Enchanted Movie Review

So I've always liked Disney movies, like Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, Beauty & The Beast...yeah, I know, I know. I mean, I've always been into the Pixar stuff more, but the more recent Disney, as well as the classic stuff from the 40's and 50's have always held a special..ah...well, let's just say that I like them, OK?

Anyway Amy Adams is a goddess in this movie as Giselle (yeah, she would have an innappropriate nickname), the princess from another world caste into ours. All I'll say is this - it's a damn fun movie, and I actually laughed quite a bit and was drawn into the story. Lot's of stuff for the parents as well as the kids. Possibly the best scene of the movie is when Giselle calls upon the animals of NYC to help her clean. Classic. Also, James Marsden as Prince Edward is sublimely cool, the only person I really disliked was Idina Menzel, my god that woman looks like a 40-year-old dude and that Queens accent made me want to gouge out my own ears.

Also, a note on the theatre experience: Movie studios, start making theatres enforce standards, or I will have to get hip deep in the downloading business. I've had it up to my f'n neck with annoying kids/teenagers in movie theatres. I know they are hard to avoid, but MY GOD THEY WOULDN'T SHUT UP. After being told three times, the bastards behind us that were talking and kicking our seats wouldn't stop. So do I get up to complain to deaf theatre ears, miss some of the movie, and leave more pissed, or do I grin and bear it, then track down said teens and smash the rear window of their parents SUV? Clearly the best choice is number two, but seriously, the theatre doesn't give a patron much options, and I saw ZERO ushers patrol the theatre, as I'm sure is required (I was in the movie theatre business as a manager, there should have been at least one patrol through, probably more by Regal's standards). It just sucks when you are spending $19.50 on a ticket, and you wind up suffering by movie lossage/annoyance to get up and get someone to complain. I want the best possible viewing experience dammit! EVERY movie I saw in 2007 was plagued by rude, obnoxious people. Babies in R-Rated movies (300!), dogs in theatres that were not the seeing-eye variety, old ladies yelling to each other (Hairspray), mexican grandmothers falling asleep next to us and snoring (Spider-Man 3!), and generally rude-ass kids. Every single damn one.

Knocked Up Movie Review

Ahh Knocked Up. A film I have been wanting to see for a while now, ever since I heard that it was from the director and producer of The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow). The film starts with Ben (Seth Rogan) and Alison (Katherine Heigl) in their normal lives; Ben is a stoner and unemployed, while Alison is an up-and-coming anchor for E! news. They meet one fateful night at a club, and wind up drunkely hooking up afterwards. 8 Weeks later, Ben gets a phone call that changes his life.

This film was hilarious on so many levels. Judd Apatow has a way of creating characters that are so diverse and interesting, and Knocked Up is no different from his other sucessful films. Some other standout preformances include Paul Rudd as Pete, Jason Segel as Jason, and Leslie Mann as Debbie.

As far as the pacing goes it slowed down a bit for me towards the end, as did the humor, but it was still a fairly solid film, with a great ending that seems so uncommon in many of todays films. I can't recommend this movie enough, for the laughs, of course, but also for the endearing realism that also permeats the film. Some of my favorite scenes involve Ben talking with his Dad (Harold Ramis) about fatherhood and life. This movie doesn't glorify the situation that Ben and Alison are in, it shows us the consequences and how they both grow up and mature enough to handle it.

*****/*****

Blood of Beasts Movie Review

Well, I ordered Blood of Beasts off of Amazon, and I don't know why. A certain someone, who remains anonymous, planted the evil seed in my mind that made me want to watch epic sword and sorcery movies. Except, there aren't many epic sword and sorcery movies. There are a lot of epic sword and sorcery clones, however. Blood of Beasts managed to bore me within 42 seconds of the beginning of the film. I was immediately turned off by the opening sequence, which featured some of the worst text used for credits EVER. Which brings up another thought: I despise it when films have credits in the beginning. Everyone gets credit at the end dammit. Back on track, the film takes place in Viking times, except everyone looks like they're at a costume party in 1986. One of the reviews on Amazon said this movie has "nice swordplay." By nice, they meant it looked like two totally non-athletic people swing broomsticks at each other, whilst their lack of skill was masked by close up shots and quick cuts in an MTV-style puke fest. One of the main characters has an annoying braid thing on his forehead, that made me want to smash my own head in with a ball peen hammer. The dialogue was, what's the word? TERRIBLE. If I was involved with making this movie, I would try to distance myself from this movie as much as possible. Surprisingly (or not) there are many high reviews for this film on Amazon, which I can only assume means the makers/cast have written reviews, or there are more dumb people with Internet connections than I thought. I could see people who dress up for Renaissance fairs liking this, because it's almost as stupid.

I won't write any more about it, except that it's supposed to be a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, because A. That hasn't been done before and 2. It hasn't been done this badly before. Also, this movie is so bad it's not even on IMDB.

Side note - the cover is totally misleading, and makes this movie look potentially watchable.

**UPDATE! I found Blood of Beasts in the IMDB, under a different name. It has a 4.1/10 rating, which in my opnion is 4 points too many.

The Heroes Review I Don't Want To Write

I was expecting Heroes to have an epic Finale. Season 1 kept building, and building...and ended with a fizzle. I felt like Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park ("You do have dinosaurs in your dinosaur park, right?"), because we have all of these superpowered people who decide when the time is right, not to use them. And it's not like these are unestablished powers - it made the episode seem trite and bound by the laws and budgets of a tv show. I figured that NBC would have dumped more money into it for the effects work. Good special effects and epicness are possible in a tv show - see Firefly, which has spectacular effects (and a great story, damn you FOX for..everything).

