watching movies one cup at a time

Transitioning stage musicals to movies can be tricky. However I get the impression that this one did not pose much of a challenge. It all seems rather mainstream and run-of-the-mill, much like the audience I suspect has kept this stage musical going for years. It’s gimmick is that the characters break out into ABBA songs a fairly regular basis and very loosely connected to a story about a girl getting married and not knowing who her real dad is. The songs are loosely connected meaning not very connected at all. They are just kind of there like a karaoke soundtrack shoved in by a crazy, obsessed ABBA fan. And considering how closely associated ABBA is these days with drag/gay culture, it’s no surprise that the movie feels a little bit like a gay pride parade wrapped around a bad soap opera.

One thing I also dislike about Hollywood versions of stage musicals is that they tend to hire actors based on their names and not their singing/dancing ability. This has gone on for ages, like the time Audrey Hepburn got the movie role in My Fair Lady that a lesser-known Julie Andrews had already performed brilliantly on stage. Meryl Streep is of course a great actress but she is not known for her singing ability or has ever performed in a musical as far as I know. Add to that Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and the rest and you’ve got some decent actors but not necessarily good musical performers. This adds to the “forced” nature of the musical acts and the rather flat feeling the movie has all around.

However, after having said all that, if you just want some light fun and who cares about the details or sophistication, you won’t go wrong with Mamma Mia! It has fun moments and is certainly good to pass the time.

This is a movie based on a video game and it is pretty ridiculous. The movie trailers made it out to be sort of a supernatural thriller but it’s actually not supernatural at all. In fact the subject matter is quite mundane. Mark Wahlberg doesn’t have to really act in this movie, he just has to have a mad look on his face and hurt people. So if that’s what you’re into, this is your movie. But if you want logic, a real story, or believable characters, well you probably guessed this isn’t the one. But just for a silly movie to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon, it fits the bill.

As bad as you think it is? Worse.

This movie falls into the genre of ripoffs of The Ring. It’s trying to be as good as that and as creepy but it falls very short. It’s a very weak story and the characters make very sudden jumps in logic that doesn’t feel natural. They go from “You’re crazy. You need to get help” to “oh my god, you’re right! The mirrors are trying to kill us!” in a matter of minutes. Kiefer figures it all out pretty damn fast considering no one else could or even came close. There are a few gory, bloody scenes that feel very tacked on to appease the gore porn crowd. And in general this movie feels very unoriginal and spit out just to pass the time. Don’t bother.

There is a new trend cropping up with 3D movies becoming more and more frequent. And this isn’t the crappy blue and red 3D your parents had to deal with, this is very intense and in your face 3D like you’d expect to see in a theme park in Florida. Except now it’s everywhere and more and more films are jumping on the bandwagon. I haven’t seen too many yet but this Monsters Vs. Aliens was very effective at using the 3D as part of the film and not just as a gimmicky trick. It’s huge scale environments and large-scale action scenes were very effectively done using the depth the 3D world allowed.

The story in this film is pretty simple and centers on the recently mutated “Ginormica” character. There really aren’t that many “monsters” here and only one alien. I would have liked to have seen more variety but it’s a good start to what might potentially be a series of films. And while the plot of the film didn’t have a lot of depth to it, it was more than enjoyable for the younger audience without relying on the more gross-out humor of Shrek. Like Shrek, this is a Dreamworks film and Pixar still has the high bar for it’s storytelling. But it did succeed in creating characters that the audience can root for and the movie does wrap up it’s story very well.

Overall it was enjoyable if not super-deep or having a lot of variety. Definitely worth seeing in the 3D theater before it hits DVD.

I was looking forward to this movie since all the buzz in front of it said that it was an original and well-done sci-fi movie. I am always on the lookout for an something interesting on the sci-fi front and there are very few original ideas left out there. However this seemed promising. Ultimately thought the movie falls rather flat and it just doesn’t do a good enough job of holding my interest. It gets rather long and boring, and the plot device of clones isn’t done with any dramatic new take or twist. First-time director Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie btw, puts a fair amount of style into the movie. And Sam Rockwell does an excellent job playing against himself and making each version of his character different. It’s not really a bad movie, but it’s not as good as I had hoped or had been led to believe. Most of the time I was quite bored waiting for something interesting to happen, and it just didn’t deliver.

