Monday, June 13, 2011
Tron: Legacy
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows - Pt 1
Sunday, June 12, 2011
The Town
Two stars because it is not as bad as Jonah Hex.
Jonah Hex
On paper the movie could have been half-way decent. Malkovich as the bad guy, check. Setting is 1870's, and the main characters are all Civil War veterans, check. Elements of supernatural, and steampunk, check. Plot development, or any idea on how to create an actual story...Missing! I think that Playstation Western game I was playing has a better narrative to it with more character development. This one felt like an average video game, and a pretty bad movie.
One and a half stars out of five for the giant cannon that is in it.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1
The original novel was able to pull this off, and I'm wondering if this section of the series is just too complicated with multiple quests going on, but framed as a detective story. They are trying to track down magical artifacts (for reasons I've forgotten) and in the process discover certain things about Dumbledore.
Also, what the book did was exploit the tension between the three main characters and their relationships with each other. The movie had to spend far too much time on the detective elements of the plot, that it did not really get a chance to do this.
That being said, the actors have all grown up very well, and were able to do a lot with not much help from the narrative. Also, the fight scenes are pretty cool, and if they should still be able to muster up the climax of the story, which will work well on screen if done right. Less detective novel, and more epic battle type stuff. It should be a lot easier to follow. So here's hoping that Pt. 2 will redeem Pt. 1.
3 stars out of 5.
Thor
I liked how they spent almost as much screen time on the villain as they did on the superhero, which I'm beginning to think is essential for any superhero story to work. Where are the X-men without Magneto, where is Superman without Lex Luther, Batman without Joker, and so on. Most superheros are defined by their villains, and not the other way around. In this regard, the villain of Thor is great in that he is probably one of the more well defined, and developed as a character. Not quite sympathetic, but very realistic motivations. All of this lets us really appreciate the heroic qualities in the main character all the more.
I also liked how they were not tied down to the original comic books, or the Norse mythology. It seems they put story first as a priority, without any sort of continuity issues with the myths either.
I would give it a solid 4/5. I'd like to know why Chris docked it a .1, unless he is using a different scale than me! Also, it's probably better than that, but I already heard good things from other people, and whenever that happens I do not like it as much as the original reviewer. Or maybe all of the original reviewers were docking the movie a .1 just for that reason.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Thor
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
A-Team
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Salt
This isn't horrible. The very ending is a bit silly, but the intrigue and the action scenes are good. Angelina Jolie is believable as an action heroine as usual. It's on instant play on Netflix.
Middle Men
The moral: if someone proposes a business deal to you and the words "Russian mafia" come up, DON'T DO IT.
The beginning of this is fairly juvenile. The dot com stuff is kind of interesting, but it's hard to have sympathy for the protagonist played by Owen Wilson. The movie did keep us watching the entire time, so it wasn't terrible.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Shutter Island
Oddly, I think you could do a comparison/contrast between this movie and Inception, but I won't tell you why!
Check this out. I haven't seen such a good horror story since The Mist.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Black Swan
I also liked how at times it appears to be a horror movie, but it is not overdone, which would have been a temptation for the film makers.
Probably one of the best non-Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies I've seen for a while.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Fighter
I also liked The Fighter. How can you not like it?
Clash of the Titans 2010
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Angel Seasons 1-5
This show is actually as good as Buffy, if not a little better at times. It is a little more grown up, and a bit darker. More in line with Firefly in how it explores the meaning of loyalty, the conflict of good and evil, and the main story line of Angel attempting to atone for a hundred years of evil that he had committed.
The minor characters are a little more interesting, and the setting is Los Angeles, so it feels more grown up than Sunnydale, which is where Buffy takes place. Sunnydale is more of a fictional small town that seems to be really generic. Whedon does a great job of mixing demons in the culture of Los Angeles that makes sense and is fun and believable, while at the same time dark and creepy enough when the show needs it to be. There is more room for the epic storylines to take place in Angel with this setting than in the setting of Buffy.
I won't comment in too much detail about the final season, but I will say it was not as good of an ending as Buffy's ending was. I think they were at least purposefully going for something with the final sequence in Angel that would resolve his arc and solidify the change in his character that would make the audience feel satisfied with the ending. This attempt just didn't feel satisfying to be though, and felt a little too open ended. Also, they left one important plot thread unresolved, which is always going to be aggravating.
One interesting thing about this show was that it basically serves as a supplement to Buffy at times, and the two shows often play off of each other. You could see it as pretty much the same show, and so in all, between Buffy and Angel there are twelve seasons.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons 1-7
The genre is right up our ally. Buffy is a chosen superhero that slays vampires/demons and other evil nasties that lurk in the world unknown to most people. She discovers this while still in High School, so the show explores typical Suburban American themes, but with vampire slaying going on in the foreground. The first three seasons of when Buffy is in High School are as good as any televisions series I have ever seen, including Star Trek.
The show's creator is Joss Whedon, who did Firefly. The same style of dialogue is present in Buffy as well. Also, the characters are as three dimensional. While Firefly feels older and more mature, Buffy tackles typical American teen stories, but still is able to explore the nature of good and evil.
It is interesting to draw parallels between the two series. In Whedon's worlds, often the evil characters are those that think they are doing good, or those that start off doing good, but then become too self-absorbed to objectively view their own actions. Of course, there are lots of demons, monsters, and creatures of the night that are just inherently evil as well. Also, like the Reivers, some of the nasties are created by characters who think they are doing good.
The series then moves on in Season 4 to follow Buffy at college, and I think it loses some of its spunk at this point. Of course, at this point you may be too drawn in by the characters to notice it objectively, but the show in Seasons 4-6 started to feel formulaic, and a bit unoriginal. In the final season the show returns to form, and ultimately it does resolve itself in a satisfying manner, concluding all of the character points of conflict, and all of the plot threads that it had explored. I'm not sure I have ever seen a television show successfully do this other than a few of the Star Treks.
Great show that I would highly recommend.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Source Code
Four stars.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
The Switch
Monday, April 4, 2011
The Fighter
What separates this from simply being a Rocky cover song is how messed up and dysfunctional the main character's family is. The dysfunction is not drawn out in an exploitative, my mother's a crack whore kind of way, but in a more believable, working class kind of way, where no one wants to be the one who lets the family down. Seems like they really got the gritty details and the extras straight off the streets of Boston too.
Four out of Five stars for this one.
Iron Man 2
I didn't really care for the main villain, though Sam Blackwell is great as usual. The story line for the main character isn't as interesting as the first one's was.
The A-Team
If you've watched the original show lately, then you know what to expect here. They did a good job of capturing the cheesiness that was at the foundation of the predecessor. Also, the campy back-story of each character is intact as well. I'm not sure why they would even want to call this a remake other than there are different actors, more explosions and violence, and the story's setting is a bit updated. Also, it's the origination story of how they become soldiers of fortune in L.A, and not the team actually soldiering of fortune in LA.
Other than that, it's just like the TV series. That being said, the directing wasn't the greatest. I think they could have slowed the tempo down a bit for each scene, and there were some disagreeable conceited moments in the plot line where the writers just seem to have gotten lazy, and found an easy fix that doesn’t really make sense. Of course, certain catch phrases and motifs from the original are intact.
All in all, watch it if your brain needs a break from reality, and you want to see stuff explode.