My new boss suggested I check out It’s Complicated during a conference call two weeks back. If I had declined, the rest of the people would think I was a jerk (they’ll find out soon enough anyway), so I told her I would. I moved it to the top of the Netflix list to try and suck up. I now realize my boss and I will have to disagree on which movies we like.
Jake and Jane (Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep) have been divorced for 10 years and are civil to each other, despite the fact that Jake has remarried a significantly younger and sluttier woman. At Jake and Jane’s son’s graduation, the two ex’s have a few drinks and “hook up”, as the kids call it these days. This illicit affair goes on for a short while with Jane loving it at first, and then becoming more and more distraught as she begins to realize what she’s doing. John Krasinski plays her son in law who actually sees some of this affair happening and doesn’t let on that he knows. During this affair, Jane is also torn because she ends up liking the attention she’s getting from Adam (Steve Martin), the architect who’s working on her remodel project. Jake finally leaves his young wife to pursue a legitimate relationship with his ex-wife.
The movie starts out really slow. In fact, I made a couple of comments about 30 minutes in and 45 minutes in, asking when it was supposed to get funny. It didn’t. It dragged out mercilessly without humor for over an hour before it got an actual laugh from me (and that was a John Krasinski line, I believe). Even Steve Martin, whom I LOVE, didn’t even make me crack a smile. He’s super cute in his usual way, but they didn’t capitalize on any of his humor in this film – including the scene where they get smoked up and get giggly, which I didn’t believe for a second.
The acting was a tad (sometimes more than a tad) overdone in the entire film and characters were just a bit too chipper. Alec Baldwin either needed to be more friendly and likeable or he needed to be more of an ass, like in 30 Rock. If he had done either of those things, I would have liked him a LOT more in this movie. At the end of the movie, I said, “maybe if I was a middle aged woman or a cougar, I’d find this movie funnier.” Actually THAT got the biggest laugh of the night. Sad, but true. This movie kind of sucked the life out of me and stole two hours I will never see again.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Sword of Doom
Sword of Doom is an old black and white samurai movie from Japan. A swordsman shows up on a mountainside and kills and old man praying at a shrine to Buddha. The swordsman is supposed to fight another guy in the town the following day and a woman shows up to try to talk him out of it. He asks her if it’s worth her giving up the goods to stop the fight. If the girl’s husband (as it turns out) loses, then he loses the right to teach at the school he’s in charge of – and it sounds like this is very likely.
They fight the next day in front of the town at some sort of competition. He kills the husband who has just divorced his wife when he found out she was sneaking away to sleep with the bad guy. She wants to run away with the bad guy and he casts her aside before he’s ambushed by the townspeople loyal to the now-deceased husband. The ex-wife ends up with the bad guy and they have a kid together. Oddly enough, they both appear to hate each other.
Bad guy’s father is on his deathbed and tells the husband’s brother to kill his son (that killed the husband). The brother tracks down the bad guy in Kyoto, but the bad guy is going a bit crazy and starts killing all kinds of people he’s with. He does sustain some injuries however. Then randomly, there’s a pillow-throwing scene to distract the weakened samurai – I had no idea their weakness was pillows.
Then the movie just ends. I’m assuming he dies, but seriously, he’s midway through killing everyone in the building and the credits roll. Weird ending. I’m not sure how much of this movie actually made sense in a linear plot sort of way. It’s not disjunct or anything, it’s just pointless and doesn’t end. I’d not recommend this film to people who like movies with a plot.
They fight the next day in front of the town at some sort of competition. He kills the husband who has just divorced his wife when he found out she was sneaking away to sleep with the bad guy. She wants to run away with the bad guy and he casts her aside before he’s ambushed by the townspeople loyal to the now-deceased husband. The ex-wife ends up with the bad guy and they have a kid together. Oddly enough, they both appear to hate each other.
Bad guy’s father is on his deathbed and tells the husband’s brother to kill his son (that killed the husband). The brother tracks down the bad guy in Kyoto, but the bad guy is going a bit crazy and starts killing all kinds of people he’s with. He does sustain some injuries however. Then randomly, there’s a pillow-throwing scene to distract the weakened samurai – I had no idea their weakness was pillows.
Then the movie just ends. I’m assuming he dies, but seriously, he’s midway through killing everyone in the building and the credits roll. Weird ending. I’m not sure how much of this movie actually made sense in a linear plot sort of way. It’s not disjunct or anything, it’s just pointless and doesn’t end. I’d not recommend this film to people who like movies with a plot.
MacGruber
Here is what I knew about MacGruber before going to see this film: MacGruber is a character from an SNL skit (I haven’t seen SNL in more than 15 years) and MacGruber is a spoof of MacGyver (I haven’t seen MacGyver in more than 15 years). I wasn’t familiar with the skit and I hadn’t even seen a preview, I’d only heard people say “it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.” Where I come from, that’s usually means I should see this film.
