poke it with a stick. movies

waynes world 2

2012-01-28T07:30:00.000-08:00

i really loved the first movie, but this one is pretty bad. i realize the first 'wayne's world' was pretty bad too, but my nostalgia for it blocks out all the detractors. well, i never saw this one when it came out, only now catching up with it after recently rewatching the original. unfortunately, this one doesn't hold up very well when compared to the original. it makes sense, since this film is basically a rehash of the first one, not really adding anything new to the premise. in this film wayne is trying to find some direction in his life and decides that he is going to create a music festival in downtown chicago. along the way they hit the exact same beats as the first film, singing a song in the mirthmobile, stopping at the hockey donut shop, going to a concert, problems with wayne's girlfriend, etc. which brings up a really frustrating this about this film: one of the driving forces is wayne's relationship with his girlfriend cassandra. i know we are supposed to root for our hero wayne to keep the girl, but everything he does proves over and over again that he is a jerk and she would be better off without him! he is constantly questioning her, he is a controlling boyfriend who wont let her be around any other guys or else his jealousy really kicks in, threatening to break up with her at the drop of a hat, and as soon as she starts to find success he becomes bitter and angry toward her. also, he never does anything at all that should endear her to him, he never shows her any sort of affection other than objectifying her as 'hot'. anyway, back to the movie itself: the jokes are recycled and the plot is lifeless. for some reason, as was the case in the first movie, garth has a completely unrelated story that never plays into the narrative of the movie. this is definitely wayne's movie, with only a couple minutes here and there dedicated to his long suffering sidekick. over all, these problems far outweigh any silly gags (which are just reinterpretations of gags from the first film anyway) or humor that may have been intended in the movie. an unfortunate follow up to a pretty funny original movie.

relic

2012-01-28T07:10:00.000-08:00

this movie is a rare anomaly: the movie is actually better than the book! i remember reading this book when i was in high school, in anticipation for the movie. the book, though, was filled with generic characters and a really really bad ending. it was so bad it kind of ruined the fun tension of the rest of the book. the movie, though, fixes that problem and gives an impressively explosive ending that corrected the major failure of the book. the story is set in a museum and follows the workers there as they prepare for a big fundraising ball to show off their new exhibit. a few crates recently arrived from the congo, but they were strangely empty. well, they werent really empty, instead what was in them leads to a bunch of gruesome deaths. as the mystery behind these deaths escalates, the ball is about to begin. this is, in its simplest sense, a creature feature. there is a really cool looking nasty creature who is causing all these terrible murders and one of the policemen and an important museum employee must try to get rid of the creature before it ruins the museum's biggest fundraiser of the year. the creature itself, a stan winston creation, is pretty cool and very creepy. i remember being blown away by it when i first watched this movie in the theater back in 1997. the special effects hold up fairly well, especially when the creature is lurking in the dark. when we finally get a good look at it, the effects are a bit dated, but the suspense and build up do a nice job of creating tension and setting up the action packed final act.

contact

2012-01-02T21:26:00.001-08:00

i have mixed feelings about this movie. on the one hand i really like it, its one of those rare big movies that has heart and really challenges the mind. but on the other hand, they so totally botch the ending that i walk away from it annoyed. the film follows jodie foster's character, an astronomy scientist who has dedicated her life to finding life on other planets. she spends her days listening to radio signals in outer space, hoping that she will hear a signal or response from somewhere else. she is mocked and jeered by everyone else, about to get her funding taken away, when she finally hears something! the signal she hears makes the news and everyone scrambles to try and make sense of it. along the way she befriends a man of faith, played by matthew mcconaughey, who challenges her stance on scientific proof. she blows off his beliefs because they cannot be proven. as the extra terrestrial signal is decoded they discover that it is actually blueprints for a giant device. the planet unites to try and build this device and the world prepares to find out what this device does. the story itself is very interesting: uncovering the meanings, deciding what to do about it, dealing with the different opinions about how to proceed with the realization of intelligent life out there. all of it is really cool! the main theme of the movie is a weighty one: proof versus faith. an interesting conversation and one that is dealt with seriously. the frustration though, is that the last minute or two of the movie throws everything out and makes it a moot point by banging us over the head with an answer to the question of faith and proof. all the wrestling over the struggle is thrown out the window in order to give a pat answer, and in so doing, destroy all the progress made in defending both points. arg. if this movie would have left off the last two minutes, it probably would have deserved a 5 star rating, but as is- only 3.

father of the bride part 2

2011-12-28T06:29:00.001-08:00

i really loved the first movie, 'father of the bride', but this one falls pretty flat. the first movie sets up the family, steve martin as the father who cant quite accept that his little girl has grown up and is going to marry. well, this one plays that exact same note, only this time he cant believe his daughter is going to have a baby. that would have been a fun set up, considering the well crafted characters from the first film, but then they have to take it one step further and have diane keaton, steve martin's wife, also become pregnant. i had a really hard time believing that a 49 year old woman could get pregnant, so that alone ruined the movie for me. also, the light hearted over-the-top qualities of the first film are pushed even farther this time around. but this time it went too far over the top and landed somewhere absurd and unbelievable. steve martin does a good job in this, as does the planner martin short, but the whole premise and follow through are just too much. it takes everything that was sweet and believable in the first film and takes it too far out of the realm of realism. a disappointing follow up to a wonderful family movie.

wayne's world

2011-11-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

i'm pretty sure some major nostalgia is kicking in here, but this movie is actually really good! i think this movie came out at just the right time for me to really love it, all the humor is pretty junior high level, and i was in junior high at the time- perfect! this movie is based on a saturday night live skit that was created by mike meyers and dana carvey. i remember seeing the skit on snl once or twice (not too often because my parents would rarely let me stay up that late, and when they did they certainly werent apt to let me watch snl!), and always thought they were really funny! i think i was too young to really understand any of the sexual innuendo, so to me it was just a fun bit about two rock nerds in their basement. how exactly they turned that little sketch into a full movie (and sequel!) is kind of impressive, really. and to turn it into such a funny one at that! the story follows two slackers who make a public access rock show in their basement as they are offered a chance to make it big. the movie itself is more of a series of funny bits tied together as a makeshift movie, but those bits are so much fun! i remember reenacting many of them with my friends, even. watching it recently with my wife i began to realize that maybe this movie isnt as good as i seem to think it is... she does not have the nostalgic memories of it and lost patience with it quickly, opting to read a book or play on her phone after about the first twenty minutes! oh well, in my mind it still rocks, and even holds up to my memories all these years later. party on, wayne!

tron: legacy

2011-10-31T04:22:00.002-07:00

i dont think i have ever seen the original tron movie so i dont have any nastalgic recollection of the first one. i mostly just wanted to see this new one because it looked cool. well, it certainly did! the story starts 20 years after the original where jeff bridges character had created a world inside of a computer. it seems that he has been trapped in there ever since and his son has had to grow up without his father around. now incredibly wealthy (due to his father having invented some pretty amazing computery stuff), bridges' son has given up on doing anything worthwhile. one night he gets a message from his dad's old arcade. curious, he wanders in and discovers his dad's secret lab. he triggers the same mechanism as his father all those years ago and finds himself now a part of the computer program as well. over the past 20 years the program has been upgrading itself and trying to attain perfection so we see a vastly different version that the original movie. and boy is it an awesome version! the story of this film is not the draw here, the big draw is the amazing style and look of the computer world. the whole time i was watching it i knew that there was absolutely no substance to it, but the imagery was just so eye-poppingly amazing that i didnt even care! the hypnotic score by daft punk is the perfect combination to the slick visuals. this movie just drew me in big time! i know its not that good, but the look and sound of it just makes me want to go out and see it again as soon as possible!

the frisco kid

2011-09-12T18:58:00.005-07:00

this one is pretty strange. it stars gene wilder as a polish rabbi who has been called to be the leader of the synagogue in frontier town california. it follows him as he tries to make it from poland across america during the 1840's. along the way he meets up with a no-good cowboy played by harrison ford (huh?!?). ford starts off trying to take advantage of this shmuck who has no clue about the old west, but slowly takes a liking to him. wilder does a fantastic job of playing the clueless rabbi, he has an innocent gentleness to him that he brings to every roll. the rabbi doesnt understand that the train robbers are bad guys or that the angry men want to kill him, he just continues to show kindness to them, even when they are in the middle of beating him up! one of the funniest parts comes when he's saved by a group of christians and neither one of them know what to make of the other! harrison ford does his grumpy/annoyed thing here, which fits quite well, and the two of them make a surprisingly fun duo! the movie is a bit too long and awfully slow in parts, but its still a fun relic of wilder's comedic heyday.

the avengers

2011-08-17T12:05:00.001-07:00

what a turd. i had no interest in watching this movie other than the fact that its got sean connery in it (clearly in it for the big paycheck) and the soundtrack has a song from one of my favorite bands the verve pipe. the movie is a remake of the british show from the 60's and is absolutely dreadful! the characters played by uma thurman and ralph fiennes are completely vapid and a waste of space. the characters dont ever talk to each other, they just reply to the worthless british snobbery with more 'witty' british snobbery. and connery, playing the evil bad guy (who for some reason at one point wears a giant teddy bear costume...) does the most generic thing any bad guy could possibly do: he creates a weather controlling machine! this stupid premise was a joke back when it was used in the 80's cartoon g.i. joe- do they really expect us to take it seriously?!? its too shallow to be a drama, its too generic to be a thriller, and its too lame to be a send up of the original. why exactly does this movie exist? no answer? didnt think so...

green lantern

2011-06-26T14:56:00.001-07:00

i hate to say it, because i really love ryan reynolds, but this movie was kind of a dud. i grew up loving comic books, but green lantern never interested me. i guess that should have been an indication for me when i saw this one, huh? the story follows hal jordan, an ace pilot in the air force, as he is called to wear the ring and take up the helm of a green lantern. the movie, though epic in scale, feels really disjointed. we get to see the unhappy pilot who struggles with his father's death years earlier in an airplane related accident, but it never feels like a real motivation. we see the grand scope of the green lantern corps and all the strange creatures through out the galaxy that also have taken up the ring, but they never play any sort of real part of this story. we see the all encompassing evil that is the bad guy parallax, but its threat is never really conveyed. they even fail to truly explain what it is that the ring does. we know its the physical manifestation of will and hope, but what exactly does that mean? with out any explanation or attempt to justify its power, hal jordan can make a race track appear out of nowhere to save a helicopter. um, what does that have to do with hope? we never really see hal struggle with this new position except in the most shallow of ways: showing off to a roommate, trying to figure out the oath of the green lanterns, etc. there was much potential, but very little of it is realized with this film. sure, the effects looked pretty cool, but to what end? it felt like much of it was designed to distract the audience from the lack of storytelling. things just kind of happen with little rhyme or reason. how does hal suddenly have the strength to go from worthless hack to galaxy saving lantern in the course of one day? and that last scene! really? there was no reason behind it other then maybe everyone involved knew they didnt stand a chance of getting to do a second one so they wanted to go for it. what ever the case, this movie was a disappointment. a shiny disappointment, but that didnt help much.

buying the cow

2011-06-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

you know, this one is a lot better than i thought it was going to be! it follows jerry o'connell's character as he is given an ultimatum from his girlfriend: get married or get out. she leaves him for a month to give him time to think. over the course of that time he talks with friends about the big decision, being told by his best friend, ryan reynolds, that its foolish to take the plunge. as that month passes we see a big (and rather unexpected) change in his friend as he finds his soul mate. the story was a lot stronger than the title would suggest, doing a pretty good job of exploring the situation, not just for laughs but also go allow o'connell to really struggle with the issues in his life. it doesnt end at all as i would have expected which is another nice surprise. just a warning: there is a lot of naked ryan reynolds! (i never thought i could get enough ryan reynolds, but this isnt what i meant...)

