watching movies one cup at a time

It’s not really clear to me why everyone is going crazy about this movie. Sure it’s a good movie. But it wasn’t THAT great. Not great enough to be freaking out about it like people are.

In general I like the Coen brothers’ movies. I thought Fargo was really good and so was Hudsucker Proxy and Barton Fink. This movie is a lot different tho. It doesn’t feature quite the same exaggerated characters as in some of their other movies. This film actually reminds me the most of their first film, Blood Simple. It’s got a lot of the same tension and “true crime” violence.

I don’t really get why Josh Brolin’s character goes back to the crime scene to give the dying man some water. The guy was just about dead anyway. Going back 6 hours later won’t help him. Seems like a dumb thing to do. And of course the result is he gets found out and eventually killed for it. And why didn’t he just go to New York or some place really far away. I don’t understand why he is going to hotels one town over and thinking that’s a good idea. Where was he headed? What was his plan? And how in the hell does Javier Bardem just happen to be driving past his hotel?

About Javier Bardem, his Anton Chigurh character stole the show. Everyone remembers this character. He is so slyly evil and bizarre, you can’t help but be transfixed by him. All the actors do an exceptional job. Tommy Lee Jones is great as the understated Sheriff that is actually at the center of the movie. And Josh Brolin is the perfect roughneck Texan.

Overall it’s a good movie, just not as insanely fantastic as everyone says. And there were a few more dots that I would like to see connected.

Robert Wise directed this between West Side Story and The Sound Of Music. And though it isn’t as grandiose as either of those, it is still an exceptional movie executed by a very talented director. It’s essentially a ghost story, and what I like about it is that it simply relies on sounds, shadows, and camera work to convey the terror. Shot in gorgeous black and white, it leaves more to the imagination than anything else, and that is always more effective at scaring the audience.

The Haunting is a horror story based in a Shirley Jackson novel. It centers around a house that is supposedly cursed and filled with a powerful negative energy. 4 people come to the house to investigate the paranormal activity. One of the characters, Nell, gets carried away by the house and is driven a bit crazy. There is a lot of inner dialogue going on with her as she becomes more and more enveloped in the house.

The house is pretty grand. It’s huge and you could easily get lost in it. And of course every shadow seems menacing. Loud noises plague the halls, unexplained coldness and footsteps. It’s very simple yet very well done. Even for an old black and white movie, it’s quite a scare.

There was a remake in 1999 which was less than appealing. Let’s look at that one.

Why? Why redo this movie? The original was a subtle, black and white haunted house movie. This new version went completely psycho-nuts with the computer-generated crap all over the place. WAY over the top. I’m all for CGI adding something to a movie, but they just ripped out any subtlety and ran right into using every opportunity they could to CGI something. Doors, curtains, fireplaces, paintings, smoke, beds, you name it. And it was ugly CGI too with weird beds coming to life looking like some kind of alien escaped from war of the worlds.

They added a bunch of extra nonsense to the script as well making the plot a lot more complicated. And that didn’t help things. Again, too much. I must say the house looked fantastic though. I’d love to live in such a huge mansion with such rich decor. Just skip the CGI kid-ghosts on the fireplace coming to life.

The acting was okay. Lili Taylor didn’t really fit here though as Nell, the lead female character. She doesn’t convey the same vulnerability as Julie Harris did so well in the original. Liam Neeson as the head of the project is pretty much wasting his talents here too. Owen Wilson pops in and is his usual annoying self. I can’t stand that guy.

Overall this film was a waste of time. They should have built on the originals creepiness factor instead of ramming a bunch of CG effects down our throats. The imagination is much more fertile ground for what scares us than CGI curtains.

