>The story was better than I had been led to believe. Yes, the story was
shallow; presumably the detail were available in the visuals or the back-story,
but somehow even that didn't feel like the point. Yes, the main character's
story arc resembled <em>Dances With Wolves</em> - but I rather enjoyed that movie, to
be honest, and my personal opinion is that the overall structure more resembled
<em>Dune</em> than anything else (and what more worthy story is there to copy, I ask
you?). And yes, the other humans were <em>beyond</em> shallow, having a first-degree
motivation at best (and sometimes not even that). Still, this wasn't
<em>garbage</em>, which is what I had come in expecting. So I was content.</p>
<p>The acting was, oddly, pretty good. Some parts of it were over-the-top, but
mostly those came from the humans; the parts played by the CGI Na'vi were, for
the most part, pretty darned good. The decision to have the eponymous Avatars
look like their actors really did work for me, even it was a bit odd to see a
Na'vi Jane Goodall (Sigourney Weaver).</p>
<p>And the science and technology portrayed in the movie - well, yay! I
got a little bit of computer interface design, which always perks me
up; I got a lot of organic interface technology, which was fascinating
and oddly plausible-sounding; I got mecha; I got a fairly interesting
ecosystem, including a Protoss-esque alien race; and I got a few interesting
anthropological ideas tossed in that took advantage of the above. As an added
bonus, I even got a Stanford sweatshirt.</p>
<p>And so, I came out satisfied. I'll be a bit disappointed if this wins any
Oscars outside of technical categories, but that's okay.</p>
<p>That's not to say that I came out <em>content</em>. I wish that the dangers of
the planet Pandora had been <em>shown</em> to us, rather than just told. I wish
that an explanation had been offered for what made "unobtanium" so important
besides sheer economic value. I wish that there had been some nuance as to the
corporation's motivations, rather than just "profit GOOD!". I wish that the
final battle had offered some useful tactics and/or strategies, rather than
just consisting of "let's put all of our forces in a general area and have
them fight it out". I wish that the time frame had seemed less... arbitrary.
And, most of all, I wish that somebody had looked at the movie as a whole, and
realized that all of these points could have been provided with less than five
minutes of additional footage, total. The mistake was made to cut the movie
too much, and that irked me pretty seriously.</p>
<p>So, all of that said (with as few spoilers as I could offer): it's flawed, but
it's worth seeing, fun, and a whole lot better than it could have been. I do
recommend seeing it, and I recommend seeing it in 3D on the best screen you
can see it on. I don't recommend going in expecting the next <em>Star Wars</em> or
<em>Titanic</em>; you're not going to get either, and you probably don't care.</p>
<p>***</p>
Away We Gohttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/away-we-go/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2009-06-22T03:47:44Z
<h2><em>Away We Go</em>: ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I clearly need to see more art movies. The evidence for this lies in with the
trailers. When I saw <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/hangover">The Hangover</a>, I actively disliked all of the
trailers; in fact, I didn't understand why they were showing me most of the
trailers, which seemed very much focused on horror and romantic comedies. But
for this movie, they showed a half dozen trailers, and I was interested in
seeing five of them. And yet, I go to the big-budget movies most of the
time... I really need to find me an art movie partner.</p>
<p>That said, <em>Away We go</em> really only whetted my appetite for art. It was a
good enough movie, as it was, but it was fairly light fare. This was what I
expected from the early trailers; but the movie posters had promised surprising
twists, and the movie really didn't deliver. Instead, we got a nice character
movie, taking place almost entirely between a quirky couple - Burt (Jim from
The Office), an insurance salesman, and Verona (apparently a girl from SNL), a
very pregnant graphic designer - trying to find their place in the world where
they can have their first child.</p>
<p>The movie is a standard "wacky series of misadventures" indie movie, where the
couple meets a variety of old friends and family as they try to find a place to
settle down. These adventures are bittersweet, but not dangerous; and what's
most interesting about them is the actors that play the roles. Jeff Daniels,
Catherine O'"Hara, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and others play the various odd
characters that the pair run into each other on their quest for a new home.</p>
<p>If there was one part that I liked about the movie, it was that the characters
grew and got through their issues, but did not fundamentally change. There are
so many movies nowadays where quirks are something to be overcome; this is a
movie where the quirks are, if not actively encouraged, at least allowed to
thrive.</p>
<p>It was a light movie, but worth seeing. I don't know that there's much more to
it than that. But oh, the other movies that I know I should see!</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justicehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/batman-vs-superman/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2016-03-31T03:05:37Z
<h2><em>Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice</em> : 2 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>Summary: it's terrible. Don't see it.</p>
<p>It's almost hard to believe that <em>Batman v Superman</em> is so bad a movie as it
turned out to be. Sure, the trailers were bad, the early reports were awful,
and the reviews have been apocalyptic; but the cast was strong, the budget
was more than adequate, and Zack Snyder has proven capable of at least basic
mediocrity in the past. Unfortunately, Snyder managed to make his worst film
yet.</p>
<p>The plot fits into three major stories: a Superman movie involving Lex Luthor
and a personal crisis of faith based on how the world perceives him; a Batman
origin movie asking how far he will go to protect his world when the rules
change; and a superhero-vs-monster summer blockbuster tent-pole. None of these
plots were <em>unworkable</em>, but none were given a chance to breathe; rather, these
plots were tossed into a blender, parts scooped out more-or-less randomly,
and placed into sequential order, plus or minus a few dream sequences. What
comes out is tonally, thematically, and (oddly) visually inconsistent and
jittery. It just plain doesn't fit together; the stories undermine each other,
the protagonists never have a chance to do anything but react, and we're never
given a chance to even think about what's going on.</p>
<p>The actors are mostly acceptable. Ben Affleck plays an okay Batman and a
pretty-good Bruce Wayne; Henry Cavill is still a perfectly acceptable Superman;
Gal Gadot is given little enough characterization to make her kick-ass moments,
well, kick ass; Amy Adams may have had her character become a victim, but she
at least tries to make something of her role; and Jesse Eisenberg, well, his
Lex Luthor is a frigging embarrassment, but that's mostly the writing's fault,
at least he tried. As for the secondary cast, well, they don't get enough
screen time to be relevant, so it's best not to worry much about poor Laurence
Fishburne or Holly Hunter.</p>
<p>The visuals were in large part based on <em>The Dark Knight Returns</em>, which is
iconic for a reason; and much of the time they were at least workable, if not
inspired. There was one Batman fight scene that reminded me of the <em>Arkham
Asylum</em> series of video games, which was worth something; and the otherworldly
movements of Superman were eerie and messianic in an impressive way. But the
fight scenes were pretty much terrible, in the same way as in <em>Man of Steel</em>,
where the only real way that we can keep track of who's winning a fight is with
hit point bars.</p>
<p>Some good points: well, they showed the <em>Captain America</em> trailer before the
movie, does that count? I liked Alfred. Oh, and <em>LEGO Batman</em> looks cool.</p>
<p>Some bad points:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The timeline didn't work, in a rather lazy fashion. We had things
like there being time for a congressional hearing before Superman was
able to return from an African nation, or weeks of Superman "lost in the
wilderness" while nothing else happens at all. I don't like it when things
go too fast <em>and</em> too slow.</p></li>
<li><p>The "Superman as Jesus vs Devil" thing was clearly the focus of a lot of
discussion, but Snyder failed to actually come to any <em>conclusions</em> about
it except that it made for the occasional interesting visual. Take a side,
man!</p></li>
<li><p>There's a part in the movie where we watch Youtube videos introducing other
DC Universe superheroes. They were vaguely interesting, but were handled
<em>terribly</em>. I think that they would have made a good DVD special feature;
instead, they were tossed into an already-too-long film, breaking what
flow we had finally managed to put together.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Some more bad points: there was a <em>lot</em> of casual cruelty for a movie marketed
at children. Snyder managed to make Batman into both a passive puppet and a
cruel torturer and murderer. Holly Hunter made up the entirety of Congress.
Neil Degrasse Tyson put his face in this movie on purpose. Nobody knows how to
flee from an apocalypse. After spending the whole movie complaining about the
property damage done to Metropolis in the first movie, we end up doing <em>more</em>
property damage in this movie.</p>
<p><em>breathe</em></p>
<p>Snyder killed a major Superman character in the first 10 minutes of the movie
just to show off how "gritty" he could be. Batman is a terrible detective.
The Daily Planet gets its news from CNN. The government just <em>gives</em> Lex
Luthor the body of General Zod from the first movie; and Kryptonian security is
a joke. They didn't even bother to explain why Lex Luthor is insane.</p>
<p><em>breathe again</em></p>
<p>There were ~6 endings and ~3 beginnings. Too many dream sequences. Lex's plot
was about 3x more complicated than necessary. That network tap. Why didn't
Wonder Woman get to do more? And...</p>
<p>Okay, I should stop.</p>
<p>Rating: 2/10 (* 1/2 out of 4); I think I've managed to avoid seeing any worse
superhero movies to date, and hopefully this will help remind me in the future.</p>
Beowulfhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/beowulf/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2007-12-08T08:28:45Z
<h1><em>Beowulf</em> - ** 3/4</h1>
<p>Three weeks ago, back in Champaign, I saw <em>Beowulf</em> in 3D. I should have
written a review then, when it was fresh in my mind; but I was busy, and I've
been busy ever since. But to write something up quickly, a few thoughts on
that movie.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>While the animation did look pretty good, I don't really think it was
necessary, and I wonder if it detracted from the story. It was interesting
that I didn't realize it was animated until I was in the theatre.</p></li>
<li><p>The 3D display didn't really detract from the movie either, but again, I
don't know how much it helped. At least it wasn't horribly over-played.</p></li>
<li><p>Angelina Jolie playing Naked Elemental Angelina Jolie was, in fact, quite
hot.</p></li>
<li><p>I loved the screenplay (yay, Neil Gaiman), but it was not the real story.
That was a bit worrisome in some ways, but in others... well, this is going to
be great for English teachers. As my wife noted, those kids that only watch
the movie are going to be screwed when the teacher asks "who does Beowulf fight
just before he dies?".</p></li>
<li><p>I'm still curious which sports team we watched the movie with. They were
wearing uniforms, and there were far too many to be the Basketball team; but it
didn't seem like the Marching Band. Oh well.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>** 3/4</p>
Black Swanhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/black-swan/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2010-12-15T06:10:30Z
<h2><em>Black Swan</em>: 8 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>It's hard to call any Darren Aronofsky movie entertaining. Don't get me wrong,
his works are beautiful and challenging and well worth watching, but at heart
the movies need to be <em>endured</em> rather than <em>enjoyed</em>. <em>Black Swan</em> continues
this trend.</p>
<p><em>Black Swan</em> tells the story of Nina, an established ballerina that is
looking for her big break, and slowly figures out what she will have to
sacrifice to get it. It turns out to be an intriguing combination of
Aronofsky's previous work - the mental illness of <em>Pi</em>, added to the
dangers-of-physical-performance message of <em>The Wrestler</em>, and mixed with just
a touch of "drugs-destroy-your-soul" (and "hey, lesbians!") from <em>Requiem For A
Dream</em>.</p>
<p>The highlight of the movie is, perhaps not surprisingly, the acting. Sure,
we've known for a years now that Natalie Portman can act, but it's still a
bit of a shock to see a multiple-Golden-Raspberry-nominated actress (<em>Attack
of the Clones</em>) do such an excellent job with a difficult role. Portman
excels with her combination of "vulnerable", "ambitious", and "talented", and
does it while doing a remarkable job dancing ballet. She may not have needed
the comeback in the same way that Mickey Rourke did in <em>The Wrestler</em>, but she
matches that performance anyway.</p>
<p>Another intriguing element of the movie is the casting itself. Nina is an
established ballerina, just entering her prime but not yet truly successful;
her two most important compatriots are the older, soon-to-retire colleague Beth
(Winona Ryder), and the brand-new ballerina Lily (Mila Kunis). This mix makes
adds another dimension to the relationships, with their relative ages and
positions mirroring the relative positions of the actresses themselves.</p>
<p>But given that this is an Aronofsky film, the highlight of the film has to be
the direction. The standard flourishes are still there - the roundabout camera
work, the behind-the-star's-head journeys through the varied sets, and the
trippy cuts that make the viewer subtly question what's being seen without
outright saying "this is a hallucination". The special effects are subtle, the
sets full of mirrors and other tools for movie metaphors, and the viewer has to
constantly question what he's seeing. He's good at his job; it'll be
interesting to see what he comes up with when he gets co-opted by mainstream
Hollywood over the next years.</p>
<p>All in all, it's an excellent movie, and well worth the praise it's getting in
the press. It's dark, disturbing, bloody, and sexy. I'm happy I saw it, and
I'm curious to see how many awards it gets nominated for.</p>
<p>Rating: 8/10</p>
The Book of Elihttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/book-of-eli/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2010-01-16T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>The Book of Eli</em>: ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>January is the supposed to be the Time Of Bad Movies, when the studios release
the movies that, for whatever reasons, they didn't want to release during
"real" movie seasons. I look forward to this; it's nice to go into movies
with low expectations, especially after a season of "good" movies (and more
especially after an unusually long run of movies that I actually liked; how
can I have not hated any movies since <em>Capitalism: A Love Story</em>? Even <em>Ninja
Assassin</em> wasn't that bad!). And so I have to admit that I was disappointed.
<em>The Book of Eli</em> was well north of watch-able, and my gripes were primarily
meta-contextual.</p>
<p>(One prominent exception: within the first few minutes a cat had been killed.
Yes, this was done in order to provide context into the state of the world and
show a general moral murkiness, and it was in no way glorified; but still, this
is one of those lines that I don't like to see crossed, and I've stayed away
from movies and stopped watching television shows for this offense in the past.
So, if you're like me, you may want to skip this movie on general principle.)</p>
<p><em>The Book of Eli</em> shows an especially bleak post-apocalyptic world.
Civilization has collapsed, and humanity has been reduced to squabbling over
the few remaining resources; water, especially, is somewhere between rare and
non-existent. There are virtually no population centers left, and those that
do remain are both ruled by warlords and supplied by incredibly scarce and
remote water supplies. Even the ammunition has been used up, for the most
part. And in this world there is a lone traveller, journeying west with a pack
full of scavenged gear and trading supplies.</p>
<p>(Mind, most of this is <em>told</em> to us rather than <em>shown</em>. In fact, most of
that which is shown doesn't match up very well with those spoken descriptions;
but this is a standard problem with post-apocalyptic worlds. Still, those
details that <em>are</em> shown to us tend to be nicely under-stated and meaningful:
the interesting scavenged modern technologies, the concern over cannibalism,
the different attitudes towards the apocalypse between the young and old. I
didn't sweat it too much during the movie.)</p>
<p>Visually, the movie resembles <em>Fallout 3</em>. (This is a compliment; I've been
a huge fan of the game series, and the visuals from the last game really were
spectacular). As the lone traveller follows the ancient interstates, he comes
across ruined bridges and spies on scavengers below. When he looks over the
top of a hill, he comes across homes standing alone in a desolate valley. The
ruined city looks to be about the same size as any <em>Fallout 3</em> establishment,
with the main interior building looking amazingly like the converted brothel
that was the seat of slaver "government" in Paradise Falls. And so forth. It
was striking, and it was appropriate.</p>
<p>The acting was probably better than it had to be, if perhaps a bit
stereotype-heavy. Denzel Washington was The Good Guy, Gary Oldman was The
Ambitious Bad Guy, and Mila Kunis was The Naive Girl; but they all offered
fairly nuanced performances, to the best of their abilities. The characters
themselves were slightly less interesting, but really, that's to be expected in
this kind of movie.</p>
<p>And the script... well, it was really pretty good, at least until the very
ending (which is probably best not over-contemplated). Things flowed in a very
character-driven way, with plot points not often coming out of left field.
Questions, once asked, were generally answered. The effort spent at building
up the atmosphere really did pay off with something worth thinking about. And
the action scenes (which were well done) fit into the story every time, which
is no mean feat nowadays...</p>
<p>I was pleasantly surprised. I suspect that I'm not alone on that.</p>
<p>** 3/4. Probably would have been *** except for the whole cat thing.</p>
<p>(Oh, and those meta-contextual gripes? Well, this is the first time in a while
that I've gone to a Friday early-evening show, and it was also the first time
in a while that I had any gripes with my fellow patrons. Please don't tell me
how fine Denzel is, ladies; and kid with the cell phone, stop texting during
the climax! What is it with those kinds of showings that brings out the
horrible manners?)</p>
Brünohttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/bruno/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2009-07-11T06:07:06Z
<h2><em>Brüno</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I enjoyed <em>Borat</em> back when I saw it, but when it comes down to it, I only
remember two details about the movie: the interesting character (with its
associated mimicry from Americans everywhere), and the glorious scene with the
brown bear in the ice cream truck. The rest just ran together; I remember the
embarrassment humor and a few specific jokes when I think about it for a while,
and that's about it.</p>
<p>For this, the sequel to <em>Borat</em>, I'm just going to remember the opening song.</p>
<p>To be fair, I really like that opening song: <em>Nessaja</em>, by Scooter, a band
that I love for its over-the-top ludicrousness. This song is one of my
favorites anyway; and for those In The Know, it set the tone very, very well
(especially if you've seen the video... but I digress). The audience didn't
quite understand why I burst out laughing as soon as I recognized the tune
(though they might have gotten the hint when "the painted cow" was mentioned...
but I clearly digress again. If I'm not careful, this entire review is really
going to be about Scooter). For me, I recognized that it would give us a bit
more euro-trash behavior than even the trailers hinted at. And just for good
measure, the poor sound system hurt the song badly, and the point that it
was cut off at showed how the rest of the movie was going to be over-the-top
but not follow through the way it should... (Okay, seriously, that's my last
reference to the song, at least for now).</p>
<p>From that point on, yes, the movie was funny, but in an instantly forgettable
way. Most of the humor was based on one of two paths: "I can't believe they
got away with that", and "where the hell did that come from?". Both of these
require some level of surprise, and so I'll refrain from discussing them in too
much detail. But what I can say is that they were going for a third kind of
humor: "look how we can make these people look like fools". And really, they
didn't do a great job of that. Only in a few cases was the hypocrisy amusing.</p>
<p>...and you know, that is all I have to say. It was funny. There was a good
song. I doubt I'll have any interest in seeing it again. And while I kinda
hope that it's not as popular as <em>Borat</em> was, I would like to see Cohen do
another movie before too long.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
<p>P.S. IT'S NOT A BIRD, IT'S NOT A PLANE; IT MUST BE DAVE, WHO'S ON THE TRAIN</p>
Capitalism: A Love Storyhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/capitalism-a-love-story/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2009-11-10T06:37:43Z
<h2><em>Capitalism: A Love Story</em>: * 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I like Michael Moore movies. I suppose that many would consider this a
shameful admission; and if I tried, I'm sure I could justify it by talking
about how it's a joy to look at pure propaganda. But truth be told, I like
Michael Moore. TV Nation was a great show, back in the day; The Awful Truth
was pretty funny too. His early movies were amusing, and his stunts were
fairly clever and confrontational in a way that I generally respected. And as
time went on, his skills as a propagandist have grown - which as done a fairly
effective job of counteracting the problems that his increased notoriety has
caused.</p>
<p>As such, I did have some expectations going into <em>Capitalism: A Love Story</em>.
And I was disappointed.</p>
<p>Part of the problem with <em>Capitalism</em> was clearly that the topic was very
broad. The format of Moore's movies is best-suited for a narrow topic, the
smaller the better; but this movie is about an entire economic system, rather
than the collapse of a factory town or a more narrow political area like gun
control or health care. There's never a chance to examine the various sides of
the issue in any kind of serious way; there is never a chance to fill in the
caricatures, or even the basic theories. The movie simply lacked focus.</p>
<p>Worse were the stunts - or, perhaps, a lack of them. Moore's cameras sat in on
some home foreclosures, which failed to shine any sympathy on anybody involved
while also bringing into question why nobody was willing to intervene. Moore
attempted to perform some citizen's arrests at Goldman Sachs and other banks;
this simply seemed half-hearted. And everything else hardly seemed connected.
There were some smiles at the silliness here and there, but even that was hurt
by the oddly out-of-place cursing. All in all, it just seemed... badly put
together.</p>
<p>Somewhere in between was the quality of the arguments. Moore didn't really
attack capitalism in this movie; he attacked the bailout, and he attacked
corruption, but he didn't attack the whole system. If he'd left it at that,
that'd be okay - it worked okay in <em>Bowling for Columbine</em>, for instance - but
but in this case, he took what little he had and called for even more change
than he ever had before. Frankly, he overplayed his hand, and even what value
the movie had as propaganda was damaged as a result.</p>
<p>It's a shame; there were some interesting details in there, such as the
discussion of Dead Peasant insurance policies and (most prominently) a look
back at Flint, MI, where it all began. But while the beginning of this story
was the best we're likely to get from Moore, this is likely the worst.</p>
<p>* 3/4</p>
Clash of the Titans (2010)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/clash-of-the-titans-2010/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2010-05-03T05:46:20Z
<h2><em>Clash of the Titans</em> (2010): * 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>It's been a month since I saw the new version of <em>Clash of the Titans</em>, and
I still haven't written up my review. This is pretty much because I didn't
really have that much to say about it that hadn't already been said. But a few
people have asked about it anyway, and I did take some reasonable notes, so
perhaps it's worth writing up <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>The short version: this was a bad movie for all of the reasons that big summer
movies are often bad. I look at it as a step down from last year's <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/terminator-salvation">Terminator
4</a>, a movie which had some potential but
wasted it.</p>
<p>But why exactly does <em>that</em> movie come to mind? For starters, both movies
suffered pretty badly from extremely poor decisions from on-high that changed
the central flow of the film. In <em>T4</em>'s case, it was the decision to focus on
John Connor directly; in <em>CotT</em>'s case, it was in the nature of the Perseus's
quest and his relationship to the Gods. This is detailed
in a <a href="http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/23299/1/BY-ZEUS-THE-VERSION-OF-CLASH-OF-THE-TITANS-YOU-DIDN039T-SEE/Page1.html">CHUD
article</a>,
which is fascinating and spoiler-heavy. If you've read this far, I recommend
continuing on to that article as well.</p>
<p>But that's not really all of it. More to the point was a fundamental attempt
to add darkness to an already gritty (if a bit wacky) storyline. In <em>T4</em>,
this came at the expensive a consistent storyline and relevant characters;
in <em>Clash</em>, it came at the expense of the pre-existing story and characters,
especially when it came to motivations. Perseus's quest was changed so much
from what it was supposed to be (vengeance instead of heroism) that it wasn't
even fulfilled! This isn't <em>quite</em> as bad as the fact that <em>T4</em> forgot to
relate to its own subtitle, but it's close.</p>
<p>And then there's the issue of "villains". Zeus could have been an ambivalent
villain here; instead, he was just badly characterized. This was similar to
the way that that <em>T4</em>'s Skynet <em>almost</em> had some sympathy delivered to it, but
managed to mess it up at every turn. Shades of grey may be a good idea, but it
doesn't work by just cutting back and forth between black and white.</p>
<p>Anyway. There's more to the analogy, but I shouldn't get too far in unless I
want to start adding spoilers.</p>
<p>There are plenty of other things to rant about, but waiting a month has made me
lose interest in pursuing them, though between them they definitely knocked a
few points off of the final score. Yes, the Pegasus was useless; the idea of a
pantheon of Gods was completely wasted; the "quest" was ludicrous; the Kraken
was both over- and under-utilized; the random attack on the mechanical owl was
nauseating; etc. But so what? Compared to the wrong-headedness of the movie
itself, those points hardly rank.</p>
<p>There is one point worth harping on. <em>Clash</em> was the first movie I've seen in
theatres in a while where 3D was an option <em>but I did not use it</em>. The reviews
warned me off; and as far as I can tell, it was a good thing. I'm growing less
and less enamored with 3D as the year progresses, and the fact that the studios
are trying to shoehorn it into shaky-cam-action movies like this worries me for
the future. We've gone past over-use of the gimmick, and into
buzzword-compliance territory. It's really frustrating, and it's made worse
because I know that it's making the studios obscene amounts of money. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>* 3/4</p>
Cloverfieldhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/cloverfield/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2008-01-19T07:53:56Z
<h2><em>Cloverfield</em> - 3.25 stars</h2>
<p><em>Cloverfield</em> is an impressive monster movie, heavily laden with product
placement (Mountain Dew and Nokia come to mind) and annoying plot twists and
stupid decisions, but well made and intense and fairly clever. If you like
monster movies, you'll like this movie. But to say much more than that - well,
I suppose I could talk about the trailers safely (Hellboy 2 looks like my kind
of movie! And the Star Trek teaser was fun too), but spoilers would really
ruin the movie pretty badly.</p>
<p>That said, I still want to talk about it. I'll just leave a few blank lines.</p>
<p><em>Cloverfield</em> is, basically, the <em>Blair Witch Project</em> with a giant monster.
The camera work is jittery, the characters make stupid decisions, and well,
the entire plot device of using the camera the whole time didn't really make
much sense. And the characters die in the end, in large part based on their
own stupidity. I don't really know if this is a good thing or a bad thing; I
suspect that it won't age that well. But it was a good experience.</p>
<p>The <em>Jaws</em> aspect of things was also good - we did see the monster, but not all
that often, and more often we just saw its effects. In fact, the movie was
<em>really</em> about the effects of the attack on NYC; the parallels with 9-11 were
clear, but no less chilling for that. The horse walking down the street, still
attached to its carriage but without a driver - <em>that</em> was a creepy image. And
there were more such images, from the collapse of the Empire State Building to
the poster shot of the head of the Statue of Liberty. The most real, though,
was all the people standing close and taking cell-phone shots of that head.</p>
<p>Tactically, most of the decisions made by the main characters were horrible
- but I suppose that most of them weren't <em>that</em> shocking. That the group
followed their friend on his question to the middle of town to rescue their
mutual friend - that was dumb. The rest stemmed from that first bad decision.
Well, there was one other truly bad idea - crossing the Brooklyn Bridge with
the attack going on was a <em>horrible</em> idea. But that's the movies...</p>
<p>It probably should have ended ten minutes earlier than it did.</p>
<p>A few random things I liked about this movie:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The spider-things looked like Zerglings. They were too small,
yes, but it was the right idea.</p></li>
<li><p>The range of alien powers was fairly unexpected. I expected
infection, not Infested Terrans. (I have Starcraft on the mind
now.)</p></li>
<li><p>The cutting between the various videos was interesting.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't think there will be a sequel.</p></li>
<li><p>Johann Kraus will be in Hellboy 2. Whee!</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Anyway - I'm happy I saw it before the spoilers came out. I hope that anybody
that wanted to see it already did so before reading my spoilers.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
Coralinehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/coraline/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2009-02-07T07:42:42Z
<h2><em>Coraline</em> : *** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>That was not what I was expecting.</p>
<p><em>Coraline</em> is based on a children's book written by Neil Gaiman, the creator of
/Sandman/ and one of my favorite authors. It was a creepy book, reminding its
readers that fairy tales are <em>meant</em> to be scary. It was also a fairly quick
read - 176 pages, according to Amazon, and I recall it just taking a couple of
hours to read.</p>
<p>It came as somewhat of a surprise that the movie followed in the footsteps of
the book so clearly, yet <em>distinctly</em>.</p>
<p>By way of example: the story. The details were different - bigger, really,
since most of the imagery that the book spent its pages conveying was covered
nicely by the visuals themselves. The movie adjusted things to be somewhat
slower and more conventional than I recall the book being, with more payoffs
mixed into the adjusted pacing. But though the script may have changed, the
<em>themes</em> did not. The alienation, the childhood longing, the recognition of
how we underestimate those around us - these themes all shone through just as
strongly, and nothing felt out of place.</p>
<p>The visuals were gorgeous. The main visual image - the buttons - was played
up slowly at first, and future reminders were more subtle than I would have
expected. The backgrounds went nicely from realistic to fantastic as they
needed to be. Every now and then, there was a touch of perfection - the dirty
windshield, for instance, was absolutely perfect (and more so for being both
unexpected and fairly irrelevant). And the closing scenes, as the world fell
apart - that was glorious and breathtaking, in equal measures.</p>
<p>For all of my hyperbolic verbiage, it was not perfect. Most prominently, the
movie felt slow in a few points, and ponderous - perhaps not really in a <em>bad</em>
way, as my companions didn't see it the same way, but noticeable. And the 3D,
while interesting and perhaps well-done, was still fairly superfluous.</p>
<p>Still, I recommend this movie in no uncertain terms. It is appropriate for
children, though they may well (should be?) scared. It is certainly
appropriate for older audiences, too, except perhaps those with a fear of
spiders.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
<p>A few notes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>This was not <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/nightmare-before-christmas-3d"><em>The Nightmare Before
Christmas</em></a> again - and by that,
I speak well of the movie. There was music, but it was not a musical; there
was darkness, but this is not a goth icon movie. I doubt that this movie will
hold up as well as <em>Nightmare</em>, though I think it is a better movie.</p></li>
<li><p>There was a They Might Be Giants song in it. Whoo!</p></li>
<li><p>Stay until the end of the credits; they show off a bit of the filming
technique, and that was worth it.</p></li>
</ul>
Crank: High Voltagehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/crank2/
Copyright 2009, Tim Skirvin
2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2009-04-19T17:22:28Z
<h2><em>Crank: High Voltage</em>: *<em>* (out of 4) / *</em> 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>My dual-rating movie review system is generally used for clearly-bad movies -
only used <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/death-race">once</a> since I started tracking my reviews - under the
theory that the joy of bad movies is different than the joy of good ones. The
last number, the what-the-movie-is-aimed-at number, pretty much has to end up
at "BOMB" or somewhere really close to it, or else the movie is actually trying
to be a good movie and there's little point in separating them out. This was
the first exception to that rule I've seen - this movie was trying to be both
bad <em>and</em> good, and for the most part it succeeded.</p>
<p>I first saw the original <em>Crank</em> a few weeks ago, because several of my friends
wouldn't let it go. I don't think I got as much out of it as they expected I
would, because I already knew that it was going to be insanely over-the-top; it
wasn't the same shock to me as it had been to them. Still, it was memorable
and strange and satisfying watching Jason Statham do strange stunts, kill lots
of people, blow stuff up, have sex in public, etc - a nice "comic book" feel,
without much of a need to really pay attention.</p>
<p>But given that everybody knew the background going in - the main character
died at the end of the last movie, for Gods' sakes - how was this movie going
to keep up the shock value? Simple - it raised the stakes considerably.
Sometimes this simply meant sight gags, but most of the time it meant
over-the-top violence, with excessively bad people doing excessively bad things
to each other over and over again, with as much blood and guts as they could
fit into the movie.</p>
<p>This movie slowed down probably 2-3 times during the whole movie, and those
times only for blackly comic effect (the shotgun scene and the stray bullet).
The rest of the time, it just kept on throwing as many bullets, breasts, and
bodies at the viewer as it could get away with.</p>
<p>And to say any more would spoil some of the stupendous silliness.</p>
<p>I'm expecting the next one will be in 3D. And I'll go see it.</p>
<p>*<em>* / *</em> 1/2</p>
Dan in Real Lifehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/dan-in-real-life/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2007-11-15T17:11:12Z
<h2><em>Dan in Real Life</em> - 2.5 stars</h2>
<p>It took me a couple of days to even come up with a star rating for this movie.
The movie made me angry sometimes, and interested me others; and by many
definitions that makes it a good movie, but by others that makes me unhappy to
have seen it. But even so, it's not even that easy to talk about it, or to
write about it...</p>
<p>Some points:</p>
<ul>
<li>Steve Carell did do a very good job.</li>
<li>The family seemed realistic.</li>
<li>It was a romantic comedy, but not anywhere near as bad as I was expecting.</li>
<li>It was part of the sub-category of romantic comedies where the protagonist is
repeatedly humiliated. I found this painful.</li>
<li>The art was rather good too.</li>
</ul>
<p>I still don't know, though...</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
The Dark Knighthttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/dark-knight/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2008-07-25T06:40:35Z
<h2><em>The Dark Knight</em>: ***</h2>
<p>I missed out on seeing <em>The Dark Knight</em> during opening weekend because of a
series of misadventures involving a bachelor party. This was upsetting not
only because I was looking forward to seeing it with my friend the groom-to-be,
but because I had been looking forward to this movie since I saw <em>Batman
Begins</em> at the Lorraine back in 2005. Now, a week into its release and dozens
of hyperbolic movie and media reviews later, I finally found a couple of
friends and made it to the theatre to see it for myself.</p>
<p>A bit of background: I have always enjoyed Batman, and that movie had
fulfilled the promise that others might understand what makes the character so
interesting; so now, without an origin story to deal with, a true Batman story
could be told.</p>
<p>Given that level of attention, I find it somewhat surprising that I'm not
entirely sure what to say about the movie, or even what I <em>think</em> about it.</p>
<p>I can say, for starters, that this was an excellent movie, amongst the best
superhero movies ever made. I can also say that is not the same as most other
superhero movies; it may have shared many components (costumes, outrageous
plots, heroic self-sacrifice and other themes, etc), but it wasn't told the
same way, at least not through all of it. And I can say with even less fear of
contradiction that Heath Ledger did an excellent job as the Joker - probably
too good for a PG-13 rated role, really - and will be the iconic version of the
character for some time to come, at least in my book.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the movie was far from perfect. It felt like it was paced
for a mid-sized television mini-series; it was even episodic enough to support
it. Starting in media res was a good idea and all, but it still felt like we
were jumping too fast, too often, to get through too much plot. The plot was
convoluted in a way that was trying to be smart, but really wasn't. And as
many others have said, it seemed like Batman was a guest in his own movie.</p>
<p>But those points didn't really detract much from the movie, they just knock
the movie from "perfection" down to "almost as good as <em>Batman Begins</em>". The
special effects, the gadgets, the characters, the unrelenting darkness - these
points were glorious and wonderful. Even the humor was genuinely funny. And,
perhaps relevant only to me, the shots filmed in Chicago made me once again
feel at home.</p>
<p>It was a bold attempt to merge a superhero movie with a crime drama. I don't
think this movie particularly succeeded in that; but I'm glad that it tried.
And I'll probably see it again this next weekend - though perhaps only after
watching Batman Begins again.</p>
<p>*** 1/2</p>
Date Nighthttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/date-night/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2010-04-10T05:39:31Z
<h2><em>Date Night</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Honestly, they had me at the movie poster. Steve Carell and Tina Fey; I love
'em. Some of it is their "fake news" background - Carell was on The Daily
Show back at its peak, Tina Fey kept Weekend Update entertaining when the
rest of SNL had been driven into a lake. More of it is their TV and movie
output - The Office and 30 Rock are both great, and I re-watch <em>The 40-Year-Old
Virgin</em> and <em>Mean Girls</em> fairly regularly. But mostly, it's their general
comic sensibilities that very clearly come from an improv comedy standpoint.
