My Movie Mania

Coraline Captures Imagination

2009-07-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not certain why, but it seems like many successful authors have at least one book directed to children or at least a younger audience than their usual fans. Stephen King had "Eye of the Dragon" and Neil Gaiman has "Coraline." For Clive Barker, it was the haunting tale "The Thief of Always."
Each of these stories has had its own lesson, a moral or fable almost, along with the superior storytelling of the respective author. Two of them, Barker and Gaiman, expound on a theme started with Washington irving and "Rip Van Winkle" adding just a perfect twist to update the story.
Coraline is stop motion animation about a girl and her parents who move into an apartment complex with eccentric neighbors and a hole in the wall that leads to another world. Coraline is consistently ignored by her overly busy parents and begins exploring the other world where her other mother and other father dote on her every whim, make her scrumptious meals and have button eyes, much like the Coraline rag doll she received as a gift the day she moved in.
When the other worldly inhabitants of her neighborhood manage to get her name right and pay attention to Coraline, she is tempted to join the other world permanently, but the thought of replacing her eyes with buttons is enough to send her fleeing back to the real world. That's only the beginning of Coraline's adventure to right old wrongs and reunite with her family.
All in all, it's an adorable story with a fantastical other world as Gaiman is so fond of creating. Having never seen a Neil Gaiman movie that I didn't like, my love of Coraline was no surprise, but the fantastical other world is something like a Tim Burton movie and that made me enjoy it even more.
Coraline is a wonderful and slightly scary story for younger children, but with the great art and age-old story is a joy for adults as well.

"Knowing" an Interesting Tale With an Unsuspected Ending

2009-07-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

"Knowing" starring Nicholas Cage made it to dvd this week and it is probably one of his best films ever.
Sadly, the biggest detractor from this film is its name and marketing. The film starts with a young girl named Lucinda (great name!) who is part of a class project to commemorate the opening of a new school. The class creates a time capsule and class members are encouraged to draw a picture representing what they think the world will be like in 50 years.
Lucinda spends her drawing time creating a page full of numbers which later proved to be a list of the dates and numbers of people who die in major disasters across the world over the next fifty years.
Calen (Nicholas Cage's character's son) receives Lucinda's creation at the opening of the time capsule and Cage's character Tom, an astrophysicist, becomes fascinated with the numbers and interprets their meaning. A series of small disasters confirm his interpretation of the document and lead to the discovery of Lucinda's descendants and the bigger plot.
The Biblical references in the movie were a bit unexpected, as the investigation team finds that Lucinda had become obsessed with a drawing of the prophet Ezekial receiving his prophecies from God. The movie also doubles as a thriller with Tom trying to protect his son from the disasters and the "whispering people" who appeared to both Caleb and Lucinda.
If you can get past Nicholas Cage's lack of ability to actually emote anything (even as simple as fatherly love), this is a very good movie. It pays attention to history and Biblical teachings without being preachy. The ending is unexpected and yet foreshadowed earlier in the movie.
"Knowing" is a great movie that could have been a much bigger hit if it had been marketed right.

TV on DVD: Watching Lost...

2009-07-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

As Netflix subscribers and with a movie collection that boasts more than 600 titles, we watch a lot of movies around our house. But this weekend, and when the movie supply is low, the answer to entertainment is TV on DVD.
Most of the time, we prefer to buy shows that have run their course because of the frustration of watching everything released so far and then have to stop and wait for the show to catch up with some new episodes. It's one of the reasons we don't watch network television, or well any television that isn't pre-recorded. We're far too impatient.
Among our favorite television shows on DVD are Jericho and Jeremiah. We've watched Dead Like Me, House (most of the first four seasons), Eureka, Psych, Angel and Buffy. We enjoyed the first two seasons of Heroes and will start Season 3 now that we have finished with Lost. Firefly is on the agenda as is Supernatural.
But since March when we haven't been watching a movie, the entertainment of choice was Lost. I have a close friend who loves the show and bans her children from the room to watch it during the season. They're old enough that this isn't really cruel, just much needed mommy time.
I had heard her talk about the show from the beginning and while it was intriguing, I wasn't willing to wait breathelessly for each episode. Now, having watched the first four seasons, I'm glad I didn't get the addiction earlier.
I loved Lost. Sawyer and Sayid are my favorite characters, but there are so many other really good characterizations on the show that I am often impressed with the writers' abilities. Sometimes, I am disappointed too. I think after the first season the character of John Locke floundered a bit too much. I miss Charlie and love Desmond. I want to start watching Season 5 now since we finished Season 4 last night and I certainly don't want to wait until next May to see the series conclusion.
But, if you are like we were and have skipped the Lost addiction, it is well worth the time to watch the series from the beginning. If you start now, you might be caught up by the time the final season starts in the fall.

