watching movies one cup at a time

I was really looking forward to this movie. I liked what the director Julie Taymor did with Frida and this looked interesting and vibrant. It got some good reviews but I never made it to the theaters to see it. So I was looking forward to the DVD.

Well… I can’t say it’s bad. But I can’t say it’s good either. There are definitely some interesting visuals in here and some exciting musical numbers. But really I just got kind of bored with it. It kind of just stumbled along looking for excuses to throw in Beatles songs. There is a character named Prudence who I felt only existed so they could have a moment and sing “Dear Prudence.” And everyone’s name is like that. It’s like some big Beatles fan wet dream.

Now I love the Beatles. They made phenomenal music. But I wasn’t really feeling this mash-up version. It just didn’t have enough real story. I didn’t care about any of the characters and I didn’t care what happened next. I’m sure they were going to bump into someone named Elanor just so they could sing “Elanor Rigby” to her. Yawn.

And then they started having all these dumb cameos. Bono shows up about half-way pretending to be some Ken Kesey type guru/hippie dude. Bono, now there’s a guy who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “subtle.” His acting style is no different than his stage presence. Great for a stadium of 20,000 fans, a little overblown for a small movie like this. I couldn’t help but think back to that horrible 70s movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. Horrible film with lots of pointless star cameos that pillaged the Beatles catalog with no connection to the actual Beatles musicians themselves. This movie by no means sinks to that level, but I can’t say I wasn’t reminded of it. And that ain’t a good thing.

Plus through in a little hippy-dippy Hair influence and a really original looking film starts to feel really unoriginal. Again, not a bad movie. Just not as good as I expected.

This movie was part of Disney’s last golden age of animation that was kicked off by The Little Mermaid. And I feel this movie is actually the best one of that bunch. The songs are very catchy and the action is moved along at a brisk pace. Robin Williams does his usual manic comedy as the genie and it was funny the first time, not so much the 100th time but still good.

Here’s a question tho. Why do so many Disney movies have stories where the mom is dead or dying or just non-existent? There are a lot of Disney flicks where the mom is MIA; Cinderella, Snow White, Bambi, Beauty & The Beast, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, etc. It’s weird. Some might say “Well it’s a fairy tale, they are just sticking to the story” but if they can make up a frickin’ talking crab in Little Mermaid, they could come up with a mom character. Even if she is barely there like in Sleeping Beauty and The Lion King.

Aladdin is a fun movie tho and definitely worth seeing. As the age of hand-drawn animation is coming to a silent close, I definitely remember that this was very innovative at the time. And the story still holds up.

This is generally considered to be the best Alien film in the four part series. And I must agree it is the most fun to watch. Each film is very different in tone and style. The first Alien movie was much more of a classic haunted house story where this movie clearly borrows from the action movie genre. This is really James Cameron’s vision as he came up with the story idea, wrote the screenplay and directed the film. There is a lot of connection to similar war movies with soldiers under siege. And following this movie, there were many more sci-fi stories involving soldiers in space, both in film and on television.

The story follows Ripley after her escape from the Nostromo. She’s been in space for 57 years and returns to an unfamiliar Earth and a shell of her former life. Colonists has populated the planet from the first film and discovered the alien creatures. Ripley and a team of marines go to investigate the colony’s communication breakdown under the direction of the Weyland-Yutani corporation (“the Company”). Of course all hell breaks loose and it becomes clear that the Company wants the alien for it’s bio-weapons division. Ripley barely escapes alive along with colony child-survivor Newt, the last marine Hicks, and the android Bishop. The colony explodes in a nuclear meltdown and presumably it takes all the aliens with it. The movie ends on a happy note as a mother-daughter bonded Ripley and Newt go to peaceful cryo-sleep on their way back to Earth. Read the rest of this entry »

Dude, that was messed up. There was some twisted stuff in this movie. Kids getting chest-bursts, a pregnant lady, parents, people getting killed constantly – it was pretty gruesome. And the main problem with all that is it felt really cold-blooded. This movie had no heart, it had no purpose. It was just a series of scenes filled with senseless violence. It felt like the kind of movie that a couple of dorky fanboys would make if given the chance, kind of like if Beavis and Butthead did an Aliens movie. I can just see the film-makers sitting around a stale pizza taking a break from Worlds Of Warcrack and saying “Hey, you know what would be freakin’ cool? If we had a kid get a chest-burst. That would be AWESOME!”

