Recently in Movies Category
I feel like I've done this list before, but I can't find it and since D9 was such a flop, I thought I would suggest some alternatives (this list is in order).
10. Hot Fuzz
9. Rambo: First Blood Part II
8. Aliens
7. Enter the Dragon
6. Predator
5. The Matrix
4. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. The Bourne Identity
2. Terminator 2
1. Die Hard
Last night, I finally saw District 9. I had been waiting to see it since the beginning of the summer, but I just never got the time to go to the theater. So I put it at the top of my Netflix queue about a month ago, and I received it in the mail yesterday--the first day of its DVD release.
I had been excited because the movie had gotten such high reviews from just about every source I read (Yahoo! movies- A-/B+, Rotten Tomatoes- 90%, Metacritic- 81/100), and the trailer and premise were interesting.
Now, after watching the movie, I am baffled by how bad it was. If you plan to see it and you care about possible spoilers, stop reading. But I would just say you should skip it and spend your time doing something more worthwhile.
Basically, the script is poor, the directing is bad, and the fake documentary style doesn't work. The worst defect of the movie, though, is that it bills itself as having been inspired by the conditions and events in South Africa's District Six, while portraying the aliens almost universally as unintelligent, animalistic, expendable, flat, and undeserving of the viewers' sympathy.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing about this (even though I strongly feel that the overwhelming praise for the film deserves a well-developed response), so here are just a few of my suggestions to the filmmakers for when they start on the inevitable sequel:
- if alien technology/guns are entwined with alien biology to the point that you need alien DNA to operate them, then please use creative artistic design to come up with props that appeal to our imagination and are new and different rather than digging up old Robocop memorabilia and asking us to accept that an alien trigger can't be pulled by a human finger.
- When the evil corporation's ruthless CEOs are weighing whether to murder and harvest body parts from the main character, perhaps they could do it somewhere other than next to the operating table where the main character is strapped, and where they will soon attempt to cut out his heart without sedation/anesthesia. Also, it would be nice to see some debate beyond a flippant "let's do it."
- When basing the experience of an alien species on the real experience of a tragically oppressed group of actual humans, don't portray 99% of the aliens negatively, and don't make the agent of the oppressive government the hero.
- Shootouts and roid-rage bad guy meatheads have been done before (and better), so give us a better enemy to fight.
- Action and sci-fi are ok; action and sci-fi + believable emotional responses, moral/ethical complexity, and well-developed relationships between characters = better.
Brian challenged his readers to post a "best movies of the decade list," so here's mine. Obviously, this is not a top ten (there are 15 + 1 movies here) and this does not represent anything about how well-made (or not well-made) these films are because I don't know anything about that. This is simply a list of movies that come to mind when I ask myself "what movies from the 00s would I recommend to a friend with similar taste?" I'm also listing these not in the order of best to worst, but in the order I would tell someone to watch them if they had not seen any of them. And BTW, Christian Bale must win Best Actor, because he's the lead in 3 of these.
15 Movies of the 00s:
Bourne Identity
Zoolander
The Departed
Fellowship of the Rings
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Ring
Hot Fuzz
Terminator: Salvation
3:10 to Yuma
Beautiful Mind
The Village
About a Boy
Stardust
The Prestige
Hotel Rwanda
Bonus: The Top Movie I Wish I Had Seen in the 00s:
District 9
While Brooklynne was away, I loaded up the Netflix queue with "guy" movies. I'm feeling pretty tired and uninspired, so here's a list of movies and a grade just to keep my momentum.
Shaolin Soccer: B+
Be Kind Rewind: D-
Hot Fuzz: A
Alien: B+
Aliens: B+
Shaun of the Dead: B
Donnie Darko: C-
1408: D+
Out Cold: B+
Waterworld: B-
THX 1138: C
Man on Wire: B-
Hot Fuzz was an unexpected surprise, and if you love kung fu movies, Shaolin Soccer is a fun take on that genre. Donnie Darko came highly recommended, but I was not impressed. If you know me well, then you know that party movies are a guilty pleasure of mine, so don't give me grief about Out Cold.
When I have more time, I'll do a full review of Benjamin Button and Up, both of which deserve more than a simple letter grade.
PG-13, 1h 58m
Critics: C-
Miles: C+
Brooklynne: C
Brooklynne and I watched G.I. Joe last night. Brooklynne saw it while she was in Utah, so it was nothing new to her, but I was seeing it for the first time. All in all, it was a fine summer flick, which was entertaining, especially if you checked your expectations at the door, but it was only a mediocre adaptation from the cartoons that I grew up with and the potential for a really good action movie was mostly wasted.
I guess most of you would say, "what did you expect from a movie whose main purpose is to boost toy sales?" but I'm going to share my two main gripes anyway. First, the action and special effects were really cartoonish. That's not my issue. That would have been fine, and the movie could have been great by hailing back to its cartoon roots. But the cartoony action made the movie seem like a kid movie, which clashed with the ramped up violence compared to the animated series. In the original series, people didn't die (or very rarely at least). Things blew up and the bad guys ran away in a rain of bullets, but people's heads did not explode, people weren't run through with knives and stuff, and there wasn't an explicit disregard for human life. My suggestion to filmmakers is to go one way or the other. A realistic, violent, shoot 'em up would have been great for an adult audience, and a cartoonish, mild action movie for younger kids would have been fun. But a mix of the two seems both uncomfortably violent for the young kids it seems designed to appeal to, and annoyingly lame excuse for a more mature action movie.
