cars

how do these guys do it? those guys at pixar just keep making great movies! its almost like they keep getting better. toy story was great, but the second one was better. bugs life was good, but monsters inc was better. all of those were good, but finding nemo was better. incredibles was really good, but i didnt think it was as good as nemo. but this latest one, cars, is totally awesome! now, i must confess, i am not a car guy at all (which will come as a suprise to none), but this one was alot of fun. the story was strong, the characters were pitch-perfect, and the visuals were astonishing! some of the jokes were really creative, i liked the over-the-top modified cars that forced lightning to get lost in the first place. my friends and i constantly mock those cars, so it was kind of fun to see them shown as the bad guys.
my only complaint would be the cheesy song montage where the singer keeps complaining about how 'life was bettter in the 50s' and stuff. sure, we know, things were different back then, but i kind of like the way things are now, thanks.
im just impressed that these guys can make movies that kids like, and adults willingly go see too. well done.

x3: the last stand

not very often do i say something like this, but in this situation its true: this movie has too much action. what?!? crazy talk, i know. but true. the first xmen movie was good, too much origin and set up, but what do you expect from a first movie? the second one, on the other hand, was excellent, it followed through on all the potential laid out in the first one. each of those movies had some really great ideas and conflicts that were fleshed out very well. when charles and magneto confronted each other you could really understand the different opinions and the weight of what needed to be done. there was action, but it was all to serve the story and its characters.
the problem with this third movie is that the action feels like it happens so that there can be action in it. the story line is interesting, but it never bothers to dig deeper and try to understand the characters and the choices they make. we never really feel the impact of the events because we havent taken any time to understand what the characters are thinking or feeling.
also, this movie is just plain too crowded! there are far too many characters to really give them enough time to tell there story. there are a couple times where a character dies and its almost hard to care because we dont have any connection with them in this movie. we are introduced to several new ones this time around, but we are not given much time to spend with them and care about what they are going through. oh, and what ever happened to nightcrawler?!? there is enough story here to fill three or four movies, but instead they jam pack it all in and only cover the highlights. the development in the story of mystiques relationship with magneto alone could have been an interesting movie. the relationship and decisions made between rogue and iceman could have been a movie. angel's relationship with his father and what comes of it could have been a movie. like i said, there could have been three or four movies made out of all the parts of this one, but instead all we get are the clift notes version of each.
dont get me wrong though, its definitely worth seeing: the story was good, the action was done well, i just wish i had more time with the characters along the way.

blade trilogy

for some reason i cant remember i decided to watch the blade trilogy. i did it a bit out of order though, i started with the second one, then third, and finally the first one. i like the series, so it was kind of cool to watch them all with in the same same day or two. here are a few of my thoughts:
Blade- when i first saw this in college i remember thinking how awesome this movie was and how amazing the action was! its strange what a few years can do to your perspective... this is one of those movies that falls victim to the matrix 'shift' i wrote about last post. the action was fast paced and exciting, except after the matrix it seems generic and a little lame. the 'blood bath' club scene at the beginning, which i have always looked back at as one of the coolest scenes in any vampire movie, even looks cheesy. the bad guy, deacon frost (stephen dorff) comes off as a total puff. i still enjoyed the movie, but it is not nearly as good as i always thought it was. oh well.

Blade II- the first time i saw this was in the theater. i fell asleep (granted i saw it on a weeknight at 11:00pm after a long day of work). it wasnt until it came out on video that i gave it another look. and wow, im glad i did! this is, in my opinion, the best of the three by far!!! the whole attitude and atmosphere of the first one was different- this was an action horror movie, not just an action movie. the unreal setting (which many people dont like) allows the film to go darker and deeper into the vampire culture. and those new creaures with their jaw-fangs still freak me out!!! the effects are better, the action is very exaggerated and over the top, but in a way that is believable within the films unreal context. the aspect of blade having to team up with the vampires and form a group of mercenaries on the hunt gives it a kind of uneasy 'seven samurai' feel to it. also, the way the bad guy effects are done, they are very off handed and little attention is paid to them- which makes them more believable and almost scarier. the director went on to do 'hellboy' which is one of my favorites! i just really loved rewatching this film. to be honest, i watched this one twice in a row, once just watching, and the second time with the director commentary, and i look forward to watching it again soon to hear the other commentary on the disk! i must say, if you havent seen blade II you are really missing out!
Blade Trinity- crap. i really wanted to like this one, its got ryan reynolds in it, whom i still totally love from 'two guys and a girl' as berg, and its got the hottest chick on earth: jessica biel. so, its got a lot going for it, but for some reason it just plain sucks. this is the 'batman and robin' of the blade series. i dont know what went wrong, maybe it was the first time director (who actually wrote all three films), or maybe it was the complete change of direction from action to action/comedy that brought it down. i dont know. one of its problems is that its on about the same level as 'alien vs. predator'. nothing creative, nothing inspired. i mean, the movie starts out with guys in space suits finding a hidden mystery in an ancient pyramid- how cheesy and generic can you get?!? all that being said, i would actually love to see a 'nightstalkers' movie with reynolds and biel. that would be cool. just dont let this guy direct it...

shifts

though out the past there have been huge shifts and changes in the movie business. these changes altar our perspective on the films we see. something can come up in a particular movie and every movie after it is no longer the same. i guess it would be like different eras in film. for example: when 'jaws' came around, the business changed. suddenly there were movies that could become "blockbusters". there have been other such important changes in the past. here are a couple more, in my life, that i noticed:
jurassic park- every movie that came before it was now outdated, and every movie after had to reach a certain bar of special effects.
matrix- every action movie before suddenly looked boring and simple. no longer were we interested in segal/van damme style action. action films reached a new standard.
its like you can watch a movie and notice 'oh, this is pre-matrix, im sure it was cool then, but now it looks cheesy'. for example- mortal combat had some cool action in it (i thought so at least), but now the action is laughable.