father of the bride

2011-06-08T19:28:00.001-07:00

i remember loving this movie as a kid, i'm not entirely sure why though. usually i was in to big action movies or comedies, but for some reason this little chick flick was on my list of movies i loved. after rewatching it recently with my wife (which, by the way, was the first time she had ever seen it! shocking!), i realize that my love for it was not so strange after all. this wholesome family comedy actually is pretty funny! the movie starts with steve martin and diane keaton having the perfect middle (ok, upper) class family. the daughter just arrived back from a semester abroad and returns home with the man she fell in love with while there. and the two of them announce that they are getting married! martin does not exactly take this well. the film plays up his hopelessness about affording the wedding of his daughter's dreams, but the real challenge for him is coming to terms with the fact that his little girl is all grown up. its touching, its playful, and whenever martin short is on screen, its way over the top! its pretty saccharin sweet, but i really enjoyed it! i'm sure the nostalgia factors into it pretty heavily too, but i'm ok with that...

a christmas carol

2011-06-02T16:49:00.000-07:00

ugh. everyone knows this story, so why did they feel the need to remake it without changing anything or adding anything new? what a waste of time! not only does this movie follow every single version of 'a christmas carol' that came before it, it also looks terrible! the motion capture computer graphics are unbelievably fake! the faces either look really fake, or frightening- and not the kind of on-purpose frightening. its the same old story of scrooge with absolutely nothing new to add or to say, on top of that the animation looks horrible and sloppy- they certainly havent fixed the 'dead eye' problem, in fact it seems like they have taken a step back, this thing looks much worse than 'polar express', and that was five years earlier. i know that this thing originally came out in 3D, and every scene of the film makes sure you know that its supposed to be seen in 3D. it uses every 3D cheap trick in the book, but unfortunately i didnt watch it in 3D, so it just looks cheap. i watched it with my wife, and about 35 minutes in i had to stop the movie because it was just so bad! the story was lifeless, the scenes felt like exact recreations shot for shot of the george c. scott version from 25 years ago, which we have already seen. and that animation! i couldnt get over just how terrible everything looked! when they showed the ghost of christmas past (which is a candle with a face- again, really terrible looking) and it brought them to scrooge as a young child, the child version of scrooge was so embarrassingly detestable looking that i shut if off immediately. just for the sake of giving it a second chance, i did finish watching the movie, hoping for something new or interesting. turns out i shouldnt have wasted my time. and please, dont waste your time either- this thing is terrible!!!

the other guys

2011-05-08T10:26:00.001-07:00

dumb, but fun! ferrell and wahlberg play two cops who work in the police station pushing paper for the crazy free wheeling cops who act like bruce willis in die hard- destroying everything to get the bad guys (samuel l. jackson and dwayne johnson, perfectly cast!). when something happens to the two crazy cops, ferrell and wahlberg decide that they are going to try and fill that void. as you might expect, things dont work out so well for them...
the two of them do a good job with their roles, ferrell is in classic form, always saying the wrong thing to hilarious results. wahlberg is pretty good here, he is more than capable but sometimes plays the straight guy a little too straight. over all though there were some pretty good laugh out loud moments. i'm sure the outtakes and bloopers from the movie were fantastic!

armored

2011-05-06T19:13:00.001-07:00

the film follows a bunch of guys who were for an armored truck company. the get the great idea to try and steal the money that they are hauling, trying to make it look like they were robbed. of course things have to go wrong and everyone is at odds with each other as the whole plan falls apart. pretty generic film all around. well except one scene: where we see the hero running past a bunch of foot wide pipes as the camera is on the opposite end of the pipes, it moves past them at the same speed as the runner, creating a sort of animated cinescope, saves the movie from being a total crapfest. other than that creative shot, its not really worth your time.

addams family values

2011-04-23T07:06:00.000-07:00

i must have been in some kind of mood when i saw this movie because i really enjoyed it! this is the sequel to the addams family movie, and its actually pretty good. i had seen the original back when it first came out, but had never bothered with this one, and i was pleasantly surprised! as you know, nine tenths of these addams family movies are all about lame puns about being dead, but for some reason i was really enjoying them this time! perhaps its the wonderful acting by the cast, made up of raul julia, angelica houston, christina ricci, and christopher lloyd, but something about it clicked just right! the story follows the family as they welcome the arrival a new baby into the family. also, uncle fester finds a new lady (who's just in it for the money) and pugsly and wednesday are sent to summer camp. i dont know how, but everything just worked in this one! i dont have very fond memories of the first film, but this one was a lot of campy fun!

cop out

2011-04-22T11:14:00.001-07:00

as a fan of kevin smith i expected more. but then i realized he didnt write it, he just directed it, so i guess i shouldnt have expected much. this is a buddy cop comedy that pairs up bruce willis with tracy morgan. that pairing alone and the goofiness that comes out of tracy morgan is the only decent part of the film. bruce willis seems to be slumming it here, not doing a bad job of acting, but plainly not trying either. all the cliches of a cop movie are here, slightly twisted. the twists on the old tropes arent enough to make this one worth seeing though.

jonah hex

2011-04-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

bummer, this one had so much potential. the story follows jonah hex, a confederate soldier during the civil war who gets betrayed by an evil man played by john malcovich, and his family is killed. actually, hex is killed too, but it doesnt quite stick. when he comes back to life he's got a strange connection to the dead and can talk to them. this sets the stage for a bit o' the old revenge. a pretty good set-up, but this movie fails in almost every regard. josh brolin does well as the disfigured hex, but whats the deal with megan fox? it seems like her story was just added to the film when the realized they could afford her or something. most of her scenes are completely unconnected, not actually having any screen time with her costars until about the last ten minutes. strange. the story itself is choppy and seems like they just taped together what ever scenes they found on the cutting room floor after severely gutting the original movie. and and 80 minutes, its likely thats exactly what they did!

date night

2011-04-20T15:43:00.002-07:00

the wife and i had been intending to see date night as a... well, date night. unfortunately we never quite got around to it, so instead we watched it as a stay at home date night! as a huge fan of the office and 30 rock (though not nearly as much) i was really excited to see carell and fey doing their thing together. the story follows a married couple with kids who never seem to have time for each other. with work and kids filling up their days and nights, they just cant find the time for just the two of them. well, they decide that they are going to make it a priority to have a night together. they get the babysitter and head out on the town. they try to go to a fancy restaurant but cant get in because the wait is too long. when the worker calls out a couple's name for the next table but they dont answer, well carell decides thats their opportunity. this, unfortunately for them, causes a pretty big case of mistaken identity. turns out the couple that made the reservations are involved in some not so legal affairs. from here things get pretty crazy and their quite date because anything but! the movie is pretty good, the two leads have a hilarious chemistry that results in some funny bits. the problems arise when the movie goes from a romantic comedy to an action film. its not that any of it is done poorly, its just that it is not exactly what i was hoping for. the gear switching of the film threw me for a loop and i never quite settled back in. its got a great first half though, i would have loved to see where these two actors would have taken the story if it had stayed just a movie about a married couple. it was still a bit of fun though!

macgruber

2011-04-17T20:56:00.002-07:00

what a stupid movie! its based on the skits from saturday night live, you know, the ones that get old after the first 30 seconds, but then they continue for another five minutes? well, this is just like that, except that its 90 minutes long! the story, if you can call it that, follows macgruber as he tries to stop a bad guy from releasing some missiles. the team behind this one seems to have the comedy mindset that the more weiner and poop jokes they can throw in, the funnier it is. when, in fact, the opposite is true. the whole movie is just one gross out rude joke trying to push it further than the last one. a total waste of time. as if you couldn't have already figured that out from the lame snl sketches.

ninja assassin

2011-04-17T20:56:00.001-07:00

this one promises some major action that never actually comes. the storyline was so terrible that i promptly forgot all of it. something about the ninja helping out the police in new york, with flashbacks of his training as a child and having to hurt other kids. you know what, the story was so worthless that i actually fast forwarded through much of it because it was so lame. i would slow it down and watch when there were some action scenes, but those were pretty lame too. the whole movie is poorly lit so it was almost impossible to really make out what was going on anyway. a total waste of time.

karate kid

2011-03-20T20:00:00.003-07:00

i didnt really have much interest in seeing this one, but i am a sucker for anything with jackie chan in it. i remember the old karate kid movies from back in the day and found this one to be a very worthy update of those old movies. in fact, this one almost seemed better than the 80's movies! the story follows jaden smith who plays a boy who's mother gets a job that takes her to china. he must go along with her and tries hard to adapt to the different environment and culture around him. of course there is a love story, which is appropriately chaste considering both of them are only about 11 years old! smith keeps getting bullied by the chinese kids and seeks help to try and stand up to them. hopeless janitor jackie chan reluctantly agrees to train him. following the karate kid tradition of mr. miyagi, chan uses very a unconventional approach to his training which confuses smith to no end! the story ark of jackie chan and the developed friendship between he and smith are the real heart of this film. chan gives a moving performance as a man trying to come to terms with his past so that he can finally accept that he has a future worth living for. in a just world there would have been oscar talk last year for his amazingly raw performance- he really is a good actor! the final match between smith and the bully is fairly predictable, but the film leading up to it has been so unpredictably great that it is easy to over look such a small problem.

michael collins

2011-03-13T19:24:00.003-07:00

now, i dont know much about the history of ireland so maybe this movie isnt for me. but i do love liam neeson, so i wanted to give it a try. the story follows michael collins (thats where the name of the movie comes from, in case you were wondering...) as he works with the people trying to get ireland's freedom from england. he first tries the violent approach, and gets englands attention, which is not always a good thing... he soon becomes a hero of the people of ireland and begins negotiating with the english leaders to find a peaceful solution. the people arent as excited about the peaceful option though, and he looses some support. the british leaders offer a deal, which collins accepts on behalf of the irish people, but then the british back out and are generally jerks about it all. the film itself is, i'm sure, an interesting study of great britain's political landscape during this time, but i must admit i wasnt drawn in by it. it was awfully talky, and the talking didnt always make sense. the people often times didnt act in very logical ways and the movie ends up with nothing to show for all the hard work, and julia roberts, mrs. collins, is left a widow. i know its historically accurate, but it just wasnt very compelling.

croupier

2011-02-22T17:33:00.001-08:00

this is one of the first movies to put clive owen on the map. its not a big movie, in fact its scale is very very small. it follows owen, a struggling writer, as he gets a job at a small casino in england as an operator of a roulette wheel. there are many rules for working in a casino, the film shows us, they must not fraternize with the customers or fellow workers, they must keep to themselves, they must be trustworthy. all of these things seem to fit the loner perfectly. or at least thats the way it seems at first. owen meets a customer who makes an impression and when he stumbles into her while out on a day off she strikes up a conversation which quickly leads to a relationship. this is not on accident. turns out she wants him to break his trustworthy code and play an important role in a planned casino heist. could this turn into a story for a book? his decision to find out takes him on a path he would have never thought that he would go on and leads him to make some bold choices in his life.

the film is very interesting as it is narrated by owen and we get to hear his inner monologue. he shares with the audience the structure and rules of the casino and his own life, but then talks of wanting to be a character in his own book and making decisions that he wouldnt make, but that his character might.