The two of them <em>consistently</em> make their partners look good on screen; this
was a pairing that definitely had to be seen, no matter the subject.</p>
<p>Then I saw the trailer.</p>
<p>Thus it was with great trepidation that I went to this movie tonight. I
almost talked myself into going to see something else; I just didn't want to
be disappointed. I mean - seriously? A fish-out-of-water action flick? Why?
They can't possibly play to their strengths that way; these are <em>not</em> action
stars, not even of the "growing into their action strengths" style. And as I
sat in the theatre, surrounded be teenagers cooing over the trailers for other
movies I don't intend to see, my decision grew less and less reasonable...</p>
<p>Happily, my first instincts were the stronger ones.</p>
<p>It helped that the movie started on a strengths - Tina Fey and Steve Carell
are happily married but live in a rut, and show it off for a while. You can
see that they're happy together, that they love each other, that they're
interesting and not-entirely-boring people; and you can tell that they're both
a bit insecure about the rut, but not really horrified. Even the decision to
get out of the rut comes across fairly organically out of simple attempts to
try harder. It was natural, it fit, and it was sweet and funny and just that
little bit gross that you'd expect out of these two actors.</p>
<p>Yeah, we pretty quickly got into the stupid action parts. And yeah, those
parts were pretty lame. But what of it? Throughout the movie, the two of them
<em>still</em> acted like a couple. They made fun of each other, but only in small
ways and over things that were clearly argued about before. They made up for
each other's weak points where possible. They watched the horrors around them
and ran with it in the same way that they'd deal with their kids. And through
all of this, the plot washed over and past them.</p>
<p><em>Date Night</em> is not a classic by any means. It could have been cuter, it could
have developed its secondary characters more, and it could have had a plot that
made a lick of sense. But given that the movie came up in a gaudy wrapper
promising strippers and gun-play, I'm pretty excited to have gotten a low-key,
sweet comedy that had two actors making the other look better.</p>
<p>***</p>
Daywatchhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/daywatch/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2007-09-21T15:58:10Z
<h2><em>Daywatch</em> - *** 1/4</h2>
<p>I don't actually remember that much of <em>Nightwatch</em>, the first part of a
Russian fantasy movie trilogy. I saw it about a year ago on DVD, and, well, it
was fairly forgettable; but maybe that was just the dubbed dialogue speaking,
which never does well for me. I recall enjoying it at the time; and my wife
insists that it was a good movie as well, since she re-watched it a couple of
days ago.</p>
<p>This movie was better.</p>
<p><em>Daywatch</em> feels like a live-action anime movie, in Russian. The story is big,
probably bigger than it needs to be; the characters are more archetypes than
anything; and the action is larger-than-life when anything is happening at all.
I found this to be a good thing, myself; others may not mesh with it as well.</p>
<p>My favorite part of the movie, by far, was the subtitles. This isn't just
a standard sub-vs-dub argument, either; the subtitles were <em>interesting</em>,
like a well-lettered comic book. Words were color-coded based on mood, or
faded in and out based on volume or context; they would slide behind the scene
sometimes, or shatter where it made sense. It was remarkable, and I really
want to see it again in other movies.</p>
<p>It's not perfect, but it's fun, and I'm definitely glad I saw it on its last
night at our local art theatre.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
Death Race (2008)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/death-race/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2008-08-23T05:12:22Z
<h2><em>Death Race</em> (2008): *** 1/2 (out of 4) / * 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>One of the more interesting review systems I've seen split the review up into
two categories - the quality of movie, and the kind of movie it was <em>aiming</em> to
be. There are good movies that are aiming to be good movies - <em>The Lord of the
Rings</em>, <em>The Shawshank Redemption</em>, etc - and there are good movies that are
aiming to be bad movies - <em>Evil Dead 2</em>, <em>Tremors</em>. I don't always like using
that distinction, but sometimes it fits. And <em>Death Race</em> - well, yeah, it was
aiming to be stupid.</p>
<p>I didn't really know what to expect going in. I knew we weren't going to get
the original <em>Death Race 2000</em>, with its nascent social commentary and the
like, but I was hoping to still at least be entertained. The way I saw it,
there were two paths that this could take: either it could be <em>Mortal Kombat:
Annihilation</em>, one of the worst movies I'd ever seen (but also one of the best
movie-going experiences, because I got to MST3K my way through it in a crowded
theatre), or it could be the original <em>Mortal Kombat</em>, which was fun and stupid
and something I still pop in the DVD player every now and then.</p>
<p>I got the latter.</p>
<p>To spoil the movie, sortof: it starts way too slowly and ponderously, as we
build up to the reason that Jason Staham ends up in jail (hint: it's in the
trailer). Then we spend a while explaining the race. Then the race begins,
and there's a whole lot of violence and death, and sometimes the stakes are
raised for no obvious reason. Then there's a resolution that doesn't make any
sense, and the credits roll.</p>
<p>The plot holes are ridiculous. The characters are a joke, mostly racial
stereotypes that are badly performed and conceived. The pacing was a mess,
both of the plot and of the violence. Most of the good stuff was spoiled in
the trailers.</p>
<p>And I loved it, even though it was garbage.</p>
<p>*** 1/2 / * 1/2. See it if you're into this kind of thing.</p>
Despicable Mehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/despicable-me/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2010-07-14T04:25:55Z
<h2><em>Despicable Me</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The trailers of <em>Despicable Me</em> did little to inspire me with confidence.
Yes, I like Steve Carell, and yes, those little yellow minion things were
pretty cute; but the plot described by the trailers didn't seem very deep
or interesting, and it all reminded me a bit too much of Shrek crossed with
Inspector Clouseau. Still, after several weeks of nothing good to see (what,
like I was supposed to see <em>Twilight 3</em>?), I had to see <em>something</em>. And so I
decided to give <em>Despicable Me</em> a shot.</p>
<p>I can't say that I was blown away, but I was at least not disappointed.</p>
<p><em>Despicable Me</em> is a nice, light, fluffy movie about a professional super-
villain - emphasis on the "professional" - named Gru. Gru looks like the
Penguin and has the managerial skills of... well, an archetypical Very Good
Manager. He doesn't want to <em>hurt</em> anybody; he just wants to do cool (if evil)
things (and maybe make a young child cry every now and then). He primarily
does evil deeds in order to earn the money in order to do more evil things;
and in the mean time, he employs a small army of yellow minions, who he knows
by name and cares about individually, as well as a top-notch mad scientist.</p>
<p>It's ludicrous, of course, but it's played fairly straight; and that actually
turns out to be the main reason that the movie was fun to watch.</p>
<p>The actual plot of the movie connects one of his schemes with his adoption of
three young girls. This doesn't turn out to be a very deep or interesting
story; at best, it strings together a bunch of cute, fairly pointless scenes
that hint at a world more evil than Gru could make, but the movie sees no
reason to explore this. This turns out okay; the movie's multiple levels of
cuteness turn out to make up for quite a bit.</p>
<p>But really, it was the little minions that made the movie. They looked amusing
in the trailers, sure; but given that they were interchangeable automatons, it
was interesting to actually enjoy watching them on screen. They were cute,
they were intelligent, and they were a little bit evil; but mostly, they looked
like corporate employees that were actually having a good time. It worked for
me. I look forward to seeing these characters again.</p>
<p>I was pretty fond of the animation, or at least was never particularly bothered
by it. The art was stylized and smooth, but not particularly played for laughs
in and of itself; and this was a good thing. Even the 3D was acceptable; I'm
not sure that it really added a lot, but it didn't hurt, and I didn't feel
exploited for having paid for it.</p>
<p>All of that said, I do recognize that I used words and phrases like
"acceptable" and "not disappointed" a lot in this review. This movie was not
great, but it was watchable and relatively fun. It may not be a movie that I'd
be excited to go out and see again, but I'm happy enough that I saw it. If
more kid's movies were like this, the world would be slightly more pleasant.</p>
<p>I went in with low expectations, and these expectations were surpassed. This
still ends up with an average movie; but sometimes, average is fine.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
<p>In other news, the trailers for the other movies were <em>horrible</em>! Why are we
subjecting the country's children to garbage like <em>Alpha and Omega</em>, <em>Cats vs
Dogs 2</em>, or <em>Smurfs</em>? Even the <em>Megamind</em> trailer is pretty bad, though I
suspect I'll at least see that one. <em>sigh</em> There's a reason I'm happy that this
movie was average...</p>
District 9http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/district-9/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2009-08-16T20:50:46Z
<h2><em>District 9</em>: *** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The short version: go see this movie.</p>
<p>I will admit that I went into the movie expecting something special. The
reviews were good, the concept looked fascinating, and I had even liked the
trailers. The one reviewer that had anything bad to say about the movie
somehow managed to mention <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_Toads:_An_Unnatural_History">Cane Toads: an Unnatural
History</a> in his
review, which just made me more excited. And then, for good measure, I <a href="http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42025">got
free tickets</a> from
<a href="http://www.aintitcool.com/">AICN</a>, to see it the night before its official
release. That's worth a few extra points... And so I dragged myself up to San
Francisco to wait in line and see the movie with a friend.</p>
<p><em>District 9</em> is the first good "hard" science fiction movie I've seen in
years, probably since <em>Children of Men</em> back in 2006. It is the story of a
group of aliens that appeared in a non-functional spacecraft hovering above
Johannesburg, and are taken down as refugees into South Africa. Decades later,
the aliens are still there, living in a slum and causing significant tension
with their relations to the locals. They can't speak any human languages, they
aren't integrated into the workforce, and they spend their time scavenging in
order to earn the money to buy meat - and, most infuriatingly, they have no
technology to offer except for their weapons, which only they can use, and even
that mostly just attracts the local Nigerian gangs locals. Everyone just want
them to go home, but the aliens have no idea how to do so.</p>
<p>The story begins with an attempt to move the aliens - derisively, "prawns" -
from their original homes to a new camp a couple of hundred kilometers away
from the city center, where they won't be so obvious. Things go awry from the
moment the first "eviction notice" is served, because of both the language
barrier and the general disgust felt by the well-armed, utterly scared humans
and the down-trodden, individually-mighty aliens. And from there, we follow
the story of the man in charge of the relocation efforts, as the movie
eventually turns into a major action-fest.</p>
<p>The background is a blatant allegory to apartheid, and never pretends to be
anything but that. The story is told in part in a pseudo-documentary format,
with segments taken from security cameras or from a planned documentary on the
subject. (This is, by the way, why that reviewer mentioned Cane Toads. It's
a documentary starring people with British accents! Clearly, they must be the
same! <em>facepalm</em>)</p>
<p>The special effects are really quite good for a movie of a relatively small
budget ($30M). Part of this is because the movie is filmed to look like it's
coming from hand-held and security cameras; but more of it is just because they
used the budget well, with no-name actors and "effective" effects rather than
flashy ones. The alien ship is always in the background, but is offered as a
detail rather than as a spectacle; the aliens themselves are very distinct, in
much the same way that one human looks different from another. The biggest
"effect" effects are the explosions, and they looked quite good too.</p>
<p>The social commentary... well, it works, at least for me. There was something
fascinating about watching all branches of humanity loathe those different than
themselves. Sure, the groups all followed their tropes: the protesters who
stood up for the aliens were foolish-looking and ineffective, the army types
were angry and excited to have something to shoot, the management bureaucrats
were cynical and willing to do anything for a buck, the lower bureaucrats were
clueless and in the way of all of the above. But there was something more
harsh than usual about it, because in all cases it seemed more "acceptable" to
hate the aliens. Maybe it was just that they were able to show more clearly
that the "other side" had no real allies, but the resulting evil seemed more
understandable somehow. And that made it all more effective for me.</p>
<p>More interesting than that was the interaction between the aliens. While not
directly addressed by the movie, I came out with a definite sense that the
aliens had a strong caste system, and that virtually all of the aliens on Earth
were from a "worker" caste that were less-able to take care of themselves.
There wasn't a lot of evidence to back this up, mind; it was just an
impression. But the room to consider such a thing is a very nice thing in a
movie. Ambiguity can be neat - even if half of the audience seemed cranky to
have not been told explicitly why the aliens were there.</p>
<p>And the action scenes were excellent. I'll probably hold off talking about
them too much for a while, until everybody that's going to see it has seen it,
but... Mecha Combat! Whoo!</p>
<p>The biggest disappointment of the movie was that the theatre insisted on taking
all of our electronics before we went in. I'm not entirely sure what they
thought I was going to do with my GPS.</p>
<p>Anyway. Go see it.</p>
<p>*** 1/2</p>
<p>(And I hope there's not a sequel!)</p>
Django Unchainedhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/django-unchained/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2013-01-05T17:34:14Z
<h2><em>Django Unchained</em>: 9 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>While I should really try to avoid ranking this movie against
the rest of Tarantino's filmography, I should at least compare
it to its most obvious comparison: 2009's <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/inglorious-basterds/"><em>Inglorious
Basterds</em></a>.
Both movies showed us that the oppressed people could fight back; but
while <em>Basterds</em> reminded us to Never Forget, <em>Django Unchained</em> showed us
pieces of history that we, as a culture, have <em>already</em> forgotten.</p>
<p><em>Django Unchained</em> is a movie about slavery. Yes, it is billed as a
revenge flick, and there certainly is a lot of revenge in the movie; but
this revenge is against slavers and their minions. The elements of the
revenge flick form a frame around which we can witness and be reviled
by the racism, violence, and degradation inherent in the 1850s US South.
And what comes out is brutal, disturbing, and still entertaining.</p>
<p>As this is a Quentin Tarantino film, many elements of the film are clearly
set before entering the theatre. The direction will be stylized and
top-notch; the dialogue will generally heavy and speech-y, interspersed
with light and funny scenes and it will all be good; the quality
of the actors will be excellent across the board, save perhaps for
Tarantino's cameo role; and the violence will be integral to the film and
over-the-top. All of these things are true, and I will not dwell on them.</p>
<p>What is worth dwelling on is the actors themselves. Jamie Foxx delivers
an excellent and understated performance as the titular Django, a freed
slave that works as bounty hunter to free his wife. Christoph Waltz is a
German dentist/bounty hunter that frees Django, in a curious juxtaposition
to his role in Tarantino's previous movie, <em>Inglorious Basterds</em>. Most
impressively, Samuel L Jackson plays the aged head slave of the Candyland
plantation; to his peers he is in charge, and to his masters he is quite
simply a dog. The mix is fascinating. And these are only the lead roles!</p>
<p>Many of the set pieces are top notch, and spoiling them would do a
disservice to those reading the review. The segment with the proto-KKK
sticks out in my mind as very Blazing-Saddles-y; the dinner-time
conversations were appropriately tense; Tarantino's character made me
giggle; and the opening scene did an excellent job of showing us what the
movie was going to be about. This is a movie that will survive multiple
viewings, if just to see a few of these scenes over and over again.</p>
<p>One point worthy of note was the soundtrack, which is a mix of 60s- and
70s-style spaghetti western music with the occasional piece of gangsta rap
where appropriate. Even when played over-loud it added to the film; but I
still doubt I'm going to buy a copy of it any time soon.</p>
<p>At any rate, this was a top-notch, challenging, and stressful film. It
is both a stark reminder of the history of racism in our country, and an
excellent use of cathartic revenge. If you have the stomach for the blood
and violence, you should see it.</p>
<p>Rating: 9 (out of 10)</p>
Doomsdayhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/doomsday/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2008-03-24T06:27:25Z
<h2><em>Doomsday</em> - 2.5 stars</h2>
<p>I don't really know what I was expecting going into <em>Doomsday</em>. The trailers
implied ludicrous zombie mayhem; this was enough to get me there. But there
were no zombies; instead, there was more ludicrousness than I expected. And,
well, that was fun.</p>
<p>The acting was irrelevant. The explosions were pretty and unnecessary. The
sub-plots didn't connect at all. I'm not sure that there was more plot than
plot holes. None of that really mattered.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
Drag Me To Hellhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/drag-me-to-hell/2017-02-23T16:32:04Z2009-06-04T18:38:04Z
<h2><em>Drag Me To Hell</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I can't believe that I liked a movie that included a cat being hurt. I have
cancelled season passes for less; but somehow I knew that this was both serious
and ludicrous, and I stayed. For my trouble, I saw a woman swallow blood,
maggots, mud, embalming fluid, and a variety of other horrifying things. And
yet, I smiled and cackled throughout. It must have been a Sam Raimi flick...</p>
<p><em>Drag Me To Hell</em> is a story of supernatural vengeance over a single banal
act. A young loan officer denies a loan to an elderly gypsy, and is in turn
cursed to three days of suffering before her soul is taken to Hell; she in turn
must try to stop it. It's a simple premise, but told by a director that has
previously treated his viewers to the demented glory the first known filmed
tree rape, pioneered EvilCam, and brought us the greatest B-movie actor of all
time.</p>
<p>So, how does it hold up? Well, it's no <em>Evil Dead 2</em>, but is that a shock?
Specifically, its budget was big enough to use actual special effects, rather
than relying on visual effects and shock; it was PG-13, which cut into the
gratuitous gore; and much as I was hoping, Bruce Campbell never once appeared
and shot anything with his boom-stick. But it otherwise had the feel of
past glories, and introduced its own memorable silliness, such as the Evil
Handkerchief and the horrors of dentures. And it even included a vague
reference to a cabin in the woods!</p>
<p>But what may be the most memorable is the interaction between the supernatural
and the office. Surrounding the big-E Evil is the little-e evil of the world
of banking; and besides the timeliness of it, it still seemed somehow weirdly
appropriate. The Victim (her name is Christine, but really who cares?) has a
lame job with an awful boss and all she wants in the world is to be promoted.
It's sad, it's real, and it's the kind of thing that would otherwise make her
experiences exciting... Working in a bank is almost as bad as being damned.
How would you better express that than this movie?</p>
<p>It's worth watching if you like this kind of thing. And I like this kind of
thing.</p>
<p>***</p>
Edge of Darknesshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/edge-of-darkness/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2010-01-30T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Edge of Darkness</em>: * 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Well, I guess I got the bad January Movie I was hoping for.</p>
<p>Should I have had any hope going into the movie? Sure, I found him quite
excellent in the first two thirds of the Kill The Brits Trilogy (<em>Braveheart</em>
and <em>The Patriot</em>; I'm still kindof sad he never starred in <em>Zulu</em>), and he did
a more-than-adequate job as the lead of action thrillers like <em>Payback</em> and
<em>Conspiracy Theory</em>. But the last blockbuster he starred in was <em>Signs</em>, one
of my great movie disappointments of the last decade. Was this not a hint?</p>
<p>Well, it should have been. <em>Edge of Darkness</em> is a convoluted mess - not
as bad as <em>Signs</em>, I suppose, but pretty bad. It started with some dream
sequences, followed by a bunch of slow, atmospheric detective scenes; every
now and then some shadowy political intrigue was tossed in, and all of it was
punctuated with short, sharp scenes of violence. This would be fine, if, say,
these pieces fit together in some way. Instead, we were treated to the shock
of seeing a woman suddenly and inexplicably killed, and finding that this kind
of transition was as good as we were going to get.</p>
<p>What went wrong here? Quite simply, the movie was over-complicated; it
was trying to be a Bourne movie, without the underlying sensibility or
well-thought-out source material. The plot involved too many characters, split
into too many factions, many of which never interacted. While there were many
geographical settings, all of these locations were in New England, and didn't
offer much of a sense of diversity. The "gears within gears within gears"
didn't manage to hold up to the slightest scrutiny. The supporting cast was,
with one small exception ("how does it feel?"), beyond generic. And the viewer
was never given any reason to care - well, except that Mel Gibson was the good
guy.</p>
<p>(At least my instincts on Mel Gibson were good - he can still act, and even
offered a fairly convincing Boston accent for most of the movie.)</p>
<p>So, what went wrong? Well, it became pretty obvious once I discovered one
fact: the movie is based on a BBC mini-series. Aah-hah! Not only did the
movie suffer from the standard British-to-American conversion problems, but
it was 1/3 the length! I'm sure that most of those plot points could have
been properly explored and justified with adequate time. And if the number of
twists in the movie felt like a season of 24, well, that's probably because
<em>that's what they were going for</em>.</p>
<p>In short: this movie tried to cut down a 5 hour mini-series into a 2 hour
movie, and did it very badly. And sight unseen, I recommend renting that
series before watching this movie.</p>
<p>I should have seen <em>Legion</em>.</p>
<p>* 3/4</p>
<p>As a side-note - one of the trailers was for <em>The Losers</em>. I want this movie
to be good, if just to encourage the creation of more Vertigo Comics movies.
The trailer did not fill me with hope. Oh well.</p>
Ender's Gamehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/enders-game/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2013-11-07T00:18:27Z
<h2><em>Ender's Game</em>: 5 out of 10</h2>
<p>The commercials for <em>Ender's Game</em> did not impress me. The advertising
campaign focused on two things: on the propaganda surrounding the Formic
War, and the movie's final battle. This focus on space combat was
visually impressive, but were almost besides the point of the source
material; and given that there were plenty of visually impressive pieces
of the source material that could have adequately represented the source
material, my expectation was that the film makers had completely missed
the point.</p>
<p>Luckily, the commercials for <em>Ender's Game</em> do not reflect the movie. In
fact, the movie is a fairly faithful retelling of the book, and many of
its faults lie in that accuracy.</p>
<p>Both the movie and the book focus on Ender Wiggin, a child expressly
born and bred to be a child officer in fleet defending Earth. The story
focuses on Ender fighting his way through the ranks of an orbital Battle
School, the distrust of his peers, and the adult's attempts to control.
This isn't necessarily heady or subtle stuff, but it turns out to be a bit
too complex for a 90 minute movie. Most movies would address this problem
by leaving out less-important parts of the story; <em>Ender's Game</em> addresses
the problem by just giving most of these parts of the story short-shrift.</p>
<p>One simple example: a good portion of the book is spent focusing on
Ender's older siblings Valentine and Peter. The movie has precisely one
short scene with Peter. While this isn't necessarily a huge loss, this
did take time that could have been better spent on establishing other
characters.</p>
<p>Another, and more pressing, example: the most striking part of the book
was the concept of the Battle Room - an open, zero-gravity arena in which
the children battle in army formations to conquer their opponent's gate.
The battles themselves have been fascinating to imagine and to mentally
extend for decades, and the slogan "The Enemy's Gate Is Down" sticks with
me to this day. And I was not disappointed when the movie introduced the
Battle Room or showed us the first battle; but, sadly, the movie didn't
give the Battle Room the time it deserved. Instead we only got three
Battle Room battles, each inexpertly combining together several scenes
from the book. I could have watched a whole movie of nothing but the
Battle Room (<em>Hunger Games 4</em>, perhaps? Or how about a video game?), but
instead we were merely tempted.</p>
<p>Thus disappointed, I spent much of the movie focusing on what the movie
could have been if time had been available to really focus on the parts
that needed focus. I eventually decided that an 8-to-10 part HBO-style
mini-series could have done the movie justice; the book was just episodic
enough to support the material with appropriate A-and-B plots, some of
which would involve and justify both Peter and Valentine.</p>
<p>Still, there was much to praise. The child actors were really quite good,
to the extent that I was willing to forgive that they were all ~4 years
older than the original novel called for. (Well, except for Peter.) The
diversity of the cast was striking. The
special effects were effective. The thematic material was stronger than
I expected, even if it was hurt by the necessary elisions. And the final
space battle was impressive, to the extent that I was not upset that
so much time had been spent on it. And the anti-war and anti-bullying
messages still came through, though not with the same poignancy as the
original book.</p>
<p>To summarize: <em>Ender's Game</em> is not a bad movie, but it is not as good as
it could have been, or perhaps should have been.</p>
<p>Rating: 5 (out of 10)</p>
<p>Trailer thoughts:</p>
<p>Overall, the trailers were quite unfocused, seemingly indicating that the
movie studios didn't quite know what to make of this movie. It was
especially striking that there were no trailers for sci-fi movies.</p>
<ol>
<li><p><em>Vampire Academy</em>: not only does the movie look terrible, but the
trailer was inconsistent and useless. I know I'm not the target
audience for these kinds of things, but still, this is an
embarrassment. I'm sure it will make plenty of money. 2/10</p></li>
<li><p><em>Mr Peabody & Sherman</em>: I am also not the target audience of this
kind of kid's movie, but this at least looked watchable. The trailer
did a fair job of explaining the story (as such) and sampling the
jokes, though not perhaps explaining why we need a full 75 minutes of
this kind of nostalgia. I rather expect to like the Rocky & Bullwinkle
short more. 4/10</p></li>
<li><p><em>Anchorman 2</em>: the trailer itself wasn't particularly well put
together, sadly; it worked on the "string a bunch of jokes together"
principle. Luckily, the jokes looked pretty good, especially the ones
with Steve Carell. I'll probably see this. 6/10</p></li>
<li><p><em>47 Ronin</em>: this movie would look a whole lot less embarrassing if
Keanu Reeves was not involved. It's still visually impressive and
does a good job of being a self-contained story; but I also come out
of seeing this every time feeling like the trailer is actively trying
to deceive me about its movie's contents. 4/10</p></li>
<li><p><em>The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug</em>: this trailer doesn't really
have a lot of work to do; its target audience is going to see the
movie regardless. As such, this just focuses on vignettes and
visuals, rather than being a stand-alone work on its own (like, say
the first trailer from the first <em>Hobbit</em> movie, with its focus on
the Dwarven song). 6/10</p></li>
<li><p><em>I, Frankenstein</em>: the movie looks horrible and fun to watch, and
there's a pretty good chance that the trailer is going to be more fun
than the movie itself. Over-the-top gothic fantasy horror may well be
a hoot; if I see this movie, it'll almost certainly be because of the
implied craziness of trailers like this. 7/10</p></li>
</ol>
The Expendableshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/expendables/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2010-08-15T23:46:44Z
<h2><em>The Expendables</em> (2010): ** 1/2 (out of 4) / * 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Seriously, Stallone <em>and</em> Schwarzenegger? You win, I'll see your movie - and
that's <em>before</em> you toss in the other half dozen major action stars. But I'm
not expecting anything besides excessive amounts of explosions and gratuitous
violence.</p>
<p>As it turns out, the teaser trailer for <em>The Expendables</em> contained all of the
information about the movie that anyone would ever need to know: major action
stars mug for the camera, blow things up, occasionally interact with attractive
women, and blow more things up, all in the style of a 1980s-style mercenary
flick. That's it, that's the whole story. The plot was so bad as to be better
off not existing. The characters were... no, they weren't characters, they were
basic personas of action stars. The explosions were over-the-top and fairly
constant. The violence was gratuitous and borderline racist. And every one of
the action stars had their chance to shine/play to their type.</p>
<p>Yes, it was funny. Mostly, that humor was laughing at the absurdity of the
action scenes and related dialogue; but there were a few inspired moments here
and there, especially the scene with Bruce Willis, Stallone, and Schwarzenegger
cursing at each other and generally carrying on silly.</p>
<p>Should you see the movie? Me, I'm happy I went, but I can't say that it was
actually <em>worth seeing</em>; merely knowing that the movie existed was probably
good enough. The anticipation was more fun than the reality, and honestly, I
probably would have enjoyed seeing <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/scott-pilgrim">Scott Pilgrim</a>
again.</p>
<p>Still, it's probably worth pulling out the two-scale review. I had a fun time,
but by any objective scale it was an awful movie. As is often the case, if you
like this kind of thing, you'll be happy to see it; but at least this time you
know whether you like this kind of thing.</p>
<p>** 1/2 (out of 4) / * 1/2 (out of 4)</p>
<p>Trailer note - while I can't necessarily fault the studio for knowing their
audience, it was still quite a strange collection. The first trailers were for
the new <em>Narnia</em> and <em>Harry Potter</em> movies, aiming at the younger crowd; the
later trailers were for straight-up horror flicks, including the new Eli Roth
flick and the next <em>Saw</em>. Is that what 80s action flick fans have become -
torture-porn/fantasy-movie fans? Maybe so...</p>
Extracthttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/extract/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2009-09-07T22:03:51Z
<h2><em>Extract</em>: * 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Mike Judge has a talent for finding a premise and running with it. Sometimes
that premise turns out to be brilliant - positing a future where stupidity
reigns supreme, or examining the mind of that creepy office guy in the
background. More often, the premise is fairly dull - two idiots sitting around
a television commenting on music videos, or just observing the regular office
politics of a small technology firm. What's interesting about his work is
that the quality of the premise does not predict the quality of the finished
product. Once the running starts, Judge is not willing to nudge the story off
of its path in order to find additional humor. It's an interesting method;
when it it works well, but when it doesn't work, the result can be boring and
arduous.</p>
<p><em>Extract</em>, sadly, turned out to be in the latter category.</p>
<p>Perhaps the problem is the premise itself. There are three main points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Joel runs a successful but quirky small factory business with a number
of idiot employees.</p></li>
<li><p>Cindy is a hot con artist looking for a big score.</p></li>
<li><p>Dean, Joel's best friend, thinks that drugs are the solution to all
problems.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>There are plenty of sub-points; but those are the main three. But what's
interesting is that they really are <em>separate</em> points. Compare this to the
single sentence fragments that I used to describe Judge's earlier work. There
just plain isn't a "high concept" here, upon which the rest of the points could
be hung; everything was truly separate. And that made the movie just too
complicated - not in a "too difficult to follow" way, but in leaving too little
time to just <em>observe</em>.</p>
<p>Sure, some of the details shine through. The racist squabbling between
the factory workers; the factory manager that doesn't know his employees'
names; the low-quality bar that Joel and Dean hang out in regularly; Cindy's
simplistic con; the broad strokes of dealing with the neighbor; the attempted
worker strike. These moments felt like Mike Judge. The rest felt like Judge
was struggling to keep up with his story. And those moments just didn't seem
real to me - the coincidences, the considered (rather than casual) cruelty, the
straight-up idiocy.</p>
<p>I didn't wait through the whole credits; I almost left before they wrapped up a
couple of the story lines. That tells me what I needed to know.</p>
<p>At least the viral Beavis and Butthead video promoting the movie was
satisfying...</p>
<p>* 3/4</p>
Fantastic Mr. Foxhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/fantastic-mr-fox/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2010-01-06T06:32:17Z
<h2><em>Fantastic Mr. Fox</em>: **** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>When I was growing up, my father loved to read to me and my brother. At first,
this was mostly stuff like the Dr Seuss family of books, good stuff that read
well and lent itself to memorization. But as we grew up, we got into more
"sophisticated" fare. His absolute favorite was Roald Dahl, whose books (<em>The
Witches</em>, <em>The BFG</em>, and especially <em>The Twits</em>) were twisted and humorous -
what other authors do you know that write about a woman hiding her glass eye in
her husband's beer? - but most of all, they're fun to read out loud. And as
we grew older, and no longer quite so easy to read to, he's found other kids
to read to - nieces and nephews, family friends, etc. But still, one of the
things that comes to mind when I think of my Dad is the joy he got - still gets
- from those dark, twisted, <em>smart</em> children's stories.</p>
<p>But I really wasn't expecting to be reminded so clearly of those old days when
I walked into a second-run theatre on Sunday night and watched <em>Fantastic
Mr. Fox</em>.</p>
<p>Part of it was the animation. I had seen the animation style in the trailers,
and while I had been impressed, I didn't quite recognize at the time how close
of a fit it was to Dahl's work. The stop-motion puppetry was different,
immersive, effective, and ever so slightly <em>off</em> in a positive way. It was
both jerky and graceful, and interestingly understated. The characters were
visually distinctive, both in stills and in their motions. Together, it
brought across Dahl's writing style in a visual manner, something that I don't
think any previous adaptation has managed nearly so well.</p>
<p>Another part of it was Wes Anderson's direction and writing. I certainly
had seen his minimalist dialogue, quirky writing, and episodic formats as
conducive to a children's story - something like <em>The Royal Tenenbaums</em> would
play spectacularly for children, IMO - but I hadn't really thought of how it
would work out with animation. But Dahl's work clearly matched his style in a
way that I had little reason to suspect going in. The adaptation felt like a
book, and the narration gave it that feeling of a bedtime story.</p>
<p>But mostly, it was that story, and more accurately the <em>characters</em> in the
story. The characters were either unremittingly evil and dark (the humans, a
few animals), or noble and dark (the rest of the animals). Every character
was flawed, and they wore their flaws on their sleeves. Their mistakes were
made knowingly, telegraphed for the viewers in a way that didn't seem fake or
unfair. And while the good guys may come out on top in the end - more-or-less
- it's not without some losses that seem both real and relevant.</p>
<p>Together, it felt like a bedtime story that was worth listening to long after I
should be done with listening to bedtime stories. And I spent the whole movie
grinning.</p>
<p>I didn't see this movie in 2009, but it may still be my movie of the year. Or
at least I think that's how it works. Certainly, I look forward to seeing it
with my father when it's out on DVD. And if, for some reason, he ever works on
<em>The Twits</em> or <em>The BFG</em>, I suspect I'll have to fly out to see it with my Dad
on opening day.</p>
<p>****</p>
<p>(Also - we have a second-run movie theatre in the Bay now? Yay, Bluelight!)</p>
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobrahttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/gi-joe/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2009-08-10T05:01:34Z
<h2><em>G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra</em>: * 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Is this what it felt like to watch <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/transformers2/">Transformers 2</a> for
non-Transformers fans?</p>
<p>I never watched G.I. Joe when I was a kid, mostly because my mother didn't want
me to. She didn't appreciate violent television shows; G.I. Joe was pretty
much the canonical example. Mind, nobody died when the planes blew up every
episode, and really the violence didn't matter all that much; but still, it was
officially verboten. Besides, my brother and I were too busy watching
Transformers to care. But what it did mean was that I only had a passing
understanding of the series - a few characters, a few commercials, and the
"knowing is half the battle" bits from when the episode aired just before the
show that I actually wanted to watch.</p>
<p>With that little background, the first live-action <em>G.I. Joe</em> movie was less
engaging for me than it would be for others of my generation. Not only did
I not have the sense of "hey, I recognize that guy!", I didn't have the more
engaging sense of "hey, they screwed that guy up!". I remained unconnected
to the movie, and therefore better able to contemplate the plot, characters,
dramatic timing, and explosion quotient on their own terms. And out of these,
the only area where I can really offer praise is in the sheer quantity of
explosives.</p>
<p>The one area that the movie truly "shines" is science and technology. This
movie really enjoyed the "any suitably advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic" concept, inasmuch as it constantly science as a (nonsensical) magic
bullet. As an example: nanites are used as anti-bullet body armor (but not
arrows!). Sonic weapons are the ultimate weapons (but they forget about them
a lot), travelling between Moscow and Washington DC by plane takes about four
minutes, and the speed-suits are so cool that only the two new recruits can use
them. And I won't even tell you what you get when you combine nanites with
particle accelerators...</p>
<p>The plot was ludicrous. Yes, you knew that going in; but to be clear, I am
saying that it was ludicrous compared to <em>other</em> toy-movie adaptations. Most
of the action was cool to look at, but it was absolutely unnecessary to the
story beyond that. The car chase scene was the "official" spotlight of the
film, but it didn't make any sense either, either in the specific (why are they
driving that way?) or the general (why are they driving at all?). Scenes like
this abounded, and may in fact have been the point. At least the silliness was
kindof funny at times.</p>
<p>The characters were, of course, shallow and foolish. Yes, two of them were
women with a lot of cleavage; if that's what you're looking for, you've got it.
