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Movies I Saw
In theatres, through NetFlix, with friends, or in my personal
collection.
2008
The World According to Garp (1982)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)
Fear and Trembling (2004)
What Women Want (2000)
- It was ok. Still not a fan of Mel Gibson.
City Lights (1931)
- Charlie Chaplin, like Jackie Chan, is someone whose physical
presence in a movie is unmistakable and irreplaceable. This
movie was very enjoyable.
Dune (19??)
- Er, hopefully it makes a little sense after reading the
book. Because this made pretty much no sense.
- I found the fat guy really disturbing.
- This movie features the strangest pair of underwear I have
ever seen.
Speedracer: The Movie (1993)
- Not a movie. A couple of episodes and stuff edited together
in the 90s.
- Watching it was an odd experience. I felt like I was trying
to remember someone else's memories.
The Dark Knight (July 2008)
- Alfred says: “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical
like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or
negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
But I don't want to watch the world burn, and so I shouldn't
have gone to watch this movie. Like Die Hard 4, this movie was
too grim for my taste. I like superhero movies where the
superhero wins earlier, more often, and more definitively. And
for the right reasons. This movie didn't even try to salvage my
mental state with an implausible upbeat ending like Die Hard 4
had.
- Not such a fan of Dent's hairstyle. Or the cleft in his
chin. Phony. And I'm already sick of the line "You either die a
hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the
villain." I've heard it two or three times, and read it two or
three times, and I'm sick of it. It's a statement that, along
with the quote about watching the world burn, sums up the entire
grim film.
- The Rachel character reminded me of the personal secretary
character in Iron Man: she tries to bridge the gap between the
tortured hero and normal life. But it's darn hard to do, maybe
even impossible.
- This was not a Batman movie. This movie was all about the
Joker.
- I have to hand it to Heath Ledger and his makeup team.
Good job freaking me out. Too good...
- The Joker makes a lot of interesting and clever (if not
good) philosophical points. The incredibly worn-out
cliché coming to mind is that there's a method to his
madness.
- Isn't Batman just "Batman"? Is it just the Joker who
calls him "The Bat-Man"?
- There were several moments that I think were meant to be
funny but weren't. The two actually funny moments that come to
mind are a line spoken by Morgan Freeman about blackmail, and a
scene in which Bruce Wayne pretends that a car accident was...
an accident.
- I got confused about the city; I was told parts were filmed
in Chicago, and so that's sorta where I thought the story was.
Until you had people trying to get off the island. That really
threw me; Chicago has bridges over rivers, but it's not an
island. Oh, wait, this isn't Chicago, it's New York. Only it's
not New York either, it's Gotham. It's just that it didn't feel
like a Batman movie, so I forgot it was taking place in Gotham.
It could have been anywhere. Somewhere real, like Chicago.
- On a different note, Gordon totally looks like Ned
Flanders. And has a similar wholesome, reliable quality about
him.
Awakenings (1990)
- Brains are so weird. And doctors are so amazing.
Rebecca (1940)
- I don't suppose I can say anything about this movie that
someone hasn't already said in the past half a dozen decades.
Old? Yes, but who needs a silly thing like color to
tell a story. After all, Daphne du Maurier didn't even use
pictures.
- I can also say that it was terribly painful seeing the
heroine thrust into a world where there are a dozen people
watching her do nothing but make mistakes, awkwardly,
inevitably, in a fearsomely grand place where she'd never have
thought to belong, where she in fact cannot imagine how
to belong.
- I suppose I should add that I liked it.
Five Children and It (1991)
- BBC miniseries, 6 episodes about children and the amusing
results of poorly-thought-out wishes. I have to agree, though,
hard to go wrong with wings.
- Amazing puppet. Wonder whether anyone will ever again
bother, what with animation being all the rage, and computing
power being cheap.
My Little Pony: The Movie (1986)
- I believe I went to see this in the movie theater when I was
small. I remember being terrified of the purple stuff ("smooze"),
and either covered my eyes or had to be escorted out for part of
the movie, or both.
- Yeeeah. Two things I *still* don't like to see in a movie:
huge spiders, and anything resembling a flood.
- If your musical standards aren't terribly high, the music is
kinda cute.
- Some of the voices were... completely incongruous. Listen
carefully and you can hear Bart Simpson. Or, just read the box.
Nancy Cartwright (and Danny DeVito) both contributed their
voices to characters in this movie. Oh, the strange things
people will do for money.
House, Season 1 (2004)
- I'm squeamish. But so far, putting up with injections, fits,
rashes, and surgeries has been worthwhile. Between the
scriptwriters brilliant writing and Hugh Laurie's brilliant
acting, it's been fun.
- And I get a kick out of the fact that the Frist student
center on the Princeton Campus, about two blocks from my office,
is used for all the exterior shots of House's imaginary clinic.
Sometimes you can see the top of Fine Hall's tower, and the big
empty space next to it where they've now almost finished
building a garish Frank Gehry library.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1988)
- Okay, so the beaver and wolf costumes were pretty goofy, but
the lion was pretty good, even, or especially, to someone jaded
by digital special effects. The costume faun legs, in
particular, were better than the digital faun legs.
- The animated flying characters weren't so well integrated,
though I will say they are one of the few things I remembered
from having seen this movie as a kid.
- I thought the casting was good, although Peter didn't look
like the eldest (Susan did). The Professor was great, and so was
the Witch. I liked her costume and hairstyle better in this
version than in the 2005 version.
- The 1988 story overall had better pacing; it felt less epic
(particularly during the battle), but more graspable than the
2005 version.
- I liked the ending coronation scene, and seeing the
beautiful adult siblings hunting. And I love the wolf captain's
muttered line, referring to Edmund: "...or perhaps not so
fortunate."
WALL*E (June 2008)
- A disappointment. I liked the characters (though Eve struck
me as inappropriately sinister, and the auto-pilot was a clear
reference to 2001's Hal), but didn't like the
guilt-trippy premise, saccharine plot, or illogical ending. I
thought the plot was bad from a technical science-fiction
perspective, to say nothing of the geo-political perspective.
How could this movie have come from the studio that made The
Incredibles?
Speed Racer (June 2008)
- I'm so glad I insisted on seeing this on a big screen, and
wish I could have seen the IMAX version.
- It was, as I suspected, a giant, shiny roller-coaster ride.
The colors were, as reported, brilliant. The monkey was not, as
some complained, overwhelmingly silly. Some of the storytelling
and scene-changing techniques were quite strange, but I'd say
that the W brothers's going out on a limb made it interesting.
- I could really, really, really have done without the "money
is evil" speech; I've heard it entirely too many times. Couldn't
they just have stuck with "cheating is evil"? I more or less
prefer to pretend they did, since I found the movie to
be enjoyable overall.
- Sad that it doesn't seem to have done well at the box
office. It was a really expensive movie to make. Wonder whether
they'll make the sequel?
- I have a copy of some animated movie of Speed Racer. We'll
see whether it's at all similar.
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) (NetFlix)
- Yes, they do all go downhill after the first one, don't
they.
- Jeremy Irons will always be none other than Scar to me.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
(June 2008)
- I think Indiana Jones is not my thing.
- Likewise, Shia Laboeuf is not my thing either, though I did
see him on the Princeton campus this month, waiting around
during the filming of next summer's Transformers sequel.
