I don't know if anyone has actually seen this film, but I sort of randomly found myself going to see this baby. Which is cool and everything (especially since I didn't pay for it), but I'm looking at the movie's box office business and I'm wondering exactly how many people have heard of this thing. So let me briefly describe it to you.
It's CGI.
It has talking rag dolls roaming vast wastelands.
That's all I can think of to describe it. If that doesn't jog your memory, then it's obviously your fault. I mean, come on... it was released on 9/9/09 (get it? Cause the movie's title is "9"?), so obviously it was led by a massively brilliant marketing campaign that you missed out on because you enjoy nature or some BS like that. Spend more time watching TV, for cripes sake.
Anyway, I've got a few things to say:
-It's really nice to see something that isn't 2+ hours long. Seriously, after seeing a bunch of stuff where 140 minutes was the average, it's refreshing to see something that runs at a cool 80 minutes. I mean, I like a long epic when the situation calls for it and everything, but the brisk and economical pace that working with only 80 minutes brings you is nice to see at work from time to time.
-Unfortunately, the 80 minutes this film features are pretty much wasted focusing strongly on visuals. Which are impressive, mind you, but there are several large problems to note about the actual story of the dang thing.
1) There are no personalities in the characters. I mean, you get general sketches of what the characters are supposed to be like-9 is the young and brave one, 6 is the kinda crazy one, 7 is the token girl, etc... but that's pretty much all you get to know about them.
2) I read a review that made the comparison of the film to a video game. Which is quite accurate, as obviously it's main appeal are in the fights with the bad guy and blah blah. But to me it seemed like one of those games in which you had fun while playing it, but then you got to the cut scene. And the cut scenes seem so woefully underdeveloped and uninteresting that you hop onto internet forums to complain about it. And then you go play Metal Gear Solid. Anyway, what would help with these "cut scenes" if there was any sense of humor involved. I mean, I guess since it's a post-apocalyptic world then it wouldn't be fitting to have too much humor, but still... I guess this sort of goes into my next point.
3) (spoilers and such) So these strange rag dolls were created by this one scientist guy as the world was going to s***, and decided that he would insert in all of them the last remaining parts of his "humanity" with a humanity ray or something. Which is all well and good, cause it's a triumph of the human spirit or something-even after the human race has died out! But wait... why would you then make your doll characters so cold and impersonable if they're supposed to possess human qualities? See, this is why perhaps the movie length could have been longer, as they could then focus on the characters, allow them to crack a joke or two (you know, to make them relatable) and then you got yourself a decent flick. If you don't spend time doing that, and then you make a big speech at the end about how the scientist wanted to continue humanity's legacy through these little doll dudes... well, it falls a bit flat, does it not?
It does. I answered my own question there. That's going to be the end of this post because I can't think of any other way to conclude it. Go me.
Showing posts with label reviews of movies are cool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews of movies are cool. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
More movies:
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1995)
I just thought of putting the release year in parantheses after the movie title. What a neat idea, right? Well... OK, so it isn't, but the REALLY COOL novel idea I'm going to incorporate with the release years is that I don't actually know the release years of these movies at all! I'm just guessing! Isn't that awesome!?!!
(I'm going to count this as my first journalistic innovation. It is what I hope to be a first of many.)
I thought it would be hard to be disappointed by what would most certainly amount to a glorified TV episode, but here I am... kinda disappointed. This is for a few simple reasons. 1) The movie "This Island Earth", really isn't all that terrible, or really all that conducive to humorous, sarcastic quips. 2) It's 75 minutes long. And 3) (this is the major one) I enjoyed the between movie clips much more than I expected... which sort of made me wish they had skipped the whole "make fun of bad movie" part of the film and instead make a straight homage to all the terrible movies that they have endured throughout the years. Like the scene in which they use the Manos hands to remove the Hubble space telescope. It was both cheesy, fun, and a perfect reference to one of their more infamous episodes. You could make a nice 80 minute movie out of that.
