Short Reviews 2

Film: Rocky
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review: I haven't seen this since I was like 10, but it's f'n rocky


Film: Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review: A bit weirder then the original, but pretty decent. Some of the best cinematography and makeup work I've ever seen.


Film: Kill Bill Volume 1
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review: Might have been better if Tarantino would use his trademark useage of time well. At all.


Film: Donnie Darko
Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Review: I'm not sure what everyone is humping this movie for. I thought it was pretty mediocre.


Film: There's Something About Mary
Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Review: Funny when I was 13. Not anymore.


Film: Bruce Almighty
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review: Morgan Freeman is God. That is all.


Film: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Rating: 1 of 5 stars
Review: I didn't really like 4-6, so I certainly don't like 1-3.


Film: Dodgeball
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Review: Vince Vaughn is comedy gold in the right part. Even Ben Stiller is bareable in this.


Film: Knocked Up
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Review: Modern humor mixed with a Clerks-like genuineness. Surprisingly very good.


Film: Happy Gilmore
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review: I haven't seen it in a long time, but fist fights with bob barker are timeless.


Film: Harry Potter 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Review: The only one I liked out of the current 5.

Short Reviews

I was looking through my facebook movie ratings to see which ones I marked highly and noticed that a lot of my 1 or 2 line reviews were worth reading. So I figure I'll throw 10 or so down every now and again to archive them.


Film: School of Rock
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review: I'm a Jack Black fan, just not of his comedy, which is pretty much just monkey sounds and movements. This one isn't so bad, though.


Film: The longest yard
Rating: 2 of 5 stars
Review: I only watched it because I had heard they mentioned ASU. I regret my decision.


Film: American Pie
Rating: 1 of 5 stars
Review: It might have been funny when I was 15 and an idiot.



Film: Meet the Fockers
Rating: .5 of 5 stars
Review: I watched this for a film class. Otherwise, I would have scoffed and moved on after watching meet the parents. This was worse.


Film: Spiderman 3
Rating: 1.5 of 5 stars
Review: I'm pretty sure this is a joke.



Film: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review: Gets major points for shooting on location instead of using CGI bullshit.



Film: The Ring
Rating: 1 of 5 stars
Review: I barely remember watching this. But I remember being bored.


Film: Ace Ventura
Rating: 1.5 of 5 stars
Review: Sorry Jim Carrey, you are not Jerry Lewis. Sorry Jerry Lewis, you aren't funny.


Film: Braveheart
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Review: Had me shouting FREEDOM at inappropriate times for 2 weeks.

Film: Hitch
Rating: 1.5 of 5 stars
Review: It's a chick flick in disguise. You tricked me Will Smith and Kevin James!

Harry potter 5

An old review of harry potter that I dug up because I'm busy today.




As a big fan of the books, I found myself disappointed. It was a very long book, yes, and I agree that cuts were necessary; in fact i even applaud the fact that they kept all of the important information, unlike in movie 3. However they changed a lot. And not for the better. And, with the exception of cutting out dobby(who I'm sure is expensive to animate) yet again, these changes have seemingly no reason. Events are moved around the storyline arbitrarily and many fun things are cut out to economize time. Still, I would not have minded these changes if it did not detract from the emotional arch of the book. Harry's adolescent struggle into manhood is probably what turned many people off of the book, but it's still a main theme and one that isn't represented well. Overall I thought the story seemed scattered and had they stuck closer to the source material in emotion, I wouldn't have minded the arbitrary changes.

On the other hand the composition and cinematography was the best yet. In this movie, the clean cut style of Columbus is completely abandoned for a more modern, gritty style. Still, with how much I liked it, I heard people talking about the use of time changes in editing and I could almost hear the style sailing swiftly over their heads.

Overall I think it's not the worst but certainly not the best.

101 Dalmatians

Once again, I decided to watch a 90's movie. This time it was the live action version of 101 Dalmatians. What an awful film. But it did raise a few points.

-House doesn't make a very good bumbling henchman.
-I'm not sure how anyone could be attracted to jeff daniels.
-Those dogs have to be mutts, because dalmatians are too f'n stupid to be trained to do those things.
-I don't care how evil you are, you don't deserve to get as dirty as Glenn Close does.
-I'm not sure why they decided to make a live action version if they were going to make the live action version as cartoony as possible.
-Maybe I was wrong about movies when I was a kid being better than kid's movies now.