life as a house

2011-02-18T13:45:00.001-08:00

the film follows chris kline, who plays an architect model builder, as he gets let go from his job and at the same time comes to find out that he has terminal cancer. now with his priorities back in line, he decides to finally build that house on the ocean that he has always put off. he forces his estranged teenage son to join him in building the house. as the movie progresses he begins to build his relationship with his son as the house is getting built. oh what a clever metaphor, huh? everything in this movie is about as heavy handed. kline does a great job and is very interesting as a man who has lost so much as he tries to rebuild himself with what time is left. here's the big problem with the movie though: the son is played by hayden christensen. he must have graduated from the ryan phillipie school of acting because he is about as natural an actor as a piece of plywood! what could have been a decent movie, if cliched, instead turns into a 'worlds worst actor' display of destruction that leaves every positive aspect of the movie destroyed because of christensen. i almost feel sorry now for george lucas who seemed to have gotten suckered into hiring this worthless actor to ruin star wars episodes 2 and 3!

modigliani

2011-02-18T13:13:00.001-08:00

andy garcia plays the 1920's artist modigiani and his chaotic life and death. we join modigiani as he is a member of what seems to be an artistic community just jam packed with other famous artists. among them is pablo picasso, a man modigiani sees as a rival. as these artists try to out do each other, modigliani meets the girl of his dreams and starts a love affair with her. this go great at the beginning, but then alcohol gets the better of him. but by this time she is pregnant and he must make the right choices if he is to keep her. she also is facing the pressure from her family who hate him because he is jewish. the rivalry between the artists heats up as an art competition takes place pitting all of them against each other. who will win, picasso or modigliani? all of which leads to modigliani making some wrong decisions and a return to the bottle. the movie is pretty good, capturing the care free attitude of being an artist and the chaos of these men during this time period. garcia is perfect as modigliani, though he seems a bit old for the part. i did not care for the actor who played picasso, but that could be because i have always thought of picasso as being played by anthony hopkins. anyway, the movie brings an interesting view of the challenge of the artists' lifestyle compared to the responsibility of being a family man.

to walk with lions

2011-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

this movie follows the real life story of george adamson, a man who went to live in africa and set up a lion reserve for lions that were to be set free from captivity. i guess there was already another movie about him called 'born free' and this is a sequel to that initial setting up of the reserve. in this film richard harris plays george and we join him as he has been living on the reserve taking care of dozens of different lions, trying to keep them safe from potential hunters and the like. at the beginning of the film we join a new recruit who has just arrived to be an assistant to adamson. as he begins to learn about the place adamson has set up, they begin to have a conflict with the local government who says they can no longer give him protection or grant him the land he has been using for all these years. the assistant tries to find an alternate place to keep the lions safe, but adamson is not interested. he has supported them here for this long and is not going to give up on this place now. the film, though it has admirable intentions, is not very good as a movie. the story of adamson is very compelling, but they obviously did not have much of a production budget. almost any time there is a lion on the screen it is stock footage cut to make it look like the lions are there with the actors. this becomes especially troublesome when they are supposed to be interacting in any way. also, we never really understand why adamson isnt willing to move the lions. it is apparent that the lions are in eminent danger by staying where they are, but adamson's bull headedness makes any other opportunities for their continued freedom impossible. its a great story, but the obvious budget problems along with the unexplained character motivations make this one a pass.

botched

2011-02-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

yikes, what a crap fest. the story of this one is that a thief has been hired to go in to a wealthy man's penthouse loft and steal a valuable ancient cross. the heist goes as planned until they get to the elevator of the building. on the way down all hell breaks loose and the thiefs are stuck with a bunch of other people on one of the floors. i'm not entirely sure what happens next (and to be honest, i dont think the film makers do either...) because then there seems to be a seven foot tall vikking welding a broadsword that shows up and starts killing the different people on that floor of the building. there are traps set up and human sacrifices and arguing and heads being exploded by a mace. make sense? sure doesnt. and to top off all that unrelated nonsense, the whole thing looks like it costed about 40 bucks. with the music and opening credits, it looks like this is supposed to be a comedy, but i get the feeling that it wasnt originally, but due to such a crappy product, they changed it in the editing process from a bad movie to a bad movie thats trying to be funny. this one just looks like a poorly shot tv show from the 80's. avoid at all costs.

robinson crusoe

2011-02-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

when i read this book in junior high i thought it would make such a cool movie! it would, but this one isnt it. the story is a familiar one, robinson crusoe finds himself shipwrecked and the only survivor on a desolate island. he recovers as much as he can from the ship and tries to do his best to stay alive. as the years go by he finds a local inhabitant who he calls friday. this particular adaptation of the book glosses over many of the parts of crusoe's story that i always found the most interesting: how did he manage those first days and months? this moive skips past much of that first inner turmoil of realizing that he is alone and must fend for himself. instead this film focuses on the religious aspect of crusoe and friday as they try to come to terms with their differing beliefs. crusoe is adamant that catholicism is the only way, but friday sticks by his local indigenous faith. the whole thing falls apart into the 'white man savior' idea very quickly as the two of them are attacked by a bunch of natives. the movie never quite recovers and just kind of peters out at the end. i will give them respect for one thing in the movie: they dont shy away from showing brosnan's magnificent chest hair!

true romance

2011-02-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

this movie seems to hold a high place in cinema because it is written by quinten tarentino. that may be, but it is written poorly! the story starts with christian slater's character working at a comic book store. a woman comes in and hits it off with him and they have a whirlwind romance. we soon find out that the woman is actually a prostitute paid for by slater's boss because he thinks slater needs to get out more. the two of them are in love none the less, and now they need to find a way to get her away from her pimp. poor decisions are made by everyone in the movie, and theres a huge gunfight that ends with slater and his girl on the run. by the end of the film there are a bunch of different sides, the mob, the police, the pimp, and slater who have a grand showdown. since its tarentino, it must of course end in a blood bath. yes, tarentino does a great job with the interesting conversations his characters have along the way. but the big problem for me is that no one acts in a way that would be even remotely interpreted as rational. everyone in this thing does the exact opposite of what a logical human would do. because of that i did not care at all what happened to these people and when so many were left dead it was of no consequence.

chances are

2011-02-04T14:19:00.001-08:00

this one is definitely from the 80's back when everyone was trying to make robert downey jr. 'happen'. it didnt quite work until about 25 years later, but you can see in this movie why he was given so many second chances. the film is pretty ridiculous, its about a happily married guy who dies and in heaven is sent back to earth (that whole reincarnation thing was big in movies back then i guess...) but they forgot to wipe his memories. twenty years later the reborn guy goes to meet the family of a girl he likes and just met. it turns out that the girl's mom is his wife from his last life! (kinda creepy that he made out with his own daughter, huh?) the wife, played by sybil shepherd has never moved on from her husband's death and now this kid is claiming to be him! she has a really hard time with it, as one would expect, and the family tries to deal with where to go from there. downey is good as the boy torn between what he knows and what he seems to remember, and they do a pretty good job of showing that conflict in both he and shepherd. there are a few funny bits to it and at times its even a little touching as we see the hope of a woman who never let go of the love she had that was taken away so suddenly.

iris

2011-01-30T17:21:00.001-08:00

this film is a moving portrait of a woman who has spent her whole life as a writer crafting words and teaching about their importance as she begins to loose that very thing she loves so much. judi dench plays iris who is a famous author and professor known for her verbose vocabulary and love of the english language. she is now growing old and loosing her memory, most specifically she is forgetting words, the language of her soul. by her side is her long suffering husband, played to hapless perfection by jim broadbent, who must try to help her stave off the effects of dementia. through out the film we see flashbacks of the relationship between the two of them as they meet and fall in love. she was always the leader, the strong one, but as we see now she has to accept the role of follower and is struggling with that position. she knows she is loosing her memory but cant do anything about it. the film is a heartbreaking study of the love between these two people as they come to terms with what was and now what is to come.

parenthood

2011-01-30T17:20:00.000-08:00

my wife and i have been enjoying the nbc show 'parenthood' and so were interested to go back and check out the source material! this movie follows the life of different members of one family: grandpa and grandma, the married couple with kids, the divorced sister with a teen, and the reckless wanderer brother who only shows up to ask for money. the stories of each of these family groups were funny at times and everyone is rather likable, but the movie hasnt aged very well. steve martin does his wholesome exasperated thing very well here, but its not quite enough to make this one work. the current tv show does a much better job (but then again it has 20 hours a season to really create the characters instead of two hours).

pandorum

2011-01-29T14:22:00.001-08:00

the whole time i was watching this movie i just kept thinking 'im pretty sure i've seen this before'. turns out, i had, except last time i saw it it was called 'event horizon'. this movie seems to be a pretty bad rip off of the sci fi film from a dozen years ago that stared laurence fishburne and sam neil. this sci fi horror movie starts off with a man waking up too early from his deep space sleeper tank. when he gets out, he is on a huge space ship thats headed for some far off destination. as another guy wakes up as well, and they discover that they are still far away from their destination. it seems that the ship has malfunctioned and they are just now getting out of hibernation. they try to get to the bridge of the ship but find it locked off. as they make their way around the ship to find out what the problem is, they come across some creatures that are trying to kill them. are they going crazy? do they have 'pandorum', or is there something really really wrong? the pretty lame set up is made worse by the campy creatures and stupid characters they come across as they try to save the ship and themselves. the ending is pretty interesting and almost makes up for the pathetic middle section that reminded me of all those terrible post-apocalyptic movies where the characters wear car parts for armor. over all though, i felt like i had already seen it, and any of the new twists were not worth seeing in the first place.

i'll do anything

2011-01-25T05:00:00.001-08:00

i had never heard of this sweet little movie before, but was rather charmed by it. the story follows nick nolte as a divorced father who is an out of work actor. never able to pull much of a career together, his wife has left him in hopes of greener pastures. unfortunately, she never found those greener pastures, and now must drop off their daughter for him to take care of by himself. as luck would have it, nolte comes across the right people with the right audition at just the right time. he doesnt end up getting the part, but he makes some friends at the casting office and finds a part time job to support himself and his daughter. he attempts to juggle a new relationship at the same time, which doesnt always work out the best for him. as these new changes happen, nolte's character must juggle everything around him in order to do whats best for his daughter. its a pretty good little movie that reminded me why nick nolte became a star in the first place- he's really good! in this movie, he elevates the film from a bland rom-com to something much better and sweeter.

gigli

2011-01-24T15:59:00.001-08:00

honestly, its not as bad as everyone seems to think it is. sure, its pretty stupid, but most romantic comedies are. ben affleck plays a low level mob guy who is trying to make a name for himself. in order to make his boss happy he has to watch the little brother of someone they are trying to get money from. since the boss doesnt have much faith in him, jennifer lopez plays the extra help thats hired to make sure affleck does his job. so far so good. here's where it goes off the rails: the little brother is mentally retarded. yeah, that wasnt exactly necessary... if you can get past all the terribly offensive jokes, you have a traditional romantic comedy. he likes her, she doesnt like him, eventually he wins her over. of course there has to be a misunderstanding, but by the last reel they figure it out and all is well. lame, but not as 'worst car wreck of a movie ever!' as they kept telling us.

ladyhawke

2011-01-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

i had no idea what to expect with this one, i just knew michele phiffer was in it, and usually thats enough for me... this medieval fantasy movie follows a young man, played by matthew broderick, as he escapes from the local guards and runs away. as he is trying to loose them he runs into a strange traveling swordsman, rutger hauer, who has a pet hawk. later that night he finds a beautiful woman wandering around in the forest and they are attacked by a ferocious wolf. as the story unfolds we begin to understand the strong connection these seemingly random people and animals really have. its a love story at its heart, and the unfolding of the romance is really fascinating. the fantasy elements are not too over the top and the quest to fix what has happened is worth the viewing. my one gripe with the film is that it felt like matthew broderick was kind of wedged in there. he doesnt really seem to fit. he is meant to be someone living in medieval times, but he just comes off as farris beuler in a robe, he even talks into the camera at times. his character doesnt fit at all, but the strangeness of his modern day quality gets played down as the movie progresses. not bad at all for an 80's flick!