Back to the Movies--Fired up!

2009-07-03T11:13:00.001-07:00

Alrighty then, I had set this blog aside and decided not to bother with it until the ladies in my writing group insisted that I quit wussing out and actually start keeping up on my blog again.

My hubby and I watch movies...lots of movies and this will be the place that I discuss them and make recommendations regarding them.

Last night, the name of the game was "Fired Up" a semi-spoof of cheerleading movies in which the main characters, a couple of star football players, skip football camp to join up with the cheerleading team for the primary purpose of chasing women at the camp.

As is the way with all romantic comedies, there are lessons to learn and love to be gained, but what really makes this movie stand out is the writing. The actors are decent and the spoofing of cheerleading mvoies is great, but the thing that stands out in this movie is the dialogue.

The dialogue is witty and quick. The actors are funny and the mocking of "Bring it on!" is stupendous. And, for all its good work as a spoof movie, the athleticism that the movie depicts in cheerleading is pretty darn good. As a Netflix rental or for an adult movie night I'd definitely recommend it, but keep it away from kids unless you want to explain the concepts of hooking up and anal beads.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

2009-01-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

On a lark, last night, we decided it was time to head out to the movies.

Our local theater chain, Kerasotes, offers a five dollar admission price on most movies when they are in their third week of release or beyond. Operating under the theory that the special-effects in The Day the Earth Stood Still would be much more impressive and interesting on the big screen, we decided to spend the $10 and head to the movies.

While I am not as critical of Keanu Reeves as many people are, I do tend to find him rather wooden as an actor. However, this is one of those times that the choice of actor was appropriate to the role. The movie, which is a remake of an old black-and-white movie, is based on the principle that an alien sphere lands in Central Park.

The plot then revolves around the American government reaction, the reaction to similar landings around the world, and a group of scientists who are brought together to study the event. Jennifer Connelly plays Helen, the microbiologist and main proponent of peaceable coexistence with the alien.

Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, plays Helen's stepson Jacob. Jacob has lost both of his parents, including losing his soldier father presumably in the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. Jacob is convinced that if his father were still alive, his father would repel the alien invasion.

Unfortunately, perhaps because it was the intent of the producers or perhaps because it's the way the movie was originally written, the movie beats you over the head with its message that the human race is violent and must change its ways.

The acting in the movie is solid, if unremarkable, and the special effects are certainly worth seeing. The movie left me with neither the desire to run right out and own it, nor the feeling that I had wasted my time in watching it. It's simply okay.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

2009-01-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when you buy random movies because they're on sale for four dollars apiece, you are pleasantly surprised. That's exactly what happened last night when we chose to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and old Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. movie that is about three years old.

The basic premise of the movie, which is narrated by Robert Downey Jr., is that Harry, an East Coast thug, has been brought to California for a screen test but one of the hottest producers in Hollywood. Harry arrived at at the tryouts when the burglary he was a part of when bad and he was running from the police.
In the introduction to the movie, we discover that Kilmer is playing a gay private detective who also acts as a consultant on the film. After Hollywood party where we meet all the main characters, Kilmer's character informs Harry that they will be working together in the next day so that Harry can learn what the real life of a private eye is like.
At the party we also meet Harmony, to whom Harry is instantly attracted to and protective of. Shortly thereafter, we discover that Harmony is the girl from high school that Harry could never forget.
What follows is a comedy of murder and mystery with romance and hilarity thrown in. We picked up this movie for about 4 dollars during the holiday sales at the local big box store. Mostly we picked it up because of the actors as we are fans of both Kilmer and Downey. Most of the time, these random choices lead to very bad movies. This time we were pleasantly surprised otherwise.

Resident Evil: Degeneration

2009-01-04T18:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I admit it. I generally have found that most of the videogame movies made are tolerable. Recently though with the improving animation style, I have found that I am enjoying these movies more and more.