This is the third dazzling film from Australian director, Baz Luhrman. He has a very unique directing style which people either love or hate. It is not generic, it’s not fast food, and it’s not easy-to-ignore. His films are bright, colorful, fast, detailed and full of life. I love them, even tho he has only managed to make three in 15 years. Romeo + Juliet was brilliant and Strictly Ballroom was a great debut already showing a lot of style that would flourish in his next films. Baz’s blended vision of pop culture mixed with old world tradition produces an amazing experience that is very rare in movies these days. It takes you on a wild ride you don’t want to get off.

Nicole Kidman plays the oscar-nominated lead role of the fated Satine. She does an excellent job and easily carries the demanding musical numbers in stride. Ewan McGregor also shows his musical chops and is equally skilled at giving his character the right combination of passion and naivety. The set pieces are simply astounding. I want to live in that Elephant structure. Wave after wave of bright color fills the screen. It is breathtaking. You really feel transported into Baz’s dream world.

Nicole Kidman’s character dies of consumption or pneumonia or something by the end of the movie. And I don’t like plot devices like illness kind of tossed in there to make it tragic. I’m not saying everything has to be a happy ending. But the whole “I’m dying, my love” is a little uninspired. Especially compared to the Romeo + Juliet double-suicide. Now THAT’S tragedy!

This movie is not for everyone but I appreciate the fast pace and sensual overload. It’s rare to find a film that pushes the edges of visual saturation to such satisfying ends.

In a word: Boring. I feel like the trailer did a bait-and-switch on us. If you watch the trailer for this film, it’s all about magic, bouncy balls, cutesy Natalie Portman, and how wacky everything in the store is. In retrospect there really isn’t much telling you what the actual story of the movie is. And when you watch it, all that wacky stuff from the trailer is in the first 15 minutes. The rest of the movie is Mr. Magorium telling everyone he is going to die, Natalie having a 23 yr. old mid-life crisis, a kid who has no friends, and an accountant who is pretty much there so they can make cliche jokes about accountants. After awhile it just turns into a pointless bummer with the inevitable sappy happy-ending where the main characters “find their joy again” or some such nonsense. Like many of it’s toys, the Emporium is just spectacle and fluff. Skip it.

I remember seeing the first Matrix trailer during the Super Bowl that year. It was pretty minimal. Basically all it consisted of was the line “What Is The Matrix?” accompanied by the now infamous shot of Keanu Reeves bending backwards, dodging bullets in impossible slow motion. But the cultural reaction was immediate. “Did you see that? What the hell IS the Matrix?” The buzz was started.

Honestly I wasn’t too impressed by the commercial. It definitely looked like a cool movie and I did think I’d go see it, but I figured it was just another “virtual reality” movie. Towards the end of the ’90s, there was a big wave of movies taking advantage of the internet boom and people’s fascination with anything that had the word “cyber” in it. Mixed in with that were “end-of-the-millennium” fears tied into the whole Y2K virus thing (remember that? Pure nonsense). And some general mistrust of technology going too far into our private lives as some folks claimed the internet would take us over like a computer virus. So there were these lame psuedo-sci fi-cyber movies like Johnnie Mnemonic (also starring Reeves) that were getting spit out that never lived up to expectations. And along comes the Matrix with terrible actor Keanu again and I wasn’t setting the bar too high for this one.
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I’ll warn you up front that there are “spoilers” in this review since people are making a big deal about the ending. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know the ending, skip this review until later.

I read “The Mist” when I was in high school and I have always really liked it. I had mixed feelings about a movie version but in general I was pretty excited to see it. We all know how mixed Stephen King movies can be. But one of Frank Darabont’s other Stephen King movies, The Shawshank Redemption, is absolutely brilliant. So the odds were in favor of this one turning out better than most.

The story is basically a monster movie/disaster flick. A thick mist descends on a town and it’s filled with horrible creatures possibly from another dimension. A group of survivors are holed up in a supermarket but things quickly unravel and between gruesome monster attacks and panic-driven mob insanity, all seems pretty hopeless. Read the rest of this entry »