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Top and Bottom of 2011 - #9

2012-02-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

Best

Contagion (2011)

This is the kind of movie that Roland Emmerich keeps making, but done right. A mysterious illness spreads over the world at an alarming rate, killing millions. The film tells the story of a wide variety of people and how they respond to living in the worldwide epidemic. The bulk of the screen time is devoted to the doctors and scientists who work trying to isolate the disease and develop a vaccine. Each is a hero in his or her own way. But we also get Matt Damon as the husband of the first person to die of the disease as he tries to keep together what’s left of his family and stay alive. We also get Jude Law as a conspiracy theorist/blogger who tries to profit from the epidemic. There’s Marion Cotillard as a World Health Organization agent who is kidnaped and held for ransom so that a village will be the first to get the vaccine. Director Steven Soderbergh deftly weaves all these story threads together to tell a story of how the world might cope if faced with a similar crisis in real life. Each storyline is compelling in its own way and is believable every step of the way. Which makes the movie all the more chilling as I left the theater wondering if this could actually happen.

Worst

Reds (1981)

This movie can’t decide what kind of a movie it is. It starts with a series of real life people talking about journalist and communist John Reed and his girlfriend/lover/not wife Louise Bryant. Then we get Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton running around as Reed and Bryant, doing the things that the talking heads were just talking about. Then we get more talking heads. Then another dose of Beatty and Keaton. Just pick one: documentary or biopic. And at over three hours, the movie is interminably long. The filmmakers really needed to remove the talking heads (or even better, the Beatty and Keaton melodrama) to give the movie a more taut running time. Of course then I started to wonder what was the purpose of even having this movie at all. I disagreed with almost everything Reed said, and the relationship stuff was an unending cycle of fighting, moping, and making up.

Coming up next: Two movies about overgrown things.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - #10

2012-02-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

Best

Disney Live-Action Movies

I was brought up on the live action Disney films of the 70s and 80s, and have seen most of them. But there were still a few glaring holes in my Disney watching history. That, coupled with an anemic Netflix queue, led me to start filling those holes. This journey through the Disney vault reminded me of why I liked the live-action Disney movies so much as a kid. They are pleasant and almost always leave you with a smile on your face, even when the humor falls flat. They are trying to be fun entertainment that the whole family can enjoy without talking down to younger audience members or boring the older crowd. When I thought about these movies, the word that kept coming to mind was charming. The particular stand-outs of the crop that I watched last year are The Cat from Outer Space (1978), Toby Tyler (1960), and Freaky Friday (1976), though any and all of the ones I watched this year are worth a look. Even the not-so-good ones.

Worst

Wizards (1977)

I consider the animated movie of The Lord of the Rings to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but I was willing to give director Ralph Bakshi another chance. This time around he was telling his own story and didn't have to adapt something as massive as Tolkien's masterpiece into a reasonable running time. Unfortunately, free range Ralph Bakshi isn't much better. The fantasy world he creates makes little sense as most of the rules seem made up on the fly. The animation is cheap, often relying heavily on rotoscoping and stills. (Not-so-small side note: I categorically dislike rotoscoping in animated movies. It's as if the director can't decide whether to make an animated movie or a live action one so says, "Let's do both!" But instead of getting the best that each medium has to offer, what we are left with is the worst of both worlds. Rotoscoped images almost always look woefully out of place once they are placed into an animated world. And one of the main reasons for doing an animated movie as opposed to a live action one is the freedom animation affords filmmakers. Rotoscoping throws that freedom right out the window and deprives animators of the chance to fully ply their craft. Rotoscoping can occasionally be used for interesting stylish effect, most notably in Waking Life, but 99% of the time it is just garish.) Characters flip-flop their allegiances on a whim, powerful magical people don't even know how to use their own magic, the bad guy motivates his army using the power of Hitler, and the fairy princess spends the whole movie dressed in extremely revealing lingerie. It claims to be a kids' movie, but I don't find it suitable for people of any age.

Coming up next: Two single-word titles with sprawling stories.

Top and Bottom of 2011 - Honorable Mentions

2012-01-31T22:34:00.000-08:00

The time has come to reveal the best and worst that I saw this year. In all I watched 147 movies (plus a couple more that I didn't record here on the blog). Far too many of them were mediocre, but a select few stood up and demanded to be counted on both extremes of the spectrum. I will get to those soon, but first I wanted to give out a couple honorable mentions. These were both pieces of note that for different reasons I deemed them ineligible for either list. But since I'm the one making the rules I can bend them any way I like. So without further ado, here are the official honorable mentions from this 2011.

Best

The Doctor’s Wife (2011)

The best thing I saw all year was actually an episode of a television show. This episode of Doctor Who is funny, thrilling, sweet, and heartbreaking, and all in about 45 minutes. While I’m not sure this would make a good first episode for someone looking to get into Doctor Who, it has become an instant favorite. And I highly recommend the show. There’s a reason an episode of Doctor Who has won the Hugo award for “best dramatic presentation - short form” five times over the past six years (with a total of sixteen nominations).

Worst

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

Back when I started making these end-of-year lists, I decided that any movie I saw that was an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 would be ineligible for consideration for the bottom ten list. I made this decision mostly because it would be just too easy filling the list with the dregs of cinema that Joel, Mike, and the Bots found for me instead of using films I sought out myself. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is no more (pause for a moment of silence) but Rifftrax has come to take its place. While they make downloadable commentaries for recent big-budget blockbusters, they also continue the spirit of MST3K by unearthing really bad movies from yesteryear. This was one of those movies. Santa’s sleigh is stuck in the sand and his reindeer have flown away. So he enlists the aid of the neighborhood kids who try to pull his sleigh out of the sand using various barnyard animals while Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn look on. When everything fails, Santa says, “This reminds me of the story of Thumbelina.” So he tells the neighborhood kids the story of Thumbelina as they look on in boredom, wishing they could be doing something exciting and interesting like homework instead of listening to the old man drone on and on. The story of Thumbelina is an entire short inside this movie with its own credit sequence and is mostly a long commercial for a defunct amusement park called Pirates World. When the story is done, the Ice Cream Bunny drives up on his fire truck. Santa says, “Of course! The Ice Cream Bunny! Why didn’t I think of that?” Then everyone is happy and the movie ends. This was hands-down the worst movie I saw all year. The plot has an IQ of -3, no one can act worth a lick, and the whole thing is interminably slow. However, I deemed it ineligible since it was essentially another episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Coming up next: Movies that are fun (and not-so-fun) for the whole family.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part XV

2012-01-28T00:07:00.000-08:00

Drive (2011)

This is a surprisingly smart action movie with some really slick driving and shockingly brutal violence.

The Help (2011)

This film examines what life was like for African American women in the South working as maids in the 1960s. This is the type of movie that seems to be made to get lots of end-of-year awards, dealing with an Important subject and featuring a cast of notable performances. Fortunately it is still quite entertaining and very rarely does it scream, “Look how Important I am! Give me lots of golden statues!”

Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978)

This is a fun little western comedy with Jim Dale playing three different roles. More Disney fun.

Ip Man 2 (2010)

This is a pretty good follow-up to Ip Man that follows a very similar story structure. The first half is devoted to lots of mostly light-hearted kung fu hijinks while the second half has Ip Man defending the honor of the Chinese people. But this time his opponent is not the Japanese but the British Empire.

The Sleeping Beauty (2010)

It starts out as a kind of interesting re-imagining of the Sleeping Beauty story. I liked some of the fairy tale aspects as Sleeping Beauty dreams a series of adventures for herself while she sleeps for a hundred years. But then things got really weird and it felt like an entire act of the story was missing and the whole thing stopped being interesting in any way.

David Copperfield (1935)

I don’t know if I’ve seen a bad movie based on a Charles Dickens novel. He fills his stories with so many wonderfully quirky characters that they are just begging to be performed by an all-star cast. This movie is no exception. There are wonderful characters galore, with my absolute favorite being Edna May Oliver as the somewhat cranky, set-in-her-ways yet lovable Aunt Betsey.

Best Worst Movie (2009)

I am fascinated by bad movies. In fact, I am almost more excited to compile my bottom ten of the year than my top ten. So this documentary was right up my alley as it looked into the cinematic atrocity that is Troll 2. It was fun to watch interviews featuring the actors in the movie as they told stories of what it was like on set. Most of these actors were fully aware both of how bad the movie is and how bad their performances were. But the ribbing was all in good fun. We also get to see a bunch of fans of the movie who love it because it is so bad. Unfortunately it does get a little painful when they interview the director of Troll 2. He is under the delusion that it is a good movie and doesn’t seem to understand that the only reason people love the movie is because it is so bad. I felt a little sorry for him since he was the only person in the room not laughing at the joke.

And so ends my 2011 Movie Odyssey. Coming up soon is my top and bottom ten of the year. Any predictions?

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part XIV

2012-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Forest Whitaker puts in an all-out performance as African dictator Idi Amin, a man who is instantly personable yet morally repulsive.

Contagion (2011)

This is the kind of movie that Roland Emmerich keeps making, but done right. A mysterious illness spreads over the world at an alarming rate, killing millions. The film tells the story of a wide variety of people and how they respond to living in the worldwide epidemic. The bulk of the screentime is devoted to the doctors and scientists who work trying to isolate the disease and develop a vaccine. Each is a hero in his or her own way. But we also get Matt Damon as the husband of the first person to die of the disease as he tries to keep together what’s left of his family and stay alive. We also get Jude Law as a conspiracy theorist/blogger who tries to profit from the epidemic. There’s Marion Cotillard as a World Health Organization agent who is kidnaped and held for ransom so that a village will be the first to get the vaccine. Director Steven Soderbergh deftly weaves all these story threads together to tell a story of how the world might cope if faced with a similar crisis in real life. Each storyline is compelling in its own way and is believable every step of the way. Which makes the movie all the more chilling as this could actually happen.

Summer Stock (1950)

Judy Garland and Gene Kelly put on a show! The story is amusing if nothing special. The main reason to see this movie is the scene in which Gene Kelly dances with a squeaky board and a newspaper. (Trust me, it’s amazing.)

Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005)

I do. Quite a lot, actually. Which is why I don’t recommend this movie. It makes direct homage to Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window, and Dial M for Murder but is vastly inferior to each of those films. If you like Hitchcock, watch more Hitchcock, not this second-rate imitation.

Hanna (2011)

It’s fun watching Saoirse Ronan kick butt, but I wish movies like this didn’t have so high a body count. The good guys kill random bystanders almost as frequently as the bad guys.

Marjorie Morningstar (1958)

The first half feels like a musical without any musical numbers and is kind of fun. Of special note is Ed Wynn who is very good as a protective, somewhat eccentric uncle. But the second half goes into full-on drama mode and gets really boring.

The Muppets (2011)

I’m a big fan of the Muppets, especially their work on The Muppet Show. One of the things that I noticed with their movies starting with Muppet Christmas Carol is that the humor wasn’t quite as sharp. It was as if the Muppets had been tamed. I was hopeful when the screenwriters claimed they were trying to recapture the feel of The Muppet Show and the first couple movies, but they were the same screenwriters who did very adult comedies. Would they be able to reign in their baser instincts and deliver a movie fit for the whole family? Fortunately, they did. The movie does an excellent job of keeping the feel of the television show. The jokes are funny, the songs are fun (with “Life’s a Happy Song” being an especially catchy standout), and there are some wonderful celebrity cameos. It was like spending time with old friends again, and I had a smile on my face through the whole movie.

King Kong (1976)

It’s not so much that it’s a bad movie, but that it’s not interesting, and the guy in a monkey suit is not nearly as convincing as the stop-motion Kong.

The Mummy (1932)

The makeup on Boris Karloff is really good, but the story is rather lackluster. And I never really understood the whole Egypt craze back in the day.

Les Girls (1957)

This musical takes the idea of the unreliable narrator and runs with it. The same basic story is told from three very different perspectives and it is quite fun watching the story unfold from each unique perspective. There are also some fun musical numbers including “Ladies in Waiting,” a surprisingly risque number for the time period.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part XIII

2012-01-20T23:32:00.000-08:00

Vampyr (1932)

There is some wonderful use of shadows, but the movie really wishes it was a silent film and the story is confusing.

Gran Torino (2008)

Humor can come from a lot of places. It happens when people say funny things (like Groucho and Chico Marx), it happens when people do funny things (like Harpo Marx), and it happens when funny things happen to someone (like Bringing Up Baby). Humor also can happen on a more subtler level when you get folks just being folks (like most of Garrison Keilor’s Lake Wobegon stories). There is plenty of this final kind of humor in Gran Torino. Not to say that it’s a comedy since the movie deals with some serious subject matter as Walt (played by Clint Eastwood) tries to keep his next-door neighbors from getting caught up in a destructive gang world. But I was surprised at how much I laughed as set-in-his-ways Walt was continually nudged out of his comfort zone. I loved watching the characters interact with each other, especially the scenes of Walt teaching his neighbor how to be a man. (There is a disappointing dearth of scenes like this in movies today, though that’s a rant for another day.) And I loved the ending. Too often a movie like this may end up with an ending that is either too contrived to be believable or too convenient to be satisfactory, but this ending feels so right I can’t come up with a better one. Every once in a while a movie comes along that completely surprises me with how much I like it; this is one of those.

Destiny (1921)

There are some striking visuals in this silent movie as a woman tries to convince Death to return her beloved to her.

Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)

Called the first Soviet science fiction film, I was interested to check it out. It starts out promising enough as a scientist tries to build a rocket to fly to Mars. But by the time he gets to Mars and starts a Communist revolution there, I had lost all interest in the movie. The visuals are interesting only in a “this is what Russians in 1924 thought futuristic and exotic looked like” way as they look rather silly today.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

I just couldn’t get over how bad the scientists were in this film. First they start off making rash assumptions and promises due to incomplete research. Then, when one of them gets exposed to the airborne version of the “make monkeys smarter” drug, do they put him in quarantine, or at least under observation? No. He just continues on his merry way. And then when he start showing unusual symptoms, does he go to a doctor or tell the other scientists? No. Instead, he tries to continue on his merry way, and is ultimately responsible for the future destruction of the human race. There are some fun action sequences and Andy Serkis’s motion capture performance as the main ape is very good, but the poor science just reeked of sloppy storytelling.

Source Code (2011)

Time travel stories can be really tricky. This one mostly works though the ending was too convenient.

The Last Unicorn (1982)

I’m glad I read the book before I watched the movie, as I’m not sure I would have liked it as much had I not known the kind of story it was trying to tell.

Strange Days (1995)

While some of the science fiction ideas were interesting, the movie goes into some really dark and gruesome places.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

I really liked this story about a man who tries to defy fate to be with the woman he loves. I liked how simple and subtle most of the effects were and it asks some interesting questions about the nature of free will and even God. I also liked how it ties in neatly with Tolkien’s concept of the music of the Ainur from the Silmarillion.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

How is it that a movie can be as inept as this one is in every single aspect possible? The acting is flat, the dialog is clunky at best, the sound is worse than most student films, and the effects are less convincing than the grasshoppers-on-a-postcard shots from Beginning of the End. The story is the illegitimate child of The Birds and An Inconvenient Truth. And for some reason, all the birds explode when they run into things. I have a hard time coming up with the worst scene in the movie. It could be the one where our heroes defend themselves from hovering CG birds by randomly waving around coat hangers. It could be the one where the protagonist extolls the benefits of solar panels (or as he calls them, “sorpaos”). It might be the scene where our heroes walk out of a screening of An Inconvenient Truth and one of them says, “That was a really good movie. I’m going to buy a hybrid now.” But my vote probably has to go to all the scenes devoted to either parking or cautiously pulling into traffic. No other film I have seen has devoted so much time to these two activities that are marginally more entertaining than watching paint dry.

I'm almost done with 2011!

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part XII

2012-01-18T01:58:00.000-08:00

Wizards (1977)

I consider the animated movie of The Lord of the Rings to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but I was willing to give director Ralph Bakshi another chance. This time around he was telling his own story and didn't have to adapt something as massive as Tolkien's masterpiece into a reasonable running time. Unfortunately, free range Ralph Bakshi isn't much better. The fantasy world he creates makes little sense as most of the rules seem made up on the fly. The animation is cheap, often relying heavily on rotoscoping and stills. (Not-so-small side note: I categorically dislike rotoscoping in animated movies. It's as if the director can't decide whether to make an animated movie or a live action one so says, "Let's do both!" But instead of getting the best that each medium has to offer, what we are left with is the worst of both worlds. Rotoscoped images almost always look woefully out of place once they are placed into an animated world. And one of the main reasons for doing an animated movie as opposed to a live action one is the freedom animation affords filmmakers. Rotoscoping throws that freedom right out the window and deprives animators of the chance to fully ply their craft. Rotoscoping can occasionally be used for interesting stylish effect, most notably in Waking Life, but 99% of the time it is just garish. I'm also left wondering if motion capture is the new rotoscoping.) Characters flip-flop their allegiances on a whim, powerful magical people don't even know how to use their own magic, the bad guy motivates his army using the power of Hitler, and the fairy princess spends the whole movie dressed in extremely revealing lingerie. It claims to be a kids' movie, but I don't find it suitable for people of any age.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

This is a very entertaining movie and Steve Rogers/Captain America is quite a compelling character. I liked how they went with a historical context for him, placing the movie during WWII. Unfortunately, the final scene felt out of place and tacked on. It really should have been the first scene of the next movie or the post-credits scene.

Machete (2010)

What started out as a fake trailer in Grindhouse has become a full-fledged movie. It's quite enjoyable as mindless, over-the-top entertainment.

Waiting for “Superman” (2010)

This documentary takes a sobering look at the state of public education in America today. While it does a great job at pointing out many of the flaws, there aren't a whole lot of solutions to be seen. And I've never been advertised to so much during the closing credits as half a dozen times I was encouraged to send a text to number X "for more information" (not to mention the number of times the film's website was thrown at me as well).

Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)

Maybe I was just expecting too much, but I was rather underwhelmed by this movie. It tells a fine story, but it left me wanting more.

The Cove (2009)

A group of animal rights activists team up to do their part to stop the systematic slaughter of dolphins at a cove in Japan. Many of their efforts to capture the killings on camera are as thrilling as many spy movies and as intricate. But through the whole thing I found myself disagreeing with almost everything they said. After all, they're just dolphins. If dolphins are as intelligent as the filmmakers claim, couldn't they figure out a way to not get trapped by the dolphin fishermen? All the time, energy, and money they spent trying to save those glorified fish could have been better spent digging wells in Africa, teaching English in China, or working at a homeless shelter in Denver.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

With all the boring stuff out of the way in Part 1, Part 2 ends up being a fast-paced, action-packed thrill ride that barely gives its audience time to catch its breath. I could quibble with some of the ways the narrative was translated from the book, but they would be little more than sour grapes. This is easily the second best of the movies (after Prisoner of Azkaban).

Kick-Ass (2010)

This is a slick, energetic movie that is loads of fun.

The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)

Sergio Leone does a sword and sandals movie! While some of the sets are really nice, there's very little that separates this movie from the other films of the genre.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

John Barrymore does an admirable job at portraying both the virtuous Jekyll and the despicable Hyde. It's also interesting to note that the musical took many of its narrative cues from this movie.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part XI

2012-01-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

The Gnome-Mobile (1967)

This is a fun little movie as two children (the ones from Mary Poppins) and their grandfather (Walter Brennan) try to help a group of gnomes find a new home. I keep using the word charming to describe these live-action Disney movies, and it’s starting to sound redundant, but that’s the best word I can think of to describe them. They are pleasant and almost always leave you with a smile on your face, even when the humor falls flat. They are trying to be fun entertainment that the whole family can enjoy without talking down to younger audience members or boring the older crowd. I find it very disappointing that Disney nowadays seems to be content aiming for the lowest common denominator with its live-action fare.

Paul (2011)

I was really looking forward to this one. I really like Shaun of the Dead and the televison show Spaced, and I love Hot Fuzz, so the latest teaming of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost was a guaranteed success. Except it wasn't. The humor was not nearly as sharp as in previous efforts and too often aimed for the lowest common denominator. But was really irked me was their treatment of conservative Americans, especially in the character of a sweet, Bible believing young woman. She is shown the enlightened truth of atheistic evolution and suddenly she is swearing up a storm and trying to jump into Simon Pegg's pants. It is supposed to be funny but it really comes out as just pathetic writing. There were some good sci-fi references, but mostly the whole thing was a giant disappointment.

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

I really liked the first half as Daniel Craig tries to figure out who he is and why he has a weird metallic object strapped to his wrist. The second half, however, is pretty run-of-the-mill action stuff, with the answers to the questions asked in the first half being far less interesting than the questions. The whole thing is still a pretty fun summer action movie.

Splice (2009)

Once I got over how short-sighted and impulsive the scientists acted, this turned out to be an interesting piece of sci-fi/monster horror.

The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)

The Disney formula doesn't always work. Sometimes you get a movie like this one, that has a couple good sequences, but ultimately is just too silly for its own good.

The Singing Ringing Tree (1957)

I read an article that claimed that this might be the best children's fantasy movie ever made, so I decided to check it out. It is a very pretty morality/fairy tale with lush production design. Some of the costumes and effects are extremely dated, but they rarely look cheesy as they are still interesting to look at. It was quite an enjoyable movie (though I wish I could have watched a subtitled version instead of one with an English narrator). And for the record, The Wizard of Oz is still the best children's fantasy movie ever made.

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Eddie Murphy is engaging, but there was very little to distinguish it from similar 80s movies.

Blade II (2002)

I was eager to see this since it was directed by Guillermo del Toro but was very disappointed. The story was unengaging and the big plot twists were dumb.

Oldboy (2003)

In the middle there is an amazing fight sequence. It takes place in a hallway where the main character fights off about a dozen attackers, armed only with his fists and a hammer. The fight is brutal and is staged in one continuous shot. It is an astounding piece of filmmaking. I just couldn't connect with the rest of the film. And by the end, when all the secrets are revealed, I was repulsed by the directions the narrative took. It also didn't help that Netflix streaming only had a dubbed version of the film.

The Adventures of Hercules (1985)

THIS is the Hercules movie that has him turn into a cartoon as the climax. In the sequel to 1983's Hercules, Lou Ferrigno once again stars as the Herc, this time tracking down the seven thunderbolts of Zeus which have been scattered across Greece. The plot is no better than that of a video game; Hercules defeats a monster to reclaim the thunderbolt then instantly travels to the next place where he faces off against the next monster. There are visual effects all over the movie, but they all look terrible, especially the scene in which Hercules battles a glowing ball of light and when he faces off against a gorgon in a blatant (and terrible) ripoff off Clash of the Titans. The dialog is laugh out loud atrocious, and for reasons known only to the filmmakers, every time Herc lands a punch, the screen flashes red. But the absolute cinematic pinacle of the movie is the climax. Hercules and Minos battle each other in the stars as bad rotoscoped images of themselves, occationally transforming into various animals to make everything more thrilling. Then, once Minos has been defeated, Herc gets huge and stops the moon from colliding with the earth. I was wrong earlier; THIS is the worst Hercules movie ever made.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part X

2012-01-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus (1960)

Disney regular and ultimate precocious redhead Kevin Corcoran finally gets a movie all to himself. It's a joy to watch him as he learns the ins and outs of the circus business while charming every adult in sight. Toby's pet monkey gets a little too much screen time, but overall the movie is quite entertaining and a wonderful showcase for one of cinema's more underrated child actors.