[Side note here: I wondered if my theater ran some sort of special night for whores on Thursdays, but it turns out it was just the opening night for Sex in the City. I still don’t understand why ladies would tramp themselves up for this premier – it’s a safe bet any guy in the theater in line for SITC isn’t going to be interested in a female in the first place, right? Just sayin…]
MacGruber’s wife has been killed at the altar by Dieter Von Kunth (and yes, they say his last name as many times as humanly possible in this film). Kunth is played by who I initially thought, “Wow, Brad Pitt has really let himself go.” Sadly, Kunth is actually played by Val Kilmer, who has also let himself go – but I’ll be honest, is still a good looking guy that makes me miss Willow. Kunth is now an arms dealer and has gotten his hands on a nuclear missile and plans to blow up Washington DC. The US military has asked MacGruber, the world’s top special ops killer, to take down Kunth and get his final revenge.
MacGruber resists at first, but eventually caves and assembles a team of top thugs and then proceeds to accidentally blow them all up. The brass try to pull him off the case but MacGruber sets up another team, including Ryan Phillippe and Kristen Wiig, to go after Kunth. MacGruber isn’t the awesome fighter/mastermind people assume him to be, but he’s got a pretty high opinion of himself, which is hilarious/pathetic at times.
Then… there are the love-making scenes. I’m convinced they were written by the writers of Family Guy, since they went on just long enough to make you uncomfortable and then annoyed, and then it comes around back to being funny again and finally stops. MacGruber has sex with Wiig and then out of guilt goes back to his dead wife’s grave and then has sex with his dead wife’s ghost. It’s ridiculous, but again, somehow ends up being enough to get a laugh.
The funny part for me is that MacGruber doesn’t use guns (but only because he doesn’t know how). He does the MacGyver thing and makes things out of bubblegum and tennis balls that never work, and he also has his patented move – the throat rip. He grabs bad guys’ throats and then rips out their windpipe. It’s hilariously gruesome and I love it.
The movie is filled with all kinds of slapstick prop humor (like shoving celery up their asses) and dressing Wiig up like MacGruber in one scene (where she flips out in a coffee shop and it actually IS funny) and then dresses her (poorly) as one of the criminals. At one point, he ends up using Phillippe as a human shield for a long period of time and somehow it is much funnier than you’d expect. But the film is also filled with occasional brilliant writing. The acting is supposed to make you uncomfortable and isn’t supposed to be good. Plus, Chris Jericho (whom I used to be mistaken for when he had hair) is in the film, so you know it’s quality casting, right? It helps that there are a handful of other wrestlers in the film – no wait, it doesn’t help.
So, despite it being a 90-minute SNL skit, it still ended up getting more laughs than I thought it would… including from me, sadly. At the beginning of the film, there were stupid bastards laughing at everything on the screen, like they were FORCING themselves to laugh at this low-brow humor. For some reason this always annoys me – maybe they’re warming up their laugh muscles for when it ACTUALLY is funny. I’ll laugh if it’s funny, but I won’t laugh just because I paid money to be entertained. About half an hour in and I found myself laughing as well. I guess I’m a stupid bastard now. Sigh…
[Side note here: I wondered if my theater ran some sort of special night for whores on Thursdays, but it turns out it was just the opening night for Sex in the City. I still don’t understand why ladies would tramp themselves up for this premier – it’s a safe bet any guy in the theater in line for SITC isn’t going to be interested in a female in the first place, right? Just sayin…]
MacGruber’s wife has been killed at the altar by Dieter Von Kunth (and yes, they say his last name as many times as humanly possible in this film). Kunth is played by who I initially thought, “Wow, Brad Pitt has really let himself go.” Sadly, Kunth is actually played by Val Kilmer, who has also let himself go – but I’ll be honest, is still a good looking guy that makes me miss Willow. Kunth is now an arms dealer and has gotten his hands on a nuclear missile and plans to blow up Washington DC. The US military has asked MacGruber, the world’s top special ops killer, to take down Kunth and get his final revenge.
MacGruber resists at first, but eventually caves and assembles a team of top thugs and then proceeds to accidentally blow them all up. The brass try to pull him off the case but MacGruber sets up another team, including Ryan Phillippe and Kristen Wiig, to go after Kunth. MacGruber isn’t the awesome fighter/mastermind people assume him to be, but he’s got a pretty high opinion of himself, which is hilarious/pathetic at times.
Then… there are the love-making scenes. I’m convinced they were written by the writers of Family Guy, since they went on just long enough to make you uncomfortable and then annoyed, and then it comes around back to being funny again and finally stops. MacGruber has sex with Wiig and then out of guilt goes back to his dead wife’s grave and then has sex with his dead wife’s ghost. It’s ridiculous, but again, somehow ends up being enough to get a laugh.
The funny part for me is that MacGruber doesn’t use guns (but only because he doesn’t know how). He does the MacGyver thing and makes things out of bubblegum and tennis balls that never work, and he also has his patented move – the throat rip. He grabs bad guys’ throats and then rips out their windpipe. It’s hilariously gruesome and I love it.
The movie is filled with all kinds of slapstick prop humor (like shoving celery up their asses) and dressing Wiig up like MacGruber in one scene (where she flips out in a coffee shop and it actually IS funny) and then dresses her (poorly) as one of the criminals. At one point, he ends up using Phillippe as a human shield for a long period of time and somehow it is much funnier than you’d expect. But the film is also filled with occasional brilliant writing. The acting is supposed to make you uncomfortable and isn’t supposed to be good. Plus, Chris Jericho (whom I used to be mistaken for when he had hair) is in the film, so you know it’s quality casting, right? It helps that there are a handful of other wrestlers in the film – no wait, it doesn’t help.