Moviemaking is so inscrutable; I much prefer my own job.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
(VHS)
- Creepy! Very creepy. And not a nice depiction of Kali Durga.
Mad Money (2008) (Rental)
- If you can put aside all of Hollywood's negative depictions
of greed and see a clever heist as a fun caper ( like
Ocean's Howevermany He's Got This Time, but masterminded by
"normal" people rather than criminal geniuses), this is a fun
movie.
The Astronaut Farmer (2006) (NetFlix)
- I liked it better before I watched the special feature on
"the making of." Everyone involved in the film said things that
should have been inspiring, but weren't. It all came out
sounding like "we wanted to make a movie that, like, totally
shows us that dreeeeemz are like, really important, so we should
all go out there, and like, live our dreeeeemz. Dreeemz
shouldn't be, like forgotten. And when we were like, making the
movie and everything, everybody was like, totally cool to work
with and everything, and it was all, like so much fun and all."
I wound up thinking that actors and other movie people, when not
given lines to say in advance, are, like, totally inarticulate.
No, I'm not being particularly fair. I guess I wasn't impressed
with the movie, even though I like the idea that a guy could
spend his life (and his life savings) engineering a rocket in a
barn.
Iron Man (May 2008)
- This was fun. I liked the audio-controlled robots. But not
the squelchy surgery noises (eeeeewwwww!).
- Speaking of tech, I'm much more inclined to suspend
disbelief regarding Stark's lab than I am regarding his office
laptop. I have never seen such a bogus progression of access,
download, and translation screens in my entire
(admittedly limited) tv-and-movie-viewing career.
- Am I even going to compare this to the 2007 Transformers
movie? Naturally not!
- The moral I was probably supposed to take away was that we
have an over-developed military-industrial complex, by means of
which, because of greed, we are shooting ourselves in the foot,
injuring bystanders while we're at it. The
rescue-of-innocent-villagers-from-abuse scene was particularly
overdone (though it had one redeeming, hi-tech, laugh-out-loud
moment).
- However, the moral I *actually* took away was that smart
people really like to make cool things, that you can't force
them to make cool things for you, and that it is unjust to take
those things away from them. An important lesson.
Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) (NetFlix)
- Victory feels good.
- Also a (supposedly completely different) novel.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) (Graduate
College)
- My memories of this movie were off-and-on. Dunno when the
last time was I saw it.
- I think the treasure-hunt genre's not for me.
- More proof that the King Arthur legend reaches deep (and
shallow) into our culture, even though we're not British.
21 (April 2008)
- This was a cool true story (according to my husband, who
read the book).
- They made it less cool by sensationalizing it and
adding a bad guy. Or two.
(some of) Smallville (2001) (NetFlix)
- I like superhero premises, but...
- Is it just me, or is there not enough over-arching plot?
- Is it just me, or does high school invariably seem
ridiculous on TV?
Die Hard (1988) (NetFlix)
- Wow! Alan Rickman makes a great German bad guy!
- Best use of word 'languishing' I've heard in a movie! "I
have comrades in arms around the world who are languishing in
prison."
- Beethoven's 9th made a welcome appearance.
- It's a novel, too.
Braveheart (1995)
(NetFlix)
-
Lookee, it's Mel Gibson being tortured. Didn't he go in for that in
some other movie too?
-
This movie had lots of dirty people living in huts. They yelled and
bled and died for a poorly articulated notion of freedom.
-
Boy'm I glad I didn't live in 13th Century Scotland, excellent
(Irish) scenery notwithstanding. Aside from all the dirt and death,
primae noctis is a nightmare.
-
The Princess Isabelle was an interesting (and clean!) character,
though she did, predictably, swoon over William Wallace, the strong,
brave, and---mysteriously---educated barbarian fighter.
-
Robert the Bruce might have been the most interesting character; he
faced a difficult decision under pressure from his father, did what
he thought was best, and we see the results.
The Forbidden Kingdom
(April 2008)
- Jackie Chan using the secret "drunken fu" looked an awful
lot like Johnny Depp fighting like a drunk pirate. Especially
with that crazy hair.
- The teahouse fight scene was good; the rest of the fights
were more serious than I was sort-of expecting. But then, Jackie
Chan wasn't directing.
- A whole lot of people in several countries worked on this
movie. Perhaps that's why it didn't hang together as well as I
would have liked.
(some of) Knight Rider
(1982--1986) (NetFlix)
- I had some very, very, very vague memories of maybe once
having seen part of an episode of this show. All I could
remember was a car that talked in a very subdued tone, and a
desert.
- The pilot episode was like a movie. The other episodes are,
well, maybe too episodic. Someone's doing something mean,
Michael and Kit (who sometimes gets new gadgets just in time for
them to be useful) stop him, and it benefits an attractive
single woman (and, optionally, her son). I wish there were some
other overarching plot, but in the episodes I've seen, there isn't.
- Then again: the car, the hair, the belt buckle. What's not
to like?
(part of) Beowulf (2007)
- I watched part of this movie in German on an airplane.
German seemed appropriate.
- The monsters were pretty disgusting. I guess that's really
the point.
- The half real, half animated method was interesting.
Juno (2007)
- I sometimes wish that more people said what they're thinking
out loud. Like Juno.
Lawrence of Arabia (NetFlix)
- Very long. Lots of fighting. Lots of desert. Weird ending.
Phantom Tollbooth (1970)
- Interesting allegory. Interesting animation. Based on a good
book. Lots of nostalgia. One of my favorites!
Persuasion (1995)
(NetFlix)
- When you don't use gorgeous famous actors, the plot really
shines through. Good story, good movie.
Ranma 1/2: Big Rouble in Nekonron China (1991)
- Confusing if you haven't met the characters before. Okay if
you have.
The Punisher (2004) (NetFlix)
- Thoroughly mediocre. Violence without stylization, death
without cleverness, revenge without justice.
- Thomas Jane manages to look astonishingly like Nathan
Fillion in a couple of scenes, though.
Enchanted (2007) (student center theater)
- Kind-of over the top, but still very cute.
Mansfield Park (1999) (NetFlix)
- I enjoyed this story better listening to it on tape. I don't
know whether the moviemakers actually changed and added details,
or whether merely their emphasis was different, or whether my
memory of the story is just vague, but the story seemed to have
been adapted.
- Camera too close. C'mon guys, back up.
Emma (1996) (NetFlix)
- More comedic than I was perhaps expecting, but enjoyable.
Something the Lord Made (2004) (NetFlix)
- A bittersweet story, more so because it was real. A young
black man helps invent a procedure for heart surgery, which had
never been performed, and gets little or no recognition for it
because of his race and lack of formal education.
- I thought the doctor character not merely arrogant but
sinister, only realizing halfway through the movie that this was
because the same actor played Snape (though, obviously, not with
a southern accent). In one scene he stands in front of a
classroom and writes on a chalkboard; I fully expected him to
turn around and berate Mr. Potter for a badly made potion.
The Crimson Pirate (1952) (NetFlix)
- This not being a movie I grew up with, I am not capable of
feeling the incredible nostalgia my husband seems to feel for
it.
Roxanne (1987) (NetFlix)
- I'm not a fan of Steve Martin, but this wasn't so bad.
- Hollywood seems to have a hard time convincingly depicting a
pretty woman who is also a scientist.