A lot has been said about this movie’s use of CGI. It was made by the same people that created the Polar Express. It uses motion capture technology to digitally record an actor’s real, physical performance, and then interpret that into a computer to guide a computer generated character. So in that sense it greatly differs from films like Shrek and the Pixar films. It is much more direct attempt to mimic a “real life” depiction through computer generated animation. The people are meant to look like real people, etc. As opposed to the more “cartooney” CGI movies put out by other studios. Does it succeed? Do the digital characters look like real people? Well, it’s getting close. Read the rest of this entry »

Eh. It just wasn’t very funny. It was a pleasant enough movie but it just didn’t hold my interest. I’m a big fan of Samberg & Co.’s Digital Shorts on SNL. But maybe they wouldn’t work either if they were stretched out to 2 hours. Some of the jokes in the film seem like the kind of things comedians brainstorm in a writer’s meeting but probably sound much better as an idea rather than actually doing it. Other jokes feel like they were just shoe-horned in so the guys could do something “quirky” that didn’t have anything to do with the movie. You never really find much out about these characters or why they do the things they do. Why does Rod keep doing stunts when he always fails? Why do his friends support him so blindly? I know it’s just a silly movie but there really wasn’t much to grab on to in terms of empathizing with this guy. A movie like this wants you to root for the lead character, but we’re not given a good enough reason WHY we should root for him. All would have been forgiven if the movie was really funny, but unfortunately it falls short.

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.

Well, it is what it is – a b-grade zombie flick loosely based on a video game. I’m not a big fan of any of these movies. They are pretty weak in general. I like the idea of an out-of-control company like the Umbrella Corporation, but we don’t get much insight into them. This film takes place in a future where the whole world has pretty much been taken over by the “T Virus” which kills everything and then reanimates it zombie-style. Milla Jovovich is back as the genetically-enhanced Alice, ready to kick some a** as usual. And really that’s the most fun part – watching Milla do her thing. She pretty much only acts in movies where she can whup on people nowadays so she’s gotten really good at it. High kicks, flipping all over, knives, guns, what’s not to like? The rest of the cast and the story is pretty forgettable. Even as an end-of-the-world scenario it’s so-so.

Bottom Line: Fun if you want something mindless.

This is a “prequel” of sorts to the original Cube movie and Hypercube, it’s sequel. You don’t have to have seen the other 2 movies, but it helps. This one looks like it has a bigger budget with a slightly better production value. The first Cube movie definitely had a low-budget sci-fi vibe.

The basic idea is that there is an enormous Cube structure that contains many cubed chambers within it. Each chamber potentially has a deadly trap that will kill a person almost immediately. People get put in the cube without any warning or instruction and must figure their own way out. Tho pretty much no one does since there are so many traps.

This Cube movie actually spends the majority of it’s time outside the Cube, sort of behind the scenes. The thing I liked about the first Cube movie was the mystery of who was behind it all. You never found out who or why these things were happening. That left it up to the imagination, and that makes a big difference. The following 2 movies have tried to give insight into the organization behind the Cube. But either tell us all of it or not at all. Just teasing little pieces out only demystifies the whole thing. At least if we heard the whole story it would give it some closure.

The acting and directing were just allright in this movie. By far the best character was Mr. Jax with his messed-up eye. He was great fun.

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.

The vampire has got to be the most overused and cliche cultural subject out there. What makes this movie different is the movie’s setting in an arctic Alaskan town that is in complete darkness for part of the year, and the depiction of the vampires as an animalistic pack of feral creatures in wool trenchcoats. The fear they inspire comes from the cold blackness of their eyes and the shark-like rows of teeth that are used more the destroy than to delicately bite a neck. These creatures are here to destroy their prey until every drop of blood is drained from this town that gives them unfettered freedom to move about in the darkness.

Based on a popular comic book series, the flaws of this movie come from the transition from print to screen and from some mediocre acting. What is dark and menacing in print loses all subtlety up on the screen where each frame needs to be filled with something thrilling and eye-catching. It works often, but is nowhere near as intense as the comic book artwork. And a couple things about the story really bugged me. Like the vampires are there for 30 days but it seemed like they killed everyone in the first week. Why bother hanging around? Why not move on to the next town? Or why not save some blood for later? Seems a waste to pig out all in one week.

Danny Huston and Ben Foster are both brilliant as the purely evil visitors to the town, but Josh Hartnett continues to just stink up every movie he’s in. I just don’t buy anything coming out of his mouth and his character just got pretty annoying after awhile. In more capable hands, his heroic figure would have had a lot more heart to it instead of feeling half-baked.

Bottom line: Worth checking out but could be better.