Case in point, Resident Evil: Degeneration. Unlike the three live action resident evil movies, this movie relies on spectacular Japanese animation to make the movie, not Milla Jovovich. The story begins with heroine Claire Redfield arriving to visit friends in the same airport that an important senator who supports research on a vaccine for the T. virus.

When a plane full of the walking dead crashes into the airport terminal, Claire and the senator are among the survivors that take refuge in a VIP lounge while waiting for rescue. Leon, the hero of Resident Evil 4, is the leader of the rescue party that comes to save Claire and the senator.
Claire has been a part of an activist group fighting against additional research into the T. virus while Leon has been employed by the government to fight outbreaks theoretically caused by international terrorism.
The story in this movie is somewhat lackluster. The scripts needed work. The dialogue is choppy and unbelievable and the story is completely predictable. However, none of those things are unexpected when dealing with the videogame movie.
What makes this movie worth seeing is the animation. While the story is a fun romp, and somewhat entertaining, the animation steals the show. There were several points within the movie when the animation is so well detailed that until a close-up of a person is shown it is difficult to believe it is animation and not live-action.
After the tragedy that was Resident Evil: Extinction, this movie was both a joy to watch and hope for the future of the franchise.

Flu Birds Not The Movie I Hoped For

2009-01-03T10:04:00.000-08:00

When I saw the movie "Flu Birds" on the shelf at the video store, I was hoping for a pseduo post-apocalyptic movie or at the very least an "Outbreak"-style movie about the bird flu and pandemic.
What I got was a monster/slasher movie with mostly bad acting and formulaic characters. The movie starts with a pair of hunters entering the woods to go deer hunting and one of them being attacked by pteradactyl-looking large, but not giant, birds. Much later in the movie when a park ranger sees them, he claims they are probably derivatives of the condor family of birds.
I objected to his use of the word derivative and thought his assessment, based on seeing one of them soar behind his vehicle at high rates of speed, was unbelievable at best, but well so was the entire movie.
After the scene with the hunters, we encounter a group of juvenile offenders brought to the woods as part of their rehabilitation program. Again, the group is largely stereotypes pretending to be characters. There's the tough girl who did wrong but has a good heart, the sexy bad boy, the brainless tramp, a suburban gangster wannabe, and the pothead.
A couple of the early victims don't even warrant that much characterization. Shortly after they are introduced, one of them is attacked and the camp counselor is killed while screaming for them to run away. Shortly thereafter the park ranger finds the one hunter who survived the encounter with the birds, but the hunter is unconscious and cannot talk about what attacked him.
Through badly done medical scenes, we learn that he was attacked by a bird (duh!) and has contracted a mutated, severe strain of the avian (bird) flu. The "doctors" call in the Centers for Disease Control and offer an oratory on the fact that the bird flu has never been seen on this continent, much less in a mutated form.
The movie just goes downhill from there. The CDC officials that arrive are poorly-trained commandos in black SWAT-esque gear and rebreathers. The infection control procedures in the hospital where the first victim is taken are non-existence and the CDC lets two people who have been in contact with the disease leave to go try to rescue the kids in the woods.
The end is predictable and the foreshadowing is poorly done. There is some satisfaction that the truly evil (most of them) get what they deserve, but some people survive that according to the rules of horror films shouldn't have.
And, there are truly bad editing mistakes. At one point, the tramp and the bad boy are making out (the most sex the movie offers) and we see her take down the straps of her tank top. In the very next scene when the monsters attack, her shirt is fully in place with no sign that she had to put it back on.
While this was not as bad as some movies I've seen, like "Absolute Zero" or as bad as ones I've had to turn off midway through, this is not a movie I'd ever recommend. And, for Dawn, this is definitely not a horror movie to watch. My friend Dawn has a problem with birds and is especially terrified when birds attack the eyes. This movie would definitely make her squirm.

Eagle Eye: Paranoia Anyone?