Here's a list of things that I either didn't like or didn't get:

1. New York City. I love NY. What a fantastic place. The thing is, the city in last nights episode was not NY. It was a dark sound stage somewhere. The evidence of this is that "Kirby Plaza" (a fake place with a sculpture that is in LA) is a bustling intersection in the daytime and apparantly abandonded at night. There were no people, no cars, no traffic. Not even any traffic noises. For a show about "Saving the World" you'de think that maybe actually putting regular people in peril might have made the show more dramatic. Have "civilians" see Peter going nuclear, and running for their lives. Panic in the streets. Chaos. Epic. The fact (and the truth) is that by making NYC empty, the lameness/tvness level was increased dramatically.

2. Super Powers. If you got 'em, use 'em. Now, Company Man is one of the best episodes of Heroes. It's the one where Ted the Caveman goes all nuke-ish in the Bennett household. The effects were awesome, as was the tension. No fast forward to the finale. Peter's loss of control ofver the nuke power looked totally different. There were no cool flashes or pulses of light, no cries of panic, pain, despair. The scene was utterly emotionless, and devoid of any of the tension from Company Man.

3. Loose ends. This was described repeatadly by Tim Kring (the creator) as an enclosed episode. We have loose ends everywhere. 5 characters who may or may not be dead, Simone and Charles never fully or clearly explained, and the coupe de grace: Save the Cheerleader Save the World. Apparantly the reality was Save the Cheeleader, The Cheerleader stands around and does nothing. It doesn't matter now, because not only did she not shoot Peter, but Sylar, who can stop bullets but not a sword, got away. Claire did NOTHING in the finale, and while you can argue that if Sylar had her power, he would have regenerated after being stabbed and still exploded. I still think she should have played a bigger role. Oh yeah, and whatever happened to Claude the Invisible Man? Him showing up would have been AWESOME.

See, I don't think I'm stupid. I'm actually kind of smart. Smart enough to know when I've been insulted by the writers of a TV show. All the hype and buildup, and the payoff wasn't there. NBC, Tim Kring, and the writers should be ashamed. Like it or not, there job is to entertain and give US what we, the viewer, wants. That's the nature of television. I'm not trying to be oeverly negative, but people want to be thrilled and entertained to the max. Spider-Man 3 may have had a crap story, but people wanted to be wowed by the awesome special effects. That's why it set an opening weekend record. I swear, the finale of Heroes was so emo I was expecting Peter to start cutting himself.

In retrospect, I think I'm going to give Heroes a break. I'll check out Season 2, but I'm not exactly excited for it. I'll always think of it as a show that had a ton of potential, but that just never delivered. I should expect it, that's a Hollwood theme lately. Retread old stories, and build hype for things that are just totally lame (Fantastic 4 anyone? Silver Surfer looks worse than the T1000 from Terminator 2 in 1994).

So let me know what you think, leave a comment!

28 Weeks Later Movie Review

It's not often that a sequel is better than the original. It's also not often that a non-zombie movie is a better zombie movie than most zombie movies!! However, I think the Rage virus featured in 28 Weeks Later qualifies pretty much as a zombie-making virus. Technically, the infected aren't "undead," however I noticed several brutally injured people still trying to move around. Zombie movie, outbreak movie, the two blend well here!

What words sum up this movie, do you say? Brutal. Visceral. Suspenseful. Take everything you know about horror movies, and throw it out the window. This movie has so many twists and turns as to who lives and dies. They break all the rules. And it's that feeling of not knowing who's next that's awesome!

I don't want to say any more for fear of maximum spoilage, all I can do is highly recommend it. Great story, great action, great scares, and a setup for a third movie. There are two scenes in particular that are mostly incredible awesome, that were done in other movies, but were done so much better in this one.

*****/*****

Hot Fuzz Movie Review

I totally forgot to post my review of Hot Fuzz! The film has been out for a while now, but if you happened to stumble across this blog, and haven't been to the movies in a while, I suggest it! From the creators of Shaun of the Dead comes a tale...well, I don't know how to describe it. Part buddy-cop movie, part horror, the movie seemed to be a little bit of everything. Nick Frost and Simon Pegg definitly deliver! I won't say any more out of spoilage, however the first and second acts were slightly slow. The third act really picks up though, and is hilarious!

Matt's movie rating: ****/*****

Superman TAS: Season 1

So I started watching Superman: The Animated Series last night, and I realized that the story, pacing, and execution are actually better than any of the live-action Superman movies. And it made me go "hmmm."

Things I liked:
1. Braniac hid the fact that Krypton was dying from the public, and made Jor-El out to be crazy.
2. It was so subtle, but Kal-El's spaceship goes into some kind of "hyperdrive" and when it does some rocks from Krypton go with it, and when it comes out of hyperspace, the small craft and the Kryptonite all hurtle towards Earth. I thought that was a really nice touch.
3. No crystals.
4. Clark's method of discovering his powers was pretty awesome, he did a rescue of a family whose van collided with a tanker at a gas station. I think filmed live it would be very powerful.

There was really nothing I didn't like. After all, it is just a cartoon. Though, I can't help but wonder what a Superman cartoon directed by Genndy Tartakovsky might look like! Next up after Superman TAS is Justice League: Season One!