The Illusionist (2010)

An animated Jacques Tati roams the countryside performing a series of mediocre magic tricks. I really wanted to like this movie, since I love Tati and it was directed by the director of The Triplets of Belleville, but the whole thing was far too melancholy for my tastes and an animated character is no substitute for the real Tati.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011)

The movie is fun to watch, and director Morgan Spurlock is a wonderfully engaging character, but the movie didn’t tell me very much about the world of product placement that I didn’t already know. I also wish Spurlock had been more biting in his analysis of product placement; the whole thing came off disappointingly tame.

Gymkata (1985)

Who comes up with these ideas? An American gymnast is enlisted by the US government to compete in a dangerous competition so they can build a Star Wars satellite station. He is able to come out victorious by combining his skills in gymnastics with martial arts. The movie is full of cliched or implausible moments, the absolute best scene being the one in which he fights off a village full of crazy people by using a stone pommel horse that just happens to be in the middle of the village square.

Zardoz (1974)

The screenshots from this film of Sean Connery wearing massive red boots and not much else are all over the internet and I was curious to see if the actual movie was as bad as the pictures promised. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, as some of the story ideas were interesting, but mostly it was just silly. We get a giant floating stone head that vomits guns, trippy, psychedelic visuals in lieu of conflict, and lots and lots of running around for no apparent reason.

Freaky Friday (1976)

This is another winner from Disney. Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster are both very fun as the mother and daughter who switch bodies. The whole movie is full of laughs, and while the climax ventures from preposterous into absurd, the film is very entertaining.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

I don’t know whose idea it was to make Geena Davis into an action star, but I wish whoever it was would have kept his or her ideas to him or herself. She already proved a year earlier in Cutthroat Island that action was not her forte, but here she is again beating people up and then blowing up their houses. The premise is kind of interesting, but each new plot twist got more and more ridiculous and by the end I just didn’t care about anything.

The Happiest Millionaire (1967)

This is a flawed but at times entertaining musical. It is full of quirky characters and a few fun songs, but it is far too long for its own good and the narrative needs actual structure. Fred MacMurray stars as the titular millionaire who combines boxing and Bible study, keeps alligators as pets, and is a very patriotic American. He’s fun to watch, but he can’t sing very well, and when he tries to speak his songs it just sounds awkward. The movie can’t decide if it’s about the millionaire or his daughter, as long stretches (and many of them rather dull) focus solely on her and her efforts to become a lady after being brought up as a tomboy. The problem is that we never really get to see her act like a tomboy - we just hear her complaining about it. We are also introduced near the beginning to her two brothers who have a really fun musical number, but then disappear for the rest of the movie with almost no explanation given. At almost three hours long in its full version, the movie could really stand to lose about an hour of running time, focusing the plot on Fred MacMurray.

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

I was wary when I first heard about this movie. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is one of my favorite Disney films and I am a fan of A.A. Milne as well. Most of what I had seen of previous movies trying to bank on the Winnie the Pooh name (like The Tigger Movie and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie) they bore very little resemblance to both Milne’s original stories and the look of the first movie. So I was quite pleased to find out that the story was taken from three of the original stories and the look was a return to the 1977 film. The movie is quite charming and I was very pleased that they kept the characters’ interactions with the narrator, never letting the audience forget that these stories originally appeared in a book. It is a worthy sequel to the original.

Good Hair (2009)

This is a fascinating look into the time, effort, and money that African American women (and some men) put into making their hair fall down straight instead of frizzing up in an afro. The documentary is very entertaining and informative, though it made me sad to see an entire culture of people trying to model themselves after other people instead of trying to do things with their hair that are uniquely their own and that white women can’t do.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part IX

2011-12-31T17:19:00.000-08:00

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

I liked the first movie and was an apologist for the second movie, but I can’t do it any more. The movie is loud and obnoxious, most of the humor falls flat, and for a movie that claims to be about the Transformers, there are an awful lot of long sequences that don’t even feature them. I’d love to see more Transformers movies, but they really need to start from scratch and hire a director who is more interested in plot than with explosions.

Mildred Pierce (1945)

I enjoyed this noir-ish mystery and the character of Mildred Pierce is fascinating, but I wanted to strangle her daughter Veda (though to be fair, that’s the response I was supposed to have).

Whip It (2009)

I mostly liked this movie, though I am disappointed by how much better it could have been. Ellen Page’s character is the only one we really get to know, and while I know a little bit more about how roller derby works, the film never fully explains how the sport works. That being said, it was still quite enjoyable, and for a girl power movie you could do a whole lot worse.

Thor (2011)

It is a fun movie, but I found it hard to fully accept Norse gods running around the mostly realistic world already created by the Iron Man movies (even with the mumbo-jumbo about them actually being interdimentional aliens).

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

This black comedy is fairly amusing. The main reason to watch it is to see Alec Guiness play all eight members of an old, aristocratic British family.

Capturing the Friedmans (2003)

The Friedman family is turned upside down when loving father and husband Arnold Friedman is found to have child pornography in his possession. But then things spin wildly out of control as a slew of additional accusations are leveled against him. They are despicable. And yet almost all of them fail the "let's think about this for a minute" test. This fascinating documentary takes complicated subject matter and leaves the audience to try to determine what the real truth is.

The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

I was brought up on the live action Disney films of the 70s and 80s, and have seen most of them. But there were still a few glaring holes in my Disney watching history. That, coupled with an anemic Netflix queue, led me to start filling those holes. The Watcher in the Woods has some wonderfully creepy moments and looks great. Even if the ending left me wanting, it was still an enjoyable journey.

In Search of the Castaways (1962)

It starts out really funny. A science professor goes through a series of misadventures in an attempt to sneak himself and the two children in his care onto a boat bound for exotic locales. This opening act is really entertaining, and Maurice Chevalier is instantly likeable as the professor. But then the globetrotting adventures start, and I found it increasingly difficult to suspend my disbelief since the situations our group of adventurers found themselves in got increasingly far-fetched.

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

This is a charming movie full of wonderfully quirky characters and excellent animatronic work. I especially liked the look of the film with it's warm, slightly stylized aesthetic that reminded me a lot of Amelie and the television show Pushing Daisies.

The Cat from Outer Space (1978)

It's kind of That Darn Cat meets Escape to Witch Mountain, and is a whole lot of fun, even if it gets a little silly at times. The plot revolves around a scientist who teams up with the cat from the title to collect the materials the cat needs to repair his space ship. Of special note is Harry Morgan as the army general who is in charge of tracking down the alien; nobody can do gruff comedy quite like him. And of course the film is further proof that cats make wonderful movie characters. I really wish there were more cat movies out there.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part VIII

2011-12-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

Thunderball (1965)

It’s James Bond, doing James Bond things. Really, most of the James Bond films, while entertaining, start to all look the same after a while. The only thing really separating this one from the others is the climactic underwater battle at the end. But while it is well-choreographed and very ambitious, everyone moves at half speed since they are underwater, and much of the energy is lost.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Everyone in this movie is a mean slimeball looking to advance themselves in society so they can be even bigger mean slimeballs.

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Audrey Hepburn is amazing as a blind woman who unknowingly gets caught up with a group of drug dealers. There is plenty of thrills and suspense throughout the movie, and the way Hepburn’s character finally deals with her antagonists is wonderful.

The Big Heat (1953)

This is one of the first “obsessed cop does whatever it takes to bring down the bad guys” films and also one of the best. Glenn Ford stars as Dave Bannion, a cop on a mission to take down a local drug lord. Along the way he encounters damaged dames, truly evil thugs (especially the one played by Lee Marvin) and corruption that goes all the way up to the police commissioner. I especially liked the scenes of Bannion interacting with his wife; they are so warm and amusing they paint a wonderful portrait of marital bliss in the midst of an otherwise very dark movie.

Troll 2 (1990)

Every once in a while a movie comes along that is famous for being so bad. This movie is so inept that someone made a whole documentary about how bad it is. First of all, there is not a single troll to be seen in this movie. Instead we get a town full of goblins. The goblins look like cheap Halloween costumes and apparently their favorite food is half human half plant. The acting is bad across the board, especially Deborah Reed as the goblin queen, who chews so much scenery that it’s a wonder there was a set left by the end of the movie. All the characters are idiots, none of them even approaching likability. And then there is the script, full of clunky dialog and loads of “as you know, Bob” exposition. But the absolute best part of the movie comes during a car trip. Mom tries to cheer up her son by getting him to sing. “Sing that song I like so much.” Taking a page from Manos: The Hands of Fate, I mockingly started singing “Row, row, row your boat.” And then the kid started singing. “Row, row, row your boat...”

Time Runner (1993)

Mark Hamill tries his best to break away from Luke Skywalker, but unfortunately he’s just not a good enough actor to pull it off. The story is pretty mediocre and the time travel elements don’t really work since the screenwriters never really bothered to set rules and follow them.

Cars 2 (2011)

Is it the weakest Pixar movie to date? Yes. Does that mean it’s a bad movie? Absolutely not! While the story is pretty pedestrian, there is plenty of imaginative eye candy on the screen. In many ways it reminds me of the opening sequence of Toy Story 3 - we get to see inside John Lasseter’s mind as he played with his toy cars as a child.

Super 8 (2011)

This movie does an excellent job of capturing the feel of a late 70s/early 80s Steven Spielberg movie. It is also just as entertaining.

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

I like how this isn’t an origin story trying to tell the story of how Abraham Lincoln became Abraham Lincoln. Instead, it’s merely a chapter in the life of someone who eventually goes on to become a great American. The bulk of the movie centers on a court case where Lincoln is defending a couple young men who are accused of murder. Henry Fonda is a joy to watch as Lincoln, and he commands the screen wonderfully, both in dramatic courtroom scenes as well as quiet moments with the family of the young men accused of murder.

High Sierra (1941)

I liked Humphrey Bogart’s character of a gangster who just can’t seem to make it in the outside world. But I couldn’t stand the stupid dog that Bogart adopts, who gets way too much screen time and always brings trouble to the people around him.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part VII

2011-12-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

The Italian Job (1969)

It started out kind of slow, and it was difficult keeping straight who all the different characters were and what was really going on. But then the infamous car chase started and the movie instantly skyrocketed from mediocre afterthought to minor classic. It is so much fun watching a trio of Mini Coopers evade the authorities through city streets, across the Italian countryside, and even on top of a building.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

This is an ugly, depressing story about unpleasant, unhappy people who wallow in an unclean world (until the bathhouse/brothel gets up and running, making the uncleanliness more metaphorical). I didn't like anyone in the film, and the background music was both out of place and annoying.

Never Let Me Go (2010)

It's kind of like The Island (or Parts: The Clonus Horror, if you prefer) with all the chases and explosions replaced with character development and musing on the human condition. With no special effects wizardry to worry about, the film is able to explore what life would really be like for people who grow up knowing that they will one day have their organs harvested from them. What results is a melancholy story that I found surprisingly engaging and beautiful as the film asks, "How do you live your life when you know your time is limited?"

Blindsight (2006)

This movie tells the tale of an expedition to take a group of Tibetan teenagers and have them hike the mountain that is right next door to Mount Everest. The kicker: the teenagers are all blind. Throughout the film we get to know the teenagers, their troubles and ambitions, as well as their handlers on the journey and several family members. It is heartwarming as the team conquers each obstacle, tense as the leaders have to make the hard decisions about whether to continue on when half the group is suffering from altitude sickness, and heartbreaking as various parents try to reconcile their child's blindness with their Buddhist beliefs.

Evil Dead II (1987)

It has its moments, but it's mostly 84 minutes of gross violence that is sometimes scary.

In a Lonely Place (1950)

Humphrey Bogart is rather unlikeable as a screenwriter who tries to clear his name when he is the prime suspect in the murder of a young woman. To be honest, I'm not that fond of doomed love stories.

The Way Back (2010)

I really wanted to like this movie. Peter Weir has directed two of my favorite movies (The Truman Show and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) and I've been anxiously waiting for his next movie for several years. Unfortunately, it was a long, arduous movie whose characters never really distinguish themselves from one another. There were a few sequences that really worked, especially a cleverly edited montage at the end, but for a true story about a group of men achieving the impossible, the whole thing was rather flat.

Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar (1967)

This simple little Disney film is kind of charming as it tells the tale of a cougar who is raised by a group of loggers. It’s the type of thing I would have liked as a kid, though I’ve kind of outgrown such stories.

Reds (1981)

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

It is a tragic story, but the screenplay works so hard to paint the protagonist in the best light possible that it quickly loses any semblance of a reasoned argument. The film is still worthwhile as a historical document, but it has not aged well. And Paul Muni is the 1930s version of Sean Penn, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part VI

2011-12-09T02:07:00.000-08:00

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)

There are some interesting images in this early talkie from Fritz Lang that would have been better as a silent film.

The Country Girl (1954)

Grace Kelly goes plain and won an Oscar in this OK movie. Wait, what am I saying? Grace Kelly is supposed to illuminate the screen in gorgeous gowns by Edith Head. This is a terrible movie.

Three’s a Crowd (1927)

Having seen most of the important silent comedies from Keaton, Lloyd, and that other guy, I was interested in checking out the work of Harry Langdon. My first foray into his films was a major disappointment. The movie is not very funny and the plot is seriously flawed. But the biggest issue I have with the movie is one of missed opportunities. There is a comically long flight of stairs leading up to Langdon's apartment, which he does absolutely nothing with. Chaplin would have walked up and down the stairs in a funny way, Lloyd would have almost fallen off them, and Keaton would have built a whole sequence around them, but Langdon lets them sit there begging to realize their comic potential.

The Chaser (1928)

Fortunately there were two Harry Langdon movies on the disc, and The Chaser was quite funny. Langdon manages to make doing mundane housework and even just sitting there very funny. The plot is rather ridiculous, but I enjoyed Langdon's performance and am eager to check out more of his work.

The Fly (1958)

Constructed more as a murder mystery than a monster movie, The Fly is very entertaining and manages to avoid being hokey like many of its contemporaries. And the final scene is still quite chilling.

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

This movie is terrible. King Kong looks like a man in a bad monkey suit and his face makes him look incredibly stupid. The fight scenes are uninspiring, the models look like models, and the whole idea of electricity making King Kong stronger is just laughable.

Samurai Cop (1989)

This is a gloriously bad movie. The action scenes fail at being thrilling or believable, the cinematography is shoddy, the dialog is awful (with lines like, “I will bring you his head and I will place it on your piano.”), and it even features Robert Z'Dar and his incredibly huge face. Samurai Cop's sidekick can't decide if he's the stoic silent type, or the wise-cracking black guy, and he manages to pick wrong in every single reaction shot. But the best part about Samurai Cop is the Samurai Cop's hair. The actor sports gloriously long 80s locks, but halfway through filming he cut his hair, so wears cinema's worst wig for half the movie. The great thing is that it switches back and forth between real hair and wig throughout the movie, even in the middle of some scenes.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

This is the kind of movie tailor-made to win cinematography awards. It looks great. Unfortunately the film is way too long for its own good and drags far too often, especially in the final act.

Monster Camp (2007)

This documentary tries to tell the real story behind the people who participate in Live-Action Role Playing (or LARPing), but the production value is amateur, the subjects aren't particularly interesting, and it never manages to really explain how LARPing works or tell much of a story.

Little Caesar (1931)

Maybe its just too much of a precursor, but I found the story to be unengaging and the tough-guy dialog felt hokey. I guess I only like my classic gangster movies to star James Cagney.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part V

2011-12-06T00:57:00.000-08:00

Strange Invaders (1983)

This is a rather forgettable movie that is neither funny enough for a spoof of 50's B-movies nor affectionate enough for an homage.

Let Me In (2010)

This American remake of Let the Right One In brings very little in the way of anything new to the material. In fact, its so similar that there's very little reason to see both versions. (Though I would vote for the first one not only because it was the first, but also because the remake uses a false inciting incident: taking an exciting scene from the middle of the movie and putting it at the beginning to hook the audience then throwing up a "Three Months Earlier" title.)

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

The movie was not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. If you go in with low enough expectations, it's actually kind of fun.

The Killer (1989)

The main reason the see this movie is the copious amount of gloriously over-the-top gun battles.

Cube (1997)

Six strangers find themselves in a maze-like building of identical rooms. There they must figure out how to survive the deadly traps that are found in most of the rooms and ultimately escape. There's plenty of tension and the various traps are rather inventive, but the whole thing is overly grim, both with the characters and the ending.

A Serious Man (2009)

I didn't like any of the characters and all the bad things that kept happening to the main character just got ridiculous. I expect more from the Coen Brothers.

The Nutty Professor (1963)

I am just not a fan of Jerry Lewis. This is supposed to be his best movie, yet I found both versions of the professor to be woefully unfunny.

Trafic (1971)

While not as good as Jacques Tati's other films, there are still plenty of amusing moments as he tries to get an experimental vehicle to an auto show.

Henry V (1989)

I now know the context for the “Band of Brothers” speech.

Boys Town (1938)

Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan is really awesome and the idea of a Boys Town is a really interesting one (especially once I learned that it is a real place), but Mickey Rooney's troubled youngster was a bit too much of a caricature for me.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part IV

2011-12-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

Ooh! Blog posts two days in a row! I'm going crazy! (Or something.)

When Worlds Collide (1951)

In a precursor to Deep Impact, a rogue planet is on a collision course with Earth. The only way for the human race to survive is to build a space ark and be off Earth when the planets collide. What follows is an interesting and at times intense story of human ingenuity and survival, with both the best and worst of humanity on display.

127 Hours (2010)

James Franco does a one man show through most of the movie as a hiker who gets his arm trapped by a boulder and has to cut it off in order to get free. Franco does an admirable job carrying the movie and the amputation scene is fittingly unsettling. The only real flaw in the film are the occasional dream sequences featuring other people; they break the tone of isolation that is one of the film's strongest features. (It also contains what may be my favorite burp in movie history.)

eXistenZ (1999)

This movie tries to keep the audience guessing as to what is reality and what is not, but I stopped caring about half-way in and the ending left me extremely dissatisfied.

Aeon Flux (2005)

The story is rather silly, but the fight scenes are choreographed well and it has an interesting look.

Unknown (2006)

Five men wake up in a warehouse all suffering from amnesia. It's fascinating to watch as they try to figure out who they are and why they are there, and which of them are the good guys and which are the bad guys. There are a few flashback scenes and a few flash sideways, but the bulk of the movie (and all of the interesting stuff) takes place within the warehouse.

Hercules (1983)

I remember seeing the ending of a Hercules movie some time ago that featured as its climax Hercules going into space and turning into bad animation to defeat the bad guy. It was really bad and I was interested in seeing the whole thing. I hoped this would be it, but sadly it wasn't. Fortunately, it was as bad as I remembered the other one being. Lou Ferrigno stars as the worst Hercules I've ever seen. From the neck down he actually looks like Hercules should look, but his face is too soft to be convincing as a hardened warrior. Add to that wooden acting and only one facial expression of dull bemusement and Ferrigno brings the world of beefy action stars to a new low. Herc fights ridiculous, laser-shooting mechanical monsters, travels from one place to another for no apparent reason, duels King Minos with a light saber, and gets huge. The screenplay has no narrative cohesion with things happening merely due to the screenwriter's whim. This is the worst Hercules movie I've seen. (And it has a sequel!)

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

The first half of the movie tells the tale of Mr. Toad from The Wind in the Willows. While there's nothing bad about it I found the whole thing rather flat. Things get much better in the second half, which tells the tale of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It is dark, atmospheric, a little scary, and very entertaining.

Winter’s Bone (2010)

High schooler Ree has to make sure her father makes a scheduled court date so the family won't lose their house in an isolated Ozark community. Jennifer Lawrence puts in a strong performance as Ree, as she tries her best to keep her family together. What I found most fascinating about this movie is more about what isn't there. There are big things going on with drug dealing but we see almost none of it. Instead, the filmmakers take a minor character from a film noir and make her the hero of her own little story.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)

This Korean re-imagining of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is wild and full of energy. However, I never really latched on to any of the characters and the ending was unsatisfactory. Recommended mostly for fans of Asian cinema and spaghetti westerns.

Tron: Legacy (2010)

I love the 1982 original and was really looking forward to the second chapter of the Tron saga. Unfortunately, the whole thing fell rather flat. The messianic themes of the original are replaced with eastern mysticism. The action sequences were overblown and many felt like they existed just to throw flashy imagery at the audience. In many ways, Tron: Legacy reminds me of The Matrix Reloaded in that it took the unique, original vision of its precursor and expanded it but did it in a way that made everything more muddled and far less interesting. And CG young Jeff Bridges just looked wrong.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part III

2011-12-02T02:50:00.000-08:00

Micmacs (2009)

While not as good as Amelie or some of his other earlier work, Jean-Pierre Jeunet still infuses this film with plenty of quirky characters and lots of his unique visual and narrative style. The whole movie ends up being quite fun.

Things to Come (1936)

As a vision of the future, the movie is pretty interesting, predicting what life will be like from 1936 to 2036. It's fun to compare what they got right and what was wildly inaccurate. Unfortunately, it's rather boring. Since it covers so much time the characters keep dying off to be replaced by new characters, depriving the audience of anyone to really latch on to. And the movie is so preachy in its anti-war message that it manages to sap any remaining energy right out of the film.

Shallow Grave (1994)

Danny Boyle's directorial debut is full of unhappy people doing unpleasant things to each other; a real downer of a movie.

MirrorMask (2005)

I give the movie points for creating a new world but take them all back for its visual style. Everything is distorted in a grotesque way and half the time I felt like I was watching the movie through a dirty pane of glass. The plot is little more than a twisted retelling of Alice in Wonderland, and the plot twists were either cliched or contrived.

Blood Simple. (1984)

Several sequences are very well crafted but the overall bleak tone of the movie kept me from enjoying it.

Die Hard 2 (1990)

This seems little more than a bad episode of 24. I found some of the plot twists unexpected, but only because they were really dumb.

It Came from Outer Space (1953)

There's little in this movie to separate it from all the other alien invasion movies of the 1950s.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

As I expected, the movie was a little too long and slow and didn't have a satisfying ending. This is the problem with telling a story in two parts that was never designed to be split up. I can't pass final judgement until I see Part 2, but right now I feel that there should be just one really long movie. (And they still left too much for Part 2.)

Catfish (2010)

What starts out as a rather unremarkable documentary about a photographer quickly escalates to being almost a thriller about the way people choose to present themselves to the world.

The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)

This is an interesting look into the life of Robert Evans, one of Hollywood's most celebrated producers. My main problem with it is that of the four movies that get the most attention, The Godfather is the only one I like and I utterly loathe Love Story and Rosemary's Baby.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part II

2011-11-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Me, I am thankful for movies from the good to the bad, in their wide-ranging genres and subject matters.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

This is a fascinating look at the world of street art and the artists who make it. It starts with a montage of street artists plying their craft - some clever, some vulgar, and some outright vandalism - all while a song plays in the background declaring that “Tonight the streets are ours.” Then we are introduced to Thierry Guetta a clothing shop owner/documentarian/aspiring street artist. He’s quirky, full of life, and enjoys almost unlimited access to some of the biggest names in street art. But when he starts doing his own street art it’s derivative and repetitive (and most if not all of the actual artwork is done by other people). What results is a wonderfully entertaining look at several interesting people and the work that they do, even when their art is completely illegal.

Alien Nation (1988)

It tells an interesting story about racist attitudes towards the alien population in America, but it would have been better if the violence had been toned down and the fun factor increased.

Invaders from Mars (1953)

It has some wonderfully creepy moments in the first half hour as aliens take over the minds of various townspeople, but the end is rather unspectacular and not very distinguishable from similar efforts from Roger Corman or Burt I. Gordon.

Dogtooth (2009)

Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar and available on Netflix streaming, I thought I would check this movie out. I should have stayed away. It tells the tale of a family who isolate themselves from the world. The parents use scare tactics and misinformation to keep their children inside their little compound. Why? I have no idea because the movie never bothered to tell me. I kept waiting for something to happen to shake things up, and it finally happened in the last couple minutes of the film. But instead of exploring the implications of the first real plot development of the movie, they decided to roll the credits instead.

