Coraline Captures Imagination

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

"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...

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!

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

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

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

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.