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TanQ
His scathing review of The Aristocats resulted in violent outbursts. His panning of Batman Forever - soon to be written - echoed in the steely halls of justice amid howls of self-deluded laughter.
There are two things TanQ says that give his friends chills and wigglies.
"I want to show you this one scene," and, "Have you ever seen this movie..."
"
Reviews
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
A staggering documentary achievement
What more can be said about this film? By taking the original footage, colourizing it and correcting the film speed we actually have a record that makes the event real and relatable (as much as the meat grinder of WW1 can be relatable to anyone who hadn't experienced it). The breathtaking moment when the film transitions to full colour and (added) sound is jaw dropping.
I hope Peter Jackson is lending his talents to restore other footage, this is too important to be lost.
Greenland (2020)
Witless family endures boring cataclysm
Who are these people? Does anyone care? I couldn't even remember their names during the film, let alone after. Going for stereotypical, the writer has them sort of estranged, or not, who cares? Their personal drift is never explained or explored it's just sort of important the theirs is a 'troubled marriage' as is the requisite for every disaster film.
There's also a child with diabetes because you need a child with some kind of illness to try and add some sort of emotional drive. At least he doesn't spend the movie shrieking like Dakota Fawning in the dreadful War of the Worlds.
Meteors hit, mostly offscreen to keep the costs down and always on cue to drag the plot, what little of it there is, in a roughly forward direction. The special effects, which typically drive a disaster film forward are sparse and fairly generic. Events happen, people are endangered and they experience minor traffic jams.
There's really not much more to say about the film. The meteor part should drive some part of the story to a plausible conclusion but it doesn't end up anywhere near one. Instead, you're presented with a sub-par road movie with little or no character development. It's like the makers of the film were just trying to wrap it up and move on to better projects.
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (2016)
Well that's disappointing
By season six of the series things were already sliding into formula. Everyone had a wedding, everyone had babies (more on that later) and reality took a hit. By the time this season rolls around I was actually starting to hate most of the characters. Lorelei went from a strong, independent mother figure to being tired and spiteful. I actually began to empathize with her mother the longer the series went on - to the point where I wondered why they didn't just disown Lorelei and adopt someone reasonable.
Rory, who was "special," turned into a cliche of a wunderkinder and became less and less believable. I have no idea why not one single person who was struck with an unplanned pregnancy didn't even consider abortion. Seriously? You're 20 and are going to have twins? Lane, I hope you enjoy being a waitress because that's where you're going to spend the rest of your life. Suki, it's time to divorce Jackson and give him his "three before thirty" or whatever that god awful saying was.
And I haven't even started with this 4-part conclusion.
Ok, here I go. I thought it was clever that Emily and Lorelei switched personalities. Now Emily has gone from a new maid each week to adopting one maid and her entire extended family where Lorelei is firing a chef ever episode.
I thought it was clever that the 30-something-gang was introduced, albeit late in the series. They were the most original thing to happen to this four-part, extending webisode. Rory needed something to make her interesting now that she's run out of anything interesting to do.
The secret bar was clever and the musical of the town entertaining. It's too bad it didn't make an appearance back when the original series was on the air. Luke and Lorelei moving in was at least a fresh bit of real life in what's otherwise become a parody.
Paris Geller has consistently been the most interesting character in this series. I believe that this is one of the reasons the series floundered then crashed. After they graduated, she was no longer Rory's foil and Rory just became dull. The newspaper thread, something that made me cringe with the exception of Paris being a dictatorial editor, never worked for me. It always screamed with inauthenticity from when Rory was editing the Yale paper and then saving the town paper. Extra! Extra! It's Awful!
I haven't seen the fourth episode, yet. People tell me that it's better but if I see another pregnancy or another wedding I'll mark Stars Hollow on a map then cleanse it with fire. I'm hoping that Emily will finally rid herself of Lorelei, Lane will give up her kids for adoption and become a punk rocker and that Rory will end up as a waitress at Luke's serving coffee to the 3-something-gang.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Mediocre and dull
The film begins with the aftereffects of the culling by bad guy Thanos. That's where everything starts to go wrong. According to the story, half of all life disappears in the universe. I can't speak for the universe, but I can speak for Earth when I say this is seriously overblown.
Being Gen-X, I actually remember a time when the population of the planet was at 3.4 billion people. It was 1971. One of the big problems that faced us was... wait for it... overpopulation. Still, with that many people we managed to send people to the moon, create things and still, somehow, survive. All that would happen would be a drastic reduction in real estate prices, a surplus of goods and the Earth would get around four decades of time to stop the train wreck of climate change. In the Avenger Endgame, people prefer to mope and everyone has forgotten how to clean things.
