meet the robinsons

this was on tv the other day and diana wanted to watch it, so we gave it a shot. the story follows a young orphan boy who loves to invent, he tries to get ready for his school's science fair, but while there he meets another boy who says he's trying to save him from the man with the bowler hat. the orphan goes with him and is shown a time machine where they go into the future, where the second boy is from. while there he meets the family and they all work together to defeat the bowler hat guy. if that sounds strange, it aint the half of it! this movie is very random and startlingly unusual! turns out, the bad guy isnt the guy, its the bowler hat! there are also a bunch of singing frogs! and a t. rex. huh?!? i dont know who this movie was intended for, but i'm sure it gave most people a pretty good headache. there are some really fun moments through out the movie, especially when we first meet the future family- there is a really great bit with tom selleck! after watching the whole movie, i'm pretty sure the writers were smoking some pretty strong stuff...

joseph: king of dreams

i watch this movie at least twice a year. not necessarily because its so good, which it actually is pretty good, but because i show it to my sixth graders every hear as we go over the story of joseph. this animated movie was a straight to video release from dreamworks a year or two after their first foray into biblical animated movies with 'the prince of egypt'. this one follows the story of jacob's favorite son, joseph. the animation style is the same as prince of egypt and fits perfectly with the story being told. the style actually varies a lot during the dreams joseph has or interprets. each of the dreams have a unique style from the rest of the film and are done mostly with computer images instead of hand drawn images like the rest of the movie. in fact, one of the dreams actually looks like a moving van gogh painting- very cool! the story strays from scripture quite a bit, but the ideas and basics of the tale are still there. the original songs are good too, there arent any musical number that get everyone on screen singing and dancing, rather, most of the songs are sung as if it were a commentary on the story, used over top of a montage. ben affleck does a good job as the speaking voice of joseph, with this kind of vocal talent, its obvious that dreamworks had high hope for a continued bible themed video franchise. its too bad they didnt make any more, if this one is any indication, there would have been quite a few more good ones to come!

failure to launch

ugh. remember when matthew mcconaughey had so much potential? when he first burst onto the scene in 'a time to kill' he was heralded as the next great actor. so why does he keep making such trite crap as this?!? i'm guessing its one of those situations where he had to decide 'should i work hard and make great movies, or should i just take it easy and cash in the big checks?' with movies like this, 'how to loose a guy in 10 days', 'fools gold', 'ghosts of girlfriends past', and others, i think we know exactly which choice he made...
this movie is like so many other cookie cutter romantic comedies that its not really even necessary to talk about the plot. the movie is lame, its only saving grace is the best friends of the two generic leads. zooey daschanel plays the strange best friend and gets all the best lines, mcconaughey's buddies are played with comedic success by justin bartha and bradley cooper (who later worked together again, with much success, in 'the hangover'). the two leading characters are worthless and bland, but the best friends pull the movie from a one star to a two star rating.

p.s. why do the men in these movies always end up getting together with the woman who was a total jerk to them? seriously? sarah jessica parker's character was hired to pretend she likes him so that he would move out of the house. how could he possibly forgive her for that?!? the whole relationship was built on a lie! she manipulated him for money, and then planned to break up with him once her requirements had been met. thats just plain evil! i'm sorry, but i don't think any chemistry in the world is going to overcome that terrible reality. and to top it all off, we as the audience are supposed to root for this terrible woman? thats messed up! in the real world, he would have yelled at her and never spoken to her again. also, those are some pretty messed up parents to hire her in the first place! they seem like such a nice family, why didn't they just talk about it with him? argh, these contrived premises are so ridiculous!

knowing

there are some movies you know going in are going to be pretty lame. this is one of those movies. the set up is this: 50 years ago a girl wrote a list of numbers and it was put into a time capsule. when it is dug up, nicolas cage realizes that it has been foretelling when horrific disasters will happen. he pieces it together and realizes that the last one written will be the apocalypse! cage tries his best to warn everyone, but no one will listen. so, he takes his boy and tries to find somewhere to hide so they can survive. pretty basic so far, but then it all goes really weird at the end. this is one of those movies where no one is actually acting like a real human being, they all use cheesy cliches like 'i think i've got a plan!' and then proceed to leave everyone in the dark but just run around with a determined look on his face. as far as the story line goes, logic has no place in this movie. the action builds and builds, we are never told where it is going, but something is definitely going to happen. something does happen, and boy is it stupid! the ending looses all semblance of reality and the movie looses all semblance of being worth while.

sliding doors

the movie starts with a very interesting idea: a woman is going about her day when she misses the subway train by a fraction of a second. now, what would have happened if she had made that train? this concept is played out in the movie, and it leads to two very distinct lives for her. if she made it home she would have found her boyfriend in bed with another woman, leading to their break-up and her finding someone new. if she missed the train she would not have caught her boyfriend, and instead, she would have stayed in the bad relationship and continued on with her unhappy life. great idea, not a great execution. the two alternating stories are told intermixed, which leads to quite a some confusion as we watch. at least until she decides to cut and color her hair in one of the stories. the problem with the movie, though, is that both stories fall pretty flat. sure, he is happier in one than the other, but neither story is very well told. and the ending is a pretty cheap concession in order to allow for an ending to the two tales. too bad, it held so much promise.