the adventures of johnny tao

2011-01-03T00:06:00.000-08:00

i was hoping to like this one. the description of it sounded like a cool asian meets rockabilly style fun, but in reality its just an expensive home movie that wouldnt even make the cut as a saturday night movie on syfy. the whole thing just reeks of amateurishness. the acting is high school play level, and the effects are something that can be bested by anyone with an editing program on their home computer. it actually looks like they spent more making this poster (which by the way, looks infinitely better than anything on the screen during the actual film) than they did on the entire film! the story (if you can call it that) follows a boy who's country singing father died in a crash a decade earlier. well, it just so happens that his guitar was fashioned out of a magical spear needed to kill an evil chinese spirit who has recently returned to arizona (really? why would the spear be found in arizona when the last battle that put the spirit away for 600 years took place in china?!?). poor acting, if you can even call it acting, poor writing, if you can call it writing, make this little movie, if you can even call it a movie, absolutely terrible.

valley girl

2010-12-30T21:33:00.001-08:00

wow, this one is terrible! this isnt really even a movie at all, its more like a soundtrack commerical! we follow the boy from the city, who is totally punk rock, man, as he decided he wants to have a relationship with the cute girl from the valley who's like, totally 80's. poor acting, poor writing, poor music, and especially poor 80's fashion kill this one before the beginning credits are even done! this 80's flick is best forgotten...

relative values

2010-12-30T20:48:00.001-08:00

another one of those period british movies set in the 50's about a british man who falls in love with an american and brings her home to meet the family. though this is a pretty big cast, the film feels very small and wafer thin. the story itself is poorly told and we have very little interest in the characters themselves, were it not for the likability of many on the cast. colin firth, stephen fry, and julie andrews bring as much as they can to the characters who still feel about as thick as cardboard. were it not for these three actors, the movie would be almost completely unwatchable.

the legend of 1900

2010-12-29T21:27:00.000-08:00

i had never heard of this movie before, and was very impressed with it! it follows the life of an infant abandoned on a steamliner at the turn of the century. we see that boy grow up on the steamliner as he learns life lesson from his adopted father figure. he grows to be a musical piano playing virtuoso, considered the best in the world! the man named 1900, due to his being discovered by his father on new years day of the new century, is marvelously played by tim roth. we get a real sense of the joy he gets from playing for the guests, but also the melon collie at the fact that he has no real home other than the ship. he decides, because he doesnt have any birth certificate or anything, to stay on the boat all his life. we follow him through his musical triumphs, playing in competition against the man who invented jazz music, as well as his lows as he sees the girl of his dreams but is unable to talk with her or follow her off the boat when it docks in new york city. it is billed as a fable, and there is much to learn from this interesting tale of a man who travels his imagination through music, but is unable to travel off the boat he was born on. this is a moving and enjoyable tale that i am glad i got the chance to see. it is truly majestic.

being human

2010-12-28T21:37:00.001-08:00

this movie, which is a series of short stories, is pretty bad. it jumps around from different time periods and tells different stories about a man who is in love, each man is played by robin williams, so its a bit strange. we start off with a simple man who's wife is taken by vikings, then we jump to the story of a slave who must die with his master in ancient rome. the next story is of a spanish conquistador who must save his crew from a shipwreck, and a story set in modern day. each setting is meant to draw us closer and closer in to the man who must try and become brave. in each story he is presented with a difficult situation that he must stand up against. in each progressive vignette shows the man getting more and more bold in his courage. this might have been a pretty interesting movie if it werent for the narrator! she totally ruins the feel of the film and her mindless meanderings ruined the entire movie for me. if they had ditched the terrible voice over, it probably would have gotten at least two more stars...

the great outdoors

2010-12-28T12:00:00.001-08:00

diana and i have been watching way too many 80's movies lately! i had always heard good things about this one and how it was one of john candy's funniest movies. i dont know if candy's style of humor is something i dont get, or if it is just too much a product of its time because this movie isnt that great. the story follows candy's family as they make plans for their summer trip up to the cabin. soon after they arrive, their friends stop by unannounced to join them. not too pleased about it, candy's family makes the best of it and the two families try to have a good time anyway. along the way they have some racoon troubles (which seems like it was taken straight out of 'caddyshack' as the animals try to conspire against our campers), a couple run-ins with a big bear, a boating episode, and some interaction with the locals. candy is big and lovable, which must have been why he had a career at all, and dan aykroyd is obnoxious as the annoying guest. the two of them play well of each other, which is the only redeeming part of this campy movie.

dont you forget about me

2010-12-27T20:02:00.001-08:00

this is a documentary about the filmmaker john hughes and his five film run that defined a generation and explained what it was to be a teen in the 80's. four filmmakers decided to interview many of the people from those films and to eventually try to track down john hughes himself, who left hollywood almost 20 years ago and has hardly been heard from since.
the interviews are interesting, catching up with some of the old cast members from films like 'breakfast club', 'weird science', 'sixteen candles', and others. all of the actors glow about how amazing john hughes was and how they all miss his voice in films today. all of this is well and good, but much of their praising films of the past come at the expense of talking about how terrible movie are today. granted, i might agree with them on much of what they say, but i'm sure adults felt the same about these hughes movies when they were coming out. its all a matter of perspective, really. everyone things that movies that came out when they were 12-18 are the best ever and everything else is a pale comparison. except that this generation will think that the last generations and future generations stuff sucks too. you cant win with this type of complaining. another thing that bugged me about the movie is that the film makers try to talk with john hughes himself by going to his house and trying to get an interview. hey guys, he left hollywood for a reason. he doesnt do interviews for a reason. i dont know what that reason is, but ambushing him at his private house is not going to change his mind, i'm sure of it! since the film was completed, john hughes passed away so i guess we will never get those answers from him, but this movie doesnt really do his memory justice either.

man of the century

2010-12-27T12:36:00.001-08:00

there is a really great movie in here somewhere, but this isnt it. dont get me wrong, this movie is pretty fun, but the concept is what makes it good, not the movie itself. the concept is this: the main character, johnny twenties, acts like he lives in the nineteen twenties. but he lives in the 90's. an interesting concept, to say the least, but this independent film just cant quite reach the heights of what its trying to do. he goes about his life as a newspaper journalist talking like someone who just came out of a speak easy! he's got a grand dame who he's crackerjack over, he goes after the big stories looking to crack the big one, ace. the funny part is that he's the only one who actually talks like he's a from the twenties and everyone else is baffled by the whole thing. its a fantastic concept that only barely scratches the surface of what could be a great film. the movie, unfortunately, gets bogged down by spending too much time with his girlfriend, some bad guys, and a dinner party with johnny's family. if this movie were given the all-star treatment and made into a big hollywood production, it could be grand. here's hoping that it gets picked up and remade!

her alibi

2010-12-27T11:15:00.002-08:00

this movie is pretty lame, even for an 80's movie. the set up is that tom selleck is a crime writer who has run out of ideas. he decides to get some inspiration by going to the court house and see whats shaking. he runs into a woman who is in a bit of a bind, legally. selleck offers to be her alibi so she can get off. she takes him up on the offer and goes back with him to his house. turns out she isnt quite as innocent as he thought, and the bad guys follow them back to the house and cause a bit of trouble. the whole thing is fairly lame, but doggonnit, i really liked it! why? two simple words: tom selleck! i dont know what it is about that guy, but i would enjoy him in just about anything! no matter what is going on, he makes it so much better. he's kind of like richard dean anderson (macguyver, if you didnt know) in that there is just something inherently magnetic about him. do i have a little bit of a man crush on him? why yes, i certainly do, but who can blame me? i would have to say that the movie itself gets one star, but tom selleck gets five stars. that leaves us with an average of 3 stars. take that for what its worth, i guess.

princess of thieves

2010-12-27T11:15:00.001-08:00

so i guess this is one of those disney straight to video 'sequels'. granted, it has no connection what so ever with 'robin hood: prince of thieves', but they must have figured they could make a little money if they piggy back that classic. the story follows the daughter of robin hood and maid marian as she has to go out and save nottingham and her father from the evil men trying to take power away from the rightful king. the story is pretty bland and seems to hit all the same notes as the traditional robin hood story: join a band of thieves in the woods, take part in an archery contest, etc. there is little to no action involved in the movie, and the love story is quite silly. it seems that the only reason it was made is because they got kiera knightly, so they quick threw something together so they could use her. the major problem with the movie, aside from a lame script, is the poor directing. during some of the bits, most notably the archery contest and the final showdown at the end, it is almost impossible to tell what is going on. the camera is always too close to the action, we can never really get a handle on what is taking place because all we see are close-ups and strange angles. its frustrating to see disney cheapen the memory of 'prince of thieves' with this garbage, i guess thats why it was sent straight to video, huh?

2012

2010-12-23T08:57:00.001-08:00

roland emmerich has been making disaster movies for decades. some of his biggest ones are 'independence day', 'godzilla', and 'the day after tomorrow'. he's been blowin' stuff up real good for a long time now. well, this movie seems to be a culmination of all of that destruction as he goes for broke in destroying the entire planet. the story follows a bunch of different people as they begin to realize that the ancient mayan prediction that the world would end in 2012 is coming true. fortunately there is a scientist, played by chiwetel ejiofor, who saw it all coming and warned the world's leaders in time. the story is pretty unbelievable, but the special effects are breathtaking! on first look the film seems like just a hollow excuse to see stuff destroyed, but due to the actors involved, there is a level of weight to the destruction. thanks to ejiofor, oliver platt, danny glover and others, the story is made personal. its not a great movie, but it is better than i would have suspected.

bubba ho-tep

2010-12-14T05:14:00.001-08:00

i had high hopes for this one. bruce campbell is the very definition of a cult icon, so i was interested to check out this rather strange film. in it campbell plays elvis pressley (or maybe just and old guy who thinks he's elvis) and is an old folks home. his best friend is a black guy who claims to be john f kennedy. well, the two of them find out that the place they are at seems to be recently haunted by the ghost of a long dead egyptian mummy. as we see these two old guys try to deal with their failing health, they also attempt to combat the zombie remains of the haunted mummy. i was hoping for something fun and interesting, but it was really flat and boring. i guess i just dont get it because it was pretty lame to me. pass.

the bumblebee flies anyway

2010-12-13T19:46:00.003-08:00

this film follows the story of a boy, played by elijah wood, who wakes up in a medical youth ward with to memory of his life before. as he begins to piece together his own history, he discovers that everyone else in the ward is dying from different incurable conditions. he himself isnt dying, but decides to stay there anyway until he can really understand his past. along the way he befriends many of the fellow patients. among them is a dying boy who's sister comes to visit. the boy asks elijah wood to entertain her while she's visiting him. he does and the two of them strike up a romance. he tries to make sense of all this while still trying to answer all the questions about his slowly emerging memories of a crash before he arrived. the movie isnt very good, we never really feel for elijah wood's character as he explores his past. the romance between the two characters is done fairly well, but the random ending involving a cart and an attic is rather strange and poorly conceived.

the winter guest

2010-12-13T19:46:00.001-08:00

kind of an interesting movie that follows a woman, played by emma thompson, who meets up with her mom who is suffering some health problems and a son who meets a girl that he falls for. the whole movie is pretty low key, most of it is just spent with thompson and her mom talking about life and the changes they are facing with age. they go for a walk and share a level of honesty that has been missing in their relationship. while they are gone, the teenage son skips school and meets up with this girl that he's seen a few times before. they head back to his house and find themselves drawn closer and closer. there isnt much that goes on in the movie, but its the small moments of discussion and revelation that make it pretty interesting. its well directed by alan rickman, and the story wanders around a bit with the different relationships developing, but there isnt much to the film.