- Like the movie Pretty Woman, this one had an
implausible "they lived happily after" ending, unlike the actual
Cyrano de Bergerac story.
Vampire Hunter D (1985) (NetFlix)
- Cartoon blood and guts, cartoon bosoms, and a vampire who
has a semi-autonomous hand. Yeeeaah.
2007
Stardust (campus center theater)
- They should have marketed this one better. It was great!
The Golden Compass (November 2007)
- Great casting, great visual effects. Seemed rushed, like
many movies made from books.
- WTG Philip Pullman; I just hope they made enough money to
proceed with the sequels.
Back to the Future III (1990) (NetFlix)
- In the shootout scene, Michael J. Fox looks very much like
Nathan Fillion from Firefly! It's not just the western clothes
and the haircut, his features look really similar too.
- Again, the Back to the Future franchise has portrayed women
as essentially helpless.
- Still a fun movie. Still pronouncing "gigawatts" wrong.
Back to the Future II (1989) (NetFlix)
- I think I would have enjoyed this more if I had just seen
the first one.
- The car is *so* cool.
- I question whether the future (well, 2015 isn't seeming like
it's so far away anymore) will involve hovering skateboards.
Hovercars are standard for sci-fi of any era, but hovering
skateboards wouldn't necessarily be cool in the future the way
skateboards were cool in 80s movies.
- In this movie, as in the first one, there was one scene that
emphasized the vulnerability of women uncomfortably much.
Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) (DVD)
- The whole movie is a young and skinny version of Whoopi
Goldberg talking to herself and using an old computer terminal.
- It was entertaining.
Return from Witch Mountain (1978) (NetFlix)
- Any movie with flying and telekinesis is pretty fascinating.
Even though, or perhaps especially since, they did have fancy
computers to manage the special effects. They did stop-motion
animation.
- That being said, the whole adventure seemed pointless. Go on
vacation, make friends with some pre-teen wannabe LA gang
members, get involved with plot to take over the world, catch
the bad guys, go home.
The Black Cauldron (1985) (Graduate College)
- Mix The Sword in the Stone with Charlotte's Web and The
Wizard of Oz, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin, and you've got
The Black Cauldron.
- Taran looks and moves (and daydreams) exactly like
Wart/Arthur. Dallben is a wise old man like Merlin, who
knows something about magic---he doesn't have an owl, but he
has a cat. Taran finds a magic sword.
- Hen Wen looks like Wilbur, only more feminine, but she
doesn't talk. Or sing.
- Taran, Ellonwy, Fflam, and Gurgi are a bit like Dorothy,
the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion. Well, not much,
but Gurgi does discover courage, Ellonwy falls for Taran,
and Fflam (sort-of) gets rescued from a helpless
scarecrow-like position by Taran.
- The three witches are a bit like Ursula; they give Taran
something he wants but doesn't know how to use, in exchange
for something that he felt very attached to.
- The horned lord is a bit like Jafar. He has a little
sidekick and he is obsessed with getting a particular magic
object from the hero, because it will help him rule the
world. Okay, I know there are a lot of villains like this,
and I know that Aladdin came *after* The Black Cauldron. But
I still say the horned lord is Jafar-like.
Superman: The Movie (1978) (NetFlix)
- I somehow expected fewer gaping plot holes. Ah well.
- The 1970s newspaper office was, to someone whose 2nd grade
classroom had computers, unimaginably primitive. Lois misspells
things constantly because her typewriter doesn't have a built-in
dictionary!
- I still like the character Superman, though. His salient
characteristics are integrity and strength. He cares sincerely
about "truth, justice, and the American way," stands up for
everyone who does, and stands up to anyone who doesn't.
- Interestingly, Superman doesn't seem to suffer any
punishment for his selfish act. In general, it seems that heroes
are punished when they use their powers for the benefit of the
specific people they care about; they are supposed to put the
public good first, even at their own expense.
Babylon 5: In the Beginning (1998) (NetFlix)
- Politics. War. Death. Depressing!
Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993) (NetFlix)
Rush Hour 3 (October 2007)
- Well worth seeing! Opening scene with Chris Tucker dancing
in the traffic was great.
The Shaggy Dog (1959) (NetFlix)
- I liked this movie a lot as a kid, and I still enjoy it now.
Babylon 5: Thirdspace (1998) (NetFlix)
- Nuke the evil aliens from another dimension! (Yee ha.)
- Thirdspace is what you get after normal space and
hyperspace, for those curious.
Babylon 5: The River of Souls (1998) (NetFlix)
- When I die, please just let me be dead.
Candleshoe (1977) (NetFlix)
- An entertaining treasure-hunt movie starring Jodie Foster.
The Bourne Ultimatum (September 2007)
- As was the case in the 2nd Bourne movie, the cinematography
was incredibly annoying. I see no reason to keep every camera in
constant motion. One has to constantly exert eye effort just to
look at the screen. C'mon, do you think I'd get bored or
something if you didn't move the picture from the place where
I'm looking to somewhere slightly to the left, slightly to the
right, and then up and down? As it was, I found it convenient to
stop and stare at the ceiling of the theater for a few minutes
every so often, to rest my eyes.
- Also, there were an astounding number of incredibly loud car
crashes. Again, it's not as if my attention is wandering, and
somehow needs to be brought back using loud noises.
- I'd still say it was worthwhile to see, because Bourne is a
clever character, and he learns important things about himself
in this installment.
The Simpsons (August 2007)
- Like the TV show, but longer.
Camp Nowhere (1994) (NetFlix)
- When I saw the previews for the recent movie Accepted
(about a fake college created by kids), I immediately was
reminded of some movie with a similar plot. I did an online
search for a movie about a fake summer camp created by kids. As
I suspected, the movie I remembered was this one.
- I must have seen it to have been reminded of it in the first
place, but it's also true that I remembered individual bits of
the movie itself.
- This was a very cute, happy, enjoyable movie.
Hidalgo (2004) (NetFlix)
- This could have been a great movie, but it was the most
shallow, implausible piece of junk I've seen in a while. It
looked expensive, too! Why would anyone make such an expensive
movie without a half-decent screenplay?
National Treasure (2004) (NetFlix)
- I'm not really a fan of Nicholas Cage.
- This movie reminded me of The DaVinci Code. Map, insane
puzzles, conspiracy-flavored history, blah blah blah. Somewhat
lacking in the plausibility department.
The Pentagon Wars (1998) (NetFlix)
- Funny and not funny at the same time.
- Yea, Cary Elwes!
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) (NetFlix)
Transformers (August 2007)
- Great cgi. I think I would have been able to appreciate it
better if it had been slowed down some; the continuous machine
movement seemed to be in fast forward.
- Not a great movie. They should have spent more time making
the movie into a unified whole. It felt segmented rather than
epic. It didn't have a good balance between comedy, drama, and
sci-fi/fantasy. It didn't even have an obvious intended
audience.
- Speaking of which, this is really NOT a kids' movie. I can
think of three instances of scenes where the crudity went, in my
opinion, too far.
- The "message" which was even more unsubtle and canned than
usual for a movie, was "no sacrifice, no victory". I think this
is just plain stupid. It is a completely distorted version of
"no pain, no gain", which is better, but not great. "Pain" isn't
exactly the same thing as "effort". I'd prefer something more
along the lines of "hard work leads to victory", though I admit
my version's not very catchy.