Metropia (2009)

This animated movie has an interesting noirish look, and the individual frames look really good. Unfortunately, the animation leaves much to be desired. The characters reside squarely in the uncanny valley - the human models are wonderfully detailed, but they move so little and unnaturally that the filmmakers might as well have just filmed Barbie dolls bouncing across the screen. The story tries to be a dystopia along the lines of The Matrix, but ends up making little sense, and none of the characters are particularly memorable either.

Ip Man (2008)

This is a fictionalized account of Ip Man, a martial arts master who trained Bruce Lee (and many others). The first half is a whole lot of fun featuring plenty of martial arts hijinks in a largely pre-industrial Chinese town. Then the Japanese invasion of WWII happens, and the film takes a decidedly serious turn. Ip Man and his fellow countrymen struggle to get enough food to feed themselves while still maintaining their honor in occupied territory. Ip Man is fascinating to watch, both in moments of quiet dignity and when he is laying down some martial arts smack-down.

The Secret of Kells (2009)

This beautifully stylized animated film tells a fictionalized account of the creation of the Book of Kells. The film takes many visual cues from the artwork in the Book of Kells, leading to a movie that looks like a moving illuminated manuscript.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

It's better than a Roger Corman movie, but not by much.

The King’s Speech (2010)

This is a well made movie that smacks a little of Oscar porn. There's not a whole lot that I loved about the movie, but really the only thing I didn't like about the film is that I felt they focused on the wrong character. Colin Firth's character is only interesting because he is a prince who stutters; take those two things away from him and he's rather dull. Geoffrey Rush, on the other hand, is quite engaging as the speech therapist who manages to help Firth overcome his speech impediment. Had they focused on his character instead, the movie would have been far more interesting.

Unstoppable (2010)

This is a fun action movie that wasn't as cliched as I was expecting it to be, though the ending was a bit of a letdown.

My 2011 Movie Odyssey - Part I

2011-11-15T18:46:00.001-08:00

Now that November is half over, I really ought to start posting my movie odyssey. This year I've been much worse than usual about keeping up with my thoughts on the movies I watch. So far I've seen 132 movies this year for the first time but only have 55 blurbs written. (Somewhat in my own defense, I have been working on other projects.) But at least one of you likes reading these, so here is the first installment.

The Social Network (2010)

This is a slick movie that is full of energy. The opening scene between Mark Zuckerberg and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is immediately arresting with dialog so quick it would make Howard Hawks proud. The conversation continually goes on tangents then loops back around in a way that reminded me of reading a comment thread on facebook. Jesse Eisenberg is electric in the role of Mark Zuckerberg, graduating from “poor man’s Michael Cera” status to becoming a force to be reckoned with. The Social Network is engaging all the way through, with fascinating characters, memorable performances, and a taut script, all held together masterfully by director David Fincher.

Exam (2009)

Eight people are in a room prepared to take a test that will determine which one of them will be given a high-profile job. The only problem: when they turn their test papers over, there is nothing written on the other side. The entire film takes place in the exam room, and it is fascinating to watch the candidates as they try to figure out what the rules are and what it is that they need to do.

The Proposal (2009)

Sandra Bullock is fun to watch (as always) and there are a few laughs, but there is nothing in this film to distinguish it from the rest of the romantic comedy crowd.

Black Swan (2010)

This visually striking tale about a ballerina's descent into madness features strong performances from its three leading ladies, a compelling story, and lots of beautiful ballet. I just wish it hadn't decided to go into weird sexual territory.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

I was hoping that this would be an honest documentary about the merits and flaws of the MPAA rating system. Unfortunately, it was actually a 97 minute rant against the MPAA's puritanical view of sexual content, completely missing the fact that the MPAA rating system exists for the movie- going public, not the filmmakers.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

There were a couple interesting visual touches, but overall I was bored with the endless scenes of teenagers running and screaming.

Tangled (2010)

This is a really fun movie. The animation is gorgeous and features several wonderful moments of pure character animation (with the animators constantly coming up with new and inventive uses for Rapunzel's hair), the songs are all pleasant (though none of them are particularly memorable), and Rapunzel spends most of the movie barefoot. Really, what's not to like?

True Grit (2010)

The 1969 original is one of my favorite westerns, so the Coen brothers' version had a lot to live up to, and they delivered a fine remake. Roger Deakins’ cinematography was beautiful as always and Matt Damon played a much more interesting LaBoeuf than Glen Campbell’s take on the character. But The Dude cannot hold a candle to The Duke.

Innerspace (1987)

This was mostly fun, rather silly, and very 80's. To be honest, I find it hard to believe that Dennis Quaid’s character had any friends at all based on how he always acted.

Darkman (1990)

It’s an interesting take on superhero tropes, but it was too dark and angry for my tastes.

An Ode to Theatre

2011-06-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

As far back as I can remember, I have enjoyed being in theatrical productions. They have ranged from Sunday school dramas* to high school productions to community theatre. I have had lead roles and roles of one just one line. I have worked backstage, and even co-directed. And I have thoroughly enjoyed almost every minute of it. By my count I have been a part of over thirty different productions.

The other day I started wondering why it is that I enjoy doing theatre so much, and the first thing that came to mind is that I enjoy watching and being part of the process of a show coming together. It starts with auditions. There is always a feeling of both excitement and dread on the day of auditions: excitement because I may finally be able to play the role I always wanted, dread because I may end up getting saddled with a boring role that doesn't give me anything to work with. I eagerly watch the others as they audition, casting the show in my head and trying to figure out who the director will cast in each role (and in the process try to figure out which role I will get).

Once the show has been cast, there are the first few awkward rehearsals. We don't know what we're doing, we're doing it with a bunch of strangers, and we're doing it on a bare stage (or maybe not even on a stage at all). But as rehearsals progress, lines are memorized, the set starts showing up piece by piece, and the cast gets comfortable with each other and starts working together as a unit. Even when I'm not on stage, I like watching the director work with the other actors to create a scene and am genuinely happy for them when it comes together. The first time we run through the entire show without stopping is always a momentous occasion. Sure everyone screws up at least once, and the whole thing is very rough and way too long, but we just proved to ourselves that we can do it. When the costumes show up, you find yourself actually standing next to Belle, instead of an actress saying all of Belle's lines.

When the tech crew arrives for the last week of rehearsals, it feels like the family is finally complete. Now we have someone to give us light or darkness as needed, and someone to operate our mics and any music. We may have people working backstage, manipulating props and set pieces so the actors don't have to.

Opening night is the culmination of all our efforts.** We now have an audience to laugh, cry, and applaud. By this time, all the jokes have become stale to us, so it is refreshing and invigorating to learn that we are still being funny and that the audience likes it. And there's nothing like listening to an audience sniffle as they try to hold back their tears, or gasp at a shocking or scary moment.

Some philosopher (and probably more than one) said something to the effect that life is not about the destination but the journey. This is definitely true for me when it comes to theatre. For me, the rehearsal period is the Thanksgiving dinner while the performances are the piece of pumpkin pie for dessert. Sure it's nice, but what I'm really there for is the turkey, rolls, and mashed potatoes. It's fun to watch a ragtag bunch of misfits become a well-oiled machine.

But even more than watching the whole thing come together, the thing I think I like the best about doing theatre is that it gives me the opportunity to be an indispensable part of a whole greater than myself. A production of Romeo and Juliet needs both a Romeo and a Juliet, and those are the roles that most people want. And yet, though he has only four lines, the Apothecary is just as integral a piece to the play as Romeo or Juliet. And the beautiful thing is that the guy playing Romeo cannot play the Apothecary. Nor can Juliet. Nor can anyone else in the play.

And what's even more awesome is that the actors can't do it without the tech crew. Even those so-called one man shows have a team of technical people behind them. And having been both an actor and a techie, I know that while the actors may look down on the techies, thinking they are only techies because they are not good enough to be actors, the techies know that the actors are not smart enough to be techies.

I once had the opportunity to be part of a production of The Foreigner. I was part of the crew. My entire job was to stand backstage during the climax to do some special effects. I was busy for only about five minutes of the entire run of the two hour show. But all the actors were on stage at the time, so none of them could do it. And the other people in the crew weren't in a position to be able to get backstage to do it. So even though I was needed for only five minutes of the show, I was still a vital part of the production. And I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

*Ever since I heard it, I have hated the word "skit." It sounds willfully unprofessional - something merely to kill time or appease the kids and not something that aspires to be a work of art. If I had my way it would be removed from the English language entirely. It also doesn't help that it is one letter away from being a profanity.

**Two opening nights in particular stand out in my memory. The first was a production of Rivers and Ravines my freshmen year in high school. It was a cast of all freshmen. Our rehearsals were rough, and we had never made it through the entire show without stopping. And to top it all off, we had to replace one of our actors in one of the major roles at the last minute. Standing backstage with the other actors, I finally understood phrases like "The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife." I could literally feel the tension pressing down on me so much that I had to get away from everyone for fear of it affecting me. Then the show started, and we rocked! The second was a production of Calamity Jane my senior year in high school. This time I was the last-minute replacement for a major role (though I did have a week to learn it, unlike the guy in Rivers and Ravines who only had about a day). The euphoria I felt when the lights went down after the final scene and the applause started was unlike any I have felt before or since. For the usual feeling of "We did it!" was combined with my own personal "I did it!"

The Baseball Season Cometh

2011-03-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

The start of the baseball season is four days away, and I can't wait. I'm getting my fantasy teams in order and looking forward to the games in which my favorite teams crush my hated teams. Which teams are those? Well, I'll tell you. Here are three teams that I want to succeed this year and three teams I want to fail.

Teams I Want to Succeed

1 - Texas Rangers

This should be no surprise to anyone who read my blog post from October 22nd last year. I have followed the team for almost twenty years and I have no plans to stop. And now they have an American League pendant to show for their efforts. But even if they had finished in the cellar last year, they would still top this list and many more in years to come. Here's hoping they go all the way this year.

2 - Los Angeles Dodgers

I freely admit that this is a choice of convenience and a bit of bandwagon hopping. I officially moved to the LA area in 2004. During that time the Angels were enjoying an impressive streak of success atop the American League West. Most of my friends were Angels fans. It would have been easy to switch allegiances and only my family would have thought less of me. But I held my ground. But there was this other team in town, one that played in the National League. Much like the Angels, though to a lesser degree, they were enjoying a nice run of success. Having no official ties to any other National League teams, I decided to officially pledge allegiance to Dodger blue. And it sure didn't hurt that their best player has the same name as me.

3 - Tampa Bay Rays

For their first ten years of existence, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were the laughingstock of Major League Baseball. They were bad. Really bad. But in the spring of 2008, amidst the hoopla of them exorcising the Devil from their name, I took a long hard look at their roster. To my surprise, I realized that they had quite a collection of quality and intriguing young talent across the board. I figured that at this point they had the experience to put it all together and finally play some serious baseball. I was right, and they went to the World Series that year. Ever since that Spring I have enjoyed pulling for the David in Tampa Bay to defeat the Goliaths in New York and Boston.

Teams I Want to Fail

1 - New York Yankees

They are the Evil Empire. They beat my Rangers the first three times the Rangers made it to the postseason. They overpay for players which drives the market up and takes players I want for my teams. And then if these contracts go sour due to poor performance, they are not handcuffed financially and can go out and make more overpriced acquisitions. And the attitude I get from the Yankees Nation is one of entitlement - as if they deserve to win the World Series every year, and when they don't it is as if they have been denied their birthright.

2 - San Francisco Giants

They are the sworn enemies of my Dodgers, going back to the days when they both played in New York. They beat my Rangers in the World Series. At this point I'm pretty much contractually obligated to hate them. Besides, giants are for slaying and are always bad guys. (And anyone who tries to bring up my favorite band to counter my argument, I should point out that they are not giants, they only might be.)

3 - Milwaukee Brewers

I actually don't have anything personal against the team. However, this year is a now-or-never year for them. They have several key players who will be free agents at the end of the season, so if it looks like they won't make the postseason, they are going into selling mode. Players they might be willing to trade to my Rangers: first baseman Prince Fielder, pitcher Zack Greinke, pitcher Shaun Marcum, and possibly pitcher Yovanni Gallardo. I also wouldn't mind it if the Florida Marlins floundered for similar reasons, as they have the wonderful pitching duo of Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #1

2011-03-06T22:19:00.000-08:00

Best

Baseball (1994)

Ken Burns’ loving yet epic documentary tells the story of baseball through the twentieth century. It chronicles the sport from its humble beginnings all the way to the mega-franchises of today, with numerous highs and lows along the way. There is plenty of talk about Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb, but it also examines the way baseball existed outside the major leagues, with plenty of time devoted to the Negro leagues. And when scandal strikes baseball, there is no angry finger pointing or blanket pardons for the guilty parties. Instead, the scandals are treated fairly and the predominant tone is one of sorrow that they marred the face of baseball and hope that we have learned from these mistakes so they will not happen again. The men and women interviewed in the film range from former players to sports writers to broadcasters to fans of the game. I would call this a love letter to baseball, except that description falls far too short of the amazing accomplishment that Baseball is. All 19 hours of it.

Worst

New Moon (2009)

I thought that this would at least be an improvement over Twilight. After all, they replaced the original director with the director of the snappy About a Boy so at least the plodding pace would be sped up. No such luck. The incessant pausing in mid-sentence by every single main character was amplified. We also get what pretends to be a love triangle for Bella whose talent for being vapid reaches new heights. I kept waiting for something to happen. And waiting. And waiting. And then there was a glimmer of what might be mistaken for some rising action and I thought, “Now we must be getting to the explosive climax.” But instead of something happening the credits just rolled. The climax was so uninteresting that I completely missed it and I had to think back and figure out what it was supposed to be. At least the first one had a poorly-staged action piece for a climax, but the only suspense in New Moon came from waiting to see if anyone could get through a complete sentence without a giant pause.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #2

2011-03-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

Best

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Toy Story 2 is one of my favorite films of all time. As in top 20. Maybe top 10. So Toy Story 3 had a lot to live up to. While not quite as good as its predecessor, Toy Story 3 is still quite good. The wizards at Pixar deftly juggled Toy Story's huge cast of characters as well as half a dozen new ones. The story delves into themes just touched on in Toy Story 2, dealing with what happens to toys when their owner outgrows them. There are thrilling chases, plenty of laughs, and an exquisitely orchestrated "prison break." And while the action climax may fall short of previous Pixar efforts, the final scene packs such an emotional wallop that any faults the film may have are instantly forgotten.

Worst

Twilight (2008)

Fortunately I watched this with protection,* otherwise I probably would have done irreparable damage to either my eyes or the TV, or both. Bella is a completely uninteresting character, and why she shuns all the high school boys, who generally come across as a fun and interesting group, to instead fawn over the creepy-looking Edward who has no social skills and who apparently has never seen a comb in 200 years of existence, is never adequately explained. She should be calling the cops, not foisting her presence on him at every possible moment. AND WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE VAMPIRES SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT!? The inane story, flat performances, and erratic camera work combine to form one of the most inexplicable phenomena of the last few years.

*Commentary track from Rifftrax featuring Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett.

Coming up next: the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Any ideas as to which ones they will be?

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #3

2011-02-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

Best

Inception (2010)

I don't know how he keeps doing it, but Christopher Nolan has hit it out of the park again. This is essentially a con man/heist movie, but it masquerades so well as a trippy mind game movie that the audience is willingly taken in. There is eye candy galore, thrilling action sequences, and a wonderfully executed zero-g hallway battle.

Worst

Eclipse (2010)

There actually are enough elements here to make a good movie: a reluctant alliance between a group of sparkly leech men and a tribe of shape shifters, an evil leech man raising an army of fellow leech men, and two-thirds of a love triangle that are forced to work together to protect the woman they love. Unfortunately all the potential is squandered. Characters’ motivations are unclear, the dialog is clunky, new plot developments are not sufficiently set up, and everyone (except the breath of fresh air Anna Kendrick) suffers from giant pause-itis. Apparently Bella is really important for some reason or another, but the director, the screenwriter, and actress Kristen Stewart never show us why. Things might make more sense if I read the book, but a movie should never rely on the book to make its sense for it.

Coming up next: the beginning and the end.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #4

2011-02-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

Best

Gojira (1954)

This movie is much better sans dubbing and Raymond Burr. Godzilla is downright scary, partly due the to the fact that we don’t actually see him until half way through the film. His immense size and incredible strength make him a virtually indestructible killing machine, and that is before he unleashes his radioactive breath. The scenes showing the aftermath of his destruction are shocking and grim, on par with the best war movies. There is a love story that is little more than filler and the means of Godzilla’s demise are classic B-movie silly science, but when it comes to pure terrifying destruction, Godzilla can’t be beat.

Worst

2012 (2009)

I went into this movie ready to nurture some deep hate towards this movie (after all, my opinions of Roland Emmerich’s other “masterpieces,” The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 B.C. are well documented here) and right off the bat the movie delivered. I was treated to a series of disjointed scenes that are supposed to give the audience a sense of dread, but instead left me silently screaming at the screen, “Just get on with it!” The worst scenes involve respected scientists telling high ranking officials that something really bad is about to happen, but the screenwriters go so far out of their way to keep the really bad something a secret that it all ends up being awkward and forced. Then, fifteen minutes into the movie, we are finally introduced to our main character, played by John Cusack. After it is firmly established (and then some) that he is a bad father and estranged from his kids, he learns that the world is going to end, but that there is a secret government conspiracy that is planning to keep humanity alive. Then we get far too many contrived scenes of driving really fast while being chased by a crack opening up in the earth. Then, once Emmerich decides that driving away from a crack in the ground isn’t good enough, they graduate to a plane and have daring escapes flying through toppling buildings while the earth disintegrates. (Though, correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t airplanes go up? So shouldn’t they have been able to just fly over the tops of the crumbling buildings without a care in the world?) Then it just happens that John Cusack is a chauffeur for a rich guy who has a “get out of the end of the world free” card, so Cusack & Co. join up with him and they get in an even bigger plane and fly through an even bigger crack in the ground. Interspersed throughout all this thrilling stuff are scenes of characters around the world who pop in and out of the movie at random, and I think we are supposed to care about them, but since Emmerich does not invest anything in these characters, neither does the audience. Even when the characters die horribly, the scenes are far more likely to induce yawns than tears. After countless scenes of improbable coincidences and contrived tension (due mostly to the scientists saying, “Oops, we miscalculated, and the world will end tomorrow instead of a week from now; actually, cancel that, the end of the world is six hours away; no, wait, it’s more like thirty minutes”), Cusack & Co. finally make it aboard a giant ark that is designed to weather the storm and save humanity (after all the expendable characters are killed off, of course). And did I mention the politicians who are demonized merely for being pragmatic? Ultimately, 2012 wishes it was Deep Impact with a heavy dose of The Day After Tomorrow, sprinkled with a spoonful of Titanic, but The Day After Tomorrow is the only movie it managed to not be vastly inferior to.

Coming up next: the biggest fanboy and fangirl movies of 2010.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #5

2011-02-25T17:21:00.000-08:00

Best

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

I saw the trailers (and teaser spots during the Olympics) and nothing really grabbed me. "This is just another in the long line of lackluster Dreamworks ilk," I thought. But then everyone started raving about this movie and I felt that I had to see it. I have rarely been so happy to be wrong. The film is full of engaging characters (especially the main character Hiccup, who has a wonderfully dry humor) and the humor doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator. The story went in some unexpected places and the resolution was completely satisfying. The main dragon is immediately endearing and the scenes of flying are thrilling. The only real complaint I have with the movie is that so much time is spent at the beginning talking about how Vikings kill dragons because dragons kill Vikings, they should have driven that point home with an actual onscreen death.

Worst

The Happening (2008)

The movie starts out promising as the people of New York City start killing themselves in the quickest, most efficient ways possible. The scene is creepy and even a little funny in a morbid sort of way. But things quickly go downhill. We are introduced to a science teacher played by Mark Wahlberg who is going through some sort of marital problems with his wife played by Zooey Deschanel. The screenplay never really explores what is wrong with their marriage, and neither character is particularly interesting, which gives the audience absolutely no reason to care. But our intrepid couple do not have much time to dwell on their issues, because whatever caused the New Yorkers to start killing themselves is rapidly spreading across the east coast. Whatever it is appears to be airborne, so they find themselves running away from the wind. That’s right, The Wind. Scary. The group of people Marky Mark escapes with depletes faster than the cast of a Roland Emmerich film and soon just the hapless couple and the girl they are babysitting are the only ones left. And then a completely different movie starts as they find themselves at an isolated farmhouse inhabited by a crazy lady (who of course just happens to be a religious conservative). No character does anything interesting and every new turn the plot takes is more ridiculous than the last. I usually try to be very sensitive about spoilers, but at times the big twist or explanation at the end is so absurd, so laughable, so idiotic that I feel like I am doing my audience a favor by spoiling it. This is one of those instances. The thing causing all this mayhem and death is not some sort of biological weapon. It is not a terrorist attack. No, it is plants, conspiring against humanity to release deadly toxins that are only harmful to humans. The more I try to wrap my head around this explanation, the more ludicrous it becomes. See? I told you I was doing you a favor.

Coming up next: two movies featuring heavy doses of large-scale destruction.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #6

2011-02-22T13:32:00.000-08:00

Best

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

The visuals are stunning (what else would you expect from Terry Gilliam?) and Christopher Plummer puts in a heart-tugging performance as Doctor Parnassus, the world-weary leader of a four-person traveling sideshow. While the rules of the world don't always make sense, it is a feast for the eyes that is well worth it. (Insert obligatory comment about this being Heath Ledger's final performance here.)

Worst

Ultraviolet (2006)

This movie is an absolute mess. It strings one violent action scene after another, held loosely together by something masquerading as a plot involving vampires, a golden child that may save the world, evil government, and some kind of a cure for something or other. The whole thing is rather hazy since most of the plot made absolutely no sense to go along with zero character development. This is a very disappointing followup for director Kurt Wimmer after the underrated Equilibrium.

Coming up next: two groups of people who are struggling to survive against natural elements that are trying to destroy them en masse.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #7

2011-02-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

Best

Wonder Man (1945)

Danny Kaye gets to play two roles: a slick nightclub entertainer and his bumbling bookworm twin brother. Both are very funny and they each get a couple fun musical numbers, giving Kaye the opportunity to play both suave and neurotic to the hilt (both of which he does excellently). Wonder Man stands proudly beside The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Court Jester as one of Kaye’s most entertaining roles.

Worst

Cutthroat Island (1995)

Geena Davis is woefully miscast in this mess. She is far too quiet and mousy to be believable as a bloodthirsty pirate queen and looks embarrassingly out of place every time she tries to fight. None of the characters are interesting or likeable in any way, and all attempts at humor fall flat. Half the dialog consists solely of grunts and cries. And then there are the action sequences which have so little regard for the laws of physics (almost every cannonball explodes in a giant fireball) that they lose any semblance of credibility.

Coming up next: two movies that transport the audience into a uniquely visual world.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #8

2011-02-16T22:41:00.000-08:00

Best

The Blind Side (2009)

Sandra Bullock is a force of nature as a WASPy wife and mother who takes an African American high schooler into her home, almost on a whim, because he had no other place to stay. What follows is a wonderful movie about unconditional love and how it can change the lives of not only the recipient but the giver as well. This is one of the best examples of feel-good cinema done right.