Instead, the Avengers get weepy. They decide to "fix" things through time travel. This is, believe it or not, the highlight of the film. Once they accomplish their "time heist" the punching begins. Then the punching continues. Then it's followed by more punching. More Avengers join in the punching. Much CGI nonsense follows. Capitan America gets a scrape on his face, the only part of him that seems susceptible to damage. Everyone carries the magic glove around while, yes, more punching follows.
Finally, when they run out of punches, Iron Man snaps his fingers and it all stops. Tears are shed and the viewer is left asking why this mess couldn't take about two hours less than it did. Overall, I give it a seven for the time travel, take away three for the endless punch fest and two more for the fact that the whole thing is stupid-absurd. It's a great film to watch on a plane where you can skip through most of it.
Grace and Frankie: The Alternative (2019)
The Perfect Episode
I've watched this three times already. I can't believe how hilarious it is. It's a self-skewering episode that reminds you exactly who the queens of comedy are. There's a lot to unpack in this episode, every line sizzles like an early-bird steak dinner.
Having George Hamilton as the guest star was great. Not having the story focus on him was brilliant. The ways he was sent out of each scene he was in is the perfect send up to every sit-com where the guest becomes the centre of attention.
The jokes fly by fast and subtly. It took me two viewings to get "starfish napkin rings" and I'll forever use "once my face settles you'll see exactly how happy I am."
The make-up is pure artistry. Jane Fonda doing Jane Fonda drag is epic. Coyote and Bud doing WIDTHS of the pool is brilliant. I really can't see how people would rate this so poorly. I'm guessing that they're looking for some dramady schlock rather than an actual fun episode.
Every character shines and there's never a flat moment. It re-invigorated the series for me. Instead of the forced ending of the previous season we actually get the fun that I fell in love with when I started watching.
Kudos, cast and crew, you've done something risky and brilliant!
Beautiful Girls (1996)
Horrid, stilted dramady with elements of pedophilia
I was trapped in a hotel room in Mexico when I watched this hot mess. From the beginning I was struck by the artless dialogue and generic direction. It didn't take me long to figure out that the poorly cast Timothy Hutton was returning to his hometown to attend a high school reunion. It was fairly obvious that he was too old for the part, laughably so, reminding me of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie when he was auditioning for the role of a teen.
It was made even worse when he started creeping on Natalie Portman, who was young enough to be his accidental daughter, the one that happened when everyone thought the vasectomy and tubal litigation was successful but wasn't - but more about that later.
So Timothy Hutton returns to his father's house and has some awkward conversations with his father and brother and returns to what we guess was his well-preserved childhood bedroom decorated to scream "this is his high school bedroom because look at all the stereotypical high school boy crap on all the walls." This is still early in the movie so there's still hope at this point, but that won't last long.
Ever so slowly we're introduced to the supporting cast. We get the stereotypical lost boy who is still carrying out an affair with his high school girlfriend, we get the comic relief who drive a pickup with a snowplow attachment, and on and on and on. There are so many lacklustre supporting characters that they just blend into the scenery. It's made worse when they speak. Every time anyone opens their mouth it's to deliver some stilted dialogue that we're supposed to believe is deep or meaningful but instead it comes off like the actors are reading the instructions on how to microwave a pizza.
As the movie drags on, Timothy Hutton starts creeping on the 13 year old girl who lives next to his father. We never see her parents, whom I assume are out getting restraining orders. In fact, this is one of the things that bothered me the most about this movie. Hutton is really creeping out on her, to the point of asking his friends about the viability of having a relationship with a child while stressing it wouldn't be sexual until she reached legal age. Roger Ebert, whom I respect a great deal, waxed poetically about Hutton's "Lolita Complex," or what I would call creepy, middle aged guy justification for pedophilia. One of Hutton's friends, the only believable character to a point and a father of two children himself, sees Hutton's character beeline to Portman's character to woo her. He gathers his children and quickly exits the scene.
There is one scene where Rosie O'Donnel tells two of the characters about their unrealistic expectations of women, possible the only bright spot of the movie. The rest is a sloppy, predictable mess.
If you actually want to see a more believable movie about high school reunions, watch Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. If you want to see a film about characters struggling to come to terms with aging, watch The Royal Tenenbaums. If you want to hear dialogue like "Look, Timothy Hutton's character's New york girlfriend is a successful lawyer, great looking and an amazing cook!" and see a middle-age man kiss a girl more than half his age, then I guess Beautiful Girls might be right up your alley. Personally, I'm waiting for Natalie Portman to have her #Metoo moment because I'm sure it's going to be about this film.
2 stars. One for Natalie Portman, one for Rosie O'Donnel.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Gee it took them a long time to waste this opportunity.
You know it's a bad movie when you start wondering how long you've been watching it. That doesn't mean that it's terrible, I'm sure there's a decent movie in this dragged out mess. There are some intriguing ideas, some well thought out conundrums but everything gets lost in overly long, drawn out scenes that add nothing. I would wager that nearly every scene could have been trimmed by at least four minutes and the movie would've actually worked.