Truly enlightening.

...Janitor

I rescued a bunch of old movies from my house this weekend and watched a few. I took a look at Rookie of the Year (which oddly enough Neil Flynn was in). While I was squinting at the screen and saying "Janitor" in a menacing way, I realized something. A lot of these old kid's movies have something really to them.

I catch parts of kids shows and movies from time to time and I always think how very bad they are. I assumed at least part of it was because I was not a kid and that if I went and watched the movies from my childhood now I would be just as underwhelmed, nostalgia notwithstanding.

But that isn't true. I caught some Disney channel while I was home as well and they were playing some old stuff from when I was about in middle school. I watch it for a few minutes and it had some real comic value to it. So did the movies I watched. Rookie of the Year even had some real filmmaking technique to it.

So apparently movies and TV really are getting worse as filmmakers concentrate less on story and talent and more on Digital 3d or whatever the special effect gimmick is this year.

The Simpsons Movie review and an exiting new lazy trend

I have a bunch of old work that I need to chronical somewhere. I figure here is as good a place as any. This is a sample movie review I did just a few months ago.

After seeing the Simpsons movie something becomes abundantly clear. This is where all of their fresh ideas have been going for the last few years.
It's no secret that the Simpsons has been declining in quality since sometime around season 12, using increasingly tired and predictable jokes. About the time of season 15 the decline started to get steeper, occasionally even going as far as using jokes from previous episodes in the same way the new episodes of family guy fail us time and again. One can hardly blame the creators of the Simpsons though, they are going on 19 seasons- the longest running sitcom in history.
There is no telling why the movie is exempt from this deteriorating standard of The Simpsons. Maybe the creators saw this as an opportunity to reestablish The Simpsons as a leading comedic voice of the modern world. Maybe they really were saving jokes for the movie and the series suffered. Maybe they finally brought John Vitti and George Meyer out of whatever closet they've been keeping them in. Maybe the writers were so ecstatic that they could finally use foul language that they just went nuts. Regardless of the reason, the excellence of the movie is going to lead to increased ratings for season 19.
The Simpsons Movie is very much like a Simpsons episode that lasts an hour and a half. Surprisingly, however, the movie went on far less tangents then the show, which recently doesn't get into the meat of the episode until it's almost over, and stuck to one main idea and the branches of consequence it caused. Thematically and cinematically this is a refreshing change, but at the same time there is something endearing about the modern Simpsons 'Where the hell are they going with this' mentality. Also different from the TV series is the focus on the Simpson family. The movie centers almost solely on the Simpson five and treats the town as one entity rather then giving each character in the town a personal storyline like in the show. This is regrettable, because they had the time to give a little more comedy to these loveable characters that they've spent years developing.
Aside from the length something new that the Simpsons' team had to work with was the more flexible MPAA guidelines. By and large the Simpsons used this to their advantage, finding comedic effectiveness in things that would never be allowed on TV. They also used adult language well, humorously accenting key moments- unlike family guy, who, when in a similar situation decided that it would be entertaining to add in profanity on the proportionate scale of rap music. Of course, The Simpsons actually understands the concept of subtly, something Family Guy is wholly unaware of. The Simpsons Move did go overboard at one point though: during a several minute sequence in which Bart was naked, the audience was greeted with several seconds of Bart's animated wingwang. Not only was the joke that surrounded this exhibition more or less ineffective, the nudity itself was deplorable. Under other circumstances the joke might have been acceptable and even funny, but Bart is 10 years old, making this some sort of comedic pedophilia.
The animation of the movie was very similar to the animation of the last few seasons- only bigger. Not just because it was on a movie theater sized screen, but because the events in the movie where bigger the animation was suitably grander. The production quality was well below the international standard of 2d animation. This, of course, made it miles ahead of most American projects.
The Simpsons Movie is an excellent comedic movie that reminds us why we love the Springfield family of 5 so much. It is not, however, a groundbreaking cinematic achievement. It fulfills the very basic motion picture goal of entertainment, but it isn't very challenging. This is still good news. The Simpsons Movie is a good pick for an entertaining film.

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5