Displaying Category: Rating_4

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 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

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

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

Hmm... how to describe this movie...Well first off, I'll say that it really did kick-ass. A high school kid decides he wants to be a superhero just to do something about the crap that goes on in the city that everyone else just stands back and watches (or records on their cell phones and posts on YouTube). He doesn't have super powers and barely any fighting ability, but he is a hero in the sense that he is trying to do good, which also makes him a little insane, but that's not really part of the story. You mix in gratuitous violence and pervasive language and you've got sort of a cross between Superbad and Ninja Assassin. Oh yeah, it's that good. Oddly, the parts that made me cringe the most weren't the over-the-top fighting scenes, but the scenes where the hero is spending time with this girl he likes who only spends time with him because she thinks he's gay. Now that was painful. And hilarious.

4/5

This is going to be a difficult movie to describe, being as I can't talk about all the wonderful things I want to talk about for fear of spoiling the whole thing. Suffice to say, the cinematography is brilliant, the writing is satisfying, and the story is significantly more complex and interesting than it seems on the surface and in trailers. My only disappointment is that it never gets into the horrors of mental institutions as I was hoping/expecting. Really, I didn't miss it. Once I realized I wasn't going to get what I wanted the film very quickly redeemed itself by magnifying its depth with a brilliant plot twist. More please!

4/5

A friend invited me to this one-man show at Theatre J largely because it is performed by her favorite writer/director, Josh Kornbluth who co-wrote and co-directed the film Haiku Tunnel. It's a great little film, so I agreed to go along, knowing pretty much nothing about the show except that it centers on Andy Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century.

It was a pretty good show, especially considering it was the premiere and clearly still in the works. After the show, four of the people behind the show (including Josh) sat down on stage to ask the audience questions about how the show worked and what might be done to improve or clarify sections. That was when we learned that the order of the sections of the show had only been settled on that morning, so it was understandable that Josh needed some prompting from the director at various points. I actually didn't mind at all, it lended a certain credibility to the whole thing.

As the show progresses we learn things about each of the ten subjects of the portraits. These vignettes ranged from very simple segments (about Albert Einstein) to much longer and involved stories that intertwined with Kornbluth's own life experiences. Those were the best parts, when a story about his own childhood bore a striking connection to one of the portrayed historical figures and their own life works. Personally, I really loved the story behind Martin Buber's "I and Thou" relationships and how this tied into one of Kornbluth's formative childhood experiences. Not only was it touching and telling, but it got me thinking about my own "I and thou" relationships.

There really isn't much talk in this show about what it is to be a Jew or what it means to be a Jew, but you do come away with a sense of the cultural significance of being a Jew and pride in being a part of the same religious and historical community as the ten Jews portrayed by Warhol. Also, the show is pretty funny.

4/5

I finally got around to watching the Caprica pilot last night, so here are some thoughts on it. Folks smoke a lot on Caprica. The story centers on the Graystone family and the Adams (Adama) family as they cope with the terrorist bombing of a train that killed the Graystone daughter, Zoe, and the Adama wife and daughter, Tamara. Caprica, however, is clearly much more complicated than what is evident on the surface. Joseph Adama, a Tauron, is mixed up with what seems like a crime syndicate. He's also having problems connecting with his young son, William (Willy), who we knows grows up to be Admiral Bill Adama in Battlestar Galactica. Daniel Graystone is also trying to cope with the loss of his daughter and becomes obsessed with trying to bring a virtual clone of herself that she created before her death into the real world. Daniel happens to be the head (I assume) of some major technology company that invented the virtuality technology that Zoe used to create her clone as well as a robotics developer currently struggling to get a military contract to produce a cybernetic soldier. The plan, it seems, is to create a cybernetic body for the virtual personality.

Other subjects touched on in the pilot include some racial/social tensions between the various tribes and social classes. Religious tensions between the greater polytheistic society and the burgeoning monotheistic believers currently living mostly underground but striving for acceptance. Questions of terrorism. I am sure there will be issues of life and what constitutes a sentient being. I definitely think there's a lot of meat there, all wrapped inside a retro-futuristic candy shell that reminds us this is all science fiction. In particular, I enjoy the fairly minor touches that lend credibility to the series. I like the application of the household robots. I particularly enjoy the presentation of the city as a place of both older buildings and newer, high-tech looking skyscrapers. It's always bugged me when a "future" city contains nothing but futuristic looking buildings. Cities grow organically; new "futuristic" buildings only get built when the older buildings are torn down. There's no case where an entire city would be all new unless it's built all at once out of nothing (like Dubai, I suppose). So it was cool seeing the old courthouse and diner and schoolhouse and such, mixed with the futuristic maglev train and corporate headquarters building and the skyscrapers and so on. They also smoke a lot.

So yes, I am looking forward to the rest of the series. The only thing that actually bothers me is that I don't know where this series is going. Unlike BSG that had a pre-defined endpoint, Caprica is an almost entirely unknown quantity and that is both exciting and frustrating.

4/5

It's always daunting going into a movie knowing there's really no happy ending, but even then it's nice to be surprised to discover there is, in fact, life after death. The story itself is fairly simple and is outlined clearly in all the trailers. Suzie Salmon is murdered at age 14 and most of the movie follows the people she loves and her murderer over the next two years or so, while Suzie herself watches from the in-between, the space between earth and heaven. There's more, but I am reluctant to give anything else away. I will say that Suzie's ending provided a pleasant surprise, in that it isn't what I would have expected from a typical Hollywood movie. There was no graphic violence and the viewer is left to guess about the details of young Suzie's final moments. I understand the book goes into a lot more detail, but I was happy to not have to experience that. Instead of loading up on the gruesomeness of the killing, we instead ride an emotional rollercoaster along with the Salmon family, narrated by Suzie as she watches what they are going through. I found it poignant and it kept me close to tears for a large part of the film. Assuming you know what you're getting into and you are in the mood for something shy of a thriller, more like a walk through the emotional journey a family facing tragedy deals with... then I think you'll enjoy The Lovely Bones just fine.

Going back to what I said early on, about life after death, I'm not speaking about Suzie's in-between place, it's more about how a family copes and moves on with a serious tragedy. That is life after death.

4/5

Oh look, another vampire movie... Thankfully, this isn't your typical vampire flick and actually presents some interesting ideas to consider. In short, what would happen if most of the world's population were turned to vampires? As a tiny minority, there's food walking around everywhere, but as the dominant species, the possibility of consuming all the available food sources is very realistic. On one side you have the vampire corporate interests trying to control the food supply, and on the other you have the few remaining endangered humans struggling to keep the race alive. I felt echoes of both Equilibrium (a small underground fighting against a monolithic power to save humanity) and Gattaca (one man trying to hide his true self from an oppressive corporation/government). Daybreakers doesn't approach the philosophical topics that both of those movies confronted, but I felt like the conversation was there, dozing under the surface with an occasional snort or snore to make itself heard. Also noteworthy is the film's score which is a score. I was expecting a modern vampire movie to be filled with dark pop songs and pumping bass beats, but instead the entire movie, end-to-end, is scored. And I'm not talking about a horror movie score that's designed to build tension, I mean there was orchestral music playing all the way through. It was also filmed in a semi-noir fashion that I found appealing. My final notes are on content, there is some profanity and there are also moments of graphic (though not scary) gore.

4/5