So, despite it being a 90-minute SNL skit, it still ended up getting more laughs than I thought it would… including from me, sadly. At the beginning of the film, there were stupid bastards laughing at everything on the screen, like they were FORCING themselves to laugh at this low-brow humor. For some reason this always annoys me – maybe they’re warming up their laugh muscles for when it ACTUALLY is funny. I’ll laugh if it’s funny, but I won’t laugh just because I paid money to be entertained. About half an hour in and I found myself laughing as well. I guess I’m a stupid bastard now. Sigh…
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Moon
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this film. I knew it was kind of a space-themed movie, but I wasn’t sure if it was like Aliens or like Event Horizon (my favorite movie of the space-genre). Did it have monsters? Suspense? Lasers? Explosions? Flash-frozen humans that shatter? It doesn’t have any of those things, actually, yet, it’s a decent film.
Moon is set in the not-too-distant future where a company had developed a way to mine energy from the radiation found in moon rock. The company has set up a base on the moon and has manned it with one guy (Sam Bell) who lives up there for three years at a time. He maintains contact with his bosses with a non-live (or delayed) video/audio feed to his bosses and to his wife and family. He records various messages and sends them back and then watches their video feeds when they arrive. He occupies his time with building a model of a town he used to live in from earth and also working out, reading, and watching old television shows.
On board is a service robot (with the cool monotone voice of Kevin Spacey) named Gertie. Gertie takes care of the operations, listens to Sam talk when he needs to vent, and takes care of medical things. It’s a very efficient system. Sam has to go out to one of the giant mining machines to collect the energy capsule and while he’s out there driving on the moon, he crashes his rover into the mining machine. Sam wakes up in the infirmary with Gertie tending him and telling him he’s had an accident while checking on the mining machine. Then things start to get weird. Weird and depressing.
This movie doesn’t have a lot of action in it. I’m pretty sure that’s the point of it all. It’s about a guy stuck on the moon for three years at a time and trying not to go crazy in the meantime. It’s supposed to be long and drawn out and depressing and gloomy and sterile. The more Sam Bell finds out about why he’s here on the moon base, the more he realizes how expendable he is to the company that employs him. I don’t think there’s a moral or a point to this movie, but it was well done and well acted. There aren’t a lot of characters in this movie, so I think once they found one that worked (Sam Rockwell), they just had him do everything. The film is worth seeing, but I realized I was more depressed than I thought afterwards and didn’t talk for like 4 hours. Weird.
Moon is set in the not-too-distant future where a company had developed a way to mine energy from the radiation found in moon rock. The company has set up a base on the moon and has manned it with one guy (Sam Bell) who lives up there for three years at a time. He maintains contact with his bosses with a non-live (or delayed) video/audio feed to his bosses and to his wife and family. He records various messages and sends them back and then watches their video feeds when they arrive. He occupies his time with building a model of a town he used to live in from earth and also working out, reading, and watching old television shows.
On board is a service robot (with the cool monotone voice of Kevin Spacey) named Gertie. Gertie takes care of the operations, listens to Sam talk when he needs to vent, and takes care of medical things. It’s a very efficient system. Sam has to go out to one of the giant mining machines to collect the energy capsule and while he’s out there driving on the moon, he crashes his rover into the mining machine. Sam wakes up in the infirmary with Gertie tending him and telling him he’s had an accident while checking on the mining machine. Then things start to get weird. Weird and depressing.
This movie doesn’t have a lot of action in it. I’m pretty sure that’s the point of it all. It’s about a guy stuck on the moon for three years at a time and trying not to go crazy in the meantime. It’s supposed to be long and drawn out and depressing and gloomy and sterile. The more Sam Bell finds out about why he’s here on the moon base, the more he realizes how expendable he is to the company that employs him. I don’t think there’s a moral or a point to this movie, but it was well done and well acted. There aren’t a lot of characters in this movie, so I think once they found one that worked (Sam Rockwell), they just had him do everything. The film is worth seeing, but I realized I was more depressed than I thought afterwards and didn’t talk for like 4 hours. Weird.
The Losers
The first time I saw a preview for this, I thought I wanted to see it. Then the more reviews I read about this film, the less I wanted to see it. The previews made this seem like an awesome film – so mission accomplished trailer-people. Sadly, the rest-of-the-movie people didn’t come through. When I read it was a bad adaptation of the A-Team, I was intrigued. Sadly, those reviews were pretty spot on.
The film is about a group of military special ops people sent into the rain forest of Bolivia to take out a drug dealer. However, the dealer has a handful of kids on site to make sure they don’t get attacked. The commandos roll into the drug operation, shoot up the bad guys and rescue the kids before an air strike is called in to blow up the whole thing. The special ops people are presumed dead and are given dishonorable everything so their country thinks they had turned into bad guys at the end.
