Displaying Category: Review

I will say right up front that my feelings regarding this movie are torn. While it is an undeniably entertaining movie filled with the sorts of medieval (PG-13) fighting and general uncleanliness you have come to expect from period films of this sort, it's also supposed to be about this Robin Hood fellow that we've seen time and again in other films and on television and so on. We know Robin Hood. We are comfortable with Robin Hood. This movie is about the Robin Hood we don't know. How he became an outlaw and what he is truly fighting for. We get a good look at his strength of character in order to give us an idea of how he'll act in future situations. We see what he's fought for and lost. What we don't see in this film is the man we've all grown to know and like (or dislike) as Robin Hood. This is an origin story and not the common story we've grown comfortable with.

This is both good and bad, I think. Obviously if we all know the story of Robin Hood and it's good and solid, there's really no point in telling that story all over again. If you're going to tell the story again, at least bring something new and fresh to the game. I can respect that. At the same time, though, I found myself sort of clawing at the characters and happenings wishing for my fingernails to find purchase on any familiar bits I could find. Other than character names, I was pretty much unsuccessful. The backstories for the characters are all different from what I know. The personalities portrayed are generally different. Well okay, basically Robin Hood is different from what I know. While traditionally, Robin is charismatic and charming, Russell Crowe's Robin is soft-spoken (except when giving speeches) and understated. That's not bad, it's just not familiar. In fact, Robin of Loxley isn't even of Loxley, he's Robin Longstride who takes on the name Loxley as a favor... blah blah blah plot points... it's just odd to me. And after all this effort to be different from the traditional stories of Robin we all know and love, the next movie is going to be forced to tread that well worn earth by virtue of where it falls in the storyline.

Finally, I found there to be a serious technical fault to the film, that the vocal track was mixed far too low to be heard over all the background noise. The spoken dialog seemed very muddy to me. Perhaps just my bad hearing, the friend I saw it with had no trouble understanding it, so perhaps it's just me, but I feel it cut into my ability to enjoy the film fully.

So did I enjoy the movie overall? Yes. Did it feel unnecessarily different from what I am familiar with and possibly contrived in parts to make it different? Yes. Did I have trouble understanding half of what was said? Yes.

3/5

Because this is a movie that I really felt I should see with friends and since my friends prefer to avoid opening weekend on the big movies, I figured I'd be seeing Iron Man 2 in the coming weeks. My plan today was to see The Losers, which clearly did not go according to plan. The theater manager explained that The Losers has been doing so badly that they decided not to run it today and instead were running Iron Man 2 on that screen. Then they told me they'd be opening The Losers up for screening again later tonight around 8:00 PM. Unfortunately, I had already bought a ticket to The Losers, but I definitely didn't want to be around that long. So, I instead went and saw Iron Man 2. Therefore, no ticketstub for Iron Man 2. And now for the review part...

Similar to the first movie, I feel like this second installment was all about setting up other movies. Clearly we're pointing to another Iron Man movie. There's an Avengers movie. There's the Thor movie. There may have been others that my superhero ignorance prevents me from seeing. Therefore, I feel there was a lot of time spent setting up for movies other than the one I was actually watching. Some might call that fan-service, I call it distracting. This also meant there were lots of different storylines, but none of them were ever really filled out. For whatever reason, I enjoyed the interaction between Pepper Pots and Tony Stark the most, but that never really developed into anything meaningful or satisfying and, once again, felt like it was being left for some future movie. There's stuff about Tony's father and his involvement with Vanko (the father of Ivan Vanko, aka, Whiplash) and the Avengers. And this stuff with the government wanting control of the Iron Man "weapon" and Stark's corporate nemesis, Justin Hammer (Captain Hammer? No.) played very well by Sam Rockwell. There's a lot going on and none of it was deep. Maybe it's great fun if you're a huuuuge fan of the comics, but for my money, that doesn't excuse an ADD plot. Finally, I am not saying I didn't enjoy it, I did find it entertaining, I'm just not sure it was a great movie. And don't let the $133 million opening weekend tell you otherwise...