- What I liked most about the movie is the premise. Imagine
that really, truly, your new old car turns out to be a huge,
sentient, alien robot. Not only is this an inanimate thing that
can move by itself, it stands up and starts talking to you (sort
of). That's really amazing, even if it doesn't then go on to
save you from a dangerous enemy, and ultimately help you save
the world, which it does.
- Heh heh. I read a review that said: "Some of the special
effects might look good in a real movie."
- The product endorsements that seem to really bother some
people didn't bother me. After, it's one way of making sci-fi
seem realer. Arguably, it could have been done with more
subtlety; but this is not a movie where ANYTHING is subtle, so I
wouldn't complain about this in particular.
- In Japan, transformer turns into you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dut6jxCiakg
Rattatouille (August 2007)
- Now this is what I call a movie.
- I liked the premise, I liked the execution, and I *loved*
the message.
- See it for yourself...
Live Free or Die Hard (August 2007)
- Overall reaction:
- I wish I hadn't seen this movie, because the
panic of the technology-dependent nation was too real, and went
on for too long.
- I remember all those everyone-leave-the-building 3AM
fire drills in my college dorm, which I always imagined to
be the real thing, fully expecting flames, tears, and
smoking rubble, if not injuries and deaths. Well, take that
horrible sinking feeling in the stomach and picture it on a
national scale. This is not a pleasant fictional world to
step into.
- Then, add bad guys in helicopters trying to assassinate
you (Bruce Willis notwithstanding), after they've already
blown up, shot holes in, and set fire to everything you own.
This isn't action entertainment, it's total hell. At least
it is if you're not jaded by everything; if you've got *any*
imagination left. That's me, all right.
- Criticism:
- The maniac bad guy didn't really seem real. It's darn
hard to make a maniac bad guy with a plot to take over the
world seem real. I am always extremely impressed when I see
fictional depictions of bad guys who have appreciable
motivation, where you can honestly watch them and say,
"There but for the grace of God (and/or careful moral
reasoning) go I."
- They don't really "fix" everything at the end. Yes, it's
got a happy Hollywood ending, but it seems to me that there
were a lot of unsatisfying loose ends. How exactly is it
possible to go blithely from "nation in chaos" to "boy gets
girl"?
- The movie pretends that only the US is affected.
Somehow, the damage never gets internationalized, though in
a real scenario, it would. Instantly if not sooner. So what
would Mr. Bad Guy have done with his money, after leaving
the country? The global economy wouldn't be in such great
shape, would it?
- Rooms that store servers---even huge, important
servers---do not look as cool in real life as they do in movies.
I say this for the benefit of people who have never come
into contact with a real room that stores servers.
- I wish they hadn't given away the car vs. helicopter
scene in the trailer. Otherwise, that would have been really
cool.
- Random Observations:
- The bad guys spoke French with subtitles. Sometimes. Not
sure why, since they all spoke English eventually, they
couldn't just speak English the whole time. And don't the
bad guys traditionally speak German or Russian? Is this a
message about France?
- Do jet planes really hover? Either I'm behind on
military technology (quite possible), or someone took some
extra creative license with the CGI.
- Praise:
- Some of the dialog was brilliant.
- Justin Long as the character Matt Farrell was a great
casting decision; he was totally believable. He wasn't just
"insert random hacker kid here" (the way the high-school
hackers in transformers were). He had an actual personality.
- The Message:
- Part of the message seemed to be that maybe we should be
more careful about security and about our dependence on
technology. I hope that this movie isn't against technology
(or its users) as such. It didn't really seem to be, but you
could interpret it that way.
- Naturally there was also the "greed for money makes
people crazy" message, which I'm not really a fan of.
- Although the "be a hero" message could be read as
"everyone has a duty to protect others at all costs" or
something similarly self-sacrificial, I think it really
comes across more as "always choose to do what you think is
right".
- The motif of choice is implicitly reinforced as the bad
guys are killed. In some movies, the good guys just knock
them out (or maybe somehow cause them to kill themselves).
They're just henchmen, after all; they work for money, and
it's not really their fault if "crazy boss want take over
world", right? Wrong. You pick the wrong side, you get
killed, justly, by the right side. This is what happens in
Die Hard: bad choices, bad consequences. And the henchmen,
as usual, don't seem to realize that they're disposable. So
half of them don't get killed by the right side, they get
killed by their *own* side. Duh!
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969) (NetFlix)
- This movie was a waste of time. The whole thing struck me as
rather pointless.
- Small college gets computer. Boy gains unbelievable
cognitive abilities in an electrical accident involving this computer. Hijinks involving gambling and quiz bowl ensue. Boy gets knocked
on head and life goes back to normal. Why do I care?
- These "cognitive abilities" are really not very well thought
out. He can do math computation (but not necessarily any
abstract mathematical thinking). He has a photographic memory
which enables him to read instantly by glancing at a page. Even
if it's a page with two columns of text which he scans from top
to bottom only once. And apparently he can speak any language
without practicing. WHAT? What kind of computer has an easy time
with natural language processing? Certainly no computer from
1969. Didn't computers basically JUST compute? Whatever.
- And the computer itself isn't that great either. It can tell
if it's raining, if you hook it up to a sensor hooked up to a
water jug. Doesn't seem worth the ten-thousand-dollar price tag.
- The friendly teacher doesn't do anything to inspire his
students. The whiny dean never changes. The girlfriend is the
only female character in the movie, and does nothing except get
a little jealous in one scene. Nobody manages to gain much,
except maybe a slightly increased appreciation of group
friendship.
- He beeps. This is not a noise a human can make. Nor can you
x-ray some kid's head and see lights and gears. Yes, yes, movies
with sci-fi premises require some suspension of disbelief, but
this whole thing is ridiculous.
- Yeah, basically a waste of time. Except that the credits at
the beginning were cute.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) (NetFlix)
- I hadn't seen this in a while, and I was worried it would be
cheesy. But this is exactly the kind of real-kids-plus-magic
story I like.
- It seems I have always carried the "Portobello Road" song in
my head. I guess it must have struck a chord with me, when I was
a kid. Certainly I can see how the idea of a massive flea market
would have inspired me! And it's a catchy song.
- What the heck kind of name is Eglantine? And why have a
whole song featuring this name?
- They seem to have pieced old bits together to make something
resembling a full-length director's cut thing for the 30th
anniversary. I guess this means I got to see more footage and
hear more soundage than I would have otherwise, and I admire the
effort, but there were a couple of scenes where the dialog was
obviously completely missing and dubbed over. I would have
preferred that this be less noticeable. I guess I could just
watch the original (shorter) version, which wouldn't have this
problem.
- I was very impressed with myself when I understood some of
the unsubtitled German dialog. Go me!
The Rescuers (1977) (NetFlix)
- I don't think I had ever seen this movie before. Thus
continues my exploration of the Disney animated feature cannon.
- Animation sure has come a long way since 1977; the
backgrounds were really, really two-dimensional. You could tell
if some part of the scenery was going to move, because the
animated things were in brighter, less-flat colors.
- And whenever I watch movies that have the long credits at
the beginning, I feel I've stepped into another age.
- I was not really a fan of the plot, wherein a greedy ugly
lady and blundering accomplice force a dear little orphan girl
to fetch pirate treasure. She gets rescued by mice. Because she
has faith that everything will turn out okay eventually.