This movie is a prime example of lost talent. Everyone from the top down probably thought that they were creating something epic and meaningful and forgot that it should be slightly entertaining. It's a dystopia, we get it. It's a story of morality, we get it. Now move the freaking story along. About a third of the way through this snoozefest, I turned to my friend and said "I don't care about any of these characters." Two thirds of the way through I said "Is this still on?" which was soon followed by "Why is this still on?" and, inevitably, "When will this thing end?"
If you're waiting to see this film, wait a little longer for the "Not the Director's Cut" or the "Abridged so it's Watchable" version. Or, if you're feeling nostalgic, just watch the original which has a sense of pacing. This sequel is only destined to be a classic lesson on hubris and delusions of self-importance.
In the Heart of the Sea (2015)
Moby Drek
I'm a sailor and being a sailor I love sailing movies. I also loved Moby Dick, a book that's touching, humorous, thrilling and a deep exploration of the human condition. I was excited to finally get a chance to watch this film, thinking it was an adaptation of that great book. Within the first few lines of dialogue I thought, wait a minute, this writing is terrible. Then I realized this wasn't Moby Dick.
The story of the Essex, the whaling ship that inspired Moby Dick, is a harrowing tale of survival. In the Heart of the Sea is not that story. Instead, it's a bland and meandering tale. I don't know how they managed to take a survival story with truly horrifying elements and reduced it to this CGI screensaver but I have some suspicions.
Ron Howard should have been my first warning. He's a director that could make the Battle of Stalingrad feel like two hours waiting in a cafeteria line. It's truly appalling. Anyone who's been on a sailboat knows how dynamic the experience can be. They also know how sedate it can feel, as well. Howard focuses on the sedate. He truly has no idea what to do with drama and I can't understand how people keep letting him direct things. Instead of depth and subtlety, we get pedestrian and direct.
Another problem is Chris Hemsworth. Hemsworth is the perfect superhero actor. His ability to spout throwaway catchphrases is commendable. His attempts at drama, awkward at best. I would like to think that part of the problem was the script, it's just awful. But better actors have done more with less. Nicholas Cage can turn crap into gold. Hemsworth just looks confused and unsure of himself. He may become a great actor, but I think he'll have to find a direction other than drama.
People may defend this film, although I don't know how. I think the biggest flaw was they tried to take a harrowing tale and turn it into a popcorn adventure story. It just doesn't work. When I think of other true stories done far, far better I think of Alive, the 1993 film of a plane crash in the Andes - a gripping tale that gets over the action filled plane crash and focuses on the survivors actions until their rescue. Even Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary, a documentary where an old woman talks for an hour and a half in a monotone in German was far more gripping than In the Heart of the Sea.
Thinking about this, I now think I understand the greatest problem with Howard's film. It tries so hard to give itself some sense of importance by dwelling too much on it's connection with Melville's masterpiece. It forces the whaling aspect of the film while completely missing out on what whaling was all about. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that no one connected with this film had actually read Moby Dick. If they did, they would realize how much of the book is on whaling and why. I'm sure Howard just looked and thought "Moby Dick is a story about whaling so we have to have whaling stuff." He completely misses that Moby Dick is a story about revenge and madness but the Essex is a story about survival. So instead of the survival we get this forced connection with Moby Dick. It's dull, rambling and pointless. Skip this movie.
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)
If you're going to watch one Jesus film, make it this one
A B-movie masterpiece.
The cast and crew set out to make a B-movie and they succeeded beyond expectations. If you're not hooked right from the beginning of the film then you should probably just go out and get a copy of Cloverfield and pretend it's good.
The film starts with some crazed narration delivered in the style of Rasputin then gets right down to the action and never lets up. The camera-work is crude, the sound isn't synced (intentionally) and the fight scenes, which there are many, are laughably good.
There is a charm to this low-budget masterpiece, it never takes itself too seriously and yet never mocks itself. It presents the ludicrous in a deadpan manner while still staying true to itself. Filmed over a 2-year period on weekends, this film should be a lesson to everyone in the film business that it's not about cranking out garbage that will bring in a chunk of money then be forgotten (I'm looking at you, DC and Marvel superhero factories). This film has heart and, despite it's ridiculous premise, never forgets to entertain.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Racist of the Lost Ark or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Intolerance
A hot mess of a film that shows the terrible things that can happen when two gifted directors get together to make a cash grab.
It has been said that Spielberg wanted to re-create the adventure serials of his youth. It's too bad that he decided to reproduce the racial stereotypes of the time. I'm sure it was all done innocently enough, but the effect is cringe-worthy. Never has such a diverse cast been represented so dismally. Here's an idea for future filmmakers, if you're going to have a religious group as the villain in your adventure film, pick a fictional one instead of twisting an existing faith.