But the only character that I feel was both trying to <em>be</em> a character and did
so without actively offending me was the guy played by a Wayans brother. What
kind of world is that? (I should, for fairness, note that the actors probably
did about as well with their roles as you could hope. Well, except for Storm
Shadow. He was really, really bad.)</p>
<p>The dramatic timing outright angered me in at least one spot. A lot of effort
was spent explaining the relationship between The Baroness and other men; and
one of the major point was that Storm Shadow's role in life was to kill those
that kissed her. Well, this happened once; it did <em>not</em> happen the second
time. A major dramatic point was ruined simply because they didn't feel like
it. This isn't okay.</p>
<p>Oh, and while I don't know <em>where</em> to mention it, I just want to note that this
movie made me believe that Cobra's true goal should have been to stop global
warming, for the simple reason that it would let them hold onto their Arctic
base for longer. And perhaps it's worth noting that the ice should have
floated. <em>shrug</em> Whatever.</p>
<p>Bad movie.</p>
<p>* 3/4</p>
G.I. Joe: Retaliationhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/gi-joe-2/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2013-03-30T15:08:39Z
<h2><em>G.I. Joe: Retaliation</em>: 2 out of 10</h2>
<p>In the 2009 <em><a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/star-trek-2009">Star Trek</a></em>, a major planet
is destroyed by the villain as part of his plan for vengeance. This was a
Big Deal, both because of the scale of the violence and because it showed
the stakes involved in stopping the movie's villain. Unfortunately, it
appears that Hollywood took the wrong lesson from this escalation, and
decided that genocidal violence is okay for use as a casual threat. Thus,
in <em>G.I. Joe: Retaliation</em>, the creators decide to completely obliterate a
major world capital just to show that villain is serious (and to show off
some special effects). And once done, this is never mentioned again.</p>
<p>This is not the only example of the use of genocide as a game within the
movie, but it is the most egregious example.</p>
<p>To be fair, this is a movie about a toy line (which, as I have
<a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/gi-joe">previously mentioned</a>, I did not play with as a
child), so perhaps some latitude is in order. But the previous movie felt
more like a game, with a straightforward (if silly) plot that matched the
tone of the potential play. <em>Retaliation</em> spent its time focusing on
the acts of terror, rather than the underlying plots or characters, and it
suffered for it.</p>
<p>The genocide issue isn't the only significant problem in the movie.
From a creative perspective, it's pretty obvious that there were far
too many people tinkering with the movie, as plot-lines are inexpertly
sewn together, characters are developed and then quietly discarded, and
story points are provided and then ignored. An example: in between the
filming of the movie and its release, Channing Tatum gained significant
prominence in Hollywood. Significant focus was applied to move his
character front-and-center - but he's only in the first 20% of the movie,
so this character work was wasted. And the time was taken away from the
other characters, who actually <em>needed</em> development.</p>
<p>The timing of the movie vis-a-vis current political events was at least
interesting. The movie focused on North Korea as a nuclear power quite a
lot, generally making the country the brunt of the jokes; this felt a bit
odd during a week where the DPRK has threatened the nuclear destruction
of several US cities. The idea of nuclear disarmament is played as a
joke. The president gets significant support from the American people
for sending armed forces into foreign nations. And the movie spends
significant effort displaying and guns and military equipment, during an
ongoing national discussion of gun control. If there had been any sense
that the timing of these messages was intentional, I may have given the
movie a few points just for its chutzpah.</p>
<p>Instead, the movie gets what few points it does get from its hilarious
ninja scenes. A plot regarding Storm Shadow (bad guy) and Darth Maul In
Black (good guy) that has been going on for decades is explained to us
in rapid dialogue by RZA. There are black-and-white flashbacks; an Evil
Grandmother Ninja first heals a fellow ninja and then fights a Good Female
Ninja whose name I didn't catch; dozens of ninja fall to their deaths off
of cliffs for some reason; and then they team up for some reason. These
scenes were probably the worst of all, but I laughed uproariously through
most of it. I hope that this forces various Adult Swim cartoons to up
their game.</p>
<p>Even if you enjoy that kind of thing, though, this was a bad movie - worse
than its predecessor, and almost as bad as <em>Transformers 2</em>.</p>
<p>Rating: 2/10</p>
The Golden Compasshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/golden-compass/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2007-12-08T08:19:51Z
<h2><em>The Golden Compass</em> - 3 stars</h2>
<p>There really haven't been many times in my life where I have been the sole
person in a theatre who has enjoyed the movie. I am generally more critical
of problems and less forgiving of mistakes; it is a fault of mine. This is
especially pronounced when it comes to adaptations of material that I enjoy,
or even remember enjoying (for instance, I was somewhat dubious of the first
Narnia movie). But in this case, even with so many strikes against it, I was
probably one of the few that really enjoyed <em>The Golden Compass</em>. And I find
that regrettable.</p>
<p>It doesn't hold a candle to the book, of course; it tries to be faithful and
it suffers for it. Most concretely, it narrates the world's background rather
than simply showing it - and this ruins some small part of the initial wonder
of the daemons[1], not to mention a few other elements of the movie that would
have been better being introduced later.</p>
<p>But the true delight of the movie is the daemons, the animistic souls of men
that live with but separate to their master/partners. The daemons seem a bit
clunky at first, as they are introduced as more important than their partners
instead of equals - but soon they just start to blend into the scene, where
they belong. As the relationships become more subtle, it makes up for the
earlier heavy-handedness; and soon, they are just natural parts of a whole, as
they are supposed to be. This most intriguing of ideas is actually explored
in a vaguely reasonable way, and I was both relieved and exhilarated at the
success.</p>
<p>Most intriguingly, I found the battle sequences much more engaging than in most
movies, and more emotionally moving as well. The difference was the daemons
- when the human dies, the daemon turn to dust. This makes the battles more
real somehow, as the relatively innocent daemons fall with their masters; and
certainly, it feels much more tragic. It's been a long time since a simple
battle scene has made me flinch so much - and all because I saw a bunch of dogs
turn to ash.</p>
<p>That said, my criticisms - the plot suffers from, essentially, being on
fast-forward. Little is left out (except the last 50 pages or so, as I recall,
so that they could have a reasonably tight cliffhanger ending), but, again,
much is told rather than shown.</p>
<p>Much of the religious subtext is... well, muted. It's there, and it's even
clear, but it's not as unrelenting as the book was. To be clear, the Catholic
League's protests are legitimate for once - this is a story that is truly
anti-Church and anti-Christian, at least in its original form. I find this
absolutely fascinating, and while I won't get into it too much for fear of
spoilers... well, I hope make more movies in this series, just so I can see the
reviews.</p>
<p>And surprisingly, the aletheiometer - the titular Golden Compass - is not
particularly utilized during the movie. The book gave me the impression that
Lyra was growing addicted to the device through the story; the movie made it
seem more incidental.</p>
<p>Anyway - I enjoyed the movie. I am sad that others didn't enjoy it so much,
but I suspect that reading the book first helped immensely. If you've read the
books, you'll probably want to see the movie; and regardless of the movie, you
should read the books (or at least the first one).</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>[1] I always pronounced "daemons" with a long-A. Oh well. I'm not
changing just because the movie, and probably the author, disagree.</p>
The Green Hornethttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/green-hornet/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2011-01-16T07:01:49Z
<h2><em>The Green Hornet</em>: 3 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>Much as it surprises me to say it, the biggest failing in <em>The Green Hornet</em>
is not Seth Rogen. Oh, sure, Rogen doesn't help matters any; not only is he
miscast in the role, but his standard on-screen-character is miscast just as
badly, and his co-authorship of the script didn't do him any favors. No, the
fundamental problem was that the script is too specific in its subject matter:
a classic radio serial drama, long-forgotten and remade for a modern comic-book
audience after. It turns out that nobody knows how to make such a beast, and
what we're left with is a bit of an uneven mess.</p>
<p>One example of this unevenness was the film's treatment of "heroic" violence.
Kato is generally unarmed, and the Green Hornet carries a gas gun, ostensibly
because such a weapon is non-lethal. But their car (the Black Beauty, as
much of a character as the two protagonists), is equipped with machine guns,
rocket launchers, and a flame thrower, and the pair uses these weapons
indiscriminately. Often this is played as simple "cartoon" violence - the
baddies are not even scratched by the rocket fire - but every now and then,
somebody is killed messily. But every now and then, the pair of them kill
somebody messily - and there's no difference in tone, no acknowledgement of
difference on the pair's part. Most worrisomely, this feels both intentional
and un-considered, almost <em>accidental</em>. The script is attempting to merge the
sensibilities of the serials, the old films, the current comic audiences, and
the modern need for pretty special effects; and the combination just doesn't
work.</p>
<p>The characters are similarly confused. Headlining the film, Seth Rogen's
character of Britt Reid plays a wide variety of roles - not just a millionaire
playboy by day and a hero by night, but the unfortunate buffoon upstaged by
his assistant; a man-child; a loveable buffoon; a moral crusader; and, most
irritatingly, a sex-crazed CEO. This might have worked if presented over a
number of iterations, but as it stands this confusion just made the character
irritating and unlikeable.</p>
<p>The acting itself is, for the most part, uninspired. Christoph Waltz does an
acceptable turn as the Big Baddie, but isn't given enough of a character to
be anything more than a caricature. Jay Chou shows flashes of depth as Kato,
but the script doesn't really allow it to go anywhere. Cameron Diaz is, well,
Cameron Diaz. And Rogen, well, I don't generally dislike him as an actor, but
I don't feel like I had much of a choice with this character. The only
character I can say that I liked was Axford, the editor of the paper, but
that's just because he was played by Edward James Olmos and he stayed out of
the way.</p>
<p>For all of that, I can't say that I <em>hated</em> the movie. This would have made a
good comic; in fact, it felt like the conversion from script to storyboard to
screen was extremely solid, showing a pretty decent understanding of the source
material at all of its levels. The action scenes were generally fun (if,
again, cartoon-y), and might well have been well suited for 3-D. The gadgets
were nifty. The story held together acceptably. And there were parts where I
laughed, mostly surrounding the actual connection between comic and film.</p>
<p>Maybe it would have helped if the movie had chosen whether it was a comedy or
an action movie. Maybe it would have helped if the film had been more focused
on a single component of the entire concept of Green Hornet. Or maybe all it
would have taken would have been to cast somebody that <em>didn't</em> co-write the
movie in the lead role. But whatever it would have taken to make this an
acceptable movie, this wasn't it.</p>
<p>Rating: 3/10 (* 3/4 out of 4)</p>
Green Zonehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/green-zone/2017-02-23T16:32:04Z2010-03-22T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Green Zone</em>: ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p><em>Green Zone</em> is an adaptation of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", with the
"minor" change being that this time the story is fictional. Before the movie
came out, I heard more hype surrounding the politics of <em>Green Zone</em> than I
did about the movie itself. This is a bit surprising; after all, the trailers
made it out to be <em>Bourne IV: The Iraqening</em>, and the media usually eats that
kind of thing up. Certainly, the movie has a point of view, and displays
it every chance it can. That view: that the United States government's
rationale for and actions regarding the Iraq War were fundamentally flawed. In
certain circles, this argument is not just uncontroversial, but hardly worth
discussing; in others, it is near treasonous. In this case, a shrill cry of
"ANTI-AMERICA!" drowned out all else, and the meta-narrative quickly became
more important than the movie itself.</p>
<p>This is a shame, because the movie actually did a fairly good job of balancing
the politics and the thriller.</p>
<p>This worked in large part by intentionally echoing the Bourne movies (a series
in which I liked the parts more than the whole). It wasn't just that the movie
starred Matt Damon and had a lot of shaky-cam; there were also the connections
to the intelligence world and the media, the questionable loyalties, the
tenseness, the fast-paced plot. Most prominent, though, was the sense of
place: at all times, the movie felt like it was taking place in a specific
city, and usually specific districts <em>within</em> this city. Baghdad felt <em>real</em>;
and if the movie truly had a strength, it was this.</p>
<p>Of course, this style of movie carries a lot of baggage with it as well. The
shaky-cam was as egregious as ever, though I'm clearly getting used to it. The
action pieces were a bit overly-long and dramatic, which didn't quite fit the
feel that the story seemed to be going for. Some of the character stereotypes
that are called for by this kind of story - the Lone American Hero, the Inside
Man, the Relentless Hidden Villain, the Smarmy Henchman - don't fit quite so
well this kind of story. And the wheels-within-wheels plot points don't go
well with the theme of governmental incompetence.</p>
<p>My major gripe with the movie is that it over-played the conspiracy angle. We
know that things didn't go particularly well in Iraq; was it really necessary
to suggest that this was because of malice instead of simple incompetence?
Yes, it was interesting to show the hunt for WMDs going badly, to see the
questionable decisions regarding Iraq's future, to witness the excesses and the
disconnect between the troops, contractors, commanders, and civilians; does it
really matter much, in that context, whether the necessary information is being
hidden rather than just being obscure? Did we really gain anything to assume
malice rather than incompetence?</p>
<p>All of that said, did I like it? Well, mostly. I didn't come out feeling
enlightened; I also didn't come out furious. I suppose that, given the subject
matter, that's an impressive feat on its own.</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
The Hangoverhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/hangover/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2009-06-22T03:09:44Z
<h2><em>The Hangover</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>My favorite TV show, day-to-day, is the hour-long combination of The Daily
Show and the Colbert Report. The two shows fill a specific need in my life:
political snark from a vaguely populist and intelligent viewpoint. But when I
watch the current batch of correspondents, even though I do like them, I can't
help but look back at the good old days of TDS, when those correspondents were
even better. I miss Rob Corddry, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Ed Helms;
and I'm pretty much willing to see anything that they're in. And that's what
got me in the door of <em>The Hangover</em>: Ed Helms actually acting.</p>
<p>Of course, acting was not really the point of this movie; it's a movie of
the frat-boy, drunken antics that bachelor parties are encouraged to indulge
in, with just a touch of Vegas for good measure. After a very short /in media
res/ opening, we actually get to go back and meet the missing groom; and he
turns out to actually be a pretty reasonable guy, as are the rest of the
wedding party (well, three of them). And after the wackiness ensues, we spend
the rest of the movie finding out what happened during a missing twelve or so
hours. It's a simple and oft-repeated concept, and is well executed - but
perhaps not worthy of much comment.</p>
<p>There were a few interesting bits, though. On the one hand, we have a "bad"
interesting - the brother of the bride was broadly written and generally
annoying, with few redeeming values and implications of miscellaneous
perversions that were only worth a single, not-very-good joke a piece. But on
the other hand, we had a not-entirely brainless relationship arc for Ed Helms'
character, involving overcoming physical and emotional abuse (again, somewhat
throwaway, but in a more positive way). And Heather Graham, while not having a
huge role in the movie, did come across as actually having a character. (And
breasts.)</p>
<p>I don't know that there's a whole lot more to say than this. It was a good
enough movie; but it wasn't really worth seeing in the theatre. I'd wait for
the inevitable unrated DVD version; but if you're going to the movies, it's as
good as anything that's making money right now. And note: you only have to
stay for the first half of the end credits.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Princehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/harry-potter-6/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2009-07-18T06:50:25Z
<h2><em>Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince</em>: ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>In certain circles, enjoying the Harry Potter books is considered a bad thing.
The books are, by the standards of those circles, too base, trite, unfocused,
or unoriginal; and while there may be value in watching the social phenomena of
the midnight book releases and its ilk, those that actually claim to enjoy the
books are, at best, foolish. It's a fairly insidious attitude, and one that
has at least <em>influenced</em> me. But it hasn't affected me enough to keep me from
the series; indeed, I have seen all of the movies within the first 48 hours of
release, and went to the midnight book release parties for the last four books.
If pressed, I could defend the books much more easily than I could attack them.</p>
<p>Somehow, this all makes it harder to review the movies.</p>
<p>In this case, I liked the movie. It was well-assembled, beautifully directed,
and cleverly cut for the limitations of the medium. I came out happy to have
seen it. And what more do I want?</p>
<p>Well... there were certainly limits. The movie may have been the most focused
of the series, but it was still incredibly <em>un</em>focused on balance. There
was a beginning and an end, and most of the scenes progressed towards it;
but that restriction caused many characters to be left out entirely, themes
to be left out, and new scenes added to attempt to atone for some of those
cuts. Yes, this kind of thing has happened before, but it seemed so much more
<em>egregious</em> this time. When the ensemble cast drops down to just the eight or
so characters that are absolutely necessary to the plot, the whole story
suffers.</p>
<p>Still... I liked it a bit more for that. The book series, too, has always felt
both rushed and meandering, as the material demands that things happen over
both a year and a week. But when you watch the movies, you know that there is
more material out there, waiting to be read if you want to see it; with the
books, you're stuck knowing that we know all that we'll ever know. And that's
somehow sad. In this case, the knowledge that the real material is out there
helps the movie, and I find that a bit impressive.</p>
<p>And I am curious as to how the last book, split into two movies, will work out.
I have long felt that Book Seven has the least actual <em>material</em> of any of the
books; it seems odd to look forward to seeing twice as much footage from it.
We probably won't have too much cut there. That might be neat.</p>
<p>Anyway.</p>
<p>I went to the midnight show on opening night, which is the ideal way to see
movies like this. On the one hand, I got to see it with a bunch of excited
fans; on the other hand, there were a <em>lot</em> of them, and they were mostly
annoying and scantily-clad late teenage girls. (Yes, I'm clearly getting
old if I find this a problem). This both added to and detracted from the
experience, the former through their enthusiasm, the latter by the sheer
problems of so many people in the theatre. I probably would have enjoyed it
more if I hadn't been in the front row...</p>
<p>And there's my favorite bit of the whole thing. When I saw the first movie
back in 2001, I had my pocket Powershot S30 camera with me. I took a good shot
of a pair of girls wearing Hogwarts scarves - and I got yelled at by the
theatre staff, who tried to take my camera entirely. On the other hand, for
this movie I got a picture of a girl with an SLR camera... Oh, how times have
changed! (That she made a point of posing seductively is another point in
favor of changing times, but I have less to say about it.)</p>
<p>Anyway, if you hate the series, you're not going to like the movie. If you
love the books too much and are going to be upset by changes, you're not going
to like the movie. And if you're the kind of person that likes this thing,
you've already seen it.</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
Horton Hears a Whohttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/horton-hears-a-who/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2008-03-24T06:40:18Z
<h2><em>Horton Hears A Who</em> - 2.5 stars</h2>
<p>Dear Gods, a decent Seuss movie!</p>
<p>I don't really have anything to complain about, to be honest; I've managed to
avoid all of the live-action Dr. Seuss movies to date, and, while it sounds
like this was for the best, it does mean that I don't have a lot of credibility
on that front. Still, the popular consensus amongst the kind of people I talk
to was clear - they weren't actually Seuss. But <em>Horton Hears A Who</em> certainly
looked like Seuss, felt like it in parts, and even managed to get some of the
sound right. And that's reason to cheer.</p>
<p>That's not to say that this was a great movie. While it makes sense that there
wasn't much of a plot - this is based on a short kid's book, after all - I
still wanted <em>something</em> more than I got over an hour and a half. And... you
know, that was really my only major gripe. I liked that I didn't recognize Jim
Carrey until after the movie was over. I liked all of the random Seuss-ian
random machines. And I liked the scary yellow girl monster thingie.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
Hot Tub Time Machinehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/hot-tub-time-machine/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2010-03-29T03:04:33Z
<h2><em>Hot Tub Time Machine</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>One of my favorite 80s screwball comedies was <em>Better Off Dead</em>. It was a
cute, silly, essentially-pointless John Cusack vehicle about breakups and
skiing; it managed to end up with a half dozen good, quotable scenes intermixed
with a plot that barely deserved the title. It's a fun, foolish movie that was
popular enough to be parodized on South Park a few years back, but otherwise
doesn't appear to have impinged on the American consciousness for a while
now... or at least that's what I thought until the first trailers for <em>Hot Tub
Time Machine</em> came out.</p>
<p>Sadly, <em>Hot Tub Time Machine</em> is not <em>Better Off Dead 2: The Wrath of Rob
Corddry</em>.</p>
<p>That isn't to say that there are no connections; indeed, how could you
otherwise create a movie at a ski resort that both starring and produced by
John Cusack? At points, the movie even seemed to make the connection for the
audience - what else could the cry of "two dollars" mean? But instead of
really being a riff on 80s comedies, we got an attempt at a modern buddy-sex
comedy (ala <em>The Hangover</em>). And in that, it really didn't do a great job.</p>
<p>For all of that, I can't say that I was particularly <em>disappointed</em>. I did
laugh pretty regularly. The self-referential geekiness was endearing; the use
of the actor that played Marty McFly's father in the <em>Back to the Future</em>
series was extremely cute. I was impressed with Craig Robinson (I'm never
going to think of him as anything else but Darryl from The Office), and was
happy to see Rob Corddry even if he was playing the same character as ever.<br />
I got a kick out of geeky 20-year-old. And Chevy Chase was cute.</p>
<p>Still... I would have been happier with something <em>more</em> self-referential. Why
didn't we just see John Cusack going back in time with his friends to re-create
<em>Better Off Dead</em> directly? Why didn't they play up the various genres of 80s
comedy more clearly? And, generally, why couldn't the creators have come up
with something clever enough that somebody would think to reference it 25 years
later?</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
How To Train Your Dragon (3D)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/how-to-train-your-dragon/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2010-05-06T06:12:25Z
<h2><em>How To Train Your Dragon</em> (3D): ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The Path of the Fledgling Movie Reviewer seems to require seeing and reviewing
about a movie a week. This has worked out fairly well so far; not only
does it match my personal inclinations to go see movies, but most of the
time there's no more than a single movie out in a given week that I <em>want</em>
to see. But this gets harder as Summer Blockbuster Season begins; every
now and then, I'm going to run into situations where there's one movie
I <em>want</em> to see, and another that I <em>should</em> see. The first time I had
to make this kind of decision this year, I chose to see <em><a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/hot-tub-time-machine">Hot Tub Time
Machine</a></em>; it seemed like a better date
movie, and I rather suspected that it wouldn't stay in theatres all that long.
But even at the time, it was fairly obvious that I was going to have to see the
competition at some point.</p>
<p>Happily, this last weekend's Big Release was <em>A Nightmare On Elm Street</em>,
a movie that I am unlikely to ever see. This gave me the chance to see
Dreamworks Animation's big-movie-of-the-year, <em>How To Train Your Dragon</em>.</p>
<p><em>Dragon</em> is a solid workhorse of a movie from a film studio that is trying to
make movies a cut above your average animated kiddie fare (and knows perfectly
well that it can't compete with Pixar directly). It sets out to tell a
standard coming-of-age story, set on an island where the people are Vikings
and the only animals are sheep, fish, and a variety of dragons (being, of
course, the natural enemy of Vikings). Within this framework the movie follows
the formula pretty closely: the bumbling chieftain's son befriends a dragon,
disappoints his father, impresses the girl, saves the day, and changes the
world.</p>
<p>This may be a story that we've seen before, but it still feels pretty fresh.
Most of the media seem to think that this has to do with its 3D work; me, I
didn't see that. It wasn't that the animation was bad; it just seemed a bit
bland to me, acting like the gimmick-3D work that is so popular at theme parks
across the world. It didn't add anything except $3.50 to the cost of my movie
ticket - which is, at least, better than making the movie actively worse.</p>
<p>No, what made the movie fresh was its sensible use of back-story, and
specifically its sampling of what was apparently a complex ecology surrounding
the dragons. We looked in detail at about a half dozen species of dragon
during the movie; and we saw glimpses of another half-dozen or so. But there
was a sense there that there were many more species of dragons, and that they
might even be able to interact with each other in something resembling a
sensible manner. I'm fond of the idea that there's more to a world than can be
described in a single film, and that impression came across pretty nicely.</p>
<p>For all of that, though, I didn't come out of the movie particularly <em>excited</em>.
The movie was worthwhile, but it still felt a bit bland; maybe it was the dodgy
voice acting, or my fore-mentioned gripes with the animation, or or maybe the
dragons just felt a tad under-characterized, but I just wasn't blown away. It
was still above average, but I feel like it could have been a <em>good</em> movie if
they'd just done... something. If I knew what. (And if I expected that they'd
do it in the sequel, I'd be even happier, but alas...)</p>
<p><em>Dragon</em> has held up pretty well at the box office, and will probably continue
to hold up pretty well over the year. It may not be anything truly <em>special</em>,
but it's a sold, worthwhile movie, and certainly Dreamworks' best animated
movie since <em>Kung Fu Panda</em>. It's certainly good for kids, but even without
kids you won't be wasting your time seeing it.</p>
<p>(And now I'll go back to waiting patiently for Peter Jackson's interpretation
of the Temeraire novels. Those ought to be fun!)</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
The Hurt Lockerhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/hurt-locker/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2009-09-07T21:19:48Z
<h2><em>The Hurt Locker</em>: *** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>It took me quite a while to actually make it to <em>The Hurt Locker</em>. I first saw
something about it on The Daily Show a few months ago, and shortly thereafter
actually saw a trailer for it. It looked depressing, violent, and extremely
compelling - and perhaps more of a "concept" movie than a "plot" one. And for
whatever reason, it seemed like a movie I wanted to see <em>with</em> somebody -
perhaps not in a "date movie" kind of way, but at least with a friend. But all
this led to not seeing it at all - not everyone thinks of this kind of thing as
good "social fare". And so when I saw that it was still showing at one of
the local art theatres, I braved it alone. And I was happy that I did so.</p>
<p><em>The Hurt Locker</em> is about a bomb squad unit in Iraq in 2004 - back when the
insurgency was at its strongest. The squad is led by Sgt James, a hotshot
explosives expert who would always rather disable the bombs by hand, rather
than using the bomb robot or just plain blowing up the explosives from a
distance. His squad mates think that he has a death wish; and the movie is, in
part, about the question of whether they're right.</p>
<p>The movie is, of course, stressful to watch. The scenes from the trailers
- the road-side explosives, the tied-together bombs, the car stuffed with
explosives - all of these occur in the first 45 minutes or so. While those
scenes were hard to watch, it turns out that the later scenes were harder -
the suicide bomber, the children, and the sniper battle in the desert. Those
scenes seemed more open-ended, and therefore harder to watch. At least with
the bombs, you know when they're disarmed.</p>
<p>But that wasn't actually the interesting part. The truly fascinating part was
observing the Iraqis - their interactions with the Americans, their fascination
and contempt for the occupiers, the children's choice of language (the saddest
part of the movie for me was the kids having learned English from Gangsta Rap
music videos), and their varied relationships with the insurgency. I don't
know how accurate it all was, but it <em>seemed</em> real, in a way that I hadn't seen
very much of lately.</p>
<p>For all of these good parts, the movie was still somewhat shallow. It's really
a character piece, but besides "addicted to combat", the character turns out to
be fairly shallow. I don't know what could have improved matters, but I didn't
really come around to understanding the character all that well over time. All
I can say is that I disliked him slightly less at the end of the movie than at
the beginning.</p>
<p>Still, it was worthwhile. And I would have liked to talk to somebody about it
as I came out.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
I Love You, Manhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/i-love-you-man/
Copyright 2009, Tim Skirvin
2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2009-04-29T04:31:13Z
<h2><em>I Love You, Man</em>: ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I'm still trying to understand what exactly it is I like about this current
batch of "Apatow Comedies" (whether or not they have anything to do with Judd
Apatow). They're silly, predictable, unrealistic, based on a world that
I hardly recognize; but they're also fun, the characters themselves seem
recognizable, and the chemistry between the actors just plain works every time.
Certainly, some are better than others - Apatow's actual movies have a bit more
heart to them in general - but the entire genre just works for me. And <em>I Love
You, Man</em> turned out to be another good example.</p>
<p>The movie's silly premise is simple: Paul Rudd is getting married, and he
doesn't know any guys to be on his side. The idea of using women on his side
is never explored, though at least it is answered obliquely: he's never had
time for <em>any</em> friends, just for girlfriends, which is odd given that he seems
to get along with everyone around him. Regardless, he goes about trying to
meet guys so that he can have a best man; and after some bad starts, he meets a
vaguely creepy guy named Sydney (Jason Segel) and they proceed to bond for the
rest of the movie. And so a two-part romantic comedy begins.</p>
<p>As is so often the case in these kinds of comedies, the brilliance is in the
side characters. Jon Favreau plays an ass of a husband to the Hot Blonde of
Rudd's fiance's friends; Thomas Lennon is a random guy with elements of
Lieutenant Dangle; and of course Rashida Jones is an understated, actually
pretty cool girlfriend. The main pair are interesting and not entirely twits
as well, which is nice. And even the third-tier characters had the standard
level of personality.</p>
<p>The ending was not great, and I disliked that lack-of-female-friends thing;
but really, those were my only major gripes about the movie. There was less
outright embarrassment than I expected, too. Worthwhile.</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassushttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/imaginarium-of-dr-parnassus/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2010-01-13T05:00:43Z
<h2><em>The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>(Going in, I should note that I really, really don't want to offer spoilers on
this movie. What made the movie fun for me was a) the art and b) the lack of
fore-knowledge of the plot and characters. While I can wax ecstatic about the
former with relative safety, the latter requires more discipline than usual.
As such, I don't intend to refer to anything even close to the plot itself. I
might touch on the characters, or perhaps some themes.)</p>
<p>For all of the positive ways that I can describe my nuclear family, "artistic"
is not one of them. On my father's side, all of that family artistic skill
ended up with my Uncle Bil. I grew up with his art on my home's walls, from
portraits to sketches to photo-realistic still-life (a few of which I got to
take with me to my current home). Most influential were the video games - he
worked for Sierra On-Line for much of its glory days, and did background art
for the King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry series, amongst others. But once
that phase was over, he went back to his painting. His style has changed over
the years, sometimes more traditional and sometimes more trippy, but it's
always been recognizably his, and I've always been fond and proud of it.</p>
<p>My Uncle Bil also reminds me of Terry Gilliam.</p>
<p>Certainly, part of this is the physical resemblance. My Uncle's hair and beard
are a bit more red, but past that... well, when I watched the last Monty Python
special, the similarities were striking. This coincidence encouraged me to
contrast their visual styles, and somehow, I began to see some similarities.
The artistic subjects, the broad light-vs-dark motifs, the massive enjoyment of
the female form - they matched up, at least a bit. Perhaps none of this would
get past an art student's critical eye, but it's enough for me. And besides,
I've been enjoying Gilliam's art since I was a kid too.</p>
<p>But <em>The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus</em> did something I didn't expect.
Through its story of a man whose art has been left behind by the world, it
encouraged me to look past the art and into the artist. This was essentially
a meta-auto-biography, and not a fully flattering one.</p>
<p>Without getting into specifics, the movie told the story of the difficulty
Gilliam had in getting his film made (well, closer to <em>The Man Who Killed Don
Quixote</em> than <em>Parnassus</em>, really). Part of this was that the world has moved
on from his style (I miss you, Monty Python!). But more worrisome was how the
world kept on throwing up obstacles to hide the art away, most prominently
through the death of Heath Ledger. But his perseverance eventually got the
work out there, wars and all, and into an unforgiving, unappreciative world.</p>
<p>And yet, it was beautiful nonetheless.</p>
<p>The characters were, perhaps, sketches. The designs may have less satisfying
in CGI than they would have been in his signature paper cut-out style of yore.
The ending may have been ambiguous. And, overall, the compromises that had to
be made to get the movie out in the first place may have been more apparent
then I really wanted them to be. But nevertheless, this was a strong movie,
made by a talented man that, while he may have slowed down over the decades, is
as singular and artistic as ever. And just as I respect that in my Uncle, I
respect that in Gilliam.</p>
<p>***</p>
The Informant!http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/informant/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2009-10-08T05:05:11Z
<h2><em>The Informant!</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I still feel a little bit disappointed in myself for not seeing <em>The
Informant!</em> when I was recently visiting Illinois. I grew up about an hour
down the road from Decatur, where the movie takes place; and while ADM was
less of an odd, evil fixture in our lives than for those down the road, it
still had an impact. But rather than driving an hour out of my way to see it,
I waited until I was back home in California. But the Illinois feel was
certainly still there.</p>
<p><em>The Informant!</em> tells the story of Mark Whitacre, an executive at Archer
Daniels Midland, and his role in an FBI investigation into a price-fixing
scandal in the mid-1990s. It's hard to argue that the background isn't boring;
such white-collar crime rarely fails to inspire yawns in those that hear about
it, even when the stakes are as high as they were here. But the movie solves
that problem by spending its time focusing on Whitacre himself, from his
background to his eccentricities. It's not that the case is so interesting;
it's that Whitacre is so <em>weird</em>.</p>
<p>The movie is played for laughs, albeit extremely dark ones. Whitacre (Matt
Damon) narrates many scenes with a series of random monologues that almost
relate to what's going on, but mostly just share some of his state of mind.
While these monologues distract from what's actually happening on screen, this
actually <em>improves</em> the movie; this intentional misdirection lets us spot
incongruities and not worry about them very much, only to realize later that
some of those would have given the story away. I like that kind of thing.</p>
<p>The movie's true humor came in two pieces: the expressions on various people's
faces as they try to comprehend what Whitacre was saying to them, and the
musical choices during the various high-tension scenes. I certainly guffawed
through much of the movie, in that way that makes me wonder if I'm the only one
in the room doing so. That's worth something.</p>
<p>My biggest gripe with the movie was that the license plates were off - they
were using modern Illinois plates on all of the cars, going back to 1992. Yes,
this is nit-picky; but since they were otherwise trying to play up the
period-ness of the sets, it was a bit glaring to me to see that detail. Still,
that hardly detracted from seeing a car going down the corn-lined roads of my
childhood.</p>
<p>I can see why this movie got mixed reviews, but count me on the "amused" side
of the line. It's smart, funny, and just a tad random. Recommended.</p>
<p>***</p>
Inglorious Basterdshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/inglorious-basterds/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2009-08-22T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Inglorious Basterds</em>: *** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Reviewing a Quentin Tarantino movie is intimidating. It's easy to come out of
his movies with easily articulated opinions; it's a lot harder to do so and not
come across as some under-educated buffoon. And so, to get it out of the way -
no, I probably did not spot every reference, catch every in-joke, or even
understand every song choice. I enjoy film, but was not a cinema studies
major, and I am relatively new to the review game. So please forgive me if I
come across as a bit of a film illiterate; but at least I do have a unique
perspective here.</p>
<p><em>Inglorious Basterds</em> is an escapist, intense fantasy flick about World War II.
