Tag: review

The latest film version of Thurber’s short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, has nothing in common with the written word. It may have day dream sequences, but they are not like the ones in the story. Then after a bit, the day dreams go away and we are left with another movie whose sole purpose is to utter the banal line, “carpe diem.”

Yes, we know.

Walter Mitty is the analog curator at Life magazine as it transitions to the digital age of online internet. He receives the quintessence of Life magazine in a film negative, but loses it because he lacks reading comprehension or doesn’t put money in his wallet.

He also wants to flirt with a girl at work. He does say hi and they do start connecting and then you wonder how they did connect.

I wish this was a better movie, but it wasn’t. It was Ben Stiller putting on his indie director mood similar to how he became Simple Jack. Lots of weirdness. Could’ve been funnier. May become another hit on Comedy Central.

3 of 5 stars.

Frozen, the latest Disney animated film and not how I feel in the morning as I get into my car. Perhaps I’m not the right audience for the film, because it didn’t impress me like it did the many, many movie-goers who made it tops at the box office this past weekend. I guess I’m not a 10 year old girl or have the soul of a kid because I actually didn’t know what was so special — I mean, come on, it’s Tangled in the snow.

Frozen features 2 princesses of an unnamed northern European city-state. When they were young, the eldest exhibited Iceman-like powers and hurt her younger sister. She’s was told to suppress them so as she gets older she doesn’t know how to control them. When it came time for her to ascend to the throne, the sisters get into a fight which plunges the city-state into a deep winter. The princesses must make up, the queen rein in her power and be regal, and the younger princess must reconcile and help heal the rift between the two.

And there was a magical snowman, a puppy-like reindeer, and an oaf. There was also villains.

This could’ve been something neat if more of the relationship between the sisters was explored. If it tried to deal with the princesses like Pixar’s Brave did. The conflict seemed too superficial.

There was also way too much singing.

3 of 5 stars.

I received a text message from Cousin Bob saying that Bill Murray was an awesome guy. Seems he’s doing makeup for the Untitled Cameron Crowe movie filming out in Hawaii. Sounds pretty much fun meeting movie stars, etc., etc. Cousin Bob also says he’s working with Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, and the sweety Rachel McAdams.

Wait! Rachel McAdams? Why didn’t you say so? I just saw her in Richard Curtis’s droll science fiction, romantic comedy, About Time. It was only because she was in it that I went to see the movie. I think I would go see her read the phone book.

About Time is about a lanky ginger who finds out that he has the gift of time travel. He gets to go back in time to any point in his life. Of course, he uses it to find the love of Rachel McAdams.

Their meet cute was decent. He loses her, because he changes his timeline on the day he fell in love with her. Then he waits to meet her again, woo her, and make her his. The time traveling helps for the first kiss, first date, first sodding, first wedding.

Then the film turns away from rom-com and becomes a study of living life to the fullest. The guy’s father dies, and he uses time traveling to revisit him until complications with the time line forces him to leave his father forever. That’s a scene that teared me up a little thinking about my own father.

I came for Rachel McAdams, but found a wonderful film to while away a lazy Sunday afternoon.

3 of 5 stars.

Thor: The Dark World is a continuation of Loki’s story in the first Thor and in The Avengers. It does include Thor, the god of thunder, but the more interesting character is Loki. And we don’t see much of him until the final third of the film. The early parts had him locked in the prison he was sentenced to at the end of The Avengers. Once freed, the Trickster does his thing: tricks his way to the throne of Asgard. What does it mean for the rest of the Marvel Movie Universe and for the Thor franchise?

The Dark World is very similar to this summer’s Superman, The Man of Steel. A once banished villain, the dark elf, Malikith, wants to return and bring ruin on the son of the man that put him away. To do that he must threaten all the worlds of Yggdrasil, Asgard, Midgard, the Giant land, the dwarven home, and to do that he must do it in Greenwich, England. Thor is there to stop him along with his love and their wacky science team.

Can I say that it got kind of funny in the middle of things with the wacky science team. It’s weird, because it was not grim. There’s always a little bit of laughter in Midgard.

3 of 5 stars.

Went to see Ridely Scott’s latest, The Counselor, because it was filmed in Monte Pego. (Pego! Pego! Monte Pego!) It’s another fast and loose film about drug deals gone awry. Boring stuff. I’ll forget this in a month.

3 of 5 stars.

I’m not sure how to approach reviewing Ender’s Game. I should treat it as a movie, but there’s the book. It’s been twenty years since I was steady reading science fiction novels, and Ender’s Game was a favorite from that time. And it’s a good read, a very good read. It’s got that battle school thing going for it. Imagine Hogwart’s but like a first-person shooter. It was the best part of the book, and it showed that how good a tactition Ender Wiggins was. Of course, this was barely shown in the movie, and that’s what’s wrong with the movie. It can’t do the book justice.

It zooms through the more interesting things, gives a few glimpses of the intrigue of the aftermath, and talks, talks, talks, about how good Ender Wiggins is. Show don’t talk. Show.

Read the book. Don’t watch the movie.

2 of 5 stars.

Escape Plan featured Arnold and Stallone. It comes twenty years too late in either of their careers. They are no longer the action movie heroes. They are old guys in a really obvious movies. As soon as the caper is afoot, you’ll know who’s behind it all.

Stallone is jailbreak artist whose job is to find the holes in the security of seemingly un-breakable prisons. He signs up for testing a secret-secret CIA prison, but finds out that he’s been put away for forever. There he meets Arnold who’s been put away on false pretenses or so we are led to believe. Why are they there? Can they get out? What’s the deal with this prison?

It is senseless movie meant to fill a Saturday afternoon. Forget it already except when it shows up on USA network.

2 of 5 stars.

Watching Enough Said and you start seeing Julia Louis-Dreyfus as her Elaine character from Seinfeld. As the movie continues, you start to see that it could almost be another episode of Seinfeld.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva a masseuse who gets involved with a new client’s ex-husband. She doesn’t tell her or him that she knows the other. It’s like a plot from Seinfeld.

It was a nice little film with a woman’s role that perfectly suited Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It also had one of James Gandolfini’s last roles. He’s wonderful in it. They dedicated it to his memory at the end. Sad to think that he’s dead. Life moves on not like a plot from a television show.

3 of 5 stars.