watching movies one cup at a time

I really liked this one. It was smartly done and Amy Adams steals the show as Giselle. She’s absolutely perfect. She makes you laugh at her without her looking stupid, and she has the convincing air of innocence the character needs without seeming too naive or helpless. The story is an interesting one, having fictional cartoon characters cross over into the real world and become real themselves. It was all kind of a stretch but it worked fine enough.

Timothy Spall is great as Nathaniel, making him both rather buffoonish and tenderly sympathetic. James Marsden is a great Prince Edward, really fleshing out the archetype but not over doing it. Susan Sarandon had some fun doing this one. Her evil Queen is just the right balance of scary and absurd.

Another great family movie. Disney is really jumping on this whole “princess” thing so they can sell kids more crap. But it really didn’t feel like a Disney fairy tale movie. It stands on it’s own and it was a good time. It’s the same director as the really well done Eloise movies from a few years ago. He has a knack for this kind of story.

This movie is a sort of sci-fi horror film, like a cross between H.P. Lovecraft and Alien. It stars Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neil and is set out in space as Laurence Fishburne’s character captains a ship sent to rescue another ship called the Event Horizon. Sam Neil’s character built it and an experimental engine that creates black holes for the purposes of advanced space travel. But the ship had disappeared and then reappeared but without any of it’s crew. Turns out the experimental engine took the ship to some “evil dimension” and when it came back, the ship was essentially haunted and homicidal.

There are some pretty horrific scenes in here as we find out what happened to the crew. But I found the concept to be really interesting. And I’ve always liked the idea of horror in a sci-fi setting, as long as it’s done right. This movie is believable and the actors play the characters well. There aren’t a ton of effects but there are enough to make the point without going overboard.

Besides being very H.P. Lovecraft, this movie also has a very Hellraiser feel too it. In fact when Sam Neil’s character becomes totally “evil”, he is physically transformed and looks just like a Cenobite (the so-called demon figures) from the Hellraiser movies. The Hellraiser series actually attempted a sci-fi plot device in the Hellraiser: Bloodlines film with much less success.

Event Horizon was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson who also directed the Resident Evil films and Alien vs. Predator. This movie is close to that kind of genre so if you want an interesting movie without getting too serious, this one would be a good choice.

I don’t care what anyone says, I liked this movie. I heard a lot of smack being talked about it around the time of it’s release. Everyone was making a big deal about it’s $180 million dollar budget and how it was going to bomb and ruin the filmmakers. There was a lot of talk as well about some supposed controversy surrounding the original novels that the story is based on and how that was going to sink the movie. Well I say nonsense. The movie was good and in my opinion it was a helluva lot better than Narnia, which everyone seems to get all crazy about.

The Golden Compass is based on a trilogy of books by Phillip Pullman. I haven’t read the books but from what I have been hearing in the discussions of this film is that a central themes to the books is an anti-organized religion stance as characters stand up to an oppressive governing religious institution. Of course dogmatically religious people can’t stand to have anyone tell stories that may criticize them so of course these books are condemned by zealots and thus an attack was made on the movie as well. The movie studio has even gone as far as to make it clear to everyone that they “toned down” the religious aspects of the story. More like “watered down.” But on the other side, ardent fans of the books are crying foul, saying that the movie is ruining the power of the story by blunting it’s edge. Consequently you have two sides to an argument and neither wants to see the movie. Not a good sign for a movie that has $180 million invested in it. Read the rest of this entry »

I really enjoyed this movie but I gotta tell ya, it was a huge bummer.

But first, what I liked about it. I always dig movies like this with big apocalyptic scenarios set in the future. It’s fascinating to me to speculate what could happen in certain circumstances. And good movies make it look so real, it’s easy to get into it. I Am Legend is a good movie. The scenario is believable and the flashback scenes of the impending doom are very dramatic and have weight. A movie is much scarier when it has an element of reality to it. Zombies and aliens are one thing, but an out-of-control virus that wipes out most of the planet is far too potentially real. And the scenes of a deserted NYC are amazing. Very effective and you can’t help but wonder how the hell they did that. Read the rest of this entry »

In theaters now, Iron Man is the long-awaited film based on the Marvel comic book superhero. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a rich, boyish genius whose company builds sophisticated weapons for the military. But after he’s kidnapped by terrorists using his own company’s weapons, he decides he can no longer be a part of building tools of destruction. While held captive he builds his first version of the Iron Man suit which he uses to escape. Once home he declares that his company will no longer be making weapons, which doesn’t sit well with his partner Obidiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). Tony starts to perfect his Iron Man suit in order to go out and stop the terrorists who have been using his company’s weapons. And of course eventually he and Stane have to come to a final showdown.