3/5

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

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain who Kevin Smith is, but I have encountered enough people lately who did not recognize the name to make this mention necessary. I wouldn't necessarily say Kevin is a genius, but he is very good at what he does... mostly making crude, often offensive films with a soft squishy heart. Now, when it comes to his famous touring Q & A sessions I had seen the DVD, but that was about it. I heard he was going to be doing a show at the 6th & I Historic Synagogue and jumped on it.

Turns out, the show was fucking awesome. Seriously, the man is a genius at telling stories and making everything funny. He talked about his friends and colleagues including Malcolm Ingram and Scott Mosier. He talked about George Carlin. He talked about Bruce Willis. He talked about getting high with his wife (which is pretty much the funniest story ever). He talked a little about current and future projects. It was an altogether informative, interesting, and frickin hilarious show featuring a handful of freaks asking questions about whatever. In the end, a night of gratuitous offensive language inside a temple. How perfect is that?

What I got from this movie: girls are really mean to each other; guys are generally rational and see shades of gray in an "it's complicated" spectrum. Anything else you might want to know about this movie can be inferred from the source material, that of some Nicholas Sparks novel. Which is to say, there was nothing particularly outstanding about it and it was plainly predictable. That's not entirely bad, you go in with expectations and you come out with exactly what you were looking for. Therefore, I can't really recommend one way or the other, whether you see this is entirely based on what you are looking for in a movie.

3/5

A classic film filled with character, personality, and charm about a young hero learning about his destiny as a demigod and... oh wait, that was the original movie. This would be the remake in which people fight mythological creatures and say awkward lines that probably looked really good on paper, but fall flat when spoken out loud. Sure, the effects are now computer generated, so a giant kraken looks giant, and Medusa actually comes off real well and there are "scorpiochs" or something... But what you reproduce with digital clarity, you strip the personality from. The effects in the original movie were impressive because they were dealing with such simple technology (stop motion animation). Now, they're just like everything else, so what do you have to fall back on? Well, it certainly isn't plot, writing, or great characters. In the movie's favor, I still came out of it entertained. Not blown away or overwhelmed, but I wasn't bored... much. Oh, and I did not see the 3D version.

2/5

I've been trying to come up with some way to describe Joanna Newsom and her music succinctly, but so far, nuthin. She plays harp and piano (harpist/pianist?) and, of course, sings. Her vocal stylings range from angelic to a little grating. Her lyrics are whimsical and random and often feel very stream of consciousness. Her music doesn't follow traditional pop patterns. Her songs don't have a regular chorus and are often more than ten minutes long. In short, it's a pretty unique experience. Check out some of the videos on YouTube for a taste.

The show I saw last night was the first time I've seen her perform live. On stage with her were several other band members (I'd guess you call them) with one guy playing several different stringed instruments like guitar, banjo, recorder (which isn't stringed, obviously) etc, two violinists, a man who played trombone and jaw harp, and a percussionist. The songs as played sounded pretty much just like their recorded versions, which is good. I am always curious to see how something that most likely takes place in many many individual takes in a recording studio translates to a live performance.

The only real downside to the show is that I'm not sure her music really makes for a great show. It's generally pretty chill music and since it all kind of seems to ramble it's easy to lose where you are in the song and yes, I even found myself drifting off a few times. There just wasn't enough happening to keep my attention. I'm not faulting Newsom at all, I just realized it isn't the sort of show I can easily sit through.

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

Tim Burton does Alice in Wonderland. Great sets (mostly digital). Great costumes. Great music. What's missing? Oh yeah, the story! Actually, the story is fairly well proven, the problem is, I'm not real sure the message holds very well into adulthood. Not that the message isn't valuable, it's just that, by adulthood, I think we've all heard it enough to make the sound of it a bit tired by now. So you know, be your own person, have original thoughts, and smart confident women are hot Got it. Oh, I also did not see this movie in 3D. I was a lot more interested in having a nice clear picture of all the gorgeous settings, then the gimmicky use of 3D Burton employed in this film. At least based on what I heard from reviewers and friends. And all that said, I still got a little choked up as Alice strode into battle with the Jabbewocky.

3/5

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