Worst

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

The Alien franchise is full of scares, a sense of dread, and lots of R-rated violence. The lesser Predator franchise is full of new and interesting weapons that do lots of R-rated violence. Alien vs. Predator is full of uninteresting characters, silly ideas, and a distinct lack of R-rated violence. What's so important about the R-rated violence? It's an in-your-face demonstration of how powerful and dangerous the Aliens and Predators are. Tame the violence, tame the monster. And then there is an imprisoned Alien queen and a Predator that has to get assistance from a human, both of which further serve to defang the monsters. And what's with all these Aliens being on earth to begin with? One of the major issues of all four Alien films is "We can't let this thing get to earth. Ever." But apparently they were here all along. Yet all the damage this movie does to its parent franchises could be overlooked if it was any good. Unfortunately, that is not the case. There are no memorable characters, and they spend most of their time running around a pyramid so full of perils and booby traps that it never achieves even a modicum of believability. And what’s with the pyramid? Apparently, thousands of years ago the Predators came to earth and taught ancient civilizations how to build pyramids because there is no way humans could have figured out how to build something as massive as the pyramids with stone age technology. What a dim view of human ingenuity.

Coming up next: a slick movie and an obnoxious one.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #9

2011-02-15T02:11:00.000-08:00

Best

Play Time (1967)

There is no real story to speak of here, merely a series of extended comedic set-pieces enacted almost entirely through the visuals. Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot wanders though a sterile, state-of-the-art office building, then through the streets and shops of Paris, and ends up at the grand opening of a restaurant where almost everything goes wrong. There are some wonderful gags sprinkled throughout the film: an elderly doorman confounded by an ultra-modern button panel that is a complete mystery to him, a head waiter and his misadventures with an unglued floor tile, a poor waiter whose uniform gets more and more disheveled as the evening wears on, and a plate glass door that isn’t there anymore. The pace of the film is almost maddeningly slow, leaving the audience to seek out the comedy instead of having it spoon-fed to them.

Worst

The Wicker Man (2006)

Nicholas Cage wears a bear suit, punches women, and screams ridiculous lines in this remake that fails in just about every aspect that the original succeeded. Where the original is creepy, this one is boring. Where the original is suspenseful, this one is silly. And while the original has an interesting religious discussion, this one creates an unnecessary back story for Cage’s character that only serves to confuse matters. To fully experience how special this movie is, I direct you to this video.

Coming up next: two unlikely matches.

Top and Bottom of 2010 - #10

2011-02-13T01:43:00.000-08:00

Here we go with the 10 best and worst movies I've seen all last year. Any guesses as to which films come in at number one?

Best

The Hurt Locker (2008)

This is a truly intense tale of three soldiers whose job is to defuse roadside bombs in Iraq. Jeremy Renner is riveting as Sergeant First Class William James, the man who actually does most of the dirty work. His unorthodox methods and casual attitude put him at odds with his more by-the-book compatriots, especially when it becomes apparent that he has become addicted to the adrenaline rush of defusing bombs. As the end of their deployment inches closer and closer, the audience holds its breath, hoping against hope that they will manage to survive each new day. Director Kathryn Bigelow keeps the tension level high throughout the film, deftly conducting the disarming of each new bomb so that each one is unique and has its own brand of terror.

Worst

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Having seen all seven seasons of the television show, I was interested to see "the one that started it all" (sort of). I went in knowing that it would be a far cry from the television show, but even knowing that I was still let down. The comedy fell flat, the drama was unengaging, the villain was yawn-inducing, and to top it all off, Kristy Swanson was completely unconvincing as any kind of superhero, giving me absolutely no reason to care about her as a person.

Coming up next: Two men who find themselves completely out of place.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XXV

2011-02-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

Eclipse (2010)

This is the best of the Twilight movies so far, but that is like saying bleach is the tastiest household cleaner. There actually are enough elements here to make a good movie including a reluctant alliance between two factions that are historically at war with each other. Unfortunately all the potential is squandered. Characters’ motivations are unclear, the dialog is clunky, and everyone (except the breath of fresh air Anna Kendrick) still suffers from giant pause-itis. Apparently Bella is really important for some reason or another, but the director, the screenwriter, and actress Kristen Stewart still have yet to show us why.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

I had no idea what to expect with this movie. The book is extremely episodic, which makes it very difficult to translate to the screen and as a result this is definitely the weakest of the Narnia films so far. The added characters did little more than get in the way, the story often felt rushed, and the inclusion of a quest to find a bunch of swords made me feel like I was watching a video game. There were also times when the screenwriters opted to write their own dialog when Lewis’s original words would have worked just as well or better (and never once did the Dufflepuds exclaim “Keep it up, Chief!”). But there is still a lot to like in this movie. The production design looks great, Will Poulter (of Son of Rambow fame) is perfect as Eustace, and the newer take on Repicheep as a pint-sized Cyrano de Bergerac is well done. The best part of the movie is watching the relationship between Eustace and Repicheep grow from bitter antagonists to best friends. And almost all faults were forgiven when Aslan uttered one of my favorite lines from the books at the end.

Baseball (1994)

Ken Burns’ loving yet epic documentary tells the story of baseball through the twentieth century. It chronicles baseball’s humble beginnings all the way to the mega-franchises of today, with numerous highs and lows along the way. There is plenty of talk about Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb, but there is also plenty of time devoted to the Negro leagues and to the way baseball existed outside the major leagues. I would call this a love letter to baseball, except that description falls far too short of the amazing accomplishment that Baseball is. All 19 hours of it.

Baseball: The Tenth Inning (2010)

A lot has happened in the baseball world since 1994, so Ken Burns decided to make a sequel to his epic documentary. This time it was a little different for me since I started following baseball in 1993, so I lived through everything the film chronicles. All the important things are here: Roger Maris’ record falling to Mark McGwire whose record in turn fell to Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron’s record falling to Bonds, Cal Ripken Jr. outlasting Lou Gehrig, and the Red Sox finally winning the World Series (twice). But the largest chunk is devoted to the steroids scandal. What could have been a very angry and vindictive treatment was instead sorrowful and introspective, trying to understand why and how it happened instead of pointing fingers. There were a few things that I wish they had included (most notably Ricky Henderson, Ivan Rodriguez, and fantasy baseball) but overall it is a nice followup to a great film. The only true misstep comes at the beginning when it chronicles the despair of Giants fans who root for a team that has never won a World Series, made obsolete since I just watched the Giants beat my Rangers in the World Series just two months prior.

A Cry in the Dark (1988)

This is the heartbreaking tale of a family which is forced to deal with a personal tragedy under intense media scrutiny. It is also a scathing indictment of how the media can quickly turn heroes into villains almost on a whim and can take a simple story and blow it completely out of proportion.

Being There (1979)

Peter Sellers is charming as a simple-minded gardener who becomes a national voice of wisdom through a series of misadventures. The film is quiet fun with the only drawback being a scene where a character masturbates that is supposed to be played for laughs but is completely out of place with the rest of the movie.

Coming up next: my top and bottom 10 lists from last year kick off.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XXIV

2011-02-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

Renaissance (2006)

The stark black and white imagery was interesting for the first ten minutes, but as the movie wore on I found myself longing for some shades of gray to add depth and flavor to the world. The story was interesting enough to hold my attention but I can only recommend this film to people who are looking for alternate, more adult animated fare.

White Zombie (1932)

This movie had the misfortune to come out in the early talkie years. As a result the dialog is wretched and the sound quality is uneven. There is plenty of interesting atmosphere here, but the film would have been better had it either been a silent film or waited a few years and been produced by Val Lewton. It has an interesting take on zombies, and Bela Lugosi is creepy as always, but the overall effect is still more silly than scary.

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis are electric as the titular duo. And while I can’t condone all of their behavior, I couldn’t take my eyes off them. And once again Brad Pitt proves that he is at his best in off-kilter supporting roles.

Inglorious Basterds (2009)

I never find Quentin Tarantino’s films to be boring yet I rarely find them entertaining. Though they are all high energy thrill rides they almost always leave me feeling cold. This film is no exception. While I can admire the craft that went into making the movie, Tarantino fills the film with so many unlikable characters that I never feel good about rooting for any of them.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

This film has plenty of laughs, a couple good musical numbers, and lots of entertainment in between. There’s not much to distinguish it from the other Technicolor musicals of its day but there’s plenty of fun to be had.

Coming up next: the final six.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XXIII

2011-01-31T11:59:00.000-08:00

The Hurt Locker (2008)

This is a truly intense tale of three soldiers whose job is to defuse roadside bombs in Iraq. Director Kathryn Bigelow deftly conducts the disarming of each new bomb so that each one has its own brand of terror.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

I really enjoyed this unconventional romantic comedy and I really wish more romantic comedies would end like this one as it would make them much more believable.

Point Break (1991)

Since I really enjoyed The Hurt Locker, I was interested in checking out some of the other films in the Kathryn Bigelow canon. Unfortunately, this one was a major disappointment. It starts out interestingly enough with police officer Keanu Reeves going undercover to solve a series of bank robberies, but it meanders too long in the second act with endless scenes of surfing and I hated the ending. Even though he was extremely charismatic, I disagreed with almost everything beach bum Patrick Swayze had to say; if everyone lived by his philosophy, nothing would ever get done.

Red (2010)

Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren look really cool and blow lots of stuff up. Really, what more needs to be said about this popcorn piece?

Timecrimes (2007)

The trailer had me intrigued and I’m always interested in low-budget science fiction. However, the time travel elements did not work for me with effects constantly causing the causes and the main character is almost completely unsympathetic.

Coming up next: the penultimate movie odyssey post for 2010.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XXII

2011-01-30T01:32:00.000-08:00

The Running Man (1987)

Arnold Schwarzenegger beats up a bunch of silly bad guys, spouts a series of one-liners, and is generally very manly as he runs around. There’s also some sort of futuristic game show involved as well.

Despicable Me (2010)

This is a cute movie that, while it only made me laugh out loud a couple times, had me smiling through most of it, and never had me smacking my forehead. It is mostly enjoyable but largely forgettable outside of the thousands of little yellow minions who always manage to get themselves in trouble.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

This is a movie that exists solely to show epic video game style fight sequences. The story that strings them together is rather inconsequential and none of the characters are particularly compelling or likeable, but the visual energy makes for an enjoyable, if shallow, ride.

The Good German (2006)

While I can appreciate director Steven Soderbergh’s attempt to evoke the films of the 40s (and George Clooney looks great in black and white), the whole thing felt too much like a deconstructionist version of Casablanca for me to truly embrace it (and Tobey Maguire looked completely out of place in black and white).

Alice (2009)

This new take on Alice in wonderland is more flat than wonderful.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XXI

2011-01-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

A Town Called Panic (2009)

This is a movie that is very difficult to describe. It is a stop-motion animated film with cheap plastic toys as the main characters. Cowboy, Indian, and Horse are roommates. Horse's birthday is tomorrow and Cowboy and Indian are bound and determined to get him the perfect gift. What follows is a madcap romp featuring a mountain of bricks, fishmen, a tunnel to the center of the earth, and a gigantic robotic penguin. The film was endearing as I watched it, yet became more and more awesome the more I thought about it afterwards.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

While the 1959 film is the definitive version of the story, there is still plenty of good stuff here in the silent one. There is some early Technicolor for film history buffs, a thrilling sea battle, and a heart wrenching scene where Ben-Hur's mother, diseased with leprosy, comes across the sleeping form of her son. Unable to touch him because she is unclean, she tearfully hugs and caresses his shadow, the only part of him she can touch.

The Last Airbender (2010)

This is a gorgeous movie. The production design is amazing, the effects are stellar, and the action sequences are thrilling and inventive (and some of the best depictions of using magic I have seen on screen). And then there is the script. It is a mess. It jumps all over the place, full of clunky dialog and free of interesting characters. Most of the exposition is presented in painful speeches although most of the time there is never any clear reason why anyone is doing anything. This film should get Oscar nominations for art direction and visual effects, and a Razzie nomination for worst screenplay.

Knight and Day (2010)

Tom Cruise was fun and Cameron Diaz was cute, but the body count was far too high for me to really get behind these two characters. (And it also didn’t help that the maguffin in the movie looks an awful lot like the atomic battery I used in a student film ten years ago.)

Never Too Young to Die (1986)

This is epic 80s cheese. It has cliched power ballads over the opening and closing credits, over the top villains, laughable dialog, absurd action sequences, and stars John Stamos as a gymnast. And yet, the worse it gets, the more fun it is to watch.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XX

2011-01-24T12:23:00.000-08:00

TMNT (2007)

While I appreciate the attempt to do something interesting with the characters, and Mako as the voice of Splinter was inspired, the whole thing came off more silly than awesome. I'd really like to see a darker, grittier reboot of the Turtles movies along the lines of Batman Begins.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Robin Hood (2010)

There were some fun action sequences and I suppose I appreciate Ridley Scott's attempt to put the Robin Hood stories into a more realistic setting, but they spent so much time trying to put Robin Hood into a historical framework that the Robin Hood of myth and legend all but disappeared.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

I saw the trailers (and teaser spots during the Olympics) and nothing really grabbed me. "This is just another in the long line of lackluster Dreamworks ilk," I thought. But then everyone started raving about this movie and I felt that I had to see it. I have rarely been so happy to be wrong. The film is full of engaging characters and the humor doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator. The story went in some unexpected places and the resolution was completely satisfying. The only real complaint I have with the movie is that so much time is spent at the beginning talking about how Vikings kill dragons because dragons kill Vikings, it would have been nice to drive that point home by actually showing an onscreen death of a Viking or a dragon.

Inception (2010)

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XIX

2011-01-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

The Family Man (2000)

It’s supposed to be It’s a Wonderful Life for the new millennium, but I found some of the characters difficult to swallow and I thought it downright cruel to send Nicholas Cage to an alternate reality for so long only to yank him back once he got comfortable.

High School Musical (2006)

There are some catchy tunes and a couple bits of inventive choreography that make for a pretty good made-for-TV musical.

Cutthroat Island (1995)

Geena Davis is woefully miscast in this mess. She is far too quiet and mousy to be believable as a bloodthirsty pirate queen. None of the characters are interesting or likeable in any way, and all attempts at humor fall flat. And then there are the action sequences which have so little regard for the laws of physics that they lose any semblance of credibility.

Gojira (1954)

Julie & Julia (2009)

This is a light, mostly entertaining piece starring the always radiant Amy Adams as a woman who has taken it upon herself to cook everything in Julia Child's cookbook. This story is intercut with the story of Meryl Streep as Julia Child, on her journey to becoming Julia Child. It took me a while to get used to Julia Child's unorthodox voice, but overall it was a pleasant movie. Warning: Do not watch this film on an empty stomach. I was very hungry by the time it ended.

Coming up next: three of the most critically acclaimed movies of last year.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XVIII

2011-01-20T23:17:00.000-08:00

Blood Diamond (2006)

I wanted to like this movie but I just could not get into it. Leonardo DiCaprio was unconvincing as a gritty smuggler and his African accent was inconsistent and never believable. The plot was predictable the whole way though and the film was too full of itself to be entertaining.

Shutter Island (2010)

Why does Leonardo DiCaprio insist on playing gritty characters? His face is too boyish and his voice too high pitched to be convincing. He was perfect for Catch Me if You Can; why doesn’t he do more light-hearted fare? The film was still mostly entertaining, though I figured out what was really going on pretty quickly.

Mimic (1997)

This is little more than a standard monster-kills-everyone-off-one-by-one movie, though the monsters are pretty inventive and creepy.

From Russia with Love (1963)

Dr. No is the first official James Bond movie, but this is the first one to feature all the tropes we’ve come to expect of 007: globe-trotting, secret villainous societies, and cool gadgets. It’s fun, but there’s little that makes it stand out from the rest of the Bond films (which all run together for me).

Scream (1996)

Maybe I would have appreciated it more if I had seen more of the classic slasher movies. As it is, I never really got into this affectionate send-up of the slasher genre.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XVII

2011-01-14T22:10:00.000-08:00

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

The Alien franchise is full of scares, a sense of dread, and lots of R-rated violence. The lesser Predator franchise is full of new and interesting weapons that do lots of R-rated violence. Alien vs. Predator is full of uninteresting characters, silly ideas, and a distinct lack of R-rated violence. What's so important about the R-rated violence? It's an in-your-face demonstration of how powerful and dangerous the Aliens and Predators are. Tame the violence, tame the monster. And then there is an imprisoned Alien queen and a Predator that has to get assistance from a human that further serve to defang the monsters. And what's with all these Aliens being on earth to begin with? One of the major issues of all four Alien films is "We can't let this thing get to earth. Ever." But apparently they were here all along. Yet all the damage this movie does to its parent franchises could be overlooked if it was any good. Unfortunately, the characters are little more than cardboard cutouts, spending most of their time running around a pyramid so full of perils and booby traps that it never achieves even a modicum of believability. And what’s with the pyramid? Apparently, thousands of years ago the Predators came to earth and taught ancient civilizations how to build pyramids because there is no way humans could have figured out how to build something as massive as the pyramids with stone age technology. What a dim view of human ingenuity.

Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

Dreamworks is getting better. This film is quite entertaining, features amusing characters and some interesting locations, and never really devolves into the strings of references that plague earlier Dreamworks efforts. There isn't a whole lot that's truly memorable in the film but it is quite fun while it lasts.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

While it lacks some of the heart from the first one, Iron Man 2 is still a rip-roaring ride with lots of cool visuals and a still electric Robert Downey Jr. in the title role.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982)

The Tim Burton film, while beautiful, is grim, grim, grim. This filmed stage production starring Angela Lansbury is far more entertaining. It is still grim, but the grimness is balanced out by a heavy dose of dark humor. Seeing the stage production made me understand why someone would want to make a movie out of it.

For Your Consideration (2006)

This indictment of Hollywood’s tendency to do almost anything for an award would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Coming up next: a Leonardo DiCaprio double feature.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XVI

2011-01-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well, with the combination of the holidays, spending time with family, and going to my grandfather's funeral, I lost all the momentum I had built up. I still have about ten more movie odyssey entries to post (half of which still need to be written). Oh well. No rest for the procrastinator.

Grizzly Man (2005)

This documentary tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, a man who decided to spend much of his time living in the wild alongside bears, foxes, and other critters. What starts out as a portrait of an interesting character who has dedicated his life to studying these animals quickly becomes a look at a man who is losing his touch with reality, wilfully forgetting that bears are dangerous wild animals. He seems to care more for the bears than the people in his life, and every time he says “I love you” to one of the animals, it is downright unsettling.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Is it as good as the first two X-Men movies? No. Does it bring new insight to the character of Wolverine? Hardly. Does it have some good action sequences? Absolutely! The film is mostly mindless fun and an enjoyable way to spend 100 minutes. Just don’t go in with high expectations.

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Weird gets piled on top of more weird and is then blanketed with a layer of surreal in this film from Charlie Kaufman. There are some engaging set pieces and ends with some interesting thoughts on life. The main problem is with the first half of the movie. It bites off more than it can chew, trying to tell too much story in too little time. The story jumps around and I was never really aware of how much time supposedly had passed and I had difficulty keeping track of the main character’s relationships to different characters as they popped in and out of his life. The second half has lots of wonderful strangeness, but the first half is a chore to get through, almost ruining the whole movie.

Hamlet (2009)

This is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed a version of Hamlet. David Tennant breathes life into the title character instead of merely spouting off words that sound good (as too many actors doing Shakespeare are wont to do). His madness scenes were fun and yet I found myself actually listening to him during his many soliloquies instead of reaching for the fast forward button. Of course Patrick Stewart is wonderful as Claudius (after all, he’s great in everything he touches) but the real gem here is Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius who plays the character as a lovably senile old man who caused me to laugh in almost every scene he was in.

The Happening (2008)

The movie starts out promising as the people of New York City start killing themselves in the quickest, most efficient ways possible. The scene is creepy and even a little funny in a morbid sort of way. But things quickly go downhill. We are introduced to a science teacher played by Mark Wahlberg who is going through some sort of marital problems with his wife played by Zooey Deschanel. The screenplay skirts around their problems so much that we never really know what is wrong with their marriage, and both characters are so uninteresting that by the time we do get some sort of explanation we just don’t care. But our intrepid couple do not have much time to dwell on their issues, because whatever caused the New Yorkers to start killing themselves is spreading across the east coast, quickly making its way to where they are. Whatever it is appears to be airborne, so they find themselves running away from the wind. That’s right, The Wind. Scary. The group of people Marky Mark escapes with depletes faster than the cast of a Roland Emmerich film and soon the hapless couple and the girl they are babysitting are the only ones left. And then a completely different movie starts as they find themselves at an isolated farmhouse inhabited by a crazy lady. None of the characters are interesting and every new turn the plot takes is more ridiculous than the last. I usually try to be very sensitive about spoilers, but at times the big twist or explanation at the end is so absurd, so laughable, so idiotic that I feel like I am doing my audience a favor by spoiling it. This is one of those instances, for the thing causing all this mayhem and death is not some sort of biological weapon or terrorist attack that several characters theorize, but plants conspiring against humanity to release deadly toxins that are only harmful to humans. The more I try to wrap my head around this explanation, the more ludicrous it becomes. See? I told you I was doing you a favor.

Coming up next: a couple versus movies.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XV

2010-12-19T00:57:00.000-08:00

How the West Was Won (1962)

This may be the most epic western ever made. The Cinerama process (an ultra-widescreen format) captures the American west in all its grandeur. The problem is that the movie gets too big for its britches. Much like Giant and Cavalcade, How the West Was Won tries to tell too much story in its (already considerably lengthy) running time. Characters came and went throughout the film and I was never always sure who was who and what their relationships to each other were. It was more like a series of short films strung together than one cohesive narrative.

The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

There is no story here, just a series of parody sketches from the guys who later made Airplane! It is very funny though also very R-rated, but feels more like watching an episode of Saturday Night Live than an actual movie.

American Psycho (2000)

This film is too grim and dark for my liking and, aside from a scene in which our antihero and his colleagues compare business cards, not very funny for being a satire.

Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)

Having seen some of the new episodes of Doctor Who, I was curious to check out some of the classic Doctor Who stuff. And then I saw this movie was available on hulu. And it starred Peter Cushing as the Doctor. So I watched it. First of all, it is not a part of the Doctor Who canon but a spinoff movie made for American audiences with some of the major bits of Doctor Who mythology altered in order to make it more accessible. It is a rather hokey movie with very dated production design, though consistent with the little bit of classic Doctor Who that I have seen. There is little to recommend here, even to fans of Doctor Who or Peter Cushing.

Moon (2009)

This is an intriguing tale of a man working all alone on a remote lunar mining facility. While the film has a slow pace it covers some interesting narrative territory. (Or it would have had I not worked on a student film about ten years ago that basically had the same basic plot twist to it.)

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XIV

2010-12-14T23:34:00.000-08:00

Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

The movie started out interesting as a very patriotic American begins to question his faith in his country, but as the movie progressed and got more and more pessimistic and more and more ugly, I got less and less interested in the character and the message he was preaching.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)

I find it interesting that this light-hearted movie aimed at kids and young adults that takes place in the modern world seems to have more affection for the mythological stories and characters it contains than the major studio release that actually told one of the major mythological stories.

Idiocracy (2006)

What starts out as a brilliant commentary on where a society raised on entertainment that caters to the lowest common denominator and shuns intellectualism can end up quickly becomes a one-note comedy with the same handful of jokes being repeated on an endless loop. It could have made an excellent short film, but stretched out to feature length it starts to become the very thing it is mocking.

The International (2009)

There is a thrilling action set-piece in the Guggenheim Museum that is the highlight of the film. The rest of the movie, however, is pretty run-of-the-mill international espionage stuff.