chronicles of narnia: prince caspian

2010-12-13T11:01:00.000-08:00

i was rather disappointed by this one. i really loved the first narnia movie, but this one seemed to completely abandon all the fun and wonder of the first. instead of magic, we get the military. thats not the narnia i remember reading about as a boy! the story starts with the four children one year after the last time they go to narnia. they miss it and hope to return again soon. well, they get their wish but find that narnia has changed a lot in the year since they left. what was only one year in our world was a thousand years in narnia. their kingdom is gone and its thought that all the narnian creatures are extinct. a mean group of people have come and have taken over narnia. their soon-to-be king, prince caspian, is on the run from his evil uncle who wants the thrown. well, this brings the four kids back to help put things right again. the story is pretty straight forward and we get to meet a few new characters, but over all its not very good. what was so good in small doses in the first narnia film, the climactic battle, takes center stage here and overwhelms the whole movie so that it feels more like a military exercise than a fun children's film. aslan and the ice queen show up as well, but neither of them really play a part in the story. they are merely magical distractions from the sword play that seems to be the focus this time around. with all the fighting and declarations of bravery, we dont have any time at all for any character development or any reason to care about narnia a thousand years later.

me without you

2010-12-12T23:38:00.002-08:00

a story following the life of two girls who grew up together but took very different paths with their lives is not very good. in fact, trying to remember this movie is kind of hard because it was pretty forgettable. the story starts off with the two girls, one a sweet girl, and the other a rebel. the sweet girl looks to the other girl as a role model and an example of what she really wants to be. but as the film progresses and as she tries to go after the things that her rebel friend does, there is a quick descent and she finds that her friends lifestyle wasnt quite as amazing as she thought. at one point both of them are going after the same guy (of course), he is a professor at the college the sweet girl attends. they both have an affair with him and destroys their friendship. the whole thing was pretty sad and the characters are not very likable in the first place. we never care about them or the sordid paths their lives took.

easy virtue

2010-12-12T23:38:00.001-08:00

the wife and i have been going through a bit of a 'period piece' phase in our movie watching, and i've got to say, i rather enjoy it. many of the films we have been watching are set in a victorian sort of era where everyone is a bit stuffy and cant really speak their mind. this film starts off just like that. it follows a man and woman who get married and he brings her home to meet the very british, very stuffy family. she is, of course, a coarse american who does speak her mind, which leads to many many problems. the mother is all pomp and circumstance, and the father is shut off from the world because he has to suffer all that pomp. as the movie unfolds we see the happily married young couple become not so happy. he is beginning to realize that if he wants to stay with her he will have to give up his britishness. jessica biel plays the young american very well, willing to meet the family, but not willing to become what they want her to. as it plays out we learn a lot about the family and why they are the way they are, and the marriage between them must become something else or it must be broken. the acting is great and the sets are fantastic as we watch the family and marriage crumble amidst the grand emptiness. while all this decay is starting to show, the film still keeps a sense of lightness to it.

the wonder of it all

2010-12-12T20:00:00.001-08:00

ive never really had much of an interest in the story of how we got to the moon. unlike most little boys, i never wanted to be an astronaut when i grew up. even still, this documentary was very interesting. the makers of this film went around and culled through a ton of archival film and found some amazing new shots of the space program in the sixties and ever since. they also talked with seven of the twelve men who have actually walked on the moon. this is the highlight of the film, to hear from the men themselves what it was like, to give first hand accounts of what fears they had, what they expected, and the reality of being up there. many of these astronauts dig deeper than they ever have for interviews and share the real stories. the most interesting part of the film is when they each talk about what impact their moon landings had on their faith and spirituality. we get to really sense the wonder of it all (oh, so thats where the title comes from!) the only unfortunate part about this film is that they dont include any interviews with neil armstrong. his involvement would have made it even better, i'm sure.

plunkett & macleane

2010-12-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

this victorian era film is about two thiefs who break out of prison. one of them cons the other into helping him gain wealth so that he can return to the higher ranks of victorian society. well, they dont have any money so they begin robbing carriages filled with wealthy people in order to reenter that world. they become a sort of masked bandit that the wealthy fear, but love to talk about. the man who reenters the aristocracy loves all the attention (even though no one knows it him), and he gets more and more bold with his heists. the film is thick with style, all the fast editing and strange angles and even stranger soundtrack. some of the fun of watching the movie is knowing that its a small reunion of some of the actors from 'trainspotting'. over all, its kind of fun, but kind of all over the place. there are characters that pop up every once in a while that dont seem to serve much purpose. one of the best scenes involves a gun duel, but it seems awfully disjointed from the rest of the movie. still, it was a bit of fun, so i give it a pass.

hook

2010-12-06T19:17:00.001-08:00

i remember back when this one originally came out i was really excited about it and couldnt wait to see it. when i finally did see it i was kind of like 'meh'. all these years later i find i have the same response: meh. on paper it looks amazing: robin williams, the boy who never grew up, playing the boy who never grew up; dustin hoffman bringing a certain depth and gravitas to the role of captain hook; even julia roberts as the cute little tinkerbell. what could possibly go wrong? well, this is one of those times where the whole is less than all of its parts. the story is set many years after the original peter pan, with peter coming to our world and growing up. he got married, has two kids, and seems to have a pretty good, if busy, life. they go to visit their great aunt wendy and the kids get kidnapped by hook to try and get peter to come back to neverland for a rematch. much of the problems with this movie stem from the ridiculous stuff with the lost boys and with the kinda creepy love story elements in it. tinkerbell has always been in love with peter, which isnt played so much for its sweetness, but rather as an awkward wedge between them. great aunt wendy admits to always loving peter, who is 40 years her junior and happily married, which just kind of adds a sad creepy factor to the movie. the biggest problem over all though, is that there is a lot to look at, all of which looks pretty cool, but there is no heart to any of it. try as speilberg might, there is no depth to this fluff. over all, it felt like a great opportunity wasted. perhaps it will be revisited one day in a remake with someone else at the helm who can really dig in to the depths of the characters and situations.

james and the giant peach

2010-12-05T17:32:00.003-08:00

having loved 'nightmare before christmas', i was hoping this film would have the same mischievous dark fun as that one. although there is some of that, this one is no where near as good. granted, it is unfair to compare the two movies, but when the character designs are so similar in style and its made by many of the same people, thos comparisons are inevitable. this one follows the story of james, a boy who lives with his two evil aunts who use him as their own personal slave. as a most unusual peach begins growing on their land, they try to make some money on it by having visitors pay to see it. one night james decides to cut it from the tree and it slowly floats up into the sky! james catches a ride with it and finds that there are some pretty strange creatures living inside the giant peach! among them are a grasshopper, a lady bug, a centipede and others. as the peach floats across the ocean, james and his new friends find many things to do on it, including break into song! the songs are quite forgettable and could have really used danny elfman's dark brilliance instead of randy newman. another big problem with the film is that the story is so paper thin that it has a hard time filling the already short 80 minute run time. the movie is a failure, but a noble failure.

the importance of being earnest

2010-12-05T17:32:00.001-08:00

diana and i, in the midst of our english victorian era fascination, watched this film recently. its based on an old play by oscar wilde, and it shows! the film is filled with witty lines and conversations as well as amusing twists and turns that are vintage wilde! the plot is about a couple men who step away from their lives on occasion and pretend to be someone else. this other person they pretend to be just happens to be named earnest. both of these fellows fall in love with women who think their names are earnest and eventually they cross paths with their lovers when they are in their real lives. oh the complications! oh the miscommunication! oh the hilarity! actually, it is pretty funny how things get all mixed up between the men and their ladies. colin firth, who is in just about every victorian era movie, does a great job as the man caught between two lies and two women. this one is worth checking out just for the witty dialog from oscar wilde!

rachel getting married

2010-12-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

i had heard good things about this movie, and anne hathaway even got an oscar nomination from the film. the small story is about a woman returning home from rehab to attend her sister's wedding. as the movie unfolds, the reason for her being in rehab in the first place become clear, as well as its impact on the entire family. the movie does a great job of showing what its like to be the black sheep of the family as well as big topics like trust, forgiveness, acceptance, and loss. we feel for hathaway's character as she is put back into a situation where she is blamed for things that she did in her past and we see how hard it can be for those closest to you to forgive and try to move past costly mistakes. this is a good movie. so why am i only giving it two stars? well, because of the marriage itself. the movie spends about 10 minutes of its 90 minute run time on the wedding and its reception. there is no dialog, just shots of people talking and dancing. the wedding itself is not a traditional wedding, its some sort of strange hippie/indian/bollywood/african/drum circle type thing that is so pretentious and overwrought that it quite literally ruined the movie for me. during the ten minutes of this nonsense, i had forgotten about all the great realistic portrayals that came before it. instead it just felt like some sort of cultural mishmash of stuffy arrogance and unrealistic make believe. sorry, but all my positive feelings for the movie were washed away by the incessant impossible fantasy of the wedding itself. people like this and events like this dont actually exist. the movie was a deep drama about life issues and then becomes some sort of fantasy less believable than something from 'care bears' or 'my little pony'.

the education of charlie banks

2010-12-04T17:46:00.002-08:00

this film follows charlie banks as he goes from high school to college and tries to find out who exactly he is. he obviously grew up in a family that put education before any sort of social life. charlie doesnt have many friends and seems to be fairly socially awkward. while in high school, he and his one friend decide to go to a party anyway. while there they meet jason ritter's character who has a huge temper problem and ends up getting in a really violent fight. charlie, being the good boy that he is, goes to the police with what he saw. years later, as charlie and his friend are in college, ritter shows up again. having never admitted that he was the one who turned him in, charlie freaks out when ritter arrives. the two of them slowly become friends and it seems that ritter has gotten his temper under control until an incident happens on campus. the two of them must deal with what happened all those years ago- will it end poorly for charlie?
the movie isnt that great, and the direction is mediocre, but what lifts this one one out of the one star category is the fantastic acting by jesse eisenberg. that guy is so good at playing tormented socially stunted outsiders that it elevates a bad movie to ok.

bright star

2010-12-04T17:46:00.001-08:00

this film is about a short lived love affair between john keats, a famous poet, and the girl he loves. another victorian era film that is all about the love that is not allowed by society. the girl, played by abbie cornish, is not allowed to marry keats because he does not have any money. that doesnt stop her from continuing her correspondence with him through intimate letters. from time to time he is able to visit her and they share what time they can together. also in the story we see keats writing friend, played by paul schnieder (who has been a favorite of mine since first seeing him in 'the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford'). he is pretty much a big jerk in this movie, even forcing himself upon the family servant and getting her pregnant. this, as is so often the case in these victorian movies, is a romance that blossoms quickly, but is destined to end sadly. the film itself is pretty good with all the leads doing a great job with the story. cornish makes the whole thing very believable as she falls for this hopeless case. even though schneider plays a cad, i still wanted to love the character because of the great presence he brings.

muppets take manhattan

2010-11-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

ive never been a big muppets fan. i remember the old tv shows and would watch them from time to time, but i never really thought they were very funny. so i guess this movie isnt really one that i was going to like from the get go, so the fact that i didnt much care for it is not surprising. the story follows the muppets as they try to take a musical that they created in college (ok, the muppets went to college?!?) and try to bring it to broadway. when they arrive in new york they go to every producer in town and try to get them to put on their musical. it doesnt work. then they just seem to give up completely and everyone goes their seperate ways. well, kermit doesnt give up and meets some people who can help make it possible. i guess one of the reasons i didnt like the film is because their actions are unreasonable. first, the fact that they thought they would be able to make it work is ridiculous, and then when it doesnt, and when it doesnt it seems that they completely give up on the show and on each others friendships. a slight miscommunication sends them all packing, when all it would have taken was just one conversation to fix the problems some of them had with each other. i guess this problem is true of many movies, but with the muppets, the absurd comes into even stronger contrast. i want to like the muppets, but this one is a stinker.