- I recognized one of the character voices from Disney's Robin
Hood. It was the sheriff's voice, but speaking as a good guy
this time, which was odd.
- I could not for the life of me understand what the dragonfly
character's name was supposed to be.
Adventures in Babysitting (1987) (NetFlix)
- I had vague memories of this movie; I was skeptical about
watching it again, but it was totally worth it!
- Heck, it was worth it even just for the hilarious 80's hair!
- The plot is utterly ridiculous, but then, ridiculous
sequences of awful things happen all the time in real life.
That's just Murphy's Law.
- I wouldn't really want to tell you too much about the plot;
it's funnier if you have no idea what's going to happen next.
King Arthur (2004) (NetFlix)
- Huh? In this movie, Arthur is a Roman soldier, not a
medieval knight. And Guinevere is a barbarian warrior princess,
complete with blue battle paint.
- That being said, Keira Knightley makes a good barbarian
warrior princess.
- I was impressed overall, though some of the fight scenes
went on too long for my taste.
- The "making of" was really interesting! They actually built
a castle-thing, taught the actors to ride and use weapons,
hired, clothed, and trained a bunch of extras, and staged a
battle with smoke, fire, swords, and cameras. Not that there
weren't also some cool digital special effects; I'm thinking of the ice
scene.
- Definitely worth seeing if you're interested in the many
King Arthur stories people constantly hatch; I'd buy it if I saw
it for cheap.
Sky High (2005) (NetFlix)
- I'll be this was a make-a-quick-buck movie that just fed off
the whole comic-book superhero movie phase America's going
through. That said, I guess I enjoyed it.
A Wrinkle in Time (2003) (NetFlix)
- Way better than I was expecting! More emphasis on family
drama than on sci-fi.
Ocean's Thirteen (June 2007)
- I don't think I could name all 13 characters, but the
Robin-Hood-esque scam-the-scammers theme is alive and well in
this film.
RahXephon (DVD from Charlie)
- There are major differences between the film and the TV
series.
- The TV series offers much more depth and detail, for obvious
reasons.
- The movie starts out with more explanation than the TV show
ever really gives, which is kind-of nice, but I'm still not sure
the movie would make much sense to someone who hadn't seen the
series.
Jackie Chan's First Strike (DVD)
- Okay, maybe I don't always love Jackie Chan's movies. This
one was, I'm fairly sure, done in Chinese first. But the fight
scene with the ladder made it worth watching.
Mr. Nice Guy (DVD)
- Hilarious! I love Jackie Chan!
Legend (1986) (NetFlix)
- Cough cough splutter! I can't believe I even *tried* to
watch this. (I didn't succeed.)
Impostor (DVD)
- From a Philip K. Dick short story.
- Abrupt ending! This is why I don't read short stories.
Romancing the Stone (DVD)
Herbie Goes Bananas (1980) (NetFlix)
- Herbie makes friends with a Spanish-speaking orphan kid and
prevents the theft of a large gold object.
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) (NetFlix)
- Much better than the 1974 sequel! Herbie's back into racing.
Herbie Rides Again (1974) (NetFlix)
- The stereotypical evil rich guy wants to tear down the home
of Herbie's owner, a little old lady. Nephew of rich guy falls
in love with young friend of old lady. The good guys win.
Kind-of a lame sequel!
The Love Bug (1968) (VHS)
- Neat story about a VW beetle car that can act on its own. It
helps an out-of-luck race car driver get his life together
again, with the help of a prominent Chinese businessman.
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) (NetFlix)
- This Bond film has two awesome chase scenes: one with a
custom car driven by remote control, and the other with two
people on a motorcycle. And the villain's motivation (to control
the world by creating and reporting bad news) makes more sense
than is sometimes the case.
Freaky Friday (1976) (NetFlix)
- Very cute. I felt sorry for the mom, the way the husband
obliviously heaped expectations on her.
Lives of Others (March 2007)
- This movie is moving. Very sad and yet very happy.
The Sound of Music (1965) (NetFlix)
- I'm not sure I'd ever seen this movie all the way through,
although I do recall the thunderstorm and the "Favorite Things"
song. I had a toy once that used to play that song if you
pressed a button. I still like the song, and the idea of being
comforted by pleasing everyday objects and the serenity of
natural beauty.
Yellow Submarine (1968) (NetFlix)
- My curiosity has now been satisfied. This movie got off to a
slow start---the wandering around a surrealist house looking for
the other three Beatles was completely nonsensical---but after
that it had an actual plot. Not that it wasn't still really
weird.
Sense and Sensibility (1995) (NetFlix)
- Good heavens suddenly I'm seeing Emma Thompson everywhere.
She was Miss Kenton in The Remains of the Day, and now
she's Jane Austen's Elinor!
Pygmalion (1938) (NetFlix)
- This is a film of a play by Bernard Shaw, which recalls the
Greek myth of Pygmalion the sculptor and his sculpture Galatea,
who he fell in love with. The musical My Fair Lady also
follows this story. The endings of the films are not the same as
the ending of the play, though.
The Remains of the Day (1993) (NetFlix)
- This movie might as well be named George Gray, after the
Edgar Lee Masters poem. Sad.
2006
The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997) (DVD)
- This movie is very clever and all, but it makes me cringe.
The vicarious embarrassment is painful. But I liked Bill Murray
in Groundhog Day. That was more metaphysical and less slapstick.
The Pirates of Penzance (1982) (NetFlix)
- I don't have much to say about this one. I think I fell
asleep.
The Prisoner of Zenda (1999) (NetFlix)
- Some very stereotypical cartoon villains in this one.
Eragon (December 2006)
- Not a horribly bad movie overall.
- A couple things bothered me a lot:
- Saphira hatched and grew *really* fast.
- The Varden's cave wasn't a cave. It was more like a
valley or something.
- Arya's character got totally flattened and cheapened.
- That last fight scene was totally different than it
should have been.
Robin Hood (1938) (NetFlix)
- I am now curious about how the story of Robin Hood fits in
with the history of the English language; with the mixing of
Saxon and Norman speech.
Casino Royale (November 2006)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) (VHS)
- A compelling story; long, but fascinating the whole time;
suspenseful despite knowing about the explosion at the end.
- Reminds me of King Rat -- main character builds a
working world and then sees it destroyed at the moment of
completion.
- Exotic: how about that scene where the bats get startled!
- Coming-of-age-in-war subplot: boy kills, then dies.
- Interesting bits like how the plastic explosives are used,
and the fact that they actually built and destroyed a real
bridge (with a real train on it).
- Details like the ripped clothes -- what would it take for
clothes to start looking like that? And what could make a man
whistle while wearing them?
- Food for thought: scary in a what-would-I-do-if-it-were-me
sense. Could you forget someone's name while burying him?
Could you withstand torture for the sake of principle? Would it
further your goal if you did? Could you find a workable
compromise between losing all-important face and losing your
life, or would you lose one or the other or both? Could you
silently rig a bridge that people were walking on, undetected?
Could you blow one up? Could you walk on a bloody foot? Could
you return to the place you slaved away for weeks, knowing you
could die in the jungle, when you had thought you were going
home safe? Would you rather subvert the enemy and in return be
mistreated, or do their will in return for self-esteem and
health? Could you face a firing squad for a principle? Could you
stand in the sun until you fainted from the heat? Would you
escape from a labor camp to a dense, threatening jungle?