It is violent, funny, and foolishly fictional. The characters are violent and
over-the-top at every turn, the accents overly pronounced, the story nihilistic
and fairly grotesque. The visual style is distinct, and the dialogue mixes the
vulgar and high-brow fairly evenly.</p>
<p>And what did it remind me of? Well, the Tarantino feel was certainly there,
but that wasn't the main thing. No, what it felt like was a Garth Ennis book:
one of his World War II ones, a combination of "The Adventures of the Rifle
Brigade" and his "War Stories" books, with just a touch of the characters from
his farcical books such as Hitman. Just for good measure, the visual style
looked to be influenced by Carlos Ezquerra, a frequent collaborator. And, of
course, the content of the story itself fit that mold too...</p>
<p>That's not to say that this movie didn't have a strong theatrical feel to it.
The speeches, the depth, the interconnectedness, and most of all the sheer
<em>tension</em> of the movie, all of these clearly showed Tarantino's fingerprints.
But still, that comic book view shone through, both with the excess violence
and the combination of anti-heroes and super-villains populating the story.</p>
<p>Past that... well, most of the parts that I really liked about the movie are
hard to discuss without resorting to outright spoilers. The one moment where I
outright burst out laughing was the <em>Scarface</em> reference; most of the rest of
the movie I sat worried and tense, clearly as intended. It would probably have
worked better as either a slightly less fictional movie, or as a slightly
<em>more</em> fictional one; the final balance was a bit distracting.</p>
<p>All in all, it was a good movie, perhaps his best since <em>Pulp Fiction</em> (I
wasn't a huge fan of <em>Death Proof</em>, <em>Kill Bill</em> was mostly just frustrating,
and <em>Jackie Brown</em> was a bit too forgettable). But I still haven't made up my
mind if I actually want to see it again.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
The Internationalhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/international/
Copyright 2009, Tim Skirvin
2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2009-02-19T06:07:34Z
<h2><em>The International</em>: ** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The tone of a movie makes a very strong impact on how I feel about the overall
movie experience. It's not really the specifics of the tone, mind; instead,
it's the consistency of the tone, the idea that a decision was made about the
movie early in the process and retained throughout. Some of my favorite movies
are, by any sensible definition, terrible; <em>Bad Boys</em>, for instance, is an awful
Michael Bay action flick. But for me, its tone wins out; it is consistently
over-the-top, loud, violent, and excessive.</p>
<p>In a similar way, the tone of <em>Run Lola Run</em> won me over years ago, with
its fast-paced, dark, hopeful, and simply <em>odd</em> simplicity. That movie was
director Tom Twyker's breakout film (as well as actress Franka Potente, but
that's a different review), and I have continued to watch his movies as they
have been released in the simple hope of finding something so pure of tone.</p>
<p><em>The International</em> is, sadly, not that movie.</p>
<p>The movie tells an (admittedly timely) story of international intrigue and
politics as it related to the world of high finance. The ICBB (I didn't think
to write down what the acronym stood for) is a giant in the world of banking,
and has begun to enter the world of arms dealing. As such evil conspiracies
are wont, it would do anything to defend its plans and its secrecy, including
murdering potential leaks and those investigating those leaks. And so the
movie begins.</p>
<p>Played for understated drama, this could have been a telling story of the
supreme power of corporations; played for melodrama, this could have been a
story of evil lawyers and businessmen that would do anything to support their
lifeblood. Instead, it went for a little bit of both.</p>
<p>To illustrate: the movie begins with the bank covering up a potential leak
through two quick, well-thought-out, deniable murders. Later, they assassinate
a major Italian politician to keep their secrets and still later, the
Guggenheim Museum in New York becomes the scene of a set-piece shootout, with a
half-dozen assassins killed as well as a slew of bystanders. Subtle murder, to
public execution, and then a massacre - a tone could have been kept here. This
could have been told with a sense of inevitable escalation, with the stakes
being raised at every step; instead, the idea came through that all of these
killings were business as usual, and that indeed the bank seemed to be <em>more</em>
efficient as the stakes became higher and the publicity concerns were
increased.</p>
<p>Still, it was a well executed movie. The fore-mentioned gunfight in the
Guggenheim was a truly excellent set-piece, if silly from the onset; Clive Owen
was as dependably intense as usual; and the European locations were interesting
and enjoyable to watch. But the lack of consistency dragged the movie down to
a slightly disappointing level.</p>
<p>I should probably go watch <em>Run Lola Run</em> again to make myself feel better.</p>
<p>** 1/4</p>
Iron Man 2http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/iron-man-2/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2010-05-10T06:23:47Z
<h2><em>Iron Man 2</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>You can tell that the summer blockbuster season has begun when attending a
movie during opening weekend requires you to stand in line for a significant
period. From the perspective of an amateur reviewer, this is requires a
shift in perspective; the review has to reflect the knowledge that almost
everybody that is likely to see a given movie is likely to have either already
seen the movie before the reviews can be published (or at least has heard a
significant amount of media discussion of the movie's plot and how it did
opening weekend). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does change the
game. In my case, I assume that the reader has some idea of whether they're
predisposed to see the movie in the first place; rather than try to convince
the unconvinced, I'll talk about whether the movie accomplishes what it sets
out to do (artistically).</p>
<p><em>Iron Man 2</em> is an interesting sequel, in that it spends much of its time
directly following up to the events of the first movie. At the end of 2008's
<a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/ironman">Iron Man</a>, Tony Stark revealed to the world that he
was, indeed, the titular superhero; and in so doing, he changed the world more
than he had by creating the costume in the first place. Instead of just being
a regular, mysterious superhero, the world now sees that the suit is merely
technology; and, as always, technology is meant to be copied. And so the race
is on to reverse-engineer the tech, with Stark in the middle; and while Tony
<em>loves</em> the attention, it is putting pressure on him to succeed.</p>
<p>It's an interestingly low-key movie, all told. As in the first movie, there is
never a sense that the world itself is in any particular danger; instead, we
spend time arguing about defense contracts and personal vendettas. The stakes
are still high, but it's a very <em>personal</em> movie, at least in the milieu of
superhero stories. Lives are at stake, but only because they're in the way.</p>
<p>As before Robert Downey Jr steals the show. As his personal fame and global
importance have increased, Tony Stark's arrogance and impulsive behaviour have
grown to match. He feels the weight of the world on his shoulders, and refuses
to show it to anybody; the only thing keeping him going is the knowledge that
it would be even worse if he didn't. He is both introspective and horribly
self-absorbed; when it comes down to it, he is his own worst enemy. This is
written with more skill than in the original comics, where this struggle was
seen through the prism of alcoholism; and it is certainly well-portrayed, based
on the acting skill and background of Downey Jr. The first movie was not just
a fluke; this is the role he was born for.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, Tony Stark was not the only well-defined character in the movie.
Pepper Potts is a much more organic character this time through; instead of
being primarily a foil for Tony's excesses, she is consistently competent,
acting both as a personal assistant to Tony and a general manager for a large
corporation. Last time we were told that she was an important part of Tony's
life; this time, we're shown <em>why</em>.</p>
<p>Other characters are less well-defined. The weakest link is Scarlet Johansson,
who turns in a fairly uninspired performance as Black Widow; she looks the
part when necessary, but doesn't have the presence to carry the role when
out of "costume" and is not given particularly good material to work with.
Also weak was Justin Hammer, who, while well-acted by Sam Rockwell, was only
shallowly characterized. Better were Vanko (an oddly subtle performance by
Mickey Rourke, at least for a character out for revenge) and Happy Hogan (who
is given something to do this time); somewhere in between were Nick Fury, Agent
Coulson, and Colonel Rhodes (I think I liked Terrence Howard better than Don
Cheadle, but both are good, and the bigger problem is that the writing was
better for this character in the first movie).</p>
<p>So, that's the characters - how was the rest of the movie? Well, the main
story was low-key, as previously mentioned; it was good, but not <em>excellent</em>,
and seemed to consist more of a loosely-connected series of set pieces rather
than a consistent story. As others have noted, the movie did seem a bit busy;
some of the material could probably have been shifted to the side without
hurting the overall story. That said, I'm not sure that I could easily
identify which pieces should go; so maybe it's not so bad.</p>
<p>A few other points:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>There was some really bad science in there - really, really bad. Yes, I
shouldn't worry about this much in a movie like this, but it made me cringe.
No, you do not make new elements that way! Why did it have to be an element
anyway? <em>sigh</em></p></li>
<li><p>The computer user interfaces looked interesting, for the most part. They
helped get the idea across that Stark's technology was a few years ahead of
everybody else's, without making it look like they were from outer space; this
was a nice balance.</p></li>
<li><p>Vanko's role was, overall, pretty sketchy. Most of the way through I liked
this; the character seemed like a bit of a super-smart thug, and his desire
for revenge didn't really extend to hurting bystanders all that much, both of
which were at the very least interesting ideas. But it bothered me that he
didn't have much of an end-game planned, or at least not much of a <em>sensible</em>
one. If you're going to go with super-smart as a character trait, it's nice
to follow through.</p></li>
<li><p>The product placement made me snicker more than anything. Of course, this
was true of the commercials and such as well. Am I really more likely to buy
Sun/Oracle products now that they're associated with Iron Man?</p></li>
<li><p>Do I really have to talk about the special effects? They were good, and
well-integrated. The action set pieces were put together well. If you come
for the spectacle, you'll be happy.</p></li>
<li><p>Hooray for not being in 3-D!</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So, all of that said - what's the overall verdict? Well, the movie does
what it sets out to do, even if the details are questionable. I wasn't
disappointed, but I also don't think it was as joyous and fun as the first
movie. And I still want to see the next movie(s) in the series.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>An aside, regarding the large Marvel Movie-verse - I really do like how this
is playing out so far. The connections are there, and are clearly telegraphed,
but don't need to be played out to be interesting; this feeds my fanboy
tendencies, without requiring me to be an expert on decades of Marvel Universe
background to understand what's going on. But, more interestingly, this is a
new universe, something that hasn't been done before. Yes, all of the major
beats are there from several versions of the Marvel-verse, but this time we're
doing it without the Big Names: Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and
probably others whose rights belong to other companies. This means that some
paths can be pursued that are just not feasible in other incarnations; and even
if the rights do revert to Marvel at some point, the characters will be coming
into the game late. I like the mix-up, it's very Elseworlds-y.</p>
Iron Manhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/ironman/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2008-05-05T03:29:56Z
<h2><em>Iron Man</em> - 3.5 stars</h2>
<p>As with so many others, I haven't been particularly looking forward to this
movie. The trailers were okay and all, but really, the only piece of really
good news I'd heard until a few weeks ago was that they'd cast Robert Downey Jr
as Tony Stark. That was, indeed, inspired casting; but would it be enough to
get over my general Marvel Universe malaise, or continued annoyance that nobody
liked Ang Lee's <em>Hulk</em>, or my general indifference towards the character of
Iron Man in the first place?</p>
<p>I guess so.</p>
<p>The good reviews started coming in a week or so ago; everyone that liked comics
<em>loved</em> the movie, and almost everybody else liked it as well. Sure, it's a
comic movie to the core - big bad guy show-down and all - but it was made in
the style of a popcorn flick, and it did an excellent job of it. And so my
hopes shot up to the stratosphere.</p>
<p>Were they fulfilled? Well, almost.</p>
<p>This is clearly the best Marvel movie to date. It's a fairly simple story,
told well, with extremely good casting and, oddly, pretty good acting. The
core character of Stark was well-done and well-adjusted to the modern day;
and the technology level was acceptably higher than what we had now. The
special effects were, unshockingly, top-notch (though I could have used a
better sound system to hear the sound effects; I miss you, Lorraine Theatre!).
Most interestingly to me, there was clear interest in connecting things to the
Marvel Universe, if only lightly - we're about to hit an age of MU movies with
mild cross-overs, it seems, and that's exactly what I <em>want</em> to see.</p>
<p>On the down-side... well, the villains are a bit generic, the cast seemed
fairly generic, the soundtrack was not all that memorable, and, well, it's
still a popcorn comic-book movie. But these didn't really bother me; it just
meant that it was no <em>Batman Begins</em> (or probably <em>The Dark Knight</em>).</p>
<p>*<strong> 1/2 for this showing; probably *</strong> long-term.</p>
<p>And for the Gods' sakes, stay for the end of the credits! There's a scene
there. Sure, it wont mean much to a lot of you non-Marvel folks, but... just
watch it.</p>
Kick-Asshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/kick-ass/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2010-04-17T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Kick-Ass</em>: *** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, I do not believe that Americans like the idea of
super-heroes. Mind, I believe that we look up to superheroes as our National
Mythological Figures; they are our demi-gods and heroes, and their stories will
be told and re-told in such a way that only the true core of the story remains.
But we seem to be embarrassed that we have National Mythological Figures at
all, and tend to respond negatively to the implications. For most people, this
leads to a general rejection of super-heroes as "just kids stuff", even as
they absorb the blockbuster comic-based movies several times a year. Many of
the rest absorb this kind of myth-making cheerfully; but there are a few that
stand somewhere in the middle. These people, often super hero fans of old, are
willing to accept myths as myths, but see value in myth regardless. Rather
than just mocking the childish things, these people look for opportunities to
merge these myths into their understanding of reality; and, as they attempt to
explain their position to those on either side, some of these people attempt to
elevate the art with their local revelations.</p>
<p>All that is just a long-winded way of acknowledging a growing sub-genre of
comic book movies that are dedicated to deconstructing the super-hero myth from
within. <em>Watchmen</em> was last year's entrant into this field. This year, we
have <em>Kick-Ass</em>.</p>
<p><em>Kick-Ass</em> is a movie both questioning and revelling in this comic book middle
ground. It starts with a fairly simple question: why has nobody tried being a
costumed super-hero? Sure, it may be a self-evidently bad idea, but since when
is that enough to stop <em>everybody</em>? And so, based on this thought, Dave, a
high-schooler buys himself a costume and goes out on patrol. This ends badly,
but not so badly as to keep him from trying again. And from here, things go
along the standard comic path pretty clearly - secret identity management,
sidekicks, gadgets, psychopathic villains, costumed allies, the works. From a
skeptical beginning is a standard comic book arc born.</p>
<p>Interestingly, these elements both work, at least individually. For most
people, it's enough to just focus on one half of the movie, either the ironic
and doomed-to-failure first part, or the over-the-top and super-heroic second
part. But to appreciate the movie as a whole requires a connection between
the "realistic" and "escapist" elements, and that seemed to elude much of the
audience - likely, anybody that isn't already interested in an in-depth
analysis of these kinds of topics. (And, to be fair, a lot of those people
that <em>are</em> interested in that kind of discussion; this wasn't exactly <em>deep</em>.)</p>
<p>As usual, the easiest parts of the movie to review are the characters and the
action set pieces. The former were, somewhat shockingly, actually fairly
interesting; Nicholas Cage's character in particular was well-acted and
characterized, and Chloe Moretz's character wasn't anything that I expected out
of a 12-year-old (more about that later). The set pieces were fairly in many
ways typical comic-book fare, but were interesting in how appropriate they were
for both the page and the big screen; the viewpoints were clever and varied,
and took advantage of the benefits of both media. For instance, the gun fight
in the dark with the strobe light was very effective on screen, but was very
clearly based on some interesting visual effects on the written page.</p>
<p>Back to Moretz - what of Hit-Girl, her controversial character? Well, for
starters, she did an excellent job of portraying a cutely capable character
that was horribly violent and clearly a sociopath. On her merits, this was
not a character to admire; but she was so clearly acted, so over-the-top
disturbing, that she took the same spiritual position of Rorschach from
<em>Watchmen</em>. It was morally questionable, and it was beautiful. And while this
girl has a great career ahead of her, it's still going to be horrifying to see
the cosplay versions at conventions over the next few years.</p>
<p>I should note that I didn't exactly go into this movie expecting greatness.
It helped that I hadn't read the book first; based on that, I didn't have
to worry about the changes from the comic book script, nor did I have to
contemplate my general distaste for Mark Millar's work. There had been good
word-of-mouth from the comic press, but otherwise, there wasn't much to give me
hope.</p>
<p>It looks like it's going to be a commercial flop, all told. Much of this
probably has to do with the studio's lack of understanding of how to market
this movie, or even who they were marketing the movie at - just look at the
parade of trailers they showed before the movie (horror, summer blockbuster,
Rob Schneider comedy, generic action movies, just a touch of romantic comedy,
and so forth). But perhaps my theory as to America's interest in superheroes
also explains a part of this. Much as we are, as a whole, willing to see
well-marketed movies based on decades-old super-hero characters, we're less
interested in anything more challenging or less iconic. We're not quite to the
point where a second-rate deconstruction will interest us. Maybe some day.</p>
<p>All that said, I still think that this movie was a success. I went into the
movie with fairly low expectations, and came out wanting to read the book;
that's not really a common thing.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
The King's Speechhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/kings-speech/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2011-01-03T03:10:42Z
<h2><em>The King's Speech</em>: 8 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>When I arrived at the theatre to see <em>The King's Speech</em> today, the line was
out the door, a pretty even mix of old and young and in-between, families and
couples and individuals. Two minutes into the waiting, somebody came out and
announced that there were only 80 tickets left; the line was about 100 people
in by this point, and growing. My date and I were the last two people to be
sold tickets. And this was for a matinee showing of an art movie that has been
showing at this location for two weeks - and was apparently sold out every
show.</p>
<p>I suppose that word of mouth works.</p>
<p><em>The King's Speech</em> tells the story of King George VI, and specifically his
speech impediment. The movie begins with Prince Albert (the future King)
giving his first radio speech to the British Empire - or, more accurately,
failing to do so. His wife sets out to find help for her husband, and comes
across an unconventional Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue.
Hijinks ensue - mind, hijinks set against the 1930s British politics, and
specifically the start of World War II.</p>
<p>The highlight of the film is its exceptional cast, both in terms of the acting
provided by the cast, and through the casting itself. The film is a who's-who
of UK cinema, starting with Colin Firth as George VI and Geoffrey Rush as
Logue; both play their roles with aplomb, with Firth offering an especially
impressive vocal turn to his role. But the supporting cast is just as good
- Helena Bonham Carter as future-Queen-Consort Elizabeth, Michael Gambon as
George V (King Dumbledore!), Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill, and Guy
Pearce as Edward VIII. And that only scratches the surface.</p>
<p>Just as impressive (but much less obtrusive) was the work of the backstage
craft workers. Most of the set pieces took place in places like Buckingham
Palace, Westminster Abbey, or other London tourist landmarks; and the costumes
were period-accurate in a way that made them almost unobtrusive. But most
impressive was the makeup and hair, with the cast working as <em>ringers</em> for
their roles. There will be well-deserved Oscar nominations here.</p>
<p>And as for the story - well, the major beats were predictable, the characters
not particularly deep, and the whole thing reeked of the "Royals are people
too!" vibe that is popular in British cinema these days. But nevertheless,
even if the story was the weakest part of the movie, it was still compelling.
Partially, this was because the dialogue itself was well-written (feeling
like a stage play most of the time); but mostly, the movie thrived because the
story was more-or-less non-fiction. The truth can aid even the biggest cliché.</p>
<p>For all of that, I'm still not entirely sure why the movie was packed. Doing
some research online, it looks like this is not entirely unique - this movie
holds the "highest gross per-theatre" title for 2010. And yes, it was a good
movie, and a good start to my year's movies. But I doubt I'll ever run into
that kind of crowd at an art theatre again.</p>
<p>Rating: 8/10 (*** 1/2 out of 4)</p>
Les Miserableshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/les-mis/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2013-01-14T05:36:43Z
<h2><em>Les Miserables</em>: 3 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>Hollywood actors are not necessarily good stage actors, nor vice versa.
This simple observation is the heart of the problems with the flawed
film adaptation of <em>Les Miserables</em>, itself a Broadway adaptation of
Victor Hugo's 19th century novel. No matter how well-developed and
textured the characters may be in print or song, all is lost if the actors
cannot portray the characters successfully. And in this adaptation,
the actors were decidedly not up to the task, simply because they are
Hollywood actors, and cast as such. But this story needs to be told a
Broadway spectacle; thus, the movie is a failure.</p>
<p>To be fair, there are bright spots. Anne Hathaway in particular does
an amazing job in both acting categories, working simultaneously as a
superb Hollywood actress and an accomplished voice; her Oscar nomination
is well-earned. Many of the relatively-minor actors have a Broadway
pedigree, which shows through; and many cast members are adequate-but-
forgettable, including Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen. And
even Hugh Jackman, who I found passable but working outside of his vocal
range, was at least trained for the stage.</p>
<p>All of this is ruined by Russell Crowe. Crowe seems to have been chosen
because he is a well-established action-hero type, with a strong presence
and huge star power. Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to be able to sing
with the same power that he brings to his Hollywood acting. His character
is understated where he should be bombastic, confused where he should be
threatening, and above all <em>quiet</em> when he should be <em>belting</em> out his
lyrics. The direction and green screen effects surrounding him just draw
attention to these problems. Crowe's solos are embarrassing, and when he
shares the stage with others he drags the others down with him.</p>
<p>Mind, the casting wasn't the only major problem; also worrisome was the
pacing. The play is (unsurprisingly) divided into two Acts; the movie
spends its first ~70 minutes (out of ~150) focusing entirely on the first
half of Act I. We don't even meet the background-storyline protagonists
of the film until nearly half-way through the movie, and by that time I
was too bored to care! The rest of the story is then compressed to fit
into the available time, with songs cut and characters under-developed.
Thus the story is butchered.</p>
<p>And then there's the spectacle, or lack thereof. Part of the draw of
the stage version are the choreography and spectacular stagecraft; but
the film does not translate this into anything particularly inventive or
interesting, and settles for a direct adaptation. It was a missed
opportunity, and I was hugely disappointed.</p>
<p>My wife, a fan of the play and its soundtrack, insists that I would still
like the play. I have to admit, though, that I came out of the movie
uninterested in seeing the play at all. That can't be a good thing. But
at least I'm tempted to read the novel.</p>
<p>Rating: 3 (out of 10)</p>
Lincolnhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/lincoln/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2012-11-27T21:10:22Z
<h2><em>Lincoln</em>: 8 (out of 10)</h2>
<p><em>Lincoln</em> tells the story of the passage of the 13th Amendment through
the House of Representatives during the lame-duck Congress following
President Lincoln's re-election in 1864. The Civil War is wrapping up,
and Lincoln feels that he has to push through the amendment before the war
ends, before the national political sentiment changes. And so he fights
to consolidate his party, flip voters of the opposition to his side, and
otherwise use all of his political capital to accomplish his goal: end
slavery in the United States of America.</p>
<p>At its core, <em>Lincoln</em> is a movie about national politics. To be sure,
this isn't really <em>modern</em> politics we're talking about; this is the
politics of the 1860s, where the politicians have beards, wigs, and large
hats; communication works by telegraph, travel by horse or riverboat; and
of course the bloodiest American war is still raging. But none of this
fundamentally changes the core of Washington: politics are hard, politics
can be incredibly dirty, and politics <em>matter</em>. (It also turns out that
politics can make for fascinating viewing.)</p>
<p>But that's not really that all that <em>Lincoln</em> is about - indeed, it's
in large part about Lincoln himself. He is shown as a sad man, with a
painful and complicated family life and a deep need to accomplish what he
thinks is right, even at the cost of doing things that he knows are wrong
(or, at least, that he isn't convinced are <em>right</em>).</p>
<p>More than that, we see that Lincoln is a storyteller. Lincoln tells
stories to illustrate his moral points; he tells stories to inspire
those around him; and he tells stories to silence the yelling around
him. He laughs at himself, he goes on tangents, and he inspires the
more frustrated around him to stomp out. He controls the room with his
quietly-told stories, dirty jokes, and inspirational speeches. And I came
out of every one of them thinking "I would vote for this man." It was
extremely effective, and one of the most fascinating parts of the movie.</p>
<p>Still, what I found most fascinating was the politics itself. The
strong-arm politics, whipping for votes, the barely-concealed bribery and
corruption, the speeches for the press, the careful selection of words,
the powers and limitations of party politics, and the dangers of virtue -
these were all presented as clearly as a season of the West Wing. The
difference, of course, is that this is at least <em>related</em> to what actually
happened, and the fight was one that <em>mattered</em>. That touches me much
more effectively than a simple fire fight.</p>
<p>The casting and acting ware spectacular. Daniel Day-Lewis should win the
Best Actor Oscar for this work; I wouldn't be surprised to see Tommy Lee
Jones be nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his work as Thaddeus
Stevens. It seemed that the entire Congress was made up of first- and
second-rung actors, and most of them had a chance to shine. I was perhaps
unduly moved by S Epatha Merkerson's role (which I won't spoil).</p>
<p>As for Spielberg's role - well, besides the clear skill at dramatizing the
politics (something that I would have been happy with, but most audiences
perhaps less so!), his role seemed pleasantly muted, compared to his
normal directorial work. This was a good thing; this was neither a war
movie nor a rollicking/whimsical tale, and the story needed to be told
differently. But it was still clearly Spielberg, and I was happy with his
part.</p>
<p>There were flaws, certainly. I would have preferred that the movie ended
a bit earlier. I'm not sure that dragging things out until Lincoln was
actually shot and killed added anything that couldn't have been more
effectively handled with a text box; and, indeed, more context could have
been added at that point. I think that the relationship between Lincoln
and his family could have either been beefed up a bit, or pulled down;
either way, it didn't seem to be quite right. The soundtrack seemed a bit
muted. And I'm still a bit disappointed that the movie didn't come out
before the elections (even as I understand why it couldn't).</p>
<p>But all in all, this movie was excellent.</p>
<p>Rating: 8 (out of 10)</p>
The Losershttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/losers/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2010-04-25T07:35:04Z
<h2><em>The Losers</em>: * 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Vertigo started its 32-issue run of The Losers back in 2003, when I was an
absolutely voracious comic book reader and collector. Oh, sure, by any
reasonable measure I still <em>am</em> a voracious reader and collector; but back
then, I was picking up 30-40 issues a month, and reading most of them. The
Losers was actually a bit of a high point within that collecting; at the very
least, it was something different than the normal fantasy and superhero stuff I
was reading at the time. The book was essentially a boiled-down action movie
series, told in a mostly episodic manner and focusing on the "good bits"
without having to spend so much time on the details. This worked very nicely,
because the reader was more than capable of filling in the details, while the
artwork gave a nice framework upon which those details could flow. It was
silly, it was over-the-top, and it <em>worked</em>.</p>
<p>Sadly, there wasn't enough detail left to convert the material back into a
movie again.</p>
<p><em>The Losers</em> is the first Big Dumb Action Movie of the summer (yes, it's
April). It more-or-less tells the story of the comic's first story arc, with a
bunch of character origins and the more interesting parts of the longer story
tossed in for good measure. The characters are more stereotypes than people:
the Roguish Leader With The Heart Of Gold, the Operations Expert, the Bad-Ass
Sniper, the Assassin, the Computer Guy, and the Hot Ninja Chick. They're an
ex-military unit that has been set up by their government, and they have to get
revenge on the Big Bad Guy over it.</p>
<p>None of that bothers me; it was a good start for the comic, and it could have
been a good start here. But it turns out that movie-watchers are less fond of
ill-defined anti-heroes, and want details. And so most of the characters end
up with back stories, families, and all the rest - thus taking them out of
stereotype land, and into Characters We're Supposed To Care About. But, sadly,
we don't exactly learn enough details to care; and most of those details tend
to clash with what we're learning elsewhere. Instead of archetypes, the
characters are sketched into caricatures.</p>
<p>But that's just a single example of the greater problem: having to add detail
back in where it had been taken out before. Another example, perhaps more
obvious to those that haven't read the books, is the visuals. As movie goers
are getting used to, the scenes from the comic are essentially copied
panel-by-panel; but frankly, the comic's art doesn't support that. The comic's
art is also very archetypal, and (for the most part) minimalist. It's enough
to set up the basic scenes and the characters themselves, but past that? When
they start putting in details of their locales, it ends up looking wrong.
Fake. Often silly.</p>
<p>(I should note that this did work well in the credits sequences. The
motion-comic version of Jock's artwork was worthwhile, and I wish we could have
had more of it.)</p>
<p>There were other problems. The movie couldn't really decide on a tone during
its action sequences; this mostly means "more people should have been killed",
and was probably caused by its PG-13 rating, but it still bothered me. The
villain was just <em>awful</em>, in a "we haven't decided how evil to make him so
we'll change from minute to minute" kind of way. I don't want to get into
the Indian Kindof-Bad-Guys, but... <em>shiver</em> The movie ends on a "let's have
a sequel" cliffhanger, which was foolish. And (perhaps a bit petty) I was
annoyed that they didn't use the Glee version of "Don't Stop Believin'"; it
would have dated the movie more effectively.</p>
<p>What I learned from this movie: when you boil down a genre to its basics, you
can get a comic. When you boil down that comic into <em>its</em> basics, you get a
cartoon. Too bad they weren't trying for a cartoon.</p>
<p>* 1/2</p>
Lucyhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/lucy/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2014-07-27T13:52:11Z
<h2><em>Lucy</em>: 3 out of 10</h2>
<p>The trailer for <em>Lucy</em> that came out a few months ago was fun, at least
the first time I saw it. The action looked sharp and stylish, the story
seemed cheerfully bare-bones and perfunctory, and Luc Besson's direction
and Scarlett Johansson's acting are generally joys to watch. The main
downside was the focus on the "humans use only 10% of the human brain"
myth, which grated like nails on a chalkboard; but I could still get
behind it, if only that part was only being played up in the trailers.</p>
<p>Sadly, the trailer was not exaggerating. The movie really, truly commits
to the 10% thing, and extrapolates it all the way up to transcendence
and transubstantiation. And this plot contrivance undermines the story,
with the story undermining the plot as well. All we're left with is some
occasional nice action scenes and some good acting by Scarlet Johansson.</p>
<p>The general plot of the movie: Lucy (Johansson) is turned into an
unwitting drug mule for an experimental drug. When the bag of drugs is
broken while still inside of her, she gets super powers and starts to
transcend. While mourning the loss of her humanity, she then tries to
get more of the drug so that she can further transcend. Also, there are
bad guys that are generally good at blowing things up that act as mere
annoyances to Lucy. Lucy succeeds at transcending. Cue <em>2001</em> space
baby.</p>
<p>To me, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable plot to an animated movie
with about ten lines of subtitled dialogue. There's no real need to
explain what's going on here, and any explanation will by necessity cut
into the trippiness of the high concept by forcing us to answer questions
that we shouldn't have needed to articulate in the first place.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Besson wanted to focus on that explanation. As such,
he cast Morgan Freeman as a professor that specializes in human brain
studies (psychologist? Biologist? I don't think we were told), and
Freeman proceeds to explain Besson's thesis in detail. Humanity only
uses 10-15% of its brain; dolphins use 20%, and that's how they can do
echo-location; if we used more than that, we would be able to control our
own bodies, the bodies of others, matter, energy, etc, each associated
with a specific 5% mark. This all gets tied into evolution and immortal
cells and information transfer and other pseudo-science.</p>
<p>By casting Freeman, Besson was forced to use him. And so we end up with
the major sub-plot of the film, which involves Lucy coming to Paris to see
him for, err, some reason. This ties into a bunch of other silly premises
involving the other drug mules, the remarkably-determined bad guys, and
something involving Lucy's need for exactly four bags of the drug (no
more, no less), coincidentally the number of bags already shown on screen!</p>
<p>This sub-plot serves to undermine the otherwise-straightforward story.
Conversely, the story undermines the sub-plot, which probably <em>could</em> have
worked out if it wasn't in the service of a trippy action movie.</p>
<p>How about the action? At least some of the individual scenes were pretty
and well-directed in isolation, including Lucy's break-out from captivity,
the car-chase scene, and the start of the Bad Guy's final assault; but
only the first of those scenes really fit into the story, and only the
last one fit into the plot. (The car chase scene could have been excised
from the movie without effecting either one, but it was at least striking!).
But most of the action was fairly forgettable, especially compared to the
trippy scenes happening <em>around</em> the action.</p>
<p>All in all, this whole movie felt half-formed and unfocused. I wish that
Besson had committed to one type of movie or another, so that we might
have ended up with something more interesting than a stylized mess.</p>
<p>Rating: 3 (out of 10)</p>
<p>By the way:</p>
<pre><code>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_brain_myth
</code></pre>
<p>Trailer Thoughts:</p>
<p>The next few months do not look good. The "highlight" trailer was for <em>50
Shades of Grey</em>, which just looked terrible in all ways. Other listed
movies included <em>November Man</em>, a spy thriller with a former James Bond
protecting a former Bond Girl in a small black dress; <em>Dracula Untold</em>, a
faux-deconstruction of the Dracula origin myth starring Bard the Bowman;
<em>The Judge</em>, attempted Oscar-bait where Iron Man the Evil Defense Attorney
must protect his estranged father (Robert Duval) from charges of vehicular
murder; and <em>No Good Deed</em>, an Idris Elba home invasion movie that sets
off my 'racist' alarm something fierce.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I do want to see <em>Interstellar</em>, because you probably
can't go too wrong with Christopher Nolan doing sci-fi; the hated
trailer-for-going-the-movies was for <em>Guardians of the Galaxy</em>, which
looks like it's going to be lots of fun; and <em>Kingsman: the Secret
Service</em> looks like it may understand the style-above-substance problem
better than <em>Lucy</em>, at least. So the trailers weren't a complete loss
(though I think it's safe to say that eight trailers is too many).</p>
Machetehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/machete/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2010-09-14T21:51:10Z
<h2><em>Machete</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p><em>Machete</em> is a movie based on a trailer, which was shown in between the two
halves of the under-rated <em>Grindhouse</em> a few years back. The concept was
simple: Danny Trejo kills a lot of people with a machete and gets all the
girls. While there was at the time no intention of actually making the movie,
the concept was apparently too - err, compelling? - to leave alone. And so, a
few years later, the trailer was converted to a movie.</p>
<p>The most compelling part of the movie is, of course, the stuff from the
trailer - the chopping, the explosions, Cheech Marin as a priest with a pair
of shotguns, the inexplicably naked women. Rodriguez chose his set pieces
without the need for an overall story line, and of course those were great fun.
What's surprising, though, is that he didn't stop there; the movie had more
characters, more story, and a whole lot of controversy tossed on top. And it
pretty much worked.</p>
<p>I should note that this controversy was my second favorite part of the movie.