Aside from that, things get pretty boilerplate pretty quickly in the film. You get a couple of interesting scenes at the beginning. including that airplane scene which other deride but I thought was pretty entertaining. It quickly turns into a series chase scenes and wunderkinder moments that follows the Spieldbergian pattern of precocious children who repeatedly save the day.
Sight gags from the first film are re-used, confrontations are set up that never give you a sense of peril and the whole thing just plods along to an unsatisfying climax. I'd forgotten most of the film from when I saw it in the theatre, but after re-watching it I was actually surprised at the climax. I was so distracted by the terrible green screen effects that when the climax was over I actually thought "oh, was that it?"
This is one of those rare films where I would recommend you just skip it and use the time to play with your dog or read book. Don't worry, you won't miss anything and nothing in it is relevant to the series.
Die Hard 2 (1990)
Die Hardish
This has got to be one of the worst written pieces of crap ever put to celluloid. That being said, if you don't enjoy seeing it, repeatedly, you're probably already dead. I'm still amazed that this was based on a book, like an actual book and not on a comic or a fortune cookie or even a corporate logo printed on a paper napkin.
Let's take a closer look and, although there are spoilers they'll only lead to the enjoyment of this exercise in absurdity. The first thing I noticed is Bruce Willis seems to get the same little cut above his right eyebrow as he got in the first movie. I know, nit picking, but it's almost like a studio found that the eyebrow injury tested well among audiences.
Okay, so that was a little bit of a minor thing compared to things like grenades with the longest fuse, ever or the completely gratuitous nude scene from our villain with the perfectly sculpted posterior, but it sort of gives you an inkling of where I'm heading here. If you look too closely at this film, it'll drive you mad. They put so much detail into this film and most of it is pure nonsense.
In it, you get Colm Meany and Patrick O'Neal speaking to each other in fake accents for absolutely no reason whatsoever. You'll see a hole in a windshield just to remind you that there's a hole in a windshield. You'll have someone describe the hole in the windshield although it'll really have no impact on the plot other than there being said hole in said windshield. You'll watch airplanes land on runways covered with debris from other airplanes... wait, I'm just going to stop there because there are way too many plot holes, mistakes, goofs or just plain nonsense in this film that it makes Transformers look like a documentary.
At the end of it, you just won't care. It has some magical ability to just make all the nonsense go away and leave you rooting for the indestructible John Mclean and his plucky band of sidekicks. Watch this movie, you'll enjoy it more than it deserves.
Suicide Squad (2016)
A Worthy Rival to Catwoman
This wannabe blockbuster will leave you feeling pretty neutral. They do the most boring thing possible to introduce the characters, they give you small flashbacks and talk about them all to typically cliché ridden rock songs. The end result? you really don't care about any of them. They're supposed to be bad guys but the worst you see them do is steal a purse. Strangely, that was one of the highlights of the film.
So the story can pretty much be summed up in 10 words: Criminals are let out of prison to stop a villain. There, I just saved you $15.
90% of the cast is disposable, they fight some terribly rendered, faceless lump heads then fight some guy that I swear was in Tron from the 80's. There's really not much to say about the film because that's pretty much it. While sitting through the first half hour of introductions and talking I had to lean over to the person next to me and ask if I'd missed the six more interesting movies that should've preceded this hot mess. No, she replied. It's too bad, some of them looked like they may be slightly more interesting than what I was watching.
There was really nothing remarkable about this piece of fluff. It seems to be designed for 14-year- old boys who haven't ever read an actual book or seen any decent films. At one point in the movie they actually gave us a flashback of an event that happened only 20-minutes earlier, and not to introduce new information but to just reiterate something that was bad enough viewing once.
At the end of the movie, I felt more intrigued by the buttons that moved my seat back and forth than by anything I'd seen. Hopefully this will end the vacuous reign of Zac Snyder and comic book movies. If it doesn't, then maybe they just need to hear that comic book movies are only a step above video game movies. Give us a story that doesn't rely on the protagonists standing around the bad guy in a rough circle while hitting them.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Don't bother with the cinema
A good movie to see if you're stuck on a plane crossing an ocean and you're bored with the Skymall magazine or if you're sick at home with a high temperature and poor judgement. The first movie I'd recommend watching on your phone, you won't miss anything.
It's a perfect movie for those who love to waste more of their lives watching another Batman origin story because every superhero fan wants to see that, again. It's been said that if you took every Batman origin story ever made and connected them together you'd have a piece of film long enough to go from the Earth to Pluto and still be bored to tears.
And the dream sequences, wow, can't get enough dream sequences said no one, ever.
