Displaying Category: Movie

A warm hearted feel-good R-rated summer romantic comedy featuring young people (well, early 20's) drinking, smoking lots of weed, and trying to enjoy the worst summer job ever. It was excellent. The plot was predictable, but I never cared, I just wanted to watch these interesting characters doing things.

So here's my gripe about this movie and other movies like it. You've got this intelligent, kind of awkward nerdy guy who clearly isn't so great with the ladies, and yet... Really attractive edgy girl mysteriously falls for him. I love watching those sorts of things happen because it makes me believe it's possible, but it's kind of like believing in Santa Claus (sorry kids)... This shit just doesn't happen.

4/5

There really isn't much to reveal about this movie, if you've seen the trailer you pretty much know what to expect. That's not really as bad as it sounds. This movie isn't about plot, it's about characters. It's about how life and death impacts these characters and how cope and keep pushing forward. It's not deep in the existential sense, but there is depth. It's not especially sad or happy. Sunshine Cleaning actually manages to walk a very thin line balanced between all of these extremes thanks to some wonderful acting and some fantastic writing. I also really liked the music, which wasn't your typical theatrical scoring, but smaller and more about acoustic guitar that really matched the emotional themes in ways most scores never dream of.

The only real disappointing part happened in the restroom after the movie in which I overheard two older guys talking about the movie. One days "Well that was a waste of a couple hours!" and the other says "But at least Amy Adams was pleasant to look at." Which was at least 50% true, but made me sad that they missed out on so much more. That's okay, I'll take their portion gladly.

4/5

In short, this was a fantastically enjoyable movie. In somewhat more length, a really fun take on a classic theme mixed with some hip pop-culture references and really fantastic visuals (especially in 3D) and you have a can't miss formula for fun. /cliche

Alright, so it's basically a movie for kids with a nice soft PG rating, but like any good animated movie for kids, they've managed to inject enough adult-only jokes and references that no one in the audience should be bored. What surprised me was the "message" the movie is pushing. I was expecting something about how we should rejoice in our differentness, how there's nothing wrong with being a freak, and all that. But the message was actually more about having the strength to do what you want and being your own person and, you know, rejoicing in our differentness, etc. The main character is Susan (the ginormous woman you see in the trailers), and it's mostly about her realizing she doesn't need to be with the selfish career focused Derek that she was planning to marry. She has all the strenth and smarts and will she needs to be her own person and not part of "Team Deedle" as Derek would say. I guess an unexpected feminist breeze that I found quite refreshing presentation and overtness.

Negatives? Well, there were kids in the theater.

4/5

The core complaints aren't actually that uncommon as "witchcraft" quickly becomes equated with devil worship and satanism and so on in many western belief systems. Now we have Islamic scholars suggesting a, to my ears, baffling relationship between Zionism, "western cinema," and the Harry Potter stories that really ratchets it all up a notch on the absurdity scale.

Important take-away from this video, Harry Potter wasn't popular until the movies came out. And FYI, Harry Potter is the Messiah.

I wish this were some really cool existential statement on what it means to "know," but unfortunately it's about a crappy disaster movie. From Alex Proyas, the director of such entertaining movies as Dark City and The Crow comes this stinker about, I think, how much it sucks to know one's destiny. Other than that, I'm not sure there is a point. So, what are the issues with this movie? Badly written cardboard characters, stupid plot, weak acting, and atrocious writing. On the other hand, the pacing built nicely. Effects are pretty good, but that's pretty much standard these days. That's all I've got.

1/5

Since I haven't really been posting reviews like this up till now, I should make it clear that yes, I do like these sorts of movies. Romantic comedies and dramas and tug-at-the-heartstrings sob-fests. I love it all. I recognize they aren't necessarily good for me and give me all sorts of crazy unrealistic ideas of what love is and how it (should) work in the real world. So, fair warning...

In terms of quality, the movie was fine. There weren't any really glaring issues. The writing was decent and the pacing wasn't problematic. Acting was good and that's pretty much all I have to say regarding the technical side.

So was it an entertaining movie? Well, I did feel entertained at times. I laughed and a few times I felt my emotions being very distantly influenced. I usually look for a bit more emotional response, but you know, this was a big cast and lots of different intertwining stories were swirling around, so maybe it didn't hit every note, but I'll give it a little credit given the scope of it all.

The perspective is very clearly from the female side of things. It's about women trying to understand the "signs" that men put out there. This seems odd to me, you know, I'm a guy and the signals are all pretty obvious, but I suppose women could use some education there, so it's all good.

I won't be giving anything away by stating the big messages you are supposed to walk away with. First, if a guy is into a woman, he will do everything he can to spend time with her. I would really like to think this applies to men and women alike, but I suppose women might be a litle more complex here? Either way, I would agree. You aren't going to avoid someone you want to spend time with. You will find some way to talk with the person or see them or whatever. Second big message, there's always hope. This is, of course, one of those "magical" messages like believing in fairies and Santa Claus, but it is something I try to hold on to myself. I'm not saying I don't fail to keep hope alive now and then, but I do tend to come back to it eventually.

Alright, this review has strayed from the movie to broader life outlooks, and while I love the subject, it's probably a bit further off track than I need to be right now.

3/5

Big movie, lots of hype, and a blue naked guy. How could this possibly go wrong? In short, it's too good. It reproduces the graphic novel so well as to make you question what you're getting out of the movie that you wouldn't get from the graphic novel. Well obviously there's the moving pictures part, that's always nice. There's also lots of slow motion effects, which segues nicely into the other issue I have with this movie: pacing. Get some. Admittedly it's been a long time since I've ready the GN, but I suspect the pacing is probably pretty well reproduced in the movie, which is to say, the GN is probably poorly paced as well. But that's fine, you know. With a book you can always put it down and come back later and it'll seem fresh again... When you're sitting in the theater for 2 hours and 43 minutes you really have to wonder when we'll be getting to the "good parts."

All that said, this really isn't as big an issue as it sounds. I still enjoyed the movie and except for some slow moments I didn't find myself bored or wondering how much time had passed. So should you see it in the theater? Well, if you have any interest at all in comic superheroes and the gritty lives they might lead then you're likely to enjoy the full experience in the theater. Otherwise, catch it on DVD and you'll be able to pause for those bathroom breaks.

4/5