The good guys find some sort of sponsor who is willing to fund a mission to track down and find the person responsible for the blowing up of the children and loss of the teams American identities. They sign on and sneak back into the country with a ton of money and a bunch of guns. The bad guy is a major arms dealer who is building these things called Snukes – or super nukes. These weapons, with the help of some awful CGI, make whole island disappear in the ocean. The bad guy is selling them to the highest bidder and has no problem killing people who get in his way. The “B-Team” ends up finding him and there are all kinds of glass and explosion-filled shootouts.
Where to start…? The acting in this movie is absolutely wretched. Thankfully, I was one of two people in the theater when I saw it (that should tell you something), so we were able to get quite vocal during the film. Lot’s of “COME ON!” and “REALLY!?” and “That doesn’t happen!” happened during this film. What’s worse the the direct tie to the A-Team is the fact that it has an even closer tie to Tropic Thunder. Every character in The Losers has a counterpart in Tropic Thunder. Sad but true. So I found myself thinking of Robert Downey Jr and Ben Stiller way too many times. There was some sort of weak tie to a graphic novel or comic book shoutout in the opening and closing credits, but nothing about the film reminded me of comics at any point. Seemed like a waste if that's what they were going for.
Save yourself the time and money by not seeing this film. It had one good line that I remembered from the preview. That’s one of the few times I laughed – at least when I was supposed to laugh. I laughed at quite a few things the producers of this film didn’t intend. Terrible film.
The film is about a group of military special ops people sent into the rain forest of Bolivia to take out a drug dealer. However, the dealer has a handful of kids on site to make sure they don’t get attacked. The commandos roll into the drug operation, shoot up the bad guys and rescue the kids before an air strike is called in to blow up the whole thing. The special ops people are presumed dead and are given dishonorable everything so their country thinks they had turned into bad guys at the end.
The good guys find some sort of sponsor who is willing to fund a mission to track down and find the person responsible for the blowing up of the children and loss of the teams American identities. They sign on and sneak back into the country with a ton of money and a bunch of guns. The bad guy is a major arms dealer who is building these things called Snukes – or super nukes. These weapons, with the help of some awful CGI, make whole island disappear in the ocean. The bad guy is selling them to the highest bidder and has no problem killing people who get in his way. The “B-Team” ends up finding him and there are all kinds of glass and explosion-filled shootouts.
Where to start…? The acting in this movie is absolutely wretched. Thankfully, I was one of two people in the theater when I saw it (that should tell you something), so we were able to get quite vocal during the film. Lot’s of “COME ON!” and “REALLY!?” and “That doesn’t happen!” happened during this film. What’s worse the the direct tie to the A-Team is the fact that it has an even closer tie to Tropic Thunder. Every character in The Losers has a counterpart in Tropic Thunder. Sad but true. So I found myself thinking of Robert Downey Jr and Ben Stiller way too many times. There was some sort of weak tie to a graphic novel or comic book shoutout in the opening and closing credits, but nothing about the film reminded me of comics at any point. Seemed like a waste if that's what they were going for.
Save yourself the time and money by not seeing this film. It had one good line that I remembered from the preview. That’s one of the few times I laughed – at least when I was supposed to laugh. I laughed at quite a few things the producers of this film didn’t intend. Terrible film.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Sex Drive
A high school kid who’s playing the part of a nerdy kid (if they wanted a real nerdy kid they would have found ME in high school) who has some trouble with girls. He meets a girl on the internet and despite him having a fake photo up, she somehow convinces him to drive halfway across the country to have sex (hence the drive to have sex – aka sex drive).
He and his best friend steal his D-bag brother’s super awesome GTO out of the garage and pick up one of their lady friends and drive to Kentucky. They run into all kinds of problems. They overheat the engine and have to pee in the radiator with the help of the guy that plays Packer of a creepy hitchhiker. They then get picked up by Seth Green playing an Amish guy (actually he’s really good at it). Then they run into Brian Posehn playing a carnie at a county fair.
They have some pretty stupid adventures, including the kid pledging abstinence while rocking a serious erection. Getting thrown in jail, smacking a girl in the face with a lollipop, and sitting in a dentist’s office with a shirtless guy. The nerdy kid has proclaimed his love for the girl that is along for the ride, and she realizes on the trip that he’s right for him. This leads to some tension and the nerdy kid tries to back out. And I’ll be honest, the kid’s d-bag brother is hilarious in this movie. He says the most classic and inappropriate lines. Equally awesome are the pair of hilarious metal guys that say wildly inappropriate sexual things to every girl they see.
This film was the unrated version and the directors have computer generated all kinds of absolutely ridiculous gratuitous nudity. It will be a completely innocuous scene and you’ll see a naked girl walk across the screen. It’s pretty hilarious. There’s also a lot of male frontal nudity, so if you’re squeamish about that, get the rated version. The movie is like one of those American Pie/Superbad/Eurotrip kind of films, but a little more low-brow, if you can believe it. I probably could have slept through a lot of it, but I ended up chuckling through a bunch of it, even the parts where there were balls all over the screen for overly-long periods of time. It’s probably not worth renting, but you might be amused if you’ve got an couple hours to kill – it IS over two hours long… yikes.
He and his best friend steal his D-bag brother’s super awesome GTO out of the garage and pick up one of their lady friends and drive to Kentucky. They run into all kinds of problems. They overheat the engine and have to pee in the radiator with the help of the guy that plays Packer of a creepy hitchhiker. They then get picked up by Seth Green playing an Amish guy (actually he’s really good at it). Then they run into Brian Posehn playing a carnie at a county fair.