So if you like to watch 3 hours of trailers for other movies, but are afraid of things like story development, the use of colours, coherence, then this could be the movie for you Just think of it as a crappy version of Suckerpunch - no, really, it can get worse than Suckerpunch! Zack Snyder has triumphed in his ability to waste millions and present nothing but a whole bunch of global warming. I'd feel better if the cast and crew planted a couple trees to offset the carbon debt created in making this disaster. He's like a modern day Dino Delaurentis but without the substance or talent.
At the end of the day, if you're a 14-year-old boy, or just never matured beyond that point, spend your allowance on this. You'll like it just as much as the technology that makes everything look like a talking vagina from Man of Steel.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
It wasn't that bad
So I packed my husband into the theatre and ourselves and nine other people settled in to watch Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Okay, I have to admit, I wasn't thrilled with the opening scrawl that seemed written by a high school drama club but, believe it or not, things improved from there. After reading all the spoilers about the film, which I truly don't care about, I wasn't expecting much from this, the seventh outing of this franchise. To be honest, it wasn't that bad.
The newcomers Rey and Finn were great. They were well written (as well written as anyone's been in this series) and well acted. Poe, the fighter pilot that was thrown from his ship minus his jacket (explain that one to me) seemed to be little more than a role designed for an action figure as did the rather pointless Phasma. They really didn't need names. Darth Wannabe, who's name I forgot, actually wasn't bad. I liked his confusion. Han Solo and General Leia did what they could with what they were given. BB8, the robot companion of the fighter pilot out acted the previously mentioned Phasma and provided some comic relief.
Now for the bad. The spaceships looked tiny, and I don't mean tiny compared to the vastness of space I mean tiny. The tie fighters and x-wings looked good as full-sized props next to actors but in the battle scenes they looked like dinky toys. Same with the Millennium Falcon and the Star Destroyers. Nothing looked big enough for a human to fit into. The sense of scale was amiss. I don't know if the camera's were set to Tilt-shift or if it was just really, really bad modelling but everything just looked small. I felt like I was watching a toy commercial on a cell phone.
I was also disappointed that in the 30-years since the last movie, technology has pretty much stood still in this fantasy universe. The rebel fleet has gone from huge capital ships, x-wings, a- wings, b-wings and y-wings to about 12 x-wings. Remember, this is the side that won the war. Meanwhile, the Empire (which is now the Order-66 or something) has gone from giant star destroyers, super-star destroyers, tie fighters, bombers, interceptors to what look like sub- compact star destroyers and tie fighters. the only thing they did that was slightly different was they made a Death Star but this time it was a planet made into a Death Star (That's no space station, that's a moon?). It was cool enough but nothing we haven't seen before.
Actually, that's my biggest complaint. There was so little that we hadn't seen before. Stormtroopers still wear the worst armour in the universe (why do they even bother with that stuff?), everyone still flies the same four spaceships, and the plot is just a rehash of the third movie which was a rehash of the first and second. I could nitpick details but why bother. This is a space fantasy movie and to enjoy it means you don't think about it too critically. It whiles away the time on a dreary winter day and it shouldn't have to do much more than that. In the next outing, Star Wars 8, Order-66 Strikes Back, I just hope we see a little more variety and maybe a better sense of scale.
On the plus side, the otherwise useless 3-d did provide two bits of fun. One was when one of the smallish Star Destroyers (Star Denters?) hangs in front of the audience. The other was when Rey holds out a lightsaber. I was glad I wasn't the only one out of the eleven people in the audience who reached out to take it.
Sense8: Death Doesn't Let You Say Goodbye (2015)
Remarkable achievement!
I won't give away the plot points but I will say that it's the character development and the stories that draw you into their lives. One reviewer said that the Wachowski's are only known for the Matrix franchise. They need to get out more. The Wachowski's also are known for the epic Cloud Atlas, Tom Tykwer is known for Run, Lola, Run and The Warrior and the Pricess, Straczinski is known for Babylon 5. All are known for some of the greatest moments in modern TV and movie history. Don't let someone who equates good storytelling to bullet time and monotone catchphrases dissuade you from a great series.
Sense8 delivers depth and action along with strong characters and a new concept. It's not formula or cliché, it's an original idea so far away from another generic cop or lawyer show or another crime drama that it feels like a breath of fresh air. The characters deal with death, loss, illness, fear in a realistic way. Watch this show, you won't be disappointed.
Silent Running (1972)
Murder in space!
Ecoterrorist Bruce Dern kills his three shipmates in a fit of rage when they try to follow orders and return to Earth, described as a utopia with no unemployment, no hunger and no social problems. After completing his murderous task, he steals his spaceship and anthropomorphizes three robots, believing that they make better companions than the fun loving humans he's killed.
This is an important film for the early 1970's, showing that even when humanity creates a utopia there will still be one lone lunatic wanting to kill for a piece of dirt and some rabbits. The folk-music score only serves to underline the terror of this film which predates the sci- fi/horror genre by nearly 10-years.