land before time

2010-11-28T20:44:00.003-08:00

i absolutely adored this movie when i was a kid. one christmas i told my parents i wanted this movie on vhs and nothing else! (fortunately they got it for me and a few other things too...) when the wife and i saw that it was on we had to watch it! unfortunately it doesnt hold up quite as well as a child's unquestioning love, but thats the way memories go, huh? the story follows littlefoot as he tries to find his family and make his way to the great valley. along the way he makes a few friends, and one scary t-rex enemy! it was unfortunate to realize that the film isnt really that good at all. the animation is poor (even by 1988 standards...) with all the colors washed out in that typical don bluth style. the story is very weak, even with all the extra padding, the film only clocks in at about 64 minutes. but, gosh darn it, i still love it. more for what it was to me than for what it really is. sometimes you just have to let nostalgia win out over the harsh cold realities, right? petri would agree, 'yup yup yup!'

bye bye love

2010-11-28T20:44:00.001-08:00

diana said she loved this movie growing up and watched it all the time. i'm not exactly sure why, there is almost nothing in here that a young girl would find enjoyable. or that i would find enjoyable for that matter. the story follows three divorced dads as they try to figure out life post marriage. one of them, paul reiser, deal with it the best way he can, he wallows in his depression and has been having a hard time moving on. the second one, randy quaid, deals with it through anger, and the third one, matthew modine, fills the void with one night stands. each of them try to figure out what happens next in life as they still try to be good fathers for their children. most of the movie seems to be an advertisement for mcdonalds, since much of the film takes place in one. each of the fathers drop off and pick up their kids from the exes at mcdonalds and spend a lot of time sitting in the restaurant discussing how much life sucks. its not a good ad for mcdonalds, but an ad none the less... the stories are shallow and selfish, leaving the kids to suffer from childish fathers who dont seem to know how to deal with life as adults. i didnt end up caring for any of the three men, but instead just felt sorry for their children who have to deal with them.

it might get loud

2010-11-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

this is a very interesting documentary that brings together three men who are considered the best guitarists of their respective generations. jimmy page of led zeppelin, the edge of U2, and jack white of the white stripes. the three men are interviewed about their perspective on guitars, playing music, what influenced them, and how they go about writing a song. it was pretty cool to hear the three different perspectives the guys have about how they get the guitar to do what they want. now, i dont have any interest in jimmy page. i'm sure he is an amazing musician, but i just dont care much about what he had to say. the other two, though, were great fun to listen to. the thing that impressed me most about the two other guys was their approach to the guitar. jack white talked about how he will take any old guitar, no matter the quality, and try to dominate it until it does what he wants, he sees technology as a crutch that limits his creativity. the edge has about the exact opposite approach, he spends hours running his guitars through the computer and through different distortion peddles trying to find just the right sound trying to make it sound like it does in his head. the two different approaches, though opposite, result in some of the best guitar playing out there today. the documentary climaxes with the three of these guys getting together, talking, and jamming. the final jam itself was a bit of a let down, but the info learned through out the course of the film was very interesting.

the proposal

2010-11-14T09:45:00.001-08:00

i wanted to see this one in the theater, but for some reason my wife did not. i enjoy a good sandra bullock movie, and i'm always up for a ryan reynolds flick, so i figured this would be right up my alley. it was pretty good too, a minor entry into the chick flick cannon. the set up is that reynolds works for bullock and she is a mean demanding boss. she is from canada and finds herself about to loose her job because her visa ran out. she cons reynolds into marrying her for a green card. the government employee isnt buying it, so bullock invites herself to see his family up in alaska to prove that its true. reynolds must try to keep up the scam in front of his family, and hilarity ensues... well, i wouldnt go so far as to say hilarity, but it is pretty harmless fun. for my money, ryan reynolds is one of the funniest actors around, so its pretty hard to have him in a movie and there not to be at least a few good laughs. the whole thing is pretty predictable, but its fun none the less.

pagemaster

2010-11-14T09:44:00.003-08:00

i dont know why, but i had high hopes for this one. granted, its a movie that has completely disappeared since it arrived in theaters, but i remember wanting to see it at the time. this past weekend my brother in law and seven year old nephew came over and i thought that it might be a good one to watch with my nephew.
the story follows a boy, played by mackulay culkin, who is too worried about safety. he finds himself in a library and is drawn into a magical book that turns him into an animated character. while in there he befriends three different book characters: horror, adventure, and fantasy. the four of them then go on different journeys through those three genres, eventually having to fight off the mighty dragon! along the way he learns that safety is important, but so is fun. the live action stuff is fine, but once we get to the animation it is so poorly done. the lines and color are all washed out to the point where the characters all blend in with the backgrounds and its hard to tell them each apart! remember the old don bluth style of animation? well, this is even more bland and beige (if thats even possible...). the characters are also really annoying and the journey is not at all interesting. really a disappointment. but my nephew enjoyed it, so theres that...

hellbound: hellraiser 2

2010-11-06T11:19:00.001-07:00

this movie picks up soon after the first one. the main character from the first movie is now checked into a mental hospital because of the crazy stuff she witnessed. she doesnt remember how she got there, but wants to get out. she has the creepy pandora's box and begins to have hallucinations about these creatures coming after her. are they hallucinations, or are they real? eventually she gets taken to the mysterious realm that these demons are from and we get to see the horrors that await her there. too bad the horrors are not even remotely horrible. they are actually quite lame. i dont know if this stuff ever passed as scary, but it certainly doesnt hold up to today. its mostly just a bunch of chains, knives, and smoke blowing around giving the illusion of something scary. the creatures are not at all frightening, due to poor lighting and bad production. the ending is actually really funny, which i dont think was their intent... i cant believe that this series lived on to include four more entries. i guess if it makes a buck, why not, right?

beverly hills chihuahua

2010-11-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

i knew eventually i would be seeing this movie. my wife and i have a chihuahua, so it was only a matter of time before she talked me into watching it with her and our dog.
the generic story follows a spoiled rich dog as she gets lost and kidnapped (dognapped?) in mexico and must find her way home. along the way she meet some friends and some enemies, and of course there is a life lesson to be learned as well. very bland and predictable. the movie would have gotten only one star because its so dumb, but there is one scene in the movie that elevates it higher than that: as they are traveling through the mexican country side, the dogs come across a whole tribe of chihuahuas that live in an ancient aztek city where they are encouraged to keep on their course by a the king chihuahua. he gives a speech rousing the dogs where he talks about how 'grand' and 'proud' the chihuahua race really is. he says 'we are not accessories to be carried around, we are mighty! we do not shiver because we are cold, we shiver because we are filled with pride, we are the mighty chihuahua!' and it is hysterical! the rest of the movie is garbage, but that one scene is hilarious!

hellraiser

2010-11-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

i had known of this horror franchise but had never seen any of the films. well, i thought i'd give it a try since it was on tv anyway. the story follows a family who moves into an old family house. one of the brothers who had hit hard times had been shacking up there when he got a hold of this strange creepy box. he opened it and out came some chains and horrors and demons. his soul was then trapped in the floorboards of the attic of the house. the new family, mom, dad, and daughter, all move in. the mom, who had had an affair with the now dead brother-in-law, goes up in the attic and sees this creepy creature who has been rebirthed. that creepy creature happens to be the dead man. he needs more blood to return back to normal and grow his body back, so the wife lures in men to have an affair with and then kills them to feed the dead brother. while this is all going on, the demons who had tortured him find out that he has escaped their curse, so they return to get what they feel belongs to them. the whole thing is terribly 80's, with the bad hair and the bad fashion. some of the effects and make-up work on the demons still holds up as being pretty creepy, though. as the film heads to its climax it becomes obvious that the production ran out of money because the ending is absolutely terrible! any good effects are thrown out the window and replaced by obvious puppetry and poorly done green screen. pinhead, the main demon of the film, has since become a famous horror monster, but the start of his reign of terror in this film is only scary because of how laughable it is.

paranormal activity 2

2010-10-30T05:38:00.000-07:00

after diana and i saw the first paranormal activity movie, we loved it, but were freaked out for weeks! we slept with the light on for more than one night... so it was with trepidation that we went to see the second one. we were both worried that it would be as creepy as the first one, but also kind of secretly hopeful that it would be.
turns out that it was pretty creepy, but neither of us lost any sleep over it. this one is just like the first in that it is found footage from a family that is dealing with some strange events around their house. the first one was about a woman and her boyfriend, this one is about her relatives as they deal with the same strange presence. the movie did a good job of slowly building the tension, letting us get to know the family before we start to see the weird things happening. the quality was still there and the creepy factor was in full effect, but i think it suffers from the fact that we have seen this before. there were some new twists in this story that were different from the last one, but it just didnt get under my skin the way the last one did. i liked the way they tied in the first one with this though. over all, it was a good scary movie, just not the homerun of the first.

surrogates

2010-10-28T14:26:00.001-07:00

i didnt really have any interest in seeing this one, but my wife's step sister actually worked on the set of this movie, so i figured id give it a try. she did warn me that it was pretty bad. turns out she was right.
the story is set in the not too distant future where they have created robot avatars that people can link up to and live through while still staying in the comfort of their own home. by this point most people do everything through their surrogate robots instead of going out and doing anything themselves. as the story unfolds we find that there is someone out there who has been killing the surrogates and the people linked in to them are dying too, which is something that has never happened before. bruce willis plays a cop who ditches his surrogate to try and get to the bottom of it all.
is sounds like a pretty interesting idea, but it really never goes anywhere. the whole thing gets muddled up with anti technology rebels and the guy who created the surrogates in the first place. the whole movie is a terrible mess, and worst of all: its boring. from the stories we heard, it sounds like the problems started on the set between the actors and director and he never seemed to be able to make anything of interest out of it.

romy and michelle's high school reunion

2010-10-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

ok, to be honest, this movie is pretty bad. i cant lie about that. but the thing is that they know its bad and have a great time with it anyway! the set up is pretty simple, in fact, i dont even need to explain the plot, its all right there in the title! romy and michelle, two best friends, go to their high school reunion. thats it. the fun comes from the way it all plays out, and the great casting as well. lisa kudrow, as michelle, is pitch perfect, her line delivery is amazing, in fact, the little 'huh' noises she adds to the end of her statements are what saves this movie from being complete rubbish! this is especially true when you hear mira sorvino delivering her lines as romy- terrible! there is just something wrong with her voice or something, she is the definition of a bad actress (how she won an acadamy award is beyond me...). one of the funniest moments of the film is when the two of them start dancing with allen cummings- its worth watching just for that dance!
anyway, i cant justify enjoying this movie, but i did anyway.

shutter island

2010-10-19T15:04:00.001-07:00

i've never understood all the praise for martin scorsese. i have seen many of his movies and dont really care that much for most of them. well, i finally found one i rather liked. shutter island is about a detective who comes aboard an island mental ward in order to help with the disappearance of one of the residents. the mood is created well, and dicaprio does a good job of drawing us into the mystery. we watch as he finds that some of the stories dont quite add up and he begins to piece together the clues. its a pretty good little yarn, but the twists and turns along the way were pretty easy for me to see coming. i dont know if that was true for everyone who saw it, but this was one of the rare times where i figured it out really early in the movie. most times i just let the movie take me away, but i kind of figured it out months ago from the first previews they showed for the movie. having not read anything about it, i knew what the twists were before i even started the film (and thats not due to the usual reading of reviews or anything!) so maybe the problem i had with the film wasnt the film at all, but was in the marketing giving away too much. anyway, all considered, its a pretty good flick and worth watching. i've heard that its better the second time through, but i didnt have time to watch it again, it was only a rental!