Secondly (and perhaps predictably), the writers murdered the characters of the original. While Sienna Miller plays a great Baroness, her relationship with Duke is an affront to boys who grew up loving the series. Everyone knows that the Baroness is Destro's woman. Destro, on the other hand, comes off as weak character and incapable of being a convincing partner for the Baroness, which ruins any potential future for those characters in the inevitable sequels.
Duke's character was alright, as well as Ripcord, although the banter between Ripcord and Scarlet was lacking something. The pacing was good--you never felt like the story was bogged down in details. And the Zartan character did lend the audience something to be curious about in the next installment.
So there you have it... enjoyable movie, but far far from great, and not a movie that will satisfy your old G.I. Joe nostalgia. Did anyone else see it? Thoughts?
Michael Clayton
R, 120 mins
Critics: A-
Miles: B
This is a pretty good movie, but it is very slow moving and although Clayton is a complex character, the movie only digs skin deep.
Made of Honor
PG-13, 101 mins.
Critics: C
Miles: C
Classic, predictable chic flick that is mildly entertaining, but not enough to keep me from playing with Halleigh during key moments instead of paying attention. The 2 main characters got above par performances from the actors.
Definately, Maybe
PG-13, 111 mins.
Critics: B-
Miles: C
See the review for Made of Honor above, minus the good acting comments. It does get some bonus points for its funny take on campaign nerds.
What Happens in Vegas
PG-13, 98 mins.
Critics: C
Miles: B-
This was funnier than expected. I've gotten tired of the really stupid movies that are more ridiculous than clever, and this one was borderline, but maybe a little smarter than some others.
Star Trek Nemisis
PG-13, 117 mins.
Critics: B-
Miles: B-
I like the good Star Treks, but this one was incredibly average. It could have done alot more with the evil clone plot, but instead, the movie was like a really long television episode.
In other movie news....
Don't forget about the Last Mondays Film Festival, which resumes tonight. The movie starts at 8:30pm. Just show up, or call me for details if you want to come. I think we've got drinks and some popcorn, but if you want more than that you'll have to bring it.
Also, perhaps even better than seeing The Dark Kinght last night, I loved seeing the trailer for the new Terminator movie due out next summer. I had heard the franchise had been sold to a company that planned to reinvent the series, but I didn't realize it would happen so fast. They have planned a trilogy, the first of which takes place in 2018 (between the end of T3, late 1990s, and the earliest views of the future included in T1, 2029). Oddly enough, it stars Christian Bale (Batman) as John Connor and is written by the same guy who wrote the screenplay for The Dark Knight, which may be fitting given the Batman film's reputation for darkness, and the probable mood of a movie detailing how machines drive humans to the brink of extinction. Other notable characters will be Kyle Reese, played by Anton Yelchin, and Kate Connor, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who is better known as Ivy Walker of The Village. Word is that the governor of CA may make a cameo. You can see the trailer here.
I went to see The Dark Knight last night, and I would be failing in my duties as prima blogger if I did not give some thoughts, so here they are in a nutshell.
The Dark Knight
PG-13
Critics: A-
Miles: B
First off, let me say that this is a good, solidly entertaining movie that is probably worth $9 at the theater. Still, I'm not planning to watch it again or go out and buy it for my collection. Here are the 3 things that everyone is saying about the movie and my responses: 1) the movie has a very dark tone or mood. I agree that this is more dark than previous Batman films, but it is not overly dark. To give you an idea I would mark this as lighter than 12 Monkey's (one of my personal favorites), but darker than Empire Strikes Back. 2) the movie is long. It is quite long, and there is a point with about an hour left, when I thought it was winding down, but then it picked up again. But really, the movie was entertaining enough to keep me interested, and so I didn't notice it being longer than the typical flick. 3) Heath Ledger's performance was great. Yes, the mood of the movie is carried by Ledger's Joker, and Heath broken new ground by making the Joker more of a true psychopath and less of a cartoonish boogie man. But still, I think I would rank Ledger's Joker well behind several of the other great movie villains of our generation, including Darth Vader, the T-1000, Hannibal Lechter, and even Agent Smith. Where would you guys rank the Joker? I guess I would summarize this review by saying that this was a good summer movie but it misses where all summer action flicks miss--by not developing the deeper human dimensions. They could have done so much more with Harvey Dent. The film glossed over the choices people made regarding doing the right thing in desperate times. And the provocative allusions to privacy vs. power in the face of terrorism are just swept under the rug. Perhaps The Dark Knight wasn't trying to do those things, which is fine, but that places a self-imposed ceiling on its greatness.
This is just a friendly reminder that the Last Mondays Film Festival will continue next Monday at 8:30pm. The movie is 72 minutes, so if we start promptly, any sleepy-heads among us can be in bed by 10. Kids are welcome to join us, but if you would rather have a night off and need a sitter, start lining one up now.
Also, the first Errol Morris film got such poor reviews, we've decided to branch out. This month's showing will be Project Grizzly. See you there!