- I thought what would happen was: the commander would notice
the explosives, but conceal the fact; he would choose to remain
on the bridge to distract the Japanese commander and thus enable
the demolition team to carry out its mission. He would choose to
die nobly, sacrificing his life and his bridge. I didn't count
on his having gone totally mad. And that's the point: the whole
thing is madness. Because war creates unlivable situations.
Men in Black (1997) (VHS)
- Better CGI than I was expecting for 1997; less grossness
than I feared (still more than I care for); cool premise with
some nice details. Deadpan matter-of-factness plus a large dose
of attitude and dialect made it funny and plausible. All in all,
pretty decent!
National Velvet (1944) (NetFlix)
- Typical kid-horse love story. Saccharine sweet. To its
credit, though, the mother is a strong role-model.
Pretty Woman (1990) (NetFlix)
- . . . and they lived happily ever after (?!).
The Illusionist (Oct 06)
- Very cool. Very, very cool, and also impossible to
summarize. Just see it!
The Mask of Zorro (1998) (NetFlix)
Lost in Space (1998) (NetFlix)
- Lame! So lame it hasn't even got one leg to stand on!
A Night to Remember (1958) (NetFlix)
- Depressing and not the least bit educational.
The Living Daylights (NetFlix)
- Good Bond. With a Walkman used as a weapon. = )
The King and I (1956) (NetFlix)
- Yul Brenner as a modernist Oriental. Also, see him as a
Russian monarch in Anastasia!
The Last Starfighter (1984) (NetFlix)
- Cool premise, mediocre to poor execution.
Inherit the Wind (1960) (NetFlix)
The Goonies (1985) (NetFlix)
- Less scary, and more crude, than I remembered. And totally
implausible.
Clear and Present Danger (1994) (NetFlix)
Pirates of the Carribbean II (July 06)
- Okay -- not as much fun as the first one.
The Devil Wears Prada (July 06)
- I totally don't buy the speech about cerulean. It will take
more than an Anne Hathaway movie to convince me that fashion
is an important force in the universe, or that I should
care, even if it is.
- Movie themes [spoilers follow]:
(1) The end doesn't justify the means.
(2) Pursue goals to the utmost.
(3) Make your own judgments and choices.
(4) Don't be a jerk.The main character, Andy, originally just
sees the fashion job as a means to an end: she wants to be a
journalist. When the job becomes a kind of end itself, she takes
her boss's whims as law, forgetting (3) and (4) and ultimately
(1), but following (2) all the while.
The violation of (1) is when she decides to usurp Emily's
place. It's unclear whether this would really be evil, although
we're told it is. Worse is the failure of Miranda to promote
Nigel as promised. The violation of (4) is, I'd say, the way she
treats her friends and family as compared to her boss. She's got
her priorities screwed up because she's given up on (3). So
maybe you could really roll (3) & (4) together by saying: Be
true to your values.
I guess maybe (2) gets disparaged guilt-by-association style;
there's some equivocation as to whether she should have
succeeded in getting the Harry Potter book for her boss. On the
one hand, she succeeded because she did her utmost, but on the
other hand, the boss interpreted her adherence to (2) as a
willingness to violate (1). Maybe that's how we're supposed to
look at it too, and I'm not sure that's quite fair.
At the end of the movie, Andy discovers the virtue and
happiness of (3) by returning, wiser and better dressed, to
journalism, and begins life as an adult in the real world,
rather than as someone's eminently capable pawn.
- Analysis of Miranda's character [spoilers follow]:
I do not see Miranda as a hero. Look at what is emphasized in
the movie. Her faults seem to be what define her.
There are two components to the job Miranda does: (1) the
image she projects, and (2) the exercise of actual fashion
judgment. Maybe one could admire her for her adeptness at actual
fashion judgment, but the movie is really about her image.
I don't think she's better than everyone else at what she
does, I think she just acts like she's better than everyone else
so that everyone assumes she is. In fact, we're shown that she
makes arbitrary or even bad choices. When are we ever shown the
excellence of her judgment?
She isn't good at remembering names and faces. She just hires
people to remember for her. If a large part of her job is social
networking, and she's supposed to be so great at her job, why
isn't she depicted as being good at remembering people?
She makes the company re-do an entire magazine at great
expense when it isn't clear that anyone's work is actually
sub-par. It's a stretch to say that this is pursuit of
perfection. I think it's pursuit of whim, or pursuit of
ineffable mystique; she seems to do it to keep people from
getting the idea that they could ever consistently satisfy her
"superior" taste.
Facing the prospect of being fired, she manipulates people as
a substitute for doing her job well. When she unexpectedly gives
Nigel's job to her rival (using blackmail!), she betrays a
loyal, hard-working, ambitious employee, and doesn't even
apologize.
And she's nuts. Blaming a hurricane on one's assistant is not
a cute quirk belonging to an otherwise adept professional. Yes,
it's funny. But surely you wouldn't want a real person acting
like this! This is obliviousness bordering on malice. (The
spurned, last-minute steak lunch was *actual* malice.)
She's not even happy, necessarily. Her personal life, to the
extent that she seems to have one, suffers. Showing this is not
a way of "humanizing" a hero, it's a way of showing how doggedly
she clings to her image to the exclusion of other values.
If people want to be like Miranda, as she claims they do, I
think it's because she creates an illusion of admirability, not
because she's admirable.
Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1997) (VHS)
- Multicultural musical! Talk about blended families!
The Graduate (1967) (NetFlix)
- Pointless. Or maybe that is the point.
Fight Club (1999) (NetFlix)
- Nihilistic, therefore yucky. Interestingish premise.
Far and Away (1992) (NetFlix)
- One of the not-terrible Tom Cruise movies.
Animatrix (DVD)
Cars (June 06)
- Fun! Cute! How could computer generated cars with faces not
be!
Ever After (1998) (VHS)
- A nice version of the Cinderella story.
- The dose of modern egalitarian politics was a bit strong, (a
bit like it was in Ella Enchanted,) but I can live with
that.
- I loved it that Da Vinci was a major character. He was a
sort-of substitute for the fairy godmother, since there was no
magic in this version.
- I liked the role that the younger stepsister played in the
story.
- Beats the heck out of Gregory Maguire's non-magical
Cinderella story!
Excel Saga
- Couldn't stand it. Turned it off after part of one episode.
Aieaiaiaiaiaiaiaiah!
Rah Xephon (overtures 1 & 2 aka movements 1-9) (DVD)
- Classy anime style!
- The beginning reminded me of a cross between the Matrix and
the Truman Show, but after that it stopped making sense.
- Even without making sense, the storyline is interesting;
there are important mysteries and relationships between
characters. That's why I like about the Web comic MegaTokyo.
Dances with Wolves (1990) (NetFlix)
- Ah, yes, the romanticization of Native American life...
Merlin (1998) (VHS)
- Cool special effects, but ultimately quite depressing.
X-Men III (June? 06)
- Okay, but not great. Tinged with cheesy-sequel-ness.
The DaVinci Code (June? 06)
- I don't see why religious people are upset about this story:
clearly there is no political agenda, and the religious message,
to the extent that there was one, was that people should have
faith.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) (DVD free from Kellogg's)
- This was fun. The gender studies folks would have a field
day with it, I imagine.