It was just so <em>timely</em>! Both the movie's plot and subtext are greatly
concerned with border patrols and illegal immigration; given the current rounds
of panic over these issues around the Arizona-Mexico border, it was quite fun
to see the movie go after this "head on". Sure, nobody involved seems to
have actually <em>believed</em> any of the movie's calls for "an illegal immigrant
revolution", but since when did that ever stop anybody? The very idea that the
world was taking this seriously is hilarious, and it made every joke or scene
involving the topic that much funnier.</p>
<p>As for the <em>actual</em> favorite part, that would the simple fact that the movie
was that it was better than it had to be. Rodriguez didn't just build a basic
movie around his trailer; he built a movie which is <em>best described</em> by that
trailer, even after taking out the extra scenes/characters/story. That took
skill, and it wasn't done at the expense of the movie itself. To understand,
just consider if <em>Independence Day</em> had been as good as its trailer... okay,
maybe that's too high of a barrier.</p>
<p>As for the rest? The overall storyline was foolish, the characters were
cartoon-like in their motivations, the violence was over-the-top, and the
violence was consistent and brutal. I really have no major complaints.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>I seriously considered using the two-part scale for my review (how I liked it
versus how good the movie actually was), I don't think it's appropriate here.
Rodriguez genuinely made a good, fun movie; it was just <em>marketed</em> as schlock.</p>
<p>And, yes, I'm looking forward to <em>Hobo With A Shotgun</em>.</p>
Man of Steelhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/man-of-steel/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2013-06-16T14:09:22Z
<h2><em>Man of Steel</em>: 5 out of 10</h2>
<p>A significant point of most modern Summer Blockbusters is the spectacle
of the Final Fight, in which The Hero finally catches up with The Villain
and they battle until one of them drops. This generally involves chases
through intricate landscapes, multiple points of view, significant death
tolls, and a whole lot of punching, along with a significant expenditure
on special effects budgets. And while this occasionally all comes together
into something interesting, it more often collapses into incoherence and
sensory overload.</p>
<p><em>Man of Steel</em> is a poster child of this problem. Its interminable
Final Fight ends in Superman and General Zod simply punching each other,
back and forth, destroying their surroundings but otherwise showing no
pain, only occasionally stumbling upon the devastation that was wrought
earlier in the battle. It was dark, heavy, and frustratingly long; and
once complete, it was obvious that the movie didn't want to address the
large-scale effects. In short: incoherent sensory overload.</p>
<p>This was disappointing in large part because the first part of the
movie had actually gone pretty well. Knowing that this was yet-another
superhero origin story, the directors chose to elide many of the power
discovery/training montages and focus on characters and themes. This was
aided by good casting: Russell Crowe as Jor-El showed a useful mix of
gravitas and bad-ass, and Kevin Costner and Diane Lane showed love and
concern without saying a word. Clark/Kal-El could simply be defined in
relationship to these characters, and that <em>worked</em>.</p>
<p>The first act - Krypton - perhaps went on longer than necessary, but they
more-or-less worked. There was a feeling that this was a both high-tech
and alien world, and that its inhabitants had sown their own destruction
- so far, so good. The next acts - Clark Grows Up and Clark Meets His
People - were also better than expected, keeping Clark a cipher as he
tries to understand his relationship to human society and decide just how
much he should be using his powers to help others.</p>
<p>But things had pretty well fallen apart by the time that we entered the
final act: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. This was generic, overblown, and full of
plot contrivances, characters acting stupidly, and poor time continuity.
By the time it was done, most of my goodwill for the first half of the
movie was used up.</p>
<p>Rating: 5 (out of 10)</p>
<p>One positive thing I can say is that there were a few moments when the
Kryptonian powers truly showed potential, mostly shown by Faora, the
mostly-faceless second-in-command to General Zod. She dove into buildings
instead of using the door, she moved faster in battle than her enemies
could respond to, and she consistently used the environment as a weapon.
She even showed her warrior bona with a quip on how it's good to die in
battle - more than could be said for anybody else in her cohort. If
the rest of her cohort had been as well developed (on a per-screen-time
basis), we would have ended up with a better movie.</p>
Megamindhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/megamind/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2010-11-10T21:38:38Z
<h2><em>Megamind</em>: * 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>It wasn't that long ago that the fight in the animated industry was all about
Pixar versus Dreamworks, with competing movies mining the same material from
different angles. It started when Pixar put out <em>A Bug's Life</em>, and Dreamworks
put out <em>Antz</em> in response. A little while later, Pixar released <em>Finding
Nemo</em>; Dreamworks put out <em>Shark Tale</em>. And now, in response to <em><a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/despicable-me">Despicable
Me</a></em>, Dreamworks has released <em>Megamind</em>, the
latest tale of super villains gone good...</p>
<p>...no, wait, that's not right, is it? Dreamworks released both of of these
films. Err... then what's going on here? Is Dreamworks stealing from itself
this time?</p>
<p>Certainly, the two movies are different beasts. <em>Megamind</em> starred comedians
Will Farrell and Tina Fey; <em>Despicable Me</em> just starred Steve Carell. See?
That's two actors instead of one! And <em>Megamind</em> has two kinds of wacky
sidekicks - the brain dogs and the fish guy named Minion - compared to
<em>Despicable Me</em> depending only on those yellow minion guys... oh, right, and
that backup-mad-scientist guy. Well, at least <em>Megamind</em> has a love interest
in Tina Fey! There, that's different!</p>
<p>Of course, there's always the biggest difference: <em>Despicable Me</em> was at least
clever and interesting, while <em>Megamind</em> was really pretty boring, bordering on
outright bad.</p>
<p>One thing should be made clear right off the bat: the 3D in this movie was
<em>bad</em>. I noticed it more for how it got in the way of the action than how it
benefited the story; even the "throw things at the viewer" bits were poorly
done. The 3D trailers look even worse. We need to stop this 3D onslaught now.</p>
<p>Tina Fey was awful. She seemed both uninterested and uninteresting, both in
terms of her character and her voice acting. Jonah Hill was worse. And while
David Cross should be beyond reproach, here... well, I didn't really want to
believe that he was in the movie. Flat, across the board.</p>
<p>The town of Metro City was remarkably un-fleshed-out. Would it really have
been that hard to inject some personality into the town or its inhabitants?
This includes Tina Fey's character, as well as the, err, three "civilians" that
I remember from the whole movie. (How expensive were voice actors, anyway?).</p>
<p>The music selection was quite strange. We're going to sing "Highway To Hell"
and not be able to use the word 'Hell'? Whose bright idea was that? And I
guess we're using Michael Jackson songs in movies now? Okay, I guess.</p>
<p>There were some good points mixed into the movie, mind. I did like the few
scenes that directly called back to superhero movies of old (read: <em>Superman</em>,
especially with the Jor-El references); and the evil-villain set pieces were
suitably large and impressive. Farrell and Pitt were perfectly adequate in
their roles. The story itself, though over-extended, was fairly interesting
and covered ground that was interesting to cover for comic book movies and
general. And, all told, Megamind (the character) actually made for an
interesting super-villain, with inoffensive quirks and something resembling
common sense most of the time.</p>
<p>But, overall... bleah. It's lost nearly a half a star as I've put off writing
the review; that's never a good sign. At any rate, I'd recommend avoiding it.</p>
<p>* 3/4</p>
<p>I should note that I attended this movie with my 10-year old cousin, and he
loved the movie. So I suppose it's not a complete flop.</p>
<p>Also worthy of note is that the trailers for this movie were far worse than the
movie itself. The trailers made the movie look appallingly bad; but most of
the traps hinted at in the trailers were avoided handily. Mind, they found
<em>different</em> traps instead.</p>
The Men Who Stare At Goatshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/men-who-stare-at-goats/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-12-10T05:51:33Z
<h2><em>The Men Who Stare At Goats</em>: ** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>When Jon Ronson, the author of the book version of <em>The Men Who Stare At Goats</em>
appeared on <em>The Daily Show</em> a few months back, he amused me with his story:
a (non-fiction) look at the US Military's attempts to harness psychic and
new-agey techniques for combat purposes. He came in primarily to talk about
the book, but it was in relation to the upcoming movie version; and at the
very least, I was intrigued. But when the time came to see the movie, I was a
little bit less enthused; after all, the movie is "inspired by" the book, not
"based on". This concept has worried me every time that I've run across it -
think <em>I, Robot</em>, which proves my point quite well, or <em>Starship Troopers</em>,
which at least shows that it doesn't always end badly. Regardless, I went into
the movie without reading the book, but open to the idea that there was
something fun there.</p>
<p>Well... there were some good parts.</p>
<p>The movie turns out to be an absurd comedy, trying to show off the silliness of
a bunch of military-types taking themselves seriously while find their chakras
and (yes) kill goats with their minds. There is a story behind it, but it's
hardly relevant to the situation and its associated comedy, and more often
than not it gets left behind so the main characters can tell lengthy stories,
detailing sections of the history of the project. Most of the laughter comes
from this (maddeningly divided) history; and honestly, those stories were told
better in front of Jon Stewart.</p>
<p>The most <em>clever</em> joke of the movie is based around the casting. The soldiers
trained in psychic warfare are referred to as "Jedi", and one of the two stars
of the movie is Ewan McGregor. This made me laugh, at least, even if most of
the rest didn't...</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate this movie. I was just disappointed. Before
the movie began, there was a commercial for Levi's Jeans. This isn't unusual.
What is unusual is that a) the commercial involved a shot of Multnomah Falls,
and b) I had been there about 45 minutes before the movie began. Sadly, this
amused me more than the movie itself.</p>
<p>**</p>
Monsters vs Alienshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/monsters-vs-aliens/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-04-13T00:32:54Z
<h2><em>Monsters vs Aliens</em>: ** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>At least in theory, I like kids movies. Almost everybody agrees that Pixar
is more than capable of making movies for kids that are still acceptable for
adults; and at least some movies that Dreamworks has put out in the last few
years (<em>Kung-Fu Panda</em>, <em>Shrek 2</em>) have been worth watching as well. But they
put out plenty of drek too (<em>Shrek 3</em> comes to mind), and so I generally try to
be choosy in my kid-movie choices.</p>
<p>That choosiness goes out the air immediately, of course, when you've got a
nine-year-old cousin to go with.</p>
<p><em>Monsters vs Aliens</em> is the origin story of Susan the 50-Foot Woman. She gets
her powers from a Mysterious Meteor on her wedding day; and then she is
kidnapped and taken from her family to be held in a government facility.
Eventually some aliens show up and she has to fight them with the help of her
four friends. Hilarity ensues, and the government lets the team go. Then
there are some explosions and touching character moments involving laser guns.<br />
Finally, they all live happily ever after.</p>
<p>There you go. All done with the plot.</p>
<p>There are good points in there. Bob (voiced by Seth Rogen) is adorably stupid;
Amy Poehler does a good job as a computer; and Stephen Colbert at least tries
to do a good job as the POTUS. The fact that the big fight scene takes place
in an extremely-recognizable San Francisco was worth a few points on its own.
And... okay, that's all I remember. (And those were all overridden in my mind
by the "yay, governmental kidnapping!" points...)</p>
<p>It was supposed to be a stupid but fun movie. It worked for my cousin; it
didn't for me.</p>
<p>**</p>
The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-Dhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/nightmare-before-christmas-3d/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2007-10-22T16:08:30Z
<h2><em>The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I should start by noting that I was lucky to be able to see <em>The Nightmare
Before Christmas</em> in 3-D here in town. The Beverly has apparently picked
up a bunch of digital projectors recently, and now shows 3D movies where
appropriate. Seeing it locally was much better than the original "drive
to Peoria" plan, and even if the theatre is by no means a bastion of
gloriousness... it'll do.</p>
<p>I have of course seen <em>Nightmare</em> before, many times in fact. I'm a huge
fan of parts of the movie - the animation is gorgeous, the art direction is
fantastic, the overall story and concept are interesting in a Gaiman-esque
mythology kind of way, and I love the song "This Is Halloween". But other
parts of the movie have always left me cold - the rest of the music, the
story's execution, the wishy-washy Halloween feeling. I think I actually like
playing the Nightmare stage in "Kingdom Hearts" more than I like the movie
itself.</p>
<p>So, why was I willing to go pay to see it again? Partially it was because of
my wife - she likes the music - but mostly it was because of the 3-D. This was
the first 3-D movie I'd seen in a regular theatre (IMAX doesn't count), and I
really wanted to see what it would add. And, well, I'm not sure I came out
with a good answer to that question.</p>
<p>Technical impressions: the Christie projector was certainly good enough. The
glasses were a $2 up-charge, and I'm impressed by their physical quality. But
the screen - well, we sat fairly far back, and the 3-D wasn't well-served by
that. Perhaps if we'd been closer, it would have been more inversive; as it
was, it wasn't anything special on its own. (I find this annoying, because I
work with this stuff on a regular basis).</p>
<p>I should also note the trailers - and oh Gods, there was horror here! Brendan
Frasier is going to star in Disney's first live- action 3D movie - and they
spit on the audience (3D spit, that is) in the trailer! Gaah! And even the
CGI-movie just looked...dull. I think that there's a while to go before
anybody knows how to do 3D properly, and the gimmick-time is going to make me
cry.</p>
<p>But as for the movie itself - the 3-D was generally pretty subtle. Some scenes
didn't benefit from it at all; others, including the moon with the unrolling
mountain scene, looked <em>really</em> good, with the style of art really helped by
having foregrounds and backgrounds distinct. I couldn't tell how often they
added new elements to the movie to take advantage of the 3-D, but certainly
they added foreground elements on occasion. But, mostly, the only thing that
stood out was the moon and mountain.</p>
<p>All of that said, I am happy I saw it - it's still pretty (and more so with the
3-D, at least in some parts), the art direction still rules (and wasn't screwed
up), and the rest of it hasn't been affected. So if you liked it before, it's
worth seeing again; if not, well, rent it first.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
<p>I still really want to go see the holiday version of the Haunted Mansion at the
Disney parks at some point - that's a more immersive kind of 3-D, and probably
suits the material better. But I won't go with my wife to go see this movie in
3-D again, at least not this year.</p>
Ninja Assassinhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/ninja-assassin/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2009-12-15T07:04:56Z
<h2><em>Ninja Assassin</em>: ** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Seeing movies on Sunday nights is generally a solitary thing. Sure, there's
a few people in the audience with me, others that were looking to kill some
downtime and see a movie without a huge crowd. This takes something away
from comedies, as hearing when the rest of the world laughs is often as fun
as the movie. But for action movies, dramas, and so forth, it's generally
ideal. But every now and then, I run into an outlier, where <em>more</em> people
show up than usual. I can never predict these times; certainly, I never would
have predicted that people would come out in droves on a Sunday night to see
a mediocre martial arts/ninja movie with an exceptional amount of gore.</p>
<p>I suppose that, by at least one measure, the movie fulfilled its goal: there
were, indeed, ninjas, and they did, indeed, assassinate. In fact, the opening
scene not only offered us those two concepts, it did so with style. If the
rest of the movie had been as well-made, I would have been <em>very</em> happy; but
there also wouldn't have been a plot, or characters, or actors from <em>Coupling</em>.
And I suppose that would have been something of a loss.</p>
<p>Instead, we got a perplexing movie. The action scenes were clearly meant
to be exciting set-pieces, and they were indeed pretty and exciting to
watch; but they were also difficult to actually understand, to the point
of incomprehensibility. The background was supposed to be detailed and
tragic; but it turned out to be poorly balanced, with an odd combination of
too-dramatic and understated. And the plot attempted to be both paper-thin and
over-wrought, but managed to be... well, really not bad for something like
this. When it comes down to it, I can't really tell how good of a film the
creators were aiming for. And that's a bit weird.</p>
<p>As for the movie itself... well, I didn't hate it. Rain did a fine job in the
lead role, I guess. The archetypical fights were fun. Those few fights that
actually involved person-on-person martial arts battles, instead of just
cutting people's heads off, were kindof interesting. And the
training-to-be-a-ninja stuff was at least thought-provoking, even if it wasn't
in the way that the creators were pushing for.</p>
<p>But I still would have liked something that had been polished. Give the
fighting scenes a purpose beyond arterial spray; give a reasonable sense of
scale of the ongoing war; revel more in the silly; and maybe all of the ninja
trainees should actually be doing the same testing. Instead, we came up with
something adequate, but not very good.</p>
<p>**</p>
<p>One random note: JMS, the creator of Babylon 5 (my favorite TV series), was the
co-writer of this movie. It did shine through, but perhaps not in a great way.
If you've watched the show or read his comics, some of the speeches will sound
a little familiar. <em>shrug</em> That's not really a big problem, just worthy of
observation.</p>
Oblivionhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/oblivion/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2013-04-25T19:06:42Z
<h2><em>Oblivion</em>: 4 out of 10</h2>
<p>A key point in the marketing of <em>Oblivion</em> is that the movie is based on a
graphic novel. I found this an odd point to brag about for two reasons: I
didn't understand how this can be a "plus" in today's movie marketing
environment, and I didn't recall seeing this graphic novel before the
movie came out. As it turns out, these observations closely tied to my
core problems with the movie: the film values form over substance (which
is apparently what Hollywood currently thinks about graphic novels), and
the film was just as half-baked as the book, which was never actually
published (or, for that matter, written).</p>
<p>As befits its (theoretical) graphic novel roots, the movie is visually
impressive. Tom Cruise plays a drone repair technician in a war zone,
living in a high-tech, luxury-but-sterile eyrie far above the war- and
natural-disaster-torn landscape near New York City. The movie delights
in the contrast between the technological marvels of his home and the
devastated environments in which he works. It's a more empty and quiet
post-apocalyptic landscape than we're used to seeing, but it is not
sterile. This part was well-imagined, and I can imagine that it connects
to its concept art quite nicely.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these visuals do not quite connect to the underlying story.
We are told that the world's water is being taken away in its entirety,
and that the devastation is too great for humanity to survive; Tom Cruise
even makes a point of bringing home an apparently-rare patch of grass that
he found in his journeys. But just a few minutes later, we are shown a
beautiful lake-front cabin with lush grass and flowers and trees. The
movie doesn't seem to consider this, even though it spends a fair effort
on pushing these juxtapositions before.</p>
<p>The story is clearly derivative of a variety of other, better movies -
<em>Moon</em>, <em>Wall-E</em>, and <em>The Matrix</em> come immediately to mind - but this
isn't necessarily a terrible thing. The problems arise because the film's
creators seemed to recognize that the visuals were not enough to carry the
entire story, but couldn't come up with any other ways to handle it. The
movie is littered with expository voice-overs, explaining the background
of the world to us rather than letting us see it for ourselves; this
undercuts the audience's willingness to take in what they're seeing and
think for themselves. It also offers many opportunities to examine the
many damning plot holes. (Really, you've got a network of free-roaming
drones, but you can't set up a satellite network so you can continue
communication at all hours?)</p>
<p>Still, the movie was generally competently put-together, well-acted, and
it had a good soundtrack, so it wasn't all bad. There was probably even
a coherent and interesting story to be told here; I'm just not sure that
this was the way to tell the story. Perhaps a shorter movie could have
provided more focus; a mini-series could have given the time to flesh out
the ideas and characters; or maybe an <em>actual</em> graphic novel could have
emphasized the necessary plot beats and art without dwelling on the flaws.</p>
<p>Rating: 4 (out of 10)</p>
Pianomaniahttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/pianomania/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2010-04-28T03:59:32Z
<h2><em>Pianomania</em>: *** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Roger Ebert, film critic extraordinaire, is a native of my home town. This
fact offers a couple of small advantages. First of all, it's a fun little fact
to mention at parties. Second, and much more useful, Ebert runs an annual film
festival in my hometown. It's actually a fairly big deal, and it brings all
sorts of people to central Illinois that would never otherwise consider it; but
for all that, I hardly even took notice of it while I was there. Looking back,
I regularly kick myself for not taking advantage of EbertFest while I was
there; after all, now I have to drive for at least an hour to go to a proper
movie festival.</p>
<p>I mention this because there's currently a film festival going on up in San
Francisco. I did make it to one movie, and it turned out to be great. I may
not quite know how to review it, but I figure it's worth trying.</p>
<p><em>Pianomania</em> is a documentary about Stefan Knüpfer, a master piano tuner
and technician that works for the Steinway corporation in Austria. The movie
documents a year in his life, as he prepares a single piano for use in the
studio recording of Bach's 'The Art of Fugue'. The work is painstaking and
deeply collaborative; the tuning itself is as much art as the work that is to
be played.</p>
<p>I went into the movie fairly blind, but it turned out that this topic appealed
to me pretty deeply. I <em>love</em> stories about the heroic work of technicians;
after all, as a sysadmin, these are My Kind Of People. While I may not have
understood the details of what he was going, I could see the heart and devotion
that Stefan was putting into his work, trying to help out and impress his
client while also being willing to fight for his own position. The relative
"status" of the parties involved was also clear - while the big performers are
clearly "more important", they clearly depend on the work of their techs and
support staff, and the truly good ones <em>know</em> how much they depend on it. So
when that final performance sounds so amazingly perfect, the technician feels
as much pride as the performer. I know that feeling, and it was well-captured
and portrayed here.</p>
<p>(As a side benefit, the fact that the movie was in German connected me to the
content even more. My old boss is German, and I recognized the turns of phrase
and the idiosyncrasies between him and the master artists shown in this movie.
I'm sure I giggled a bit more than most of the audience at a few pieces of
dialogue, and I'm just as sure that I shivered more than them too...)</p>
<p>Outside of this, the technical presentation of the movie was excellent. While
the film generally consisted of standard documentary fare mixed with a number
of montages of the city of Vienna, there were several times where the camera
was focused solely on the pianos themselves. Many of these shots were clearly
extremely intricate to set up; just as clearly, Stefan was clearly working
during these setups, so the fact that they were able to get them done without
getting too much in the way is also quite impressive. The sound was also
top-notch, but somehow that seemed less surprising; I got the impression that
the filmmakers would have been embarrassed otherwise.</p>
<p>The movie was also interspersed with a number of comedic bits, surrounding a
musical comedy troupe that Stefan worked with in his spare time. I'm loathe to
spoil any of it, but... the closing bit was glorious, both in its humor, and
in its true-to-life look at technician humor. It was this comedy that made me
start to understand the technician's art in this case.</p>
<p>All told, <em>Pianomania</em> warmed my cold sysadmin heart. I highly recommend
tracking it down, at least in a theatre with a good sound system.</p>
<p>*** 1/2</p>
Precioushttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/precious/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2010-01-25T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>It's hard to convince yourself to go to movies that you know are going to be
depressing. It's just too easy to convince yourself that this is going to be a
<em>traumatic</em> experience, rather than just a sad one; and even when it's possible
that there's art in that trauma, and that the scars of previous movies were
worth it, well, it's still not easy to convince yourself that it's worth the
trouble. That's what kept me out of <em>Precious</em> during its main theatrical run;
but somehow, I overcame my worry and made it for the second, pre-Oscars run.</p>
<p>And guess what? It was depressing! But it wasn't quite as depressing as I was
expecting, and for that I am grateful.</p>
<p><em>Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire</em> (too long a title if ever
I heard one, but I suppose it's not the film-maker's fault) is the story
of an penniless, uneducated, obese, and most importantly habitually-abused
African-American teenager living in New York City in the 1980s. Precious (her
chosen name) is pregnant with her second child (both fathered by her father),
living with her abusive mother, and failing out of high school. Her life is,
as we are shown consistently and convincingly, hell. And it would all seem a
bit over-the-top-depressing if it wasn't clearly based on a true story.</p>
<p>Of course, this is just where the movie starts; her life just gets worse from
there. There were several moments during the film where the entire audience
(rightfully) gasped in horror; and things are just worse in contemplation. Her
nicely realized fantasy life just adds a counterpoint that accentuates the
negative. And even as her story arc completes and the absolute worst is left
behind, her situation is still horrible.</p>
<p>So how did I manage to come out of the movie without a need to cheer myself up
through violent video games or a good flamewar? Well, it turns out that, at
its heart, the movie is also the story of The System Working, at least a little
bit. And while it may not have been uplifting as a whole, it was still
satisfying to see Alternative Education programs serving those most in need,
and social workers doing their jobs even after years of manipulation.</p>
<p>Basically, after a movie of seeing things go wrong, the ending showed a ray of
light pointed off to the side. And that helped.</p>
<p>But having gotten past that potential pit of depression, was the movie any
good? Well, yes. The movie was well-crafted and, most clearly, well-acted.
The girl that played Precious did a spectacular job; Mariah Carey did a better
job than I ever expected her to; even Lenny Kravitz held up his role. Of
course Mo'Nique, playing the despicable mother, was a standout. The film
portrayed its time period and location tastefully and clearly.</p>
<p>I still don't want to see the movie again. But it was worth seeing it the
once, and if it really is nominated for some Oscars, it'll probably deserve it
more than half of its competition.</p>
<p>***</p>
Punisher: War Zonehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/punisher-war-zone/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2008-12-13T08:48:15Z
<h2><em>Punisher: War Zone</em>: ** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Over the last couple of weeks, I have played a lot of Fallout 3. In that game,
you are (before too long) a combat god - regular people can barely hurt you,
and even whole armies of armed soldiers will fall to your weapons more often
than not. You spend a lot of time walking around through sewers and office
buildings, stalking your prey. And the concept of "morality" certainly plays a
role in things, but it doesn't stop you from shooting lots of enemies in head.</p>
<p>Take out the post-apocalyptic setting, and put a skull on your avatar's chest,
and you have <em>Punisher: War Zone</em>. Or at least that was the goal.</p>
<p>I have to admit, I was expecting a little more from this movie. Many of the
reviews compared this movie to a slasher flick, where the teenagers were the
mob bosses and the villain was The Punisher; I suppose I can see where they
<em>wanted</em> to see this, and it would certainly be a neat enough idea, but it just
wasn't there. What we had instead was a single story of Frank Castle - the
Punisher - wiping out a Mob enclave, making a mistake, and atoning for it.
Sortof.</p>
<p>I don't know who played Frank, nor do I care; he didn't do a very good job.
(Thomas Jane did a much better job in the last version, for the record.) The
only actor of note in the movie was Dominic West - McNulty from The Wire
- playing Jigsaw, one of the two top-rung, nigh-invulnerable but generic
villains. He didn't do a good job either.</p>
<p>There were a few moments of inspired Punisher action, and there were a few nods
to some past good Punisher stories. That's about it; past that, it's just a
low-quality, no-plot action movie. I didn't hate it, but even with the low
expectations I came in with, I was disappointed.</p>
<p>**</p>
Quantum of Solacehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/quantum-of-solace/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2008-11-15T09:15:56Z
<h2><em>Quantum of Solace</em>: ** 1/2</h2>
<p><em>Quantum of Solace</em> is a stand-alone Bond movie. I was kindof surprised by
that; all of the reviews I had read to date either talked up this movie as a
standard modern spy movie, along the likes of <em>The Bourne Identity</em>, or as a
direct sequel to <em>Casino Royale</em>, Daniel Craig's first time in the role from a
couple of years back. While both things are somewhat accurate, neither really
describes the movie on its own, and that's probably a good thing.</p>
<p>Instead, we get a Bond movie. There is an association of Bad Guys that is
plotting to do something Big And Awful, and only James Bond and his assortment
of Nifty Gadgets can stop them - but only after he finds out what's going on
while investigating a small part of an apparently unconnected case. Along the
way, he will have to bed an attractive woman, rescue and team up with another,
shoot a small gun and drive an expensive car, and cause lots of property damage
without anybody really noticing. And in the climactic final scene, he will
stop the villains' plans with explosions and a hail of gunfire, before escaping
with the girl and enjoying one final make-out session.</p>
<p>They did mix up a few of the elements, though. Certain elements of the main
Bond plot were cut down or removed; others were brought out more strongly. And
for once, there was some continuity to a previous movie, albeit mostly thematic
in nature.</p>
<p>That's not to say that I loved the movie. I specifically disliked the action
scenes; they were too shaky-cammy, too out-of-control, too <em>irrelevant</em> to what
was going on. The effects of the action scenes were good, but not the causes,
if that makes any sense; and that hurt my overall enjoyment of the movie. But,
on balance, I'm still happy I saw it; and if you liked the last one, you'll
probably like this one too, if not as much.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
Rambohttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/rambo/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2008-01-28T01:51:59Z
<h2><em>Rambo</em> - 2 stars</h2>
<p>I was never allowed to see movies starring Sylvester Stallone when I was a kid;
my mother was opposed to the violence of such movies, and so it just didn't
happen. In some cases, this principle was probably a good thing; I still don't
like most horror franchises, for instance. But this particular filter did
hold back my appreciation of some American Cinema trends, by cutting out two
staples - Rocky and Rambo. The former I have since seen in their entirety; but
I only saw <em>First Blood</em> a year or so ago, and I still haven't seen any of the
sequels.</p>
<p>So <em>Rambo</em> - the fourth in the series, first in 20 years - was my first
Stallone-in-Asia movie. My views were certainly colored by that. But this
movie wasn't really that much of a surprise anyway.</p>
<p><em>Rambo</em> is a bloody movie. It has a message, interestingly, and that message
is probably a good thing to repeat: the situation in Burma/ Myanmar is awful,
and the world should pay attention to it. But that message, while useful
for a good fifteen minutes of the movie, is overshadowed by the constant,
over-the-top violence and gore in the other 75. Perhaps that's not an entirely
bad thing, though - perhaps such tactics will get the story told to a wider
audience. But, well, that's not how it seemed to me. What I saw was a
message, followed by lots and lots of violence, padded with some irrelevant
character development. Think <em>Babel</em>, but with more machine gun fire, land
mines, and raping.</p>
<p>And I think that's about all I have to say about it.</p>
<p>**</p>
Real Steelhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/real-steel/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2011-10-08T17:48:56Z
<h2><em>Real Steel</em>: 5 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>Robots! Punching! Whoo!</p>
<p>I kindof wanted that to be my entire review for <em>Real Steel</em> - three words and
a score. But it doesn't <em>quite</em> fit.</p>
<p><em>Real Steel</em> is a mix of three genres - the up-and-coming-scrappy-fighter
boxing/martial-arts movie, the (surprisingly small) robot combat fest, and
the father-learns-to-fight-for-his-estranged-son tear jerker. It mixes these
genres surprisingly well, and while all of them are a little thin, all receive
adequate attention from the director and actors. I came for the second genre,
and was worried that the other two would annoy me; but no, my annoyance
came from other quarters.</p>
<p>My first gripe came <em>before</em> the movie - why was this not titled <em>Rock 'Em Sock
'Em Robots</em>? Yes, this would have focused more heavily on the robot fighting;
but that's clearly what <em>I</em> was there for, anyway. But I suppose that this had
to be left out so that the other two genres could be alluded to in the title.
Aah, well.</p>
<p>While the fight scenes were, for the most part, well-done and fun to watch,
I had some major problems with the combat itself. Part of what makes
martial-arts movies work is the knowledge that we are watching a <em>sport</em>, and
these sports have <em>rules</em>. Early on, the fights were underground affairs,
unsanctioned fights to the death, and the relative lack of consistent rules
made some sense; weapons may vary, weight classes don't really exist, and if
one side cheats a little bit, hey, them's the breaks! But later, when we
we're in the Big Leagues, we see the bad-guy bot hitting the good-guy bot as
he's getting up from a knock-down - and that's okay? Then why wasn't that
happening all the time? And why does Zeus get pistons, anyway? It just felt
inconsistent, and that took away from the up-and-coming-fighter storyline.</p>
<p>(Along these same lines - what exactly makes one robot dramatically better than
another? I wish that this had been explained in some way other than "heart".
The concept of weight classes would have helped here.)</p>
<p>Finally, while my biggest gripe might be considered a bit esoteric, hear me
out: the user interfaces for the robots were inconsistent and, for the most
part, outright bad. There are four families of controls shown:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Large sit-down control pods with multiple controlling individuals. These
are used by the Rich Bad Guys, and we don't really learn much about them.
Still, they seem potentially useful.</p></li>
<li><p>Keyboard/Wii-U controller - a large touchscreen with extra buttons/control
sticks on the side, used by a single individual. This was used early in
the movie by the Good Guys, and seemed plausible to me.</p></li>
<li><p>Voice-based technology - the operator yells out commands into a microphone,
mostly involving combat macros (left-right-uppercut). This works <em>very</em>
poorly, but it's the primary combat system for most of the movie.</p></li>
<li><p>Mimic technology - the bot mirrors the actions of its controller. This
is apparently obsolete technology, probably because it's <em>absurdly
dangerous</em>. It's also the key to the movie.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The movie shows that combat effectiveness <em>improves</em> as we move along this
chart. There may be a place for all of these technologies in the overall
setup, sure; but for a primary interface for one-on-one combat, I'd rather use
a controller than a Kinect or a microphone. Me, I see the technologies as
growing more and more imprecise, at least if the robots are human-controlled.
(This changes if the fights are primarily controlled by AIs, in which case
we're really getting into robot dog fighting instead... but I digress.)</p>
<p>A few shorter notes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>As a near-future science fiction movie, not much had really <em>changed</em> except
the introduction of combat robots, the loss of other martial arts as public
spectacles, more wind farms, and the introduction of large junkyards with
big pits. This was disconcertingly boring.</p></li>
<li><p>$50k buys you a combat robot? That's <em>really</em> cheap - or at least it seems
to be until you realize that money is never really discussed outside of robot
fighting circles.</p></li>
<li><p>I wouldn't want to be standing next to several tons of fighting robot.
Apparently, this doesn't bother anybody in the Near Future.</p></li>
<li><p>Why didn't Wolverine use his claws? That would have shown 'em!</p></li>
<li><p>While I was happy with Hugh Jackman's acting overall, I really think that his
character started out as <em>too</em> stupid. I suppose it was good for the
character arc, but his intensity was <em>foolish</em>.</p></li>
<li><p>The movie was really aimed at younger kids - 8-12 year-old boys, I'd say -
but the language skewed it up into PG-13 territory. (No, the violence
probably didn't, because the MPAA is silly.) I found this odd.</p></li>
<li><p>The product placement made me laugh, but none more so than the HP ads
throughout. Oh, HP, you're so doomed!</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Anyway - it was fine. I had a good time. But it was not a great movie.</p>
<p>Rating: 5/10 (** 1/4 out of 4)</p>
<p>Trailer Watch - the Coming Attractions were pretty much terrible. We got a
Steven Spielberg wartime tear-jerker with <em>War Horse</em>, which comes out at
Christmas-time and I haven't heard of before. They showed the <em>John Carter of
Mars</em> trailer again, which is growing on me (but not enough for me to suspect
it'll be a watchable movie in the end). <em>Arthur Christmas</em> continues to look
completely uninteresting, even if it is from Aardman. And <em>Johnny English 2</em>
was possibly the worst trailer I've seen since <em>The Country Bear Jamboree</em> -
80s kid comedy sensibilities don't play well with this decade nor with Rowan
Atkinson. They were definitely skewing young.</p>
Repo Menhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/repo-men/2017-02-23T16:32:01Z2010-03-20T04:58:08Z
<h2><em>Repo Men</em>: * 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>$10,804.47: that's the monthly rate to pay off $680,000 at a 19% APR over 30
years. Admittedly, I had to make up that last number; no explicit repayment
time was mentioned in <em>Repo Men</em>. But the other two numbers <em>were</em> mentioned
early in the movie, quoting the price of an artificial spleen to an apparently
moderately-well-off man in his 40s or 50s.</p>
<p>From that moment on, I spent the movie trying to figure out if the units were
off somehow, watching for indications of massive inflation. I never did see
any; but my interest in the movie itself was immediately gone.</p>
<p>It can't be a good thing when economics is more interesting than your story.</p>
<p><em>Repo Men</em> (sadly not a sequel to the Emilio Estevez vehicle <em>Repo Man</em> from
1984) is a story about a man who reclaims those expensive organs for a living
(an apparently socially-acceptable job). After he starts to decide that maybe
this isn't the job for him, he gets injured out on a job and his bosses give
him an artificial heart. Soon enough, he determines that he can't kill people
for a living anymore, and is scheduled for reclamation himself. Cue <em>Logan's
Run</em>.</p>
<p>There were a few good humorous and/or clever bits, and the acting was
fine. Sadly, that's about all that was good. The story was derivative
and uninteresting; the characters themselves were poorly thought-out and
uninteresting; and the action scenes were bland and, once again, uninteresting.