They have some pretty stupid adventures, including the kid pledging abstinence while rocking a serious erection. Getting thrown in jail, smacking a girl in the face with a lollipop, and sitting in a dentist’s office with a shirtless guy. The nerdy kid has proclaimed his love for the girl that is along for the ride, and she realizes on the trip that he’s right for him. This leads to some tension and the nerdy kid tries to back out. And I’ll be honest, the kid’s d-bag brother is hilarious in this movie. He says the most classic and inappropriate lines. Equally awesome are the pair of hilarious metal guys that say wildly inappropriate sexual things to every girl they see.
This film was the unrated version and the directors have computer generated all kinds of absolutely ridiculous gratuitous nudity. It will be a completely innocuous scene and you’ll see a naked girl walk across the screen. It’s pretty hilarious. There’s also a lot of male frontal nudity, so if you’re squeamish about that, get the rated version. The movie is like one of those American Pie/Superbad/Eurotrip kind of films, but a little more low-brow, if you can believe it. I probably could have slept through a lot of it, but I ended up chuckling through a bunch of it, even the parts where there were balls all over the screen for overly-long periods of time. It’s probably not worth renting, but you might be amused if you’ve got an couple hours to kill – it IS over two hours long… yikes.
9
I’m not a major fan of animated films – I was probably held back due to my dislike of comics (aka I like girls) – aside from all but a handful of films. I was unsure of this film, but once I saw Crispin Glover was one of the voices, I was sold on it. It’s kind of a post apocalyptic movie about these little machines made from the soul of a scientist before he died.
The scientist made these little steampunk guys by hand and then used some machine to put his soul into each of nine of them. They all end up finding each other after all the humans get gassed and exterminated. The scientist originally had been hired to make a super machine that was going to be the answer to all the world’s problems. But the bad guys somehow took control of it and turned it into an evil machine. The evil machine built more evil machines which soon took over the world (and gassed everything like I said before).
The last little burlap guy (named 9), gets rescued from a robot dog by number 2 after he awakens to find the scientist dead in his lab and a leftover piece that looks important is laying on the floor. Number 2 gets taken away and when the other numbers find 9, they are upset with him for letting 2 get taken. Number 9’s voice is Elijah Wood which actually suits the mannerisms of the character well. There are two mute characters who play librarians who have the answers to fighting the big machine in their repository. The oldest character, 1, is kind of a crotchety old guy who really ends up being a pain in everyone’s ass. The old guy keeps telling the other numbers to give up and that it’s no use trying to fix anything. In fact, he’s the one that sent one of the numbers out to die at the hand of the robot dog. He’s very frustrating.
John C. Reilly plays 5, and ends up being pretty funny. Not in a slap stick way like most of his movies, but in a regular funny guy way. Jennifer Connelly plays 7, who’s like this gung-ho acrobatic martial arts girl who kicks a lot of ass. She’s pretty amusing. And Crispin Glover plays 6, kind of an insane rag doll that just draws pictures of the piece that 9 picked up in the scientist’s lab over and over again.
9 convinces the other dolls to attack the evil machine, even though 1 tries to get them to all wait it out and hope things blow over. They trek out across this barren wasteland of a city to attack the machine in its secret lair. The machine comes to life when 9’s machine piece gets inserted into it (not intended to be dirty, I promise you). The machine begins to make other evil machines again and fights back to the bitter end. While fighting, the machine basically sucks the life out of these rag dolls and they “die”. You forget their little robot creatures and you forget it’s an animated film.
The film is super dark. Even though there’s not a speck of blood in the whole film, these characters get their lives sucked out in front of your eyes. They have emotions and they’re torn between saving themselves and saving each other. The leader, 1, is so frustrating you want to scream. Tim Burton has his hands in a lot of the film, and you can clearly see his influence. However, you are assured regularly that it’s not a Disney film, because it is dark. I mean really DARK. Scary dark and not a lot of uplifting scenes in it. And despite the fact that Crispin Glover’s cinematic brilliance is not highlighted in this movie, I’m going to add this to the handful of animated films I really like. It’s pretty moving and deep for an animated film and I wouldn’t recommend it for kids at all. It is just too depressing and multi-layered. I would, however, recommend it to everyone else. I liked it a lot.
The scientist made these little steampunk guys by hand and then used some machine to put his soul into each of nine of them. They all end up finding each other after all the humans get gassed and exterminated. The scientist originally had been hired to make a super machine that was going to be the answer to all the world’s problems. But the bad guys somehow took control of it and turned it into an evil machine. The evil machine built more evil machines which soon took over the world (and gassed everything like I said before).
The last little burlap guy (named 9), gets rescued from a robot dog by number 2 after he awakens to find the scientist dead in his lab and a leftover piece that looks important is laying on the floor. Number 2 gets taken away and when the other numbers find 9, they are upset with him for letting 2 get taken. Number 9’s voice is Elijah Wood which actually suits the mannerisms of the character well. There are two mute characters who play librarians who have the answers to fighting the big machine in their repository. The oldest character, 1, is kind of a crotchety old guy who really ends up being a pain in everyone’s ass. The old guy keeps telling the other numbers to give up and that it’s no use trying to fix anything. In fact, he’s the one that sent one of the numbers out to die at the hand of the robot dog. He’s very frustrating.
