Originality? At the Movies?

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Hanna

4.5/5 Stars

NOTE: I recently re-watched the movie and bumped up my review half a star.

Synopsis from The Internet Movie Database:

A 16-year-old who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.

To the 'post Scale' segment of my readers, I imagine some surprise at seeing a movie review on this page. In the beginning I actually did a lot of them, but in an effort to focus the content somewhat, I reduced their frequency. It's for this same reason that I never talk about my passion for hockey for example; I can't reasonably expect people to care about all the stupid things I'm interested in, and if I want people to read this ridiculous blog, I better pare down the subject matter to a few key areas of interest.

But after seeing Hanna last night, I just can't help myself. While it's not even the best movie I've seen in the past year, it managed to accomplish something fewer and fewer films seem capable of doing lately; even the day after, I'm still thinking about it.

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Tagged Movies Review

The Bait and Switch Project

The Last Exorcism
3 out of 5 stars

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What exactly is a bait and switch?  It's a scam where a customer is lured in to a store by a product or price that's almost too good to be true.  When he then arrives to pick up the miracle do-dad, he discovers that it's no longer available — although some other similar product is at a higher price.  You've probably all encountered it in the retail world, even if you didn't realize that you were being had.  It's not technically illegal in it's most innocuous forms, but it does serve to get people onto the sales floor long enough to make a pitch.  Even if the customer ends up falling for the scam and settling for the alternative product, nothing can erase the memory of that once-promised great deal.

That's just how I feel after seeing The Last Exorcism, Hollywood's latest attempt at reviving the fading horror genre.  

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Tagged Blair Witch Creativity Devil Exorcism Film Horror Last Exorcism Movies Originality Religion Review Script

If Your Time is Expendable, Watch this Movie

2.5 out of 5 stars
The-expendables-poster1

Haven't done a movie review in a real long time, and when I do it's always for something I liked, so here's to breaking the mold. (copied and pasted out of Flixster, which is why it's so short) 

The last third of this movie was a true 80's action romp, the likes of which is missing from the modern movie landscape. Loved it.

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Tagged 80s Action Bad Cast Ensemble Movies Review Stallone Violence

The Last Career Ender

Last_airbender_movie
2.5 out of 5 stars

When I first saw the trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's Last Airbender I was admittedly intrigued.  Even though his last few movies were spectacularly bad, and the ones preceding those showed a steady decline from the brilliance that was The Sixth Sense, I thought there was at least a small chance that Mr. Night had a chance to redeem himself here.

For the first time the director was making a true sci-fi / fantasy picture, instead of his usual dramas that merely pull themes from those genres.  Each of his films thus far has tried to take something fantastical and turn it on it's ear, making something serious out of themes normally reserved for lighter fare.  At least, that was what he seemed to be going for.  While the Sixth Sense was famous for it's staggering ending, I always found the human story contained within by far the greater achievement.  Shyamalan was the benefactor of some stunning performances by Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Donnie Walberg, and even Mr. Smirk himself, the cardboard Bruce Willis.  These performances made the movie into a real character study, and launched the film's director into stardom.

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Tagged Last Airbender Movies Review

Do NOT Watch This Horsebleep Movie

Whatthebleepdoweknow

'What the Bleep Do We Know?'

0.5/5 Stars

A tragic example of pseudoscientific fuzzy thinking.  I couldn't finish it.

There's absolutely zero intellectual value in this picture.  It's just filled with deep sounding utterances, which only sound deep because they're hard to understand, which are only hard to understand because they're nonsensical.

Trash, garbage, an insult to the mind of the viewer... utterly void of meaning.  

And it's one of the highest grossing 'documentaries' ever.
Tagged Bleep Documentary Faith Movies Pseudoscience Review Science Spirituality

The Movie that Changed the World

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Star Wars (A New Hope)

5/5 Stars
(for those who have read my Flixster review, this is an expanded version)

Another in my 'first of the trilogy' recent re-watches, and of course, the Grandaddy of the bunch. 

The original action adventure masterpiece. The movie that really did change movies. While some might question it's artistic relevance, you cannot question the blanket of influence it threw over generations of moviegoers, and how completely and totally it inspired the filmmakers of the last 30 years.
As Shakespeare was to current everyday sayings (think: "the long and the short of it" or "It's all Greek to me") so Star Wars was to modern movie making. I don't know how many times I've seen it's most imaginative themes repeated from directors who grew up with Luke Skywalker.  The movie raised the bar in terms of the level of excitement to be expected from a blockbuster, while also taking science fiction into the mainstream.

Simply put, in terms of impact and influence, the most important movie ever made.  I know that statement may seem over-bold, but keep in mind that movies and pop culture erupted in scale an order of magnitude in the 70s and 80s, and Star Wars reached more young people in more places than any fantasy ever.
 
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Of course, the movie is nothing if not excellent, as my star rating and previous comments argue, yet by no means do I think it's the greatest of all time. I'd be hard pressed to come up with even a top-ten list of 'greatest films' (which I consider distinct and separate from my list of 'favourite movies'), although I'm pretty sure this picture would be on it. Again, I speak more of it's impact on our culture as a whole, and in that way Star Wars made the most difference.

I'm sure people ten years younger than I know and enjoy the movie, but can't understand the phenomenon that it was for those of us growing up with it.  Star Wars was the original frame of reference, the film all other movies were compared to.  It was thrilling and re-watchable and not a single effect looked at all dated for at least twenty years.