paranormal activity

over the weekend diana and i went to go see this movie. i had been hearing about it for the past several months, ever since it was featured at a few different film festivals. it finally came to our town, so we went to go see what the fuss was all about.
turns out, there was good reason for all the fuss, this movie is really scary! now, i want to start off by warning you that when we saw the movie i didn't let the hype get to me. i wasnt expecting it to be 'the scariest movie ever!!!' or anything, i was just expecting it to be pretty good. and it was. the premise is very basic: a couple have been hearing some strange noises in the night and having some unusual things happen in their house, so they buy a camera to see if they can record anything going on. well, they do. the footage they made is what this movie is supposed to be. yes, its very 'blair witch' like. if you didnt like blair witch, then certainly dont bother with this movie. i, on the other hand, really loved blair witch and found it to be very scary. this film has that same feel, except its in a house, not in the woods. there are some really great scares in this one, not the cheesy sort of boo! scares, but earned moments of dread that you see coming, but get you anyway. i'm sure there will be a backlash on this film soon, anything that gets this much buzz going always seems to. the truth of the matter is this: if you are willing to be scared and allow yourself to be drawn in by the mystery, you will have the time of your life. if you would rather act like you are too cool to be scared by it, then you wont. simple as that.
did my wife and i allow ourselves to be scared by it? well, we have slept with the light on for the past two nights...

reality bites

having never seen this movie before, i dont have any nostalgic love for it. i know many people around my age look to this movie as the pinnacle of 90's love stories, but i'm just not seeing it. perhaps i am now too far away from that decade to remember the mindset enough to be drawn in. the story follows a bunch of friends who graduate college and a few years later find themselves in dead end lives still trying to hold on to the optimism and rebelliousness they had in college. ryder's character finds herself torn between the slacker friend she always secretly pined for in college, and a new successful man she meets now. perhaps it says more about me that anything else, but when she goes to the slacker friend i was mad and felt she made the wrong choice. choosing to stay with the guy who is always cynical and pouty does not seem like the right choice, but maybe thats what being twentysomething in the 90's was all about. me? i prefer to be happy and striving for better things, not mopey and unmotivated. oh, and the tacked on story of a gay guy coming out just seemed like exactly what it was: tacked on. it added very little and came out of left field. also, the bit about ryder's character wanting to create a tv show with her recorded footage seems very dated and actually kind of cheesy now. in the era of youtube, this idea seems like a boring relic.

race to witch mountain

i had high hopes for this one. well, maybe not high, but at least some hopes for this one... i've loved the rock ever since he first appeared in his own movie (scorpion king) and have been rooting for him ever since. though i'm not a fan of his recent turn as a children's movie star, i am willing to go with him most of the time. thats why i was expecting something from this movie. unfortunately i was disappointed.
this movie follows the rock as a las vegas taxi driver (right, like thats believable...) when he picks up two kids and drives them where they need to go. as it turns out the two kids are aliens trying to get back to their ship and the rock gets caught up in the sci-fi craziness. even with all the ridiculous alien stuff in the movie, its still impossible to accept anything that happens in the movie. no one actually acts in a way that would be even slightly realistic and all the characters are terribly written making no logical sense though out the film. much of this could be forgiven if it were fun, but alas, the director makes no attempts at creating any sort of atmosphere or coherent storyline flow. the action kicks up almost immediately and there is never a point where it goes from empty noise to fun action. it feels like a rough sketch of a movie, but they never bothered to tighten up the action, the characters, or the point of it all. from start to finish it is a bumpy and unsatisfying ride.

burn after reading

what a strange little film! the story follows a guy who works for the government being fired, his wife gets sick of him and wants a divorce so she can go after the man she's sleeping with. the government guy looses a cd that has some harmless files on it, and two employees of a workout chain find it. they think it is sensitive government info, so they try to go james bond and sell it to the russians. sound crazy so far? well, thats only the first half hour! things get really complicated as everything falls apart for everyone involved. i think the best way i can describe the film is to say that its an american version of a guy ritchie movie- with different accents. if you've ever seen 'lock stock and two smoking barrels' or 'snatch', then you know what i mean...

stevie

diana and i were at the video store, she wanted to get a documentary about fashion, but they didnt have it. the guy behind the counter apologized, but then recommended another documentary we should watch. he told us that it was really interesting and moving and that we would really like it. we took a look at it, but decided against it. he then offered to let us rent it for free- now thats a deal! we took it and did watch it. his assessment of the movie was very accurate.
the film follows the director as he goes back to where he and his wife lived for a few years and he looks to see what ever happened to a boy that he had been a 'big brother' to for while before he and his wife moved. the boy's name is stevie, and he wasnt totally there, mentally. its been quite a few years since they last talked, but we see that stevie has gotten much worse. stevie's problem is that he seems to have the mind of a 13 year old boy stuck in a 30 year old man. he has a developmental problem that doesnt seem to allow him to think through his actions, and he has not yet understood how others are affected by what he does and says. he's totally functional, he has a job, drives, takes care of himself, all that. it just seems like he started his rebellious teen years of talking back and being selfish, but is still stuck in that place mentally. here is where the problem comes in: he is accused of sexually abusing a young girl and now might face jail time if he is convicted. the film centers around this situation, looking back at his own abused childhood, and asks how he could have gotten to the place he is now. why didn't anyone step in to help out or to point out the problems between then and now? we see many foster families that took him in, some were bad, but some were good influences on him. the question arises about if stevie himself was a victim of a failed system or if this is his own fault.
a very moving portrait of a conflicted man and the difficult situations that got him where he is. i'm glad the movie store guy let us rent it, its definitely worth seeing.