beowulf and grendel

2010-10-17T07:10:00.001-07:00

maybe i watched this version of the beowulf story too closely to watching the animated version of the story, because in comparison, this one really really sucks! the story is the same one we have heard retold so many times: the king angers the beast grendel, he attacks the town. they call in a warrior in beowulf, and he takes down the beast but must then contend with grendel's mother. this one is rather flat and the creature make up is really lousy. its no wonder it went straight to video, where it belongs. i will admit though, the landscapes were breathtaking!

a dog's breakfast

2010-10-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

after going to the stargate convention (i know, i'm a nerd and am ok with it) and seeing david hewlett there, i decided to give his directorial debut a try. there were many fans saying how they liked it, so i wanted to see if it was any good or not. well, its not.
the story is about a cooky shut-in, played by hewlett, who's sister comes to visit and she brings along a surprise: her fiancee! she's there to introduce him to her brother and hopefully get him to accept the new man in her life. well, hewlett doesnt take too kindly to him and overhears a conversation that sounds like the fiancee is cheating on his sister. he takes matters into his own hands and ends up killing the fiancee, accidentally of course, but kind of on purpose. he quickly buries the body and tries to hide the whole thing from his sister. the guilt haunts him, and so does the body of the fiancee...
the story is alright, the murder/accident and its cover-up are meant to be comedic and played for laughs. most of the humor seems to stem from silly sound effects that accompany a quick turn or a hit to the head. the problem is that its not really funny at all, which is never good for a movie that bills itself as a comedy. the one nice thing that i liked about the movie is that everyone in it is from a stargate tv series, which brings the score up from one star, which is what it should really be.

hot tub time machine

2010-09-28T15:04:00.001-07:00

this one should have been a homerun. i was so excited about this one and so ready to love it. then i saw it. it was pretty disappointing. the set up is great: four guys are partying and remembering the good old days back when they were kids, then they happen to be whisked back to the 80's with their hot tub time machine! they get to go back and relive their glory days for a single night. sounds like the perfect opportunity to show all kinds of really funny 80's nostalgia type things, right? well they do, but its not nearly as funny as it should be. i mean, they've some how convinced mr. 80's himself, john cusack, to be in it, but it still never really leaves the cleaver premise. this thing had all the makings of a movie that would take off and really be filled with great zingers and perfect moments of reliving their youth, but instead it just kind of sits there with half hearted jokes that fall pretty flat. with this being the competition, i guess bill and ted (and marty mcfly) are still the kings of the time machine.

the red violin

2010-09-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

what a great movie! i've seen this one before and recently rewatched it. the story follows the life of a violin that was made in the 1500s as it goes up for auction. there are many people bidding on it and the film flashes back through the violin's 500 year journey to see where it has been. we start by learning about the man who made it with such loving care. then we go through and see some of the different people who have played it over the years and how those stories are a driving force for some of the different people who are bidding on it at the modern auction. we see a monastery bidding because it was a part of their collection for over one hundred years and plays an important part in the life of that church, a museum wants it because it was an inspiration for a famous composer, a chinese family wants it because it was a part of their family's anti-communism past, and a rich man wants it just because he's greedy! each of these flashbacks give so much life and depth to the journey of the violin and its importance. the stories are compelling and draw you in to care about each of the people who are bidding on the violin at the auction that by the end you dont really know who to be rooting for. an amazing story (well, stories) fantastically told.

aladdin and the king of thieves

2010-09-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

i was just the right age when aladdin came out in theaters that i was totally enamoured with it. i loved it and memorized all the songs! a year or two later disney was about to start its foray into straight-to-video animated sequels. it is a standard practice now a days, but back then it was something quite amazing to an impressionable child! i immediately convinced my parents to let me purchase (yes, i purchased it with my own hard earned money!) 'aladdin 2: the return of jafar'. turned out that the straight to video stuff wasnt quite of the same quality. actually, i wouldnt even use the word 'quality' in the same sentence... having learned my lesson, i resolved to never again be sucked in by these poor animated follow ups. so, when the third aladdin movie came out a couple years later, i avoided it at all costs. i didnt get suckered in to buy it, but i was always curious about it and wanted to see it anyway. fast forward a dozen or so years and now i finally had the opportunity to see it, so i did! turns out, i wasnt missing anything.
i know this isnt really a review of the movie, but the story of my wanting to see the movie is infinitely more interesting that anything in the movie! ok, fine, here's the story: aladdin meets his dad and finally married jasmine. and its crap. the end. now you happy?

(500) days of summer

2010-09-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

this is a pretty good movie. its kind of a chick flick, but its still quite good. the story takes the traditional love story, but jumbles it all up. it follows joseph gordon-levitt as he meets and falls in love with a girl named summer. the interesting thing about this movie though, is that we jump in and out of the days they have been together which are shown out of order. which means that we see the relationship as its ending even before we get to see them 'meet cute'. due to the mixed up order of events, we see an unusual view of what these two go through in their relationship. another difference between this love story and most is that its the boy who is head over heels in love, and the girl who is slightly aloof. this movie is exactly what the tag line for it says: this is not a love story, its a story about love. and as it turns out, its not necessarily about thier love together. an interesting take, and one worth watching.

for love of the game

2010-08-11T13:43:00.001-07:00

i dont much care for sports movies, but i am a total sucker for kevin costner sports movies! in this movie he plays a baseball pitcher who is at the end of his professional career. the film follows his last game as he goes to the mound to pitch one last time. as the game goes on he keeps striking out everyone that comes to the plate. as he gets nearer and nearer to maybe doing the impossible: pitching a perfect game, we go into his head and flash back to everything that brought him to the point he is at. we go back and see him earlier in his career as he makes important decisions about his life and its importance over baseball. mostly the flashbacks come in the form of a girl, kelly preston, and his relationship through the years with her. what starts out as a fling becomes more and more important to him and he must make a decision between the game and the girl. all this is played out as he keeps going back to the mound on his attempt at a perfect game. the film is well constructed, flipping between flashbacks and on the field. as this game takes shape and becomes so important, we see his relationship with preston doing the same. as he throws his last game we see him come to terms with having to leave the sport he loves and the thing that made him who he is. its a good movie, and a great chick flick told from the point of view of the guy. i guess chick flicks for guys usually are sports movies, huh? well, they found the perfect match in this great movie!

my super ex-girlfriend

2010-08-11T13:42:00.001-07:00

what a train wreck. just about everything in this movie is a disaster, from start to finish. the movie follows the life of office worker luke wilson as he tries to find love. we know the whole time that he actually likes the girl that he works with, and she likes him, but instead of making that work, we get this whole thing with uma thurman. she plays an art dealer who is also a superhero. the two of them meet and start dating, but uma thurman's character is completely insane and wilson wants out. she flips and begins stalking him. all the while there is some sort of random story going on about an evil bad guy who is after our heroine. the movie might have worked if thurman's character wasnt so absolutely insane. he isnt just a needy girlfriend, she is a desperate stalker for no good reason. oh, and one more thing, why the hell is luke wilson the lead in this movie?!? i dont think it is physically possible to find someone with less of a leading man personality! this guy is a vacuum of emotions, they would have been better off with a cardboard cutout of anyone else! i've never noticed how bad he is until this movie, but to be honest, it could just be that the whole movie sucks and its just making it more apparent.

max

2010-08-11T13:41:00.001-07:00

a provocative film that speculates on the life of one of history's biggest villians: adolf hitler. the movie looks at his younger life as he attempts to become a professional artist. max, played by john cusack, is the art dealer who takes a shining to the marginally talented adolf and tries to get him to develop into a better artist with something to say. finding that his skill as an artist is limited, adolf rebels against the art scene and instead begins to push the envelope in his political views instead of his artistic views. the concept is interesting indeed, but we dont really get much of an inside look at adolf himself, instead we only get the perspective of an art dealer who befriends him who is just as confused about the aimless boy as everyone else is. noah taylor does a great job with the unenviable task of trying to make hitler likable, but the story itself doesnt quite allow us to like him. its as if the film makers are trying to make him human, but are just not willing to make him relatable. an interesting film, but misses the mark.

insomnia

2010-07-31T10:23:00.001-07:00

in an attempt to watch all of christopher nolan's movies, i came across this one. he made this one after memento and before the batman ones. it follows a lawman, played by al pacino as he travels to alaska to try and find a killer. the killer, played by robin williams, stays ever elusive, well at least until he finds out a few things about pacino's shady past. then we get an interesting game of cat and mouse, each one of course thinks he's the cat and has the other one pinned with something he can use to blackmail the other. all the while an honest local sheriff, played by hilary swank, is helping out pacino and starts to put the pieces together about both of them.
its a pretty interesting film with the character's conscience being symbolized by their inability to sleep. this is due to the fact that they are in an alaskan summer where the sun doesnt go down for days at a time. the twists and turns along the way are pretty interesting and robin williams does a great job as the creepy killer. its certainly one of nolan's lesser works, but it is well done.

predator 2

2010-07-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

if a movie is a big hit, the logical next step would be to make a sequel, right? well, the sequels of today are a bit different then the way they used to do it. back in the day they would make a sequel of a good movie as quickly and cheaply as possible. well, this one is the perfect example of that strategy. in the first one they have arnold schwarzenegger in the jungle battling a mysterious hunter alien. in this one it seems the best they could get was danny glover. and this time the jungle is switched with l.a.. now, there are a lot of problems with this movie, the first of which is that it doesnt make any sort of sense. if you buy into the conceit of the first movie, that these creatures are here to hunt us, making no distinction between any of its prey. then why does it only seem to kill the bad guys in this one? also, the action makes no real sense, there is no connection from one (mass) killing to the next. they go from a drug ring killing to a random subway killing (and by the way, there's a subway in l.a. that people actually ride?!?). and this movie also breaks the cardinal rule of any monster movie: it shows us way too much of the monster! this thing is supposed to be lurking in the shadows, not chilling out in a cemetery during the day, or taking a pit stop in an old woman's bathroom! any sort of excitement and mystery that we might have felt by seeing the predator is completely gone because we see too much of him! oh, and dont even get me started on how lame the ending is when danny glover just happens to find himself in the predator's spaceship. the only cool thing this movie gives us is the alien head in the predator's trophy room which then leads to the alien vs. predator movies. oh wait, maybe that wasnt so cool...

the bodyguard

2010-07-23T14:19:00.001-07:00

i havent seen this one in over 15 years, so all i really remember of it is the whitney houston soundtrack. and i'll bet i am not alone on that either... turns out, its actually a pretty decent flick! i didnt intend to watch it, i was just channel surfing one afternoon and came upon it on one of those lifetime channels- and i got sucked in! i'm a big fan of kevin costner, so i guess i was predisposed to stop on it and give it a chance. the film follows costner, a safety obsessed bodyguard, as he is assigned to keep houston's character safe. she is a huge movie star/musician who is nominated for an oscar and has a crazy stalker who is after her. i'm sure you can figure out that over the course of the film they fall in love and the stalker gets closer and closer. its a bit predictable, but the suspense that is built over the course of the movie is gripping and by the end, the twists and turns are done well enough to really invest you in it. not too bad for a predictable love story!