John C. Reilly plays 5, and ends up being pretty funny. Not in a slap stick way like most of his movies, but in a regular funny guy way. Jennifer Connelly plays 7, who’s like this gung-ho acrobatic martial arts girl who kicks a lot of ass. She’s pretty amusing. And Crispin Glover plays 6, kind of an insane rag doll that just draws pictures of the piece that 9 picked up in the scientist’s lab over and over again.
9 convinces the other dolls to attack the evil machine, even though 1 tries to get them to all wait it out and hope things blow over. They trek out across this barren wasteland of a city to attack the machine in its secret lair. The machine comes to life when 9’s machine piece gets inserted into it (not intended to be dirty, I promise you). The machine begins to make other evil machines again and fights back to the bitter end. While fighting, the machine basically sucks the life out of these rag dolls and they “die”. You forget their little robot creatures and you forget it’s an animated film.
The film is super dark. Even though there’s not a speck of blood in the whole film, these characters get their lives sucked out in front of your eyes. They have emotions and they’re torn between saving themselves and saving each other. The leader, 1, is so frustrating you want to scream. Tim Burton has his hands in a lot of the film, and you can clearly see his influence. However, you are assured regularly that it’s not a Disney film, because it is dark. I mean really DARK. Scary dark and not a lot of uplifting scenes in it. And despite the fact that Crispin Glover’s cinematic brilliance is not highlighted in this movie, I’m going to add this to the handful of animated films I really like. It’s pretty moving and deep for an animated film and I wouldn’t recommend it for kids at all. It is just too depressing and multi-layered. I would, however, recommend it to everyone else. I liked it a lot.
Happy Times
Happy Times (or Xingfu Shiguang) is a Chinese film about an aging bachelor, Zhao, who’s pretty much desperate to find a wife to take care of him in his old age. He meets up with this rather rotund lady who seems all sweet and jolly and they talk about getting married. Zhao goes over to her house and the façade starts to crumble a little bit with the lady, due to the way she treats her equally rotund kid and this blind girl who’s the lady has locked in her room most of the day.
Zhao is working with a friend to set up what I will simply call a “sex bus” – it’s an abandoned bus in a public park that they have fixed up so people can pay them to have sex inside. Zhao convinces the lady that he’s in the hotel business and she comes up with the brilliant idea of having the blind girl work for Zhao at the hotel. When he takes her to the bus, it’s being removed and he tells the blind girl that they’re doing renovations. During this time, there are some sensitive moments when Zhao begins to realize the girl isn’t happy in the home.
He solicits the help of his friends to build a fake massage parlor (a legit one) so the girl can work during the day. Zhao’s friends all pitch in an set up a fake room with fake street noise and fake customers, until they all go broke paying this young girl tips for the massages. The girl figures it all out but plays along with when she realizes what Zhao has gone through to make sure she’s taken care of. Zhao meanwhile tries to maintain contact with the less- and less-friendly Rubenesque woman and when they eventually meet up, she’s already found another guy to marry who does have money. She ends up being a really nasty person and it’s unfortunate, since I really liked her at the beginning of the movie.
The film is amazingly touching. The characters are very well portrayed, and not just the main characters – the friends of Zhao are also super cute and helpful and will do anything for Zhao or this girl. Zhao is just a cute old man who gets taken advantage of, but he’s really trying to make things work – for the woman at first, and then for the young girl he’s taken under his wing. I would recommend the heck out of this movie, but it’s not all flowers and rainbows. It’s really dark and doesn’t end up in a happy place. As long as you’re ok with that, I really think you’ll like it. It’s very well written, shot, and acted. What’s not to like?
Zhao is working with a friend to set up what I will simply call a “sex bus” – it’s an abandoned bus in a public park that they have fixed up so people can pay them to have sex inside. Zhao convinces the lady that he’s in the hotel business and she comes up with the brilliant idea of having the blind girl work for Zhao at the hotel. When he takes her to the bus, it’s being removed and he tells the blind girl that they’re doing renovations. During this time, there are some sensitive moments when Zhao begins to realize the girl isn’t happy in the home.
He solicits the help of his friends to build a fake massage parlor (a legit one) so the girl can work during the day. Zhao’s friends all pitch in an set up a fake room with fake street noise and fake customers, until they all go broke paying this young girl tips for the massages. The girl figures it all out but plays along with when she realizes what Zhao has gone through to make sure she’s taken care of. Zhao meanwhile tries to maintain contact with the less- and less-friendly Rubenesque woman and when they eventually meet up, she’s already found another guy to marry who does have money. She ends up being a really nasty person and it’s unfortunate, since I really liked her at the beginning of the movie.
The film is amazingly touching. The characters are very well portrayed, and not just the main characters – the friends of Zhao are also super cute and helpful and will do anything for Zhao or this girl. Zhao is just a cute old man who gets taken advantage of, but he’s really trying to make things work – for the woman at first, and then for the young girl he’s taken under his wing. I would recommend the heck out of this movie, but it’s not all flowers and rainbows. It’s really dark and doesn’t end up in a happy place. As long as you’re ok with that, I really think you’ll like it. It’s very well written, shot, and acted. What’s not to like?