After Hours (1985)
I watched this a week or two ago, so it's not nearly as fresh on my mind as the above one (which I finished watching about 30 minutes ago), and I was going to write about it as soon as I watched it, but didn't for a variety of reasons (all of them pretty much boiling down to "I'm lazy"). Anyway, what I was going to say back then was "Dang, I need to watch a lot more Scorsese." Cause this movie was good, you see. It's kind of a simple plot... boring office worker decides to do something different and travel downtown to hang with this girl he met, only to have that go terribly wrong, and after that sees his entire night take a surreal downward spiral after multiple failed attempts to return to the comforts of home. It's executed *so* nicely, though... with that vivacious Scorsese visual flair (ack, what a mouthful) in full swing, and plus, it's funny to boot. There's this one moment (I don't know if you'll ever see it, but in case you do, I won't say what it is), in which something ridiculous happens and the main character essentially turns to us to perfectly sum up the entire movie... it's so wonderful, and probably one of my more favorite comedic scenes I can think of.
As far as Scorsese comedies go, The King Of Comedy is slightly better, but you know. This was a nice, unexpected surprise. Also, it reinforced the idea that I pretty much need to see everything that Scorsese has made. You know how it is... you want to see the best of the best, and only the stuff that you love will prompt you into exploring the (band, director, author, etc)'s more minor works. I watched this (what seems to be considered a minor work for the man) expecting nothing, and now I've got about three Scorsese films that I plan on watching this weekend (Aviator, Casino, and New York, New York), and two more I could easily fire up on Netflix's Watch Instantly.
I was going to write about more stuff that I've seen, but I have one that I'd really like to write about, but I don't think I have the mental capacity right now to do it justice. So I'm just going to not write about it at all. That's the logical way out, I'd say.
I just thought of putting the release year in parantheses after the movie title. What a neat idea, right? Well... OK, so it isn't, but the REALLY COOL novel idea I'm going to incorporate with the release years is that I don't actually know the release years of these movies at all! I'm just guessing! Isn't that awesome!?!!
(I'm going to count this as my first journalistic innovation. It is what I hope to be a first of many.)
I thought it would be hard to be disappointed by what would most certainly amount to a glorified TV episode, but here I am... kinda disappointed. This is for a few simple reasons. 1) The movie "This Island Earth", really isn't all that terrible, or really all that conducive to humorous, sarcastic quips. 2) It's 75 minutes long. And 3) (this is the major one) I enjoyed the between movie clips much more than I expected... which sort of made me wish they had skipped the whole "make fun of bad movie" part of the film and instead make a straight homage to all the terrible movies that they have endured throughout the years. Like the scene in which they use the Manos hands to remove the Hubble space telescope. It was both cheesy, fun, and a perfect reference to one of their more infamous episodes. You could make a nice 80 minute movie out of that.
After Hours (1985)
I watched this a week or two ago, so it's not nearly as fresh on my mind as the above one (which I finished watching about 30 minutes ago), and I was going to write about it as soon as I watched it, but didn't for a variety of reasons (all of them pretty much boiling down to "I'm lazy"). Anyway, what I was going to say back then was "Dang, I need to watch a lot more Scorsese." Cause this movie was good, you see. It's kind of a simple plot... boring office worker decides to do something different and travel downtown to hang with this girl he met, only to have that go terribly wrong, and after that sees his entire night take a surreal downward spiral after multiple failed attempts to return to the comforts of home. It's executed *so* nicely, though... with that vivacious Scorsese visual flair (ack, what a mouthful) in full swing, and plus, it's funny to boot. There's this one moment (I don't know if you'll ever see it, but in case you do, I won't say what it is), in which something ridiculous happens and the main character essentially turns to us to perfectly sum up the entire movie... it's so wonderful, and probably one of my more favorite comedic scenes I can think of.
As far as Scorsese comedies go, The King Of Comedy is slightly better, but you know. This was a nice, unexpected surprise. Also, it reinforced the idea that I pretty much need to see everything that Scorsese has made. You know how it is... you want to see the best of the best, and only the stuff that you love will prompt you into exploring the (band, director, author, etc)'s more minor works. I watched this (what seems to be considered a minor work for the man) expecting nothing, and now I've got about three Scorsese films that I plan on watching this weekend (Aviator, Casino, and New York, New York), and two more I could easily fire up on Netflix's Watch Instantly.
I was going to write about more stuff that I've seen, but I have one that I'd really like to write about, but I don't think I have the mental capacity right now to do it justice. So I'm just going to not write about it at all. That's the logical way out, I'd say.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Review: Sunday School Musical
Yes, I am going to review a movie none of you have heard of and will most likely never see. Get over it.