The Phantom Tollbooth (1970) (VHS)
- Didactic, but very cute.
- Just like I remembered it, from however many years ago.
- Cool animation style(s).
- Makes me want to read the book again.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (NetFlix)
- I was not struck by any profound meaning in those five
musical notes. Much was made of the five notes, and I'm left
wondering... so what?
- The crazy falling-apart family was no fun to watch.
- The little boy getting snatched was kinda creepy.
- When I read the book, it made no sense. I guessed that this
was because there were a lot of visual effects that are
difficult to communicate on paper. This was in fact the case.
The big ship was cool.
Cinderella (1950) (VHS)
- I hadn't seen this movie in years. It turns out that half
the movie is about the mice sneaking around the cat, who chases
them. I had no idea that there was so much Tom&Jerry in my fairy
tale! I guess no self-respecting little boy would have watched
it unless it had something like that in it, though.
Eraser (1996) (NetFlix)
Mission Impossible III (May 06)
- Better than the second one, not as good as the first.
- It was a really dark movie. There was a lot of
destruction, which I'm usually fine with, but in this case it
was combined with a lot of fear and a lot of hurting of people.
- Although he did fine with his lines in Italian, Tom would
never be mistaken for a native Italian speaker of Italian by a
native speaker of Italian, though the movie seemed to imply that
he was. Okay, so this is a minor hole in overall plausibility,
but it was distracting to me.
- My opinion of the Mission Impossible movies has soured since
I read a review that pointed out Cruise's "it's all about me"
attitude and role. That'll teach me to read reviews; I liked my
own opinion better.
V for Vendetta (May 06)
- I enjoyed this movie. There were a lot of details that I
really appreciated, and some (not all!) of the ideology
resonated with me.
- This movie is anti- a lot of things, but it's not really
advocating much.
- I do not believe that "one man's terrorist is another man's
freedom fighter." I see the main message of this movie as
"people living under totalitarian governments should not be
complacent."
- It annoys me how all the reviews pick on V's alliteration,
which, to be fair, was a little over the top.
- I've read two reviews that assume that the black hoods in
the government kidnappings are a direct reference to the photos
from Abu Gharib. This was surprising to me; I thought they were
copied from the movie Brazil.
Air Force One (1997) (NetFlix)
- Not my genre. (Too much I'm-gonna-get-shot-any-second-now
tension.)
The Twilight Samurai (2002) (NetFlix)
The Phantom of the Opera (2004) (NetFlix)
- A really nice production!
- The story changed (again), but it was more or less in
keeping with the musical and the book.
- That being said, some of the song lyrics were converted to
spoken dialog, and this did not seem to me to be a good thing.
- I thought it was odd that my favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber
song from the musical soundtrack ("Music of the Night") didn't
wind up being my favorite song from this movie. I was very, very
impressed with the performance of "Wishing You Were Somehow Here
Again" in the graveyard. It was very evocative somehow.
Bride and Prejudice (2004) (NetFlix)
- Guess what book this movie is based on?
- Fun look at a slice of Indian culture, with singing and
dancing, naturally.
- Overly strong message that rich people are insensitive
jerks; a little to PC.
2005
Mrs. Henderson Presents (Dec 05)
- This is much more like what I expect from Judi Dench.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Dec 05)
- The CGI creatures and creature parts were impressive.
Pride and Prejudice (5 hour miniseries)
- This version is unbeatable...
Pride and Prejudice (Nov 05)
- The biggest flaw of this (overall, very enjoyable) movie,
other than the fact that the story was just too compressed, was
the casting of Judi Dench as Lady Catherine. Judi Dench is often
a character who displays a wry sense of humor, but Lady
Catherine is completely serious. I kept expecting Lady Catherine
to say or do something funny, even though I knew she wouldn't.
This was distracting.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981) (VHS)
- The old one, a miniseries.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) (VHS)
- Wow, entertainment has really changed. This was a very
cute movie.
The Hobbit (1977) (VHS)
- Bilbo is very ugly, and supposedly the details don't match the
book, but the story seems mostly the same to me. Interesting
animation style. On the whole, rather enjoyable.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Oct
05)
- Note to self: don't go see a kids' movie at 7:00. Wait
until a later showing when more of them will be sleeping.
They make too much noise.
- I was a little disappointed: I liked the Wallace and Gromit
episodes that had fewer people, less talking, and more crazy
machines.
Serenity (Sept 05)
- A movie of a really great TV show: Joss Whedon's Firefly. It
was cut from Fox after less than one season, but I own the DVD
set, and enjoy sharing them with everyone. More
here.
Read amazing
staff and user reviews on Amazon, where upwards of 1,200
reviewers have rated it 5 stars and kept it in Amazon's top 200
DVDs for more than a year after the release to disc.
- He did it. It worked!
- It's over.
The Phoenix and the Magic Carpet (1995) (VHS)
- Okay, there are several glaring problems with this movie,
starting with the lameness of the animatronic phoenix,
continuing with the fact that "ABC Video" appears at the bottom
of the screen every so often, and ending with the fact that the
story has been transported at least a hundred years forward and
foisted on an American family.
- To the extent that the original story is conveyed, it was
good.
The Parent Trap (1998) (VHS)
- It seems almost cruel that this movie exists; isn't it the
dream of every kid with (non-criminal) divorced parents that the
parents get back together? It's a good movie, but it seems too
good to be true.
The Parent Trap (1961) (VHS)
The Little Princess (1939) (VHS)
- Somehow seemed shorter than I remember. Probably the book
has more story to it. Anyway, a real tearjerker.
The Rescuers Down Under (1990) (VHS)
- This movie is basically anti-poaching propaganda (for kids).
- That being said, the intro sequence where the boy gets to
fly with the eagle is really beautiful.
JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1978) (VHS)
The Fantastic Four (July 05)
- I thought this movie might be as good as Batman Begins.
Nope. It was mediocre.
- The action was there, the drama was there, the humor was
there, the special effects were there, the franchise was there,
but somehow it didn't all hang together very well.
- I felt really sorry for The Thing. He is a figure of
great pathos. However, they manage to pull off a happy
ending for him too, even though it might make more sense if they
didn't.
- Come to think of it, the story is like a bad imitation of
The Incredibles: basically, you've got four unhappy people who
don't know how to handle their own identities who ultimately learn
to work as a team.
The War of the Worlds (didn't see)
- After seeing the trailer, I was worried it was more horror
than sci-fi.
- I heard it wasn't really any good.
- Instead of seeing the movie, I read the original H. G. Wells
book (not to be confused with the Orson Welles radio
dramatization, which is much different in its presentation and in
its geographical particulars).
Me and You and Everyone We Know (June 05)
- Not the mainstream fare I usually partake of.
- The awkward woman was almost too awkward.
- I love the girl who shops for home furnishings.
- Very random in an entertaining way.
Bewitched (June 05)
- Enjoyable romantic comedy, even (or especially) to
non-watchers of the TV show "Bewitched".
Batman Begins (June 05)
- I really enjoyed this movie.
- The battle between good and evil was more appealing than such
battles usually are in movies, for a number of reasons.
Batman has money; he also has cool toys; his secret identity
doesn't torment him; his responsibility for the safety of Gotham
doesn't torment him; and he kicks enemy butt.
- There were some really clever pieces of dialog.