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Date Night
I hadn’t heard much good about this movie, so when M.Giant asked if I was up for a movie and suggested it, I reluctantly caved and agreed to do it. I do like both Steve Carell and Tina Fey, so I figured at least I’d be entertained by them. The movie is about a married couple living in New Jersey and they have a pretty boring and routine life together. They’re comfortable but maybe not happy.
Their friends mention they are getting a divorce because they discovered they were just really good roommates, rather than in love with each other. Both Carell and Fey then decided they were going to spice up their lives. They head into NYC for a fancy dinner. They don’t have reservations, but they take someone’s reservation that is a no-show. These two thugs show up to their table and have them go into the alley with them. They’ve been mistaken for the Triplehorns – the people who didn’t show up for dinner. The actual Triplehorns have photos and documents on a flash drive that these thugs want back.
The bad guys take them to central park to find this flash drive that neither Carell nor Fey know where it is. They escape the bad guys and enlist the help of shirtless Marky Mark to help them track down the Triplehorns. Marky Mark is a black ops government agent, so he’s got some skills. The original two thugs (who turn out to be crooked cops) turn up at Marky Mark’s house, he sends the couple out the garage in one of his cars (an amazing Audi R8 – super hot car). There’s a slightly far-fetched car chase in NYC where they destroy the beautiful car. There’s all kinds of shenanigans that happen between Carell and Fey during the night, including getting the flash drive and then losing it in the East River.
While I don’t think this film was hilarious or funny in most places, it was decent and I did laugh out loud at a couple of points. There were some great characters with Ray Liotta and William Fichtner playing bad guys, Mila Kunis playing a stripper, Common playing a crooked cop, and Will i Am playing himself. The acting was fine in this movie and Carell and Fey really are masters of improvising lines, as shown in the outtakes during the final credits. It’s probably not worth running to the theaters to see this film, but it’s a decent film overall. It’s just soooo far-fetched that you couldn’t really believe any of it was happening. In the words of M.Giant, “It’s a good thing they got Tina Fey and Steve Carell to act in this film…”
Their friends mention they are getting a divorce because they discovered they were just really good roommates, rather than in love with each other. Both Carell and Fey then decided they were going to spice up their lives. They head into NYC for a fancy dinner. They don’t have reservations, but they take someone’s reservation that is a no-show. These two thugs show up to their table and have them go into the alley with them. They’ve been mistaken for the Triplehorns – the people who didn’t show up for dinner. The actual Triplehorns have photos and documents on a flash drive that these thugs want back.
The bad guys take them to central park to find this flash drive that neither Carell nor Fey know where it is. They escape the bad guys and enlist the help of shirtless Marky Mark to help them track down the Triplehorns. Marky Mark is a black ops government agent, so he’s got some skills. The original two thugs (who turn out to be crooked cops) turn up at Marky Mark’s house, he sends the couple out the garage in one of his cars (an amazing Audi R8 – super hot car). There’s a slightly far-fetched car chase in NYC where they destroy the beautiful car. There’s all kinds of shenanigans that happen between Carell and Fey during the night, including getting the flash drive and then losing it in the East River.
While I don’t think this film was hilarious or funny in most places, it was decent and I did laugh out loud at a couple of points. There were some great characters with Ray Liotta and William Fichtner playing bad guys, Mila Kunis playing a stripper, Common playing a crooked cop, and Will i Am playing himself. The acting was fine in this movie and Carell and Fey really are masters of improvising lines, as shown in the outtakes during the final credits. It’s probably not worth running to the theaters to see this film, but it’s a decent film overall. It’s just soooo far-fetched that you couldn’t really believe any of it was happening. In the words of M.Giant, “It’s a good thing they got Tina Fey and Steve Carell to act in this film…”
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Clash of the Titans
Against my better judgment, I went to see Clash of the Titans with my friend M.Giant. I knew there was going to be craploads of CGI in the film, and yet somehow he convinced me I needed to see it. I think he just wanted to see me have an aneurysm in the theater or go postal on some people. I even opted to NOT drink in the parking lot as originally planned, mostly so I would remember some of what I had seen.
For those that don’t know, it’s a remake of a film from long ago, which I grew up watching and would still watch over and over again. The original isn’t the greatest film of all time, but for a kid, it was amazing – plus, I’ll be the first to admit the Original Clash of the Titans is the only reason I passed the Mythology section of Art History in my undergrad – sad but true. Perseus is the son of Zeus. Zeus impregnated a human and her husband had them both cast into the ocean. Perseus was raised by a fisherman and then set out on his own when the fisherman was killed by one of the gods who was having a bad day.
Perseus ends up in Argos where the angry god comes and threatens the entire city with destruction unless they sacrifice their princess. They have like 10 days to decide. This gives Perseus enough time to head out and find a way to kill the Kracken – the giant monster that’s going to destroy the city. He fights all manner of creatures and beasts and then has to make it back in time to fight the Kracken.
Now I’m going to go off, but I’ll keep it to a minimum if possible.