So a friend had me over to watch this a few nights ago, as we both share somewhat of an affinity for bad movies. And I was told that this was made by the same company that made film Snakes On A Train. Now, I haven't seen that movie, but I am assuming that as a copy/parody/whatever of the underappreciated Snakes On A Plane, the way it tried to draw people in was to ramp up the raunchiness factor... that meaning more blood, more sex, more snakes on genitalia. Which might have been an erroneous assumption on my part, but this was what I was thinking nonetheless. So when I heard about this film, I thought it would have been pretty much like my vision of what Snakes On A Train was like: as in, a copy/parody/whatever of High School Musical.... except, you know, more blood, sex, and snakes on genitalia (well... more sex, mainly). I mean, that's a reasonable assumption anyway, right? Low budget production needs something to reel the people in with, so why not put in some sex? Plus, what could make a low budget film any more ripe for crazy Hollywood erotic hijinks than including Sunday school in the picture?
Well, as it turns out, the only thing that would prevent this from being a bad teenage sex romp is a production company called "Faith Films." So yeah... this instead was a bad film that would actually be fit to show in a Sunday school to 7 year olds. Which is OK, I suppose... it just was different from what I was expecting.
Of course, going into the film with that mindset made this film seem a lot dirtier than it probably was. The main result of this was that you sensed this weird sexual tension between the preacher dad and the clean cut daughter. It didn't help that it took its cue from The Graduate and had the difference in age between the dad and daughter seem to be about 8 years or so.
Alas, that daughter has bigger fish to fry... as she obviously had her sights set on getting involved in the TAMEST ON-SCREEN ROMANCE IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA. See, the guy she falls for is the leader of the rival Sunday school choir... except he then has to join the gal's choir when his mother loses her job and has to move in with her sister. So how do they fall for each other? Well... you really can't be sure, because the filmmakers don't want ANYTHING resembling lust. So basically they just smile a lot... not necessarily at each other, but you know... they smile. Oh, and I think they bond over their own struggles, as her mother died recently and his family's poor, except that's bulls*** because aside from her mother she has the f'ing perfect life with an apparently rich as crap pastor dad and popularity and success inside the school. And if I were a city kid that had to move in with my aunt due to money troubles, I definitely wouldn't be hanging with a gal that pretty much epitomizes middle class suburbia. But whatever. At the end, you're pretty much not sure if there's supposed to be a relationship that finally blossoms in the end, so when they do kiss, you're sort of left thinking "oh... right, yeah" while sort of secretly wondering what her Dad thinks of it.
Oh, and it's not even much of a kiss either. It's sort of a light and quick peck. Which sort of adds to the humorous ambivalence surrounding the whole thing. And there's a review on IMDB that actually expresses OUTRAGE over the "immoral" kiss at the end. This... the most inconsequential and tame kiss one can put on film. What?
Anyway. It's good if you like High School Musical, but would like it to be less catchy and more embedded with morals and positive messages and all that crap. I don't, and I'm guessing you don't... so enjoy it for what it is: a movie where white kids learn how to breakdance just by watching the urban city kids do it, and where the only unlikable character (who is also ambiguously gay) goes from dancing and singing with the main characters to yelling at them for ruining things right as the song ends.
So a friend had me over to watch this a few nights ago, as we both share somewhat of an affinity for bad movies. And I was told that this was made by the same company that made film Snakes On A Train. Now, I haven't seen that movie, but I am assuming that as a copy/parody/whatever of the underappreciated Snakes On A Plane, the way it tried to draw people in was to ramp up the raunchiness factor... that meaning more blood, more sex, more snakes on genitalia. Which might have been an erroneous assumption on my part, but this was what I was thinking nonetheless. So when I heard about this film, I thought it would have been pretty much like my vision of what Snakes On A Train was like: as in, a copy/parody/whatever of High School Musical.... except, you know, more blood, sex, and snakes on genitalia (well... more sex, mainly). I mean, that's a reasonable assumption anyway, right? Low budget production needs something to reel the people in with, so why not put in some sex? Plus, what could make a low budget film any more ripe for crazy Hollywood erotic hijinks than including Sunday school in the picture?