The special effects mostly consisted of throwing a lot of virtual blood around
the screen. There weren't any realistic or sympathetic characters. All in
all, there wasn't much that wasn't bland and unlikeable.</p>
<p>I know what would have saved it for me, though: fixing the numbers. Make the
price of a new spleen $68k at a 9% APR, and you've suddenly got a business
model that fits into the world; yes, there would be changes (ala Shadowrun and
various other Cyberpunk universes), but the idea that people can scramble to
afford an extra $550 car payment makes a whole lot more sense than the idea
that they can scramble to pay for an extra luxury mansion. Expand on the idea
of the black market in organs - somebody carrying around organs like that has
got to be worth a fortune, making muggings much more interesting! And make the
crux of this movie revolve around an insurance case - the company <em>should</em> be
paying for injuries obtained in the line of duty in the first place, after all!</p>
<p>Instead, the absurdities just cascaded. There are down-on-their-luck singers
out there with eight separate replacement body parts, including several
internal organs (I'm willing to concede that artificial ears and knees might
be relatively cheap). Nobody really seemed to mind in a legal way that there
were people wandering around cutting open and killing people - well, just men,
a line was apparently drawn somewhere in production - in broad daylight. Loans
were still being given out to people that couldn't possibly afford to pay them
back, and in fact the idea of a loan being paid back was explicitly poo-pooed.
There were automatic tasers all over the place. And so forth.</p>
<p>Instead of a decent science fiction movie, we get a third-rate thriller. It's
a shame to see producers more interested in some gross-out scenes and stupid
action sequences to explore what could be a fairly decent high concept. <em>shrug</em>
I guess I shouldn't be surprised.</p>
<p>Go see something else.</p>
<p>* 3/4</p>
Riddickhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/riddick/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2013-09-08T16:16:06Z
<h2><em>Riddick</em>: 6 out of 10</h2>
<p>I barely remember <em>Pitch Black</em> or <em>The Chronicles of Riddick</em>, but
those few remaining memories are fairly fond ones. Both movies were
entertaining and better than expected, the first one in the sci-fi-horror
genre and the second sci-fi-epic; and I heard fairly positive things about
the video game <em>Escape from Butcher Bay</em> as well. But that said, I didn't
have any particular intention to go see the new movie, <em>Riddick</em>, until
well after the (mixed) reviews started coming in. And I'm happy I went,
because this is a solid, medium-budget action-sci-fi movie.</p>
<p>The film generally has three parts. The first part shows the titular
Riddick struggling to survive on a hostile planet upon which he has been
left for dead; this is a mostly-silent affair, with regular threats and
montages and the occasional cute puppy. This was the most "sci-fi" and
"acting" part of the movie, and was rather understated and interesting.
It could have gotten boring, but it didn't outstay its welcome.</p>
<p>The second part of the film brings down the rest of the cast, two crews of
bounty hunters that have come to kill Riddick, but turn out to be stalked
and taunted by Riddick instead. This is familiar ground for many an
action movie, and it was fairly well implemented. The characters were
distinct and (mostly) plausible, the dialogue was simple but generally
amusing, and the knowledge that this was only part of the movie gave it an
interesting focus, since we didn't <em>have</em> to see every character die.</p>
<p>The third part has everybody that's still alive struggling to survive as
the planet's ecosystem turns on them - basically, <em>Pitch Black</em> again.
This was perfectly serviceable sci-fi-horror, and I have fairly little to
say about it. It fits in well with the other parts, and it again ends
before we have the time to get bored with it. That's all I could hope
for.</p>
<p>My biggest gripe had to do with how Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) was handled.
While it was refreshing to have a woman (lesbian!) sniper bad-ass in
amongst the standard mercenary-bad-ass crews, the writers still used the
excuse to treat her as a sexual object, and only occasionally to good
effect. Sure, it was nice to see her turn the tables (read: punch) on
those trying to harass her the first couple of times; but did we really
have to see a rape attempt get so far?</p>
<p>(For that matter, did we really need to have the rape attempt at all?
If the goal was to show us how despicable the attempted-rapist was, we
had already had this shown to us earlier in the film, and we were shown
this <em>again</em> just a few minutes later; did we really need a full three
this-character-has-to-die crimes? Sheesh.</p>
<p>I'll admit, I was less bothered by Riddick himself treating her as a
sexual object. Not only did the banter make some sense in context, but he
didn't actually "turn her straight", even though that's what the banter
was about, and I saw no particular impression that he wanted to. I'm
chalking this up to the fact that Riddick is <em>meant</em> to be an ass, more
Conan than John Carter of Mars. Anyway, digression over.)</p>
<p>In short, this was a perfectly solid sci-fi-horror movie. The plot was
simple and nothing special, the special effects were perfectly adequate,
the characters were fine, the connection to the franchise was virtually
non-existent, and the aliens were striking enough. I'll probably see the
next sequel if/when it ever comes.</p>
<p>Rating: 6 (out of 10)</p>
<p>Trailer thoughts: the trailers before the main movie clearly understood
that this was a sci-fi action adventure, but were otherwise nothing
horribly memorable. There were two stand-out trailers:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Next year's <em>Robocop</em> remake. This was a stylish trailer, showing the
new look and design while contrasting it directly with the original;
and it had Samuel L Jackson talking, which is a plus. But it was also
a "give us the whole plot" trailer. Still, it wasn't so bad as these
things go, and it did the job of making me at least somewhat interested
in a year's worth of marketing. 6/10 for the trailer.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Gravity</em>. I was decidedly unimpressed with the teaser trailer for
this movie, but this was much better, even though this full-length
trailer is essentially just a longer version of that teaser from the
other character's POV (Sandra Bullock instead of George Clooney). I
think that the difference was that they had a chance to acknowledge
my concerns before: yes, of <em>course</em> they don't stand a chance. I now
intend to see this movie. 7/10.</p></li>
</ol>
Robin Hood (2010)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/robin-hood-2010/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2010-08-16T05:23:40Z
<h2><em>Robin Hood</em>: ** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The most striking part about <em>Robin Hood</em> is that it wasn't actually that bad a
movie. The movie was marketed as <em>Gladiator 2: Sherwood Forest</em>; this managed
to offend me personally on several levels (I have a deep-seated hatred for
the movie <em>Gladiator</em>; long story), and was almost as much of a turn-off for
the rest of America - or, at least, those that aren't completely obsessed with
Russell Crowe. But, while I'm not sure I can argue that this was any good, I
can at least say that at least got an <em>interesting</em> movie this time.</p>
<p>Or at least we got part of an interesting movie.</p>
<p>This most recent version of the Robin Hood story is a "gritty" take on the
legend, where a nobleman stands up to King John in defense of the people of
Nottingham. It starts with 'Robin Longstride' participating in the siege
of a French castle, and ends with Robin setting up shop in Sherwood Forest
as an outlaw. (Mind, this was originally envisioned as being told from the
perspective of the Sheriff of Nottingham; but I supposed that Crowe didn't want
to be thought of as a "villain".) But in between, the story takes some fairly
interesting paths, starting with the siege warfare itself, including some
fairly plausible court politics, and headlined by the heading-towards-realistic
portrayal of the horrible life of medieval peasants.</p>
<p>The acting was pretty good, all-told; Cate Blanchett was the movie's stand-out
actor, portraying Maid Marion as a much more active person than the legends
have generally offered to date (though I must admit, the riding-into-battle bit
was a bit over the top). The action was well-done, well-choreographed, and
seemed to be pretty true to the time frame. The soundtrack, the costumes, the
casting - all were pretty good, as good as you could expect. All-in-all, I
was pretty happy...</p>
<p>..or at least I was pretty fairly happy with the first half or two-thirds of
the movie. But that all got ruined by a few obvious problems. Some of them
were simply a bit ill-advised - a lot of time was spent setting up the "child's
army" around Nottingham, for instance, which was barely utilized. But when
it comes down to it, there were two things that dragged the movie down from a
"pretty good" movie into "really pretty bad":</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Everything surrounding the Magna Carta. Yes, the timing works out alright;
but Robin Hood should <em>not</em> be associated with the nobility asserting their
rights over the King.</p></li>
<li><p>The final battle and everything associated with it, especially the military
tactics. It's bad enough that the French decided to invade at all; it was
worse that they chose to land at the cliffs of Dover, and land in World War
2-style personnel deployment vehicles. But, frankly, the English shouldn't
have had to even try hard to win that kind of battle. They had longbows and
the high ground! Why would they send <em>any</em> of their troops down to do battle
in that kind of situation?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Between those two points, the movie moved from being a fairly interesting,
better-than-expected movie into something kindof embarrassing. Ridley Scott
may have beaten my expectations, but that doesn't make it a good movie.</p>
<p>**</p>
Scott Pilgrim vs the Worldhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/scott-pilgrim/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2010-08-13T22:28:41Z
<h2><em>Scott Pilgrim vs the World</em>: *** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>In short: <em>Scott Pilgrim vs the World</em> is a very good movie, especially if
you're the kind of person who likes this kind of thing. But I can't figure out
how to define what "this kind of thing" is.</p>
<p>There's always something special about going to a midnight movie release.
The people in the theatre are willing to wait in line for hours in order to
see something <em>first</em>. If comments are made during the movie, it's because
they deserved to be made; if there is applause at the end, it's because it
was well-deserved applause. Being around that much enthusiasm is a wonderful
thing; being a <em>part</em> of that enthusiasm is even better.</p>
<p>And yeah, I was part of the enthusiasm for <em>Scott Pilgrim</em>. It wasn't
so much the comic that did it, mind; I've only read each book once,
and each took about twenty minutes, or about as much time as they were
offered on screen. It wasn't even the atmosphere around the comic - an
indie-manga-video-game-inspired book speaks to me even if I don't love the
thing, I must admit. No, what inspired me here was my absolute love for all
things Edgar Wright. His first two movies, <em>Shaun of the Dead</em> and <em>Hot Fuzz</em>,
are two of my top-ten favorite movies; and Spaced is a wonderful show in its
own, special way. So far, Wright has done no wrong; and if he turns his
attention to a property that I at least respect, well, who am I to argue?</p>
<p>It was with that baggage that I walked into <em>Scott Pilgrim</em> last night with
sky-high expectations. And, while I can't say that all of my hopes were met,
I did come out happy and impressed. It was great - but I have no idea who to
recommend it to.</p>
<p>A short, not-very-helpful plot summary - Scott Pilgrim is a jobless 22-year-old
slacker, living in Toronto, and playing in a band. He unexpectedly falls madly
in love with the new girl in town, Ramona Flowers; she (shockingly) agrees to
date him, but fails to warn Scott about the dangers, specifically her 7 Evil
Exes that he must defeat in order to win her. Thus, the movie shifts from a
straight-up manga romance to a Street-Fighter-esque video game - and then back
and forth a few times, with some other genres mixed in along the way.</p>
<p>Edgar Wright is no stranger to the "action-romance" genre; <em>Shaun</em> is a
romantic zombie flick, and <em>Hot Fuzz</em> is effectively a buddy-cop-romance
(unconsummated, but wonderful for playing). What has made this sub-genre work
for him has been his effective use of sketched-in-but-distinct characters.
Yes, at least one character is given a proper story arc (Scott); and a few
others get fuller arcs in the comic (Knives, Ramona, Envy, arguably Gideon).
But most of the characters are just barely there; we're told names and ages,
and most of them get a few lines, but otherwise there's not much depth there.
That turns out not to matter; by the end of the movie, I wanted to know more
about these people. Kim and Wallace, in particular, stood out as characters
that could carry a movie on their own, and this without actually knowing a
thing about them.</p>
<p>How about those major characters? Scott is, indeed, an ass; and in that I
believe Michael Cera was well-chosen, because it's such a contrast to his
normal roles. Ramona is shallow, but that's okay, given that this movie is
about Scott's crush on the distant girl; and she is positively <em>haunting</em>. And
Knives - oh, Knives! This is a 17-year-old girl growing up through heartbreak,
and she shows it. Besides the idea that she's an interesting character (and
both nuanced and potentially real, an interesting feat), she's also incredibly
well acted and charming. The actress that plays her will be the breakout actor
of the movie, if there is any justice. And... well, honestly, that's about it.
Everybody else is secondary, if wonderful in their secondariness.</p>
<p>(I suppose there is arguably another character - Toronto, the snowy wasteland
of young adults, clubs, movie shoots, and assorted Canadian-ness. It's an
interesting mix between a mostly-unknown major city and a dark, underpopulated
wilderness; and of course it's full of fighting and not-exactly-bright colors
and parties and over-the-top, out-of-nowhere, video-game-y action. It's not a
showy setting, but it's sketched together as well as any of the secondary
characters; and it clearly has its own gravity in the world, with characters
escaping from its grasp only to return years later. But, as with most
cities-as-character discussions, the metaphor can only be stretched so far.
Suffice it to say that it's interesting.)</p>
<p>Another thing that makes <em>Scott Pilgrim</em> distinct, and possibly revolutionary,
is its use of background CGI. The effects are lifted straight from the comic
book, with the door bell exclaiming "DING DONG" in bright letters on the
screen, or movement lines flying from a strumming guitar. Of course, these
are also building blocks of the video-game inspired world that the movie lives
in; it's not enough that these elements are on screen for us to see, but the
characters themselves comment on them too (even if they are perfectly happy to
see people jumping dozens of feet into the air and hordes of enemies burst into
coins on their death). But even while the viewer's attention is explicitly
drawn to this visual style, it soon becomes a simple part of the background,
and later subsumed into the larger story. It starts a little ostentatious, and
ends up shockingly subtle; all in all, it just works at helping to portray the
world. I hope this, if anything, is copied.</p>
<p>Finally, of course, there are the action scenes, and I was happy to see that
these were just plain fun. I don't know that they're going to hold up very
well on repeat viewings (except in allowing time to look at the small details
of the CGI), but for a first viewing, it was a treat. Yes, the choreography is
a bit ludicrous, and the stunt-doubles more obvious than usual; but so what?
It captured the style of the comic (and its genre) perfectly, and it made me
grin more often than not.</p>
<p>The audience loved the movie, cheering for both the opening Universal logo and
for the ending credits. I have to say that I was as happy as them. I'm sure
I'll keep picking at the movie over time, and I'm not likely to go out and see
it again this weekend; but for now, this was a great movie experience, and
something that should be supported.</p>
<p>*** 3/4</p>
<p>A few side-notes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It's really hard to not talk about the set pieces in great detail, because
they're so <em>good</em>. The fights are distinct and interesting, and they're all
full of blink-or-you'll-miss-it cutenesses.</p></li>
<li><p>The video game version of <em>Scott Pilgrim</em> came out earlier this week for
Playstation 3, and it's wonderful. Sure, it's pretty short and fairly
shallow, but it feels like a well-written novelization of the movie. It plays
like River City Ransom; the soundtrack consists of remarkably high-quality
chip-tunes; and the video-game references are turned all the way up to
something that I just love to see. It's fluffy, but really fun, and it's a
wonderful companion piece, especially in how it allows us to see more of the
set pieces I mentioned above. Plus, we got the cyborg drummer in there! Yay!</p></li>
<li><p>The plot of the movie and the plot of the graphic novels upon which the
movie is based are, while similar on their face, really quite different. The
main difference is in time scale; the movie is told over a few days, while the
book takes months or years to reach its conclusion. The main effect of this
change is in Scott's relationship with Ramona; in the book there is a sense of
a relationship building up over time, while in the movie it's all about the
immediate "crush" phase of the relationship. This is important.)</p></li>
<li><p>Based on the trailer showing before the movie, the marketing team around
this movie really had no idea what kind of movie they were showing.
There was no <em>Tron</em> trailer; instead we got romantic comedies, the new
utterly-horrible-looking M Night Shyamalan movie, and <em>Jackass 3D</em>. This
surprises me, because the television and other media marketing seemed to be so
on-target (read: me).</p></li>
<li><p>Early in the movie, a Nintendo DS Lite was shown being played without a
cartridge in its main slot. After hemming and hawing for a few seconds, I was
delighted to see that this was because they were playing a <em>specific</em> Gameboy
Advance game in the other slot. The creators were paying attention. This made
me happy.</p></li>
<li><p>I have still not figured out who Ramona Flowers reminds me of in real life.
I feel like I should be able to point at a friend and say "you're Ramona!", but
I just haven't worked it out; and that tip-of-my-tongue longing for a name is
likely to eat at me for weeks.</p></li>
</ul>
A Serious Manhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/serious-man/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2009-12-10T05:50:02Z
<h2><em>A Serious Man</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>For the first time in my movie-reviewing career, I feel like I'm in over my
head. As I came out of <em>A Serious Man</em>, I felt like I had been to an art
gallery. I had seen many things, and while I recognize that I had liked those
things, I had no idea <em>why</em> I liked them. Worse, I didn't like <em>all</em> of those
things, at least not as much as I felt like I ought to have! In the past, I've
been able to paper over this response by, well, not writing anything. Now
that I'm writing reviews, I have to display that lack of sophistication to the
world.</p>
<p>Well, here goes.</p>
<p><em>A Serious Man</em> tells two stories: a prologue, regarding an 18th century
Russian Jewish couple and a visitor to their house, and the main story, telling
of the trials a Jewish professor in the late 1960s. The first part sets the
tone: dark. The second part adds absurd despair, mixed liberally with a black
humor and topped off with a dollop of pathos. Together, the Coen brothers end
up with something painful, profound, and pitch-black humor.</p>
<p>The cinematography is spectacular, especially considering the relatively
mundane setting. The soundtrack - mostly lots of Jefferson Airplane - was
well-used and thought out. The characters were well-realized and, though
perhaps somewhat stereotypical, quite authentic. The community seemed both
large and manageable; everybody had a challenge, and they responded to those
challenges in ways both reasonable and absurd. The acting was excellent (and
full of unknown actors - always a plus!). And I think I even picked up a few
pieces of Jewish culture along the way.</p>
<p>But the problem, from my point of view, is that this was also an Art Film, in
the most dangerous manner. Coming out of the theatre, I could not identify how
the elements of the prologue presaged what came later. I had laughed in many
places where the rest of the audience had not, but I couldn't tell if this was
my own dark sense of humor or me just understanding the difficult humor. In
general, while I didn't exactly feel like I was lost during the film, I also
didn't feel like I understood it all. I came out of this movie wondering if,
perhaps, I should take some film-studies classes. Perhaps that sums the movie
up as well as anything.</p>
<p>Don't go in expecting a straight-forward Coen brothers comedy; this ain't it.
<em>Burn After Reading</em>, <em>The Big Lebowski</em>, <em>The Hudsucker Proxy</em>, are all much
more "comedic" comedies; even <em>Fargo</em> doesn't hold a candle to the darkness of
this movie. Perhaps this is some kind of cross between the darkness of <em>No
Country for Old Men</em> and the comedy of <em>Fargo</em>; I'm not sure if I can think of
anything else comparable. But still, it's worth seeing if you recognized any
of the movies I just listed (and if you're reading my reviews, you probably
do.)</p>
<p>***. It probably would have been higher if I had understood; and, perhaps my
estimation of the movie will go up as I allow myself to read the reviews of
others.</p>
Sex and the Cityhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/sex-and-the-city/2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2008-06-02T06:24:36Z
<h2><em>Sex and the City</em> - 2 stars</h2>
<p>I tried to see Sex and the City on Friday night. I suspect that
would have been the right way to see it; certainly the theatre was packed
that night, given that I was unable to find parking in the humongous
lot. I gave up and returned home instead, bitter and a bit annoyed that
I wouldn't be able to write up my review right away. Instead, I only got
to read about the experience from the other straight male reviewers - the
fashion-related gasping, the excitement at plot twists, and so forth -
rather than participating in what was clearly The Girl Movie Event of the
last decade or so.</p>
<p>Instead, I waited until Sunday to see the movie. It was less of an Event then,
but still, it was an event. The audience was packed, and you could see the
groups of women everywhere, psyched to be there with friends and/or coerced
significant others[1]. So the atmosphere was still there, it just wasn't as
strong.</p>
<p>All that said, I think my review is still acceptable.</p>
<p>The movie picks up a few years after the show left off[2]. Carrie is still
together with Big, and is clearly even better off than she was when she started
(how'd she afford to buy her apartment, again?). Charlotte is married to Harry
with her adopted Chinese daughter. Miranda is living in Brooklyn with Steve
and their son. And Samantha is living in LA with Smith. (All of this is
actually fairly amazing; there have been no major changes in three years? But
I digress.) Given that situation... well, Season Seven begins! Wacky hijinx
ensure, relationships are put to the test, and things change week-to-week as
things are torn asunder, put back together, and occasionally replaced entirely.</p>
<p>Well, that's what the television show would have looked like anyway.</p>
<p>The single biggest problem that this movie faced was that the original
television show was episodic. Not everything would get solved every episode,
but there would be an ending, a resolution if not a solution. There was always
an A-plot, a B-plot, and a pair of C-plots - one plot for each of the four
girls. And the show was built around the drama, and the comedy potential, of
the half-hour format. It was by necessity both fast-paced and spread out. And
that worked.</p>
<p>This time, we got two-and-a-half hours of content - five episodes,
give or take. The episodes were there - The Apartment, The Engagement, The
Wedding, etc. The four plots were there, too - Carrie-And-Big Drama (A),
Miranda Adapts (B), and the two minor Cs. But instead of having to <em>fit</em>,
they just plain made a romantic comedy - from the girl's side, yes - and
ran with it. The amount of comedy was probably about the same as a single
half-hour episode before.</p>
<p>Charlotte didn't get a plot. Samantha's plot was given a short
shrift, and would have been best wrapped up in the first twenty minutes
and something new tossed in. Miranda was a bloody idiot over and over
again. Carrie, well, at least she got a plot and most of a season worth of
material.</p>
<p>There were good parts. The new girl - Louise, Carrie's new
Personal Assistant (how can she afford an assistant, exactly?) - was by
far the highlight of the movie, at least for the first half of her screen
time. There were definite moments where the show shone through, and those
parts I liked. Big was, remarkably, not a dumb-ass.</p>
<p>But I still can't get over how few funny parts there were. And how
little nudity - wasn't that the point of it being from HBO? Kim Cattrall
was never naked[3], for Gods' sakes! Hell, she was hardly in it at all...</p>
<p>I understand why movies change the formula of the shows that
preceded them - you want something bigger, longer, and more memorable
than your average episode, after all. Changing the formula is generally
important; but it's also dangerous, and leads to mis-steps more often
than success. In this case, though, it led to amongst the most dangerous
territories: mediocrity.</p>
<p>** (out of 4)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I was the only straight single man in the theatre, to the best of my
knowledge. I may have been the only single man in the audience, for
that matter; even the clearly-gay guys came in groups.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, I know how the show ended. Not only did I like the show[4], but
it's been an important part of several years of my life. My biggest
regret with this movie was that I was unable to see it with any of
my friends.</p></li>
<li><p>Alright, she was naked-ish, by any reasonable definition. But her
nipples were covered, and that's some sort of Hollywood line. We did
get Miranda naked, and Charlotte naked-ish as well. And they showed
a penis.</p></li>
<li><p>No, really, it was a good show and I enjoyed it. I'm surprised more
guys didn't like it.</p></li>
</ol>
Sherlock Holmeshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/sherlock-holmes-2009/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2009-12-29T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Sherlock Holmes (2009)</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The trailer for <em>Sherlock Holmes</em> was one of the worst short pieces of video
that I had ever seen. Its fundamental flaw was playing up the Victorian/Modern
juxtaposition - fistfights! firearms! explosions! tasers! - without allowing
enough context to actually make that interesting. Instead, the viewer got the
(strong) impression that they were just throwing a bunch of stuff at the
screen, and looking to see what stuck with the audience. The only hope I had
for the movie was that most of those scenes would be left out by the director
because... well, I'm not sure. It's not like I'm the target audience...</p>
<p>Anyway, none of it was left out. But in context, it worked out a whole lot
better than the trailers had led me to believe. It still wasn't <em>good</em>, but it
was worth watching, and certainly it was fun. And that's a start.</p>
<p>That said, what I really want to talk about is the Sherlock Holmes elements.</p>
<p>Many of the objections that I had to the trailer were, fundamentally, problems
with the idea of mixing certain concepts into the character of Holmes.
Since when is physical violence a strong element of the Master Detective's
repertoire? Well, the answer is "since Guy Ritchie took over". It worked in
the context of his direction style, it worked in the context of the actors
chosen (who did a fine job), and it worked in the context of a need to still
overshadow Watson in a newly action-y pairing. The violence became part of the
point, and that turned out to be okay, if not great.</p>
<p>On the other hand, where did this fit into the mythos? Without getting
into spoilers, this seemed to occur both early in Holmes' career (based on
characters met), and after the stories (based on Watson's moving out and on
with his life). While they were certainly going for a new mythos - something
that they could make a franchise out of - it was still a bit confusing for this
casual acquaintance of the original stories. I would have preferred one or the
other.</p>
<p>And the story... was kindof Holmes-y. There were the right number of
"supernatural" elements. The deductive work was pretty reasonable. The
mysteries weren't, for the most part, <em>cheats</em>, which is a good sign. And
while the story may have been a little bit more momentous than perhaps
necessary, it was still something that could mostly have fit in. Mostly.</p>
<p>Anyway. I feel like I'm rambling, because that's how I felt coming out of the
movie. I didn't feel ripped-off; that's good enough sometimes.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
Shutter Islandhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/shutter-island/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2010-02-19T00:00:00Z
<h2><em>Shutter Island</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>What else can I really say about <em>Shutter Island</em> without spoiling the movie
for somebody? This is a Twist Movie, and there are two fundamental problems
with reviewing Twist Movies:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The reviews are for two different groups of people: those that are trying to
figure out the twist, and those that want to know how the movie hangs
together when the twist is known. These groups are irreconcilable.</p></li>
<li><p>Even talking about the movie's premise can stray into spoiler territory
pretty easily.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So perhaps I should start small.</p>
<p>First of all, this is not a horror movie, unlike what the trailers suggested.
Instead, it is a psychological thriller, set in the 1950s on an island in
Boston Harbor. In fact, the only part that the trailer got unambiguously right
is the people involved; it does indeed star Leonardo DiCaprio, it includes
a pretty impressive supporting cast, and it is clearly directed by Martin
Scorsese. The marketing team probably would have been better to focus only on
that.</p>
<p>While the movie is clearly a Twist Movie, it's actually a fairly
straightforward one. This isn't a movie where you're going to come out and say
"I see how he tricked me!" - indeed, you may see where it's going a mile away
- but this turns out to be a perfectly reasonable way to handle things. The
movie is methodical and consistently paced, and it benefits from this quite
nicely.</p>
<p>The setting and time period turned out to be more interesting than I expected
it to be. The characters, living on an island with little contact with the
mainland, seemed to be connected to the world at large in much the same way
as the viewing audience was; that is to say, indirectly and with only a basic
understanding of what was really important at the time. Only the racial issues
were truly jarring; the rest just seemed a little bit unreal, but so did life
on the island itself.</p>
<p>And... well, that's about all of the gross details that I can offer. That, and
"I liked it"...</p>
<p>...well, okay, a couple of details.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The opening of the movie takes place on a ferry, taking Federal Marshall Ted
Daniels to the titular island. The main thing I noticed in the opening scene,
besides the ominous soundtrack and general character introductions, was some
second-rate green-screen work. This bothered me at the time, but as it turned
out, it helped set the tone for the movie as a whole. Who knew that a little
bit of poor special effects work could benefit the movie as a whole?</p></li>
<li><p>The most jarring part of the movie was Ted Levine playing the institute's
Warden. Having seen him over the last few years primarily as Captain Leland
Stottlemeyer in <em>Monk</em>, it was hard to even recognize him without a moustache.
He did a fine job, but it was shocking.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't know how much of a mental connection I had made between the 1950s and
World War II before this movie. That's changed now.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Anyway - it was worth seeing. It's not Scorsese's best work, but I'm not
complaining. He certainly did a better job with this than, say, M Night
Shyamalan would have done.</p>
<p>***</p>
Slumdog Millionairehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/slumdog-millionaire/
Copyright 2009, Tim Skirvin
2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-02-23T05:43:06Z
<h2><em>Slumdog Millionaire</em>: ** 3/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Today's Right Thing To Do: rather than watch the Oscars, I went to see the Big
Winner. It seemed more satisfying. It was, of course, written.</p>
<p><em>Slumdog Millionaire</em> tells the story of two brothers growing up in the slums
of Mumbai. It is a story of poverty, crime, prostitution and mendication,
torture and corruption, and a variety of other painful-to-watch acts; but
somehow, perhaps by not dwelling on these points, it's less of a story of pain
than a story of hope and survival.</p>
<p>Part of this - the part that caught the world's interest, and led to its
Oscar win - is that the story is told as a series of flashbacks from the
younger brother, Jamal, in between his two appearances on the Indian version of
<em>Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?</em>. When the movie begins, Jamal has just won
10,000,000 rupees, out of a possible 20M. In so doing, he has not only become
a Hero of the People, but has also come to the attention of the police. How
could a man like this - young, poor, of low caste (presumably - the caste thing
wasn't emphasized) - have known the answers to all of those questions?</p>
<p>Myself, I found the framing device frustrating; reality television irks me on
its own, let alone the reality-game-show genre that is currently in vogue.
Just like the real shows, the device adds tension for tension's sake. And this
is a shame, because the actual story is compelling on its own.</p>
<p>The third player in the two brothers' lives is a girl, Latika, who came from
the same slum. Salim spends his time trying to take care of himself, when
possible, his brother; Jamal spends his time trying to take care of Latika,
and when possible, Salim, with himself at the rear. The dynamic is more
traditional on its face - a love triangle with its roots in childhood - but
plays out interestingly, and darkly, and with fewer of the Hollywood trappings,
thanks to the simple fact that this is told with the influence of Bollywood.
Yes, there is a song-and-dance number.</p>
<p><em>Slumdog</em> tells a simple story, and tells it well. The Indian cultural bits
were fascinating; the reality television bits, less so. I'm not sure if I'd
agree that it's worthy of Best Picture of the Year, but it was a good movie.
And it was certainly better than watching Hugh Jackman in a tux.</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
The Social Networkhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/social-network/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2010-10-03T23:04:59Z
<h2><em>The Social Network</em>: **** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>They had me at 'wget'.</p>
<p>From the time I heard that the movie was in production, my expectations for
<em>The Social Network</em> were on the floor. A movie about Facebook? Really?
The subject was so inherently flawed, to my mind, that there was essentially
nothing that could get through to me and make me interested. Aaron Sorkin
dialogue and script? David Fincher directing? Trent Reznor soundtrack?
It takes place a few miles down the street? An artsy-and-interesting
trailer? Nope; nothing got through. Even when I started hearing good - nay,
superlative! - things over the last few weeks, "it's about Facebook" kept me
from even wanting to <em>see</em> the movie. And when I decided to see the movie last
night, it was with the thought that "I really <em>should</em> see this, if just so I
can write the review".</p>
<p>The first few minutes of the movie allowed me to reinforce my prejudices, as I
was introduced to an irritating Harvard sophomore - Mark Zuckerberg, played by
the guy from <em>Zombieland</em> - being extra-jerky and getting dumped for it. But
soon the opening credits started - under-stated, subtle, clearly setting the
tone for a movie about that subject near and dear to my heart, academia. And
that was followed by some fairly-realistic LiveJournal ranting and the start of
a sure-to-be-stupid hacking scene...</p>
<p>...but then Zuckerberg started explaining what he was coding, and where and how
he was getting his data. And I was sold, because it <em>made sense</em>, from both a
technical and social perspective. The web site he put together was not amazing
because it was a technical marvel; it was amazing because it was completely
plausible, from the 'wget -r' to get the images to the database work required
to put the site together. And as this scene continued, with cuts back to what
the <em>rest</em> of the campus was doing, I suddenly that I was watching something
amazing: a movie about the idealized college life of my time.</p>
<p><em>The Social Network</em> is a movie about undergraduate entrepreneurship, with a
little bit of technology thrown in for good measure. This is not new to me;
I've watched from the side-lines as several of these ventures grew (and some
even succeeded), and I even participated in one of those (doomed) ventures.
Facebook may have started at Harvard, but it may as well have started from the
mind of one of the motivated, genius programmers I knew so well down the hall
or across campus at UIUC. And the trick, here and there and everywhere else
where this kind of thing comes up, is less the genius itself and more on
follow-through (and just a touch of business sense).</p>
<p>I was <em>shocked</em> to see the movie understand this - not just on an academic
level, and not just on a personal level, but on every level in between.</p>
<p>From that initial hacking scene, I was sold. I spent the movie looking for the
<em>details</em>, because the broad strokes were so strong, and I was generally happy
with what I saw - the programming "environments" were good, the commands typed
were plausible, the terminal windows showed what they were supposed to show.
The classroom environments felt legitimate, as did the corporate offices and
the startup work environments. The thrill of fighting with the administration,
along with the sense that the administration <em>really</em> just wanted everybody
to stay out of their way. The sense of awe from everybody involved when they
met the guy with the "successful" startup. The "social strata" feel of the
campus. These were all <em>correct</em>, and I loved the movie for that, enough to
mostly ignore the few screw-ups left in for dramatic tension (pouring rain in
Palo Alto in the summer? Ha!).</p>
<p>Also of note was the simple way that the story was told. <em>The Social Network</em>
tells Zuckerberg's story through the lens of a pair of contentious court cases
about his company. This view of the story allows the movie to simultaneously
be a work of fiction and non-fiction, by removing the "narrator" from the
equation and into a theoretically-omniscient-but-not-really category. Through
this system, Zuckerberg can be made to look like a horrible person, an
anti-social visionary, and a few things in between, all without actually
forcing us to <em>believe</em> any of it. Somebody involved believed these things;
they may all have elements of truth in them; but they do not necessarily mean
that they are <em>true</em>. There is great power in that.</p>
<p>The acting was incredible - seriously, I had no idea that either Eisenberg (as
Zuckerberg) was that good of an actor, and I was outright gobsmacked by
Timberlake's abilities. The soundtrack was atmopheric. The dialogue was
perhaps a bit forced at times, but all towards the wonderful, flowing, vibrant
manner that Sorkin is so good at. And the direction was fascinating, with the
back-and-forth cuts particularly striking.</p>
<p>I suspect I'm going to be rooting for this movie for Best Picture. I'm curious
if I'll see it again, though.</p>
<p>****</p>
<p>Sidenote - the movie said that Zuckerberg was an emacs user. But was that
actually emacs that I saw on the screen, or that I saw him typing? I didn't
see any 'Ctrl-XXX' character presses, which sound subtly different than regular
typing; but I also didn't really see any 'Esc' key pinky extensions, so it's
hard to argue that he was actually using vim. But... still. Was that flamewar
left in there?</p>
Star Trek (2009)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/star-trek-2009/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-05-10T05:26:57Z
<h2><em>Star Trek</em>: *** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The newest Star Trek movie is very good. It was not better than II or VI,
mind, and IV was an entirely different wavelength; otherwise, this eleventh
movie in the Star Trek series was better than the rest, by a fairly substantial
amount. I guess the even/odd curse has changed again.</p>
<p>Yes, that's a geeky review; and yes, it probably deserves better than that.