Puss in Boots (1988)

I have vague memories of watching a version of Puss in Boots as a kid, a version which I have been interested in revisiting. I was hoping this was it. It wasn’t. It was, however, a harmless children’s movie that featured the always entertaining Christopher Walken in the title role.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XIII

2010-12-13T01:34:00.000-08:00

The Bad Seed (1956)

The pretty little girl with no moral compass was very creepy. What is more frightening is that children like her can actually exist.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

Alright, I admit it. I only watched this movie because it has Amy Adams in it. This was a fun, quirky little comedy that suffered from feeling a little too much like Little Miss Sunshine 2.0 but was otherwise enjoyable throughout.

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)

The dramatizations of three of the Grimm fairy tales are quite magical but the surrounding story of the two brothers trying to write a duke’s family history is overlong and dull.

To Have and Have Not (1944)

The movie feels a little too much of a remake of/sequel to Casablanca, but Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall sizzle on screen and Walter Brennan is fun as always, making for a very entertaining film. (And, really, if you’re going to rip off another movie, you might as well steal from one of the best.)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

I’m sorry, but a marriage between two extremely flaky people will never last and it wasn’t very funny either.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XII

2010-12-12T00:52:00.000-08:00

New Moon (2009)

I thought that this would at least be an improvement over Twilight. After all, they replaced the first director with the director of the snappy About a Boy so at least the plodding pace would be sped up. No such luck. The incessant pausing in mid-sentence by every single main character was amplified. We also get what pretends to be a love triangle for Bella whose talent for being vapid reaches new heights. I kept waiting for something to happen. And waiting. And waiting. And then there was a glimmer of what might be mistaken for some rising action and I thought, “Now we must be getting to the explosive climax.” But instead of something happening the credits just rolled. The climax was so uninteresting that I completely missed it and I had to think back and figure out what it was supposed to be. At least the first one had a poorly-staged action piece for a climax, but the only suspense in New Moon came from waiting to see if anyone could get through a complete sentence without a giant pause.

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

This is a cute story about two girls dealing with their mother’s illness. The find companionship in Totoro, the giant, mute forest spirit that is half bunny rabbit, half teddy bear, and 100% adorable. And there’s a giant cat that doubles as a school bus.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

I enjoy Greek mythology and thought the original movie was pretty good, so I was interested to see the new take on the Perseus myth (though I did make sure to go in with low expectations). There were some fun action scenes and some wild visuals (that still failed to measure up to the gorgeous stop-motion work by Ray Harryhausen in the original) and I walked away from the theater feeling more satisfied than not. But the more I thought about it afterward the less I though of it. The fatal flaw in the movie is the world view or lack thereof. The trailer (and the tagline “Damn the gods”) make it seem like a humanist piece where Perseus rejects the gods and does things his own way. But in the movie he accepts gifts from the gods and uses them to complete his quest. And yet the gods are painted in such an unsympathetic light that a reading of “the gods are powerful and make things work which makes them worthy of worship and obedience” doesn’t work very well either. It’s as if the filmmakers couldn’t decide which extreme they wanted to shoot for and waffled back and forth so much that they ended up in a wishy-washy middle that would be stupid if it managed to be adequately expressed. I might be getting too worked up about a silly popcorn movie about deities from a long dead religion, but is an internal consistency too much to ask for?

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

The movie starts out fairly interesting with a story about an aspiring actress trying to make her way in Hollywood. But three quarters of the way through the film director David Lynch pulls the rug out from under the audience and takes the film in a completely new direction. The audience is supposed to be asking questions like: was it all a dream?, which part was the dream?, and how does my perception of the first three quarters of the film change in light of the final quarter? Me? I was busy thinking unhappy thoughts at the movie while I rubbed my bruised coccyx.

Perfect Blue (1998)

This anime film has some striking visuals but gets really weird and dark in places.

Coming up next: five more movies that don't have enough in common for me to come up with a clever teaser.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part XI

2010-12-09T04:13:00.000-08:00

The Kid from Brooklyn (1946)

Danny Kaye stars in this mediocre remake of The Milky Way (1936), a Harold Lloyd talkie. Even Danny Kaye is unable to match Lloyd's wide-eyed innocence, and events that were charming in the original come across as forced in the remake.

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

This is the story of political intrigue, hidden treasure, and a princess in disguise told from the point of view of two nobodies who most of the time don’t even know what is going on. This highly entertaining piece from Akira Kurosawa was the primary influence for C-3PO and R2-D2 in Star Wars.

Libeled Lady (1936)

It’s William Powell and Myrna Loy on screen together in a fun comedy. What more do you need to know? See it.

Dark Star (1974)

This low budget science fiction comedy is slow and dull at times but contains some fun sequences like an encounter with an alien which looks like a giant beach ball and a conversation with an armed bomb that feels straight out of Douglas Adams.

The Wolfman (2010)

While there are a couple good scary and gory scenes of the wolf doing terrible things to innocent people, the story is far from interesting and the filmmakers’ attempts to enhance the mythology come across as little more than silly padding.

Coming up next: some disappointing fare.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part X

2010-12-07T22:55:00.000-08:00

Repo Man (1984)

This movie can’t decide if it’s a coming of age story featuring lots of colorful characters or if it’s a movie about dangerous alien technology. Either one of those could be interesting but thrown together they end up being at odds with one another ultimately resulting in an interesting failure of a movie.

The Lovely Bones (2009)

What was so great about this story that it HAD to be a movie? Whatever it was did not come across on screen. Narrative threads disappear without warning, the afterlife in which the murdered main character finds herself makes very little sense, and it all leads up to an unsatisfying non-ending. Sure the visuals are pretty cool in the afterlife scenes and Stanley Tucci is pretty creepy as the murderer, but it still just adds up to a rather empty and bleak two hours.

The Blind Side (2009)

This is a wonderful movie about unconditional love and how it can change the lives of not only the recipient but also the giver as well.

Fantasyland (2010)

Every year a bunch of experts in fantasy baseball play against each other in a high profile league called Tout Wars. One year the question was asked, “How well would a regular guy do against all these so-called experts?” Enter Jed Latkin, a wide-eyed, enthusiastic fan of fantasy baseball. He starts out as David versus Goliath, but as the movie progresses he is so obsessed with winning that we soon start rooting for him to fail because he is so obnoxious. At one point he is more interested in swinging a trade than being with his wife while she is in labor. For people who are unfamiliar with fantasy baseball, it isn’t a very good primer on how the game works. On the other hand, for people like me who are avid fans of the game, there was a frustrating lack of information about how he managed his team (and we were never once treated to a look at his entire roster). It is worth checking out for people who are already fans of fantasy baseball, but for those who are more interested in learning about fantasy baseball, the 45 minute documentary “Silly Little Game” produced by ESPN is much more informative.

Gun Crazy (1950)

The noir-ish look to this film is why phrases such as "glorious black and white" exist. It is glorious to look at. Unfortunately, it is accompanied by a thinly-veiled cautionary tale of how a young man's life can be ruined by fast women and an obsession with guns.

Coming up next: a couple older comedies.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part IX

2010-12-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

The Wicker Man (2006)

Speed Racer (2008)

The races are fun, the sets are colorful, and the actors are attractive in this movie that is an enjoyable two hours that won’t stick with you.

Play Time (1967)

There is no real story to speak of here, merely a series of extended comedic set-pieces enacted almost entirely through the visuals. The highlight of the film is a sequence that depicts the opening of a restaurant in which almost everything goes wrong. There are some wonderful gags sprinkled throughout the film, from the doorman who is unable to do his job because he has to use an ultra-modern button panel that is a complete mystery to him, to a floor tile that has come unstuck so every time the head waiter walks passed that spot on the floor he actively avoids the tile. The pace of the film is almost maddeningly slow, leaving the audience to seek out the comedy instead of having it spoon-fed to them.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

On our way to see this movie, my friend asked me how I would do a dramatization of the Alice books. After giving it some thought my answer was that since the books are so episodic with very little overarching story and almost nothing carrying over from one scene to the next there were only two ways to really do it right. The first way would be to do a very faithful adaptation and take advantage of the episodic nature of the books and do it as a television show or web serial. The other way would be to take characters and situations from the book and put them into a brand new story that has a much more structured narrative. This movie uses the second tactic and is mostly successful. The Mad Hatter plays too large a role (it makes me wonder if Johnny Depp being cast in the role caused it to grow too big) and the Jabberwock is woefully underused, but the visuals are gorgeous, transporting the audience into a fascinating world of wonder.

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)

So this is my first foray into the real world of Bollywood and it was a mostly enjoyable experience. It features a cast of wonderfully colorful characters and has some fun musical numbers. On the other hand, at over three and a half hours long it occasionally gets tedious, especially during the climax of the film which revolves around a cricket game. Since this movie taught me pretty much all I know about cricket, I had a hard time really investing in the action of the game since I don’t know all the nuances of the sport, though I can speak with more authority when I say that cricket is indeed a stupid sport.

Coming up next: more catching up from 2009.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part VIII

2010-12-01T01:55:00.000-08:00

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Some of the elements in this film were quite interesting (the post-apocalyptic society created by Tina Turner as well as the Thunderdome itself) while others were far too farcical to be believed (the village of children and their prophesies). What results is a mixed bag in which the best elements are as good as what we saw in The Road Warrior (1981) while the worst ones are only good for Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

There are some amusing hijinks that occur as a group of actors try to put on a show during the depression. But the real reason to see the movie is the lavish musical numbers staged by Busby Berkeley.

Village of the Damned (1960)

This is a wonderfully creepy horror movie with a town that mysteriously falls asleep and loads of freaky children. It’s just too bad that the conclusions to these types of movies rarely measure up to their premises.

Nine (2009)

I went to see this film at the dollar theater. The film started with visions of South Africa. I quickly realized that they had put the wrong movie into the projector, and were actually showing Invictus instead. “That’s fine,” I said to myself. “I also wanted to see Invictus.” But after only about five minutes someone somewhere realized the mistake and changed the film to Nine. I probably would have been better off with Invictus. It’s not that there’s anything really wrong with the movie, it’s just that there was nothing in it that I liked. The characters were all selfish jerks, the look of the film was quite drab, and none of the musical numbers were interesting or memorable. Just about the only bright spot in the movie is Marion Cotillard as the long-suffering wife of Daniel Day-Lewis’ philandering movie director.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

To be honest, the trailer didn’t entice me. It looked like cheap animation combined with yet another gratuitous celebrity voice cast. But what I got was an immensely entertaining movie with interesting characters, humorous animation, and a jaunty score.

Coming up next: three remakes/reimaginings and two really long foreign films.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part VII

2010-11-27T13:52:00.000-08:00

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

There were some interesting visuals, but this Roger Corman pseudo-classic used way too many narrative cliches to catch my interest.

First Blood (1982)

Sylvester Stallone creates an interesting character in John Rambo. The movie was a lot smaller than I was expecting but still quite entertaining. When I watched the film I had just had my car towed and so it was easy for me to identify with this man who was being picked on by the police for no good reason.

Rififi (1955)

It starts kind of slow and ends rather grimly, but the real reason to watch this film is the heist sequence that takes up most of the second act, is mostly silent, and is very thrilling.

The Road (2009)

While this interesting, moody, post-apocalyptic film creates a wonderful atmosphere and gives us a couple interesting characters, it gets bogged down by its slow pace as I kept waiting for SOMETHING to happen.

The Merry Widow (1934)

Most of the musical numbers are unremarkable in this Ernst Lubitsch musical. The real reason to watch it is the wonderful repartee and hijinks the characters get themselves into. Of special note is Maurice Chevalier as the biggest playboy in the kingdom who is very funny and an obvious influence on Pepe Le Pew.

Coming up next: a couple musicals that are worlds apart.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part VI

2010-11-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

Hmm, it's Thanksgiving and I'm talking about two horror movies and one pseudo-horror film. And a revisionist western. I guess I really should have released these yesterday. Oh well, happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm thankful for hulu, Netflix, the Los Angeles County Public Library, and the dollar theater who have combined to make these entries possible.

Phantom of the Opera (1998)

Horror director Dario Argento takes the classic story and gives it the full-on horror treatment. While there were some interesting visuals, the whole thing comes across as silly and grotesque and not very scary, and the opening sequence is a complete ripoff of Batman Returns (1992).

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

This is a pretty good revisionist western, and while Clint Eastwood is not quite in top form, it is still quite entertaining.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

The Wicker Man (1973)

This is a bizarre little horror film that almost masquerades as a musical in the first half. Things start out unsettling and get progressively creepier as a policeman tries to track down the disappearance of a little girl on a remote island populated solely by unnerving cult members. This film is recommended for people who enjoy quirky horror films.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Having seen all seven seasons of the television show, I was interested to see "the one that started it all" (sort of). I went in knowing that it would be a far cry from the television show, but even knowing that I was still let down. The comedy fell flat, the drama was unengaging, the villain was yawn-inducing, and to top it all off, Kristy Swanson was completely unconvincing as any kind of superhero and gave me absolutely no reason to care about her as a person.

Coming up next: some more dour fare. I wasn't intentionally watching all these types of movies at the same time but the do seem to want to clump together.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part V

2010-11-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

The Jacket (2005)

I was hoping for an interesting, mess-with-your-mind movie that kept me guessing through the very end. Instead I got a mediocre movie with some uninspired time travel.

A Christmas Carol (2009)

This may be the most cinematic version of A Christmas Carol ever made and the most visually stunning. On the other hand, Jim Carrey as an old man was weird (he should have waited 20 years to play Scrooge), Bob Cratchit just looked off, and the whole thing came off as rather emotionally shallow.

Catwoman (2004)

This movie is a series of dumb ideas. First of all, they completely threw out all of the Batman mythology surrounding the character of Catwoman and made up a completely new world around the character. So what was the point of calling it Catwoman? Then they cast the severely overrated Halle Berry as Catwoman. Then they dressed her in some bizarre, partially completed dominatrix outfit. The story is dumb and there are no interesting characters. There are, however, too many shots of cats for me to truly hate this movie, and Halle Berry acting all cat-like was actually a well-executed idea.

Cloverfield (2008)

I am glad I waited until DVD to see this movie. The concept is interesting and the camera-work is believable as found footage shot by an amateur. On the other hand, the single point of view got a little monotonous, and I would have liked to have a little more explanation for everything that happened.

Eight Men Out (1988)

This dramatization of the 1919 Black Sox scandal examines what it would take for prominent members of the best team in baseball to intentionally lose the world series. It is an interesting character study, and of course features lots of baseball. (Though I did find the movie a little frustrating in that I recognized almost all the actors but couldn’t figure out where I recognized them from, even after a trip to imdb.)

Coming up next: some classic and not-so-classic horror.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part IV

2010-11-22T01:39:00.000-08:00

These are long overdue. I should be getting more punctual in the future since I'm joining Procrastinators Anonymous tomorrow.

Pillow Talk (1959)

This is an amusing romantic comedy with a romance that could only exist in Hollywood. There is no way a relationship between these people would ever last in real life.

Up in the Air (2009)

I’m not sure what it is about Jason Reitman’s films, but I find myself really enjoying them, even when the subject matter is not something that would normally interest me. I think what it is is that they are just askew enough from the mainstream Hollywood fare to be fresh and different without falling into the “quirky for the sake of being quirky” trap that plagues far too many independent films. Case in point is Up in the Air, which features George Clooney as a man whose job it is to fly all over the country and fire people. Not only does he consider his services an art form, but he has worked hard to turn traveling into an art form as well, honing his lifestyle and possessions to the point where he can get into and out of the airport with the greatest ease. While the premise of the film is certainly topical, it never swells up with Importance, letting its audience draw its own conclusions.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

The look of this movie is fantastic, beautifully translating Maurice Sendak’s artwork to the big screen. Too bad nothing worthwhile happens in this beautiful world. The first time we see our young hero Max, he is wrestling with a dog (while growling like an inarticulate idiot), and doing it so violently that I was waiting for the dog to bite him out of self defense. I am not a dog person, but at that point I was more emotionally involved with the dog than with Max. And Max never did win me over, acting like a punk kid through the whole movie. And when he runs off and enters the world of the monsters, I was expecting them to be older and wiser than Max and teach him valuable life lessons, but instead they were all just as emotionally immature as he was. This left me with no character to latch on to and twenty minutes into the movie I was ready for it to be over.

Where Eagles Dare (1968)

A crack team of Allied officers is sent on a mission to rescue a captured general from the Nazis in the days leading up to D-Day. The hitch: the general is being held captive inside a nearly impregnable castle deep inside German territory. While the number of plot twists in the third act gets a little ridiculous, this is a rip-roaring adventure yarn that features a thrilling cable-car sequence as its centerpiece.

Zodiac (2007)

San Francisco is rocked by a series of murders committed by the mysterious Zodiac killer. He taunts the authorities and creates a city-wide panic by sending cryptic messages to the major San Francisco newspapers. The scenes featuring Zodiac’s murders are full of tension and dread. But this is not so much about a serial killer and his reign of terror as it is a character study of three men who are faced with a mystery that is never solved. Their quest to discover the identity of the Zodiac goes from a desire to bring him to justice to just simply being obsessed with finding out who did it.

Coming up next: more overdue mini reviews.

How Sweet It Is

2010-10-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

1993 marked the end of an era. Nolan Ryan, the greatest strikeout pitcher of all time, was pitching his final season. It also marked the beginning of an era, though one of less import to the national scene. In the summer of 1993 my family moved to Dallas. Having not made many friends and still waiting for the moving van to arrive with most of our stuff, we were looking for something to do. So someone decided to turn on the Ranger game. I had enjoyed watching baseball and considered myself a baseball fan, but growing up overseas meant I had no chance to follow a team or really consume anything baseball related. At that point I could maybe name half of the major league teams but didn't know any player names other than Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Mickey Mantle.

All that changed the summer of 93. Suddenly I had a team. I was immediately drawn to Juan Gonzalez (Hey, that's just like Speedy Gonzalez!) and Ivan Rodriguez (Hey, that's the same last name as the kid in The Sandlot!).* But though it was their names that initially drew my attention, it was the way they played the game - Gonzalez with his bat, Rodriguez with his glove - that held it. They were my first official sports heroes.

*Growing up in Papua New Guinea means that you don't learn things like Gonzalez and Rodriguez are common Hispanic last names.

It has been a long eighteen years, full of highs and lows (and it seems more lows than highs). But through it all I have remained faithful to my Rangers. Even a move to Southern California did not shake my allegiance. The local team that made it to the playoffs six times over the past decade did not cause my loyalty to waver. And now for the first time I can proudly say that the Rangers are headed to the World Series!

But it is more than that, because they advanced by beating the Yankees, and beating them decisively. "What's so special about the Yankees?" you may very well ask. "Sure they have the highest payroll in baseball, have a rich, storied history, and carry two notable former Rangers on their roster, but you know you're going to face the best teams in the playoffs." True. But to get a proper perspective, we have to go back to 1996.

1996 was a good year for the Rangers. The team won 90 games. Juan Gonzalez won his first of two MVP awards. Manager Johnny Oates was the co-winner of the Manager of the Year award. But what really made 1996 so special was that it was the first time in team history that the Rangers made the playoffs. Our first opponent was the Yankees. Game 1 was beautiful with the Rangers winning decisively with a score of 6-2. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. Game 2 went into extra innings and the Yankees squeaked out a victory 5-4. The Rangers were leading game 3 until the ninth inning when the Yankees scored two unanswered runs, beating the Rangers 3-2. Game 4 was tied through six innings until the Yankees scored a run in both the 7th and 9th innings. Final score: 6-4. And the Yankees advanced to the next round. And yet games 2-4 could have gone either way, and probably would have had the Rangers lineup produced. Juan Gonzalez sure did his job. He hit .438 (which is exceptional, for those of you not in the know) with 5 home runs and 9 RBI. The rest of the team combined for a .190 batting average (which is pitiful), 1 home run and 7 RBI. Had the rest of the lineup not rolled over and died, the Rangers would have won the series easily. And of course it didn't help that the Yankees proceeded to waltz over the competition on their way to the World Series title.

Two years later we made the playoffs again. And once again we faced the Yankees in the first round. The Yankees won the series 3-0. The scores: 2-0, 3-1, 4-0. That's right, we held one of the most potent lineups in baseball to an average of three runs per game. Unfortunately, once again our just-as-if-not-more potent lineup decided it didn't like the thought of running the bases. In the second round the Cleveland Indians fared worse, giving up an average of 4.5 runs per game, and in the World Series, the San Diego Padres gave up a whopping 6.5 runs per game. The Rangers posed the biggest challenge to the Yankees that year, yet all they get out of it in the history books is "also ran" status.

And it was the same story in 1999. The Yankees won 8-0 (OK, I'll admit that one was decisive), 3-1, and 3-0. The pitching (a notorious weak spot historically for the Rangers) once again did its job in keeping the Yankee bats in check yet the Ranger bats (almost always among the best in the league) stayed home. So for the third time in four years the Rangers were little more than footnotes in postseason history while the Yankees went on to win it all.

The following years saw the Rangers aspiring to mediocrity. Alex Rodriguez, their best player, practically begged to get out of Texas. A few years later their best player did it again in the form of Mark Teixeria. They both ended up in Yankee pinstripes. Talk about adding insult to injury.

And so we find ourselves eleven seasons later, and after far too many false steps on the part of management, the Rangers are once again in the playoffs. I did not want to face the Yankees in the first round and this time it worked out and we faced off against the Tampa Bay Rays. And this time we were the victors. But the Minnesota Twins did not do their job and they let the Yankees advance. I began preparing myself for a disappointing series. I was afraid that my boys would crumble under the mystique that surrounds the Yankees. Yet the Rangers emerged victorious, and resoundingly so. Their smallest margin of victory was 5 runs. They scored twice as many runs as they surrendered. They hit more home runs. They stole more bases. With the exception of one game and one inning, they completely dominated the Yankees who are now heading back to New York with their tails between their legs.

I don't know what the future holds for this team (or even at this point who they will face in the World Series) but I am proud of my team and pleased with their accomplishments, and the way they are playing now, they can lick anyone that comes up against them.

So I think I've earned the right to say:

Rangers rule and Yankees drool!

Not to mention,

The Rangers Are Going To The World Series!

100 Greatest Movie Moments - Part IV

2010-09-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
The bad guy drinks from the wrong grail and ages 100 years in 50 seconds. When his body has faded to dust, the grail guardian comments, “He chose poorly.”

Beauty and the Beast (1991)
“Be Our Guest.”

Dead Alive/Braindead (1992)
The main character uses a lawnmower.

The Player (1992)
The opening tracking shot.

Jurassic Park (1993)
The T-rex attacks the jeeps.

The Sandlot (1993)
Squints puts the moves on the lifeguard.

Schindler’s List (1993)
Oskar Schindler watches a girl in a red coat walk through the ghetto as Nazi soldiers clean it out.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Andy plays a beautiful Mozart aria over the loudspeakers in Shawshank prison.

Apollo 13 (1995)
Ed Harris sits down.

The Usual Suspects (1995)
Verbal Kint leaves the police station.

Mission: Impossible (1996)
Ethan Hunt must steal a file from an ultra-secure CIA computer, all in complete silence.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996)
Mike and the bots riff on their own credits.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
The sniper takes out an enemy sniper. Through the sniper’s own scope. While quoting Scripture.

The Matrix (1999)
The camera swoops around Trinity in mid-kick.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Darth Maul pulls out his lightsaber.

Toy Story 2 (1999)
Buzz Lightyear lands on an alien planet and infiltrates Zurg’s lair.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi duke it out in a room full of weapons.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Boromir’s death.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Smeagol has a conversation with Gollum.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The lighting of the beacons.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Captain Jack Sparrow’s entrance.

The Incredibles (2004)
Dash discovers he can run on water.

