Displaying Category: Movie

I came across two robot love stories yesterday, both of which were adorable. The first is a short film by director Spike Jonze, who recently directed Where the Wild Things Are. The film is called I'm Here and tracks a familiar love story between two humanoid robots in Los Angeles, but with a twist that kind of reminds me of The Giving Tree. It's about 30-35 minutes long and I highly recommend it. There's also a trailer if you'd like to get a feel for it before diving in.

I also have a little music video by one of my favorite YouTube vloggers, Meekakitty called Don't Unplug Me by the All Caps. And yes, I realize this song is entirely done in autotune and I have already declared my distaste for it, but... uh... They're robots! It makes sense! Or something...

Check'em out and coo at all the cuteness.

This review is going to be short for a couple reasons, first, I don't want to give anything away. Second, it doesn't take many words to say how great a movie this is.

It's clear a lot of thought went into perfecting and polishing this film. The pacing is great, the action is great, the concept is great. Also, great acting and plenty to keep you thinking long after you walk out of the theater. I loved the cast, including Ellen Page, though she did feel a little out of place... but I still dig her. If I had to write down a complaint, it's that I didn't feel the need to write pages about this movie as I did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, though it did feel similar in many ways. That's not something I would hold against Inception, it's just that I really wanted to spend more time working over the meaning of the movie when there really isn't any meaning. It's just, a good puzzler.

4/5

I think everyone felt the idea of basing a series of movies on a theme park ride was a really bad idea. Yet the Pirates of the Caribbean movies turned out pretty good. Then, forgetting that, we all thought basing a series of movies on a short clip from a largely in-cohesive dialog-free musical movie was a bad idea... Well, here's The Sorcerer's Apprentice to prove us wrong again.

To put The Sorcerer's Apprentice into context, I would say it's similar to something like Harry Potter in that you've got a dorky nerd-child who is introduced to a world he can barely understand and is, coincidentally, the savior of the world. We're introduced to magic and get some explanation on how it works and the basic "rules" of magic. This is something I really appreciated. Compared to the very limited and almost non-existent explanations we get from the HP movies, we at least get a workable framework in The Sorcerer's Apprentice that I am reasonably comfortable with. There's some solid humor in the movie and a few somewhat touching scenes.

If I had to complain about anything it's that there was clearly a lot of contributing content cut from the final film. In fact, there are at least two scenes in the trailers that don't appear in the final cut. I understand the final cut is, I think, 1 hour and 51 minutes, so I can see they probably had a lot more content that was dropped to keep the movie under two hours. That's okay, but I feel like there may have been some useful scenes left out. For example, one of the scenes you see in the trailer involves Dave blowing up a baseball in lecture he's teaching. Some of the machinery you see in that scene (that is not in the final cut) is used in the climactic final battle... but in the final cut, we don't see that equipment before the final battle. It only made sense seeing the trailer again after having seen the movie. So, it's kind of a shame that we lost some potentially good scenes to the cutting room floor... Or not. I guess we won't know till the DVD release.

In the end, I really enjoyed the movie and look forward to the sequels.

3/5

So let's see, a science fiction movie that includes such things as: heavily armed soldiers, laser cannons, stealth aliens, giant dog things covered in spikes, and no Arnold. Alright, I'm in. Basic premise, all sorts of people are kidnapped and dropped (literally) on to some alien planet that's basically a huge game preserve, and then they get hunted by the predators. It's simple and it works. All in all, I would say it's better than the original Predator because it feels a little more sophisticated and it's not really trying for anything quite as complex as the original.

3/5

I have two minor issues with this movie. First, I didn't buy Tom Cruise as a secret agent. He didn't seem serious enough, which worked given this was a comedy, but it also got in the way of believability. Second, I can't stand Cameron Diaz. Her face weirds me out, so it's difficult for me to look at her. Those two minor issues aside, this movie was very entertaining and lots of fun to watch. It's basically an adult action/comedy thing, and it works. It's funny, it's suspenseful, it's exciting. It just works. So, I'd recommend seeing it if you're looking for something fun, but it is not a must-see.

3/5

I don't really have a lot to say about Toy Story 3. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect it to be. Living toys struggle to hold on to the past, and then failing that, struggle to cope with dramatic change in their lives. Failing that, they attempt to reacquire the status quo through the implementation of some wacky plan that utilizes each toy's individual skills and abilities. So, pretty much just like the previous two movies. What it does though, it does very well. It's funny, it's entertaining, it's well presented. My only problem with it is that it simply uses the exact same formula from the previous two movies, which is fine, I just don't think we needed a third movie.

