reality bites

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

race to witch mountain

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

burn after reading

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

stevie

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

adventureland

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

district 9

wow, what a movie! i went in to this one expecting a reality style film with some strange aliens. turns out its an amazing action movie with a really deep message about race relations.
the story picks up 10 years after aliens arrive on our planet. they are stuck here because their ship is broken. their mothership has been hovering over johannesburg in africa all this time, and they are trying to live on our planet with the hope of someday fixing the ship and heading home. the harsh reality of their arrival though, is that we humans do not except them and instead have banished them to live in a containment camp. the movie begins as the aliens are being forced to move from the current camp into a different location away from the city, because their prescience there has brought crime and ruined that part of town. we follow a government worker as he goes around the camp informing the aliens that they must relocate. well, things start to go a bit wrong, as one might expect, and this government worker gets caught up in it.
needless to say, this film is an allegory of african apartheid and shows just how wretched it really was. the message is amazingly portrayed as the treatment of the aliens is gut wrenching. the film itself does a really great job of starting in a reality film style, but shifting to a standard movie, and back again really well. we feel so strongly for these aliens as the film also makes us reevaluate how we treat each other.

lion king 1 1/2

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

time machine

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

annie

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

taken

this one is just a good old fashioned revenge thriller. the story is simple, the main character's daughter gets kidnapped and he must try and get her back. the twist comes from the fact that the man who's daughter was taken is a man who does this for a living. the previews said it all when they show the conversation between the kidnappers and the main character. this is where we get the amazing line from liam neeson while he's on the phone with them:
I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
right there, that hooked me and perfectly explains the film. i think that that line alone sold the movie and brought it over 145 million dollars! now thats what i call good marketing!

spy game

i really like this film! i'm not entirely sure why, but i like this one. the story is about a young undercover agent who has been caught and thrown into a chinese prison and the u.s. government doesnt want to do anything about it. the veteran agent who trained him tries to pull as many strings as possible to get him released. as the thrilling story unfolds, we are given flashbacks to when the two of them were working together. there are some really cool scenes where we see redford first training pitt to be a spy- the movie is worth seeing just for that part alone! the way redford tries to make an escape mission come together all the while not letting on to the people he is being investigated by, create some great thrilling moments of tension. i've said it before, but robert redford is just one of those actors who you cant take your eyes off of him! and pitt is no different in this film. watching the movie is like taking a masters class in acting- and its got a bunch of explosions too! hurrah!

harry potter and the half blood prince

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

oceans 12

the first time i saw this movie i thought 'well, that was fun', but as i watch it again i start to think that maybe i thought it was fun because i loved 'oceans 11' so much and really wanted this one to be good too. but there's one problem: it isnt. in the first one the twelve guys assemble to pull the ultimate heist in las vegas, they succeed with style and its a really fun romp. this one isnt quite so much fun. the set up feels really forced, we left the guys on a high note, but now we see that most of them didn't use the money very well and now they are being blackmailed to get the money back to the guy they stole from. (spoiler warning) they then have to do it all over again, but there is this strange contest thrown in by some french guy who wants to prove that he is better than them. okay... the first heist goes bad, then the second heist goes bad, only to find out that they had already stolen the object weeks earlier. lame. when the twist ending shows that none of the stuff before it really mattered, then its a crappy twist ending. sorry guys, i looked like you were having fun making it, but by the end i wasnt having fun watching it.

g. i. joe

going to see this was not my choice, i like to believe that i have better taste then that. the guys came down for the weekend and were all really excited (for reasons i cant imagine) to see this movie. so we went. and boy, did it suck hard!
i would try to summarize the movie first, but i'm not entirely convinced that there was a storyline to begin with. it really just felt like they had some ideas for action scenes and filled in some random talky bits in between just to fill the time requirement. was the movie good? oh, by no means could i say it was anywhere near good. so, what was wrong with it? everything. its done by the same guy who directed 'the mummy' and its sequel, and 'van helsing', so you know the whole point of the film is just to 'look cool' and sell some toys (the film was co-produced by a hasbro, a toy company after all...). the problem is that nothing in it looked good! even the free gimme of the black ninja 'snake eyes' was screwed up- they gave him lips?!? what the?!? ok, do you really want me to give you an example of how stupid the movie is? well here goes: at one point they are in an underwater base under the arctic circle (dont ask) and are afraid that some bombs are going to go off and blow up the surface and it will all come raining down on them and destroy the base. there is just one problem: the surface of the arctic circle is pure ice, they can bomb it all they want because ice doesnt sink! the base would not be affected by this in the slightest- the base is under water!!! they then proceed to blow the bombs and the ice, defying the laws of physics, sink to the bottom and destroy the base. wow. to say nothing of the random background guys who are busy burning the walls in the hallways of the base...
i guess what i'm trying to say is this: dont bother. i went to see it so you don't have to. who's the 'real american hero' now, joe?

g-force

this one was a turd. i knew it was going to suck going in, i mean, look at the premise: its a group of gerbils who can talk working for the government as secret agents. there really is no way for this thing to be good. at least it was in 3D, so i could at least sit back and enjoy the visuals. i got so bored during the film that i was actually focusing on the 3D element exclusively. i watched with the glasses, and also checked it out for a couple minutes without the glasses. when i did this, i made a little discovery. i figured out how they make it look like things are coming off the screen! turns out that the image itself is smaller than what is projected. that means that they are projecting black borders around the picture. this is important because when something looks like its coming off the screen, its actually breaking into the black borders that are being projected on the screen. kind of cool!
well, i guess it shows you how bad the film was if all i have to say about it is the 3D effect, huh?