2009-01-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

If you believe the film "Eagle Eye", Big Brother really is watching and can control every aspect of the interconenected world with just a flip of the switch.
In this Steven Spielberg produced flick, Shia LaBeouf plays a Copy Cabana employee suddenly framed for terrorism and Michelle Monaghan gets pulled into a caper to rescue Shia's character Jerry from the FBI and accompany him on a mission across half the eastern United States. Along the way they encounter computerized control of everything imagineable from the elevated trains in Chicago to national security computers. And, of course, there is the amazingly destructive new weapon they encounter and more.
In many ways, it is a typical spy flick with some nice twists in the plot to keep the audience wondering, for about half the movie, who the bad guy, or this case bad girl, on the telephone might be. The answer is revealed to the audience, and the main characters simultaneously about halfway through the movie and then the writers are a bit slower to reveal why she's gone bad and what exactly she might be up to.
It's not a bad movie for action sequences and the story line, but somewhere along the line whether it was in the screen play and the need for car chases and flashy special effects or in the original story line, things go awry.
Early in the movie, dozens of Chicago police officers are killed in a car chase and later dozens of innocent bystanders are killed in a confrontation between the bad guy and our heroes. While I am not opposed to killing in movies (hey, I like horror movies), the gratuitious body count in this movie is ridiculous.
While Speilberg does not Nuke the Fridge quite as literally as he did in his last project with Shia, Eagle Eye definitely suffers from too many special effects and too much effort to show us the dangers of Big Brother. The suspension of disbelief can only go so far.
For any long term movie fans, comparisons to the 1980s movie "War Games" abound and sadly, "War Games" works a little better.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2009-01-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, so the rest of the world saw this when it was new back in July. Sometimes, I'm a little slow. My BFF Dawn brought this with her while visiting for New Year's so that I could see. We are both huge Joss Whedon fans though I am more of the Buffy and Angel variety while she loves all things Serenity and Firefly.
My hubby prefers Joss's comic book writing.
Regardless, we are all fans.
So, sitting around watching Dr. Horrible was part of the planned activities for the visit and then it was an unplanned part of our New Year's Eve Party. Some of the guests hadn't seen it, so it played in one room while the rest of us played Munchkin Quest in the other room.
Having seen it, we all had our favorite lines. Some of the boys are very fond of Nathan Fillion's adlibbed line about his penis being his hammer. Personally, I love the line "Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool".
For the one or two people in the world who like me missed the blog the first time around, the short film (42 minutes) is done as a video blog entry for Dr. Horrible, aka Neil Patrick Harris. who knew he could sing?
His arch nemesis is Fillion's Captain Hammer and they are competing for the love of a girl named Penny.
The project was created during the 2007 writer's strike in Hollywood when Whedon and his brothers wanted to do something, but didn't want to violate the terms of the strike. Fans of Whedon will love the project, especially those who enjoyed the Buffy the Vamptire Slayer episode "Once More With Feeling".
Whedon and his brothers prove that they love to play with sarcasm in a song and in multi-part harmony. The feeling of the short film is very similar to the tongue in cheek attitude of the Buffy episode and once again Whedon manages to make actors and actresses sing and do it convincingly. Fillion's Captain Hammer is the least adept at singing, but the style fits the overinflated ego of the superhero perfectly.
The only disappointing portion of this video is how excruciatingly difficult the easter eggs are to find and access. Since we generally use a PS2 for movie viewing, we could not comply with convulted instructions to reach the easter eggs. Worse yet, one of them requires finding a sport where an ISBN for a Mariah Carey cd is mentioned and then entering the easter egg via a mention of Mariah Carey in the commentary. Way to convoluted to be worthwhile.
However, the video application for entry into the Evil League of Evil and the sing-along commentary are definitely worth a peek.

"The Spirit" An Adult Fairy Tale

2008-12-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

Last night, we went to see The Spirit and though the film style is reminiscent of Sin City, I would not recommend that people see this thinking it will be like anything else by Frank Miller.
As this is his directoral debut, there are some problems with the directing, but nothing that can't be overlooked.
Arthur the Cat is adorable and so if Muffin, the puppet cat.
For those unfamiliar, The Spirit is based on an old graphic novel by Will Eisner. Eisner is a classic of the golden age of comics, where the good guys are always good and noble and the bad guys are kinda stupid. As long as you expect that going in, then you won't be disappointed.
The movie is a bit hokey. No one actually acts or talks like that. And, it's a weird world with 1930s-era vehicles and buildings, but cell phones too.
Samuel L. Jackson plays The Octopus, the main villain in this romp. He is obsessed with immortality and eggs. The later is a running gag through the film and pretty funny.
Eva Mendes is a psuedo-villain in the piece and also one of The Spirit's love interests. For people obsessed with this lovely lady, she is terribly hot in the black lace number near the film's finale.
The short synopsis of the movie is that The Spirit is a masked super hero that guards Central City from evil-doers like The Octopus. The movie is basically his creation myth and as superhero movies go, it follows some good rules. There is only one main villain. It's quippy. The action scenes are short and comic book funny too.
The problem with this film is that it will be unfairly compared to Miller's huge hits "300" and "Sin City", most specifically the later because it is filmed largely in black and white with spot color--a little bit of blue and a little bit of red.
The comparison is unfair as this is a much older story and targets a very different audience. If you don't mind a bit of hokey and a fairy tale for adults, this is a fun movie.