4/5

What's noteworthy about this movie is that, while it looks like an old-west gunslinger cowboy type movie, it actually takes place largely along the east coast (much of it in Virginia) and is instead about domestic terrorists who want to blow up America. I'm not entirely clear why, but I doubt it matters. Josh Broland as Jonah is a bounty hunter with a code, sorta, who can also talk to the dead. It sounds like there's a lot to this, but we only get a sampling. What bothered me was how Jonah learned all about the rules of talking to the dead. Was there a manual? "Hey dead, it's me, Jonah." Megan Fox plays a whore who can kick ass while wearing a disturbingly painful looking corset. Malkovich is the aforementioned terrorist who wants to blow everything up so that the people rise up and tear down the government. I'm not clear on how that's supposed to work when you've already blown up most of the people, but hey, this is comic book fantasy, why should we start making sense now?

So did I like the movie? Meh. I didn't find it entertaining. My favorite part was like, watching people gallop around to crunchy guitar music, if that tells you anything.

2/5

I actually saw Splice a couple days ago, but needed some time to work out my thoughts on it. First of all, while the trailers have characterized this as a horror movie, it most certainly is not. I'd even be hard-pressed to consider it a thriller. It's actually more like a fairly intense family drama.

At its heart, Splice is about relationships. Relationships between friends, family, lovers, parents, parent to child, and even business relationships. Why do people do what they do and how do those decisions impact others? How can a person's relationship with a parent impact their own parenting methods? What does a child feel for her parents? Love? Fear? Anger? How do teenagers change? What do we owe our employers?

There are a few startling scenes, but they are well telegraphed. There are several disturbing scenes, several involving sex. There are some really interesting situations and monologues that are worthy for post-movie discussion. Also, some pretty cool special effects that I still have no idea how they were accomplished. To me, this movie was definitely worth seeing, it's just a shame it probably won't last long in the theaters.

4/5

George Romero is back with I believe his sixth zombie film. This movie takes place roughly just after (within weeks) the events portrayed in Diary of the Dead. I guess that would mean approximately two months after the dead started walking. Some things that immediately caught me off-guard, the world is not an apocalyptic wasteland. There's still electricity and Internet and in general, most of the world seems to be carrying on. On the other hand, there are no other cars on the road.

The basic plot involves two warring families on a small isolated island off the coast of Delaware. One family believes the dead should stay dead and works to put them all down, while the other family believes the living and the dead should coexist happily. Mix in with this four AWOL soldiers and some teenager they picked up, looking for a safe haven in the storm of chaos(?) and things accelerate quickly toward confrontation. There's also $1 million and no real way to spend it. What is this movie really about? How many ways can you kill a zombie.

Now of course, I don't really expect much from a zombie movie, so I can't say I was exceptionally disappointed, but a sort of gallery of zombie killin' methods wasn't where I expected this to go. Well, okay, maybe I did, but I didn't want it to go there. There was some silliness and some bad lines and the acting was a little over-the-top at times. Then there were all the WTF moments where something happened that just seemed completely out of place with the context. I turned to my friends gesticulating "Why is this even in the movie?!" I guess there were things that seemed like fun, but had no substantive value to the movie. Or, maybe they just needed to fill time? I don't know.

After it was all done I don't really think there was much to be gained from this movie except, perhaps, all those zombie-killing methods. Which is sad, but probably enough to satisfy the zombie aficionados in the crowd.

3/5

Let me just get out of the way that my experience with the Prince of Persia series of video games is extremely limited. I think I may have played the original a little bit in one of the computer labs in high school. So, I can't really comment on the accuracy of the movie's story or costumes or elements of adventure. What I can say is that I loved this movie!

Basic premise: beggar turned prince saves the world. Simple enough, and attempted many times before by Hollywood in various incarnations, but I can't recall anything quite so successful. The primary draw here would be the consistently adventurous plot and near perfect pacing. I would also say Jake Gyllenhaal is really good with facial expressions. Unfortunately, like most movies set outside of the United States, you'll have to get over the painfully out of place English accents. But really, I was too caught up in all the action to waste too much time pondering the absurdity of middle easterners speaking in a language that wouldn't exist for thousands of years...

Finally, I really have to compliment the closing middle eastern flavored song by Alanis Morissette.

4/5