Movies, Movies, Movies

March 26, 2008

I thought about putting this post under the category of “Art,” but considering some of the movies I’ve seen recently I decided against it. I have a friend who, when he sees a bad movie, will say, “I’ve seen better film on teeth.” While none that I’ve seen recently were quite that bad, they were not all so good. Not all of these are new releases, but just to give you an idea of some of the movies I’ve seen lately and what I thought of them, here you go:

I Am Legend

I thought that the acting, for the most part, was good in this movie. Of course, the acting, for the most part, was all done by Will Smith. The movie does have an interesting story line. A scientist has found a cure for cancer that is 100% effective. But apparently it ends up killing the vast majority of humanity, turning a host of others into cannibalizing freaks and leaves the rest to be eaten for dinner by those freaks. I won’t give away any more than that. But overall I did not like the movie. I suppose they did their job well in that they kept me tense and on the edge of my seat the whole time. But then that’s pretty much why I didn’t like it. I don’t like movies that make me feel like I’ve been through an hour-and-a-half workout by the time it’s over.

War Of The Worlds

This movie is a re-make of the H.G. Wells novel. On the whole I enjoyed the story line. I just didn’t like Tom Cruise very much. Of course, there is yet another scene in a Tom Cruise movie where he is running like lightning with every vein in his head popping out. I think that must be in his contract somewhere. “This movie shall have at least one scene where Tom runs like mad.” Anyway, aliens have invaded planet earth and they are exterminating humanity in vampire-like fashion, drinking their blood as they go. Tom is out to save his family, and as much of humanity as possible (except for the creepy guy who offers them refuge in his house. You can tell right away that this is not a man to be trusted). Once again, I will not give away the story, but I will say that this movie was decent, though I probably would have liked the book better.

Stardust

A young man makes a promise to a girl that he loves (who is rather shallow, yet pretty) that he would bring her a star if she would marry him. He travels into a magical world beyond the wall of his home town to do just that. But this star is also being pursued by three witches and a prince as well because she holds the promise of immortality and power within her heart. Stardust reminds me a little of one of my very favorite movies: The Princess Bride. I really enjoyed this one, though I really do wish that I could once, just once, see Michelle Pfeiffer do something different in a movie. Watching her I couldn’t tell if I was watching Stardust, Hair Spray or Batman Returns. Robert De Niro, on the other hand, was excellent and very entertaining.

Others I’ve seen and my recommendations:
The Bourne Ultimatum.

If you don’t like the Bourne movies then there’s just something wrong with you.

The Italian Job.

A little bit like Oceans 11 (or 12, or 13). I liked this one as well.

Horton Hears a Who.

I can’t say if this was really bad, but it was bad enough that I slept through a good portion of it - right there in the theater.

Written by Paul · Filed Under Film

Late To The Game, I Am

January 20, 2007

I confess. I may well be the only person my age who had never seen any of the Star Wars movies. Nary a one. The Star Wars ~~geeks~~ aficionados in high school were a little….uh…."different," not unlike who you’d expect to find at a Star Trek convention.

However, a while back my son got the Lego Star Wars for Gamecube and every time he gets stuck he calls me in for help. Well, we’d pretty much defeated that one when he got Lego Star Wars II for Christmas.

This past week he came down with a cold - and we had our Apocalyptic Ice Storm, which meant being cooped up in the house most of the time. Which meant watching lots of movies. And since he was sick we let him pick out a movie just for him. He chose Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (needless to say I had no idea what a "Sith" was). Well, the longer the Apocalypse hung around the more inevitable it was that we’d see more Star Wars movies.

I can now say that I have seen all of them but the first two. The odd thing about watching them in the order in which we did (starting with III, then in consecutive order) is that there was a significant cheese factor going from Episode III to Episode IV getting only slightly better through V and VI (Billy Dee Williams’ hair has almost come back in style and the Storm Troopers didn’t look quite so obviously plastic in the latter movies - though it was odd watching all of the Muppets in Episode VI. I just knew Ms. Piggy would appear as the wife of Jabba the Hut at any moment).

At any rate, it is clear that Yoda is the best actor in the whole series and he looks much less like a hand puppet in the most recent Episodes (though sadly the same can’t be said of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher).

Written by Paul · Filed Under Culture, Family, Film, Personal

Reading Between The Lines?

October 2, 2006

Written by Paul · Filed Under Faith & Religion, Film, SBC

Grandfathers Of The Caribbean

July 5, 2006

One of my wife’s favorite movies is Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Curse Of The Black Pearl. Of course, she’s anxious about the second installment, Dead Man’s Chest, which opens Friday. It opens Thursday in Britain. I’m trying to get a little money from NAMB to take her to London for the Thursday opening. I hear that kind of thing has happened before.

Apparently there is already a third installment in the works and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is reported to make a cameo appearance in that one as Captain Jack Sparrow’s father. Isn’t Keith Richards, like, 142 years old? Wouldn’t he be better suited as Jack’s great grandfather? I think it’s a hoot that Johnny Depp patterned his character after Richards. Looking back it makes so much sense. Except that you can mostly understand Jack Sparrow when he talks.

Written by Paul · Filed Under Film