Burn Before Seeing

2008-12-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'll preface this with the fact that I am not a big George Clooney or Brad Pitt fan. Still, "Burn after Reading" ranks right up there with "Napoleon Dynamite" on the list of movies that I've seen and wish I could steal my time back. I could sleep or play tiddleywinks and it would have been more productive.
Th concept is that this movie is supposed to be a farce about the intelligence industry, specifically the CIA, and about life in Washington D.C. What it taught me is that everyone in D.C. sleeps around, no one has any moral values and that the bad guys win in the end.
It is also showed me that clooney, who I still don't like, can at least make fun of himself as the sleep with everyone in sight Treasury agent and that Brad Pitt was very poorly cast in this movie. Pitt's a little too old to play the self-absorbed gym rat with any believability.
This movie had a cast that should ahve made it a hit. John Malkovich was wasted in his role. It's not that he wasn't excellent, he was. But the movie around him sucked rocks.
I compare it to "Napolean Dynamite" because both movies kept me watching under the pretense that it would eventually get better and I would car about at least one of the characters. It never did.
Frances McDermand is believable as a 40-something plastic surgery obsessed woman using online dating to get laid and in hopes of finding love. I suppose the fact that every man she hooked up with was married was supposed to be social commentary. It came across as pathetic.
Tilda Swinton, whom I adore as an actress, plays Malkovich's cold-hearted beast of a wife. Again, believable portrayal, but the story fell flat.
I want movies that make me love the characters or hate them and then give me some sort of satisfaction at the end. This failed on all accounts. Most of the characters were unlikeable, but not bad enough to hate. No one got what they deserved...ever.
I see enough of that in real life. The bad guys/girls got away with everything from murder to high treason and the "good guys" such as they were got murdered/put in a coma.
Worse yet, the movie dragged on for what seemed like forever.
The fact that this movie got nominated for two Golden Globe awards speaks volumes about the lack of quality in the industry and the nature of the politics of Hollywood. Hopefully, "Burn After Reading" will be shut out at the awards show, as it richly deserves.

Hello and Welcome!

2008-11-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

I realized recently that I watch a lot of movies. Too many in fact. I own two years of the 8 movies to die for and the recent collection of 8 Ghost House movies released for Halloween.

We are truly frequent buyers when it comes to the local Best Buy and virtually every night, there is a movie of some sort on our television. Between Netflix, Starz and a personal collection of about 500 movies, I am rarely lacking for something to watch.

In addition, I also have eclectic tastes, owning everything from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Ratatouille. So, I decided to start this blog about movies. Mostly, it will be about reviews of movies that I have seen recently, but I will also on occasion drift back in time to revisit old favorites or I might venture out to the web and find out the news of the day on upcoming projects.

Most often, the things that you will find here will be horror. It's a household favorite. But few things are skipped over completely.

Last night, the film of the day was "A Mighty Heart" with Angelina Jolie. Now, to be honest, I like Angelina Jolie. From Beowulf to Hackers, she is one of my favorite actresses. I liked Wanted.

I didn't particularly like her in this movie. Jolie plays Mariane Pearl, wife of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl kidnapped and beheaded in Pakistan just after the war in Afghanistan began.

The story is interesting, but Jolie cannot hold the French accent of Mariane Pearl. I thought she did a great job of reflecting the sort of stiff upper lip that Mariane exhibited through most of the crisis, but the accent and lack of it were distracting.

The real problem with the movie is that it slips between English and Urdu randomly and without subtitles. We didn't want to leave the subtitles on during the English sequences, but had to in order to avoid missing parts of the Urdu. And, well, we knew how it ends.

Although I am sure Jolie took this role to be considered a more serious actress, I think she has given better performances in more mainstream, but less acclaimed films. The film got a lot of attention because it was written by Mariane for her son, so that he would know how hard everyone searched for his father and how much his father stood by his principles.

As a good look at international cooperative efforts and the attacks on journalists across the world, this is a great film, but for pure enjoyment, skip it.