Robert Downey Jr. may have seemed like an odd choice for Tony Stark at first, but we could even tell in the movie trailers for this film that he was going to give it all he had and make this character work. And he sure does deliver. This is a great actor that had gone through some troubled times, not unlike the character of Tony Stark. One of the challenges of this role was to show the transformation of Tony Stark from bored playboy to a hero and from a jerk to someone likable. Downey did it brilliantly and really showed what he could do here as he effortlessly rattled off witty one-liners, channeled Errol Flynn and Howard Hughes, and created a character so completely that you cannot imagine anyone else in that role once you’ve seen the film. He made the movie fun. Unlike the tortured Batman and Superman, this movie’s Iron Man is having a really good time. Read the rest of this entry »

F’ing Dinosaurs!!! What’s not to love about this movie? Seriously tho, in 1993 when this came out, no one had seen anything quite like it. We’re very used to CGI creatures these days but back then it was very impressive how real these creatures appeared. And of the 3 JP movies that have been made, this is hands down the best. It’s not even close. Steven Spielberg really interjects some style and flair to this to build the suspense and elevate the terror. And the whole story behind the creation of the park is very well done. That is what was lacking from the following movies. By the time the third one came out, it was all “Oh Sh*t! RUN!!!!”.

I think it would be really interesting to see these dinosaurs really make an attempt at spreading beyond the island. They played with the idea in the second movie but it never got past the “Oh Sh*t! RUN!!!!” stage. The first movie made a big point about how the dinosaurs were evolving beyond what the scientists that created them had anticipated. You could take that a step further and have the dinosaurs make a real play to coming back and dominating the world again. Or at least part of it. They were once the dominant species here. So why not see what would happen if they came back and started busting up man’s world. JP3 didn’t do so well at the box office so this series has probably run it’s course. And that world idea might be too much or if not done well, look really stupid. Read the rest of this entry »

I give a lot of points for originality. By 2008, most everything has been done and done to death. I get really bored by a lot of movies, especially just recycled mediocrity that we get pummeled with all the time (Ben Stiller, no more romantic comedies, I beg you). So I was happy to see that Sin City had a truckload of originality to it. I saw a film style I’d never seen before and I liked it. It wouldn’t work for everything, but it worked here.

As most people know, this film is based off of the Sin City graphic novel series by Frank Miller. If you have read the books, you are familiar with the sharp black and white (no grey, no shading) style with the very deliberate and minimal use of color. What Frank Miller does with just black and white is pretty amazing. And the stories are basically Film Noir on crack. Extreme violence, extreme language in an extreme world. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not a big fan of stoner humor. But this movie was actually pretty good. It never got too gross or over-the-top. And some of the jokes were definitely pretty clever. It’s from the Broken Lizard group and is about a bunch of state troopers who mess around more than actually work. Eventually that leads to them getting shut down, also due to budget cuts, but it all works out in the end. I especially liked Jay Chandrasekhar’s character and his very deadpan joke delivery. He is also the director and one of the writers.

Bottom Line: Overall it’s not brilliant, but I would say it’s definitely worth watching.

As thrillers go, this was really good. It never got boring and the structure of the film was fast-paced and effective. In the film, an assassination attempt is made on the President of the U.S. while he’s in Spain for a summit meeting. The assassination attempt is followed by a bombing in the plaza where everything is happening. What makes this film interesting though is we get to see the incident from the perspective of 5 different people who were a part of it, and then one big climatic view that ties everything and everyone together. As each person’s view is told, we find out more and more about what happened and who’s responsible. It was very impressive how they kept the different views fresh and only revealed things little by little. And the action level was kept on high throughout the whole movie, kind of like a Bourne flick.

Bottom Line: Lots of car chases, guns, bombs, what’s not to like?

I hate Meg Ryan. I really do. I hate the cutesy-poo BS she does in all her movies. It makes me wanna puke. Ah… I feel better now that I got that out. I have to admit though, When Harry Met Sally is probably her best movie. And I give most of the credit for that to Billy Crystal. This is probably his best movie too. The story is good, the directing is good, it’s got everything going for it.

This movie is up there in the rom-com (romantic comedy) hall of fame. Meg Ryan was on a role in the 80s and 90s with her romantic comedies. She was like their patron saint, blowing weepy girly dust all over the movie landscape. I ain’t mad at her, movies have to appeal to many different audiences. And women LOVE rom-coms. L-O-V-E them. I know this first-hand because honestly I would be completely ignorant to the Meg Ryan canon if not for my wife. But you know, I’m not all “Aliens! Smash! Explosions! Guns! Zombies!” (though I gotta admit I do love all that). I can appreciate a good “chick flick”. And this one is definitely one of the best. It was written by Nora Ephron, who is also a rom-com goddess. She wrote the other two Meg Ryan romantic comedies people love, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. You have to hand it to her, she writes a good chick flick.

The interesting plot device of moving through such a long period of time during the two main characters relationship is very well done and is an excellent way to establish the connection between these two. It really shows the audience in an effective way how they progressed from not even liking eachother when they met to being friends, then best friends, then the inevitable romantic relationship. It feels very honest. And their frank and honest discussions about relationships comes off as genuine and not forced or simply there to move the plot along.

Bottom Line: I am definitely recommending this. Just don’t invite me over when you watch it, okay?