The most frightening moment of this picture takes place when Dern plays a game of poker with his robot minions in a scene eerily foreshadowed early on in the picture.
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Giant, fighting robots fight for something or other
Okay, let me say I thought the first movie was utterly stupid, robots fighting each other for a big cube that could transform into a smaller cube, and the second one was so incomprehensible that I'm still not sure what it was about. I gave the third one a pass but the fourth one, well, I saw it on Netflix and gave it a shot.
Considering this is a movie based on a cartoon based on a toy, I found it to be strangely compelling - the best out of the four. I know the names of three of the robots, the rest of them just seemed to named something-bot or whatever-Tron. It doesn't really matter, no one should care that much to bother remembering anyone's names in this crashfest.
I found if you just ignore everything the robots said, this movie worked just as well as Prometheus. The humans were better. It features Dad, bimbo, himbo and Steve Jobs fighting against evil CIA guy and his boss, Evil Frasier. Most of what they say is actually not too badly written considering the film is just an epic battle scene.
I still find the discrepancy between the size of the big robots compared to their vehicle disguises to be troubling, I guess it has something to do with the Cube of Efficient Packing. And the fact that the humans are constantly grabbed by what amounts to a whole lot of pinch points is almost forgettable this time around. None of that takes away from what we're really here to see - Hong Kong getting trashed.
The movie is long, so long that they had to throw in a flashback about two hours in so you can be reminded about what the film is actually about. Fast forward through that, you won't really care. What you really want to see is a giant, fighting robot wielding a sword and riding a giant, robot dinosaur. Thank you, Michael Bay.
Monsters (2010)
Astonishing science fiction!
It's hard to understand how people can compare this to Cloverfield. Cloverfield was a predictable monster movie filled with cardboard cutout characters whose only purpose was to get eaten or killed. It was a big budget film that delivered so very little. Two hours of staring at the pavement and very little more. Found footage that should have been lost.
Monsters, on the other hand, delivers a minimalist film that seems to say so much more. There is a subtlety about it that seems to be missed by those who want to be clubbed over the head with the ridiculous and extreme. Instead, it teases us along, giving us glimpses of the unknown and hinting that something dreadful is just out of reach.
As the journey progresses, we start to see grace in the aliens and we realize that the humans are the ones who are ugly and predatory. Sounds simplistic? That's part of the beauty. This isn't a story of alien invasion, it's a story where humanity goes into space and takes a life form from it's natural environment. When things go sideways, and when the aliens start thriving on Earth, it's humanity that wages war on them.
The climax of the movie is it's greatest moment. The characters, after surviving their journey, find the humanity in each other. The monsters are shown to be creatures of beauty. Dangerous when threatened, but beautiful all the same. As the main characters are pried from each others arms and put in separate vehicles to take them to a safety they no longer want we find ourselves at the beginning of the movie, it's tragedy finally revealed.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
Fanally, a movie to make me feel better about T3!
Okay, let me preface this by saying 3 things. 1) I'm not a rabid fanboy that thinks this series is epic in any way. 2) I'm not a hater of science fiction, even bad science fiction. 3) I don't think that you can add a spoiler to something that's already spoilt.
That being said, there won't be any spoilers here just because I don't care enough about this movie to really go in any sort of depth. So why am I writing this? Maybe it's to gently remind people that this is a movie about killer-robots from the future. It's not art, folks. It's not the epic statement of humanity in our time.
Where this movie fails, is that it's completely forgotten it's roots. The first 3 movies in the series didn't take themselves too seriously. At least the first and third didn't. The second one was practically pompous by comparison. Still, Terminator 2 was still somewhat aware that it was a science fiction film wrapped around a chase scene. That's where the excitement and fun came from. There was also a lighter side. The suspense was tempered by a self deprecating sense of humour. That's where Terminator Salvation fails.
Terminator Salvation is a movie that forgets it's roots. All of them. The chase sequences are tired, there is no humour, there is no self awareness. Instead we're given bleak. It's almost as if director McG sought out new sources of bleak to throw in as a substitution for depth. There's nothing to frighten, or challenge or even lightly amuse the audience here, only dirt, sludge, grime and stern looks.
Christian Bale truly shows his range as an actor. He has none. He glowers, glares, and gives us vacant grimaces as he tries his best to look like a killbot from the future. I'm guessing no one told him he wasn't playing the terminator. It's a tragic thing when you're out acted by a killbot.
The special effects aren't anything we haven't seen before. The plot is really little more than a chase across some landscape which, I may point out, was done better in the previous 3 movies of this franchise. The characters don't really need names, you won't remember them anyway. The direction and writing go from lazy to comatose and it's really difficult to say anything positive about this straight-to-video theatre release.
If this is the salvation of mankind then bring on Judgement Day.
Caprica (2009)
Who weeps for a Cylon?