adventureland

this one looked so promising. its got a great cast: jesse eisenberg, who i have enjoyed ever since 'roger doger', ryan reynolds, who has been great in everything since 'two guys, a girl, and a pizza place', even bill hader and kristen wiig are usually good for a few laughs, i was even willing to put up with the constant hair-touching and lip-biting of kristen stewart. the problem, though, is that the movie falls completely flat. going in i thought it was going to be a comedy. why did i think that, you ask? well, because thats the way it was advertised. unfortunately thats not what this movie is. instead, it is a drama about a kid who likes a girl who is dating a married man and all the cliche melodrama that comes with it. there were a few funny moments, but most of them were spoiled in the previews. its a waste of a perfectly good cast- they even committed the cardinal sin: they had ryan reynolds- a comic genius- and they cast him as the serious married man! what were they thinking?!? lame.

lion king 1 1/2

i recently rewatched this with my nieces and nephew and was reminded of how much fun the film is. the set up for this direct to video sequel of the original lion king film is that it starts off with timon and pumba sitting down to watch lion king. they get a little bored and instead want to watch what they were up to during the story of the first film. its a pretty clever concept: we get to see the events from the first film played out through the eyes of timon and pumba! now, in the original film they dont show up until about half way through, so there is a lot of story about simba and his family before we see timon and pumba doing their thing. this movie shows us what the were up to during that time, and we get their perspective of all the events of the original film. when all the animals are bowing to the new lion cub simba when he is born, timon and pumba were just traveling through to find a place for themselves to live, when simba is singing at the watering hole, timon and pumba were just trying to have a nice quiet day at the beach and are rather annoyed by all the singing and dancing. the interweaving of this original story and the events of the first lion king movie is very fun to see, and we still get a good story of timon and pumba making a place for themselves in the world and growing up themselves.
this movie is definitely a fun one to watch right after the original lion king.

time machine

i cant really explain why, but i really like this movie! individually the pieces are all below average. the story is weak, it spends too much time on things we dont care about, and not enough on the interesting ideas it develops. the make-up for the morlocks is terrible and the finally is laughable. the people he meets in the far future are bland and uninteresting, and the bit with the library hologram is just plain stupid. but for some reason it still works! i think mostly it has to do with guy pierce as the lead, he brings emotion to a film that has very little to say. the first ten minutes of the movie are by far the best, when pierce looses the woman he loves and tries to get her back is the real core of the movie, all the stuff set in the far future is completely meaningless to the core mission of the character, therefore we never really invest in that part of the story. i will give it one thing- that time machine and the traveling through time effect are just plain amazing!

annie

i didnt grow up with this one, so i think a lot of its magic is lost on me. many people who loved this movie look at it with the nostalgia of when they first saw it. since this was the first time i saw it, i dont have any sort of love for what it was. looking at what it is now, though, is not really very good at all. i'm sure that it also might have to do with the fact that i am a 30 year old man, and this movie is not meant for me. the story follows the little orphan annie as she tries to deal with a head mistress who exploits her and the other orphans. when someone comes by to adopt annie, it turns out to be the richest man around, daddy warbucks. he tries to adopt her, but she is holding out hope for her real parents to come back and get her. little does she know that they were actually killed in a fire. the unscrupulous head mistress, though, sees a money making opportunity now that daddy warbucks is involved, so she sets up a plan to have a couple pretend to be her parents. there is much confusion and all of it is coated with a thick helping of song. its nice enough, but i dont think its meant for me. and it has not aged well, either...

harry potter and the half blood prince

recently my wife and i rewatched the last three harry potter movies on dvd. i was not all that impressed. for some reason i just havent been able to care about any of these characters, and none of the past five movies have changed that. till now. the latest installment of the franchise takes a pretty substantial turn, no longer is it so much about the cheesy little magic effects, which i always thought were an annoying distraction. instead, there is a focus on real character development and relationships growing and changing. this film finds harry potter living with his godfather and unsure about returning to hogwarts. the head wizard shows up and we get to see some character moments between the two of them as they track down an old teacher who knew voldemort when he was a student and sheds light on who the bad guy is. along the way we get to see some real development between the kids who we have followed for the past five films- they are actually turning into adults! the little moments between the kids are what really make this movie work. also, the directing on this film is magnificent! finally, the series is shifted from the basics to being a real work of art. the shots and the angles that the director chooses for the scenes really help tell the story and further immerse us in the world of the story. this director is doing the next two films as well, which means i eagerly await them! finally i am on board the harry potter express!