The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
The chandelier rises and the opera house is transformed from old and run down to its appearance in its glory days.

Children of Men (2006)
Soldiers and terrorists alike stop fighting at the sound of a baby’s cry, the first time they’ve heard it in almost twenty years.

Enchanted (2007)
Giselle turns Central Park into the setting of a giant musical number.

100 Greatest Movie Moments - Part III

2010-09-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

The Graduate (1967)

“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?”

In the Heat of the Night (1967)
“They call me MISTER. Tibbs.”

The Producers (1968)
The song “Springtime for Hitler.”

True Grit (1969)
John Wayne rides down a group of bad guys, a gun blazing in each hand and the reins clenched in his teeth.

Patton (1970)
General Patton’s opening monologue in front of a giant American flag in which he expounds on his theories of war, including: no one “ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other [guy] die for his country.”

Dirty Harry (1971)
“I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’... You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?”

The Godfather (1972)
Michael Corleone becomes godfather to his nephew while his minions murder his biggest enemies.

What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
The madcap car/bike/Chinese dragon chase through the streets of San Francisco.

Jaws (1975)
A young woman goes skinny-dipping and learns that there is more in the water than just her.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
King Arthur and his knights are stymied by a group of French soldiers and their silly insults.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Prevented from watching a World Series game on television, Jack Nicholson enacts an imaginary baseball game to the enjoyment of all the patients of the mental hospital.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
The alien mothership shows up and then finishes the song.

Star Wars (1977)
A spaceship flies across the screen, shooting at something behind it. It is immediately followed in close pursuit by a gigantic spaceship that dwarfs it.

Alien (1979)
There is an unexpected guest at dinner.

Apocalypse Now (1979)
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning!”

Breaking Away (1979)
Cyclist Dave Stoller keeps pace with a semi on a rural highway, all for the sheer joy of riding his bicycle.

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
“I am your father.”

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Indy gets chased by a large boulder.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
E.T. and Elliot fly across the moon on Elliot’s bike.

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Khan puts ear bugs in Chekov and the captain’s ears.

The Natural (1984)
Robert Redford knocks out the stadium lights with a home run while Randy Newman’s score soars.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
“This one goes up to eleven.”

Aliens (1986)
Ripley puts on a robotic load lifter to do battle with the alien queen.

The Princess Bride (1987)
Inigo Montoya duels with the man in black.

The Abyss (1989)
A tentacle made out of water explores an underwater station.

100 Greatest Movie Moments - Part II

2010-09-14T22:10:00.000-07:00

Here we go with part 2.

Ikiru (1952)
An old man sits on a swing in the snow, singing a song of lost love.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Gene Kelley sings and dances in the rain.

From Here to Eternity (1953)
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kiss on the beach.

Shane (1953)
“Shane! Come back!”

On the Waterfront (1954)
Marlon Brando tells Rod Steiger, “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody.”

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The evil Robert Mitchum is terrorizing Lillian Gish’s house. She is standing guard with a shotgun. We can see his silhouette in the darkness outside the window. He sings “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” When he gets to the chorus, Gish joins in. One of Gish’s wards comes into the room with a lit candle. We are unable to see out the window with this new source of light. Gish quickly blows out the candle, but Mitchum is gone.

The Court Jester (1956)
“The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon. The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.”

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
James Stewart and Doris Day try to stop an assassin at Albert Hall during a performance.

The Ten Commandments (1956)
Moses parts the Red Sea.

Touch of Evil (1958)
The opening tracking shot.

Ben-Hur (1959)
The chariot race.

North by Northwest (1959)
Cary Grant is accosted by a crop duster in the middle of nowhere.

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
The final footage of Bela Lugosi.

Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Maleficent spoils the baby princess’s christening.

Some Like It Hot (1959)
“Nobody’s perfect.”

Psycho (1960)
The shower scene.

Spartacus (1960)
“I am Spartacus!”

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
In the middle of the desert, a speck turns into a dot which becomes a blob which finally resolves itself into a man on a camel.
(This can only be fully appreciated in 70mm.)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The brainwashing scene.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
“Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passing.”

The Birds (1963)
Ravens collect on a jungle gym outside a school while the children inside sing a nonsense song.

The Great Escape (1963)
Steve McQueen kills time and annoys the Nazi guards by tossing his baseball against the wall while confined to the cooler.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Jason has a sword fight with a bunch of skeletons.

The Sound of Music (1956)
The camera travels across the Austrian mountains and on top of one finds a lone nun twirling and singing.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Good, Bad, and Ugly face off against each other in a three-man gunfight.

The pictures for To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Escape aren't exactly the images I was looking for (for one, they happen before the moment I am highlighting) but they were the best I could find on my internet image search.

100 Greatest Movie Moments - Part I

2010-09-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

Recently I stumbled upon a list compiled by Roger Ebert of the 100 greatest moments in movie history. While his list was pretty good, it still had some glaring omissions and some erroneous inclusions. So I was inspired to create my own list, and here it is. Some moments are iconic while others are funny, emotional, or make the audience do a collective jaw drop due to pure cinematic bravura. For your added enjoyment, I've included an image from each moment (to the best of my abilities). I've tried to be spoiler-free as much as possible, but unfortunately some have still snuck in. Ye be warned. In the interest of keeping posts from getting too long and unwieldy, I'm breaking the list up into four parts. Expect the remaining installments to come over the next couple weeks.

(In chronological order)

Intolerance (1916)
The parade into Babylon.

Safety Last! (1923)
Harold Lloyd hang perilously from a clock face.

Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
Buster finds himself inside a movie, and much to his bewilderment the world keeps cutting to somewhere completely different while he remains still.

Battleship Potemkin (1925)
A baby carriage rolls down the Odessa steps unattended.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Christine rips off the Phantom’s mask to reveal Lon Chaney’s skull-like visage.

The Jazz Singer (1927)
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.”

Metropolis (1927)
The robot is brought to life.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
A house falls on Buster. He remains unscathed since he is standing precisely where the open window is.

King Kong (1933)
Kong swats at airplanes atop the Empire State Building.

It Happened One Night (1934)
Clark Gable attempts to hitch a ride. Claudette Colbert succeeds.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The wicked queen drinks a potion and turns herself into an ugly old hag.

Gone With the Wind (1939)
Scarlett searches the streets of Atlanta that are filled with wounded and dying Confederate solders.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Dorothy steps out of her black and white house into the glorious Technicolor Oz.

Pinocchio (1940)
Lampwick turns into a donkey.

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
The djinn towers over Sabu after being released from his prison.

Citizen Kane (1941)

“Rosebud.”

Love Crazy (1941)
William Powell goes crazy and wreaks barefooted havoc at a dinner party.

Casablanca (1942)
Rick and Ilsa say goodbye.

Cat People (1942)
A woman taking a nighttime swim is terrorized by what may or may not be a giant cat.

Anchors Aweigh (1945)
Gene Kelley dances with Jerry Mouse.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
George Bailey runs through the streets wishing everyone and everything a “Merry Christmas” after getting his life back.

On the Town (1949)
Three navy sailors tour “New York, New York.”

The Third Man (1949)
Joseph Cotten chases shadows through the streets of Vienna until he finds, almost by accident, the cherubic, mischievous face of Orson Welles.

White Heat (1949)
“Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

Sunset Blvd. (1950)
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup.”

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part III

2010-09-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Guy Ritchie takes the Sherlock Holmes mythology and turns it into an action movie. Does this mean it is a good Sherlock Holmes movie? I’m not sure, but it is a highly entertaining thrill ride from start to finish. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law work well together as Holmes and Watson (though I always imagined Watson looking more like Terry Jones than an alpha male with a funny mustache). Also, while I’m not always a fan of his work, the unorthodox score from Hans Zimmer is a lot of fun.

The Book of Eli (2010)
Denzel Washington stars as Eli, a man on a mission (from God?) to protect a book in a post-apocalyptic America that is reminiscent of the wild west. Of course there are men who are trying to get the book from Eli, and he is forced to defend himself and the book through a series of gritty, brutal fight scenes. But there are also a couple scenes where Eli recites Scripture. Even though the words he speaks are ones I have heard hundreds of times before, hearing them in that context gave them a whole new resonance and it was almost like hearing them for the first time. For this and other reasons that I choose not to divulge in the interests of keeping this relatively spoiler-free, I highly recommend this movie to Christians who are able to take the very R-rated violence.

Ghost in the Shell (1995)
There are some cool visuals (as is standard for most anime) but the story turned really weird in the end using a logic that my western mind couldn’t process.

The Princess and the Frog (2009)
I really wanted this to be a good movie, and thankfully I was not let down. It features slick animation, several snazzy tunes, and a cast of strong voice actors instead of the celebrity panel that populates far too many animated movies these days. I also appreciated that voodoo is presented as truly dangerous with real consequences. And the little twist of an ending is the type that I like to end my stories with.

Bride & Prejudice (2004)
I was interested in expanding my film viewing horizons with some Bollywood films, and this bit of Bollywood-lite seemed like a good stepping stone. It is a fun production with several high energy musical numbers, taking the classic tale of Pride and Prejudice and giving it a Bollywood spin. It is a joyous film that makes me want to delve deeper into the true world of Bollywood.

Coming up next: more catching up on the movies of 2009.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part II

2010-09-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Ultraviolet (2006)
This movie is an absolute mess. It strings one violent action scene after another, held loosely together by something masquerading as a plot involving vampires, a golden child that may save the world, evil government, and a cure or something of some sort. I’m not really sure, since most of the plot made absolutely no sense to go along with zero character development. This is a very disappointing followup for director Kurt Wimmer after the underrated Equilibrium.

Wife vs. Secretary (1936)
This is a fun screwball comedy featuring the always wonderful Myrna Loy as a woman who reasonably (though ultimately falsely) suspects her husband (Clark Gable) of having an affair with his secretary (Jean Harlow).

Paint Your Wagon (1969)
This is an odd film. It’s a western starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, so there is plenty testosterone to spare. But it is also a musical. There are a couple good musical numbers (specifically Lee Marvin’s rendition of “I Was Born Under a Wandrin’ Star”) but it just does not seem right most of the time seeing Eastwood and Marvin singing their thoughts to the audience.

Wonder Man (1945)
Danny Kaye gets to play two roles: a slick nightclub entertainer and his bumbling bookworm twin brother. Both are very funny and they each get a couple fun musical numbers, giving Kaye the opportunity to play both suave and neurotic to the hilt (both of which he does excellently). Wonder Man stands proudly beside The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Court Jester as one of Kaye’s most entertaining roles.

2012 (2009)
I went into this movie ready to nurture some deep hate towards this movie (after all, my opinions of Roland Emmerich’s other “masterpieces,” The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 B.C. are well documented here) and right off the bat the movie delivered. I was treated to a series of disjointed scenes that are supposed to give the audience a sense of dread, but instead left me silently screaming at the screen, “Just get on with it!” The worst scenes involve respected scientists telling high ranking officials that something really bad is about to happen, but the screenwriters goes out of their way to make sure they don’t tell the audience what the really bad thing is, making some extra awkward and klunky dialog. Then, fifteen minutes into the movie, we are finally introduced to our main character played by John Cusack, who just happens to be a limo driver. After it is firmly established (and then some) that he is a bad father and estranged from his kids, he learns that the world is going to end, but that there is a secret government conspiracy that is planning to keep humanity alive. Then we get far too many contrived scenes of driving really fast while being chased by a crack opening up in the earth. Then, once Emmerich decides that driving away from a crack in the ground isn’t good enough, they graduate to a plane, and they have daring escapes flying through toppling buildings while the earth disintegrates. (Though, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t airplanes fly high in the sky? So shouldn’t they have been able to just fly over the tops of the crumbling buildings without a care in the world?) Then it just happens that John Cusack is a chauffeur for a rich guy who has a “get out of the end of the world free” card, so Cusack & Co. join up with him and they get in an even bigger plane and fly this one through an even bigger crack in the ground. Interspersed throughout all this thrilling stuff are scenes of characters around the world who pop in and out of the movie at random, and I think we are supposed to care about them, especially the ones who die horribly at the hands of Mother Nature. But since Emmerich decided not to invest anything in these characters, neither does the audience, and these scenes are far more likely to induce yawns than tears. After dozens more scenes of improbable coincidences and contrived tension (due mostly to the scientists saying, “Oops, we miscalculated, and the world will end tomorrow instead of a week from now; actually, cancel that, the end of the world is six hours away; no, wait, it’s more like thirty minutes”), Cusack & Co. finally make it aboard a giant ark that is designed to weather the storm and save humanity (after all the expendable characters are killed off in various gruesome ways, of course). But then something horrible happened. I thought about the ark, and it actually seemed like a good idea (after all, it worked for Noah) and the production designers and art department put some serious work into making the ark believable. I couldn’t believe it, there was something cool to end the movie with. I don’t know which is harder to forgive Emmerich for: the travesty against humanity that is The Day After Tomorrow, or making a movie that is almost as bad as The Day After Tomorrow but giving it an ending that I kind of liked. Ultimately, 2012 wishes it was Deep Impact with a heavy dose of The Day After Tomorrow, sprinkled with a spoonful of Titanic, but The Day After Tomorrow is the only movie it managed to not be vastly inferior to.

Coming up next: getting caught up on some of the movies from last year.

My 2010 Movie Odyssey - Part I

2010-08-31T00:17:00.000-07:00

It's been far too long since my last post. My only excuse is that I've been more busy than usual the past couple months and I've been working on other projects. But now that 2010 is more than half over, I should really get going on releasing my Movie Odyssey.

Madea Goes to Jail (2009)
This is my first foray into the works of Tyler Perry, and I must say that overall it was a positive experience. The character of Madea is wonderfully quirky and there are many laughs in the movie, though the main plot smacks of the Hallmark Movie of the Week variety.

Twilight (2008)
Fortunately I watched this with protection,* otherwise I probably would have done irreparable damage to either my eyes or the TV, or both. Bella is a completely uninteresting character, and why she shuns all the high school boys, who generally come across as a fun and interesting group, to instead fawn over the creepy-looking Edward who has no social skills and who apparently has never seen a comb in 200 years of existence, is never adequately explained. She should be calling the cops, not foisting her presence on him at every possible moment. AND WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE VAMPIRES SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT!? The inane story, flat performances, and erratic camera work combine to form one of the most inexplicable phenomena of the last couple years.
*Commentary track from Rifftrax featuring Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett.

Heavy Metal (1981)
This film features a series of animated science fiction short stories, loosely connected with a green glowing ball of evil. The worlds each story creates are interesting and visually stunning. The more adult-oriented themes are a nice alternative to the largely squeaky clean Disney collection, adding narrative weight to each of the stories. Unfortunately, the adult content also includes large breasted women taking off their clothes for no apparent reason other than the animators’ desire to draw nipples.

Avatar (2009)
It’s Dances With Wolves, IN SPACE! Sure the visuals are lush and the floating mountains look really cool, but it still looked like a cartoon - a very good cartoon, but a cartoon nonetheless. And the visuals are about all it has going for it. The story is pedestrian and the screenplay is full of wooden dialog and spends the first fifteen minutes of the film bludgeoning the audience over the head with exposition. And what is up with Hollywood’s obsession with animism? Overall it’s not a bad movie, there are a few fun action scenes, but mostly it elicits a resounding “meh” from me.

Flightplan (2005)
The intriguing premise of a woman losing her daughter on the world’s largest plane and having everyone around her convinced that the girl was never on the plane to begin with is mostly resolved satisfactorily, but really the film is all about the journey with the audience always wondering, “Is she crazy, or is there some big conspiracy going on?”

Coming up next: my longest Movie Odyssey blurb of all time.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #1

2010-06-21T23:48:00.000-07:00

Looking over my top and bottom 10 of the decade, I noticed an interesting trend. The films in my top ten create new, interesting, and believable worlds and successfully immerse the audience in them. As a result, science fiction and fantasy are heavily represented on the list, but even Master and Commander, a realistic historical drama, may be the most immersive film on the list. On the flip-side, the common thread for all the movies on my bottom 10 is they try to create new and immersive worlds, but fail horribly at it. The top and bottom movies on this list turn out to both be perfect examples of this phenomenon.

Best
The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003)
There was really no contest for the top spot. These three films succeed on every level and were easily the most anticipated movies of the decade. I love the book and Peter Jackson did a superb job translating it to the screen. He brought Middle Earth to life so believably that it feels like a real place, seamlessly blending sets, models, matte paintings, CGI, and natural location so that it is impossible to tell where one leaves off and another begins. There are both huge battles and wonderful little character moments, all set against my favorite score of all time. It is a story of heroism and sacrifice with great deeds being done by even the most insignificant of people. As an added bonus, the Extended Edition DVDs are the best DVD set ever made. For starters, they look great on a DVD shelf, but inside they are crammed with hours and hours of documentaries that cover all aspects of making the films without endlessly repeating themselves, managing to be both informative and entertaining.

Worst
Battlefield Earth (2000)
I had read the book and enjoyed it, so I was eager to see the movie, as were several of my friends (who had also read and enjoyed the book). We all got together to see what was going to be the next science fiction epic on opening weekend. Boy were we disappointed. Instead of an epic, we were treated to a poorly constructed story that constantly forces the characters to do unbelievably stupid things for no apparent reason. The aliens come across looking like bad Star Trek alien-of-the-week rejects and while they are supposed to be evil and domineering, they come across as just silly. And to make matters worse, half the time the camera was tilted at such a drastic angle that I felt like I was going to fall off my chair at any second. And then there is John Travolta’s performance of Terl, the leader of the aliens. He is so over the top that he can never be taken seriously and becomes painful to watch by the story’s end. The human characters don’t come off any better. None of them are interesting in any way and the audience never has any reason to develop an emotional connection with any of them. And then they find centuries old 20th century technology that amazingly still works, and start flying around in jet fighters with no training. This is a movie that manages to fail on every level, making it well worthy of the “honor” of the worst movie of the decade.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #2

2010-06-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Best
The Incredibles (2004)
Bob Parr was forced to give up his career in law enforcement. Now he is working at a dead end desk job, trying to support his wife and three children. Helen, his wife, has fully embraced the domestic lifestyle but Bob cannot help but feel restless in his mundane life. And then Bob loses his job. Will this event start Bob on a downward spiral that will end with his family falling apart, or will this be the jumping off point for a new and more exciting life? And did I mention, this is an animated movie and Bob and all his family have super powers? All the characters are wonderfully crafted and the screenplay sings as it creates an emotional roller coaster. There is a villain straight out of a James Bond movie, a wonderfully eccentric costume designer, and a surprising moment of pure joy smack dab in the middle of a deadly pursuit. Sure the action is thrilling, the animation is superb (what else could be expected from Pixar?) but the real strength of the film is the very human family trying to make their way in a mediocre world.

Worst
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
This film is completely unbelievable on so many levels. Why does dad getting to his son make everything alright, even though they will still be trapped in ice-bound New York City? Why are the merry band of survivors trapped inside a library insisting on only burning books when there are plenty of wooden desks and other pieces of furniture just lying around that will burn longer and better than books? What is added to the film by adding a pointless sub-plot with a pack of bad CG wolves? Why is it that while it is so cold that people turn into instant popsicles when they open the door, they are not visibly cold before opening said door? Why does global WARMING result in an ICE age? Why should we even care about any of these characters when they’re all going to die horribly anyway? And of course there is my favorite exchange: [people on Earth talking to astronauts in space] “We have reports that the storm in North America is breaking up. Can you confirm this?” “Yes. We’re over Europe right now.” So not only does director Roland Emmerich fail story construction, character development, fire 101, and simple scientific principles, he also manages to fail geography as well.

Coming up next: the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Any predictions as to which ones?

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #3

2010-06-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Best
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
The year is 1805. The HMS Surprise under Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) is ordered to track down the French ship Acheron and capture or sink her. What follows is a thrilling cat and mouse game bookended by two electrifying sea battles. But it is more than just a story of high adventure as we are immersed in the day-to-day life aboard a British war ship, from the captain all the way down to the lowliest cabin boy. We see how deadly the ocean can be, both during a terrible storm as well as a dead calm. It is also very much a character drama as Aubrey gets both support and blunt criticism from his old friend the ship’s doctor (Paul Bettany). The film even spends a few moments as a nature documentary. When I first watched the film, I spent most of my time concentrating on the interactions between Captain Aubrey and the doctor, with most of the other characters fading into the exquisite background. But on subsequent viewings I started picking up on more characters and the story arcs they have throughout the film, resulting in almost a dozen characters, each with his own little story inside the big one, waiting to be discovered by the attentive viewer.

Worst
Happy Feet (2006)
How on earth could a film this lame and implausible win the Oscar for best animated feature? I felt like I was watching a 100 minute Coke commercial, without the morbid potential of the polar bears actually eating the penguins. The comedy fell flat, the musical numbers were dull, and watching an animated creature with no legs tap dancing just does not have the same appeal (nor is as impressive) as a real person doing all the moves. Robin Williams was way over the top in his dual roles, doing broad racial voice stereotypes. There was very little to distinguish the penguins from each other and of course the villains in the film were the religious conservatives, doing their part to keep our hero from being his unique self. And then there is the completely implausible joke of an ending, where humanity decides to stop fishing because they saw a bunch of penguins tap dancing. Do they actually think humanity would be that benevolently minded towards this subspecies? (Or that stupid?) I think what would really happen is Ringling Bros. would snap up as many of the penguins as possible and put their tap dancing in the center ring. Of course, what should you expect from a film with a moronic title like Happy Feet?

Coming up next: an incredible movie and an uncredible one.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #4

2010-05-29T02:12:00.001-07:00

Best
Memento (2000)
Leonard is on a mission to track down and kill his wife’s murderer. The only real hitch is that he has been unable to make new memories since the night of his wife's death. Writer-director Christopher Nolan plunges his audience into Leonard’s world of confusion by telling the story backwards, starting at the conclusion and working his way back to the beginning. Instead of being a gimmick, this device keeps the audience on the same page as Leonard as neither one knows what happened five minutes ago. Memento is full of narrative twists and turns, keeping the audience guessing through the very end, or beginning as the case may be.

Worst
10,000 BC (2008)
After watching the trailer and seeing the billboards, I knew this would be a bad movie, and the movie did not disappoint. The characters are poorly defined with no one even approaching likeability. The geography is highly improbable, as our band of “heroes” travels from a tundra-like region, crossing snow-capped mountains, through a rainforest at the base of the mountains, ending up in the desert, traveling all of that distance in about a week. Each region is filled with giant CG creatures, none of which are terribly convincing. The climax of the film is anything but thrilling, and surprisingly small considering the rest of the movie’s epic aspirations. But the real kicker of the movie is that it is The Ten Commandments (1956) remade by Nietzsche. Instead of God rescuing a nation of slaves from tyranny, the slaves themselves rise up against and kill “God” (really an alien) and then go off to live their lives as they see fit. Ultimately, 10,000 BC passes over the “so bad it’s fun” designation into “so bad it’s painful.”

Coming up next: two water movies.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #5

2010-05-22T20:40:00.001-07:00

Best
Minority Report (2002)
Steven Spielberg creates a wonderfully realized futuristic film noir in which advertising has run horribly amuck and murders are stopped before they happen. There are jet-packs, snazzy holographic computer interfaces, and cars that drive themselves. There are thrilling chases, nail-biting suspense sequences, and some interesting questions about the nature of free will. It all adds up to an immensely fun ride with some very unexpected plot twists.

