Link of the Day [1.02.08]
Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy is coming to the theatres as a CG film and not anime. I wonder if it will work?
Marley & Me
What’s so special about a dog? Marley & Me has the answer. Of course, all dogs in movies are special, and your dog is also special. Dogs in general are special except Cujo and that mutt of yours that shat and pissed everywhere in your house while tearing things up. Of course, that can also describe the adorable Marley.
It’s a movie of how a dog touched the lives of its owners as they grew from a couple to a family. You know how that works: meet cute, go over the good times, show the trouble with the dog, go over the bad times, the kids show up and overtake the dog, they grow up, they grow older, the dog grows older, the dog will die. Then the lights come up and the little girls behind you are sobbing their eyes out.
Dogs are special. This movie isn’t.
3 of 5 stars.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons
There’s a lot of fancy CG effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons. There’s the site of a Brad Pitt growing younger as he ages. There’s a riveting attack on a German U-boat. There’s a wonderful, old-timey gag on lightning strikes. And there is Cate Blanchett — young and old.
There was the CG effects, and it dominated every scene of the movie to a point that I had to think about what wasn’t real and was. Then I thought about how they pulled that off. Did they put Brad Pitt’s head on a kid? A midget? Or was he completely built up as a CG model like Neo in the later Matrix films. The most intriguing CG was the your Cate Blanchett. How did they graft her face on that body so seamlessly? Or did they digitally stretch and shape her to look young and svelte?
The effects really got in the way of the story. It was a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, but was mainly written and adapted by the guy who did Forest Gump. It shows. Benjamin Button seemed to go from one thing to the next just as Forest did. So the story was rather meager. It was filled with love, but was so boring.
And it was long. The problem was that Brad Pitt is in his 40s and when he reached the look of his natural age, the movie was already two hours old. We followed that dude to the grave and it felt like it.
It also had an unfortunate framing device of the old Cate in the hospital dying and her daughter (Julia Ormand!!!!) reading Benjamin’s diary in New Orleans as hurricane Katrina bears down on them. You get too worried about the present to enjoy the past. I’m hoping Julia Ormand made it out of New Orleans to safety.
Just not that good and intriguing. A disappointment from Fincher (!) whose last film was very, very good.
2 of 5 stars.
Quote of the Day [12.29.08]
“Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and I won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I’m sure you have a good reason to quit. So what are you dying from that’s keeping you from the finals?”
Lance Armstrong (Lance Armstrong), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
The Day the Earth Stood Still
All throughout The Day the Earth Stood Still you just know that Keanu Reeves is an emotionless alien and not just for the character he plays, but for his acting.
If there was one movie not worth remaking, it was the original, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It’s not that the original was a great movie not to be tinkered with, but that it’s message of peace, love and kindness among men can be told in hundreds of ways that something original can be created without rehashing the old. The original is a classic sci-fi film, and it has wonderful sci-fi elements. To update to now means to mash up sci-fi with the CG thriller action idioms that dominate Hollywood movies today. To update to now means to take those precious rhythms of the original story and flatten them to a monotone of contemporary dreariness. To update to now means to make a very forgettable film. The original was not.
In the original, the viewer was active in confronting the need for change. In the latest, the viewer is replaced by the plaintive wail of a character expressing that things can change. In the former, it is left to each one to devise whether change can happen. In the latter, the need for change is just another story moment. It is groveling which hurt the latest. That character seems to whine too much. In the original, we must change because we are confronted with the need to; we the viewer are asked to act. The latest makes us passive, and it makes us fools. No more whining about it.
2 of 5 stars.
Quote of the Day [12.28.08]
“Yipee ki-yi-yay, mother-“
John McClane (Bruce Willis), Die Hard (censored!)
Movie List 2008
I always compile this list before the end of the year. While looking over my posts of the movies I saw in the theatre, I was surprised that I had a lot of 2 stars even from the ones that were “good.” (I’m looking at you Dark Knight.) I’m also surprised that I saw very few movies. A rough estimate is about 60 this year whereas last year was probably around . I still a few reviews to post, but those films are just average or below. So here’s my list of 4+ star films.
- Slumdog Millionaire (4)
- Wall-E (4)
- Vertigo (5)
- Iron Man (4)
- Rebecca (4)
- There will be blood (5)
Click the link to read my review. Post your own list.
I’ve also noticed that my list is getting shorter. Either I am becoming a better judge of movies or I am becoming more finicky.
Four Christmases
The poster for Four Christmases features the stars, Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, bound up in ribbon. You wish that you were bound up yourself to help avoid seeing this movie.
It’s about a couple, living in sin, not married, because they can do what Sally said, “Make love on the kitchen floor,” whenever they want. What they want is to avoid their relatives for Christmas by jetting out to Fiji. Unfortunately, not all goes according to plan. They end up having to go to all their parents’ house to visit for the day.
The parents are each divorced, which means that the couple doesn’t want to get married because they’ll just end up as their parents. Of course, with Christmas they get a warm welcome and realize perhaps being just a couple isn’t so worth it. The movie re-establishes traditional family values of marriage and kids as the end all be all of a loving relationship. Who cares? You knew that was coming. The stories were never funny enough. There was plenty of star power. In fact I was pleasantly surprised to see the boy named Sue show up as a reunion for the Swingers dudes.
Eh! I just didn’t find this funny or worth it at all.
2 of 5 stars.
Me v. ImDB 250
Hey. Check this link out and see how many of imdb.com's 250 best films
you have seen. I think the first link is to my score to which you can
compare yourself to. I think the seed will take this one. And the
second link is a static link to reference my score again. If you're
feeling bold, post the static link to your score in comments, and we'll
all have a laugh.http://plutor.org/filmaddict/?f=ofiqf3p1 http://plutor.org/filmaddict/?u=ofiqf3p1&f=tqz87lfi
Slumdog Millionaire
I am a Slumdog Millionaire only because I know the answers to the questions you ask. I don’t know everything. I know enough from my experiences, and not enough from my lack of experience. I am street smart if not book smart. I am lucky that things that happened to me are things that are easily to remember: the worst outhouse in Mumbai, the religious riots, Fagin, the three mouseketeers, etc., etc. I use this too my advantage. If there was a wall with pictures on it, I would’ve used that too. I am smart that way. I am a slumdog millionaire, and I know that my answers are correct because I am loved.
So it was written.
4 of 5 stars.