Posts Tagged ‘movie review’

Just Watched: Assassination of a High School President


05 Jun

 

It’s not that I don’t “get” dark comedy. I just know where it came from. Shakespeare’s Dark Comedies were stories that ended in marriage, even if the idea of those marriages made you shudder. Modern dark comedies still end on an actual up note, with the hero doing the right thing, and the bad guys getting their comeuppance.

Still, Assassination of a High School President was an enjoyable bit of noir dark comedy. Not as good as Brick, which was pure noir, not quite the level of dysfunction as Heathers, for dark comedy, but enjoyable in its own sense.

Just Watched: LadyHawke


31 May

I first saw LadyHawke when I was 11 or 12. It was the most romantic movie ever; Matthew Broderick was beyond cute; I fell in love with Rutger Hauer, and I wanted to be Michelle Pfeiffer. It has remained one of my favorite movies over the years, and it holds up fairly well, with a couple notable exceptions.

The soundtrack is awful. There needs to be a director’s cut with a different soundtrack.

Apparently it hasn’t been digitally remastered, or at least the Netflix version available for download hasn’t. It did not translate well on to our big screen HDTV.

Just watched: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief


17 May

We watched Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief the other night. I happen to love both Sean Bean and Kevin McKidd, so it was great to see them as Zeus and Poseidon. It was a fun teenaged action adventure movie that we both enjoyed very much.

However, it did get my husband started on a rant about the tropes used in young adult literature. I didn’t have the same problem as I felt the story was meant as an introduction to Greek mythology, not something aimed at those of us who have been studying it for 20 years.

Bonus Pop Culture Content: SuckerPunch


28 Mar

I enjoyed SuckerPunch. I did not go into it expecting Oscar caliber performances, a great script, or a deeply engaging plot. I went to see it to SEE it, and the visuals did not disappoint. The plot/writing/acting wasn’t bad enough to pull me out of the visually engaging world on the screen.

The layering of realities one and two wasn’t done as well as I would have liked, but there was enough complexity there that we could argue about the layering after the movie, and being able to argue about a movie is always good among my group of friends.

Darren Aronofsky


08 Dec

I’ve now seen two Darren Aronofsky films. On some level, it’s hard to believe that The Fountain and The Wrestler came from the same director. The difference in scale, the grand overlying themes, seem to put these movies worlds apart. And yet, they are both intimate portraits of a man.

The grandiosity of The Fountain is why it didn’t work for me. While I understood the conceit, it never seemed to coalesce into anything cohesive. The Wrestler, on the other hand, was so simple in its goals, in plot and storyline, that it seems to rise above its subject matter.

My Favorite Movies: Children of Men


02 Oct

I was nervous about Children of Men, despite all the good reviews it got. It was based on a short story by P.D. James, and the one mystery novel by her that I’ve read has a hole the size of a semi. My initial concern made the movie even more powerful.

The pacing of the movie, visually and aurally, was what made it really work. From frantic to quiet, especially those first moments after the baby is born, when the world stops and listens to its cries. Its how all new parents feel, brought to stark life on the screen.

My Favorite Movies: The Princess Bride


23 Aug

Re-watching the Princess Bride with my cousin, who had only seen it once before, reminded me once again why this movie is so wonderful. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love this movie (and if you don’t, this is one time, please don’t tell me). A lot of it has to do with how perfectly cast and acted this movie was. These are not award winning performances, but everyone is just so present.

It is also my favorite way to remember both Andre the Giant and Mandy Patinkin.

“Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?
If there are, we all be dead.”

Movies: Happy Feet


02 Aug

We watched Happy Feet the other night. I love movie’s with music; I enjoy animated films, and penguins are the cute animal du jour. But the movie left me overwhelmingly under whelmed.

First off, it might as well have been called Fern Gully Antarctica, right down a crazy character voiced by Robin Williams. Secondly, if you’re going to be that heavy handed in your message, could you maybe stick to one message?

Its not that I disagree with the pro-environment, anti-religion, honor thy children (to an extent), and we’re all okay messages, it was that it was all too much.

The Last Airbender (movie)


05 Jul

I liked The Last Airbender. Yes, there were problems, but there are going to be problems when fitting eight hours of material into under two hours. I would have been happier if they had made the movie fifteen minutes longer, or even cut a few minutes out from the final battle, in order to give a little more time to the friendship that develops between Ang, Katara, and Sokka, but it still worked.

The narration detracted from the movie, especially since they were showing us the same things that were being said.

However, Sokka and Uncle Ihro were absolute highlights.

AVATAR


02 May

So glad we did not pay to see Avatar in the theater. I know the movie is pretty and that there were supposedly ground breaking special effects, but really how did this movie get nominated for best picture? The plot came from a random modern pulp generator and the script… I’m not certain I have (good) words for the script. But then, the script did not seem to have (good) words either.

And now I am extra annoyed that James Cameron would not let them use Avatar in the title of “The Last Airbender” movie – which I want to see.

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