I hated 87% of the computer imaging in this movie. There were a handful of scenes that I thought were well done. But for the most part, I was either seriously annoyed or flat out enraged. Medusa, the gorgon with snake hair, was entirely made by the computer and 100% not believable, especially her asinine facial expressions. In fact, less believable then the stop action version in the original movie. Stupid. The Kracken itself was large enough that they could take some liberties, but at least THAT creature was believable. Not so much with the flying horses – complete shite. Dessert Scorpions? Ridiculous and campy when the dessert people ride them across the dessert.
The costume on Zeus was probably one of the worst parts. His beard looked like they spirit gummed yarn to his face. Couldn’t they have CGI’d a better beard on Liam Neeson? And I’m going to say something here that might ruin Liam Neeson for the rest of your life. I get Liam Neeson and Ed O’Neil mixed up all the time. This movie I think made it worse since Neeson was so unbelievable. So now, you’ll be picturing Al Bunde every time you see Neeson now – mission accomplished. Additionally, all of the bad guy creatures had a similar look to them – they all looked like their face was pulled down over their missing eyes. I’m not sure if the monster people just ran out of ideas and just went with something they were confident with or what, but they could have mixed it up a bit. Or heck, for that matter, make up some stupid crap and throw it in a computer and make it less believable.
They gave a shot out to Bubo, the brass owl in the original, but then put him back in a box and didn’t utilize him in his crucial role he had in the original. However, they made up for it by having a smoking hot Gemma Arterton playing Io. Yes, her hair style, make up, and clothing changed from scene to scene, but that didn’t hurt her at all. I’m a fan. SO much of the acting was community theater-level or worse that I couldn’t get past a lot of it. Just didn’t buy the facial expressions of the fighters nor the delivery of lines. (Keep in mind, I love B-movies and don’t expect all that much from actors – that’s how bad this was.)
To sum this film up – I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Go see the original, even with the stop-action effects they have. I think you’ll be less angry this way. I know I am. I even waited until the end of the credits to find out who did all the awful CGI in the film. However, there were like 5 CGI production companies, so I don’t even know who to be angry with. This movie was a complete waste of time and money in my opinion.
For those that don’t know, it’s a remake of a film from long ago, which I grew up watching and would still watch over and over again. The original isn’t the greatest film of all time, but for a kid, it was amazing – plus, I’ll be the first to admit the Original Clash of the Titans is the only reason I passed the Mythology section of Art History in my undergrad – sad but true. Perseus is the son of Zeus. Zeus impregnated a human and her husband had them both cast into the ocean. Perseus was raised by a fisherman and then set out on his own when the fisherman was killed by one of the gods who was having a bad day.
Perseus ends up in Argos where the angry god comes and threatens the entire city with destruction unless they sacrifice their princess. They have like 10 days to decide. This gives Perseus enough time to head out and find a way to kill the Kracken – the giant monster that’s going to destroy the city. He fights all manner of creatures and beasts and then has to make it back in time to fight the Kracken.
Now I’m going to go off, but I’ll keep it to a minimum if possible.
I hated 87% of the computer imaging in this movie. There were a handful of scenes that I thought were well done. But for the most part, I was either seriously annoyed or flat out enraged. Medusa, the gorgon with snake hair, was entirely made by the computer and 100% not believable, especially her asinine facial expressions. In fact, less believable then the stop action version in the original movie. Stupid. The Kracken itself was large enough that they could take some liberties, but at least THAT creature was believable. Not so much with the flying horses – complete shite. Dessert Scorpions? Ridiculous and campy when the dessert people ride them across the dessert.
The costume on Zeus was probably one of the worst parts. His beard looked like they spirit gummed yarn to his face. Couldn’t they have CGI’d a better beard on Liam Neeson? And I’m going to say something here that might ruin Liam Neeson for the rest of your life. I get Liam Neeson and Ed O’Neil mixed up all the time. This movie I think made it worse since Neeson was so unbelievable. So now, you’ll be picturing Al Bunde every time you see Neeson now – mission accomplished. Additionally, all of the bad guy creatures had a similar look to them – they all looked like their face was pulled down over their missing eyes. I’m not sure if the monster people just ran out of ideas and just went with something they were confident with or what, but they could have mixed it up a bit. Or heck, for that matter, make up some stupid crap and throw it in a computer and make it less believable.
They gave a shot out to Bubo, the brass owl in the original, but then put him back in a box and didn’t utilize him in his crucial role he had in the original. However, they made up for it by having a smoking hot Gemma Arterton playing Io. Yes, her hair style, make up, and clothing changed from scene to scene, but that didn’t hurt her at all. I’m a fan. SO much of the acting was community theater-level or worse that I couldn’t get past a lot of it. Just didn’t buy the facial expressions of the fighters nor the delivery of lines. (Keep in mind, I love B-movies and don’t expect all that much from actors – that’s how bad this was.)
To sum this film up – I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Go see the original, even with the stop-action effects they have. I think you’ll be less angry this way. I know I am. I even waited until the end of the credits to find out who did all the awful CGI in the film. However, there were like 5 CGI production companies, so I don’t even know who to be angry with. This movie was a complete waste of time and money in my opinion.
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