evolution

2010-07-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

when i first saw this one i remember liking it a lot, but i think over time my affection for it has worn off a bit. maybe its because the special effects have aged, or maybe its because the plot holes in this contrived movie become larger and larger.
the story follows a couple guys who come across a meteorite that has fallen to earth and starts producing alien life. the title comes from the fact that these aliens start off as single cell organisms, but quickly evolve into plants, worms, insects, animals, apes, and eventually a huge giant creature of some sort. as these two ill equipped guys try to do what ever they can, the military gets involved and messes everything up (which they always seem to do in movies, dont they?). the humor falls pretty flat, and the obvious attempt to capitalize on the recycled 'ghostbusters' formula doesnt really work here. the one saving grace to this film, that keeps it from completely falling apart, is david duchovny, who got to stretch his comedy chops for the first time on the big screen in this movie. unfortunately, its not enough to keep this movie afloat.

valentine's day

2010-07-19T15:31:00.001-07:00

this movie is kind of a mess, but kind of sweet too. taking the example of 'love actually' and its multiple stories about different types of love, this movie follows even more stories and features just about everyone in hollywood who has ever made a romantic comedy. its kind of meant to be the culmination of every rom-com ever made, it seems. the main story the movie follows is ashton kutcher, a flower shop owner, as he is about to propose to his girlfriend. his flower deliveries are what ties together the rest of the many many story lines. its not the best romantic comedy ever, but by sheer volume, its not bad. instead of just taking one or two of the cliches these movies tend to follow, this one packs them all into one neat little package for us! misunderstandings? check. love triangles? check. men behaving badly? check. women obsessed? check. a race to save the relationship? check. and these arent necessarily even in the same story! i cant say i would recommend this movie, but if you are going to watch a romantic comedy, you could do much worse.

repo: a genetic opera

2010-07-16T10:08:00.001-07:00

remember when the movie 'seven' came out? remember how cool the dirty feel of that film was? well, that is what this movie is trying to achieve. does it work? not even remotely. this film is, as the name implies, a musical. the storyline of the film starts with the idea that in the future we will be able to purchase new organs for our body when ours go bad. the problem is that these organs are really expensive, and when someone doesnt pay their bill, they send in the repo man to get that organ back. interesting premise, but it falls apart. partly because of the shoestring budget, but also because of the terrible acting and singing. the songs are really lame and instantly forgettable with its 80's hair metal style guitars. though they were trying for a dingy sort of look, it ends up just looking cheap instead. which i'm sure it was. this has the sort of production value that wouldnt even be acceptable on one of those saturday night syfy movies! too bad really, there is something in the story, but it is completely lost in all the terrible writing, songs, and sets.

robocop 2

2010-07-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

ugh. this is another one of those 80's movies that did so well that they quickly churned out a sequel, whether it needed one or not, and this one certainly did not need one. the campy appeal of the first robocop is gone, and so is the cheesy cool. the less said about this movie the better, so i will leave it at that.

dune

2010-07-10T13:32:00.001-07:00

i had heard a lot about this movie, some saying it was a classic, others saying it was not very good. its based on a series of books and is directed by david lynch, so its pedigree is quite high. after having watched it i am, unfortunately, going to have to agree with the second opinion stated above: this movie is terrible! i would love to be able to give you a brief description of what this movie is about, but unfortunately i have no clue. it has something to do with an intergalactic prince going to a planet with huge sand worms like the movie 'tremors'. i know there is more to it than that (there has to be for it to necessitate its 137 minutes, right? right?!?), but the film is so disjointed that i couldnt follow very well from one scene to the next. it was jumping around all over the place- at one point it needlessly jumps ahead 20 years but everyone still looks the exact same. huh? i understand where it gets it cult status from, the imagery is very unique and impressive. it combines retro futuristic style with a sort of baroque feel from the 1700's. too bad there is nothing worth while under its incomprehensible surface.

brewster's millions

2010-07-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

i recently rewatched this one with diana. i have seen it many many times before, it was a staple on comedy central growing up. i've got to tell you: i love this movie!!! its so much fun! the basic premise is this: brewster is a down and out minor league baseball pitcher who is down to his last dime. well, it just so happens that his great uncle, who he had never met before, recently died. his great uncle was a multi millionaire and brewster is his only living relative. the great uncle, in his will, leaves it all to brewster. theres just one catch: brewster can take one million of it free and clear, or he can take the strange challenge his great uncle makes for him: he must spend 30 million in 30 days. if he can do it, he will receive all 300 million of the inheritance! well, brewster is up for the challenge! it seems like it would be easy to blow through all that cash, but there are stipulations which make it much more difficult... this movie is just pure fun as we watch richard pryor try to waste as much money as he can in 30 days, along with his best friend played by john candy. with all the remakes being made in hollywood, this is one that is actually ripe for a modern spin! this movie is very 80's with its fashion and style, so i think it could be a perfect opportunity for a really fun remake. granted, no one does it better than pryor, but i'd love to see someone try!

get him to the greek

2010-07-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

ah, i do love russell brand. this quazi sequel to 'forgetting sarah marshall' follows jonah hill as he is sent to get the rockstar aldous snow, played by russell brand. we follow the two of them as jonah must try to get him to his next big gig at the greek theater in l.a. so that they can save his career. the humor is really funny as jonah at first tries to get brand away from his excessive drug use and into some sort of lucid state so that they can make the gig. the journey takes them to some pretty strange places, including a visit to see brand's father, played hilariously by colm meaney. there are some great gags in here, and p. diddy does a fantastic job in his role as the boss of brand's record label. brand is really on fire here as he acts ridiculous, but still has such an innocent heart. there are moments of pure chaos, but then there are also moments of depth that were quite unexpected from this crazy comedy. i look forward to seeing this one again on dvd when it will, i'm sure, include a few extra bits that were cut for the theatrical release!

the human centipede

2010-07-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

knowing the premise, i watched this one as you would watch a car accident on the side of the road: with detached disgust, yet with a sense of curiosity. turns out its not a very interesting car wreck, but the film certainly is a wreck...
the premise is this: a creepy german doctor wants to kidnap people and turn them into a freakish human experiment where he turns three of them into a centipede. i will leave out many of the details... it sounds horrific and devilishly twisted, right? well, turns out that the movie is actually quite tame, and very lame. when i heard about this idea my mind went wild with grotesque imaginings of where this film would go, and what i could come up with was much, much worse than what is actually on the screen. there is really nothing on the screen. any sort of gore or bloody imagry is completely passed over, instead what we get is a really generic horror movie that glosses over the horror part. the writing is terrible (wait, there was actually a writer of this movie?!?), the acting is pathetic, and the production value is non existent. as far as horror movies go, this one has an amazingly chilling concept, but the film literally does nothing at all with it. a major disappointment.

prince of persia

2010-07-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

i caught this one at the dollar theater, which is about as much as i was willing to pay to see it. i remember playing the old video game about twenty years ago, but ive never played any of the modern versions of the game, so i was going in blind, for all intents and purposes. the story follows the prince of persia (i think thats where they get the name from...) as his father is murdered and its pinned on him. he's on the run in order to find out who is really responsible for it and along the way he gets involved in a search for a sword that can turn back time. i liked all the parcor aspects of the film, the prince being able to run on walls and make amazing leaps and stuff, but the whole thing just felt hollow and bland.

city of ember

2010-06-29T16:02:00.001-07:00

my buddy aaron read the book that this movie is based on and said it was really good, so i thought i would try out the movie. it turns out that its a pretty fun one. the premise is that people had to flee the surface of the earth for some reason and they built an underground city to stay safe. the plan was that humanity had to live there 200 years before they could return to the surface in safety. well, somewhere along the way the people forgot about the surface and just grew accustomed to living in this underground city. the two hundred years have passed and everything in the city is falling apart and the power is starting to go out. fortunately, as always happens in these family movies, there just so happens to be three kids who find out the truth and must defy the adults who dont believe them. they find the instructions for how to return to the surface and must complete, in great 'goonies' style, a few puzzles in order to get what they are looking for. the puzzles and contraptions themselves are a bit of fun, and the lighthearted quality to the whole film makes it a decent movie. not entirely sure what bill murray is doing slumming in this movie as the city mayor, but the rest of the film does alright. its thoroughly predictable from the first five minutes, but its a fun ride. especially the water ride!

leatherheads

2010-06-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

this romantic comedy, directed by george clooney, is set in the 30's and follows the rise of pro football from a fringe league to it being the huge sport we know and love. we start off with clooney as the footballer who loves the game but due to lack of money, must face the fact that the league he plays for is going out of business. he comes up with a plan: to get a college football war hero, played by jim krasinski, to give up his future as a lawyer, and instead join his football team- bringing his thousands of fans with him. also mixed up in the story is a newspaper reporte, renee zellweger, trying to get to the bottom of the shady details about krasinski's war hero background. of course, both players fall for the girl as she has to decide what to do about the truth she has found. the 30's style is really great in this film, from the footballer's uniforms to the crazy hats the women wear. filled with the ragtime style music of the time, the whole movie has a really playful feel that draws you in and allows you to be sucked in by clooney's suave charms, and krasinski's simple charms. some of the scenes are infectious fun, such as when the two of the guys get into fisticuffs for the girl, and most of the scenes on the football field. this one is an all around fun time!

texas chainsaw massacre: the beginning

2010-06-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

really? i knew not to expect too much, but this thing is ridiculous! what a load of trash this movie is. this one is meant to be a prequel to the remake of the original (confusing, i know). i really enjoyed the remake, so i was kind of interested in this one. i though that maybe they would go into the history of the crazy family, maybe give us some motivation for the evil that they do. no such luck, instead we get a complete retelling of the first one, except this time its with new characters. and less quality. one of the plot twists from the first one is that the sheriff turns out to be one of the family members, in this movie we are shown how he gets to be the sheriff. apparently he just killed the old sheriff and took his uniform. seriously? no one would have noticed? lame. that is about as thorough as this movie gets with motivation and back story. other than about thirty seconds of where the leatherface chainsaw killer came from (wow! he was a baby found in a dumpster! amazingly original writing there, guys!), we never see any reasoning behind why this family is so messed up. nothing. and thats about what this torture porn movie adds up to: nothing.

max payne

2010-06-29T15:56:00.001-07:00

pretty boring for the most part, but once he gets out of the water it gets pretty good. that is actually where the movie starts but then it goes back three years to fill in the back story. unfortunately the back story is pretty bland and boring, so the hour we spend getting up to where the movie began is rather lame. the back story is almost cookie cutter in its genericness: a police officer, max payne, finds his wife and daughter are killed and he turns into a bitter loner looking for the killer that got away. the whole thing involves a shady corporation that is doing evil things, and of course there has to be an experimental drug involved too, right? well, just as max payne is on the cusp of death and has to take the crazy hallucinogenic drug to survive, thats when it gets good! he starts to see valkrie demons and the sky burns red. he becomes a real bad ass and the story turns awesome. unfortunately, that only takes up the last 15 minutes of the movie. there was certainly a good movie in this story, but they just seemed to choose not to follow the good part and instead spend too much time following the wrong angle.

the wizard

2010-06-29T15:51:00.002-07:00

i hate to say it, but this one does not hold up. at all. i remember really loving this movie back when it first came out, but watching as an adult i can see that this thing is nothing more than a paid advertisement for nintendo and its games. dont get me wrong, i love nintendo! its the only gaming systems i will play, still to this day. but when the movie is about a race to find three runaways, and the dad and brother stop for the night to play some teenage mutant ninja turtles on their nes, its pretty obvious that it was designed to sell a few games! the story follows two brothers, who happen to meet up with another wayward girl, as they run away and try to win the video game championships in california. the most famous (or is it infamous?) part of the movie comes from the encounter with a video game player who has the latest gaming technology: the power glove! its a cheesy game controller that you wear as a glove and is supposed to be able to track your movements to control your character (nintendo, never one to give up on a gimmick, finally perfected the motion controller 15 years later with the wii). the memorable scene has the player strapping on the power glove saying 'i love the power glove, its so bad.' and so is this dated movie...