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La véritable histoire du Chat Botté (2009)
NOT "Trying to Cash In on Puss In Boots"
So, just to start... this movie is obviously not the newer Puss In Boots that was attached to the Shrek movie franchise. This is a whole different movie and, not, as some on here would have you believe, trying to cash in on the Shrek movie... mostly because this movie came out two years before the Shrek movie.
That said, this is an odd film. My kids turned it on via Netflix streaming and when I joined them for a minute, I couldn't turn away.
For starters, you can tell it's Shatner doing the voice of Puss quite easily, so there's a little mind eff going on almost immediately. The way he carries himself, you expect him to break into Rocket Man at any moment.
Then, the animation is a little, um, different. It really looks like the very non-fluid movement that you see in the Korean news animations that have become popular lately, but with better developed characters. Plus, it's not that the characters are "dirty" or anything, but, you do see a little more cleavage than you would in, say, a Disney flick... or a Shrek or any other US created movie.
The story is also a bit more, um, European, I guess. It's hard to describe. Growing up watching US cartoons, you don't realize how weird some of the old fairy tales really are in their original form. This story is more like the old stories and has some visual elements that would probably be really enjoyable if you were on various mind-altering substances.
All that in mind, the kids ate it up and actually ended up watching it again the next day. So, give it a watch, be prepared for the weird, and use your friggin' head when you think it's a "rip off" of something that came out two years later.
Solaris (2002)
Soderbergh channels Kubrick and pulls it off!
Solaris is one of those great, true Sci-Fi movies that most people who believe they love Sci-Fi will hate. Because they usually associate the genre with heavy action scenes loaded with explosions and the like, these fans will walk away from this movie wondering what just happened to the 90 minutes they spent in the theater and will review it to their friends like a bad Action movie instead of a great Sci-Fi movie.
The movie itself is gorgeous and set at the same quiet pace usually found in Kubrick films - slow, controlled, and mysterious with touches of eerie music in the right places to cue the audience into a change. I can see already how some of my fellow reviewers, even those that do this professionally, will walk away claiming that is boring or confusing, when in fact it is one of the more simple Sci-Fi movies I've ever had to explain.
The thing you have to ask yourself at the end is, would you go as far as the main character did to be with the one he loves?
I give it an 8 out of 10. See it on the big screen to get the best effect.
The Mosquito Coast (1986)
Probably Ford's best performance
I remember that this movie caught a lot of grief when it came out because there was a large amount of people that were emotionally tied to the book. Even if you look at some of the other comments made here, some reviewers found it hard to detach themselves from some of the statement's Allie Fox made in this movie about religion, industrialization, etc. But to be a truly good reviewer of film, you really need to distance yourself from the original writing or your own emotions and concentrate on the piece as a whole.
With that said, as a whole, this is a great movie, and perhaps one of Harrison Ford's best acting roles, yet the least known by most because of his fame at the time with Indianan Jones and Star Wars. There are several throw-away characters in the movie, and it's hard to say weather these characters are less important because the Allie Fox character is so `in your face' or because they were truly poorly written.
For instance, the narrator, Allie's eldest son, played by River Phoenix, tries his best to show his own reactions to many of his father's actions or even be a hero in his own right, but they seem less impressive to Ford's character stomping about the camp claiming that ice is sign of true civilization.
So what to do? Watch the flick and really get into the performance of Harrison Ford and try and look past some of the lighter roles... trust me, it's easy to do. And hopefully, you can refine some of his madness and make a difference in your own life.