Well, as it turns out, the only thing that would prevent this from being a bad teenage sex romp is a production company called "Faith Films." So yeah... this instead was a bad film that would actually be fit to show in a Sunday school to 7 year olds. Which is OK, I suppose... it just was different from what I was expecting.
Of course, going into the film with that mindset made this film seem a lot dirtier than it probably was. The main result of this was that you sensed this weird sexual tension between the preacher dad and the clean cut daughter. It didn't help that it took its cue from The Graduate and had the difference in age between the dad and daughter seem to be about 8 years or so.
Alas, that daughter has bigger fish to fry... as she obviously had her sights set on getting involved in the TAMEST ON-SCREEN ROMANCE IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA. See, the guy she falls for is the leader of the rival Sunday school choir... except he then has to join the gal's choir when his mother loses her job and has to move in with her sister. So how do they fall for each other? Well... you really can't be sure, because the filmmakers don't want ANYTHING resembling lust. So basically they just smile a lot... not necessarily at each other, but you know... they smile. Oh, and I think they bond over their own struggles, as her mother died recently and his family's poor, except that's bulls*** because aside from her mother she has the f'ing perfect life with an apparently rich as crap pastor dad and popularity and success inside the school. And if I were a city kid that had to move in with my aunt due to money troubles, I definitely wouldn't be hanging with a gal that pretty much epitomizes middle class suburbia. But whatever. At the end, you're pretty much not sure if there's supposed to be a relationship that finally blossoms in the end, so when they do kiss, you're sort of left thinking "oh... right, yeah" while sort of secretly wondering what her Dad thinks of it.
Oh, and it's not even much of a kiss either. It's sort of a light and quick peck. Which sort of adds to the humorous ambivalence surrounding the whole thing. And there's a review on IMDB that actually expresses OUTRAGE over the "immoral" kiss at the end. This... the most inconsequential and tame kiss one can put on film. What?
Anyway. It's good if you like High School Musical, but would like it to be less catchy and more embedded with morals and positive messages and all that crap. I don't, and I'm guessing you don't... so enjoy it for what it is: a movie where white kids learn how to breakdance just by watching the urban city kids do it, and where the only unlikable character (who is also ambiguously gay) goes from dancing and singing with the main characters to yelling at them for ruining things right as the song ends.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thoughts on movies I've seen recently: (how's that for a straightforward title?)
Downfall
-Now, I haven't see a lot of World War II movies in my life. Saving Private Ryan is pretty much the only one I can think of at the moment, although I know there's more. Oh, I guess Schindler's List would count as one... does it count as one? It took place during World War II, at least. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while most people are sick of WWII films, I've really never been interested in them. I am assuming that it is because of one of two reasons:
1) The Nazis probably never win in the end. Sure, this isn't something that I should REALLY complain about, since... you know, Nazis are the root of all evil or something like that, but I'd like to see a historically accurate depiction of World War II, leading up to their ultimate surrender... and then SWERVE EVERYONE and have Nazi Germany win and take over the world. Admit it, it'd be kind of cool to see. Unfortunately, I do not know if any such ending to a WWII exists (or would ever exist),
2) Pop culture has always portrayed the Nazis as the epitome of uncompromising evil. And obviously, they did a whole crap load of bad... but I'd hesitate to call any human "evil." Completely, terribly misguided, sure. Also I really dislike 2D characterizations of the bad guys.
So I liked this movie, mainly because a lot of the characters weren't really evil, but just apes*** crazy. It actually makes them scarier, because they aren't just some bad people who know what they are doing is bad... but rather they believe that they are completely in the right, that all these people deserve death, etc. etc. In the case of Hitler, you see glimpses of an idea that he realizes he may have gone wrong somewhere, but due to stubbornness refuses to admit defeat or guilt in any sort of way.
What gives the film its extra punch is the Goebbels family, especially the mother. I mean, she may come off as cold and evil, but really... no mother would kill six of her children without being severely misguided. In this case, she thinks that they have no future thanks to the regime crumbling.
One of the problems was that there were a LOT of characters, and I couldn't keep track of all their roles and their names, probably because I'm not completely familiar with the Nazi hierarchy. Could have had a little more clarity, but whatever.