But so what? This is still a Star Trek movie; as much as its creators have
decided to divorce this movie from the back-closet geekiness that Star Trek
fandom has lived in for so long, it can't escape its roots. Yes, the movie
managed to go beyond its roots and make something new and interesting, but I
still can't imagine writing a review like this without getting the important
part out of the way first. At its heart, this is still a Star Trek movie. If
you're into that thing, you need to know that.</p>
<p>And if you're not?</p>
<p><em>Star Trek</em> is accessible. Prior knowledge is helpful; but it is not required.
It is new. Its special effects are beautiful, if a bit too bogged down in
lens flares, and for the most part were logical as well. It offers a somewhat
refreshing view on time travel, which doesn't get us bogged down in minutiae
and just lets the story go where it's going. Its story is a bit silly, but
certainly acceptable and little bit shocking. And its science is certainly
questionable, but it's not too bad to look past this and pay attention to the
story instead.</p>
<p>Of course there are nits. My favorite was the opening chase scene, as shown
during the trailers: a boy races towards a cliff while driving an antique car,
and has to hold onto the edge at the last minute. This would be fine if it was
the Southwest; instead it's in Iowa, a place that is not known for its chasms.
This is silly, but hardly a deal-breaker... especially when you have the real
nitpicks on the mind, the "you're messing up Trek science" ones. And yes,
there were plenty of those too...</p>
<p>...but really? I just saw a Star Trek movie and enjoyed it every step of the
way. I want to see a series of this. And for now, I can only recommend that
it's a movie well worth watching for fans and civilians alike.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
Star Trek Into Darknesshttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/star-trek-into-darkness/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2013-05-22T21:19:22Z
<h2><em>Star Trek Into Darkness</em>: 5 out of 10</h2>
<p>There is frustratingly little that can be written about <em>Star Trek
Into Darkness</em> without either falling into blatant spoiler territory,
regurgitating the trailers, or just griping about the specifics. So let's
focus on one specific gripe: a blatant disregard for geography.</p>
<p>It is relatively common for movies to place all locations are exactly
as far away from each other as is necessary for the plot to maintain
its momentum; but it is the mark of a good script and editor that these
locations can still feel "connected", rather than just being separate
sets. A few examples of action movies that get it right: <em>Raiders of the
Lost Ark</em> with its varied settings and maps that provide a sense of scale;
<em>Die Hard</em>, which makes its setting the most important character of the
movie; and <em>The Wrath of Khan</em>, which provides a baseline for all "good"
Star Trek movies thereafter. And the best counter-example I can think of
is the TV show 24, in which different sections of LA are always precisely
a single commercial break away.</p>
<p><em>Star Trek Into Darkness</em> falls decidedly on the latter side of this
continuum. The movie clearly cares about its large-scale locations, as
it moves from a distant star system, to London and San Francisco, and
then back to the edge of Federation space, then (somehow) the moons of
Jupiter get involved, and finally back to Earth again. But the journeys
are inconsistent - it takes days to go one direction, and then hours
(minutes?) to return. But we're still expected to take the concepts of a
warp-speed chase seriously.</p>
<p>Annoyingly, there was little reason for this. The majority of these
gripes could have been managed with a simple change: setting most of the
action within Earth's own solar system, or perhaps including a single
neighbor stellar system. The alien threat would be more threatening for
being so nearby, and the internal threats more logical for the immediacy
of the external danger; the lack of other Federation ships could be
explained by having them either too far away to intervene or unable to
leave their defensive posts; and the variable travel times could be
explained by specific navigation hazards. The geography could have worked
in the film's favor, rather than pulling me out of action every time I was
forced to think "err, where are we exactly?".</p>
<p>(On a smaller scale, the internal geography of the Enterprise was a
problem as well, I would have liked to have some spatial understanding
that, say, the brig was near to sick bay but further away from
Engineering; but at least that may be explained in a technical blueprint
somewhere.)</p>
<p>I'll let the rest of the Internet dwell on the other problems: poor
character development, terrible and internally-inconsistent physics (often
involving transporter limitations/lack thereof), an off-putting cameo,
foolish deus ex machinas, and the standard problem of putting a crew of
cadets in command of the flagship of the entire Federation.</p>
<p>There are positive things to say about the movie, mind. The special
effects are pretty, if annoyingly over-committed to lens flares (more so
than the last movie); the action scenes themselves are pretty well put
together; Simon Pegg and Zachary Quinto steal the show, at least amongst
the regulars; it's amusing having both Sherlock Holmes and Robocop in a
movie; the significant-to-the-point-of-insult levels of fan service were
relatively amusing the first time; I did like the variety of background
alien races; and we will get more sequels, which I'll probably still want
to see.</p>
<p>But this movie will not age well. And it's only just barely better than
any Next Generation movies.</p>
<p>Rating: 5 (out of 10)</p>
<p>And, if you're curious as to my (rough) rankings:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><em>The Wrath of Khan</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>The Undiscovered Country</em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/star-trek-2009/">Star Trek (2009)</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em>The Voyage Home</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>The Search for Spock</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>The Motion Picture</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>Generations</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>Into Darkness</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>Insurrection</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>The Final Frontier</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>First Contact</em></p></li>
<li><p><em>Nemesis</em></p></li>
</ol>
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Lihttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/street-fighter-2009/
Copyright 2009, Tim Skirvin
2017-02-23T16:31:58Z2009-03-02T06:05:12Z
<h2><em>Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li</em>: * 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>I learned something today. I learned that, in order to become evil, you just
have to kill your wife. Poof! You're evil, and you have magical evil
superpowers! Involving kicking.</p>
<p>Seriously, that's what I got out of this movie.</p>
<p><em>Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li</em> is nominally a spin-off of the famous
video game series. Oddly, it doesn't actually have much to do with the video
game, except that there are a few characters of similar names, and there's a
nifty Capcom-game montage opening thingie. Instead, we follow the life of
young Chun-Li, a Smallville actress that grows up to be a concert pianist after
her father is violently kidnapped in front of her. Eventually she receives a
scroll, and some other people show up and tell her to go to Bangkok, where she
will learn things. Then kicking ensues.</p>
<p>Really, I can't write a whole lot more about the plot than that. It didn't
make any sense, not even internally. This was a movie that was supposed to
involve street fighting; instead, we got an Evil Real Estate Scheme, and a few
Street Fighter characters. The acting was bad, but not horrible; the fight
scenes were pretty bad, and we didn't even get all of Chun-Li's signature
moves. The plot didn't even try to resolve itself. And, worse, I didn't even
come out of it laughing at how bad it was. If it had been truly bad, I would
have been happier.</p>
<p>I have seen worse movies, but still. Avoid.</p>
<p>* 1/2</p>
Sucker Punchhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/sucker-punch/2017-02-23T16:32:03Z2011-03-28T07:03:38Z
<h2><em>Sucker Punch</em>: 2 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>It would be easy to dismiss <em>Sucker Punch</em> as simply pandering to its audience.
Yes, the movie aims at geek culture in general, teenage males in particular;
and as such it certainly offers as much skin and anime-style action as it can
provide within the confines of a PG-13 rating. But <em>Punch</em> does not want to
just pander to its audience; instead, it aims to be something more than just
your average Summer Action Movie, hoping perhaps to reach the lofty heights of
"art". Unfortunately, this ambition turns out to be the movie's undoing.</p>
<p>The movie's story is simple but purposefully convoluted. A girl's wicked
stepfather sends her to a mental institution, where she will be lobotomized
in five days. To escape this horror, she withdraws into a dream world;
in this world, she lives as a slave in a high-class brothel. Within this
still-nightmarish dream world, she retreats yet further into a series of
yet-more-nightmarish worlds, where she learns to fight for her own survival
and for the freedom of her friends.</p>
<p>The heart of the movie lies in these "shell" worlds. The "third shell"
contains the action set pieces and self-esteem boosters; the "second shell"
provides the drama, dialogue, and characters; and the "first shell" provides a
shell and framing device for the rest of the movie. Specifically, the ambition
of the movie lies in the interaction of the second and third shells, with
the use of dream violence in the third world working to impact real events
in the first world - basically, an odd combination of <em>Brazil</em> and <em><a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/shutter-island/">Shutter
Island</a></em>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this just plain doesn't work. The interaction between the
second and first layers is <em>grossly</em> underdeveloped - for instance, most of the
characters only have dialogue in the second shell! This ruined any potential
connection between the first and third layers and, frustratingly, any potential
from the overall story. While some exposition at the end of the film tries to
paper over this gaping hole, this only draws notice to the flaw.</p>
<p>Still, to be fair, the trailers did not lie. The action scenes in the third
shell are plentiful and packed with special-effects; the action itself is well
choreographed, within the sensibilities of Zack Snyder; and the stars of the
film are scantily-clad females with large guns and swords fighting robotic
samurai, zombie Nazis, martial-arts robots, and the occasional dragon. But
these action scenes begin and end by roughly explaining the subtext within,
making the metaphors as much a part of the action as the special effects
themselves. This makes the metaphors as "real" as the special effects, which
is rarely a good sign.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what it would have taken to make this into a <em>good</em> movie. It
would have taken more than improving any single element of the film; the whole
thing was simply under-engineered for the job, from the vision and script to
the acting and musical selection. While perhaps it wasn't a total loss -
it should at least provide interesting cosplay opportunities for years to come
- it was a significant disappointment over already low expectations. Avoid.</p>
<p>Rating: 2/10 (* 1/2 out of 4)</p>
Takenhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/taken/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2009-02-14T08:07:42Z
<h2><em>Taken</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p><em>Taken</em> is a spy revenge movie, with an emphasis on the "revenge". Is it
really fair to analyze a movie like this? Perhaps not, but that's what I spent
a lot of the movie doing.</p>
<p>As with all revenge movies, the first fifteen minutes are spent setting up the
characters, so you've got a reason to care when the bad things start happening;
but for some reason, things came off as somewhat nuanced. As per normal, the
estranged ex-spy father (Liam Neeson, in this case) doesn't really have his
life together; but unlike many movies, this time he at least know what he wants
to do and is doing it. His ex-wife is bitchy, her new husband a bit of a jerk,
their daughter a self-centered 17-year-old; but unlike other usual, the tension
comes off as somewhat genuine. It's an odd opening, which comes across as
somewhat less forced and weird than usual, but also leaves us less set-up than
you would expect.</p>
<p>The main tense part of the movie is what was shown in the trailers - the
daughter's capture. It was well set up for the commercials, and it was well
set up in the movie. From there, the spying and the revenge begin, and we are
put into a weird Paris-based 24, but over 96 hours instead.</p>
<p>There's not too much more to say about the plot, really - Neeson finds a lot of
bad people and tortures and kills them in various efficient ways, and he
eventually finds what he's looking for. The end. The actual ending comes a
bit too pat (how <em>did</em> he get back out of Paris after all the mayhem he
caused?), but that's not really that much of a surprise. I didn't stick around
for the credits.</p>
<p>But that's not really what I spent my time analyzing. No, what was interesting
was that this was a PG-13 movie, and specifically a PG-13 movie about the sex
slave trade. This made for some really odd decisions as to what could be
shown and what couldn't. For the most part, it was a bloodless movie; and the
victims were shrouded where possible, for fear of showing too much flesh or
too many track marks. But somehow, this sanitization didn't actually hurt the
movie much. The characters seemed to fit the rating - they didn't <em>want</em>
blood, they just wanted to do their job. It made for an interesting portrayal
of various grades of evil, because they all looked fundamentally the same. I
don't know how much of that was intentional, but it was an odd effect.</p>
<p>Still - it was not high art, and I'll forget about it before too long, but it
also did not suck. If you liked the trailer, this is probably worth seeing.</p>
<p>** 1/2</p>
Terminator: Salvationhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/terminator-salvation/2017-02-23T16:31:57Z2009-06-02T05:28:10Z
<h2><em>Terminator: Salvation</em>: ** (out of 4)</h2>
<p><em>Terminator 2: Judgement Day</em> was the first R-rated movie I got to see in
the theatre. My Dad took me and my younger brother (and a couple of family
friends) out to see <em>City Slickers</em> in Kansas City, and balked at the last
minute; and so he grabbed me and went to the movie he <em>wanted</em> to see, which
Mom never would have approved of if she'd known. I was 13; I was psyched.
And, more important, it was actually a good - nay, <em>great</em> - movie. It set the
standard by which I would see all future action movies, and that standard
turned out to be pretty high.</p>
<p>You would think that this would bias me horribly against this <em>Terminator 4</em> -
how can it match up? Well, there are three mitigating factors. First of all,
I hated <em>Terminator 3</em> with a passion it does not, perhaps, truly deserve - my
fury at it not being <em>T2</em> was thus sated years ago. Second, I actually liked
the TV series, and was thus ready for more Terminator goodness. And third, I
did manage to see this movie (and <em>T3</em>) with my father as well, so the familial
connection held up.</p>
<p>And so... well, it was better than the third one.</p>
<p><em>Terminator: Salvation</em> is a modern action movie - which is to say, senseless
and illogical but very loud and explode-y. It starts with a military raid on
an apparently important enemy base; but everyone dies instead, and for some
reason it's still "mission accomplished". That summarizes the whole movie:
there's plenty of action and death and robot action, but none of it actually
makes a lick of sense in any tactical or strategic sense - not from a human
perspective, and not from a machine perspective either.</p>
<p>For all that it was lame, though, it was at least workmanlike. John Connor
(Christian Bale, who I was perfectly content with) at least seemed to have the
loyalty of this fellow soldiers, even if we don't know why; the CGI was pretty;
the main plot twist of the movie came pre-ruined by the trailers, but wouldn't
have been much of a surprise anyway. The PG-13 rating didn't seem to be a
problem. And the Big Cameo was fun, if pointless. Sure, it would have been
nice if the writers had comprehended their own concepts of time travel, or had
had a basic understanding of geography (LA and San Francisco are not near to
each other [oh, and did I mention that Skynet is based in our fine city? Go
us!]) and/or tactics, and...</p>
<p>...you know, writing about it, I think that this movie should make me angrier
than it actually did. But I came out only disappointed, and not angry; and I
did get to see it with Dad. Those are worth a few points. But only a few.</p>
<p>I wouldn't bother with seeing it. But I'll go see <em>T5</em> when/if it comes out,
so I'm clearly a bit hypocritical on these fronts.</p>
<p>**</p>
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallenhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/transformers2/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-06-24T18:31:28Z
<h2><em>Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen</em>: ** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>The short of it: I came out of the midnight showing last night annoyed but not
angry. I went in with low expectations, and they were met; but I am not truly
embarrassed to be a Transformers fan or anything. But the longer I wait to
write this review, the lower the rating is going to be; so I should just get it
over with.</p>
<p>Some background, for those that don't know me: I love Transformers, and have
since I received my first figure a quarter of a century ago (Soundwave; I still
have him). In large part, this is for the love of the toys - I have a monthly
budget to buy them, and my addiction to garage sales is in large part fueled by
the hunt for cheap, old, half-broken toys. (Hey, it's a hobby!) But there's
also a pretty healthy respect for the mythology in there; the many incarnations
of the characters and stories have led to a healthy and fascinating gestalt of
themes and tropes that have become ever more mythic as the years go by. The
Transformers have become a formalized stage play, with actors playing familiar
roles and going through familiar actions in order to tell a meta-story with no
beginning or end. And yes, I'm talking about the storyline surrounding a bunch
of children's toys.</p>
<p>I went into the first Michael Bay Transformers move a couple of years back
full of trepidation, based on the oft-repeated question "will he rape our
childhoods?". I came out of that movie happy, because that foolishly low bar
had been met; the movie had been nothing to brag about, but it was at least
watchable and silly, and it had effectively added to the overall mythology
with only a few major mis-steps. Yes, all of those points that had truly made
it popular with the average fan were embarrassing, but could we really expect
anything less from Michael Bay? My expectations were low, and even in
retrospect, they were exceeded.</p>
<p>For the sequel, Bay turned everything up - the action, the crude humor, the
irrelevant human sub-plots, and the sheer number of giant robots. This is
something that he's good at, as long as you describe "good" as "able to make a
stupid amount of money by doing so". Yeah, the movie is going to insult your
intelligence, but I at least knew that this was going to happen coming in and
considered it a fair trade for more giant robot action. It's certainly not as
bad as, say, <em>Bad Boys 2</em>; and the real problem with this whole problem area is
that it makes the movie difficult to justify to those that would have a problem
with, say, giant swinging robot balls.</p>
<p>That's why I wasn't really embarrassed; so, why didn't I really like the movie
that much? Mostly, they made a hash of the mythology. There were some really
good bits in there: Soundwave and Ravage were missed in the first movie (as was
Frank Welker!), the Decepticon-hunting squads from the beginning of the movie
were a rather fascinating idea, the various <em>scales</em> of robots, and pretty
much the whole idea that the relationship between humanity and cybertronians
evolved over the last couple of years is a good one. Also, several ideas
that have filtered in from the comics were presented, such as the Fallen and
the whole "what it means to be a Prime" concept. But those ideas weren't
really thought through, nor given enough context to make sense even to this
Transformers-soaked mind. And, worse, there was Decepticon girl, pulling in
the recent addition of tentacle-porn from a particularly egregious Japanese
line a couple of years ago...</p>
<p>And there's the visual design. This movie spent a lot of effort giving us
non-bipedal robots, through the use of unicycles, centaurs, or simply not
offering proper robot modes in the first place. Frankly, there were too many
non-transforming Transformers in there, along with technology that wasn't about
Transformers. Worse, I couldn't tell who many of the Decepticons were supposed
to be! I've been buying the toy line for a month now, I should be able to
identify characters easily; instead, I just spotted model re-use.</p>
<p>And as an odd side note, I didn't hate Wheelie, Skids, or Mudflap, although I
probably should have. On the other hand, I have had a horrible time with those
toys...</p>
<p>Faah. It wasn't horrendous for a Transformers fan, and it seemed to make the
crowd happy. And while there are certainly better action movies out there, and
I'd almost rather encourage you to see them, I'm willing to recommend this
movie to those that like this kind of thing for at least one reason: it will
make it more likely that I'll still be buying these toys in another 25 years.</p>
<p>**</p>
Transformers: Dark of the Moonhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/transformers3/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2011-06-30T05:05:05Z
<h2><em>Transformers: Dark of the Moon</em>: 6 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>The most important thing you have to know about <em>Transformers 3</em> is that it's
significantly better than <em>Transformers 2</em>. No, this was not a high bar;
but honestly, if it had been worse, I would have recommended that you run
screaming. Instead, I suggest to you that this is a good action movie that
plays nicely to Michael Bay's strengths, and is perhaps his best work since
<em>The Rock</em>.</p>
<p>I do have to admit, most of the actual components of the movie are pretty
questionable. The live-acting ranged from "adequate" (Shia LaBeouf, John
Turturro) to "slumming it" (John Malkovich, Frances McDormand), with just a
touch of "incompetent" (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). The characters were weak,
even by the standards of summer action movies. The plot holes were profound,
both internal to the movie and in terms of basic physics. It was padded, and
could have easily lost 30-45 minutes of footage through responsible editing
(perhaps leaving out the entire prologue). The dialogue was forgettable. The
"extraneous" characters of old movies were more annoying than ever. It was
still difficult to tell the 'bots apart. The story was still more about the
humans than about the 'bots. And so forth.</p>
<p>But that said, the movie did a whole lot <em>right</em>. The plot may have been weak,
but it was epic, relevant, grounded in the style of Transformers episodes of
years past (specifically <em>The Ultimate Doom</em>), and it mostly held together.
The relationship between humanity and the Cybertronians (both sides) was
actually fairly interesting and finally felt <em>established</em>. The movie didn't
spend much time in the "wacky" humor genre, unlike its predecessors, and
was much better for it. The robots seemed like characters this time, and
(slightly) less like plot contrivances. Overall, most of the "garbage" from
the last movie was taken out, and replaced with more action scenes.</p>
<p>And oh, what action scenes they were! The special effects were more
self-assured than the previous movies, even as their scale increased.
Transformers would change forms regularly and without undue focus; this made
for less jarring and more interesting action scenes, and allowed for the robots
themselves to seem more like characters than simple plot contrivances. Beyond
the technical marvel, the fight scenes mostly to hold together, and some of
them even evoked scenes from the original Animated Movie. And the entire last
40 minutes in Chicago, even if didn't hold up to much scrutiny - <em>that</em> is why
we watch Michael Bay movies! Sure, it may not have made a lick of sense; but
the action was good enough to make up for that.</p>
<p>Given my fascination with these characters, perhaps I should talk a little bit
about the individual 'bots. Optimus actually had a personality this time,
which was interesting. Bumblebee was important but under-utilized, a bit
surprisingly. The Wreckers didn't irritate me, nor did the two mini-bots.
I admit to geeking out a little bit about Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime.
Shockwave was less well-utilized than Darth Maul, but just as cool. Soundwave
turned out to matter as a character, hooray! I'm shockingly okay that
Laserbeak spoke. And the Nameless Decepticon Hordes... well, I'm okay with
them, I suppose, but it'd be nice if the Autobots got some too.</p>
<p>In short: this was the best of the trilogy by any standards. In terms of a
summer blockbuster, it was fun; in terms of real cinema, it wasn't so great.
And if, like me, you're a Transformers fan, this is as good of a movie as we're
likely to get.</p>
<p>Some other points:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>While I didn't really care for the "it's so hard to get a job" element of
the plot, it didn't actually ruin the movie.</p></li>
<li><p>I really can't get over how awful Carly was. She was a bad character, her
actress was horrible, and the repeated reminders of "haha, you don't get
Megan Fox anymore!" were blatant and annoying. Yes, she has quite a body,
and Bay did a good job of showing it off. That's not enough.</p></li>
<li><p>What happened to the Twins from the second movie, anyway? I'm happy
they're gone, yes; but given how important it was that the Autobots were
few in number, you'd think that having ~20% of your numbers just "missing"
would be worth noting somewhere.</p></li>
<li><p>A note on expectations: I have found that surviving movies like this is
really dependent upon keeping your expectations in check. The first movie
initially looked promising but worthless; it turned out to be acceptable and
stupid. Score! The second movie looked to be terrible out of the gate,
and it turned out to be even worse that; but I had gone in with such
<a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/transformers2">low expectations</a> that it at least didn't
<em>hurt</em> too much (at the time). So when it came to this third movie, my
expectations were simple: "it's got to be better than number two, yes?".<br />
This modest goal was easily met.</p></li>
<li><p>Since I mentioned Michael Bay's earlier work in that first paragraph, I
should note that his best movie is still <em>Bad Boys</em>, and that the rest of
his body of work falls far below that early effort.</p></li>
<li><p>I saw this movie in IMAX 3-D. The IMAX part was worth the trouble;
the special effects were worth the screen real estate. The 3-D, though,
didn't add anything to the movie, though it didn't seem to take anything
away either.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Rating: 6/10</p>
Tron: Legacyhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/tron-legacy/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2010-12-18T22:28:17Z
<h2><em>Tron: Legacy</em>: 4 (out of 10)</h2>
<p>In short: <em>Tron: Legacy</em> looks and sounds good, but I was not impressed.</p>
<p>I should state up front that I am a huge fan of the original <em>Tron</em>. It's
not just that the movie was visually distinctive and imaginative, as most
people remember - though believe me, it sure was memorable. No, what I've
been impressed with is the quality and quantity of insightful metaphors into
the state of computing. The movie and its world were at heart based on the
technology of 1982 (specifically the VMS operating system); and while the world
of computing has certainly changed dramatically over the last three decades,
the influence of those old technologies is still strong. Every time I watch
the movie, I see the parallels between the ideas presented and the movie and
modern computing technologies and ideas - and that's 28 years later! The
plot may have been thin, the characters shallow, and the whole thing may be
a half hour too long, but it never ceases to amaze me as the film-makers of
my childhood muse on the ideas of modern technology. The metaphors made the
movie.</p>
<p>Given this bias, I must also admit that I didn't exactly come into
<em>Tron: Legacy</em> with high hopes. After all, how could a sequel today even
try to work with the same material?</p>
<p>Still, there were definitely good parts mixed into the movie. First of all,
there's Daft Punk's soundtrack. The original film's score was nearly as iconic
as the movie's visuals; the sequel's score is at least as good, remaining
faithful to its predecessor while also taking significant advantage of the
band's distinct electronic sound (with just a touch of Vangelis for good
measure). In retrospect, Daft Punk's entire body of work was leading up to
scoring this movie, and they knocked it out of the park. Hiring them was the
most brilliantly inspired moment in the film's creation.</p>
<p>The visual effects were also suitably spectacular. I liked the decision to
make the Real World mostly 2D and the Grid mostly 3D; the mix came off fairly
subtly and actually made the 3D <em>augment</em> the visuals rather than <em>replacing</em>
them, most impressively by offering a feeling of semi-transparency to the
buildings and vehicles throughout the movie. As the visual design itself -
well, yes, they copied that pretty nicely from the first movie, and updated it
effectively. The orange-with-some-blue landscapes were always beautiful, and
the action scenes within them were clear and spectacular. All-in-all, the VFX
were what I was hoping for (though, admittedly, not as far "advanced for their
time" as the original <em>Tron</em>'s effects were back in its day).</p>
<p>One last truly positive part probably fits into the above category: the
Light-Cycle Arena sequence. The scene may not have been all that well
integrated into the movie, but it was nevertheless an impressive spectacle.
This time, the action was less reminiscent of 'Snake' and 'SNAFU', and more
reminiscent of squad-combat version of Mario Kart's Battle Mode. I could watch
a whole movie about this Team Light-Cycle Battle, and I certainly hope that
another sub-genre gets developed.</p>
<p>So those are the good bits. They were honestly strong enough that the movie
would probably be worth watching for those parts alone. But those elements
don't exist in a vacuum, and the poor implementation of the rest of the
film drags the whole work back down below average.</p>
<p>The number one issue dragging everything else down was the story. To be fair,
I think there <em>is</em> a story in there, and a potentially interesting one at that;
the problem is in how that story was told. Unfortunately, the story is too
complicated for its own good, necessitating far too many expository info-dumps
to explain the background, the motivations, and the parties involved. This
not only violated the "show, don't tell" principle, but it didn't even convey
<em>enough</em> information to understand the issues in depth, and certainly not to
care about them.</p>
<p>For example: over the course of the movie we learn a fair amount about the
background of Quorra (Olivia Wilde) - her powers, her history, and her
relevance to the world. But, oddly, she is not compelling - she's in the way
more than anything, and even her acts of badass-ery feel tacked on. There
were two problems: we simply don't have enough context to <em>care</em> about that
background, and we also don't have any understanding of how her actions and
personality compare to other natives of the Grid. All we know is that she's
supposed to be important; that's not enough to sustain her character.</p>
<p>My other major gripe is that, well, the metaphors just don't hold up. Sure,
the movie was clearly <em>aiming</em> at some metaphors for modern computing -
primarily "complex systems evolve in unpredictable ways" - but we are once
again <em>told</em> rather than <em>shown</em>, much to the viewer's chagrin. Instead,
we're left with standard Hollywood plot stories - there is power in danger in
evolution, we choose our own families, you must stand up for what you believe
in instead of watching from the sidelines, etc. I can't see anybody being
interested in watching this movie in 25 years (5? 1?) to learn anything about
their own world. And that's a shame.</p>
<p>And of course there's the standard problem with Hollywood blockbusters:
dedication to the short-term demographics, looking at what "tests well"
rather than what makes a good movie. For example, the light cycles were
simply over-played. The story moves from light-cycles, to a light-SUV with
light-missiles, and eventually to to light-fighter jets with light-turrets -
and all the while, we didn't explore the updated Recognizers or Tanks at all,
let alone the Solar Sailer. This made the "updated technology" feel of the
movie seem too narrow to be real or interesting.</p>
<p>(Connected to this, the "super powers" of the Users (humans) seemed to be
de-emphasized. Flynn seemed in the first movie to have the equivalent of
"super-user" powers on the system - he could fix things that others couldn't
fix, influence things that others couldn't influence, and generally was able to
"hack" his way through the system where other programs could not. At first, I
thought this had just been taken out entirely, or and that Flynn's powers were
unique to the Grid of the first movie; but every now and again, there was some
indication that the Users still had these powers, usually manifested by
changing the background colors around them when they are present. But this was
under-played, and didn't affect the plot in a meaningful way; I think I would
rather have seen it left out entirely.)</p>
<p>At any rate - this was not a good movie, but nor was it terrible. It did, at
least, surpass my expectations; but it was a long way from reaching anything
that I was hoping. I'll still see the third movie, when it inevitably comes
out, but my hopes have been appropriately calibrated.</p>
<p>If you're on the fence about this movie, go watch the original first (or
again). If you're still interested afterwards, go ahead and see this.