- The psychology of hate, revenge, fear, bravery, and creative
perseverance was well explained.
- On a related note, this movie could cause a person to have
some long, deep thoughts about justice.
- Nice special effects - Gotham was really impressive.
- Interesting
article about the movie.
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (May 05)
- I didn't like it. Maybe you did - that's okay too.
- It was too dark&depressing for me. Really a bummer.
- Also, Hayden Christensen's acting was about as good, which is
to say, about as bad, as it was in Episode II, the thought of which
still makes me cringe. I read an article/interview
where he says he didn't really want to act the part of teenage
Anakin Skywalker at all - he really just wanted to be Darth Vader.
That would explain a lot.
- The bit at the beginning where R2 destroys a few droids was
annoying: just because you *can* achieve cheap hi-tech stunts doesn't
mean they're automatically appropriate. This was comic relief at its
worst. And what's with the jet pack? He never had one of those before!
I mean after.
- The lava waterfall was over the top. Actually, I thought that the
scene had already gone over the top, and I was about to groan and say so,
when along comes the lava waterfall. That fight scene is a parody of itself,
if you ask me. Imminent waterfalls are so cliché that they only belong in
parodies.
- The bad guys broke SO many "Evil Overlord" rules. If you don't know
what I mean by that, go visit
this website
for a dose of common sense.
(For example, General Grievous broke rules 115 and 117 when he
fought Obi-Wan
Kenobi: he should have ordered his abundant troops to fire on Ben Kenobi, but
instead he challenged him to a lightsaber battle.)
- One last quibble: There are some logical holes, such as: Grievous had
organic components, so how was he able to survive when he was sucked
into space?
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (April 05)
- The
first title in a trilogy of five books by deceased British
humor/sci-fi writer Douglas Adams. More
here.
- I read a couple of reviews before seeing the movie. (I
also re-read all five of the Hitchhiker books.) One said
that the plot had evolved again, as Adams more or less intended.
This was true. Another said that only fans of the books
should go see the movie, but a friend of mine at the office said
she liked it without having read a word of the trilogy.
Another said, wasn't it cool how they worked in a lot of the jokes
from the books, like using the word Belgium as a curse
word. They did! I probably wouldn't have noticed it if
I hadn't read the review.
- I think the movie was really well done. The sets and
costumes were interesting and fun. The Vogons, in
particular, were very convincingly rendered.
- Marvin looked nothing like I pictured him, but I knew what he
was going to look like from seeing movie photos online, so I
wasn't surprised.
- Do you know where your towel is?
Titan AE (rental)
- Everywhere I look, suddenly, there's Joss Whedon. He
helped write this screenplay. But more importantly,
he created Firefly.
- The visual effects were cool. The menace of the ice
crystals was almost tangible, and so was the joy of flying with
the wake angels. Gotta see it.
- The premise was a good one. There are several stories I
like (books and movies) about the survival of the last
humans, about their quasi-forgotten technology and/or persevering
spirit in the face of some kind of post-apocalyptic, dictatorial
or captive situation. Read Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, or
some of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider series, or her Freedom
trilogy.
- Dude, finally a sci-fi movie where the gravity machine breaks!
It has annoyed me to no end how space ships can lose all systems,
lights, power, etc, and yet the gravity never shuts off.
Most of the time there isn't even any attempt to explain this
strange non-failure away, either. This was an element as
gratifying to my sensibilities as the sign at Wegmans that says
"10 items or fewer" rather than "10 items or less."
- The energy aliens & their ships were pretty inventive.
Likewise the planet with the Hydrogen trees and the bat-beings.
- The soundtrack was fun, I thought.
- 258 people saw fit to review it on Amazon, so far. Go
read what they said, too.
- What would you name a planet?
Ella Enchanted (rental)
- More info on the
movie
here.
- The premise of this movie is that Cinderella (Ella) wasn't
obedient because it was her nature, but because an incompetent
fairy "gifted" her with obedience. The story of Cinderella
comes out differently if you take that as your starting point.
- I wasn't sure whether this movie would be cute or cheesy.
It was very cute. In my opinion, this movie honestly managed
not to be overdone.
- The movie avoided obvious references to other movies, although
there were times when it must have been tempting to stick them in.
(Shrek is a movie littered with this kind of reference - that's
why some people liked it so much, and also part of why I didn't
like it at all.)
- Can you picture an escalator in a fairytale world? Some
of the details of the sets and costumes of Ella Enchanted were
pretty nifty.
- It was very different from the book. I don't think the
book had an evil talking snake, for example. But the spirit
and tone of the book survived well, if I'm remembering the book
correctly. The message of the book and the movie had
to do with Ella's strength of character, most notably in her
romance with the prince.
- Now I want to go re-read the book, surprise surprise.
(Okay, now I
have re-read the book. The book doesn't
have any evil bad guy in it at all, just some normal greedy
step-people and the incompetent fairy, who reforms, sort-of.
And the plot looks more like the plot of the real Cinderella
story.)
- Speaking of surprise, I was surprised at the number of big
names in this movie. Particularly amusing was Cary Elwes
(from The Princess Bride) as the evil uncle regent.
- What's with the random song and dance at the end?
- And why couldn't it have been a longer movie? (It was
only an hour and a half.) This is such a marvelous premise
and such a marvelous world, with such marvelous characters....
I suppose it has to do with budgets and/or audience attention
spans.
2004
Ocean's Twelve (Dec 04)
- Sequel to Ocean's Eleven,
which I liked. This one was a bit fuzzier, but still fun.
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Dec 04)
- Combines the stories told
in Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room
and The Wide Window.
More about
the books.
More about the movie.
- I'm not really a fan of grim books, or of movies starring Jim
Carrey, but as I was hoping, combining the two more or less works
out okay.
- The movie wasn't as dark as book one, which I read.
- It's still a really dark movie.
The Incredibles (Nov 04)
- Pleasant surprise. Before I saw The
Incredibles, I thought it would be rotten. The preview
made the movie seem to mock superheroes who had become "at
least as dysfunctional as the rest of us." Mr.
Incredible had family fights, a stressful job, a son who got into
trouble at school, and he was (cue the point-and-laugh) very very
fat. However, the clip in the preview where Mr.
Incredible can't fasten his belt is not even in the movie itself.
The spirit of the movie was not how deservedly and amusingly
"normal" the hero lives had become, but how they fixed their
problems and became truly happy as individuals and as a family.
- Fun action. There were a lot of clever,
fascinating details built into the robot fights. I thought the
spherical robot was a really cool idea, and its moves and
abilities surprised me several times. So did the scenes when the
children were fighting and running away from the security guards.
- True meaning. I felt a lot of sympathy for Dash,
who wasn't allowed to run. I could imagine Violet's problem of
being a shy teenage girl, and the change of hairstyle choice was
quite touching. The horrific idea of always hiding is blindingly
apparent when Mr. Incredible loses his job on the day his wife
unpacks the last of the boxes from the last move. The sadness and
desire that Mr. Incredible feels when he gazes at the memorabilia
on his walls is almost tangible. But the most emotional moment (if
you ask me) was when we find out why Mr. Incredible wanted his
wife to stay behind while he fought the ultimate robot - he wasn't
strong enough to bear the thought of losing the woman he loved.
- Great quote: "Saying that everybody's special is
just another way of saying no-one is."
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