Spartacus
So my main impression was that it was like Braveheart, except considerably less lame. You know, both are long epics that spends considerable time questioning what it means to be "free", both equate the willingness to fight for what you believe in to masculinity... except Spartacus was directed by Stanley f'n Kubrick, and Mel Gibson thinks the concept of freedom so exciting that he litters the film with like 6000 literal and annoying dialogues about how great it is.
You know how both have these characters with homosexual tendencies to further illustrate the masculinity of the hero? Well, in Spartacus, the scene is awesome, where Laurence Olivier is getting washed by his servant and gets into a discussion about how he likes "both snails and oysters." It's at the same time subtle and yet totally not. On the flip side... you have Braveheart, where the homosexual couple is ineffectual and basically just as comedic characters... and it kind of pisses me off.
Basically, I think the main reason why I liked this movie is because it reminded me how much Braveheart sucked.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Gregory Peck's performance (especially his work in the courtroom scenes) carried this. Otherwise... eh. I'm not a fan when the melodrama is lathered on a little too liberally. And again... 2D representations of good and bad really aren't that interesting.
I've also never read the book. Does that make me a bad person? Just a question... I already know that I'm pretty much the worst English major to ever exist, but maybe I'm even worse than that.
-Now, I haven't see a lot of World War II movies in my life. Saving Private Ryan is pretty much the only one I can think of at the moment, although I know there's more. Oh, I guess Schindler's List would count as one... does it count as one? It took place during World War II, at least. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while most people are sick of WWII films, I've really never been interested in them. I am assuming that it is because of one of two reasons:
1) The Nazis probably never win in the end. Sure, this isn't something that I should REALLY complain about, since... you know, Nazis are the root of all evil or something like that, but I'd like to see a historically accurate depiction of World War II, leading up to their ultimate surrender... and then SWERVE EVERYONE and have Nazi Germany win and take over the world. Admit it, it'd be kind of cool to see. Unfortunately, I do not know if any such ending to a WWII exists (or would ever exist),
2) Pop culture has always portrayed the Nazis as the epitome of uncompromising evil. And obviously, they did a whole crap load of bad... but I'd hesitate to call any human "evil." Completely, terribly misguided, sure. Also I really dislike 2D characterizations of the bad guys.
So I liked this movie, mainly because a lot of the characters weren't really evil, but just apes*** crazy. It actually makes them scarier, because they aren't just some bad people who know what they are doing is bad... but rather they believe that they are completely in the right, that all these people deserve death, etc. etc. In the case of Hitler, you see glimpses of an idea that he realizes he may have gone wrong somewhere, but due to stubbornness refuses to admit defeat or guilt in any sort of way.
What gives the film its extra punch is the Goebbels family, especially the mother. I mean, she may come off as cold and evil, but really... no mother would kill six of her children without being severely misguided. In this case, she thinks that they have no future thanks to the regime crumbling.
One of the problems was that there were a LOT of characters, and I couldn't keep track of all their roles and their names, probably because I'm not completely familiar with the Nazi hierarchy. Could have had a little more clarity, but whatever.
Spartacus
So my main impression was that it was like Braveheart, except considerably less lame. You know, both are long epics that spends considerable time questioning what it means to be "free", both equate the willingness to fight for what you believe in to masculinity... except Spartacus was directed by Stanley f'n Kubrick, and Mel Gibson thinks the concept of freedom so exciting that he litters the film with like 6000 literal and annoying dialogues about how great it is.
You know how both have these characters with homosexual tendencies to further illustrate the masculinity of the hero? Well, in Spartacus, the scene is awesome, where Laurence Olivier is getting washed by his servant and gets into a discussion about how he likes "both snails and oysters." It's at the same time subtle and yet totally not. On the flip side... you have Braveheart, where the homosexual couple is ineffectual and basically just as comedic characters... and it kind of pisses me off.
Basically, I think the main reason why I liked this movie is because it reminded me how much Braveheart sucked.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Gregory Peck's performance (especially his work in the courtroom scenes) carried this. Otherwise... eh. I'm not a fan when the melodrama is lathered on a little too liberally. And again... 2D representations of good and bad really aren't that interesting.
I've also never read the book. Does that make me a bad person? Just a question... I already know that I'm pretty much the worst English major to ever exist, but maybe I'm even worse than that.
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