After reviewing the entire first season of Caprica I felt like washing my eyes out with bleach. This was the series that took the crown of Battlestar Galactica and threw it as far down into the mud as it could. Season one is so slow moving and painful to watch that not only has Oxford dictionary used it as an example for the word plodding but it's been rumoured that the Allied forces in Afghanistan are using it to compel Taliban insurgents to talk.
Don't get me wrong, I wanted to like this show. I wanted to love it. But then I watched it. From the first painful episode to the last dreadful minute where climax somehow became climin.
The franchise seems to be creatively bankrupt. The characters little more than mouthpieces used to string out stale clichés to their breaking point. The familial relationships aren't even ones of convenience. You just can't care about any of these people. Caprica doesn't develop characters or even use them to advance a plot. They are little more than meat puppets jerking grotesquely for no reason whatsoever.
Even the Ceylon has nothing to do. I would've given the writers some credit if they came close to exploring the complexities of artificial life or even if they gave us a washed and faded version of Frankenstein but instead they give us a teenage girl brooding in a robot.
The video game world which seems central to this wandering and meandering series is frankly unbelievable. One of the characters, stuck in the game, gives us a glimmer that there may be something interesting to this series but her story is lost in the greater grotesquery.
I hope the series turns around and becomes something great as Babylon 5 did. I hope it even becomes watchable. But I'm a realist. This series seems destined, if it's lucky, to one day reach mediocrity then fade into a footnote.
La règle du jeu (1939)
Stunning. One of the ten best films of all time.
Quite possibly one of the greatest films ever made. A true masterpiece of the French golden age of cinema. It's a witty, sardonic and scathing look at the leisure class of 1930's France that could very well apply to today's vain, celebrities of nothing.
The plot revolves around a love triangle that isn't. A young pilot who gains dubious fame as the second man to fly solo across the Atlantic has fallen in love with a married, German noble who doesn't share his attentions.
As society around him declares, repeatedly, that the Germans don't understand the rules of the game the film progresses to the point where the audience understands that the Germans are the only ones who truly do. The film climaxes when the German couples invite everyone to their château for a hunting party. The result is a blend of wit, farce and tragedy that is often copied but never mastered as it is here.
A deeper look at the film parallels the political realities of pre-war France and Germany. With the burden of history we can see the blind rush toward disaster while celebrity and affectation distract from the warnings clearly posted to those gifted with perfect hindsight. This adds a chill to the film that, quite probably, was never intended by Renoir.
If you love cinema, view this film. You won't be disappointed.
Watchmen (2009)
Watchmen? Watch people.
First thing I want to say is that I usually cut movies made from comic books a lot of slack. That's usually because the source material is pretty thin and filled with archetypes and lazy writing. I'd also like to point out that the last comic book I'd seriously read was when I was eleven so the genre may have changed (although recent peeks into ones I've found in barber shops haven't really supported this). So I have never read Watchmen and likely won't in the future.
When I started watching the film, though, I was impressed. The characters were fleshed out, the alternate past was thoughtfully developed and the story kept me guessing exactly who the villain was. Not being a fan of the comic book also left me the joy of learning who the heroes were, as well. I found their motivations to be intriguing and their super-powers, thankfully, understated.
The film has, at it's core, a murder mystery which launches the characters into action towards a climax that is both unexpected and satisfying. You find yourself caring about the characters because they are flawed and, in many cases, middle-aged and struck with adult problems. This isn't a story about a teen hero learning the complexities of adult life - like the Spiderman series, nor is it a story filled with artificial darkness and unrealistic angst like the current Batman revival (yes, Bruce, your parents were murdered. get some counseling already, you can afford it), instead it's a story where adults are dealing with the decisions and actions of their lives.
Watchmen is surprisingly complex and well thought out. I can only hope it attracts a mature audience because only they would truly appreciate the subtleties in the story. That being said, on to the special effects.
In one word, beautiful. They're not overstated because they don't need to be. You're delivered rich colour palettes and a chance to actually enjoy them. Unlike the Transformer series, which prefers to sacrifice a good view of the action for meaningless close-ups of dust and machine parts, Watchmen lets you savour the scene. You get to see everything in stunning detail.
The most visually striking characters are the tormented Rorschach and the god-like Dr. Manhattan. In many ways, the characters are foils of each other. Rorschach, always masked, dark and simmering and Manhattan glowing cold blue and often naked. They provide two contrasting points of view. One wrapped in grit seeing only the worst around him while the other seemingly exposing everything about himself in a selfless drive to better the planet. But, like nearly everything in this film, this is an illusion. Manhattan and Rorschach prove to be the most complex characters in the film.
I won't say anything more about Watchmen other than I hope no one ever tries to make a sequel, it's too much of a joy to experience on it's own. There really is only one champagne - a sequel would just be another sparkling white wine. Instead, I'll just say if you're going to watch one superhero comic book adaptation this year then make it Watchmen.