Otherwise, go see one of the many legitimately good movies currently in
theatres.</p>
<p>Rating: 4/10 (** out of 4)</p>
<h3>My Theory About The Metaphor</h3>
<p>Software is meant to be free, and big corporations that try to sell their
software are bad. But when the software <em>is</em> free, it runs roughshod over the
world, working as a virus to infect all other programs (especially works more
creative than itself), and waiting for its chance to break out into the wider
network. And eventually, this freedom will destroy the programmers that built
it into the system.</p>
<p>I guess that means that <em>Tron: Legacy</em> is about the GNU Public License.<br />
If so, then yes, that means that Clu represents Richard Stallman.</p>
<h3>Side Notes</h3>
<ul>
<li><p>So, what could they have done differently with the plot? I see two paths
that would have worked: they could have tightened the movie up substantially
by cutting out a half hour or so, simplifying the plot and cutting sub-plots
in the process, or they could have lengthened it dramatically. The former
path would have required them to leave out most of the exposition entirely,
and focus on a more concrete series of set-pieces; the latter path would
change the story to a mini-series or short series of movies. But in either
direction, we would have been offered more <em>depth</em> to the story, instead
of a simple story stretched so tight over a basic skeleton.</p></li>
<li><p>I liked that Daft Punk themselves appeared in the movie, working as DJs in
the virtual club (chat room?) with Michael Sheen. It still would have been
better to drop the scene, mind, but at least there was something to laugh at.</p></li>
<li><p>For being the titular character, we only see Tron in a small handful of
scenes, and in almost all of those we don't see his face. A lot of effort
was put into de-aging Jeff Bridges; why didn't we do some de-ageing of Bruce
Boxleitner?</p></li>
<li><p>Along these lines, the de-ageing effect for Jeff Bridges was, well,
"off-putting" is the closest word I can think of. Mind, for much of the movie
this was okay; off-putting may well have been the desired effect. But in the
early scenes, taking place in 1989, the plastic expressions really detracted
from the overall effort, and the clear attempts to film the character from
behind was even worse. I don't know that there was a better option yet, but,
regardless, the effect detracted from the film.</p></li>
<li><p>Why, oh why, was there no Bit? Yes, there were the allusions, but come on,
he was fun!</p></li>
<li><p>Special recognition for awfulness has to go to Castor, Michael Sheen's
character that is a cross between a carnival barker and those albinos
from <em>The Matrix Reloaded</em>. The character was terrible, his scenes
pointless, and the whole thing added nothing to the movie that couldn't
have been accomplished with a line or two of dialogue.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't want to talk about the opening real-world plot. It was just
pointless.</p></li>
<li><p>There were some Unix-y bits, and those amused me. Flynn's old workstation is
running on an 'i386 sum4m' system running 'SolarOS' - and that's <em>almost</em>
plausible. The OS running on his terminal is clearly a Unix derivative, and
the commands run on there look <em>almost</em> good. But I don't remember a
separate, stand-alone 'history' program separate from the shell... Aah,
well. It was at least close.</p></li>
<li><p>Midnight shows are growing less-and-less worth the trouble. It was at least
interesting to see that the first movie is still gaining friends, decades
later. Most of that audience hadn't been born when the first movie came out.</p></li>
</ul>
Tropic Thunderhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/tropic-thunder/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2008-08-31T19:10:53Z
<h2><em>Tropic Thunder</em>: ** 3/4</h2>
<p>I finally got around to seeing <em>Tropic Thunder</em>, Ben Stiller's comedy
about Hollywood, on Friday, three weekends into its opening, and I don't
know that I had a lot to say about it.</p>
<p>I enjoyed the movie; it was extremely funny in sections, and fairly clever
in others, though these areas didn't meet much. The pacing wasn't great,
though. Jack Black seemed to hardly be in the movie. Robert Downey Jr
did a good job at being just oddly offensive. The action scenes were
amusing. And the trailer didn't really spoil the best bits (which, for
my money, involved children flying through the air).</p>
<p>But, past that, there wasn't much to think of coming out of the theatre,
and that delayed my review for a couple of days. And I don't really want
to talk too much about the plot, because what I enjoyed the most about the
movie was the randomness and lack of knowledge. So, the short review: if
you like absurdist comedies with lots of blood and irreverent humor, this
is probably worth seeing, but I don't know that it'd be a problem to wait
for the DVD.</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
Up (3-D)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/up/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2009-06-07T02:18:38Z
<h2><em>Up</em>: *** 1/4 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Does anyone expect any reviewer to dislike a Pixar movie? The company only
make good movies, that's just how it is. To some extent, the reviews are
exercises in excited hyperbole, as reviewer after reviewer discusses ways that
this movie is more transcendent than the last. For my part, even if they were
to make 2-3 horrible movies in a row, I'd still give the next one a shot.</p>
<p>Interestingly, what this leaves the company with is the power to make movies
about whatever topic they want. Within the framework that the movie must be
at least partially for kids and have merchandise options, just about anything
goes. And in this case, what we get is a movie about moving on from trauma.</p>
<p><em>Up</em> begins with a montage of joy and loss. Carl finds the love of his life
when he is just a child. He and his friend Ellie are married, they fix up a
house together, and they grow old together. Finally, she dies, with their
dream of exploring South America unfulfilled - and Carl is left alone, to live
out his days missing her and ignoring the world around him. When the world
finally starts forcing him to adjust, he refuses to accept and move on - and
so begins the story proper, with the balloons and the flying house and the Cub
Scout and talking dogs and a large bird named Kevin.</p>
<p>There is, of course, plenty to like about this movie; and reviewers everywhere
have talked about these things at length, so I'll keep it short. The
landscapes were beautiful, the character designs were cheerful, the house and
its contents wonderfully realized. The story was straightforward but nuanced,
and well-suited for all ages. And the take-away lesson of the movie was
something that I truly appreciated: while you must eventually move on, you
don't have to do it on anybody else's terms. Do what you need to do, and do it
now; and then find the next thing to do.</p>
<p>The 3-D was very nicely and subtly done. Only in a few shots were you
reminded that you were watching 3-D at all. Most of the time, it was fairly
unobtrusive, and mostly made the scenery feel more real; but a few times,
it popped out that you could focus on two different scenes in a concrete
way. And to say something that I doubt any other reviewer will mention: I
was more scared during this movie than I was at any time during <a href="http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/drag-me-to-hell">Drag Me To
Hell</a>. Oh, how afraid
I am of heights!</p>
<p>I am happy I got to see it with children as well. The murmur of a theatre full
of young voices plays well with movies like this.</p>
<p>*** 1/4</p>
<p>Oh, and my current rankings (more-or-less):</p>
<ol>
<li>The Incredibles</li>
<li>WALL-E</li>
<li>Toy Story 2</li>
<li>Up</li>
<li>Ratatouille</li>
<li>Finding Nemo</li>
<li>Toy Story</li>
<li>A Bug's Life</li>
<li>Cars</li>
<li>Monsters, Inc</li>
</ol>
Up in the Airhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/up-in-the-air/2017-02-23T16:31:59Z2009-12-22T04:04:38Z
<h2><em>Up in the Air</em>: *** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>Amongst the most awkward movie experiences of my life was when I saw <em>High
Fidelity</em>. I went to the movie with a pair of friends, one of which was
an ex-girlfriend, bearing a Transformer I had just purchased across the
street at Meijer. The movie was in large part about breakups, seeing those
ex-significant-others, and putting away childish things. I had clearly seen
the movie in the most inadvertently appropriate manner possible; and years
later, I still feel both awkward and wistful as I think about it.</p>
<p><em>Up in the Air</em> is in large part about the loneliness of a crowd. I saw it
alone, in a fairly packed theatre, surrounded by others that choose to go to
movies on a Sunday night. And as I left the movie, I felt that I had to take a
walk around the neighborhood to contemplate the situation. And I wonder if I'm
going to be thinking seriously about this otherwise-innocuous evening in nine
years.</p>
<p>From the trailers, I had originally pegged the movie as a romantic comedy. I
suppose that it did, in some ways, fit that bill; but it was not (as I feared)
about the relationship between George Clooney and his 23-year old assistant,
but instead about the relationship between Clooney and his job. The main hook
of the movie is this job: Clooney (Ryan) is a travelling consultant who fires
people for a living. This, of course, resonates well with the modern economy
(which is why it's doing well at the box office); but more interestingly, this
makes it a bit of a period piece, as well as movie about a specific <em>setting</em>,
that being (for the most part) the Midwestern and Plains States. And while I'm
not sure that just the existence of Omaha was meant to make us laugh, I wasn't
(quite) the only one in the theatre to do so.</p>
<p>But what we really get is a character piece. Clooney has chosen to live his
life on the road; we spend the movie seeing both what this offers him, and what
he has to give up in order to maintain that life. He has also chosen a role in
life that many would consider, at its heart, <em>evil</em>; and of course we see what
this costs him. We see him respond to changes in his life (outsourcing comes
for all employees), and indeed to try to change his life as well. And we see
him come back to the beginning, slightly changed. The plot was, in many ways,
incidental, at least for Clooney.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the movie felt authentic to me. The firings were, indeed,
brutal, without being over-the-top or evil. The new young worker - not an
assistant at all, I might add, another place that I was misled by the trailer
- seemed both stereotypical and a lot like several brilliant-but-unlucky women
I've known in my life. Speaking from someone right in the middle of the
generational gap presented, the arguments on both sides were spot-on. The
wedding and its trappings were properly excruciating for me, because of the
sheer awkwardness of the situation for the family. And the airport scenes
always <em>felt</em> like airport scenes, in a way that invoked both just a touch of
pity for having to be in the airport, and jealousy for getting all of the perks
that there were to be had.</p>
<p>And you know what? I liked the <em>actual</em> romance of the movie too. It was
sweet and modern and doomed and cute, as well as, somehow, kindof natural. I
may not have liked where it ended (not an attack on Chicago, mind), but I...
respected it. Clooney got his comeuppance in a perfectly natural, perfectly
unfair way - just like all of the people that he had fired throughout the
movie. It was just... how things had to be.</p>
<p>It's a strong movie, very well done. I liked the direction, the script, the
acting, and the settings. And I think that I'd have enjoyed it just that
little bit less if the theatre had been empty, or if I had had somebody with me
to hold hands with.</p>
<p>*** 1/2</p>
Valentine's Dayhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/valentines-day/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2010-02-13T17:44:08Z
<h2><em>Valentine's Day</em>: BOMB (out of 4)</h2>
<p>There were few bright spots as I was forced to sit through <em>Valentine's Day</em>
last night. The best I came up with was finding ways to make the movie better
- perhaps an impossible task, but hey, I was really stretching. I came up with
two reasonable ideas:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>We have both McDreamy and McSteamy (from Grey's Anatomy - no, I don't know
their real names [yes, I watched that show for too long]) in this movie; why
don't we hook them up? That'd be awesome!</p></li>
<li><p>When Julia Roberts is returning to her seat on the plane to L.A., there's
a significant amount of unexplained turbulence. Can we please crash the plane
into the city and kill everybody involved? A mix of <em>Escape from LA</em> and
<em>Magnolia</em> would be significant step up...</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But no. This was a movie of romantic comedy clichés, not subversion slash or
disaster movies. The most subversive element was an Indian Shotgun Wedding;
the most disastrous element was the waste of good talent. And so I was left
with one of the most painful pieces of film I've seen in years.</p>
<p><em>Valentine's Day</em>'s premise - "how many A- and B-list actors can we fit in
a romantic comedy?" - clearly overrode any other considerations that the
creators might have come up with. The movie of a dozen or so five-minute
romantic comedies stuffed together and loosely connected by a ten-minute
romantic comedy. Each of these plots wastes two or more talented and/or
popular actors, who only have their looks and/or reputation to rely upon to
display a character. Only one of the plots involves anything even vaguely
unpredictable; none of the characters go through anything resembling character
growth, most don't even show much personality in the first place, a few "plots"
never even have a plot introduced, and a couple (Kathy Bates, Queen Latifah)
don't even have an associated love interest. It was almost as if they came
into the game too late, and just needed to be stuffed in somehow.</p>
<p>The movie's implementation was nearly as bad. The movie jumped frenetically
from plotline to plotline, introducing secondary characters from time to time
that were more interesting than the main plots. Romantic comedy clichés were
generally elided to save time; given that there <em>was</em> no other plot, this was
especially egregious. Thematic integration points between the sub-plots were
ignored. Any visual themes that might have been interesting in a longer movie
were lost by being caught up in the sheer mess that was playing elsewhere. And
the writing... dear Gods, the writing...</p>
<p>Interestingly, it was the fact checking that I found the most egregiously bad.
Perhaps a minor point for most people, it bothered me that nobody looked at
a calendar and spotted the fact that Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday this
year. This movie clearly takes place in 2010, and more clearly takes place on
a weekday (there are kids in school, work is in session, etc). Perhaps it's
just that I know that things would have had to <em>change</em> if the movie had been
in a different year, but...</p>
<p>Romance? Oddly, I'd argue there wasn't any. There were break-ups; there was
the occasional realization that two characters "had always been in love"; and
there were Grand Revelations. Past that, we merely had the time to glimpse
people that were, purported, already in love.</p>
<p>Comedy? I could swear that some of the audience (made up of 70% teenage girls)
laughed a couple of times, but I honestly couldn't tell you when that happened.
I certainly didn't laugh, or gasp, or respond with some low kind of pity.</p>
<p>Was there anything worthwhile? Well, I saw it with a dear friend; that was
nice. And while she didn't hate the movie as much as I did, she also didn't get
upset when I ranted about it on the way back. Score one for Eva.</p>
<p>Yeah, that's about it. Avoid this movie.</p>
<p>* - or, more accurately, BOMB</p>
<p>Postscript 1: I suppose that it's fair to point out that I am not a fan of
romantic comedies, and that my score probably reflects this. In my defense,
there are definitely romantic comedies that I respect and, shockingly, even
like - <em>Love, Actually</em> comes to mind. This movie, however, was an
embarrassment.</p>
<p>Postscript 2: when the trailers come on, I highly recommend closing your eyes
and ears for <em>Date Night</em>, the vehicle for Tina Fey and Steve Carell. The
movie's only chance might be surprise as to the premise; and the trailer ruined
that for me.</p>
Watchmenhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/watchmen/
Copyright 2009, Tim Skirvin
2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-03-06T16:20:30Z
<h2><em>Watchmen</em>: *** 1/2 (out of 4)</h2>
<p>About half of the reviews I have read of <em>Watchmen</em> have included something
like this phrase: "after watching the movie twice, sleeping on it, watching it
again, and taking a week to contemplate it, I can now finally write about it".
At first, I thought that this was because of a review embargo, or something
similar. I was willing to cut some of the bigger geek critics some slack on
this, but I figured that I'd be able to at least write something meaningful
down the evening after the show.</p>
<p>Frankly, I'm only writing this now because I <em>need</em> to. I did not sleep well
last night because of all the thoughts bouncing around in my head.</p>
<p>I caught a 7pm preview screening last night, organized by the
<a href="http://www.cartoonart.org/">Cartoon Art Museum</a> in downtown SF. Tickets were $25: too
much, but I was willing to pay more. It wasn't just my predilection for seeing
"fandom" opening night movies with that fandom; in this case, I was truly a
part of that fandom.</p>
<p>The original book changed my life, back when I first read it those 12 years
ago. My friend Jacob handed it to me one night when I was feeling down, and I
read it twice before going to sleep. This was the first comic I had read in
years, after reading and enjoying all sorts of DC and Marvel Universe stuff as
a kid; and it blew me away with its complexity, depth, and horror. I didn't
recognize at the time how much of this was based on my earlier comic reading
experience, of course - I didn't truly recognize the deconstruction for what
it was, though I was equipped to understand it. I did realize, though, that I
wanted more; and within a couple weeks, I had read Sandman, started following
Transmetropolitan, and started myself down the path of a $100-a-month comic
habit.</p>
<p>I guess you could say that it spoke to me.</p>
<p>Cut to a couple of years ago, when superhero movies that were direct
adaptations of the original source material started coming out. I <em>loved</em> <em>Sin
City</em>; the work lent itself to direct adaptation, and both times I saw it in
the theatre I came out in awe. I felt much the same way about <em>300</em> the first
time through, but the second time left me feeling kindof cold; it wasn't so
much the changes that bothered me, as the places where slavish adherence had
left me cold. Visually, it was striking; thematically, it was loyal to the
original work; but there was something odd missing in between. I still liked
it, but I didn't love it. And that was a bit worrisome when it was announced
that the creators of <em>300</em> would be working on <em>Watchmen</em> next. Like the
rest of fandom, I was going to <em>demand</em> to love such a work. Or else.</p>
<p>But the trailers - man, the trailers! I didn't know what I had seen at first;
it looked like a mishmash, with haunting music over it. But as I saw it a few
times, I fell in love with that trailer. It showed some highlights of the
book, and it didn't look embarrassed while doing so; the music was a perfect
match, the actors looked good in their roles, and we were (for the most part)
left to fill in the gaps. It felt like the comic brought to life, oozing
atmosphere and invoking all of those memories that hadn't even come back the
previous couple of times I'd read through the book. It was... perfect. As
an added bonus, it sold millions of copies of the book (I enjoy watching the
business side of things too). And personally, it put me back on the side of
fanboy hope. This movie could be done right...</p>
<p>I spent the last few weeks rewinding during commercial breaks so I could watch
the short trailers again and again. I mourned the fact that I couldn't see
it at my favorite theatre, or with the friend that had introduced me to the
book in the first place; but I moved on, and found the best option I could.
And then, finally, the day came. I drove to work that day, and left early so
I could ensure that I would get to the theatre before traffic hit too badly.
I waited in line even though I had pre-purchased the tickets, I talked with
the two friends I had been able to bring along, and I got a couple of the best
seats in the house.</p>
<p>And then, it started.</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>Having just written 100 lines about my history with this movie, I still don't
know what to say about the movie itself. I have tried to describe it to
others, but haven't come up with much. There are dozens of places in the movie
worth discussing, comparisons to the book and to culture, discussions of the
moments of beauty, the terrible flaws, the decisions that were made in order to
film this un-filmable book. It is flawed, hopelessly flawed; but some of its
flaws are acceptable, charming, even an improvement on the original in the way
that a beauty mark can make a face look more striking. Yet, between a desire
to avoid spoilers and a lack of interest in nitpicking, I don't want to do it.</p>
<p>Perhaps a metaphor will help. I came out of this movie with a sense of
photography. <em>Watchmen</em> the book is a magnificent sculpture; <em>Watchmen</em> the
movie is a photograph of that sculpture. It lacks the depth, the angles, the
detailed flaws when you look closely enough; but it is itself a work of art,
with new depths and angles, and entirely different categories of flaws.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, this movie is beautiful. A few moments (most prominently
the origin story for Dr Manhatten) were absolutely gloriously adapted, and the
attention to detail throughout was glorious to behold. Even the changes were,
for the most part, at least acceptable; I even liked the new ending! (Well,
except for the villain. That part was badly handled.)</p>
<p>The longer cut will likely help; there was too much cut, too many thematic
layers removed for time that may help the movie feel a bit more like the book.
But I wonder if even that will be as good as the trailer.</p>
<p>I was expecting one of two reactions when I came out of the movie: absolute
unabashed joy at the adaptation, or absolute unabashed anger. I got neither.
Instead, I got something that I really do have to see a couple of more times,
just to understand what I think. But that's not what these reviews are about.
These reviews are about how I felt when I came out. And I did not come out
cheated; nor did I come out elated.</p>
<p>This was an important movie, in its way. If you liked the book, you should see
it. If you like comic movies... well, you owe it to yourself to read the
book, to be honest, but that should lead to watching the movie too so it's
okay.</p>
<p>*** 1/2, I suppose.</p>
Wishhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/wish/2023-11-26T04:52:58Z2023-11-26T03:48:44Z
<h2><em>Wish</em>: 2/10</h2>
<p><em>Wish</em> wants to be about Disney's long history of animated films, and what ties them all together. It takes place in an Spanish-themed medieval-ish island kingdom in the Mediterranean, built and led a sorcerer-king with an ethos based on keeping and granting wishes. Asha wants to be his apprentice, in part so she can help her 100-year-old grandfather have his wish granted. It goes badly. She wishes upon a star, her wish is granted, Disney hijinks ensue. Asha is cast out and hunted as a revolutionary. The King has an Evil Villain Song, friendship wins over fascism, The End.</p>
<p>It wasn't good.</p>
<p>At the heart of my frustration is that it probably could have been made good. What I wrote above is flawed, sure, but at heart it's not an utterly <em>broken</em> premise. But Disney is having its 100th Anniversary right now, and so they had to get working on this before the pieces could be put together into something coherent and competent. It was now or never, and they made the mistake of not choosing never.</p>
<p>So, what did they focus on? The musical numbers, for one; they clearly wanted Billboard hits. They focused on theatricality, so that these scenes could end up in a stage play later. They focused on the visual designs of the characters, especially making them multi-cultural and multi-abled. They focused on the call backs to past movies, especially the wishes, and offered visual nods to everything they could stuff in. And they focused on revolution, standing up to evil and fascism, and how the simplest act of defiance means something.</p>
<p>But, going through those. Ugh.</p>
<p>The musical numbers: Lin Manuel Miranda they wanted, but did not get. The first number desperately tried to be 'Family Madrigal' from <em>Encanto</em>, for instance, but had neither the charm nor the love. They had multiple Evil Villain songs, meant to show the progression, and, well, okay. There was a Revolution Song, there was the Theme Of The Movie song, there was the 'We Are All Star Stuff' song, and there was the Reprise. I don't feel like anything really landed; we're not going to get a 'Let It Go' or 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' or even a 'Shiny'. Some of this stuff may end up in the repertoire of Disney songs, but I'm not sure.</p>
<p>The theatricality: this felt like it needed another pass. I could easily see the characters walking across the stage to another group of actors, and sets being reused; it felt like the point of the exercise, frankly, and it made the scenes visually less interesting than they needed to be.</p>
<p>The visual designs: this mostly went okay, but there were too many characters that ended up as metaphors of past characters rather than characters themselves. "Oh, he was meant to reference <em>MOVIE X</em>, that's why he was acting that way!" is okay for a background character, not for somebody with dozens of lines! They needed to trim more characters out of the medium roles and down to pure cameos, so that the remainders could have given them a chance to exist. (All that said I appreciated the sentiment of the multi-cultural society and the nod to a character with a disability.)</p>
<p>The callbacks: it's hard to get into it without getting into spoilers. Some of the references were clever and interesting. Far more of them felt forced but not really clever; this wasn't as clever as <em>Shrek</em>, or even random cross-references in Marvel movies. It felt more shallow than loving, and they didn't really help each other out very often. They didn't gel well, and didn't really offer a new perspective on the old work. But they were something to focus on, and will probably be fun to talk about for a while.</p>
<p>Finally, the revolution stuff. Sigh. I wanted to like this, and I still want to like this, and it seems the part most likely to have value and resonance going forward, but it just felt pro forma. The bad guy is bad, therefore the people most rise up, and do so within the context of the movie; but it still felt lazy? Too simple, too pat? I don't know how this could have been fixed, though. This is the part that most makes me wish for some rewrites, some new ideas, some new metaphorical ideas of how to fight that evil and how to deal with it afterwards.</p>
<p>I have more complaints than this! The things they <em>did</em> focus on seemed best for the trailers and otherwise mostly unconnected to the story (the Alan Tudyk goat, the chicken dance number). The artistic design (a 2D looking version of their 3D work) was about half as interesting as it wanted to be, but I respect the attempt. The kingdom itself made very little sense: its age, its location, its political structure, its technology level, simple questions like "no heirs?". The villain's backstory was overly-hinted at but otherwise ignored. The movie felt way too long and way too short. Magical traps were pointed out and then ignored. Maybe some of these would have been polished out with time, but probably not all of them.</p>
<p>My wife thinks that, if this hadn't been a Disney movie, it would have been more forgivable. I'm just not sure how it could have gotten made without being a Disney movie. And as it was, I still think it should have been dropped. The good parts weren't worth it.</p>
<p>2/10</p>
World's End, Thehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/worlds-end/2017-02-23T16:32:02Z2013-08-23T19:39:50Z
<h2><em>The World's End</em>: 8 out of 10</h2>
<p>I love the combination of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost.
<em>Shaun of the Dead</em> and <em>Hot Fuzz</em> are two of my all-time favorite movies,
and their TV show 'Spaced' is a classic in its own right. As such, my
expectations were absolutely sky-high for their new movie, <em>The World's
End</em>, and there was nothing that I could do about it. And so I have to
admit that I was a little bit disappointed in <em>TWE</em> - but it was still
probably the best movie I've seen this year by a fair amount.</p>
<p>The premise of this movie revolves around a bar crawl in a mid-sized
British town, recreating a similar bar crawl from 23 years before. This
core supports the main premise of the Wright/Pegg movies to date: show the
repetition of previous actions from a decidedly different perspective,
with said premise involving a major film trope. <em>Shaun</em> compared daily
working life to a zombie plague; <em>Hot Fuzz</em> compared small-town life to
a big-budget action movie; and <em>TWE</em> compares visiting our old childhood
haunts to an alien invasion.</p>
<p>The core character of the movie is Gary King, a 40-year-old druggie
burnout who is still living out his high school years. He is clearly a
pathetic creature, pitied or hated by every major character (including
himself); yet, there is something compelling about him, and you can see
<em>why</em> his friends would have respected him and the past and feel drawn to
him now. He is not, and cannot be, the hero; he is simply the catalyst
for all that happens around him. And he made me feel as personally
uncomfortable as his friends in the movie.</p>
<p>The first third-to-half of the movie revolves around Gary gathering his
friends to go on the bar crawl, and everyone recognizing just how pathetic
he is. The rest of the movie is the action.</p>
<p>Yes, this is a sci-fi action movie, with even fairly-reasonable science
fiction (perhaps modelled a bit after the Culture books shown in the
backgrounds of <em>Hot Fuzz</em>). As such, we can judge this movie based on
semi-standard action movie guidelines, and on this things look good:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The action scenes are well-choreographed and consistent. We are clear
as to the current state of the chases and fights.</p></li>
<li><p>The audience is always clear as to the sides and the stakes.</p></li>
<li><p>The special effects are effective and only as obtrusive as necessary.</p></li>
<li><p>The action scenes are there for the sake of the story; the story is not
there just for the sake of the action scenes.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Things look similarly reasonable on the science fiction front:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Only one major thing has changed, and other things follow from it. These
things are somewhat-vaguely-sensible.</p></li>
<li><p>The implications of this change are at least partially thought through,
and the implications are there that you could do so again.</p></li>
<li><p>The associated action scenes are related to the science-fiction bits.</p></li>
<li><p>The metaphors make sense and are thought-through, too.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>That said, the biggest problem with the movie was that the two parts of
the movie were not tied together very tightly. I suspect that many of the
connections will come out on a second viewing, but I didn't feel as much
like the second part of the movie <em>followed</em> from the first part, and that
overall made it less interesting.</p>
<p>Also, there is an epilogue (and I liked it!), but it felt even less tight
as the rest of the movie. I had the sense that the epilogue was the
<em>point</em> of the main two parts of the movie, but it came across as a sequel
instead. I can't see how the two halves of the movie would hold together
<em>at all</em> without the epilogue, but what we got still felt frustratingly
ham-handed.</p>
<p>Still, though I came out somewhat disappointed, this was still a great
movie, and well worth seeing. I will see it again, probably many times.
And I still hope that the group gets together and does another one of
these movies again some day - but perhaps it would be okay if this remains
in the past, too.</p>
<p>Rating: 8 (out of 10)</p>
<p>Trailer thoughts: the trailers before the main movie were confusing;
only one trailer really stood out - <em>About Time</em>, a British sci-fi
romantic comedy - and the others just felt like they were filling up
space. I'm worried that they didn't know how to market this movie.</p>
<p>I <em>highly</em> recommend the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__1Y-N5tQk">first trailer for <em>TWE</em>
itself</a>. It spoils a few
things about the movie, but not as many as you'd expect, as long as you
don't try to analyze it frame-by-frame. It both summarizes the movie and
acts as a nice little piece of short cinema on its own. This is top-tier
trailer creation.</p>
<p>I should also note that I saw this movie as part of a general showing
of 'The Cornetto Trilogy', which included <em>Shaun of the Dead</em> and <em>Hot
Fuzz</em>. I recommend this, but I don't think I can handle that many hours
in the theatre very often. There were plenty of stylistic and thematic
continuities mixed into the movies, not to mention shared props and cast
members that I hadn't spotted before.</p>
Movie Catch Up (Summer 2010)http://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/wrapup-summer2010/2017-02-23T16:32:04Z2010-10-31T22:57:10Z
<h2>Missed Reviews to Nov 2010</h2>
<p>I clearly have fallen behind on writing my movie reviews, compared to what I
actually saw over the last few months. Let's at least churn out a few
paragraphs.</p>
<h3><em>Get Him To The Greek</em>: * 3/4 (out of 4) (11 Jun 2010)</h3>
<p>In a word: boring. I wanted to like this movie, but there was nothing there
worth remembering, let alone writing about. This is what slowed me down on
writing my reviews, really.</p>
<h3><em>Sex and the City 2</em>: ** 1/4 (out of 4) (16 Jun 2010)</h3>
<p>I can't believe this wasn't garbage! Certainly, the rest of the world's
reviews were apocalyptic; but I think this was a better movie than the first
one, by a fair amount. That doesn't make it a <em>good</em> movie, or anything
even nearly on par with the good parts of the show, but it was still fairly
fun. At least it <em>felt</em> like the show occasionally, most like that Paris
half-a-season.</p>
<h3><em>Toy Story 3</em>: *** 1/2 (out of 4) (19 Jun 2010)</h3>
<p>It's still not my favorite Pixar movie; that would be <em>The Incredibles</em>,
followed by <em>Wall-E</em> - but it's probably in third place. This movie was
heart-warming, timely, and actively scary; I expected the first, but not so
much the other two. Seeing it without 3D was kindof silly; seeing it with a
whole pile of kids was a great idea.</p>
<h3><em>Predators</em>: ** 1/2 (out of 4) (14 Jul 2010)</h3>
<p>I didn't expect to like this movie, but it turned out to be pretty fun. Yes,
it's cheesy sci-fi action, with sketchy characters forced to interact and
occasionally turning on each other for not-particularly-good reasons; but
sometimes that's what you want out of a movie. It felt like a good successor
to the original <em>Predator</em>, so I was happy.</p>
<h3><em>Inception</em>: *** 1/4 (out of 4) (23 Jul 2010)</h3>
<p>The big non-sequel-but-still-an-"event" movie of the summer held up to its hype
quite nicely. The plot was a bit convoluted, but easy to follow and didn't
rely on cheats. If the characters were under-explored, they were at lest
well-acted. The music did as much towards setting the tension of the movie as
the plot itself did. And it was certainly an improvement over <em>The Dark
Knight</em>.</p>
<h3><em>Salt</em>: ** (out of 4) (24 Jul 2010)</h3>
<p>I'm not sure what I was expecting going into this movie, but I sure didn't find
it. Angelina Jolie does a fairly convincing job playing a sleeper agent, but
the storyline is convoluted in all of the <em>wrong</em> ways, and doesn't stand up to
much scrutiny. I came out of the movie annoyed that I was eventually going to
have to see sequels. Not terrible, but not worth the trouble.</p>
<h3><em>The Kids Are All Right</em>: *** 1/4 (out of 4) (22 Aug 2010)</h3>
<p>This reminded me of why I like art movies. The acting was wonderful, the story
was secondary to the characters and setting, and it did indeed warm my heart
(even as it was kindof depressing). I really liked it; my girlfriend loved it;
and I look forward to spending more time at the art theatre over the next few
weeks, as the good movies start coming out in earnest.</p>
<h3><em>Easy A</em>: ** 3/4 (out of 4) (19 Sep 2010)</h3>
<p>I didn't expect much of this movie going in, but it turned out to be a
light-but-fun high school comedy that reminded me of <em>Mean Girls</em> more than
anything. It also portrayed an overall more-reasonable high school experience
than just about anything that's come out over the last few decades - a school
with apathetic kids, cliques that are important but not all-powerful, and
overall a less <em>intense</em> experience than most movies like to throw out. Also,
Emma Stone was wonderful and her parents were better.</p>
<h3><em>Red</em>: ** 1/4 (out of 4) (17 Oct 2010)</h3>
<p>And now we're back to a disappointment. It's not that it was a <em>bad</em> movie,
overall; it was just kindof shallow, and the end didn't live up to either its
opening or premise. Overall, I blame this on one thing: this was supposed to
be a Warren Ellis movie, and it started out that way, but it was quickly
watered down into something typical and low-key. The story worked well when it
was fast-paced, over three issues; but the script would have been better-suited
for a 6-8 issue series, and there just wasn't that much material. I'm glad it
made money, but I wish it had also been good.</p>
The Wrestlerhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/wrestler/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-01-30T08:51:57Z
<h2><em>The Wrestler</em>: *** (out of 4)</h2>
<p>You don't go to a Darren Aronofsky movie expecting to be cheered up.
His past works have included a depressing look at insanity caused by
mathematics (<em>Pi</em>), a science-fiction story of trying to save ones spouse
as she dies of cancer (<em>The Fountain</em>), and - well, it's hard for me to
describe <em>Requiem For A Dream</em> without using the phrase "most depressing
movie ever", so I'll leave it at that.</p>
<p>That said, <em>The Wrestler</em> was definitely more mainstream than his other
movies. The plot of the movie was linear, and followed major Hollywood
tropes. While there were plenty of drugs and weird camera angles, they
were rarely combined with an overpowering soundtrack or much of anything
that will really induce vertigo. Still, the despair was there, so I knew
I was watching the right movie.</p>
<p><em>The Wrestler</em> is a story of a professional wrestler at the end of his
career. He has been working for over 20 years, getting hurt and beaten on
weekly basis, so that he can earn enough money to barely pay his rent at a
trailer park, get the occasional lap dance, and buy the essentials of the
trade. From there, things go badly. And then they continue to go badly.
Then he starts to pick himself up, and things go badly some more. And
just when things look darkest... he jumps.</p>
<p>The plot was bare-bones, but in a good way. Mickey Rourke did a great
job, as did Marisa Tomei (who is insanely hot in general, let alone as a
stripper). And I'll cringe whenever I think back to the end of the first
act.</p>
<p>***</p>
The X-Files: I Want To Believehttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/x-files2/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2008-08-06T03:04:38Z
<h2><em>The X-Files: I Want To Believe</em> - ** 3/4</h2>
<p>The Star Trek: The Next Generation movies have, for the most part, been
crap. The first one wasn't too horrible, as a simple transition between
the old movies and the new ones; but numbers two and four were about as bad
as could be imagined. Looking back at these movies, the big mistake seems
to have been trying to be bigger than the source material - trying to make
"epic" stories out of a medium that supported either 43 minute episodes, or
22-episode seasons. But the third TNG movie - <em>Insurrection</em> - was watchable,
interesting, and kindof silly, but most importantly it was an <em>episode</em>. There
were some cute bits, and the plot advanced in ways that never happened in the
show, but at its core it was just a double-length episode of a popular, and
long-off-the-air, television series.</p>
<p>I offer this as a review of <em>X-Files: I Want To Believe</em> because of one
similarity: this movie was also just an extra-length episode. But there's
nothing wrong with that for fans, like myself.</p>
<p><em>X-Files 2</em> is creepy, silly, and just a bit ludicrous. The plot is sortof
supernatural, but not really - there's a psychic but he isn't really the point
of the exercise, and there's some medical stuff going on that's a bit out
there but is vaguely plausible. Mulder and Scully's relationship is odd and
compelling, as are their relationships with the FBI and the medical industry
(respectively). And all of this really has the feel of the show, of just being
a few years down the path of the creepy, silly, supernatural, medical, FBI
drama that feels like a product of the 90s.</p>
<p>So, it's an episode. But it really is a big one, not so much because of the
plot (which advances things, but has nothing to do with the "Mythology" of
the black oil, the bees, Big Scary Guy, etc), but because of the reminder
that Mulder and Scully's relationship <em>changed</em> a few years back. It wasn't
surprising to see the two of them still hanging out; it <em>was</em> surprising to
see the two of them in bed, and realize that this makes perfect sense based on
that last episode. That relationship seemed different, and interesting, and
something that couldn't have been done well in the show. That makes it big in
my book.</p>
<p>I didn't expect much going into the movie, besides being something that the
crowds didn't want to see (and given that there were seven people in the
theatre including me, experience seems to be bearing that out). But I came out
happy to have seen the movie, and a little bit encouraged to go and watch the
show again, too.</p>
<p>** 3/4</p>
Zombielandhttp://wiki.killfile.org//reviews/movies/zombieland/2017-02-23T16:32:00Z2009-10-05T04:19:20Z
<h2><em>Zombieland</em>: *<em> 1/2 (out of 4) / *</em> (out of 4)</h2>
<p>While society as a whole has been going through a Zombie Renaissance over
the last few years, I seem to have become somewhat jaded, at least with the
theatrical side of things. The problem is two-fold: I've caught up with the
<em>good</em> zombie movies that the genre has produced, and I've read a succession
of increasingly well-thought-out zombie books and comics. Knowing where the
zombie genre has been and where it is going, it's hard to watch movies that are
either caught in the past (the re-make of <em>Dawn of the Dead</em>) or heading off in
the entirely different direction of Fast Zombies (<em>28 Days Later</em>). And yet, I
remain fascinated enough to go to see the movies as they come out, and I doubt
that will change any time soon.</p>
<p><em>Zombieland</em> is an interesting stop on this road: a zombie movie that barely
relies on the zombies for more than laughs. Oh, it's certainly not the first
zombie-based comedy; Troma has been making them for years, and <em>Shaun of the
Dead</em> is likely to remain the pinnacle of that particular genre for decades to
come. And just about any zombie movie of any value whatsoever has delved into
zombies being a dark reflection of society. But in this case, the zombies
become not just props, but victims of prop comedy; and most of the time, they
aren't even present except as the unseen trigger of our characters' neuroses.</p>
<p>That's not to say that there aren't zombies and gore and all of the standard
stuff. They're all there, mostly in the opening credits sequence and the first
and last 20 minutes of the film; but really, the only thing that they do is
force reactions. The "rules" of surviving a zombie apocalypse (zombocalypse?)
are laid out in a slap-stick and visual manner, with the deaths of humans and
zombies are alike played for laughs as well as emphasis; that done, they only
come out every now and then to drive the plot.</p>
<p>What's interesting about this is that it works. This movie is <em>trying to be
an average movie</em>. Yes, there are zombies and gore and death; but the heart
of this movie is two post-teenagers trying to make their way in the world and
falling in love (or at least realizing that they like each other). This is
a coming-of-age comedy, but instead of controlling parents and career angst,
there are hunts for supplies and the ever-present threat of an attacker behind
a closed door. This doesn't always work - there are simply too many survivors
out of the seven-member cast for that - but there were definitely moments of
brilliance mixed in there, and I never really felt bored.</p>
<p>I suspect that we're going to see more of this direction over the next few
years, both the horror-comedy aspect and life-in-post-apocalyptia. I
kindof hope it works out, but I'm dubious; this movie would have suffered from
heading much further in either direction, and it wasn't that great in the first
place.</p>
<p>It seems necessary to drag out the two-part movie scale for a movie like this.
It set out to be a pretty-good-but-silly movie; and on that front it did an
adequate job. I came out of the movie feeling not offended and not impressed,
but at least satisfied. Its goals were not lofty, but they were interesting.
I can respect that.</p>
<p>*<em> 1/2 / *</em></p>
<p>Oh, and if for some reason you need to see some of the reading material that
has made me jaded: "World War Z", by Max Brooks, is a quite excellent novel.
"Walking Dead" is an ongoing comic book series that explores the longer-term
path of survival (and is due to have a TV series based on it out next year).
And if you're looking for something that's not going to make it to the big
or small screen, I highly recommend "Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium" in
Hitman 13-14. Zombie sharks! Yay!</p>