Worst
D-War (2007)
Where do I start with a movie like this? The story is silly, the screenplay is laughable, the acting is almost entirely wooden, none of the characters act believably, half the scenes end abruptly without any sort of reasonable conclusion, and to top it all off, it’s a story that is about Korean mythology with reincarnated Koreans, that takes place solely in modern day Los Angeles, with only one (minor) Asian character (who may or may not even be Korean). But wait, there’s more! Not only is Los Angeles being attacked by two dueling dragons, there is also an ancient Korean overlord (who looks as un-Korean as everyone else) whose sole purpose is to look menacing as a Sauron wannabe while he makes the blade of his sword appear magically from its hilt. He also commands hoards of undead soldiers that appear inexplicably out of nowhere and headquarters in a castle (also suddenly appearing out of nowhere) that is another complete ripoff of Lord of the Rings. I am very pleased that my prediction that there would soon be a Rifftrax for this derivative mess came true.

Coming up next: a little independent movie and a big-budget disaster.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #6

2010-05-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

Best
Wall-E (2008)
One of the things I love about the Pixar shorts is that they each tell a complete story without the use of dialog. Now we have Wall-E, a feature length film which has no dialog (except for a few commercial voiceovers) for the first half of the film. What results is a masterpiece of character animation and it is almost a disappointment when the humans show up and start talking. Not since Buster Keaton has a character shown so many emotions with so little facial movement. Also of note is the fantastic work of Ben Burtt who created such a lush soundscape for the film and gave Wall-E his voice, all against the backdrop of Thomas Newman’s beautiful score.

Worst
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008)
I knew this would be bad, being chock full of Adam Sandler “humor.” What I was not expecting were countless shots of Sandler’s bare behind and an overdose of perverse sexuality as Sandler’s Zohan has sex with every woman possible. And he is considered endearing for it! And then there are the numerous jabs a Mel Gibson. One or two might have been kind of funny and topical, but when they kept coming they were just beating a dead one trick pony. I think the Jews should be up in arms at Sandler’s cartoonish portrayal of their culture.

Coming up next: an intriguing vision of the future and a fantasy that is unbelievable at every turn.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #7

2010-05-08T02:00:00.000-07:00

Best
Children of Men (2006)
The camera work in this film is exquisite; the scenes containing the greatest dramatic tension are each played out in a single shot. In a world where women have lost the ability to give birth, civilization decays as humanity dies out. And then Theo (Clive Owen) meets a pregnant woman and must find a way to bring her to a safe place where her baby will be cared for and not exploited. There are many wonderful, beautiful moments in this film, but the one that stands above the others, and impacted me the most emotionally, is one in which Theo escorts the newborn baby and her mother through a crowded apartment building, past soldiers and guerilla fighters alike, all stunned in amazement at hearing the sound of a baby’s cry for the first time in almost 20 years.

Worst
Southland Tales (2006)
This movie is one giant mess. Nothing makes sense and writer/director Richard Kelly goes haphazardly from one scene to another with each new scene having little bearing on those surrounding it. And every time he tries to explain something it only makes everything more confusing. The characters are all either dull or so over the top that they are completely unbelievable. And since there is glaring Budweiser product placement in almost every scene, it felt like I was watching the most bizarre, confusing, poorly written, poorly acted, inconsistent, unbelievable, and downright dirty beer commercial I have ever seen.

Coming up next: a heart-warming post-apocalyptic film and a soul scarring comedy.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #8

2010-05-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

Best
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
The visuals are wonderfully evocative, from a mysterious stone maze to a twisted old tree to an exquisitely crafted faun. The film takes some pointers from George MacDonald in that while there is a fairy world just beyond our own, it is fraught with danger and peril all its own, especially for humans improperly equipped to survive in a world run by different rules. This fact is brought frighteningly home when Ofelia, our young heroine, encounters a creature who keeps his eyes in the palms of his hands in a scene that is truly terrifying. And yet it is completely understandable that Ofelia wants to escape into the fairy world despite its dangers, since she lives in the middle of civil war torn Spain, with a cruel step father who cares less than nothing for her. As a kid I often dreamed that, even though I had nothing against my parents, I would learn that my parents were not my real parents and that my real parents were powerful, most likely supernatural, beings, and were ready to take me home to a fantasy world of wonder. This actually happens in Pan’s Labyrinth.

Worst
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)
I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but I was definitely not expecting an amateur production with unexciting slapstick fights, vampires preying on lesbians, Jesus joining forces with a Mexican wrestler, and the occasional musical number from out of the blue. The production values are shoddy, the script is on par with your average student film, and overall the film is more dumb than sacrilegious (which is saying something since its theology is pretty wretched).

Coming up next: two apocalyptic visions of the not-too-distant future.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #9

2010-04-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

Best
Brick (2005)
Brick takes all the elements of the classic film noirs of the 1940s and places them in a modern high school setting. What results is a surprisingly successful hybrid that is fully engaging. The plot is full of twists and surprises, the violence is sudden, realistic, and brutal, and our hero even wears glasses. While it takes a while to get used to the unique rhythms and dialog, it is still highly rewarding to those who are willing to make the effort to immerse themselves in the world it creates.

Worst
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
The trailer for this movie was intriguing. Frame after frame of enticing visuals promised a film in which a world of wonder would be unfolded before our eyes. Well, some of the visuals delivered as promised, but the story left much to be desired and then some. The filmmakers were too busy trying to come up with cool things to put in their movie and forgot to tell a cohesive story. Plot points are replaced with unmemorable fight scenes and a ludicrous sequence in which our heroes literally race the sunrise. On foot. Characters are little more than cardboard cutouts and the world presented in the movie is subject to the arbitrary whims of the filmmakers, with nothing fleshed out enough to create any kind of cohesive internal logic. Overall it is an overblown mess that is quickly forgotten.

Coming up next: A film that creates a wold of fantasy, wonder, and danger and one that tries to do it and fails.

Top and Bottom of the Aughts - #10

2010-04-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

A new decade is upon us, so what better way to celebrate the new decade than to take a look back at the one we just finished? And what better way to do that than a top (and bottom) 10 list? So here we go, my humble readers, with the ten best and worst movies of the aughts.
(But first, a couple of honorable mentions.)

Honorable Mentions
The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Left Behind (2000)
I didn’t feel right putting these on either list. It felt like trivializing such a uniquely powerful movie to try to rank The Passion, and Left Behind is such an easy target it felt like picking on the kid in the wheelchair. And yet they have one interesting thing in common: they are both made by Christians primarily for Christians. (I suppose you could also argue that they are both based on best selling books.) But there the similarities end. The Passion of the Christ tells its story primarily through visuals on a rich canvas of light and shadow inspired by the renaissance artist Caravaggio. The project was a labor of love for director Mel Gibson, embarking on a spiritual journey, and if anyone decided to see his film, it was a bonus. On the other hand, Left Behind spends most of its running time talking at the audience and showing very little. The look of the movie is no more interesting than a made-for-TV movie. And the whole point of Left Behind seemed to be to try to dupe an unwitting audience into seeing what they thought was a supernatural thriller with international intrigue but was really a sermon on the eschatological dangers of not being a Christian. As a result, The Passion was widely seen all around the world and is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, while Left Behind never made it out of the Christian ghetto (and didn’t find a whole lot of success there either).

Best
Wordplay (2006)
There isn’t a whole lot of drama in this documentary, but that is in no way a detraction from this film about crossword puzzles and the people who do them. We are introduced to a wide variety of expert crossword puzzlers, from Tyler, the young college student studying computer science, to Al, a middle-aged family man who never seems to come in higher than third at the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. We also get a parade of celebrity crossword enthusiasts from pitcher Mike Mussina to talk show host Jon Stewart, to both presidential election opponents Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. It gives insight into how the puzzles are made (with one actually being constructed right before our eyes), and challenges the audience to try to figure out clues before the solvers do.

Worst
Twilight (2008) and New Moon (2009)
The success of these movies is completely baffling to me. The first one is an exercise in pale people pausing in the middle of every sentence. It features an inexplicable romance between two people, one of whom looks like a creepy stalker who never learned what a comb is for, while the other takes bland to a whole new level. At least Twilight has a poorly done action sequence for a climax, New Moon doesn’t even have that. Instead we are treated to even more pausing and are introduced to a love triangle featuring a not-so-pale guy with impossibly sculpted abs. The film meanders while Bella broods, and I kept waiting for it to build up to something, and was still waiting when the credits started to roll. There is so much melancholy dripping off these movies that it is impossible to get excited about anything. AND WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE VAMPIRES SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT!? On the plus side, they are very entertaining when viewed with two very excellent Rifftrax.

Coming up next: a film with minimal budget and lots of intelligence and one with a very large budget and almost no intelligence.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #1

2010-03-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

Here it is, the best of the best and the worst of the worst.

Best
Up (2009)
The film starts with a montage, telling the story of Carl and Ellie: their courtship, marriage, and life together. It is a story of undying love, despite countless unrealized dreams, told solely through images and music. It is both beautiful and heart-wrenching, yet never sappy. Of course this would not be a true Pixar movie without it’s fair share of laughs, thrills, and quirky characters, and all three are in abundance. Of special note is the dog named Dug who is equipped with a collar that lets him speak. The animators and writers never fall into the trap of turning Dug into a human on four legs as many talking animals often end up. Instead, he fully retains his doggie-ness, saying things that I fully believe a dog would say if it could speak. This is a wonderful tale about friendship and adventure found in unexpected places, full of emotional highs and lows. And even when something happened exactly as I predicted, it still provoked an emotional response.

Worst
10,000 BC (2008)
After watching the trailer and seeing the billboards, I knew this would be a bad movie, and the movie did not disappoint. The characters are poorly defined with no one even approaching likeability. The geography is highly improbable, as our band of “heroes” travels from a tundra-like region, crossing snow-capped mountains, through a rain forest at the base of the mountains, ending up in the desert, traveling all of that distance in about a week. Each region is filled with giant CG creatures, none of which are terribly convincing. The climax of the film is anything but thrilling, and surprisingly small considering the rest of the movie’s epic aspirations. But the real kicker of the movie is that it is The Ten Commandments (1956) remade by Nietzsche. Instead of God rescuing a nation of slaves from tyranny, the slaves themselves rise up against and kill “God” (really an alien) and then go off to live their lives as they see fit. Ultimately, 10,000 BC passes over the “so bad it’s fun” designation into “so bad it’s painful.”

Coming up next: I'm not sure. I'm working on a couple projects that I hope to unveil here soon. I guess I can at least get a start on my 2010 Movie Odyssey.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #2

2010-03-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

Best
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
This is essentially a silent comedy with sound effects as there is almost no dialog, and what little there is carries very little pertinent information. There are funny things going on all the time, but many of them are so subtle the audience can miss them if they are not paying attention. Even in the background, odd things are happening. There’s the bodybuilder who is always doing weird stretching exercises as he walks around, there is the elderly man who is always shadowing an elderly woman, there is the single song that seems to be on all the records, and the door to the dining room that makes a funny sound when it closes, much to the chagrin of the head waiter. Mr. Hulot is charming in this wonderfully pleasant film that is very rewarding if the audience is willing to give it their undivided attention.

Worst
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008)
I knew this would be bad, being chock full of Adam Sandler “humor.” What I was not expecting were countless shots of Sandler’s bare behind and an overdose of perverse sexuality as Sandler’s Zohan has sex with every woman possible. And he is considered endearing for it! And then there are the numerous jabs a Mel Gibson. One or two might have been kind of funny and topical, but when they kept coming they were just beating a dead one trick pony. Ironically, I think the Jews should be more upset at this movie’s cartoonish portrayal of them than a single drunken midnight antisemitic rant from Mel Gibson.

Coming up next: The best of the best and the worst of the worst. Any guesses as to which ones those will be?

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #3

2010-03-22T00:46:00.001-07:00

Best
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Is the story cliche? Maybe. Is the plot too contrived? Possibly. Is the film highly improbable? Most definitely. But it is still an immensely entertaining film about growing up and finding lost love, set to some snazzy music. Danny Boyle is in top form here, infusing every scene with his signature style, giving it an energy that would be lacking had a lesser director made this film. I also love his use of subtitles. Instead of relegating them to the bottom of the screen in a boring yellow text, they were placed all over the screen wherever there was empty space, often with a box around them to help separate the words from the background. My eye was naturally drawn to them, making them the easiest subtitles I have ever read. It was almost like watching a moving comic book (and I mean that in a good way).

Worst
Southland Tales (2006)
This movie is one giant mess. Nothing makes sense and writer/director Richard Kelly goes haphazardly from one scene to another with each new scene having little bearing on those surrounding it. And every time he tries to explain something it only makes everything more confusing. The characters are all either dull or so over the top that they are completely unbelievable. And since there is glaring Budweiser product placement in almost every scene, it felt like I was watching the most bizarre, confusing, poorly written, poorly acted, inconsistent, unbelievable, and downright dirty beer commercial I have ever seen.

Coming up next: two movies about a man who is just trying to get away from it all.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #4

2010-03-19T00:27:00.000-07:00

Best
The Crimson Pirate (1952)
Burt Lancaster is electric as the pirate Captain Vallo in this highly entertaining swashbuckling romp that was clearly an inspiration for Pirates of the Caribbean. But even the charismatic Vallo is upstaged by Ojo, his captivating, non-speaking sidekick who is best described as a cross between Jack Sparrow and Harpo Marx. Together they get into one scrape after another, always the best of friends, and always fun to watch.

Worst
Howard the Duck (1986)
This could have been a fun ‘80s romp. Unfortunately, Howard’s wisecracks, Tim Robbins’ “scientist,” the hokey bad guy, and all other attempts at humor fell flatter than a pancake after being visited by a steam roller. And then there is the bizarre and unsettling scene when Lea Thompson tries to seduce Howard that is wrong on so many levels, especially in a movie obviously aimed at children.
(You know I've seen some really bad movies this year when something as infamously bad as Howard the Duck is only the fourth worst movie I saw all year.)

Coming up next: two very stylish movies, one of which is a slick work of art while the other is a confusing mess.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #5

2010-03-15T01:46:00.000-07:00

Best
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
Robert Donat is captivating in the role of a British school teacher who teaches Latin to generation after generation of Britain’s finest. We see him grow from being a green first-year teacher, easy target to practical jokesters, to being such a steadfast fixture at the school that even exploding German bombs are unable to keep him from having class. He is ready with words of wisdom for his students, never shy from administering discipline when it is called for, and always willing to build a relationship with his students outside of the classroom.

Worst
Species (1995)
You would think that a movie with Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Forrest Whitaker, and Michael Madsen would at least have some potential, but unfortunately the promising cast is completely wasted on this dreck. The effects are gross, half the characters have no real reason for existence, the dialog is stilted and unnatural at best, and the climax is predictable and far from thrilling.

Coming up next: a movie that is a whole lot of fun, and one that could have been but failed miserably.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #6

2010-03-12T17:02:00.000-08:00

Best
Ikiru (1952)
When the movie starts it is almost a comedy. A group of women are trying to get the city to drain a pool of stagnant water and turn it into a park where children can play. They speak with one government official after another, each one telling them that they need to talk to a different department until they end up right back where they started. Then we are introduced to Kanji Watanabe, a government official who works in the same building. He mindlessly shuffles papers for a living until he learns that he has cancer and only has a few months to live. What is more depressing than the little time he has left is what little he has done with his life to this point. At first he tries to live it up, staying up late drinking and carousing, but it only leaves him feeling more empty. But then he learns of the plight of the women who are trying to get the park built and he decides to go to bat for them, fighting against the ineffectual bureaucracy that surrounds him. And so what starts as a depressing story about a wasted life becomes an inspirational story of the good that one man can do.

Worst
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
The action is mindless, the characters are shallow, the dialog is flat, the big effects set-pieces are unconvincing, and the villain is too comical to be taken seriously. And then there is Alpha 5, a incompetent robot who’s high-pitched cry of “Aye-yi-yi!” whenever anything goes wrong (which is most of the time) is like nails on a chalkboard, only not quite as pleasant. The single redeeming attribute of the film, a song on the soundtrack from They Might Be Giants, lasts only a few seconds. The rest is every bit as dumb as I though it would be.

Coming up next: two movies with two Oscar winning actors each.

Obligatory Oscar Post - 2010

2010-03-07T21:21:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again, and I know all five of my readers are just dying to know my thoughts on tonight's Oscar ceremony.

First of all, a little logistics. I correctly guessed 14 of the 24 categories. Also, there were four categories for which I predicted Avatar would win but went to The Hurt Locker instead, or vice versa. This was not my best record by a long shot, but I also went in much less educated on some of the lesser known categories than in previous years.

The Good
--The "conceited" interplay between hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin was fun, though they did very little once they got the shared opening monologue out of the way.
--I liked that the nominated scores got a good showing, and the dance routines that accompanied each selection were fun.
--I do think it's cool that a woman has finally won Best Director, and like even better that she did it with a movie that isn't a "woman's movie" (something like Sex and the City).
--I was happy to see that the narratively mediocre Avatar failed to win both Best Picture and Best Director. Of course, now I really need to see The Hurt Locker. It may be my favorite movie from last year that I haven't seen yet.
--I am happy that the Academy has recognized Michael Giacchino for his score for Up. Now they just need to give one to Thomas Newman.
--There was no dry, boring, and excessively long speech from the president of the Academy that always brings the show to a screeching halt. Even the members of the Academy sitting in the audience always seem to find it tedious.

The Bad
--What is up with the wall of lamp shades backdrop they used off and on throughout the evening?
--I actually haven't seen very many of the nominees or winners, with The Hurt Locker, Ing. Bas., The Blind Side, and Precious: BotNPbS being the most glaring omissions, so there are very few awards that I actually feel strongly about one way or another.
--Yes, Up got Best Animated Feature and was actually nominated for Best Picture (only the second animated film to do that) but would the academy really suffer a major hemorrhage if an animated film won Best Picture? Or even a screenwriting award?
--The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus transported me into a world of wonder far more effectively than Avatar did, so I was very disappointed (though not terribly surprised) that Avatar won Best Art Direction. I also preferred District 9's gritty, realistic visual effects to Avatar's over-polished, unreal, cartoonish visuals.
--With Roger Corman getting an honorary Oscar, I was hoping to be treated to a string of b-movie clips (complete with endless shots of rock climbing), but unfortunately they presented the honorary awards in a ceremony yesterday, giving us only an extremely brief summary of it.
--Once again they took ten minutes to personally gush over the nominees for Best Actor and Actress, and yet hardly showing any clips of the performances that actually got them in the auditorium in the first place. I have always felt that the most important Oscar is Best Picture, the second-most important one is Best Director, and then there is a 22-way tie for third place. Doing this puts far too much emphasis on the actors. At least they didn't do it with the supporting performances like they did last year.

Overall I think this will go down as a rather unmemorable show. Nothing incredibly great happened (like Return of the King going 11 for 11), nothing wonderfully silly happened (like Whoopie Goldberg's parade of costumes), and nothing outrageously awful happened (like Happy Feet taking Best Animated Feature).

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #7

2010-03-06T01:14:00.001-08:00

Best
Zombieland (2009)
A small band of travelers is trying to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse, headed up by Tallahassee, the best zombie killer in the world who is on a quest to find the last remaining Twinkie. There are lots of laughs as our band of misfits fight and run away from zombies and meet up with a very funny surprise cameo. But what may be the best part about this movie is that the fun never stops. Things never get too serious, even in the rip-roaring third act.

Worst
Straw Dogs (1971)
For the first two-thirds of the movie a whole lot of not a whole lot happens. Then there is an overlong uncomfortable rape scene. Then a mob of people attack the spineless Dustin Hoffman’s house. Somehow he is able to fight them all off in a scene that is so violently over the top that I couldn’t possibly take it seriously. And since all the characters had done their best to repulse me through the whole movie, I didn’t really care who lived and who died in this exercise in 70s unpleasantness.

Coming up next: a Japanese movie and a movie based on a television show stolen from Japan.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #8

2010-03-01T00:17:00.000-08:00

Best
Ball of Fire (1941)
This very funny screwball comedy features Gary Cooper as an absentminded professor and Barbara Stanwyck as the woman who disrupts his attentions and steals his heart. It also features a wonderful cast of supporting characters played by a who’s who of old man character actors who are even more fun to watch than the stellar leads.

Worst
The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988)
I enjoyed reading the Pippi Longstocking stories as a kid, and I have fond memories of watching the Swedish version from 1969 as a kid. So I was interested to see what an American company would do with the material. I should have stayed away. A story about an incredibly strong little girl already requires some suspension of disbelief, but there were far too many unbelievable moments even within the world created for the film. The adults are all idiots and Pippi’s message of “chaos is better than structure” is highly suspect. Her pet monkey and horse “speak” in animal sounds that are almost English, but while this is supposed to be funny it comes across as just dumb. For some reason the filmmakers decided to make it a musical, so I was also treated to a parade of mediocre, forgettable songs that added nothing. And to top it all off, they played an annoying, silly sound cue whenever Pippi did something magical that completely took me out of what little moment I already had.

Coming up next: two movies about a small group of people defending themselves with shotguns from a hoard intent on their destruction.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #9

2010-02-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

Best
The Wages of Fear (1953)
The first act is slow and boring as down-on-his-luck Mario gripes with his friends about there being no opportunities for success in the small Latin American town in which he is trapped. But then he takes a job with three of his friends to drive a couple trucks loaded with nitroglycerine through the jungles of Latin America, and the tension suddenly goes up to 11. As they drive the two trucks over poorly maintained roads through the middle of nowhere, the slightest wrong bump can spell certain doom. Each truck is a ticking time bomb with no one knowing how much time is left.

Worst
Blowup (1966)
I found the main character repulsive in this film in which a whole lot of nothing happens for the first half of the film. He hates women and takes pictures of them. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then he discovers a murder and things start to get interesting, but then the whole thing is dropped, some more nothing happens, and then the movie ends with noting being resolved.

Coming up next: a movie about a group of old men and one about a group of kids.

Top and Bottom of 2009 - #10

2010-02-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

Here we go, counting down the best and the worst of the 143 movies I saw for the first time in 2009. But first, a couple honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions
Sleuth (1972 & 2007)
How can a movie that is so interesting have a remake that is so dull? Yet somehow it happened, even with Michael Caine in both films. The original takes place on a visually vibrant set with the whole house crammed with games, mementos, and knickknacks. Even if the actors were boring, it would still be an adventure to look at the set. The highlight is an animatronic man who laughs and claps at the push of a button, and while it is kind of silly, it adds some nice atmosphere to the room. Conversely, the remake takes place in an ultra-modern house with stark, minimalist furnishings and an overabundance of empty space. I was bored of the set in under five minutes. The highlight is a small remote control that controls everything in the house with its solitary “do everything” button. The original kept me wondering, “What’s really going on and what’s going to happen next?” The remake had me wondering, “Why is this happening and why did the screenwriter think it was a good idea?” The original opens in a hedge maze, which is always interesting, but I cannot remember how the remake began, it was so unremarkable. The original has Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, a virtuoso performance by Alec Cawthorne, and a gripping treasure hunt for a third act. The remake has Michael Caine, Jude Law, copious amounts of profanity, and a homoerotic third act that comes completely out of nowhere and does not fit with the rest of the film.

Best
Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
This is a beautiful yet heart wrenching tale of imagination and friendship in unlooked for places. I could say more, but I would rather you just check out this gem from Walden Media right now.

Worst
All the King’s Men (2006)
Sean “Look, I’m ACTING!” Penn stars as Willie Stark, a political idealist who becomes just as corrupt as the politicians he was originally fighting against. Of course I don’t know how he was even able to get himself elected. Whenever I come across someone ranting and raving like a bad Baptist preacher with a bad Louisiana accent, my tendency is to run the other way, not stick around to see what he has to say. And then his message of taking all the money from the rich to give it to the poor smacks of the worst kind of socialism. This movie manages to cover less narrative ground in 18 more minutes than the 1949 original, creating something vastly inferior to the original in almost every respect.