And hey, in all honesty, maybe I’m not the one this movie was made for. Maybe I’m the one who’s thinking too much and should just keep it to myself. But this isn’t stupid Freddy Kreuger we’re talking about. This is the Aliens movies. These movies have had amazing directors like Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. And they told some real stories mixed in with the action. Some better than others. But the point is they weren’t so mindless, and skilled directors with a good cast were able to make interesting films. The Predator series on the other hand always kinda sucked. And maybe it’s watering down the Alien movie mythology too much. Read the rest of this entry »

One 50 thousand dollar chinchilla fur coat is all it took to take down the Harlem heroin kingpin. American Gangster is based on the true story of Frank Lucas, the Harlem gangster who cut deals directly with heroin makers in Southeast Asia to make loads of money in the U.S. while maintaining a low profile. What I found most interesting about the character of Frank Lucas is that he was not a flashy “Superfly” bufoonish kind of African-American gangster that you see all too often in movies. He was calm, cool, behind-the-scenes, and respectable. Yet he was a cold-blooded killer, a smart businessman, and a fierce leader. A man to be taken seriously.

Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas magnificently well in another stunning performance from one of the best actors working today. Denzel does not often play bad guys in his movies. It’s rare. And this is a very different character from the loud and shady street hustler Denzel won the Oscar for playing in Training Day. Yet Frank Lucas is far more sinister and capable of much more destruction. This is a character who is ice cold, can shoot a person as easily as we would light a match, can strike a deal with the Italian Mafia as smoothly as we would be ordering a sandwich. And Denzel is so cool, so calm, so serious, he exudes intimidation at the same time as respect. What he says without saying anything carries just as much weight. Read the rest of this entry »

An Oscar-contender and Golden Globe winner, this film stars Keira Knightley and James MacAvoy as doomed lovers caught up in tragic circumstances. I’m usually not too into dramas, especially heavy dramas. But I found this film to be very well told and interesting.

The scenes of France were visually fantastic. I especially enjoyed the long single camera shot on the beach where the soldiers are waiting to evacuate. It evoked the chaos of the situation but injected a serene beauty and sorrow as well. The English countryside never looked better as well. It’s not the cliche rainy, muddy fields I’m used to seeing in these movies.

The ending was very unexpected and very satisfying. It has a twist that really put the whole movie into a much more interesting light. Though of course it’s very sad, how the story is presented is very compelling. The characters are multi-dimensional and capable of evolving, which is refreshing. Saoirse Ronan plays the young Briony and she does a fantastic job for such a young but pivotal character. Her facial expressions were perfect and not overdone but communicating a lot.

Bottom Line: Definitely see Atonement but be-warned it’s a weepy-drama. It is not a Hollywood happy ending, which is a good thing in this case.

James Cameron set out to make a groundbreaking film that not only raised the bar for 3D filmmaking, but also married the technological breakthroughs to a rich and detailed world inhabited by characters and creatures that drove a great story. So often story and character development get sacrificed in the name awe-inspiring special effects. But Cameron has spent such a great amount of time filling in the details of this new world that I believed in the reality he created and could easily connect with the characters it spawned. This is a world that doesn’t exist but watching it I believed every moment. And the 3D effects were nothing short of brilliant. Pandora felt alive and amazing.

The film is set about 150 years in the future where a company has set up a mining operation on an alien planet named Pandora to get a rich element that will feed an energy-starved earth. The problem for the company is that Pandora has a rich and complex ecosystem that includes an indigenous population called the Na’vi. These people live in harmony with their environment as each plant and animal is connected and sustained by the balance maintained by Pandora. The human scientists discover that each tree is in fact literally connected to every other tree and that the planet functions like a living organism. The company disregards this in the name of obtaining their precious minerals and proceeds to destroy anything and everything getting in it’s way. Special avatars are created with organically grown Na’vi bodies that are operated through a mental connection to a human. Essentially the human “drives” the avatar like a possessed puppet, each avatar specifically grown for a specific human. Initially the avatars are used to try and bring about the cooperation of the Na’vi and put them at ease with the company. But due to the nature of the relationship between the Na’vi and Pandora, there is little the humans can offer besides being an intrusion and invasion. Read the rest of this entry »

Another pointless remake. It just wasn’t scary. And for god’s sake, what the hell does it take to make this lady grab her kids and GET THE HELL OUT OF THE HOUSE!!?? The whole movie this messed-up stuff keeps happening and she STAYS IN THE HOUSE! WTF!!?? Most mom’s I know would be like “Walls are bleeding, ghost kids are telling my daughter to jump off the roof…. yea, time to get the HELL OUT OF HERE!” Does she think that this whole “crazy devil nonsense” is just going to go away on it’s own? Beyond stupid. And again, there is some bizarre plot twists at the end that just seem pointless and made up. I didn’t buy it. This movie is a waste of time.