Sunday, June 04, 2006 , 6:05 AM
Napoleon Dynamite
Very unique, and hilarious. Absolutely loved the two lead characters, eternally frustrated Napoleon and his well mannered Mexican friend Pedro. Especially the way they talked. The dialogue rocked too:
Deb What are you drawing?
Napoleon Dynamite A liger.
Deb What's a liger?
Napoleon Dynamite It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic.
LOL
That being said, why was there not a clearer plot? Napoleon had no real goal in this movie which made it drag in some areas. The Pedro being class president plot was only established two thirds of the way in.
6/10
, 5:11 AM
X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Even though some critics have hailed X-men 2 as the greatest comic book movie of all time, I was never a big fan of the X-Men series. The movies don't feel like movies, they feel like Season 2, EP 16 of a Sci fi TV show: i.e. a multitude of story arcs developing, with no punch.
Considering this, like TV shows, X-men 3 actually had a dramatic advantage, by ending arcs that people have been dying to see played out not just the entire movie, but for the entire series.
And that's precisely what makes this movie by far the worst of the three: these story arcs were finished in the most unsatisfying and undramatic ways. Consider the following: (Warning spoilers)
1) The love triangle between Wolverine-Cyclops-Jean Grey. (ends with: controntation? a decision? nope, one dies. Yay!)
2) Xaiver vs. Magneto (ends with: again no big confrontation/fight, Xaiver instead killed by JEAN ugh)
4) Iceman vs. Fireguy (ends with: a comical head butt!)
Instead of paying attention to fully realizing these arcs, we are given an extra dose of action (Ratner's speciality), and some useless new story arcs. (How pointless was Angel, seriously?)
However, speical mention must be given to the effects, which highlight some truly creative scenes, including one where a house is ripped into the air. It makes this movie worth seeing on the big screren.
5/10
Saturday, April 01, 2006 , 5:32 PM
Crash
A lot of people were telling me this movie was crap and didn't deserve the Oscar it got, so I was very interested to see it for myself.
My verdict? Yes, it wasn't subtle, it was contrived and the racism was exaggerated. It also may have had too many characters and stories, and was unable to develop all of them throughly, (some of the plot lines even felt unfinished at the end.) But what it so obviously set out to do it accomplished well. It got us thinking about how we judge people based on race, and did so through the eyes of interesting characters and stories.
Most interesting was the Ludacris character, a black man paranoid about the judgements made on his own race, but was perpetuating the stereotype himself. And Officer Hanson (Ryan Philippe), a cop who fought for equality, but didn't realize the racism was in him all along.
Come to think of it, a lot of us are unconsciously racist in some way. We don't believe or realize that we are until we put it in action.
The tough question is how much can we blame people like that? We deal with so many people in our day to day life, we don't have the TIME to get to know what a person is really like. The truth is by necessity, we make assumptions to help us interact, and these are largely based on first impressions, appearance, and sadly race. As portrayed by the movie, when those judgements are applied to a life threatening situation, they can be devestating.
Anyway, to sum it up, still didn't deserve to win, but it wasn't a bad movie!
7/10
Friday, March 31, 2006 , 8:48 PM
Pride and Prejudice
Ok firstly: I saw this movie ONLY because others were watching it, and I just happened to be in the room. That said, it wasn't all that bad, and brought back happy memories from when I read the book. Ok secondly: I read it ONLY because I was forced to as part of the Year 11
English ciriculum. Ok, glad that's clarified!
Great performances by Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen who fit their roles very well, as feisty Elizabeth and the mysterious Mr. Darcy. They had enormous chemistry and their attraction and tension rightly carried the whole movie. I mean, they didn't even kiss once, but you could feel the love.
One thing I did find strange was, throughout the film, they had these random close up shots of Darcy's hand for no apparent reason. Why??? I mean it was a very nice smooth hand and all. It might've even been digitally enhanced which would explain why they didn't have the budget for the wedding at the end. But what was the significance? He's HANDsome? He wants Lizzie's HAND in marriage? Someone please explain it to me.
Also, guys who watch this might find the giggle-squeals of mother/younger Benett's a tad annoying. I found them, although at times humourous, barely tolerable. I guess they're meant to be that way. But all and all Pride and Prejudice is a classic tale of romance, and that's the reason why people keep producing versions of the damn thing. Hell...there's already been the Miniseries, Bridgett Jones, even the Bollywood version =shiver=.
6.5/10
Wednesday, February 08, 2006 , 2:35 AM
Brokeback Mountain
A thoroughly depressing and heartbreaking movie about how life sucks if you're gay and a cowboy in the 1960's. Trust me...I was still feeling it the next day. (Jacket Scene..I was like ok enough, make it stop!)
Beautiful scenery, and amazing performances from both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal... especially Heath for totally outdoing Ryan in the brooding/internalized pain arena. (Phaps a 'fishing' trip with Seth could recapture the angst)
I espeically loved the music... too many Oscar hopefuls resort to that over the top orchestral shit that so desperately try to make u feel that it instead comes off corny and manipulative. The guitar stuff they played in the movie was great: simple, and lonesome, complementing the ranch/outback setting of the film.
9/10
Friday, January 20, 2006 , 11:54 PM
Cheaper By the Dozen II
There's no pretending that this movie's not a product, manufactured to appeal to the widest possible audience. It's meant to be a comedy for everyone, including warm fuzzy moments for families, and the WB celebrities for the teens/young adults. Too bad the plot had to be so mediocre.
But who cares about that, I'll be honest: I went to see this movie to see celebrity singer Hilary Duff and Smallville star Tom Welling. And judging the movie on that aspect I was disappointed.
Tom was okay, but Hilary? Who the hell told her to stop eating? She used to have a childish beauty but now her cheeks are gone, she looks drained and SICK, and to be honest... at the ripe old age of eighteen... a little like an OLDER version of Kylie Monogue.
I even overheard this conversation while in the movie:
little girl: 'Mum, where's Hilary?'
mum: 'Isn't that her darling?'
little girl: 'Is't that a corpse?'
Even the camera avoided her fuglee face unless absolutely necessary. When she had lines, they filmed the BACK of her head... It makes you feel really sorry for her. Skeletor Duff and the absolute lack of any decent laughs, makes this movie worthy of the horror genre rather than comedy. I know I was scared.
2/10
Thursday, January 19, 2006 , 6:52 PM
The "Family" Stone
Contrived, contrived, contrived. This family felt more like a bunch of quirky sitcom characters thrown together in a room who just happen to share the same surname.
It's like the writer was trying to come up with interesting characters but all she could do was combine a couple of tired cliches.
What's an interesting character, mmm, someone whos gay, AND deaf...AND... oh has an African-American lover too, yeah throw in the interracial thing, thats interesting!
But wait...I don't know anything about REAL gay, deaf people or interracial relationships... or any of the other characters either.
Err...I know...I'll avoid the all the issues and any complexity in these people by including a LOT of them, reducing them to stereotypes, and giving em all rushed sub-plots, and rush the relationships as well...no one will notice then!
What bugs me about this movie is that show a snapshot of this family at Christmas and they don't EXPLAIN why or how they got to be so quirked up, and you're meant to guess why. So the writer either knows why but intended for us to guess, or they really hadnt thought about why.
3/10