Coming up next: two movies that start out dull, one of which gets much more interesting than the other.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XXII

2010-02-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

Here it is, the last one for 2009.

Surrogates (2009)
While the ending is too convenient, the journey to the ending has lots of thrills and asks some interesting questions about identity and humanity that never get too deep for their own good.

Zombieland (2009)
Woody Harrelson lights up the screen as a zombie killer extraordinaire in a movie that thankfully never gets serious and is loads of fun the whole way through.

The Informant! (2009)
Matt Damon might actually get his Oscar as a whistle blower who seems to even forget himself what is true and what isn’t in this quirky comedy.

(Oops, looks like I got that prediction wrong. Incidentally, The Informant is movie number 2000 for me by my count. We'll see how long it takes me to get to 3000.)

American Pop (1981)
While there are a couple interesting scenes, the film bites off far more than it can chew as it tries to tell the story of pop music through the lens of several generations of one family, with characters coming and going so fast that I could not keep track of who was who, and the film spent far too much time on the least interesting storyline.

Nikita (1990)
A remake of My Fair Lady (1964) if Henry Higgins was a government assassin instead of an English professor.
140
The Raven (1963)
An interesting cast headed by Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Jack Nicholson combined with lush production design make for a Roger Corman film that is actually worth watching.

All the King’s Men (2006)
Two hours of Sean Penn’s overacting as he rants socialist propaganda is two hours I will never get back.

Peeping Tom (1960)
I just don’t get why this ugly little movie is considered to be among the greats.

Coming up next: the start of my top 10 of the year, along with a couple honorable mentions.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XXI

2010-02-01T18:55:00.000-08:00

The Fantastiks (1995)
All of the magic and most of the humor from the stage show is sucked out leaving a lifeless story behind.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)
The first appearance by Godzilla on screen, the film is kind of creepy and very atmospheric, and lacking much of the silly elements that would populate subsequent Godzilla movies (though I wish I hadn’t seen the Raymond Burr version).

The Blob (1958)
Even the presence of Steve McQueen cannot make this movie anything more than a by-the-numbers, forgettable monster movie.

Out of Sight (1998)
George Clooney is suave and electric, as always, but the rest of the film is flat, with no other memorable characters and plot twists that show up just for the sake of being plot twists.

Manhunter (1986)
Brian Cox almost makes the audience forget that Anthony Hopkins also played Hannibal Lector but Michael Mann spends too much time wallowing in the depravity of mankind and the third act is unfulfilling.

The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988)
While I enjoyed reading the Pippi Longstocking stories as a kid, and I remember fondly the Swedish version from 1969, this one had far too many unbelievable moments, was unnecessarily a musical (with no memorable songs), treated all adults like idiots, and played an annoying, silly sound cue whenever Pippi did something magical that completely took me out of what little moment I already had.

District 9 (2009)
An intriguing premise, a compelling look, a protagonist who goes through a surprising character arc, and a story that continually takes unexpected turns combine to make this one of the better movies of the year.

9 (2009)
The visuals are gorgeous and the world is lovingly created, but the story is rushed and the characters are crudely defined, making a movie that could have been a really good film, but is instead a mediocre piece of entertainment.

We Are Marshall (2006)
A team that no one expected to do well surprises in a big game and lots of people say, “We are Marshall.”

Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince (1971)
This is a cute little story that is never as clever or entertaining as The Muppet Movie (1979) but is still a nice Muppet fix.

Coming up next: the last hurrah.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XX

2010-01-08T19:57:00.000-08:00

Here we go with the second-to-last entry in my 2009 movie odyssey. My top and bottom 10 of the year should be following shortly thereafter.

Dark Victory (1939)
This is a compelling story of a woman who learns she has a terminal brain tumor and how she decides to live out the rest of her life.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
Robert Donat is captivating in the role of a British school teacher who teaches Latin to generation after generation of Britain’s finest, ready with words of wisdom for his students, never shy from administering discipline when it is called for, and always willing to build a relationship with his students outside of the classroom.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
I give the writers credit for trying to elevate the film above its B-movie counterparts, but really the only reason to watch this film is the excellent stop-motion animation by Ray Harryhausen that, while not always realistic in its movements, has a tactile realism to it that CG is still unable to duplicate.

Night of the Creeps (1986)
This is just dumb, forgettable schlock that isn’t even bad enough to get worked up over.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
This is the second-best of the Harry Potter adaptations, streamlining the story from the novel (like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone failed to do) without it feeling rushed and incomplete (like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire failed to do).

20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
The only interesting character is Ray Harryhausen’s monster in this B-movie.

The Parent Trap (1961)
Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills are engaging in this cute story with an overly simple ending.

The Elephant Man (1980)
The black and white photography is appropriately stark as Anthony Hopkins tries to find the man inside the monster.

Gotcha! (1985)
A childhood friend liked this movie, and maybe I would have liked it more at 10, but as it is, this is just a dumb, highly implausible, 80s comedy which is only actually interesting during the first five minutes.

The Strongest Man in the World (1975)
The third entry in the Dexter Riley trilogy, most of the jokes fall pretty flat and the plot is too predictable, which is very disappointing considering how entertaining Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972) is.

Coming up next: a couple monster movies and a couple 9s.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XIX

2010-01-04T16:47:00.000-08:00

Benny & Joon (1993)
Johnny Depp channels Buster Keaton in this funny film with many memorable characters.

Slap Shot (1977)
While the three Hanson Brothers are loads of fun to watch, the rest of the movie is pretty flat and it would have been nice to see a little more actual hockey being played on the ice instead of all the constant brawling.

My Sister’s Keeper (2009)
While a mostly compelling story that asks some interesting questions, the constant narrator shifts were silly and the big revelation at the end was unnecessary, felt contrived, and undercut much of the emotional impact of the first hour and a half.

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
This is the tragic tale of a movie producer who attracts people through the force of his winning personality and then betrays them.

The Front Page (1931)
There are a few laughs and the director tries valiantly to do interesting things with the camera in this early talkie, but the film is uneven with many dull moments to accompany the fun ones.

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
This fun, thrilling swashbuckler features several characters that are so noble and upright that there is no way this movie would be made today given Hollywood’s obsession with flawed heroes.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
The feisty widow, Mrs. Muir, moves into a haunted house and strikes up a relationship with the cantankerous ghost who haunts it, providing a myriad of entertaining scenes as they work out how to coexist.

Brigadoon (1954)
This colorful musical features a couple amusing musical numbers but is a little thin in the area of plot.

The Majestic (2001)
Jim Carrey goes serious as a blacklisted screenwriter with amnesia, but everyone seems to be trying so hard to make a movie with Significance, it falls short of the Preston Sturges-esque comedy it could have been.

Walk the Line (2005)
Reese Witherspoon is so engaging as June Carter Cash that she steals every scene she is in and the rest of the film is cold and empty when she is off-screen.

Coming up next: a couple films from 1939 and a couple more from Ray Harryhausen.

My 2009 Movie Odysey - Part XVIII

2009-12-28T23:38:00.000-08:00

Ponyo (2008)
The latest offering from Hayao Miyazaki is very cute and charming with plenty of memorable characters, and while the visuals are not as opulent as Spirited Away (2001) or Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), they are still quite lovely.

Public Enemies (2009)
Johnny Depp and Christian Bale are both quite good as they face off against each other, but I had a hard time keeping track of all the supporting characters and the best parts of the movie were the closeups of Myrna Loy from Manhattan Melodrama (1934).

Star Trek (2009)
This was a whole lot of fun with a great cast, especially Simon Pegg as a very funny Scotty, with the only real complaint I can come up with is that they sacrificed a bit too much of the philosophical musings that are is signature of Star Trek in favor of more action (and a few too many lens flares).

The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
This is a pleasant little movie featuring Cary Grant, who is endearing as always, and David Niven as a frustrated bishop who gets an unexpected answer to his prayers.

Alien Trespass (2009)
While I applaud their efforts to recreate a B-movie from the 1950s, the sexuality, the obvious use of CG, and the fact that it was in color instead of black and white kept taking me out of the moment and kept it from being an effective homage, but never funny enough to work as a parody.

The Paradine Case (1947)
This courtroom drama never really gets going in the courtroom scenes; what makes the film interesting is how it focuses on how the trial affects all the people involved.

All That Jazz (1979)
This unorthodox musical (it is almost half an hour into the film before someone on screen sings something and is firmly rated R) tells the story of a celebrated Broadway director and choreographer who is working himself to death, and becomes more and more abstract as the film progresses, taking the movie musical into some interesting new places.

Mystery, Alaska (1999)
While the idea of a small-town hockey team taking on an NHL team is a fun idea, what elevates this film over most of the rest of the sports movies out there is the attention it gives to the characters and how the big game affects the whole town.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
The action is mindless, the characters are shallow, the dialog is flat, the villain is too comical to be taken seriously, the robot assistant is annoying as all get out, the big effects set-pieces are unconvincing, and its single redeeming attribute, a song on the soundtrack from They Might Be Giants, lasts only a few seconds, making this movie every bit as dumb as I though it would be.

Nothing Sacred (1937)
Carole Lombard is very funny in her only Technicolor appearance as a woman who is incorrectly diagnosed with terminal radium poisoning, and only learns this fact after a reporter for a major New York newspaper decides to write a series of public interest articles on her tragic story.

Coming up next: more hockey and an unconventional ghost story.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XVII

2009-12-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

Following (1998)
The directorial debut from Christopher Nolan tells an interesting story that keeps its audience guessing until the very end with his signature nonlinear storytelling out in full force.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
The beginning is loud, confusing, and overblown, and the ending drags on too long with far too many explosions, but the second act works for the most part with the Transformers actually getting more developed characters this time around.

Sense and Sensibility (1995)
It was pleasant enough, but a bit of a disappointment since I rather enjoyed Pride and Prejudice (2005).

At the Circus (1939)
This time around the Marx Brothers play detective in this fun romp that has several wonderfully comic scenes.

Murder at the Vanities (1934)
The film cuts between a murder investigation backstage at a theatre which is rather entertaining and the on stage musical numbers that are obviously inspired by the Ziegfeld follies and surprisingly racy.

San Diego I Love You (1944)
This funny movie about an amateur inventor and his slightly overzealous daughter and their move to San Diego to get funding for one of his inventions is highlighted by a wonderful cameo by Buster Keaton (in which he actually smiles!).

Cavalcade (1933)
Much like Cimarron (1931) and Giant (1956), Cavalcade tries to tell the story of a geographical region through the lens of one family, and just like the former two films, ends up being tedious and far too long (though there were two very memorable moments).

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
James Cagney defines charismatic evil as a gangster just released from prison who becomes an idol for a group of neighborhood kids, much to the chagrin of his childhood friend and local priest.

Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
This is a little less dumb than How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965) and Buster Keaton’s supporting role is actually funny this time around, taking advantage of his talent for physical comedy instead of ignoring them.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982)
The scenes with Percy as the Pimpernel and as the upper class twit are both loads of fun, but the rest of the movie drags and could have benefitted from losing half an hour or more of run time.

Coming up next: television translated to the big screen and an unorthodox musical.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XVI

2009-12-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm way behind on my movie odyssey posting. So in the interest of catching up so this doesn't drag too far into 2010, I'm switching to 10 per post instead of my normal 5. Enjoy.

Up (2009)
This is a wonderful tale about friendship and adventure found in unexpected places, full of emotional highs and lows, and even when something happened exactly as I predicted, it still provoked an emotional response.

Das Experiment (2001)
This is a grim tale about a psychology experiment in which volunteers play the roles of prison guards and inmates that gets out of hand and was inspired by an actual experiment.

Sleuth (2007)
This remake took almost everything that was visually interesting from the original and threw it out the window along with most of the compelling elements of the plot and replaced them with a visually boring set, copious amounts of profanity, and a homoerotic ending that came completely out of nowhere and made absolutely no sense.

The Brothers Bloom (2008)
This con man romp from the director of Brick (2005) is a lot of fun with several interesting characters including Bang Bang, a cute explosives expert who never bothers to talk.

Ace in the Hole (1951)
This heartbreaking indictment of sensationalist journalism features an excellent performance by Kirk Douglas who stars as newspaper reporter who manufactures a human interest story that captures the imagination of the nation, and then does whatever he can to make the publicity wave last as long as possible, no matter what happens to anyone else.

Wings (1927)
I really wanted to like this film that was the first winner of the Best Picture Oscar, but the aerial dogfights were not very thrilling and an overlong sequence where one hotshot pilot gets drunk for the first time grew tedious very quickly.

Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
This charming, quiet comedy is almost a silent film and is full of memorable characters and amusing recurring jokes that force the audience to pay attention since so many of them are very subtle.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Stunning photography and a powerful performance by Maria Falconetti make this a must-see for cinephiles but should probably be avoided by people who haven’t seen many silent films.

The Simpsons Movie (2007)
It is funny and feels like a long episode, but doesn’t break any new ground.

I.Q. (1994)
This is a cute movie about intelligent people being foolishly in love and a wonderful posse of elderly scientists led by Albert Einstein which reminded me (favorably) of Ball of Fire (1941).

Coming up next: my final best picture winner.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XV

2009-11-11T13:43:00.000-08:00

For Me and My Gal (1942)
Judy Garland is pretty, Gene Kelley is charming, and there are some nice musical numbers, which adds up to a pleasantly entertaining piece of film (though I think Judy Garland’s character chose the wrong man in the end).

Taken (2008)
The title should be renamed: “Liam Neeson Kicks Butt.”

Knowing (2009)
There are a couple interesting set pieces (namely Nicholas Cage wandering through the wreckage of a plane that just crashed) but the payoff, filled with hijacked Christian symbolism, left me thinking that the whole thing would have been much better if done as a half hour Twilight Zone episode.

Caught (1949)
The movie asks some interesting relationship questions, but the ending feels overly contrived and too much like a copout.

Manhattan (1979)
Woody Allen has troubles with his love life; isn’t this the plot of every one of his films?

Coming up next: a couple more single word titles, one vastly superior to the other.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XIV

2009-11-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

The 400 Blows (1959)
This is an interesting character study of a young boy who constantly finds himself in trouble (played wonderfully by Jean-Pierre Leaund) but nothing really happens.

Southland Tales (2006)
This is the most bizarre, confusing, poorly written, poorly acted, inconsistent, unbelievable, and downright dirty beer commercial I have ever seen.

Ikiru (1952)
This is the compelling story of an old man with only a few months to live, who decides to make something of what little life he has left despite the ineffectual bureaucracy that surrounds him.

Any Given Sunday (1999)
Oliver Stone makes a football movie that is entertaining while it lasts.

Catch-22 (1970)
This war time comedy is irreverent and sometimes surreal and is very reminiscent of MASH, which coincidentally came out the same year.

Coming up next: four one word titles.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XIII

2009-10-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

The Wrestler (2008)
I am not a fan of professional wrestling, so when I say that I enjoyed the story and Mickey Rourke’s performance, that means something.

Bedlam (1946)
My final Val Lewton film, it offers fewer scares than the previous outings, but it is still very engaging and, of course, very atmospheric.

Sleuth (1972)
Laurence Olivier and Michael Cain go toe-to-toe in a battle of wills that always kept me guessing, with Alec Cawthorne holding his own alongside these two acting legends.

Winchester ‘73 (1950)
This interesting western has a prized rifle as the main character as it constantly changes hands from one unworthy man to another.

Bend of the River (1952)
James Stewart starts as a gunslinger who hires on to lead a wagon train west to their new homestead in this gorgeous western.

Coming up next: 2 numeric films and one real loser.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XII

2009-10-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

Doubt (2008)
This is a well acted tale featuring a righteous crusader of a hero and a truly vile villain; the only question is: which one is the hero and which one is the villain?

Free and Easy (1930)
Buster Keaton’s first sound film was a disappointment since he never really gets to show off his comedy skills, and while there are a couple good bits, it is depressing knowing what MGM did to his career and how far this great comedian fell.

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008)
I was expecting this to be bad, being chock full of Adam Sandler “humor,” but what I was not expecting was countless shots of Sandler’s bare behind and an overdose of perverse sexuality.

Spy Hard (1996)
It is an amusing waste of time, better than most parodies, but not nearly as memorable as Airplane! (1980) and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), with the best part being the theme song performed by Weird Al.

10,000 BC (2008)
After watching the trailer and seeing the billboards, I knew this would be a bad movie, but with all the contrived plot points, poorly constructed characters, impossible geography, and the overall feel that it is The Ten Commandments (1956) remade by atheists, it passed over the “so bad it’s fun” designation into “so bad it’s painful.”

Coming up next: A couple James Stewart westerns and a classic mystery.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part XI

2009-10-03T01:03:00.000-07:00

In Bruges (2008)
While the film took a couple unexpected narrative turns, I failed to see what was so great about this mostly enjoyable but largely forgettable film.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Since I work at a job involving sales, I could appreciate what some of the characters were going through, but I quickly got tired of the endless angry, profanity-filled monologues.

The Crimson Pirate (1952)
Burt Lancaster is electric in this highly entertaining swashbuckling romp, aided by his equally captivating, non-speaking sidekick who comes across as a cross between Jack Sparrow and Harpo Marx.

Revenge of the Nerds (1984)
Ever since I saw this title I knew I had to see the film, and it was pretty much what I expected: raunchy 80s comedy that is funny in parts but one which I would be embarrassed to watch in the company of women and children.

Guys and Dolls (1955)
The opening musical sequence is amazing and the dialog was fun to listen to, but all too quickly the musical numbers turned run-of-the-mill, but still the whole experience is an enjoyable one.

Coming up next: two movies virtually guaranteed to make my bottom ten of the year.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part X

2009-09-26T01:24:00.000-07:00

Let the Right One In (2008)
I mostly liked this different take on vampires though the ending is a little twisted (and I wonder what it would have been like going into the movie not knowing it was about a vampire).

The Body Snatcher (1945)
Boris Karloff is suitably creepy in yet another atmospheric gem from producer Val Lewton.

The Wages of Fear (1953)
The film starts out slow and boring, but becomes an absolutely gripping tale as four men must navigate a pair of trucks loaded down with nitroglycerin through the South American rain forest, driving on poorly maintained roads, where the slightest bump could spell certain doom for the drivers.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
This is an amusing tale about a professional assassin who rethinks his life after reconnecting with Minnie Driver.

Rachel Getting Married (2008)
Anne Hathaway puts in a wonderful performance in this surprisingly likeable story about a wedding that at times almost feels like the ultimate wedding video (though I don’t mean that in a bad way).

Coming up next: a rip-roaring good time and a film I watched solely because of the title.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part IX

2009-09-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

The Evil Dead (1981)
This fun, gory B-movie makes up in inventiveness what it lacks in production value.

Ishtar (1987)
The film has some truly funny moments, but it gets bogged down in an overlong opening that is practically a different movie from the rest of the film.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006)
This is a pretty funny French spy thriller parody, though I can’t figure out if it’s a brilliant satire of European colonialism or merely a thinly veiled criticism of Bush's foreign policy.

Blowup (1966)
I found the main character repulsive in this film in which a whole lot of nothing happens for the first half of the film, and when he discovers a murder and things start to get interesting, a whole lot more nothing happens and nothing is resolved.

The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)
While I’m sure I would have liked it as a kid, I found the whole thing little more than silly and amusing fun, yet largely unforgettable.

Coming up next: 3 intense movies and 2 homecomings.

My Life According to They Might Be Giants

2009-09-08T21:25:00.000-07:00

And now for something completely different...

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think!

I decided to go with They Might Be Giants since they have lots of songs on lots of topics with interesting titles. Some of these had more than one good answer, but I decided to go with the best one.

-Are you a male or female? - Mr. Me

-Describe yourself: - No One Knows My Plan

-How do you feel right now? - Everything Right Is Wrong Again

-If you could go anywhere, where would you go? - Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

-Your favorite form of transportation: - Rocket Ship

-Describe Your Morning Routine: - Don't Let's Start

-Your best friend is: - My Evil Twin

-What's the weather like? - Why Does the Sun Shine?

-Pet Peeve? - Man, It's So Loud in Here

-If your life was a TV show, what would it be called? - Experimental Film

-Your relationship status: - All Alone, All By Myself

-Your Fear: - Everything Is Catching on Fire

-What is the best advice you have to give? - Careful What You Pack

-If you could change your name, you would change it to? - Doctor Worm

-What do you say when you are frustrated? - When It Rains It Snows

-Thought for the day: - C Is for Conifers

-How you would like to die? - I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die

-Your soul's present condition: - Kiss Me, Son of God

-Your motto: - I Should Be Allowed to Think

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part VIII

2009-09-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

61* (2001)
This entertaining story of Mickey Mantle and Roger Marris’ race to break Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record is highly recommended for baseball fans.

Tropic Thunder (2008)
I liked the Hollywood satire parts of the film, and Robert Downy Jr. was quite fun, but the film descended into crassness too often for my tastes.

Watchmen (2009)
While the visuals are great, the story wallows in moral relativism, most of the characters are not terribly compelling, and the violence is needlessly brutal.

Sabotage (1936)
This early Hitchcock work is mostly mediocre but features a bus sequence that gives a glimpse of what Hitchcock would become.

Get Smart’s Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control (2008)
This spinoff of Get Smart is mostly funny but gets unnecessarily earthy in places.

Coming up next: a cult classic and an infamous bomb.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part VII

2009-09-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

Hair (1979)
Hippies are the true saviors of mankind!

Ball of Fire (1941)
This very funny screwball comedy features Gary Cooper as an absentminded professor and Barbara Stanwyck as the woman disrupts his attentions and steals his heart, as well as a wonderful cast of supporting characters played by a who’s who of old man character actors.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
This taught, small-scale thriller features Walter Matthau as a New York transit authority worker who has to deal with hijackers who hold hostage a subway train full of people.

In Cold Blood (1967)
This is kind of an interesting character study that goes on way too long and I never really latched on to any of the characters (and it’s not much of a courtroom drama, AFI).

Sixteen Candles (1984)
The movie has it’s moments, but it is filled with caricatures who are overly obsessed with getting the right boy/girlfriend.

Coming up next: three one word titles.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part VI

2009-08-24T00:53:00.000-07:00

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
While the ending was a little weird, the effects were very well done and the scene in which a cat tries to eat him is surprisingly tense.

Howard the Duck (1986)
Howard’s wisecracks, Tim Robbins’ “scientist,” the hokey bad guy, and the whole plot were supposed to be funny, but the “humor” fell flatter than a pancake after being visited by a steam roller.

Notting Hill (1999)
I found it surprisingly funny and engaging, though the end seemed a little contrived, and like most romantic comedies, it forgot it was a comedy for the last third of the film.

Panic Room (2002)
This is a fun claustrophobic thriller with some wonderfully inventive camera work/effects.

The Hustler (1961)
Paul Newman’s quest to be the best pool player is riveting, but his scenes with his love interest failed to make any sort of connection.

Coming up next: two anatomical movies and two numerical ones.

My 2009 Movie Odyssey - Part V

2009-08-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

The Thing (1982)
This film exists solely to see a gross monster eat people and get destroyed in a myriad of gruesome ways.

Spielberg on Spielberg (2007)
A must-see for fans of Steven Spielberg, this documentary features an hour and a half of Spielberg talking about his movies.

Persepolis (2007)
While visually interesting, the story loses steam two-thirds of the way through as the main character is unable to feel at home in either Europe or her native Iran.

The Reader (2008)
I would say I liked it better when they called it Sophie’s Choice, but I wasn’t terribly fond of Sophie’s Choice either.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
It was funnier, happier, more engaging, and had much more truth to it when they called it Forrest Gump.

Coming up next: a classic sci-fi flick and a classic stinker.