Deep Impact (1998)
If a comet falls in the ocean will anyone care?
In a way, Deep Impact was very lucky it opened opposite of Armageddon and thus will forever be remembered as being the better film. The problem, however, is that Armageddon didn't set the bar very high.
In a strange way, Deep Impact shares many things with Dante's Peak, another disaster movie released alongside it's dumber cousin, Volcano. Both movies concentrate mainly on the personal relationships of the characters rather than the actual disaster, they both contain some laughable science and both movies climax in an orgy of destruction. The difference, though, is that Dante's Peak does it better.
In my opinion, it all comes down to editing.
Dante's Peak clips along at a good pace while Deep Impact drags it's feet like a movie on smack. Stereotypical characters drift around in a haze of self-importance, trying to impart upon the audience that they are engaged in something relevant. But in the end, does anyone really care about them? We're given a stock selection of wunderkinder love, a 30-something year-old journalist obsessed with her aged parents divorce (Jenny, freakin' get over it, already!), ageist astronauts, and, the standout performance in a film that exists to shame actors, Morgan Freeman as the president. Surrounding them are a bevy of characters that muddy the film so much that it becomes possible to take extended breaks for popcorn/bathroom breaks/phone calls to your entire extended family.
And that is the heart of the films problem. Too many characters. Now I know, the title Deep Impact is most likely a clever reference to the emotional impact the comet has on the people dealing with it but the film loses it's focus rather early and never truly regains it.
Being a fan of the genre, I was disappointed in Deep Impact. As a disaster film, Deep Impact, ultimately, is a disaster. It has none of the emotional impact as When Worlds Collide - another cosmic collision flick where people actually behave realistically when faced with their annihilation. Nor does it have the sense of fun that all disaster films need to lighten the moments of darkness - like those provided by Helen Hayes in Airport. Instead, we're served stereotypes, and a too-short city crushing.
I think the worst crime that Deep Impact commits is that you have all of these people halfheartedly trying to survive the cataclysm but none of them really know why they are bothering. In The Poseidon Adventure you really feel that everyone is trying to live for something. It's gritty, dramatic and there is a feeling of urgency. Deep Impact has none of this. And, because of that, it comes out as not a drama or a disaster film, but more of a drasaster - we're given the story of too many people we care too little about and too few of them suffer horrible, on screen deaths.
The only things that really stood out for me were the lines not said in the film. Maximilian Schell telling his adult daughter that he's a lot happier NOT being married to Vanessa Redgrave and that she's an adult so grow up, already. And Leelee Sobieski thinking "Oh, God, I'm sixteen, married to my first boyfriend, I've got an unplanned baby and I'm homeless!"
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)
It's a good day to cry.
Starship Troopers 3 isn't the worst thing the Germans and South Africans have done, but it's close.
This film suffers from far too many plot threads and the indecision over whether this was a comedy or a drama. Maybe they were trying to make a dramedy but they ended up with a comema.
There are some nice parallels between this film and modern day America as seen from the outside. The singing Sky Marshall is priceless and his song is worse than herpes. Once you've got it you can't get rid of it.
The acting is equal to the script and I hope the editor recovers from that seizure soon. At least you get to see Casper Van Dien naked, something he should do more of. In fact, if he just stood there naked and smiled for 90-minutes it may have made for a more entertaining movie.
After films like this people usually say they want that 90 minutes of their life back. I say I want the antidote... and the soundtrack. So without further delay...
It's a good day to die, When you know the reasons why. Citizens, we fight for what is right.
A noble sacrifice, when duty calls you pay the price. For the Federation I will give my life.
Courage. Duty. Honour...
The Mist (2007)
Should've called it The Missed
Stephen King must really have run out of ideas. The Mist could have made a nice hour of television rather than a full movie. The dialogue was stilted and way over the top, the acting was more wooden than the store shelves. Personally I found it so hard to connect with any of the characters that I had to look at the DVD box for their names and even then I didn't care.
Let me sum up the plot for you if you're considering wasting your time or money on this thing.
Man with dubious relationship to wife and child goes shopping the day after a storm. Fog rolls in and death comes with it. Something with tentacles eats the world's dumbest bag-boy and five-minutes later anarchy and religion break out. A couple of deaths later and a brave group heads into the mist in a 4x4. They drive for about five more minutes before they run out of gas and off themselves - mostly.
The film isn't a total loss, the monsters look creepy enough and the mist is scary in it's ominous fogginess but there really isn't a lot here to keep your attention. The characters are little more than shadows of archetypes who stray so far from the obvious that a GPS and a trail of crumbs couldn't lead them back to reason.
If you truly want to see a masterful work of tentacled horror then rent Tremors. No stupid fog, no ridiculous alternate-reality, no insipid actors mouthing lines that put even them asleep.