The sequels it spawned were also excellent, and although many call 'Empire Strikes Back' their favourite of the series, I think they might be forgetting their first impressions of each.  The idea that "Empire is better because it's darker" is almost ubiquitous, but I think that's an example of people telling themselves that they like challenging cinema from within the safe framework of a trilogy that eventually turns out well for the heros.  Could Empire, on nothing but it's own merits, have started the Star Wars phenomenon itself?  

We'll never know.  But we can be sure that a long time ago, Star Wars changed the world.  
Tagged A New Hope Han Solo Luke Skywalker Movies Review Sciece fiction Star Wars

The Very Best There Ever Was?

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via scrapetv.com

Another in my first-of-the-trilogy series. Again, the review was originally written in the context of a Flixster post, so it may seem short as a blog entry.

Whatevs.

5/5 Stars

What can I say... if you want to absolutely DEFINE movie magic, this is it. Quite literally a (genuine) thrill a minute. Rolling boulders, snakes in pits, fights on tarmacs, sliding under moving trucks.

Re-watched it recently and confirmed that it's not in any way fond nostalgia that makes this movie great, it's just an eminently, completely, joyously watchable film.

The most exhilarating movie ever made, period.

Tagged 80s Action Adventure Classic Indiana Jones Movies Raiders of the Lost Ark Review

Initial Hemoglobin

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via tf.org

3.5/5 Stars

I recently went on a self-initiated 'reality tour' of sorts through the films of my youth. Even more specifically, I tried to watch the first movie of all the big 80 trilogies, and not the second or third.

So that means I saw Indiana Jones - Part 1, followed by Star Wars - Part 1, etc.

It was a lot of fun revisiting those films, especially when you consider that 90% of sequels are at least somewhat inferior to the film that begins the phenomenon. Dining out on first installments only was somewhat like eating only at the finest restaurants.

Anyway, below is my Flixster review of 'First Blood', a movie sometimes remembered as less than it was thanks to it's silly sequels.

I'll follow with others in the days ahead.

"The last scene in this movie, where Stallone does his monologue... I mean, I had forgotten that scene entirely... WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?

I mean, Stallone rocks that scene, I mean he truly shows SERIOUS chops there. No joke!

I mean, I don't remember seeing anything like that the rest of his career. Wow.

Ok, that aside, I can't say enough how much I enjoyed the flick, and enjoyed even more the location they filmed it in. The Pacific Northwest must be the closest thing in the US to Vietnam, which I'm sure is why they chose it, but even without that it's just a stunning backdrop to the movie. To me the environment can be a character, and in this movie it was.

People don't realize just how expensive it is to go on location, which is why almost everything is shot in LA or TO. I just wish they'd do it more often, as movies just feel so much more real when they take place somewhere real.

Again, a total joy to reacquaint myself with this 80's gem."


Tagged 80s Action First Blood Movies Rambo Review Stallone Sylvester

Spike's Take on the Wild Things

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Where The Wild Things Are

4/5 Stars

A much more complicated and subtle movie than I expected, even out of Spike Jonze.

As a parent who reads children's books daily, I've gotten used to looking for the hidden message contained within each. Every one is written by an adult in at least a partial effort to help you do your parental duty: teach them a lesson, inspire their imaginations, etc. 

The book Jonze worked from in this case, beautifully illustrated as it is, has a spiritual and moral message for children, one I can see my eldest child able to grasp when we read it.

But Jonze manages to do so much more with this story, while remaining within it's most basic thematic framework. He tackles some pretty heavy themes, employing his uniquely understated and quirky style to disguise them. When it all wraps up I think Spike truly did what he stated he was trying for: "I'm looking to make a movie about childhood rather than to create a children's movie."

'Where the Wild Things Are' winds up being heartbreaking in the end, and somehow you're not quite sure why. There's some interwoven feeling of the death of innocence and the end of youth. 

It's sort of a romantic portrait of one's own childhood, painted from the perspective of someone who has just come to the sad realization that in order to finally become responsible, one most stop taking comfort in things that are unreal.

Not to mention some stunning puppetry, an art form that should be saved.

Something about this movie says 'classic' to me.

Tagged Film Jonze Kids Movies Review Spike Wild Things

This View of a Life

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(I'll be posting some of my lengthier reviews here, previously posted on Flixster, from time to time.)

Creation
4/5 Stars

A touching picture that provides a long overdue human portrait of Darwin. I actually knew quite bit about Chuck D going in, and the filmmakers really seemed to get it right, while making sure to explore the most dramatically interesting facets of the man and his family. From Darwin's anguish over the hammer-blow his work would inevitably deal to society's religion based world-view, to the tragic deaths of two of his children, to the great strain that his theory and emergent atheism would put on his marriage, the filmmakers capture all the very real heartbreak that surrounded this brilliant man.

It made we wonder why we haven't seen more in popular culture about Darwin, whose famous idea is quoted in the opening credits to be "the greatest in the history of thought". (as a side note, that's no exaggeration. Again, science is a favourite topic of mine and I've heard/read even hardcore physicists, usually considered to be at the foremost edge of the scientific endeavour, say the very same thing about Darwin's theory of natural selection).

Nonetheless, old ideas sometimes go down swinging, and Darwin has taken some unjustified lumps. It's a shame that such an important historical figure doesn't seem to enjoy the right 'kind' of fame, the fame that he deserves. 

This movie takes a sad, thoughtful, and respectful step in that direction.

Tagged Bettany Conolly Darwin Evolution Film Movies Review Science Species
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